It’s a long way from New York to Idaho...but could they have found a home at last?

Dani Capelli has never truly belonged anywhere. And from her earliest days as a foster child in Queens, she would have been lost if it weren’t for her love of animals. Until high school, when she fell hard for the wrong boy, and found herself pregnant—and married—by graduation. Two daughters later, Dani realized her mistake and filed for divorce, and with the help of scholarships and loans—and a lot of macaroni and cheese dinners—she enrolled in vet school. Things were finally looking up...until her ex-husband became her late husband, in the most notorious way possible.

Now Dani and her daughters need an out-of-town pass more than ever. So when the retiring Haven Point veterinarian offers her a chance to settle in the small Idaho town and take over his practice, she jumps at it. But adjusting to the charming mountain community isn’t easy; thirteen-year-old Silver begins acting out while six-year-old Mia is growing too attached to Haven Point and everything in it, especially their next-door-neighbor, Deputy Sheriff Ruben Morales. And Dani can’t blame her. Ruben is everything she’s secretly wanted—and everything she can’t bear to risk loving...and losing.

As the holidays draw near, their shared concern for Dani’s daughters brings them closer together, giving Ruben the chance to show this big-city woman just how magical Christmas in Haven Point can be...and that the promise of a home at last is very real in the most wondrous season of the year...

Also By RaeAnne Thayne

Haven Point

The Cottages on Silver Beach

Sugar Pine Trail

Serenity Harbor

Snowfall on Haven Point

Riverbend Road

Evergreen Springs

Redemption Bay

Snow Angel Cove

Hope’s Crossing

Wild Iris Ridge

Christmas in Snowflake Canyon

Willowleaf Lane

Currant Creek Valley

Sweet Laurel Falls

Woodrose Mountain

Blackberry Summer

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk

Season of Wonder

RaeAnne Thayne

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-08582-3

SEASON OF WONDER

© 2018 RaeAnne Thayne

Published in Great Britain 2018

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

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www.millsandboon.co.uk

Praise for New York Times bestselling author RaeAnne Thayne

“[Thayne] engages the reader’s heart and emotions, inspiring hope and the belief that miracles are possible.”

—#1 New York Times bestselling author Debbie Macomber

“Entertaining, heart-wrenching, and totally involving, this multithreaded story overflows with characters readers will adore.”

—Library Journal on Evergreen Springs (starred review)

“RaeAnne Thayne is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors.... Once you start reading, you aren’t going to be able to stop.”

—Fresh Fiction

“Thayne’s realistic characterization grounds the hope of falling in love with the trials and tribulations that so often come with it.”

—BookPage on Serenity Harbor

“RaeAnne has a knack for capturing those emotions that come from the heart.”

—RT Book Reviews

“Her engaging storytelling...will draw readers in from the very first page.”

—RT Book Reviews on Riverbend Road

“Tiny Haven Point springs to vivid life in Thayne’s capable hands as she spins another sweet, heartfelt story.”

—Library Journal on Redemption Bay

To Carly, for all the laughs, walks and joy. You are deeply loved!

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Praise

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Epilogue

Extract

About the Publisher

1

“This is totally lame. Why do we have to stay here and wait for you? We can walk home in, like, ten minutes.”

Daniela Capelli drew in a deep breath and prayed for patience, something she seemed to be doing with increasing frequency these days when it came to her thirteen-year-old daughter. “It’s starting to snow and already almost dark.”

Silver rolled her eyes, something she did with increasing frequency these days. “So what? A little snow won’t kill us. I would hardly even call that snow. We had way bigger storms than this back in Boston. Remember that big blizzard a few years ago, when school was closed for, like, a week?”

“I remember,” her younger daughter, Mia, said, looking up from her coloring book at Dani’s desk at the Haven Point Veterinary Clinic. “I stayed home from preschool and I watched Anna and Elsa a thousand times, until you said your eardrums would explode if I played it one more time.”

Dani could hear a bark from the front office that likely signaled the arrival of her next client and knew she didn’t have time to stand here arguing with an obstinate teenager.

“Mia can’t walk as fast as you can. You’ll end up frustrated with her and you’ll both be freezing before you make it home,” she pointed out.

“So she can stay here and wait for you while I walk home. I just told Chelsea we could FaceTime about the new dress she bought for the Christmas dance there and she can only do it for another hour before her dad comes to pick her up for his visitation.”

“Why can’t you FaceTime here? I only have two more patients to see. I’ll be done in less than an hour, then we can all go home together. You can hang out in the waiting room with Mia, where the Wi-Fi signal is better.”

Silver gave a huge put-upon sigh but picked up her backpack and stalked out of Dani’s office toward the waiting room.

“Can I turn on the TV out there?” Mia asked as she gathered her papers and crayons. “I like the dog shows.”

The veterinary clinic showed calming clips of animals on a big flat-screen TV set low to the ground for their clientele.

“After Silver’s done with her phone call, okay?”

“She’ll take forever,” Mia predicted with a gloomy look. “She always does when she’s talking to Chelsea.”

Dani fought to hide a smile. “Thanks for your patience, sweetie, with her and with me. Finish your math worksheet while you’re here, then when we get home, you can watch what you want.”

Both the Haven Point elementary and middle schools were within walking distance of the clinic and it had become a habit for Silver to walk to the elementary school and then walk with Mia here to the clinic to spend a few hours until they could all go home together.

Of late, Silver had started to complain that she didn’t want to pick her sister up at the elementary school every day, that she would rather they both just took their respective school buses home, where Silver could watch her sister without having to hang out at the boring veterinary clinic.

But then, Silver complained about nearly everything these days.

It was probably a good idea, but Dani wasn’t quite ready to pull the trigger on having the girls alone every day after school. Maybe they would try it out after Christmas vacation.

This working professional/single mother gig was hard, she thought as she ushered Mia to the waiting room. Then again, in most ways it was much easier than the veterinary student/single mother gig had been.

When they entered the comfortable waiting room—with its bright colors, pet-friendly benches and big fish tank—Mia faltered for a moment, then sidestepped behind Dani’s back.

She saw instantly what had caused her daughter’s nervous reaction. Funny. Dani felt the same way. She wanted to hide behind somebody, too.

The receptionist had given her the files with the dogs’ names that were coming in for a checkup but hadn’t mentioned their human was Ruben Morales. Her gorgeous next-door neighbor.

Dani’s palms instantly itched and her stomach felt as if she’d accidentally swallowed a flock of butterflies.

“Deputy Morales,” she said, then paused, hating the slightly breathless note in her voice.

What was it about the man that always made her so freaking nervous?

He was big, yes, at least six feet tall, with wide shoulders, tough muscles and a firm, don’t-mess-with-me jawline.

It wasn’t just that. Even without his uniform, the man exuded authority and power, which instantly raised her hackles and left her uneasy, something she found both frustrating and annoying about herself.

No matter how far she had come, how hard she had worked to make a life for her and her girls, she still sometimes felt like the troublesome foster kid from Queens, always on the defensive.

She had done her best to avoid him in the months they had been in Haven Point, but that was next to impossible when they lived so close to each other—and when she was the intern in his father’s veterinary practice, with the hope that she might be able to purchase it at the end of the year.

“Hey, Doc,” he said, flashing her an easy smile she didn’t trust for a moment. It never quite reached his dark, long-lashed eyes, at least where she was concerned.

While she might be uncomfortable around Ruben Morales, his dogs were another story.

He held the leashes of both of them, a big, muscular Belgian shepherd and an incongruously paired little Chi-poo and she reached down to pet both of them. They sniffed her and wagged happily, the big dog’s tail nearly knocking over his small friend.

That was the thing she loved most about dogs. They were uncomplicated and generous with their affection, for the most part. They never looked at people with that subtle hint of suspicion, as if trying to uncover all their secrets.

“I wasn’t expecting you,” she admitted.

“Oh? I made an appointment. The boys both need checkups. Yukon needs his regular hip and eye check and Ollie is due for his shots.”

She gave the dogs one more pat before she straightened and faced him, hoping his sharp cop eyes couldn’t notice evidence of her accelerated pulse.

“Your father is still here every Monday and Friday afternoons. Maybe you should reschedule with him,” she suggested. It was a faint hope, but a girl had to try.

“Why would I do that?”

“Maybe because he’s your father and knows your dogs?”

“Dad is an excellent veterinarian. Agreed. But he’s also semiretired and wants to be fully retired this time next year. As long as you plan to stick around in Haven Point, we will have to switch vets and start seeing you eventually. I figured we might as well start now.”

He was checking her out. Not her her, but her skills as a veterinarian.

The implication was clear. She had been here three months, and it had become obvious during that time in their few interactions that Ruben Morales was extremely protective of his family. He had been polite enough when they had met previously, but always with a certain guardedness, as if he was afraid she planned to take the good name his hardworking father had built up over the years for the Haven Point Veterinary Clinic and drag it through the sludge at the bottom of Lake Haven.

Dani pushed away her instinctive prickly defensiveness, bred out of all those years in foster care when she felt as if she had no one else to count on—compounded by the difficult years after she’d married Tommy and had Silver, when she really had no one else in her corner.

She couldn’t afford to offend Ruben. She didn’t need his protective wariness to turn into full-on suspicion. With a little digging, Ruben could uncover things about her and her past that would ruin everything for her and her girls here.

She forced a professional smile. “It doesn’t matter. Let’s go back to a room and take a look at these guys. Girls, I’ll be done shortly. Silver, keep an eye on your sister.”

Her oldest nodded without looking up from her phone and with an inward sigh, Dani led the way to the largest of the exam rooms.

She stood at the door as he entered the room with the two dogs, then joined him inside and closed the door behind her.

The large room seemed to shrink unnaturally and she paused inside for a moment, flustered and wishing she could escape. Dani gave herself a mental shake. She was a doctor of veterinary medicine, not a teenage girl. She could handle being in the same room with the one man in Haven Point who left her breathless and unsteady.

All she had to do was focus on the reason he was here in the first place. His dogs.

She knelt to their level. “Hey there, guys. Who wants to go first?”

The Malinois—often confused for a German shepherd but smaller and with a shorter coat—wagged his tail again while his smaller counterpoint sniffed around her shoes, probably picking up the scents of all the other dogs she had seen that day.

