"This feels like a trick," I told him. I pursed my lips. "Your mom isn't going to ambush me in the kitchen and tell me my crazy, damaged a.s.s has no business near her baby boy?"

He shook his head. "She may ask you to do a reading of your newsletter, but other than that, no."

"I wouldn't mind reading it if you have a copy," Janice said as she came back to the table. "Andy only shoots coffee out of his nose for high comedy."

"Oh, no." I gave an uncomfortable little laugh. "It's not that funny. Andy's just exaggerating."

I looked up to find Monroe silently mouthing, "It's on my desk," and poked his shoulder. "You're no help at all."

Janice leveled me with those sharp, hazel eyes. "You know, I see a lot of desperate, damaged women in my work. Women who let the hurts and disappointments push them down until they can't find the will to go on living, much less stand up for themselves. As a psychiatrist, I'm supposed to say that indulging a desire for revenge isn't healthy, that it would be better to focus on healing and rebuilding your own life. As a woman, I say that well-executed payback is an important ingredient in healing and closure is required before you can rebuild anything. If you managed to do that without slandering or hospitalizing anyone, I say good for you."

The approval in her tone had me blushing - a pleasant, warm sensation spreading through my chest that suddenly flushed cold. I wasn't ready for this. I wasn't ready for family breakfasts and inappropriate stories from Monroe's adolescence. I didn't want to have to work to get another mother's approval, to make sure her expectations were met and her birthday gifts had appropriately sappy cards attached.

I felt a panic akin to claustrophobia. I wasn't ready to be anyone's girlfriend. Even though I was having the tender, green beginnings of those feelings toward Monroe, I wasn't ready to love someone else. I couldn't think about him in the long-term, whether it was a month from now or a year from now. I just wanted a simple, uncomplicated relationship with my companionable, s.e.xy neighbor. And if he became more than that, a sweet guy with smarta.s.s brothers and a tragically feminine first name, I wouldn't be able to manage it. I recognized that these were selfish, shallow thoughts, but I also recognized that they were true. And I wasn't going to be getting around them any time soon.

I needed to leave, to run, to get back to my own s.p.a.ce and breathe for a little bit. But I wouldn't embarra.s.s Monroe in front of his family, not because I wanted to keep up appearances, but because it would hurt him. So I released my death grip on the table, smiled at his mother, and started clearing dishes.

"How about we leave those until after the first round of Trivial Pursuit?" she suggested. "Maybe we can keep them from beating each other b.l.o.o.d.y over the Sports and Leisure questions."

"I don't make any guarantees," I told her. "I fight like a girl."

"And I can't tell you how nice it is to have another girl around," she said, putting her hand on my shoulder as we joined the boys at the coffee table. When Monroe looked up at me with that content expression, mixed with familial exasperation, I couldn't help feel a twinge in my stomach that had nothing to do with overeating.

24 * Happy Endings Gone to h.e.l.l.

I was stuck.

I was lounging in my hammock, enjoying what would probably be the last tolerably warm day before the temperatures took a dive toward winter. I was reading over some of Monroe's notes on my chapters. He'd drawn little smiley faces next to the lines he thought were funny and written "ew!" next to the particularly b.l.o.o.d.y scenes, which I found to be very helpful. He also wrote "bowchikawawa" next to a particularly well-written flashback love scene, which made me giggle.

When Monroe's family had departed the week before, I'd scrambled to find some sort of personal equilibrium. If he was hurt that I basically shut myself up in my cabin and didn't come out for three days, he didn't say anything. I told him I was writing, that I'd hit a groove, and he gave me this understanding smile that made feel that much worse. I knew it was a jerk move. It was something a guy, something Mike, would do. But I had to feel like I had some control, independence. And he seemed so pleased when I showed up with pages and pages of new material to critique. It helped me feel like things were getting back to normal, or at least our version of normal.

Given that I didn't have a job and spent every spare minute at my laptop, it wasn't a surprise that I was rounding the corner toward the last third of the book. The problem was I had no idea how it was going to end. On one hand, I wanted to give Laurie a happy ending because, let's face it, I wanted a happy ending for myself. But did that mean helping Laurie find love? If anything, I'd learned that a relationship doesn't necessarily mean permanent happiness. And every time I sat down to try to suss it out, or just make notes about possible endings, I froze.

