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  “Bree? You okay, honey?”

  “Oh. Yes, I’m . . . I’m fine.” She glanced at her phone. “Oh, wow. It’s late. I’d better get back to work.”

  “Me too.” He was tempted to press, to make sure she was all right. But something stopped him. “Well, you drive safe, kiddo. Have a good weekend. You have any big plans?”

  “Plans? No. Just hanging out.” She climbed in the car, seeming eager to get away. “Tell Audrey hi. And you guys have a good weekend too.”

  Bree cranked the engine and waved as she pulled away.

  Grant watched her car until she turned at the corner. Then he opened his truck door and climbed inside. What was going on with that girl? Something was up, he felt certain. He’d felt it. Even in the few seconds they’d been out here talking.

  He wasn’t sure why, but a pall of melancholy came over him. There was always a quiet chord of sadness where Bree was concerned. She was their reminder of Tim. She was a balm, and at the same time she was a reminder. Not as if they wouldn’t have remembered without Bree to nudge their memories.

  How often he relived that awful day the black car had pulled into the driveway on Chicory Lane. He’d seen it roll slowly up the lane from his workshop, and though it had taken every bit of strength he could muster, he’d hurried to get to the door before they knocked, his world spiraling. Bree had been living with them while Tim was deployed, but she was out with friends that day—a blessing. But he had to get to the house before Audrey could answer the door. To protect her from the initial blow—even if he couldn’t shield her from the one coming.

  But apparently Audrey had seen them drive in too. For when he came in the back way, she was already standing like a statue inside the front door. Her hand outstretched, trembling. They’d answered the door together. And she’d been so strong.

  But he’d suspected that day was one of the reasons Audrey had been so desperate—even if it was only subconscious—to remodel the inn. To demolish the memories, get rid of the very door the officers had knocked on. To remove any image that played a part in her memories of that day.

  But of course Bree herself had been a part of those painful memories. Grant wasn’t sure if Audrey realized that if not for the fact Bree had been staying with them, those Marines would have knocked on a different door that day.

  A few months after Tim’s death, Bree had used the inn’s construction as an excuse to move away, get her own place. It had been a good thing for all of them, he knew. But he hated the distance he’d felt from her today. Not a physical distance, but a distance of the heart.

  He edged the truck onto CeeCee’s street, but not toward Cape Girardeau as he’d intended. Instead he turned back toward home. The garage door repairs could wait. Right now, he just wanted to be with Audrey.

  4

  Did Grant know too? Bree checked her rearview mirror, half expecting to see him following her. But the road behind her was empty.

  She’d been suspicious at Audrey’s reference to a “hot date”—even if she had been talking about CeeCee. But now, Grant’s comment about it being “time to make some changes” made her feel certain Tim’s parents knew she was going out with Aaron this weekend.

  If Grant had been testing, she’d failed. But how could they know? She hadn’t told anyone. Not even her own parents. Not that there was anything to tell. Or that her parents would ever bother asking.

  So why didn’t she tell? What kept her from simply telling Grant she was going to a movie with a friend from work? A guy. A hot guy.

  And there it was. That was why. Because no matter how many times she told herself it wasn’t a date, she knew it really was. In Aaron’s eyes for sure. But in her own, too.

  But why was that a bad thing? Everyone else got to move on with their lives. Getting married, having babies, buying houses. They couldn’t expect her not to do the same.

  She braked needlessly, as if she could curb the thoughts by slowing the car.

  Stop it, Whitman. Nobody is trying to stop you from moving on. You’re guilting yourself. And she knew it had more to do with Tim than any true guilt about “moving on.” She still loved her husband. Was that so wrong? And Tim’s family had become hers. Maybe even more than when he was alive. They’d been through so much together. She didn’t want to move on from them. And yet, that was inevitable, wasn’t it?

  She wanted to be married again someday. She wanted a family. Babies. The good Lord knew that being around Tim’s precious nieces and nephews made her long for the day she would hold her own baby in her arms. Yet such thoughts were so very complicated.

