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  “I’m sorry,” he said again. “It just got out of control.”

  “Jared, I can’t have this sort of thing going on. You know that.” I sighed, too. I wanted a cup of coffee. A vodka. A nap.

  “I know. But she told me she broke up with Duane, and I kissed her, and it just went on from there.” He looked up at me. “Were you ever doing something that you knew was going to get you into trouble even when you were doing it, but you couldn’t stop yourself?”

  “Um…yes. I have. But not,” I said sternly, “at work!”

  Jared gave me a small smile. “It won’t happen again.”

  “It better not. And you’re lucky I’m too tired and desperate for help around here, or I’d fire you both.”

  He smiled again as if he knew I didn’t mean it and got up. “Thanks, Grace. I’d better go check on her.”

  “Tell Miss Attitude she’d better get back to work pronto.” I was too tired to put much force behind the threat. “And we need to take care of Mrs. Grenady, so be back in five minutes or I’ll kick your butt.”

  Jared saluted. “Yes, ma’am.”

  God. I was so not a ma’am, but whatever. “Go!”

  We spent the next few hours actually working. Jared was bubbling with enthusiasm about music, about the upcoming weekend, about what he was going to have for dinner. He was so caught up in his own little love bubble he shouldn’t have noticed mine, but he must’ve caught sight of my own secret smiles because he pinned me like a wrestler on the Friday-night smackdown.

  “So, who is he?” Jared ran water in the sink and started tidying the equipment we’d used in Mrs. Grenady’s preparation.

  “Don’t forget we need to order some more of that cleaning fluid.” I wasn’t pretending I didn’t hear him. I was deliberately not answering.

  “Yes, boss. But c’mon. You’ve got a grin on your face and you otherwise look like crap.”

  Jared stepped in front of me so I had to look up at him. “Hey, I don’t think we have any secrets from each other anymore.”

  I raised a brow. “I hardly think what I saw this morning puts you on a ‘need-to-know’

  basis about my private life.”

  Jared grinned. “Come on.”

  I grinned, too, giddy from lack of sleep and the sheer emotional roller-coaster ride I was on. “It’s Sam.”

  It was Jared’s turn to raise a brow. “Sam Stewart? Dude with the earring?”

  “Yes.”

  “The one who brought Chinese?”

  “Same Sam.”

  Jared let out a low whistle. “Same guy whose dad we took care of?”

  “Yes, Jared. Is that a problem?” I glared, again without strength. “I need some coffee.”

  Together we transported Mrs. Grenady up to the chapel to await the service with her family later that afternoon. Jared didn’t continue poking me about Sam, but when I’d poured us both coffee and given him a mug, he grinned again. I ignored him this time and told Shelly to order more cleaning fluid. She, apparently, wasn’t speaking to me, but she sniffed and flipped open the supply catalog.

  “Sam Stewart,” Jared said. “Wow.”

  “What’s wrong with Sam?” I snapped.

  Shelly looked up. “Grace is going out with Sam?”

  “None of your business!”

  “She is,” Jared said.

  “You’d think she’d be a little more understanding then,” Shelly muttered.

  I chose to ignore her. I didn’t really want to fire her. Who’d make me cookies?

  “I think it’s about time.” Jared nodded. Suddenly an expert.

  “Are you two finished with the commentary?” I glared at them both.

  Shelly shrugged and picked up the phone to take an order. Jared laughed and said he had to finish cleaning up the embalming room. I was taking my coffee to sit in my office and maybe steal a power nap, when the back door opened and Hannah came in with the kids in tow.

  Hannah never came here. It was something of a tradition, if not a joke, that my sister never came to the funeral home where she’d lived until she was four. Now she hustled in, a hand wrapped firmly around each of her children’s wrists.

  “I need you to watch the kids for half an hour until Mom can get here to pick them up.”

  Hannah didn’t waste any time.

  Two small bodies buffeted me with jostling hugs.

  “Bother!” Melanie said in a high-pitched voice, imitating an Internet cartoon I’d shown them once while babysitting. “Bother, bother!”

  I unstuck my niece and nephew and told them to go into my office and find the candy jar, a command they followed willingly and at once. I looked at my sister.

  Hannah wore a pair of neat black slacks and a sky-blue, button-down blouse. She wore makeup and had done her hair. There wasn’t anything showy or flashy about her. There never was. Nevertheless, I could tell she’d made more of an effort than seemed normal.

  “Where are you going?” I asked, suspicious.

  “I have an appointment. Mom will come for them in half an hour. I have to go.”

  “Hannah, wait!”

  She did, just barely. Her shoulders hunched and she turned, every line of her body so tense she appeared to be hovering. “I’m going to be late, Grace! C’mon, can’t you just do this for me?”

  The way she said it, as if I never agreed to watch them, set my teeth on edge. “This isn’t a preschool! It’s my business! I have to work.”

  “The kids don’t mind it here. Let them watch TV or something.” Hannah stared right at me, neither to one side or the other, as if she was afraid she might accidentally catch sight of a corpse. “Half an hour.”

  With that, before I could protest, she ducked out the door, leaving me to stare after her with my mouth open.

  “You catching flies?” Jared had just come up from the basement.

  I closed my mouth and mumbled something as I went to my office to make sure Melanie and Simon hadn’t added it to the path of their worldwide destruction. I could entertain them for half an hour, no problem. I’d stick them in front of the cartoon channel if I had to. The more concerning question in my mind was, what was so important to my sister that she’d come to the funeral home to drop them off? What sort of appointment would be so important?

  It hit me like a snow shovel to the back of the head. So obvious I couldn’t believe I hadn’t noticed it before. So preposterous it had to be true.

  Hannah was having an affair.

  Chapter 17

  I wasn’t sure what to do about Hannah, so I didn’t do anything. My mom came to pick them up in an hour instead of thirty minutes, but the kids had occupied themselves with cartoons and candy and I wasn’t called away to pick up a body or oversee any burials. I didn’t mention my concern to my mom. After all, what would I have said? I thought about it, though, as the days passed.

  Contrary to what our Puritan heritage teaches us, I’m not convinced monogamy is the natural resting state of human sexuality. I don’t think people are wired to attach themselves to one another forever and ever, amen. I think it can be done successfully, sure, and I understand the appeal of being secure in your emotional connections, knowing your partner isn’t expending his or her emotional limit on someone else. I even think it’s better for most people to convince themselves monogamy is what they prefer, that there’s something to be said about a little self-delusion now and again. But I don’t think monogamy is easy or natural, and I think most people spend too much time worried about their spouse or partner cheating on them.

  I’d sort of always looked at my sister’s life as one more example why I was glad to stay single, but since meeting Sam my mind had begun changing. It seemed like overnight I’d ended up with a guy who wasn’t a hired companion or a one-night stand. A boyfriend. Like a late-night B movie, the thought of Sam Stewart being my boyfriend alternately thrilled and chilled me. One minute I couldn’t stop grinning. The next I broke out in a cold sweat, wondering what the hell I’d gotten myself