2

Kelli went to her friends’ house, determined not to tell them she’d been fired. The longer she kept it a secret, the less time they would worry.

She turned over the three-hundred-page book Denice had given her, then laid it on the table in front of her. “So . . . what did you say this was for again?” Across the front, Kelli was written in perfect calligraphy with gold metallic ink.

“It’s a grief journal.” Denice walked over to open the book, gesturing toward the lined pages waiting to be filled. “You’ve got to work through all that’s happened, and you need to do it now or else it will come back to haunt you for the rest of your life. I want you to write at least a little in here every day—about your emotions, what you’re going through, fond memories, anything at all that’s bothering you. It will help speed the healing process.”

Denice had been Kelli’s best friend since childhood, and for as long as Kelli could remember, she’d been the touchy-feely balance to Kelli’s non-emotional self. “And who says this is the way to heal?”

“Everybody who knows anything.”

“In other words, says my wife.” Jones put his arm around Denice’s shoulders and grinned down at her. “Kelli, you know that when it comes to psycho-babble, Denice knows it all.”

“It’s not babble.” Denice elbowed Jones with a bit more force than necessary. “To you people who grew up in a Leave It to Beaver kind of family, maybe you can afford to laugh at the rest of us as we try our best to work our way through our stuff, but—”

Jones leaned forward and kissed his wife square on the lips to stop the flow of words. Then, keeping his face less than an inch from hers, he said, “Sorry. I’m sorry.” He continued to simply look into her eyes, one hand on the side of her face. Jones might look like an Italian mobster with his mop of dark hair and bearded face, but he had the biggest heart of anyone Kelli knew, and at times like these, he understood what was at stake. Kelli was glad Denice had found him.

“You should be sorry, you big lug.” Denice shoved at him again, but there was a grin lurking at the corners of her lips when she turned back to Kelli. “Seriously, this is important. First your breakup with Rick, then your parents’ death. That’s a lot of bad stuff to deal with.”

Kelli had never been able to convince Denice that the breakup with Rick had not been that big of a deal. Yes, she had caught him cheating, but it wasn’t like she was in love with the guy. Still, Denice worried about it, because that’s who Denice was. Kelli opened the journal and thumbed through the empty pages. “Well, I’ve got something new to add to my list of woes. I got fired today.” She could have kicked herself the moment the words slipped out.

“You’re kidding!” Denice walked over to sit beside her. “What happened?”

“Kevin Layton called the office this morning. Obviously he told Jimmy I’d been to see his mother about her remodel bill.”

“You did that, really? Like, went to her house and told her she was being cheated?” Jones leaned his head forward, eyes wide with shock.

“Well, yeah. How could I not? She was my parents’ neighbor, my neighbor for all my growing-up years. She’s elderly, and she’s one of the nicest people I’ve ever met. I just couldn’t remain silent about what was happening.”

“I, for one, am glad you are out of that place. I know that’s been hard on you, having to work for that slimeball.” Denice took her hand. “I say you’re better off.”

“I won’t miss the job itself, that much is for sure.”

Jones smiled. “I sometimes forget how fortunate I am in my wife’s choice of BFF and my own brilliant choice in business partner. Good for you for doing the right thing.” He stopped then, mouth open, and smacked himself on the forehead. “Business partner! You’re going to need part of your money back now, aren’t you?”

Just last week, Kelli had taken the entirety of her life insurance money—the one thing her parents’ debt wasn’t able to take from her—and used every bit of it as a down payment in a business partnership with Denice and Jones.

The three of them had shared a dream for years about starting their own restaurant, ever since Jones had gone to culinary school. He specialized in Southern-style comfort food combined with a healthier, farm-to-table, California sensitivity. Kelli had her degree in business, and Denice had been a waitress all her life—in her mid-teens to help pay the bills for her highly dysfunctional family, at eighteen when she’d moved out on her own, and then to support Jones while he attended culinary school. When the owner of Sam’s, a mediocre restaurant in an old Victorian home in downtown Santa Barbara, had announced he was retiring at the end of the summer, the three of them had gone crazy trying to pool together enough money to buy the place. They had talked to loan officers all over town and were not going to be able to swing it until Kelli received the life insurance check after her parents’ wreck. It had taken every cent to make it work.

“Will you have enough to hold you over until we get Farmstead up and running?” Denice pulled a twenty-dollar bill out of her wallet and set it on the table between them. “You’re being buried under an avalanche of bad stuff right now, there’s no doubt about it. But you know you can count on us for anything you need, right?”

Kelli slid the money back toward her. “I’m not desperate yet.” She knew the two of them were even more cash-strapped than she was.

Jones reached for Kelli’s hand, put the money in her palm, and then balled up her fingers. “Truly, Kelli, please know that anything we have is yours.” Somehow, coming from Jones, it was all the more special. She leaned her head against his shoulder and patted him on the arm. “Thank you. But really, I’ll be okay.”

“Yes, you will, because the three musketeers look out for each other, and right now, I’m planning to do my part.” He walked into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator door, calling out, “It’s time I whipped us up something delicious.”

“There’s something really great about a man who cooks and looks good doing it.” Denice grinned at her husband, who wiggled his eyebrows in response.

“And don’t you forget it, either.”

Kelli looked back and forth between them. “I don’t know what I’d do without the two of you.”

“Well, that’s one thing you won’t ever have to find out.” Denice followed her husband to the kitchen and pulled some plates out of the cupboard. “Do you need any help cleaning out the rest of your parents’ place?”

“Nah. There’s nothing left but Daddy’s office. I guess I have all day tomorrow to get it knocked out while you two are slaving away at your jobs. This extra time is definitely the one benefit of being fired.” Kelli thought about the room she’d put off until last. Cleaning it out seemed so final, going through his personal things too invasive. Everything about emptying out that room struck her as being wrong.

She had no idea how wrong it would turn out to be.