“Ollie, I guess you’re the winner today.”

He yipped, his big ears that stuck straight out from his face quivering with excitement.

He was the funniest looking dog, quirky and unique, with wisps of fur in odd places, spindly legs and a narrow Chihuahua face. She found him unbearably cute. With that face, she wouldn’t ever be able to say no to him if he were hers.

“Can I give him a treat?” She always tried to ask permission first from her clients’ humans.

“Only if you want him to be your best friend for life,” Ruben said.

Despite her nerves, his deadpan voice sparked a smile, which widened when she gave the little dog one of the treats she always carried in the pocket of her lab coat and he slurped it up in one bite, then sat with a resigned sort of patience during the examination.

She was aware of Ruben watching her as she carefully examined the dog, but Dani did her best not to let his scrutiny fluster her.

She knew what she was doing, she reminded herself. She had worked so hard to be here, sacrificing all her time, energy and resources of the last decade to nothing else but her girls and her studies.

“Everything looks good,” she said after checking out the dog and finding nothing unusual. “He seems like a healthy little guy. It says here he’s about six or seven. So you haven’t had him from birth?”

“No. Only about two years. He was a stray I picked up off the side of the road between here and Shelter Springs when I was on patrol one day. He was in a bad way, half-starved, fur matted. I think he’d been on his own for a while. As small as he is, it’s a wonder he wasn’t picked off by a coyote or even one of the bigger hawks. He just needed a little TLC.”

“You couldn’t find his owner?”

“We ran ads and Dad checked with all his contacts at shelters and veterinary clinics from here to Boise, with no luck. I had been fostering him while we looked, and to be honest, I kind of lost my heart to the little guy and by then Yukon adored him so we decided to keep him.”

She was such a sucker for animal lovers, especially those who rescued the vulnerable and lost ones.

And, no. She didn’t need counseling to point out the parallels to her own life.

Regardless, she couldn’t let herself be drawn to Ruben and risk doing something foolish. She had too much to lose here in Haven Point.

“What about Yukon here?” She knelt down to examine the bigger dog. Though he wasn’t huge and Ruben could probably lift him easily to the table, she decided it was easier to kneel to his level. In her experience, sometimes bigger dogs didn’t like to be lifted and she wasn’t sure if the beautiful Malinois fell into that category.

Ruben shrugged as he scooped Ollie onto his lap to keep the little Chi-poo from swooping in and stealing the treat she held out for the bigger dog. “You could say he was a rescue, too.”

“Oh?”

“He was a K-9 officer down in Mountain Home. After his handler was killed in the line of duty, I guess he kind of went into a canine version of depression and wouldn’t work with anyone else. I know that probably sounds crazy.”

She scratched the dog’s ears, touched by the bond that could build between handler and dog. “Not at all,” she said briskly. “I’ve seen many dogs go into decline when their owner dies. It’s not uncommon.”

“For a year or so, they tried to match him up with other officers, but things never quite gelled, for one reason or another, then his eyes started going. His previous handler who died was a good buddy of mine from the academy and I couldn’t let him go just anywhere.”

“Retired police dogs don’t always do well in civilian life. They can be aggressive with other dogs and sometimes people. Have you had any problems with that?”

“Not with Yukon. He’s friendly. Aren’t you, buddy? You’re a good boy.”

Dani could swear the dog grinned at his owner, his tongue lolling out.

Yukon was patient while she looked him over, especially as she maintained a steady supply of treats.

When she finished, she gave the dog a pat and stood. “Can I take a look at Ollie’s ears one more time?”

“Sure. Help yourself.”

He held the dog out and she reached for Ollie. As she did, the dog wriggled a little and Dani’s hands ended up brushing Ruben’s chest. She froze at the accidental contact, a shiver rippling down her spine. She pinned her reaction on the undeniable fact that it had been entirely too long since she had touched a man, even accidentally.

She had to cut out this fascination or whatever it was immediately. Clean-cut, muscular cops were not her type, and the sooner she remembered that the better.

She focused on checking the ears of the little dog, gave him one more scratch and handed him back to Ruben. “That should do it. A clean bill of health. They seem to be two happy, well-adjusted dogs. You obviously take good care of them.”

He patted both dogs with an affectionate smile that did nothing to ease her nerves.

“My dad taught me well. I spent most of my youth helping out here at the clinic—cleaning cages, brushing coats, walking the occasional overnight boarder. Whatever grunt work he needed. He made all of us help.”

“I can think of worse ways to earn a dime,” she said.

The chance to work with animals would have been a dream opportunity for her, back when she had few bright spots in her world. Besides that, she considered his father one of the sweetest people she had ever met.

“So can I. I always loved animals.”

She had to wonder why he didn’t follow in his father’s footsteps and become a vet. None of his three siblings had made that choice, either. If any of them had, she probably wouldn’t be here right now, as Frank Morales probably would have handed down his thriving practice to his own progeny.

Not that it was any of her business. Ruben certainly could follow any career path he wanted—as long as that path took him far away from her.

“Give me a moment to grab those medications and I’ll be right back.”

“No rush.”

Out in the hall, she closed the door behind her and drew in a deep breath.

Get a grip, she chided herself. He’s just a hot-looking dude. Heaven knows, you’ve had more than enough experience with those to last a lifetime.

She went to the well-stocked medication dispensary, found what she needed and returned to the exam room.

Outside the door, she paused for only a moment to gather her composure before pushing it open. “Here are the pills for Ollie’s nerves and a refill for Yukon’s eye drops,” she said briskly. “Let me know if you have any questions—though if you do, you can certainly ask your father.”

“Thanks.” As he took the medication from her, his hands brushed hers again and sent a little spark of awareness shivering through her.

Oh, come on. This was ridiculous.

She was probably imagining the way his gaze sharpened, as if he had felt something odd, too.

“I can show you out. We’re shorthanded today since the veterinary tech and the receptionist both needed to leave early.”

“No problem. That’s what I get for scheduling the last appointment of the day—though, again, I spent most of my youth here. I think we can find our way.”

“It’s fine. I’ll show you out.” She stood outside the door while he gathered the dogs’ leashes, then led the way toward the front office.

After three months, Ruben still couldn’t get a bead on Dr. Daniela Capelli.

His next-door neighbor still seemed a complete enigma to him. By all reports from his father, she was a dedicated, earnest new veterinarian with a knack for solving difficult medical mysteries and a willingness to work hard. She seemed like a warm and loving mother, at least from the few times he had seen her interactions with her two girls, the uniquely named teenager Silver—who had, paradoxically, purple hair—and the sweet-as-Christmas-toffee Mia, who was probably about six.

He also couldn’t deny she was beautiful, with slender features, striking green eyes, dark, glossy hair and a dusky skin tone that proclaimed her Italian heritage—as if her name didn’t do the trick first.

He actually liked the trace of New York accent that slipped into her speech at times. It fit her somehow, in a way he couldn’t explain. Despite that, he couldn’t deny that the few times he had interacted with more than a wave in passing, she was brusque, prickly and sometimes downright distant.

He had certainly had easier neighbors.

His father adored her and wouldn’t listen to a negative thing about her.

She hasn’t had an easy time of things but she’s a fighter. Hardworking and eager to learn, Frank had said the other night when Ruben asked how things were working out, now that Dani and her girls had been in town a few months. You just have to get to know her.

Frank apparently didn’t see how diligently Dani Capelli worked to keep anyone else from doing just that.

She wasn’t unfriendly, only distant. She kept herself to herself. It was a phrase his mother might use, though Myra Morales seemed instantly fond of Dani and her girls.

Did Dani have any idea how fascinated the people of Haven Point were with these new arrivals in their midst?

Or maybe that was just him.

As he followed her down the hall in her white lab coat, his dogs behaving themselves for once, Ruben told himself to forget about his stupid attraction to her.

Sure, he might be ready to settle down and would like to have someone in his life, but he wasn’t at all sure if he had the time or energy for that someone to be a woman with so many secrets in her eyes, one who seemed to face the world with her chin up and her fists out, ready to take on any threats.

When they walked into the clinic waiting room, they found her two girls there. The older one was texting on her phone while her sister did somersaults around the room.

Dani stopped in the doorway and seemed to swallow an exasperated sound. “Mia, honey, you’re going to have dog hair all over you.”

“I’m a snowball rolling down the hill,” the girl said. “Can’t you see me getting bigger and bigger and bigger.”

“You’re such a dorkupine,” her sister said, barely looking up from her phone.

“I’m a dorkupine snowball,” Mia retorted.

“You’re a snowball who is going to be covered in dog hair,” Dani said. “Come on, honey. Get up.”

He could tell the moment the little girl spotted him and his dogs coming into the area behind her mother. She went still and then slowly rose to her feet, features shifting from gleeful to nervous.

Why was she so afraid of him?

“You make a very good snowball,” he said, pitching his voice low and calm as his father had taught him to do with all skittish creatures. “I haven’t seen anybody somersault that well in a long time.”

She moved to her mother’s side and buried her face in Dani’s white coat—though he didn’t miss the way she reached down to pet Ollie on her way.

“Hey again, Silver.”

He knew the older girl from the middle school, where he served as the resource officer a few hours a week. He made it a point to learn all the students’ names and tried to talk to them individually when he had the chance, in hopes that if they had a problem at home or knew of something potentially troublesome for the school, they would feel comfortable coming to him.

He had the impression that Silver was like her mother in many ways. Reserved, wary, slow to trust. It made him wonder just who had hurt them.

“How are things?” he asked her now.

For just an instant, he thought he saw sadness flicker in her gaze before she turned back to her phone with a shrug. “Fine, I guess.”

“Are you guys ready for Christmas? It’s your first one here in Idaho. A little different from New York, isn’t it?”

“How should we know? We haven’t lived in the city for, like, four years.”

Dani sent her daughter a look at her tone, which seemed to border on disrespectful. “I’ve been in vet school in Boston the last four years,” she explained.

“Boston. Then you’re used to snow and cold. We’re known for our beautiful winters around here. The lake is simply stunning in wintertime.”

Mia tugged on her mother’s coat and when Dani bent down, she whispered something to her.

