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Brenda. If she was going to break down, the least I could do was arrange for her to have some privacy to lose her shit in peace.
    “Hey, Matt,” I said. “Don’t you need to get back to work?”
    “Huh?”
    I raised my eyebrows before looking blatantly at Brenda. His eyes followed mine and he nodded, catching the hint I was lobbing at him like a bowling ball. “Oh right, work. Are you sure you can handle it here without me?”
    “No problem.” Following him to the front door, I reached down to snag his shirt and then wrapped my arms around his waist before giving Matt a quick kiss. He brushed his lips against mine and then stepped away, his hands lingering for just a second. After he left I turned to face my new guest.
    Evil save me, I wanted to hate her just because she was my boyfriend’s needy ex. But there was this stupid, little voice in the back of my head that kept telling me that I needed to be nice to someone who was definitely less fortunate than I was right now. I thought it might be my conscience, and cursed my mother for the crappy altruistic genes she’d passed onto me. Couldn’t she have come up with something more useful? Like another three inches of height or some sort of recessive superpower?
    “So I’m going to go”—I pointed at the hallway toward my bedroom—“organize my socks or something. Make yourself at home.”
    “Thank you for letting me stay here, Faith.” Brenda sat on the couch and wrapped her arms around her waist. “I know this is hard for everyone but I hope you understand that I didn’t have a choice.”
    “Yeah well, families will do that to you.” I tried to sound noncommittal.
    “I had to come for Matt’s sake,” Brenda persisted, her eyes glowing golden. “He needed me here. He’s my fiancé. He’s living in denial right now and eventually he’ll come back to me. When he does, he’ll need me to help him pick up the pieces that you’ve left his life in, and help him to find his way back to the path of the right.”
    I took a deep breath and tried not to snap at her. She was just like most of my patients in the Pediatric Intensive Care. She was hurt. She was scared. She was lashing out. I wasn’t going to let her get to me. I was going to be the bigger woman until Thursday. No matter how much it killed me.
    “Either way…” I motioned toward the couch. “Make yourself at home.”

Chapter Four
    “You let your boyfriend’s former girlfriend move in with you?” A few hours later Harold’s voice echoed around the staff changing rooms at the hospital while I put my purse in my work locker. I should have known he’d have an opinion on the whole affair. I peered into the cover of the romance novel sitting at the top shelf of the locker and found that my pet ghost had superimposed himself onto the male model’s face. Even with all those muscles he still wasn’t a hunk.
    “You thought this was a good idea why?” I stared at the cover of The Virgin Pirate’s Ravisher and tried not to gag as Harold—now sporting a flowing blond mullet—somehow managed to move the book in a way that it made the cover model Harold’s pecs dance.
    “Because she needed a place to go, and I didn’t want Matt stressing out any more than he already was about the whole thing. If she’s staying with me I can keep an eye on her.”
    “It’s a bad idea. Trust me. I’ve been there, done that. No man with any brains lets two women who’ve seen him naked anywhere near each other. It’s like asking to be tasered in the testicles, only more emasculating.”
    “He didn’t ask me to let her stay and for the record I don’t think she’s ever seen him naked.” I grabbed the book and shook it before tossing it into my locker hard enough to bounce off the back, and slammed the door shut.
    “Then who did? Let her stay, I mean, not see Matt naked. I don’t want to know about anyone else getting an eyeful of naked nephilim.” Harold floated out of the metal door and stood in