Currant Creek Valley

CHAPTER ONE



ALEXANDRA MCKNIGHT opened the door to her dream-come-true restaurant and held her breath.

She loved this place already and she wanted her dearest friends to see beyond the sawhorses and scaffolding and unfinished surfaces to the potential awesomeness of it.

The members of her book club filed in, a little out of breath after walking up the hilly Main Street from her sister Maura’s bookstore in downtown Hope’s Crossing. At least they had a lovely April day for the walk, sunny and pleasant, with only a few puffy clouds overhead.

Claire McKnight, Alex’s best friend and now sister-in-law, was the first one inside. She moved past the new double-sided river-rock fireplace that separated what would be the reception area from the first-floor dining room.

Claire whirled around to take in the walls, peeled back to bare brick, the original wood flooring and the intact fire pole that descended from the second-floor dining area that used to be the sleeping quarters of the old firehouse, back in the days when Hope’s Crossing was a rough and rowdy mining town.

“What a fantastic space,” Claire exclaimed. “I’ll admit, I was more than a little nervous when you told me Brodie and Jack were cooking up this idea. I mean, this old place has been an eyesore in town forever! I thought they should have torn it down years ago. Now that I see the renovations, my mind is racing with possibilities.”

“I know, right?” Alex beamed at Claire and her other friends and several family members gathered beside them.

“Pure genius to replace the fire-truck doors with that big sliding wall of windows,” Charlotte Caine exclaimed, her pretty features alight. “What an incredible view of Woodrose Mountain and downtown. You can see everything from here.”

“I know. And on summer days, we can roll the windows to the side and make the whole thing a big outdoor space.

“Oh, darling. This is fantastic,” her mother exclaimed. Mary Ella squeezed her hand, and Alex was so glad she had brought them to the restaurant for the quick tour and an impromptu picnic dinner to take care of the Bites part of their Books and Bites name.

“Brodie is so excited about Brazen.” Evie Thorne tucked a strand of long blond hair behind her ear. “I haven’t seen him this enthusiastic about a project in a long time.”

“Jack really did a fantastic job with the design,” Mary Ella said, looking around.

“Of course he did. He’s Jackson Lange.” The wife of the man in question smiled with a contentment Alex never thought she would see again on her older sister’s features, after the hellish time two years ago. She owed Jack so much. The creative architectural genius that had gone into designing this space was the very least of her debts to him.

She smiled at this group of women she loved dearly. “I’m am indeed blessed to have friends and sisters who are not only brilliant and talented in their own rights, but who also have the good taste to marry well...so I don’t have to.”

As she might have expected, her words earned a laugh from nearly everyone except her mother. Alex didn’t miss the spark of worry in her mother’s eyes behind their trendy little glasses.

She ignored it, as she customarily did. She wasn’t going to let her mother’s concern bother her. Not when she was so relieved at their excited reaction to the restaurant, even at this embryonic stage.

“Thank you for walking all the way up the hill for lunch today. As a reward, you get to be the first to enjoy a meal here at Brazen, of sorts. I packed a picnic for us. It seemed appropriate, given the infamous picnic in this month’s selection.”

“I still say we should have picked Pride and Prejudice instead of Emma. Mr. Darcy is a much sexier hero than Mr. Knightley,” Brodie’s mother, Katherine, opined, a distinct gleam in her eyes.

“We read P and P two years ago, remember?” Mary Ella reminded her. “Alex made that fantastic white soup and the trifles.”

“I do hope you don’t have pigeon pies and cold lamb in that hamper you lugged all the way up here,” Alex’s oldest sister, Angie, said.

“How do you remember what they ate at the picnic in Emma?” Charlotte asked with a laugh.

Angie grinned. “I’m all about the food. You should know that by now.”

“No pigeon or lamb. Boring cold fried chicken, potato salad and fruit. But I do have pie. And other things.”

She pulled open the large hamper, reached inside for the blanket and spread it out on the wooden floor. “Sorry we don’t have tables and chairs yet. They’re on order but won’t be here for another few weeks. If you prefer not to sit on the floor, you can sit on the stairs. Katherine, Mom, Ruth, you three can sit on the hearth ledge.”