  Aaron had been flirting with her for months now. At first she’d been too dumb to recognize it, but even Wendy in reception agreed: he was definitely flirting. Bree had to admit she found Aaron attractive. But whenever she tried to wrap her mind around the idea of dating again, Tim’s sweet face would be there. And she’d feel like she’d cheated on him with her very thoughts.

  She wondered what kind of man would tolerate her having such a close relationship with her late husband’s parents—his entire family. Not many. And who could blame them. If she tried to think of the situation in reverse, she knew she would be none too thrilled.

  But thinking about her life without the Whitmans? That just about broke her heart.

  Because the truth was, when she thought about bringing her future babies to Christmas dinner and Easter egg hunts, it was Grant and Audrey she imagined in the background. She frowned. Her children, if she ever had any, wouldn’t call Grant and Audrey Poppa and Gram. Her children wouldn’t even be related to the rest of the Whitman crew. It seemed cruel. One more thing Tim’s death had inflicted on her.

  She entered Cape Girardeau’s city limits and tapped the brakes. She had to get out of this pit of dark thoughts before she walked into the office. Pulling into a parking space on the street in front of Wilkes, she tried to peer through the plate-glass windows to see whether Aaron was at his desk or not. But the glass only reflected the row of stores across the street. And her own reflection. She’d been told she wore her feelings on her sleeve, and she did not need Aaron reading her mind the minute she walked through the door.

  She grabbed her purse from the passenger seat, locked the car, and stepped up the curb to the entry door.

  Before she could reach for the handle, the door swung open, and Aaron strode out and took her by the arm. “Come with me.”

  “What?” She resisted his grasp. “What’s going on?”

  “I have ten minutes to get a hundred chairs moved into the basement of some church out on Lexington.”

  “What? What’s the big rush?”

  “A funeral.”

  She stared at him like he’d lost his last marble. “Aaron, I can’t just drop everything and go to a funeral. Are you crazy?”

  “Don’t worry, I already told Sallie I needed you to go with me.”

  “And who’s going to finish the hair expo stuff? That’s due tomorrow, you know.”

  “I’ll help you with it when we get back.” He narrowed his eyes at her. “As long as I don’t have to actually go to the hair expo.”

  “Hey, if I help you move a hundred chairs, you’ll let a blind first-year student give you a Mohawk if I say so.”

  “Fine. Just come on. We need to take a truck.”

  He took her arm and practically dragged her to the company pickup in the back parking lot. Once she was buckled in the passenger seat, she turned to look at him. “Since when did Wilkes add funerals to our events list anyway?”

  “Apparently since this stiff’s family decided to plan a family reunion around their grandfather’s death. Sallie said the daughter who hired us said something about they had to clean out dear ol’ Grandpa’s house to get it on the market, and suddenly second cousins once removed were coming out of the woodwork wanting to get in on the haul. They lived in one of those huge old houses out by the college.” Aaron gestured in the direction of the Southeast Missouri State campus.

  “That�
�s crazy,” she said. “So Grandpa’s funeral is suddenly going to be standing room only? When is the funeral?”

  He looked at his watch. “Four o’clock.”

  “Today?” She practically screeched.

  “See why I’m in such a hurry.” He pushed the speed limit for the six blocks to the warehouse where Sallie stored event rentals.

  On the city’s old, uneven brick streets in the downtown area, Bree was jostled and jolted in her seat. “Take it easy, would you, Lightning McQueen?” She clutched the door handle for dear life.

  Looking proud of the cartoon name he’d earned, Aaron parked as close to the warehouse as he could get. They jumped out of the vehicle in unison.

  Forming a two-man “bucket brigade” with Aaron in the bed of the truck and Bree on the ground, they started stacking folding chairs into the truck in tight rows.

  Within minutes, sweat was rolling down Bree’s forehead into her eyes. Not to mention her feet were killing her. “I would have at least changed my shoes if I’d known this was what you were dragging me off to do.”

