Chapter Four

       “No.” Ali was staring at her.

      “You actually said that to him?” Greer was staring, too.

      They were all sitting at the table in their eyesore of a kitchen. Layla—dressed in a diaper and nothing else—was lying on a blanket inside the portable play yard that Maddie had initially bought as a Christmas gift for her expectant sister and brother-in-law. The baby didn’t need any clothes besides her diaper for the simple reason that the furnace in their house wouldn’t shut off.

      As a result, even though it was about thirty degrees outdoors, they were all dressed down to summer-weight clothes as befitted the overly toasty ninety degrees inside. Ali was even wearing a bikini top with her cutoff denim shorts.

      “What else should I have said to him?” Maddie knew she sounded defensive, but couldn’t help it. “Just because Lincoln Swift runs Swift Oil doesn’t mean he runs everything else. He doesn’t need to think he can run me.”

      “Don’t you think you might be overreacting a little?”

      Maddie glared at Greer. “Whose side are you on?”

      Her sister lifted her hands peaceably. “Whose side are you on?”

      “Layla’s, obviously.” She leaned over the side of the play yard and tickled the baby’s tummy. Layla squealed and rolled partway onto her side, playing with her feet. “Who could leave such a darling like you that way?”

      “Someone who was pretty desperate.” Greer sipped her orange juice. She’d been working on case files when Maddie arrived, and a pencil was skewered through her hair, holding it off her perspiring neck.