Currant Creek Valley

chapter FIVE



“YOU CAN COME with me, but only if you behave,” Alex said sternly to Leo early the next afternoon.

The dog gave her what looked uncannily like a grin and planted his haunches by the front door, waiting for her to hook up the extra leash she kept around the house for the times she doggie-sat Chester.

She clipped it on him then juggled the leash while she picked up a heavy cooler and headed out.

“I mean it,” she went on as she carried the cooler down the steps of her garage to the open hatch of her SUV. “Caroline loves her flowers. It breaks her heart right in half that she can’t tend them as she likes anymore. I won’t have you digging up any of her few perennials she has left, understood?”

The dog gave one well-mannered bark, smart as a whip, and she smiled. He was good company, this unexpected guest. He had been docile and easygoing when she had bathed him the night before and hadn’t even soaked her much.

Last night, he had politely eaten Chester’s leftover dog food and then had trotted out in the yard for his business before coming back and waiting with surprising patience by the door to be let back inside.

She had settled him for the night on some old blankets in a corner of her laundry room and he hadn’t made a sound all night long, until she had checked on him after she awoke. She could only wish all her houseguests were so trouble free.

Leo settled in the backseat of her SUV and lolled his tongue, overcome with joy when she rolled the window down.

As they pulled away from her house, she could see it in the rear windshield, the hewn logs gleaming in the afternoon sun. With two gables and a wide front porch that looked out on the mountains, the house looked warm and lovely, though she still tended to see all the work she needed to do.

After years of neglect, first as a vacation house with mostly absentee owners and then in foreclosure when the owners had walked away from the mortgage, the house was a work in progress. The window boxes in the upper window and along the porch railing that ran the length of the house were still empty and the garden was a wild tangle.

She was working on it slowly, determined that by summer’s end, the house and yard would glow once more.

The house was a labor of love, just like the restaurant. She loved this place, had since she was a girl. She could remember riding her bike on this road to visit a friend who grew up on the next development over.

All the houses in this area were lovely, mostly log, stone and cedar that had been constructed to meld with the mountain setting and separated from each other by tall stands of pine, fir and aspen.

She had always loved the serenity she found here as she passed fields of wildflowers and that musically rippling creek bordered by wild red- and black-currant bushes that had given the neighborhood its name. This specific little cottage, though, had always called to her.

Maybe it was the decorative shutters or the scrollwork gingerbread trim on the gables that always made the house seem charmed to her, like something out of a fairy tale.

She remembered telling Claire from the time they were young that someday she would live here. Of course, back then she had dreamed of a husband and a house full of children, just like the big family she had known growing up.

Funny how a person’s life journey could sometimes meander off in completely unexpected directions. Here she was, without the husband and without the passel of kids, but in the house she had wanted forever.

The dog in the backseat barked as she pulled away from the house and now she glanced in the rearview mirror at him.

“Don’t worry. I have a feeling you’ll be back.”

First thing that morning, she had called the animal shelter and the two veterinarians’ offices in town but had come up empty. None of her sources had heard anything about a missing chocolate Labrador retriever.

She had shot a picture of Leo with her phone, uploaded it to her computer and then used her limited design skills to come up with a flyer. It was quite creative, if she did say so herself, and she had promptly emailed a copy to several business owners around town, including Claire for String Fever and Maura for Books & Brew.

She needed to find the dog’s owner before she became too attached to the undeniable comfort of having another creature in the house with her.

He had been the perfect companion while she cooked up a storm that morning. He didn’t seem to mind her steady, rather aimless conversation and he even helped clean up the kitchen by snagging a few items she accidentally dropped on the floor while slicing and dicing and sautéing far too much food.

Okay, yes, she had gone a little crazy. She would freely admit it to herself and to any canines within earshot. She had woken after a fractured night’s sleep with vast quantities of restless energy. Naturally, she had turned to the kitchen to expend some of it doing what she did best, cooking.

In her burst of energy, she had made spring soups and casseroles, pastas and chicken dishes.

The marathon cooking session had yielded some very nice results and she couldn’t wait to share the bounty.

She knew exactly what had generated this burst of energy. That kiss. All through those short few hours of sleep, she had dreamed of entwined breaths, of solid, warm arms around her, and had awakened with tousled sheets and this seething, writhing force to do something with her day.

Sam Delgado was an amazing kisser.

