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gone anywhere, done anything for you. I mourned for you, until I thought I would die from it.”
    “Mia.” Shaken, he reached up to touch her hair, only to have his hand slapped aside.
    “But I didn’t die, Sam. I got over you, and got on with my life. I like who I am now, and there’s no going back for me. If you came here thinking differently, you’re wasting your time. You won’t have me again, and what you won’t have—what you tossed aside—would have been the best thing in your life.”
    She walked away from him in long, unhurried strides and left him alone to stare out at the sea, knowing she was right.

Three
    “ Y ou did what?”
    Zack stuck his head in the refrigerator and rummaged for a beer. He knew that tone. His wife didn’t use it often, which was why it was so effective.
    He took a long time pulling out the beer and made sure his face was relaxed and composed when he looked back at her.
    She stood in front of the stove, where something wonderful was cooking. She had a wooden spoon in her fist and her fists on her hips. He thought she looked like an outraged, and very sexy, Betty Crocker.
    But he figured it wouldn’t be healthy to say so just at the moment.
    “I invited Sam to dinner.” He smiled when he said it, and twisted the top off the beer. “You know how I like to show off my beautiful wife’s incredible cooking.”
    When she only slitted her eyes, he took a deep gulp from the bottle. “Problem? You never mind company for dinner.”
    “I don’t mind company. But I do mind sleazeballs.”
    “Nell, Sam might have been a little reckless as a kid, but he was never sleazy. And he’s one of my oldest friends.”
    “And he broke the heart of one of my friends—and yours. He left her flat and went off to New York to do God-knows-what for more than ten years. Then—then,” she continued, working up a fine rage, “he slithers back on-island and expects everybody to greet him with open arms.”
    She slapped the spoon on the counter. “I for one am not interested in tuning up the brass band for Sam Logan.”
    “How about just one trumpet player?”
    “You think this is a joke?” She swiveled on her heel and strode to the back door.
    He managed to get there in time to brace a hand on the door. “No. Sorry. Nell.” He ran his hand over her cap of hair. “Look, I’m sorry about what happened between Sam and Mia. I was sorry then, and I’m sorry now. The fact is, I grew up with Sam, and we were friends. Good friends.”
    “Isn’t ‘were’ the operative word?”
    “Not for me.” And for Zack it was just that simple. “Mia matters to me, and so does he. I don’t want to be put in the position of taking sides, not in my own home. More than that, more than anything, I don’t want you and me at odds over it. But I shouldn’t have asked him to dinner without talking to you first. I’ll go head him off.”
    She bit back a sigh, but couldn’t quite master the pout. “You’re doing that to make me feel small and low.”
    He waited a beat. “Did it work?”
    “Yes, damn it.” She gave him a little shove. “Get out of my way. If we’re having company for dinner, there’s no point in burning it.”
    But he didn’t move aside. Instead he took her hands and squeezed. “Thanks.”
    “Don’t thank me until I’ve gotten through the evening without giving him hives or warts.”
    “Gotcha. How about I set the table?”
    “How about you do?”
    “You want candles?”
    “Yeah, black ones.” She smirked as she walked over to check her wild rice. “To ward off negative energy.”
    Zack heaved out a breath. “Should be some evening.”

    Sam brought a good wine and sunny yellow daffodils. But she wasn’t mollified. She was polite, brutally so, and served the wine on the comfortable front porch, with canapés that she’d tossed together at the last minute.
    Sam wasn’t sure if she meant that to be friendly or to illustrate that he would be admitted to her home in