“I guess we blew our chance.”

“Big-time,” Nathan said.

“Even if we were still attracted to each other … and I’m not saying I am, but if we were, we have completely separate lives now. I made a life for myself in New York. And you have a family here. Unless either of us were willing to relocate—”

“So, are you saying that you’re not attracted to me?”

Men and their pride. “I never said that.”

“And you call me elusive,” he said.

He was using her own words against her. And he seemed … closer than he’d been a minute before. “I was speaking hypothetically,” she told him.

Yes, he was definitely closer now. So close she could make out his individual features in the dark. So close she had to tilt her chin up to meet his gaze. And when she did, when their eyes locked, something in the air shifted.

“So, are you or aren’t you?”

The Sheriff’s Second Chance

Michelle Celmer

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MICHELLE CELMER is a bestselling author of more than thirty books. When she’s not writing, she likes to spend time with her husband, kids, grandchildren and a menagerie of animals.

Michelle loves to hear from readers. Visit her website, www.michellecelmer.com, like her on Facebook or write her at PO Box 300, Clawson, MI 48017, USA.

For my Mom,

who never once doubted that I would be a success

For my Dad,

who continues to support and encourage me

For Charles,

who is not just a kick-ass editor, but a friend

For Melissa,

whose faith in me has driven my career since she bought my first book

For my children and grandchildren,

who never fail to remind me of what’s important

And finally, for Steve, whose strength has taught me

that giving up is never an option

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 Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Excerpt

Chapter One

The instant Deputy Sheriff Nathan Jefferies pulled his cruiser into the diner lot and saw his dad, P.J., standing out front instead of waiting inside like he always did, he knew something was up. He grabbed the phone he’d lobbed onto the dash when he’d walked Cody into day care, and, sure enough, there were two missed calls from his dad and two more from his mom.

By the time he killed the engine and climbed out of the car, his dad was standing at the driver’s side door—definitely not their usual routine. “Something wrong?”

The old man shrugged. “I just thought maybe we could try someplace different for a change.”

Someplace different? Was his dad forgetting where they lived? With a population of 1,633, Paradise, Colorado, didn’t exactly have a huge selection when it came to dining establishments. There was Joe’s Place, but that didn’t open until lunch, and there was Lou’s Diner. Aside from those, and the Howard Johnson’s on the highway several miles east of town, there wasn’t anywhere else within twenty miles to get a decent breakfast. Or any breakfast for that matter.

Something was definitely up. “What’s going on, Dad?”

His dad sighed and rubbed a hand across a jawline beginning to sag with age. “Son, she’s back.”

Nate wasn’t sure what was more pathetic: that he knew exactly who “she” was, or that he still gave a damn after all these years.

He steeled himself against the residual sting of rejection, the burn of betrayal that still seared his heart like acid.

“Was bound to happen eventually, I s’pose,” his dad said. “She couldn’t stay away forever.”

Not forever. Just seven years.

Seven years with no explanation of why, after two years together, she’d packed her bags and left town. Nothing but that pathetic excuse for an apology she’d sent him weeks later.

Dear Nate, I’m so, so sorry...

Nate shook away the memory.

“We could skip breakfast today, son. We don’t have to go in there.”

Nate blinked. “She’s here, at the diner?”

His dad nodded.

Everyone in the restaurant had seen him pull up. He had no choice but to go in. And it wasn’t just a matter of his pride, although that was part of it. As a deputy sheriff, he had a reputation to uphold. If people began to see him as a coward, his credibility as peacekeeper in town would be compromised. And what could be more cowardly than turning tail and running from an estranged girlfriend seven years after the breakup?

“Let’s go.” He marched up the walk and shouldered his way through the door. The second his shoe hit the black-and-white-checked linoleum floor, twenty or so pairs of eyes snapped in his direction and bore into him like an auger biting through steel. In a town the size of Paradise, where everyone’s nose was in everyone else’s business, good news traveled fast.

And bad news traveled even faster.

This reunion would be stressful enough without an audience, but it was too late to turn back now. A swift survey of the interior revealed many familiar and curious faces, but not the one he was anticipating. And dreading.

The short walk to the counter felt like a mile. He slid onto his usual stool beside George Simmons, owner of Simmons Hardware, and his dad sat beside him.

“Mornin’, Deputy,” George said, then nodded to Nate’s dad. “Mornin’, P.J.”

“Mornin’, George,” P.J. returned. “How are things down at the hardware store?”

George shrugged. “Can’t complain. How’s the house coming along?” he asked, referring to the Victorian-era home Nate’s parents had been renovating.

“It’s comin’.”

“Got that tile laid in the downstairs bathroom?”

P.J. nodded. “Just about.”

They had a similar conversation every morning, yet today it felt stilted and awkward. To add to the tension, Nate could feel the gaze of the entire restaurant pinned against his back.

Their waitress, Delores Freeburg, who had worked at the diner as long as Nate could remember, appeared with a decanter of coffee and poured them each a cup. “Morning, Nate, P.J. Will you have the usual?”

“Just coffee for me,” Nate said. His belly was too tied in knots to choke down eggs and bacon.

P.J. patted the paunch that had begun to creep over his belt and said, “I’m starving. The usual for me.”

Delores winked and left to put in the order, but not before shooting Nate a glance rife with curiosity.

There was a brief, awkward silence, then George said, “So, Nate, I guess you’ve heard the news.”

“I heard.” And he didn’t care to talk about it.

“Been a long time,” George persisted.

Nate poured cream and sugar in his cup. The idea of drinking it made his stomach turn, but he forced himself to take a sip, burning the hell out of his tongue in the process.

“Seven years,” his dad answered for him, and Nate shot him a look that said, Don’t encourage him.

But George needed no encouragement. He was a worse gossip than most of the women at Shear Genius, the salon Nate’s ex-wife owned.

Nate pulled out his phone and pretended to check his messages, but that didn’t stop George.

“Guess she got herself into a fix up there in New York.” George shook his head, as though he could relate, even though he’d never lived a day outside of their small town. “Some sort of federal investigation into her financial firm.”

“I hope you also heard that I’m not personally under any suspicion,” a female voice stated from behind them. A voice that after seven years was still so familiar, Nate’s heart climbed up his throat and lodged there. Caitlyn Cavanaugh walked around the counter, facing them now, but Nate kept his eyes on his phone screen.

“Welcome back, Caitie,” his dad said.

“Hi, P.J. Long time no see.”

“When did you get home?”

“Just last night.”

“And your parents have you back to work already?”

“I offered. Deb called in sick. But I’ll warn you, I may be a bit rusty. I haven’t waited tables in almost five years.”

“Well,” P.J. said with a shrug. “You know that nothing much ever changes around here.”

“I guess not.”

Nate could feel her eyes on him, but he couldn’t make himself lift his gaze. Maybe if he ignored her, it wouldn’t be real.

“Hello, Nate,” she said, her voice quiet.

He had no choice but to look at her now, and when he lifted his head and his eyes snagged on hers, every bit of pain and rejection he’d felt when she left slammed him in the gut like a fist.

In her waitress uniform she looked almost exactly the same. A little older, maybe, her pale blond hair longer than the shoulder-length, no-nonsense style she’d worn in high school. And her smile wasn’t quite as carefree. But she was still his Caitie—

No, she wasn’t his anything.

Underneath the pain, the anger still simmered. It threatened to boil over and spill out like molten lava onto the Formica countertop.

He said the only thing he could, so she would understand exactly where she stood. “That’s Deputy Sheriff to you, Miss Cavanaugh.”

So that was the way it was going to be?

Caitlyn Cavanaugh wasn’t really surprised. Of course she had hoped that after all these years Nate would have forgiven her, or at the very least, let go of the animosity.

Apparently not. And that was not at all like the Nate she used to know. That Nate was so laid-back, so easygoing and nonconfrontational. After two years together she could count on one hand how many times they had argued. Come to think of it, she’d never seen him really angry at anyone.

Until now.

