front of her.
Shaken to the core, Grace discarded the boxes in the garbage and sat down on the back porch steps. Her first reaction was anger. How dare he do such a thing. How dare he! Then she felt the overwhelming urge to weep. Tears stung her eyes, but she refused to give in to them. She refused to hand her husband the power to reduce her to a sniveling, spineless weakling.
Buttercup joined her and seemed to sense Grace’s distress.
“What would make him do this?” she asked her golden retriever.
Buttercup looked up at her with big, soulful eyes.
“I don’t know either, girl. I just don’t know.” Needing to hold someone, Grace put her arms around the dog’s neck and buried her face in Buttercup’s fur.
She wasn’t sure how long she sat there, feeling intense anger, regret and simmering emotion. After a while she got to her feet. The garage door wasn’t going to fix itself.
In the process of digging through the neat stack of boxes, she eventually happened upon the manual. She flipped through it and quickly read over the information. The book offered suggestions for troubleshooting, which she studied in detail. Again and again she reminded herself that she could handle this.
She’d just positioned the stepladder when a pickup truck pulled into the driveway. Grace recognized Cliff and hesitated, her feet on the fourth rung up.
“Hi,” he called, climbing out of the truck. Buttercup trotted over to greet him. While friendly, the golden retriever was protective of Grace and wasn’t keen on letting strangers into the yard. To Grace’s surprise, Buttercup greeted Cliff as if he were family.
“Hi,” she said, wishing now that she’d worn a newer pair of jeans and a less faded sweatshirt.
“Charlotte mentioned that you had a problem with your garage door,” he said, bending down to scratch her dog’s ears.
Grace blinked, unsure how Olivia’s mother had known about her problem, but then Charlotte always did have a way of finding out things.
Cliff straightened and seemed to await her invitation. “I came to see if I could give you a hand.”
At this point, Grace wasn’t about to refuse help. “I’d be grateful if you’d look at it. I’ve been reading the manual but I haven’t had a chance to check out the mechanism yet.”
“I have a knack for stuff like this.” He glanced around. “I’m gifted at cleaning leaves out of rain gutters, too.”
Grace laughed. “You must be an angel in disguise.”
“I don’t think so.” He helped her down from the ladder and even before Grace could get inside the house to brew a pot of coffee, he had the garage door working again.
“What was wrong?” she asked, astonished that it had been so easy.
“The wheels jumped out of alignment. I just put it back on track. Nothing to it.”
While Cliff carried the ladder over to the house, Grace reached for the rake and started gathering together a huge pile of oak leaves. When she’d finished, Cliff helped her pack them inside plastic bags.
“Are you ready for that coffee?” she asked, when they’d tied the last bag.
“That’d be great.”
She welcomed him into her kitchen and set out two big mugs. “I don’t know how to thank you.”
He studied her a moment, then grinned boyishly. “I’ll think of something,” he teased.
“I’ll bet you will.” Grace laughed—and suddenly realized that just a couple of hours earlier, she’d been fighting back tears. The contrast was all the more apparent when she saw the way Buttercup had warmed to Cliff.
“Buttercup normally isn’t friendly with strangers,” she told him.
Cliff petted the dog. “She probably smells the horses.”
Grace propped elbows on the table. “I’d forgotten you raise quarter horses.”
“They’re a big part of my life. Do you ride?”
Grace shook her head. “I haven’t been around horses much.”
They chatted for a while, the ebb and flow of their conversation completely natural. Rarely had Grace felt more at ease with a man. More than once, she had to remind herself that legally she was still married to Dan. While he might have run off with another woman—or at any rate, run off—she intended to remain true to her vows.
As he was getting ready to leave, Grace saw Cliff glance toward the living room. A framed family photograph stood on a bookshelf. “That’s Dan?” he asked.
She nodded.
Cliff walked over to the bookcase and picked up the photograph, which had been taken almost twenty years earlier. Both girls were teenagers then, and Kelly was in braces. Dan’s gaze had been somber as he stared straight into the camera, not revealing any emotion.
After an extraordinarily long moment, Cliff replaced the faded color photograph.
“I don’t know why he left,” Grace whispered. “I just don’t know.”
Cliff didn’t say anything.
“It’s the not knowing that’s dreadful.”
“I can only imagine.”
She swallowed tightly.
He brushed the hair from her cheek. “I don’t want you to feel guilty about me being here this afternoon. This wasn’t a date.”
Grace smiled tremulously.
“If you’re going to suffer pangs of remorse, then you should worry about how much I want to take you in my arms right now. If you’re going to feel guilty, then do it because I’m having one hell of a time not kissing you.”
Grace closed her eyes, knowing that if she looked at him, Cliff would realize it was what she wanted, too.
Sighing, he stroked her cheek with his knuckle before he turned away.
Eyes still shut, she heard him open the door and leave.
Six
Janice Lamond had been a valuable addition to Zach Cox’s office staff. She’d taken on more and more duties and had developed an excellent rapport with his clients. He appreciated her attitude and her strong work ethic. When it was time for her six-month evaluation, Zach called her into his office.
“Sit down, Janice,” he said, gesturing toward the chair across from his desk.
Janice sat on the edge of the chair and met his look with a tentative smile, almost as if she were nervous about what he might say.
“You’ve been with the firm half a year now.”
“Has it really been that long?”
It felt as though she’d always been part of his office team. She was well liked and fit in smoothly with the firm’s other employees. Eager to please, she wasn’t quick to rush out the door at the end of the day. He appreciated the effort she took to make the clients who visited the office feel welcome.
“As you know, we review employee performance twice a year.”
Janice squeezed her hands between her knees. “Is there an area where I can improve?” she asked.
If there was, Zach didn’t know what it would be. She was about as perfect an employee as he could find. “No, no. You’ve done an excellent job.”
“Thank you.” Her eyes shone at his praise. “It’s a pleasure to come into work each day. I like my job.”
She made it a pleasure for Zach to come into the office, too. Janice was organized. Her desk was orderly and she kept