She said, “Just let me know if you ever need me to roll back down here and take care of anything for you.”

“She said she doesn’t live here, so I doubt if I’ll see her again.”

“I hope you don’t.” And then, she repeated, “‘Cause I really don’t like her.”

I didn’t tell my sister that I didn’t like her either, even though I couldn’t figure out why not.

Chapter 10

It was hard to believe that only ten hours had passed since I’d awakened this morning at seven. I’d started the day at the storage facility, checking out all the donations we had for the Dress for Success program that we needed for the girls at the job fair next week. Then I’d subbed for Lizzy who was the unofficial leader of our unofficial flower ministry. She always took a bouquet to the sick and shut in. But because this was Mother Hayden, the woman who was one of the reasons why Jeremy was at New Kingdom Temple (because everyone believed her ten years ago when she said she’d heard from God about Jeremy), I’d wanted to take her the flowers myself and spend a little time praying and chatting with her as she recovered from her hip replacement. And now finally, I was leaving the kids’ school after having conferences with their teachers.

All I wanted to do right now was to crawl into bed even though the sun hadn’t yet begun its descent.

But as I rolled onto the campus of New Kingdom, sleep was still hours away for me. I was meeting Wanda, our business manager, for a finance meeting to go over the budget for our tenth anniversary celebration.

Dru had offered to sit in on this meeting for me after we’d reviewed all the appointments on my calendar this morning, but Jeremy and I had put a couple of systems in place when we opened up New Kingdom Temple that we’d followed for the last ten years. One, was that I would always handle the church’s finances. Not a check would be written, not a dime would be spent, not a credit card bill would be paid without my approval. And the second was that Jeremy would never meet with any church members alone — not women, not even men. Those were the two things that got pastors caught up: Money and sex. And Jeremy and I were doing everything we could so there would never even be hints of any improprieties.

I eased my Mercedes next to Jeremy’s Jaguar, parking in the designated FIRST LADY space. Then, I paused the way I always did when I pulled into my spot next to Jeremy either here or in our three-car garage at home.

Every time I saw his tricked out black XJ, I shook my head. I still remembered his hoopty in college, and how Jeremy said cars and other material things meant nothing to him. Those days were long gone and the gleaming black sedan next to me was proof of that.