“Perfect,” Katherine Thorne declared.

Alex set the dishes out in the middle of the blanket, and for the next few moments, everyone in the book club was busy filling plates.

This had been a crazy idea to bring them here for the picnic. They all would have been far more comfortable back at Dog-Eared Books & Brew, Maura’s shop, but Alex had been dying to show everyone the progress.

“You must be so excited for the restaurant to open,” Janie Hamilton, one of their newer members, said around a mouthful of chicken salad sandwich.

“I can’t wait,” Alex said, though she declined to add that part of her also quaked with fear, if she let it.

Running her own restaurant had been her dream since she first decided to go to culinary school. Now that the opening date was drawing closer and the dream was quickly on its way to becoming reality, raw anxiety warred with her anticipation, the fear that she didn’t really have the necessary skills and creativity to make Brazen shine amid the crowded Hope’s Crossing restaurant scene.

“As far as I can tell, only one small detail is missing,” Angie said.

“What’s that?” Mary Ella asked.

Her sister scanned the open space again. “Maybe I’m missing something but, um, where’s the kitchen?”

“Oh, my word, you’re right,” Janie exclaimed. “There’s no kitchen!”

“Where’s your brilliant architect of a husband now?” Katherine teased Maura. “He left out the most important part.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Alex said, though she felt a stab of nerves. She needed a kitchen! “It’s coming. Another three weeks, according to Brodie. The contractor who has done most of the rehab work so far had a medical emergency in his family and Brodie had to hire someone else to finish up.”

“Sam Delgado,” Evie said. “He’s worked with Brodie before on some projects closer to Denver. I’ve met him a few times. He’s really nice.”

“I don’t care how nice he is. I just want him to get his butt in gear and finish the kitchen so I can start stocking it and we can set an opening.”

That uncertainty was just one of the worries keeping her up at night. After years of being a sous-chef in someone else’s kitchen, she finally had the opportunity to prove herself. As owner and developer of the restaurant, Brodie was giving her this chance, and she couldn’t afford to blow it.

She would be fine, she assured herself again. She was hardworking and talented and had years of experience under her white toque. What else did she need?

“I read something once that said nine in ten new restaurants close in the first year,” Ruth Tatum said, wiping a napkin daintily at the corners of her mouth.

“Mom.” Claire grimaced.

“What? I did.”

Alex was quite used to Ruth’s pithy comments, since she had practically grown up with Claire, but the words and the pessimism behind them still stung. “That’s actually a myth,” she was quick to point out. “The actual number is about one in four in the first year. Closer to three in five after about three years.”

Yet another worry that kept her up at night. How would she face everyone in town who believed in her if she couldn’t make Brazen a success?

“This place is going to be one of the restaurants that makes it,” Mary Ella declared loyally. “Assuming you do get a kitchen and don’t have to cook everything on a barbecue grill out back.”

Alex sighed. “For now, you’re going to have to use your imagination about the kitchen. Trust me when I tell you it’s going to be fantastic. I’ve gone over the plans with Jack and Brodie. You’ve all seen Brodie’s other restaurants in town. I’m sure you can guess this one is going to have state-of-the-art everything.”

“So when will we actually be able to eat here?” Maura asked.

“You’re eating now,” she retorted. “A particularly delicious chopped spinach salad, if I do say so myself.”

Her sister made a face. “That’s not what I meant, Alexandra. When is Brazen supposed to open?”

She firmly ignored the flutters in her stomach. “Near the end of May but before Memorial Day weekend. We wanted to have a few weeks to work out the kinks before the summer tourist season hits.”

“That doesn’t give you much time, if the contractor still needs three weeks to finish the kitchen,” Ruth pointed out, helpful as always.

“Yes, I know. He’s supposed to be coming to town this weekend. It won’t be soon enough for me.”

“He’ll be here,” Evie assured her. “And I promise, you’ll love the job he does.”

She still couldn’t believe the single most important component of her new restaurant wasn’t complete. The previous contractor should have started in the kitchen and worked out from there, as far as she was concerned.

