It was good to be home.

Wade pulled out a sugar cube he’d snagged from the kitchen before he’d headed out to the barns in hopes of reminding the few horses he had that he was the one to suck up to. He extended his hand over the fence and made a clicking noise in the back of his throat.

The noise didn’t capture his mother’s attention, but Nelly tossed her head back once before she sauntered his way. That’s when his mother looked up.

Her sandy blonde hair was pulled back in a ponytail and her smile warmed his heart. His mother was a beautiful woman who didn’t have to do anything other than grin to achieve attention.

“Well, look who found his way home,” she said as she followed her horse to his side.

Wade ducked under the split-rail fence and lifted his palm to Nelly to give her the treat.

When his mother reached his side, he wrapped both arms around her, lifting her off her feet, and kissed her cheek.

“Put me down,” she teased.

“Not till I’m done.”

A couple of good squeezes later, he kept her upright as he set her back on the hot Texas dirt.

She placed both hands on the side of his face, her smile reaching her eyes. “You look . . .” She paused. “Not tired. You’re always tired when you come home.”

“I took a couple days to rest.”

“So that’s why you’re home late. I was expecting you earlier.”

“I told Ike to let you know I wasn’t returning right away.”

“Yeah, yeah, but I didn’t know that was days and not hours.”

“I’m sure you figured it out.” He draped his arm over her shoulders. “What did I miss around here?”

“Nothin’. Horses are healthy, Betty Ann is still trying to teach me how to make a proper pie crust, and Sal has started threatening to construct an electric fence around the property to keep your adoring fans from wandering in.”

Wade peered past the barns and horses. “That would be a very big fence.”

She laughed. “I missed you, Little Pup.”

He kissed the top of her head. “I’ll be home for a while. Long enough for you to get sick of me and tell me to go on tour again.”

“If I get sick of you, I’ll find a nice beach in Florida to stretch out on.”

Wade couldn’t help but think of the sandy stretch of beach he and Trina had watched during the storm. What was she doing right now? Still nursing a hangover, or tipping a few back with her girlfriends? What a protective lot they were. Usually he was a hit with the girl squad when he put his focus on one of them. Not Trina’s friends. Good thing his ego was firmly in check or he would have been offended. But as one of his songs told the world, being humble in the face of fame is the only way to live. Keep it real, his mother always preached.

“Someone got quiet.”

He squeezed her shoulder and let her go. “I’m hungry,” he told her. Suggesting he had a woman on his mind would only prompt questions, and he had a few of his own tickling his head before he dealt with his mother’s. Would Trina use the number he typed into her phone? When would he use the one he jacked from hers? Maybe if he gave her a day or two . . . enough time for him to look up a bit about his competition. A dead ex was hard to navigate, not that he’d done that before.

“Hungry?” his mother asked, her sharp eyes drilling into him.

“Yup. In need of some Texas-size Angus beef grilled by my own hands.” He turned to make his way back to the house.

“There is something you’re not telling me,” she called out.

He smiled over his shoulder. “Yeah, there is. I’d like some apple pie with that steak. Any chance that can happen?”

She skipped a step to keep up with him. “How about cobbler?”

He draped his arm over her shoulders again and walked the rest of the way back.

After the First Wives intervention, Trina skipped the flight to Texas and detoured to New York. Lori and Shannon both returned to Los Angeles, and Avery tagged along with Trina.

The Hamptons home she’d shared in her brief marriage to Fedor had been vacant for nearly one year. She stood at the steps, looking up into the dark windows and pulled shades. The gray, cloudy sky matched her mood.

“You know what this place is missing?” Avery asked.

“What?”

“Eerie Halloween music and fake fog.”

Avery’s reference to All Hallows Eve wasn’t because there were overgrown weeds and dead trees, but the air that surrounded the house itself.

