SHERRYL WOODS, author of nearly 150 novels, is currently seeing her career come full circle, from her days as a television critic for several newspapers to now having two of her series produced for TV. The latest, her Sweet Magnolias series, has been developed for Netflix and her Chesapeake Shores series has completed four seasons so far for Hallmark Channel. Woods divides her time between her new winter home in Jacksonville Beach, Florida and her childhood summer home in Colonial Beach, Virginia.

Also available from Sherryl Woods

and Mills & Boon

The Sweet Magnolias series

Stealing Home

A Slice of Heaven

Feels Like Family

Welcome to Serenity

Home in Carolina

Sweet Tea at Sunrise

Honeysuckle Summer

Midnight Promises

Catching Fireflies

Where Azaleas Bloom

Swan Point

For a complete list of titles available from

#1 New York Times bestselling author Sherryl Woods,

visit www.sherrylwoods.com

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk

A Slice of Heaven

Sherryl Woods

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-408-95618-2

A SLICE OF HEAVEN

© 2007 Sherryl Woods

Published in Great Britain 2020

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

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Praise for Sherryl Woods

‘Sherryl Woods writes emotionally satisfying novels about

family, friendship and home. Truly feel-great reads!’

—#1 New York Times bestselling author Debbie Macomber

‘Woods is a master heartstring puller.’

—Publishers Weekly on Seaview Inn

‘Woods’s readers will eagerly anticipate her trademark

small-town setting, loyal friendships, and honorable

mentors as they meet new characters and reconnect

with familiar ones in this heartwarming tale.’

—Booklist on Home in Carolina

‘Once again, Woods, with such authenticity,

weaves a tale of true love and the challenges

that can knock up against that love.’

—RT Book Reviews on Beach Lane

‘In this sweet, sometimes funny and often touching story,

the characters are beautifully depicted, and readers…will…

want to wish themselves away to Seaview Key.’

—RT Book Reviews on Seaview Inn

‘Woods…is noted for appealing character-driven

stories that are often infused with the flavor

and fragrance of the South.’

—Library Journal

‘A reunion story punctuated by family drama,

Woods’s first novel in her new Ocean Breeze series

is touching, tense and tantalizing.’

—RT Book Reviews on Sand Castle Bay

‘A whimsical, sweet scenario…the digressions have

their own charm, and Woods never fails to come back

to the romantic point.

—Publishers Weekly on Sweet Tea at Sunrise

Dear Reader,

I’m so delighted to have the second Sweet Magnolias book available again to coincide with the new Sweet Magnolias series on Netflix, starring JoAnna Garcia Swisher, Brooke Elliott and Heather Headley. When I first came up with the idea for a series about three lifelong friends who’d been through thick and thin together, I had no idea how many women would be added to this core group over the years or how readers would come to love that bond and the entire community of Serenity, South Carolina. I hope Netflix viewers will embrace them, too.

As women, I think we’ve all come to understand that next to family, our friends are the most important people in our lives. And friendships that have stood the test of time, with women who know our history, our mistakes, our dirty little secrets and love us just the same, are the strongest bonds of all. Friends are there to boost our spirits when we’re having a simple bad day or a crisis of monumental proportions. They can make us laugh, celebrate with us, cry with us and remind us that even on the worst day life is still worth living.

If you’re just meeting Maddie, Dana Sue and Helen for the very first time, I hope you’ll love getting to know them. If you’re renewing your friendship with them, I hope it brings back a smile or two. Most of all, I hope you have warm, wonderful friends in your life and that you treasure every minute with them.

All best,

Sherryl

Contents

Cover

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Note to Readers

Praise

Dear Reader

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Epilogue

About the Publisher

1

The smell of burning toast caught Dana Sue’s attention just before the smoke detector went off. Snatching the charred bread from the toaster, she tossed it into the sink, then grabbed a towel and waved it at the shrieking alarm to disperse the smoke. At last the overly sensitive thing fell silent.

“Mom, what on earth is going on in here?” Annie demanded, standing in the kitchen doorway, her nose wrinkling at the aroma of burnt toast. She was dressed for school in jeans that hung on her too-thin frame and a scoop-neck T-shirt that revealed pale skin stretched taut over protruding collarbones.

Restraining the desire to comment on the evidence that Annie had lost more weight, Dana Sue regarded her teenager with a chagrined expression. “Take a guess.”

“You burned the toast again,” Annie said, a grin spreading across her face, relieving the gauntness ever so slightly. “Some chef you are. If I ratted you out about this, no one would ever come to Sullivan’s to eat again.”

“Which is why we don’t serve breakfast and why you’re sworn to secrecy, unless you expect to be grounded, phone-less and disconnected from your e-mail till you hit thirty,” Dana Sue told her, not entirely in jest. Sullivan’s had been a huge success from the moment she’d opened the restaurant’s doors. Word-of-mouth raves had spread through the entire region. Even Charleston’s top restaurant-and-food critic had hailed it for its innovative Southern dishes. Dana Sue didn’t need her sassy kid ruining that with word of her culinary disasters at home.

“Why were you making toast, anyway? You don’t eat it,” Annie said, filling a glass with water and taking a tiny sip before dumping the rest down the drain.

“I was fixing you breakfast,” Dana Sue said, pulling a plate with a fluffy omelet from the oven, where she’d kept it warm. She’d added low-fat cheese and finely shredded red and green sweet peppers, just the way Annie had always liked it. The omelet was perfect, a vision suitable for the cover of any gourmet magazine.

Annie looked at the food with a repugnant expression most people reserved for roadkill. “I don’t think so.”

“Sit,” Dana Sue ordered, losing patience with the too-familiar reaction. “You have to eat. Breakfast is the most important meal, especially on a school day. Think of the protein as brain power. Besides, I dragged myself out of bed to fix it for you, so you’re going to eat it.”

Annie, her beautiful sixteen-year-old, regarded her with one of those “Mother! Not again” looks, but at least she sat down at the table. Dana Sue sat across from her, holding her mug of black coffee as if it were liquid gold. After a late night at the restaurant, she needed all the caffeine she could get first thing in the morning to be alert enough to deal with Annie’s quick-thinking evasiveness.

“How was your first day back at school?” Dana Sue asked.

Annie shrugged.

“Do you have any classes with Ty this year?” For as long as Dana Sue could remember, Annie had harbored a crush on Tyler Townsend, whose mom was one of Dana Sue’s best friends and most recently a business partner at The Corner Spa, Serenity’s new fitness club for women.

“Mom, he’s a senior. I’m a junior,” Annie explained with exaggerated patience. “We don’t have any of the same classes.”

“Too bad,” Dana Sue said, meaning it. Ty had gone through some issues of his own since his dad had walked out on Maddie, but he’d always been a good sounding board for Annie, the way a big brother or best friend would be. Not that Annie appreciated the value of that. She wanted Ty to notice her as a girl, as someone he’d be interested in dating. So far, though, Ty was oblivious.

Dana Sue studied Annie’s sullen expression and tried again, determined to find some way to connect with the child who was slipping away too fast. “Do you like your teachers?”

“They talk. I listen. What’s to like?”

Dana Sue bit back a sigh. A few short years ago, Annie had been a little chatterbox. There hadn’t been a detail of her day she hadn’t wanted to share with her mom and dad. Of course, ever since Ronnie had cheated on Dana Sue and she’d thrown him out two years ago, everything had changed. Annie’s adoration for her father had been destroyed, just as Dana Sue’s heart had been broken. For a long time after the divorce, silence had fallen in the Sullivan household, with neither of them wanting to talk about the one thing that really mattered.

“Mom, I have to go or I’ll be late.” A glance at the clock had Annie bouncing up eagerly.

Dana Sue looked at the untouched plate of food. “You haven’t eaten a bite of that.”

“Sorry. It looks fantastic, but I’m not hungry. See you tonight.” She brushed a kiss across Dana Sue’s cheek and took off, leaving behind the no longer perfect omelet and a whiff of perfume that Dana Sue recognized as the expensive scent she’d bought for herself last Christmas and wore only on very special occasions. Since such occasions had been few and far between since the divorce, it probably didn’t matter that her daughter was wasting it on high school boys.

Only after she was alone again and her coffee had turned cold did Dana Sue notice the brown sack with Annie’s lunch still sitting on the counter. It could have been an oversight, but she knew better. Annie had deliberately left it behind, just as she’d ignored the breakfast her mother had fixed.

The memory of Annie’s collapse during Maddie’s wedding reception last year at Thanksgiving came flooding back, and with it a tide of fresh panic.

“Oh, sweetie,” Dana Sue murmured. “Not again.”

“I’m thinking for tonight’s dessert I’ll make an old-fashioned bread pudding with maybe some Granny Smith apples to add a little tartness and texture,” Erik Whitney said before Dana Sue had a chance to tie on her apron. “What do you think?”

Even as her mouth watered, her brain was calculating the carbohydrates. Off the chart, she concluded, and sighed. Her customers could indulge, but she’d have to avoid the dessert like the plague.

Erik regarded her worriedly. “Too much sugar?”

“For me, yes. For the rest of the universe, it sounds perfect.”

“I could do a fresh fruit cobbler instead, maybe use a sugar substitute,” he suggested.

Dana Sue shook her head. She’d built Sullivan’s reputation by putting a new spin on old Southern favorites. Most of the time, her selections were healthier than some of the traditional butter-soaked dishes, but when it came to desserts, she knew her clientele preferred decadent. She’d hired Erik straight out of the Atlanta Culinary Institute because the school’s placement officer had ranked him the best pastry chef candidate they’d seen in years.

Older than most graduates, Erik was already in his thirties. Eager to experiment and show what he could do, Erik hadn’t disappointed her or her customers. He was such a huge improvement over her last sous-chef, a temperamental man who was difficult to work with, that Dana Sue counted her blessings every single day that Erik could double as a sous-chef and pastry chef. He’d quickly become more than an employee. He’d become a friend.

Moreover, there was already a high demand in South Carolina for Erik’s wedding cakes. He’d raised the traditional cake to an art form that rivaled anything seen at fancy celebrity weddings. Dana Sue knew she’d be lucky to keep him for another year or two at most before some big-city restaurant or catering company lured him away, but for the moment he seemed content in Serenity, happy with the latitude she gave him.

“We did plenty of fruit cobblers over the summer,” she told him. “The bread pudding sounds great for tonight. You’re cooking for the customers, not me.”

When was the last time she’d allowed herself so much as a teaspoonful of any of Erik’s rich desserts? Not since Doc Marshall had given her yet another stern lecture on losing the fifteen pounds she’d gained in the past two years, and warned her—again—that she was putting herself at risk for diabetes, the disease that had killed her mother. That should have been warning enough for Dana Sue without the doctor reminding her constantly.

She’d thought that working with her two best friends to open The Corner Spa would keep her so busy she’d stay on her diet. She’d also convinced herself that the spectacular surroundings they’d created would give her an incentive to exercise. So far, though, she’d gained five more pounds testing all the healthy drinks and low-fat muffins they’d put on the spa menu. There was a peach-pear smoothie that might be worth dying for.

Putting on weight might be an occupational hazard for a chef, but Dana Sue laid some of the blame on the collapse of her marriage two years ago. When she’d kicked Ronnie Sullivan out of her house for cheating on her, she’d consoled herself with food—unlike her daughter, who’d chosen to avoid it.

“You’re not the only person in Serenity worrying about sugar,” Erik reminded her. “I can adapt.”

“So can I. It’s not as if I’ll starve, sweetie. Tonight’s menu will have plenty of vegetables and three healthy main courses. Now, go work your magic. Our regulars expect something amazing from you every time they come in.”

“Okay,” he said finally, then gave her a penetrating look. “You want to tell me what else is on your mind?”

She frowned at him. “What makes you think there’s something else on my mind?”

“Experience,” he said succinctly. “And if you won’t talk to me, then go call Maddie or Helen and get it off your chest. If you’re as distracted during the dinner rush as you were during lunch, I’ll have to spend the whole evening bailing you out.”

“Excuse me?” she said tightly, not one bit happy about the accuracy of his comment.

“Sweetie, half a dozen meals came back in here because you’d left off some part of the order. It’s one thing to forget to send out French fries. It’s another to leave off the meat.”

Dana Sue moaned. “Oh, God, I was hoping you hadn’t noticed that.”

Erik winked at her. “I notice most everything that goes on in here. That’s what makes me a good backup for you. Now, go make that call, you hear?”

Dana Sue held in a sigh as Erik went to gather his ingredients from their well-stocked storeroom, and her own thoughts returned to her daughter. It was impossible for her to go on denying that Annie was getting skinnier by the day. She claimed she was no thinner than the models she saw in magazines and on TV, and that she was perfectly healthy, but Dana Sue thought otherwise. Her clothes hung loosely on her bony frame, Annie’s ineffective attempt to disguise just how thin she really was. Dana Sue was convinced she was starving herself so she wouldn’t turn out like her mom—overweight and alone.

Despite a frantic pace with the lunch crowd, which usually energized her and kept her focused, today Dana Sue hadn’t been able to shake the image of that abandoned brown sack. Usually Annie made a pretense of eating something just to keep her mother off her case. Now Dana Sue wondered if that left-behind paper bag, with its turkey sandwich on whole-grain bread, celery and carrot sticks and a banana, was a cry for help.

Satisfied that Erik could watch over the dinner preparations in the state-of-the-art, stainless-steel kitchen, Dana Sue slipped into her small, cluttered office to follow his advice and call Maddie at the gym. Whenever her world seemed to be crumbling, she turned to her two best friends—Maddie Maddox, who was managing The Corner Spa, and attorney Helen Decatur—for sensible advice or a shoulder to cry on. Over the years they’d grown adept at providing both. Nobody in Serenity messed with one of the Sweet Magnolias without tangling with the other two, as well.

