The Last Breath. Kimberly Belle

house had been empty for over a month now, a month in which Ray had done nothing but complain about how the property was going to pot. Two hornets’ nests under the gable, a milky film on the windows and a patch of crabgrass crawling dangerously close to Ray’s prized fescue. As if Ella Mae gave a shit about grass.

      But now. Now she sure could give a shit, and her heart dealt an extra, hopeful beat at the idea of new neighbors, a new girlfriend, new anything.

      A black sedan with Illinois plates pulled to a stop at the curb, and a family of four clambered out. Two blonde kids—both lanky girls in their early teens—tore across the front yard, screaming and giggling with the sort of giddiness that can only come at the tail end of a long drive.

      Their mother was considerably less merry. She unfolded herself from the car, smoothed her rumpled dress and squinted into the sun at her new home.

      “It’s pretty,” she said. Her tone implied she didn’t really care how it looked.

      The husband, a tall man with his daughters’ flaxen hair and the build of a former athlete, popped the trunk. “I know it’s a little smaller than we’re used to, but just take a look at that view.” His accent was northern and nasal, but in Ella Mae’s ears it sounded electric, exciting, exotic. “That’s not something we would’ve ever found back in Chicago.”

      Chicaaago.

      The woman didn’t seem to notice the rolling fields of grass and wildflowers beneath smoky mountaintops, a view that, the first time Ella Mae saw it, stilled her soul and nipped at her heart with its beauty. Instead, the woman sighed, her expression unchanged, her tone as mousy as her appearance. “Pretty.”

      “Come on,” her husband said. He stepped around the car and swung an arm around his wife’s hunched shoulders. “Can you at least try to want to live here?”

      “I just told you it was pretty.”

      Ella Mae knew she was eavesdropping. She knew they would notice her soon, gripping the rails on the edge of her porch, and see she was hanging shamelessly on their every word, but she didn’t go inside. She wanted to move even closer and hear everything, lean in and get a better view.

      She didn’t care if they saw her. This was the most excitement she’d had since last month, when she’d chased Bill Almaroad’s cows out of her begonias with a broomstick.

      The man looked down at his wife. “We agreed this move would be a good thing, remember? A new job, a fresh start.” He deposited a chaste kiss on her cheek, and she shrunk even further into herself. He released her, sweeping a long arm toward the house. “Welcome to our new adventure.”

      And that’s when he noticed Ella Mae. A jolt of something she hadn’t felt in a good while shot clear to her toes and crackled and popped on her skin like a Fourth of July sparkler. Later, she would think back to this very second, and think it was appropriate their eyes met right as that last word rolled off his tongue. Adventure. But for now, she simply smiled and waved.

      “Hi, y’all.” Ella Mae started down the steps toward her new neighbors. “I’m Ella Mae Andrews. Welcome to Rogersville.”

      * * *

      Later that evening, Ella Mae noticed that Ray barely smiled when he pulled up to find two strangers on his front porch, grinning and sipping wine from the good glasses, the ones they hardly ever used except for birthday dinners and at Christmas. He barely smiled when Ella Mae handed him a martini, extra cold and extra dirty, and told him she’d made his favorite supper—peppered beef Stroganoff with garlic bread. He barely smiled when Dean complained about the sad state of his lawn, and said he had a lot of work to do before it could measure up to the one he’d kept back in Naperville, which had won Cedar Glen’s finest front yard five years in a row.

      Oh, Ray was friendly enough. His manners were too refined to have been rude. He chatted about the town’s history and the fine school system, and he asked after their girls. But he barely ever smiled, and that wasn’t her husband’s way with company at all.

      After the main course, when Ray and Ella Mae were serving up dessert in the kitchen while their guests waited at the dining room table, his good graces went down the drain, along with the remnants of his second martini.

      “It’s a school night,” he pointed out, a bit too loud for Ella Mae’s taste.

      Ella Mae was fully aware it was Wednesday and that the company was messing up his Wednesday night routine—supper, a mindless blur of sitcoms, bed. She was also aware that Wednesday night was like every other night in this house.

      “Shh, keep it down, will you? I left a message for you at the pharmacy.”

      “I just wish you would’ve warned me ahead of time,” he said.

      “I tried.” She began carving her famous rhubarb and strawberry pie into generous triangles with a butcher knife. “I had to make an executive decision, so stop fussing. It’s not like you had anything important planned for tonight.”

      “The game’s on.”

      This from a man who thought fumble meant sticking his hands down her pants. Ella Mae squinted and planted a fist on her hip. “Who’s playing?”

      Ray shrugged, his hesitation a beat too long. “Doesn’t matter, now that I’m missing it.”

      Ella Mae returned to her pie. “I didn’t think so.”

      “Besides, we don’t know anything about those people. They could be sociopaths or serial murderers for all we know.”

      “Don’t be ridiculous. He’s the new vice principal at the high school, and she’s a stay-at-home mother of two adorable girls. They’re perfectly normal, everyday members of society. They’re neighbors. We’re being neighborly.”

      “Whatever. I don’t like him.”

      Ella Mae wasn’t surprised. She’d only known Dean a few hours, but already she could see he wasn’t a man’s man. Too groomed, his clothes too stylish, his looks entirely too playboy handsome. Oh, yes. Cherokee High’s newest vice principal would certainly be a popular man about town, but not with the husbands.

      “Let’s get back to our guests, shall we?” Ella Mae slid the last piece onto a plate and pointed Ray to the forks. “And be nice. I’m looking to make a new friend.”

      Over the course of the next hour, Ella Mae tried. She honest-to-God tried. She asked Allison about her kids and if the girls played any sports. She asked about her favorite books and if Allison would be interested in joining the book club. She even offered to take Allison on a tour of the town and show her the best places to shop. Allison was painfully shy, said all of ten words over the course of the entire meal. By the time they moved outside for coffee and brandy on the porch, Ella Mae regretted her offer, and she dreaded those hours alone in a car with Allison.

      Her gaze landed on Dean, sipping on a glass of Ray’s best brandy and looking more comfortable in his skin than an out-of-town semistranger should. Talk about opposites attracting. Dean was gorgeous and funny and charming, and for the life of her Ella Mae couldn’t figure out what a man like him saw in quiet, mousy Allison.

      Three hours alone in a car with him, on the other hand...

      Dangerous. Just thinking about Dean in that way was dangerous. Ella Mae flushed to the tips of her ears, and she gave herself a good scolding. Married women should not be thinking naughty thoughts about their equally married new neighbor, no matter how sexy he might be.

      And then Dean laughed, a low and raspy sound that resonated somewhere deep in Ella Mae’s belly.

      Oh, God. She was thinking naughty thoughts about Dean Sullivan again.

      “Thank you again for dinner,” Dean said, his gaze lingering on Ella Mae a smidge longer than necessary. “I can’t imagine a more perfect greeting on our first night in town.”

      “You’re welcome anytime.” Goose bumps tightened her skin, and Ella Mae looked