PATIENT and placid he might be, but he was also weak. Weak, and though she hated to admit it—hated to realize it after all these years—selfish. It took a selfish weakness to fire an efficient, creative, loyal employee on the whim of his wife.

She knew it was useless to cry, but she cried a little anyway as she stood in the small office that she’d decorated herself and boxed up her personal things. Her lifetime, career-wise, fit into a single storage box.

That was efficient again, practical. And, Malory decided, pathetic.

Everything was going to be different now, and she wasn’t ready. She had no plan, no outline, no list for what came next. She wouldn’t be getting up tomorrow, eating a light, sensible breakfast, dressing for work in the outfit carefully selected tonight.

Day after day without purpose, without plan, stretched out in front of her like some bottomless canyon. And the precious order of her life was strewn somewhere down there in the void.

It terrified her, but marching along with the fear was pride. So, she repaired her makeup and kept her chin up, her shoulders back, as she carried the box out of the office and down the stairs. She did her best to muster up a smile when Tod Grist rushed to the base of the stairs.

He was short and trim, clad in his signature black shirt and pants. Two tiny gold hoops glinted in his left earlobe. His hair was a shoulder-length streaky-blond, which Malory had always envied. The angelic face that it framed drew middle-aged and elderly ladies like the sirens’ song drew sailors.

He’d started at The Gallery the year after Malory arrived and had been her friend, confidant, and bitching partner ever since.

“Don’t go. We’ll kill the bimbo. A little arsenic in her morning latte and she’s history.” He grabbed at the storage box. “Mal, love of my life, you can’t leave me here.”

“I got the boot. A month’s severance, a pat on the head, and a pack of homilies.” She fought to keep the tears from blurring her vision as she looked around the lovely, wide foyer, the streams of filtered light spilling over the glossy oak floor. “God, what am I going to do tomorrow when I can’t come here?”

“Aw, baby. Here, give me that.” He took the box, gave her a little nudge with it. “Outside, so we can blubber.”

“I’m not going to blubber anymore.” But she had to bite her lip when it quivered.

“I am,” he promised and kept nudging until she was out the door. He set the box down on one of the iron tables on the pretty covered porch, then flung his arms around her. “I can’t stand it! Nothing’s going to be the same without you here. Who will I gossip with, who’ll soothe my broken heart when some bastard breaks it? You notice this is all about me.”

He made her laugh. “You’ll still be my best bud, right?”