With a sheepish smile, she held her hands in front of her br**sts to mime someone well-endowed. “And she was cold inside. The whole time they were doing it, she was thinking about what she’d get out of him. There was a derision—that’s the best way to describe it—for the wives of men like him. I guess that’s about it.”

“Hardly her best side. Or maybe it is, from her point of view,” Mitch considered. “She was in charge, doing what she’d chosen to do. Young, beautiful, desired by a powerful man and controlling that man through sex. Interesting.”

“Creepy’s what it was. And if I get to have sex, I’d like to have it with my own body. But anyway, I feel better, getting all that out. I think I’ll go back up, maybe do some yoga. I don’t think she’s going to bother me while I’m trying to twist myself into the warrior position or whatever. Thanks for hearing me out.”

“Anything else happens, I want to hear it,” Roz told her.

“That’s a promise.”

Roz waited until Hayley was gone, then turned to Mitch. “We’re going to have to worry about her, aren’t we?”

“Let’s not skip straight to worry.” He took her hand. “Let’s start with we’ll keep an eye out for her.”

Chapter Five

FROM STELLA’S KITCHEN window, Hayley could see the spread of the back gardens, the patio, the arbor, the treehouse Logan and the boys had built snugged into the branches of a sycamore.

She watched Logan push Lily on a red swing that hung from another branch while the boys tossed an old ball for Parker to chase.

It was, she thought, a kind of moving portrait of summer evening. The sort of lazy contentment that only comes on breathless summer days right before the kids are called in for supper and the porch light goes on. Yellow glows to chase the moths away and to shine a circle that says: We’re home.

She remembered, so clearly, what it was to be a child in August, to love the heat, to rush through it to snatch every drop of the sun before it went down.

Now, she hoped, she was learning what it was to be a mother. To be on the other side of the screen door. To be the one who turned on the porch light.

“Do you get used to it, or do you still look out sometimes like this, and think ‘I’m the luckiest woman in the world.’ ”

Stella moved over to the window, smiled. “Both. You want to sit out on the patio with this lemonade?”

“In a minute. I didn’t want to talk about this at work. Not just because it’s at work, but because it’s still on the Harper estate. And she’s on the estate. She can’t come here.”

“Roz told me what happened.” Stella laid a hand on Hayley’s shoulder.

“I didn’t tell her that it was Harper. I mean when I was fantasizing, I was with Harper. I’m just not going to tell her I was fantasizing about getting naked with her son.”

“I think that’s a judicious edit at this point. Has anything happened since?”

“No, nothing. And I don’t know whether to hope something does or something doesn’t.” She watched Logan field the mangled slobbery ball that rolled his way, then toss it, sending dog and boys on a mad chase while Lily bounced in the swing and clapped her hands.

“I can tell you this, if I have to star in someone’s life and times, I’d rather take a turn in yours.”

“I believe in being a good and true friend, Hayley, but I’m not letting you have sex with Logan.”

Hayley snorted out a laugh, then gave Stella an elbow nudge. “Spoilsport, and though I wasn’t going there, I bet—wow.”

Stella’s smile was lazy as a cat’s. “You bet right.”

“Anyway. I was just thinking how it would be to have someone as crazy about me as Logan is about you. Toss in a couple of great kids, a beautiful home you’ve made together, and who needs fantasies?”

“You’ll have what you’re looking for one day, too.”

“Listen to me, you’d think I was the redheaded stepchild. I don’t know what’s wrong with me lately.” She rolled her shoulders as if shrugging off a weight. “I keep catching myself doing a poor-me routine. It’s not like me, Stella. I’m happy. And even when I’m not, I look for a way to make myself happy. I don’t brood and bitch. Or hardly.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Maybe I’ve got a thing for Harper, but a little frustration’s not enough to bring me down. Next time you hear me feeling sorry for myself, give me a good smack.”

“Sure. What are friends for?”

SHE MEANT IT, too. She wasn’t the type to sit around ticking off the negatives of her life to see if she could make them outweigh the positives. If something was wrong, something was missing, she acted. Fix the problem and move ahead. Or if the problem couldn’t be fixed, she found the best way to live with it.

When her mother had left, she’d been sad and scared and hurt. But there’d been nothing she could do to bring her back. So she’d done without—and done pretty damn well, Hayley thought as she drove back to Harper House.

She’d learned how to help make a home, and she and her father had had a good life. They’d been happy; she’d been loved. And she’d been useful.

She’d done well in school. She’d gotten a job to help with expenses. She knew how to work, and how to enjoy the work. She liked to learn, and to sell people things that made them happy.

If she’d stayed in Little Rock, at the bookstore, she’d have made manager. She’d have earned it.

Then her father had died. That had blasted a hole in the foundation of her life, and had shaken her like nothing before or since. He’d been her rock, as she’d been his. Nothing had felt steady or sure when he’d died, and her grief had been a constant raw ache.

So she’d turned to a friend—that’s all he’d been really, she admitted as she turned down the drive to Harper House. A nice boy, a comfort.

Lily had come from that, and she wasn’t ashamed of it. Maybe comfort wasn’t love, but it was a positive act, a giving one. How could she have paid that kindness back by pushing the boy into marriage, or responsibility when he’d already moved on by the time she’d realized she was pregnant?

She hadn’t wallowed—or hardly. She hadn’t cursed God or man, for long. She’d accepted responsibility for her own actions, as she’d been taught, and had made the choice that was right for her.