“You can ask him,” Dani said calmly, gesturing to Ruben.

Mia shook her head and buried her face again and after a moment, Dani sighed. “She wonders if it’s possible to ice-skate on Lake Haven. We watched the most recent Olympics and she became a little obsessed.”

“You could say that,” Silver said. “She skated around the house in her stocking feet all day long for weeks. A dorkupine on ice.”

“You can’t skate on the lake, I’m afraid,” Ruben answered. “Because of the underground hot springs that feed into it at various points, Lake Haven rarely freezes, except sometimes along the edges, when it’s really cold. It’s not really safe for ice skating. But the city creates a skating rink on the tennis courts at Lake View Park every year. The volunteer fire department sprays it down for a few weeks once temperatures get really cold. I saw them out there the other night so it shouldn’t be long before it’s open. Maybe a few more weeks.”

Mia seemed to lose a little of her shyness at that prospect. She gave him a sideways look from under her mother’s arm and aimed a fleeting smile full of such sweetness that he was instantly smitten.

“There’s also a great place for sledding up behind the high school. You can’t miss that, either. Oh, and in a few weeks we have the Lights on the Lake Festival. You’ve heard about that, right?”

They all gave him matching blank stares, making him wonder what was wrong with the Haven Point Helping Hands that they hadn’t immediately dragged Dani into their circle. He would have to talk to Andie Bailey or his sister Angela about it. They always seemed to know what was going on in town.

“I think some kids at school were talking about that at lunch the other day,” Silver said. “They were sitting at the next table so I didn’t hear the whole thing, though.”

“Haven Point hosts an annual celebration a week or so before Christmas where all the local boat owners deck out their watercraft from here to Shelter Springs to welcome in the holidays and float between the two towns. There’s music, food and crafts for sale. It’s kind of a big deal around here. I’m surprised you haven’t heard about it.”

“I’m very busy, with the practice and the girls, Deputy Morales. I don’t have a lot of time for socializing.” Though Dani tried for a lofty look, he thought he caught a hint of vulnerability there.

She seemed...lonely. That didn’t make a lick of sense. The women in this town could be almost annoying in their efforts to include newcomers in community events. They didn’t give people much of an option, dragging them kicking and screaming into the social scene around town, like it or not.

“Well, now you know. You really can’t miss the festival. It’s great fun for the whole family.”

“Thank you for the information. It’s next week, you say?”

“That’s right. Not this weekend but the one after. The whole thing starts out with the boat parade on Saturday evening, around six.”

“We’ll put it on our social calendar.”

“What’s a social calendar?” Mia whispered to her sister, just loud enough for Ruben to hear.

“It’s a place where you keep track of all your invitations to parties and sleepovers and stuff.”

“Oh. Why do we need one of those?”

“Good question.”

Silver looked glum for just a moment but Dani hugged her, then faced Ruben with a polite, distant smile.

“Thank you for bringing in Ollie and Yukon. Have a good evening, Deputy Morales.”

It was a clear dismissal, one he couldn’t ignore. Ruben gathered his dogs’ leashes and headed for the door. “Thank you. See you around. And by around, I mean next door. We kind of can’t miss each other.”

As he hoped, this made Mia smile a little. Even Silver’s dour expression eased into what almost looked like a smile.

As he loaded the dogs into the king cab of his pickup truck, Ruben could see Dani turning off lights and straightening up the clinic.

What was her story? Why had she chosen to come straight from vet school in Boston to set up shop all the way across the country in a small Idaho town?

He loved his hometown, sure, and fully acknowledged it was a beautiful place to live. It still seemed a jarring cultural and geographic shift from living back east to this little town where the biggest news of the month was a rather corny light parade that people froze their asses off to watch.

And why did he get the impression the family wasn’t socializing much? One of the reasons most people he knew moved to small towns was a yearning for the kind of connectedness and community a place like Haven Point had in spades. What was the point in moving to a small town if you were going to keep yourself separate from everybody?

He thought he had seen them at a few things when they first came to Haven Point but since then, Dani seemed to be keeping her little family mostly to themselves. That must be by choice. It was the only explanation that made sense. He couldn’t imagine McKenzie Kilpatrick or Andie Bailey or any of the other Helping Hands excluding her on purpose.

What was she so nervous about?

He added another facet to the enigma of his next-door neighbor. He had hoped that he might be able to get a better perspective of her by bringing the dogs in to her for their routine exams. While he had confirmed his father’s belief that she appeared to be an excellent veterinarian, he now had more questions about the woman and her daughters to add to his growing list.

2

After a long, difficult day, following a long, difficult week, all Dani wanted was to pop a batch of popcorn, sit on the sofa and watch something light and cheery with her girls for a few hours. As she stood at the kitchen sink of their three-bedroom cottage drying the last of the dishes Silver had washed after school, she thought that what she would really like was a long soak in the tub. By the time her daughters were in bed most nights, she didn’t have enough energy left to even run water in the tub.

The kitchen was small enough that cleaning it never took long. The house Frank Morales had provided as part of her internship compensation wasn’t big but it was comfortable, with three bedrooms, a living room and a lovely glass-enclosed family room facing the lake, which had become their favorite spot.

Someday she’d like to have a little bigger house, maybe with an actual dining room, but that would have to wait awhile. She had thousands of dollars in student loans to pay back first. Meantime, this house worked well for their needs.

Her life could have been easier. Occasionally, she tormented herself by playing the old what-if game, wondering how things might have been different for her and her daughters if she had been able to ignore her conscience and taken money from Tommy.

If she had accepted the ill-gotten gains her late ex-husband had tried to give for child support, she might have been able to start her professional life as a veterinarian with a clean slate, even with a little nest egg, instead of feeling swallowed by debt. But she would have had to sell her soul in return and she wasn’t willing to do that.

Yes, she was tired of the constant scrimping and saving and striving, but at least when she finally made her way to bed each night, she could close her eyes with a clear conscience.

Mostly clear, anyway.

She set the dish towel over the oven handle to dry and made her way to the family room. Silver was, as usual, on her phone while Mia was doing more somersaults, this time on the carpet, while their ancient little mutt Winky watched from her favorite spot on the floor, blocking the heater vent.

“Movie night!” Dani said cheerfully. “Who’s ready? I’ll make the popcorn. You two just need to pick a show.”

“Yay! Movie night. My favorite!” Mia grinned from the floor.

“I think we should watch a Christmas movie. What do you say? Elf, Grinch, Arthur Christmas or something off the Hallmark Channel.”

The previous Christmas, during Dani’s rare moments off from school, they had binge-watched movies on the Hallmark Channel. Dani had felt a little world-weary to truly appreciate the sweet happy endings but Silver had adored them.

It had been several months since Silver had been interested in anything sweet. Right around the time she’d dyed her hair and started begging for the tattoo Dani would not let her get until she was eighteen.

“Elf,” Mia declared without hesitation.

“Okay. One vote for Elf. What do you think, Sil?”

“I think you’re going to have to watch without me.” Her daughter rose from the sofa with the long-legged grace she had inherited from her father. “I’ve got to go. Some friends just texted me and they want to hang out.”

Dani felt her temper flare at Silver’s matter-of-fact tone but worked to keep it contained. “Are you asking me or telling me?”

Silver’s jaw worked. “Asking, I guess. Can I go hang out with my friends?”

At thirteen, she seemed to think she didn’t need permission these days for much of anything. Dani had a completely different perspective on the situation.

“Which friends? And what did they want to do?”

“Just friends from school,” Silver said, impatience threading through her voice. “Why do you have to know every single detail about my life?”

“Because I’m your parent and responsible for you. I’m not asking for every detail but I have to know where you’re going and who you will be with. Those are the house rules, kid. You know that.”

Silver didn’t appear to appreciate the reminder. “I thought you might lighten up a little once we moved to the middle of freaking nowhere. Instead, you’re worse than ever.”

Oh, Dani so did not want to deal with this tonight. Not after the day she’d had. “You’re going to want to watch your tone and your attitude, miss, unless you would prefer to spend the night in your room instead of with any friends.”

Her daughter glared for a moment and then, with her quicksilver moods lately, her expression shifted to one of resignation. “Fine. I’m going over to Jenny Turner’s house. She’s in my biology class. She was going to call some other friends so we could watch the latest Marvel movie that just came out. Is that okay with you?”

Dani knew Jenny and her parents. They lived just one street over and her family had two beautiful Irish setters who appeared well mannered and well loved.

“Will her parents be there?”

“Her dad is on a work trip but her mom will be home, she said.”

She wanted to say no. Dani had been looking forward to spending a little time together with her daughters. The girls didn’t have school the next day because of a teacher training thing and Silver could hang out all day with friends if she wanted while the babysitter was there with Mia.

But Silver had struggled to fit in socially and find good friends since they moved to Haven Point and Dani didn’t want to discourage any progress in that area.

“That’s fine, then. Do you want me to give you a ride?”

“No. I’ll walk. It’s just through the block. Can I stay until eleven?”

“Yes, since you don’t have school tomorrow. Text me when you’re done and I’ll pick you up. It doesn’t matter how close she lives, I don’t want you walking around town so late.”

“It’s like a block away, Mom. And, again, we’re in the middle of freaking nowhere, Idaho. Walking is good for me.”

She sighed, choosing to pick her battles. “Watch for cars.”

On impulse, Dani hugged her daughter, fighting the urge to wrap her arms around her and not let go. After a moment, Silver hugged her back but quickly pulled away and hurried out the door.

Dani watched after her, trying to ignore the niggle of worry.

How did parents survive these teenage years? She constantly felt like a raw bundle of nerves, always afraid she was going to say the wrong thing and set off an emotional meltdown.

She watched until Silver walked around the corner, then turned back to Mia.

“Guess it’s just you and me, pumpkin. I’ll make the popcorn. You pick the movie.”

“Elf,” Mia said without hesitation, which was just fine with Dani.

She was pouring kernels in the air popper when Mia came into the kitchen holding the Blu-ray.

“I found it.”

“Good job. Why don’t you grab some ice water so you don’t have to leave in the middle of the show if you need a drink? Your glass with the elephants on it is still at the table from dinner.”

Mia took her water glass and filled it from the refrigerator ice maker.

