“I’ll be close by,” he said, letting go of her hand and pointing. “Because we’re neighbors.”

She stared.

The house on the hill was his.

The house that was so incredibly beautiful. She’d spent more than one night watching the wooden and stone lines of it sleep in the moonlight when she hadn’t been able to find any such rest.

“You lived behind my father.”

“Yes.”

She didn’t know what to do with her hands. One was still tingling. The other felt cold.

She forced them to remain at her sides, fighting the burgeoning need to ring them together. “Who built the house?”

“I did.”

“You?”

“I’m capable, too,” he drawled, his voice impossibly dry.

She ignored the small jab, not doubting his capabilities for a second. The man undoubtedly exceeded “capable” on every front.

Dear Reader,

Well, we’re getting into the holiday season full tilt, and what better way to begin the celebrations than with some heartwarming reading? Let’s get started with Gina Wilkins’s The Borrowed Ring, next up in her FAMILY FOUND series. A woman trying to track down her family’s most mysterious and intriguing foster son finds him and a whole lot more—such as a job posing as his wife! A Montana Homecoming, by popular author Allison Leigh, brings home a woman who’s spent her life running from her own secrets. But they’re about to be revealed, courtesy of her childhood crush, now the local sheriff.

This month, our class reunion series, MOST LIKELY TO…, brings us Jen Safrey’s Secrets of a Good Girl, in which we learn that the girl most likely to…do everything disappeared right after college. Perhaps her secret crush, a former professor, can have some luck tracking her down overseas? We’re delighted to have bestselling Blaze author Kristin Hardy visit Special Edition in the first of her HOLIDAY HEARTS books. Where There’s Smoke introduces us to the first of the devastating Trask brothers. The featured brother this month is a handsome firefighter in Boston. And speaking of delighted—we are absolutely thrilled to welcome RITA® Award nominee and Red Dress Ink and Intimate Moments star Karen Templeton to Special Edition. Although this is her first Special Edition contribution, it feels as if she’s coming home. Especially with Marriage, Interrupted, in which a pregnant widow meets up once again with the man who got away—her first husband—at her second husband’s funeral. We know you’re going to enjoy this amazing story as much as we did. And we are so happy to welcome brand-new Golden Heart winner Gail Barrett to Special Edition. Where He Belongs, the story of the bad boy who’s come back to town to the girl he’s never been able to forget, is Gail’s first published book.

So enjoy—and remember, next month we continue our celebration….

Gail Chasan

Senior Editor

A Montana Homecoming
Allison Leigh

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For my girls, Amanda and Anna Claire.

I’m so very proud of you both.

Love, Mom.

ALLISON LEIGH

started early by writing a Halloween play that her grade-school class performed. Since then, though her tastes have changed, her love for reading has not. And her writing appetite simply grows more voracious by the day.

She has been a finalist in the RITA® Award and the Holt Medallion contests. But the true highlights of her day as a writer are when she receives word from a reader that they laughed, cried or lost a night of sleep while reading one of her books.

Born in Southern California, Allison has lived in several different cities in four different states. She has been, at one time or another, a cosmetologist, a computer programmer and a secretary. She has recently begun writing full-time after spending nearly a decade as an administrative assistant for a busy neighborhood church, and currently makes her home in Arizona with her family. She loves to hear from her readers, who can write to her at P.O. Box 40772, Mesa, AZ 85274-0772.

Dear Gram,

Coming home to Lucius after twelve years hasn’t been easy. I’d forgotten what it’s like to live in a small town. Everyone wants to know if I’m here to stay, if I’m going to sell Daddy’s house, if I’ll take a job at the local school. And then there’s Shane Golightly. He’s the town sheriff now, and he lives next door. He’s really been looking out for me—even though sometimes I feel like he’s just being overprotective, it’s been nice to have him around. I can’t even seem to get a good night’s sleep anymore unless he’s nearby. I think I might be falling for him again but I’m so afraid—afraid of getting hurt, afraid of hurting him, but mostly just afraid of facing the past I left behind. I wish you were here, Gram. I miss you.

Love,

Laurel

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Epilogue

Prologue

“What do you mean you’re leaving?” Laurel sat up, clutching her cotton dress to her chest. Her bare back felt itchy from straw that only a half hour earlier had felt like the sweetest of mattresses. And there was a horrible hole yawning open inside her.

Shane didn’t look at her. He yanked his T-shirt over his head. His thick hair looked more brown than blond in the dwindling light of the ancient barn and was messy, as much from her fingers as from the shirt. “I have classes.” His deep voice was clipped.

“Starting tomorrow?” She couldn’t hide her disbelief. She knew good and well that Shane’s graduate school classes weren’t beginning for another few weeks. She knew, because he’d told her so himself.

His gaze finally slanted toward her, and he crouched next to her, leaned toward her—making her heart stop with hope that he really couldn’t be serious about leaving her, not like this, not now, after they’d—

He plucked his sock from the straw beside her, and his hand brushed her bare thigh as he pulled back, straightening. He didn’t even bother to sit on one of the hay bales. Simply balanced easily on one foot and drew on the sock, then did the same for the other, then shoved his feet into his scuffed athletic shoes.

Her eyes burned. “Did I do something wrong?”

He made a low sound. Shoved his hands through his hair. “Laurel—”

Laurel. Not songbird, which he’d been calling her for weeks now.

It had been her first time. But not his. “I didn’t cry because it hurt, Shane, I—”

“God, Laurel.” He kicked the bales of hay so hard that suddenly the top one tumbled off the stack and landed with a thud. A cloud of dust and bits billowed out, making her wince and squint against the shower of debris.

He swore again, which made Laurel’s eyes burn even more, because Shane just didn’t swear.

“I should never have touched you. I’m twenty-three. You’re barely eighteen.”

“But I am eighteen.” Her voice was thick with tears, which wasn’t at all the way she wanted to sound. She scrambled to her feet, awkwardly pulling her dress over her shoulders and fumbling with the buttons that ran all the way down the front. But her fingers couldn’t seem to match up any of the buttons with the proper holes and she finally just clutched it together at her waist. “And we love each other.” Didn’t they?

He looked pained, his gaze fastened on her white knuckles. He took a step toward her. Then another.

She nearly stopped breathing.

He put his hands over hers and slowly unclenched her fingers from the pale-yellow fabric.

Then he just stood there, staring down at the hands he held. Her dress, soft from too many summers and too many washings, parted a little.

He swallowed. She saw it work down his strong, tanned throat. Then he squeezed her hands just a little and released them. And reached for the top of her dress.

Her knees—not particularly steady after what they’d just done, anyway—felt like her mama’s strawberry jam left out on a sunny counter.

His fingers were so long. A little bony, and a lot callused. He might be a preacher’s son, but he’d spent the summer working for old Hal Calhoun right here on his farm.

“Shane.” His name was barely a whisper on her tongue. She loved his name. She loved him. He was tall and good and golden and so incredibly gentle.

“I shouldn’t have touched you,” he said again. And as deliberately as he’d unbuttoned each and every one of those tiny white buttons, he began doing them up again. “I’m sorry, but it was a mistake. It’s my fault. So go ahead and hate me all you want.”

By the time he reached the hem, just below her knees, the tears were crawling openly down her cheeks. The bleeding from her heart, broken wide, wasn’t visible at all.

He rose.

She was glad that he didn’t bother hunting around for her bra or panties. She could see them from the corner of her eye, tossed carelessly aside near her sandals.

“I’ll drive you home.”

She didn’t want to go anywhere. She wanted to stay there in Calhoun’s barn with Shane. She wanted him to put his arms around her again, to press his lips to hers, to breathe softly against her ear and make her feel as if everything in life was good and fine.

They’d barely had a summer together, but it had been the best summer of her life.

“I’d rather walk,” she said quietly.

“Laurel, I’m not leaving you here—”

“Yes, you are,” she interrupted, feeling a curl of anger nip at the yawning pain inside her. “That’s exactly what you’re doing.”

He shoved his hands in his front pockets. She could see the shape of them, fisted against the worn-white denim. “I never made it a secret that I was going back to school.” He looked away for a moment, and she saw the muscle in his jaw flexing. “You’re starting college classes soon, too, dammit.”

“Preachers shouldn’t swear,” she murmured.

He snorted and looked back at her, then pointedly looked at the bed of straw, then her underwear. “I have no business becoming a preacher, either.”

Despite her cracking heart, she reached out to him. “Don’t say that, Shane.” He had plans. Wonderful, admirable plans. He wanted to be like his father, to help people however best he could. On someone else, those plans would just be dreams. But Shane would make it happen. He was just that way.

His lips twisted. “Get the rest of your things. You can’t walk home. It’s nearly dark.” He ignored her outstretched hand and walked to the barn door, sliding it open enough to walk out. A moment later she heard the rumble of his old truck engine cranking to life.

Dashing her hands over her cheeks, she snatched up her panties and yanked them on, balled up her bra into her pocket and shoved her feet into her sandals.

