VERYONE HAS LEFT US. Everyone. You, Nicky, Lucy and that Ethan. We’re bereft. Bereft, Parker.”

Parker grinned. Ethan’s mother didn’t believe in Skype, and therefore couldn’t see Parker enjoying the melodrama. “I’m sorry, Marie. I miss you and Gianni, too.”

“Our grandson! Six weeks without him! I don’t know if Gianni’s heart can take it.”

“Well, Ethan will be back soon, Marie.”

“Who takes three weeks for a vacation? And then Ethan’s taking that precious boy to see you.”

“Well, he is my son.”

“We’re so alone. To think we left Valle de Muerte to be abandoned by our family.”

Parker bit down on a laugh. She got quite a kick out of the Mirabellis, who’d always been good to her, so long as she could ignore the many, many, many nudges, hints and suggestions on how to raise Nicky and why she should’ve married Ethan—at least that battle hymn had stopped since he married Lucy—and how Parker should eat much, much more.

“So what’s new up there? In Maine?” Marie said the word suspiciously, as if not quite certain Maine was a true part of the United States.

“Oh, not too much.” Parker opted not to mention her stint in the clink. “Lots of work to do before Nicky gets here.”

There was a gusty sigh. “You could come home,” Marie suggested. Parker had told her and Gianni about her father—hard to miss when CNN had done a special on him—and the change in her finances, but Marie didn’t always pay attention to facts she deemed unpleasant.

“As soon as I get this house ready to be sold, I’ll be back. Nicky and I will be home at the end of August at the latest.” She had to be; Nicky started kindergarten after Labor Day. All-day kindergarten. The thought caused her heart to spasm.

“August. I could be dead by August.”

“True, true. Well, I have work to do, so I should get going, Marie,” Parker said, having fielded enough guilt for the day. She loved the Mirabellis. She was also very grateful not to be their daughter-in-law and could therefore hang up, whereas Lucy could not. “I’ll call you soon.”

“You’re eating enough? You’re too skinny.”

“Aw! Thanks! I’ve gained eleven pounds this year.”

“Well, it’s not enough. We love you, sweetheart. Gianni says hello. You know how he is—he won’t talk on the phone. Bye-bye.”

Parker hung up and went outside. It was two days after her inadvertent drug dealing, and before Marie’s call, she’d been working at improving the house’s curb appeal, mainly by hacking up the roots of the sumac trees and scrubby pines. She’d buy some hanging baskets, since she knew the wholesalers now, and put out some pots of geranium and sweet-potato vine. Who knew? Maybe it would trick someone into buying the place.

James had been right about her sentence of community service. Yesterday, when the judge had found out that she was a children’s author, he ordered her to do a library program on the Holy Rollers, the favorite books of His Honor’s six-year-old grandchild. Frankly, Parker would rather have spent another day in jail with Crazy Dave (who was out with no fines at all, go figure). Lavinia had been told to file for a medical-marijuana-growers’ license, and would also be having dinner with the judge on Saturday with a possible session of “slapping uglies” afterward.

As for James, he was on the roof right now, doing God knew what. Looking beautiful, apparently. Killer tan, too, no matter that she’d bought him his own 100-factor sunscreen. His hair was curling from sweat, and the skin on his back glistened. She did love a sweaty man.

That’s icky, said Golly.

“You’ll appreciate it when you’re older,” Parker muttered. Yes, she was thirty-five years old and hadn’t been laid in three years. Time to look away. Time to focus.

Funds were running low. A part-time job at the flower shop was not doing much other than covering groceries. To her own eyes, the cottage didn’t look much better. In fact, it looked worse. The sides were stripped and covered in Tyvek, the shingles having yet to be delivered. The grass, which she’d hacked away at like some Amazon explorer, was uneven, rife with weeds and dry, thanks to a notable lack of rain this summer.

“Don’t worry so much,” James called, reading her mind. “It’s getting there. It looks worse before it gets better.”

“I know, I know,” she said, a bit irked that she was so transparent. An electrician had put in a few more outlets and given them a discount, as he was an old schoolmate of Dewey’s. The bathroom shower no longer leaked onto the floor; the Three Musketeers had come over to supervise her caulking. She couldn’t change the fact that the tiles were pink, but she was working on how to make that look cute and retro, rather than hideous and dated.

So this was what house flipping was like. Backbreaking, ever more expensive, built on a frail hope, but kind of fun anyway.

Especially with Thing One. He was eternally patient with her dopey questions—she hadn’t been able to figure out how to change a vacuum-cleaner bag the other day—and he never made her feel useless, the way Harry did. And when he smiled at her, she felt a rush of something so sharp and sweet, it actually hurt her chest. Add to this the fact that he walked around half-dressed all the time, and heck yeah!

James knelt down to check something on the roof, then stood and crossed his beautiful arms over his beautiful chest. “Put up or shut up,” he said with a wink.