And, yes, I recognized that finishing the book meant proofreading, editing, and the very scary agent search, so the fear of failure was a rather large brick in the wall that seemed to have built itself inside my head. I'd hoped that maybe seeing some encouraging notes from Monroe would help, but mostly it just made me feel guilty for not writing.

When I heard a car door slam, I a.s.sumed it was my favorite grumpy crime writer returning with the ingredients for Margarita 'n' Fajita Night.

I didn't bother looking up from my ma.n.u.script as I heard footsteps approach. "Just let me finish this thought and then I'm all yours for the night."

"Sounds good to me."

I flinched. That was not Monroe's voice.

I looked up to see my soon-to-be ex-husband smirking down at me. I scrambled to sit up, nearly spinning myself out of the hammock. "Mike! What the h.e.l.l are you doing here?"

Mike advanced, his hand outstretched to help me stand. "A man can't visit his wife at his own lake house?"

I slapped his hands away and righted myself. "I'm not your wife and this isn't your lake house, jacka.s.s. You have a house. You live there, with your secretary, remember?"

It's very difficult to appear dignified while teetering on the edge of a hammock. I swayed there, trying to maintain my seat and a level gaze with Mike. At the mention of our home, Mike's face softened. He looked tired, older and tired. There were circles under his eyes and the slightest hint of expression lines around his mouth. "You look great... just great. You've done something new with your hair. It's -"

"Spare me," I told him. "You've got about five seconds to tell me what you're doing here before I go inside and call my lawyer or animal control or whatever it takes to tranq-gun your a.s.s."

Mike gave a sad little smile. "You're not going to make it easy on me, are you?"

"I stopped making things easy for you a while ago. How's that working out for you?"

"I made a mistake with Beebee," Mike admitted, scooting a white plastic lawn chair over to sit in front of me. "It's just not working out the way I thought it would."

"So you were thinking you could just replace me with another woman without any snags or inconveniences?"

Mike shrugged, managing to look the slightest bit guilty. "Well."

When he saw the expression on my face, he said, "I wasn't thinking! I - I made a mistake. I went through a selfish phase and I didn't think it through. And I'm man enough to admit it. After all our years together, I think you owe it to me to recognize that and give us another chance."

In the eternity between those words reaching my ears and my tongue's productions of the words "h.e.l.l" and "no," the thought that kept bouncing around in my head was, "His mama probably wrote that speech for him." Instead of saying so, I laughed my a.s.s off.

"Are you kidding me?" I threw my hands up, making Mike take a step back.

"Lacey, please. She doesn't get any of my jokes," Mike said, his brown eyes as sad and lost as a homesick kindergartner. "She hates action movies. I can't take her to Scrabble night over at Tina and John's because she hates board games. Anyway, Tina and John stopped inviting me because the wives don't like Beebee. I took her to a dinner party at the McClarens'. She went on and on about some lemon juice and cayenne pepper thing that would help Jolene McClaren 'take all that extra weight off."

Amos McClaren was one of Mike's biggest corporate clients and his wife, Jolene, was very sensitive about her weight. I bit my lip to keep from laughing, because laughing would bring Mike to his senses and make the funny stories stop.

"I'm lonely," Mike said. "I miss telling you about my day. I miss you scratching my back before I go to sleep. I miss the way you turned the toast over so the sides with the b.u.t.ter faced each other. I wasn't thinking. I just - I shouldn't have treated you like that. And I just want to go back to way things used to be, Lace. I want you to come home. I was blind, Lace. I took you for granted. And Beebee made me - I mean, the s.e.x was -"

"I don't want to hear about it!" I cried.

Mike threw up his hands, whether it was a conversational gesture or an effort to shield his face from oncoming blows, I had no idea. "I'm just saying, that's all it was, s.e.x. I can't make a life with Beebee. Not the kind of life I had with you. If you want to come back, the door's open."

I just stared at him. He missed the way I b.u.t.tered his toast? My purpose in his life was to laugh at his jokes, scratch his back, and b.u.t.ter his toast? I was vaguely sick to my stomach, but mostly, really, really sad. That was my marriage? Not once had he said he was wrong or that he was sorry. He was just telling me what he wanted. Nothing had changed.

