“Who the hell is that?” John interrupted as soon as his eyes zeroed in on the redheaded male model talking to Mary. John might not have cared if not for the fact that Mary seemed about three shades duller than she usually did. She seemed almost to have shrunk in on herself, one hand gripping the other elbow and her eyes on this stooge’s chest instead of his face.

A woman with beautiful black hair down her back tucked under the redhead’s arm and Mary seemed to wilt even further.

John put the pieces together just as Sebastian answered.

“Aw, shit. That’s Doug. Her cheating ex.”

“And that’s the woman he left her for?”

“Yeah. Shit. I told Mary that we should choose another bar, but she insisted on this one. It’s one of her favorites, and she said it would be like Doug won if she avoided it.”

The guy, Doug, was giving Mary a casual wave and pulling his girl to the other side of the bar. He passed by John, and John had to resist the juvenile urge to stick out one foot and make Darling Doug face-plant on the parquet.

John’s eyes went immediately back to Mary, who was now talking with Richie, her mouth pulled down and her eyes sad.

“This,” John said in a voice he pretty much only used in a courtroom, “is completely unacceptable.”

And he meant it. With every beating centimeter of his cracked-open heart. Seeing Mary with her light this dimmed was a crime against nature. Against the universe. It defied the laws of physics and made John’s skin crawl.

Doug, he couldn’t care less about. Doug could jump in a lake. It was Mary that John was concerned about, and before he thought twice about it, John slapped his empty beer bottle down on the bar and strode through the crowd with one thought and one thought only pulsing through his mind along with the beat of the music. He was going to turn Mary’s light back on if he died trying.

WELL, THAT SUCKED.

It was only a matter of time before Mary ran into Doug in the bar he considered to be his home turf. It just blew that it had to be on this night, when she’d been so determined to have a good time. Her shop was put back together and glittering again, she was caught up on her insurance paperwork and all of her closest friends were here, celebrating with her. It should have been a night for the ages. Instead she was just feeling defeated.

These were the moments she missed Cora the most. Cora would have told Doug to take a long walk off a short pier. She would have intercepted him before he’d even approached Mary. She would have told him that the bar was closed for him tonight but try again later, ding-dong.