They’d bolstered each other through schoolgirl crushes, failed marriages and health scares. They’d shared joys and sorrows. Most recently they’d gone into business together, which had brought them closer than ever, their various skills complementing each other nicely.

“How are things in the world of fitness?” Dana Sue asked, forcing a cheery note into her voice.

“What’s wrong?” Maddie asked at once.

Dana Sue bristled at being so easily read for the second time that afternoon. She obviously wasn’t as good at covering her emotions as she’d like to be. “Why do you automatically assume something’s wrong?”

“Because it’s less than an hour till your dinner rush starts,” Maddie said. “You’re usually up to your eyeballs in preparation. You don’t make casual, just-to-chat calls until after nine when things start to settle down again.”

“I am way too predictable,” Dana Sue muttered, making a vow to change that. Once, she’d been the most reckless and daring of all the Sweet Magnolias. But since the divorce, knowing she had a daughter to raise and send to college—her ex-husband made the court-ordered child support payments, but that was all—she’d turned cautious.

“So, what is it? What’s wrong?” Maddie repeated. “Did somebody complain about their quiche at lunch? Were the salad greens from the produce vendor not crisp enough?”

“Very funny,” Dana Sue said, not the least bit amused by Maddie’s reference to her perfectionism. “Actually, it’s Annie. I really think she’s in trouble again, Maddie. I know you and Helen have been worried all along about her eating habits and weight loss. The collapse at your wedding freaked all of us out, but that was almost a year ago and she’s been getting better since then. I made sure of it.” Suddenly overwhelmed by a wave of unfamiliar helplessness, Dana Sue added, “Now, I just don’t know. I think I’ve been deluding myself.”

“Tell me what happened,” Maddie commanded.

Dana Sue related the morning’s incident. “Am I making too much of her ignoring the breakfast I’d fixed, and leaving behind her lunch?” she asked hopefully.

“If that was all you had to go on, I’d say yes,” Maddie replied. “But, sweetie, you know there are other signs that Annie has an eating disorder. We’ve all seen them. When she passed out at my wedding, it was a warning. If she’s anorexic, that kind of thing doesn’t miraculously go away. She’s probably just gotten better at hiding it from you. She needs counseling.”

Dana Sue still clung to the hope they’d gotten it all wrong. “Maybe it’s just back-to-school jitters, or maybe she’s eating the cafeteria food at school,” she suggested. She wondered if Maddie’s son might have noticed something. “Could you talk to Ty? He might have some idea. They don’t have any classes together, I know. Annie told me that much today, but maybe they have the same lunch hour.”

“I’ll ask him,” Maddie promised. “But I’m not sure teenage boys pay the slightest bit of attention to what girls are eating. They’re too busy scarfing down everything in sight.”

“Try,” Dana Sue pleaded. “Obviously I’m not getting anywhere talking to her. She just gets defensive.”

“I’ll do my best,” Maddie promised. “I’ll ask Cal, too. You can’t imagine the kind of gossip my husband overhears in the locker room. Who would have guessed that a baseball coach would know so much? He may be the school’s best resource for staying on top of what the kids are up to. Sometimes I think he knows when students are in trouble before their own parents do. He certainly did in Ty’s case.”

“I remember,” Dana Sue said, recalling how concern for Ty had drawn Maddie and Cal together. “Thanks for checking into this, Maddie. Let me know what you find out, okay?”

“Of course. I’ll give you a call later tonight,” her friend promised. “Try not to worry too much. Annie’s a smart girl.”

“But maybe not smart enough,” Dana Sue said wearily. “I know this kind of thing can happen because of peer pressure and all the role models these girls see on TV and in the movies, but Annie also has a lot of issues thanks to her dad running around on me.”

“You think this has something to do with Ronnie?” Maddie sounded skeptical.

“I do,” Dana Sue told her. “I think she convinced herself it wouldn’t have happened if I’d weighed a hundred and five. Of course, I haven’t weighed that since seventh grade.”

“You’re also five-ten. You’d look ridiculous,” Maddie said.

“Probably, but it might be kind of fun to test the willowy look on the men in Serenity,” Dana Sue said with a wistful note. Then she added realistically, “But it’s never going to happen. No matter how hard I try these days, I can’t seem to lose more than a pound, and that never stays off long. I’m destined to be tall, but frumpy.”

“Sounds as if Annie isn’t the only one who could use a body image lecture,” Maddie said. “I’ll get Helen over here first thing in the morning. When you come by to drop off the salads for the café, we’ll fix that thinking of yours right up. You’re gorgeous, Dana Sue Sullivan, and don’t you forget that for a single second.”

“Let’s just focus on Annie for the time being,” Dana Sue replied, dismissing her own food issues, as well as Maddie’s loyal attempt to bolster her spirits. “She’s the one who could be in real trouble, not me.”

“Then Helen and I will help you deal with it,” Maddie assured her. “Have the Sweet Magnolias ever let each other down?”

“Not once,” Dana Sue admitted, then hesitated as a distant memory came back to her and made her smile, temporarily wiping out her anxiety over Annie. “Wait. I take that back. There was that time you two left me twisting in the wind to deal with a cop after we played a prank on our gym teacher.”

“That prank was your idea, and we didn’t intentionally leave you behind,” Maddie corrected. “We thought you could run faster. We came back for you, didn’t we?”

“Sure, right after the cop called my folks and threatened to haul me off to jail if he caught me doing anything that stupid again. I was so scared I was throwing up by the time you came back.”

“Yes, well, there’s no need to dwell on ancient history,” Maddie said briskly. “We will be there to help with Annie, whatever she needs. You, too.”

“Thanks. I’ll talk to you later, then.”

When Dana Sue placed the portable phone back in its charger, she felt the first faint stirring of relief. She’d faced a lot of turmoil, and had triumphed with Maddie and Helen by her side. They’d gotten her through her divorce and helped her open her restaurant when she hadn’t been convinced she could do it. Surely this crisis—if there even was a crisis—could be tackled just as easily if they all put their heads together.

Annie hated her physical education class. She was a complete and total klutz. Worse, Ms. Franklin—who weighed about a hundred pounds soaking wet and had boundless enthusiasm for anything athletic—was always scowling at her, as if there was something wrong with her. Usually Annie scowled right back at her, but today she couldn’t seem to summon up the energy.

“Annie, I’d like to see you after class,” Ms. Franklin said, once she’d tortured them all by making them jog around the track. Twice.

“Uh-oh,” Sarah said, giving Annie a commiserating look. “What do you suppose she wants?”

“I doubt she’s going to ask me to go out for the track team,” Annie joked, still trying to catch her breath. She’d never been athletic, but lately even the slightest bit of activity left her winded, unlike Sarah, who looked as if the run had been no more than a stroll between classes.

Sarah, who’d been Annie’s best friend since fifth grade and knew most of her deepest, darkest secrets, studied her worriedly. “You don’t think she’s going to say something about you being out of shape, do you? Grown-ups get all freaked out if they think we’re not ready to compete in some marathon or something. I mean, who’d want to do that?”

“Not me,” Annie agreed, relieved that the odd racing sensation in her chest had finally eased a little and she was able to breathe more normally.

“Maybe she found out about you passing out and ending up in the hospital.”

“Oh, come on, Sarah. That was last year,” Annie griped. “Everyone’s forgotten all about it.”

“I’m just saying, if Ms. Franklin thinks you’re going to crash in her class, maybe she’ll let you out of it.”

“As if,” Annie scoffed. “Nobody gets out of P.E. without some kind of doctor’s note, and Doc Marshall will never give me one. Not that I’d ask. If I did, my mom would have a cow. She still gets all weird about me not eating the way she thinks I should.” She rolled her eyes. “Like the way she eats is so healthy. She’s packed on so much weight since my dad left, no man will ever look at her twice. I’m never letting that happen to me.”

“How much do you weigh now?” Sarah asked.

Annie shrugged. “I’m not sure.”

Her friend regarded her with disbelief. “Oh, you are, too, Annie Sullivan. I know perfectly well you weigh yourself at least three or four times a day.”

Annie frowned. Okay, maybe she was a little obsessive about making sure that she never picked up an ounce, but she couldn’t trust the scale at home to be accurate. So she weighed herself again on the one in the locker room. And sometimes again, if she stopped by The Corner Spa to see Maddie. Even if she knew her weight to the last ounce, it didn’t mean she wanted her best friend to know. Besides, it wasn’t the number on the scale that mattered. It was the way she looked in the mirror. She looked fat and that was all that mattered. Sometimes when she saw herself in all those mirrors at the spa, she wanted to cry. She couldn’t figure out how her mom could even bear to walk into that room.

“Annie?” Sarah said, her expression worried. “Are you below a hundred? You look to me like you weigh less than ninety pounds.”

“What if I do?” Annie said defensively. “I still need to lose a couple more pounds to look really great.”

“But you promised you’d stop obsessing about your weight,” Sarah said, an edge of panic in her voice. “You said passing out when you were dancing with Ty was the most embarrassing moment of your life, and you’d never be in a position for that to happen again. You told everyone you’d keep your weight at least at a hundred pounds, and even that’s pretty skinny for your height. You promised,” Sarah emphasized. “How can you have forgotten all that? And you know it happened because you weren’t eating.”

“I hadn’t eaten that day,” Annie countered stubbornly. “I eat.”

“What have you had today?” Sarah persisted.

“My mom fixed me a huge omelet for breakfast,” she said.

Sarah gave her a knowing look. “But did you eat it?”

Annie sighed. Sarah evidently wasn’t going to let this go. “I don’t know why you’re getting so worked up over this. What have you eaten today?”

“I had cereal and half a banana for breakfast and a salad for lunch,” Sarah replied.

Annie felt like throwing up just thinking about eating that much food. “Well, good for you. Don’t come to me when you’re too fat to fit into your clothes.”

“I’m not gaining weight,” Sarah said. “In fact, I’ve even lost a couple of pounds by eating sensibly.” She gave Annie a chagrined look. “I’d give anything for a burger and fries, though. To hear my mom and dad talk, that’s all kids ever did back in the day. They went to Wharton’s after football games and pigged out. They went there after school and had milk shakes. Can you imagine?”

“No way,” Annie said.

The last time she’d eaten a burger and fries, she’d been having lunch with her dad. That was the day he’d told her he was leaving, that he and her mom were getting a divorce. Of course, after she’d witnessed her mom tossing all his stuff on the front lawn it hadn’t come as a huge shock, but it had made her sick just the same. She’d left the table at Wharton’s, run into the restroom and lost her lunch right there.

Since that awful day, nothing had appealed to her. Not the burgers and fries she’d once loved, not pizza or ice cream, not even the stuff her mom had on the menu at the restaurant. It was like her dad had yanked her appetite right out of her, along with her heart. Finding out that he’d cheated on her mom, then watching that huge, embarrassing scene on the front lawn, had pretty much killed any desire to ever eat again. Annie knew her mom had been right to do that, but it had left her feeling all alone and empty inside. Her dad had been the one guy who’d always thought she was the most beautiful, special girl in the world. She supposed he still did think that, but he wasn’t around to tell her. Hearing it on the phone wasn’t the same. No matter how many times he said it, she dismissed it because there was no way he knew how she really looked these days. It was just so much blah-blah-blah.

“It would be kinda nice to hang out at Wharton’s, though, wouldn’t it?” Sarah said wistfully. “A lot of the kids still go after school.”

“Go ahead and do it,” Annie said. “Don’t let me stop you.”

“It wouldn’t be any fun without you,” she protested. “Couldn’t we go just once? We don’t have to order what everyone else is having.”

Annie was already shaking her head. “Last time I went with my mom and Maddie and Ty, they all stared at me when I ordered water with a slice of lemon. You’d have thought I’d asked for a beer or something. And you know Grace Wharton gossips about everything. My mom would know in an hour that I was in there and didn’t have anything to eat or drink.”

Sarah looked disappointed. “I guess you’re right.”

Annie felt a momentary twinge of guilt. It wasn’t right that her hang-ups were keeping her best friend from having fun. “You know,” she said at last, “maybe it would be okay. I could order a soda or something. I don’t have to drink it.” Her mood brightened. “And maybe Ty will be there.”

Sarah grinned. “You know he will be. All the cool guys go there after school. So, when do you want to go?”

“Might as well be today,” Annie said. “I have to go see Ms. Franklin now. I’ll meet you out front after I’m finished and we can walk over.”

Wasting money on a drink she wouldn’t even sip was a small price to pay to spend an hour or so around Ty. Not that she was fooling herself by thinking he would pay the slightest bit of attention to her. Not only was Ty a senior, he was a star on the baseball team. He was so beyond her reach. He was always surrounded by the most gorgeous girls in his class. He seemed to like the tall, thin ones with long, silky blond hair and big boobs. Annie, at only five foot three, with chestnut curls and no chest to speak of, couldn’t compete with them.

But she had one thing none of those girls had. She and Ty were almost family. She got to spend holidays and lots of other special occasions with him. And one of these days, when she was thin enough, when her body was absolutely perfect, he was going to wake up and notice her.

2

It was hotter than blazes working on the roof of yet another house in yet another new subdivision, this one outside of Beaufort, South Carolina. The sun was pounding down on Ronnie Sullivan’s bare, sweat-drenched shoulders, and under his hard hat, his head was soaking wet. His work boots felt as if they each weighed a hundred pounds.

In the past two years Ronnie had worked more construction jobs around the state of South Carolina than any man with good sense ought to. The more physically demanding, the better. He was pretty sure if he kept it up much longer, the sun would bake his brain completely, especially since he’d decided to concede defeat to his receding hairline and shave his head.

