“She told me, but what was the point? You could have come to Lauderdale to visit me, but you never did.”

“I was working,” Brice said. “Building a law practice.”

“So you could take Kayson and Kyler skiing in Breckenridge, and buy Joan a boob job,” Drue said.

“You can’t resist taking cheap shots at me, can you?” he asked.

“Not when you make it so incredibly easy.”

She walked into the kitchen and stashed the beer in the fridge.

He turned to look at her. “So, do you want some help or would you prefer to keep laying your guilt trip on me? Your call.”

Drue sighed. Bickering with Brice would get her nowhere. He was never going to understand her feelings of abandonment, so maybe it was time for her to let it go. “Okay, sure. I could use some help.”

By five o’clock, they’d managed to pull up all the carpet in both bedrooms and haul it out to the trash.

“It’s beer-thirty,” Brice announced, reaching into the fridge. He popped the bottle cap on the countertop and handed her an ice-cold bottle.

She took a long swig, burped and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

“God, that tastes good. And I don’t even really like beer,” Drue said. “Thanks. I was beginning to get pretty overwhelmed.”

Brice took a long swig from his own bottle. “I should have hired a cleaning crew to come in before you moved in. So that’s on me.”

She shrugged and looked around the kitchen; the linoleum floor was still damp from her degreasing effort and the chipped Formica countertops newly shone. “I still can’t really believe the place is mine. I think of all the Saturday mornings right here in this kitchen, with Nonni fixing pancakes, and Papi making his Cuban coffee…”

“I remember Alberto’s coffee. It was like drinking mud,” Brice said. A faraway expression came over his face as he looked around.

“You know, your mom and I lived here for a while.”

“Really? When was that?”

“Mid-seventies. After I got back from Vietnam. I was on the police force, and Sherri was working for a real estate outfit. Alberto hadn’t retired yet and they were just using this as a weekend place, so he rented it to us for peanuts. It was all we could afford.”

He sighed. “We had some good times in this place.”

Before Drue could ask him when things had changed, a faint chirping noise began emanating from his jeans. “Uh-oh.” He pulled out his cell phone. “I gotta get home and get showered. Promised Wendy I’d take her out to dinner tonight.”

“Dinner last night, brunch earlier, dinner out tonight? Does she know how to cook?”

“That’s not fair,” Brice said, his amiable mood gone. “Why all the hostility toward Wendy?”

“Ask her.”