And I feel guilty leaving them, but I needed this. Needed some girl time. Adult time. Boone just got back from a ten-day road trip and I’m already sick of being alone with the kids, but we’re only five weeks into the season. How am I going to make it until September?”

Meg shot her sister another swift glance as she moved into the far left lane. “Once the kids are out of school, bring them out for the summer. Come stay with us in Santa Rosa for a couple weeks, then head to the beach house for a couple weeks, and then maybe a week at Mom and Dad’s. Take advantage of having family around. Kit’s out of school in the summer, too. She’d be more than happy to spend time with your two.”

“I wish I could. But Boone would really miss Brennan and Ella. He loves them so much.”

“He is a great dad,” Meg agreed, gripping the steering wheel more tightly, resenting Boone for putting them in this position where they couldn’t be real anymore. Where they couldn’t discuss Sarah’s marriage and life with any degree of honesty.

Two years ago in June, Sarah found out Boone was having an affair. It was with someone he’d met while on the road. He said it was nothing, but nothing nearly shattered Sarah. Devastated, she scooped up the kids and flew home to San Francisco. Dad had picked them up at the airport and told Sarah she never had to go back to Boone.

But she did.

She said she loved him too much to leave him, only the damage had been done. The seed of doubt had been planted. Sarah and Boone were together, but Sarah was no longer secure.

It still made Meg furious that Boone would betray Sarah like that. The whole family had loved him, accepted him. He’d become a Brennan, and Brennans didn’t stab each other in the back. But when Sarah forgave Boone, she asked her family to do the same. And so for the last two years they’d all played this game of pretending that nothing had happened, and that Boone was a good guy, and their conversations about him, and about Sarah and the kids, were deliberately upbeat and light. Positive. Even when Sarah looked miserable and trapped.

Meg cast Sarah a sideways glance. Like now. Well, maybe not miserable, but fragile, which made Meg wonder about the state of affairs—no pun intended—at home in Tampa Bay. But she couldn’t ask, not directly, not without risking alienating Sarah.

Which was ridiculous. Meg was the oldest and she’d always been protective of Sarah, and over the years Sarah had come to her for advice on everything. But now, due to Boone’s indiscretions, they couldn’t talk?

Utter bullshit.