BRYNNE HADN’T WANTED to impose—it was a holiday, after all—but after the restaurant had been restored to order and she found herself with nothing to do, or, at least, nothing she wanted to do, the worry she felt simply grew too great to bear alone.

She called Sara, asked if it would be all right to stop in.

Sara, told her to come right over. She was preparing a New Year’s Day dinner of standing rib roast and all the appropriate trimmings, and she’d like someone to talk to, since Hayley and Eric were in the living room playing video games with Dan Summers.

“Join us,” Sara said. “I’m hoping Eli will be able to fit us in at some point, but you know how it is, with his job and all hell breaking loose.”

Brynne wondered, with a whisper of shame, if Sara knew how much her friend was hoping for even a glimpse of Eli, for the smallest indication that he was all right. “What shall I bring?”

“Yourself and a few bottles of white wine,” Sara answered. “Eli’s bringing the red—if he remembers.” She paused, sighed with benign resignation. “If, indeed, he shows up at all.” A smile blossomed in Sara’s voice. “What am I saying? Eli will be here at some point because we have his dog.”

Brynne laughed, though her throat was tight to the point of aching. “Thank you, Sara. For letting me intrude.”

“You are not intruding, Brynne. Get over here, as quickly as you can, and don’t bother to dress up. I’m in sweatpants and an ancient T-shirt.”

“My kind of dress code,” Brynne replied, though, of course, it wasn’t. Her public image had always been the pretty girl who wore the best clothes she could afford; even her jeans were expensive.

Bottom line? She was over-cautious sometimes.

Hesitant to trust.

Clay, the only man she’d ever been truly intimate with, had accused her of withholding the sacred, secret parts of herself from him.

Screw you, Clay, she thought, remembering the inappropriate text he’d sent. You had access to my body, but you couldn’t be trusted with my soul. And you proved that.

Feeling a little better, Brynne washed her face, combed her hair and applied a touch of lip gloss. Then she spooned celebratory tuna into Waldo’s dish, and left him to enjoy his feast alone.

Downstairs, behind the bar, Brynne opened the cooler and took out two bottles of high-grade pinot grigio and two of name-brand champagne. She placed these in a box and carried them out back, to her car.

Brynne drove a kit car, a careful re-creation of a 1954 MG Roadster, totally impractical in a rural Montana town, but she didn’t care. She loved that bright red roadster, if only because it belied her proper-to-the-point-of-untouchable image—another idea of Clay’s.