She’d wondered how she’d feel in the morning about his staying. Yet even now, hearing the creak of a door downstairs, a latch, muted voices, the tink-tink of cereal bowls, she knew it was the right decision. Time to step forward. They’d been dating a year, a little more. She now marshaled arguments and prepared a public relations campaign for the children, thought about what they would and wouldn’t think, say, do when they saw a man come down the stairs. They’d have a clue about what had been going on; Dance had already had the Talk with them, several years ago. (The reactions: Maggie had nodded matter-of-factly, as if confirming what she’d known for years. Wes had blushed furiously and finally, encouraged to ask a question, any question, about the process, wondered, “Aren’t there, like, any other ways?” Dance, struggling to keep a straight face.)

So. They were about to confront the fact that Mom had had a man stay over, albeit a man they knew well, liked and who was more a relative to them than her own sister was an aunt (flighty, charming and occasionally exasperating New Age Betsey lived in the hills of Santa Barbara).

Let’s see what the next half hour holds.

Dance considered just throwing a robe on but opted for a shower. She slipped into the bathroom and, when out, dressed in jeans and a pink work shirt while Boling, looking a bit uneasy, brushed his teeth. He too dressed.

“Okay,” he said slowly.

“No.”

“No?” he asked.

“You were looking at the window. You can’t jump out of it. You’re going to come downstairs with me and we’ll have my famous French toast. I only make it on special occasions.”

“Is this special?”

She didn’t answer. She kissed him fast.

He said, “All right. Let’s go see the kids.”

As it turned out, however, it wasn’t just the kids that Dance and Boling saw.

As they walked to the bottom of the stairs and into the kitchen, Dance nearly ran into Michael O’Neil, who was holding a glass of orange juice and walking to the table.

“Oh,” she whispered.

“’Morning. Hi, Jon.”

“Michael.”

O’Neil, his face completely neutral, said, “Wes let me in. I tried to call but your phone was off.”

She’d shut it off intentionally before easing into bed, not wanting to risk a call—that is, risk hearing O’Neil’s ringtone, an Irish ballad, courtesy of the kids—at a moment like that. She’d fallen asleep before turning it back on. Careless. Unprofessional.

“I—” she began but could think of not a single syllable to utter past that.

Dance glanced toward the busy bees hard at work on breakfast. “Hi, Mom!” Maggie said. “There was this show on TV about badgers and there’s this one kind, a honey badger, and this bird called a honeyguide leads it to a beehive and a badger rips it open and eats honey and its coat is so thick it doesn’t get stung. Hi, Jon.”

As if he’d lived here for years.