Jake knew chemistry when he felt it

Taking on three kids and a single mom was bad enough, but that complication he did not need, unless it led only to a fast, uncomplicated affair. He was betting that a cheap affair was strictly off-limits with Lia.

So back off now, man. You don’t need this.

Of course, that wasn’t what his sister had been saying since Jake’s return, with all her teasing about him finding a good woman and settling down. He’d claimed her brain had turned into romantic mush because of her wedding, but maybe she had a point.

He was thirty-nine and regimented in his ways. If he was ever going to give the marriage-and-family thing a legitimate shot, it should be soon. Never in his wildest dreams had he imagined hooking up with a woman with kids, especially when everything about them spelled trouble. Yet there was a certain efficiency about the situation that appealed, regardless of his ingrained habit of detachment.

One stop, no shopping.

A ready-made family.

Dear Reader,

There are times in a writer’s life when fiction and reality intersect. I began the NORTH COUNTRY STORIES miniseries several years ago, using memories of my hometown as a basis for certain aspects of the fictional town of Alouette. Little did I know that I’d soon be moving back.

I purchased a house and acreage on the river that bisects the town. Directly across the bay from me is a magnificent wooded peninsula dotted with a dozen small stone houses—my original inspiration for the cottages that play a prominent role in both this book and A Family Christmas (Harlequin Superromance #1239). Although the real cottages are empty, I often gaze up at them as I swim the river, imagining them populated by my fictional couples. But the only character who has actually visited is the skunk!

Visit www.CarrieAlexander.com for more on the North Country books—both the real and the imaginary.

Warmly,

Carrie

A Ready-Made Family
Carrie Alexander

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Carrie Alexander began her writing career on a whim. Ten years later, she is the author of more than thirty books and a two-time RITA® Award finalist. The lifelong Michigander keeps busy working on her storybook cottage, where she paints anything that doesn’t walk away—which explains the lime-green garbage can and floral mailbox.

To Cyndy and Crystalyn

When the going gets tough,

the tough get going in the Grudge

CONTENTS

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 ONE

AFTER TWO DAYS ON THE road, getting lost, breaking down and spending her remaining cash at McDonald’s to quiet the kids during the final stretch of their trip, was it possible that Lia Pogue’s luck could get any worse?

Absolutely.

Her empty stomach gnawed as she watched the ambling approach of her second worst nightmare.

“Mom, you’re crushing the map.” Lia’s ten-year-old son, Howie, tugged the gas station freebie out of her grip and refolded it with a pinched look of concentration. He’d been giving directions from the shotgun seat since they’d crossed the Mackinac bridge into the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, taking the job too seriously, as he did most tasks.

The cop circled Lia’s idling car, slowing to study the back end. She didn’t suppose he was admiring the vintage rust on the 1980 Impala they called “the Grudge” or the buckety-buck of a motor misfiring on its ancient pistons. Surreptitiously she rubbed her sweaty palms on her knee-length denim shorts, trying to keep the kids from seeing her nervousness. Was the uniform cop writing down her license plate number? What if it had already shown up on some sort of Most Wanted list?

That’s not possible. Larry doesn’t know we’re gone—yet.

“Mom?” warbled Sam from the backseat as her eyes followed the police officer’s circuit. Because she knew what was at stake, she’d forgotten to act jaded. Her mascara-thickened lashes had widened in alarm.

“Everything’s all right.” Lia had repeated some variation of the phrase for the past few days. Longer, actually, but she didn’t want to go there right now. She said it so often that the words came out even when it was clear that everything was wrong.

Everything except the most important fact: they were free.

Maybe not for long.

The cop tapped on her window.

She exhaled. “Don’t talk,” she told her kids before rolling down the glass. The Grudge had crank windows. For once, she was glad. She had something to do to distract herself from the tight ache wanting to burst out of her chest.

The officer tipped back his cap and peered into the car, taking in the jumble of discarded clothing, children’s toys and fast-food trash that had accumulated during the long drive north. “Everybody okay in there?”

“Yes, sir.” Don’t volunteer information.

“Ya, well.” He smiled, clearly a small-town cop because he didn’t flinch when Lia reached down beside her, toward the seat. He was looking at the map clenched in her son’s lap. “Gotchyerselves lost, eh?”

She sucked on the straw of Howie’s Coke to wet her dry mouth. “Sort of.”

“Whatcha looking for?” The neighborly cop leaned an arm on her car door. “I can give you directions to anyplace in the whole U.P.”

He was young, blond and rather goofy-looking with a Barney Fife face that was all nose and Adam’s apple with not much chin in between. His accent was even heavier than her old friend Rose Robbin’s—“ya” for “yeah” and “da” for “the.”

Nothing threatening about him, but Lia didn’t relax. Fugitives couldn’t afford to let down their guard.

“Thanks, but we’ll be fine.” She didn’t want him to know where she was headed. If Alouette was as small as Rose had said—and it certainly appeared to be from their hillside vantage point—he’d find out soon enough. Lia didn’t see any need for currying interest, even friendly interest. Not from any of the locals. After the first curiosity had passed, she hoped to knit her family into the fabric of small-town life so well that no one ever noticed them again.

Howie shoved his glasses up his snub nose. “This map doesn’t show Black—”

Lia gave him a look so fierce his voice froze midstream.

The cop tilted his head. “Sounds to me like you’re lost.”

The car’s engine rattled ominously. Lia hadn’t dared shut it down while they’d searched the map. If she didn’t put the Grudge into gear soon, it might give out again.

She thrust the soft drink at her son. “We were just taking a breather,” she said to the cop in a fake cheery tone, the one she’d used too often with her children the past several years. Kristen Rose, her four-year-old, was the only one who still fell for it. “We’ll be on our way now.”

The officer tilted his head to the right, checking out the backseat. Lia felt Sam’s clogs press into her spine through the car seat. Her teenage daughter’s long, skinny legs were doubled over and drawn up to her sulky face. She glared raccoon eyes at the officer over her kneecaps, as if daring him to question her.

Smile, dammit, Lia said silently in the rearview mirror. Just this once.

“I’m Deputy Corcoran.” He looked at Lia expectantly.

Lia met Sam’s accusing eyes in the mirror, then looked away. “Lia Howard,” she said almost too loudly. She wasn’t lying, not really. She’d been Lia Howard for the first seventeen years of her life. “And these are my kids.” She wasn’t going to give their names unless she had to.

Officer Corcoran tipped his hat. “Pleased to meetcha.”

Lia made a polite sound.

In the rear seat, Kristen stirred. The drive through twenty miles of backcountry forest had been so boring that she’d nodded off with a French fry clutched in her small fist. “Mommy? Are we there yet?”

“Not yet,” Lia said before Howie could chime in that, yes, they’d finally reached their destination, even if they couldn’t find Blackbear Road on the state map.

“How come we stopped? Is the Grudge broked again?”

“No, honey.” Lia’s eyes darted toward the officer’s face. Kristen didn’t completely understand the necessity of keeping quiet, especially around strangers. But she was learning. And that had taken another small chip out of Lia’s worn-down heart. “We’ll be there soon.”

“Not with this car,” the cop said. “The motor doesn’t sound too good.”

“I know. That’s why we call it the Grudge.” At his mystified look, she explained, “It’s from a horror movie. My daughter came up with the name. Because of the loud grinding sound the car makes when it revs up.”

“I getcha, I guess. I’m darn surprised you made it to town. The 525 might not seem like a steep road, but it’s got a long, gradual incline.”

“Luckily it’s all downhill from here.” Lia forced a chuckle as she gave a wave out the front window at the descent into the town proper.

They were perched on a hillside overlooking Alouette. The sight was a pretty one, if Lia had been in any shape to appreciate it. Interspersed among an abundance of summery green trees were the shingle roofs, cream brick and red sandstone of the quaint little town. Beyond, the blue water of Lake Superior stretched as far as the eye could see. A lighthouse perched at the tip of a finger peninsula pointing into the bay. Gulls circled bobbing boats in the small marina.

Officer Corcoran had straightened to take in the view, but he ducked back down to address her. “Didja know you have a busted taillight?”

“Oh.” She knew. But a working taillight was less crucial than replacing spark plugs and a fried fan belt—the emergency repair that had kept them stranded overnight in the middle of nowhere in a town called Christmas. “I’ll get it fixed as soon as I can,” she promised, which was honest enough considering soon was an adaptable word.

For how many years had she planned to leave her husband “soon”? After the divorce had gone through despite Larry’s attempts to block it, she’d learned a new definition of the word. Soon he’ll stop trying to hurt us. Soon the courts will understand. Soon we’ll get away.

“I shouldn’t let you go without a ticket, but…” The cop disappeared from her window to wave at a pickup truck that rattled by on the bumpy blacktop road. It shed flecks of rust like a dog shaking fleas. The young officer grinned. “See there? I gotta admit our department’s not a stickler when it comes to ticketing unroadworthy vehicles.” He squared his shoulders. “But it’s important to keep your family’s safety in mind.”