Under the icy exterior, he was seething. And though she would never admit it to another living soul, after all these years, it stung. Badly. But she refused to be labeled the only bad guy when he was just as guilty of betrayal. She may have left town, and she wouldn’t deny that sending a vague letter in lieu of a real explanation was a cowardly thing to do. But he seemed to be forgetting that he married her best friend only three months after she left.

If it killed her, she would never let him know just how much that had hurt.

“I beg your pardon, Deputy,” she said, pasting on a polite yet vaguely disinterested smile. One he didn’t return, not that she had expected him to. He’d always had a sweet, slightly lopsided grin that never failed to melt her on the spot. And hadn’t that been one of their biggest problems? She never could tell him no.

Thank goodness her dad, Lou, who was manning the grill, chose that instant to call an order up, putting an end to what would only become an increasingly awkward conversation.

“Enjoy your breakfast, gentleman,” she said, then turned and crossed to the order window to grab the plates. Her dad peered at her from the other side. Concern crinkled the corners of his eyes. Kind eyes, her mom liked to say.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Fine,” she said, even though she was anything but.

“You don’t look fine. Why don’t you take a break? Delores can cover your tables for a few minutes.”

As much as she wanted to escape, at least until Nate finished his coffee and left, that wasn’t even an option. If she could handle high-profile clients with multimillion-dollar portfolios, she could handle a snarky ex-boyfriend. And if she couldn’t...well, she would never give him the satisfaction of knowing how much seeing him had rattled her. Besides, if they were going to live in the same town together, even if it was only temporary, she would just have to get used to running into him every now and then.

“I’m okay, Dad.”

He didn’t look as though he believed her, but he didn’t push the issue.

She grabbed the plates and turned, slamming into Delores, who was standing at the juice machine. The glass she was filling slipped from her hand and crashed to the floor, shattering into a million pieces.

“Oh, Delores! I’m so sorry,” Caitie said, her cheeks burning with embarrassment. She didn’t have to turn to know that everyone was staring at her. She could feel it.

Could this morning get any worse? Any more humiliating?

“It’s okay, hon,” Delores said, patting her arm.

“I’ll clean it up.”

“You take care of your order. I’ll get it.”

“Are you sure?”

Delores nodded and said softly, “Just take a deep breath and try to relax, hon. It’ll get easier, I promise.”

A divorcée five times over, Delores was pretty much the town authority on failed relationships, and Caitie knew she was right. This was just harder than she thought it would be. The feelings she’d buried a long time ago were fighting their way up to the surface.

Avoiding the counter—and Nate—Caitie delivered her order to the customers in the back corner, then stopped at the booth beside it whose occupants had just been seated. She knew Lindy and Zoey from high school, and though they’d been a grade ahead of Caitie, they had all been on the cheerleading squad together.

There was a third woman with them Caitie didn’t recognize. It was obvious by their sudden silence as she approached the table that they had been talking about her. No doubt Lindy and Zoey were telling their friend the tale of Cait’s defection from her hometown.

What a stellar first day back this had turned out to be and it was barely 9:00 a.m.

Caitie raised her chin a notch and smiled. “Hello, Lindy, Zoey. Long time no see.”

“That’s bound to happen when you leave town without a word,” Lindy said, her eyes cold.

Making a clean break had been her only option. She didn’t expect Lindy or anyone else to understand that.

At least Caitie had escaped the grips of their small town. She had followed her dream and for a while had been a success—and would be again just as soon as she found a new job. This trip home was a temporary diversion. She hoped.

“Word is you had some trouble,” Zoey added. “I’m sorry things didn’t work out.”

Caitie kept the smile firmly in place. Most people would consider going off to college, landing a cushy job at a prestigious finance firm and making a life for herself in New York an impressive feat. Zoey, on the other hand, seemed to revel in her failure. “I’m here temporarily. I’m going back to New York as soon as I find a new job.”

“We should all get together for drinks and catch up,” Zoey said, with a plastic, artificially whitened smile. She and Caitie had never been what anyone would call close friends. And from the looks of her styled hair, manicured nails and designer clothes, her wealthy father was still spoiling her rotten.

“That sounds like fun,” Caitie said, knowing she would do no such thing. It would be a fishing expedition for gossip that Zoey would then spread all over town.

“This is Reily Eckardt,” Lindy said, gesturing to their companion. “She just moved to town a few months ago. She’s engaged to Joe Miller.”

If the rock on the cute blonde’s finger was any indication, Joe, the owner of Joe’s Place, the local bar and grill, was doing quite well for himself.

“Nice to meet you, Caitie,” Reily said with a friendly smile. The fact that she already knew Cait’s name was a clear sign that she’d been the topic of conversation. She was bound to get that a lot now. That was the way things worked in small towns. If the flow of gossip in Paradise could feed the Foothills Hydro plant in Denver, they would have enough electricity to power the entire state of Colorado for the next fifty years.

“What can I get you ladies?” she asked, then quickly took their orders. Though she promised herself she wouldn’t do it, as she walked back to the kitchen, she glanced over at Nate. He sat with near-perfect posture and, because of his broad shoulders, occupied slightly more than his share of space at the counter. He’d been the star running back on the high school football team, and Nate had always been impressively built. But now? She didn’t need to see him out of his clothes to know that he was still ripped. His biceps and pecs strained the fabric of his uniform shirt, and his wide shoulders stressed the seams to the limit.

As if he sensed her staring, he turned to look at her. Their eyes met and locked, and his flashed with such naked contempt her stomach did a violent flip-flop.

She forced herself to look away.

Petty as it was, a small part of her had hoped that he would be balding with a spreading waistline. In reality he looked better than he ever had before. At eighteen he had seemed so mature to her, but in reality, he was just a kid. Now, he was all man. And then some.

She turned in her order, and when she glanced back over at Nate a few minutes later, he was gone. She breathed a silent sigh of relief. That could have gone worse, but not much.

He betrayed you, too, she reminded herself, so why did she still feel so darned guilty?

For as long as she could remember, she had been dependable Caitie, always doing exactly what was expected of her, sacrificing her own dreams, her own needs, to make everyone else happy. Until one day she had just...snapped. When the acceptance letter to an East Coast school arrived with a full scholarship—one she had only applied for on a whim thinking she would never get it—she knew it was destiny. An opportunity she simply couldn’t pass up.

She’d hurt two of the most important people in her life when she’d left so abruptly that fall, and she didn’t expect them to understand why she’d done it, but they couldn’t hold it against her for the rest of her life. At some point they would have to forgive her.

Right?

Caitie made it through the breakfast rush and was about to sit down for a much-needed break when her dad called her into the back office.

“Would you mind running these papers home to your mom?” he said, handing her a manila folder. “I forgot them last night when I closed up.”

She took the folder. “She’s not coming in today?”

“She does the bookkeeping and ordering from home now. Her headaches have been much more unpredictable lately, and more frequent.”

As long as Caitie could remember her mom had gotten bad headaches. Sometimes two or three a month. “How frequent?”

“A couple times a week.”

Caitie sucked in a breath, wondering why she was just now hearing about it. “How long has this been going on?”

“It was a gradual change. I would say that it got really bad this time last year. But now they have her on a new medication. It doesn’t take the headache away, but it makes the pain tolerable. And it curbs the nausea.”

“There’s nothing they can do to stop them?”

He shook his head. “She copes.”

Caitie was sure she did. But her mom had worked damned hard all her life. She deserved better than just coping.

Caitie glanced at her watch and said, “I should go, or I’ll be late for the lunch rush.”

She walked to the row of lockers across from the office to fetch her purse.

“I guess you knew it wasn’t going to be easy,” he said, leaning in the office doorway, watching her. “Coming back, I mean.”

“I guess.”

His brow crinkled with concern. “Is there anything I can do?”

“I can handle it,” she said, hoping that was true. She slung her purse over her shoulder. “I’ll be back before the lunch rush.”

“Before you go...” He wrapped her up in a big hug and said, “I love you, Caitie.”

It was exactly what she needed. Her dad always knew just what to say and do to make her feel better. “I love you, too, Dad.”