“Mama,” she said, features pensive, after the rattling ice stopped, “why doesn’t Silver like us anymore?”

Dani’s heart cracked apart a little at the sadness in her six-year-old’s voice, mostly because deep inside, she felt as bewildered and abandoned.

“She does, honey. She’s just a teenager living in a strange town and trying to make friends. It hasn’t been very easy for her.”

“I think I liked the old Silver better.”

Dani didn’t want to tell her daughter that she did, too.

After she finished adding toppings to the bowl of popcorn, she and Mia settled onto the couch. With Mia snuggled against her, Dani felt some of the tension leave her, but she couldn’t shake her worry about Silver. She wanted so desperately for her daughter to find good friends who were also decent human beings.

The movie was familiar enough that her mind began to wander. Not for the first time, she wondered if she had made a huge mistake by bringing her daughters to Haven Point.

It had seemed the perfect opportunity. She and Frank Morales had struck up an instant friendship her second year of veterinary school when she’d stayed after a seminar he presented at a conference to ask him some questions.

That initial meeting had developed into a semiregular correspondence. She had a feeling Frank had looked on her as a mentee of sorts. He had been unfailingly patient and kind with her questions about various aspects of veterinary medicine and what went into running a successful practice.

A month before her graduation, Frank had called her with a proposition. He was looking for another doctor to take some of the load at his veterinary clinic. If she liked it here in Haven Point after her year’s internship was up, he wanted her to take over the practice.

It was an offer she couldn’t refuse, beneficial to her professionally while being perfect for her little family on a personal level.

This was everything she used to dream about, the chance to raise her girls in a safe place surrounded by nice people who cared about each other. Here, people didn’t know about Tommy, about his disastrous choices.

Of course, when she’d accepted the internship and moved here, she couldn’t have known about the tragic sequence of events to come later, the horror story that unfolded across the country mere weeks after she came to town.

She felt the beginnings of panic again, just thinking about what would happen if news of Tommy’s final moments were to filter through to everyone.

Frank knew, of course. She had to tell him. While he had been kind and understanding, she couldn’t imagine the other people in town would accept the truth so easily.

Coming to Haven Point had sounded great in theory but the reality of making a life here was harder than she had imagined. The truth was, she didn’t know how to socialize casually, which was a ridiculous thing for a thirty-year-old woman with a doctorate degree to admit.

She had married Tommy when she was seventeen. The years since, she’d been so focused on her girls, on school, on work and on simply surviving that she had gotten out of practice when it came to making and keeping friendships.

She didn’t know how to relate to these people who were so darn nice all the time, and her awkwardness in the beginning had made her leery about accepting new invitations. Then Tommy had become a household name in the worst possible way. Dani knew she couldn’t socialize now. She kept finding new excuses not to attend book club meetings or the Haven Point Helping Hands’ regular luncheons and after a few months, the invitations had tapered off.

Her girls were struggling, too. Silver had all this attitude all the time, some of that from grief and shame over her father, Dani was certain. Even Mia, who hadn’t even known Tommy, had become painfully shy in public, though she was her usual warm, sweet self at home.

Dani had to fix this or they could never make their home here, but she didn’t know the first place to start.

“Mama, you’re not watching the movie,” Mia chided her.

“I’m sorry.” She forced a smile and reached for some popcorn. “I’ll watch now.”

She couldn’t do anything at this moment but worry, so she vowed to put it aside for now and focus on something light and silly and fun.

And then maybe take that hour-long soak in the tub after Silver was home and her girls were both safely tucked in bed.

For about the twentieth time in the last fifteen minutes, Yukon went to the back door and peered through the glass toward the backyard and the lake at the edge of it.

Retired police dogs were a lot like retired police officers, in Ruben’s experience. They sometimes had a difficult time remembering they weren’t on the job anymore.

“Easy, buddy. What’s going on?” Ruben scratched the dog’s neck in an attempt to calm him but the dog still seemed to want to alert him to something out in the back.

Yukon pulled away and went to the door whining, his attention focused on something near the boathouse, something Ruben couldn’t see. He could only hope it wasn’t a skunk. He hadn’t seen one around here in some time, but one never knew up here. It could also be a black bear or a mountain lion.

Yukon whined again and nudged at the door and Ruben finally rose from the sofa and slipped his feet into the boots he kept by the back door. If the dog needed to go out, Ruben had to let him but he couldn’t send him out alone if there might be a potential threat out there.

He pulled on his jacket and grabbed the dog’s leash. Ollie trotted over, always ready for some fun, and Ruben had to shake his head at the little dog. “Not you. You’ve got to stay inside and watch the house while we do a little recon.”

Ollie gave what sounded like a resigned sigh and plopped down on the rug to watch as Ruben clipped the leash on Yukon.

“All right, bud. Let’s go see what’s happening.”

The night was cold, mostly clear, with only a few random clouds passing in front of the big moon that hovered just above the mountains. It was the kind of December night meant to be spent by the fire with a special someone.

Too bad he didn’t have a special someone.

It had been almost a year since he had dated anyone remotely seriously, and that had been with a teacher in Shelter Springs.

He had met Lindsey while giving a self-defense class organized by Wynona Emmett, sister to his boss and close friend, Marshall Bailey. She had been sweet and warm and kind, but she also had been still in love with her ex-husband, something it had taken both of them six months of dating to fully acknowledge.

Ruben sighed. He missed Lindsey but he really missed hanging out with her kids, two cute little boys just a little older than Dani Capelli’s youngest girl.

He supposed that spoke volumes about their relationship. His heart hadn’t been committed yet, but he had definitely seen things moving in that direction eventually.

At least they hadn’t gotten far enough for the situation to turn ugly, like it did for his brother Mateo, who was in the middle of a nasty court battle for visitation with the stepson he had raised from a baby.

Next time he decided to let his heart get involved, Ruben had vowed it would be with a woman who didn’t have children. The only trouble with that philosophy was that he was getting older and so were the women who interested him. He had outgrown his attraction to dewy, fresh-eyed coeds when he was in his twenties. He liked a woman who had been around the block a time or two and had the wisdom and experience to prove it.

Someone like Daniela Capelli, for instance.

He glanced next door, toward her house. The lights were on and he thought he saw someone moving around inside.

He hadn’t been able to stop thinking about the woman since he’d left the veterinary clinic earlier in the week. He was no closer to solving the mystery of her, though.

Too bad she had kids—a younger one who seemed afraid of him and an older one who treated him like he had a bad case of head lice every time she saw him.

Yukon whined and pulled in the direction of the boathouse again, which was really just a covered concrete slab where he kept his shiny new cabin cruiser, aptly named The Wonder.

Ruben could swear he heard whispers drifting to him on the wind. Was someone there?

Suddenly Yukon’s whine turned to a bark and the whispers turned to shouts. Someone yelled, “Run,” at the same moment the dog lunged away from Ruben and the leash slipped out of his hand.

He reached for it, but Yukon moved with single-minded speed toward the boathouse, barking away.

Surprised at the unusual behavior from his normally obedient dog, Ruben raced after him. He ordered the dog in Dutch—the language he was trained in—to stay. After only a moment’s hesitation, Yukon reluctantly obeyed, too well trained to do otherwise.

“Good boy.”

Ruben could hear rustling in the bushes around the boathouse as he drew closer.

“Whoever you are,” he called out, “you’re going to want to not move. My dog is trained to attack on command. I just have to say the word.”

He heard a small sound of distress and aimed his flashlight in the direction of the dog, who had alerted onto a shape crouched close to the ground. The dog wasn’t growling. In fact, his tail might even have been wagging, though it was too dark to be sure.

“I should also tell you, I’m a deputy sheriff and I’m armed.”

He didn’t add that he was armed with only a flashlight and can of bear spray. The intruder didn’t need that much information.

“Don’t shoot me. Please don’t shoot me.” The voice was high-pitched and sounded terrified. Either it was only a kid or Ruben and Yukon had scared the cojones off somebody.

“Come on out from there. I won’t hurt you. Neither will Yukon, as long as you don’t make any sudden movements.”

“Can you take his leash? Just in case?”

The voice struck a chord. He’d heard it before, and not that long ago. He tried to place it as he stepped forward to grab Yukon’s leash, speaking in Dutch again to order the dog to stay.

“I have the leash but that probably won’t help you. I was holding it earlier but he got away from me when he caught your scent.”

He sensed the dog wasn’t being predatory, he only wanted to play, but the intruder couldn’t know that.

“Come on out.”

After a long moment, the trespasser slowly rose from the ground, appearing ready to bolt at any moment. Ruben moved into position to block any escape route, and aimed his flashlight at the figure, clothed in a dark coat with the hood up.

Shock rippled through him. “Silver? Silver Capelli? What are you doing here?”

Of all the miscreants in town who might have it out for him—and it was impossible to avoid making a few enemies here and there in his line of work—he never would have pinpointed Dani’s older daughter as someone who might trespass on his property.

“Um. Just taking a walk. That’s all. I just wanted to, uh, see the water, then your dog scared me and I freaked. I’ll, uh, just be going now.”

Did she really think he was that stupid? Her house was next to his. If she wanted to see the water, she only had to walk into her own backyard, not scale the fence to come into his.

“Hold on a second.”

His flashlight gleamed on something metallic in the grass. He nudged it with his foot and saw it was a spray can. With a sinking suspicion, he turned the flashlight onto his new boat. Across the hull in glaring red letters he saw “Fascist Pi” written in two-foot-tall letters.

Either she had a thing against math equations or she hadn’t had time to finish writing an inflammatory slur against police officers.

“Wow. Nice artwork.”

“It was like that when I got here. I didn’t see who did it.”

He shined the flashlight on her. Again, did he look that stupid? “I can see the spray paint residue on your finger. I believe that’s the very definition of red-handed.”

She hid her hand behind her back, as if she were five years old and had been caught playing in her mom’s makeup.

As he took a step closer, she stepped back, though she lifted her chin. Whether that was instinct or courage, he didn’t know. One part of him had to admire her grit, even as he acknowledged that, ridiculously, his feelings were hurt.

What had he done to earn this kind of vitriol? He had tried to be nice to Silver since she and her family moved to Haven Point. He had talked to her a few times when he was making visits to the school and had even cracked a joke or two with her and her friends.

