No, not Gordon's house. Our house. Until death do us part, just like I promised.

For the second time.

The front door of the two-story farmhouse opened onto the living room, with a foyer that was barely big enough for dirty shoes and damp umbrellas. The kitchen stood off to the right, interrupted by a stretch of hardwood floor that contained a dining table. Four chairs. Gordon must have always been an optimist, even during those last five years of bachelorhood.

Katy almost called for Jett again, but stopped herself. That might be construed as nagging. Katy had dropped the two of them into the middle of this new situation, so she owed her daughter a little slack. If Katy were compelled to be honest with herself, something she desperately avoided, she would admit Jett had endured the tougher transition.

Katy had done nothing more than say "I do" and turn in her resignation at Wachovia Financial Services. Sure, she'd hated Charlotte anyway, and a small town called Solom in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina seemed like the perfect escape from the thirty-two years that had given her nothing but a beautiful child and a bottomless well of insecurity. But for Jett, this move had been the equivalent of an emotional tsunami.

Not only had Jett left her father behind, she'd said good-bye to a small private school and a number of friends she'd known since diaper days. The two-bedroom apartment on Queen Street had been traded for a restored wooden-frame house on thirty acres of slanted land. Jett couldn't even get a decent cell phone signal out here, a point she'd drilled into Katy at every available opportunity. So Katy didn't completely blame her for storming up the stairs to her room.