He also had a big smile and he jerked up his chin.

I didn’t hear the garage door go down and I would see as I was closing my front door that Mickey waited at the rear bumper of his SUV for me to get home safely even though I lived right across our usually sleepy but at that hour, now totally comatose street.

My guy was a good guy.

I locked the door and then jumped a mile when I heard, “Mom.”

I turned, hand to my chest, heart hammering, to see Olympia in the shadows.

“Honey, you scared the dickens out of me.”

Suddenly, I found my daughter in my arms, the side of her head pressed to the side of mine and she was squeezing the breath out of me.

Just as suddenly as she threw herself in my arms, she said, “Glad Mickey’s okay,” let me go, turned and hurried away.

She’d heard me make plans to go see he was all right.

She’d waited up with me.

And maybe, (I didn’t put it past my girl, she could be nosy) she’d watched through the guestroom window as I ran across the street to make sure he was all right.

I had a feeling Mickey had already earned my baby girl’s stamp of approval.

Just because he meant something to me.

And fortunately, even though she’d waited up, obviously she hadn’t heard her brother and me talking about Polly.

I smiled to myself as I turned away from the door, wandered down the hall, took off my cardigan and threw it on the arm of the daybed, kicked off my sequined slippers and climbed into bed.

Then I, Amelia Hathaway, who’d grown up not learning how to deal and never having a solid foundation, after a very rough night, fell right to sleep.

Chapter Twenty-Three

My Umbrella

I was Pledging my fabulous new dining room table that looked perfect in its place in my great room and better, the bowl I’d bought that began my new beginning looked perfect in the middle of the table, when my phone rang.

I wandered to it, thinking I needed a rug under it and wondering if I’d be able to find that, and arrange for Mickey—and perhaps Junior and Jake, with the help of Auden—to come and move the huge, heavy table in order to put the rug under it.

This was a happy thought, which made the announcement on the display even more annoying than it normally would be, considering it obliterated my happy thought.

I sighed and wondered if I should perhaps not be grown up all the time as I took the call and put the phone to my ear.

“Conrad,” I greeted.

“You didn’t phone my secretary,” he replied.

No hello. He didn’t even say my name in greeting.

This was not starting out great.