“Are you sure you don’t mind staying here for him?”

She shook her head. “It only makes sense. That big old house will swallow me up. Besides, I’m going to sleep in your bed. With any luck I’ll smell your after-shave on the pillow.”

“Will you spend some time in Jillian’s kitchen?” he asked her.

“I’ll go over there once in a while. I might do some cooking. And I’ll be sure to keep an eye on things, just to make sure all is secure. Believe me, I won’t have time to be lonely with two big houses and a naughty puppy to manage.”

“I might call you fifteen times a day,” he said.

“There are two landlines and a cell,” she said. “Just be careful you don’t get yourself arrested for stalking.”

Courtney was understandably subdued during dinner. “Will you play with him sometimes?” she asked Kelly.

“Every day,” she said. “By the time you get home, he’ll sit up to shake hands.”

“Well, let’s clear the table and open a few presents. Courtney, Kelly brought you something.”

Courtney shook her head. “I don’t want to open anything until I get back. I just want this to be over.”

Kelly almost said, As we all do!

“Courtney, Kelly has gone to a lot of trouble for us—”

“No, it’s okay. Let’s all wait. That’s a better idea. Let’s get through this and celebrate a homecoming when it’s behind us. How about that? I like that idea.”

Before the table was even cleared, Courtney stood up. “I think I’ll just take Spike to bed now.”

Kelly stopped her before she could leave the kitchen. “Courtney, listen. I’m sorry you have to do this—your dad told me how hard it is. You’ll have your cell phone, right? Make sure my numbers are programmed in. If you ever wonder how the puppy’s getting along, call me.”

“Have you ever actually had a dog before?”

Her tone was so abrasive, Kelly had to fight the urge to stiffen indignantly. Instead she smiled and said, “No, I haven’t. And I thank you for letting me do this. I look forward to it. I’ll be very careful with him.”

Courtney just shrugged and left them alone.

“Maybe when she sees that we’re both on her team, things will improve,” Lief said.

“Maybe so,” Kelly said. But she was thinking, If it doesn’t improve a lot, I’m not signing on for this.

She didn’t stay late, though leaving Lief’s arms wasn’t easy. She told him to spend that last night at home with Courtney, in case she felt like talking. When she got to her own bed on the third floor of the Victorian, all she could do was toss and turn. She had a feeling this thing she had with him wasn’t going to make it. He had another woman in his life, a more important one. She didn’t mind falling second, but she couldn’t survive as persona non grata.

Lief and Courtney set out for the six-hour drive to San Francisco on the seventeenth, and it was a morbidly quiet drive. He tried to reassure her from time to time with statements like, “I know you won’t enjoy this visit as much as I’d like you to, Court, but it’s not dangerous. Worst case, highly annoying.”

“Right,” she said.

“Listen,” Lief said, “if there’s anything about this that’s dangerous, you need to speak up! Have your dad or stepmom ever done anything to physically harm you? Ever hit, ever put you in dangerous situations, ever—”

“The only dangerous thing is that I have to stay under the same roof with those carnivorous boys. And no—nobody touches me funny, either! But I have to tell you the truth, it goes way beyond highly annoying. I’ve had medical treatment after a couple of visits with them!”

There was no arguing that. “Do you carry hairspray?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Hairspray,” he said. “Right in the eyes! And fight back! Call the police! Do not let anyone hurt you.”

She sighed heavily. “Are you sure you’ll be close?”

“I will follow you all the way. I got all the information from your dad, booked a ticket on the same flights and a room at the Disney Hotel. We’re solid. He wasn’t at all happy about it, either. He says if I interfere, there will be trouble. The good news is—it’s Disney World. There will be a million people around. If you need help and you don’t see me standing six feet behind you, all you have to do is shout.”

“Thanks,” she said meekly. “You sure Spike’s going to be all right?”

“Sure, honey. Kelly’s not only a good, responsible person, she likes him. And he’s cute. Besides, she’s going to be all alone.”

“What about her sister and all those people?” she asked.

