When Least Expected Read Free Page B

divorce. They gave her dual sympathies, one for the loss of her uncle and another for her failed marriage. Most followed up with some sentiment about how they had been so sure she and Ian were going to make it. She just nodded. She had thought so, too.
    Ian managed to give her a quick, awkward hug at the gravesite before everyone started to disperse. She assumed the reason for the affection stemmed from the missing girlfriend. A quick stab of hope flared in her chest. Maybe they’d broken up? Maybe they wouldn’t be getting married? Maybe he would come home? She quickly shook the thought away and gave him a small smile.
    â€œYour eulogy was really touching. You did a good job. Jimmy would have appreciated it,” she told him truthfully. He simply nodded and thanked her before he walked away.
    Lexi went with Ron and Kelly to their house afterward. Their son, Aidan, had stayed at the neighbor’s, being too young to attend the service. It was nice to see him.
    â€œAunt Lex, do you want to watch me play a video game?” he asked excitedly. Willa was already trapped.
    â€œSure,” Lexi agreed, though she would rather have watched paint dry than watch her six-year-old nephew drive around in a bubble collecting letters to spell the word happiness . She almost couldn’t remember how to spell that word. She certainly didn’t know how to feel it.
    Thanks to Willa, Lexi was able to escape to the kitchen a few minutes later.
    â€œDid you notice Meeeeeeghan wasn’t at the service?” Kelly asked in her overemphasized way. It had become her joke when Aidan wasn’t around.
    â€œYes. What do you think it means?” Again the hope leaped into existence, and she quickly squashed it.
    â€œI told him she said something snotty to you at the viewing,” Kelly admitted.
    â€œWhat? How did you know?”
    â€œI didn’t. I just figured.” She shrugged.
    â€œKelly, you need to be nice to her. Especially because she might be your sister-in-law someday.”
    â€œNo way.” Kelly’s face turned grim as her body tensed.
    â€œShe alluded,” Alexis said with a frown.
    â€œAlluded?”
    â€œYeah. She made it sound like it was going to happen. Like they might get married.” She swallowed, trying to choke down the idea of her husband marrying another woman.
    Kelly’s eyes narrowed.
    â€œShe told me they were getting married, too,” Willa said as she came into the kitchen. She filled a glass with water and leaned against the counter. “I asked Ian last night, and he said he wasn’t marrying anyone at the moment.”
    â€œAt the moment?” Lexi repeated, not knowing what that meant exactly.
    â€œLook, even if my brother is stupid enough to marry this girl, she will never, I repeat never be my sister. You are my sister and she can just suck it.”
    â€œMama said ‘suck it’!” Aidan laughed from the living room, while Kelly squeezed her eyes shut. Lexi and Willa couldn’t help but laugh, too.
    â€œAidan!” she barked in her mom voice. Kelly turned back to them sadly. “I really don’t like this,” she said with tears in her eyes.
    Willa put her arm around her sister and said, “Me neither.”
    â€œIt’s going to be okay,” Lexi said. “He needs to be happy. No matter who makes him happy, we should want that.”
    â€œYou were too good for him,” Kelly said and shook her head.
    That wasn’t true.
    Ian had been a wonderful husband, always there when she needed him. Always noticing the stupid little things, like when she got her hair cut or bought a new dress. He was a husband her friends had always been jealous of. Right until he wasn’t her husband anymore.
    She’d scared him off. She’d realized it immediately after he moved out, and she’d tried to tone down the crazy, obsessed, must-be-a-mother complex so she could be the doting wife again, but she