“Sorry to barge in.” Renee studied Bree carefully. She had pale purple circles beneath her eyes, and her burst of curly blond hair hung lank. She was wearing a pair of worn jeans and an old oatmeal-colored sweater. She looked tired and slightly sad. Nothing like her usual serene self. “What’s wrong?”

“What? Why? Nothing. Everything’s fine.” Bree walked into her kitchen, filling the kettle with tap water and setting it on the stove. She pulled a carton of half-and-half out of the fridge, sniffed, and then poured it down the sink. “Hope you weren’t set on cream though I think I can manage sugar.”

Renee narrowed her eyes. Her sister radar detected trouble, but what?

“Rooibos or black tea?”

Renee nodded toward the Lipton.

“Quit staring.” Bree spun on her heel and began stacking papers on the kitchen table.

Renee leaned against the island and examined a pile of cowls in cherry-blossom pink, persimmon, and sky-blue yarn that Bree must have recently finished up. “You took terrible.”

“Did you come over to visit or pass judgment?” Bree wouldn’t meet her eyes. “What’s up?” Bree had a point.

“I almost made out with my boss,” Renee announced dramatically, having to keep herself from shrieking like a lovesick teenager.

She stared at her sister, waiting for an awed or shocked reaction.

“Dr. Dan?” Bree raised a brow. “What the heck does ‘almost made out’ mean?”

Maybe Renee hadn’t set the story up well—Tansy had always been the storyteller, not her. She was better at playing the part of the captive audience.

“Well, I ran into him walking on the beach. Technically Sadie and I did. We were with her toddler, Lincoln. You remember Sadie, right?”

Bree nodded, looking impatient.

“You would have been so proud of me. I asked him to come over, and he agreed. I served him a plate of my strawberry pie, and then we played Scrabble. I reached for a dictionary at the same time he did, and he grabbed my hand. I started to move toward him. He started to move toward me. But Tansy called at that exact second!”

Renee widened her eyes and waited for her sister to burst into laughter or perhaps squee. But Bree did neither.

“O-kay?” She sounded slightly exasperated. “So you almost kissed him. In that case, I almost kissed Brad Pitt that one time I ran into him at an airport ten years ago.”

Renee blushed, looking down at her lap and suddenly feeling more like a thirteen-year-old girl than a forty-three-year-old woman. What was she going to swoon about next? Dan giving her his letterman jacket or asking her to the big school dance?