She let herself out the back door into the sizzling August heat, crossed the alley behind the restaurant and climbed into the beat-up Ford compact she’d bought her senior year of high school. The driver’s side mirror was secured to the door with duct tape and there was a hole in the dash where the radio used to be, but after all this time it still ran—albeit barely. It took a couple of tries, but the engine sputtered to life and she blasted the air conditioner, which, at its best, spit out air that was more lukewarm than cool. She shut it off and cranked her windows down instead.

She pulled out of the alley and turned left onto Main Street. Her parent’s farmhouse, where she was staying, sat on an acre of land a mile north of town. Caitie’s great-grandfather, Winston Cavanaugh, who had built the house in the early 1900s, used to own the largest farm in the county and until the Great Depression was one of the wealthiest men in town. But his son—her grandfather George Cavanaugh—having no desire to work the land, sold off all but the one acre her parents now owned and built the diner. Caitie and her younger sister would one day inherit all of it, and would undoubtedly sell it. New York was Cait’s home now, and her sister, Kelly, who was attending college in California, was making noises about moving to the West Coast permanently after graduation. Of course, with Kelly, one never knew.

Caitie headed down Main, her car sputtering and coughing it’s way past the pharmacy and the thrift store, the post office and the ice-cream shop, marveling at how little things had changed in seven years. She had been home for Christmas and Easter, but she usually avoided venturing into town. Too many memories. Too many questions to answer if she ran into someone she knew.

She passed Joe’s Place, a newer, log cabin–style building on the edge of town. The scent of tangy smoking meat was drifting on the air. She flicked her blinker on to swing left onto the county road, but as she made the turn, her car choked and wheezed; then the engine died. She rolled to a stop dead center in the intersection.

She cursed and banged the steering wheel, mumbling, “Please, not today.”

She jammed it into Neutral and turned the key, pumping the gas. “Come on, baby, just one more mile.”

The engine caught, then roared to life, only to die again before she could get the gear into Drive.

Seriously? As if this day hadn’t been miserable enough already.

After several more unsuccessful attempts that only managed to suck whatever juice was left in the battery, she dropped her head against the steering wheel. Sweat beaded her forehead as the temperature in interior of the car skyrocketed.

A car passed, maneuvering around her, and the driver—an older woman Caitie didn’t recognize—honked her horn, looking annoyed. Did she honestly think Caitie deliberately stopped in the middle of an intersection? Two more cars went by, their drivers offering her sympathetic smiles, but neither stopped to help. So much for small-town hospitality.

Leaving the car in Neutral, Caitie got out to push it out of the intersection, but pushing and steering simultaneously wasn’t as easy as it looked. The soles of her tennis shoes kept slipping on the hot asphalt as she rocked the car, and sweat poured down her face, stinging her eyes. The county road was on a slight decline, so if she could just get the car moving, getting it onto the side of the road should be a piece of cake.

She gave one mighty shove that she knew she would feel later as her back and shoulder muscles screamed in protest. But the car started to roll. Slowly at first, but as she completed the turn onto the county road, it picked up speed as the road dipped down. Her intention was to hop back into the driver’s seat and maneuver it onto the side of the road, but she lost her footing. She slipped and went down hard, wincing as her bare knees and palms hit the hot asphalt.

Unfortunately the car kept on going.

She scrambled to her feet, but it was too late. She watched in helpless disbelief as the car accelerated and veered to the right, kicking up dust as it hit the shoulder. Then it plunged into the ditch dividing the road from Mr. Johnson’s cornfield and with a sickening crunch of metal landed ass end up.

The situation was so ridiculous, she didn’t know if she should laugh or cry or pinch herself to wake up from this horrible nightmare.

She walked toward the wreck, her knees stinging, her back aching. Yet she felt oddly detached, as if she were watching the situation unfold from outside her own body.

She was a few yards from the car when she heard another vehicle coming down the road behind her. Maybe this time someone would stop to help her.

The patrol car passed her, slowing as it reached her car. The driver made a sharp U-turn, swung onto the opposite shoulder and parked.

With the sun reflecting off the windshield she couldn’t make out the occupant. Please God, let it be anyone but him.

The door swung open, and she watched in dismay as Nate unfolded his large frame from the car.

She mumbled a curse and thought, This really is not my day.

Chapter Two

When he’d left the diner that morning, Nate had vowed to avoid Caitie whenever humanly possible. But when the call came in about the car stalled in the intersection, he’d had no idea it would be her.

He would have driven past and kept going, but this was a matter of public safety, and as an officer of the law he had an obligation to stop and assist her. Though how she had managed to get her car from the intersection to the ditch was a mystery.

He radioed for a tow, then got out and crossed the road to Caitie’s car. It sat nose down in a tangle of weeds and grass in the ditch. Caitie, looking alarmingly disheveled with her sweat-soaked hair and clothes and bleeding knees, limped over and joined him.

Suddenly his bad day didn’t seem so horrible after all.

Shoulders slumped, looking tired and defeated, Caitie stopped beside him, gazing down into the ditch at what was left of her car. From what he could see, the front end was in pretty bad shape but probably fixable. Although, considering the age of the car, it hardly seemed worth it. Honestly, it was a miracle it still ran at all.

“You look like hell,” he told her.

Without taking her eyes off the car, she said, “Thanks for noticing.”

“Are you okay?”

“Define ‘okay.’”

“Are you in need of medical assistance?”

She shook her head. “I’ll live.”

“So, you want to tell me what happened?”

She shook her head again and said, “No. Not really.”

“I need to fill out an accident report.”

Her attention shot to him. “It wasn’t an accident.”

“You put your car in a ditch on purpose?”

She rolled her eyes in exasperation. “Of course not! It died, and I was...pushing it out of the road.”

The mental picture almost made him smile. “Got away from you, did it?”

Her deadpan look was the only answer he required.

As much as he wanted to believe she deserved it, wanted to feel vindicated, she looked so damned defeated he couldn’t manage anything but pity. He’d been so busy not looking at her in the diner, he hadn’t noticed the dark circles under her eyes, or that she was thinner than he’d even seen her. Her wrists looked bony and her collarbones jutted out.

But whatever she’d suffered, or was still suffering, she’d brought it on herself. That was what he wanted to believe, anyway.

Caitie stepped forward to climb down the embankment, and without thinking he grabbed her upper arm to stop her. The instant his fingers touched her bare skin, he was hit by a zap of awareness so intense it nearly knocked him into the road.

Where in the hell had that come from?

Considering the way Caitie blinked in surprise and jerked her arm free, she must have felt it, too. “At ease, Officer.”

“You can’t go down there,” he said.

“I have to get my things.”

“It may not be safe. You should wait until the tow truck gets here.”

“I haven’t called one.”

“I did. It shouldn’t be more than an hour.”

“I don’t have an hour. I have to get back to work. And there are papers in there from the diner that my mom needs now. And I need my purse.”

“Where is it?”

“Everything was on the front passenger seat.”

With a sigh of resignation he told her, “Stay here.”

Hands propped on her hips, she scowled. “I didn’t ask for your help.”

Like it or not, she was getting it. If she went down there and wound up hurting herself, it would be his ass on the line. He picked his way down the slope into the ditch on the passenger’s side of the car, weeds twisting around his legs and clinging to his uniform pants like tentacles. Thankfully there had been no rain for a while, or he would be trudging through mud and muck.

He gave the car a firm shove, to make sure it was stable, and it didn’t budge. From this angle he could see that the hood was wedged under a large boulder at the edge of the field. This car had definitely seen its last days on the road.

“How bad is it?” she called down to him.

“Looks fatal,” he answered, and he heard her mutter something under her breath. “Sorry, I missed that.”

“I said, what next? Which in retrospect was probably a stupid idea. Why tempt fate?”

He didn’t believe in fate. Not anymore.

He tried the passenger’s side door. It resisted at first, but with one hard yank and the grating screech of metal against metal, it opened. As he leaned inside he was filled with an eerie sense of déjà vu. Somehow, despite having essentially spent the past seven years under a tarp in the garage, the car still smelled like the coconut body spray she’d used in high school.

He shook the thought away as he reached over and switched on the hazard lights.

The papers she’d mentioned lay scattered across the floor. He gathered them up, revealing an expensive-looking leather purse underneath, its contents spilled out onto the mat. He recognized the brand as one his ex-wife had often coveted but could never afford.

