“Is there any oatmeal? She said she needed that, too.”

“There’s a box, but it’s not a big one. Troy, like, thinks being married is awesome.”

“What else?”

“Pans and stuff. No more food. But if you’re having trouble adjusting or anything, I mean, you could talk to Troy.”

Molly smiled at the long silence that followed. Eventually, Kevin said, “Maybe you’d better see what’s left in the freezer.”

Amy emerged from the pantry and gave Molly a pitying glance. There was something about the teenager’s sympathy and those hickeys that was getting under her skin.

Tea wasn’t nearly as much fun without Kevin. Mrs. Chet—actually Gwen—didn’t try to hide her disappointment when Molly said he had another commitment. She might have cheered up if she’d known that Lilly Sherman was staying there, but Lilly didn’t appear, and Molly wasn’t going to announce her presence.

She was setting out the pottery mixing bowls so she’d be ready for breakfast the next morning when Kevin came in through the back carrying groceries. He dodged Roo, who was trying to make a meal of his ankles, and set the bags on the counter. “Why are you doing that? Where’s Amy?”

“Stop it, Roo. I just let her go. She was starting to whimper from Troy-deprivation.”

No sooner had she said it than she spotted Amy flying across the yard toward her husband, who must have sniffed her on the wind, because he’d appeared out of nowhere.

“There they go again,” Kevin said.

Their reunion was more passionate than a perfume commercial. Molly watched Troy dip his mouth to the top of Amy’s exposed breast. She threw back her head. Arched her neck.

Another hickey.

Molly smacked a Tupperware lid back on its container. “She’s going to end up needing a blood transfusion if he doesn’t stop that.”

“She doesn’t seem to mind it too much. Some women like it when a man puts his mark on them.”

Something in the way he looked at her made her breasts prickle. She didn’t like her reaction. “And some women see it for what it is—the pathetic attempt of an insecure man to dominate a woman.”

“Yeah, there’s always that.” He gave her a lazy smile and headed back out the side door for the rest of the groceries.

While he unloaded, he asked Molly if she wanted to go into town for dinner, but she declined. There was only so much Kevin temptation she wanted to expose herself to at one time. She headed back to the cottage, feeling good about her self-discipline.

The sun looked like a big lemon cookie in the sky, which made Daphne hungry. Green beans! she thought. With a nice topping of dandelion leaves. And strawberry cheesecake for dessert.