She should have guessed he would be from the preliminary work she had seen him do at Brazen. A man who gave such scrupulous attention to detail, such loving care, in one area of his life, likely tended to bring the same concentration and focus to others. When he kissed her, she felt as if nothing else in the world mattered to him but that moment and her mouth and making sure they both took away what they needed.

She blew out a breath as she turned off Currant Creek Valley Road and headed toward the old section of town.

If it were only a kiss, she wouldn’t also have this vague sense of unease, rather like she had when she was a kid and she was about to take on a ski run that was slightly above her capabilities.

She really liked him, that kiss notwithstanding. She hadn’t enjoyed an evening that much in...well, she couldn’t remember when. Sam had been great company, clever and sexy, with a finely wrought sense of humor.

All morning, she had been fighting the temptation to take a quick little drive up the hill to the old fire station on some flimsy excuse, just to see him again.

She imagined him building her kitchen right now, sweaty and hard muscled, that tattoo flexing while he used some scary-looking power tool. Her toes tingled as if she had missed a step racing down for breakfast, as if she stood on the brink of the high dive, prepared to take a plunge into unexplored waters, but she did her best to ignore her purely physical reaction.

She wasn’t about to go to Brazen, no matter how tempting that image...or the man. Instead, she had spent the morning cooking up a storm with a funny dog at her side and now had three dozen meals to show for it. That was certainly a much more constructive outcome than if she had wandered to the restaurant site to moon over something she couldn’t have and shouldn’t want.

The first stop of the day was a small, neat residence around the corner from the house where she had grown up. She pulled into the driveway, where a sweeping, low-hanging branch of the Japanese maple along the drive scraped the top of her SUV. She made a mental note to ask Riley if he could bring his chainsaw over and cut back some of the trees. Pruning should have been done in March but Caroline’s health had been fragile for months and many things slipped off the priority list.

Though the Hope’s Crossing growing season was only just beginning, the gardens Caroline tended with great love and care already looked weedy and overgrown. Her friend would hate that. She probably looked out the window and cringed when she saw the perennials that hadn’t been cut back properly in the fall, the bare spots where she hadn’t planted bulbs.

She would have to ask Claire to add Caroline’s yard to the Hope’s Crossing Giving Hope Day, when the town residents gathered together to help their neighbors in multiple ways. The event was still several weeks away, though. Maybe she could grab her mother, Evie and Claire before then and have a work party to handle some of the more pressing needs.

In the meantime, she had deliveries to make. She opened the back hatch of her SUV and pulled out the first dozen of the meals she had fixed. Leo thrust his brown nose between the seats to watch her out of big, curious eyes.

“Do you want to come?”

He actually moved his head as if nodding, though she knew no dog could be that smart. Her mother would probably consider taking a strange dog into someone else’s home rude but she happened to know Caroline loved dogs. Her own beagle-cross mutt had gone to doggie heaven about four years ago, but Alex had vivid memories of Caroline in overalls and floppy straw hat, working in the garden while her dog looked on.

Cancer could be a bitch. In Caroline’s case, the chemotherapy had messed with her brain chemistry and a series of resulting strokes had left her clinging to her remaining independence with both hands.

She rang the doorbell and waited several long moments. Finally, after knocking again, she tried the knob. It turned in her hand and she pushed open the door.

“Caroline? It’s Alex. Are you home?”

A moment later, she heard a shuffle-shuffle-thud and Caroline’s walker came into view.

“I’m here. Hello, my dear.” Caroline’s voice was a little garbled, as if she spoke through a mouthful of the smooth, shiny stones at the bottom of her goldfish pond.

“Sorry. I was...in the laundry room...moving a load from washer to dryer.”

Every time Alex visited, Caroline’s once-strong frame seemed to have dwindled a little more. She only weighed about eighty-five pounds, her wrists so thin a child could probably circle them with thumb and forefinger.

“I told you I was coming this morning. Why didn’t you wait and let me help you?”

Despite the fact that she could only get around with her walker, had little energy and fought steady pain, Caroline hated to be a bother to anyone.

“It’s enough...that you come to visit. I don’t need you to do for me, too.”

Leo chose that moment to move into the room, sniffing at the legs of one of the stately Queen Anne recliners Caroline favored.

The left side of Caroline’s face lifted in a smile while the right remained immobile. “A dog! I didn’t know...you had a dog!”

