“You’ve been through some of the same things they have.”

Chloe nodded. “The first step to recovery is admittance,” she said. Something they’d talked about before, but Chloe’s tone was different. As if she had learned something new.

“This isn’t just about my husband having trouble at work. I’m a victim of domestic violence.”

The Lemonade Stand must have brought the truth of Chloe’s situation more intensely into focus.

“You’re preventing yourself from becoming more of a victim. And helping your husband before he does something neither of you will be able to recover from.”

The high-risk statistics weren’t drama. They were frighteningly real and fresh in her mind.

“Seeing myself there, like them, I panicked.”

“Did you call Jeff?” It’s what Chloe always did when she needed reassurance. Because Jeff always gave it to her.

Because she loved him with all her heart.

And because he was, at his core, a great man. A wonderful father and a loyal and loving husband.

“No.” Chloe looked toward the living room, as Cody started to sing along with the television set. “And that kind of scared me, you know?” she said. “I didn’t call him.”

Hallelujah!

Chloe had just taken one more step on the road to health. And Jeff had more hope than ever of following in her footsteps. If Chloe stood her ground, he’d have to get help to get her back.

Telling her sister-in-law that they were going out to dinner to celebrate, anywhere she wanted, Ella turned on the water and stepped out of her robe.

A shower. Dinner. A good night’s sleep; that was all she needed. Life was good.

CHAPTER EIGHT

BRETT DIDN’T DRINK any more than his two-beer limit. Instead, he watched his friend polish off most of a twelve-pack of beer. And still win a hundred bucks off him.

But you wouldn’t know Jeff had overindulged the night before when Brett walked into the kitchen, thinking to make himself a cup of coffee just after dawn the next morning. He had a full day ahead of him in Santa Raquel, preparing for Monday morning’s meetings, and the afternoon’s, too, since he was going to be using his lunch hour to get the haircut he’d rescheduled the day before.

“Thought you’d like some breakfast before you hit the road,” Jeff said, standing at the stove over a pan of eggs. “The coffee’s fresh, dark roast,” he said. Brett took coffee just about any way he could find it, but preferred it dark and strong. As his college roommate knew well.

In jeans and a polo shirt, Jeff looked ready for a good day. And Brett couldn’t help but wonder how he’d fill the next fourteen or so hours. His lawn was immaculate. The house appeared clean—Jeff and Chloe probably hired a service—and the refrigerator had been stocked when Brett had helped himself to a bottle of water the night before.

“You got work to do today?” he asked as he poured a cup of coffee and pulled out a chair at the table in the window nook of the eat-in kitchen.

“This evening. I’m going to church later this morning and then to play nine holes of golf.”

He didn’t remember Jeff being a churchgoer. But was glad to know that the hours ahead wouldn’t be as empty for Jeff as his house felt.

Putting plates filled with eggs and bacon, potatoes and toast on the table, Jeff brought over his own coffee cup and sat.

“What about you? You got a game in for today?”

“Yeah. At noon.” Yesterday’s business rescheduled. The food was good. Done well. And the kitchen wasn’t a disaster area, either.

Obviously Jeff wasn’t new to cooking. Or picking up after himself. He’d been a bit of a slob in college. But then, Brett hadn’t cared all that much if his own dirty shorts filled a corner of their room, either.

“So...church... What are you telling them about why you’re there alone?” Not Brett’s best syntax, but this was...odd. Him helping Jeff instead of the other way around.

“Chloe’s helping a sick friend.”

“Went to stay with her, you mean?”

Jeff glanced up. “It’s church, man. I’m not going to lie to them. I just said she’s helping a sick friend and left it at that. And she is. She’s helping herself, and we are our own best friends, right?”

Brett would have felt better if Jeff had chuckled. Or been grinning. But genuine loneliness lurked in the other man’s gaze. Almost as though he thought himself his only friend.

Driving over there had been the right move.

“So you really think this is a hormonal thing on her part?”

“I hope it is.”

Both of them were eating as though they hadn’t seen food in days.

“What does she tell you?”

“That we need help. She wanted to go to counseling. I told her I didn’t think we needed it. I mean...our marriage...from what I hear at the office, Chloe and I are tighter than most. We have our ups and downs, but we’re friends. We like each other, you know?”

“Maybe she needs the counseling and wanted you to go with her. Maybe if you say you’ll go, she’ll come home.”

“Been there, done that. The day she left, I came home from work and she wasn’t here. I called her. She told me she has to go away for a while. Just like that. Packed some bags, took our son and cleared out. I told her then, and several times since she left, that I’d go to counseling with her. She says maybe that would be good. In the future.”

“Did she take much with her?”

“As much as when we went to the mountains for a month last summer.”

“She intends to be gone for a while.”

“God, I hope not.”

“How long’s it been?” Another question he knew the answer to. But one that might stand out in its absence if he didn’t ask.

“A week and two days.”

“Has she given any indication as to when she might return?”

“None.” There was no anger, no bitterness in Jeff’s tone. Only confusion. As if he was lost.

And still in love with the wife who’d left him.

Brett was hard-pressed not to get a little angry at Chloe himself. What was she thinking? Jeff was one of the good ones.

“Did you have a fight that morning? Or the night before?”

Finishing up his breakfast, Jeff gathered Brett’s empty plate and carried their dishes to the sink. “Yeah. And I’ve apologized for it. Several times.”

Turning, Brett studied his friend. “Apologized for what?”

“My bad temper,” Jeff said. “She told me about something Cody did at the park that day, and I snapped at her. Told her I needed a few minutes of peace when I get home before she starts bombarding me with her crap.” He turned from the sink. “I didn’t mean it, Brett. She knows that. But I just keep hearing those words over and over. Wishing like hell I could take them back. To the point of choking myself on them. I’d had a call on the way home, a stock we’d all expected to go public didn’t. I had several portfolios all set to move, had taken money from other markets, which meant a hell of a lot of scrambling, praying and luck or I was going to be calling some important clients with bad news.”

There was no doubting Jeff’s sincerity.

“That was all there was to the fight? Those words?”

“I wanted to take them back the second I said them. The look in her eye...you’d think I’d killed her puppy or something.”

“And that was it?”

“That was it. She was standing in the doorway.” He motioned to a door that led out to a hallway and into another branch of the rambling ranch home. “I pushed past her, went to our room and showered, and when I came back out she’d left a note telling me there were leftovers in the fridge and that she’d taken Cody out for ice cream. She brought some back for me, with my favorite mix-ins, and we watched television until bed.

“I told her I was sorry when I got in bed. Tried to kiss her good-night, and she just rolled over. The next day she was gone.”

“What did you do when she rolled over?”

“Nothing. I lay there in the dark until I could tell she was asleep, and then I went to sleep. I figured, hell, she was in the bed with me, it couldn’t be all that bad. I figured it would blow over by morning.”