"I just need some hope that there might still be a chance for us."

"Mike, there is no us," I told him firmly. My voice lowered to a less harsh whisper when I said, "There is no you and me. That's all over now."

"It doesn't have to be," he insisted. "Everything can go back to where it was. We can have it all back."

Wait a minute. This was all pretty proactive for a man who used to have me pre-peel his fruit for him. I narrowed my eyes at him. "So how did Beebee take it when you told her it was over?"

He gave me a sheepish look.

"So you're going to do to her what you did to me?" I yelled and started toward the cabin. When I heard Mike's footsteps behind me, I whirled around and stuck a finger in his chest. "You can't even stay loyal to your mistress, Mike! What kind of degenerate does that make you? Why would I even consider being with someone who can't stay faithful to the person he cheated on me with?"

The shift from kicked puppy to wounded martyr happened so quickly, it was like a ripple under the skin. Mike's eyes narrowed, his lip curled, and he looked at me like I was something he sc.r.a.ped off of his shoe. "I'm trying to give you, us, another chance. You could at least give me that much credit."

"You're trying to get out of the mess your hormones made."

"I can't believe you're talking to me like this!" he shouted, his face flushing red. "What's wrong with you, Lacey?"

"I'm a wild woman. I skinny-dip. I have o.r.g.a.s.ms that don't require heavy equipment."

"I can't believe you're sleeping with someone else!" he cried.

"How exactly do you have the b.a.l.l.s to get angry with me about that, Stinger?"

Mike looked like he might take a swipe at me when something he saw over my shoulder made his face melt back into a more "social" mode. I turned to see Monroe's truck pulling into his driveway and felt both relief and annoyance. This was not an introduction I needed to make at the moment.

Monroe stepped out of his truck and looked from Mike to me and back. From the look on my face, he must have thought that Mike was a door-to-door evangelist or a census taker or something. "Everything okay, Lacey?"

"I'm fine, Monroe. This is Mike." I huffed.

Mike's back stiffened. He sucked in his stomach and glared at Monroe. "Who is this, Lacey?"

I sighed. "This is my neighbor, Monroe. He's renting the McGee place."

Monroe gave Mike an appraising once-over and offered his hand for a shake. Mike reluctantly accepted and I could see the tension in their hands as they each squeezed far harder than was socially necessary. The message could not have been clearer if there had been telegraph wires stretched between them. Monroe was letting Mike know "I'm sleeping with your woman now." I was being marked, like territory. I was being peed on. Wonderful.

"If you don't mind, my wife and I are having a private discussion."

Mike's prissy tone was enough to break the tension. I had to bite my lip again to keep from laughing. Monroe and I shared a look that made Monroe smirk. Mike saw this and scowled. "How well do you know my wife, Monroe?"

"Why the h.e.l.l would you care?" I asked him.

"Oh, come on, Lacey, what's the point of hiding it?" Monroe asked, slipping his arm around my waist. "Very well. You know, it's not every day that a woman so spontaneous and open minded and well, flexible, moves in right next door. Am I the luckiest guy you've ever seen or what?"

Monroe leaned in and gave me a long, loud, smacking kiss. As Mike's face drained to paper white, Monroe gave him a cheeky grin and slapped me on the b.u.t.t before walking away. "Nice to meet you, Mark," he called over his shoulder as he ambled to his front door and walked into his house without so much as another look.

"Right." Mike began to roll his sleeve up, stomping toward Monroe's door.

I rolled my eyes. "Oh, what are you doing?"

"You think I'm going to just let him put his hands on my wife in front of me?" Mike demanded.

"I'm not your wife anymore."

"So this is why you won't come home?" Mike snarled. "We hit a rough patch and you shack up with the first ex-con you meet?"

I spluttered, "Wha - what -? Yeah, Mike, this is why I'm not coming home. My reluctance has nothing to do with the fact that your mistress is living in my house now. It would have to be because of another stud in the corral, right?"

"I told you I made a mistake! Why do you keep harping on me when I've said I'm sorry?"