Lia swallowed. He had no idea. “I do, sir. Always.”

The young officer stepped back. “You be sure to get the vehicle fixed, ma’am. I don’t want to see it on the road again in this condition.”

“You won’t.” Lia let herself hope that she’d finally caught a break. “We don’t have far to go,” she added. “We’ll be there long before dark.” Kristen was fussing in the backseat, and Sam—bless her—passed over her precious iPod to keep her sister occupied.

“All right, then.” Officer Corcoran moved away from the car. “Make sure to watch your brakes on this hill. Speed limit’s twenty-five in town.” He squinted. “Are you positive you don’t want directions?”

“No, thanks.” Lia knew where she was going.

Anywhere that her ex-husband Larry Pogue was not.

ALOUETTE WASN’T LARGE enough to be lost in for very long. After creeping down the hill and through the handful of streets that made up the downtown area, they drove around until they found Blackbear Road on the northern side of town. Lia’s memory of the location of their destination was sketchy, pulled from years-old conversations with Rose Robbin about her hometown. Rose would have supplied better directions if she’d known they were coming, but Lia hadn’t told her. In fact, they hadn’t talked in nearly a month, when Rose had called to tell Lia she was getting married. Because her friend deserved uncomplicated happiness, Lia had oohed and aahed and kept her escalating troubles to herself.

Now she had no choice. She was desperate for a safe haven.

“This is it, Mom.” Howie stuck his head out the window to read the peeling board sign obscured by a thicket of underbrush. “Maxine’s Cottages.”

Relaxing her shoulders for the first time in an hour, Lia turned the car onto a twisting dirt-and-pebble road. Towering pines threw shadows across the Impala’s long hood. Hidden among the trees were small stone cottages, just as Rose had described. They seemed a natural part of the landscape. Their slanted roofs were thick with pine needles, the stone walls covered in moss, lichen and overgrown vines.

The road widened into a clearing near the largest structure, the central home with a plaque that denoted the office. A big black pickup truck was parked at a careless angle, taking up most of the space. Lia pulled in next to it and shut off the engine, which reluctantly gave up the ghost. Buckety-buck. Buck. Buck. The tailpipe popped. Exhaust smoke drifted by her open window, temporarily masking the fresh piney smell of the woods.

Lia breathed deeply anyway. They’d made it. Thank God.

“We’re here,” she announced.

The children stared in total silence.

“It’s not so bad.”

A protest burst from Sam. “We can’t stay here! It’s abandoned.”

“It’s not abandoned.” But the only signs of occupancy were the truck, limp curtains that fluttered in an open window of the stone house and a fishing pole and a rake leaning against a rail by the front door.

“Can we get out?” Howie asked.

“I’m not,” Sam said, crossing her arms across her chest and sliding even lower in the seat until only the blue-tipped spikes of her bangs showed. “I want to go home.”

“Then you’ll have to push the Grudge, because its engine won’t make the return trip.” Lia put on her cheery voice as she reached for the door handle. “Let’s go see if anyone’s home. Rose said there’s a river nearby. Can you hear it?”

“I do.” Howie’s door creaked as he pushed it open. He was small for his age, still a little boy despite the anxious personality and smarts that made him seem older than his years. One of Lia’s greatest wishes was to see Howie relax. To run and play, to learn how to be a boy without responsibility.

He looked eagerly at Lia across the hood, light reflecting off his glasses.

She stretched the kinks from her back. “All right. Go and explore.” She held back warnings about snakes and poison ivy and deep water. Howie didn’t have to be told. His caution was even stronger than his curiosity.

“Come on, Krissy, baby.” Lia took her youngest child’s hand as the girl slid out of the back seat. Sticky. Kristen’s lips were stained with orange soda pop. Lia grabbed a packet of wet wipes from the glove compartment and squatted to apply one to her daughter’s hands and face. Kristen blinked sleepy eyes as she looked up at the trees and sky. She was a slow riser.

Lia rubbed at Kristen’s small, plump mouth until only a faint orange shadow remained. She smoothed the girl’s rumpled T-shirt. “Want to knock on the front door for me?”

Kristen stared at the gloomy stone house. “Who lives there?”

“Rose Robbin does.” Or did. “Her mother, too. You probably can’t remember Rose—the dark-haired lady who was our neighbor? She used to babysit you when you were just a tiny little baby.”

“Uh-uh.”

“She babysat all of you kids.” Surly Rose had been a loner who’d gradually warmed up to the Pogues. She’d become Lia’s friend and confidante, the only person she could rely on. But when Rose’s father had died several years ago, she’d gone home to Alouette in Michigan’s U.P.—Upper Peninsula. They’d lost contact for a long while, until Rose had mailed a Christmas card the past December. Since then, they’d written and called a number of times. When Rose had first learned that Larry was still causing trouble, she’d offered Lia help any time she needed it.

Misgivings nibbled at Lia’s conscience. At the moment of crisis, with Larry threatening to sue her for custody of the children and even hinting that he’d snatch them away if he had to, she’d latched on to Rose’s offer as her only option. She and the kids had needed to disappear. According to Rose, Alouette was the type of place where you could do that.

Not the end of the Earth, the welcome sign had read on the way into town, but we can see it from here.

As much as Lia appreciated the isolation, she hadn’t expected to feel quite so stranded and alone. Maybe she’d thought Rose would greet them with an apple pie. Even though she had no idea they were coming.

Lia tried the cheery voice on herself. Won’t Rose be surprised that we’ve traveled hundreds of miles to land on her doorstep?

“Hey, Mom!” Howie called from the trees. “There’s more little houses over here.” He’d found a path. Through the thick stand of evergreens, Lia caught glimpses of him running from cottage to cottage. “Four on this side.”

Kristen looked up at Lia, her eyes glistening. “I don’t wanna live here, Mommy.”

Lia stroked Kristen’s hair. Her girl was usually more adventurous. The completely unfamiliar landscape must have thrown her off-kilter. “Let’s wait and see how we like it.”

“See?” Sam said peevishly from her slumped position inside the car. “Nobody wants to stay here.”

Lia took Kristen’s hand. “Would you like to join us, Sam?”

A huffy exhale came from the back seat. “Hell no.”

Lia’s mouth tightened. Samantha was fourteen and getting more rebellious every day. Their neighborhood in Cadillac hadn’t been the greatest, and if they’d come north for no other reason, Lia was relieved to get Sam away from the crowd of teenagers she’d taken up with back home. Sam might actually be correct about one of her litany of complaints—there’d be nothing to do in a small town like Alouette. At least nothing that her mother wouldn’t know about.

Lia was counting on that. She wanted her bright, lively daughter back—or some teenage semblance, anyway.

She shrugged. “Suit yourself, Sam.” Maybe she was copping out on her responsibilities as a mother, but now wasn’t the time to engage her eldest in a battle over language and attitude. Sam could sit in the car and stew. If they stayed in Alouette, she’d adjust to the idea. She’d adjusted to worse.

The thought was little comfort.

“Howie?” Lia finger-combed her own hair as she and Kristen walked to the front door of the stone house. She felt rumpled and creased, like a grocery bag that had been used too many times.

His voice drifted from the trees. “Yeah, Mom.”

“Just checking.”

“I’m over here. I found mushrooms.”

“Don’t eat them. And don’t wander off.”

There were three steps up to the front entry, a weather-beaten plank door with a placard that read Office. No doorbell, except for an old-fashioned dinner bell that hung from a rusty bracket. Lia knocked.

And waited.

She knocked again, looking around the run-down property. The cottages were placed in random order, tucked here and there in groves of pines, maples and birches. Chickadees and nuthatches hopped among the pinecones that littered the ground. Sam watched owlishly over the edge of the car seat, showing the whites of her eyes. Still no answer.

“Look, Mommy.” Kristen pointed to the bell suspended beside the door. “Can I ring it?”

“I guess so.” Lia lifted the girl, showing her how to tug on the short rope attached to the gong.

The sturdy metal bell rang out deep and loud. Kristen laughed at the sound and reached out again, but Lia stopped her. “Enough. If anyone’s home, they ought to have heard that.”

Kristen slid down. “Can I go with Howie?”

“All right.” Lia stepped away from the door and aimed her daughter toward the path through the overhanging trees. Kristen took off like a shot, much braver now that she was fully awake. Lia smiled at the enthusiasm, wishing her courage was as easily reinstated. “Howie, please watch out for Kristen.”

Lia waited until she heard their voices before giving in to her own curiosity. With one more glance at the Grudge, she walked around to the back of the house. Sam’s head had sunk below window level.

Lia inhaled. The sharp, spicy scent of pines filled her lungs. God, the air was fresh here. The house had no lush suburban lawn, only ragged patches of grass poking out from beneath a thick blanket of coppery pine needles. Inside a sagging wire fence, a patch had been cleared for a garden, the rich earth freshly overturned and planted with seedlings. The level area near the house became a slope that steepened down to a reedy riverbank.

