Tears stung my eyes, but I reminded myself that this wasn’t about me. This was about my best friend. “Neely Kate, I love you. You know that. You can live with me until you’re a hundred and two. I’m just suggesting that you take your time, because I don’t want you to have any regrets. I’ll support you no matter what you do.”

Her face softened. “I’m sorry. It’s just that Ronnie’s family is giving me fits, and Ronnie hasn’t even been served the papers yet. The investigator Carter hired can’t find him.”

“Then how does his family know?”

“Because my fool cousin told his friend, who told his friend, who knows Ronnie’s brother.”

I frowned. “Shouldn’t his family be more concerned that he’s been working for a crime lord?”

“They don’t know.”

I sighed. “What a mess.”

Neely Kate straightened her back and plastered a smile on her face. “Come on. We have somewhere to be.”

“And where exactly is that?”

“A surprise,” she said, leading the way to my truck parked at the curb.

“You do know you have to tell me at some point since I’m driving.”

She laughed. “And you know that I’ll always tell you where to go.”

“That’s what I’m worried about,” I grumbled in a teasing tone as I climbed into the truck cab. Once we were buckled in, I cast a glance at Carter Hale’s office across the street. I’d been meaning to pay him a visit anyway, but now I had a really good excuse.

I intended to find out why he was helping my friend. I had a feeling there was more to it than his obvious crush.

Chapter 2

Neely Kate told me to pull into the parking lot of Magpie’s, a new restaurant close to the landscaping nursery I owned with my sister Violet and Joe. I’d noticed the renovation on the old service station over the past few weeks, but I hadn’t realized it had opened.

I gave her a questioning look, but she shrugged. “I know we usually eat at Merilee’s, but I thought we’d try something new.”

Was she trying to protect me? Mason and I had gone to Merilee’s together more often than I could count. I suspected he was too busy to get away, so there was little chance of running into him there.

That thought spiraled into a worry, like most of my thoughts tended to do lately. Who was making sure he ate? Over the last three months, I had been the one who had always brought him lunch when he got busy. Had his assistant taken over that task?

“No thinking about Mason,” Neely Kate said in a firm voice.

“Who said I was?”

“Well . . .” she drawled. “Other than the fact that you think about him pretty much nonstop, the goofy look on your face confirmed it.” Then she made an exaggerated dreamy face.

I laughed. “I do not look like that.”

“I’m going to start taking photos and posting them on Facebook.”

“You wouldn’t.”

She gave me a taunting grin. “Try it again and see what happens. I’m starving. Let’s eat.”

With that, she got out of the truck and headed toward the restaurant. Instead of going in, she whipped open the door with a flourish and held it for me.

Shaking my head, I followed her. But when I walked into Magpie’s, I was shocked to see it was full of guests—and I knew most of them. Jonah and his girlfriend Jessica were there along with Bruce Wayne, Mason’s mother Maeve, Deputy Randy Miller, and my sister Violet.

I stopped short inside the doorway. “What’s going on?”

As she pushed me inside, Neely Kate whispered into my ear, “I thought you needed a reminder that you’re not alone.”

Leave it to Neely Kate to set aside her own problems to do something like this for me. I spun around and wrapped my arms around her. “But I knew I wasn’t alone, Neely Kate. I have you.”

She pulled back and smiled at me with teary eyes.

“Hey, now. I want a hug, too!” Maeve said, wrapping me up in her arms. I rested my cheek on her shoulder as I squeezed, reassured that even if Mason remained lost to me, I still had his mother—the closest thing to a loving mother I’d ever had.

I moved down a receiving line of friends, their smiles and embraces restoring more and more of me to myself. Violet held me a little longer than the rest, rubbing my back in soft circles, just like when we were little. It reminded me of how she’d always protected me from Momma, who’d made both of our lives hell.

I looked deep into her eyes. “I miss you, Vi.”

“I miss you, too,” she said with a trembling smile. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.” She looked as exhausted as I felt. There were dark circles under her eyes, and now that I was studying her, she looked like she’d lost ten pounds.

“Vi, are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she said dismissively, taking a step back. “But I’m starving. Let’s order.”

We all sat down, except for Jonah, the pastor of the New Living Hope Revival Church. He stood behind his chair, resting his hands on the back. The bright, unnaturally white smile that had made his sermons a TV sensation lit up his face. “Now Rose, I’m sure you think this is just an ordinary lunch, but it’s a celebration of your charges being dropped. Every single one of us would have moved heaven and earth to help you. It seemed only fitting to celebrate, even if it’s several days after the fact.”

“Thank you, Jonah,” I said, but part of me was sad. There were people missing—Mason, Skeeter, and Jed. Even Joe, although it would have been strange for the person who’d arrested me in the first place to come to my exoneration party. Of course, Joe claimed it had been part of his plan to help me, but he’d never deigned to include me in the details. “I don’t know what I’d do without all of you.”

I glanced at Bruce Wayne, my landscaping business partner, who’d helped me get mixed up with Skeeter Malcolm in the first place. We’d had a fight before my kidnapping, and things hadn’t felt right between us since.

He squirmed in his seat. “Let’s eat. I’m starving,” he said, but he lifted his gaze to catch my eye, and the smile he flashed told me all was forgiven.

We spent the next hour eating and laughing, and I realized how lucky I was to have this group of people in my life. Even if Mason didn’t change his mind and come back to me, I would get through this. I would be devastated, but life would go on. My breakup with Joe had taught me that.