“Don’t worry. Everything’s going to be fantastic,” Claire assured her. “Everyone knows what a brilliant chef you are. You’re going to have people lined up from here to Silver Strike Canyon, waiting for your food.”

She loved Claire dearly for her unwavering faith but had to take it with more than a grain of salt. Claire would probably bite her own tongue off before she would say anything that might be construed as even a sprinkle or two on Alex’s parade.

“Thanks, hon.”

To her relief, the conversation shifted away from the restaurant and on to the reason they ostensibly met, the book they had read that month. They discussed the mismatches in the book, Emma’s strong and sometimes unlikeable personality, how different she was from many Austen heroines.

By the time the lively discussion trickled out and the conversation shifted again to gossip around town, most of the book club members had moved on to dessert.

“Charlotte, how’s your brother?” Mary Ella asked into a rare lull.

Charlotte set down the sugar-free cookie Alex had specially fixed for her. Whenever she fixed a meal for the book club, she tried to remember that the candy-store owner was very aware of each bite after losing nearly eighty pounds over the past year.

“He’s coming home, finally.”

“Oh, I hadn’t heard!” Katherine exclaimed. “That’s wonderful news.”

Charlotte didn’t look as if she completely agreed but she gave a forced-looking smile. “He was officially released from Walter Reed several months ago but he stayed in the area for rehab. Dad will be happy to have him home.”

Much to Alex’s amusement, Katherine looked a little flustered at the mention of Dermot Caine, who owned the Center of Hope Café in town. The two of them shared a mutual crush but so far neither had done anything about it.

Dermot would certainly take good care of his son’s nutrition needs, but Alex still made a mental note to add Dylan Caine to her informal list of food deliveries. The café served good, hearty comfort food, but a war hero like Dylan deserved gourmet fare once in a while.

“We’ll have to throw a barbecue for him or something,” Mary Ella said.

Charlotte shook her head quickly. “He would hate that. He’s very...different from the Dylan you all probably remember. He will barely talk to any of us.”

Charlotte came from a family as large as Alex’s, though she was the only girl in a household of boys, while Alex had four sisters and only one brother, Claire’s husband, Riley.

“I guess I should get back to the bookstore,” Maura said. “Jack has Henry this afternoon over at his office and he’s probably ready for a nap.”

“Who? Jack or Henry?” Mary Ella asked.

“Both. Definitely.”

Maura’s adopted son was just about the most adorable ten-month-old Alex knew, but he was already turning into a handful.

“I need to go, too,” Claire said. “We left Hannah in charge of String Fever while we were gone. She has such a soft heart, she just might give away half my inventory.”

Alex had to swallow a laugh at the irony of Claire worrying about anyone else’s soft heart when she was renowned for her overwhelming generosity.

“I really do love your place, Alex,” she said.

“Same goes,” Maura said, kissing her cheek. Alex almost wanted to cry to see her sister’s obvious happiness, when she thought Maura would never be able to find joy again.

“We’re all coming on opening night. Just try to keep us away,” Katherine added.

Her friends gathered up their things, and Alex watched as they all began heading down the hill toward downtown.

Her mother was the last to leave. Mary Ella hugged her hard, surrounding her with the familiar scent of flowers and fabric softener. “I love this place, darling. It’s so good to see you happy.”

She drew away from her mother’s embrace. “What are you talking about? I’m always happy.”

“Are you?”

She wasn’t in the mood for her mother’s concern today. “Yes. I’m so happy, I beam with it. I’m a freaking glow stick. Why wouldn’t I be?”

Annoyance flickered in Mary Ella’s green eyes that she had passed on to each of her children.

“The restaurant is going to be wonderful. I just...hope it’s everything you want.”

“It will be,” she said firmly.

“You know I worry about you.”

“Because I’m not happily married, you mean, like everybody else, and cranking out grandbabies for you.”

She meant her tone to sound flippant but she had a strong feeling she sounded prickly and sensitive instead.

Mary Ella stiffened. “That’s not what I’m talking about.”