Lia shielded her eyes. The dark river swirled and eddied, rushing white where submerged rocks had been worn silky and smooth by the constant flow. Cattails nodded in the breeze.

Despite the shabbiness, the setting was idyllic. A piece of paradise. Lia began to understand why Rose had returned despite her less-than-idyllic childhood. If Lia had grown up in a place like this, she might not have been in such a rush to leave home that she’d latched on to her first real boyfriend and mistaken his intense feelings for true, deep love.

Rose had told her own tale, those long evenings when they’d sat out on the small lawn of their apartment building, sharing a pack of cigarettes and the sad tales of their lives while the kids played Kick the Can. According to her, paradise wasn’t always what it was cracked up to be. But Rose had found a happy ending here all the same.

A happy ending was more than Lia dared to dream of. Even though a piece of paradise might be nice, she’d gladly settle for simple peace.

She sighed, rubbing her forehead. Had she made a mistake becoming a fugitive instead of trying to work things out within the law, even if that had already taken years and every cent she earned? It seemed so now, when she was tired and broke, but in her gut she knew that fleeing was the only way she and the kids had a chance at a normal life. If they’d stayed, Larry would have never let up.

Lia turned back to the house. She’d suspected Rose might be gone, but what had happened to her mother? And there’d been a brother, too, back from the Army. Or maybe it was the one who’d been in prison.

At the window, she made a visor with her hands to peer inside. No one in sight, but there was a table stacked high with gift boxes that probably contained enough small kitchen appliances to stock a department store.

She groaned. She should have brought a present. But what? A used coffeemaker? A blender that could only puree on low?

Dismayed with herself, Lia reached inside her shirt to rescue a fallen bra strap that was held together by a pin. She’d once been a genuinely cheerful girl—a cheerleader, even—with shiny blond hair and a set of days-of-the-week underpants. The most important appliance in her life had been her curling iron. So how had her life turned into a wreckage of broken-down motors and tatty undergarments?

She was startled by a deep male voice. “Find anything good in there?”

Her fingers clenched on the bra strap. A deflated but still serviceable pair of 34Cs was the answer that popped into her mind before she realized the man was referring to her spying through the window.

“I was looking for Rose.” She withdrew her hand from her shirt and tucked it in the pocket of her shorts. “Rose Robbin? Am I in the right place?”

The man gave her a once-over, his blunt, stony face betraying none of his thoughts. He was tall and rawboned, thick with muscles in the way of a hard worker who’d developed an iron-hard physique with years of physical labor. He wore heavy boots and khaki cargo pants despite the warm weather. The open collar and cuffs of his shirt displayed a strong neck and massive forearms inscribed from wrist to elbow with complicated tattoos. There was something not quite civilized about him.

Lia’s heart beat a little faster. Rose’s brother, she presumed, but was it the ex-con or the military man? What direction had he come from? And where were her kids?

She sidled over a couple of steps. “I didn’t mean to snoop. Well, yes, I suppose I did, since I was snooping. But I didn’t mean to be rude. I wondered where everyone had gone, that’s all. The house seemed deserted. I, um, that is, we—me and my kids—came for the wedding.”

“You’re late.”

“I know. My car broke down.”

“The wedding was yesterday.”

“I’m sorry we missed it.”

He scanned her again, apparently not happy with what he saw, because he scowled, the color in his tanned face getting even darker. “Rose is on her honeymoon.”

“Oh.” The dregs of Lia’s last hope leaked out of her. She realized what a bind she’d put herself in. No cash, nowhere to stay. Only a small amount of wiggle room remained on her credit card. “I figured it was something like that. But we had a long drive and it was too late to turn back.” She crossed her fingers inside her pockets. “So we came anyway.”

“How many is we?”

“I have three children. Oh—I didn’t introduce myself.” But then, neither had he. She didn’t stick out her hand. He looked as if he might bite it. “I’m Lia Howard.”

“Jake Robbin.” He didn’t budge an inch.

“You’re Rose’s oldest brother. She’s mentioned me?”

“No, ma’am.”

“She invited me to the wedding a while back. I told her then I couldn’t make it, only I changed my mind at the last minute. We were neighbors several years ago.” She was babbling.

His nod was neither an acknowledgment nor an agreement. “Too bad you missed her.”

“Yes, too bad,” she said. The sympathy on his face was underwhelming. “We’ll move on, of course.” She gritted her teeth so the desperation wouldn’t show. “We wouldn’t want to put you out.” Not that he’d offered. “My kids can be quite a handful.” She gestured toward the front yard, embarrassed to see Kristen’s stretchy pink-lace-and-glitter ponytail holder around her wrist like a bracelet. “They’re over there—”

On cue, Kristen came chugging around the side of the house with her hands flapping. “Mom! Mom! Howie found a skunk!” She barreled into Lia’s legs. “It’s gonna bite him.”

Lia winced. “Do skunks bite?” she asked Jake. Before he had time to answer, she hurried off the way Kristen had come.

Jake loped beside her, ducking tree branches because he was so tall. “Probably not. Unless it’s rabid.” He put out his arm, slowing her down as they reached the path to the cottages. “Don’t run. Sudden movement will scare it, and—believe me—you don’t want that to happen.”

Kristen had caught up to them. She stared up at Jake with a finger in her mouth. She took it out. “What happens if we scare the skunk?”

Jake’s firm lips twitched. He squeezed two fingers on the tip of his nose and said, “Pew.”

Kristen giggled, copying the gesture. “Pew!”

Lia blinked. “Did you say pew?”

“Haven’t you ever smelled skunk?”

“Of course. I was— Never mind.” She was amused by the word, that was all. Maybe he wasn’t a hard case all the way through. “Let’s rescue Howie before he’s sprayed.”

“I’ll go,” Jake said. “You keep the little girl out of range.”

Lia almost laughed at the way Kristen’s upper body swayed forward. Her lower lip protruded. “I’m not a little girl. My name is Kristen Rose.”

Jake was moving silently along the path, but he stopped to look back at them. “Kristen Rose, huh? Pretty name.” He shot a look at Lia. “After my sister?”

She nodded. “I told you we were friends.” When she’d gone into labor, Rose had stayed home from work to look after Sam and Howie while Lia delivered the new baby. During the especially tough times immediately after her divorce, Lia had learned to treasure such small acts of kindness.

Howie’s voice floated from the trees. “Mo-om?”

“Don’t move, Howie,” she called. “Stay there and tell us where you are.”

“I’m sitting on the step of one of the little houses.”

Lia crept after Jake, trying to keep Kristen behind her. They moved past the first two cottages and came to the third, where Howie perched on the doorstep, his arms and legs pulled close to his skinny body. A skunk sniffed through the long grass at the cottage’s foundation, barely two feet away from the boy. Its silky tail swept the ground. A faint but distinctly bitter aroma scented the air.

Jake stopped. He rested his hands on his hips, as casual as if they were on a Sunday afternoon stroll. “Howie? Don’t move, okay?” He spoke in a soft, even voice. “I’m Jake. I live here and I’ve seen this skunk before. Don’t worry. He’ll go on his way in a minute.”

The creature lifted its head. A moist black nose twitched in Howie’s direction.

He cringed. Behind the glasses, his eyes were big and scared. “It’s gonna spray me,” he whispered in a quavery high pitch.

Jake moved closer. He squatted. “No, see how his tail is down? The skunk’s curious about you, but he’s not afraid. He uses his sense of smell and hearing because he can’t see very well. He needs glasses like yours.”

Lia chuckled to ease Howie’s fear, but he didn’t seem to be persuaded that this was a laughing matter. “You’re sure he won’t spray me?”

“Yep,” Jake said. “Only if he thinks you’re going to hurt him.”

Howie’s chest hitched. Lia’s heart melted at how brave he was trying to be. “Uh-huh. I kn-know that. I read about skunks in my science and nature book.”

“What else did you read?”

Howie watched warily as the skunk lowered its head and the tail came up slightly. “I read—I read—” He closed his eyes. “Skunks are mammals. And they’re nocturnal.”

“What does that mean?” Jake asked gently.

Howie squinched his nose. “They sleep in the day. So how come—” He gasped as the skunk turned toward him.

“Slide over,” Jake directed. “Slowly.”

Howie inched sideways until he sat at the very corner of the step. The skunk ambled out of the grass, toward the path blocked by Jake.

He kept his eyes on Howie. “Now you can stand. Do it slowly. That’s right. The skunk’s okay, just going for a stroll. He’s not even looking at you.”

Lia stooped to see past the obscuring evergreens. Jake was right. The animal was ignoring Howie because it was waddling toward Jake. She held her breath.

Jake didn’t move. His voice remained calm. “Keep going, Howie. Walk past me toward your mom. You’ll be fine.”