“I have two questions,” he said as he flipped on the lights of the boathouse so he could get a better look at her handiwork. “The obvious one is why.”

“What’s the other question?”

“Answer the first one, then I’ll ask the second.”

She didn’t meet his gaze. She still looked scared but he thought some of her abject terror seemed to be fading. She even reached down to pet Yukon, then faced him with an expression of defiance mingled with a shadow of guilt.

“I don’t know,” she finally said. “I guess it seemed like a good idea at the time.”

It wasn’t an uncommon excuse from kids who didn’t always think through the consequences of their actions, who considered themselves invincible and were only interested in the thrill of the moment.

He had never personally been able to figure out the thrill of defiling someone else’s property. Vandalism as a way to pass the time always annoyed the hell out of him.

“It wasn’t. Obviously. It was a very, very bad idea. You see that now, right?”

She shrugged and looked down again without answering. When it became clear she wasn’t going to respond, Ruben frowned.

“Second question. Who else did this with you?”

“Nobody,” she said quickly. Too quickly.

He had heard other voices, had definitely heard that “run” command ring out across the backyard.

“You’re in enough trouble, Silver. Don’t compound it by lying to me. We both know that’s not true. Who was here with you?”

She lifted her chin again and in the pale light, he saw defiance in her eyes. “Nobody. Only me.”

“Why are you standing up for them? They were only too quick to leave you here to face the consequences—and Yukon—by yourself.”

“You don’t know anything,” she snapped.

“I know that was a pretty rotten thing to do, letting you take the rap when you weren’t the only one involved. Was this whole vandalism thing even your idea?”

She didn’t respond, which he had a feeling was answer enough.

“What’s going to happen to me?” she finally asked. “Are you going to arrest me?”

“That depends. Is my boat the only thing you’ve tagged tonight?”

She looked down at Yukon, as if hoping the dog could help her figure out how to answer.

“Silver?” he pressed.

“No,” she finally said, her voice low. “You’re going to find out anyway. I might as well tell you. We... I did two other things. A shed down the street where the mean old guy who always yells at kids lives, and Mrs. Grimes’s garage door.”

Gertrude Grimes taught English at the middle school and had been a cranky old crone back in the day when he went there. The intervening years hadn’t improved her demeanor much.

“Are you going to arrest me?” she asked again. Her voice sounded scared and upset and, again, he caught that trace of guilt on her features.

He had the feeling Silver was having a hard time adjusting to life in Haven Point. Was this simply an outward sign of that, or was there more to it?

Technically they were within the town limits, which made this a case for Cade Emmett, the police chief of Haven Point. He could call for an officer and they would take Silver to the police station. She could be charged with criminal mischief and channeled into the juvenile justice system.

Sometimes that was absolutely the best course of action for a wayward teen, a firm and unmistakable wake-up call, but he wasn’t sure Silver’s actions justified that.

“First you’re going to show me everywhere you hit tonight. With luck, we can talk to the owners and persuade them not to press charges as long as you promise to clean up after yourself. Then we need to go talk to your mother.”

She opened her mouth as if to argue then closed it again, as if finally realizing just how much trouble she had created for herself.

“I’d rather you just arrest me than take me home,” she said glumly. “My mom’s going to freak.”

“Either way, she’s going to find out, Silver. Trust me, you’re going to want to pick door number two, the one that doesn’t include a trip to juvie.”

3

As Dani might have predicted, Mia fell asleep about halfway through the movie. Her youngest rarely made it all the way through a show. She would settle in, fully intending to persevere through the whole thing, but every time she curled up and drifted off.

Silver, on the other hand, couldn’t bear not seeing things through to the end. If she started a movie, she would do whatever necessary to stay awake until the closing credits rolled past.

The girls had plenty of other differences. Mia loved dressing up, trying on Dani’s few nice cocktail dresses and high heels, playing with dolls, drawing her own paper dolls and cutting them out. Silver had never done any of those things. When she was Mia’s age, she loved soccer and hockey and watching the Red Sox, though at heart she was a die-hard Mets fan, even at six.

Despite their different personalities, Dani worried about her girls exactly the same.

As she sat in the darkened family room with her sleeping daughter on one side and their aging mutt on the other, Dani’s thoughts circled back to her worries that she had made a grave mistake in moving to Haven Point.

All through those long, difficult years working on her undergraduate degree, then the even harder work to her doctorate, she had dreamed of raising the girls in a place just like this, somewhere rural and peaceful, a place of beauty and calm that might offer a tiny chance of protecting her girls from the ugliness of the world.

She wanted better. Better than the hardscrabble, uncertain life she had known growing up, better than the rough-edged world Tommy’s family lived in.

With only one goal in mind, she had taken every scholarship that came her way, had worked double shifts, had taken out student loans. All so that she could provide a better life for her daughters doing something she loved.

Nothing was turning out the way she’d planned.

She sighed and nibbled her popcorn. Silver had become a distant stranger and Mia’s sudden-onset shyness had become a crutch to her in every social situation. Her teacher said Dani’s once bubbly, joy-filled daughter became withdrawn and silent the moment she walked into the school.

Dani wasn’t exactly fitting in, either. Not only that, but the natural confidence and sharp intuition she had always felt around animals seemed to abandon her when she was the one making all the hard calls. Frank was so very kind and patient with her, but she still felt as if she was fumbling through everything.

Oh, she hoped this whole move wasn’t a huge mistake. But really, what was one more? She’d been making mistake after mistake since she got pregnant with Silver at seventeen.

No. Her girls were her joy. Neither of them was a mistake, though Dani’s choice of a man to be their father certainly was.

Mia stirred. “Is the movie over?” she asked sleepily.

“Yes. Come on. Let’s get you to bed.”

She scooped up her daughter, loving the poignancy of having her small, sweet-smelling shape nestled against her. Sooner than Dani wanted to think about, her baby would be too big for Dani to lift. She was growing so fast.

She carried Mia into her bedroom, decorated in her favorite colors, pink and lavender. After helping the girl under the covers, Dani pulled them up to Mia’s chin.

“What about the movie? We didn’t finish it,” Mia said in a plaintive, sleepy tone, eyes mostly closed.

“Maybe you can watch the rest tomorrow with Silver while the babysitter is here or after I get home from work tomorrow night.”

“Okay...” Mia’s voice trailed off before she finished the word.

Dani stood beside the bed, Winky at her feet, watching her daughter sleep and feeling the weight of responsibility that had rested completely on her shoulders alone all of Mia’s life.

“Come on, Wink,” she whispered after a moment. The little dog led the way outside. In the hallway, the dog suddenly tensed, a small growl in her chest as she hurried to the door.

A moment later, someone gave a firm knock.

Dani glanced at her watch. It was after nine. Who would be coming at this hour? Silver had a key and would have let herself in.

Dani went to the door and peered through the peephole. At first, all she saw was a broad chest clad in a T-shirt and unzipped navy blue down jacket. Her gaze traveled up and she recognized the hard, masculine features of her next-door neighbor.

In the dim glow from her porch light, Ruben appeared dark and dangerous and as gorgeous as ever.

A slight movement caught her attention and Dani shifted her gaze, suddenly realizing he wasn’t alone.

Silver stood next to him, eyes wide and nervous and her chin trembling as if it was taking all her energy not to cry.

Dani swore sharply and was glad Mia was in bed and didn’t hear it. She had worked for years to clean up her street language but sometimes swear words slipped out in moments of high tension.

Her stomach dropped. Oh, Sil. What have you done?

Dani could think of a dozen reasons an officer of the law would be bringing back her child. None of them good.

She wanted to sneak away, to hide in her bedroom and pretend she didn’t hear the doorbell, but she was a grown-up. She couldn’t pull the covers over her head and ignore her law enforcement officer of a neighbor and whatever dire news he had to impart.

Trouble, like bloodhounds, will always track you down.

With a sigh and a prayer for patience, she opened the door. “Deputy Morales. This is a surprise. What are you doing here? And with my darling daughter, who was supposed to be spending the evening with a friend watching a movie.”

“Apparently she found something else to do. May I come in?”

She wanted to say no. She wanted to bar the door against him and her baffling, frustrating child, but, again, adulting carried certain unavoidable responsibilities.

With no choice, she held the door open. Silver didn’t meet her eye as she shuffled inside.

“I’m going to bed,” she muttered, all prepared to flee toward her room across the hall from Mia’s. She looked as if she wanted to be anywhere on earth but here in their living room.

“Guess again,” Dani snapped. “What’s going on? Why are you not watching a movie with Jenny? Why did Deputy Morales bring you home?”

She slumped into a chair, mumbling something Dani couldn’t make out.

“What was that?”

“You’re just going to yell.”

“Silvia Marie Capelli. What did you do?”

Her daughter folded her arms across her chest and didn’t answer. After a moment, Ruben answered for her.

“Instead of hanging out and watching a movie, Silver apparently decided it would be more fun to take a spray can around town and see what kind of mess she could make with it.”

Dani’s heart seemed to freeze. She stared at her daughter, shock rocketing through her. “A spray can!”

“She tagged three places in the neighborhood—a garage door at Gertrude Grimes’s, an outbuilding at Tom and Mary Miller’s, and my new boat.”

Nausea churned through her, slick and greasy, and she was unable to think straight through the steady stream of swear words ringing through her head and the effort it was taking not to let them spew out.

Those names he gave were all neighbors and patrons of the veterinary clinic. She had treated one of the Millers’ cats and Gertrude Grimes’s rather unpleasant schnauzer.

“That’s a strong accusation,” she said, holding on to a fragile hope that he might be mistaken. “How can you be certain Silver was involved?”

“Show your mom your hand, Silver.”

Her daughter gave a heavy sigh and thrust out her left arm, which earned her an amused look from Ruben.

“Nice try. The other one.”

After a long moment, her daughter held out her right hand. The forefinger and thumb were covered in unmistakable red paint and Dani’s heart sank.

“Silvia. What were you thinking?”

Her daughter remained stubbornly silent, answering only with her habitual nonchalant shrug that drove Dani absolutely crazy.

