One

      Holly Shay didn’t believe in signs.

      But as she tossed Devon’s and Marshall’s dirty clothes on top of the hamper, her wedding band, loose after she’d dropped the last of her baby weight, slipped off her finger and went flying across the room. Two carats of flawless princess-cut diamonds hit the wall at high velocity, leaving a dimple in the paint, and landed with a clunk on the nursery floor.

      Maybe someone was trying to tell her something. That it was time to take it off. At this point she didn’t have much choice.

      The idea of hocking the ring broke her heart, but she had only a few weeks to find a new apartment. She had no job and not a penny to her name. Only after Jeremy’s death last month had she learned of the considerable debt he’d sunk them into over the course of their ten-month marriage. She would be paying off his debts for many years to come.

      But that’s what addicts did, or so she had been told. If she had only known she could have helped him. It still astounded her that she had been so blind. She’d known deep down that something wasn’t quite right with him. She’d assumed it was the stress of having twin infants. A new marriage—especially the shotgun variety—was a challenge in itself, but toss a high-risk pregnancy, then fragile preemies into the mix and things could get dicey. The boys had been born a month early and had had to spend nearly two weeks in the NICU. When they finally had come home it had been with machines to monitor their breathing and heart rate. It had taken a toll on them both.

      But it wasn’t until after Jeremy overdosed that she’d put the pieces of the puzzle together. Only then did she recognize the signs. She had been stupidly and irresponsibly blinded by love, by the fantasy of the perfect family she had always dreamed of having. When would she learn that for some people the happily-ever-after would never come? It just wasn’t in the game plan.

      It