Jake waited until Howie had crept by, then rose slowly off his heels, keeping himself between the boy and the skunk. His boots scuffed the ground as he edged backward, widening the distance.

Lia caught Howie’s eye. She gave him an encouraging smile. He grinned sheepishly, hitching his thumbs in his belt loops and swaggering just a little, as if he’d never been frightened in the first place.

Kristen pushed against Lia’s leg. “Can I pet the skunk?” she whispered.

“That’s not a good idea with an untamed animal.” Lia reached down and swung Kristen up in her arms in case the girl got it into her head to run toward the small striped creature.

“But it’s pretty.”

“We’re in the wild, honey. It’s not like a petting zoo.” Lia turned back in the direction of the car, keeping her eye on Howie to be sure he was following. But he’d stopped, too busy looking up at Jake with awe to worry about escaping from the skunk.

Which was when disaster struck.

“Hey, guys!” Sam’s shout was impatient. The sudden blare of the car horn shattered the silence as she punched it over and over again.

“Sam!” Lia shrieked. “Stop it!”

Too late.

The skunk’s tail had shot straight up. Jake let out a shout and sprang backward, his arms pinwheeling as an overwhelmingly putrid, eye-watering stench coated the air.

CHAPTER TWO

JAKE PLUNGED INTO THE cold water of the river, a bar of soap in hand. His eyes and nose stung with the acrid stench that rose off his body. He dived for relief, surfacing quickly as he remembered that he wasn’t alone.

The boy stood shivering at the shore, stripped to shorts and T-shirt. He’d hadn’t received the full brunt of spray like Jake, but had insisted that he needed to bathe in the river, too, once he’d seen that was what Jake intended. The kid’s mother had been hesitant, staring up at Jake with big, blue, scaredy-cat eyes. And sure enough, he could see her through the trees at the top of the hill, wringing her hands as she watched over them.

“Jump in,” Jake said.

Howie waded deeper. “How come it’s so cold?”

“It’s a fast, deep river. It’s always cold, even in July.” Jake began scrubbing with the soap. Little good that would do except maybe take the edge off. The skunk smell was so strong he could taste it.

The boy’s eyes were watering. He squeezed his shoulders into his neck and took another wobbly step deeper into the swirling water.

His timidity made Jake impatient. “C’mon. Get dunked.” He thought of his father, Black Jack, roaring with laughter as he tossed a five-year-old Jake and his even younger brother into the deep water although they could barely dog-paddle at the time. Your mother doesn’t want you drowning, he’d said. Be men, not pansies. Swim!

Jake had swum. He couldn’t remember if he’d been scared like Howie, but he supposed that was possible.

“Stop thinking about it. Jump.”

The boy sucked in a breath and surged forward, sputtering and flailing as the current swept him toward Jake. He paddled strenuously, holding his head high out of the water like a nervous dog. Up on the hill, the woman started down, then stopped as Jake reached out and plucked her son from the water, setting him upright near a heap of rocks that protruded into the river.

“Good man.” Jake passed the bar. “Soap up.”

Without his glasses, Howie looked owlishly at bare-chested Jake, then stripped off his own shirt, exposing a skinny white torso. He rubbed himself into a froth and they plunged into the deep water again to rinse themselves clean. The scent of skunk was not so easily defeated.

Jake urged Howie out of the water. He collected their discarded clothing into one reeking armful.

The boy fumbled for the glasses he’d tucked in his shoe. He put them on and studied Jake’s tattoos with fascination. After a minute, the corners of his mouth jerked into a tight little smile. “Hey, Jake. You still stink.”

“So do you.” Jake squeezed water from his boxer shorts, then chafed his arms and legs. “And you look like a drowned cat.”

“My mom’s gonna be mad.”

Jake didn’t think so. She seemed more like the fussbudget type. “Not your fault the skunk found you.”

“I was exploring in the forest.”

“So you’re saying that it was you who found the skunk?”

“Sort of. I think it followed me.” The shivering boy looked up with a worried face. “I’m sorry you got sprayed.”

Jake clapped him on the shoulder. “Not the first time. No big deal.”

“But you really stink. Worse’n me.”

“It’ll wear off.” Jake shoved his feet into his boots and started up the slope to the house. “C’mon. Your mom will have dry clothes for you.”

She did. Towels, too, unfamiliar to Jake. “Yours?” he said, taking the one she offered—a faded beach towel printed with some kind of cartoon character.

“I had them in the car.” She was vigorously rubbing down her son, and the poor kid stood there and took it, jiggling like a bobblehead doll.

“Uh, thanks, but I’m liable to ruin it.” Jake tried to hand back the towel. “According to Howie, I still stink.”

“Yeah, you do.” She screwed up her face. “But go ahead and use the towel anyway. It’s an old one.” Her glance bounced off him. “And you look pretty cold.”

Jake had dropped the pile of ruined clothes. He stood before her in nothing but unlaced boots, soaked cotton shorts, tattoos and dog tags. He was probably showing a little too much of the raw package down below. While he had no modesty left after decades as an Army Ranger, she obviously wasn’t as easygoing.

He dried himself, then wrapped the towel around his hips. He watched her help Howie step into a pair of jeans and asked, “What was your name again?” even though he remembered she was Leah…something.

She looked up from a kneel. “Lia Po—Howard. Lia Howard.”

“Huh.” He looked at the boy. “So you’re Howie Howard?”

Howie opened his mouth. Lia thrust a polo shirt down over his head. “Howie’s a nickname.”

Her daughters came around the corner of the house, holding hands. They stared at Jake.

He eyed them. The little girl was a cutie. The teenager clearly had an attitude, considering the way she thrust her chin and glowered at him, the sun glinting off the silver stud pierced beneath her lower lip.

She made a choking sound and pressed the back of her hand to her nose. Black polish was chipping off her nails. Around one thin wrist was a wide leather band, heavy chain link on the other. “That smell. I can’t stand it.”

Lia frowned. “Sam, don’t be rude.”

“But, Mom, he reeks.” The girl gagged, then gagged again with her hand pressed over her mouth. “Gross. It’s making me sick.” She turned and ran off. They heard the car door slam.

“That was Sam,” Lia said. “Samantha. She’s fourteen with a vengeance.”

“Needs a paddling.”

Lia’s words popped like mortar fire. “I don’t hit my kids. Violence solves nothing.”

Jake shrugged. “That depends on the situation.”

“You’re the soldier, then.”

“The soldier?”

“Rose told me. One brother in the Army, one brother…” She trailed off as if embarrassed.

Jake gave her a look. “In the big house.”

“Where’s the big house?” the little girl asked. She pointed. “That one?”

“A different kind of house, honey.”

“Prison,” Howie said. He was looking at Jake with the same rounded eyes his mother used. “Were you in combat?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you going back?”

“I’m retired now.”

Howie squinted. “You don’t look that old.”

“I’m thirty-nine. Old enough to retire from the Army. I enlisted when I was eighteen.”

“My mom got married when she was seventeen.”

“Oh?” Jake watched the emotion that crossed Lia’s face before she felt his interest and made herself go blank. He directed his comment at her. “You went through a different kind of combat, huh?”

She let out a little snort. “You could say that.”

“We’re divorced from Daddy,” piped up Kristen Rose.

Lia clenched her hands. “I’m divorced, not you kids.”

“Then when can we see Daddy again?”

“I don’t know.” Lia evaded Jake’s curiosity by reaching for the discarded clothing. She got one whiff and dropped the garments. “The smell is really bad, even on Howie. We’re going to have to do something about it or we won’t be allowed into a motel.”

The boy cocked his head. “A motel? But—”

“Hush, Howie. We’re going to a motel.” Lia sent a distracted but apologetic smile at Jake. “We’ve caused enough trouble for Mr. Robbin.”

Jake knew that he ought to keep his mouth shut and let them leave. He wanted them to go. He had big plans for the place and he surely didn’t want to work around the distraction of three kids and a needy woman. Only the thought of Rose scolding him for being a bad host in her stead made him speak up. “You’re going to run off and leave me stinking like this?”

Lia showed surprise. “Well, of course I’d like to help, but I don’t know what I can—”

“I know,” Howie said. “We have to take baths in tomato juice.”

“Sounds kind of icky, but if you want to try it…” Lia looked at Jake. “Do you have any tomato juice?”

He thought of the nearly bare cupboards and fridge. Chili and beans, a few cans of tuna. Beer, mustard, ketchup. “I sincerely doubt it.”

“I, um, I guess I could go to the store.”

Jake had heard the racket when they drove up. That car shouldn’t go anywhere until he’d taken a look at the engine and the brakes. “You can take my truck.”

Lia hesitated, looking worried. “All right.” She reached for her daughter’s hand, protective as a mama bear. “We’ll all go to the store for tomato juice.”

“I’m staying here with Jake,” Howie announced.

“Oh, no, you’re not.”

Jake tightened his jaw and kept silent. For about two seconds. Then he glanced at Howie’s hopeful face. “It’s okay. He can stay.”