“In my experience, most of the time the kids involved aren’t thinking. They get into a herd mentality kind of thing and nobody thinks to question whether what they’re doing is a good idea or not.”

She could understand that entirely too well. That sort of thinking had landed Tommy in jail when he was an irresponsible teenager and the pattern had continued through his short adulthood.

“Was this Jenny’s idea?”

“I didn’t go to Jenny’s. That was a lie.”

“So who was with you?”

“There wasn’t anybody else. Just me,” Silver said quickly. Too quickly.

“Really? All by yourself, you got it into your head that you would spend a cold December night vandalizing the property of our neighbors? Including a deputy sheriff?”

“Yeah. I guess I did.”

“I’m not an idiot,” Dani said flatly. “I know you’re lying. I need the truth.”

Her daughter lifted her chin. “Snitches get stitches. That’s what Dad always used to say.”

At the reference to her ex-husband, Dani glanced at Ruben, who was watching this interchange impassively.

She could feel heat soak her cheeks. Why did this particular man have to be involved? It was hard enough knowing he was a firsthand witness to her daughter’s poor choices. She didn’t need him knowing about her own.

“You, of all people, should have learned never to take to heart anything your father might have said,” she said quietly.

She could never be quite sure if Silver hated her father or idolized him. The mood shifted constantly.

Since Tommy’s violent death three months earlier, Dani was afraid Silver’s memories of all those disappointments had begun to fade in the midst of a natural grief over losing her father, even after everything he had done.

“At least he never would have brought me to a stink hole in the middle of nowhere,” she snarled back.

No. He would have just broken your heart again and again, until you had nothing left but shattered pieces.

“I happen to like this stink hole,” Ruben said mildly.

“You would.” Silver’s voice dripped sarcasm and Dani stared at her, appalled at her daughter’s rudeness to an officer of the law. She had taught both of her girls that nothing good ever came out of being disrespectful to people who were only trying to do their jobs.

“That’s enough,” she snapped. “Your father has nothing to do with this discussion. This is about you and your own mistakes. I can’t believe you would do something like this. How could you?”

“It was easy. You just push the little nozzle on the spray can.”

At Silver’s flippant tone, Dani’s anger spiked.

Sometimes being a parent really sucked.

She dug her nails into her palms to hold on to the fraying edges of her temper, drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly before she trusted herself to speak.

“How much damage did she do?” she asked Ruben.

“Hard to say in the dark. My boat will need some serious cleanup work. It will take the right solvent that won’t damage the finish, so I’ll need to talk to the marine supply places. We checked out the other places she hit and I’m thinking it would be cheaper in those cases to repaint.”

Dani wanted to cry, to just sit right here in the middle of her living room and throw a good, old-fashioned pity party, with a healthy dose of temper tantrum thrown in.

Why couldn’t anything be easy? It was hard enough trying to fit into a new place—a new school, a new neighborhood, a new town. Why did Silver have to go and make everything worse, for absolutely no reason Dani could see?

“We’ll take care of all costs associated with the cleanup, of course.”

Ruben was quiet, watching her out of those big, thick-lashed dark eyes. “Seems to me, Silver should be the one to put in the elbow grease and make it right.”

“Me?” Her daughter’s eyes widened and she looked appalled.

“Sure. Why not? If you can make the mess, you can clean up the mess. You could always share the burden by letting us know who else was with you tonight, so they can help in the cleanup.”

Dani watched Silver’s chin jut out with the stubbornness that was as much a part of her makeup as her green eyes and dimples. “No one was with me. How many times do I have to tell you that?”

“You can tell me as many times as you want but I heard voices and saw others running. None of your partners in crime will face the necessary consequences of their actions unless you come clean.”

Silver folded her arms across her chest again. “I didn’t have any partners in anything. It was only me.”

Ruben shrugged. “That’s fine. Then you alone can clean up the mess you created. Or I suppose I can go ahead and talk to the property owners and see if they’ve changed their minds about pressing charges.”

Fear flashed across Silver’s delicate features. For all her bravado, she didn’t like being in trouble. She never had.

“Fine. I’ll clean it all up by myself. Can I go to my room now?”

Dani wanted to keep her out there to yell at her some more but she figured some distance between her and her daughter wouldn’t hurt right now while she worked a little harder to restrain her temper.

“Go shower and get your pajamas on. I’ll be in to you in a minute.”

Silver gave one last resentful look to the room in general—as if she had anything to be angry about!—and stomped to her room, leaving Dani alone with the deputy sheriff.

She never would have expected it, but she found the man far more intimidating when he was wearing jeans and a T-shirt under his down jacket, instead of his uniform.

The uncomfortable little sizzle of attraction didn’t help matters any.

“I don’t know what to say to you,” she said after Silver’s bedroom door closed. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s not your fault—unless you were one of the people I saw take off running.”

He smiled in response to her narrowed gaze. “Yeah. I didn’t think so. In that case, you don’t have any reason to apologize. You had nothing to do with it.”

“Except I trusted her, when she told me she was going to watch a movie at her friend’s house.”

“Which friend was she supposed to go to? I can start there. You said Jenny? Which Jenny? I know a few.”

She didn’t want to answer him. Her tongue felt thick, the words tangled in her throat. Apparently her late ex-husband’s disdain for snitches had worn off on her, too.

She sighed. She didn’t know how to keep the girl out of it. “Jenny Turner.”

“Sean and Christine’s daughter.”

“That’s right. But Silver said she didn’t go to her house and it wouldn’t surprise me if she just used her name as an excuse, mainly because I know her parents. I can’t imagine Jenny would have anything to do with this. I’ve only met her a few times but she seems very nice.”

“She is. But nice doesn’t have much to do with it. Even the so-called good girls can make mistakes with their friends egging them on.”

Was Silver negatively influencing the whole neighborhood? Oh, she hoped not.

“I’m sorry,” she said again. To her dismay, she could feel tears burning behind her eyes and blinked as hard as she could to keep them back. “She’s never done anything like this before. I can’t understand what got into her head.”

Ruben’s features softened in a way that made him seem far less intimidating. “Don’t beat yourself up. She made a mistake and did something stupid. Probably won’t be the first time or the last time.”

Who would have guessed that she could take such comfort from the words of a tough deputy sheriff? She wanted to draw them close and hold on tight.

“I did plenty of stupid things when I was her age,” he went on. “So did most of my friends. We even got caught a few times. Despite it, we all turned out okay. One’s the county sheriff, one is an FBI agent and one is the town police chief. Don’t worry. Silver will get through this.”

“I suppose you’re right. I just wish she had chosen something a little less destructive to the community for her first stupid foray into teenagedom.”

“We can’t change that now. The only thing she can do is try to make it right and then move forward. The good news is, the other property owners are pretty reasonable people. As long as she makes the effort to fix what she did, things should be okay.”

She did not want to be in this man’s debt but that was exactly where she found herself. He was being extraordinarily kind and she was well aware of just how much she owed him.

“Thank you, Deputy Morales. I appreciate you bringing her home instead of making this a criminal matter.”

“After three months of being neighbors, don’t you think you could call me Ruben?”

She didn’t want anything that would bring them closer together but she didn’t know how to avoid it. “Ruben, then. I appreciate the way you have handled things.”

“I could have booked her for destruction of property. Technically it is the jurisdiction of the Haven Point PD but I was an officer on scene and could have made that call.”

“Why didn’t you?” She had to ask.

“I weighed the options, believe me. But when she seemed more frightened about coming home and facing you than she did at the prospect of going to the police station, I figured this was the better choice.”

“You must think I’m the meanest mom in the world.”

“Your daughter should be afraid of the consequences of her actions. She needs to fear disappointing her parents. In my professional life, I see too many cases where kids know their parents will never call them on their bad behavior. Guess what? That only leads to kids who don’t know how to function in society.”

“I will help her clean up the mess. Please find out the details of what we need to do. We’ll make it right.”

As if she needed one more thing to worry about in her life right now.

Oh, Silver. What have you done?

“I’ll let you know,” Ruben said. He was watching her with a strange expression, one of almost approval. Why? She was the bad mother who hadn’t even known where her child was that night. She had botched the whole thing, start to finish.

She had no business feeling this warmth seeping through her. She couldn’t let herself be attracted to Ruben Morales. He was a law enforcement officer who would have absolutely no interest in her, once he knew the truth.

“All right. I’ll be in touch tomorrow.”

“Thank you.”

He studied her for a long moment and she had to wonder what he saw. She had been watching a movie earlier with Mia, though that felt like hours ago. Her hair was probably messy where she had been leaning back against the sofa and she wore casual, comfortable clothes with no shape or style whatsoever.

“Doc? I know you’re angry but try not to be too hard on Silver.”

“Weren’t you just telling me about the parents who never give their children consequences?”

“She definitely needs consequences. That’s not what I’m saying. What she did was wrong, no doubt about it. But it might not hurt to remember she’s at a tough age, trying to fit in to a new community, which can’t be easy for anybody.”

Dani was entirely too familiar with what that was like. “I’ll be sure to keep that in mind,” she said, forcing a polite smile. “Thanks again for your help. Good night, Ruben.”

He smiled a little at her use of his first name but also didn’t appear to miss the direct hint, especially when she held open the door for him.

“Good night.”

He reached down to give Winky another scratch behind her ears, then headed out into the night.

Dani closed the door and stood for a moment in her living room, feeling the heat of her little dog on her slippers. She wanted to sink down onto the floor of her entryway, gather Winky close and cry until she fell asleep, but that was the sort of thing she might have done as a lonely girl in foster care. She was a mother now, with a mother’s responsibilities.

Right now, she needed to deal with her daughter.

4

She made it as far as Silver’s bedroom, then paused outside, still trying to process what had just happened.

How could her child have jeopardized everything like this? Didn’t she understand how precarious things were? If Dani didn’t do well in this internship, if they couldn’t carve a place for themselves here in Haven Point, she would have to once more pick up her girls and start all over somewhere else.

They had a nice home here in a nice community. Where would they go if Haven Point didn’t work out?

The worry that always seemed to lurk at the edges of her subconscious crept ever closer.

She took another deep breath, trying to beat it back again. She had to do her best to be calm and collected when she spoke with Silver. Raging at her daughter would accomplish nothing.