She didn’t look at him as she joined him in the cab of his truck. But she had to close her eyes against a fresh rush of tears when he silently reached over and pulled a long piece of straw from her hair.

Then he put the truck into gear and drove her home.

Chapter One

Who was inside the old Runyan house?

The car—dark blue and dimmed by a thick layer of dust—was still parked in the cracked, uneven driveway when Shane drove past. It hadn’t been there when he’d gone to the station in the morning. But it had been there when he’d driven out to his brother’s place that afternoon. And it was still there this evening on his way home for the day.

He could have kept on driving. Instead he pulled in to the rutted driveway and parked behind the small blue sedan.

A light shone from the front picture window of the house. Old Roger Runyan had been dead five days now, but the house he’d lived in for as long as Shane could remember looked more welcoming in that moment than it had in years.

Question was, who was inside the house, turning on lamps as if they belonged there? Roger had no kin except Laurel, and she hadn’t been in Lucius for twelve years.

Twelve years. He sighed and climbed out of his SUV.

There were three steps leading up to the front door. Wooden and nearly rotting through. It would be a merciful day when Shane finally got the deed to this place and tore it down. Just the thought of it was almost enough to put a smile on his face.

He planted his boot on the top of the porch and climbed up, bypassing the steps altogether, and tilted back his hat a few inches to peer through the metal-framed screen door as he rapped his knuckles on it.

He already knew from dealing with Roger’s death that the furnishings inside the house hadn’t changed over the years. Considering the old man had rid himself of his wife, Violet, twelve years ago, Shane had been surprised Roger hadn’t done a thing to eradicate her little touches from his home. But they’d still been there. Fussy little glass lamps with beads hanging from the fading shades, bowls of dusty plastic grapes and apples, vases of unnaturally bright flowers that never needed a drop of water.

Just another thing Shane would never understand about the man.

He figured the person inside the house was the real estate agent. Only, he didn’t recognize the car, and Shane knew all the cars around his town.

All part of the job.

He knocked again. “Hello?”

“Coming.”

The voice was female.

Throaty.

Young.

He straightened and absorbed the shock of it.

He was pretty sure he recognized the voice, and it was definitely not anyone from down at Lucius Realty.

The woman neared the door, her form blurred by rusting metal mesh. The porch light flicked on. The door screeched as it began to swing open. “I’m sorry. I was in the back and didn’t hear…” The woman’s voice trailed off as Shane stepped away from the screen door enough for her to open it.

She looked up at him. Her eyes widened a little. The color in her cheeks rose, then fell.

Recognition, all right. “Hello, Laurel.”

Her lips—damn, but they looked as soft as ever—rounded into a little O. She wore a tidy white blouse tucked into a slender beige skirt. Little gold hoops hung in her ears, visible because her hair was pulled back from her face in a snug knot. She looked about as finished and polished as she’d looked ravaged and pained the last time he’d seen her.

Except for her eyes.

Her eyes looked positively shell-shocked.

And he felt like the proverbial bull in a china shop.

Then her lashes swept down for a moment, and when she looked up at him again, the shock was gone. Everything was gone. There was nothing but politeness, and for an awful moment Shane thought maybe the stories had it wrong and that Laurel Runyan had never climbed out of the pit of despair she’d been tossed into that long-ago summer when her family had disintegrated before her eyes.

“Hello, Shane. What are you doing here?” The greeting was considerably less welcoming than the light shining from the front window had been.

But at least she remembered him. That was good. He’d rather have her still hate him than be feeling the emotional numbness that had gripped her for months after that summer.

“Saw the light,” he said, looking past her into the house. But he couldn’t see hide nor hair of another person. Had she come alone to Lucius? Had she married? Did she have a little tribe of kids now? He wished he could blame the questions on simple curiosity. But nothing about Laurel had ever been simple. “Wanted to check it out.”

Her eyebrows drew together a little, and the corners of her lips lifted a little. “Check it out. For what? New church members?” Her hands lifted to her sides for a moment.

A moment long enough for him to see there was no ring. A faint tan line where one had been, though.

Recently.

“Sorry,” she went on, oblivious to his cataloging. “I gave up going to church years ago.”

He had, too. For a while.

“Thought maybe you were one of the agents from Lucius Realty,” he admitted.

“Well, as you can see, I’m not.” Her voice was still pleasant. But the edge of curiosity was still there, not quite hidden. “I…didn’t think you were still in Lucius,” she said. “I saw the sign outside your dad’s church. He’s still pastor there. And there was a name I didn’t recognize listed as the associate pastor. Um, Morrison or something.”

“Morrissey.”

She nodded and leaned slightly against the opened screen door. Her position was clear. She had no intention of inviting him in.

But she was still curious.

Hell. So was he. If he’d had any way of reaching her, any way of knowing where she was, he would have notified her himself about her dad.

“I’m sorry about your father.” He should have said that right off. No wonder he hadn’t ended up in the ministry. Unlike his father, Beau, Shane’s people skills were miserable. He took care of his townspeople’s safety. He left it to people like his father to take care of their sensibilities.

Her head tilted a little to one side, and a few strands of silky hair drifted from the knot to lie against her slender throat. Her hair was darker than he remembered. Almost the color of walnuts. Back then, it had been streaked with blond from the summer sun, a shifting mass of burnished gold that had felt like silk against his rough fingers.

“Condolences?” she asked. “I know what you thought of him. What everyone in this town thought of him.”

“He was still your father.” He wasn’t sorry about Roger. But he was sorry if the loss hurt Laurel. He was always sorry when something—or someone—hurt Laurel.

Her lips pursed a little and her lashes swept down, hiding her expressive brown eyes again. “Yes,” she murmured after a moment. “He was. Thank you.”

“If you need any help with the arrangements, just ask.”

She lifted her hand and tucked the stray strands of hair behind her ear. She pushed the screen door the rest of the way open. It was so worn, it merely settled open with a sigh and she stepped out onto the porch. Even with her high-heeled shoes—pretty for her ankles, but still a conservative tan color—she didn’t reach past his shoulder.

How could he have forgotten how small she was compared to him?

“I’m not sure my father would have wanted a religious service,” she admitted. “His lawyer, Mr. Newsome—I can hardly believe my dad had a lawyer—said he didn’t have a will when he notified me about his death. He didn’t say if Dad had specified any instructions at all. Only that he’d asked Mr. Newsome to contact me.” Her voice faltered a little. “I, um, I haven’t had a chance to go through any of Dad’s records here yet.” The prospect clearly held little appeal for her.

He couldn’t blame her. Even under the best of circumstances, such a task would be difficult. “The lawyer might not have known, but your father went to Sunday service every week. Talk to Beau. He’ll be able to help you figure it all out.”

“He went to church?”

“Regular as rain,” he assured. But he couldn’t fault her for her skepticism. Unlike Roger, who had never gone to church until after his wife died, Laurel had once been a regular presence at Lucius Community Church. Her grandmother had taken her every Sunday, and then when Lucille died, Laurel had continued going on her own.

Until the summer she turned eighteen.

Twelve years ago.

A lot had changed that summer for the Runyan family.

And for Shane.

“So,” Laurel finally said, as if she were anxious to move on from the notion of her father having discovered religion. “Your name wasn’t alongside your father’s on the sign at the church. So I guess your ministry took you elsewhere, after all.”

“I didn’t go into the ministry. Don’t know why I ever thought I could.”

Her eyes widened again at that, and for a long moment she stared at him. “You’d planned it all your life.”

“Planning doesn’t mean the same thing as having a calling.”

She finally unfolded her arms and propped one hand on the doorjamb near her shoulder, which let the lamplight behind her shine through the fine weave of her lightweight blouse. He could clearly see the outline of her bra beneath it.

“But you’re here. In Lucius. So what do you do?” she asked.

Look at you and still want. He wasn’t quick enough to cut off the realization. “I’m the sheriff,” he said.

She closed her hand over the screen door latch, that brief moment of softening, of near welcome in her demeanor drying up as surely as the grass in the yard behind him had.

“Sheriff. I see. No wonder you wanted to check things out at the Runyan place. But as you know, my father’s dead. There’s no one here anymore for the law to come after.”

Without another glance at him, she stepped back into the house and firmly pulled the screen door shut.

Then she turned away, closing the wooden door with a thud. He heard the lock sliding into place as she disappeared into the house where, twelve years ago, her father, Roger Runyan, had gotten away with killing his wife.

Laurel was shaking.

The moment the door slammed shut behind her, she reached out for the arm of the couch and shuffled around to sit before her legs simply quit functioning.

Shane Golightly.

She closed her eyes, her hand pressed against the base of her throat.

She’d known that returning to Lucius—to this house—would stir up memories. She could handle memories.

Most of them.

But why, oh why, hadn’t she prepared herself for this? Why had she let herself believe that he would’ve followed through, chapter and verse, with his long-ago plans?

Because the Shane she’d known had never deviated from his chosen course. Not ever.

Except for her. She’d definitely been off the path for Shane.

“Foolish Laurel,” she whispered aloud, and nearly jumped out of her skin at the imperious sound that drowned out her hoarse whisper.