“Jeesh, Thing One! Such an ego.” She paused. “But you are fun to look at.”

“You look nice, too,” he said. “I’m on fire. Stunned with lust.” Her beige carpenter pants were grubby, the T-shirt from Gianni’s Ristorante Italiano was torn, and her hair was stuffed under a Yankees baseball cap—one didn’t forget where one was born, after all, and Parker had been born at Columbia Presbyterian, New York, New York, thank you too much. She was sweating like a racehorse and could only imagine the shade of red her face had taken on: beet or boiled lobster. Either way, she was not flushed a delicate pink; she knew that. The bathroom had a mirror, after all.

Well. She’d cool off with a swim in another hour or so, and hopefully James would be the one ogling then. Seemed only fair. She knew he didn’t like her swimming—he watched her like Nana watched the kids in Peter Pan when she was out there—but she also knew he couldn’t take his eyes off her, eleven pounds be damned.

So. Mutual lusting. Always fun.

“Parker? Oh, dear God, tell me that isn’t you, sweating like an Ecuadoran stonemason.”

Parker’s eyes widened in shock at the sound of the voice. She turned. Oh, Lord. It was true. “Mom? What are you doing here?”

Althea Harrington Welles Foster Brandheiser Levinstein was staring with openmouthed horror at Parker, the house, the yard. She wore Jackie O–style sunglasses, a long silky scarf and a white linen suit. The car was a red BMW with rental plates.

“This?” Althea said. “This is what Julia left you? Oh, the old shrew! I’d kill her if she wasn’t already dead! She always made it sound like… Oh, Parker, you poor, poor thing. And that father of yours. I’ll kill him, too. I hope he’s someone’s girlfriend in prison. I hope he’s on a chain gang. I hope—”

“Mom! Wow. I can’t believe you’re here.” Parker wiped her forehead with her sleeve and walked toward Althea.

“Neither can I. I’m rather hoping this is a bad dream or a hallucination. Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me you inherited the Pines. Please.”

“This is it. It’s all I have in the world, Mother dear.”

“Oh, my God. You may as well throw yourself off that dock and hope to drown quickly. The smell in this town! How can you bear it?”

Actually, Parker had gotten used to the smell of baitfish. She gave her mother a robust hug, which Althea accepted, daintily patting Parker’s shoulder. “It is what it is, Mom. But what are you doing here? Why didn’t you call me?”

Her mother removed her sunglasses and gave Parker a level look. “When one hears that one’s daughter has been in prison, one hops on the next plane. Apparently, you’re following your father into a life of crime.”

Parker sighed. “Yes, Mother. That’s it exactly. I’m a drug dealer. It wasn’t prison, by the way. It was just a holding cell. And the charges were dropped.”

“Just a holding cell. Dear Lord, what have we come to? Have you gained weight? You look beefy.”

Only Althea would call a size ten beefy. She herself had the scrawny size-four physique of the desperately middle-aged—those women who were liposuctioned and implanted and had tans applied and paid a personal trainer to deny Nature its due. “And calling me? Why was that a bad idea?”

Althea stared. She might’ve been scowling, but Botox had frozen her eyebrows into that shiny, plasticine look, as well as given her a permanent half smile, so Parker could never tell.

“I wasn’t sure you could get phone calls, dear. I thought time might’ve been of the essence.”

“How did you know I was in trouble?” Parker asked.

“Lavinia tracked me down on Facebook, then called. My goodness, the woman sounds like Yul Brynner on his deathbed.”

“Since when do you and Lavinia talk to each other? She told me she hadn’t seen you since you were kids.”

“Well, I appreciated the call, Parker. I’m here because I thought you might need bail money.”

“Thanks, Mom.” Althea would never win Mother of the Year, but her heart was in the right place.

“What is that?” her mother asked, squinting as best she was able. Beauty stood on the steps, not quite ready to defend the place, not quite ready to back down from a stranger, either. Progress, in other words. “Is that a dog?”

“Shoot, I thought it was a pony. No, you’re right, it’s a dog. Dang.”

“Sarcasm is the lowest form of humor, Parker. Did Harvard teach you nothing? And who on earth is that?”

James was coming down the ladder. He walked over, all sweaty male glory, and extended his hand. “Hi. James Cahill. We’ve met a few times.”

Althea deigned to look at him. “Have we?” she asked.

“Yes. At your grandson’s christening and again on his third birthday.”

“He works for Harry, Mom. He’s helping me out.”

“Is he? How fascinating. Put a shirt on, young man. If I wanted to see a naked man, I would’ve stopped at Chippendales.”

James smiled that wonderful, achingly wide smile, causing Parker’s Lady Land to squeeze hot and hard. He gave Parker an amused glance and went off. He did not, she was pleased to see, put his shirt back on.

Althea huffed. “Well, this ruins my plans. I thought we might spend some time together, do a little redecorating, but I see it’s hopeless. I absolutely cannot stay here.”

