Hmm. Suspicious. Even more suspicious, she took a book out of her bag.

Well, well, well. Hadley could read.

Then again, Em well knew the loneliness of the dinner table when night after night, it was just you and the quiet. Sometimes it was welcome. Sometimes it was not, and if ever there was a place to come when you felt lonely, this was the place.

Could be a coincidence that Hadley had shown up.

“So you have a cat?” Emmaline asked.

“I do,” Jack said, returning his gaze to her. “Lazarus.”

“Catchy.”

“I found him when he was a kitten. Looked like he’d been attacked by something, all covered in blood, ear torn off, broken leg. I took him to the vet, and they didn’t expect him to make it through the night, but he did.”

His left hand was on the table. As was her right hand. Almost touching. She hadn’t even noticed. Should she pull her hand away? Would it be even more obvious that she was nervous if she did?

He had big hands. Big, strong, masculine hands. Em swallowed.

Jack’s little finger touched hers, just that smallest caress. A very slight smile tugged as his mouth, and happiness ballooned in her, warm and full.

He’d brought her flowers. He’d shaved. His little finger was making her feel wobbly, and if his little finger could do that, then what about an entire hand? What about his—

“Oh, no! No!”

Both Em and Jack looked over at Hadley, who had one hand over her mouth, the other clutching her phone to her precious little ear.

Damsel in distress, take two.

Emmaline sighed. “Go see what’s wrong,” she told her date.

“No,” Jack said, though his eyes were on his ex. “If she needs me—”

“And she will.”

“She can come over here.”

Em rolled her eyes. “You’re wasting time.”

“Eat your burger.”

Well, at least there was that. She took a bite—one of Connor’s specials with caramelized, crispy onions and some kind of fabulous, gooey cheese—and waited.

Not for long. Hadley came over, tears spilling out of her Bambi-esque eyes.

“Jack, I—I’m so sorry to interrupt.”

“What is it, Hadley?”

Yes, what indeed? What crisis would require Jack to carry her home this time? “Twist your ankle again?” Em asked.

“There’s been a death in the family,” Hadley whispered.

Crap. Em felt two inches tall. “I’m so sorry,” she said and reached out her hand to hold Hadley’s. The other woman gave a hitching sob.

“Oh, no. Who, Hadley?” Jack asked, standing up.

Hadley pulled her hand away from Em’s, covered her face and broke down sobbing against Jack’s chest. If she was saying actual words, Em couldn’t make them out. She thought she made out the name Anna. What if Anna was a kid? Or Hadley’s sister? Or grandmother or—

“I know she was twenty-three, but I guess I just...I just wasn’t ready to lose her. Oh, Jack!”

Aw, shit. Twenty-three was way too young to lose someone. Poor Hadley! And why wasn’t Jack being nicer? With a sigh, Jack put an arm around her shoulders, which made her burrow against him like a mole. “These things happen,” he said.

Well, that wasn’t very nice, especially coming from Jack.

“I just can’t imagine life without her!” Hadley wept. People were staring openly now.

“Who’s Anna?” Emmaline murmured.

“Her cat,” Jack said. “Anastasia.”

Em blinked.

For crying out loud.

“Twenty-three, huh?” she said. “That’s amazing.” Those nachos weren’t going to eat themselves, so Em took some more. Hadley wasn’t exactly going for stoic here. Em noted that her mascara was waterproof. Of course it was.

“She wasn’t even sick,” Hadley said. “This is such a shock!”

“I don’t know. Twenty-three sounds like a ripe old age to me,” Emmaline said. “It was probably just her time.”

“It wasn’t! It was not her time!” Hadley gave her a tragic, wounded (and possibly triumphant) look, then resumed clutching Jack’s shirt. “She was so healthy. Remember, Jack?”

“But twenty-three,” Emmaline said. “Quite, quite old. This can’t be that much of a surprise.”

“It is!” Hadley said. “I’m shocked, I tell you! I wasn’t prepared for this.”

“No, why would you be? I mean, don’t most pets live forever?”

Jack gave her a look. “I’m sorry about Anastasia,” he said to his ex, trying to hold her at arm’s length, but Teeny Tiny was apparently quite strong and she clutched him harder.

Em sighed, took another bite of her burger and wondered if it would be rude to check her phone to see the Rangers–Penguins score. In light of the fact that her date was being sobbed on by another woman, she didn’t really care.

Several people had inched nearer—the vestry members making sympathetic clucks, Gerard Chartier, Victor and Lorena Iskin. “I had a cat who made it to nineteen,” Lorena said in her booming voice. “It went under the radiator to die, and I didn’t find him until the smell let me know where he was. Poor old Oscar.”

Hadley cried harder.

“What’s the life span of a cat, anyway?” Gerard Chartier asked.

“Maybe fifteen years,” Victor Iskin said, who had many pets himself.

“Fifteen?” Em said, glancing up from her phone. (Rangers up by four, God bless ’em.) “Wow. Sounds like you got quite lucky there, Hadley.”

“Well, I don’t feel so lucky right now, do I?” the li’l ole bit of dandelion fluff snapped. There was a flinty look in her eye, and Emmaline squinted at her. Where was the steel magnolia thing when you needed it? Allison Whitaker would never sob in public like this.

“It’s very sad,” Victor said. “You could have her stuffed. I do taxidermy on the side, you know.”

Teeny Tiny’s sobbing escalated.

Em had had enough. “Okay, Jack, I’ll see you around. My condolences, Hadley.”

“If I’d’ve known she was near her time, I would’ve been there with her.” Hadley wept. “Oh, Jack, she died without me! How could I have let that happen?”

“Calm down,” he said. “Em, don’t go.”

“Thanks for the date. I had such a wonderful time.” She made sure to give him a dead-eyed stare so he wouldn’t miss the sarcasm.

“I’ll come over later,” he said.

“No, you won’t,” she said. “Stay here and comfort the grieving. I insist.”

“Emmaline—”

She left.

To think she’d worn a thong for this.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

THREE DAYS LATER, Jack woke up in a foul mood.

He’d walked Hadley home the other night, ignoring the fog of disapproval coming from his sisters and Mrs. J. as he left O’Rourke’s. Between them, they’d texted him six times to weigh in.

Yeah, he was a sucker. But what else was he supposed to have done? Left Hadley there, sobbing her eyes out in a town where no one liked her? Driven an hour to Cornell and dumped her on Frankie’s doorstep? Told her to just deal with it?