“Yes. I don’t know, exactly, what it means. I don’t know if I should tell him I noticed, or just not. I wasn’t expecting, when we started what we started, anything like this.”

“For you or for him?”

“Either. Both. You’ve known me forever, Teesh. I’ve never had a serious relationship.”

“Because you avoided them.”

“Maybe. No, not maybe,” she admitted at Teesha’s steady look. “Yes, I avoided them. And this one just happened. How do we … We’ve both got our own businesses, demanding careers. Add two kids to his plate. Add Rizzo’s, and now the center, to mine. How do you possibly juggle all that? I don’t know how you and Monroe juggle all you have to do.”

“It’s all in the rhythm, and the teamwork. Are you looking for an out?”

“I’m not, and that worries me. I’m not a worrier, not really. You just figure out what you need or want to do, then you do it.”

She always had. She’d believed she always would.

“I don’t know what I need or want, exactly, when it comes to this. I’ve never had to figure that out. And I’m probably overreacting, which I don’t think I do a lot either.”

Teesha angled her head, stared up at the ceiling. “I remember you laughing at me when I came home, insisting I had to move to South America the first time Monroe asked me to marry him.”

“You were only going to move to the West Coast the first time he said he loved you.”

“True. Both illustrate even sensible people worry and overreact a lot of times when they fall in love.”

“God. I wasn’t looking for that, or expecting that. You can’t organize that into a program, you can’t schedule it or decide what should come next and push to it.”

“Hard for you to let things evolve. You’ve driven your own train a long time, Adrian. But,” she added, holding up a finger, “you also know how to change tracks when needed. You changed tracks when I met you, and changed your life. And mine. You did it again when you moved back here. Maybe, for now, you could try sharing the controls with somebody else and enjoy the scenery for a while.”

“I really wasn’t nervous about any of this before.”

“Because he wore that ring, and his wife was a kind of buffer.”

“Jesus, Teesha, I don’t want to think of her that way.”

“I imagine he did, too, at least some. He just realized before you did that time was over. Relax into it, Rizz, and take in the scenery.”

“I guess I have to try, because I can’t come over here and not take Sadie over to visit her boyfriend. Bore me with numbers,” she told Teesha. “Shut my brain down with them.”

“Numbers are life and light and truth.”

An hour later, her brain frazzled by those numbers, Adrian walked next door. Just play it casual, confident, easy, she told herself. It’s just a quick stop so Sadie and Jasper could have a visit. And he, very likely, had his head in his work.

But even before she knocked, she heard the pounding music, saw lights flashing against the windows. She’d never known him to work with that kind of noise, but maybe he was trying out a scene.

She’d have knocked, but Jasper sent out a howl, and Sadie answered with a quick triple bark.

When Raylan opened the door, the music poured out in a flood and the colored lights spun around his living room where his kids, whom she’d assumed were in school, danced like maniacs.

Raylan wore sunglasses with rainbow shades, a backward ball cap, and a purple spangled vest over his T-shirt.

“Well,” she managed, “this is unexpected.”

Sporting a pair of fairy wings, a tutu, and a plastic tiara, Mariah raced over. “It’s a dance party! Come dance.”

“A dance party?”

“A School’s Out for Summer Dance Party,” Raylan told her. “Bradley, turn the music down a minute.”

“Oh, you don’t have to do that.”

But Bradley, in a green wig, a Batman shirt, and a cat-eye mask, turned it down to a mutter. “Dad set it all up! We got off the bus and he had it all set up. It’s Club Vacation.”

He’d shoved all the furniture back to clear what was, obviously, the dance floor, and some sort of light machine shot colors onto the walls. Streamers and balloons spilled from the ceiling.

All her earlier worries simply dissolved in delight.

“Can’t have a dance party without dressing for it,” Raylan added.

“You can dance.” Mariah tugged her hand. “You can.”

“I’m afraid I didn’t dress for a party.”

“We got stuff!” She raced to a chest, flung it open, then raced back with another tiara and a pink boa.

“Wow. Who doesn’t love a tiara? I don’t want to push into your family party,” she began.

“Club Vacation is open to all,” Raylan told her as Bradley eyed her.

She started to make another excuse, but the boy stepped up to her. “You can walk on your hands. Can you dance on them?”

“Can I dance on my hands?”

“Can you do the splits?” Mariah demanded.

“Oh, I see.” Nodding, she fit on the tiara, wrapped the boa around her neck. “It’s an audition. Well then, Bradley, hit it.”

“Hit what?”

“She means turn the music back up.”

When he did, Adrian, grateful she’d worn leggings, toed off her shoes.

She did a couple of hip wiggles, a shoulder bump, then—flowed down, set her hands, flowed her legs up. She matched the beat, walking forward and back, side to side. Split her legs as she walked in a circle, then flowed down into a bridge, gauged her ground for a spring, and dropped into the splits. Threw out her arms for the flourish.

While the kids applauded, she tossed the loose end of the boa over her shoulder.

“Did I pass the audition?”

“That was super cool,” Bradley said.

“Highest praise.” Raylan held out a hand. “Looks like we’re dancing.”

While Adrian danced, Rachael sat in the tidy living room of Tracie Potter’s sleek townhome in downtown Richmond.

She’d done a background check, and knew Tracie had been a year behind Lina at Georgetown, earned degrees in journalism and communication. She’d worked her way up to an anchor slot on the local NBC affiliate where she currently led the six and eleven o’clock broadcasts.

A local celebrity, she married in her late twenties, had two kids, divorced in her mid-thirties. And remarried at forty to a real estate developer.

She had three grandchildren, one from her eldest daughter, and two from her stepson.

She and her husband belonged to the country club, enjoyed golf, and owned a second home in San Simeon.

Even up close Rachael judged the woman could pass for forty, which meant some very excellent work even if she had superior genes going for her. Her hair, a thick and expertly highlighted medium blond, waved around a face of creamy skin with sharp blue eyes and a perfectly tinted mouth of deep rose.

She crossed her legs in snug white jeans and sat back with her Wedgwood cup of coffee.

“I can give you about thirty minutes,” she began. “I wanted to have this discussion here rather than at my office. It’s old news, but I’d rather not fuel the gossip tank.”