At the far end of the deck, something moved behind the barrel grill. Milly swung her feet while perched on the railing. She had seen everything.

“Milly, would you get down from there, please?”

Her defiant legs swung harder. “If you can’t get along, can’t you at least pretend?”

Daniel closed his eyes and breathed hard through his nose. “I think it’s good if the people at work see a couple working through their issues.”

Milly jumped down and stood tall as she drilled a glare into her father. “I was talking about for me.”

*  *  *

The brilliant reds and oranges of the sunset bathed Daniel in a warm glow as they rebounded from the full-length glass doors. He wished he could copy and paste this moment in time—a happy and successful team, laughter filling his dream home.

Peter pushed the remnants of his black forest cake into the middle of the large redwood table. “Wonderful cake, Kelly. You were right—the second piece was better.”

Peter’s long-suffering wife elbowed him as he guffawed at his own joke.

Kelly bowed as a wave of compliments swept across the table. Black crumbs and dots of cream trailed from the remains of her creation in the table’s center to the happy, now satisfied, team from Crossroads Counseling.

As Daniel surveyed the tableau of satisfaction and happy chatter, a dark shadow passed over him. The dark days of Howard’s passing. The quick plunge into bad health and the shock of his diagnosis. The mounting pressure from the bank to keep the practice open. Cleaning out Howard’s office inside a month. Saving a practice and his future.

He stood as Peter clinked his glass with a chocolate-smeared spoon and a hush fell over the group.

“I want to say thank you to the team not just from me but on behalf of all the couples who have come through our doors.”

There was a smattering of applause. Daniel looked across the remnants of the cake at Anna and smiled.

“You know, one thing is common to everyone who comes to Crossroads Counseling, and it’s not that they want to meet Peter Gardner—”

Peter raised his hands in mock protest as laughter broke out around the table.

“—it’s that they know we can help.”

Kelly looked up at him, fierce pride in her eyes. The truce was holding.

“We have a great team here, almost family.” Monique beamed at him, and Daniel glanced away into the reflected sunset. “After Howard died, I thought the practice wouldn’t survive. In the last months of his life, Howard spent more time hunched over his computer than counseling, and the business was looking dire.”

He saw tears forming in Anna’s eyes as she held her husband’s hand.