After all these months of taking any job that was offered, then going back to a cheap motel room for a cold shower, and out to some bar for an icy beer and greasy food, he was exhausted, physically and emotionally. But no matter how exhausted he was when he tumbled into bed, it was never enough to chase away the nightmares and regrets.

There was no question in his mind that he’d blown the best thing that had ever happened to him—his marriage to Dana Sue. Worse, he’d done it stupidly and carelessly, not even once thinking of the consequences until it had been too damn late.

Years of heat exposure, from a lifetime of working construction, was the only possible explanation for his idiotic decision to have a fling back in Serenity—the gossip capital of the South—practically under his wife’s nose. It had taken about a nanosecond for her to find out he’d slept with some woman he’d met in a bar after work. One time, dammit, but nobody in Serenity was handing out passes for freebies. Once was more than enough to rip his life apart.

Dana Sue hadn’t given him even a minute to explain and beg her forgiveness. She’d tossed two suitcases filled with his belongings on the front lawn, not even caring that half the contents were falling out all over the place. She’d screamed that he was lower than pond scum, that she hated him and never wanted to see him again. The entire neighborhood had witnessed his downfall. A couple of women, showing their solidarity with Dana Sue, had actually cheered her on.

Ronnie had wanted to stay and fight for their marriage, but he’d known Dana Sue long enough to recognize that stubborn, fiery glint in her eyes. He’d left, knowing he was making the second-worst mistake of his life. The first had been that tawdry, meaningless, one-night affair.

Before he’d gone, he’d taken his little girl out to lunch to try to explain things to her, but Annie hadn’t wanted to hear his explanations. At fourteen she’d been just old enough to understand exactly what he’d done and why her mother had been so furious. She’d listened to him in stony silence, then gone into the restroom and stayed there until he’d had to send Grace Wharton in after her.

Since he’d left, not a day had gone by when he hadn’t regretted hurting Dana Sue or putting that devastated look in his little girl’s eyes. Falling off the pedestal Annie’d put him on had just about broken what was left of his heart.

During the divorce proceedings he’d fought for visitation rights, but Helen had kept them to a bare minimum. Not that it had mattered. He’d spent more than a year trying to maintain some kind of contact with Annie, but she’d hung up on every call and refused to see him when he’d tried to arrange a visit. He knew some of that was out of loyalty to her mom, but a good bit more was her own disappointment and anger. For a few months now, she’d at least taken his calls, but the conversations still tended to be stilted and uninformative, nothing at all like the heart-to-hearts they used to have.

Since Dana Sue and Annie weren’t that eager to see him, Ronnie hadn’t set foot in Serenity again, coward that he was. But lately he’d been thinking more and more about going home. He wasn’t cut out for a vagabond’s life. He hated living in motel rooms and moving from place to place in search of work. He’d been on this last job for the better part of a year, but it still wasn’t the same as settling down. Even the freedom to make a play for a woman when he felt like it had worn thin. He figured there was a certain amount of irony in that.

The truth was, he missed being married, especially to Dana Sue, who’d stolen his heart when they were fifteen and hadn’t let loose of it yet. Why he hadn’t had the sense to realize that a couple of years back, before he’d done something so totally stupid, was beyond him.

Thanks to his recent talks with Annie, he knew his ex-wife hadn’t found someone else. Of course, that didn’t mean she’d take him back. If he did return to Serenity, he was going to have his work cut out for him trying to win her over, but maybe two years was long enough for her to have cooled down just a little. She might not pull a shotgun on him on sight. At least he hoped not. He knew for a fact she could hit a tin can at fifty feet. If she aimed for him, she wouldn’t miss.

And even if she hit him, as long as she didn’t hit anything vital, so what? He had it coming. And, hell, he thought with a grin, what was life without a little excitement and risk from time to time? He just needed an excuse to get his foot in the door. If winning Dana Sue back was meant to be, he figured one would come along sooner or later.

At quitting time, he climbed down off the roof, grabbed a bottle of water and took a long swallow, then doused himself with the rest of it.

Thanksgiving, he decided, with the first real anticipation he’d felt in two long years. If fate hadn’t handed him the right excuse by then, he was heading home and taking his chances.

Dana Sue and Maddie took their iced tea—unsweetened for Dana Sue, which was practically a crime in these parts—onto the shaded brick patio out back of The Corner Spa. At eight in the morning the air was still a reasonably pleasant seventy-five, but the humidity and bright sun promised a scorcher by day’s end. It would be another couple of months before that humidity loosened its grip on South Carolina, probably just in time for Thanksgiving.

Inside, a half dozen women were already working out, and a few more were in the café, having Dana Sue’s no-fat, high-fiber raisin bran muffins with bowls of fresh fruit.

“Where’s Helen?” Dana Sue asked when she and Maddie were settled.

“Taking a shower upstairs,” Maddie said. “She’s been here working out since before the doors opened.”

Dana Sue regarded her friend with disbelief. “Helen? Our Helen?”

“She had another appointment with Doc Marshall yesterday,” Maddie explained. “He read her the riot act about her blood pressure again. It’s way too high for a woman who’s only forty-one. He reminded her she was supposed to cut down on stress and get more exercise. So, for today at least, she’s determined to stick to her workout regimen.”

“Want to lay odds on how long it lasts this time?” Dana Sue said. “She was totally committed a couple of months ago, but then her caseload got heavy and she was back to working fourteen-hour days. There were a few weeks there when we didn’t even see her.”

“I know,” Maddie said. “She’s a type-A personality through and through. I’m not sure she can change. I’ve talked to her till I’m blue in the face, but she certainly isn’t listening to me.”

“Who won’t listen to you?” Helen asked, grabbing a chair and sitting.

“You, as a matter of fact,” Maddie said, without the slightest trace of guilt about talking behind Helen’s back.

“I’ve been in the gym for the last hour, haven’t I?” she grumbled, obviously guessing the topic. “What more do you want?”

“We want you to take better care of yourself,” Dana Sue said gently. “Not for one day or a week, but from here on out.”

Helen frowned. “Isn’t that the pot calling the kettle black?”

“Yes,” Dana Sue readily admitted. It was so much easier to tackle Helen’s health issues than her own or Annie’s.

“I’m not discussing this,” Helen said. “Doc Marshall gave me a piece of his mind. I took it to heart. End of story.”

Dana Sue exchanged a look with Maddie, but neither of them said a word. If they pushed any harder, Helen would only dig in her heels and start avoiding them. It would be just the excuse she needed to stay away from the gym entirely, even if she did have a major financial stake in the place.

Helen nodded in satisfaction at their silence. “Thank you. Now then, on a far more pleasant subject, I looked over the books last night,” she said. “Memberships are up.”

“Ten percent over last month,” Maddie confirmed. “Spa treatments have nearly doubled. And the café business has tripled. We’re running well ahead of the projections in our business plan.”

Dana Sue regarded her with surprise. “Really? Are we getting more café business at breakfast or lunch?”

“All day long,” Maddie said. “We have one group of women who come in three times a week at four o’clock to work out, then have tea. They’ve been begging me to ask you to come up with a low-calorie, low-fat scone for them. They all went to London together a couple of years ago and got hooked on afternoon tea. They keep telling me what a civilized tradition it is to have a late-afternoon snack with pleasant company and conversation.”

“Now there’s an idea,” Helen said thoughtfully. “Late afternoon is probably dead a lot of the time, right?”

“So far, and it’s worse now that school’s started again,” Maddie agreed.

“I suppose some women are picking up kids from school,” Helen suggested. “Others are at work or starting dinner preparations. An afternoon-workout-and-tea promotion might encourage a few more women who think a gym’s not for them to give us a try. It might appeal to some retirees, who think they don’t fit in with the younger crowd.”

“I like it!” Dana Sue said eagerly. “Maybe we could even add in a mother-daughter promotion. That might lure in some of the moms who do car pool. It would save them from going home and fixing some snack for the kids, or leaving the kids to grab a fistful of cookies or some junk food. We can staff the day care room so the little ones will be out of their hair, while moms and daughters work out together.”

Maddie and Helen exchanged a look.

“Are you thinking you and Annie could share something like that?” Maddie asked.

“Why not?” Dana Sue asked.

“Because, for one thing, afternoon must be the worst possible time for you to be away from the restaurant,” Maddie said realistically.

“I could make it work for an hour,” Dana Sue insisted. “It would just mean more prep work in the morning or letting Erik and Karen do a little more. She’s only been at the restaurant for a few weeks, but Karen’s turning into a very capable assistant. She picks up everything I tell her in no time. And, of course, Erik could run the place with one hand tied behind him. The only reason he doesn’t is out of deference to me.”

“Deference?” Helen inquired with a raised eyebrow. “Or fear for his life? I’ve got to say, I don’t see you relinquishing that much control. That kitchen is your domain. You flipped out when somebody moved the refrigerator two inches while you weren’t around. You claimed it threw off your stride when you were in a rush.”

“I’m not that much of a control freak,” Dana Sue said irritably.

“Oh, really? Since when?” Helen taunted.

“Okay, maybe I am, just like both of you,” she conceded. “But it would be worth the sacrifice if it meant getting my daughter back on track and the two of us communicating more.”

“I hate to say it, but I’m not sure I see a teenage girl wanting to spend time at a gym with her mother,” Maddie said.

“Even one who’s obsessed with her weight?” Dana Sue asked, disappointed, but trusting Maddie’s instincts when it came to her daughter. Both Maddie and Helen seemed better able to read Annie these days than she was. Maybe it was their objectivity.

“Especially then,” Maddie said. “This place is filled with mirrors, for one thing. People with body-image issues hate that. I’ve seen the way Annie shies away from looking in them whenever she stops by here.”

“Then what do I do?” Dana Sue demanded. “You talked to Cal and Ty, Maddie, and they both said Annie’s not eating, right? If she’s not eating at home and she’s not eating at school, then she has a problem. Am I supposed to let her starve herself before I do something?”

“Of course you can’t ignore what’s happening,” Maddie soothed. “But you have to be smart about it. You need real proof before you confront her.”

“Aside from her weight?” Dana Sue said. “I bet she doesn’t weigh ninety pounds. Her clothes just hang on her. Maybe I should take her back to Doc Marshall and let him deal with her. Maybe he could scare some sense into her.”

“Has he scared you?” Helen asked pointedly. Not waiting for an answer, she said, “No, because you’ve known him forever. All of us have known him forever. Heck, he used to give us lollipops. You don’t listen to him. I don’t listen to him.”

“Which is a whole other issue,” Maddie commented pointedly.

Helen shrugged off the warning. “Whatever. My point is that he’s a big ole teddy bear who smokes in secret and probably has high blood pressure, high cholesterol and all the other stuff he warns us about. Who’s going to take him seriously?”

Maddie frowned at her. “Just because he doesn’t intimidate you doesn’t mean he couldn’t get through to Annie. Unfortunately, though, he’d only be speculating about whether she has an eating disorder, the same way we are. We need some sort of proof so Dana Sue can confront her with real evidence Annie can’t possibly deny.”

“Such as?” Dana Sue asked, frustrated. “Isn’t the fact that she doesn’t touch any food I put in front of her evidence enough?”

“She’ll just claim she’s eating when you’re not around,” Maddie said. “She might even toss food down the garbage disposal to make you think she’s eaten it. I’m sure there are a lot of sneaky ways she can think of to reassure you, especially since you’re not always there at mealtime.”

“The scales don’t lie,” Dana Sue said. “Not that she’d let me get within ten feet of her when she’s weighing herself.”

Helen’s expression turned thoughtful. “Maybe we’re going about this all wrong. We’re focusing completely on Annie, which probably makes her feel as if she’s under a microscope.”

Maddie nodded slowly. “I think you have a point. Do you suppose Annie’s friends have eating disorders, as well?” she asked Dana Sue.

Dana Sue thought about that. She’d overheard some of them talking about dieting from time to time, but none were as painfully thin as Annie. To her they didn’t seem any more obsessed about their weight than Dana Sue or her friends were.

“Not that I’ve noticed,” she replied eventually. “Sarah Connors is around the house the most and she looks perfectly healthy. She and Annie talk about whatever fad diet is in the news, but Sarah eats the meals and snacks I fix for them. So do most of the others.”

“You’re sure of that?” Maddie asked.

“Well, I don’t stand over them every second and watch, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Maybe you should,” Helen countered.

“Are you crazy? Annie would flip out if I insisted on hanging out with her and her friends.”

“Goodness knows, we would have,” Maddie agreed. “But could you suggest a sleepover? Maybe order pizzas, have a ton of snacks available, and bake some brownies and see how they handle it? Just stick your head in from time to time to see who’s eating and who’s not?”

Dana Sue regarded her quizzically. “You want me to spy on them?”

“Okay, it sounds ridiculous,” Maddie admitted. “But it might give you some idea if this is just Annie’s problem or if she’s responding to peer pressure. And spying is a very underrated tool for parents. We need to know what’s going on with our kids. Period.”

“Okay, let’s say I buy that,” Dana Sue said. “What will I really find out? If the food’s gone, sure, then someone ate it. Or they flushed it down the toilet. Or they binged and purged. There’s more than one eating disorder, you know.”

“I agree with Maddie. I think it’s worth a shot,” Helen said. “What have you got to lose?”

Considering how little she knew about the eating habits of Annie’s friends, maybe it would give her some much-needed insight, Dana Sue decided. “I suppose it could work,” she conceded eventually. It might be a pretty flimsy lifeline, but she was desperate. She’d grab on to anything at this point.

Maddie beamed at her. “That’s the spirit. Now let’s talk about you.”

Dana Sue frowned. “No can do. I’ve got to go.”

“Not so fast,” Helen said, latching on to her arm until she sank back down in her seat. “What has Doc Marshall told you lately?”

