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He knew Kelsey and her husband, Eric, had debated for a long time about moving back to Shelter Springs. They finally decided this was where they wanted to raise their two children. Wes couldn’t fault them for that.

Right after the robbery, their mom’s extended family had wanted her closer to them in Portland, where she had been raised. It had made sense, especially because Kelsey was going to school there. He had decided to do his police officer training in Oregon to be closer to both of them.

In the years since, Susie’s parents had both died, one sister had moved away with her family and the other one was busy caring for her own ailing husband. The reasons for keeping her in a facility in Portland, where she had no real family left but him, no longer made sense.

“It might have been best for us, but not for you. I hate that our golden opportunity meant we had to move Mom away from you.”

“It will be a good excuse for me to come visit you more.” He gestured to the living room, where Eric and their grandfather were cheering at a play on the wall-mounted TV. “Anyway, I’m sure Stanley appreciates you being closer too.”

They chatted about the work he was doing on their grandfather’s house—most of them basic repairs plus a few simple cosmetic changes he could handle in his limited time home.

They were nearly finished with the dishes when Susie started to hum a tune he didn’t recognize at first.

“That’s pretty, Mom,” he said. “What’s it called?”

To his surprise, she began to sing with clarity and precision and the perfect pitch she’d always had. It was a simple tune that he now put together as a folk song she used to sing when he and Kelsey were young.

Sometimes Susie didn’t remember him or his sister but she could pull out a song from twenty years ago.

“One thing I love about her new care center is their music program. They have music therapy once a week. Mom loves it.”

“Is that right?”

His sister sent him a sidelong look. “Hannah Goodwin does an amazing job with all the patients there.”

Wes frowned, fully aware of what Kelsey was doing. His younger sister had always loved Hannah and never understood why he had ended things between them after everything that happened.

“That doesn’t surprise me. She loves music and loves helping people.”

“Hannah is my friend,” Susie said suddenly. “You love her.”

“That was a long time ago,” Wes said, astonished all over again that his mom could remember that part of his life when she had lost so much of herself.

“She’s a peach,” Stanley chimed in, coming in from the other room to grab a drink of water from the ice maker on the refrigerator. “You won’t find a better woman.”

He really didn’t need his entire family ganging up on him to push him toward the only woman whose heart he had ever broken.

Wes rose abruptly. “I need to take Kodi for a walk. Anybody else want to go work off some of that dinner?”

“I want to go!” Tyler, the older of his two nephews, jumped up.

“Grab your coat and boots,” Kelsey told her six-year-old. “I think I’ll stay here and put my feet up for a moment.”

“Walk,” Susie said. She stood up with a determined look on her features.

Okay. He hadn’t been expecting that. He glanced at his sister, who shrugged.

“It was warm enough today that all the snow melted off the sidewalk,” she said. “It’s good for her to move when she wants to go, as long as you hold on to her.”

The weird feeling of complete role reversal was not unusual in their relationship ever since her brain injury. Helping his mother into her coat and other outdoor gear only reinforced that.

How many times when he was a kid had she wrangled him and Kelsey into their coats, boots and gloves?

Despite all the years they had been dealing with it, the tangible evidence of Susie’s physical and mental limitations still hurt his heart.

“Are you ready?”

She nodded and gave him her vague, sweet smile.