Then she added brightly, “But George took me by complete surprise by offering to take us to dinner.”

“Ended up being just the two of us,” he said with a twinkle in his eye. “I knew Diane was normally cranky after a tense closing, like the one we’d just had, and would probably want to just wrap things up with the client, then head to the hotel. Get some facetime with Jules, too, most likely.”

“And I accepted knowing my cousin was going out with his family that night,” Kate added with a smile, squeezing George’s hand.

“Nice,” Tina said, smiling as George and Kate exchanged a quick kiss.

They fell into an easy conversation over the multi-course pre-set meal offered by the restaurant that evening. Kate and George told Tina about trips that they’d taken recently to India and South America, while Tina shared with Kate stories of her projects in the film industry, when Kate had asked what Tina was involved in.

The meal had taken a couple of hours to get through, and by the time they got to dessert and coffee, George felt that they had talked and shared enough so that Tina could feel comfortable about sharing with him whatever it was that seemed to be bothering her.

As Kate stood to go to the washroom, George asked, “So what’s bothering you, Tina? You don’t seem to be all here tonight.”

She drank some water, then bit a lower lip, debating what to share with George.

“I’m not happy, George.”

He dropped his mouth, and then frowned. Slightly alarmed, he asked, “Is it Bette? Something to do with her?”

“No… no… goodness, no! She’s the one thing working in my life!” Tina exclaimed.

“So it must be work,” George guessed, looking at her closely.

Tina heaved a heart-felt sigh. “Well, ever since Bette’s incident with the semi, and maybe even during the tense weeks leading up to it, I began to re-look at everything going on in my life with new eyes.”

She began to tear up again. “I mean, I almost lost her George! And then, coinciding with Bette’s incident with the semi, I’d had my own set of problems to deal with in Charlotte.”

George nodded, “Yeah, Logan mentioned you learned your mom was extremely ill that same weekend. And that your stepfather had gotten himself into some financial trouble. Which Bette had somehow managed to solve … as usual … while battling that semi.”