“Well someone has talked to Trent. There are plenty of afterwork options for a drink.”

Danny bumped Monica’s leg as he bent down to retrieve a crayon from the floor. “Trent’s nice,” he said.

The three of them focused on Danny.

“You met Trent?” Jessie asked her son.

“Yesterday. He and Daddy were at the hotel when Grandma dropped me off.”

Jessie closed her eyes and shook her head. “Busted.”

Monica had to laugh. Poor Jack didn’t stand a chance. “Go easy on him,” Monica suggested. “He didn’t give Trent my address, just a hangout. He hung out, ran into Walt, and finagled a ride to my place.” It was just this side of romantic how hard Trent had worked to get her address. The thought had her smiling again.

“So what happened?”

“I’ll give you details later, but let’s just say there was a really good reason he spooked and ran off. Once he realized I wasn’t engaged when we met, and hadn’t lied to him, he wanted a chance.”

“A chance?”

“To see me, to date.”

“And hug?” Katie asked.

Monica shook her head. “No, actually. We’re not going to hug.”

Jessie looked at her like she was crazy. “Not hug?”

“I always hug first and get to know the guy later. Which usually ends up with the it’s-not-you-it’s-me talk.” It had always been her and not them.

“Wow!”

The waitress gave their conversation pause as they ordered.

“So if there’s no hugging going on, why are you glowing?” Jessie had always been so observant.

“Can’t a girl be happy about a guy and glow?”

“I guess.”

Their drinks arrived, and Monica sweetened her iced tea while she talked. “It helps that I slept last night. I didn’t realize how much Trent taking off in Florida bugged me.” She sipped her tea. “When I dropped him off at Joe’s this morning, he told me he’d pick me up at six tonight for a date.” She laughed. “I never let guys tell me we’re going out.” The memory of his take charge tone had her thoughts drifting from her current company. When Monica glanced back up, the girls were staring at her again. “What?”

“He spent the night?”

“Uh-huh.”

“On the couch?” Jessie asked.

Monica rolled her eyes. “Aren’t there nights you and Jack sleep without hugging?”

“We’re married,” and as if the bump in Jessie’s belly wasn’t obvious enough she patted it and said, “and pregnant.”

Monica laughed. “You don’t have to be married or pregnant to sleep without hugging.”

The code talk was making Monica dizzy, and the confused expressions on Katie’s and Jessie’s faces were priceless. “The glowing might be from all the kissing without hugging.”

“And he agreed to this?” Katie asked.

“He suggested it.”

“Seriously?”

Monica laughed. “Crazy, huh?”

“Certifiable.”

“Maybe. But it’s kind of nice. I’m not sure how long it will last, but it’s fun.”

Katie disregarded Monica with a flick of her wrist. “You’re nuts.”

Katie looked at Jessie and held out her hand. “You owe me five bucks.”

When Monica asked why, neither woman said a word.

Their food came and the conversation shifted to Katie and Dean and their decision to move back to Texas. The thought would have saddened Monica if there wasn’t a real possibility of her moving away soon as well.

They ate lunch and then took the kids to the swimming pool and continued talking for hours. In what felt like no time, Monica had to break up girl time to get ready for her date.

As she left the hotel, Monica glanced in the rearview mirror and caught her reflection.

She glowed.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

“They’re hedging,” Mr. Goldstein told Monica on the phone a few weeks after her first date with Trent. “But they haven’t dropped anything yet.”

Monica sat on the small patio off her apartment with her phone cradled to her ear. “I wonder why they think they’re going to win this. Seems the more information you obtain, the less of a case they have. Didn’t you tell me that the statement from Shandee was fabricated and that she didn’t want anything to do with coming here to testify?” That information had come midweek, at which time Monica and Trent thought the case would be dropped.

Apparently that wasn’t the case.

“She recanted her statement. It wasn’t made under oath, so there was no holding her to it.”

“I don’t get it.”

“It’s the union. The hospital doesn’t want the union there.” The union had only been voted in a couple of years before Monica began working there. So far, the contracts they’d negotiated hadn’t made life for the nurses that much easier. There was some chatter about a vote to eliminate their presence.

“Why? Seems the nurses are the ones who have to pay the union dues and we aren’t getting a lot for it.” Her annual raises weren’t much to write home about.

“When was the last time you sat in on a union meeting?”

She hadn’t sat in on any. “Never.”

“You might be happy to know that the next contract, which will begin negotiation this winter, is going to favor the staff much more than the previous one. Even with the depressed economy the union feels that with all the health care reform dollars going into the budgets, they can find a way to get that into your hands. They want to see that your health care benefits remain the same. A lot of companies are having to downsize, but big hospitals can’t. Instead they’re eliminating raises, cutting benefits. The union wants to be proactive.”