A fist pounding on the front door.

“Laurel, open the damn door.”

Her heartbeat skipped right back into triple time. She stared at the door, half expecting it to open even though she’d flipped the flimsy lock.

“Laurel.” He’d moved to the grimy picture window next to the door and was looking in at her through the limp curtains. As if he had every expectation of her jumping right to her feet. “I’m not leaving,” he said, and he didn’t even have to raise his voice to be heard through the thin pane.

Voices had always been easily heard through the walls of the Runyan place. Particularly the raised voices.

She didn’t want to open the door. She didn’t want to see Shane. She didn’t want a lot of things, and for that reason alone, she forced her muscles into motion and rose from the couch. He moved away from the window and was standing in front of the screen again when she unlocked and pulled open the door. She leaned her shoulder against the edge of it and was glad he couldn’t see the death grip she had on the inside knob.

Weren’t sheriffs supposed to wear khaki-colored uniforms and badges in full view to warn all innocent bystanders of their position? Shane was wearing a charcoal-gray shirt, open at the throat, and blue jeans that fit entirely too well.

“I’m busy, Sheriff.”

“I could see that through the window.” His voice—droll though it was—was deeper. Everything about him seemed deeper. His gray eyes. His golden hair. His…intensity.

“Where are you staying?” he asked.

It was the last question she expected. Not that she’d expected any questions from him, since she had been naive enough to believe he’d be far, far from Lucius. That had been his plan that one summer. To finish seminary and take his ministry wherever he could help people the most.

“I’m staying here,” she told him.

His mouth tightened. Then, in a clearly conscious effort, his entire expression gentled. “Do you think that’s wise?” His voice was even more gentle. More careful.

Her spine stiffened. “You needn’t speak to me like I’m deranged, Sheriff.”

“I wasn’t.” Again in a gentle, careful tone.

She understood where it came from, and why, but she still hated it. Hated that it was coming from him, most of all. “Yes, you were. Are.” She also hated the fact that she was the one sounding defensive. She swallowed and scrambled for her wits. Her composure. She was a composed woman. Had always been a composed woman.

Except for the brief time when she was more than a girl but not yet a woman and had spent more hours than she could remember in a room where there were no sharp corners.

“This is…was…my father’s home. I’m staying here. Unless there’s some law against it?”

He didn’t look pleased. “By yourself?”

“Yes,” she managed calmly.

Something in his eyes made him look even less pleased. Anyone else and she might have blamed it on the dwindling light, or on the bare bulb that would have sufficed as a porch light if it had been a higher wattage.

“Here.” He abruptly pulled out his wallet and slid a card from it. “Call me if you need anything.” He extended the business card.

She plucked the card from his fingers, careful not to touch him. “I won’t need anything,” she assured him stiffly. “But, thank you.”

“I’ll come by and check on you in the morning.”

“I don’t need to be checked on.”

“You’re not—”

“Capable enough to stay alone in the house where I grew up?” She crossed her arms. “I’m not crazy, Sheriff.” Not anymore.

“Nobody said you were, Laurel.” His deep voice was smooth, so incredibly smooth, that they might just as well have been exchanging pleasantries on the steps of his daddy’s church. “But this place is—”

“What?”

“Falling apart,” he said simply.

Truthfully.

The defensive balloon that had puffed up deflated, leaving her feeling off-kilter. “I’ll be all right.”

“The furnace stopped working last year. Roger never had it fixed.”

“It’s the middle of June. I won’t need the furnace yet.”

He barely waited a beat. “Yet?”

She unfolded her arms. Folded them again. She’d been debating the idea of staying since before she’d driven back into the town limits. It wasn’t as if she had anywhere else to go. Not since two weeks ago when she’d called off her own wedding at the very last minute. Finding out that Shane was still in Lucius didn’t change a thing where her plans, her nonplans, were concerned.

Did it?

“It won’t be cold for months. I’ll have plenty of time to fix the furnace,” she said more confidently than she felt.

She had time, yes. Money? That might be another matter. A matter she intended to keep to herself.

“You can’t be planning to stay.”

He actually sounded horrified, and it surprised her enough that she managed not to get defensive over the flat statement. “Why not?”

He jammed his hat on his head. “This house isn’t fit for anyone to live in it.”

“How do you know?” She highly doubted he’d spent Sunday afternoons visiting with her father.

“Because I make it my business to know what’s going on in my town.”

“Including the habitability of my father’s house.”

“Yes.”

“How sheriffy of you.”

“You’ve earned yourself a smart mouth somewhere along the way.”

She managed an even smile. But the truth was, she didn’t have a smart mouth. The only thing she’d done in her entire adult life that wasn’t agreeable and sensible was walking out on her wedding to a perfectly decent man. “Maybe I’ve picked a few things up from the third-graders I teach. You went from the Lord to the law,” she observed. “Time brings all sorts of changes to a person.”

“Time doesn’t change everything,” he said flatly.

She didn’t know what on earth to make of that, not when they were both living evidence to the contrary. So she just stood there. And the silence between them lengthened.

Thickened.

She cast about in her mind fruitlessly for something—anything—to break the silence, only to gasp right out loud when a metallic chirp sounded.

Shane made a muffled sound and pulled a minute cell phone off his belt. “Sorry,” he murmured and flipped it open. “Golightly.” His voice was brusque.

She, for one, was perfectly happy for the intrusion as she drew in a long, careful breath. His call, though, was brief, and when he snapped the phone shut, he was very much in lawman mode.

“I’ll check on you later.” He settled his hat and turned on his heel, clearly expecting no arguments from her this time as he stepped off the porch past the rotting steps.

She didn’t have the nerve to argue, anyway. Not when he looked so grimly official. Instead she stood there in the doorway, hugging her arms to her waist, and watched while his long legs strode across the tired yard toward the tan SUV parked behind the little car she’d rented at the airport in Billings.

He wasted little time backing out and driving up the road toward town, but she still had plenty of time to study the word that was emblazoned in dark-green printing on the side of his SUV: Sheriff.

Shane was the sheriff.

And it was a sheriff who’d arrested her father one hot summer night for something he hadn’t done. Something she’d never, ever believed he’d done.

The brake lights of Shane’s truck—the sheriff’s truck—disappeared and Laurel finally drew in a full, cleansing breath.

It didn’t quite stop the trembling inside her, but it helped.

She let her gaze drift up and down the road. One way, the way Shane had driven, lay the town proper. The other way, beyond a sharp curve that skirted the stand of tall, centuries-old trees, lay nothing but miles and miles of…nothing.

She’d come back to bury her father.

But once she’d done that, once she’d dealt with his belongings, with the house, there was nothing else for her here. As much “nothing” as what lay beyond the curving highway.

Unfortunately, Laurel knew as she finally turned and went back inside the house, there was nothing for her to return to in Colorado, either. No job. No home. No fiancé.

Maybe she was just as crazy as Shane probably thought.

Chapter Two

“I heard you were here, but I had to see it with my own eyes.” The voice was deep and smooth as molasses and definitely amused.

Laurel set the heavy bag of weed killer in the cart next to the bucket and cleansers she’d already put there and turned toward the voice, a smile already forming. “Reverend Golightly. I was going to call you later today.” She dashed her hand quickly down her thigh, then extended it. “It’s so good to see you.” The pleasure in her voice was real. In fact, it was the first real pleasure she’d felt in weeks, and definitely since she’d arrived in Lucius the previous day.

He cocked an eyebrow and his light-blue eyes crinkled at the corners. “Oh, Laurel, honey, we can do better than that.” He swept her up in a great hug, lifting her right to the tips of her toes there in the aisle of Lucius Hardware. “You’re the spitting image of your grandmother, do you know that?”

She laughed and very nearly cried as she hugged him back. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“It was meant as one. In her day, Lucille was the prettiest woman in five counties. Until my Holly came to town, that is.” He grinned and settled her on her feet, keeping hold of her hands and holding them wide as he stepped back to look at her. “I’m as sorry as ditch water that it took something like this to bring you home, Laurel.”

The knot in her throat grew. “Me, too.” She swallowed harder and peered up into his face. “You haven’t changed a bit, Reverend Golightly. How is your family?”

His eyes crinkled again. “Beau. And they’re all fine. Stu’s fit as a fiddle,” he told her. “Still single and he’s got a small spread outside of town a bit—Hal Calhoun’s place if you remember it—plus he runs the garage down on Main Street. Evie’s running Tiff’s. She has three kids. They’re all getting on their feet a little since she and her husband divorced.”

Laurel would be better off if she couldn’t remember Calhoun’s place. Or his barn.

“Your wife doesn’t run Tiff’s anymore?” For all of Laurel’s childhood, her mother had been employed as a maid at the bed-and-breakfast operated by Beau’s second wife, Holly.

“She passed away some time ago,” Beau said quietly.

Laurel pressed her hand to her chest, dismayed. “Oh, I’m so sorry. I had no idea.” Her conversation—if one could call it that—with Shane hadn’t gotten to such matters. And she hadn’t talked with anyone else in town since she’d arrived.

