“Good. Then you won’t be mad when the cell phone I just bought for you shows up at your place early next week. You need one and it drives me nuts that you don’t have one.”

Cassie sighed. “Fine. Thank you. You’re pretty peachy keen as big brothers go.”

“I should have done more. I should have seen it. I’m sorry.”

“Stop. Damn it, stop! Hell, I lived it and I didn’t see it. Not all the time. Not until it was too late. But it’s over. And I’m alive and you’re alive and we’re okay.”

“I love you. Take care of yourself. You’d better call me on Monday when you get that phone working.”

“I promise.”

Before she got in her car, she went into the store and bought a gallon of chocolate chip ice cream.

Chapter Three

At eleven-thirty on the dot, Cassie knocked on the back door of the bookstore and a smiling Penny Garwood opened it and waved her inside. Penny’s short, stylish brown hair had a pretty barrette on one side, holding it back from her face. Cassie liked the woman’s style.

“Well that’s a good start, Cassie. Right on time.” Penny handed her a stack of paperwork. “Have a cup of coffee and fill all this out. I’ll be out front getting everything ready to open. Come on out when you’re finished.”

She settled in with her papers and took a sip of coffee. She tried not to look at her hands as she wrote. Tried not to think about how much her life had changed in the span of not even an hour. Cassie had had to learn to write with her left hand while the fingers on her right healed. Her victim advocate had encouraged her to keep writing that way. Another layer to her new life. It’d been strange to think constantly about how to become Cassie Gambol and keep Carly Sunderland dead.

Still, she’d gotten to the point where she answered to Cassie like it was the name she’d been born with. She wrote her new social security number with her left hand on that paperwork and listed the past jobs as those people she knew she could trust to keep her secrets and back up her cover.

Cover. She nearly snorted. Once a respected surgeon, now she had to deal with cover. And she didn’t even get a cool car like James Bond had.

Finishing up, Cassie went out to the front of the store and handed the papers to Penny who looked through them quickly, tucked them into a folder and smiled.

“Okay, that’s all done. Let’s get you to work.”

For the next several hours, Penny showed Cassie the ropes. How to work the cash register, how to find stock, what went where. It wasn’t complicated but it was more detailed than she’d expected it to be and after a while, Cassie fell into the rhythm of it all.

At five Penny turned over the closed sign and locked up. “Good job. Especially for your first day. I’m impressed.”

Cassie hadn’t felt accomplished in a very long time. It was a simple thing but it felt damned good.

“Thanks.”

“Are you busy tonight? We need to set up your schedule and it just so happens I have chicken marinating in my fridge. As an added bonus, I’ve got sangria that I started last night so it should be nice and ready to drink.”

With a little bit of effort she could make an actual friend. The first new one in a few years. “You sure I wouldn’t put you out?”

“I wouldn’t have invited you if that was the case.”

For some reason, Penny’s mixture of formal Southern charm and blunt manner put Cassie at ease. She didn’t feel pitied or suspected. “All right then, sounds good.”

Cassie followed Penny a little way from the center of town and into a neighborhood that overlooked a lake. Penny pulled into the driveway of a large Tudor style house with gorgeous landscaping. The front yard had a huge willow tree that shaded the entire front of the house including the large porch.

She got out and caught up with Penny at her door. “This is some place you’ve got here.” The inside of the house was gorgeous. Filled with period antiques but it still felt comfortable and homey.

“Thank you. I quite like it myself. It was my wedding present.”

“Oh, I didn’t even think to ask if you were married.” Cassie blushed.

“I was. He died two years ago.”

“I’m sorry. About your husband, that is.”

“Well thank you, honey. He and I had a lot of good years together. I miss him of course, but this house has a lot of good memories.” Penny hung her bag on a hook on a gorgeous oak armoire near the front door and Cassie followed suit.

Penny gave her the quick tour and they ended up in the kitchen. “I’m going to put the chicken on the grill. Can you throw a salad together? All the greens are in the fridge.”

Expertly—salads were the only thing she could really do well in the kitchen—Cassie chopped up vegetables and ripped lettuce, tossing them all together in a big bowl as Penny tended the grill.

“You ready in there? Come on out and bring the sangria.” Penny called to her from the deck.

The pretty glass pitcher of fruited wine in hand, Cassie paused a moment in the doorway as the full impact of the view hit her. The back deck overlooked a lawn that sloped down to the water. It was shady and cool there with a breeze coming from the lake. Peaceful. The kind of place you’d want to come out and sit at the end of the day with a man who loved you. How wrong was it that a man who gave this to his wife for a present was dead while the man who tried to kill his was alive?

“This view is something else.” Cassie came out and put the sangria down.