The outside was perfectly maintained, and inside, Trina knew she’d find the same. The company she’d hired to manage the home after she’d moved was in charge of weekly cleaning and maintenance, and Cindy, her old housekeeper, supervised. Something Trina had become very accustomed to dealing with after inheriting nearly half a dozen homes. This one she had no intentions of ever living in again, so she’d let the staff go with severance packages and letters of recommendation.

Trina looked over her shoulder and past the gates and wondered if any of the neighbors paid attention to who came and went. Probably not. The homes were spaced out enough to not see those who lived next door for weeks, if at all. One would think a home that would fetch over fifteen million dollars would have someone living inside, but many of the homes in this area were weekend and summer getaways. This one going unoccupied for a year probably wasn’t even noticed.

“It’s going to take me a few days to go through everything,” Trina told Avery for the third time.

“Yeah, you’ve already said that. Like you, I don’t have a job, so here I am. Ready to go through the Ghost of Christmas Past’s shit.”

Trina was glad for it. She didn’t want to do this alone. Her mother had volunteered to help, but Trina wasn’t about to encourage that. Her parents still had no idea her marriage to Fedor was a complete fallacy. The lie she’d told the world was only known by the First Wives, Fedor, and the employees of Alliance. That was the way it would forever stay.

“Let’s do this.” Avery took the first steps toward the door.

Inside was exactly as Trina remembered. Dark stained wood floors, high ceilings, white painted walls, and lots of windows where the shades and window treatments were closed. She caught the alarm and pressed in the code to disarm, and then stood in silence.

“We need to open this place up.” Avery went to work even as she said the words. She marched through the foyer and into the main living room and pulled back the drapes. Even the gray light coming in from outside helped the mood of the house. She pushed open the window with a grunt. “Deal with the cold. It smells like a coffin in here.”

Trina winced.

“Sorry.”

Rooted in place, Trina just stared at the familiar space. “Wait until you go into Fedor’s office in the back.”

“Point me in a direction and I’ll do it.”

“Let’s deal with the big house first.” Trina shook out of her fog and headed back outside. “I’ll get our suitcases.”

It had started to drizzle in the few minutes they’d been inside. Instead of rushing, Trina took her time pulling her suitcase from the trunk of the rental car she and Avery had picked up at the airport. She looked toward the four-car garage and remembered the car she had inside. She wasn’t even sure if the registration was paid on the thing. Fedor had bought it for her when she’d moved in and said he would take care of all of it, even after they were divorced. Now it sat in a garage with two more of Fedor’s cars, collecting dust.

What a shame.

A waste of life Fedor had pissed away by squeezing the trigger.

The Hamptons home was never meant to be hers. Although he did promise a postdivorce compromise that would keep anyone from guessing their marriage was an arrangement. That compromise was never fully developed. Once again, cut short by Fedor’s decision, and that of Alice’s estate landing in Trina’s lap.

With Fedor’s death, the money he’d earned on his own had ended up back in the family money with Everson Oil. He’d known his mother wasn’t going to live long, so he’d had his attorney write up a plan to give his estate to his aunts. If his attorney questioned why the money wasn’t to be left to Trina, she’d never heard.

After Fedor’s death, and Alice’s, his aunts wanted to give Trina all of Fedor’s assets.

She outright refused, and the funds went in the general pot of the oil company, which still ended up giving Trina a third of Fedor’s estate. It was obvious she wasn’t going to escape the money, so when Andrea and Diane asked that Trina deal with the Hamptons home, Trina agreed. Considering the aunts had only been in the place a couple of times, it only seemed right that Trina manage the sale.

A twig snapped behind her, making Trina swivel her head in that direction.

Nothing.

She glanced down to find a cat sitting and watching her expectantly.

“Who are you?” Trina asked, as if the cat would answer.

She knelt down and put out her hand, willing the animal to approach. Instead, the gray and white cat scurried in the opposite direction and disappeared behind the garage.

Another noise to her left had her thinking that maybe there was a colony of feral cats close by. But instead of seeing another feline friend, there was nothing.