“Jesus, Laura.” He rested his aching head on the steering wheel. “How do you get through that every day without drinking heavy?”

She could have told him it was all a matter of planning, discipline, and priorities. And prayers for patience. At the end of this particular day, because the first three had crumbled in her hands, she was doing a lot of praying.

Could she have anticipated that two women from rival romance magazines would start a fistfight in the lobby? She didn’t think so. Could she have guessed that after their efforts to dispel the hair-pulling, teeth-snapping, name-calling furor, two of her bell people would require stitches? She doubted it.

She could have, after the event, predicted the arrival of the press, the cameras, the questions, and the necessity for her to answer questions. But she didn’t have to like it.

Things hadn’t gone that much more smoothly when she’d arrived, late, at Pretenses to find Kate in an uproar because Margo had delved into her sacrosanct spreadsheets.

Then there had been the customer who instead of watching the three children she’d herded into the shop with her, loitered in the wardrobe room while they ran rampant.

The result was a broken vase, finger-smudged counters, and frazzled nerves. The woman left in a huff after being asked to watch her children and pay for the damages.

Life was no more simple when she returned home, ready to whimper, and found herself faced with an upcoming science project, the request to volunteer to chaperone a field trip to the aquarium, and that parental terror, long division.

It didn’t perk up her mood to discover that Bongo had expressed his adoration for her by burrowing into her closet and chewing three shoes—each from a different pair.

And her parents were arriving the next day.

All right. Laura scrubbed her hands over her face after she’d changed into slacks. She would handle it. Homework was done, Bongo chastised, and it was unlikely that Templeton would be sued because a couple of women went ballistic in the lobby.

Still, she needed some air, which would give her an opportunity to make certain that old Joe had the garden up to speed, that the paths had been swept. And since she’d forgotten to ask Ann to see that the pool was vacuumed and readied for her mother’s visit, she would see to that herself.

Rolling up her sleeves as she went, she passed Ali’s room. She stopped a moment and smiled. She heard both of her daughters inside, chattering away over some recent movie heartthrob who wasn’t yet old enough to shave. They were giggling.

Nothing could be really wrong with the world when her daughters were giggling.