“I don’t. Not officially, anyway. I found him running loose downtown last night. I’m just keeping him company until we find his owners.”

“You’re a beauty. Yes, you are.” Leo stood with touching docility as Caroline rubbed his head with one gnarled hand.

For just a moment, she had the crazy idea of leaving the dog with her friend, but reality quickly intruded. That would never work. Caroline could barely take care of herself, try as she might. She couldn’t handle the needs of another living creature right now, though Alex was convinced she was getting better every day.

But if she was going to respond with such enthusiasm, Alex could certainly bring the dog around to visit while he was staying with her.

“You’re a good boy, aren’t you? What’s your name?” Caroline murmured.

“I’ve been calling him Leo. He doesn’t seem to mind it.”

“Why should he? It’s a good name. I had a beau once...named Leo. He ended up marrying my best friend’s little sister and moving to...Grand Junction.”

She kissed her friend’s papery cheek. “Idiot. He didn’t know what he had.”

“Oh, he knew.” Her half smile was mischievous. “I dumped him...long before then. Broke his heart, too, I did.”

“I’ll bet you did, along with dozens of others.”

“Not that many...but a few.” It might have been the way her mouth could only lift partway, but her expression suddenly seemed pensive and almost sad.

Alex couldn’t allow that. “I’ve brought you a few meals for your freezer,” she said, quick to change the subject. “All of them have instructions, as usual, and they’re in individual portion sizes. All you have to do is thaw them first, either in your refrigerator or the microwave, and then heat and eat.”

“You need...to stop doing that.”

“If I don’t do it, my mom will, and we both know I’m a much better cook.”

That wasn’t strictly true, as Mary Ella had fine skills in a kitchen, but it still made Caroline smile, just as Alex had hoped. That shadow of regret and sorrow was gone.

“Besides, you’re the closest thing to a grandmother I have, you know,” Alex said. “My dad’s parents both died before I was born, and my mom’s mother was a cranky old biddy who thought we McKnight kids were hooligans, every one.”

“Weren’t you?” Caroline asked with that mischievous smile again.

“True enough.”

Despite that, Caroline had always welcomed Alex and her siblings to her home. Her first memory of the woman had been probably around kindergarten age, when she had sneaked through Caroline’s garden gate to pick some flowers to give to her mother. If she remembered correctly, she was in trouble with Mary Ella for something or other—nothing new there—and thought the flowers might help smooth things over.

Like most kids, she’d had no concept of abstract things like ownership and had picked indiscriminately until Caroline had finally noticed her and come out to put a stop to her thievery.

Most of the details of that encounter were hazy but she could still remember Caroline’s kindness as the woman had taken the mangled flowers from Alex’s hand, patiently trimmed off the root ends she had tugged up and arranged them into a passably pretty bouquet.

Alex had loved her ever since, stubborn independence aside.

When Alex had returned to Hope’s Crossing bruised and broken and full of secrets, she hadn’t been able to face living at home among the questions. Instead, she had rented Caroline’s now-empty basement apartment at a rock-bottom price. Caroline hadn’t asked questions, she had only offered quiet acceptance, steady love and that riotously beautiful garden that had provided peace and comfort—along with fresh-cut flowers and a seemingly endless supply of fresh-baked banana nut bread.

Over the weeks and months that followed, Alex had found the time and space to begin gathering up the shattered pieces of herself and forming them back together—and she could never repay Caroline enough for giving her that place to heal. What were a few paltry meals compared to that?

“You don’t have to do for me,” Caroline repeated. “I can...take care of myself. Things take longer...but I still get them done.”

“I know you can. Look at it this way. If you don’t have to worry about what you’re going to fix for dinner every night, you have more time to read.”

“There is...that.”

Caroline was a member of the Books and Bites book club, though she hadn’t been to one of their get-togethers for a long time. She still read all the assigned books and sent a carefully typed email with her insightful analysis to either Maura or Mary Ella.

“Have you had lunch yet? I brought some fresh grapes and melon, some vegetable root chips and the makings for chicken salad sandwiches.”

“Oh, that sounds delicious. Is it nice enough...to eat on the patio, do you think?”

The unseasonable warmth of the day before had been blown away with a morning rain but it was still relatively pleasant. “Yes,” she answered. “Let’s find you a sweater.”

She helped Caroline into a cardigan as well as a blanket for good measure and tucked her in at the bistro set that overlooked her pond and the waterfall that was silent now.

