Cedar Cove Collection (Books 1-6). Debbie Macomber

start doing more to help around here. Who said it was my responsibility to buy the groceries? You seem to think that because I don’t have a nine-to-five job, you can rule my days. I have a life, too, you know.”

      “Don’t yell!” Eddie screamed. “Don’t yell anymore!” He stood in the kitchen entrance, tears in his eyes, his hands covering his ears.

      “Eddie, I’m so sorry,” Rosie cried, sounding close to weeping herself. She bent down to hug their son and cast an accusing glare at Zach. “Now look what you’ve done!”

      “Me?” Funny how everything got turned around so that he was the one at fault.

      Zach waited until after dinner—a pot of chili thrown together in about twenty minutes, but still an improvement over recent meals—before approaching his wife again. “It’s clear we have several issues that need to be addressed,” he began as she watched a rerun of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.”

      “Several issues,” she repeated. “You sound like an attorney.”

      “So, I sound like an attorney. Let’s just get through the holidays. The kids are hurting.”

      “So am I, Zach.”

      “I’m not exactly overwhelmed with happiness myself.” He walked out of the family room and into the bedroom. A second television was set up there. He put on the History Channel and tried to watch a documentary about Napoleon.

      Rosie came in an hour later. “Do you want to talk this out?”

      He glanced in her direction and frankly couldn’t see the point of any discussion. “Not particularly.”

      She didn’t say anything for a moment. “That’s what I thought. Just remember I tried, Zach. I sincerely tried. But you’re impossible.”

      If she was trying so hard, then she’d be with her family where she belonged, Zach thought and steeled himself against giving in. Rosie was the transgressor here, and he wasn’t going to drop this until she owned up to her faults.