Laura bit her tongue. If not for Frankie, she wouldn’t be in the damn wheelchair to begin with. What was it? He blacked out? Or he swerved to miss a dog? She’d heard both stories. Somehow, she suspected neither was true. Regardless, he’d smashed the car into a tree. He walked away from the crash with nothing more than a few bruises. Her mother? Broken back. Broken pelvis. Broken legs. Broken body.

But…she wasn’t going to go there. Not now. So she took a step away and held up her hands.

“Truce, please. Let me get a few things in from the car, then I’ll see about dinner. Do you have anything here other than these frozen things?”

“There’s a chest freezer out in the garage. I don’t know what’s all in there. Frankie did the cooking. And the shopping.”

And the laundry and the cleaning, Laura added silently. Maybe she’d been too hard on old Frankie. He lived with her mother. He did everything around the house. The man was apparently a saint. Except he wasn’t.

“Oh, who bought the lot next door?”

“Some woman from Dallas. Not friendly in the least. Frankie tried to make friends. Several times he went over there while they were building. She would hardly give him the time of day, he said. Next thing we knew, that huge fence was put up.”

Again, she bit her tongue. Frankie was always rough around the edges. Obnoxious. One of those guys who had been there, done that—only much better. Loud. Laughed at his own stupid jokes. A jerk. Yeah, she’d have probably put up a fence too.

“So how long has she been there?”

“Sometime in December. I remember she had a Christmas party. That house was under construction for more than a year. Constant noise we had to deal with. But from what Frankie was able to get out of her, she won’t live there. A weekend place, she said.”

“I’m going to miss the woods.”

“Why?”

“Why? I used to play in them when I was a kid. I loved to walk there. Dad always said he was going to buy it.”

“Yes, well, your father was going to do a lot of things that he never got around to.”

Laura shook her head. “You’re still so bitter. He’s the one who died, not you.”

“And left me a widow.”

“I’m sure if he had the choice, he’d have rather lived.”

Her mother’s expression softened. “I’m…I’m not over it yet. I miss him every day.”

This time, Laura was unable to keep her thoughts to herself. “Yet a mere six months after he died, Frankie moved into your bedroom. And two months after that, you married the man!”