“Actually, you could have my room, and I’ll—”

“No. I’ll find somewhere. Surely there’s a B and B around this godforsaken area.”

“It burned over the winter.”

“Small wonder. Well. Give me some time. I’ll see what I can find. Dinner tonight, darling? I’ll pick you up around six.” She put her sunglasses back on and climbed back behind the wheel, then gunned the motor, leaving Parker in a cloud of dust.

“What a happy surprise,” James offered.

“So happy,” Parker said.

“By the way,” he added, “I think you look great, beefy or not.”

“I’m not beefy,” she snapped.

“You’re beautiful,” he said.

There was that knowing grin, the I’ve seen you naked look. “Just…just pipe down, you,” she said.

“Gorgeous.”

“Stop it, Thing One.”

“Stunning.”

“Okay, you’ve pushed your credibility enough for one day. I’m going swimming. Want to come?”

That shut him up. “No thanks. Be careful.”

And as always, she felt his eyes on her as she and her little dog swam through the cold water.

* * *

AT SIX O’CLOCK that evening, Parker heard the purr of an expensive car coming down the road.

“Here comes trouble,” she said, opening the front door. James came up behind her, smelling of soap and laundry detergent and sun. So good it should be illegal. She could feel his warmth behind her, and if she stepped back a little bit, she’d be nicely cozied up against his—

“Who’s that?” James asked.

“My next stepfather?” Parker guessed.

“Sweet ride,” he murmured, his breath stirring her hair. And not only her hair. Lady Land perked right up. She cleared her throat and stepped forward a little bit.

Her mother was sitting in the passenger seat of a chocolate-brown Porsche convertible; at least it wasn’t black or red, so points to the driver for not living the total midlife crisis cliché. He was blond, maybe forty years old and wore aviator sunglasses.

“Hello, darling!” her mother called, vaulting out of the car, her half smile as unchanging and disturbing as Jack Nicholson’s Joker. “Guess into whom I ran.”

“‘Into whom I ran’?” James echoed. “That is some very impressive grammar.”

Althea hustled to the door and, ignoring James completely, whispered, “This is Collier Rhodes, he owns the Pines, he’s loaded, don’t blow this. Husband material, Parker.”

“For you or for me?” Parker asked.

“For you! Don’t be ridiculous! I’m blissfully happy with Maury. Let’s go! Hurry up. I don’t want him to see this pigpen any more than he already has.” She glanced back. “Collier, we’ll be one second! Oh, damn, he’s coming in.”

“Now, now, Mother,” Parker murmured. “Hi,” she said to the man. “I’m the daughter.” She was positive the man had already been briefed on her blue blood, education, career and fertility.

The man removed his sunglasses, revealing very blue eyes. Nice. He smiled. “Hi. I’m Collier. I guess we’re neighbors.”

“Parker Welles. This is my friend, James Cahill.”

“Good to meet you, man,” Collier said as they shook hands.

“He’s not her friend per se,” Althea chirped. “He’s the help.”

Parker raised an eyebrow. “Actually, he’s—”

“Darling,” Althea interrupted, widening her tightened eyes with great effort. “Collier has been so sweet! I wandered up to the Pines, a little nostalgic, and there he was, and before I knew it, he’d invited us to stay for a few days!”

Mmm-hmm. A little nostalgic, her ass. It wasn’t surprising Althea had tracked down the town’s biggest landowner. She had a nose like a drug-sniffing bloodhound when it came to rich men.

“And he’s having a little dinner party tonight for us. Isn’t that wonderful? So let’s go.” She gave Parker a quick scan and apparently found her dress acceptable, though she unsubtly tucked her finger into her own neckline and made a downward motion, sign language for Show more boob and he’ll pop the question faster.

“James, you free? You’re more than welcome,” Collier said.

“Oh, I’m sure he had other plans,” Althea said. “My ex-husband sent him to do a little work for Parker, that’s all.”

Parker glanced back at James. His hair was still damp from the shower. “Why don’t you come, James?” she asked, suddenly quite aware that she really, really wanted his company.

“The more the merrier,” Collier said enthusiastically. “I’d love it!”

“Oh, are you sure, Collier?” Althea said, laying a hand on his arm. “James wouldn’t want to put you out. You’ve already been so, ah, generous with the locals.”

“I’d love him to come,” the man said, his blue eyes blazing. Gay, maybe, Parker thought. “What do you say, James?”

“Sounds like fun,” James said. “Thank you.”

“Great!” Collier said. “Off we go, then.”

“Parker, you simply must sit in front,” Althea said as they walked down the path to the Porsche. “It’s such a darling car. Parker’s father loves Porsches.” Translation: She comes from money, too.

“Oh, no, Mother. You know what they say. Age before beauty.” Smiling at her mother’s murderous look, she slid into the backseat with James.