Dean was an angel, looking after me for the first couple of days, feeding me and kicking my ass into the shower.

But eventually he had to take off for a business trip, thus leaving me. I protested, even asked if he’d cancel and change his plans so he could stay with me. Talk about needy. He smiled, kissed my head, and said, “You’ll be fine. I’ve never known a tougher woman.”

Then he turned around, overnight bag in hand, and left me alone.

Today, I started wandering downstairs, even going out on my nonexistent patio to talk to my birds. They weren’t great listeners, but I loved watching them while I drank my coffee.

Luckily, Dean spoke with my contractor. Gerry said his crew would return in a week or so.

The relief I felt of letting someone else deal with the hard decisions for a while was huge. I suppose this would be one of the benefits of marriage. But if I were married, I wouldn’t have been holed up, unable to leave my bedroom for days on end either.

Still, I was immensely grateful for Dean’s intervention during my time of need. There was no way I’d have gotten through this without him. I just wished he could have delayed his trip a few more days. There was life before Jason—there would be life after him, too. Maybe.

Sitting in my pink satin robe in the sunshine, the doorbell rang through the open patio doors. Not feeling much in the mood for dealing with Girl Scouts or the neighborhood watch right now, I ignored it, continuing to soak in the sun. The bell chimed again. I swung my head toward the door, scowling. The Girl Scouts were getting pushier every year. There was no way I even considered opening the door. I’d quite likely scare the poor girls to death. My robe wasn’t exactly G-rated. Not to mention my hair resembled a nest of sorts.

I heard a bit of a commotion, then suddenly my side gate burst open.

“She’s not gonna be back here.”

“Look, I forgot the key at the office. Just check. And stop yelling. The neighbors will hear and call the police.”

“I could have saved you all the trouble of ringing the doorbell and sneaking in the back if you’d have let me pick the lock.” That last one was Riley’s voice. Truth be told, I loved Riley to bits, but sometimes she scared the living crap outta me. There was no way a legal secretary should have the kinds of skills she did. Maybe she had a really shitty childhood and had to learn ninja skills to survive.

Ever since that day I followed Jason—okay, stalked him—I kept wondering what kind of upbringing he’d had. I couldn’t get the image out of my head of those young kids at the trailer park throwing rocks on the road, looking bored as hell. My heart ached for them. I had this odd desire to bake muffins and take them to the kids. Not that I dared go back there for fear Jason would see me. Also, I wasn’t sure the kids would take muffins from a crazy stalker lady without calling the police and reporting me.

I still couldn’t stop thinking about them and how I could make their lives a little bit brighter in that stark, desolate environment. Anyway, right now I had bigger fish to fry, so I stood to meet my uninvited guests. “Hi, girls. How’s it goin’?”

Audrey stopped short, obviously shocked to see me. That would have been fine if Harper and Riley hadn’t been following so closely. But they were, so the last two crashed quite violently into Audrey, causing her to trip on the uneven Earth, nearly taking a header right into my chair. Bags went flying in every direction. Luckily, she caught herself with her hands barely touching the ground, jumping back up to yell at her co-conspirators.

“What the hell are you tryin’ to do? Get me killed?” she barked at them with her hands now on her hips, her feet in that don’t-screw-around-with-me pose she did so well. I only saw her do that with her husband Murray. It was funny as hell to watch. Murray always got that deer-in-the-headlights stare about him. Sometimes he even tried to stutter his way out of whatever hole he dug himself into, which made things even more entertaining.

“Yeah, Audrey. We brought you here to lure you into Vivienne’s backyard and kill you,” Riley said dryly, rolling her eyes. “Although, this would be a good place to bury a body. Nobody would even notice with all the piles of dirt and lumber everywhere,” she said, casing the joint. See? She dressed like a princess, but underneath the name brand dress, she had something going on. Something that I had no desire to know.

“Um, I’ve got neighbors who may not like homicide jokes. Just sayin’,” I said in a hushed tone to Riley.

