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service.”
    “Someone ordered it for you.”
    Oh bother
, Selina thought and got out of bed. She padded to the door and looked out through the peephole at the young man in a Four Seasons uniform, holding something clutched behind his back. She put the chain on and opened the door. “What is it? What are you holding behind your back?”
    “These, ma’am.” The young man revealed a slender vase filled with three pink roses in full bloom.
    Immediately, she knew who they were from. She didn’t want to take them, but the kid was already thrusting them at her.
    From the time they were married, whenever Michael sent her flowers — which had been surprisingly often — he sent three pink roses in full bloom, never buds. Pink, he said, for the purity of her soul. Three because it was his lucky number and she was the luckiest thing that had ever happened to him. Full bloom to show how full his heart was with love for her.
    She used to find the gesture exceedingly romantic. Now, in light of everything that had happened between them, she found it hopelessly corny and manipulative.
    Even so, she couldn’t seem to stop herself from taking the chain off the door and reaching for the flowers. The young man scooted away and Selina took the roses inside her room. She shut the door, set the roses on the table, and perched on a chair beside them.
    She stared at the roses. The cloying scent filled her nostrils and caused her head to ache. She thought about her husband and how she’d suppressed her fears, doubts, and emotions. Recalled how foolish she’d been over the years. Remembered all the dumb things she had taught her daughters about love and romance.
    Then slowly, petal by petal, Selina disassembled the roses and ate them.

Chapter Three
    F rom the CD player, the Rolling Stones were telling Michael Henderson that he couldn’t always get what he wanted as he drove the Porsche he’d purchased that morning down the lonely stretch of highway leading west toward Valentine. Michael certainly didn’t need Mick Jagger’s advice on that score. Not only had he not gotten what he thought he wanted, he’d screwed up the thing he needed most.
    His marriage.
    He’d lost Selina for good.
    After Vivian had shown up at Rachael’s wedding yesterday, he was certain he had no chance of winning his wife back. Selina hadn’t acknowledged the roses he’d sent to her hotel room that morning. But he really hadn’t expected her to. Over the years, the romantic gestures he’d doled out had impressed her less and less. It seemed there was nothing he could do to convince his wife he loved her. Had always loved her. In spite of the fact he could be a stupid ass sometimes.
    So why are you going home? Why not stay in Houston and fight for her?
whispered a voice at the back of his mind.
    “Because sometimes a man just gets tired of being discounted and disregarded,” Michael muttered. No matter how hard he tried to make up for the past, it never seemed to be enough for Selina.
    After twenty-seven years of marriage, was he finally done trying to please her?
    The thought caused his heart to skip a couple of beats. No, he wasn’t ready to throw in the towel. He just needed a break. Needed some time to think, to adopt a whole new life strategy.
    Just as his daughter did.
    He knew Rachael was okay. She was just pissed off at him and her mother and hurt over Trace Hoolihan’s betrayal. He understood. She needed her space. Selina, on the other hand, didn’t get it.
    Overall, Michael wasn’t a worrier, and while Rachael wasn’t particularly sensible, she was a good girl. Other than her numerous failed love relationships, she’d never given him and Selina a moment’s worry.
    Michael tightened his fingers around the steering wheel and pressed harder on the accelerator. When had he first begun losing his wife?
    After Rachael was born he’d noticed a change. From wife to mother, he’d told himself. It was inevitable. Hadn’t his own father warned him