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opportunity for Goodness—and for Beth Fischer, too.
    â€œWhat’s she doing now?” Goodness asked, crowding close to Gabriel in her eagerness to see Beth.
    â€œIt’s lunchtime,” Gabriel said. “She’s at a small waterfront restaurant with a friend.” With one sweep of his arms, Gabriel parted the veil of clouds that obscured the earth below. At first, the view was hazy, but a few seconds later, the air cleared. Then, as though they were gazing through glass, Gabriel and Goodness saw Beth. She and her friend were seated at a table in a busy restaurant. A wreath in the nearby window was decorated with sprigs of holly and red Christmas balls.
    Beth’s long dark hair was parted in the middle, and she wore a soft pink cashmere sweater with gray wool pants.
    â€œShe looks very pretty,” Goodness whispered.
    Gabriel could only agree.
    Â 
    â€œSo, what are your plans for Christmas?” Heidi asked as she picked up half of the tuna-salad sandwich they were sharing.
    â€œI’ll spend it with my parents,” Beth said without any real enthusiasm. Already she was worried. Her mother had suggested—no, insisted—that Beth invite Peter to join them on Christmas Day. It was an unlikely scenario. After six months of impersonal conversation, she had no idea how they were going to make the transition from being WoW partners to friends to…well, dating each other. Sort of. A Christmas Day blind date—with her family, yet. She grimaced.
    How could she possibly convince someone she’d never even seen to accompany her to one of the most important holiday functions of the year? She might as well ask for a miracle.
    â€œYou’ve drifted off again.”
    Beth didn’t need to ask what her friend meant. She often grew quiet when something troubled her. “Can I ask you a question?” Beth asked, setting down her sandwich and leaning toward Heidi.
    â€œSure, anything. You know that.”
    Beth considered the other woman one of her best friends. She’d been a member of Heidi’s wedding party and was godmother to her son, Adam.
    â€œWhen you first met Sam…” she began. Heidi and Sam had just begun seeing each other when Beth met her; they’d now been married four years.
    â€œWhen I first met Sam,” Heidi repeated. “Did I know I was going to fall in love with him? Is that what you want to ask?”
    Beth blinked. That wasn’t exactly it, but close enough. “Yes.”
    â€œThe answer is no. In fact, I thought he was a total nerd. I mean, could you imagine me married to an accountant? I found him so fussy and detail-oriented, I couldn’t picture the two of us together.”
    It was remarkable. Heidi, her fun-loving, easygoing friend attracted to a bean counter. Yet as far as Beth could tell, they were completely happy in their relationship. They were so different; Heidi was slapdash and impulsive and, as she’d said, Sam was the opposite. But where it truly mattered—their feelings about marriage and family, for instance—their values were the same. Recently, with Heidi’s encouragement, Sam had joined a couple of his friends in a new business venture. Their firm, specializing in forensic accounting, was doing well.
    â€œIt wasn’t like that with John and me,” Beth murmured. “When we first met, I was sure we were the perfect match.” She swallowed hard. She didn’t know why she continued to do this—torturing herself with the details of her failed marriage. All it did was remind her that she simply wasn’t any good at relationships.
    â€œJohn was a long time ago.”
    This was Heidi’s gentle way of urging her to stop dragging the past into the present, and she was right. Sitting up straighter, Beth squared her shoulders. “I think I might have met someone.”
    That immediately sparked Heidi’s interest. In the last five years, she’d