She didn’t want to get into this right now with her mother, not after their lovely book club meeting. She adored Mary Ella and admired her greatly for pulling the shattered pieces of her life together and moving on so many years ago, but sometimes her mother had very decided tunnel vision on some topics.

“Are you sure? Lila and I are the last ones standing, now that Riley and Maura have taken the leap, and Lila’s too far away in California for you to meddle with.”

“Do I meddle?” Mary Ella asked, her tone mild but her eyes flashing.

That wasn’t fair to her mother, she knew. “No,” she admitted. “But I know you would like to see me settled in a relationship like everybody else.”

“Only if that’s what you want. I don’t care if you never marry, Alex. I’ve spent the last twenty years of my life single and thought I would remain that way for the rest of it. I certainly never expected Harry Lange to come blustering in.”

She was glad Harry made Mary Ella happy, for reasons she still didn’t understand, but that didn’t mean she wanted to discuss her mother’s love life.

“You can stop worrying about me, Mom. I have nearly everything I want.”

“Nearly?”

She gestured around to the empty, echoing space. “I just need Brazen to catch fire on the local restaurant scene, so to speak.”

Mary Ella didn’t look convinced but she said nothing as she slipped her arms through the sleeves of the jacket she had shed during the picnic.

“I just hate to see you so...restless.”

The term was painfully apt. She couldn’t focus on anything, she was cooking up a storm trying out new recipes, she wasn’t sleeping well.

Alex wanted to think her trouble was only jagged nerves prior to the restaurant opening, but she had a deep-seated fear the root was something else.

She had been looking for something for a long time since she had returned to the States. She had convinced herself it was only anticipation for this time in her life, when she was finally in control of her own restaurant, but what if Brazen still didn’t fill that emptiness inside?

“I’m perfectly content with my life. Everything is just the way I want it.”

Mary Ella stepped in to brush her lips to Alex’s cheek. “If that’s truly the case, then I’ll try to stop worrying.”

“I do believe you could survive without air and water longer than you could go without fretting over one of your children.”

Her mother smiled, as she had intended. “It’s a good thing I have so many of you to spread the love, then, isn’t it? Imagine if you were an only child.”

“The mind boggles.”

Her mother’s laugh trailed behind her as she headed out into the April afternoon.

She closed the door behind Mary Ella and twisted the lock then returned to stand in the empty space that would shortly—she hoped—hold her dream kitchen.

Though the kitchen faced away from the street, leaving the prime views for the diners, Jack had still designed this space with a few well-situated windows that offered lovely views of some of the older homes in Hope’s Crossing that climbed the hillside and then the mountains beyond.

This was hers. She loved it already.

All the years of planning, working, dreaming, and in a few more weeks, that dream would be real.

She had worked as a sous-chef in other restaurants for years, since she had returned from Europe. She had been offered opportunities in the past to take over as executive chef but none of those situations had ever felt quite right. Either she had always told herself she wasn’t ready or she didn’t like the restaurant owners enough to work that closely with them or she had just plain been afraid.

When Brodie Thorne approached her with his plans for this old firehouse, she had instinctively recognized this was her time. She had known Brodie her whole life and she trusted him completely, both as a savvy businessman with a well-established track record of running restaurants and, more importantly, as a person.

The stars had aligned and she couldn’t make any more excuses.

She closed her eyes for a moment and imagined this place crowded with customers, standing in the middle of a gleaming kitchen giving orders to her own sous-chefs, smelling delicious things cooking, listening to the clink of glasses and contented conversation.

And a string of colorful words coming from the back entrance.

She jerked her eyes open as the words pierced the last of her hazy fantasy and sent it whooshing away.

A man was here, in her restaurant. An unhappy man, by the sound of it. Seriously? Somebody really thought they could break into her restaurant in broad daylight, probably hoping to steal construction tools left on the site?

Guess again, a*shole, she thought.

She reached for the closest weapon she could lay her hands on, a two-by-four about the length of her torso, and edged around the corner.

A hallway led off the main dining room toward the restroom facilities, as well as a space she intended to make a separate dining room for private parties.

