Brynne took two glasses from the rack affixed to the underside of the cupboard above the cooler and reached into a drawer for the corkscrew. “Why don’t you?” she asked, as she began the process of opening a lovely bottle of crisp, dry white. “The holidays seem to get more hectic every year—first, there’s Thanksgiving, and all the attendant fuss, then, too soon, it’s Christmas, and even more fuss. A week after that, we’re staying up until midnight, and finally—”

“We’re cooking a roast beef dinner and hoping we can get everybody fed before half the guests are crowded into the den, watching the big football game,” Sara finished.

Brynne handed a glass to Sara, then filled one for herself. “You do it all because you love your family and your friends and you want your kids to have great memories to look back on. You’re a wonderful mother, Sara.”

To Brynne’s surprise, her friend’s eyes filled with tears and she sank into a chair at the table, nearly thrusting her elbow into the coconut layer cake in the process.

Brynne immediately set her own glass down and rested a hand on Sara’s shoulder. The other woman was trembling a little.

“Sara,” she said, “what is it?”

“I don’t want to spoil the holiday by telling you,” Sara replied, with a sniffle. She picked up her glass and took a resolute sip.

Brynne sat down, pulled her chair closer to Sara’s. “Tell me what?” she asked, though she had a pretty good idea what the problem was. The night before, Eli had told her about the threatening text Sara’s son, Eric, had received from Freddie Lansing.

She knew, too, that Dan Summers was there as a professional, rather than a friend, although he was certainly that, too.

For all that, Brynne knew that the choice to discuss the problem was Sara’s to make, not hers or Eli’s. Plus, on the off chance that Eli had spoken out of turn, she didn’t want to throw him under the bus.

Sara spilled the story Brynne had expected to hear, but with greater detail.

She’d hired Dan Summers to live in her house until the Freddie Lansing threat had been resolved. He would be accompanying Eric to school, while one of his crewmen, scheduled to arrive that afternoon, would watch over Hayley.

“What about you?” Brynne asked, thinking what an outrage it was that Sara, the sister of the county sheriff, had to go to such lengths to protect her family, while Freddie, that punk, was free to come and go. “Who’s going to keep you safe, Sara?”

Sara blinked away her tears, took another sip of wine, savored it for a moment and swallowed. “Well, I am,” she said, sounding surprised.