He froze as the point hit home.

“I’ll see you later. Make sure everyone has a backpack when they get off the bus.” She walked downstairs, snatching her keys from the hook near the garage door and scooting out.

She’d had the last word and he needed to chew on that for a while.

* * *

THOUGH HER TRIPS to Hood River were usually far less pleasant than the one she undertook that day, the skies above were brilliantly blue. The weather was gorgeous and she was hungry and going to have lunch with a new friend and hopefully a new business contact.

It wasn’t a city, not even a small city. But Tuesday’s custom frame shop was located in a cute, well-traveled part of town in a busy retail-dense several blocks.

But when she went inside, Kelly realized this was far more than a place people got art framed. This little shop had the bones and heart of a gallery.

Tuesday was up front, dealing with a customer, so Kelly strolled through the space, pausing to look here and there.

Once the customer had left and it was just the two of them, Tuesday smiled and welcomed Kelly with a hug. “Thanks for waiting.”

“No problem. I run a shop, too. I know what that’s like.” Kelly indicated a glass case. “Is that yours?”

Tuesday nodded, pulling some trays out.

Like Tuesday herself, the jewelry was vivid. Bold and beautiful. She liked to work with a variety of stones and findings but everything was crafted incredibly and priced fairly. In fact, Kelly would sell these things in her store for at least twice as much and they’d still be a bargain.

“Let’s go to lunch so we can talk about what I’ve got in mind.”

Kelly didn’t have many close friends but when she liked someone she tended to just like them intensely enough to be real friends with them, or they became acquaintances.

Tuesday was one of those souls Kelly had liked the moment she’d come into Kelly’s house with Ezra at her side. They had lunch, talked about the kids and how they were feeling and the discussion landed on how Kelly felt about Vaughan living with her.

Kelly hesitated because she had a million different feelings about it.

Finally, she managed, “It’s complicated.”

Tuesday laughed, patting Kelly’s hand. “Girl, I bet. I’m around if you want to talk about it. You don’t know me very well, but sometimes that’s a good thing.”

Maybe it was.

“I’m so confused right now. To be honest, I couldn’t answer you because I don’t know. Well, no, that’s a lie. I like Vaughan. I mean as a person separate from my ex-husband or as the father of my kids. I’ve always liked him, since the start. And it hasn’t served me well in every circumstance. I have a lot to figure out. Right now I’m just trying to figure out what it is I want.”

She wanted what it was between them when they were having sex. It wasn’t awkward or uncertain then. Her body trusted his. In the four days since they’d slept together, they’d been together every single night after the girls had gone to sleep.

She’d gone back to her room, or him to his own, but he chafed at that, she knew. He wanted the girls to understand he was there to get all of them back.

The truth was, sleeping with him had been a stupid, impulsive mistake. Kelly had wanted to wait, take it slow. But she’d given in and at this point, since the condom was out of the wrapper, she didn’t regret it because it felt so good.

She never wanted her children to feel what she did when their father lost interest. And though she’d forgiven him and believed his apology was genuine, there was no forgetting.

And that still loomed between them whether she wanted it to or not.

Illicit sex was one thing. Mom and Dad sleeping in the same room was something a lot more than, “Dad’s staying with us awhile.”

They paid for their lunch and began to make their way back the few blocks to Tuesday’s shop. Her new friend was equally skittish it seemed about the Hurley she was with.

Neither of them seemed to want to talk about it in too much detail but Kelly felt a little better anyway that someone else was trying to work out a complicated-type romantic thing at the same time.

“Vaughan isn’t a bad man.” Kelly began to speak as she arranged the jewelry she’d asked Tuesday to pull out of the locked cases, taking pictures and sending them to her business partner. “He just didn’t want a life with me and the girls. It took me a really long time to get over that.”

When Kelly looked up, she caught understanding on Tuesday’s features.

Tuesday blew out a breath and started to tell Kelly the story of how she’d met and fallen in love with her former husband who’d died five years prior.

Tuesday leaned against the counter. “Things were fast with us. We clicked. He had dreadlocks back then. We were nineteen.” Tuesday laughed.

“The next year we all decided to move into a big house together. Natalie and me and our other roommates. And Eric. We all went to school together, some of us worked together, we lived in the same house and we were a family. As we neared graduation, Eric asked me to marry him. Or I guess I should say he and I had this talk about life and the future and we decided to get married. He and I had plans. A path, and we were on it together. It was a really great time in my life. I’m telling you this stuff so you can understand what I’m going to say next a little better.”

Kelly stilled, putting her phone down. The heat of a blush overtook her neck and face. Tuesday knew about the cheating. Kelly wasn’t sure who’d told her, but it was pretty easy to tell where the story was heading.