He had overheard his dad tell someone that Caitie had done rather well for herself in New York. It was a surprise to Nate. Not because he considered her incompetent. He had just always believed that material things didn’t interest her, that family was what she really cared about. Living in the city had obviously changed her.

Or hell, maybe he never really knew her at all.

He slid the sheets of paper—which looked to be financial forms—back into their folder and stuffed her belongings back into her purse. He gave the interior a final cursory glance, a disturbing sense of longing tugging at his soul. He shut the door and climbed out of the ditch.

“Thank you,” she said when he reached the top and handed her things over. “I could have gotten them.”

He should have let her do just that, but he had been entrusted by the town to keep its residents safe, and it was a duty he took very seriously. So, until Caitie went back to New York, she was essentially his to protect.

“I noticed your left taillight is still flickering,” he told her, looking back at the car.

“Only because someone never got around to fixing it for me,” she said sharply. “Though he promised about a hundred times.”

Resentment churned his gut. Who was this woman? The Caitie he knew had always been so sweet and accommodating, so...nice. She never had a negative thing to say about anyone. Well, almost never.

“I’m not the only one who made promises,” he reminded her. She had promised to marry him and have his children and spend the rest of her life with him.

Yet here they were, not married.

“Can I go now?” she asked.

He wasn’t sure where his reply originated, maybe from some deep dark place where the pain still simmered, but it was out of his mouth before he could stop it. “Leaving is what you do best.”

Her sharp intake of breath said the barb had struck its target. He waited for the feeling of satisfaction to release the weight that had been dragging him down since he’d first heard her voice in the diner. But treating women with respect was a virtue so deeply engrained by his parents, he felt like a jerk instead.

Her bluster and bravado seemed to leak away, filing the edge off her sharp tongue. “I didn’t want to hurt you, Nate. If you believe anything, please believe that.”

Whether she meant to or not, she had hurt him. She’d left with no regard for anyone else’s feelings. Abandoned him and all their friends with no logical explanation.

If this was her lame attempt at an apology, she was wasting her time. It was too late for that. She’d betrayed his trust, and, whatever her excuse, that would never be okay with him.

“Let’s go sit in my car,” he said.

Looking apprehensive, she asked, “What for?”

“It beats standing in the hot sun while I write this up.”

She hugged the file to her chest, shooting an anxious glance down the county road, as if she were plotting an escape route. Did she think she could outrun him? “I told you what happened. Do I really need to be here?”

Was she in such a rush to get back to the diner, or just eager to get away from him? It didn’t matter either way. His priority was to do his job.

“I’ll need your statement. Then you’ll have to sign it, so yes,” he told her. “You do, in fact, need to be here.”

Caitie realized that she was in no position to be asking Nate for any favors, but it couldn’t hurt to try.

Swallowing the crumbs of her shredded pride, she said, “Could we maybe skip the report this time? I mean, no one was hurt, right? No one else was even involved. So who would know?”

He just stared at her with his “cop” expression.

“If I’m late back to the restaurant, it’s everyone else who will suffer. The waitresses, the customers. My dad.”

“Maybe you should have considered that when you drove your car into the ditch.”

Like she had done it on purpose. And technically, she’d pushed it in. If the damned car hadn’t stalled, she wouldn’t be in this mess.

Nate crossed the road to his cruiser and opened the back door. It was silly to believe that he would cut her any slack after all that had happened.

She waited for a truck to rumble past, then walked across the road and peered into the cruiser. “I have to sit in back, locked in like a criminal?”

“Those are the rules,” he said.

It wasn’t as if she’d never been in the back of a police vehicle. Nate’s dad, P.J., a state police officer, had sometimes given them rides in his squad car. But this was different. Once she got in there, she would be trapped. Not that she thought he would hurt her. Not physically anyway. But he could spoon-feed her all the bitterness and resentment that had obviously built up these past years, and she would have no choice but to swallow it.

She stepped closer, then hesitated. Did she really want to do this?

Did she have a choice?

The longer she stalled, the later she’d be getting back to work. And there was nothing she hated more than letting people down. Though it was getting to be a recurring theme for her. First she let everyone down by leaving Paradise, then she let down her clients by not seeing the fraud going on right under her nose.

She glanced up at Nate as she slipped into the car, and as their eyes met, his were so cold and emotionless, it was as if he were looking right through her. She’d seen that look before.

Nate rarely lost his temper or even raised his voice—or he didn’t when they were younger. His weapon was silence. And the less he talked, the more she felt the need to justify herself over whatever it was he was upset about, which would usually leave her feeling like the bad guy. Whether it was her fault or not.

Not anymore.

He shut the door and walked around the vehicle. With every step he took, her anxiety mounted. She glanced at her watch. There was no way she would make it back in time for the lunch rush now. Thanks to her carelessness, and foot dragging, everyone else at the diner would have to pick up the slack.

Nate climbed into the car, his eyes cold and hard as he glanced at her in the rearview mirror. Well, she wasn’t so thrilled seeing him again, either. If she had her choice, she would still be in New York, but the money in her savings account could be stretched a whole lot further staying in Paradise rent-free.

She would never forget opening her office door to find the halls swarming with agents from the Federal Trade Commission, and watching in shock as the CEO was led out in handcuffs. Immediately rumors began to fly that the firm had direct ties to the mob and had been defrauding some of its wealthiest clients for years. A virtual pyramid scam.

Suddenly she and her coworkers found themselves thrust into the center of a federal investigation. The CFO had gone missing that day, along with millions of dollars, and still hadn’t been located. Caitie figured that there were two likely scenarios. Either he was on a beach in Aruba sipping mai tais, or had been laid to rest somewhere in Jersey under a concrete slab.

Her money was on Jersey.

Nate was silent for so long, and so still, she wondered if she should check for a pulse. When he did finally speak, the sound of his voice startled her.

“If I let you go now, do you promise to come by the station in the morning and file a report?”

He was cutting her a break? Seriously? She sat up a little straighter as her heart lifted. “Yes! Absolutely I’ll do that. I promise.”

His eyes narrowed. “Eight a.m.? Before I go out on patrol.”

“I’ll be there. You have my word.”

She braced herself for a crack about her word not meaning much to him, but it never came.

“For the record, I’m doing this for Lou,” he told her. “Not you. So don’t forget.”

“I won’t.”

He did a U-turn out onto the road and headed in the direction of her parents’ house. She was getting a free pass and a ride home? This was unprecedented.

She studied his profile as he drove silently down the county road. Eyes forward, lips sealed in a rigid line. From this angle he looked exactly as he had in high school, and she felt a pang somewhere deep in her chest. A sudden longing for the way things used to be. But they were not, nor would they ever be, a couple. She had her life in New York, and he had his in Paradise. And never the twain shall meet.

Not often anyway. In fact, she hoped that tomorrow at the station would be the last she saw of him. She anticipated that the headhunter would call soon with good news and she could go back to New York.

Nate didn’t say a word as he pulled up her parents’ long gravel driveway and rolled to a stop close to the side door. The three-car detached garage was open and her mom’s car was parked inside. Maybe Caitie could con a ride back to the diner from her.

This being the first time she had seen the house in true daylight since she’d arrived, she took a good look around. Was it her imagination or were things looking a little...run-down?

Despite the hours they worked, her parents had always seen that the house and yard were meticulously cared for. Even if that meant hiring one of the local kids to mow the grass. Caitie had been too busy with work and school to do it, and if Kelly had been handcuffed to the mower she would find an excuse to get out of it.

The once white siding on the house had weathered to a dull gray, and the trim around the windows was peeling in places. The front flower beds were dry and scrubby and overgrown, more weeds than flowers. The vegetable garden was in no better shape. She saw only a few straggly plants that looked as if they had come up on their own from seed.

As long as Caitie had been alive, they planted the garden every spring, and in the fall her mom would take a couple of days off work to can the crop. She would put up pickles, relish and dilly beans and several varieties of hot peppers. In the fall they went apple picking at a local orchard so her mom could make sauce. The all-natural chunky kind with no added sugar. Until she was away at school Caitie had never even tried store-bought applesauce. There was no comparison.

