Happily Ever After by Susan May Warren Page A

began to parry and thrust, whacking the roaches like a fencer. Mona flicked
     an eyebrow. Did he think this was funny?
    To add injury to her horror, his filthy dog, Rip, scrambled into the kitchen through the open screen door, dragging the forest
     with him, and went wild. He barked and growled at the intruders, hair spiking along the back of his neck. Mona groaned. These
     two jokers were a pair of overkill soldiers invading her poor kitchen. It was a wonder they hadn’t attracted the entire neighborhood.
    Liza dashed into the kitchen, armed with a can of Raid and the yellow pages. “I’m calling the exterminator,” she declared,
     as if it were a novel idea.
    Mona escaped into the front room, sat down on the walnut table, and stared at the hole in her ceiling. Just what a kitchen
     needed, a mafioso family of roaches, extended relatives included. As exterminator charges totaled in her mind, despair gripped
     her in a neck spasm.
    Then Joe moseyed out of the kitchen, gripping the can of Raid like a six-gun. “I’m gonna git those varmints yet,” he drawled.
     He had tied a blue bandana over his mouth, bandit-style, and his eyes twinkled under a masked grin. He seemed so hopeful,
     so eager to help that she couldn’t help it—she laughed.

    Joe lay on the sofa, his hands behind his head, watching shadows of the front-yard birch trees chase each other across the
     ceiling, and letting the echo of Mona’s laughter fill his heart with delight. It was so unexpected, so hard earned, everything
     he’d hoped it would be and more. Her laughter and the warm acquiescing smile that followed had seeded an unfamiliar longing
     deep in his heart, and now he lay cultivating healthy sprouts of tenderness toward his new boss.
    Despite Mona’s almost antagonistic response to his help, the need buried in her jeweled eyes called to him. She was afraid.
     He could sense it in the way she burrowed into projects and focused like a sniper on her goals. It looked like determination,
     but it could also be escape.
    Was Mona running from something? She had all but admitted it last night on the beach. Forgiveness is the hardest thing in the world to accept. What horrific, unforgivable load was she carrying?
    Joe sighed and laid a hand on Rip, who was breathing in rich slumber on the floor next to the sofa. Lord, what can I do to help her?
    Make her bookstore come to life.
    The yearning was so profound, he knew it was his answer. Mona’s dreams would come true if he had anything to do with it. He
     just hoped it wouldn’t cost him the one thing he needed to bail his way out of trouble.

7
    Okay, Mona, you’re on jack duty. Make sure it doesn’t slip, and if it starts to move, you holler.”
    Mona nodded and wrapped both gloved hands around the jack handle. “Will this work?”
    “Yep,” Joe said, without glancing at her.
    She watched him retrieve two cinder blocks from the pile on her walk. He was different this morning. Somehow, after yesterday’s
     horrible roach party, he seemed more serious, even driven. Although he couldn’t seem to quell his quips and spurts of craziness,
     she had to give him credit—he was a hard worker. She’d spied him in the backyard late last night, painting Liza’s workshop
     by the glow of an electric light. She’d lingered, watching him from her bedroom window, grinning when he wrestled Rip to the
     grass for a paint rag. The mutt wasn’t so bad. He did have the saddest eyes she’d ever seen. And yesterday, when she’d claimed
     a quiet place on the porch to sort out her frustration, Rip had flopped down next to her, resting his muzzle on her foot,
     as if he understood and wanted to comfort her.
    This morning, she’d glimpsed her handyman driving away in a fog of exhaust, and when he returned, he had a bed full of cinder
     blocks, exterior paint, and roofing materials. She scowled, spotting the price on the cans of paint, but she supposed the
     higher price would guarantee she wouldn’t have