He held his hands up. “About what? About you not telling me you dated before we got together? Okay.”

“I didn’t date,” I said stubbornly. “And there was nothing to tell.”

He bit back a response and just nodded.

I grabbed his shirt and pulled him to me, kissing him hard on the mouth. He stood still for a minute, then finally relented and kissed me back, his hands settling on my waist. I melted into him, like I always did, and wondered for the millionth time why I’d let two decades of my life go by without him in it. Even when he acted like a baby over one stupid date I’d gone on two years earlier.

“I love you,” I whispered, tearing my mouth away from his. “Only you. I was lonely and sad and dumb and didn’t know you were still around.”

“You thought I was dead?” he asked.

“No, silly.” I put my head on his chest. “Available.”

He rested his chin on the top of my head. “I love you, too. But I don’t like that you’ve dated other men.”

“Then you shouldn’t have broken up with me in high school.”

“Trust me,” he said, moving his lips from my hair to my forehead. “I know. I was an idiot. And I’m still sorry I did it.”

Before I could say anything else, footsteps echoed down the stairs and all four kids came racing into the kitchen, their socks sliding across the wood. They piled up in the doorway, smallest to tallest, panting and out of breath. For one horrified moment, I thought they’d found another dead body hidden upstairs.

“Is it true?” Will asked, his eyes huge.

“Is what true?” I asked.

He looked at Jake first, then me. “That the dead guy was your boyfriend?”

SIX

I wasn’t a fan of Wal-Mart. But that afternoon, wandering the aisles and collecting our weekly groceries, it was an awful lot better than sitting at home, fielding questions from my two eldest kids. Will had demonstrated the uncanny ability to channel the persona of a district attorney in his relentless questioning and Emily had quizzed me on all the finer details of setting up my account on the dating site. I’d given her a firm reminder that the minimum age for joining was eighteen and she’d just looked at me innocently.

I was barely out of the checkout line, my cart loaded with bags, when Connie Evener marched up to me, her expression of concern barely visible under the heavy foundation and pressed powder coating her face.

“Daisy, I just heard,” she said, breathless, setting her hand on my cart. She was a little thick around the waist but I couldn’t imagine catching up to me in Wal-Mart had required much exertion. “How are you?”

“I’m fine,” I said, forcing a smile. “How are you?”

“Well, I haven’t had a corpse removed from my basement today,” she said, her mascara laden eyes growing bigger.

“No. Of course not.”

I pushed the cart forward but she stepped in front of it. “What exactly happened?”

Connie Evener used her mouth as a gossip megaphone in Moose River. The only reasons she wanted details was so that she could share—and distort—the story with everyone else in our tiny town.

I lifted my jacket out of the front basket of the shopping cart and slipped it on. “We don’t really know anything, so I’m afraid I don’t have much to tell you.”

“Sure, sure,” she said, scooting closer to the cart so an elderly couple could pass by. “How’s Jake taking it?”

I zipped up my jacket and fished around in the pockets for my gloves. “Jake?” I asked, puzzled. “He’s taking it fine, I guess.”

“Well,” she said, tugging on one of the small gold hoops in her ears. “I just mean given that it was your ex-boyfriend and all.”

I froze. “Excuse me?”

“It was Olaf, correct?” she asked, leaning closer. I could see her pores under the thick coating of make-up. “Stunderson? That’s what I heard.”

“Well, yes, but…”

She smiled, her painted lips revealing unevenly bleached teeth. I’d often wondered if she’d gone to one of those teeth-whitening chairs set up in the malls. She was the kind of woman who would have no problem lounging in a chair, eye mask on, her teeth glowing under a black light while passersby gawked openly.

“Daisy.” She lowered her voice. “Everyone knows you two had a thing going. Apparently that night at Lotto’s…well, I don’t want to say…”

My mind spun for a moment. What the hell was she talking about? I’d gone on one date with the man almost two years ago. I wasn’t surprised that she knew Olaf—Connie seemed to know everyone—but how on earth did she know we’d gone on a date?

I cleared my throat. “Connie, I literally have no idea what you’re talking about. Olaf and I had dinner one time. That was it.”

“Right,” she said, nodding, her brown curls bouncing on her shoulders. “After Thornton left you.”

My temper flared. “He did not leave me,” I said. I reached for my purse and debated hitting her in the face with it. I settled it on my shoulder instead. “Not that it’s any of your business.”

She narrowed her eyes and opened her mouth but I cut her off. “And I went to dinner with Olaf one time. That was all. There was nothing to get excited about over that night at Lotto’s.”

“Interesting,” she said, tapping her fingernail to her lip, her eyes locked on me. “I heard…other things.”

“Well, you should know how stories get twisted,” I said, pasting a smile on my face. “Like how you told everyone that Jake and I were making out during Grace’s play practice?”

Grace had a role in a community production of The Wizard of Oz—she was a Munchkin—and Jake and I had attended most of the rehearsals. Not just because we’d had to get her there but because we helped paint the sets for the play. Jake and I were an affectionate couple no matter where we were and I was sure we’d hugged or kissed a few times during the two weeks of evenings we spent painting the set. Because, after twenty years of having no attraction to a man I’d married and his feelings apparently being mutual, it was unbelievably awesome to be touched and kissed and looked at like I was beautiful. So we were affectionate.

Connie, however, had exaggerated our public displays a little bit when discussing us with her denizens. By the end of the play, I was pretty sure most people thought we’d had sex on the yellow brick road we’d painted on stage while Dorothy and the Munchkins cheered us on.

Connie was not my favorite person.

She waved a hand in the air. “Oh, that. You know how people get carried away.”

“Yeah. I do.”

“So,” she said, tilting her head toward me. Waves of perfume rolled off of her and I fought back the urge to sneeze. “Olaf. What happened?”

“I have to go, Connie,” I said, covering my nose with my gloved hand. I sneezed loudly. “Nice seeing you.”

“Was Jake jealous?” she called after me as I pushed past her. The Wal-Mart greeter, an elderly lady with bluish curls, eyed both of us suspiciously. “Was that it? Did something happen there?”

“Goodbye, Connie,” I said over my shoulder.

I guided the cart out to the frozen entryway and the cold air assaulted my nostrils as I hustled to the car.

I made a mental note to send the kids in for groceries from then on.

SEVEN

“I’m expecting kids in here tonight,” Jake said, stretching out under the covers. “So you should probably keep your hands off of me so they don’t see anything inappropriate.”

“I’ll do my best,” I said, sliding into bed next to him.

He’d turned the electric blanket on while I read a bedtime story to Grace and the warmth enveloped me. My eyes were heavy and my body felt like I’d just run a marathon. The whole day had been draining, mentally and physically, and the only thing on my mind was sleep. Even a bed full of little people creeping in at various hours wouldn’t keep me awake. I was certain of it.

I threw my arm over him and snuggled against his chest. His skin was heated from the blanket and I felt the warmth of him through the thermal long-sleeved shirt I was wearing. “Still mad at me?”