“You dragged me onto the floor and said, ‘Dance like there’s no tomorrow.’ I thought you were nuts and I only danced because you’d gotten out of bed to be with me. But slowly my anger at not being more experienced and not being able to do more for Jenny Reid shifted. I knew I’d given her a dignified death and I got this sense of peace. You gave that to me. Over the years, you gave me a lot. I hope I did that for you too.”

Jess’s fingers flexed, trapping Libby’s fingers tightly against her palm. Amid the sound of a noisy rattling exhale, Libby thought she heard the word, “Yes.”

It was an excruciatingly long minute before Jess breathed in again. Then her breath shuddered out. “Be … hap …”

Libby’s tears fell onto their hands. “I’ll miss you so much.”

Jess’s eyes remained closed and her pretty mouth slackened as each breath shuddered in and out of her wasted body. She suddenly gasped as if she wanted to say something and Libby leaned in close. But Jess didn’t make a sound and her fingers slackened in Libby’s hand.

“Jess?” Libby’s own breath hitched in her throat and she closed her eyes for a moment, gathering strength. Gently, she pressed her fingers on her friend’s throat, seeking the rhythmic beat that determines life. It had been faint all day. Now it was gone.

Jess was gone.

The feisty woman, full of perfection and flaws, who’d walked into her life and changed it in the best and worst ways was lost to her forever.

Libby lay her head down next to Jess’s and cried for her friend. For herself. For Leo and the utter unfairness of it all.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

A week after Jess’s death, Libby, Nick and the children packed up Freedom and disappeared for six days, leaving Alice at Burrunan minding Monty.

“Are you sure you want to be on your own?” Karen asked Alice as they stood on the pier waving to the departing yacht.

“I haven’t spent any time on my own in a month. I think it might be nice.”

“I guess you can always invite Dan over if you’re lonely,” Karen said brightly.

Alice appreciated how hard her mother was trying to accept her life choices and her arrangement with Dan, so she decided to put her out of her misery. “About Dan. He proposed.”

Karen stared at her openmouthed. “Dan van den Berg? The commitment-phobe asked you to marry him?”