"Blair! What a nice surprise!" Jo exclaimed when she heard her best friend's voice over the telephone. "How the heck have you been, girl?"

"That's what I wanted to talk to you about," Blair replied. "Tad and I are divorcing. I caught him cheating on me."

"Oh, no!" Jo gasped. "I'm so sorry!"

"That's all right," Blair replied. "But that's only part of my news. Guess what! I'm moving to Oklahoma City!"

"Wow, really? That's great!" Jo exclaimed. "But what about Warner Enterprises?"

"I'm getting half of it," said Blair. "I'm going to be managing one of the motels there in Oklahoma City."

"And what about Adam and Alyssa?"

"I'm bringing them with me." Jo was fond of Blair's eight-year-old son and six-year-old daughter and looked forward to seeing them again. "So, how are you doing? How are Jamie and the baby?"

"Jamie's fine! I can't believe she's in eighth grade already. And Bethany's so sweet! We just had her christened a few weeks ago."

"Uh...that's nice, I guess." Jo knew that Blair was an atheist but didn't hide her own faith from her best friend. She wondered what Blair would think if she knew about Earl.

"My best friend called me from New York today," Jo told Doug as they were cuddling together in bed that night. "She says she's divorcing her husband and moving here."

"You mean Blair? That's great, hon! I know how lonely you get here sometimes. It'll be good to have a close friend nearby again."

"Yeah," Jo said softly. She was wondering what it would be like to see Blair on a regular basis again. Would they be able to pick their friendship back up again where it had left off when Jo had moved to New York City, or had they both changed too much for that to happen?

Several days later, she and Jamie stood in the airport waiting for Blair and her children to arrive. It was a bitterly cold day in January, so Doug had stayed home with the baby.

At last they were there, and Blair rushed into Jo's arms. They squealed with happiness as they embraced, then walked together out to Jo's car. Jo planned to take them all to meet Doug, Clay, and Bethany before taking them to the motel.

They arrived to find Doug sitting on the sofa reading beside a crackling fireplace. "How's Bethany?" she asked him.

"She's fine!" he told her. "I just gave her a bath and got her settled down to sleep. How ya doin', Blair?" he asked as he shook Blair's hand.

"This is Adam and Alyssa," Blair told him.

"Come on in, kids! Too cold to be standin' around out there!" said Doug.

Adam and Alyssa stepped inside and looked around shyly. "Clay's hibernatin' in back somewhere," Doug told them.

"Can I please see the baby?" asked Alyssa.

"She's asleep right now, hon," Doug told her. "You can see her when she wakes up."

As if on cue, Bethany awakened and began to cry. Jo went into the nursery and picked her up, then sat in the rocker to nurse her. In the meantime, Blair and her children got settled in the living room. Doug turned the television on for them. "Do you guys like to watch Nickelodeon? Clay loved it when he was little."

"Yes, sir," Adam said politely.

"So, have you ever been to New York?" Blair asked Doug.

"Never," he told her.

"Never?" she exclaimed. "You don't know what you're missing!"

"I've just never had that much of a desire to be that far away from home," Doug told her.

"So you've stayed right here in Oklahoma City your entire life?"

"That's right!"

Jo finished nursing Bethany and brought her into the living room. "She's so tiny!" Alyssa exclaimed. "How old is she?"

"Not quite two months," Jo told her.

"Can I hold her?"

Jo showed the little girl how to support the baby's head. "Wow, you sure are lucky," Alyssa said to Jamie. "I wish I had a baby sister."

"That will sure never happen," Blair commented.

"So, where do you folks go to church?" Doug asked Blair.

"I don't go to church," Blair told him. "You see, I don't believe in God."