  “Sorry.” He shrugged and tried to look sheepish, but she wasn’t buying it.

  “How many chairs will this truck hold? You don’t think we can get them all in one trip, do you?”

  “If we stack ’em right, we can.” He took two more chairs from her and lifted them into the bed of the pickup. “Tell you what, when we get to the church, I’ll let you set up chairs in the nice cool basement and I’ll bring them in from the truck.”

  “You’d do that for me?” she teased.

  “As long as I don’t have to do the hair expo.”

  “Wait a minute. You promised—” A drop of sweat dripped off the end of her nose and made a spot on her shirt. “Fine. Deal.”

  They finished loading the truck and located the church. She asked someone in the office where they were supposed to set up, then helped Aaron with the first dozen chairs before taking him up on his offer to do set-up in the air-conditioned basement. She easily kept up with him and even took a break to go splash cool water on her face and try to do something with her hair.

  “Hey, looks good in here,” he said as he brought the final load of chairs in. He helped her finish straightening chairs, then they went to stand at the back of the room, admiring their tidy rows of white folding chairs all facing a big-screen TV where the service in the sanctuary would be broadcast to any who didn’t arrive early enough to get a seat upstairs. “You ever wonder if they’ll have to have an overflow for your funeral? I’m thinking I don’t even want a funeral. I mean, what’s the big deal? Just go have a party in my honor or something.”

  “It is kind of a big deal, actually.” She didn’t really want to talk about it, but she couldn’t help but remember Tim’s funeral. She’d forgotten they had to set up chairs in the smaller chapel at his funeral, too. Of course, the family hadn’t been in that room, but she wondered now what it was like, watching a funeral on a TV screen. Had the camera captured her family and Tim’s in their grief? There was a video of his funeral somewhere, but she’d never had the courage to watch it, not wanting to relive an hour that had been excruciating the first time around. But now she wondered: were there others who had seen their grief via that video?

  “Seriously? Not me. Just scatter my ashes over the—” He took in a short breath, then clamped his mouth shut. After a long moment, he spoke quietly. “I’m an idiot. Bree, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make light of . . . that subject.”

  She waved him off. “It’s okay. No big deal.” She’d practiced saying such words for four and a half years now. Almost five. And sometimes she wondered if she’d ever be able to say them and mean them. But it was a big deal. Even after all this time, every reference to death, funerals, tragedy felt loaded. Even when she knew they weren’t intended to be that way.

  “I’m truly sorry,” he said, hanging his head.

  “Forget about it, Aaron. It’s fine.” She gestured and blinked back an unexpected heat behind her eyes. “Really.”

  “I wish I could take that back. It was stupid of me and—”

  “Do you think any of the chairs need touch-up paint?” She walked along a row of chairs, ostensibly inspecting them for chipped paint. If they didn’t change the subject in about three seconds, she was going to cry.

  Thankfully, Aaron took her cue. “I checked most of them when I loaded and unloaded them. I didn’t see anything that looked too bad. Do you? I’ve got the paint kit in the truck if we need it though.”

  Sallie was a stickler that the event equipment they rented be in top-notch condition. “I didn’t see anything. We can check them better when we pick them up.”

  “Oh, did you ask the office about that? Do we have to do that yet today?”

  She shook her head. “They said we could pick them up in the morning as long as we have everything out of here before noon.”

  “We? So that means you won’t mind coming with me to do this all again.”

  Grateful they’d turned the corner on a depressing subject, she smiled. “I’ll come if we can do it first thing, before it gets hot. And I’m wearing my tennis shoes next time.”

  “Meet you here at eight?”

  “Make it seven-thirty, and you’ve got a deal. In fact, buy me breakfast at seven, and I’ll forget all about the Mohawk.”

  “Wait . . .” A funny gleam came to his eye. “Did you just ask me on a date?”

  “Cut it out, Jakes. It’s breakfast with a coworker.”

  “And friend.”

  “Whatever.” But she couldn’t help smiling. And looking forward to tomorrow morning. Maybe breakfast with Aaron would ease the path to their real date on Saturday.

