With her laptop in hand, she made herself comfortable on the couch with Scout at her feet and the elusive cat, Sushi, curled up and sleeping at her side. Chicken roasted in the oven and all she needed to do for dinner was the sides. For now, she opened one of her client’s latest books and put her editing skills to work.

Freelance editing was not her dream job, but it paid her bills and put her degree to use. A degree she had under a name she no longer used. So far no one had asked to view the papers. Now that she had six months of editing, from developmental to copy editing, under her belt, she boasted about her clients’ work instead of the reason she felt qualified to do it.

Maci Brandt had never used her degree. It was only fitting that Erin Fleming did. She’d gotten her foot in the editing door with two small digital publishing houses. That’s where she learned that taking independent writers that she could vet was the right route for her. Using a new name and hiding behind her computer was a lot easier than she thought it would be. It never left her mind that Desmond could do the same thing to find her. Not that he would ever think she’d be making money editing fiction. He didn’t want her to work during her marriage and had only seen her in the workforce as an intern in the company he now controlled. That internship had been in the marketing department. Nothing remotely close to what she’d wanted to do once she graduated from college.

But her father had set up the summer job that had given her the credits she needed to complete her education, and the rest—as they say—was history.

Erin had dreamt of being a scaled-down version of Lois Lane. Not that she wanted Superman, but she wanted the job of a reporter. Or at least the woman in the office writing stories for the paper or magazine on important facts people needed to know.

She let the old dream slip away. Editing other people’s work was satisfying. And right now she was working on a mystery writer’s manuscript. The woman used a male pen name, and wanted the public to believe she was a man so long as they bought her books. The only reason Erin knew the little secret was the phone conversations she’d had with the woman over the past two books. She had midlist successes with her traditional publisher writing romance novels, but she wanted to branch into a new genre and her publisher hadn’t been too excited to back that. So she did it independently. Now on her fourth straight mystery-suspense novel, the woman pretending to be a man was growing exceedingly popular.

And for good reason.

Erin was on her first read through. The kind she did for the pleasure of it. Anytime she stopped reading, she marked the page on this pass. This was her pleasure read. A way to get a feel for the book before digging in to help the author make it better. But that read came next. For now, Erin was following the male detective around the page and through the chapters as he hunted down the bad guys. The author wrote a specific detail about a flower used in tea to murder someone without detection. So while this was the pleasure read, Erin marked the page to check the facts on that later.

Fact-checking was part of the job. The part Erin geeked out on, to be honest. Falling down the rabbit hole of fact-checking sparked her own ideas for writing fiction. Not that she ever would. But that didn’t stop her from scribbling random thoughts in a journal.

Like now, she took the journal and wrote Flower Tea Murder.

She smiled. It had a nice ring to it.

An image popped into her mind of her ex sitting at a bistro in London, the kind he took her to when they’d first arrived there, but wouldn’t within a week because of the eye swelling she couldn’t hide with makeup. He sat in her fantasy holding a proper English teacup, one with a dainty motif of heather or peonies. The cup was filled with tea and served with a floating flower. In her head it was blue with a dark purple, almost black center. Much like the marks he’d leave on her when he wasn’t happy.

He’d sip the tea and look at her.

His smile would fall.

Erin shook her thoughts aside. It probably wasn’t a healthy habit to imagine the death of her husband . . . ex-husband.

She closed her eyes and sighed.

Soon-to-be ex-husband.

As that passage ran through her head, she reminded herself to call her attorney in the morning to determine if there was new news. The last conversation left her less than hopeful that things would be resolved anytime soon. The restraining order she’d obtained had been a miracle. After nearly a year of it being in place without any contact from the man, he had a pretty good chance of having it lifted. Not that a court order would stop him from coming after her.

Images flashed in rapid succession until she pushed her computer aside and stood. She went to the refrigerator and looked at the wine she’d put in there to chill.

No. She was alone.

Completely alone, and if he found her and she’d been drinking . . .

Erin moaned out loud and grabbed a cold water. Then, because she needed to move and be distracted, she opened the refrigerator door wider and started to remove the contents inside.

Thirty minutes later she had a long list of expired condiments she’d tossed in the trash. For all she knew, Parker didn’t mind expired mustard. But cleaning out the fridge required you start fresh.

The sound of the gate opening told her Austin was home.

Much as she tried not to look out the window to assure herself that it was him, she failed and ended up walking to the bay window.

She smiled.

Just Austin.

Scout moved to the top of the back stairs, the ones that led up from the garage, with his tail wagging.

Erin moved back to the glass shelves she’d removed and was washing.

Austin entered the house like a tornado.

The door slammed. A backpack hit the floor. Scout’s name was yelled from the bottom of the stairway.

The dog’s thumping tail was followed by three sharp barks and the animal running down the stairs to greet his favorite human.

Erin smiled.

Austin talked to the dog as he entered the house and rounded the corner of the kitchen. “Something smells good.”

“I’m making a chicken.”

Austin stopped moving after one look at the kitchen. “Holy crap . . . what are you doing?”

“Cleaning out the fridge. Did you know the ketchup expired a year ago?”

Unfazed, Austin walked into the pantry and returned with a snack bag of chips. “Still tasted fine.”

“I’ll go to the store and replace what was bad.”

He glanced in the trash can she’d pulled out and filled.

“Whatever.”

She no sooner turned back to the sink to finish what she started than the phone to the house did a double ring indicating that someone was at the gate.

Austin answered the phone, muttered a few syllables, said yeah, and then pressed the button to open it to whoever was there.

“Dinner will be ready in a little bit, if you’re going to be around. If not, I’ll put aside some for later.”

“I can always eat.”

That made her smile.

“I made extra if your friend is staying.”

By now Austin was looking at the screen of his cell phone and texting away. “Sure,” he mumbled.

He walked out of the kitchen, Scout at his heels, while Erin dried off the glass shelf and put it aside.

She’d have to double her time if she was going to finish the sides for dinner.

When she heard the knock on the front door, she waited for Austin to answer it.