It was a good life. A happy life. Safe with people I cared about and trusted.

And in giving me Jake, this was what she gave me.

I felt my eyes sting, put my champagne back and focused again on my halibut.

After I took a bite, chewed and swallowed, I took up my champagne again and looked to the ceiling that was painted an attractive wine color that had a lovely wash to it that made it look like undulating satin.

I didn’t see the lovely paint job.

I wasn’t seeing.

I was speaking.

Silently.

Thank you, Gran, I said, lifted my glass minutely then took a sip.

I put it back to the table and turned my attention to the halibut.

* * * * *

The next afternoon, I watched Amond and his posse hand out hugs and handshakes around the Escalades making note that when Jake and Amond clasped each other’s forearms, they kept hold and leaned into each other, talking in ears.

I decided to ignore this. They were bonding and it wasn’t lost on me they were bonding over my troubles with my uncle and Boston Stone. But they were bonding, that was what was important.

I gave out my own hugs to Amond’s crew and he was the last for me.

He pulled me in his arms; he did this close, his arms going tight.

And he shocked me, honored me and wounded me when he whispered in my ear, “This is precisely what I wanted to give you, beautiful.”

I said nothing, just held on.

“Even not givin’ it to you, sure as fuck am glad you got it.”

I closed my eyes and held on tighter.

“Love you, Josephine,” he finished.

I opened my eyes and turned my head so my lips were right at his ear.

“And I love you, too, honey.”

He gave me a squeeze, pulled back an inch, looked deep in my eyes and smiled.

I took in a breath through my nose and smiled back.

He let me go and got in the back seat of one of the Escalades. As he was doing this, Jake got close and claimed me with an arm around my shoulders. The kids then claimed me just by huddling close.

Thus Jake, Conner, Amber, Ethan and I stood and waved Amond and his crew away.

And when we lost sight of them, we all walked together back into Lavender House.

* * * * *

The next morning, I followed Jake and Ethan out of the kitchen, pad of paper and pen in hand, scribbling.

“Babe, just give it to me and text me if you forget anything,” Jake ordered impatiently.

“Just a second,” I murmured, hurrying after them and still scribbling.

“It’s a grocery list, not the Magna Carta, Slick,” Jake noted. “Just give it to me. I gotta get my boy to school and then I got a session at the gym.”

I looked up and narrowed my eyes, reminding him, “I don’t understand why you’re going to the grocery store when I’ve got nearly all day to do it.”

He stopped at the door. “’Cause I’m gonna be in Blakely to meet my liquor distributors and no reason for you to go over there when I’m already over there. And anyway, you got a boatload of laundry the kids dumped on you last night.”

“I can do laundry, grocery shop and, FYI, also drop Ethan.”

“I’m already out on the road to get to the gym. No reason for you to be too.”

“Okay then, I—”

He cut me off to ask, “Babe, you ever done five people’s laundry?”

“No,” I gave him the answer he already knew.

“I haven’t either. But I’ve done four. Trust me. It seems the machines do all the work but that shit sucks your time. You got dishes in the sink and Pearl to take to Alyssa’s and it isn’t me who fired your cleaning service because they missed polishing the fuckin’ door.”

Ethan giggled.

I glared at Jake and I did this mostly because I hated it that he was right.

“That wood is over one hundred years old, Jake. It needs constant care,” I informed him haughtily.

Jake sighed before he replied, “Are you gonna give me the list or what?”

I tugged off the sheet on top of the pad and jerked it his way.

He took it, shoved it in his back pocket then asked, “Now you gonna give me a kiss or what?”

“I’m going out to the truck,” Ethan announced at this point.

But I was considering my options of kissing Jake or what.

Ethan went out the door.

“Baby, get your ass over here,” Jake ordered.

“I’m supposed to be helping,” I told him.

“Tonight, I get home, you get the fifty loads of laundry you’re facin’ done, I sit my ass down with my kids and eat the dinner you cooked, we’ll talk about how you aren’t helping.”

Hmm.

Well, the way he said that seemed helpful.

“Babe. Kiss,” he growled impatiently.

I moved to him. He swept his arms around me, dropped his mouth to mine and I didn’t give him a kiss, he took one.

