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directions should be the father of my children? I don’t even know if he’s single.”
    “You didn’t check out his ring finger?” Mary Dee asked.
    She had, actually. It was bare. She was uncomfortably aware that she’d found him attractive. No, not merely attractive. Appealing. If he’d been anybody else, she might have found a way to give him her number.
    Mary Dee pointed a finger at her. “You did, didn’t you? I knew you were attracted to him. Too bad you don’t know where he’s staying. You could at least have a fling with him while he’s visiting.”
    Tara’s heartbeat sped up at the prospect, although she should not have been thinking about Jack DiMarco in those terms. She had ample reason to hope she never saw him again. “I guess I missed my chance, then.”
    “Too bad.” Mary Dee fanned herself. “Now, that’s a man who could get a woman thinking about her needs.”
    Tara’s cell phone vibrated and skittered a few inches on the table, as if it were alive. With an apologetic look at Mary Dee, Tara picked it up and checked the display. Her mother. Not that she’d tell her friend that.
    “Sorry,” Tara said. “I’ve got to take this.”
    Mary Dee nodded, watching Tara over the rim of her glass as she sipped her margarita.
    “Hey, what’s up?” Tara asked, careful not to call her mom by name.
    “I think I smell gas in the kitchen!” her mother cried. “I checked and the pilot light’s not on. Wouldn’t you know the shut-off valve’s behind the stove, which is way too heavy for me to move.”
    Tara turned away from Mary Dee and spoke directly into the phone so her mother could hear and her friend couldn’t. “Did you call the gas company?”
    “Yes, but what if it takes them an hour to get here like it did the last time?” her mother asked. “I can’t stay outside on the porch with Danny for an hour. You know how he gets when his routine is disrupted.”
    Tara tapped her nails on the table, trying to come up with the best solution to the problem. “I guess I could be there in about twenty minutes.”
    “Could you?” her mother asked. “That would be wonderful.”
    Tara cast a glance at Mary Dee, who was still watching her. Tara wouldn’t be leaving her friend high and dry if she cut out early. Mary Dee had mentioned that her husband had rented a movie they were planning to watch tonight.
    “I’ll leave right now,” she told her mom. “In the meantime, open some windows and stay out of the kitchen.”
    “Already done. Bless you!” Her mother made a few more gratifying noises before Tara disconnected the call.
    Taking a deep breath, Tara addressed Mary Dee. “I’m sorry. Something’s come up. I’ve gotta go.”
    “Of course you do.”
    Tara finished off the last swallow of her margarita, set enough money on the table to cover their tab and stood up. “I really am sorry, M.D.”
    “I know you are,” Mary Dee said.
    Tara turned away from her friend and started for the exit. She hadn’t gotten two steps when she heard Mary Dee’s voice calling after her.
    “Say hey to your mom for me.”
    * * *
    T ARA GRABBED FOR HER foster brother Danny’s soft hand the following afternoon, holding it securely in hers as they crossed the parking lot to the Kroger in Wawpaney. There weren’t a lot of choices. The next closest grocery store was twenty miles away.
    “You’re a good boy to come with me.” After picking up Danny from his Saturday swimming lesson at the community center in Cape Charles, where the camp was being held, she’d announced she needed to make a stop. “If I don’t buy a few things, my cupboards will be bare. Like Mother Hubbard.”
    “Your mother’s name isn’t Hubbard.” Danny gazed up at her out of small brown eyes with the distinctive slant characteristic of people with Down syndrome. He was short for his age, another trait common to children like him.
    “You’re right.” Tara sometimes forgot how literal children with Down’s were. “It’s