With her heart pounding, she peeked around the corner, two-by-four at the ready. Afternoon sunlight filtered in through the windows and she registered only a few quick impressions of height and muscled bulk, dark short-cropped hair and an unmistakable air of menace.

The man had already pilfered a reciprocating saw in one hand and had a tool belt dangling from the other. Thieving bastard. No way was she going to let him get away with robbing her place, even if the stuff belonged to the contractor responsible for these knuckle-gnawing delays.

She was too angry to think about the wisdom of taking on a very large man presently armed with power tools. This was her restaurant and she had worked too blasted hard for it to let some jerk think he could march in here and loot the place.

Gripping the two-by-far in suddenly damp hands, she stepped forward. “Don’t even think about it.”

He whirled around, even tougher and scarier than she had first thought. He was also surprisingly clean-cut for someone up to no good.

“Don’t think about what?” he growled, his voice as hard as his features.

“You picked the wrong place to rob, buster. My brother just happens to be the chief of police.”

He cocked his head, one eyebrow lifted. “Is that right?”

“You better believe it. Now put down the tools and get out of here before I call him.”

“Trust me, you don’t want to do that.”

Her anger kicked up a notch at his tone. As a sous-chef, she had spent more than a few years in the kitchen with temperamental, patronizing little men who thought they could intimidate her with their bluster and bluff. She was tired of it, yet another reason she couldn’t wait to open her own restaurant.

She refused to acknowledge the grim truth of his words. She absolutely didn’t want to call in Riley to help her deal with this. As a general rule, she had always tried to take care of herself, not drag her family into her problems.

She wasn’t about to tell him that. Instead, she shifted the board—now growing increasingly heavy—and whipped out her cell phone. In this case, she would do whatever was necessary. Even if that meant turning to her brother. She scrolled through her address book and found Riley’s number but paused, her thumb hovering over the name.

“You’ve got until the count of three to clear out,” she said, aware she sounded perilously close to something out of a spaghetti Western.

He apparently agreed. “You’re going to feel really stupid if you call in the cavalry right now. I’m not doing anything wrong.”

She sniffed. “Funny, that’s exactly what I would expect a criminal to say.”

“I’m not a criminal.”

“Again, I would have totally expected you to say that.”

He gave a rough laugh that seemed to sizzle through her. Just nerves, she told herself. To fight them, she gripped the board more tightly and stared him down.

He looked a little bit old to be doing the smash-and-grab thing, maybe her age or slightly older, but he did have a biceps tattoo dripping beneath the short sleeve of a worn T-shirt that showed off every hard muscle.

All in all, he was really quite gorgeous, for a criminal, even if he didn’t seem in the least threatened by a woman holding a two-by-four and a cell phone.

“Can I ask who you are and what you’re doing here?” he actually had the effrontery to say.

She gaped at him. “None of your business! You’re the one who’s trespassing.”

“Really? You think? Then why would I have this?”

He reached into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out a key that looked remarkably similar to the one she had used to unlock the door for her book club over an hour ago.

“You think I’m stupid enough to fall for that? For all I know, that could be a key to the storage shed where you hide your victims in barrels full of acid.”

He blinked a few times but didn’t lose his amused half smile. “Wow. Been watching a few too many horror movies, have we?”

Okay, maybe it was a bit of an overreaction to accuse him of being a serial killer, but she wasn’t about to back down now. “My point is I don’t know who you are or why you’re breaking into my restaurant.”

“Your restaurant? Wrong. This is Brodie Thorne’s restaurant.”

The board slid a little in her hand and she finally set it down to rest one end on the ground, wondering uneasily if she might have made a teensy little mistake here.

“Okay, technically, yes.” The restaurant was Brodie’s, if one considered that he was the person who took all the risks and paid all the bills. “But I’m his chef.”

The guy’s half smile turned into a full-fledged one and her stomach fluttered at the impact of it. Oh, my.

“We appear to have a little misunderstanding here. You must be Alexandra McKnight.”

She squinted at him. “Maybe.”

“Brodie told me about you, but for some reason I thought you would be older.”

