Junior sat in the silence of his empty house, contemplating how everything in his life started going wrong after Hunt left. He’d dropped out of high school, then couldn’t get a decent job. Even after he got married, he bounced from one job to another until his wife got fed up and walked out. He was drawing unemployment money now, but that wouldn’t last much longer. He needed to do something, but he couldn’t think past the guilt. His mama had made her feelings toward them all too plain when she’d sent for Hunt instead of depending on them to see to her last wishes. He’d never felt more like a loser than he did right now.

* * *

Ava got home with her groceries and started making pie crust, then mixed up the filling and put it in the oven to bake while she switched out a load of laundry. Her parents were in Las Vegas ringing in the New Year, so she was free to putter without her mother organizing some party at their house that Ava would have to attend and put up with all of the single men her mother continued to invite, hoping one of them would tempt her daughter into marriage. In the South, and at the late age of twenty-eight going on twenty-nine, Ava Ridley was considered past her prime.

When the timer finally went off on the pie, she took it out of the oven. Pleased with how it looked, she set it aside to cool. Once she finished her household chores, she went to clean up and change. She was looking forward to seeing Hunt again, but wearing something nicer than pink scrubs.

* * *

After the locksmith was gone, Hunt spent the afternoon cleaning up the house. He was going to mess it up again when he started fixing things, but for his own comfort he wanted the dust off the furniture, the floors clean and mopped, and the bathroom scrubbed.

He’d washed the sheets on his mother’s bed and made it back up, and then left his bag in the closet. After all his years in the military, he needed things to be neat, clean, and in their places to feel comfortable in the space.

He was hot and sweaty and tired when he finally finished, and took a quick shower, dressing only in a pair of jeans and his stocking feet as he went back to the kitchen to make himself a sandwich. It was almost five and tomorrow would be a big day. First the reading of his mother’s will, and then off to the lumberyard for supplies. There were so many little things that needed doing that it could be a whole week before he tore into the kitchen floor to see exactly what all was wrong.