“No reason you would, child,” he assured gently. “But she’d be pleased as punch to see you back in Lucius. Hadley took over running Tiff’s after we lost her mother, but she got married not long ago to Dane Rutherford, and now Evie’s trying her organized little hand at it.”

Laurel paused at the name. “Dane Rutherford?”

Beau grinned, his eyes brightening again with amusement. “The Dane Rutherford. Didn’t they have newspapers where you lived? Sure did make the news around these parts.”

“I’ll bet,” Laurel murmured. The Rutherford name was as familiar as Rockefeller and Kennedy. She shook her head, amazed. Hadley was a few years younger than Laurel and had always had her nose in a book. How on earth had she met someone like Dane Rutherford? “Well…wow.”

“He puts his pants on one leg at a time, too,” Beau assured mildly. “So far he seems good enough for my Hadley. And then there’s Shane, of course. He’s the sheriff, if you can believe it.”

Her face felt a little hot. They stepped aside to let a woman bearing a flat of daisies pass. “I know. He told me my father started going to church.”

“You’ve talked to Shane?” Beau was obviously surprised.

“He stopped by the house yesterday.” And surprised her greatly by not coming by that morning as threatened.

“He didn’t mention that when I saw him this morning at the hospital.”

Her nerves jangled. “Hospital?”

“Nasty three-car accident on the south side of town. Aside from handling the reports and such, he’s friends with one of the women who got hit. He’s probably still there.”

Even as relief that Shane was at the hospital in his official capacity doused her nerves, an odd sense she couldn’t quite identify took its place. “I hope she’s all right.” Shane obviously hadn’t been as unsettled by their encounter as she had been, or he’d have mentioned it to his father.

“Fortunately, no one was seriously injured,” Beau said, mercifully oblivious to Laurel’s undeniable sense of…what? Pique? Disappointment? Relief? “Now, what about you? Your father said once that you’d become a teacher.”

Laurel nodded. In a way she was as surprised that her father had told anyone anything about her as she was that he’d evidently found religion. “Elementary education. I, um, I’ve been at a school in Denver—Clover Elementary—teaching third grade.”

“Surprised you’re not teaching music.”

She shook her head. She hadn’t sung in public since the day her mother died.

Fortunately, Beau let that topic lie as he surveyed the items in her cart. “Looks like you’re planning on exercising your elbows a bit.”

“I’m staying at Dad’s place. It needs some work.” He probably knew that.

“Well, if you decide you prefer staying elsewhere, you just give Evie a call. I know she can come up with a room for you at Tiff’s that would be comfortable.”

Whether or not she could, Laurel wouldn’t be able to afford it. Not even if Tiff’s room rates hadn’t budged a dime in the past decade. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Beau’s smile was ever kind, as if he’d divined her thoughts perfectly. “It’s good to have you back, Laurel. Everything is going to be fine.” He hugged her shoulder. “Now. We’ll need to talk about the service for your father sooner or later, but I can see you’re plenty busy and I’m on my way over to the hospital for my afternoon visitations. You just let me know when you’re ready to talk about it, and I’m at your disposal. In the meantime, though, you can still call me if you need anything at all.”

Why it was so much easier to take that advice from Beau than it was from his son, Laurel didn’t know. But where she’d bristled at Shane’s command, she was touched now by Beau’s concern, and she gave him a hug back. “I will. Thank you.”

He gave her a little wink and headed down the wide aisle.

Laurel finished loading up her cart. She appreciated Beau’s matter-of-factness about her father’s service. Her father had died nearly a week ago. The attorney who’d contacted her had informed her that the funeral home would simply wait for instructions from her. The only rush for a funeral and burial would be whatever rush Laurel felt.

And she didn’t really know what she felt.

So she concentrated on the immediate reality.

Her father’s house was a pigsty. And she needed to clean away the mess left by years of neglect before she could begin to figure out what repairs the structure needed. Then maybe she’d consult a real estate agent.

She made her purchases and headed back to her father’s home. On Main Street she passed the busy-looking garage and auto-body shop that undoubtedly was the one Beau had mentioned Stu ran.

The sheriff’s office was a little ways up the road. She didn’t allow herself much more than a glance that told her the brick-fronted building hadn’t changed during her absence.

She passed the Luscious Lucius, which used to serve up the best breakfasts she’d ever had, and which—judging by the cars parked in front of it—was still doing a fine business for lunch.

A little further, beyond the businesses, she passed Tiff’s. The enormous Victorian house looked just as distinctive as it always had, its sharp angles softened by curlicues and lace. The colors hadn’t changed, either, over the years; still an eye-popping combination of pink and green.

It seemed hard to believe that Beau’s wife was gone now. That Evie was running it. Laurel’s memories of Evie were of a light-hearted blond beauty more interested in winning the county science fair than helping with her stepmother’s business.

At her father’s house she parked in the cracked driveway bordered by overgrown weeds, yellow grass and bare dirt. There was no point in trying to enter the small, detached garage that sat next to the square house. It was filled to the rafters with about a million years of old newspapers and other junk. Her father’s rusting pickup truck was parked in the center of it all, and since there was nothing under the hood but cobwebs and yawning space, the pickup wasn’t going anywhere.

She unloaded her trunk, dumping everything on the porch next to the front door and nearly tripped over the cat that appeared out of nowhere. The animal yowled and streaked around the side of the house.

Probably belonged to the owner of the lovely rambling house built high on the hill behind her father’s. The house certainly hadn’t been there when Laurel was growing up, and as far as Laurel could determine, it was the only thing new in this area.

She eyed the worn, tired house where she’d grown up. A person would have to be desperate to buy it in its current state when there was an entirely new and modern development on the other side of Lucius.

A person might have to be desperate to stay in it.

She pushed aside the thought. She wasn’t desperate. She was just…at loose ends.

After unloading the trunk, Laurel went inside the house, stepping over the porch steps. She’d already made the mistake of stepping too firmly on one. It had creaked ominously. The treads would definitely have to be replaced before some unwary soul went right through them.

How had her father lived here this way? As if he’d just given up on having any sort of decent home a long time ago?

She grabbed the box of trash bags she’d purchased and went inside. She’d start upstairs and work her way down.

It was a nice, sensible plan, and just having a plan made her feel better.

She went up the narrow staircase and paused at the first closed door. Her parents’ bedroom. She hadn’t gone in there yet. She started to reach for the iron knob. But her stomach clenched, and she curled her fingers into a fist, lowering her hand.

Later. She could clean out that room later.

She went into the only other bedroom. Her own. The narrow bed still had the afghan her grandmother had given her for her eighth birthday, folded neatly at the foot. The ancient student desk where she’d done her homework still stood beneath the single window that overlooked the front yard.

Nothing had changed since she’d been a girl. Yet everything here—as in the rest of the house—was covered with the thick layer of years of neglect.

She pulled out an enormous trash bag, flipping the plastic open. She dropped into the bag the glass jars that she’d painted one summer and filled with dried wildflowers. She yanked out the slender center drawer of the desk and tipped it into the bag, a childhood of bits raining out. She shoved the drawer back in place and slid out the second, tipping it, too. Magazines. More pieces of nothing. Then several canvas-covered books fell out from the bottom of the drawer.

She caught at them, her haste fleeing as quickly as it had struck.

Her journals. She set them on top of the desk, her fingers lingering on the top one. The canvas was dull, but the delicate lines of the flower printed in the center of the cover was still clear. Sighing a little, she looked from the diary out the window in front of her, then back to the bedroom behind her.

So long ago, she thought, since she’d been in this house. Her childhood bedroom. And she wasn’t certain if she was grateful for the intervening years or not.

She looked at the journals again. Flipped the top one open randomly. The pages were stiff from age, but they parted easily midway through the book. She looked at the handwriting. Her handwriting. All loops and curls.

The handwriting of a girl.

Dear Gram,

Did you ever have one of those times when you were doing something you almost are always doing—like taking out the trash or washing the car on a Saturday morning—and then all of a sudden, time kind of stands still?

That’s what happened to me this morning. I was washing daddy’s truck, on account of he’d left it all muddy and Mom was totally mad about it and they were fighting. (They do that a lot, Gram, but I guess you can see that from up there in heaven.)

So there I was, standing in the truck bed hosing it down when Shane Golightly drove down the street in his dad’s pickup truck. He stopped in front of the house and said something. Gosh, Gram, I don’t even remember what it was he did say. Isn’t that silly? He was wearing a plain white T-shirt and his arm was hanging out the open window and he stopped and said something—maybe it was about Mom’s job at Tiff’s. See? I can’t remember even when I’m trying.

I haven’t seen Shane since he went off to go to college several years ago. And I hadn’t heard he was back, which was interesting, ’cause Jenny Travis usually calls me the very second she hears something major like that.

Anyway, there he was. And, oh Gram. He lifted his hand to wave and the sun was shining on him and everything else sort of disappeared.

Except for him.

The water, the mud, the yelling inside the house behind me, it was all gone.