“Gone for the holidays. It’s just Kelly. They invited her along, but she didn’t want to impose. She volunteered to take care of the dog so he wouldn’t have to go to the vet’s kennel.”

“Oh,” she said. “I didn’t know she volunteered. I thought you asked her.”

“I told you—”

“Yeah, yeah, she’s nice,” Courtney interrupted.

“Listen, we’ll have a good dinner in San Francisco, then a little shopping. You might as well have some vacation clothes. We don’t fly to L.A. until midday tomorrow, so we have lots of time to relax. We can enjoy ourselves.”

“Sure,” she said, biting her nail down to the quick.

As much as Lief wished Lana were still alive, he was glad she didn’t have to see this. Watching Courtney suffer ripped his heart out. Lana had somehow managed to get around Stu most of the time, keeping Courtney’s visits to his house down to a bare minimum, but for his life, Lief couldn’t remember how she’d done it!

After checking in to their hotel, Lief took Courtney shopping. It was like dragging a ball and chain, but he managed to get her interested in a couple of shirts, capris and hoodies. Not much, but something. They chose an Italian restaurant, somewhere Courtney could get a cheese pizza and nothing exotic. They shopped a little bit afterward, but she just couldn’t relax and enjoy herself.

For all the times Lief had nearly fallen to his knees to pray she’d just stop sniping at him, he couldn’t bear her silence.

When they got to L.A., he rented a car. He stopped off at her favorite burger restaurant to be sure she had something solid to eat before dropping her at Stu’s, but she only picked. “Look, all we can do is get this over with,” he said. “I have an appointment with the lawyer tomorrow—he’s going to get together the paperwork. I’m filing for permanent custody. We’ll file the second we step off the plane after this ordeal. Let’s try to get through it, Court. I’m sorry, but that’s all we’ve got.”

“I know.”

He carried her bag to the front door. She rang the bell.

“Court?” he said, causing her to turn. He put down the bag and opened his arms to her. She rarely hugged him anymore, rarely showed physical affection. But with watery eyes, she filled his arms and hugged him hard. “It’s going to be all right. We’ll get past this.”

“Promise you’ll be there,” she whispered.

“Promise.”

The door opened and Stu stood there, a beam. “Welcome, Courtney! Long time! You look great! Ready for a little vacation with the family?”

Courtney just looked down and entered the house, pulling her suitcase behind her.

“Thanks, Lief,” Stu said. “Guess I’ll see you late on the second.”

“You’ll see me sooner than that. I was able to get tickets on your flight, reservations at your hotel. I’m going to be nearby in case Courtney needs me. No more bite marks, no more stitches, no more abuse.”

“Whatever,” he said dismissively. “Kids have their issues. Siblings fight sometimes. I can’t be on top of ’em every second.”

“Well, you’d better be, Stu.”

“Lighten up, man! I’m taking her on a goddamn vacation! And I can’t keep you from following us, but you’d better keep your distance or I’ll be calling my lawyer!”

Great, Lief thought. He can talk to my lawyer. “I won’t get in the way unless she needs me.”

“She isn’t going to need you. Stay out of my face while I vacation with my family!”

Courtney waited inside the door until Stu turned to her and told her where she was to sleep. Turned out she got the guest room—bed and everything.

“Want anything to eat?” he asked her.

“No, thank you,” she said. She pulled her suitcase to the bedroom and closed the door behind her. The house was fairly quiet; no greetings from the stepwitch or the boys, which suited her just fine. She checked her iPhone for messages and shot a text to Amber. Haven’t been beaten or fed to the dogs yet. Off to a good start!

Amber wrote her right back. Don’t be so dramatic! Try to have some fun!

“Shows what you know,” she said aloud.

She didn’t even open her suitcase; she was a little afraid to get comfortable, to let her guard down. She put in her earbuds and listened to some music from the phone. Every now and then she’d hear one of the boys shout or run down the hall, but she was left strictly alone. Maybe they’d just let her tag along, enjoy a little of Disney on her own. Lief had given her money and the emergency credit card—one that he had in her name in case she ever ran into a worst-case scenario and needed cab fare or even a plane ticket. If Stu and Sherry just left her alone, maybe she would enjoy a little trip to Orlando.