She wondered if she could help her parents out by tidying up the yard, planting a flat or two of flowers. Marigolds had always been her mom’s favorite. The front porch could stand a good scrubbing and a fresh coat of paint, as well. As could the siding and the trim. Heck, she might as well paint it all, and totally re-landscape the yard. It would be the perfect project to keep her occupied while she was there. Something constructive to do. She’d always hoped that someday she would have time to explore her creative side. Maybe this was her chance.

She waited for Nate to get out and open her door, but he just sat there, eyes forward, not moving or making a sound. Had he forgotten that she was locked in?

She cleared her throat, hoping to catch his attention, but he didn’t budge. It was as if he’d forgotten she was back there.

After another minute or so, her patience began to wear thin. He knew she was in a hurry. Why would he let her postpone the police report, drive her home, then keep her trapped in his backseat?

If he needed to say something, she wished he would just spit it out.

“Penny for your thoughts,” she said, taking a stab at a little lighthearted humor.

He cut his eyes to her in the mirror, looking anything but amused.

“Or not,” she mumbled.

His expression was so empty, so lacking in emotion, he could have been cast from wax had his mouth not been moving. “I used to think if I ever saw you again, the only thing I would want to know is why. But now that you’re here, now that we’ve come face-to-face, I realize...” He looked back at her over his shoulder. “I don’t care anymore.”

Ouch. Whether or not hurting her had been his goal, that remark cut deep. Not that she had expected him to be miserable, alone and still pining for her, unable to move on with his life. But a girl could hope, right?

She banished that thought to somewhere deep down where it belonged. And having said his piece—short though effective as it had been—Nate finally got out and opened her door.

As she was climbing out, her battered knees protesting with a deep, stinging ache, she heard the side door on the house creak open. She looked over to see her mom standing on the back porch.

In Cait’s opinion, her mom, Betty, was as pretty now as she had been at seventeen, when she won the Miss Denver beauty pageant. She was thirty years older now, and a little bit softer around the edges, but she still had that spark. It had been difficult as a child, growing up in a household with females as beautiful as her mom and sister. No one ever came right out and told Caitie she was aesthetically inferior, but she knew.

Caitie sometimes wondered if her mom ever regretted not doing more with her life. During her stint as a beauty queen, a Chicago-based modeling agency had offered her a two-year contract. She could have had an exciting career in the city, but instead she chose to stay in Paradise, get married and work at the diner.

Gauging by her stunned expression, seeing Caitie with Nate was probably the last thing her mom expected on Caitie’s first day back.

“Hello, Nate,” she said, looking quizzically from him to Caitie. But as Caitie stepped out from behind the car door and her mom saw her disheveled appearance, including the dried blood caked on her knees, she gasped and clasped a hand to her bosom. “What on earth happened to you?”

Caitie had never been one to resort to sarcasm to make a point, but what the heck. “Nate and I were just getting reacquainted,” she said, smiling when she heard him grumble under his breath.

He never used to grumble.

“I’m going to assume that was a joke,” her mom said, though she looked as if she wasn’t sure.

“See ya, Betty,” Nate said, then narrowed his cop stare on Caitie. “Eight a.m. Don’t forget.”

Like she could forget that. “Thanks for the ride, Deputy Jefferies.”

He shot her a look.

Had he or had he not insisted that she address him by his rank? Now he didn’t like it?

Nate grumbled something incoherent as he got in the cruiser and drove away. He never used to grumble, and he sure did seem to frown a lot now. Perhaps the serious nature of his profession had jaded him.

But this was Paradise, where there was barely any crime to be jaded about.

Caitie turned back to her mom, who stood patiently awaiting an explanation.

“So,” she asked, looking Caitie up and down. “Rough morning?”

Feeling exhausted, as if she’d just worked a week of double shifts, when in reality it was barely eleven, Caitie sighed and said, “You have no idea.”

Chapter Three

“Let’s get you cleaned up,” her mom said, and Caitie followed her into the house. A pot simmered on the stove, and the scent of spicy tomato sauce hung heavy in the air.

At least the inside of her parents’ house hadn’t changed much. The furniture was older, the carpet worn in places, but the house was neat as a pin.

“Maybe you could tell me what really happened,” her mom suggested, lifting the lid and giving the sauce a quick stir. “Like how you hurt your knees.”

Caitie slumped into a kitchen chair. “You think this is bad, you should see the other guy.”

Her mom blinked. “Other guy?”

“I’m kidding. I did this to myself. Literally.”

“Where is your car? And why did Nate drive you home?”

“My car is dead in the ditch off the county road just past town. By the Johnsons’ field.”

“I see.” Her mom grabbed the first-aid kit from the top shelf of the pantry and set it on the counter, pulling out everything she needed. “How did it get into the ditch?”

“I pushed it there.” Her mom’s brows lifted in surprise, and Caitie quickly added, “And, no, I did not do it on purpose. It died in the middle of the intersection. I was trying to move it out of the way.”

Caitie gave her mom the short version of what had happened while she cleaned her knees. She was kind enough not to laugh, but she did crack a smile when Caitie described watching helplessly as the car plunged into the ditch.

“Why did you leave the diner?” her mom asked.

“To give you the—” Caitie closed her eyes and groaned. She’d left the damned folder in the backseat of Nate’s cruiser.

Really? All that for nothing.

“The what?” her mom asked, soaking a cotton ball with antiseptic.

“The papers dad sent home.”

She looked confused. “Papers?”

Caitie sucked in a breath as her mom dabbed her knees and the antiseptic burned her raw skin. “From the restaurant. Didn’t he call you?”

She was quiet for a second, as if she was trying to recall. “Oh, right. Those papers. He must have forgotten to call.”

“Well, I left them in Nathan’s car by accident.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it. It’s nothing urgent.” She swabbed antibiotic ointment on the scratches, then smoothed a large bandage over each knee. “There you go. Good as new. More or less.”

“Thanks, Mom.”

“Be sure to take the bandages off when the bleeding stops. The more air the scrapes get, the faster they’ll heal.”

“I’ll take them off tonight before bed.” She stood, wincing when she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the glass on the side door. “I’m a mess. I need to put a clean uniform on before I go back to the diner. I’m sure glad those things still fit me.” They were even a bit loose on her. Thanks to the stress of being unemployed, she hadn’t had much of an appetite lately.

“You don’t have to go back,” her mom said. “Deb is feeling better so she’ll finish out her shift.”

Confused, Caitie asked her, “How do you know that?”

“Your father told me, of course.”

“Dad called?”

“Yes, after you left the restaurant.”

Huh? “Mom, a minute ago you said that he didn’t call.”

She blinked. “No, I didn’t.”

“Yes, you did. You said that he must have forgotten to call.”

Her mom sighed and shook her head. “I’m sorry. It’s this darned migraine medicine. It makes me loopy sometimes. What I meant was, he forgot to tell me about the papers. But, yes, he did call.”

That must have been some powerful stuff she was taking. “So, I’m off the hook?”

“Yes, he’s all set for the day shift.”

As much as she wanted to help her parents, she was relieved. It was too much too soon. “I do have a few errands to run. Although I no longer have a car to run them with.”

Her mom tucked the first-aid kit back into the pantry. “Take my car—I won’t be using it.”

“Are you sure?”

“But only if you promise to bring home a gallon of milk. We ran out last night.”

At first she thought her mom was kidding, since she had been the one to send Caitie out that morning. “Mom, you know I got the milk already.”

“You did?”

This was no joke. Her blank expression said she had no idea what Caitie was talking about. “Remember, I forgot the diner key, and it was so early everything in town was still closed, so I had to drive all the way to the twenty-four-hour store at the service station on the highway.”

With a frown her mom pulled the fridge open, and there on the shelf sat the gallon of 2 percent milk. “Darned medication,” she muttered. “I would lose a limb if they weren’t all sewn on.”

“Do they have any idea what’s causing you to have so many headaches?”

“It could be a hormone imbalance, since it seems to coincide with menopause.”

