“Morning, gorgeous. How’s my best girl?”

 “Up and at ’em anyway.” She went to a cupboard for a mug. “How was the date last night?”

 “Promising. He likes Grey Goose martinis and John Waters movies. We’ll try for a second round this weekend. Sit yourself down. I’m making French toast.”

 “French toast?” It was a personal weakness. “Damn it, David, I just ran three miles to keep my ass from falling all the way to the back of my knees, then you hit me with French toast.”

 “You have a beautiful ass, and it’s nowhere near the back of your knees.”

 “Yet,” she muttered, but she sat. “I passed Harper at the end of the drive. He finds out what’s on the menu, he’ll be sniffing at the back door.”

 “I’m making plenty.”

 She sipped her coffee while he heated up the skillet.

 He was movie-star handsome, only a year older than her own Harper, and one of the delights of her life. As a boy he’d run tame in her house, and now he all but ran it.

 “David . . . I caught myself thinking about Bryce twice this morning. What do you think that means?”

 “Means you need this French toast,” he said while he soaked thick slices of bread in his magic batter. “And you’ve probably got yourself a case of the mid-holiday blues.”

 “I kicked him out right before Christmas. I guess that’s it.”

 “And a merry one it was, with that bastard out in the cold. I wish ithad been cold,” he added. “Raining ice and frogs and pestilence.”

 “I’m going to ask you something I never did while it was going on. Why didn’t you ever tell me how much you disliked him?”

 “Probably the same reason you didn’t tell me how much you disliked that out-of-work actor with the fake Brit accent I thought I was crazy about a few years back. I love you.”

 “It’s a good reason.”

 He’d started a fire in the little kitchen hearth, so she angled her body toward it, sipped coffee, felt steady and solid.