Was this some kind of cry for help, tangible proof of everything Silver hadn’t said? She wasn’t happy here. That truth was becoming unavoidable. She didn’t fit in because of her purple hair and her unique fashion sense and, most probably, because of her defensive attitude. She wanted to go back to Boston where she had friends, or even New York to live with Tommy’s family.

A parent’s job was to discern between a child’s wants and her needs. In this case, Dani knew in her gut that her family needed a community like Haven Point.

When she pushed the door open, she found Silver facedown on her bed, the blanket up around her ears. The only light came from Silver’s phone, which she was not supposed to have in her bedroom past 10:00 p.m. anyway.

She opened her mouth to yell about that but caught herself. She had other things to worry about right now.

Silver didn’t look up when Dani came inside and moved to the bed. She waited her out, standing for a long moment until her daughter finally rolled over and held out her phone.

“Here. I know I’m not supposed to have it. I wasn’t texting anyone. I was just looking at pictures of my friends back in Boston.”

Dani’s heart squeezed with sympathy, but she schooled her features so Silver didn’t see.

“Thanks,” she said calmly. “I’ll put it on the charger in my room.”

She said nothing else, just waited for Silver to speak first and explain herself. “Go ahead. Yell at me. I know you want to.”

She did want to yell—to scream and rant and ask Silver what the hell she was thinking. The pain on her daughter’s face held her back.

“I’m not going to yell.”

“You’re not?” Silver’s shock was evident in her wide eyes.

“What would that do? It would only make both of us feel worse and wouldn’t change what you’ve done.”

“O-okay.”

Dani turned on the bedside lamp then sat on the edge of the bed. “A deputy sheriff, though? Seriously? In what alternate reality would you ever think that was okay?”

Her daughter threw her forearm over her eyes, as protection from the light or to avoid her mother’s gaze, Dani wasn’t sure.

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “It was a stupid thing to do, okay? I know it was dumb. We... I wasn’t thinking.”

Dani didn’t miss that telltale pronoun. She wanted to pounce on it and make Silver tell her who else had been involved, but somehow she sensed further interrogation would do nothing to move the conversation forward.

“Do you hate it here so much that you want to sabotage everything for all of us?”

A little tear leaked out of Silver’s eye and dripped into the hair she had dyed herself. “I miss my friends,” she said.

“You know the way to make the sort of friends you want to keep isn’t to engage in criminal activity with them, right?”

“I know.” She scratched a pattern into her quilt. “Nana says if I really hate it here, I can come live with her back in Queens.”

Dani’s insides twisted at the mention of her former mother-in-law. “When did you talk to your Grandma DeLuca?”

Silver looked more guilty about this than she had about showing up at the door with a deputy sheriff. “She messaged me and sent me her phone number a few months ago. After, you know. In case I wanted to talk to her about...about Dad and what happened. We’ve been texting on and off for a while now.”

“You know I check your texts. I haven’t seen anything like that.”

Silver looked away. “I always delete them. I know you don’t want me to talk to her. I can stop.”

Again, Dani wanted to yell, but did her best to keep control. Silver loved her namesake grandmother, who had been an active part of their lives for her first few years, even babysitting her when Dani had classes.

Dani never would have made it through her undergraduate degree without Silvia DeLuca’s help.

Their relationship had become strained after Dani filed for divorce six years ago, but even then she had allowed Silvia DeLuca to see her granddaughters, until the other woman started slyly undermining Dani to them. The final straw had come when Silvia dragged Silver to visit her father in prison without Dani’s permission.

Silvia was one of those women who could never see her child as he was. Tommy could do no wrong in her book. As far as she believed, anytime Tommy found himself in trouble, it was always someone else’s fault.

She had been furious about the divorce and even more upset when Dani left for veterinary school in Boston. Their contact had dwindled to Christmas and birthday cards, which was exactly the way Dani preferred things.

“Are you mad that I’ve been texting Nana?”

“I’m mad that you’ve been hiding it. We can talk about that later, though. Right now, we need to focus on your actions tonight.”

“I made a mistake. It was stupid. It won’t happen again.”

The words sounded far too well practiced to be sincere.

“No. It won’t. You’re grounded until further notice. That means extra chores here and at the clinic, no video games, no YouTube and no phone except at school.”

Silver huffed but said nothing, obviously knowing she was on extremely thin ice. No doubt she could almost hear it cracking beneath her feet.

“Also, I need you to give me the names of the other girls involved so I can let their parents know and they can help you with the cleanup.”

“I told you. It was just me.”

They both knew that was a lie but Dani had no idea how to force the truth out of her.

“Fine. You can do the cleanup on your own.”

“Fine,” Silver said, her voice short. “Is that all?”

“For now.”

With a sigh, Dani rose and squeezed Silver’s arm. “You know I love you, Silverbell, right?”

Her daughter shrugged, not meeting her gaze.

“I brought you and Mia to Haven Point because we’ve been offered a chance to make a good life here, a place where you girls would be safe and healthy. A place with low crime, good schools and nice people.”

“There were good schools and nice people in Boston. And in Queens before that.”

“Agreed. We could have made a good life for ourselves somewhere else. This is the one that felt best. When I got this opportunity, you and Mia and I talked about it and we all agreed we wanted to give Haven Point a chance to become our home. I don’t think any of us has really done a good job in that department. I’d like to try harder. What about you?”

“I guess,” Silver said.

Dani reached down and hugged her daughter and after a moment, she felt small arms go around her.

Silver rested her head against Dani’s chest, just above the thick nest of emotions there. She loved this beautiful, smart, contrary creature beyond words.

“Get some rest. Everything seems better in the morning.”

She hoped, anyway. Because right now things seemed pretty bleak for Team Capelli.

“I get to be the candy cane in the school play. You should come see it! I get to sing a solo and everything. Can you come?”

“Wow. That’s exciting.” Ruben smiled down at Will Montgomery, his boss’s stepson and just about the most adorable kid he knew. “When is the play?”

“The Wednesday before Christmas at eleven.” Will’s mother, Andie Bailey—married to the sheriff and Ruben’s boss, Marshall Bailey—sat in the visitor chair at his desk, waiting for Marsh to get off the phone so the sheriff could take her and their children to lunch on his break.

“Are you sure you don’t want to join us for lunch?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Will said. “You could sit by me and I could tell you all about my part.”

“I hate to miss that kind invitation but I have some paperwork to finish.”

The sheriff’s department wasn’t always a good place for kids, but Andie and the children had brought some shortbread cookies they had made that day to hand out to the other deputies in the office. Ruben had quickly secreted his plate in a desk drawer where everybody else better keep their hands off, if they knew what was good for them.

He loved seeing Will, his sister, Chloe, and their mother, Andie, together with Marshall. The four of them, along with Marshall’s son Christopher made a solid, loving unit.

At the same time, his interactions with the family always left him a little...hollow. Not sad, precisely, only more aware than usual of his solitary state.

Ruben never thought he would be thirty-three and alone. He had always wanted a family, always imagined by this point in his life he would have a bunch of kids, a mortgage, a boat in the driveway and a kind, caring wife like Andie.

He had the boat and the mortgage, but not the rest.

“You might like my school program, too.” Chloe gave him her sweetest smile, that one that always stole his heart. She was a few years older than Will but considerably more mature. Some of that had to do with her personality, though some might have been from the tough circumstances of a few summers ago, before her mother married Marshall.

“Are you a candy cane, too?”

“Ruben,” she said in an exasperated voice. “We don’t have candy canes in the sixth grade program. That’s for the little kids. I’m in the choir.”

“Let me know when it is and I’ll see if I can arrange my schedule.”

He had a nephew in her grade at Haven Point Elementary School, so would definitely try to make it.

“It’s right after Will’s class program.”

“Easy enough. I’ll add it to my schedule.” Maybe that was his destiny, to always be the kindly uncle and friend.

He pushed away that depressing thought as Marshall finished his phone call and came out.

“Did I hear talk that somebody brought cookies?”

Will giggled. “We did! We’ve got some for you, too, Dad.”

That was a new thing, the kids calling Marshall dad. Ruben had noticed it the last time he saw them all together. Their own father had been a police officer killed in the line of duty. Marshall had stepped up to take care of all of them and it was obvious the kids loved him.

He could tell Marshall was touched by the word. “Bring them in here before somebody else eats them,” he said gruffly.

Will and Chloe grabbed one of their remaining covered plates and charged into their stepfather’s office, leaving Ruben with Andie.

“Those two,” she said, shaking her head.

“They’re wonderful.”

“I can’t argue with that. I’m enjoying them at this age, but who knows what trouble they’ll bring me in about five years or so. Which reminds me, Marshall tells me you had some excitement at your place last night. Some vandalism on your beautiful new boat. How is The Wonder?”

He found himself reluctant to discuss Dani and her daughter with Andie, almost protectively so, which he knew was completely ridiculous.

“It was just kids messing around.”

“I understand you caught one of them in the act. The new veterinarian’s daughter, the one with the cool hair and the unusual name.”

“Yes. But please don’t spread that around.” He really hoped the identity of his vandal wasn’t common knowledge. He knew Andie would be discreet. She wasn’t going to talk, not even to her friends at the Haven Point Helping Hands, a service and social organization in town.

“I won’t,” she assured him.

“Silver wasn’t the only one involved, but she was the only one I caught. She won’t tell me who else was there.”

“Snitches get stitches,” Andie said.

“Funny. She said the same thing.”

“I understand her reticence to implicate others. She’s probably worried about retribution. She’s, what, thirteen? That’s a hard age to start at a new school.”

Andie could be a good source of information, he realized. The kids were busy helping Marshall shred some papers in his office so he decided now was as good a time as any to dig a little into his intriguing neighbors.

“What’s their story? Dani and her kids? Do you know her at all?”

“She seems very nice and she’s a good veterinarian. Right after she came to town, we went to her when Sadie got a bad bee sting in her eye.”

“Ouch.”

“Right? I would say Dani has a more abrupt bedside manner than your dad, but seemed very kind and caring.”

“What about socially? Have you interacted much outside the veterinary clinic?”

Andie shrugged, though she looked intrigued at his line of questioning. Maybe he shouldn’t have said anything. He didn’t need his friend’s wife matchmaking.