“Have you thought to try homeopathic remedies? Holistic medicine? Maybe you could try cutting processed foods from your diet. Or gluten.”

“I’ll definitely consider that,” she said, though to Caitie it sounded as if her mom was humoring her.

Her mom walked to the stove and lifted the lid off the pan, giving the sauce another stir. She looked fine, but something just seemed...off. Something other than chronic headaches.

“Is everything okay?” Caitie asked.

Her mom turned to her and smiled. “Of course, honey.”

She sounded genuine, so why didn’t Caitie believe her? Could she and Caitie’s dad be having problems?

Her parents had always had a good marriage. Sure, they argued occasionally. What couple didn’t? Mostly about money or the diner. But Caitie’s mom had always seemed happy with her modest, small-town life. At least, that was the way it had always appeared to Caitie.

When Caitie had presented her mom with her college acceptance letter, and finally had the courage to admit her plan to move to the East Coast, her mom’s reaction had surprised her.

“If you want out of this town, if you want something more from life, leave while you can,” her mom had told her. “Don’t let anything or anyone hold you back.”

Caitie had done exactly that, but her mom’s words haunted her for months afterward. Had it been her way of saying she regretted giving up the chance at a lucrative and prestigious modeling career to stay in Paradise? And had that regret begun to cause a rift in her parents’ relationship?

She would ask her sister what she knew, but Kelly had been so self-absorbed with school and her very active social life, she wouldn’t see a tsunami coming until it crashed down over her head. No that was unfair. Kelly had always been self-absorbed. She had inherited their mother’s beauty and her pinup model figure. She had always been the pretty one. Not that Caitie had gone three rounds with an ugly stick. She was attractive in an average way. Pleasant to look at, but nothing to get all excited about.

There had been times when she wondered what it was that Nate saw in her, when there were other girls—prettier girls—who would have given anything to be with him. Those first few months of dating him, she’d lived in a constant state of flux. Happy beyond her wildest dreams, yet always waiting for the ax to fall. For him to realize how much better he could do. She truly believed it was only a matter of time before he dumped her and moved on to someone else.

Her mom replaced the pan lid and set down the spoon, saying offhandedly, “So, did anything interesting happen at the diner this morning?”

Way to be subtle, Mom. “Did Dad tell you?”

“We talked,” she admitted. “He said there was tension.”

A minimalist point of view. “Dad was being kind.”

Her mom winced. “It was that bad?”

“At first Nate wouldn’t even look at me. Like he thought he would turn into a pillar of salt should our eyes meet.”

“What did you expect?” she asked, looking puzzled. “A hug?”

Caitie blinked. Whose side was she on? “No, of course not. But—”

“You knew you would see him. You had time to prepare. Imagine if Nate had just suddenly shown up unannounced. Would you have reacted any differently?”

She sighed. “Probably not.”

“It’s also possible that deep down he still has feelings for you.”

“He has feelings all right. He hates me.”

“He did stop to help you.”

“Only because he had to. It’s his job. It was obvious he didn’t want to be there.”

“He drove you home. And let you wait to fill out a report. He didn’t have to do that.”

Let’s give him a medal. “Why does it seem as if everyone is on his side? Yes, I left, and I didn’t do it very well, but I spent most of those first few months miserable, lonely and missing him, while he was back home knocking up and marrying my best friend.”

“Just remember that there are two sides to every story.”

“I don’t care about his story. It’s done. I’m over it. I’ve moved on.”

“It seems to me that if you had truly moved on, you wouldn’t care what Nate did or didn’t do.”

Oh, ouch. A direct hit. And the worst part? She was right. When it came to speaking her mind, Betty Cavanaugh rarely held back. She didn’t sugarcoat either, sometimes making her keen observations a bitter pill to swallow.

“I really hate it when you use your Vulcan logic on me,” Caitie said, dropping her chin in her hand. She wouldn’t bother trying to deny that she and Nate had unresolved issues. Issues that he clearly had no desire to work through. And she just flat out didn’t see the point. They’d had their inevitable, awkward confrontation—which, if anything, made matters worse—and now it was over. The trick was to avoid him as long as she was here, and then, after she’d returned to New York and got back to her real life, she could forget all about him.

As if.

After seven years, she still hadn’t figured out how.

“Any plans for the rest of the day?” her mom asked, and Caitie was grateful for the change of subject.

“Job hunting.” Caitie grabbed an energy drink from the fridge, but as she was walking through the doorway to the living room, she had a thought. She stopped and turned back to the stove, where her mom was stirring the sauce again. “Just out of curiosity, Mom. Why did Dad send those papers home to you?”

Her mom blinked, looking confused. “What do you mean?”

“Couldn’t he have just brought them home tonight? Since you said yourself it was nothing urgent. Or better yet, why didn’t he just email then to the home computer?”

Her mom sighed, realizing the jig was up. “Your dad said you were very upset after seeing Nate. He just wanted an excuse to get you out of the diner. But he knew if he tried to give you the rest of the day off you would balk.”

He was right. “Did Deb really come back early, or did he have to find someone else to cover the rest of the shift?”

“He called someone in. Though I’m sure he wouldn’t have sent you home if he knew it would become such a fiasco.”

“I could have worked. Yes, I was upset, but I would have gotten over it.”

“He was just trying to help.”

She knew that, and she loved him for it. But she was a grown woman now, and this was one problem she needed to figure out on her own.

* * *

On his way back to the station, Nate checked his phone, which had been ringing almost nonstop for the past thirty minutes or so, and saw that his ex-wife, Melanie, had left him three messages. He didn’t have to hear them to know what they were concerning. Paradise was a hotbed of gossip, and Mel’s salon was the main hub, with Simmons Hardware trailing at a close second.

Nate stuffed his phone back in his pocket. This was a conversation they needed to have face-to-face.

He drove to the salon and steered his cruiser into an open spot on the street out front. The door jingled and the stench of acetone and perm solution assaulted him as he stepped inside. Being the only salon within ten miles, business was steady. All but one of the six hair stations had customers and two nail techs worked on manicures. Meaning fourteen pairs of curious eyes settled on him.

Clearly everyone had heard the news.

Nate usually took comfort in the fact that when he walked down the street, or entered a local business, nearly every face there was a familiar one. Today, he longed for a modicum of anonymity. Or at the very least, a little personal space.

“Good morning, ladies,” he said.

Mel stood at her station finishing a comb-out on Mrs. Samuels, who at ninety-two still kept her flat black hair teased into a beehive and sprayed to the consistency of fiberglass. Which not only added six inches to her four-foot-eleven-inch frame, but gave her papery skin an ethereal, grayish cast. Nate had seen corpses with more color. Once, a few years back, when Mrs. Samuels had dozed off under the dryer, she was so pale that Mel thought she had shuffled loose the mortal coil right there in the salon. Everyone had been too weirded out to try and wake her. Ultimately they’d held a hand mirror under her nose to make sure she was still breathing.

Regina, one of the stylists, smiled sympathetically at Nate and said, “We all heard.”

One sharp look from Mel shut her down, but Nate could feel the silent tension growing.

“All finished, Miz Samuels,” Mel said loudly, helping her client up from the chair. Mrs. Samuels was by no means spry, but considering her advanced age she still got around fairly well. At least once a day she could be seen tooling around town in her mint condition, canary-yellow 1970 Mustang Fastback. A gift from her husband, Walter—God rest his saintly soul—on her forty-fifth birthday.

As Mel opened the door for her, her eyes snagged on Nathan’s and a silent understanding passed between them. He followed her through the salon, past the nail techs and washbowls to her office in the back.

When they were inside, she closed and locked the door, then leaned against it. “Are you okay? As soon as I heard I called to warn you, but you didn’t answer. You saw her at the diner?”

“Yes. And I’m fine,” he told her.

She lifted a questioning brow.

He sighed. If there was one person he trusted with his true feelings, it was Mel. They were best friends. “Okay, I’m coping.”

“I guess we both knew Caitie coming back was a possibility.”

Yet they had never discussed how they would handle it if she did. An oversight he now regretted.