Just like it always was with Riley, she put on her sweetest I-couldn’t-hurt-a-fly face, smiling at me. Thing is, I knew she could absolutely hurt a fly, swiftly and without leaving a trace of evidence behind, then bury the poor unsuspecting soul in my mess of a backyard without anyone being the wiser.

“Sweetie, how are you doing?” Riley asked first, walking up to hug me. Her ninja arms felt good around me, so I let her hug me for a while.

“As good as can be expected, I guess.” I mean, what else did you say? Well, I got my heart and soul ripped out, my childhood dreams dashed and stepped on, and I’d probably die a lonely old spinster that nobody would even realize was dead for a month until the mail carrier smelled a suspicious odor coming from the mail slot in the door every time he deposited my bills through the crack.

It’d all be bills or junk mail—no letters from grandkids or pictures of them on their first day of kindergarten. No postcards from grown kids off on holidays, sending us a hello from a beautiful beach somewhere. Of course, that all made me start to tear up, thinking of what might have been.

“How nice. You leave old people behind, yeah?” Roza boomed before even turning the corner. “God, what happened? Bomb? During war even bomb not make this damage,” she said, shaking her head, peering around Vivienne’s backyard.

“They had to do more digging, Roza.” I sighed. “They’ll fix it eventually.”

Riley finally released me as Harper pushed her way in and placed her hands on my shoulders, looking me over with a critical eye. “You look like hell.” That was her helpful comment.

“Thanks?” I answered, unsure how to respond to that.

Sticking her foot in her mouth, she backtracked. “We brought movies.”

“And chocolate and ice cream,” said Riley, bending over to pick up the fallen bags. I’d eaten enough ice cream in the last two days to choke a horse, but I was always game for more.

“I got you some magazines,” Audrey said, digging violently into the bags that Riley had gathered up. Riley gave her a look, which she promptly ignored, continuing to fish around until she found what she was looking for.

With Audrey, I wasn’t exactly sure what kind of magazines to expect. I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw they were just harmless gossip rags. Well, harmless to me, not harmless to the stars pictured on the covers or on the inside.

She practically shoved them into my chest. “It’s always nice to see other people’s lives are shittier than yours.”

“Thanks, Audrey. Isn’t that nice of you?” I suppose this whole thing would be worse if my face was on ten different trashy magazines.

“And I brought soup.” Roza dug into her bag and pulled out a chicken. A very raw chicken. Hmmm, interesting.

“Let’s get inside. This ice cream isn’t going to make it much longer.” Riley held up the bag containing the melty mess.

I looked at her, then the bag, quickly turning around, mumbling, “Maybe we should just bury it in the backyard.”

“Do you want me to put your groceries in the kitchen?” I asked Roza as she shuffled her way into the kitchen.

“We cook now. Where’s kitchen?” She gazed around my kitchen.

“This is my kitchen,” I told her, motioning with my arm to the fantastic kitchen.

Roza frowned. “Back home you know how we cook? In coffee can, over fire. But this is nice, too.” She sniffed, waddling her way to the cupboards.

In ten seconds flat, she had me organizing everything she needed to cook her soup. The other girls had wandered off.

“First, we boil old hen to inch of her life,” she said, dumping the chicken into the pot. The water splashed onto my gorgeous gas range. I tried my best not flinch too much. “Then we cut vegetables. Mostly carrots.” I nodded, then assisted her in chopping up the array of veggies.

“We dump in,” she yelled as more liquid sloshed over the side of the pot. “And boom.” She clapped her hands together, startling me. “Best soup in land. You wait and see. In old country, they always say, ‘Old hen and young carrot make a tasty soup,’ and it’s true. You use young hen, no fat,” she said, emphasizing the F. “No fat, no taste. Same with carrot. You taste old carrot? Dry, no juice, very bitter.” Her face screwed up like she’d tasted a lemon. “Old carrot has no sugar left to sweeten the broth.”

