There was a coldness under the sweetness that Rosalind couldn’t see and Hattie couldn’t unsee — the way Odette’s warmth clicked off the instant a room emptied, like a lamp on a timer.

She was sweeping the front porch when the man came up the steps out of the rain.

He didn’t look like anyone who belonged at that address.

Work boots, a jacket stained dark at the cuffs, the build of a man who used his body for a living.

But he came up the steps like he had a right to, and he asked for Odette by name.

“My name is Wyatt,” he said.