Chapter 2: Chapter 2

Even now I wasn’t sure I had enough warm clothing for a brutal winter, so I was hoping I wouldn’t have to face one. I wasn’t penniless. I’d gotten a decent chunk of money in the divorce. I let him have the house; he’d loved it far more than me.

“So,” she said at last. When we were about thirty minutes out from Willowbrook. “You okay? After…”

“Jasper Trulean? Sure, I’m okay.”

“Still…you must have loved him to marry him.” She shook her head. “Never did get to meet him.”

“I was sorry about that, too. He never wanted to come with me,” I admitted. “And I guess, that should have told us what we wanted to know.” I smiled wryly. “Or not.”

“Didn’t take his last name, though, did you, Nick?”

Nicholas Holly. Did that sound like Christmas or what? Funny parents, I had.

“Nah. I don’t think most people do when they marry these days.”

She glanced at me. “Is that right?”

I shrugged. “No idea.”

She smiled. “His loss, anyway. Say, Nick, you’ll never guess who Willowbrook’s new mayor is.”