Lily had thought her child was strange when she smeared yogurt over her waffles instead of butter and syrup. She figured it was a phase that Holly would outgrow, but she hadn’t, and the strange thing was that when Lily tried it, she liked it as well as Holly did.

Her phone rang again, and this time she checked the caller ID. With a long sigh, she answered it. “What do you want now, Wyatt?”

“Victoria and I are on shaky ground,” he said. “I love her and want to make this marriage work, so for a little while I won’t be calling or asking for the kids.”

“Well, honey,” she said with a saccharine voice, “you’re her fourth husband, and each one has gotten younger. Maybe she’s got her eye on someone else already. After all, when she enters a room with a boy toy at her side, it makes her feel the same age. When you reclaim your balls, give the kids a call. I expect they’ll be grown by then, so it’ll be their decision whether to let you back into their lives. Don’t call me again.” She ended the call and dropped the phone in her purse.

“And that is what you call real closure,” she said out loud as she finished getting dressed for work.

Mack woke on Sunday morning to the rattle of pots and pans in the kitchen. The sun had just begun to peek over the horizon, throwing a little light into his bedroom. He laced his hands behind his head and thought about where his life had been, where it was now, and where it was going. He liked the picture that had developed in his head, and sent up a little prayer that the third time was really the charm.

He got out of bed, dressed in his old jeans and a faded shirt, and padded across the foyer and into the kitchen in his bare feet. “Good morning. You look nice.”

“Thank you.” She smiled shyly.

Damn that Wyatt! The expression on her face said that she sure didn’t get any compliments like that very often, and Lily was the kind of woman who deserved them every day—hell, every hour wouldn’t be too often.

She poured barbecue sauce over a chicken that she’d cut up and put into a deep cast-iron pan. He opened the oven door for her. “I love barbecued chicken.”

She slid the pan in beside a pan of biscuits that were baking. “It makes for a good Sunday dinner. Just be the three of us since Holly is going to Granny Hayes’s again.”