  5

  Drew Brooks ran a hand through his hair and stared at the man on the other side of the desk. If he hadn’t seen the bead of sweat on his boss’s forehead, he might have thought this was some kind of prank.

  “I’m sorry, Drew,” Joseph Critchfield said again.

  Somehow, he didn’t look all that sorry. He looked antsy.

  Drew tried to find the right words. What was protocol for this circumstance? Thanks so much for letting me know that I’m now a jobless loser? “Um . . . When does this start? How long do I have?”

  “I’m sorry . . . I thought I’d made that clear. This is an immediate layoff. We’re making cuts across the board. It’s a budgetary matter. Nothing personal. I hope you understand.”

  It sure felt personal.

  “We’ll be happy to provide a positive reference if you need one,” Critchfield said. “But once you sign everything with HR, you’ll need to clean out your desk and remove any personal belongings. And leave the premises immediately.”

  He swallowed hard. “Now?”

  “I’m sorry,” Critchfield said for at least the fourth time. “HR will explain the severance package to you.”

  Drew could hardly rise, much less make his legs propel him down the hall. Somehow he did, feeling as if he had a fifty-pound sack of cement strapped to his back. He slumped into the chair behind his desk and stared, unseeing, out the window that overlooked the parking lot.

  He couldn’t make it seem real that this was happening. It wasn’t that he loved his job so much, or even that he saw himself at this company three years from now. In the scheme of things, he wasn’t certain he wanted to work for a shipping company the rest of his life. But he’d sure never thought he’d be laid off from a job—any job, at any age, let alone at twenty-seven.

  Now what? The meeting with HR was short and sweet. He came out of the office with the promise of three months’ pay and a good reference should he need it. It took him about ten minutes to box up everything from his desk and bookshelves—in lidded containers conveniently provided by HR. The company’s last gift to him. Nice.

  In the parking lot, he opened the trunk of his Honda Accord and tossed in the boxes. He slammed the trunk shut and blew out a hot breath. He’d probably have to sell the Accord. He couldn’t make the almos
t four-hundred dollar a month payments without a steady salary.

  Dallas was always telling him he should have an aggressive savings plan. He’d tucked a little away, but nothing close to what he’d need if he didn’t find work right away. He had enough in savings to cover a month’s worth of bills. Maybe two if he was careful. If he cut back. The severance pay would help, but unless he planned to cash out his 401K, he needed to find a job, like, yesterday.

  Out of habit, he dialed his brother and waited to hear the familiar voice, realizing a split second before Dallas answered how much he’d come to depend on his big brother.

  “Hey, Drew, what’s up?”

  “Nothing good.”

  Dallas laughed, then apparently realized Drew was serious. “Hey, what’s going on, man?”

  “I just lost my job.” Hearing himself speak the words aloud, the stark reality of his situation hit him. Hard. Glancing toward the office, he leaned his back against the passenger door of his car. They’d probably send someone out any minute now to escort him out of the parking lot. Well, let them. He kicked at the asphalt surface of the parking lot.

  “What are you talking about?” Dallas said. “You’re not serious?”

  “As a heart attack.”

  “What happened, man? Are you doing okay?”

  “Too soon to tell.”

  “Well, what happened?” Dallas asked again.

  “They laid off three guys in my department and another ten in the shop. Budgetary reasons,” he said, quoting the HR guy.

  “No kidding? Did you have any idea this was coming?”

  “Not a clue.”

  “So what’s the game plan.”

  “I haven’t got one. I think . . . I’m still in shock. Nice of them to lay me off on a Thursday, so I have a nice long weekend to freak out about it. I guess I’ll go stomp the streets starting Monday. Or go to McDonald’s and fill out an application.”

  “Not funny. And you won’t have any trouble getting another job. A good one.”

  But Drew heard the lack of conviction in his brother’s voice. The job market was tight, and Drew’s degree in American history wasn’t exactly something that employers were standing in line for.