“That I’m still borderline diabetic, that I need to exercise, watch what I eat and check my blood sugar on a regular basis,” she recited dutifully.

“And you’re doing all that?” Maddie pressed.

“Yes,” she said, though she didn’t look either of them in the eye.

“Really?” Helen’s skepticism was plain. “You must be using all this lovely, expensive exercise equipment we bought when I’m not around.” She glanced at Maddie. “Is that right? Is Dana Sue in here, say, midmorning? Midafternoon?”

“Maybe I’m sneaking in after the place is closed!” she snapped. “And I don’t know what gives you the right to question my exercise routine. Yours is no better.”

“Agreed,” Helen said at once. “Which is why I’ve come up with a suitable challenge for each of us.”

“This isn’t good,” Maddie mumbled.

Dana Sue grinned. “No kidding.”

“Okay, you two, I’m serious,” Helen said. “I think we should each write down our goals, whatever they are, and a plan for reaching them. Whichever one of us sticks to the plan and achieves the goal wins something spectacular, to be paid for by the other two.”

Maddie’s eyes immediately lit up. She’d always loved a competition. And she loved winning almost as much as Helen did. “Do we each get to pick out our own prize?”

Helen nodded. “Seems only fair, don’t you think?”

“Any price limit?” Dana Sue asked. “You’re the only one of us raking in big bucks.”

Helen grinned. “Which should be excellent motivation for each of you to want to beat me. However, I happen to know Sullivan’s is way ahead of your financial projections, and if this place continues at its current pace, your cries of ‘poor me’ won’t hold water. The Corner Spa is going to make us all rich. We deserve to splurge, and none of us is going to go bankrupt if we do. The profits from this place will see to that.” She turned to Maddie. “So, what’s your dream prize?”

“The sky’s really the limit?” she asked, looking thoughtful.

“Why not?” Helen said with a shrug. “The whole idea is to motivate ourselves to work at this. The promise of a new dress or a pair of shoes won’t cut it.”

“Then I think a trip to Hawaii for my first anniversary would be wonderful,” Maddie declared. “We probably couldn’t take it till spring break, but I’d be willing to wait for that.”

Helen made a note on her ever-present legal pad. “So, a first-class trip for two, or three counting the baby, since I can’t see your mother looking after an infant. She’s only recently adjusted to babysitting your other three and two of them are in their teens.”

“Yes, it would definitely be for three,” Maddie confirmed. “Cal would never agree to leave Jessica Lynn behind. He can barely make himself go out the door to work.”

Helen turned to Dana Sue. “How about you? Any dream vacations you’ve been denying yourself? A new car? A fancy new kitchen at home?”

“I spend all day in a fancy new kitchen at the restaurant,” Dana Sue said. “That’s enough stainless steel for me. And I think travel’s highly overrated.”

“Only because you got lost on our senior trip to Washington, D.C.,” Maddie teased. “No one’s ever let you live that down, and you haven’t left South Carolina since.”

“Okay, no kitchen, no travel,” Helen said. “What, then? Dream big.”

There was only one thing Dana Sue really wanted for herself. She wanted a man in her life, the right man, one who would respect her and treat her as if she was the best thing that had ever happened to him. And, in the deepest, darkest corner of her heart, she wanted that man to be Ronnie Sullivan. Unfortunately, as much as Helen and Maddie loved her, they couldn’t give her that. And as furious as they were with him, it wasn’t a fantasy they’d encourage, anyway.

“I know what she wants,” Maddie said quietly.

“What?” Helen asked.

Maddie’s eyes locked with Dana Sue’s. “She wants Ronnie back.”

“I most certainly do not,” she sputtered indignantly, out of habit or maybe self-defense or embarrassment. How shameful was it to still want a man she’d made such a huge production out of throwing out? “How could you even say such a thing, Maddie? You know what that man did to me. You were there to pick up the pieces. Ronnie Sullivan is the last thing I want. If I never see his sorry face again, it will be too soon.”

Her two best friends regarded her with knowing expressions.

“Emphatic,” Helen said.

“Too emphatic?” Maddie asked.

They both grinned, thoroughly pleased with themselves.

Dana Sue scowled. “Well, all I have to say is that if Ronnie Sullivan is your idea of a spectacular prize, then one of you take him. I don’t want him. And the prospect of having him back certainly wouldn’t motivate me to do anything except order a large pizza every single night for the rest of my life.”

“Maybe she means it, after all,” Maddie said, though she sounded doubtful.

“Okay, then, a spiffy little convertible,” Helen suggested. “Red, maybe?”

Dana Sue grinned, relieved to have the topic of Ronnie behind her. “Now you’re talking my language. And it better have a top-of-the-line stereo system, plus that navigational gizmo.”

“That’s definitely important,” Maddie agreed, “since you have absolutely no sense of direction—thus the problems you had on the senior trip.”

“Stop reminding me of that,” Dana Sue retorted good-naturedly. “I get where I’m going.”

“Eventually,” Helen commented.

“Okay, smarty-pants, what about you?” Dana Sue asked her. “What’s your big prize?”

“A shopping spree,” Helen said without any hesitation.

“Was there ever any doubt?” Maddie asked wryly.

Helen scowled at her. “In Paris,” she added.

“All right!” Maddie said enthusiastically. “And we all get to go.”

Dana Sue laughed. “I’m liking this more and more. Now I almost don’t care if Helen wins.”

“No fair,” Helen said. “You have to promise to really try to win your own prize.”

“When does this contest start?” Maddie asked.

“As soon as we set our goals,” Helen said. “And they need to be meaningful goals, ambitious but attainable, okay? Shall we meet same time tomorrow to share them and decide how long we have to attain them?”

“I’m in,” Maddie said.

Dana Sue thought of the nifty little red sports car she’d seen the last time she and Annie had gone to Charleston. It had reminded her of a car Ronnie had had a long time ago, before they’d gotten married, long before things between them had gone so terribly wrong.

“Me, too,” she said at once.

Maybe she’d never be thin and willowy again, but perhaps she could recapture that carefree, confident feeling she’d had at eighteen, when everything was right with her world. And maybe if she felt better about herself, she could find a way to teach Annie how to do the same thing.

3

Any thought of goal-setting flew out the window that night when a grease fire started in the kitchen in the middle of the dinner rush.

As soon as Karen shrieked, “Fire!” Erik grabbed an extinguisher and started spraying. Meanwhile, Karen raced for a phone and dialed 911, even though the small blaze was already mostly contained.

Assured that Erik had things under control in the kitchen, Dana Sue headed into the dining room to soothe the rattled patrons, then went outside to the patio to explain to customers there and to await the arrival of the firemen, whom she hoped to prevent from dragging their hoses through the restaurant. Thanks to Erik’s quick reaction, there was no need for all those men and their equipment to plow through the place. In fact, by the time the volunteer firefighters arrived on the scene, there was little evidence of the blaze beyond frayed nerves, the lingering scent of smoke and the mess in the immediate vicinity of the greasy pan that had caught on fire.

Though she wouldn’t really be able to tell until morning, it appeared there’d been no smoke damage at all to the dining room, with its pale-peach walls and dark-green trim. A trip to the laundry would take care of any lingering scent in the tablecloths and napkins.

“It was my fault. I am so sorry,” Karen said for at least the tenth time after the fire chief had signed off and let them get back to business.

A struggling single mom in her midtwenties, Karen had tears streaming down her pale cheeks. She’d been a short-order cook at a local diner when Dana Sue discovered her. Seeing the waste of cooking talent, Dana Sue had offered to train her to handle the high-quality meals at Sullivan’s.

“I just turned away for a second,” Karen said. “I didn’t realize the flame was so high. Then I panicked. I’ve never done anything like this before, I swear it.”

“Hey, it’s nothing,” Dana Sue reassured her. “It’s happened to all of us, right, Erik? There was no real harm done.”

“I’ve never had a grease fire,” Erik said, “but I’ve burned my share of pies and cakes and smoked up the kitchen.”

“I’ll stay late and clean up,” Karen offered. “By the time you come in tomorrow, you won’t even know it happened.”

“We’ll all pitch in,” Dana Sue corrected. “We’re a team. Now let’s get back to work before all our customers stage a rebellion.”

“I need to do something,” Karen insisted. “Let me buy a glass of wine for every customer. It’ll take me a while to pay for them, but it’s the least I can do.”

“It’s already done,” Dana Sue told her, “and you’re not paying. The money comes out of our PR budget. Now, cook. We have ten backed-up orders for the grilled salmon, three for the pork chops and five for the fried catfish. Let’s go, people.”

The teamwork on which Dana Sue and her staff prided themselves kicked back into high gear. By nine o’clock all the customers had been fed and most were lingering over coffee and one of Erik’s desserts.

As Dana Sue made the rounds of the tables in the dining room, almost everyone commented on the delicious meal, but most were eager to congratulate her on the way her staff had dealt with the crisis.

“If I hadn’t heard the sirens and seen the firemen myself, I’d never have guessed you had a fire in the kitchen,” the mayor told her. “You handled yourself really well, Dana Sue.”

“Thank you,” she said, surprised. She and Howard Lewis hadn’t always seen eye to eye, particularly during the controversy over Maddie’s relationship with the much-younger Cal Maddox. Now that the two were respectably married, apparently the mayor had forgotten all about the old animosity. Either that or his desire for a good meal had overcome his disapproval of her association with Maddie and Cal.

“Well, of course she handled the crisis just fine,” Hamilton Rogers, chairman of the school board, said. “Those Sweet Magnolias always knew how to wriggle out of a tight spot.” He winked at Dana Sue. “It was a trait they certainly needed growing up.”

Dana Sue laughed. “We certainly did.”

“Just how many times did you and Ronnie get caught trying to play hooky?” Hamilton asked.

Dana Sue gave him her most innocent look. “Why, I don’t believe we ever got caught doing such a thing,” she said.

The school board chairman chuckled. “You can admit it now, Dana Sue. We won’t take away your diploma.”

She shook her head. “Still not talking.”

“Well, you definitely added a little excitement to our meal tonight,” the mayor said. “Things have been a little too quiet in Serenity lately.”

After the last of the customers was gone, Dana Sue joined her staff in the kitchen to do the cleanup. In two hours every surface was spotless, every inch of steel gleaming. Under even the best of circumstances, she was a fanatic about Sullivan’s kitchen being ready for a health department inspection. She’d been doubly exacting tonight. By the time she finally got home, she was exhausted.

Spotting a light on in Annie’s room, she tapped on the door. “Sweetie, you still awake?”

Annie glanced up from her computer and blinked, then looked at her clock. “Mom, where have you been? It’s late. And you smell like smoke again. What did you burn this time?”

“We had a grease fire tonight. It turned out to be nothing, but it created quite a mess in the kitchen.”

Annie’s eyes widened in alarm. “You’re okay? You’re sure? Why didn’t you call me? I would have come in to help you clean up.”

Dana Sue heard the worry in her daughter’s voice. Annie knew that any calamity at Sullivan’s could turn their world upside down yet again, so Dana Sue sought to reassure her. “I know you would have, but Erik, Karen and I were able to handle it. Besides, it’s a school night. I’m sure you had homework.”

“Some,” Annie agreed.

“Did you get something to eat?”

“Mom!” Annie protested, immediately on the defensive.

“It was just a question,” Dana Sue said, her own hackles rising. “You didn’t stop by the restaurant after school, so I wondered if you’d fixed something here.”

“No, Sarah and I went to Wharton’s with some other kids, just to hang out,” Annie told her in a calmer tone.

Dana Sue relaxed and grinned. She perched on the edge of the bed, hoping for the kind of girl talk she and Annie had once shared. “I remember doing that when I was your age. I’ll bet not a day went by that Maddie, Helen and I weren’t there, along with whomever we were dating at the time.”

“You were always with Dad, though, weren’t you?” Annie said, then hesitated, as if trying to gauge her mother’s reaction. When Dana Sue said nothing, she continued, “I mean, you guys were a couple when you were younger than me, right?”

Dana Sue nodded, lost for a second in the good memories. There had been a lot of them, but she’d buried most under the anger she’d needed just to keep going after Ronnie left.

“Dad was a hunk, huh?”

“He was,” Dana Sue admitted. “The first time I saw him, after he and his family moved here from North Carolina, I thought he was the sexiest boy I’d ever seen. He had danger written all over him, from his coal-black, too-long hair to his leather jacket.”

“Was that the only reason you liked him?” Annie asked. “Because he was so sexy-looking?”

“No, of course not,” Dana Sue said nobly. “He was sweet and smart and funny, too.”

Her daughter grinned. “I always thought it was because every other girl in school wanted him and you wanted to prove you could get him.”

Dana Sue laughed. “Did your father tell you that?”

“Nope. Maddie did. She said you were so single-minded when it came to getting Dad to notice you.”

“Yeah, I probably was,” Dana Sue confessed. “He was the first boy who wouldn’t even give me a second look. Naturally, that made him an irresistible challenge. And I knew he would make my folks a little crazy.” She leaned closer and confided, “He had a tattoo, you know.”

Annie giggled. “Maddie said he gave you a tough time on purpose, because if he’d made it easy, you’d have lost interest.”

Dana Sue thought back and tried to imagine losing interest in Ronnie. She couldn’t. Her feelings for him had been all-consuming for a long time. Not even nearly eighteen years of marriage had turned down the heat between them. An affair and two years of separation had only driven her to bury the attraction.

“I don’t know,” she told Annie. “I fell pretty hard, pretty fast.”

“And you never regretted it, did you?” her daughter asked. “I mean, not till the end, when he was with that other woman.”