"Actually, you haven't said you are sorry. You said you made a mistake. It's not the same thing," I told him.

"I tried to give you another chance," Mike said rather snottily. "If you're not willing to take it -"

"Just leave, Mike."

"You're not going to get another chance," he warned me.

"I don't need one. Tell Beebee I said h.e.l.lo."

Mike stormed off to his car and peeled out, flinging no small amount of gravel my way. Monroe stepped outside and waved at Mike's departing car. He grinned at me.

"What on earth has gotten into you?" I demanded as I marched up his front steps. "I thought you had this whole 'divorce drama' phobia."

"You wanted him to stay?" Monroe asked.

"No, definitely not. But I didn't need for you to step in. And there was no reason for you to manhandle me in front of him. I did not like that."

Monroe snorted. "Right, why make him think that you're unavailable?"

"Don't do that," I ground out. "Don't make this into a you versus - him thing. There's no contest. Why would I care what Mike thinks? I do not want Mike back. I am not still in love with him."

"And you're saying you didn't enjoy that just a little bit, making Mike think you might spare him a lifetime of alimony?" Monroe asked.

"I'm not taking alimony from Mike. I don't want anything from him. h.e.l.l, if Maya keeps throwing money at me, I'm not going to need it anyway."

Oh, double d.a.m.n it. From the look on Monroe's face, I immediately wanted to change the subject back to my ambiguous feelings toward my soon-to-be ex-husband.

"What are you talking about?" he demanded. "I thought we agreed you were going to drop the newsletter thing? You said you were going to rethink writing the letters."

"Well, I did rethink it," I said. "And I decided, for myself, that it might not be such a bad idea. I could make a lot of money writing the newsletters. And I could help people. Mostly it would be about making money, but I would have a lot of satisfaction in my job. I've never had that before. Even your mom said that writing that e-mail was what I needed to move on. I could do that for someone else."

"My mom said it made sense for you to do that. She wasn't writing a blanket prescription for everybody," he insisted. "And you've been making so much progress on your book. Why stop now?"

"I don't have the dedication that you do when it comes to writing," I told him. "I don't know if I'm going to finish that book. And let's face it, even if I finish it, I have a better chance of getting hit by lightning while scratching off a million-dollar lottery ticket than getting that thing published."

He followed me as I turned to walk away. "You want to know why your life hasn't turned out? Why you're not going to finish what you've started? Because you take the easy way out. Whenever something's hard or doesn't just fall into your lap, you give up or you let someone else do the heavy lifting for you. You're just waiting for someone else to hand you the answers, to make the decisions for you. Mike, your parents, Maya."

"Well, if I'm so lazy and immature, why did you even bother with me?"

"Because you have the potential to be this amazing person. You're smart and you're funny and you can be so brave. You've grown so much since you've come up here and you're just going to give it all up."

"Who the h.e.l.l do you think you are?" I yelled. "Who appointed you the great determiner of personal growth? And stop trying to pretend that you're mad about the newsletter thing.

When you're really mad about Mike being here. I can't help that he managed to remember the way."

"This is about you, Lacey," he said, taking my arms in his hands with just enough force to hold me in one place. "This is about you being unable to just move on and let Mike go. Stop letting it fester. It would really suck, forty years down the road, to look back on a lifetime of being petty and resentful, and think, 'Well, at least I took him down with me."

I jerked away from his grip. "I don't have to stand here and listen to this."

"Right, because I don't get a say. I mean, it's not like we're in a relationship or anything. You've made it loud and clear we're just two people having friendly s.e.x, right? f.u.c.k buddies?"

"Don't," I growled stalking toward my door. And d.a.m.ned if he didn't follow me, his voice growing louder and angrier with every step.

'I mean, I guess I should be grateful that some divorcee just wants to jump me and then walk away like I'm some anatomicaly correct prop. But somehow it hurts my feelings a little bit. I'm not stupid, Lacey. I see you pull back at every chance you get I know how much this freaks you out. You made it pretty clear when you turned into Howard freaking Hughes after you met my parents. I just don't understand why. We're good together. I've made it clear how much I care about you. You know I wouldn't hurt you. Why are you working so hard to keep from calling this what it is?"