This was the perfect warm, cozy place for Slick and herself to lick their wounds. Sam looked around the kitchen. She’d taken pains with it, hanging ferns and settling potted plants in colorful clay pots in the corners of the counters. The maple table and chairs by the bow window were inviting, allowing for a full view of the garden outside. It looked barren now, but in the spring and summer it would be beautiful. She did love the color red, and all the accent pieces in the cozy kitchen reflected that love. She couldn’t wait to have her morning coffee and frozen bagel right here in the morning.

Sam slid the blueberry pie into the oven, set the timer, and moved on to the living room, where she built a fire. Douglas was divorcing her after a three-week whirlwind courtship, a justice-of-the-peace wedding, and a three-week honeymoon. What did that say about her? What were the three Rainford wives that came before her like? Why did Douglas divorce them? More to the point, why did he marry me? she wondered.

Sam stared into the fire, looking for the answers to her questions, finding nothing that would satisfy her. She turned around, savoring the tantalizing smells wafting in from the kitchen. There was nothing like the smell of baking bread to remind her of the times she spent at her grandmother’s when she was a little girl. Thursday was always bread-baking day. Of course her grandmother hadn’t had a bread machine. She did it the old-fashioned way. Everything Grandma had done, she’d done the old-fashioned way. She’d hung clothes on the line outdoors, ironed her sheets and pillowcases. She’d stretched her curtains on a contraption that was a killer on the fingers. She’d canned vegetables, made her own root beer, and kept a fully stocked root cellar. She was gone now, having died, Sam thought, of a broken heart soon after Grandpa had died after a long illness.

One of these days she was going to return to Pennsylvania, and the old house with the big front porch that her grandmother had left to her. But not yet. She simply wasn’t ready to bear those old ghosts. She paid the nominal taxes every year, paid the neighbors to mow the lawn in the summer and shovel the snow in the winter.

Sam almost jumped out of her skin when the doorbell rang. It was a five-note chime. She ran to the door and threw it open. “Slick!”

“Oh, Sam! Thanks for letting me come here. God, it’s cold out here!” Sam stepped aside for the taxi driver to carry in Slick’s bags.