The boy beamed.

Shit, Jake thought, but mostly out of habit. “He reeks too much to go in my truck.”

Howie sniffed himself. His narrow chest expanded. “Yeah, I reek.”

Lia aimed the big blues at Jake. “Are you sure?”

He scowled, not used to being questioned. “I know my own mind.”

“Lucky you.”

Lucky? “And I don’t say what I don’t mean.”

Her stare became skeptical. “That must be interesting.”

“Not so much. I also know when to keep my mouth shut.”

“Huh. There’s a talent.”

She sounded weary, maybe a little wistful. Jake’s antennae went up, before he reminded himself that she was a mom who’d been on a road trip with a broken-down car and three children who weren’t shy about their opinions.

She looked the worse for the wear. Her pale blond hair was caught up at the back of her head with straggly wisps hanging loose. A wayward bra strap peeked out from the sleeveless pink blouse that was wrinkled and untucked from a pair of baggy shorts. Nice legs. But no tan. White socks sagged at her ankles. Her five-dollar-bin tennis shoes were scuffed and fraying at the pinkie toes. Around one wrist was a rubber band, a grimy braided string knotted into place and a stretchy bracelet made of pink sparkly frills and doodads.

Jake’s eyes went back up. Lia’s face was pretty enough when she wasn’t looking hassled or worried, but she wasn’t his type. Not that he actually had a type except for knowing from the age of sixteen what he didn’t need: women who clung, women who whined, women with great expectations.

Since he’d been back in Alouette and seen tough little Wild Rose so happy and content with her fiancé, there’d grown a few doubts in Jake’s mind that maybe the Robbin siblings weren’t destined to be loners after all. He’d even experienced a rare loneliness, on his own, without his squadron, without orders, without a firm plan for the future. Rose had been thrilled to have him back—hell, she’d hugged him so hard he’d had bruises the next day—but she’d also been busy with her new family and wedding plans. When the twittering bridesmaids had descended, Jake had made himself scarce.

He ran a hand through his damp hair, already grown out some from its Army-issue zip cut. Rose would read him the riot act if he didn’t offer her friend a place to stay. But she was on her honeymoon for a week or so, which would leave him with too many days of goggle-eyed attitude, worship and questions from the Howard children. What he’d get from Lia was anyone’s guess.

Jake kept his mouth shut, not so sure he wanted to find out.

Lia had taken another sniff of Howie. “It’s not that bad. You should come along so we don’t impose on Mr. Robbin more than we already have.”

Howie’s face fell. “But I stink.”

She gave him a stern look. “Not that bad. You’re mostly smelling Mr. Robbin.”

Howie looked at Jake, hoping for help.

He shrugged. If Lia was going to be stubborn, he wouldn’t insist.

Now she was looking doubtfully at his heavy-duty pickup truck, a GMC Sierra, parked in front of the main house. “You know how to drive a stick?” he asked and tossed her the keys that had been in his pocket when he’d gotten skunked.

She caught them, her expression remaining hesitant even when she nodded. “I can drive a stick. But I need— I need—” Now she was pained. “Money,” she finally blurted. Her face went red. “For the tomato juice. I’ll have to get a lot of the large-size cans to make a bath for…” Her gaze skipped across his chest before pinning itself on his left ear while she said in a rush, “A big man like you.”

“No problem. My wallet’s inside. In fact, if you don’t mind, you can pick up a few groceries for me while you’re at it.” The thought at the back of his mind was that the food was actually for them, but if she was broke, he didn’t want her to feel like a charity case. “Milk, bread, eggs, fruit, hamburger—that kind of stuff. Okay?”

“Okay.” She let out a breath of relief. “I’m happy to help. I owe you for taking one for my son.”

“Forget it.” Jake suppressed the urge to give her one more lingering look. He went inside instead. If he stomped more than usual, it was only because that with all of her darting glances, she’d made him aware of how odd he must look wearing a towel and combat boots.

“I dON’T WANT TO STAY there.” Sam crossed her arms and glowered at the rows of garishly colored boxes of breakfast cereal. “He’s a big grump.”

“Takes one to know one.” Lia put a box of corn flakes into the cart. “Besides, he hasn’t invited us and I doubt that he will.” She worried her lip, reading over the list she’d made of the items that Jake had reeled off while he’d handed her a wad of twenties, more than enough for groceries. The thick lump of cash in her pocket only reminded her how much she’d come to count on Rose’s hospitality as her meager savings had dwindled on the trip north.

“Then where will we go?”

Lia sighed. “I don’t know.”

“Do you have any money left?”

While Lia had tried as best she could to shield the children from their circumstances, Sam was aware. In the past year, she’d heard “I don’t have the money for that” so often from Lia that she no longer asked for luxuries. She’d taken babysitting jobs and saved for months to buy the iPod.

“What if he does? Will you say yes?”

“Sam, please. I don’t know.”

“Well, you’d better decide,” Sam said snottily.

Lia meant to scold her daughter’s tone, but when their eyes met, she read Sam’s distress despite her daughter’s attempt to keep up the tough front. Another piece of Lia’s heart chipped away.

“We’ll be okay,” she soothed. “Rose said rent is cheap in Alouette. If I can find a job, we’ll manage.”

“I can get a job and give you the money.”

“I appreciate the offer, but you’re only fourteen.”

“So? I can work.” Sam unzipped her backpack. “I have thirty-six dollars saved from babysitting. You can have it—to pay for a motel.”

Lia wanted to refuse. She’d promised herself that she’d make it on her own from here on out.

Get real. The only way you’ll make it is with Rose’s help—now Jake’s—and maybe Sam’s babysitting money, too. Her pride hurt, but she’d been humbled before and she could do it again to give the kids the basics of food, shelter, safety. And eventually, she hoped, a better life.

“Thanks, honey,” Lia said. “I may need a loan, but you hold on to your money for now.”

Sam clutched the backpack. “I don’t want to stay in those stinky cabins.” Her voice was shrill.

“We’ll see.” Fighting to stay on an even keel despite her daughter’s pushing, Lia rolled the cart into the next aisle. She met up with Howie and Kristen, who’d gone to get milk and eggs.

Howie put the cartons in the wire buggy. “I got two percent—is that okay, Mom?”

Kristen had glimpsed the cereal boxes around the corner. “Mommy, Mommy, Mom.” She grabbed at Lia’s shirt, untucking it again. “Can we have Honey-bear Crunch? Pleeese?”

Something a little like hysteria crawled up Lia’s throat. At four ninety-five a box? she wanted to screech. She pried her hand off the cart handle and took her daughter’s shoulder to aim her at the toothpaste-and-soap aisle. Nothing there she’d want. “No cereal. We’re not shopping for ourselves this time.”

“Mr. Bubble!” Kristen took off like a shot.

“Howie?”

“I’ll get her, Mom.” He trudged after his sister.

Sam was staring at the floor. “Can we go now?”

Lia consulted the list. “Just a few more things.”

“Mo-om. Come on, already.” Sam stamped a clog. “I hate this stupid town. Why did you bring us here?” When Lia didn’t answer, she flung herself into the next aisle.

“Get paper plates,” Lia said matter-of-factly.

A roundly pregnant woman with a heaped cart gave Lia a wry look as she wheeled by. “Ah, the joys of motherhood. I can’t wait.”

“Your first?”

“Yes.” The woman rubbed her belly, her face serene. “Due in a few more months.”

Lia felt a pang. She remembered touching her ex’s hand over her belly that way, with Samantha, when they were young and still in love. “Good luck,” she said, moving on.

The woman looked past her shoulder. She was tall and queenly, with a burnished brunette bob and a wide smile. “You’re new in town.”

Lia paused. “Is it that obvious?”

“Only in Alouette. I’ve lived here for just about a year now and already I’m on a first-name basis with the entire population.” She added chummily, “And you have to wave at them every time your cars pass or they’ll think you’re mad.”

“Then you’d know—” Lia broke off. She had to remember not to be forthcoming.

The woman looked curious, but she covered the awkward silence by introducing herself. “I’m Claire Saari.”

“Lia Howard. We’re not…uh, I’m not sure, but—” She took control of her stumbling tongue. “What I’m trying to say is that we may be only visiting overnight. I haven’t decided.”

“Where are you staying?” When Lia hesitated to answer, Claire laughed. “Sorry. I could blame small-town nosiness, but really it’s that there aren’t many accommodations in town and I run one of them.” She produced a card from her purse. “Bay House, a bed-and-breakfast. June is early in the season yet, so I can get you a room if you’re looking.”

Lia studied the card, which was embossed with a line drawing of a Victorian mansion perched on a cliff-side. Too ritzy by far. “Must be a nice place.”

Claire lowered her voice. “I’ll give you a discount.”

“Thanks. I’ll, uh, keep that in mind.”

