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there was yard work to do.
    Lauren went back inside and started a grocery list. She tapped the pencil against her chin and concentrated. She’d need more cat food, maybe some treats to lure Marsh out from his hiding place, some birdseed and suet for the birds, food for herself of course, peanuts for the squirrels, lots of sugar for making hummingbird nectar…
    Lauren set the pencil down and got to work.

Chapter Three
    Dust
     
    JD Mason had met Darla Smyth at a charity fundraiser for kids. As cliché as it might sound, it was indeed love at first sight. Until he met Darla, JD thought love at first sight was a bunch of hooey fabricated by romance novelists and greeting card companies. But from the very first moment their eyes met over a crowded room full of kids, JD knew there was something uniquely special about Darla. She came up to him and introduced herself as the event coordinator, and as they say, the rest was history.
    Their friends and family teased them about having the kind of love fairytales were made of and neither one of them argued. They were the ultimate couple. He had his burgeoning hockey career and she had her charity work. Numerous dates followed that first encounter and a few months later, Darla and JD were married in an intimate ceremony in Napa Valley.
    Darla came from a wealthy family who spent their time giving back to the community. Her father made a fortune in the advertising business and his two daughters had devoted much of their time to volunteering for worthy causes. When their parents passed away, they left their fortune to Darla and Sloan, and the two sisters invested every dime back into the community. JD respected and admired what Darla did. It made him proud to have a generous wife who cared about others less fortunate than her. She made a difference doing what she loved and he got to play hockey for a living. The couple couldn’t have been happier. Except maybe if they had children to share all that happiness with.
    After deciding they were ready to start a family, they began trying to get pregnant. It was the next natural step in their relationship and they couldn’t wait to be parents. Darla wanted to be a mom more than anything and JD liked the idea of having someone to pass his hockey skills down to. At first, the trying was fun, but then after a year of being unsuccessful, they became discouraged.
    JD was tested and relieved to find he wasn’t shooting blanks. When it was Darla’s turn, the discovery the doctors made was not one of infertility or not, but much, much worse. The diagnosis was two ugly, unexpected words: ovarian cancer. Suddenly, their lives went from being about menstrual cycles and planning afternoon sex around her most fertile days to that of basic survival. JD didn’t care about her infertility. They didn’t have to have kids. None of that mattered anymore. That wasn’t a deal breaker. Losing Darla to cancer was.
    JD was familiar with a challenge. More than once, he’d beaten insurmountable odds while playing hockey. His team had come out victorious against teams that were better and more prepared. He’d recovered from near career ending injuries. He’d come from behind when the scoreboard predicted the story of the other team winning. But none of those battles could compare to fighting surface epithelial-stromal tumors . Caught in the early stages, patients had better odds of beating the cancer, but unfortunately Darla’s had already progressed to stage four.
    JD felt worthless sitting by while Darla underwent surgery and treatment. There was absolutely nothing he could do to help except make his wife as comfortable as possible. That was the hardest part— standing by . He was a pro-athlete type of guy with a take charge type of mentality who took action and asked questions later, if at all. He was never very good at standing on the sidelines or sitting on the bench. Putting his trust in a team of medical professionals wasn’t his cup of tea either, but