“It would have taken a long time.” She looked up at Phil as he set a mug of coffee and a bottle of Gatorade in front of her. “Thank you.”

“Did he find you because you’re cosmic soulmates?”

“Alice, really?” Phil looked back over his shoulder at her. “Why are you filling her head with that crap?”

“Denying it doesn’t make it less true,” Alice said.

“Don’t believe anything she says,” he told Katie.

“How did you know to go to the pool?” Katie asked Phil. “Megan said you went there first.”

“Yes, how did you know to go to the pool, Phillip?” Alice turned from the stove.

“Lucky guess.”

“Ha!” Alice laughed. “And when Lina’s water broke three weeks early with Logan and you told the judge you needed a recess because your wife needed you, was that a lucky guess too?”

“That never happened.”

“Lina?” Alice prompted.

“I’m staying out of it.” Lina took a sip of her coffee, remembering how surprised she was when Phil, who was supposed to be in court all day, called within seconds of her water breaking.

“I think it’s kind of cool.” Katie was watching Phil with something other than distaste in her eyes.

“Mom, is that an engagement ring on your finger?” Lina’s eyes centered in on the classic-cut solitaire diamond on Alice’s left ring finger, and she had to concentrate to keep her mouth from falling open.

“Oh, yes.” Alice looked down at it as if she’d forgotten it was there. “Your father and I are engaged. I thought I told you.”

“No.” Lina shook her head and then grimaced when it began to pound. “I would have remembered that.”

“You can’t keep him from being friends with Brian Drayton,” Lina told Phil as soon as they were alone.

“The hell I can’t. I don’t want Drayton in our life. I don’t want you driving to his house to drop off Logan or him coming to ours. It’s going to be bad enough running into him at Gilman.”

Lina still had a dull headache, and she didn’t want to discuss Nick with him, but Logan was counting on her. “Brian lives with his mother. How about if we only let him go there? Logan genuinely likes him, Phil, and I think you would too.”

“This isn’t about Brian Drayton,” Phil said. “It’s about his father. I don’t like him. In fact, I dislike him, and I sure as hell don’t trust him.”

“Do you trust me?” she asked and then immediately felt a pang of anxiety in her chest, knowing she’d already been dishonest with him.

“Of course I do,” he said, making her guilt jump up a notch, “but I hurt you, and I don’t want some smooth-talking psychiatrist to take advantage of the situation.”