Claire glanced at the food in Lia’s cart. “Your only other local choice may not be viable, but you might prefer it if they’re open. Maxine’s Cottages.” She pointed. “Thataway—on Blackbear Road.”

“I know it.”

“Oh. You’ve been there already? With most of the family away, I wasn’t sure if the cottages—” Claire stopped and looked at Lia with dawning knowledge. “Wait a minute. You’re Rose’s friend from below the bridge, aren’t you? I remember she mentioned a Lia who couldn’t be at the wedding and so she had Tess as her maid of honor instead.”

“This really is a small town,” Lia said with some dread. What had possessed her to believe that she would be able to keep her secrets here? Except that Rose had managed for a very long time—until the man she’d wound up marrying had persuaded her that she could come clean.

“Yes.” Claire had laughing eyes. “We’re terribly small and gossipy. But we don’t hold a grudge if you tell us to butt out when we get too intrusive. Like me now.” She started to wheel her cart away, then stopped again. “Call me if you need anything, all right?”

“I had car trouble,” Lia blurted. It was good to have an honest excuse. “That’s why we missed the wedding. And now we’re here and Rose is gone.”

Claire made a sympathetic tsking sound. “You have to stick around until she comes back. I’m sure she’d want to see you.”

“I’d like to, but…”

“Rose’s brother should be at the cottages. I heard he’s planning to renovate them and reopen.”

“We met him already, the kids and I.”

“Of course.” Claire nodded at the groceries in the basket. “Then you are staying? Rose will be so pleased. She’s not one to gush, but I could tell she’d really hoped to have you at the wedding.”

“We’d been out of touch for a while.” Lia was dismayed that she’d been thinking mostly of herself and how Rose could help her out of a dire situation.

But that had been their pattern as friends, since Rose had always been so cussedly independent, even taciturn, about her own desires. Lia was still having a hard time wrapping her head around the idea of the gruff woman she’d known marrying the town’s widowed basketball coach and making a family that included his daughter and the teenage son Rose had given up for adoption when she was young.

“A few years apart doesn’t matter between friends,” said Claire. She tipped her head. “What did you think of Jake?”

Lia gulped down the thickness that formed in her throat at every thought of him. “He’s a lot like Rose.”

“The old Rose.” Claire’s eyes narrowed slightly as she considered Lia. “Maybe the new Rose, too.”

What did that mean? Lia didn’t want to ask because she suspected the observation involved her and the kids. “I don’t know the new Rose.”

“She’s much like the old one except she smiles more often and even carries on a conversation. She has a great rapport with Lucy, her new stepdaughter.”

“Uh-huh. She was always good with my kids. I have three.” Lia lifted her head to the sound of the trio squabbling in the next aisle of the small grocery store. She gave a wry smile. “That’s them. I’d better go.”

“Tell Jake I said hi.”

“Sure.” Lia made a hurried wave and wheeled away, her face growing warm as she puzzled over the idea of how Jake might be like the newly married, newly mothered Rose. The likeliest explanation was too absurd to hold in her head. She shook it loose. Crazy. Although she barely knew the man, she was certain that Jake was not the family type.

Pretty certain.

CHAPTER THREE

TWENTY MINUTES LATER , Lia poured a sixty-four-ounce can of tomato juice over Jake’s head. The thick red waterfall coated his hair and face, then streamed in slimy globules over his shoulders and chest. He was stoic, not making a sound as she shook the can and the last droplets landed all over his face.

“Cool,” Howie said. “It looks like blood. Dump some on me.”

“Ugh.” Lia cranked open another can.

Jake used a washcloth to smear the juice over his skin. He and Howie sat in a big iron claw-foot tub. Howie had insisted on the communal bath, which was unusual because he’d always been a serious little guy, private about his personal business from an early age. Lia had expected Jake to refuse or at least hesitate, but he’d merely shrugged and climbed into the tub in his boxers. It was the same with the grocery receipt and remaining cash that she’d carefully laid out on the kitchen table so he could see she’d accounted for every penny. He’d barely spared a glance. Jake certainly wasn’t a fussy man.

Not like Larry.

“Sauce me,” Howie said.

“Seinfeld,” Jake said. “The entity.”

Howie pumped a fist, making a splash in the pink water. “Yes!”

“What did I miss?” Lia dumped juice over Howie’s head. He shrieked and sputtered with delight. She smiled to hear it, and her lungs expanded, taking in a deeper breath than she’d known for months, even years.

Jake leaned back in the tub. “Don’t you ever watch Seinfeld reruns?”

“Not really.”

“See, there was this episode with a stink in the car, called ‘the entity,’” Howie said, forgetting to breathe he was so excited.

“The stink clung to everything it touched,” Jake added.

“So Elaine, her hair smelled, and she had to get a tomato-juice shampoo, and she said—”

“Sauce me,” Jake and Howie chorused. They looked at Lia, waiting for a laugh.

“I see.” She shook the empty can. “But this is juice, not sauce.”

“Mom.”

“Same thing.” Jake shook his head at Howie. “She doesn’t get it.”

Howie shook his head at Lia. “You don’t get it, Mom.”

“I guess not.” She caught Jake’s eye and lifted an eyebrow. “Seeing as you’re the man with so much stinkin’ entity experience, how fast does this remedy work?”

Jake sniffed himself. “We stay in as long as it takes.”

Howie leaned forward to get a whiff. “I smell tomato juice.”

Lia took a pitcher of water and poured it over her son’s sandy-colored head. “You’re going to have pink hair.”

Howie wasn’t sure how to take that news. “Jake, too?”

“His hair is dark. The tomato won’t stain as much.”

Jake passed her a bottle of shampoo. Lia snapped it open and squeezed out a dollop. She began massaging the lather into Howie’s hair and scalp, but he pushed her away. “I can do it.”

“Want to wash mine?” Jake’s question seemed serious—until Lia detected the smile in the laugh lines carved around his eyes. He had a very masculine face—strong bones, blunt features, a firm jaw bristling with a five-o’clock shadow. His dark hair was peppered with gray.

“I’m sure you’re capable.” She collected the cans and can opener. “I’ll leave you two to finish up. Howie, rinse off thoroughly. I don’t want to find sticky tomato juice behind your ears.”

Jake saluted. “We’ll proceed accordingly and present ourselves for inspection, ma’am. Right, Howie?”

“Yes, sir.” Howie saluted with a sudsy hand.

Lia smiled at them. “Here are your glasses, Howie.” She placed the spectacles on the surround of a chipped white sink of fifties vintage and caught sight of herself in the mirrored medicine cabinet. Her hair was as fuzzy as a played-out Barbie doll’s. The touch of lipstick and mascara she’d applied that morning was long gone. She looked bone-tired and at least ten years older than thirty-two.

She turned her face aside. Some days she felt that old. But not right now. Being around Jake was rejuvenating. He put out a lot of rugged male energy. Her spirits perked up and her body responded whether or not she wanted it to. Even though she was usually not focused on that stuff, him being half-naked most of the time was mighty distracting.

The girls were hovering outside the door to the bathroom. “When can we leave?” Sam asked.

Kristen tugged on Lia’s hand and said plaintively, “I’m hungry.”

Lia mouthed, “Quiet,” and hustled both of them toward the kitchen. The stone house was small—two bedrooms, one bath, with a fairly roomy kitchen that opened onto an L-shaped dining and living room area. Though neat as a pin, the kitchen showed the wear and tear of time on the scuffed linoleum, ancient fixtures and stained ceramic sink. A pair of faded print curtains hung in the window that overlooked the new garden and the stand of evergreens that crested the riverbank. Altogether, it was a homely but homey place. Lia wished she could curl into a fetal position on the sagging plaid couch and sleep for the next twenty-four hours.

The shower was running. Jake shouldn’t have been able to overhear, but Lia spoke quickly in a low voice nevertheless. “Samantha, we will go as soon as we can.” Even though I don’t know where we’re going. “Krissy, baby…” She sank onto her heels and gave her youngest a quick hug. “Dinner’s coming. Eat a few animal crackers to tide you over.”

The box of cookies hung from a string wound around Kristen’s finger. Her stuffed rabbit, Cuddlebunny, was clutched in the other hand. “They’re gone.” She was on the verge of tears, a sure sign that she was overtired. “Sam ate ’em all.”

“I did not.”

“Did, too! I said she could have one of the elephants and she taked a big handful.”

“Girls, shhh. It’s okay.” Lia pinched between her eyes. “I won’t let you starve.” She looked at Jake’s cash on the table and thought of the food he’d placed just so in the almost bare cupboards. At the store, she’d counted out her remaining coins to pay for the animal crackers. There was still her credit card, but they could be tracked through that. She didn’t want to use it unless she had no other choice.

One look at Kristen’s welling eyes said that point may have been reached. Lia’s head drooped. She put a hand on the floor to steady herself. Running away from home in the Grudge with less than four hundred dollars in cash had been a foolish decision but necessary. Absolutely necessary.

