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already mated.
    Not that she was in a hurry to find a man. She needed to get her mom’s life sorted out first. At least they were back in town again. That was so good. She’d always loved the farm. She’d had wonderful summers here with her grandparents.
    “What do you need to know about Dad?” she asked the men.
    “We need to ask you some personal questions. We don’t wish to be intrusive, ma’am, but we need to assess the risks you’re both facing.” Naftali had been speaking to her mom, but he included Judi with a nod at the end of the statement.
    Judi understood. Most of the money and property belonged to her mom anyway.
    “That’s fine. You go ahead and ask.”
    Judith didn’t think her mom was offended. She knew her mom wanted this all sorted out as badly as she did. Her mom had been very good about missing her friends, but Judi knew how much Cherise would have preferred her usual round of social events and nice dinners to sitting in front of a roaring fire roasting hot dogs on sticks.
    “Do you have any joint bank accounts or joint investments your husb—Lewis might have been using these past few months?” asked Naftali.
    “No. I think that was one of Lewis’s problems with me. He thought I lacked trust in him by not putting the house and the farm and other things in our joint names. Of course, he had plenty of his own money, anyway, but it wasn’t that. It was more that my father wanted what had been his to stay in the family. So that meant passing it down to Judith, not to Lewis. I always knew Lewis had been married before.”
    “Did you think he might give the land to JJ?” asked Nelson.
    “Hell no. I didn’t know JJ existed. Or LC. I still don’t know if Lewis knows about JJ. But because he’d been married before, and because originally he hadn’t wanted to marry me, I suppose I didn’t trust him completely. Maybe it was a failing in me, after all.”
    “Of course it wasn’t, Mom. He two-timed you. I’ve told you. JJ’s seventeen. Do the math.”
    Her mom nodded but looked down at the tabletop and twisted her coffee mug around. Judi wanted to punch her father for taking her mom’s self-confidence away because of his inability to be faithful.
    “So Lewis doesn’t have any sources of income associated with you?” asked Naftali.
    “No, he’s always had his own business, and it seemed to provide him with a very comfortable lifestyle.”
    “Did he contribute to the household expenses? Pay the utility bills or whatever?”
    “Oh no. But he’d take me out to dinner and buy me gifts sometimes.” Cherise looked thoughtful. “Actually, when you put it as bluntly as that, I suppose I mostly supported him. I hadn’t really thought of it before. He exchanged his car for a new one every two years without fail, and he always had plenty of new clothing as well, all of which he paid for himself. But I paid everything to do with the houses and our family bills.”
    Judi hadn’t known that either. And she did know it was almost always her mom who’d bought her birthday and Christmas presents. She’d just assumed her father paid some of the bills like other people’s fathers did. Apparently not. He was a fucking leech. A marriage was supposed to be sharing and partnership. Right now it was looking as though mostly her father had taken everything he could get and given very little in return.
    The sooner he was out of all their lives, the better.
    Judi stared some more at the three men still questioning her mother. She noticed Mr. and Mrs. Davey had left the kitchen and guessed they had work to do elsewhere. Tomorrow was the cookout, and she was looking forward to the party, but likely there was a lot of work to do before it happened. She had nothing to do this afternoon, so she’d help them cook and prepare whatever was necessary. And tomorrow, at the cookout, she’d take a good look at the men there. Maybe there’d be someone worth kissing. Or even doing more than that. It was a damn