“How does she look?” Mel asked. She had once admitted to Nate that deep down she had always been a little jealous of Caitie. It had seemed to Mel that all the good stuff happened to her best friend. She did better in school than Mel, who, like their son, had a mild form of dyslexia. Caitie’s hair, a natural pale honey blond, always seemed to fall perfectly into place with hardly any effort while Mel had to wrestle with her naturally curly auburn locks for an hour every morning. Caitie’s creamy smooth complexion had been flawless while Mel battled teenage acne and oily skin. Caitie was also tall, slender and lithe, and never had to watch what she ate. Mel was forever battling the bulge and swore she gained weight just looking at food. And no matter how many times he told her she was beautiful—which she was, both inside and out—she’d wrestled with her insecurities. And still did, which is why he chose his next words very carefully.

“She looks...the same.” He didn’t mention her weight, since it was such a sore spot with Mel. She had tried every diet craze and exercise gimmick known to man, yet she never lost more than ten or fifteen pounds. Which was twenty to twenty-five pounds less than she wanted to lose.

A deck chair off the Titanic, she’d called it.

“I heard she’s in some sort of trouble,” Mel said. “Someone even suggested that she’s on the run from the FBI.”

He’d heard that, too, when he stopped by the station after breakfast. But no one as intelligent as Caitie would be dense enough to hide from law enforcement in her hometown right under her parents’ roof. And if there were a manhunt to find her, as local law enforcement, he would have heard about it by now. “I seriously doubt that.”

“So she’s probably not going into witness protection, either,” Mel said.

“Not that I’m aware.”

“Do you know how long she’s staying?”

Hopefully not long. “Nope.”

Mel gnawed her bottom lip. “What was it like to see her again?”

He shrugged and told a little white lie. “It was disturbing to see her again...at first. But now I don’t feel much of anything about it.”

“This could get awkward,” she said. “And complicated.”

Story of his life.

“I’m not going to let it come between us,” he assured her. “Our friendship means more to me than Caitie ever could.”

She didn’t look as if she believed him. “I was invisible to you until she left.”

“Mel—”

She stopped him midsentence, brushing away the tear that leaked down her cheek. “That wasn’t fair, I know. Please, ignore me. I’m feeling sorry for myself. I just can’t help thinking, now that she’s back, you’re going to forget all about me and Cody.”

“That will never happen.” He pulled Mel into his arms and kissed the top of her head, his heart hurting for her, wishing he could have loved her as something other than a friend. He did try, but after six months of marriage counseling, even the therapist agreed they would be better off as partners in parenting and good friends. Divorce had been the only viable option if they had any hope of preserving their friendship. It hadn’t been easy, but they were in a good place now. And to this day he had no regrets, not when he looked at their son. “If Caitie never left, Cody wouldn’t even exist.”

“That’s true,” she said.

Nate never knew how much he wanted to be a father until he watched his son being born, held him for the very first time. He had been totally unplanned, and three weeks premature. And so tiny and fragile Nate had been terrified he might drop him. Cody had gazed up at Nate with the wisdom and patience of a very old soul, as if to say, Don’t worry, you’ll do just fine. I have faith in you.

Nate fell instantly in love and from that day forward, his boy was all that mattered. Nate knew the first time he held his son that he was destined for great things. And now, at six years old, Cody had an innate patience and a deep understanding of people that left adults scratching their heads. Sometimes he would get this look, as if he knew something no one else did. And though his reading difficulties set him apart from other kids his age, he took it all in stride.

“Are you still in love with her?” Mel asked, her voice muffled against Nate’s shirt.

The question was so out of the blue, so ridiculous, he snapped his head back hard enough to give himself whiplash. “I can’t believe you asked me that.”

She looked up at him, her eyes—which could never decide if they wanted to be blue or green—swimming with tears. “Is it really that unusual a question? You loved her before.”

“Without trust, there can be no love.”

“You never got closure. Neither of us have.” Her arms tightened around him. “Now I’m so confused. This morning, when Regina told me Caitie was back, my first instinct was to run down to the diner, throw my arms around her and hug her. I was actually excited at the idea of seeing her, and for a split second I desperately wanted my best friend back.”

Mel’s first instinct involved hugs and reconciliation. The only thing Nate had wanted to do was hurl. That had to mean something, didn’t it? “If that’s how you feel, maybe you should talk to her.”

“I’m not sure what I feel. I never imagined that her coming back could be so—”

“Disruptive,” he finished for her.

“Yes! It’s all I can think about. I’m so preoccupied I nearly used the wrong color dye on Mrs. Newburg.”

“For what it’s worth, seeing her for the short amount of time that I did made me realize that we’re two completely different people now. She’s changed.” It had seemed that way to him at least. Or maybe that was what he preferred to believe. He resented her coming back and disrupting the quiet, orderly life that he had spent the past seven years building. She had no right.

“No matter what happens with Caitie, you and Cody will always be the most important people in the world to me.”

“I know.”

He held his ex-wife close, wishing there was something he could say, a way he could assure her everything would be okay and nothing would change.

Only problem was, things had begun to change already.

Chapter Four

“Let her die with dignity,” Jake—of Jake’s Garage—told Caitie later that evening after supper.

“The front end is pretty smashed up,” she said, surprised that so much damage had been done at such a low speed.

“That’s not even the worst of it.” He lifted the hood. “Your block is cracked.”

She didn’t really know what that meant, but it didn’t sound good. “So what you’re saying is, it’s definitely not worth fixing.”

“I wouldn’t waste my money.”

She trusted his judgment. It wasn’t the first time her car had been to that garage. Jake had worked on it years ago when his dad owned the business. Jake Senior retired and of course Jake Junior took over. That was the way it worked in Paradise. When the parent retired, the oldest child took over. And in Jake’s case, they didn’t even have to change the sign.

“What should I do with it now?” she asked him.

He slammed the hood and wiped his hands on the greasy rag hanging from the pocket of his pants. “I know a guy who owns a junkyard. He’d take it off your hands, give you a hundred bucks cash for it.”

Someone would actually pay her cash for this pile of junk? “That would be awesome. What do I owe you for looking at it?”

“It was fifty bucks for the tow. No charge to look at it.”

So she would actually make money on the deal? Go figure. Granted not much money, but these days every penny counted.

“Do you take Visa?” she asked Jake.

“Sure do. Let’s go in the office.”

Back in high school Caitie’s car hadn’t been the most reliable thing on four wheels, so she had seen the inside of the garage office enough times to know that virtually nothing had changed. He had the same grimy cash register that had gone out of date sometime in the past century, printed ads on the walls for car products that dated back to before she was born, and the entire office was covered in a fine coat of greasy dust. Even the floor felt sticky under her flip-flops. And though she wasn’t sure what color the walls were originally, now they were a filthy grayish-yellow.

She watched Jake fill out the paperwork. His hands were dry and calloused with painful-looking cracks on his knuckles and grease caked under his nails.

“Fifty bucks even,” he said, and she handed him her credit card.

“When did your dad retire?” she asked as he ran the charge.

“Three years ago.” He gave her the slip to sign, then handed over her receipt, leaving a greasy fingerprint on the edge. “You’ll need to sign the title over.”

“I’ll have to find it.” She was sure her mom had it filed away somewhere safe. “So, do you like owning the business?”

Leaning with one hip propped against the counter, he shrugged. “It is what it is. What else am I gonna do?”

She wanted to say, Hey, I got out, and you can, too. But she would probably just insult him, or come off as uppity. Besides, she wasn’t exactly the poster child for making it in the big city. What Jake did with his life—or didn’t do—was none of her business.

They chatted for a few more minutes, mostly about superficial things. He’d been four years ahead of her in school, so they didn’t have many friends in common. She was a little relieved when she finally said goodbye and left the garage.

Many of the businesses in town closed their doors at five, but the thrift store stayed open until nine on weekdays. Needing several personal items to get her through the next few weeks, Cait parked her mom’s car in the street and walked the two blocks. She encountered a few familiar faces, but with a baseball cap hiding her hair and dark sunglasses shading her eyes, no one seemed to recognize her.

As she stepped through the automatic door, a wall of cool air enveloped her. The thrift store, as with the rest of town, hadn’t changed much, and it was practically deserted.

