Saying nothing, he put the car in first and accelerated. I held the door until we slid back onto the road, glad nothing had changed though everything was different.

“Why are you so good to me?” he said softly as we picked up speed and passed a car.

Because I think I could love you? I thought, but I couldn’t say it yet.

Thirty

My head came up at the faint sound of knocking. Giving me a warning look, Ivy stood, stretching for the kitchen’s ceiling. “I’ll get it,” she said. “It’s probably more flowers.”

I took a bite of cinnamon toast and muttered around my full mouth, “If it’s food, bring it back, will you?”

Sighing, Ivy walked out, both sexy and casual in her black exercise tights and a thigh-length baggy sweater. The radio was on in the living room, and I had mixed feelings about the announcer talking about the tragedy of the boat explosion early last night. They even had a clip of Trent telling everyone I had died saving his life.

This was really odd, I thought as I wiped butter from my fingers. Things had been showing up on our doorstep. It was nice to know I would be missed, and I hadn’t known I had touched so many lives. It wasn’t going to be pretty when I came out of the closet as being alive, though—kind of like standing someone up at the altar and having to give all the presents back. ’Course, if I died tonight, I’d go to my grave knowing just who my friends were. I kinda felt like Huck Finn.

“Yeah?” Ivy’s wary voice came back through the church.

“I’m David. David Hue,” came a familiar voice, and swallowing the last bite of toast, I ambled up to the front of the church. I was starving, and I wondered if Ivy was slipping Brimstone into my coffee to try to build my body’s reserves after that dunk in the river.

“Who is she?” Ivy asked belligerently as I entered the sanctuary and found them on the landing, the lowering sun coming in past their feet.

“I’m his secretary,” a tidy woman at David’s side said, smiling. “Can we come in?”

My eyes widened. “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” I said, waving my hands in protest. “I can’t watch two of you and bring in Lee.”

David ran his eyes down my casual sweater and jeans, his eyes thick with a calculating evaluation. They lingered on my shortened hair, dyed a temporary brown just this afternoon as he had suggested over the phone. “Mrs. Aver isn’t going to come with us,” he said, making what was probably an unconscious nod of approval. “I thought it prudent that your neighbors see me arrive with a woman as well as leave with one. You’re close to the same body build.”

“Oh.” Idiot, I thought. Why didn’t I think of that?

Mrs. Aver smiled, but I could tell she thought I was an idiot, too. “I’ll just pop into your bathroom and change, and then I’ll go,” she said brightly. Taking a step into the room, she set her slim briefcase beside the piano bench and hesitated.