My eyes teared up and I smiled at her meaning. “I’m afraid my young carrot doesn’t want to join the old hen in the soup.”

“Young carrots sweet, yes, but not so smart. You help him understand.”

After my soup tutorial, Harper dropped Roza back home. It was time for her “stories,” and she was getting tired.

Harper came back with bags of Chinese food. These girls liked their wine, so that was flowing freely along with the egg rolls and beef and broccoli. I couldn’t remember whose idea it was, but instead of watching the movies downstairs, we all ended up in my bed, eating Chinese, drinking wine, and commenting on every damn thing that happened in The Notebook. Yeah, that’s what was playing right now.

“Why did you pick this movie?” Riley gave Harper a dirty look while dipping her egg roll into the sweet and sour sauce. “This is a love story, not something a girl wants to watch after getting dumped.”

True enough. My stomach had several knots in it already just thinking about what was to come. It wasn’t exactly break up fodder. Perhaps a shoot ’em up movie would have been a better choice.

“They end up together eventually,” Harper emphasized that last word. Ah, so that was her game. She figured there was still hope for Jason and me. Gosh, she was cute.

“Honey, Jason was pretty adamant that he was done with whatever we had. There’s no going back now. I respect his decision.” Even though it freaking killed.

“For goodness’ sake, he was mad at you. It freaked him out. You guys just need to talk and work it out. When you care about someone, you get mad sometimes and regret stuff you say in the heat of the moment. He’ll get over it.” Always the romantic. Ever since Harper found her Prince Charming, she wanted everyone around her paired up to feel the same magical bliss.

“He said I was a distraction. I don’t want to be the one who stands between him and his dreams,” I said stoically, feeling rather proud of myself for being such a grown-up. But Audrey started laughing uncontrollably at what I said, bits of lemon chicken spewing out of her mouth.

“Oh, if you ain’t the funniest thing. All us women are distractions for our men,” she said, wiping under her eyes with a napkin. “That’s how it works. If you ain’t a distraction, you ain’t catchin’ his eye. And you need to catch a man’s eye frequently to have a relationship. My bet? He’s sitting in his shitty apartment wishing you were there to distract him right this very moment.” She burst out laughing all over again.

Audrey had a point, even though this time she was wrong. “You weren’t there, Audrey. He was very clear that he was finished with me. With us.” My breath caught on the last two words.

“Of course, that’s what he said. Men say stupid stuff all the time that they don’t mean in order to save face. You think he was pleased that you saw where he was raised?”

“I don’t care,” I said defensively. “It didn’t make me think less of him to know he grew up in a trailer park.” I huffed, stuffing some bean sprouts into my mouth.

“But it matters to him, girlfriend. Anything that makes you take pity on a man takes away his power. Men don’t want to be pitied.” Hmm. That actually made some sense.

“I agree with the pity party. Men can’t stand it if you feel sorry for them. Makes them feel like less of a man. It’s stupid. I mean, you can’t exactly help where you were born. But for men it matters,” Riley added. “My advice would be to take your walking papers and run. Dude has issues about his childhood, and that’s always a pain in the ass to deal with. Take this as your get out of jail free card and leave this all behind. There’s plenty of fish in the sea, Vivienne. You’re a hot girl. You’ll find someone better.”

There were plenty of fish in the sea for Riley. One sultry look and she could have any man on his knees begging her to spend the rest of her life with him. Not saying I was suffering for male companionship, but I’d never connected with anyone like this before. In all of my other relationships, I stuck around and waited for that something special to show up, but it never did. With Jason, that something special was there right from the moment we met. We automatically clicked, like we’d known each other forever.

“Riley, what a horrible thing to say. They got back together once. They can do it again. Just because someone has a bad past, doesn’t mean they are incapable of having a meaningful relationship,” Harper said with tears in her eyes. “So, because I chose a terrible first husband, it means I shouldn’t get a second chance?” Those tears now spilled down her face.

