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for the door, and Gage’s shit luck continued as Callie picked that exact moment to slide onto the vacated stool. “Come on, Gage. We need you to come play.”
    She rested a hand on his waist and gave him a coy smile. It was a smile that had worked on him before, and he could tell Kelsey knew that as she glanced back and then stalked out the door.
    •   •   •
    Kelsey’s flight was late getting into San Antonio, and it took nearly an hour for her to claim her luggage and retrieve her car from long-term parking. As she steered her Chevy Tahoe onto the interstate, she checked her watch. After nine already, which meant she was going to be up past midnight doing laundry.
    It was either that or wear a bikini to work tomorrow instead of underwear. It wouldn’t be the first time. Laundry was always the first chore to get scratched off her list when life got hectic, and these past few months her life had been hectic in the extreme.
    She shifted into the far left lane and tried to make up some of the time she’d lost on the tarmac in San Diego. Her shoulders ached and she had a knot in her back from hauling boxes for the past five days. She couldn’t wait to go home and stand under a scalding-hot shower, then throw on a fuzzy bathrobe and flop onto the couchfor some mindless television between laundry loads. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt so beat.
    She’d underestimated how much work it would be to pack up Joe’s two-bedroom bungalow. Yes, the place was as spartan as Kelsey remembered it. His home exhibited the meticulous order of a lifelong military man. But it had been just Kelsey doing the work. Grandma Quinn was nearly eighty, so Kelsey had set her up on Joe’s sofa and brought her things to look at as they decided which papers and mementos and personal items would go where. Joe’s entire closet had gone to Goodwill, and any furniture her grandmother didn’t want—which was most of it—had gone to the resale shop run by the church. Kelsey had packed a shoe-box of stuff for herself. It contained photos and a few personal items, including a glossy clay “bowl” Kelsey had made in an art class her freshman year of high school. It was lopsided and hideous and decorated with purple peace signs, but Joe had kept it in a prominent place on his dresser and used it for loose change. Kelsey got misty-eyed the moment she saw it.
    She still couldn’t believe he was dead. She’d been numb at the funeral, both from jet lag and shock. But for the past few days with her grandmother, Kelsey had been living completely in the moment. And the moment sucked. Day after day, she’d watched her grandmother grieve for yet another son she hadn’t expected to bury. And Kelsey had been forced to confront the stark truth that she had very little family anymore—with Joe’s death, just her mother and Grandma Quinn. Kelsey was accustomed to having a small family, but it had never seemed so lonely before.
    Just last weekend she’d been to a birthday party for a friend’s little girl. Kelsey didn’t know much about parenting, but even she could see that the horde of toddlers and the snow-cone station and the bouncy castle were completely over the top. Still, she’d experienced a pang of envy as she’d watched a crowd of aunts, uncles, and grandparents gaze on adoringly as the little princess blew out her candles. Kelsey would never have that. Even if she met someone who truly wanted to spend his life with her—and she was 0-for-2 now—she would never have one of those obnoxiously big families that so many of her friends were lucky enough to have.
    Her thoughts went to Gage. Seeing him at the bar had stirred up her emotions. Maybe she shouldn’t have gone. But she really had wanted to give him the photograph and she’d also wanted his take on Joe’s work in the Philippines.
    Which of course was a sore subject. Gage had always refused to talk about work with her, and his silence drove a wedge between them.