“Yes.” Parker squeezed her hand, then walked over to make the tea.

“Dana, the woman I know from the book club? I never liked her.” Mrs. Grady pulled a tissue out of her apron pocket, dabbed at her eyes, her cheeks. “Disagreeable sort of person, know-it-all, that kind of thing. And now I think she’s lost a child, and none of that matters anymore. Someone took pictures of the terrible wreck of the car, and they had it on the local news. I hope she doesn’t see it, that she never has to see that, that they towed it away and locked it away before she ever saw it.”

“I want you to . . .” Towed it away, Parker thought.

Malcolm.

She squeezed her eyes shut, took a breath. First things first.

“I want you to drink your tea while I make you some breakfast.”

“Darling girl.” Mrs. Grady blew her nose, almost managed a smile. “Bless your heart, you can’t cook worth spit.”

“I can scramble eggs and make toast.” She set the tea in front of Mrs. Grady. “And if you don’t trust me that far, I’ll get Laurel to make it. But you’re going to have some breakfast and some tea. Then you’re going to call Hilly Babcock, because you’re going to want your good friend.”

“Bossy.”

“That’s right.”

She grabbed Parker’s hand as tears swirled again. “I’ve been sitting here, my heart broken for those lost children, for their families, even for the child who fate spared. And a part of me thanked God, couldn’t help but thank God, that I still have mine.”

“You’ve got a right to be grateful for that.We all do. It doesn’t take away the sorrow and the sympathy for the loss.”

She wrapped her arms around Mrs. Grady again because she remembered, too well remembered, when they’d lost theirs. The way the world had simply fallen away, and the air had closed off. When there was nothing but terrible, ripping grief.

“Drink your tea.” Parker gave her a last, hard squeeze. “I’m calling Laurel and Emma and Mac, and we’ll take some time to be grateful, and time to be sorry.”

She kissed Mrs. Grady’s cheek. “But I’m making breakfast.”

THE FOUR OF THEM SWITCHED OFF KEEPING AN EYE ON MRS. GRADY, trying not to be obvious about it. With all of them juggling appointments, a rehearsal that evening, and a weekend with back-to-back events, Parker barely had time to think.

But she made a point of looking the story up online.

This, she thought as her throat clutched at the photograph, was what Malcolm had seen the night before. How much more horrible would it be to have seen it in reality?

This is what had put that look in his eyes, that tone in his voice.

He’d come to her, she thought. Closed in, yes, but he’d come to her.

So, as soon as she could, she’d go to him.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

MALCOLM BLED THE NEW, LONGER BRAKE LINES FOR THE JEEP THE customer ordered lifted. He suspected the kid wanted the modification more for looks and peer status than any serious offroading.

Whatever the reason, Malcolm figured he got paid the same.

Working methodically with his iPod blasting out his playlist from its port on a workbench, he replaced the front shock absorbers and the coil springs with their taller counterparts. The customer’s requirement meant modifying the control arms, the track bars, and lengthening the brake lines.

The kid would end up right this side of legal—barely.

It wasn’t a rush job, nothing he had to dig into after closing. But then neither was the oil change he’d slated to take care of next instead of passing the basic job to Glen.

Busywork, he admitted as the Killers rocked out. Well, he wanted to keep busy.

The time he spent jacking up the kid’s ride, doing an oil change, then a brake job, meant he wouldn’t spend that time thinking.

Mostly.

Thinking about what was screwed up in the world, and currently his life, wouldn’t fix it.The world would continue to screw up no matter how long and hard he thought about it.

And his life? A little time and space was probably in order.The Parker thing had gotten pretty intense, and maybe a little crowded—and that was on him, no question.

He’d pushed, he’d pursued, he’d plotted the course. Somehow he—she—they, he wasn’t entirely sure—had navigated that course a lot speedier and into much deeper territory than he’d expected.

They’d been spending nearly every free moment together, and plenty of moments that weren’t exactly free. Then boom, he’s thinking about next week with her, and the next months—and okay, beyond even that. It just wasn’t what he’d banked on.

Plus, before he knows what’s happening, he’s taking her to dinner at his mother’s, asking her to stay the night in his bed.

Both of those particular events broke precedent. Not that he had hard-and-fast rules about it. It was more a cautionary avoidance to keep things at a comfortable level.

Then again, Parker wasn’t comfortable, he thought as he installed a skid plate for the oil pan. He’d known that going in.

She was complicated and nowhere near as predictable as she looked on the outside. He’d wanted to know how she worked, he couldn’t deny it. And the more he’d examined the parts, the more caught up he’d become.

He knew those parts now, and how she worked. She was a detail-oriented, somewhat—hell, extremely—anal, goal-focused woman. Mixed in there she had a talent and a need to arrange those details into a perfect package and tie them with a bow.

If that, plus the money and pedigree, had been it, she’d have probably been a beautiful pain in the ass. But inside her was a deep-seated need for family, for stability, for home—and God knew he understood that one—and an appreciation for what she’d been given. She was unflinchingly loyal, generous, and, being hardwired to be productive and useful, had a work ethic that kicked ass.

She was complicated and real, and like the image he had of her mother on the side of the road in a pretty spring dress, he thought she defined what beauty was. In and out.

So he’d ended up breaking those not-exactly rules because the more he’d learned, the more caught up he’d become, the more he’d known she was exactly what he wanted.

He could deal with wants. He’d wanted plenty. Some he’d gotten, some he hadn’t. And he’d always figured things averaged out in the end. But he’d realized the night before, when he’d gone to her because he’d been edgy and unsettled and just f**king sad, that want had merged with need.