Riley looked up at Harper and pulled her in for a hug. “Of course, it doesn’t, sweetie. I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.” Riley rubbed her back. “You deserved your second chance more than anyone.”

“I did. And Vivienne deserves another second chance, too. She did something stupid, but she asked him to forgive her and he should. It’s not like she was the one getting all handsy with an elementary school librarian.” As soon as Harper said it, her hands covered her mouth.

My eyes narrowed on her. “How do you know she’s a librarian?” I asked, not missing a beat. I’d accepted Jason’s explanation, but that didn’t mean I suddenly trusted Perky Teacher/librarian. Harper peered over at Audrey with wide eyes.

“Oh, fine. You’ll find out anyway. After you told Harper about your situation on the phone, the boys and I paid a visit to that school to check things out in case we decided to move into that area.” Audrey gave her rather weak answer.

I tilted my head to the side. “You live in one of the best neighborhoods in town. Why would you move to a struggling community?”

Murray and Audrey lived in a beautiful, brand new home that they had custom built for them. No way in hell were they thinking of moving. Certainly not to a poor end of town.

Her eyes were big as saucers. She was caught. “You never know what could happen, and it never hurts to check out other schools to see what they offer.”

“They stalked the teacher. We had to know what you were up against,” Harper spilled.

“Jesus, Harper, you’d make a hell of an informant,” Riley muttered into her egg foo young.

“Well, it’s true. If she was a threat, we had to find out what kind so we’d know how to deal with her.” Yikes, and Jason thought I was a stalker.

“What’d you find out?” Don’t judge. I was being offered intel on a woman who clearly was trying to make the moves on my man—my ex-man. There was no female in the world who could resist that tasty morsel.

“She’s cute and tiny. I’ll give her that. But you got curves and valleys. Sweetheart, your guy clearly likes curves over cute. You got nuthin’ to worry about,” Audrey offered her two cents while still fighting with her chopsticks, rice falling everywhere.

“I need more information than that,” I told Audrey, eyes begging for something, desperate for any small bit of knowledge.

She placed her chopsticks down on my bed. I hoped the grease wouldn’t stain my duvet too badly. “Look, she’s young. Only been teaching a few years, but people really love her. She’s got a way of dealing with the kids who are behind and making them excited to learn.”

Great. She was a regular Mary Poppins, except tiny, young, and cute.

Audrey kept going. “No boyfriend that anyone at the school knows about, but one of the secretaries said she thinks little Miss Perky Pants definitely has a crush on your driver. However, your man has not given her the green light, and he’s been reading to her class for over a year now. The secretary said he must not be interested because Miss Perky has given him all kinds of signals with no response.”

My shoulders instantly relaxed. For the first time in days, I was able to take a deep breath. I knew it meant nothing because Jason was free to date whatever perky women he wanted to—that thought made my stomach knot up again—but I liked that he appeared to have no interest in that particular perky woman.

“She also lives on the east side in an okay condo. Her student loan is current, but it’ll take her about ninety years to pay it off with what she brings home. The old, blue Honda Accord she drives is on its last legs, but her hot neighbor keeps it running on a wing and a prayer. She must love daisies and roses because there’s a shitload of them planted all over the place. I’ve got the address if you feel like going for a drive,” Riley added, raising an eyebrow in a less than subtle invitation.

“What the heck? How did you get all this information?” I asked, nearly choking on my lemon chicken.

“That stuff’s not hard to find out, Vivienne,” Riley replied.

“Not hard to find out? The only things you didn’t tell me were her birthday and what color her kitchen sink is,” I said, shocked but also awed she was able to find out all of this information.

“May eleventh, and if I had to guess on the sink, I’d say a small, original to the house stainless steel. Plain Jane.” Well, there you had it.

“I’m up for a drive. Who’s all comin’?” Audrey said, a mischievous smile crossing her face. The other two immediately raised their hands.