Catch up on email, as had been her plan, or eat Eleanor’s offering?

The smart choice was to take care of business while her energy lasted. If she ate first, she wouldn’t want to do anything afterward except curl up in bed and sleep the afternoon away.

She crossed to the table and sat. Once her laptop was booted up, she checked her inbox. Groaned at the number of unread emails. How could so many have come in over the past seventy-two hours?

Eyeing the refrigerator again, she almost succumbed to temptation. Almost.

But you didn’t get through medical school and residency and a grueling forensic pathology fellowship without a superabundance of self-discipline.

She’d work first, then eat.

However . . . if Eleanor’s chicken noodle soup was half as tasty as the chicken/rice/vegetable version Nate had raved about, the reward would be worth waiting for.

At the sound of splintering glass, Dave vaulted to his feet in his home office and dashed down the hall.

His wife was standing in front of the built-in desk in the kitchen, the Waterford vase they’d bought on their twentieth anniversary trip to Ireland in shards at her feet. The rose that had been inside lay in a widening pool of water.

Another casualty in their relationship.

But he was more concerned about the tears running down her cheeks.

“Are you hurt?” He moved closer and gave her a quick inspection.

“No. But I b-broke our vase.”

“The memories are still intact, though. I’m more interested in repairing what the vase represents.” Since their talk a week ago, he’d done everything he could to show her how much she meant to him and how sorry he was for all the distress he’d caused her. Fixing the damage would be a long-term project, but at least she was letting him make the attempt.

And it was his top priority going forward.

She met his gaze. “I know you’re trying. Don’t stop. And I’ll keep praying.”

“Fair enough. What happened in here?”

“My stupid drawer wouldn’t open again.” She indicated the middle one on the side of the desk that had always been reserved for her. The one that liked to stick. The one he’d been meaning to fix for months.

“Let me open it for you. And I’ll take care of the sticking problem today. Why don’t you sit and I’ll get whatever you need?” He motioned toward the table, where the papers spread about suggested she was working on a church project.

As she complied, he gave the drawer his full attention. After two yanks, it opened with a screech.

“What can I get for you?” He surveyed the drawer, filled with neatly labeled hanging file folders. Kimberly had always been more organized than him. Without her managing his office these past four years, and with all the distraction and upheaval in his life, his own files had deteriorated to the point that every search took twice as long as it should.