Shane Golightly, Gram. I’ve known him—and Stu and Evie and Hadley, too, of course—all my life, seems like. He was always nice enough to me, probably because I was a little kid to him. But that moment—and I swear on a stack of Bibles that I’m not exaggerating like Mom’s always saying—that moment was…special, that’s all. Special!!

I just knew, Gram, that I’d remember that very moment, that I’d remember Shane in that very moment. The way he looked and the way the muddy water ran cold on my feet and the sun burned hot on my shoulders, and the grass smelled sweet, like it had just been mown.

I knew it.

I knew that I’d remember that moment all the rest of my life.

Laurel carefully closed the journal on those girlishly written thoughts, but doing so didn’t close her mind to the memories.

She wished she could say the memories at the end of the summer were as clear as those from the beginning, when the sight of Shane Golightly had struck with such singular clarity. If only the entire summer were so clear.

So much of her life would have been different.

She sighed again and stacked the diaries in the bottom drawer, which she slid back into place in the desk.

She was sweating by the time she finished with the bedroom and the single bathroom, a state that wasn’t helped by the sight of the sheriff’s vehicle parked at the curb, or the presence of Shane studying the pile of supplies she’d purchased from the hardware store.

“What are you doing here?”

“What are you doing?”

She gestured at the trio of weighty bags full of trash she’d pulled from the house. “What does the evidence tell you?”

He didn’t look amused. “You shouldn’t be staying here.”

She crossed her arms, staring down at him where he stood below the porch. “Because I have to take out some trash?”

He picked up one of the bags and tossed it at the steps. The wood cracked sharply and splintered beneath the bag.

“Well.” Laurel eyed the half-buried bag. “You can pull that out.”

“You’re missing the point.” With no seeming effort, he hefted the bag free of the jagged wood without managing to tear the plastic. “That could be you falling through the steps.”

“Instead, it was an innocent garbage bag. I’m staying, so if that’s your only reason for coming out here, you can go.” The sooner the better.

He just gave her a look and held out his hand for the remaining bags. She tightened her hold on them. “I can manage.”

“Hand me the bags, Laurel.”

She made a face and dragged the bags over to him. His hands brushed hers as he took hold and lifted them off the porch, carrying all three around to the trash bins next to the garage.

It was a fine time to realize that Shane Golightly’s touch still had the ability to make her mind go completely blank.

He was back in seconds, and the hope that he would simply leave died rapidly when he stepped up onto the porch and lowered himself onto the faded wicker love seat near the door.

She leaned against the wall. “What do you want, Sheriff?”

He doffed his hat, balancing it on his knee. His hair was darker than it used to be. Particularly near the nape of his neck where it was cut severely short.

The last time she’d seen Shane so closely, his shoulders hadn’t been quite so wide, his chest not quite so deep, his forearms, where his white shirtsleeves were rolled up, not quite so sinewy. And his deep-gold hair had been long enough at the nape for her fingers to tangle in it.

She swallowed and looked away. Her gaze fell on his SUV. Sheriff.

She swallowed again. “I saw your father earlier. I was sorry to hear about your mother.” Holly Golightly had been his stepmother, actually, but Laurel knew he’d considered her his only mother, since his natural mother had walked out on her family when he’d been very young.

“Cancer. It was fast,” he supplied. “And a long time ago.”

“Does that make it hurt less? Time?”

His wide shoulders rose and fell. “Yeah. But it doesn’t stop us all from missing her. I moved back to Lucius when she got really bad, and decided not to leave again once she was gone.” The toe of his boot jiggled. “This place isn’t safe for you.”

She exhaled, impatience swirling through her. “I’m a big girl. I think I can avoid the bad steps until they’re fixed.”

“Who is going to fix them?”

“I will.”

His eyebrows rose. “Really.”

“Yes, really.”

“Gonna buy the lumber. Get the tools. Rebuild the supports that are rotting underneath.”

“If I have to.” She propped her hands on her hips. “Women are perfectly capable of—”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” He stood. “I’m not getting into that argument with you. I know plenty of women who can frame a house better than men. My point is that you’re a—”

“A what?” She angled her head.

“A third-grade teacher,” he finished mildly, and smoothly circled her wrists, turning her palms upward. “Without a single callus on these pretty hands of yours to indicate you’re accustomed to this sort of work.”

She curled her fingers into fists. He wasn’t being chauvinistic. His attitude was strictly based on what he knew—or thought he knew—of her.

“I’m perfectly capable of learning.” And hadn’t she learned her lesson where Shane Golightly was concerned?

His thumbs worked across the knobs of her knuckles. Soothing. “Of course you’re capable of learning anything. That’s not the point.”

The point. Remember the point. “This house is the only thing left of my father. Maybe I don’t want to abandon it the way he abandoned me.” She pulled her hands away. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a lot of things to take care of this afternoon, not least of which is planning a funeral.” She reached for the screen door, turning away from him.

“Laurel.”

Why did hearing her name on his lips make her heart still skip? She didn’t want to hesitate, but she did. “What?” When he didn’t respond, she finally looked back at him.

His eyes were unreadable. His expression no more helpful. Did she even know this man anymore?

“Be careful,” he finally said.

She nodded once. “I plan to be.” Then she went inside.

Chapter Three

The funeral service for Laurel’s father was on Friday morning, just three days after she arrived in Lucius.

Beau Golightly handled most of the details. When they’d met to discuss the service, he’d told her that Roger had left a plan a few years earlier. What hymns he wanted sung. What scripture readings.

The fact that Roger had left any sort of instructions had stunned Laurel.

He’d even prepaid for an arrangement of flowers, had prearranged his burial, had done nearly everything.

The only thing Laurel had done was purchase him a new suit, and she’d had to depend upon the funeral home director to advise her on the size.

She could have avoided that particular embarrassment if she’d only had the nerve to enter her parents’ bedroom.

But she hadn’t.

Picking out the navy-blue suit, white shirt and burgundy striped tie at the new department store on the far end of town was the most familial task she’d performed for her father in twelve years. And he had to be deceased for her to even be allowed the task.

She’d gone back to his house and had a glass of wine, after she’d delivered her purchases to the funeral home, and had felt guilty that she’d been unable to shed any tears.

She should be able to cry for her father, shouldn’t she?

Even now, sitting in the front row of the Lucius Community Church while a woman Laurel had never before met played “Amazing Grace” on the organ and Beau Golightly stood at the pulpit with his Bible in hand, and the unprepossessing casket rested ten feet away from her, Laurel wasn’t able to summon any tears.

Maybe there was still something wrong with her, after all.

There were no other mourners. She hadn’t expected there would be. Roger had worked for the town of Lucius all of his adult life. Even after the charges in her mother’s death had been dismissed against him, he’d kept his job with the town. He’d certainly never considered leaving Lucius to join her in Colorado, even though she’d asked him.

There was a small arrangement of summer flowers that had been sent by his department.

But there were no people who’d interrupted their day to attend his final service. Even the funeral home director, who was there to take care of transporting the casket, had chosen not to come in for the service but was waiting outside.

Nobody had loved Roger Runyan. Most people hadn’t even liked him. Even before that awful summer, he’d been sullen, standoffish and made it plain that he liked others as little as they liked him.

He may have begun attending church after Laurel left Lucius, but it seemed that nothing else about him had changed.

The organ notes slowly faded, and Beau gave her one of his unbearably kind looks. He opened his Bible and began to read.

Laurel closed her eyes and prayed for forgiveness. She’d loved her father, even if he hadn’t loved her.

So what was wrong with her that she couldn’t cry for him, now?

For a moment—a weak moment—she almost wished she’d asked Martin to come. Despite the way she’d left him only a few weeks earlier, he would have been here for her.

Which would have been as wrong as going through with the wedding.

A rustle sounded behind her and she glanced over her shoulder, starting as two people slid into the pew.

Evie and Stu Golightly.

She would have recognized them anywhere.

Evie, with her short, fluffy blond hair and blue eyes, and Stu, with his brown hair and eyes. He was Shane’s twin, but the resemblance between them was limited to their size and facial structure.

Evie sat forward, closing her hand over Laurel’s shoulder. “I had to find a sitter for my kids,” she whispered, “or we’d have been here on time.” She squeezed her hand a little, then sat back and pulled a hymnal from the rack on the back of Laurel’s pew and dropped it on her brother’s lap.

“I didn’t expect anyone,” Laurel whispered, feeling numb. This had to be Beau’s doing.

Evie’s smile was sympathetic and very much like her father’s. “Maybe not, but here we are.”

Beau continued reading, his voice beautiful and soothing and after a moment Laurel gathered herself enough to turn back around in her seat. Then the organist played again. The small congregation rose and sang the two hymns that Roger had requested. And that was it.

The end.

There was to be no graveside service, in accordance with Roger’s wishes, and Laurel rose as Beau stepped down from the pulpit and approached her. “Thank you.” She held out her hands to him.

He took them and gave her a hug. “Your father would be very proud of you, Laurel.”

Behind them, the funeral director and his associates were efficiently removing the casket. Laurel watched them for a moment. There was an awful, hollow feeling inside her, and it surpassed the emotional black hole that had prompted her to call off her wedding. “Proud? I can’t imagine why.”