“Not really. She seems very...private is I guess the word I would use. She came to a few social events when they first moved to town. Again, she seemed nice enough but I’m afraid maybe we overwhelmed her. When McKenzie asked if she wanted to join the Helping Hands, she said no, that she was too busy with her girls and settling into a new town, starting a practice. Same thing when we asked her to join the book club.”

“That’s fair. Not everybody is a joiner.”

“I get it, believe me. The women of this town can be intimidating for even the toughest constitution.”

“There are so many of you and you always travel in packs.”

“Not always,” she protested with a laugh.

“Most of the time, then.”

Before she could answer, Marshall came out with the kids and Andie’s face completely lit up.

Ruben was aware of a little pinch of discontent again as the two of them kissed. He did his best to ignore it. Marsh had been Ruben’s friend long before he became his boss and Ruben was glad the sheriff and Andie seemed so happy together.

He was always aware when he was with them that if the two of them hadn’t found each other first, Ruben definitely would have made a move. Andie was the kind of woman he had always thought he wanted—someone soft, warm, compassionate.

Worlds away from a certain prickly, cool, reserved veterinarian.

Somebody should probably tell that to his subconscious, which had filled his dreams with all kinds of inappropriate situations involving the woman the night before.

Friday was a long, difficult day. She would have liked to take the day off since the girls were out of school but her time off was limited as a new veterinarian.

She was lucky enough to have a few good caregivers in her rotation and Gloria, the clinic receptionist and office manager, had a daughter home from college for the holidays who was looking for a little extra cash.

Dani had hoped to be done by two, her usual schedule on Friday, but a bichon frise with an abdominal obstruction came in right as she was wrapping up for the day and the dog required emergency surgery.

The surgery had been much more complicated than she had expected and she had ended up calling on Frank to help. She found it demoralizing that she had needed his expertise, yet more evidence she wasn’t up to the challenge of her new vocation, but Frank wouldn’t let her beat herself up.

“Don’t ever be embarrassed to ask for help.” His eyes—so like his son’s—were warm and kind. “I’ve been in the vet business for more than forty years. Just when I think I’ve seen everything under the sun, something new walks through the door to prove me wrong. You should never hesitate to call me, even after the practice is officially yours.”

She wasn’t sure that day would ever come—or ever should come. Who was she kidding, to think she had what it took to be a veterinarian? She was a failure. A nothing. Hadn’t she heard that enough when she was growing up?

As usual when that negative self-talk intruded, she did her best to focus on how fiercely she had worked to get where she was. All the sleepless nights of studying, the hand cramps from propping a textbook in one hand while rocking a crying baby in the other, the many creative ways she had found to stretch a dollar.

We can do hard things. That was the message she tried to reinforce to her girls. She couldn’t help wondering when it would be her turn to do the easy things.

By the time she finally made it home just after five, three hours later than she’d planned, she was exhausted.

“Thank you for staying extra with them,” she told Heidi, Gloria’s youngest daughter.

“Not a problem. I need the extra cash. I’m saving up to get my belly button pierced.”

Since the girl had four rows of pierced earrings and a ring in her lip, what was one more puncture wound? “Glad I could add to the pot, then. Have a good evening.”

“Thanks, Dr. C. Silver’s been in her room most of the afternoon doing homework and Mia is in the family room.”

“Thanks.”

After Dani let the babysitter out, she headed to find the easier of her children and found Mia playing quietly with her dolls.

“Hey, sweetie pie. How did your day go?”

Mia shrugged, without looking up at her.

“What’s wrong, honey?”

“You said we should never lie but you lied.”

Dani scanned over her day, trying to figure out where she had gone wrong this time.

“About what?”

“You said you would be home right after lunch and we could put our Christmas tree up today. Lunch was a long time ago and now it’s almost dark and I bet you’re going to say you’re too tired to put up a Christmas tree.”

Going through the hassle of putting up a tree was the absolute last thing she wanted to do right now. After the difficult day, her brain was mush and she wanted to collapse on the sofa and sleep for the rest of the evening.

She had made a promise, though, something she took very seriously.

She sat on the floor beside her daughter. “I’m sorry, Mia. I did tell you I would be home after lunch but then I had a dog emergency. Sometimes that happens when you’re a veterinarian. We’ve talked about it before, remember? This time the emergency was a little bichon frise who had something stuck in her stomach. She was throwing up and couldn’t eat or poop.”

Her compassionate youngest child looked distressed at that. “Is she okay?”

“She is now. Dr. Morales came in and helped me fix things. It will take a day or two, but Princess Snowbear will be back to herself in a few days.”

Apparently saving a dog’s life warranted a few points in her book, at least where her youngest was concerned. Mia cuddled up to her. “I like Dr. Morales. He’s nice.”

“He is, indeed.” She would have been in trouble without him during the surgery. What would she do when he finally retired?

She put that worry away for another day. “How’s your sister been?”

Mia looked down the hall toward the bedrooms. “I don’t know. She stayed in her room almost all day. Earlier, I asked if she wanted to play with my Shopkins and she told me they’re stupid and I am, too.”

Apparently at least one of her children had no problem being a snitch. “She shouldn’t have said either of those things. You’re not stupid and neither are your toys, honey.”

The two girls were separated by seven years, which sometimes seemed such a vast chasm in their relationship. Sometimes Silver could be the sweetest thing to her sister and sometimes she barely tolerated Mia.

“What did you have for lunch?” Dani asked.

“Grilled cheese sandwiches, only Heidi left the crusts on and I had to cut them off myself.”

“That’s a hard day all around. Let’s see what we can do to make the afternoon and evening better. What do you think about calzones for dinner?”

“I love calzones! Can I help you make them?”

“You got it, kid. Maybe we can talk Silver into helping us, too.”

Mia looked doubtful but followed her down the hall. The doorbell rang before they reached Silver’s bedroom door.

“Who’s that?” Mia asked, looking nervous.

“I don’t know. We’ll have to answer it to see.”

She looked through the peephole and saw a big, solid chest dressed in a brown sheriff’s uniform. As she opened the door for Ruben Morales, she told herself it was only her exhaustion that had her feeling a little light-headed.

“Deputy Morales. Hello.”

He smiled, looking big and dark and absolutely delicious—something she was furious with herself for noticing.

“Afternoon. I was on my way home but thought I should stop here first to let Silver know about the conversation I had with the graffiti specialist for the county and what it’s going to take to clean up her artwork from last night.”

Just once, couldn’t she see the man when she wasn’t exhausted and rumpled and feeling as if she’d been dragged behind his big boat for an hour?

“Come in,” she said, holding the door for him. “I’ve only been home from the clinic for a few moments myself and haven’t had a chance to talk to her yet. I’ll grab her.”

“Thanks. Hi there, Mia.”

He smiled at her suddenly shy six-year-old, who somehow managed to give him a nervous smile in return. Dani stood there awkwardly for a long moment, then finally gave herself a mental head-slap and hurried down the hall. She expected Mia to follow her, but instead the girl opted to remain behind with Ruben.

“I told you I’m doing homework, Mia. What do you want?” Silver called out when Dani knocked on her door.

She could feel her shoulders tighten in response. If thirteen was this tough, how on earth was she going to survive the rest of the teenage years? she wondered for the bazillionth time.

“It’s not Mia. It’s me,” Dani said, pushing open the door.

She found Silver on her bed, a notebook propped on pillows in front of her. No doubt she was writing in her journal, detailing how miserable her life was. Silver closed it quickly and while she didn’t hide it under her bed, she looked as if she wanted to.

Dani released a breath. “Deputy Morales is here to speak with you.”

For just an instant, Silver’s mouth trembled with nerves. She looked down at the closed notebook in front of her and fiddled with her pen.

“I’m, um, in the middle of something here. I don’t want to lose my train of thought. Can you just find out what he wants?”

“What he wants is to speak with you. Come on, honey. Might as well get it over with, right?”

“I guess.” Silver sighed and climbed off her bed. She slipped the notebook into the drawer of her bedside table, wiped her hands down her jeans as if they were as sweaty as Dani’s, then moved to the doorway.

When they returned to the living room, she found Ruben on the sofa with their dog, Winky, on his lap. Mia was showing him her vast collection of dolls and their wardrobe that Dani could swear was more fashionable than her own.

“What’s this one’s name?”

“That’s Pia. She’s my favorite. See, her hair is curly just like mine and her eyes are brown like mine. You have brown eyes, too.”

“Yes I do.”

“I named her Pia because it rhymes with Mia.”

“Perfect. So if I had a doll, maybe I would have to name him Gruben.”

Mia giggled, her shyness apparently all but gone, and Dani felt something hard and tight around her heart begin to crack apart a little.

No. She wouldn’t let herself be drawn to him. She made disastrous decisions in the men department and right now she couldn’t afford another mistake.

“I have three outfits for her but this green dress is my favorite. You can get clothes to match your dolls if you want. I asked Santa for a green dress, too, but I don’t know if I’ll get it. Silver says it’s too expensive and my mom has stupid loans.”

“Does she?”

“I did not. I said she has student loans,” Silver corrected.

“Though they’re certainly stupid, too,” Dani admitted.

Ruben looked up and flashed them both a smile that made her feel light-headed again.

“I’m sure they are. It can’t be easy.”

At the understanding in his voice, Dani was appalled to feel tears well up. She couldn’t count the sleepless nights she’d had over the last thirteen years, worrying whether she would be able to provide for her daughters.

“It can be an adventure,” she admitted. “It helps that your dad has kindly let us have this place rent-free.”

“Dad’s good about things like that,” he said, then looked around her to where Silver was lurking.

“Hey, Silver. How’s it going?”

She shrugged. “Fine. My mom said you wanted to talk to me. I’ve got a ton of homework, so...”

In other words, get on with it. Silver didn’t say the words but she might as well have. Dani tried not to cringe at her rudeness.

“Right. Good for you, doing your homework on a Friday afternoon.”

“Like I have a choice. I’m grounded from just about everything else.”

“Look on the bright side. With all the studying you’ll get, your next report card will be great.”

“And if she keeps it up, maybe she’ll get a scholarship when she’s ready to go to college and won’t need those stupid student loans,” Dani said.

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