Dana Sue didn’t like even thinking about the day she’d found out about Ronnie’s affair, much less reminiscing about it, but it was evident that Annie had been wanting to ask these questions for a long time. It was as if she’d been saving them up for the right moment. It was also evident she’d been turning to Maddie to find some of the answers she wanted. Dana Sue felt incredibly guilty that Annie hadn’t been able to ask her own mother for the details of her parents’ courtship.

“No, until the day he cheated on me—or the day I found out about it, anyway—I never regretted a single second with your dad.” She felt Annie deserved total honesty, not an answer colored by far more recent bitterness and resentment.

“So, he made, like, this one huge mistake and that was it?” Annie said, frowning. “None of the rest mattered anymore?”

“That’s the way I saw it,” Dana Sue said. “Some betrayals are just too huge.”

“Do you still feel that way?”

Dana Sue regarded her daughter with a puzzled look. “Why do you ask?”

“I just wondered how you’d feel if Dad came back to town. Could you forgive him now?”

It was the second time in one day that people Dana Sue loved had suggested it might be time for her to get over the past and move on, maybe even with that scum-of-the-earth, cheating ex of hers. She told herself that could only happen if she let her heart—or her hormones—overrule her head. Once Burned, Twice Shy was her motto.

“Sorry, baby. I know you’d like that, but it’s not going to happen,” she said. “When you’re a little older and have fallen in love, maybe you’ll understand why some things are simply unforgivable.”

Before Annie could press her on it, she stood up. “You need to get some sleep, young lady. So do I.”

She brushed a kiss across Annie’s forehead. “Lights out, okay?”

To her surprise, her daughter’s arms came around her waist. “I love you, Mom.”

“Oh, sweetie, I love you, too,” Dana Sue whispered, tears in her eyes. “And wherever he is, I know your dad loves you, as well. More than anything.”

“I know,” Annie said with a sniff. “Sometimes, I just wish he was here, you know?”

Dana Sue bit back a sigh. “Yeah,” she admitted. “I do know.”

There were times when she felt as if someone had carved out her heart and left her aching and empty inside. But that feeling paled compared to the anger she’d felt when she’d found out about his fling with some woman whose name he didn’t even remember. Weighing the two emotions and adding in a healthy dose of pride, she’d had only one choice. Maybe someday she would even get used to living with it.

The phone rang, waking Dana Sue from a sound sleep. She slapped at the alarm, blaming it for the offending noise. When the shrill ringing continued, she fumbled for the phone.

“Where are you?” Helen demanded. “It’s eight-thirty. Maddie and I have been waiting for half an hour.”

Dana Sue sat up in bed and rubbed her eyes. “Why?” she mumbled.

“Our challenge,” Helen reminded her. “Our goals.”

“I don’t have any, except to go back to sleep,” Dana Sue muttered, and hung up.

Of course, the phone immediately rang again. “Get up. We’re on our way over,” Helen said crisply. “You have ten minutes to get the coffee brewing. You might want to squeeze in a shower, too. You sound like you could use a cold one to kick-start your brain.”

This time when Dana Sue slammed the phone back in its cradle, she resigned herself to getting up. Helen had a key and wasn’t afraid to use it. Nor would she hesitate to toss Dana Sue into that icy shower herself. Bossy woman!

She didn’t bother with putting a robe on over her oversize Carolina Panthers T-shirt, one of the few things of Ronnie’s she’d kept. She’d told herself she’d simply forgotten to add it to the pile of his clothing she’d stuffed haphazardly into suitcases and tossed onto the front lawn, but the truth was she’d slept in it for a long time after he’d gone because his scent had clung to it. Many washings later that was no longer the case, but some sentiment she didn’t care to identify kept her wearing it every night.

She padded into the kitchen and put on the coffee, then went into the bathroom and brushed her teeth and splashed water on her face. She’d barely made it back to the kitchen when the back door opened and Helen and Maddie strolled in.

“Shouldn’t you both be working?” Dana Sue inquired testily.

“We should be,” Helen agreed. “But we had an important appointment with our third partner at eight o’clock this morning. We thought finding out why you didn’t show up took precedence over work.” She wrinkled her nose. “And why does it smell like smoke in here?”

Dana Sue winced. “Actually, that’s me. We had a little grease fire in the kitchen at the restaurant. No big deal, but I was there late, cleaning up the mess. I haven’t had a chance to take a shower and wash my hair.”

“You had a fire?” Maddie looked dismayed. “Why didn’t you call us?”

“Before or after we called the fire department?” Dana Sue said. “Or perhaps you two have become volunteer firefighters without telling me.”

“Why didn’t you call us later?” Maddie asked. “We could have helped you clean up.”

“My staff did that,” Dana Sue said. “And before you ask, I have not even had time to think about my goals or my action plan.”

“Not a problem,” Helen said briskly. She got out cups and poured coffee for all of them. “We’ll help.”

“But this is supposed to be my goal and my action plan,” Dana Sue protested.

Helen gave her a chiding look. “Surely you don’t mind a little input from the two people who know you best.”

“Do I get to critique your plans?” Dana Sue asked suspiciously.

“Absolutely.” Maddie nodded.

At the exact same moment, Helen said, “No.”

Dana Sue grinned. “I thought so. In that case, Maddie, you can help with mine. Helen, keep your mouth shut.”

Maddie laughed. “You are such a dreamer. Don’t you remember? Helen is the biggest control freak of us all.”

“Which is exactly why I want her to butt out,” Dana Sue said.

“This whole challenge was my idea,” Helen reminded them. “That gives me the right to butt in.” She whipped a legal pad out of her briefcase. “Now tell me what your primary goal is, Dana Sue. Losing weight? Keeping your blood sugar in check?”

“Getting you out of my kitchen so I can get ready to go to work,” she countered. “As you noted when you called here, I’m running late. I can’t send all my customers to McDonald’s just because you’ve set some deadline for getting this challenge of ours under way. Why are you in such a rush, anyway? It’s not as if we haven’t needed health goals for ourselves for months now.”

Helen flushed guiltily. “I promised Doc Marshall I would give him a concrete plan by next week with proof I’m sticking to it, so he wouldn’t insist on starting me on medication to bring down my blood pressure. I figured sworn affidavits from the two of you would do the trick. He’s a little jaded where I’m concerned these days, but he trusts you two.” She grinned at Dana Sue. “Well, Maddie, anyway.”

“It might be more effective if you actually got your blood pressure down a little bit,” Maddie commented wryly. “Have you considered, oh, taking a day off, perhaps? Having a relaxing massage at the spa? Trying a little meditation?”

“How can I do any of that?” Helen demanded. “I have two trials scheduled this month. Should I just hand my clients a note from my doctor, then tell them I’m not prepared because I needed a day off?”

“You know, I was reading about exactly that kind of thing the other day,” Maddie said. “It was about the whole concept of the Sabbath, not necessarily in a religious context, but just in terms of people needing more than ever to take time for themselves to reflect and relax. Remember when we were kids and no one did anything on Sunday except go to church and hang out with family and friends? Now it’s just another day to be crammed with things to do from morning to night. No wonder we never feel refreshed.”

“Maddie’s exactly right,” Dana Sue said. “Your mind would probably be a lot clearer and sharper, Helen, if you gave it a break once in a while.” She pointed at the legal pad. “Write that down. It needs to be one of your goals.”

“We were not discussing my goals,” Helen said.

“Actually, we were,” Maddie stated. “And your need to have them so Doc Marshall will let you off the hook. You want testimony from the two of us, you better write down ‘one day a week of actual relaxation’ and stick to it.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she grumbled, but jotted it down.

“Very good,” Dana Sue said. “Now I really do have to get ready for work, you guys. I promise I’ll work on my goals today and we can compare notes tomorrow, okay?”

“I suppose it will have to do,” Helen said reluctantly. “I’m due at the office in a few minutes myself. I have a new client coming in for a consultation.”

Dana Sue walked the two of them to the door. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning,” she promised.

They’d already stepped outside when Maddie turned back. “I don’t suppose you had time to talk to Annie about a sleepover, did you?”

“No, but last night we did have one of the best conversations we’ve had in a long time. I’ll bring up the sleepover thing when I see her tonight.”

“Don’t put it off,” Maddie stressed.

“I won’t.” Not only was it important, but as Dana Sue already knew, her two best friends would hound her until she did it. It would be easier just to get it over with.

“Mom, that is so lame,” Annie declared when her mother came up with this crazy sleepover idea. “I mean, how old do you think I am—six?”

“When I was your age, girls got together all the time. We ate pizza and popcorn, experimented with makeup and talked about boys.”

“You and Maddie and Helen?” Annie guessed.

“And a few others,” her mom said. “It was fun.”

“What about boys?” Annie asked.

“We talked about them,” her mother said, looking faintly puzzled.

“I mean, could I have boys over, too?”

“You mean for a couple of hours?” her mother asked.

“No, for the whole sleepover. We’d play music, dance, whatever. It would be really cool.”

“Not a chance! Not under my roof, anyway,” her mom said, as if Annie had suggested some kind of orgy or something. “Are you crazy? That’s just asking for trouble.”

“Mom, it’s not like we’d do anything. You’d be right here.”

“I don’t care. It’s a terrible idea. I can’t imagine the other parents would go along with it.”

Annie studied her mother speculatively. Ever since her dad had left, her mom could be talked into a lot of things if Annie played her cards right. “What if the other parents said okay?” she coaxed. “Would you let us do it then?”

“Absolutely not,” her mother said, holding firm.

“Then forget it! I don’t want to spend the night with a bunch of girls. Like I said, it’s totally lame.”

Now it was her mother’s turn to give her an odd, curious look. “When you went to Sarah’s a couple of weeks ago, were there boys there that night?”

Oops! Annie thought. No one was supposed to find out about that. No parents, anyway. “Of course not,” she lied.

“I will find out if you’re not telling me the truth,” her mother warned.

Annie just rolled her eyes. Her mom was clueless. There were at least a dozen things she’d done that her mom would flip out about if she ever found out about them.

“Don’t give me that look,” her mother said. “I can make a few calls and your goose will be cooked.”

“Not likely,” Annie said. She couldn’t think of a single soul who’d blab. Just in case, though, she probably ought to get her mother off on another track. “Maybe having Sarah over would be okay. And Raylene,” she added. “But that’s it.”

“Friday night,” her mom suggested, looking pleased. “And if you decide to ask a few more girls, it would be okay.”

Perfect, Annie thought. Her mom never got home from the restaurant before midnight on Fridays and Saturdays. If the guys stopped by, she just had to get them out the door by eleven forty-five. And if she could convince Ty to be one of those guys, even if she got caught, maybe her mom would think of Ty as a chaperone or something. Even though Annie didn’t think of him that way, her mom always said she was lucky to have him as kind of a surrogate big brother. As if, Annie thought.

She gave her mother an impulsive hug, noting once again that she’d probably gained another five pounds just since she’d opened the spa with Maddie and Helen. It wasn’t a very good recommendation for the place, in Annie’s opinion.

“Mom, I thought you were going on a diet,” she said accusingly.

“I am on a diet, but at my age it’s harder to lose weight,” her mom said, immediately on the defensive, which was where Annie liked her to be.

“I thought that’s why you guys opened that gym, so you could exercise and kick your metabolism back into gear. I’ll bet you don’t even spend ten minutes a day on the treadmill there, do you?”

“I do when I can,” she responded, her expression tense.

“Well, if you don’t lose it, you’re going to get sick and die like Grandma,” Annie said. “And I will not go and live with Dad.” She said it matter-of-factly, but the truth was the possibility terrified her—not of getting to be with her dad, but of her mom dying.

“I don’t think you need to worry about that,” she answered. “I have no intention of dying anytime soon, and we don’t even know where your father is.”

“I know,” Annie blurted without thinking. “He’s working down in Beaufort and living in some dump.”

Her mom looked stunned. “How do you know that? He sends his support checks through his attorney.”

Seeing the dismay on her mother’s face, Annie immediately felt guilty for keeping her dad’s calls a secret. “He’s phoned once or twice,” she admitted, unwilling to say it had been that many times just in the past couple of weeks. It wasn’t like her mom had ever said she couldn’t talk to him, or even see him if she wanted to. But initially Annie had made such a big deal about not taking his calls or visiting him that she hadn’t wanted to admit it when she’d finally started talking to him. It would have felt as if she were betraying her mom.

“When?”

“While you’re at work. He calls me on my cell phone, mostly.”

“I see,” her mother said, looking suddenly weary.

Annie could tell she wanted to say more, but she just turned and left the room…probably to get something to eat, if Annie knew anything about her. That was exactly why Annie had kept the calls a secret.

“I swear to God, if I could have gotten my hands on Ronnie right that second, I would have strangled him on the spot,” Dana Sue declared to Maddie the next morning in the gym. “I know I’m being ridiculous, that Annie has a right to talk to her dad, but I know he talked her into keeping it a secret.”

“Are you sure about that?” Maddie asked. “Maybe Annie was afraid it would hurt you to know they were talking again.”

Dana Sue scowled. “So now my own daughter’s afraid to be honest with me? Isn’t that great. Just one more giant gap between us. And before you ask, no, I have not set my goals. I was too furious to sit down and think about it last night, and I came straight here first thing this morning. You might as well call Helen and tell her, because I’m not up to her bullying me about it.”

“You need to work off some of that anger,” Maddie said, her tone soothing. “Why don’t you tell me the rest while we walk on the treadmills?”

“I hate the damn treadmill!” Dana Sue snapped. “I’m getting a blueberry muffin. I’ll be out on the patio when you finish being noble.”

Maddie merely sighed. “I’ll come with you.”

After they were seated, Dana Sue picked the blueberries out of the muffin and ate them, managing to leave most of the muffin on the plate. “I know I have no business eating this stuff, so don’t even say it,” she muttered.

