Maggie caught up with her in the studio. Sam looked up from the slab roller, where he was flattening a great ball of clay into a slender brown sheet. “Just a few more minutes,” he promised impatiently, “and I’ll be done.”

The few minutes stretched into more than an hour, sixty-plus minutes of Kate disdaining tic-tac-toe and hangman. When Maggie went back to the drawer where she’d found the cards to search for something else to do with the kid (or the little shit, as she was starting to think of her), Kate scrambled out of her chair and raced into the hallway.

Not again. Maggie briefly closed her eyes in exasperation, then wearily followed her, calling, “How about my beach glass? Want to see my beach glass collection?”

“I hate your beach glass!” Kate screeched. “I want to stomp on it! I want to throw it in the lake! Take your beach glass and stick it up your—”

“Whoa.” Sam opened the studio door and caught his daughter. “That’s not nice. Say you’re sorry.”

“I’m not sorry.”

“You are sorry. Because if you aren’t, there’s no way I’m taking you to the movies tomorrow.”

She spat an apology and ran back to the kitchen.

“Sorry about that.” Sam shook his head. “One of her friends is having a rough time because her dad got remarried. Kate comes home from school with stories about Kennedy’s evil stepmother. I think the situation has her freaking out, wondering if, well, with Linnie gone … if you might—that is, if you and I…” Embarrassed, he shrugged.

“Oh no,” Maggie said, her eyes wide. Oh my God, no. She wasn’t interested in Sam. In any guy. For the rest of her life. That sort of thing was impossible—inconceivable—now.

He smiled ruefully and pulled the studio door shut behind him. “I won’t dump on you again,” he murmured, digging his keys out of his pocket.

Maggie nodded. She didn’t dredge up an “I don’t mind” or a “That’s okay.” It wasn’t okay. Maggie wasn’t up for handling Kate’s misery, fear, issues. She couldn’t even handle her own.

Sam turned onto Redman Road. “Want to listen to anything?” He reached for the radio.

Maggie pressed her back against the seat. “That’s okay.”

He let his hand fall, palm down, on his thigh. “All right.”

“I mean”—she turned to stare out the window, caught her expression in the side-view mirror, and ironed her features—“unless you want to.”

“Nah.”