She took a quick look around to get her bearings, then located the personal care aisle exactly where it had been the last time she’d visited.

She walked briskly to the aisle and grabbed a cheap bottle of both shampoo and conditioner and a package of disposable razors. Next she headed to the toy/gardening aisle, hoping to find some sort of book on landscaping.

About halfway down the aisle, an adorable, towheaded little boy with curly hair stood intently studying a display of Legos, most of which were on a high shelf just out of his reach.

“Do you need help reaching something?” Caitie asked, and he turned to look at her with bright green inquisitive eyes. Eyes that narrowed suspiciously as he gave her the once-over. She put him at seven or eight years old, and something about him seemed distinctly familiar, though she was almost positive she had never met him.

“I’m not a’sposed to talk to strangers,” he said, so matter-of-factly it made her smile. Smart kid.

“I’m Caitie,” she said, taking off her sunglasses, thinking it would make her look less intimidating.

Like a lightbulb switching on, recognition lit his face. “You’re the lady in the pictures,” he said.

“Pictures?” Feeling suddenly self-conscious, she shoved her sunglasses back on. “What pictures?”

“In the box in Daddy’s closet.”

Uh-oh. There was only one man in town who would have any reason to have photos of her in his closet. She suddenly realized why the boy looked so familiar.

“Shopping incognito?” a familiar voice said from behind her.

She winced and the spaghetti she’d eaten for dinner tossed around in her stomach. Three times in one day? What were the odds? Paradise was a small town, but come on.

She turned to Nate, who was in his street clothes—a pair of navy chino shorts and a white polo shirt. In one hand he held a package of cookies, and in the other a box of tampons, of all things.

“Great disguise,” he said.

Not so great that he hadn’t recognized her. “Now I get it,” she said.

“Get what?”

“Why you were so cranky this morning.” She gestured to the items he was holding. “PMS.”

“Daddy, what’s PMS?” Cody asked.

He shot Caitie a look, then cut his eyes back to his son. “Never mind, Cody.”

Cody was a miniature version of Nate but with Mel’s striking green eyes. Caitie couldn’t help wondering, if she and Nate had stayed together and had a child, who would it look like? Him? Her? A combination of the two?

What was the point in wondering about something that never had and never would happen? Only a man smitten with a woman would buy her feminine products, meaning he must be involved with someone new.

She wrote off the sudden churning in her belly as indigestion, when the truth was, it felt a lot more like jealousy. And that was unacceptable. But rather than walk away, she heard herself ask, “So, I hear you keep pictures of me in a box in your closet.”

Only after the words were out did she realize that she may have just ratted Cody out. What if he wasn’t supposed to be snooping in his dad’s closet? But if Nate was angry he didn’t let it show, nor did he justify her accusation with a response. Cody didn’t even seem to notice. He was back to staring at the Legos.

“Did you pick one?” Nate asked his son.

“The Frost Beast,” Cody said, pointing to the toy he wanted.

Nate took it down from the shelf and handed it to him. “You have your money?”

Cody pulled a crinkled wad of bills from his shorts pocket and showed him.

“Let’s pay for it and get you to your mom’s,” he said, then turned to Caitie. “We have to go.”

“Nice to meet you, Cody,” she said, and he waved goodbye as they walked away. Caitie expelled a huge but silent sigh of relief. Thankfully, by the time she took her items to the register, Nate and his son were gone.

She knew that he had a son, but knowing that and actually seeing them together were two very different things. Knowing he had someone special in his life left her emotions in a ragged, messy jumble, too.

She paid for her things and walked back to her mom’s car. As she was getting in, she happened to glance across the street and noticed Nate and Cody standing on the sidewalk outside the pharmacy, chatting with a fresh-faced young woman. Cody was bent over a stroller by her side, playing with the infant in the seat.

Could that be Nate’s “special” friend? Caitie was too far away to see clearly, but she could tell that the woman was very pretty. And very young.

Too young for him anyway.

The girl must have said something witty, because first he smiled, and then he broke out laughing. Caitie felt a tug of something unpleasant and for one instant of pure insanity longed to have him smile at her that way, to laugh at one of her clever quips. Touch her arm affectionately...

As if he sensed her gaze, Nate looked in Caitie’s direction and caught her staring. The tips of her ears burned with embarrassment, and though her first instinct was to look away, she held her head high and nodded cordially as she climbed into her mom’s car. She chanced a peek in her rearview mirror as she drove away, feeling a deep shaft of disappointment when she realized he wasn’t watching her longingly. And why would he with a pretty young blonde vying for his attention?

Why did she even care? She wasn’t planning to stay here. As soon as she got a job offer she would be back in New York. Back to her real life.

Caitie forced herself to look away and headed home. Her mom, who had complained of a headache after dinner, was already in bed, and it was too late to start working in the yard. Cait parked herself in front of the television in the den, feeling edgy and unsettled for no good reason. She was still awake and watching a Law & Order rerun when her dad got home at midnight.

“Rough day?” he asked when he poked his head in the den to say good-night, the scent of the food he’d been cooking all day embedded in his clothes.

She sighed and said, “You have no idea.”

“Anything I can do to help?”

She shook her head. She wished there were something he could do, but she was a grown woman. She needed to figure this out on her own.

“I hate seeing you so unhappy.” he said, looking troubled.

“I’m not unhappy. I guess I just feel as if I’m in flux. But everything will be better when I find a job and get back to New York.”

“A good night’s sleep will make things clearer.”

He was probably right, but when she climbed into bed an hour later, sleep wouldn’t come. Her body was exhausted, but her mind was moving a million miles an hour.

She dozed off sometime after two and woke at eight-fifteen with a blazing headache, feeling no less confused than she had been last night. She contemplated going back to sleep—and maybe staying asleep until it was time to go back to New York, but the scent of coffee coerced her out from under the covers.

She pulled a robe on over the oversize shirt she slept in and tried to finger-comb the tangles from her hair. When that proved futile, she grabbed a hair tie off the bedside table and pulled her unruly locks back into a messy ponytail instead.

On a typical day her dad would be out the door and on his way to the diner by 5:30 a.m., but when she shuffled into the kitchen he was seated at the table, drinking coffee and reading the paper. Her mom stood at the stove making pancakes, and thick-sliced pepper bacon sizzled on the griddle.

“Playing hooky?” Caitie asked, kissing his balding head.

He looked up from his paper and smiled. “I take two days a week off now.”

“Really?”

“And he never works longer than a ten-hour shift,” her mom said cheerfully. The long hours he worked, and his refusal to hire more help, had always been a source of friction between them.

Caitie poured herself a cup of coffee, then slid into the seat beside his, which had always been “her” regular spot. “How do you manage that?”

“I told you about Curtis,” her mom said, flipping the pancakes onto a plate she had warmed in the oven, cursing when she flipped a little too hard and one landed on the floor.

“Not that I recall,” Caitie said.

“Sure I did. He’s our assistant manager.” She set the serving plate of pancakes and bacon on the table, then she opened the side door and tossed the runaway pancake into the yard for the birds.

Caitie shrugged. “Not ringing a bell.”

“We hired him...how long ago, Lou?”

“Two months ago,” her dad said, helping himself to three pancakes and two slices of bacon.

“Mom, I definitely would have remembered that.”

“Eat something,” her mom said, grabbing a plate from the cupboard and setting it in front of her. “If you lose any more weight, you’ll disappear.”

Her mom piled two pancakes and four slices of bacon on her plate. Feeling her arteries constrict from the potential saturated animal fat, she put two slices back on the serving plate. “I’m not very hungry.”

“What are you up to today?” her dad asked.

“Actually, I had an idea that I wanted to run past you guys,” Caitie said. “How would you feel if I used my time off to do some sprucing up in the yard?”

Her mom blushed with embarrassment. “It looks awful out there, I know. It shames me every time someone comes over.”

“You don’t like to garden anymore?”

“No, I still love it, but it’s these darned headaches holding me back. Intense sunlight will almost always trigger a migraine. I’m limited to working outside late in the evening just before dusk, but I’m so tired by then.”

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