“Remember? He told me you were a teacher. That you have a master’s degree in education from the University of Colorado, even. He was proud,” Beau assured. “Now, there’s a table waiting for us over at the Luscious. Evie, Stu, you’ll join us.”

Neither seemed inclined to argue. Evie tucked her arm through Laurel’s as they headed out of the church. Within minutes their small caravan arrived at the café and, just as Beau promised, there was a table waiting.

The waitress had barely delivered their water glasses and menus when Evie sat forward. “You know, Laurel, the school here has been short staffed for over a year.”

“Geez, Evie,” Stu groused a little. He didn’t bother with a menu. “Give her a chance to settle in first.” He focused on Laurel. “How long do you have that rental car for?”

“Er, through the weekend.”

“Well, you let me know if you’re gonna be in the market for buying something more long term. I’ll make sure you get a good deal.”

Her mouth dried a little. She had a car back in Colorado. It was still parked at the apartment complex, where the rest of her worldly goods were stored in a locked garage. None of it would be moved to Martin’s as they planned to do once they returned from their honeymoon. “Thank you,” she said. She didn’t know how to tell them that the permanency of her stay in Lucius was still undetermined.

“Stu knows what’s under the hood of all the used cars around here,” Evie said. “It’s one of his few skills.”

Stu shot her a look. “I’ll remember that when you need your engine rebuilt.”

Evie grinned.

The tears that had been painfully absent earlier now seemed to clog Laurel’s throat. She looked down at the menu, blinking hard. Why was it that she could cry just because this family behaved so normally? Because they just let her be, didn’t seem to expect her to break down and didn’t seem shocked that she hadn’t.

Around her, the café was alive with conversations, the clatter of dishes, the aroma of coffee and grilling hamburgers. And after a minute she could actually absorb the words that she was staring at.

The menu, aside from a few modern additions like grilled-chicken wraps and low-carb hamburger buns, held few changes. “Is the fried chicken here still good?”

“Better ’n ever,” Beau assured. “Oh, good. There’s Shane. I was hoping he’d be able to join us.”

Laurel’s water glass tipped precariously when she knocked into it with her menu, but Stu stretched out a long arm, capably catching it before it spilled.

“Sorry I couldn’t make the service,” Shane murmured as he took the seat beside her. Beneath the square table, his thigh brushed against hers as he returned the few hails sent his way from other diners. “Stuck in court.”

“I, um, I didn’t expect anyone at all,” she admitted, carefully shifting away. She felt a little steadier if she focused on the other members of Shane’s family. “It was just…so…nice of you to be there.”

Evie smiled. “If we’re nice enough, maybe you’ll decide to stay in Lucius and look into a teaching position. Julie goes into third grade in the fall and I really, really don’t want her to have to have Mrs. Cuthwater as a teacher.”

“Mrs. Cuthwater still teaches?” Laurel remembered the woman. Any child who passed third grade was left with the desperate fear of not sitting up straight enough or of slanting their cursive writing the wrong way.

“She substitutes,” Shane supplied. “Out of necessity.”

“See?” Evie leaned forward, her blue eyes merry. “Think of my sweet, innocent baby, Laurel.”

“I could be worse than Mrs. Cuthwater,” Laurel warned.

Evie, Stu and Beau all chuckled at the prospect, and Laurel felt her tension begin to leave again. The waitress came by and they ordered.

“I probably should thank you,” she told Shane after the waitress departed. “For the plywood. I assume that was you.” Before evening had fallen on that day, an enormous sheet of wood had been laid across the steps, creating a rough but sturdy ramp. It had been a nice gesture, though it had rankled her that he’d done it without consulting her.

“What plywood?” Beau asked.

Shane plucked the lemon out of his iced tea and dropped it into hers, as if it were perfectly natural for him to do so. As if he remembered, from those few weeks they’d once spent together, just how dearly she loved lemon in her tea. “To cover the steps at the house before she breaks a leg going through them.” His voice was flat.

Laurel’s cheeks went even hotter at the tsks that statement elicited. Nobody questioned, of course, which house, as if Roger Runyan’s house was the only one in all of Lucius that could be in such disrepair.

“It’s not that bad,” she defended.

“Maybe you should stay at Evie’s,” Stu suggested, and Evie immediately nodded.

“I have an empty room right now. The tower room, in fact. Nicest one at Tiff’s.”

Laurel remembered it, having helped her mother occasionally. “I’m fine where I am. Really.” Even if the entire Golightly clan did believe she’d be better off staying in a cardboard box than in her own father’s house.

“She thinks she’s gonna fix things up there by herself,” Shane said.

“‘She’s’ sitting right here,” Laurel interjected, “and can speak for herself. The house needs repairs if I’m going to sell it.”

“If?” Shane’s voice was incredibly mild.

“Mrs. Cuthwater needs a reprieve,” she reminded, and saw the triumphant look passing between Evie and Stu.

“Without a reason to get up in the morning, Mrs. Cuthwater might as well lie down next to Mr. Cuthwater in Lucius Cemetery.”

“Shane,” Beau cautioned.

“She shouldn’t be staying in that house, much less wasting time and energy fixing it up, and we all know it.”

Laurel angled herself away from Shane. “You’ve made your opinion more than clear about that house. I don’t really need to hear it again.”

“Evidently, you do. Because you’re still there. You don’t have to fix it up to sell it.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “Who on earth would buy it in its current condition?”

Evie made a faint sound.

“All rightee, here we go.” The waitress arrived, bearing plates of food. She brushed her hands together when she finished unloading. “I’ll be back to top off your drinks. Anything else I can get for you?”

Laurel’s appetite for her fried chicken was definitely waning, but mindful of the concerned look in Beau’s eyes and not wanting to add to it, she picked up a drumstick.

“Probably should have a contractor look at your dad’s place,” Stu said. “Jack Finn’s the best around. He wouldn’t have to do the work, necessarily, but he could steer you in the right direction.”

Stu either possessed a remarkable ability to remain oblivious to the irritation rolling off Shane in waves or he simply didn’t care. Either way, Laurel wanted to lean over and kiss him. “Finn? He’s Freddie Finn’s dad, isn’t he?” She was surprised at the ease she had recalling old names, old faces.

Stu buried his attention in his burger as he nodded. “Call Jack. You won’t regret it.”

Laurel glanced at Evie. She would have to think about calling the contractor. It certainly made the most sense to get advice from a professional. But the cost was a consideration she couldn’t ignore, no matter how wise it would be. “Is Freddie still in Lucius? She was in your grade, wasn’t she?”

“Yes. And she’s still here.”

Stu made an unintelligible noise.

Evie rolled her eyes. “Ignore him. He’s just irritated because he signed a lease for her to rent the barn he converted a while back. And she’s holding him to it, even though they can’t agree on the color of rice.”

Laurel buried her nose in her glass of tea. Stu’s barn was probably old Calhoun’s barn, unless he’d built another one.

She didn’t dare glance at Shane.

Evie, fortunately was chattering on. “Freddie runs a tow service with Gordon, but if you ask me, she’s the brains behind keeping the business going since her brother hardly has the sense God gave a goose.” Evie flicked a look at her father. “Sorry, Dad. But it’s true.”

“Gordon’s a hard worker,” Beau said, looking slightly amused. “There’s a lot to be said for that. But I agree with Stu about calling Jack Finn, Laurel.”

Shane breathed an oath that only Laurel heard. “Laurel shouldn’t be in that house at all, and we all know it.”

Silence settled over the foursome, and Laurel wished she were anywhere but there.

“So, Dad, have you heard from Nancy?” Evie finally broke the silence, her voice deliberately cheerful.

“Nancy Thayer,” Beau supplied to Laurel. “She directed our junior choir. Kids in fifth grade through eight. She eloped last week. And no. I haven’t,” he told Evie.

“Far be it from me to stand in the way of true love,” Evie’s voice was a little tart at that, “but she couldn’t have timed it worse.” Her blue gaze shifted to Laurel. “The junior choir still spends every year raising enough money to travel to Spokane to participate in the choir festival there. Now they won’t be able to go.”

“Never put my truck through so many car washes.” Stu dumped more ketchup on his French fries.

“Or bought so many homemade brownies,” Beau added. “Think you financed two kids’ expenses on that alone.”

Stu just grinned.

Laurel didn’t quite see the problem. “If they have the money, why can’t they go?”

“Without a director, they won’t be able to sing.” Evie shook her head. “Rules.”

“You can’t hire someone else? Or maybe have a parent fill in temporarily?”

Evie’s eyebrows rose pointedly. “The only other parent aside from me who’s even willing to try that is Tony Shoemaker, Shane’s senior deputy. And he can’t carry a tune in a bucket.”

“Neither can you, Tater,” Shane drawled.

“A person doesn’t have to sing themselves in order to direct a youth choir. Surely you can find someone.” She flushed when she realized Beau was studying her.

“The festival is next weekend,” he said.

“What about you or your associate pastor?”

