.

a sob to her own throat.

      “Tell me …”

      “It’s cancer.”

      Grace tried not to cry. Crying wouldn’t help Olivia. “How … how bad?” she asked.

      “We don’t know what stage it is yet. I have an appointment with the surgeon next week. We’ll find out more then.”

      Grace swallowed in an effort to control her emotions. Fear sent a chill down her spine. Her friend, her dearest friend, had cancer.

      “Grace,” Olivia whispered. “I’m afraid.”

      Through the years, Grace had seen Olivia face every tragedy with grit and faith. When Jordan died it was Olivia who held the family together. A few months later, when Stan moved out, she’d dealt with that, too. Never once, through all the grief, had Olivia ever admitted she was afraid.

      It took a diagnosis of cancer to do that.

      “Let’s have tea,” Grace said and, with her arm around Olivia’s waist, led her back into the house.

      While Grace put the kettle on, Olivia sat at the kitchen table looking like a child, lost and lonely in her own home.

      “Where’s Jack?” Grace asked, wondering why he wasn’t here when Olivia needed him so badly.

      “He … he didn’t take the news well,” Olivia murmured. “I suggested he go and talk to Bob.”

      “He shouldn’t have left you.” Grace bit back her anger at Jack, knowing it was really anger at the unfairness of life.

      “It’s okay,” Olivia said. “I told him you were coming.”

      “Well, I’m here now.”

      “Yes,” Olivia whispered and a tear slipped down the side of her face.

      “Does anyone else know?”

      “Not yet.”

      Grace understood. Olivia needed to find her own balance, to consider her own future, before she told her mother or her children.

      “I’ll be right here,” Grace promised.

      The hint of a smile came to Olivia then. “I knew I could count on you.” She stretched out her arm and they clasped hands.

      Olivia had been with Grace when Dan disappeared, and later, too, when her husband’s body was discovered and finally laid to rest. They were friends, would always be friends, no matter what the future held. For nearly all their lives, they’d shared their secrets, their hurts, their triumphs and joys.

      “The part I have a hard time accepting,” Olivia said after sipping her hot tea, “is that there’s an invader inside my body. A disease that wants to steal my life away. I keep thinking about it.” She placed one hand over her heart. “The enemy is inside me,” she repeated. “In the past I’ve had to deal with forces outside me. What I’m confronting now is in here. ” Her hand formed a fist and she closed her eyes.

      Grace bit her lip.

      “I wish I could explain it better,” she said. “With everything else, I could close a door and retreat. Take a break from it, you know? I can’t with cancer. There’s no escaping my own body.”

      Grace merely nodded, having no comfort to offer except her presence.

      She spent an hour with Olivia, and they drank two pots of tea before Jack returned. Whatever his problem had been earlier, apparently it was now resolved. He seemed confident and matter-of-fact, answering Grace’s questions quickly and clearly.

      Olivia went to lie down, and Grace was grateful for the opportunity to speak to him privately.

      “Call me anytime, night or day,” she said.

      “I will,” he promised.

      “If you and Olivia need anything, call me.”

      He agreed. After a brief silence, he spoke again. “I don’t mind telling you, I wasn’t prepared for what this would do to me,” he admitted. “I thought I was. You might remember that my son had cancer years ago, and I assumed I knew what it’d be like to hear that verdict a second time. I wasn’t even close.”

      “Olivia’s a strong woman.”

      Jack’s eyes took on a resolute look. “Olivia needs a strong husband who’ll stand at her side while she’s going through this. I’m here and I intend to stay.”

      Grace left soon after, first hugging him goodbye. He thanked her over and over for coming to the house, for giving them her support, for being Olivia’s friend.

      When she got home, Grace immediately went looking for Cliff. She found him talking to Cal in the barn, but he broke off whatever he was saying as soon as he caught sight of her.

      “I saw Olivia,” she rushed to tell him, fresh tears filling her eyes.

      Cliff put his arm around her shoulders and they walked slowly back to the house. Once inside, she turned to him. “It’s cancer,” she said starkly.

      He nodded grimly. “What’s the prognosis?”

      “We won’t know until she sees the surgeon, and that won’t be until next week. We’ll find out more then.” Grace paused for a moment, her voice threatening to break. “She hasn’t told Charlotte or her children.”

      Cliff urged her to sit down at the table and began preparing tea. Grace smiled, thanking him, and didn’t say that one more cup of tea was probably the last thing she needed.

      She saw the envelope with the returned rent check on the table and sighed. Another concern to deal with, another problem to solve. It felt trivial compared to what Olivia was going through, but still … Cliff glanced at the envelope, too. “Oh, I talked to Judy this afternoon.”

      Grace knew the rental agent couldn’t be blamed. She herself had insisted Judy accept the Smiths as tenants despite their unsatisfactory references.

      “Apparently, this isn’t the first time these people have done this.”

      That didn’t come as any surprise to Grace.

      “Judy talked to another agent from the Bremerton area,” Cliff continued. “She learned that this couple’s made quite the habit of bilking their landlords.”

      “Could Judy tell you how long it would take to evict them?”

      Cliff frowned. “People like this know how to work the system. She said it might take six months to get them out.”

      “Six months!” Grace cried. “That’s ridiculous.”

      “I agree.” He shrugged. “It’s pretty hopeless. They’ll exploit their rights as tenants and drag everything out until the bitter end.”

      “That’s an outrage.”

      “For now there isn’t anything we can do,” Cliff said, “except file eviction papers and play this out.”

      She groaned, letting her head fall to the table.

      He reached into a high cupboard and brought out a half-full bottle of bourbon. “There’s one thing we can do—substitute strong drink for weak tea.”

      Despite herself, Grace smiled.

      Thirty-Four

      Teri could tell that something was bothering Rachel. The salon was humming with activity the way it always did on Fridays. But, busy or not, the two of them usually managed to arrange their schedules so they could have lunch together. At noon, Rachel claimed she simply wasn’t hungry.

      “What do you mean, you’re not hungry?” Teri demanded. “Whatever’s bothering you must be big. Nothing takes away your appetite.”

      Rachel didn’t