“Not saying a word,” Maddie responded mildly.

Dana Sue pushed the plate away. “It’s been two damn years,” she said heatedly. “How can the mere mention of that man still get me so worked up?”

“Do you want an honest answer or was that a rhetorical question?” Maddie asked.

“An honest answer, please.”

“You’re still in love with him.”

“Don’t be absurd!”

Maddie shrugged. “You asked for honesty. Try being honest with yourself. And to be brutally honest, I’d say your reaction last night was just plain jealousy.”

Dana Sue stared at her friend incredulously. “You think I was jealous that my daughter has been talking to Ronnie?”

“Weren’t you?”

She bit back her inclination to snap out a denial, then frowned at Maddie. “You know me too damn well.”

Maddie grinned. “Yes, I do.” She studied Dana Sue for a moment. “What are you going to do about it?”

“Nothing. Are you nuts? The man cheated on me. I wouldn’t let him back into my life if he crawled on his knees.”

“Yeah, right,” Maddie murmured, her skepticism plain.

“I have my pride,” Dana Sue added.

“In spades,” she concurred.

“Well, then, you know I mean what I say.”

“I know you want to mean it,” Maddie said. “But if Ronnie Sullivan walked through that door right now, looking all sexy and sassy the way he always did, I wouldn’t want to bet against him.”

Unfortunately, if she was being totally honest, neither would Dana Sue. Fortunately, she doubted she’d ever be put to that test. If Ronnie had even half a grain of sense left in that handsome head of his, he’d never set foot in Serenity again.

Of course, if he’d loved her the way he’d claimed to, he never would have cheated on her. And—this was the kicker she always came back to—he would have stayed and fought for her. Sure, she’d made it plain she didn’t want him here. She’d even had Helen lay down all sorts of ground rules about his having only limited contact with Annie, which the idiot had actually agreed to. He should have known she was reacting in the heat of the moment, making outrageous demands because she was hurt. He knew her better than anyone, even better than Maddie or Helen, which was saying something. He knew she blew sky-high when her temper kicked in, then simmered for a while, then cooled down. But he’d gone anyway. He hadn’t waited around to see if she’d give him a second chance. That had told her all she really needed to know. He’d wanted to go. That was the bottom line.

She’d never admit it to a living, breathing soul, but that was what had hurt more than anything—Ronnie hadn’t loved her enough to stay. And that was his most unforgivable sin of all.

4

Ronnie was sitting in some dive of a bar with Toby Keith in the background singing a song about a “Dear John” note. Every time the singer repeated in a low, sad tone, “She’s gone,” Ronnie thought of Dana Sue. She was gone, all right, and he still didn’t have the first clue about how to win her back. He’d spent two years pondering the problem and, beyond his decision to do something by Thanksgiving, he was no closer to an action plan now than he’d been on the day he’d left Serenity.

Funny that twenty-seven years ago, when his family had moved to Serenity, he’d seen exactly what he needed to do to win Dana Sue’s heart. Even at fourteen he’d noticed how the boys swarmed around her, drawn not only to her long legs and developing chest, but to her easy temperament and laughter. He’d also realized that the only way to stand out from the crowd would be to feign indifference. Sure enough, that had caught her attention. He hadn’t pursued Dana Sue. She’d come after him. He wondered if that technique would work again.

Probably not, he concluded sadly. He’d been gone two years, and as near as he could tell, she wasn’t pining for him. She certainly hadn’t chased after him.

As he continued pondering a strategy, a thirty something woman wearing tight jeans, a low-cut tank top and spike heels slid onto the stool next to him. Her black hair was long and straight and her lipstick was as red as her tank top. She was a stark contrast to Dana Sue’s leggy, wholesome appearance. Most men would have found her sexy, but to Ronnie she was simply trying too hard.

“Hey, sugar, you look like you could use some company,” she said in a low purr that should have set his pulse racing.

He met her gaze, took a long, slow sip of his beer and tried to work up some enthusiasm for whatever she was offering. But pretty as she was, she wasn’t the woman he wanted.

Still, he forced a smile out of sheer habit. “Buy you a drink?”

“Sure,” she said. “A light beer.”

He beckoned the bartender over and placed the order, then swirled his own beer around in the glass, wondering why not one of the women who’d come on to him since his divorce had held any appeal. Maybe what he should have been asking himself was why one woman had managed to sneak through his defenses back when he’d still been very much married. To his everlasting regret, he couldn’t even remember what she’d looked like, or any highlight of their conversation.

“You want to talk about it?” his companion inquired, taking a sip of her beer. “My name’s Linda, by the way. Folks say I’m a real good listener.” She leaned in closer. “Among other things.”

Ronnie gave her another speculative once-over, but the attraction just wasn’t there for him.

“Come on,” she prodded. “Every man has a story he’s just dying to tell.”

“Not me,” he insisted.

“Broken heart, then,” she concluded. “Men hate talking about being dumped.”

“The broken heart wasn’t mine,” he corrected, then thought about it. In the end, his heart had been just as shattered as Dana Sue’s, and he’d had a load of guilt to go along with it.

“What did you do?” Linda asked. “Sleep around on her?”

“Something like that,” he admitted.

“Then I imagine you’ll do it again. Men always do.”

“Is that so?”

“In my experience, anyway.”

Amused by her world-weary attempt at wisdom, he said, “Then you must have real bad taste in men.”

She laughed. “Says the guy I’ve been coming on to for the past five minutes.”

“Like I said, bad taste,” he agreed. “But your luck’s about to change, because I’m going to do you a favor and take off.” He put some bills on the bar, then met her disappointed gaze. “And just so you know, if I ever convince my ex-wife to take me back, she’ll have nothing to worry about. I learned my lesson. She’s the only one for me.”

“You gonna try to sell me some of that swamp land east of here next?”

“Nope. I’m just gonna wish you better luck with the next guy who comes along,” he said, and walked away.

“I wonder if this ex of yours knows she’s a lucky woman,” she called after him.

Ronnie chuckled at that. “I most seriously doubt it, unless she considers herself damn lucky that I’m gone.”

“Then she’s a fool,” his new friend said.

Ronnie shook his head. “No,” he said in an undertone not meant to be heard, “that was me.”

And sometime in the next couple of months, he was going to try to convince Dana Sue of that.

Back in his dingy room at the motel his boss had made a deal with for the out-of-town construction crew, Ronnie checked the time, figured Dana Sue would still be at the restaurant and called Annie on her cell phone. After the first few months of sounding either angry or distant or both, she’d finally let down her guard. They’d almost recaptured the closeness they’d once shared. He treasured these calls and he was pretty sure Annie did, too. He missed his daughter as much as he missed Dana Sue. The months when Annie had frozen him out had taken a real toll on him, but he’d kept calling.

“Dad!” she said eagerly, sounding like her old self. “How are you?”

“I’m good,” he lied, then listened to the loud background noise on Annie’s end of the line. “Where are you, baby? It sounds like you’re at a party.”

“Wait a sec. I’ll go in the other room so I can hear you,” she said.

It was suddenly quiet on the other end of the line. “Where are you?” Ronnie asked again.

“At home. I have a few friends over.”

Ronnie might not be in line for any parent-of-the-year awards, but that didn’t sound good. “Isn’t your mom at work?” he asked.

Annie hesitated for a long moment, then said, “Yes, but she said I could have a sleepover tonight. In fact, it was her idea.”

“That’s great,” he enthused, but a vague suspicion that Annie was bending the truth continued to nag at him. He finally put his finger on it and asked, “Didn’t I hear some male voices?”

“Must have been the music,” she said glibly. “How are you, Dad?”

“I’m fine, and don’t try to change the subject, young lady. I seriously doubt your mother would be happy that there are boys over when she’s not there.”

“Ty’s here,” she said excitedly. “You always liked him.”

“Of course I did, but not at home with my daughter and her friends when there’s no adult in the house,” Ronnie said. “Is he the only guy there?”

“No,” she admitted.

“Sweetie, you know that’s not a good idea. Does your mom know about the boys coming by?”

The long silence that greeted the question pretty much answered it. He let it go on, knowing that Annie was incapable of lying to him. She might avoid the truth, but she wouldn’t outright lie.

Eventually she asked, “Are you gonna call Mom and tell her?”

Though she’d tried to sound meek, Ronnie heard the knowing tone in her voice and figured she was counting on him not to do that. He debated surprising her by making the call, but he doubted Dana Sue would be happy about the news or about his being the messenger. Maybe he could settle this himself and save them both a lot of grief.

“You have them out of there in the next five minutes and it’ll be our secret,” he told Annie. “Deal?”

“But, Dad—”

“That’s the deal. Take it or leave it.”

“How will you even know if they’re still here?”

“I suppose I won’t know for sure. But I’m trusting you to keep your word. You going to give it to me, or do I call your mom?”

“I should go ahead and let you call her,” Annie said. “At least it would get the two of you talking again.”

“Okay with me,” he said. “What’s it going to be, kiddo?”

Again, he let the silence build, knowing she was struggling with herself over doing the right thing.

“I’ll tell the boys they have to leave,” she finally said grudgingly. “But we weren’t doing anything wrong, Dad. I swear it. You know Ty always looks out for me. He would never let things get out of control.”

“You had them over without your mom’s permission,” Ronnie said. “You were doing something wrong the second you let them in the door.”

“When did you get so strict?” she grumbled.

“Last five minutes,” he replied, chuckling. “Up till now, you never gave me any reason to think I needed to be strict.”

“If you came home, you’d know what I was up to all the time,” she said.

“I imagine you’d see that as a mixed blessing in no time at all,” he responded.

“Probably,” she admitted, then added, “But it would be worth it, Daddy. I miss you.”

“I miss you, too, angel. Now, go send those boys packing. Then you and your girlfriends can talk about them all night long, the way you did when you were a few years younger.”

“Did you and Mom actually listen to us?” Annie asked indignantly.

“Never,” he said piously. “We just interpreted the giggles coming from your room. Those were a dead giveaway, at least to your mom. Don’t forget, she was your age once. There’s not much you could do or think that she didn’t do before you, including breaking the rules.”

“That’s what you think,” Annie muttered.

“What?” he said sharply, not liking her tone.

“I love you, Daddy.”

He sighed and let it go. Long-distance parenting pretty much sucked. “Love you, too, baby. Take care of yourself and give your mom a hug. Just don’t tell her it’s from me.”

“I wish things were different,” Annie said wistfully. “I wish they could go back to the way they were.”

“Me, too. Now, go shoo those boys out before your mom catches them there and we both end up in hot water.”

“’Night, Daddy.”

“’Night, angel.”

Ronnie clung to the phone for a long time after Annie had hung up. She was growing up so fast and he was missing it. Maybe it was his own fault. Maybe he even deserved to be shut out of Annie’s life. According to Helen, Dana Sue had wanted him gone completely from both their lives, but he’d balked at that. He’d demanded visitation rights. What he hadn’t guessed was how hard it would be to get Annie to go along with them. His teenage daughter was every bit as stubborn as her mom, but she, at least, was mellowing.

He realized now what he should have seen two years ago. He didn’t have to let things be that way forever. Dana Sue might not be happy about him moving back to town, but she’d just have to get over it if he and Annie wanted to reestablish their relationship. And while he might not know that much about teenage girls, he knew a whole lot about teenage boys. Annie could use a dad around to keep her from making the kind of mistakes that could ruin her life.

Once again, he resolved to figure out some way to go back to Serenity before he missed out on even more memories.

Dana Sue was ninety percent certain that the car pulling away from her house as she drove up was filled with teenage boys. Cursing under her breath, she turned into the driveway. It was a good thing she’d decided to leave the restaurant half an hour earlier than usual. She was sure Annie must have calculated the boys’ departure based on her usual time for getting home.

When she walked into the kitchen, Sarah regarded her with a startled expression that bore a trace of guilt. With her basic honesty and pale, freckled complexion, she lied poorly and blushed easily. Her cheeks were a telltale rosy pink right now.

“Hi, Mrs. Sullivan,” she said with obviously forced cheer. “Great party. Thanks for letting us stay over.”

“Anytime,” Dana Sue said. “I’m glad Annie decided to make it a big party, instead of just asking you and Raylene. Everyone having fun?”

“Absolutely. We all brought over some CDs and we’ve been dancing. We’ll probably watch a DVD after a while. Annie says you guys have a whole bunch of chick flicks.”

“Our favorites,” Dana Sue confirmed. “Is there enough food?”

“Plenty,” Sarah confirmed. “I can’t remember the last time I stuffed myself with pizza, and those brownies you brought home from the restaurant are fabulous. I’ve had two.”

Dana Sue fought the urge to ask whether Annie had indulged in either the pizza or the brownies. Sarah took it out of her hands.

“You want to know if Annie’s had any, don’t you?” she asked.

Dana Sue nodded. “You know why it matters, don’t you, Sarah? If it weren’t so important, I would never ask you to rat on her. I’m afraid she’s in real trouble.”

“I know. I worry about her, too,” Sarah admitted in a low voice. “I think she’s—”

“Sarah, what’s taking so long?” Annie called out, walking into the kitchen. When she spotted the two of them together, her eyes immediately narrowed in suspicion. “Hi, Mom. You’re early. How come?”

“Erik said he could handle things, so I decided to make an early night of it,” Dana Sue said, disappointed that Annie’s untimely interruption had kept Sarah from answering her question. She forced a smile. “Having fun, baby?”

“We’re having a great time, aren’t we, Sarah?”

“The best,” she confirmed, avoiding Dana Sue’s eyes.

“You’re not going to hang out with us, are you?” Annie demanded.

“Of course not,” Dana Sue said, noting her daughter’s flushed cheeks and wondering if that was due to excitement or guilt about the boys who’d been there. “I’m heading upstairs to bed.”