And it was a lovely one.

When he was done, he ran his nose alongside mine and whispered, “Later, Slick.”

“Later, darling.”

I watched his eyes grin then I watched him go.

When the door closed behind him, I turned and tripped, nearly going down on my hands and knees. I caught myself just in time and looked at the floor to see what caught at my foot.

It was a tennis shoe.

I also saw its mate to the side and another pair of shoes. High-heeled boots.

Not mine. Amber’s.

I looked up and on the sturdy, handsome coat tree by the door I saw jackets and scarves thrown over it, only two of them mine.

I turned and wandered down the hall and took in an iPad, Ethan’s, sitting on the table in the hall, plugged in to charge under it.

I kept wandering and hit the family room. A laptop on the couch, Amber’s. Some discarded papers on the table by the armchair. I didn’t know what they were but I knew they were put there by Conner who did his homework there last night.

I moved to the kitchen and stopped, taking in the skillet on the Aga, the dishes in the sink, the juice glasses and coffee mugs beside it.

I wandered to the kitchen table and looked out the window at the gray blustery day, taking in a stormy sea, the fenced garden put to rest for the winter, the wisteria around the arbor cut back and ready to grow in and bloom come spring.

Next year, I’d plant pumpkins in that garden for Ethan and tomatoes in hopes I could get Conner to eat them.

I knew this.

I loved this.

This was the life I’d wanted since I could remember, the dream I thought had died that night my boyfriend sent me crashing down the stairs. The beautiful bubble of that dream had popped the instant I heard my shoulder crack and the pain radiated out, obliterating the dream to the point I didn’t even remember I had it.

But I remembered it right then.

That was why I stood looking out a window I’d looked out hundreds of times in my life. Perhaps thousands.

But this was the first time I did it at the same time I started laughing.

Which was the same time I began to cry.

* * * * *

Just after noon the next day, I stood in the pharmacy by the Redbox, jabbing my finger on the screen to make my selection. Or, more accurately, Ethan’s selection since his friends Bryant and Joshua were coming over that night for a sleepover and a video orgy (Jake’s words) was on the agenda.

I managed to get one DVD to spit out just as my phone rang.

I dug it out of my purse, saw the name on the display and took the call.

“Young Taylor, how are you?” I greeted boy Taylor.

“Update, Josie,” was his greeting to me.

I had learned since he got my number that boy Taylor was a bit of a gossip. A fair bit of one.

This was not unwelcome. In fact, it was always interesting and quite often amusing.

“Fill me in,” I ordered, jabbing the screen on the Redbox to make my next selection.

“Con’s having a time of it,” he shared readily. “Sofie is not shy. The girl is uber freaking shy. Every day this week he tried to execute an approach at lunch but she sees this and takes off running, even leaving her lunch tray on the table to do it.”

“Oh dear,” I murmured as the box spit out my second DVD.

I kept jabbing the screen as boy Taylor kept speaking.

“Today it was worse.”

“Oh dear,” I repeated.

“Yeah. She tripped when she took off. Took a header right in the cafeteria. Splat!”

I winced.

Poor Sofie.

Boy Taylor went on.

“Then, swear to God, it was like a teenaged Nicolas Sparks movie. Con moved in, picked her up, asked her if she was okay and she burst into tears right on the spot and took off. The whole school is yammering about it.”

This might not be good news.

“Good talk or bad talk?” I queried.

“Uh…Josie, Con’s hot, he got screwed over by Mia and Ellie so everyone’s thinkin’ he’s the misunderstood hero with a wounded heart. And Sofie’s pretty, sweet and far’s I know, never been kissed. Every girl who keeps a diary is going to be chronicling this story in pink ink with loads of hearts drawn around it.”

“I’ll take that as good,” I stated as the last DVD regurgitated itself from the tall red box.

“Yeah,” he replied and I could hear his laughter. Then he went on, “Oh, and Amber’s waving and yapping at me. She wants you to tell Mr. Spear she’s gonna be late tonight. She and Alexi are going to a movie after school then he’s taking her out to dinner.”

This was a smooth maneuver a la Amber, giving me this information to give her father who was resigned to his daughter dating but that didn’t mean he liked it.