“Jon is on study leave for a month, and I can’t leave for three days without someone to fill the pulpit on Sunday. Believe me. If I could figure out a way of not disappointing Alan and the others, I would.”

Alan, Laurel knew, was Evie’s eldest son. “There’s not anyone?” Her stomach felt in a knot. She wasn’t so oblivious that she didn’t know where this was headed. The hopeful look in Evie’s eyes was enough to tell her that.

“Not so far.” Beau dropped his napkin on his empty plate. “Some things just can’t be helped. They’ll have a chance to go next year.”

Laurel swallowed. “Maybe I could, um, fill in as director. Just to get them through the festival.”

“No.” Shane’s voice was flat.

Laurel bristled, her nervousness shriveling into irritation. “Why not?”

“Joey Halloran is in that group. He’s hell on wheels. He got caught shoplifting last week at the thrift store.”

“All the more reason for him to keep involved with more appropriate pursuits. But I suppose being the sheriff, you think anyone who even slightly breaks the law ought to be punished, rather than resolve the issue at the root of the problem?”

He looked equally irritated. “I didn’t say that.”

She turned in her chair and looked at Beau. “It’s been a long time since I’ve sung—” a severe understatement “—but I can probably keep a group of kids on key.”

Shane shoved back his chair. He was surrounded by people bent on ignoring reality. Laurel didn’t need to be filling in for that twit who’d eloped, any more than she needed to be fixing broken steps. “I’ve gotta get back to the office.” He tossed some cash on the table and ignored the disapproval in Beau’s eyes as he turned to the door.

The wounded look in Laurel’s eyes, though, followed him all the way back to his office.

When he got there he stopped at Carla’s desk and picked up the stack of pink messages awaiting him.

“How was court?” she asked.

“Too long.” He knew she wanted a blow-by-blow account because she always did. And, as always, she’d have to get her gossip from somewhere else. He flipped through the paper messages as he headed back to his office, only to stop. “What’s this number?” One of these days, he needed to get the county to spring for a voice-mail system. Carla’s writing had never won any awards for legibility.

Carla craned her neck, peering at the message. “Um, a five.”

He nodded and started for his office again. Behind him the door jangled.

“I’d like to make a complaint.”

He stopped cold. Slowly turned.

Laurel stood in the doorway. Her hair was still pinned back the way it had been in the café, but her cheeks were flushed, her golden eyes snapping.

“Excuse me?”

“I have a complaint.” Her voice was as crisp as her eyes.

Carla was watching them avidly. She liked hearing gossip almost as much as she liked sharing it.

“We’ll talk in my office.”

“I don’t want to talk in your office.”

“Laurel—”

“Good heavens. You’re little Laurel Runyan. I should have recognized you the second you walked in.” Carla was around her desk in a flash. “Carla Chapman. I used to sit in a quilting circle with your grandmother. She was the oldest, I was the youngest. Neither one of us could abide any of the other women. She used to bring you with her, though. You’d sit in a corner in the quilting room with your own squares and a big ol’ darning needle and yarn. I’ve heard you’re a teacher. That’s a fine thing. Lucille would be proud. And my condolences on your daddy passing,” she added belatedly.

Laurel looked a little dazed. “I remember the quilting circle.”

Carla looked pleased and only slightly abashed when she caught the look Shane was giving her. She cocked her eyebrow and returned to her desk.

Shane grabbed Laurel’s arm, ignoring the start she gave, and led her back to his office. He let go of her as soon as they entered his cubicle and flipped through the messages again without bothering to look at them. Mostly he wanted to rid his hand of the feel of her supple arm.

“Okay, what’s the complaint?” He sat down behind his desk.

She, however, didn’t sit. She crossed her arms, looking at him with a schoolmarm look that probably did wonders for straightening up mischievous third-grade boys.

For a thirty-five-year-old man, it did not have the desired effect.

“Just because you loathed my father, and dumped me the second you’d finished with me, does not give you the right to harass me about what I choose to do or not do with his house, or to dictate what I do with my time while I’m here!”

“I didn’t dump you.” He kept his voice low. His conscience, however, was screaming at him with the ferocity of a freight train.

Her eyes went even chillier. “There may be some things I don’t remember, Sheriff, but I remember that quite well.”

He wished she’d sit. Or pace. Do anything but stand there the way she was, looking as cold and brittle as a narrow icicle. An icicle that could snap in two as easily as a whisper.

“I didn’t know how much you remembered.” He’d been an ass. An ass who’d been old enough to know better than to get involved with her. Eighteen or not, she’d still been too young and innocent.

Neither fact had stopped him back then.

He hoped to hell he’d learned something in the years since.

Her expression remained glacial. “Not remembering what I saw the night my mother died does not mean I cannot remember the exact details of how you dumped me an hour before it happened.” Her chin lifted a little. “Therapy,” she clipped, “does wonders for enabling a person to state…unpleasant…facts. And the unpleasant fact is that you don’t want me in Lucius at all. You probably figured that with my father’s death, your town was finally free of Runyans.”

He leaned back in his chair. The springs squeaked slightly. “That therapy may have done you a world of good, but you are way off the mark when it comes to reading me.”

“Really. You can’t wait for me to sell my father’s house. To dump it, really. You nearly came unglued when Evie was talking about someone—me—replacing Mrs. Cuthwater. And then this festival business? What’s the matter? Are you afraid a Runyan will bring rack and ruin to the innocent children of Lucius?”

“No. I’m afraid Lucius will bring rack and ruin to you.” He exhaled roughly, wanting to rip out his tongue. Where the hell was his control?

Her lips parted, and all the color drained from her cheeks.

He went around to her, taking her arms. “Sit.”

She shook off his hold. “I don’t need to sit.”

An icicle. Too easily snapped in two. “Laurel, please. I didn’t intend to upset you.”

“Of course not. Heaven forbid you upset the crazy lady. She might just lose her mind again.”

“I never said you were crazy.” Maybe he was. Maybe that was why he sometimes still—all these years later—woke up sweating in the middle of the night with the vision of her inside that room at Fernwood, rocking herself to sleep, her eyes roiling pools of despair.

“You didn’t have to say it,” she whispered. “When everything you do makes it obvious you think it.”

Then she turned on her heel and walked out of his office.

Chapter Four

The next day, Laurel took the bus back to Lucius from Billings after returning the rental car there. Keeping it longer was simply an excuse she couldn’t afford. But standing in the depot, she very nearly changed her mind about climbing on the bus.

Wouldn’t returning to Colorado be preferable to returning to Lucius?

She could find another teaching position. She did have good credentials, after all. She’d left her last school on good terms. Had even helped find her replacement. She’d been planning on marrying. Martin had wanted to travel. See the world. He was forty-five and more than financially able to take an early retirement. Giving up her job had been perfectly understandable, considering the circumstances.

There was no earthly reason why she had to return to Lucius. The junior choir would survive without her intervention. Mrs. Cuthwater could keep on substituting for third grade. Laurel could contact that attorney—Mr. Newsome—and put him in charge of disposing of her father’s house and personal effects.

She didn’t have to go back.

The worst memories of her life lived in Lucius.

But so did the very best memories.

When she went up the ramp of plywood that covered the perilous porch steps at her father’s house, she couldn’t pretend that she hadn’t chosen to return willingly.

None of it had anything to do with Shane, of course. Heavenly days, no. Where would be the sense in that?

Whether or not he admitted it, at worst the man thought she had a screw loose. At best he thought she needed coddling to make sure her screws didn’t come loose.

So she unlocked the flimsy lock and went inside, leaving the door open for the fresh summer air. Even after only a half a day of being closed up, the house felt stuffy and close.

In her marathon cleaning sessions before the funeral, she’d managed to rid the house of its suffocating layer of dust, but instead of making the house look better, she’d only managed to make its rundown condition more evident. Yes, the windows were clean and shining again, but the cracks only glistened more. Yes, the cobwebs were gone, but the walls and ceilings now screamed for fresh plaster and paint.

She dropped her suitcase on the couch. She knew she needed to get to work on the place. She’d done enough vacillating. Whether she fixed the house up to remain in it or fixed it up to sell it, either way the work needed to be done.

While in Billings, she’d called Martin and asked him to sell her car. It wasn’t worth much, but it had been reliable enough for her needs. Going all the way to Denver to retrieve it though seemed more effort and expense than it was worth. His son from his first marriage—a high school senior—had been begging for a car for a year. Now he’d have one. She’d hung up feeling better and worse. Better that she’d made a productive decision. Worse because Martin was simply too good. He hadn’t deserved her treatment, and she still felt badly about it.

But not badly enough to go through with a marriage that had put her in the worst panic attack she’d had since she’d been a patient at Fernwood

She’d left Denver. She had no intention of going back. She’d had friends, but no one—other than Martin—who’d been truly close. Aside from him, she’d spent nearly all of her time teaching. Teaching during the regular year. Teaching during the summers.

And dwelling on it all accomplished nothing.

