LITMIR.BIZ

      “Well, you look downright pitiful,” Dana Sue observed when Maddie appeared in the doorway to the kitchen at Sullivan’s later that afternoon after depositing her surprisingly upbeat kids with her mother. “Come on in here and sit down. I’ll fix you a plate of spiced shrimp.”

      “Save the shrimp. I’ve already eaten lunch with the kids,” Maddie told her, not entirely certain why she’d dropped by. When a leisurely bubble bath had done nothing to soothe her, she’d sought out the one person who could understand what she was feeling. Dana Sue had been through her own nasty divorce from a cheating husband, but at least Ronnie hadn’t stuck around Serenity to rub the situation in her face.

      Dana Sue set a plate piled high with shrimp in front of her anyway. “Peeling those will keep your hands occupied while you tell me what’s going on.”

      “Are you sure you have time to talk?” Maddie asked, regarding the shrimp without interest but picking one up anyway.

      “The lunch crowd has dwindled and it’s hours till people start showing up for dinner,” Dana Sue said. “But even if I were busier than an ant at a picnic, I’d still have time for you.”

      “I could chop or dice or something,” Maddie offered.

      “No offense, but this is my kitchen. Any chopping or dicing will be done by me and my experienced staff. Besides, judging from the expression on your face, I’m not sure you ought to be trusted with sharp objects.”

      Maddie managed a faint grin. “You have a point.”

      “What’s Bill done now?”

      “What makes you think my mood is his fault?” Maddie inquired. Dana Sue was the second person to leap to that conclusion. Obviously her life and her moods were becoming too predictable.

      “Because you loved him for more than twenty years. Just because he’s turned out to be a low-down skunk doesn’t mean he can’t still twist you into knots.” She looked Maddie in the eye. “What did he do? Do I need to hunt him down?”

      “I wish it were that simple. I wish a good swift kick or a smack upside his head would knock some sense into him, but I think he’s hopeless. Clueless, anyway.” Maddie shrugged. “How could I have been so wrong about him? For twenty years I lived with a man who was smart and reasonably sensitive. Now it’s as if he checked his brain somewhere and can’t remember where.”

      “Well, we know he’s thinking with another part of his anatomy,” Dana Sue offered. “What did he do?”

      “He was tied up at the hospital today, so he sent Noreen by to pick up the kids.” She twisted the tail off a shrimp with such force that both the shell and the shrimp went flying across the kitchen in opposite directions. She scowled at Dana Sue. “He sent that woman to my house to pick up my kids.”

      “I can just imagine how that went,” Dana Sue said as she retrieved the scattered remains of the shrimp.

      “I doubt it,” Maddie told her. “Tyler answered the door and told her to get the hell away from our house. Kyle ran upstairs and locked himself in his room and Katie burst into tears. It took me a half hour to calm her down. It’s breaking my heart to see how much she misses her dad.”

      “And what did Noreen do during all this commotion?”

      “Stood there wringing her hands and telling me she just doesn’t understand why the kids don’t like her anymore. I told her to ask Bill. I should’ve said that maybe even her little pea brain could come up with an explanation if she really tried.”

      Dana Sue chuckled. “That would have been a nice shot.”

      Maddie sighed. “One she deserved, but it hardly solves anything. I’m sure Bill is going to be on a tear once he hears how she was received by me and the kids. I’ll have to listen to another of his tirades about how we’re not giving Noreen a fair chance, that she’s in his life now, that she’s having his baby, that I promised to help smooth things over and now they’re worse than ever, and on and on and on.”

      Dana Sue gave Maddie a penetrating look. “Something tells me you’re not this upset just because Bill’s going to have himself a hissy fit.”

      “Of course not. I’m upset because my kids’ lives have been turned inside out and I can’t seem to do a thing to help them. I don’t even know where to start.”

      “Where are they right now?”

      “My mother’s taken them to Charleston to dinner and a movie.”

      “Her idea or yours?”

      “Mine, if you must know, at least the part about them spending the afternoon with her. I was desperate. I figured they needed a break from me as much as they needed one from Noreen and their dad. All this tension has taken a terrible toll on them.”

      “And on you,” Dana Sue reminded her. “What are you doing for yourself?”

      “Running to you,” Maddie said.

      “If we had our spa, you could soak in the hot tub and have a massage,” Dana Sue reminded her.

      Maddie frowned. “My thirty days have barely begun. Stop pressuring me. I really don’t need that on top of everything else today.”

      “Just pointing out one of the advantages of going into business with me and Helen,” Dana Sue said mildly. “I could list more.”

      “Not necessary. I think I have a handle on most of them,” Maddie admitted.

      Dana Sue studied her intently. “Meaning?”

      “Nothing,” Maddie said. “Ask me a couple of weeks from now.”

      “You know you’re going to agree to this. You’re just being stubborn.”

      “Maybe I’m just enjoying keeping the two of you dangling on the end of my hook,” Maddie retorted. “It’s rare that I have the upper hand.”

      She finally popped one of the peeled shrimp into her mouth and savored the burst of spices. “Mmm, these are fantastic!”

      Dana Sue chuckled. “I’m glad you like them. For a while there, I thought you were just going to mangle them as some sort of bizarre therapy. How about a glass of wine to go with them?”

      “Sure. Wine sounds good,” she said as she ate another shrimp, then licked her fingers.

      “You know,” Dana Sue said, “I think you’d feel a whole lot better about your life if you had something positive to look forward to. You need to remember how capable and smart you are, that marriage to Bill didn’t define you. I know launching this place kept me sane when I kicked Ronnie out.”

      “But you’d been dreaming about opening your own restaurant for years,” Maddie countered. “I’ve never envisioned opening a fitness club.”

      “Neither did I,” Dana Sue admitted. “Not till Helen brought up the idea. Then it just seemed to fit with where we all are right now.”

      “Just give me some time to catch up,” Maddie pleaded. “I’m afraid if I agree to it now, when everything else is so overwhelming, I’ll just freak out and ruin it.”

      “I’ve seen you in a crisis, Maddie. You don’t freak out. You dig in and get the job done. Remember prom when the money we’d been counting on suddenly vanished? You charged out and got donations from

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