Annie nodded. “Okay, then. Sarah, I’ll help you grab those sodas. Everybody’s hot from dancing.”

Dana Sue waited while the girls took half a dozen cans of diet soda and bottled water from the refrigerator. As they left the room, Sarah glanced back and gave a subtle shake of her head to say that Annie hadn’t been eating along with everyone else. Dana Sue felt like sitting down at the kitchen table and crying.

She’d wanted so badly to believe that all her instincts were wrong, that Annie wasn’t anorexic, after all. She’d watched her so closely for the past year, redoubling her efforts after that fainting spell at Maddie’s reception. But obviously Annie was more clever at hiding her eating disorder than Dana Sue was at detecting it. She could blame it on her schedule, being away from home for too many meals, but she’d tried to supervise Annie’s diet, she really had. She’d insisted she come by the restaurant for dinner. She’d packed nutritious lunches. But the honest-to-God truth was she hadn’t been there to see that every bite went into her daughter’s mouth. As for the obvious signs that Annie was in crisis, she’d obviously been in deep denial.

No more, though. They were going to have to confront this head-on. It was time. Past time. Add in the fact that Annie had apparently had boys over in direct defiance of Dana Sue’s instructions, and tomorrow was going to be a tough day. She and her daughter were going to have a heart-to-heart, and Annie wasn’t going to like the outcome—a visit to Doc Marshall’s office and then being grounded for a month—one bit.

With the music downstairs playing at a deafening volume, Dana Sue finally managed to fall into a restless, troubled sleep around two in the morning. She’d barely closed her eyes, it seemed, when someone started frantically shaking her.

“Mrs. Sullivan, wake up!” Sarah commanded, sounding panicked.

Dana Sue’s eyes snapped open. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s Annie,” the girl said, tears streaking down her face. “She’s passed out and we can’t wake her up. Hurry, please.”

Dana Sue tore down the stairs with the sobbing Sarah on her heels. The other girls were kneeling around a prostrate Annie.

“I don’t think she’s breathing,” Raylene said, looking up at Dana Sue with wide eyes. “I’ve been giving her CPR, just the way we learned to in health class.”

“Move,” Dana Sue said, drawing on some inner reserve of calm, even though she was terrified. “Someone call 911, okay?”

“I already have,” one of the girls said, sounding scared.

“Thanks. Keep an eye out for them, please?” Dana Sue said, focusing on Annie’s pale face. Her lips were turning blue and she was still. So damn still. Kneeling beside her, Dana Sue began doing chest compressions as she’d been taught in her own CPR classes, then trying to force breath into her lungs. The girls stood around in stricken silence, holding hands, their faces damp with tears.

Time seemed to stand still as Dana Sue tried desperately to breathe life back into her daughter. She was only dimly aware of the sirens when the ambulance arrived. Then the EMTs were there, forcing her aside, taking over, talking in a code she didn’t understand as they barked information about resting heart rate and other vital signs into a cell phone that apparently linked them to the emergency room. Sarah slipped up beside Dana Sue and clung to her hand.

“She’s going to be okay,” Sarah whispered. “She’s going to be okay.”

Dana Sue squeezed her hand. “Of course she is,” she agreed, though she was certain of no such thing.

Raylene approached. “I called Mrs. Maddox,” she said. “Is that okay? She said she’d phone Ms. Decatur and have her come by and pick us up. Mrs. Maddox is coming straight here to go with you to the hospital.”

Dana Sue gave Raylene a grateful look. “You did exactly the right thing,” she told her, impressed by the girl’s ability to act so quickly in a crisis. She had a cool head and good instincts. “Thank you.”

“We want to go to the hospital with you,” Sarah said. “Can we do that? Our folks aren’t expecting us home, anyway. Please, Mrs. Sullivan. Ms. Decatur can take us there just as easily as she can take us home.”

Dana Sue knew what it was like to wait for information when someone was seriously ill. She’d waited all alone in a hospital emergency room when her mother had been taken in that last time. She’d been only a few years older than these girls were now. Annie had been little more than a toddler, and Ronnie had stayed home with her. Maddie and Helen had rushed over the second Dana Sue had called them, but the wait for them and for news had seemed interminable. Maybe it would be easier for Annie’s friends to wait together at the hospital, where they would have news as soon as it was available.

“Okay,” she said at last. “But as soon as it’s morning, I want you to call your folks and tell them where you are, okay? Then it will be up to them whether you go home or stay.”

“I’m sure Annie will be fine by then,” Sarah said staunchly.

“Of course she will be,” Raylene agreed.

The next half hour was a blur as the EMTs loaded Annie, who was breathing now, but still unconscious, into the ambulance. Helen briskly piled the girls into her car, and Maddie saw to it that Dana Sue pulled herself together, then wrapped an arm around her waist and guided her into her car. She still wore Ronnie’s shirt, but had at least added a respectable pair of jeans.

“Annie’s going to be fine,” Maddie said, giving Dana Sue’s hand one last squeeze before she started the engine and pulled out of the driveway.

“She wasn’t breathing,” Dana Sue said, shivering despite the warm night. “It was as if her heart had just stopped. It’s this damned eating disorder, I know it. God, Maddie, what if she…?” She couldn’t even voice the question.

“She’s breathing now,” her friend reminded her. “Focus on that. You heard the EMTs. She was breathing okay on her own when they left the house.”

Dana Sue frowned at her. “Don’t make it sound as if this was nothing. It’s not like when she fainted at your wedding. People don’t lose consciousness and stop breathing unless it’s serious. She could have had a cardiac arrest or a stroke or something. What kind of mother am I to let things get this bad?”

“Stop thinking the worst,” Maddie commanded. “You’re a wonderful mother, and whatever happened, she’s in good hands now. There are specialists on call at the hospital and I’m sure they’ll be there by the time the ambulance arrives.”

Dana Sue nodded, but she wasn’t consoled. What if the damage was already done? What if whatever had happened was so terrible her beautiful girl never fully recovered?

Dana Sue wanted to pray, wanted to bargain with God to save her baby, but she couldn’t find the words, couldn’t think at all. It was as if she’d awakened from a deep sleep to find herself living a nightmare.

“Dana Sue?” Maddie repeated, finally getting her attention.

“What? Did you say something?”

“I asked if you’d given any thought to calling Ronnie,” her friend said quietly. “He deserves to know what’s going on. Annie is his daughter, too, and whatever you think of him, he always adored her.”

“I know,” Dana Sue whispered, tears stinging her eyes as she remembered the way Ronnie had doted on Annie from the moment she was born. In the early days he’d been as eager as she was to get up for the middle-of-the-night feedings. More than once, she’d found him rocking Annie back to sleep with a look of such profound awe on his face it had made her cry. There was an entire album filled with pictures of the two of them. Dana Sue had shoved it to the back of a closet and buried it under blankets after he’d gone.

“I know I should call him,” she conceded, “but I don’t know if I can cope with this and seeing him, too.”

“I don’t think you have a choice,” Maddie said. “Besides, you’re stronger than you think. You can cope with whatever you have to as long as you keep reminding yourself that getting Annie well is the only thing that matters.”

“Knowing her dad was here would mean the world to her,” Dana Sue admitted. Before the divorce, the bond between father and daughter had been one of the things she’d loved most about Ronnie. That bond had deepened as Annie had gotten older and gone from pleading for piggyback rides to learning to ride a bike or to hit a baseball in an attempt to impress Ty. It was Dana Sue’s fault that bond had been broken. She was the one who’d dragged Annie into the middle of her pain and resentment. And when she should have been relieved to discover that those two were talking again, she’d been jealous, just as Maddie had said.

“Call him,” Maddie urged. “Do you know how to reach him?”

“I know he’s somewhere around Beaufort. I can probably reach him on his cell phone. I doubt he’s had the number changed. And if that doesn’t work, I’ll bet Annie has his number tucked away somewhere.”

“Try his cell,” Maddie instructed. “If you don’t get him, I’ll go back to the house and look through Annie’s address book.”

“I’ll wait till we get to the hospital and find out how she’s doing,” Dana Sue said, wanting to put off making the call as long as possible. She didn’t want to hear Ronnie’s voice, didn’t want to hear even the slightest accusation that she’d somehow failed as a mother, or else how could this have happened? It was one thing to blame herself, but to see the blame in his eyes would destroy her.

Maddie regarded her with a disappointed expression, but said nothing.

Dana Sue sighed at her unspoken disapproval. “Okay, I’ll try him now.”

But how on earth was she supposed to tell Ronnie that his precious girl had nearly died tonight, could still die tonight? In all the scenarios she’d ever imagined for speaking to her ex again, this was one she’d never thought of. Maybe because it was so awful she’d never dared to contemplate it…or maybe because it was the one guaranteed to bring him roaring back into her life.

5

The ringing of Ronnie’s cell phone jarred him out of a deep sleep and a dream about Dana Sue. When he heard her voice on the other end of the line, he thought he must still be dreaming. Only dimly aware that he clutched the cell phone in his hand, he closed his eyes and hugged the pillow a little more tightly, hoping to sink back into the dream. The phone fell from his hand.

“Dammit, Ronnie Sullivan, don’t you dare go back to sleep!” Dana Sue shouted in his ear. “Ronnie, wake up! I wouldn’t be calling if this weren’t important. It’s about Annie.”

Even though her shouts seemed to be coming from a great distance, they were enough to snap him awake. “What about Annie?” he muttered groggily, digging around in the covers until he found the phone. “Talk to me. What about Annie?”

His heart was pounding in his chest as he considered all the terrible possibilities. An accident? Had those boys come back to the house and stirred up trouble? It had to be bad, for Dana Sue to break two years of silence to call him.

Dana Sue, who could talk as slow as molasses when she wanted to sweet-talk him into something wicked, could also manage to squeeze a ten-minute conversation into ten seconds when she was worked up. She was clearly very worked up. She was talking so fast he could barely pick up every fifth word.

“Hey, slow down, sugar,” he said. “You’re waking me out of a sound sleep. I can’t understand a word you’re saying.”

“It’s Annie!” she said, sounding hysterical. “I don’t care where the hell you are, Ronnie, or who you’re with, or what your priorities are these days. Your daughter needs you.”

That was all he had to hear. He could find out all the rest when he got there. With the phone clamped between his head and shoulder, he fished around in the pitch-dark room until he found the switch on the lamp beside his bed.

“I’ll be there in under an hour,” he promised, “but you’re going to have to tell me where you are.”

“At Regional Hospital,” she said, her voice catching on a sob.

His heart seemed to flat-out stop in his chest. “Baby, can you tell me what happened?”

“I don’t know. Not exactly, anyway. She had some girls over for the night. It was going to be just Sarah and Raylene, but then she decided to invite more. I’d told her that was okay. In fact, I encouraged it. It was all part of a plan, you see.”

“Sugar, you’re rambling,” he said. “Get to the point.”

“Right. Sorry. I’m just such a wreck.”

“It’s okay,” he soothed. “Just take a deep breath and tell me.”

For once she actually listened to him. He could hear her slow intake of breath, then a sigh.

“Feeling better?” he asked.

“Not really. Anyway, a little while ago one of the girls woke me up and said Annie had collapsed. Raylene was doing CPR on her when I got downstairs. I took over for what seemed like forever till the EMTs came.” Dana Sue paused, then gave a choked sound he didn’t even recognize. “I tried and tried, Ronnie, but I couldn’t wake her up.”

He was hopping on one foot, trying to pull his jeans on without letting go of the phone. “And now? Is she awake now?”

“No,” Dana Sue said. “At least, I don’t think so. I just got to the hospital. I wanted to call you before I went inside, but couldn’t get a signal for my cell phone till now.”

“It’s okay, baby. Everything’s going to be okay. It has to be. I’m on my way. Is there anybody there with you?”

“Maddie drove me over and Helen’s probably already inside.”

Now there was a confrontation he’d prefer to avoid. Those two hadn’t minced words when they’d raked him over the coals for what he’d done to Dana Sue. He knew, though, that they were exactly the support system Dana Sue needed right now. If he wanted her back, he was going to have to face them sooner or later, anyway. Maddie, at least, might be reasonable. Helen was bound to have her claws out, but so be it.

“Good,” he told Dana Sue. “And I’ll be there before you know it. I promise,” he added, knowing that his promises probably weren’t worth a hill of beans, but he didn’t know what else to say.

“Just hurry, please. I need to get inside and see if the doctors can tell me anything yet,” she said, and disconnected.

Ronnie was slower to disconnect. Well, there you go, he thought. Fate has just stepped in.

But if anything happened to his little girl, he didn’t even want to think about what the future might hold.

“Okay, I called him. Are you satisfied?” Dana Sue said to Maddie.

Her friend had stayed right by her side, almost as if she feared Dana Sue would renege on her promise to call Ronnie and tell him just how serious the situation was.

“Is he coming?” Maddie asked, following her into the E.R. waiting room, with its bustling activity, icy temperature and antiseptic smell.

“He says he is,” Dana Sue answered, not entirely sure how she felt about that. Ronnie had sounded genuinely distraught, and she had no reason to doubt that he was. She’d never questioned his commitment to their daughter, only to her. He’d stood up to Helen in court and insisted on having visitation rights. She knew how hard he’d tried to keep in touch with Annie. It must have killed him to be rejected again and again. Enough time had passed that she could almost feel sorry for him. Now, hearing his voice, needing his strength, made her remember too many things she’d been trying frantically to forget.

“It’s good that he’s coming,” Maddie said. “Annie needs both of you right now.”

“I need to see her,” Dana Sue said, heading to the desk to plead for permission to go into the cubicle where the doctors were working on her baby.

