Helen was knocking on my door at 7 this morning to tell me I had a breakfast date with my fiancé. OK, more of an early lunch date I guess. Which is a good thing since it turns out that our fancy pants marriage broker isn't much of a morning person.

So I grabbed something to eat at our hotel's rather impressive free breakfast buffet while Helen did God knows what.

She showed back up just before check out with a bouquet of flowers and a bottle of Scotch. At 10:30 in the morning.

"What?" Helen asks as we pull into the parking lot for the little bistro she and Raven chose for our brunch date while Tiffany and I were busy over coffee last night. "I'm out at the house, it's not like there's a decent liquor store anywhere out there."

I shake my head as I park the car. "It's just that I didn't know you drank is all," I tell her with a smirk.

Helen gives me a glare, "Nothing wrong with a little nip now and then." Her voice looses its sassy edge and trails off vaguely as she turns her back on me and hurries toward Tiffany and Raven waiting for us at an outside table.

"What's wrong with Helen?" Tiffany asks as soon as I get to the table.

Raven's head is still turned toward the door that Helen disappeared through as soon as she set her sunglasses and cell phone down on the table.

I shake my head. I have no idea what's up with the woman.

"She seemed upset," Raven observes. "I'm going to go check on her."

Raven gets up from her chair, leans forward and points at something on the menu over Tiffany's shoulder, "Could you get me these without the strawberries, please," she asks.

Tiffany nods and Raven heads after Helen.

"I hope Helen's OK." Tiffany says after we place orders with the waitress.

"I hope she likes Monte Christos," I muse, not sure I should have taken the liberty of ordering for her.

"Was everything OK before you guys got here?"

Thinking over our morning I can't really pin point anything unusual about Helen's behavior. "I mean, she did come in with a bottle of Scotch." I shrug, looking from Tiffany to the bistro's front door and back again, "But I've learned almost as much about my neighbor on this trip as I have about my fiance."

I make a point to wink quickly at her, hoping it doesn't come across as too presumptuous.

Tiffany blushes. The color doesn't creep up her throat and into her face so much as just appears in the apples of her cheeks and spreads out in a dark rose that adds to her beauty.

It occurs to me that maybe she doesn't think of this as a done deal yet. Maybe she's expecting to be courted, giving her a chance to decide if I'm really the man she wants to spend her life with. If I'm the next man she wants to spend her life with, actually.

Silently, I wonder if I measure up to her late husband. If she'll ever love me the way she loved him. If I'm going to spend the rest of my life living in the shadow of a ghost.

We talked some about her past last night. I know she says she hired Raven to find her a husband because she's just looking for someone to share expenses with and so she won't die if she chokes, apparently. But I swear there's chemistry between us. Real chemistry.

You can't fake a kiss like that.

I'm about to ask her the awkward questions running through my mind when the door opens and Raven appears, laughing while she holds the door.

"For the love of Pete," Helen grumbles as she makes her way out of the restaurant and back to join us at the table, "I just went to the lady's room for a minute, it's not like anyone needed to stage an intervention."

Raven watches Helen with a concerned look on her face as Helen unfolds her napkin and takes a sip of the coffee that's been waiting for her. Then Raven's eyes land on mine and then Tiffany's and we all know my friend and neighbor is fussing at us to cover for something.

"Harold used to hate these things," Helen breaks the awkward silence that's fallen over the table when she sees the Monte Christo sandwich I ordered for her. "Said they had an identity crisis, needed to make up its mind if it wanted to be breakfast or lunch."

We all look up with interest as Helen pokes at the ham and cheese filling sandwiched between slices of bread dipped in egg batter, pan fried, and dusted with powdered sugar.

"Is it French toast? or is it a grilled cheese?" Helen looks up and scans each of our faces as she asks the question and I'm not sure if it's a real question or part of her anecdote.

Raven's jaw tightens as her eyes fall back to her crepes and I can see she's trying to stifle a laugh.

"I said he was a good man," Helen tells her with a twist to the corner of her lips that makes her look sadder than I'm used to seeing her, "I didn't say he wasn't a pain in the ass.

"It'll happen to you two some day too you know," the curl of Helen's smile falls as she picks up half her sandwich, "they just aren't built for the long haul the way we are. One day you'll find yourselves crying in the check out line because some damn little thing you hadn't thought of in years pops up and reminds you of all the good years you had with the man you spent most of your time bitching about."

Helen's voice has returned to her matter-of-fact style of telling it like it is as she takes a bite out of her sandwich like she didn't just lay down a piece of sobering wisdom.

"You men just aren't built for the long haul, Nathan," she adds when her mouth is empty again, "It's just the way it is. We girls outlive our men cuz God knows you'd never make it without us if he did it the other way around."

Helen pauses for a sip of coffee and I notice Raven's polished nails tapping discretely on the screen of her cell phone placed on the table beside her plate.

"I don't mean to go scaring you out of your happily ever after, Sweetheart," Helen looks up and fixes misty eyes on Tiffany. "Being married was worth every day I put up with that man. This one, "she jerks her head in my direction, "he isn't any better than my Harold was...which is exactly why he's going to make a damn good husband."

"For the right woman," Helen mumbles her addendum through her next bite of sandwich in a nonchalant acknowledgment that my ex-wife would take issue with that last bit.

While I'm busy deciding if I'm touched or insulted, I hear Tiffany sniffle lightly and I wonder if Helen's little speech brought up tender memories.

I thought Helen knew that Tiffany was widowed too and that my team had just decided not to tell me.

My hand reaches under the table and rests on Tiffany's knee, hoping to offer some comfort.

When her hand slips under the table and her fingers wrap around mine with a grateful squeeze, my heart soars.