If you learn one thing from me, Baker Steele, she’d said, I hope it’s never to read a woman’s private thoughts without her express permission.

No matter how tempting, she’d added. And, oh yes, it will be tempting.

It is tempting—the journal with the red floral cover, demure and innocent with the look of a colonial-era recipe book.

But Baker leaves it be.

In the end, Trinity taught him a lot. He must remember to hit her up on Facebook and thank her.

Back in the bedroom, he runs a finger down the length of Ayers’s spine and she shivers awake and opens one eye. “You leaving?”

“I have to,” he whispers. “Floyd.”

“Okay,” she says.

Baker clears his throat. “And, uh, you remember that I’m leaving tomorrow for Houston? I have that thing on Saturday? But I’m coming right back. So you don’t have to worry.”

“What day?” Ayers asks. “What day are you coming back?”

Baker does a quick calculation. The benefit auction is Saturday night. Sunday he’s on cleanup duty. He needs at least two additional days to get the move organized, maybe three; honestly, he could use a week, but now that this has happened, all he can think about is how to get back here as quickly as possible. But then again, he has a life to dismantle—Floyd’s medical records need to be transferred (to where?); Baker needs to forward his mail (to where?) and figure out what to do about his income taxes. There’s stuff. “Wednesday,” he says. “Thursday.”

“Wednesday or Thursday?” she asks.

“Thursday,” he says. “Week from today.”

“I’m working at La Tapa Thursday night,” she says. “Come by after work. We can celebrate your move.”

He kisses her temple. “You got it,” he says. He puts his clothes on and runs both hands through his hair. “Oh, by the way, the chick who got drunk on your boat was a friend of Tilda’s.”

Ayers rolls over and squints at him. “Really?”

“Yeah, that’s what my mother told me Cash said. I guess Cash and Tilda went out last night.”

“They did?” Ayers says, sitting up.

“Yeah,” Baker says. “I think so.” He wonders if hearing this bothers Ayers for some reason.

She smiles. “They’re perfect for each other.” She falls back into her pillows. “When you get back, we can double-date.”

“Great,” Baker says sardonically—although, actually, it sounds like fun.

The theme for the Children’s Cottage benefit auction is Monopoly. This was Debbie’s idea. She was in charge of dreaming up something to top Oh, the Places You’ll Go!, which was last year’s theme. Although Baker was skeptical about the appeal of Monopoly—it evoked nothing so much as the rainy afternoons of childhood, trapped in a never-ending game of being sent to jail, paying other people rent, and eventually going bankrupt due to real estate failures—the execution is brilliantly done. Baker has dressed up as Rich Uncle Pennybags, in a vest with a pocket watch, and people are chattering with anticipation as they leave the school parking lot. (FREE PARKING signs abound, which is cute, even though parking is always free at the Children’s Cottage.)