“What a wonderful surprise!” Tani cried. “Come on in and I’ll start a fresh pot of coffee. I hope you were kidding about the tissues, but I put a box on the table just in case. I take it this isn’t about decorating advice?” She stepped aside as Zoey came in.

“No need for that—Hazel’s designing her own room. Black ceiling and all.” They were going to paint the walls that weekend, then Vickie would deliver the glammed-up bed as a surprise. She followed Tani into her modern white kitchen overlooking a backyard in full bloom. “I need parenting advice. Or dating advice. Or dating while a parent advice.”

Tani’s eyebrows rose. “I haven’t dated in a long, long time.” She and her husband, Terry, had been married over twenty years, fresh out of high school.

“I know.” Zoey sat on a stool at the marble-topped kitchen island. “But I need to talk this out with someone I trust to keep it between us and who isn’t going to have her own agenda.”

“Hang on,” Tani answered, pressing the button on the coffee maker to grind fresh coffee beans for the brew. When the noise subsided, she pulled two mugs from the cupboard and turned. “The more you talk, the more questions I have. Who has an agenda? What parenting advice could you possibly need? And most importantly, who the hell are you dating? The last I knew, you said you weren’t ready to even think about it.”

“Maybe I should have stayed with that thought,” she replied. “And I’m not really dating, we’re just—”

“Flirting?”

“More than flirting...”

“Kissing?”

“More than that.”

“Oh, shit—you’ve already gone to bed with the guy, haven’t you?” Tani’s eyes were round. “You skipped over the preliminaries and just hopped right in the sack. Damn, girl. Are you having regrets or aching to jump his bones again?”

Zoey closed her eyes with a sigh.

“Both.”

“Ahh...and that’s the problem, isn’t it?” The coffee maker beeped, and Tani filled the two mugs and sat next to Zoey. “Tell me everything.”

She did, although it took a while for her friend to get past the news that the man involved was Mike McKinnon.

“Mike? The guy you’ve known since you were little? Mary’s brother?” She paused. “Well, that explains why you can’t talk to Mary about it. Or the half-dozen McKinnon cousins who live in town. Hell, it’s hard to think of anyone in Rendezvous Falls who doesn’t know Mike...and like him.” Her eyes narrowed. “Wait, didn’t you tell Piper Taggart and me a couple months ago that you would never feel that way about Mike because you were besties and you didn’t want to ruin that? Oh...” Tani put her hand on Zoey’s arm. “You ruined that, didn’t you?”