Except where did they go now?

“Help yourselves,” Jake said from the hallway.

Lia pulled herself together and stood on shaky legs. Weak from hunger, she told herself. Not just weak.

To Jake, she said, “I’m sorry. You know children. Or maybe you don’t. They get weepy when they’re hungry and I—” She let out a choked-off laugh. She was feeling kind of weepy and hopeless herself.

Even though he spoke easily, Jake’s grip tightened on the towel he’d draped around his shoulders. “No problem. I’ll get dressed and we’ll make dinner.”

Lia opened her mouth but didn’t speak. She was in no position to refuse. “You’re being very kind, considering how we barged in on you.” Their eyes met and she cringed inside, reading his expression as pity. She didn’t want pity. She wanted respect. Independence.

But first, dinner. “Thank you.”

After a nudge, Kristen and Sam chimed in. “Thank you, Mr. Robbin.”

He brushed off the gratitude in his abrupt way. So much like Rose. “All of you—call me Jake,” he said before disappearing into one of the bedrooms.

“I NOTICE YOUR MOTHER isn’t here,” Lia commented in the careful tones of a guest bent on making polite conversation. “I know Rose has been caring for her for the past few years.”

Jake rolled a beer bottle between his palms. He was sprawled in one of the Adirondack chairs they kept around for the cottage guests—when they had any. The grill smoked nearby as the charcoal cooled. He’d given Lia a choice of hamburgers or fresh-caught fish. She’d chosen the fish, to her offspring’s displeasure. They’d been polite about eating at least some of it and had filled up on corn on the cob and the biscuits Lia had produced after scouting his kitchen for flour and baking powder.

Jake met her inquiring eyes. “Maxine…uh, my mother is in the hospital.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. Nothing too serious, I hope.”

“She got overwrought and her emphysema worsened.”

“Too much wedding excitement?”

“In a way. More a case of the wedding demanding too much of my sister’s attention. If you knew our mother, you’d understand.” While no one in their household had ruled the roost but Black Jack, his mother had become passive-aggressive to get her way. Particularly with Rose.

Jake glanced at Lia. “Or do you know? I forget that Rose might’ve confided in you about the history of our family.”

“She told me some of it. But not everything. Not even close.”

“That sounds like Rose.”

After a minute of silence, Lia cleared her throat. “Will your mother be home soon?”

“Not right away. She’s being moved to a care facility. They want to monitor her for a while longer. Of course, she’s putting up a fuss, but making her stay was the only way for the newlyweds to get a honeymoon. If she was here, she’d have insisted that Rose stick around to look after her.” Jake was bemused by his loose tongue. After the goings-on of the wedding, he’d been looking forward to solitude. But having Lia and her kids around wasn’t so bad. “I was never much good at that sort of thing—caretaking. No patience.”

“You were great with Howie.”

“I’ve worked at staying calm under pressure.”

“In the Army, huh.” She did a marching-in-place gesture that made him smile. “All that discipline.”

He nodded.

“Well,” Lia said after a minute, searching for another topic when he would have been fine to sit with her in silence, “family illness hasn’t been an issue for me. My parents are young yet, in their midfifties.” She looked down and picked at a fingernail. “We’re not close.”

“How come?” he asked after a beat. Talking like this made him slightly uncomfortable. He didn’t believe in revealing your feelings to passing strangers—or even lingering strangers. Hell, he didn’t even talk to his own brother. He’d tried to stay in touch with Gary after the prison sentence, but there was too much anger and resentment there. Jake and Lia had found ways to straighten themselves out. Gary was a casualty.

“They didn’t approve of me marrying so young.” Lia laughed a little to cover the obvious pain. “Not that they would have approved of me having a baby out of wedlock, either.”

“I thought that in these cases, once the grandchild arrives, the grandparents come around.”

“You’d think so.” She sighed. “I mean, yes, they have made an effort with their grandkids. We visit back and forth a few times a year. But they never quite let me forget what a disappointment I’ve been, including the divorce.”

There was another, longer silence. “Rose—a newlywed,” Lia said suddenly with a fond smile. He could tell she was deliberately lightening the mood. “Incredible.”

“Evan seems like a good guy.”

“He’d better be.”

Jake liked Lia’s fierce loyalty. He’d felt that way about his battalion. Good guys, most of them, and excellent soldiers. With his mother and sister, the family ties were tangled up in turmoil and guilt. He hadn’t been able to protect them the way he’d have liked to. But then, that way would have likely resulted in his own prison sentence. Back when they’d needed him the most, the only solutions he’d known involved hot temper and flying fists.

Black Jack’s legacy. Like father, like son.

Jake slapped a mosquito that had landed on his arm. He wiped away the bloody smear and lifted the beer, tipping it toward Lia. “You’re sure you don’t want one?”

“Not tonight. I’m too tired. A beer would put me right to sleep.” She looked at the sun slipping past the tops of the looming evergreens. “We should be going before it gets dark,” she said, but didn’t move.

“Where to?”

“Um…” Her lids lowered. “I met a woman at the grocery store. Claire. She gave me her card, said we could get a room at her bed-and-breakfast.”

“Free?”

“Well, no, I don’t suppose so.” Lia’s face crumpled. She looked miserable whenever the question of money came up. He assumed she had very little, maybe none given that she’d balked over the price of tomato juice, but apparently pride wouldn’t let her admit it.

He could understand that. Pride—and hurt pride—had caused him a lot of grief back in the day.

“You might as well stay here,” he said. His voice came out raspy and gruff, making the offer less than inviting even though he didn’t mean it that way.

Lia gazed across the property, taking in the small cottages hidden among the trees. Birds twittered in the gap before she spoke again. “I don’t want to disrupt your business.”

He snorted. “What business?”

“There are no guests?”

“We’ve got a few diehards scheduled for later in the season. I’m planning to have the place fixed up some by then.” He tried to soften his voice. “I can give you one of the cottages for as long as you need it. No problem.”

Lia closed her eyes and pressed her lips together, taking a breath through her nose. “We’d—I’d be so grateful.”

“I don’t need gratitude for doing what Rose would want.” Jake figured he owed his sister, not Lia. He drained the bottle and set it on the ground beside his chair, then resettled himself, stretching out full length with his arms folded behind his head. “Your car shouldn’t be on the road anyway. I took a look under the hood while you were at the store. You’ve got bad brakes. The struts need replacing. Front tires are bald, too.”

Lia’s face got that pale, drained look again. “That sounds expensive. I’m not sure the Grudge is worth that much repair. But I need a car.” She glanced his way. “Are you a mechanic?”

“Not as a profession. But I can do the work.”

“I couldn’t ask you to.”

“You didn’t.” He eyed her. How could one small woman be so uptight and wrung-out at the same time? He’d seen from the start that there was something off about her arrival. Through dinner, she’d hushed the kids whenever they’d mentioned their previous life, which had only called his attention to her evasiveness.

Jake wasn’t one to wait for explanations. But he sensed that Lia would bolt if he got too curious. This once, he could bide his time.

“What I meant was that I can’t pay you,” she said.

“I didn’t ask to be paid. We can figure something out. Do you have a job to get back to?”

“No.” She was studying her lap again. “I quit my job. I was actually hoping to find work up here.”

“In Alouette?” That explained the car stuffed with luggage and boxes. He’d figured them for heavy travelers.

“Maybe.” She shot him an arch glance. “Don’t worry. We won’t count on your generosity forever. Just until I get a paycheck and can find a place to rent.”

“It’s not so easy getting a job in this town. What do you do?”

“I’ll do anything.” She moved restlessly. “I don’t have specialized training or a degree. I managed only a few college courses after Sam was born, before Lar—” She cut herself off again. “Since the divorce, I’ve worked at several jobs. Supermarket checker, office clerk for a used-car dealer, waitress. I’ll find something.”

“Sure.”

“You sound skeptical.”

“It’s a small town. I can ask around for you, but I’ve been out of touch for too long. Been back only a few weeks.”

“Thanks, but that’s not necessary,” she said. “I’ll go out tomorrow, first thing. There has to be some kind of job available for an untrained single mom.” She smiled bravely. Tension radiated off her.

He leaned forward. “No rush.”

“Maybe not to you, but I’m in a fix.”

“You said you’re divorced?”

“Yeah. For about three years now officially, but we were separated before that. I was pregnant with Kristen when we moved out of our house and next door to Rose. She was a good friend to me while I had the baby and went through the divorce mess. My ex fought it, so, uh, the process took a while.”

He sensed a world of complication in the brief explanation. He had some vague memory of getting the rare letter from his sister that mentioned Lia, but he hadn’t paid close attention to the details. Now he wished he had. Something about her engaged his interest more than other women. Maybe the fortitude he sensed beneath her exhaustion. If he ever got involved again, it would be with a woman who had staying power.

He continued to probe despite his usual disinterest in chitchat. “Don’t the wife and kids usually get the house?”

