One

      Gwen Stanford didn’t drink. Sobriety was no cause with her. She had nothing against alcohol; she just never had time to take up the vice—or any other vices, for that matter.

      Tonight it was going to be a real different story.

      standing on her kitchen counter, she groped blindly at the back of her tallest cupboard for the shape of the rum bottle. It had to be there. Every Christmas she made the traditional family recipe for rum cake. Personally, she hated the taste of that rum cake with a passion, but her sisters loved it, and tradition was tradition. More to the immediate point, though, that bottle represented her entire liquor supply. It was rum or nothing.

      There. Her fingers connected with the shape of the dusty bottle. She hooked her hand around it, risked her life leaping down from the counter, then filched a Lion King water glass from the shelf.

      Clean dishes were waiting to be emptied from the dishwasher. Bills needed to be opened and paid. Her sons had scattered schoolbooks and toys, and the kitchen table still had some uncleaned-up crumbs. The wash was calling to her from the laundry room, and with two half-pint-size boys, letting wash pile up was begging for disaster.

      Still, when a woman was determined to be wicked, no chore was too huge to be ignored.

      Filled with resolve, she carried her drinking supplies and a small wrapped package, tied with a red bow, through the Florida room and out the glass doors. The package was a birthday present from her youngest sister, Paige, but so far she hadn’t had a second free all day to open it. She could barely catch a free moment to breathe—but that was about to change.

      Outside, the sun had just dropped below the horizon, and the sky was painted with dusky blues and scarlets. Typical of St. Augustine in September, the night was warm, redolent with the mixed smells of tangy ocean air and late-blooming flowers. House lights were popping on all over the neighborhood, but her backyard was as quiet as peace.

      Exactly what she wanted. Barefoot, she flopped in the chaise longue on the patio, poured a wallop of a drink and slugged down a sip. It burned like liquid smoke all the way down her throat and tasted worse than cough syrup. Stubbornly she gulped down another couple of slugs. Maybe it was extremely doubtful that rum was ever going to be her vice of choice, but she was determined to give it a lion’s try.

      She reached for Paige’s present and pulled at the red bow, trying to fathom the strange, unsettling dissatisfaction that had hounded her like a shadow all day. She’d been as restless as a wet cat, and had the stupidest inclination to cry. She’d never been restless, and the whole world knew that Gwen Stanford was no whiner or crier.

      Nothing had even gone wrong. Josh and Jacob, thank heavens, were tucked in bed and sleeping harder than tired puppies. Jacob’s first day in school had