She made a face. She would be thirty-seven this year, which felt ancient sometimes. “Okay, so we’ve established who I am. Now who the hell are you?”

“Oh, sorry.” Coming out of that rough-edged, dangerous-looking face, the charm of his friendly smile caught her off guard.

“I’m Sam Delgado. I’m going to be finishing up your kitchen.”

His words finally penetrated her thick skull and she wanted to throw her face in her hands. She was an idiot who shouldn’t be let out in public.

This man was charged with building her kitchen in an insane handful of weeks and the first thing she did to welcome him aboard the project was accuse him of stealing what were probably his own tools.

If she wanted this kitchen to provide ideal working conditions, she had to work closely with the contractor Brodie had picked. How would she be able to do that now, with this inauspicious beginning?

She propped the board against the wall and faced him with what she hoped was an apologetic look. “Oops.”

To her relief, he didn’t seem upset, even though a little annoyance would be completely justified. “Now aren’t you glad you didn’t call the police?”

“It was an honest mistake. You have to admit, you’re a scary-looking dude, Sam Delgado. It must be the ink.”

“I’m a p-ssycat when you get to know me.”

“I doubt that.”

“Just wait.”

She knew perfectly well the words shouldn’t send this little tingle of awareness zinging through her.

At least he was being decent about her almost beaning him with a board. She had to give him points for that. “I wasn’t expecting you until the weekend. Brodie said you couldn’t start until then.”

“I wrapped up some other projects in Denver ahead of schedule and was able to break away a few days early. Figured I would come to town and do a little recon of the situation before my crew comes up tomorrow.”

The way he spoke, the short haircut and what she glimpsed of his tattoo—which she could now see looked vaguely military-like—reminded her that Brodie had told her the guy was ex-army Special Forces, like Charlotte’s brother, Dylan.

She figured it was safe to move closer to him. “Well, welcome to Hope’s Crossing, Sam Delgado. I can promise you, not everyone in town will greet you with a two-by-four.”

He smelled good, she couldn’t help noticing. Like wind and sunshine and really sexy male. She really was an idiot to even notice.

“I don’t blame you for being cautious. Any woman would have to be a little wary to find a stranger invading her space. No harm done.” He set the reciprocating saw down on the floor and the belt with it.

“Brodie tells me you have definite ideas for your kitchen. I’m glad you’re here, actually, so we can go over what you want. Care to fill me in?”

“Now?”

He shrugged. “Sure. Why not?”

She could think of several reasons, beginning with her heart rate, which still hadn’t quite settled back down to normal. “Um, sure. Come on through to where the kitchen should be and we can talk.”

“Let me grab your plans,” he said, pointing to the back door.

When he returned, he unrolled the blueprints and she spent the next few moments detailing what she wanted in the kitchen, and the design she and Brodie had already come up with. Much to her delight, Sam had a few suggestions that would actually improve the work flow and traffic patterns.

“Are you sure you can bring us in with only a month before our projected opening?” she asked.

“It will be a push, I’m not going to lie to you, but my guys are up to the challenge. I wouldn’t have taken the job if I didn’t think we could do it.”

“I admire confidence in a man,” she said. That wasn’t the only thing she was admiring about Sam Delgado, but she ordered herself to settle down. For all she knew, he might indeed have a storage unit full of severed heads.

On the other hand, Brodie trusted him, and that carried a great deal of weight, as far as she was concerned. He wouldn’t have brought Sam in on the project unless he had vetted him fully.

Even if Brodie weren’t giving her this unbelievable chance at her own restaurant, he was also the husband and son of two of her dearest friends.

What was wrong with a little harmless flirtation? In fact, Sam Delgado might just be the cure to the restlessness her mother was talking about. She hadn’t dated anybody in months, not since Oliver, the very funny Swiss ski instructor who had returned to the Alps midseason.

Sam was actually just her type—big, gorgeous and only in town for a few weeks. He would be leaving Hope’s Crossing as soon as he wrapped up work on the restaurant. Why couldn’t she spend some enjoyable leisure time with him while he was here, as long as he still had plenty of time to finish the project?