Lia winced. “Not always.”

“He was a son of a bitch, huh?”

“To put it mildly.” Lia glanced over her shoulder. “We’re well rid of him.”

Jake’s radar went ping. The look in her eyes…was it hunted, not haunted?

Stay out of it, man. “I’m sure you’ll be okay from now on,” he said, feeling as if he was mouthing a useless platitude.

She clutched her arms tight and shook her head.

“Yes, you will.” He’d see to it.

Jake bit back a groan. His resistance was low for damsels in distress. Always had been, even at age nine, when he’d attacked his own dad for yelling at his mother. He’d earned a cuffing for that, one that had taken out a couple of loose baby teeth.

“Right,” Lia said, worn out but taking hold. “Of course. We’ll be fine.” She cocked her head, listening to the sound of the TV inside the house, where her two youngest were ensconced on the couch. Behind them, Sam was hunkered down in the car, attached to her iPod, reclining in the backseat with her feet dangling out the window.

“We’ll be fine,” Lia repeated, trying to convince herself.

Jake got to his feet before he found himself offering not only a house but his left arm, too, if it’d take the trouble from her eyes. “We should check out the cottage. It might need freshening up.” Plus a bug bomb, mousetraps and a scrub brush.

He sniffed his hand, then held it out to Lia to help her up from the low-slung chair. She complied readily, though her small laugh sounded uncomfortable and she let go as soon as she was on her feet.

“Do I still smell of skunk?” he asked. He’d been cutting onions and squeezing lemons for the fish.

She grinned. “You smell like an especially pungent spaghetti sauce.”

“Great.” He pointed to the first cottage to the west of the main house. “Here’s the one you want. It’s the biggest.” As they walked by the car, Sam’s blue-tipped head popped up. She’d probably snap if he told her she looked like a blue jay.

Her glare bored holes into Jake’s skull, but he’d been glowered at by a two-star general with a Napoleon complex and hadn’t backed down. One sullen teenager could be conquered. Not that he had any intentions of getting involved in their lives beyond today.

“Thank you for being so sweet to Howie,” Lia said on the crumbling cement doorstep. “And the rest of us.” She held the creaky screen door while he put his shoulder to the wooden door that had swollen shut.

It flew open and Jake’s boot thudded onto the dusty floorboards. He coughed. “Sweet? What’s that? Hell, woman, I’ve got a reputation to maintain.”

Lia wasn’t having any. “In case you didn’t notice, my son’s kinda dazzled by you. You’re like a G.I. Joe doll brought to life.” She continued past Jake’s snort of disapproval. “Anyway, I appreciate your tolerance. I’ll try to keep him out of your way as much as possible while we’re here.”

“He’s no trouble.”

She laughed drily. “You say that now, but just wait.”

Jake brandished a hand at the interior of the house. “What do you think? It’s not much, but at least there’s a working bathroom and two double beds.”

The cottage had a couple of rooms, plus the small bath. They’d stepped into the living room area, furnished by a thrift-store sofa and two of the rustic twig armchairs his father used to build in the off-season. Uncomfortable as hell for sitting. A couple of cabinets, a tiny sink, mini fridge and microwave made do as the kitchen. Thick stone walls and small paned windows overhung with ivy and climbing roses made the room seem dark and unappealing to Jake. He switched on the lone hanging light—a cast-iron chandelier with yellowed lampshades festooned with cobwebs.

Lia saw differently. “Oh, wow. It’s charming, Jake. A real storybook cottage.”

He drew a line through the dust on the floor. “Needs a good cleaning.”

“I can do that. In fact…” She poked her head inside the bedroom, where two iron bedsteads were pushed up against the walls, sparing only enough room for an old pine dresser and a night table with a birch-bark lamp. She withdrew. Her bright eyes fixed on Jake. “I can clean all the cottages for you. In return for rent, as long as we stay. Maybe even afterward, if you need me as part-time help. How does that sound?”

He bobbed his head. “Like a deal.”

Immediately he could see that the discouragement weighing her down had lightened considerably. She bounded forward and shook his hand. “Deal.”

He didn’t let go as easily as he had earlier. Maybe three seconds, that’s all it was, but color leaped into her cheeks and she made a breath-catching sound as she pulled away.

Jake resisted the urge to clench his fingers. He knew chemistry when he felt it. Taking on three kids and a single mom was bad enough, but that complication he did not need, unless it led only to a fast, uncomplicated lay. He was betting that a cheap lay was strictly off-limits with Lia. Especially with her kids around.

So back off now, man. You don’t need this.

Of course, that wasn’t what Rose had been saying since Jake’s return, with all her teasing about him following suit and finding a good woman and settling down. He’d claimed that her brain had turned into romantic mush because of the wedding, but maybe she had a point.

He was thirty-nine and regimented in his ways. If he was ever going to give the marriage-and-family thing a legitimate shot, it should be soon. Never in his wildest dreams had he imagined hooking up with a woman with three kids, especially when everything about them spelled trouble. Yet there was a certain efficiency about the situation that suddenly appealed, regardless of his ingrained habit of detachment.

Maybe he was thinking crazy, but suddenly he saw that with Lia he might be able to skip all that romance and courting malarkey in favor of forming a mutually beneficial alliance. One tight family unit, based on function rather than emotion. Emotion wasn’t reliable. Neither was sexual attraction. He’d learned that the hard way.

Most women wouldn’t go for a practical union, even if they were in dire straits. But Lia had already learned marriage wasn’t pretty, and divorce even uglier. She might be ready to listen to reason.

Jake recognized that he was jumping the gun. Still, the notion wouldn’t let go.

One stop, no shopping.

A ready-made family.

CHAPTER FOUR

BY ALL RIGHTS, LIA should have slept like the proverbial log, six of which Jake had hauled into the cottage and set up in the woodstove in the corner, saying they could have a fire if they got chilly at night. He’d showed her how to arrange the kindling and the logs and open the damper, with a fascinated Howie hovering nearby, taking everything in.

But it wasn’t the cool northern air that kept Lia from sleep or even the nightmare she sometimes had about being followed and cornered by a menacing figure. She’d have almost preferred the nightmare. No question where it came from.

Nope, what had awakened her from an already less-than-sound sleep was the disturbing way Jake had looked at her after they’d struck the deal about the cottage. Sober, speculative, far too intense. As if he’d seen something about her, something surprising, something…secret.

Had he guessed about Larry?

Icy prickles slid along her spine at the possibility and what that could mean if Jake was a law-and-order type. She hadn’t figured him out on that point. His military experience said he’d operate by the book and turn her in. Yet there was also an untamed, renegade aura about him. Vestiges of the wild brother from Rose’s tales of their adolescence, she assumed. Prone to fisticuffs and breaking the law.

Quietly Lia slid from the bed and into her robe.

The other possibility of what Jake had been thinking flickered at the back of her brain like a moth at the screen door. She couldn’t seem to brush it away.

It’s nothing. Just a biological urge. You’ve been without a man for too long.

She and Rose used to call themselves reluctant nuns. They’d goad each other into accepting occasional dates and then pick apart the poor men afterward, calling them “the slobberer,” “the mama’s boy,” “the braggart,” discarding them as if the two women were such prize catches themselves.

But Jake…

He was a man. A real man. A man’s man. The kind of guy she’d always been intimidated by, which was how she’d wound up with Larry, the supposed nice boy.

Stop it. You’re making too much of nothing. It was just one look.

She glanced at Kristen and Samantha. Sleeping like angels. Even Sam had been too tired—or too resigned—to complain about sharing a bed. Lia pulled the blankets up to Howie’s chin. He looked naked without his glasses. Younger, too. At times she forgot that he was only ten. Having a good, strong male influence like Jake in his life, if only for a short while, would be invaluable to him.

Jake. He simply refused to leave her mind.

She belted the robe and quietly let herself out of the cottage, easing the screen door shut on her fingertips. The trees grew together so thickly they cast one big, deep shadow, but dawn glowed between the uppermost branches.

Lia shivered on the doorstep in her stocking feet. So what if Jake had looked at her? He hadn’t said a word. Yet she couldn’t deny that she’d been shaken. She’d covered up by making a production about rounding up the kids, sweeping out the cottage, bringing in their gear.

She closed her eyes, sucked in the fresh, fragrant air. You’re on your own. Truly on your own. You can make it.

“I heard the screen door. Couldn’t sleep?”

Lia’s lids flew open. Jake stood on the path, wearing a thermal shirt with the sleeves pushed up, his hands tucked in the pockets of a pair of jeans. God, he looked good.

“I’m antsy, I guess.”

“Want some coffee? I’ve got a pot brewing.”

“Love some.” She stepped down. “You’re an early riser.”

“Habit.”

She sucked in a breath. “Smells good.”

His mouth twisted. “Me?”

Her eyes widened. “The coffee.”

“I took another bath.”

“I’m sure you smell good, too, but forget it—I’m not sniffing you again.”

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