Adelaide snorted. “You and Luke share the same thoughts on that one. You like him, don’t you?”

Marina struggled to keep her expression normal. “Of course. Why wouldn’t I, after what he did for Avery?”

“Yes. He really came through on that one. Still, that’s not what I meant and you know it. But don’t worry. I won’t pry. The only advice I have concerning romantic entanglements is to avoid them, but that doesn’t work for everyone.”

“We’re not entangled. I’m not even divorced.”

“The heart doesn’t know anything about our legal system.”

“But I—”

Adelaide rose and reached over to pat her hand. “You’re a good woman. Better than you know. Stronger than you ever thought. You’ll figure out the rest. I’ll see you tonight.”

“What? Tonight?”

Adelaide just waved over her shoulder as she walked out of the café. Marina blew out a breath. Luke said Adelaide refused to be his plus-one, and she didn’t think he was lying. And there was absolutely no way the LeDoux had invited Adelaide to their house. Since she wasn’t financially indebted to him and didn’t care if everyone knew everything about her, Preston didn’t have anything he could use to keep her in her place. So who was she going with? And why?

Her cell phone rang and she saw it was Bucky. About time.

“You called about your sink, right?” he said. “I can probably get to it in a week or so. Can’t give you an exact day or time. Might not even be that week.”

Marina stared out the window as Adelaide crossed the street, walking right in the middle of traffic and fully expecting they’d all stop.

“You know what—don’t bother. I’ll fix it myself.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

Marina stared at the tiny black garment Halcyon was holding, her feeble recollection of physics and geometry rolling through her mind.

“That looks like a hair band,” Marina said. “There’s no way that will fit around my waist or hips. Heck, even my head might be stretching it—literally.”

“I wore this last spring for the engineer’s company party.”

Marina grabbed the offending item and dangled it from her pinkie. “This? You wore this swatch? Where? On your ankle?”

“It fits from under your chest to just over your hips. Smooths everything out and gives you an awesome waist. Just makes things disappear.”

Marina shook her head. “No. It can’t make things disappear. All those things that appear to be gone have just been shoved somewhere else. Like into a kidney or, God forbid, into a bra. I don’t have any more room at that inn.”

“Let’s just try it. If it doesn’t work, then you don’t have to wear it. The dress has a little room in it, and it’s stretchy material.”

“Great. If this doesn’t work, I can look like a lumpy mess.”

“This will work. Trust me.”

“I’m having trouble understanding how you even got in this.”

“Crisco and water pills. We don’t have time for the water pills so we’ll just have to make do. Although if you’d told me you were going to spend the day playing plumber, I would have gone ahead with that plan. You were already in the bathroom most of the day.”