“I’ll stay while you eat, then I’m afraid I have to run. I’ve got a couple other stops to make before I head into the restaurant for the dinner shift.”

She wasn’t hungry after a morning full of noshing while she tried things out, but she managed to eat half a sandwich and a couple of the chips, especially the purple potatoes, always a favorite. To her immense satisfaction, Caroline polished off her plate, leaving only a few edges of the ciabatta bread.

“That was...delicious,” Caroline said forty minutes later after their visit. “Oh, I wish you could stay longer.”

Alex smiled and kissed her friend’s cheek. “I’ll be back. You know I will.”

“You’re so...good to me,” Caroline said with a soft smile. “I don’t know...what I would eat if not for your delicious meals.”

Neither did Alex. Worry pressed down on her shoulders as she said her final goodbye, gathered Leo from a patch of sunshine in the yard and headed back to her SUV. Once the restaurant opened, she didn’t know how much time—or energy—she would have for these impromptu cooking sessions to fill the freezers of several of the older people she loved.

She would just have to make time, no matter how hard. People counted on her and she couldn’t let them down.

Her second stop was more brief. Two streets over from Caroline’s house, she pulled up to a small clapboard house squeezed in between a couple rehabbed four-unit condominiums. Wally Hicks used to be her family’s mailman, and his wife, Donna, taught her and Claire’s Sunday-school class for years. Donna had early-stage Alzheimer’s and failing vision, while Wally could barely hear and had a bad heart. Between the two of them, they could almost manage to take care of each other and they were always so thrilled when she dropped off a few meals for them and a special treat for their bad-tempered bulldog, Clyde.

The third stop was the shortest of all—and she definitely left Leo in the car for this one.

Frances Redmond lived next door to Claire and Riley and she didn’t care for dogs. Or most people, for that matter.

Claire did what she could to help Frances but the older woman was grumpy about letting other people in. She always said she didn’t want Alex to keep coming, but she persevered, partly out of guilt for a few pranks she had pulled on the woman when she was a girl and partly because every time she came, Frances had a box full of empty containers to give back to her, indicating she ate the food, Alex hoped. For all she knew, Frances might have just dumped it all in her disposal and ran the dishes through her dishwasher, but she wanted to think she was doing a little good.

“If you’re going to bring all this food, even though I’ve told you again and again not to, why can’t you leave out all the fancy froufrou ingredients? What’s wrong with good, hearty basic food?”

Apparently rosemary was considered froufrou these days. Alex sighed. “Absolutely nothing, Mrs. Redmond. You’re right, I love things that are simple. I promise, I only mixed a few herbs in a couple of the dishes. Nothing exotic, I swear.”

“No sun-dried tomatoes like last time?”

“Nope. You told me you like plain old tomatoes and that’s what I used.”

“I suppose you put some of that Dijon mustard in this chicken salad, too.”

Alex shook her head. “Plain yellow, just like you ordered.”

“Good.”

No thank you, no how kind. Alex wasn’t sure why she bothered. There were others in town who would appreciate her efforts more but, then, she didn’t do this to be showered with gratitude. She liked the warm feeling she received from helping others regardless of their reaction. Her mother and Claire had set a good example in that department.

Besides, she always felt a little sorry for Mrs. Redmond. Her life had been tough. She had lost a couple children and her husband had died young.

Some people—her sister Maura, for example—faced their sorrows with courage and grace and refused to allow hurt and loss to define them.

Others, like Mrs. Redmond, became angry and bitter, taking their internal pain out on everyone around them and keeping away anybody who wanted to reach out.

Alex considered her own outlook to fall somewhere in the middle. She could understand Frances Redmond’s desire to huddle over her hurts and keep anyone else from inflicting more. Maybe that’s why she could view her surliness with an exasperated empathy.

“I’ll see you next time. Have a lovely week.”

“It’s supposed to rain every day,” Frances grumbled.

“Then that soup I made will surely hit the spot, won’t it?” She grinned all the way back toward her car.

Just before she reached it, a boy riding past the house on a blue mountain bike braked when he spotted her.

“Hi, Aunt Alex!”

Her heart lifted at the name. Claire’s son had always called her Aunt Alex, even before his mother married her brother and made their relationship official. “Hey, Owen. How’s my favorite dude?”

The ten-year-old gave her a grin that she imagined would break a fair number of hearts someday. “I’m good. What are you doing here?”

