Smiling, Kate went to her own room, parked the boys in the playpen, and, ignoring their screams, took a shower. When she finished drying her hair (trying not to notice how dark her roots were), she opened the bathroom door.

“How you guys doing now?”

Lucas and William sat side by side, their bare pudgy legs splayed out in front of them, babbling to one another in baby talk.

“Good,” she said, patting their heads as she passed them.

In her closet, she sighed. Everything she owned was either out of date or too small. She still had some baby weight to lose—the twins had turned her stomach into the Kingdome; that kind of stretching didn’t bounce back easily.

Exercising would have helped, and she wished fervently now that she’d fit it into her schedule this winter.

Too late now.

She chose a nice pair of her favorite broken-in Levi’s and a pretty black angora sweater that Johnny had given her for Christmas a few years ago, right after he’d taken the job at KLUE. It was one of her only designer garments.

“Come on, boys,” she said, scooping them up with practiced ease. Settling one on each hip, she carried them to their bedroom, changed their diapers, and dressed them in the darling sailor boy outfits Tully had sent for their birthday. Then, because it took forever to let them walk down the stairs, she carried them, plopped them on the living room floor with a pile of toys in front of them, and popped in a Winnie-the-Pooh tape. That gave her twenty minutes if she was lucky.

Locking the child gate at the bottom of the stairs, she went into the kitchen and began setting the table. As always, she kept half an eye on the boys while she worked.

“Mom!” Marah shrieked. “They’re here!” She thundered down the stairs, jumped over the childproof gate, and ran for the window, pressing her little nose against it.

Kate sidled up to her daughter, pushed the curtains aside. Headlights cut through the darkness. Johnny’s car was first; behind it a black limousine crept down the long, treed driveway. The two cars parked in front of the garage.

“Wow,” Marah said.

The uniformed driver got out of the limo and came around to the back passenger door, opening it.

Tully emerged slowly, as if she knew she was making an entrance. Dressed in low-rise designer jeans and a crisp white men’s-style blouse beneath a navy blazer, she was the very definition of casual chic. Her hair, cut in layers and probably styled by the best hairdresser in Manhattan, was a gorgeous auburn hue that shone in the light from the garage.

“Wow,” Marah said again.

Kate tried to suck in her stomach. “I wonder if there’s time for lipo-suction.”