“Looks clear enough,” Sam said, rolling up the blueprints he had pulled out of his pickup truck. “Since all the appliances and shelving and counters are already here, it’s only a matter of putting everything in place. You should still be able to have your mid-May opening.”

“I’m going to hold you to that, Mr. Delgado,” she said.

“Once my crew comes tomorrow, we can dig in.”

“How many guys will you have?”

“Three others, besides me. We’ve all worked together a long time.”

“Does everybody have a place to stay?”

“Brodie has made reservations at a hotel on the edge of town. Nothing fancy but it will do for now.”

“Good. Good.” She smiled. “Well, let me know if you need anything.”

“I’ll do that.”

It was now or never, she thought, and plunged forward. “So I don’t see a ring. Is there a Mrs. Delgado?”

Plenty of men didn’t care to wear a wedding ring, either out of personal preference or deliberate obfuscation. When she was interested in a man, she was scrupulously careful about double-checking that particular point.

Some hard-earned lessons tended to stick with a woman.

Sam Delgado blinked, obviously a little bemused by the question. If she hadn’t been watching him carefully for some sign of deceit, she might have missed the tangle of emotion in his gaze.

“As a matter of fact, there is. My brother’s wife.”

“But you don’t have one of your own?” she pressed.

“Not currently.”

His guarded reaction didn’t seem particularly encouraging. He could be engaged—another hot button of hers because of family history—but she hadn’t missed that sadness in his eyes and sensed he was telling the truth.

“Do you anticipate that changing anytime in the near future?”

“Not that I’m aware of, no. Why are you so curious?”

She shrugged. “Personal rule. I don’t date men who are married, engaged or otherwise involved in a long-term relationship.”

A corner of his mouth danced up. “I didn’t realize we were planning on dating.”

“Planning on it? No. But if the opportunity arose, I like to be certain ahead of time that both parties are...unentangled. Poachers bug the hell out of me. And men who allow themselves to be poached are even worse.”

He gazed at her for a long moment as if he wasn’t quite sure how to answer. “You don’t have any problem speaking your mind, Ms. McKnight, do you?”

“Please. Call me Alex. Especially considering we might be planning on dating at some point in the foreseeable future.”

He laughed as he shook his head. “Here’s something you should know about me then. Call me old-fashioned, but I like to be in the driver’s seat in these sorts of things.”

She gave him a sultry smile over her shoulder. “Oh, you foolish, foolish man. You might think you’re behind the wheel when it comes to most women, but that’s only because we’ve decided to hand over the keys.”

He chuckled that rough, sexy laugh that sent shivers down her spine again. “I don’t know what sort of p—er, pansies—you traditionally date, Alex McKnight, but I’m a former Army Ranger. Know what our motto is? Rangers lead the way. And we don’t just mean into enemy territory.”

She hadn’t been this attracted to a man in ages. She generally didn’t go further than second base with the guys she dated, but something about Sam Delgado made her suspect he was just the sort of guy to tempt her into changing her mind.

“I’ll keep that in mind. I guess I’ll see you around, then.”

She gave him a smile and a wave, tucking a strand of flyaway hair behind her ear as she picked up the basket of picnic supplies and headed for the door.

“Wait a minute,” he called out. “You can’t just leave. We were having a conversation here.”

Was that what he called it? She smiled. “I thought we were done.”

“What time am I picking you up tomorrow night?”

Oh, she really, really liked a man who took the initiative.

“I’m working tomorrow night until nine.”

“Perfect. I’ll probably be busy here until late and will need to unwind a little before I head to the hotel.”

“Do you play pool, Army Ranger Delgado?”

“I’ve been known to chalk a few cues in my time.”

“Great. Why don’t I meet you at The Speckled Lizard? It’s on Front Street, two blocks west of the center block of Main Street. It’s one of the few places that stays open late on a Thursday night during the off-season.”

“I’ll see you then. Tomorrow, twenty-two hundred, Speckled Lizard. It’s a date.”

She smiled and headed out the door, anticipation winging through her.

All in all, she was very glad she hadn’t hit him with a two-by-four.