“Do you see yourself finding a husband on a dating app?” Alyssa asked.

“No, because I don’t want a husband. Fifty percent of marriages end in divorce. One hundred percent of pizza deliveries end in happiness.”

Everyone smiled but River. Because she’d purposely dated up last time, going for the classy guy. And look where that had gotten her. And with that thought, the very last of her happiness drained and she palmed her baby bump.

Catching the motion, Lanie looked at her. “You sure you’re okay?”

“Of course,” she said, her automatic response. Because people always asked her how she was feeling, but she’d learned they didn’t expect the truth.

Although here at the winery, it was actually the complete opposite. People asked because they cared, they really cared, and yet her rote response was still the same because what was her alternative? Tell the truth, be forced to give up the job, and go back to living in her car, feeling sick from fast food or worse, no food at all?

Cora came through with a tray of brownies for dessert and the entire crowd moaned in mutual delight. They were double fudge and one bite brought back memories of being in a warm kitchen, licking the spatula. “I used to make these with my mom,” River heard herself say softly.

Everyone turned and stared at her, making her remember something else—that she’d managed to dodge almost every single personal question she’d been asked since starting here.

“Where’s your mom now?” Cora asked kindly. She always spoke kindly, River had discovered, even when she was pissed off. Yesterday she’d spoken kindly to the mailman even when threatening to rip his favorite body part off and feed it to him if he didn’t stop throwing their packages from the driveway to her front door just to avoid Gracie, who wouldn’t hurt a fly.

Yep, her boss was the most gentle, most terrifying woman she’d ever met and River wanted to be her when she grew up. “My mom passed away a long time ago,” she said into the curious silence. She went back to her brownie, but everyone seemed to be waiting for more, so she said, “I was fifteen.”

“So young,” Cora murmured in sympathy. “What happened, honey?”

“Cancer.” By the time her mom had passed, River had been taking care of her for three years, through treatment after treatment. That’s when she’d realized she wanted to become a nurse, because it’d been the first thing she’d ever been good at.

“Who raised you after that?” Cora asked.

“I went into the foster system for a few years,” River said. Until she’d turned eighteen, and she’d been on her own ever since.

There was a beat of silence.

“When I was fifteen,” Mia said quietly, none of her usual sarcasm in her voice, “my mom and I were at each other’s throats. One time I got so mad that I told her I was going to call child protective services to get taken away, and she handed me the phone and told me the number was one-eight-hundred-I-Don’t-Give-a-Shit. Which was her doing me a favor because I didn’t want to get taken away. I loved her, I was just a shithead.”

Cora smiled at her daughter. “You did behave for a while after that. And your heart is always in the right place.”

Mia blew her a kiss and Cora smiled fondly in her direction before taking River’s hand in her own. “You’ve had a rough road.”

River shook her head. “Not that much rougher than a lot of people.” And she’d done okay for herself. Mostly. She’d tried to live good and honest like her mom had taught her, but now here she was, pregnant and sick and still at the place she’d come to steal from. Letting out a shaky breath, she rubbed her stomach.

“Have you been to a doctor recently for a wellness check?” Cora asked.

“Uh . . . not recently.” Or at all in the past three months. She’d run out of money for that.

“My best friend runs the local ob-gyn’s office in town,” Cora said. “I’ll get you an appointment. You shouldn’t go alone, though. Do you have anyone to ask to go with you—say, the father of your baby maybe?”

“I’m okay to go alone,” River said.

“Well, of course you are, but why should you have to? I’ll take you.” She smiled. “Who better than someone who had way too many babies herself?”

“Hey,” two of her babies—Mia and Alyssa—said at the same time.

River was aware that Cora was fishing, but she was doing it in such a nice way that she couldn’t take offense. She knew they all thought she was in over her head, that maybe she was running from something, and that she was scared.

They certainly had two out of three right.

Chapter 11

Overanalyze all the things!

At the end of the week, Lanie walked into the employee room for a snack and right into a family “discussion,” aka a fight. Apparently, there was some sort of cork emergency that had set the entire family schedule board in chaos, the biggest problem being that Cora could no longer pick up the girls from dance class.

The thought of getting involved in the family matter gave Lanie a mini panic attack, but so did picturing Sam and Sierra standing alone in front of an emptied-out dance studio with no one there to pick them up. So she grabbed a dry-erase pen and wrote her name in the empty box.

This silenced the room. Breathe in for four, out for four. Repeat. Foods she’d eaten today: toast with strawberry jelly, antipasto salad, and dammit, a piece of lasagna because she was weak. Another deep breath, then she turned around and found everyone staring at her. “What?”

“Nothing,” Cora said, hugging her. “Except thank you.”

Which was how several hours later, Lanie found herself driving through heavy end-of-the-week traffic to pick up the girls at dance class.

They were thrilled to see her.

“Do you ever take dance classes?” Samantha asked.

Lanie smiled. “My favorite exercise is a cross between a lunge and a crunch. I call it lunch.”

The girls giggled and went on to chatter all the way home about their new ballet shoes, how Sierra had nailed an arabesque, and that Sam had really really wanted the headband that some girl named Camille was wearing but her dad wouldn’t buy it for her because she’d already spent her allowance on candy.

“So save next week’s allowance and buy it yourself,” Lanie suggested, glancing into the rearview mirror at Sam.

The girl’s brow furrowed, like she hadn’t thought of this. “But what if I want more candy?”

“Well, then,” Lanie said. “I guess you’ve got to decide which you want more, the candy or the headband.”

Sierra nodded sagely.

Samantha sighed. “I want both.”

“Real-world problems,” Lanie said.

The girls cocked their heads in confusion.

“That’s sarcasm,” she explained. “See, having to choose between candy and a headband, that’s a problem that a lot of people might wish to have. Instead they’ve got to choose between keeping a roof over their head and food on the table for their kids, and . . . I don’t know, paying the heating bill, that kind of thing. Do you see what I mean?”

“Real-world problems,” Sam repeated slowly, thoughtfully.