“Just passing by. Why aren’t you in school?”

“We had early release today for some teacher work day thing and only had half a day. Riley is coming home early and we’re goin’ fishing. Mace and Mom are going shopping in a little while.”

Her wild, once-hardened brother had definitely turned his life around and had become a fantastic stepfather to Claire’s two children, Owen and his sister, Macy, from her first marriage. She never would have expected him to be so good at it but he had transitioned smoothly into Claire’s complicated life.

The two of them shared custody with Claire’s ex and his wife. So far they all seemed to be making it work.

“Wow. How manly of you both,” she said to Owen. “If you catch any trout, bring them by the restaurant and I’ll fix them up for you.”

She opened the door of her SUV and was greeted by a friendly “where have you been?” sort of bark.

Owen’s head swiveled around. “You got a dog! I didn’t know you had a dog!”

“Not mine,” she said. “I found him wandering the streets last night. I’m looking for his owners now.”

“What a great dog. You really just found him? Do you know his name?”

“I’m calling him Leo. It’s a long story.”

He seemed to accept that in his calm, unruffled way. “Cool. Hey, Mom,” he suddenly yelled, “Alex is here.”

She wasn’t technically there, she was next door. And she didn’t really have time to visit but she couldn’t be rude now that she saw Claire walking around the side of the house.

She looked voluptuously pregnant and quite adorable in a loose denim work shirt that was probably Riley’s, sleeves rolled up to her elbows, and a pair of rubber muck boots with green frogs imprinted on them.

“Hi! Did you ring the bell? Sorry, I must have missed it. I’ve been back in the garden. In a few months, I won’t be able to bend over so I figured I should probably do what I can now.”

“And after that, you’ll be too busy to keep up with the garden. Or anything else, for that matter.”

“I know. But isn’t it wonderful?”

She beamed and touched her growing abdomen. Alex was hit with a fierce, aching sadness. She forced it away. “Fabulous. I still can’t quite picture Ri with a newborn but I’m sure he’ll be great at it. I know you will. You’ve already raised two of the greatest kids on the planet.”

She rubbed Owen’s artificially blond-tipped hair he had horrified his mother with the last time he came back from staying with his father and stepmother.

“I was just finishing up. Have you got time for a cup of tea?”

“Better not. I’ve got to run to the restaurant. Technically, I wasn’t stopping to see you this time. I took a few meals in to Frances.”

Claire—who usually epitomized kindness and mercy—scowled. “I hope it was bland and tasteless.”

“I did my best but sometimes my genius comes through anyway. Why are you mad at Frances?”

“Not mad, exactly, but she drives me crazy sometimes! Riley spent two hours at her house replacing a broken showerhead last week because she was too cheap to pay a plumber. And then the next day, she had the nerve to tell me she doesn’t like the way it sprays and wanted exactly the same kind she had before. Ugh!”

“What did you do?”

“I went to four different home improvement places until I found the right one.”

“Of course you did,” Alex said, hiding a smile.

“She’s a lonely old woman and we should have compassion, I guess, but she doesn’t always make it easy.”

Claire had plenty of practice with difficult women, considering her mother was the light beer version of Frances Redmond.

“So I heard a rumor about you,” Claire said, changing the subject.

“That Brazen is going to be named the best new restaurant in Colorado and the Food Channel will notice and pick me to host a new show on regional cuisine and I’ll put out a dozen cookbooks and retire to an island in the tropics, where I’ll spend the rest of my days wearing muumuus and drinking mai tais?”

Claire laughed. “No, I must have missed that one. This one is just as juicy, though. I ran into Frankie Beltran at the grocery store this morning and she asked me about the hot guy you were with last night at the Liz. I had to confess my glaring ignorance, which is rather pathetic considering we had lunch together two days ago with the book club and you never said a word about any guy, hot or otherwise.”

Yeah, only two days ago she hadn’t known Sam Delgado as anything other than a name and the cause of one more delay in opening Brazen.

“Um, you know that contractor Brodie hired to finish the restaurant?”

Claire’s eyes opened wide. “Seriously?”

She had absolutely no reason to feel weird about this. She had never intended her friendly invitation to turn into that hot kiss she couldn’t shake from her mind. Or so she continued to tell herself.