Martin was sending her money for her car, and she’d find something economical in Lucius. On Monday she would open a bank account in town, have her funds transferred from Colorado. She’d have enough to tide her through the summer, hopefully enough to accomplish the most necessary repairs on the house, if she was careful. And then…and then, she would see.

Concrete plans. Achievable goals. Such behavior had gotten her through a lot of years. She could do this.

She would do this.

“Laurel?”

She started, pressing her hand to her heart when it jolted. She turned to the doorway. She hadn’t seen Shane since she’d gone to his office. “What do you want, Sheriff?”

She didn’t need to see his expression clearly through the screen to know he was irritated. The way he yanked open the door and stepped inside told her that quite well enough.

He swept off his dark-brown cowboy hat and tapped it against the side of his leg. “What are you doing here?”

“Where else would I be?”

“You left town this morning.”

“How’d you know that?”

“The grapevine is as active now as it was when you were a girl. More so, I ’spose, considering half the town has cell phones now. You drove out of town and word spread.”

“And I wasn’t allowed back?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

She felt herself flush when she realized she was staring at his legs, strong and long and clad in fading blue jeans that fit extremely well. He looked delectable and she looked…as if she’d just spent a few hours on a bus. “I had to return the rental car in Billings.”

“How’d you get back to Lucius?”

“The bus.” Looking at his dark-blue pullover didn’t help her any, either, because the fabric did little to disguise the massively wide chest beneath.

She settled for focusing on the faint dent in his stubbornly square chin.

He tossed his hat and it landed unerringly on the corner of the coffee table, right next to a footed glass bowl of ugly plastic purple grapes. “For crissakes, Laurel. You could have called someone.”

She sank her teeth into her tongue for a moment. “Is it the bus you object to, or the fact that I didn’t remain out of town?”

“I never wanted you to leave town in the first place.”

“No, leaving was what you liked to do.” Her words seemed to hang in the air, giving her mortification plenty of time to set in good and deep.

If she’d wanted to prove that the brief past they’d shared was completely irrelevant to her now, she was doing a miserable job of it.

“Leaving is what I had to do,” he said finally. “If I’d have stayed, I wouldn’t have been able to keep my hands to myself again. Not after we’d—”

“Stop.” Heat filled her face. She had only herself to blame for opening up the matter, but she really didn’t want to go into those details. “It was a long time ago. No need to rehash it.”

“Maybe not for you. I always meant to tell you that I was—”

“Please, this isn’t—”

“Sorry.”

“—necessary.”

He frowned at her, looking very much as if he had plenty more to say. After a moment, though, he just raked one long-fingered hand through his hair, ruffling the deep gold into soft spikes. “So you really do mean to stay while you work on this house.”

She could feel her scalp tightening. “Yes.”

“Despite what happened here.”

There was no possibility of pretending she didn’t know what he referred to.

“Was Holly in the hospital when she died?” she asked.

His eyes narrowed. “No.”

“Hospice care?”

“She was at home.” His voice was clipped.

“With your father.”

“Yes.”

“Did he leave his house after? Sell it?”

A muscle flexed in his jaw. “No.”

“And you still visit your dad there. At the house where you and your brother and sisters grew up.”

“Apples and oranges, Laurel. My father didn’t—” His teeth snapped together. “God. What is it about you that pushes me right off the edge of reason?”

She crossed her arms, stung. “Why don’t you just finish it, Sheriff? Your father didn’t kill your mother. And you believe—just like your predecessor, Sheriff Wicks—that my father killed mine. Well, he didn’t. Her death was an accident.” She dropped her arms and stepped closer to him, forcing the words past her tight throat. “I may have been stuck in a straitjacket five-hundred miles away, but even I knew the charges against my father were dropped. Sheriff Wicks obviously changed his mind. So why can’t you?”

“You were never in a straitjacket.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I visited you there.”

Shock reared her back. “I…what?”

He stepped past her, pacing the close confines between the faded couch and the equally faded rocking chair. He rounded the back of the couch. Stopped. Closed his palms over the back of it. “Guess I don’t have to ask if you remember that.”

She stared at him. His fingertips were white where they sunk into the faded floral upholstery.

“You…saw me there. At Fernwood.”

“Three times a week for three months.”

She couldn’t breathe. Her lips parted, but she simply could not draw a breath. She sat down on the rocker and pressed her forehead to her hands.

Everything she’d thought about him for all these years tilted.

She finally dragged oxygen into her lungs. “I didn’t know.”

“There was a sunroom there. Plenty of windows. A lot of fake palm trees planted in pots.”

She didn’t even have to close her eyes to recall the room. To this day she preferred any tree other than a palm. “It overlooked a parking lot. The nurses tried to brighten it up with the plants.”

“Right.”

She remembered the room, remembered so much of Fernwood.

But not his visits.

Which meant he’d been there only at the first. She knew, because she’d been told, that she’d been moved to Fernwood within a month of her mother’s death. But the time between that and the wintry morning when she’d sat looking out at the falling snow and her mind had just…clicked on again…had been nearly six months.

“Your father told you I was at Fernwood, I suppose.” She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. She knew Beau had been instrumental in getting her placed at Fernwood, a private mental health facility outside of Denver, where she received more care than she would have through the system in Lucius.

“Holly told me. She came to visit me at seminary. Came to give me a piece of her mind, actually, for going for weeks on end without calling home. That’s when I learned what your father had done. What had happened…to you. After I’d dropped you off that evening, I picked up my suitcase from the house and kept driving. I didn’t know about any of it until Holly came to see me in California.”

She pressed her fingertips into her eye sockets. “My father didn’t do anything.”

“Then you remember that? You remember what happened that day, but not the hours you and I spent sitting in that bloody sunroom at Fernwood.”

“I remember enough!” She dropped her hands, staring at him. Wondering why the pain of it was as sharp as it was, when time was supposed to dull this sort of thing. “You slept with me in Calhoun’s barn, and then you dumped me, and after you drove me back to my house—insisted on it, in fact—I arrived in just enough time to see my mother accidentally fall down the stairs. I don’t care what everyone said. My father did not push her.”

“Because you remember it.”

Her eyes burned. The truth was that she didn’t remember anything beyond the sight of Shane driving away in that old pickup truck while she stood on the porch, silently crying. “My father wouldn’t have hurt my mother.”

“Did you ever talk to him after you left Lucius?”

The question came like a slap. “Yes.” Often, once she left Fernwood. Then over the years dwindling down to just once a year. On his birthday. Calling him more often might have been the right thing to do, but she hadn’t been able to bear the constant disappointment.

“And? What’d he say?”

“What does it matter to you? It wasn’t a confession, I promise you that.” She knew her father would never have made such a confession. Not to her. Not to anyone.

He had been a miserable man, but he hadn’t been an abusive one. No matter what the rumors around Lucius had said.

She ought to know.

She’d lived under his roof.

He’d often raised his voice, but he’d never once raised his hand.

That had been her mother’s particular domain.

“Laurel.” Shane’s voice went soft. Careful. Gentle. “I’m just trying to—”

Coddling.

She hated it.

“He told me not to come home to Lucius,” she said baldly. “So I didn’t. He never came to visit me. His actions were perfectly clear. He didn’t want to be around me. But now he’s gone and what he wanted doesn’t matter anymore. I’m here whether you like it or not.”

“I don’t want you to get hurt again.”

“There’s nothing in this house that can hurt me.”

“Hurt doesn’t have to be physical.”

She knew that as well as anyone.

And she was still grappling with the revelation that he’d visited her at Fernwood. “I’ll be fine.”

Something came and went in his eyes. “I guess I’ll be close enough by to make sure of it.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

He merely straightened and rounded the couch, stopping in front of her. “Come with me.”

Wariness edged in again. “Where?”

He held out his hand. “You’ll see.”

She swallowed. Eyed his palm. She could see the row of calluses, the signs of a man perfectly accustomed to physical labor, despite his position as sheriff. His fingers were long. Square-tipped. His wrist corded.

She swallowed and gingerly placed her hand in his.

And even though she’d braced herself, the contact felt electric.

If he noticed, he hid it a lot better than she did.

She rose.

He led her out the front door. The plywood vibrated under their feet as they went down it. There was no sign of Shane’s SUV. Instead, there was a small blue sedan parked at the curb.

It didn’t look at all like a car he’d ordinarily drive.

But then, what did she know?

She absently noticed that a breeze had cropped up. It felt welcoming, given the heat of the afternoon. Given the heat charging up her arm to her elbow to her shoulder and beyond…

He walked the length of the house, then around the southern side. Fifty yards behind the house, the land rose sharply. Growing up, she’d done a lot of sledding in the wintertime on that hill.

“I’ll be close by,” he said, letting go of her hand and pointing. “Because we’re neighbors.”

She stared.

The house on the hill was his.

The house that was so incredibly beautiful. She’d spent more than one night watching the wooden and stone structure sleep in the moonlight when she hadn’t been able to find any such rest. She’d admired the gleaming windows, the stone chimneys, the inviting porch. The house had been built while she’d been gone from Lucius, yet it didn’t reek of newness at all. It possessed only a timeless beauty.

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