Late that night she texted Lief. “I’m sleeping in a bed and no one has bothered me.”

He texted back immediately; he hadn’t been asleep either. “Just do your best and let me know if you need me.”

She decided she was going to give it her best. Maybe when this was over Lief would be really proud of her and that would be the end of this back and forth crap. She didn’t want to ever go through this again! With her earbuds in her ears, she fell asleep listening to the music stored on her iPhone; she slept in her clothes. She didn’t leave her room once, not even for the bathroom. Sunlight was brightening the room when she woke up; the battery in her iPhone was dead from having it on all night. She sat up and rubbed her eyes. She’d slept on top of the covers, not even burrowing into the bed. She rooted around in her bag for her recharger and plugged in the phone before even walking out of her room to the hallway bath.

There was an awful lot of activity in the house, but she thought that was probably normal. When she finally made her way to the kitchen, she saw there was luggage by the front door.

“Well, sleepyhead,” Sherry said cheerfully. “I was just about to wake you. You must have been awful tired to sleep so late.”

“What time is it?” she asked. She didn’t wear a watch; her iPhone was almost permanently attached to the palm of her hand. That was her time source.

“My gosh, it’s after seven, and we have an early start today! I hope you didn’t completely unpack! We need you and your suitcase ready in fifteen minutes!”

Courtney frowned. “For what?”

“For our trip, silly!” And then Sherry grinned.

“We’re not leaving till tomorrow,” Courtney said.

“Last-minute change of plans, pumpkin,” Stu said as he came into the room, holding his coffee cup. “It’s all good—we’ll get there a day early.”

They were awful dressed up for a travel day. Sherry was wearing a designer sweat suit—it might’ve been silk—gold sandals and lots of jewelry. Her red hair was teased and spiky, her fingernails long and coral, her toenails matched. Stu looked pretty slick himself, for a short bald guy. “You told my dad the twentieth.”

Stu immediately frowned. “Okay, now, that really hurts. I’m your dad, pumpkin. I know the guy’s important to you, but could you cut me some slack here? I’m taking you on a first-class vacation. I want you to enjoy yourself and your family. Can you let me be the dad?”

“You told Lief the twentieth,” she persisted, thinking what is this pumpkin shit?

“Last-minute great deal on tickets, that’s all,” he said, standing up to his full five-foot-six. “I’m sure he’ll figure it out.”

She decided she’d just call Lief from the airport if her phone had charged enough. So far things weren’t disastrous.

“I don’t have time to shower,” she said.

“Just wash up a little and change,” Stu said. “We have a car on the way. We’re going to get the fun started!”

Courtney had a very bad feeling about this, but she was also backed up to the wall. Their bags were sitting at the door, they were all being nice to her, and all Stu seemed to want was to be referred to as her dad. She could do that. But the bad feeling just wouldn’t go away.

A fancy car with a uniformed driver showed up; Stu was doing this up big. When they arrived at the airport, he had the driver transfer the bags to a skycap. Stu took charge of the boarding passes and IDs and ushered them all to the first-class lounge. He told the boys to sit at a table, and there was a slight shoving match as they did so. Stu barked, “Boys! Remember our deal?”

They stopped at once, hung their heads and sat down quietly. Boy, she had never seen anything like that before. Maybe things were changing—Sherry was cheerful, Stu was disciplining, the boys were almost human.

A few minutes later, another couple came into the lounge, all smiles upon seeing the Stu and Sherry Lord family. They had two small children with them, probably about three and four years old. There were lots of hugs and handshakes, and then the woman, a very pretty woman, came right up to where Courtney was sitting, bent at the waist to be on eye level with her, and said, “You must be Courtney! I’m Ann Paget! I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this, Courtney! The au pair quit without notice and here we are, stuck! Believe me, Dick and I will make it well worth your while—I promise!”