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I sighed. “Mom…” I turned so I could look her in the eye, ready to break it to her. But when I did, she was smiling at me with love and sadness.

“It’s only because I know how happy you were with Joe,” Mom said softly. “I’d love to see you like that again.”

For the second time today, my throat went tight. “I’m happy, Mom,” I said. “I promise.”

I was. I was just fine.

I hugged my mom, fiercely. And I let the tears come, only a little.

* * *

Now, pulling away from my parents’place in the falling light with Emma and Macy waving from the backseat and a stack of leftovers in aluminum foil on the seat next to me, I knew Mom was right. Not about finding happiness with someone else, but about needing more of a personal life. Right now, all I did was parent my girls and hyper-focus on Bella Eats. I also spent a lot of time worrying about bills, which didn’t help anyone and was definitely not something I needed to share with my readers.

I needed to get out and give my readers—and my mom—more happy stuff to chew on. I knew from that one picture of the engagement ring I’d briefly worn that nothing would make them more engaged than a romance. But me having fun in a non-romantic way had to count for something.

“Mom?” Emma asked from the back seat a while later.

I peered in the rearview. Macy had her head tipped sideways, her mouth agape. She’d passed out soon after we left the city. But Emma always had trouble falling asleep, in the car and at home.

“Yeah sweetie?”

“Are you going to find us a new dad?”

The question sent my heart thudding. “What? Honey, why are you asking that?” We’d had lots of conversations—especially after Steve—about how we were sad about their dad being gone, but we didn’t need to fill his shoes. How we could be perfectly happy with just us. Girl power.

“You and Aunty Reese have a dad,” Emma said, almost as if she was embarrassed to point it out. He’s really nice. He doesn’t have a nice couch we’re not allowed to sit on, and he used to take you hiking and to little league, and… he did stuff with you guys, he said.”

God, Steve and his precious designer couch—it was one more thing that landed in the no pile once I started evaluating things between us.

“Emma,” I said, while my heart cracked a little, right down the middle. My therapist had warned me about how this kind of thing might come up, but that was years ago. Emma had always seemed so…okayabout everything. But I couldn’t keep pretending it hadn’t affected Emma, too. Though she’d only been four when he died, she and him had been close.

Plus, she could see how it had affected me.

I swallowed. “You don’t need a daddy to be happy, remember?”

“I know,” she said, her voice soft. “But I want you to be happy.”

Had she been talking to Grandma? “I am happy, sweetie,” I said, for the second time that night. But now I wasn’t sure who I was trying to convince.

It was just before ten when we got home and the house was freezing. After I bundled the girls into bed, I lit a fire and went to the kitchen to uncork a bottle of wine. I was happy, damn it, and enjoying life. This was a nice bottle of wine—Reese had gotten it for me as a thank-you for helping her move. As I poured, my eyes went to the fridge, where a little white card sat under a magnet.

I should throw that out.

I almost had when I got home from the park the other week. Instead, I’d stuck it up on the fridge, just in case.

In case what? In case you decide you might want a roll in the hay with Will Archer?

For the briefest moment, I pictured him there, standing next to me. His hand took the bottle from me and set it aside. Then, he leaned down and kissed me, his tongue darting so quickly against mine I might have imagined it.

The thought was so jarring, so electric, my hand slipped on the bottle of wine. I nearly dropped it, splashing Bordeaux on the countertop as I set it upright.

Ididimagine it. All of it.

After wiping up the spill, I moved to the living room, lowering myself uneasily onto my couch. I took a long sip of wine, enjoying the warmth that spread through me as it slid down my throat. It was relaxing, but it didn’t purge the image of Will from my mind.

The imagined feel of him.

What did he look like under that wool coat he’d been wearing? Under the expensive suit I knew he wore?