Even before she got there, Maddie intercepted her. “What you need to do is let the doctors do their job,” she said, guiding her to a seat away from the other families crowded into the waiting room. Only after she was satisfied that Dana Sue would stay put did she leave her alone long enough to let the nurse on duty know they were there.

Before Dana Sue could muster up the energy to make a desperate dash into the treatment area, Maddie was back, and then Helen came in with all the girls, explaining that she’d detoured to take one of them home.

“Any news?” she asked.

Dana Sue shook her head, then burst into tears. She turned away from the obviously terrified teens and buried her head on Maddie’s shoulder. “I don’t know how much longer I can bear this,” she whispered.

“I know it’s hard,” Maddie said. “Waiting is the worst part.”

“What if—?”

Maddie cut her off. “Don’t you dare say it,” she said sternly. “Only positive thoughts, you hear me?”

“Maddie’s right,” Helen said, though her normally composed face showed traces of the same gut-wrenching fear that was eating at Dana Sue. With no children of her own, Helen felt a special connection to Maddie’s children and to Annie. And now that Annie was in her teens, Helen loved to indulge her in shopping trips to Charleston.

Pushing her own fears aside, Dana Sue reached out and took Helen’s hand. Seeing her normally unflappable friend so deeply shaken was most disconcerting.

“Why don’t you two go to the chapel and say a prayer for Annie?” Maddie suggested. “I’ll stay here with the girls.”

Dana Sue regarded her with alarm. “But what if there’s news?”

“The chapel’s right down the hall. I’ll come get you the instant the doctors come out,” she promised.

Dana Sue glanced at Helen, noted the tears welling up in her eyes, and knew her friend was close to falling apart. She needed a distraction. They both did.

“Come on, Helen,” she said, getting to her feet. “Let’s go see if you can use your excellent powers of persuasion where they’ll really count.”

Helen gave her a wan smile. “God might give me a little more trouble than the typical jury,” she commented. “Especially since we haven’t been on the best of terms recently.”

“You and me both,” Dana Sue admitted. “Hopefully He’ll forgive us for our lapses.”

“He won’t take our sins out on Annie,” Helen said confidently. “I know that much.”

As they found their way to the tiny chapel, Dana Sue was already praying, asking God to heal her daughter and to give her another chance to be a better mother. Inside the quiet, dimly lit room, with the scent of burning candles filling the air, an amazing sense of serenity stole over her. She almost felt as if God had heard her silent plea and was enfolding her in His reassuring arms.

She and Helen sank onto a hard, wooden pew and looked up at the small stained-glass window behind the altar.

“Do you think He hears everyone who comes here?” she asked Helen.

“I don’t know,” Helen replied. “But tonight I really need to believe He does. I need to believe that He won’t let Annie suffer, that He’ll heal her and bring her back to us.” She glanced over at Dana Sue, her cheeks damp with tears. “I think I love that girl of yours as much as you do. We simply can’t lose her.”

The sense of peace that had come over her when they walked into the chapel brought Dana Sue comfort. “We won’t,” she said, with a level of confidence that astounded her. “We won’t lose her.”

Helen gave her a startled look. “You sound awfully sure.”

“I am. I’m not certain why I’m so positive, but I am.” She sighed. “If I’m right, things will be a lot different from here on out. No more sticking my head in the sand about her eating disorder. No more convincing myself that she’s eating when I know in my heart she’s not. Annie’s going to get whatever help she needs. She’s not going to leave this hospital till we know exactly what to do to make her well. I won’t fail her again.”

Helen regarded Dana Sue with dismay. “You didn’t fail her.”

“I did,” she said emphatically. “She’s here, isn’t she? Whose fault is that, if not mine? I saw the signs. We all did. But did I take her to see the doctor? No. Did I realize that she was really in crisis? No. What is wrong with me? Was I just too busy to see it?”

“Absolutely not.” Helen shook her head. “Like a lot of parents, you just didn’t want to believe what you were seeing. The choice was Annie’s, Dana Sue. She’s not five years old or even ten. She’s almost a grown woman.”

“But she’s still way too young to fully understand the consequences of her actions,” Dana Sue argued. “I knew, but I kept putting off doing anything about this, because I didn’t want to confront her and upset her with my suspicions. I wanted her to like me, instead of being the responsible parent she needed. If ever there was an occasion that called for tough love, this was it. I’ve read probably a hundred articles. I knew all the signs and symptoms of anorexia. I even knew the dangers, and yet I kept telling myself that it couldn’t happen to Annie, not to the girl with the sunny disposition who’d always embraced life. She was going out with her friends. She was active. I just didn’t believe we’d reached a crisis stage.”

“Well, that’s water under the bridge,” Helen said pragmatically. “We’ll all work together to fix this now.”

Dana Sue closed her eyes and tried to imagine Ronnie’s shock when he saw Annie for the first time in two years. Somehow she’d gotten used to seeing the thin shadow of the girl Annie had once been. Ronnie only had memories of an exuberant, healthy teenager with glowing skin, shiny hair and the first hint of a woman’s curves.

“What?” Helen asked, studying her worriedly.

“Ronnie’s going to be furious when he sees her,” Dana Sue said. “He’s going to wonder how on earth I let something like this happen to our daughter without trying to fix it. He’s going to want to talk to teachers and counselors about why they didn’t see it and intervene.”

“It’s not as if he was here to do his part,” Helen said heatedly. “So of course he’ll want to spread the blame around.”

Dana Sue regarded her with a wry expression. “He wasn’t here because that’s how I wanted it, remember? I was the one who insisted on limited visitation and then secretly rejoiced when Annie refused to see him at all.”

There was a faint flash of guilt in Helen’s eyes, but she continued her defense of Dana Sue’s actions. “Come on, hon. Don’t you dare let him off the hook and take all the blame on yourself.”

“I had full custody,” Dana Sue reminded her. “You fought for it and got it.”

“There wasn’t much of a fight,” Helen scoffed. “Ronnie was anxious to leave and get on with his life. He was only too eager to send support checks and forget all about her.”

Dana Sue didn’t usually cut Ronnie a lot of slack, but now she did. “You know better than that, Helen. Whatever his issues were with me, he loved Annie. He only agreed to limited visitation because you convinced him it would be best if Annie wasn’t pulled in two different directions. In the beginning he called almost every night, but Annie hung up on him. He invited her to visit him over and over again, but she turned him down. She told me. Lately, though, they’ve been in touch, probably even more than I know.”

“Maddie mentioned that,” Helen said. “Why are you defending him all of a sudden?”

“I’m not defending him. I’m just trying to prepare myself for how he’s going to react when he gets here.” She shuddered. “Something tells me all hell is going to break loose.”

In fact, there was a very good chance that Ronnie would take one look at his daughter and head straight for the courthouse to argue for a new custody arrangement, one that would give him the day-to-day responsibility for his daughter. Given tonight’s events, Dana Sue wasn’t sure she had the strength—or the right—to fight him.

Ronnie spotted Maddie the minute he walked into the hospital. She was in the midst of half a dozen teenage girls, but her gaze immediately clashed with his. To his surprise, her eyes held warmth and compassion.

She stood up and crossed the waiting room to where he stood uncertainly just inside the door. Places like this freaked him out under the best of conditions. He’d been a wreck the night Annie was born, and her birth had gone smoothly enough. Based on what Dana Sue had told him, it was anything but certain that tonight would turn out as happily.

“Ronnie, it’s good to see you,” Maddie said, surprising him again. “I just wish it were under different circumstances.”

“Me, too,” he said, risking a kiss on her cheek that would have come naturally a few years back. She’d always been his champion with Dana Sue, at least until he’d betrayed his wife. Then she’d turned into a protective best friend with little good to say to or about him. But she, at least, had apparently mellowed, even more than he’d dared to hope.

“How’s Annie? Is Dana Sue with her?”

Maddie shook her head. “We don’t know anything yet. Dana Sue’s in the chapel with Helen. Maybe you should go in there. Let her know you’ve arrived.”

“I think I’ll wait here,” he said, dreading this first meeting almost as much as he desired it. “Is she holding up okay? She was a mess when she called me.”

“She still is, unless the visit to the chapel has helped. Helen’s just as bad. She doesn’t often let anyone see her soft side, but she loves Annie as if she were her own.”

“She certainly fought like a mother hen to keep her away from me,” Ronnie said bitterly, then shrugged. “I was lucky to win visitation rights. Little did I know that Annie was so mad at me that she wouldn’t even speak to me for the better part of a year, much less come to visit.”

Maddie smiled. “Well, that’s in the past. She’s forgiven you, hasn’t she?”

“She’s speaking to me, at least,” he responded. “That’s something. I probably should have stayed right here in town so Annie couldn’t avoid me, but I thought maybe if I left the way Dana Sue wanted, both of them would start to miss me, maybe give me another chance.”

“How’d that work for you?” Maddie inquired dryly.

He smiled grimly. “You know the answer to that.”

Just then he spotted Dana Sue and Helen coming down the hall. His heart seemed to stop in his chest. Damn, she looked good, even with her hair a tangled mess, her Carolina Panthers T-shirt—no, his T-shirt, he realized with a pang—wrinkled and way too big, her feet jammed into an old pair of sneakers. Her complexion was too pale and her incredible deep-green eyes were shadowed by fear.

Ronnie started to go to her, but stopped himself and waited for her to come to him.

“Old patterns might not be the best on a night like this,” Maddie said in an undertone. “Reach out to her, Ronnie. She needs you. Whatever else has happened, that child in there belongs to both of you.”

It was all the encouragement he needed. He strode across the lobby, and almost before he knew it, Dana Sue was in his arms. Her whole body shaking with sobs; she clung to his neck.

“I’m sorry,” she said over and over.

Not sure what she had to be sorry for, he just held her tightly and tried to keep himself from bursting into tears, too.

“Shh, baby, it’s going to be okay,” he promised, though he knew no such thing. “Annie’s going to be fine.”

Before the words were out of his mouth, Dana Sue wrenched herself from his arms, as if she’d suddenly remembered how angry she was at him. Pushing away, she wrapped her arms around her middle and looked at the floor.

He regarded her with concern. “Dana Sue, what is it you’re not telling me?”

“Nothing,” she stated, but her guilty expression said otherwise.

“Have the doctors been out? Have they told you what’s going on yet?”

She shook her head.

Ronnie pressed her, sure she was keeping something from him. “But you know more than you’ve said, don’t you? What happened tonight?”

Dana Sue opened her mouth, but before she could speak, Helen was between them. “What is wrong with you?” she demanded. “She’s upset enough without you getting in her face.”

Despite his frustration, Ronnie backed off at once. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I just want to know what’s going on.”

“We all do,” Helen told him.

“Well, maybe I can get some answers you haven’t been able to get,” he said.

Ignoring Helen’s skeptical look and Dana Sue’s shattered expression, he stalked over to the desk and demanded to speak to a doctor.

“He’ll be out as soon as he’s able,” the nurse told him, her expression so grim that another wave of panic washed over him.

“Isn’t there something you can tell me?” he pleaded. “That’s my daughter in there.”

“I’m sorry,” the nurse said. “If I knew anything, I’d tell you.”

“How long will it be before the doctor comes out?”

“That depends on how your daughter is responding to treatment. She’s his first priority right now.”

“Of course,” Ronnie said, backing down, but wanting to scream in frustration.

Maddie appeared beside him. “Why don’t we go get coffee for everyone?” she suggested. “It’s going to be a long night.”

He started to snap that he didn’t want coffee, he wanted answers, but stopped himself before he could utter the words. They all wanted answers.

“Sure,” he said at last, then cast one last look at his ex-wife. “Maybe I should stay with Dana Sue.”

“Give her a little time,” Maddie said. “She’s dealing with a lot of conflicting emotions right now.”

“And I’m not?” he retorted sharply, then winced. “Sorry.”

She smiled. “You don’t need to apologize to me,” she told him. “But you might want to work on a really, really good one for Dana Sue. Despite what happened a few minutes ago when she threw herself into your arms, she’s still not in a forgiving mood.”

Despite the tension and the serious nature of the situation, his lips quirked. “You think?”

Maddie tucked her arm through his and led him toward the cafeteria. “Can I ask you something?”

“Have I ever been able to stop you?”

“I know you came because of Annie, but what about Dana Sue?”

He paused in midstride and faced her. “What are you asking me, Maddie?”

“I suppose I’m asking if you still love her,” she said bluntly. “Do you?”

“Do you really think this is the time for that discussion?” he asked.

Her expression was grave as she met his eyes. “Yes.”

“Okay, then.” He met her gaze evenly. “I never stopped loving her, not for a minute.”

Maddie seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. “Thought so.”

They started to walk again, but before they’d taken half a dozen steps, she stopped and punched him in the arm. “Then why the heck did you walk away without a fight?”

“Stupidity?” he suggested.

“Was that a question or a statement? Because if you ask me, only an idiot would walk away from the woman he loves just because she tells him to go. And you, Ronnie Sullivan, were never an idiot. I couldn’t believe it when I found out you’d left. If I’d known where to find you, I would have hunted you down and tried to talk some sense into you.”

“Helen knew where I was,” he pointed out.

Maddie gave him a wry look. “Helen wasn’t in a forthcoming mood at the time. She’d have been happier if you’d disappeared off the face of the earth.”

“She made that clear,” Ronnie said. “As for me being an idiot, I surely was for one night. I guess that mistake was such a whopper that it convinced me I didn’t deserve another chance. It was like I said a minute ago—I thought if I went, Dana Sue would start to miss me. Took me by surprise that she didn’t.”

“And now?”

“Now I’m going to fight for another chance with both my girls.”

Maddie nodded in satisfaction. “About damn time.”

Ronnie grinned. Wasn’t that the truth?