“What’s the big deal? He dropped by the restaurant the other day after everybody left. I thought it would be a nice gesture to show him around, welcome him to town, that sort of thing. We met at the Lizard for a game of pool and then we took a walk so I could point out the highlights of our little corner of paradise. I was strictly doing my civic duty.”

“I’m sure it didn’t hurt that he was, in Frankie’s words, hotter than a firecracker lit on both ends.”

He was all that and more. “He could have looked like a troll and I would still want to make sure he feels comfortable in Hope’s Crossing. He’s building my kitchen.”

It sounded like a lame excuse, even to her, but Claire didn’t blink. One of the things Alex loved best about her was Claire’s particular gift of letting people hang on to their own illusions without calling them out.

“Did you have a good time?” she only asked.

Good time? That was an understatement. She thought of his mouth, firm and determined, those hard, relentless muscles against her.

She sighed, then hoped the sound didn’t come across as wistful to Claire as it did to her own ears.

“I almost beat him at pool. I won one game but we were playing two out of three.”

“Wow! He beat you twice? Impressive. He must be fantastic, since you beat Riley most of the time and he’s the best billiards player I know.”

“Sam is pretty good.”

“A gorgeous pool-playing contractor. We don’t see those around Hope’s Crossing every day. How did Brodie find him?”

“I don’t know all the details but I gather Sam was working on a project at the hospital while Taryn was having some treatment, and the two of them struck up a conversation and have stayed in touch. He’s done a couple other jobs for Brodie. From what I can tell, he does good work. And fast, too.”

“So you had fun?”

Again, with the understatement. “Sure. He was with me when I found Leo here, isn’t that right, bud?”

Leo was currently sniffing noses with Chester but paused long enough to give her a happy look, almost as if he recognized his name. He apparently didn’t mind being used as a diversionary tactic.

Claire probably saw through her effort to change the subject but also didn’t seem to mind. “Evie put the poster up you emailed us and she’s been mentioning it to everyone who comes in. So far she hasn’t found anybody missing a chocolate Lab.”

“Keep looking. He’s too gorgeous not to belong to somebody, somewhere.”

“Are we talking about Leo here or Sam Delgado?”

Apparently diversions could only take a woman so far when it came to her best friend, who knew her better than anyone else on earth. But even Claire didn’t know all her secrets.

“Ha, ha. He’s actually a widower. Believe me, I asked. His wife died of cancer a couple years ago.”

“Oh, the poor man.”

“He was also an Army Ranger at one time, just like Dylan Caine. I guess he left the service after his wife’s diagnosis.”

“That’s admirable. Not many men would give up their career to take care of their ailing wife. So do you like him?”

Entirely too much. And the more she talked about him—and thought about him—the more she liked him. Annoyance with herself and frustration with the situation made her tone sharper than she intended.

“Last I checked, we’re not in junior high anymore. I’m past the stage of handing you notes about the cute boy in my social studies class.”

Claire blinked but her gaze quickly sharpened and Alex could have kicked herself. She might be sweet and kind, but Claire was no idiot. If Alex acted touchy and hypersensitive about just the mention of Sam Delgado, Claire would quickly surmise there was more simmering between them than casual friendship.

She hurried to make amends. “Sorry. That was mean. I miss being in junior high with you.”

“Life certainly seems easier when a girl is twelve.”

In some respects, not all. Claire’s father had been murdered in a torrid love triangle when they were young, and even then her own father had had one foot out the door, though they had all been too blind to see it.

On impulse, she reached out and hugged Claire, pregnant belly, gardening gloves and all. She dearly loved all four of her actual sisters but Claire was her BFF. In their case, the forever really meant something.

“Sam is a nice guy but that’s all. He’s building my kitchen and I’m not going to do anything to screw that up.”

Claire pressed her cheek to hers. “Like break his heart, you mean?”

Or let him sneak close enough to break hers.

“Something like that.”

After a moment, she eased away. “I really do need to go. Sorry I can’t stay, but my shift is starting soon and I left a horrendous mess in my kitchen at home. Leo, come on. You and Chester can hang another time.”

She shepherded the dog into the backseat again, hugged Claire one last time, blew a kiss to Owen—busy now, untangling fishing line in the driveway—then drove away.

This was the important part of her life, she thought as she headed toward Currant Creek Valley. Her family, her friends, the people she cared about in town. She was perfectly happy with her life and didn’t need anything else—especially not a man with serious dark eyes and a mouth that tasted like heaven.