Cooper rose and held out his hand. It took Stu a moment before he dug into his pocket, pulled out his keys and dropped them into Cooper’s palm. “I’ll be right back.”

Stu was pretty much where he’d left him, on the ground, but he’d moved to lean his back against an old tree stump. Cooper handed him a beer and sat down next to him before opening his own.

Clearly Stu had been thinking about the question Cooper had asked him, because he began to speak without opening his beer. “I came home one night and what little Leann had at my house was gone. I’d asked her to move in with me, but she’d refused. That should have been a clue, huh.” He twisted the top off his beer and took a drink. “I called her when I saw her things were gone, and she told me she’d moved on and that she’d been thinking about it for some time.” He raised his gaze to look at Cooper. “That’s where you come into the story.”

“I hope you realize I didn’t know any of this. She and I had crossed paths a few times. Each time she’d been with someone else at the bar. When she showed up at my door, I asked her about you and she shrugged it off, saying you two were just friends. I didn’t go after her. She needed a place to crash for a few days while she made up her mind about something. I offered her my couch.”

“But she ended up in your bed.”

“The couch hurt her back.”

Stu laughed. “Big surprise.”

“She knew I wasn’t interested in her. Looking back, I realize now that I was in love with someone else.”

“Tilly.” The sheriff said it like a cussword. “How convenient.”

“Not convenient at all. Come on, Stu. There are so many reasons why Tilly and I...” He shook his head. “I always liked her. I’d never really spent any time alone with her. At the competitions she was so singularly focused. But I liked that about her. She wanted to win. I wanted to win too, so I understood. We were from families that didn’t get along.” He laughed. “That’s putting it mildly. Too much history there, I guess.”

“I want Tilly,” Stu said, sounding drunker even though he’d set his fresh beer in the grass beside him.

“That’s up to her.”

He shook his head. “She’s already made her choice.”

“This isn’t a competition. I didn’t want this any more than I wanted Leann.”

“Is that why you killed her? Because maybe the man in her life was me and you couldn’t stand her coming back to me?”

“Were you the man in her life?”

Stu looked at the ground, not answering.

“I know you don’t believe I killed her. Come on, Stu. We’ve been friends for too long. You’ve known me my whole life. Do you really think I’m a killer?”

“I don’t know,” he said dismissively. “Maybe I’ve never really known you.” He picked up his beer and took a drink.

“I guess there are some things we’re never going to agree on,” Cooper said. “But it makes me sad that we’re at odds over it.”

“Do you really think you’d be happy with Tilly?” the sheriff asked. “With staying in Powder Crossing? You always said you weren’t a rancher. What are you, Cooper?”

The question hurt because, in this case, Stu was right. He hadn’t been sure who he was or what he wanted, and he should have been. “I think I’ve been looking for something.”

Stu let out a bitter laugh. “And now you’ve found it, and it just happens to be my girlfriend.”

“Tilly isn’t your girlfriend. She’s a woman you dated a handful of times.”

“Yeah, but what if you hadn’t come back to town? What if we dated a few more times? What if she fell in love with me?” They fell silent for a few minutes. Stu stared at the beer bottle in his hand. “Tilly’s too good for you.”

“I know.”

“Would be nice to go back in time, though, wouldn’t it,” Stu said. “Knowing what you do now. Change things. Then again, maybe not.”

Cooper considered that. “If I could go back and rewrite history, I’d make sure the Staffords and the McKennas never started feuding.”

“Who’s dreaming now?” Stu said. “Might want to rethink that. The way I heard it, your father and Charlotte were quite the hot item. If they’d stayed together, you wouldn’t be here.”

“I guess that’s the point, huh. We can’t rewrite history. You are my friend. You were Tilly’s friend. If we’re all going to live in this town...”