If you build it, love will come…to Hope’s Crossing.

Alexandra McKnight prefers a life of long workdays and short-term relationships, and she’s found it in Hope’s Crossing. A sous chef at the local ski resort, she’s just been offered her dream job at an exclusive new restaurant being built in town. But when it comes to designing the kitchen, Alex finds herself getting up close and personal with construction foreman Sam Delgado….

At first glance, Sam seems perfect for Alex. He’s big, tough, gorgeous—and only in town for a few weeks. But when Sam suddenly moves into a house down the road, Alex suspects that the devoted single father of a six-year-old boy wants more from her than she’s willing to give. Now it’s up to Sam to help Alex see that, no matter what happened in her past, together they can build something more meaningful in Hope’s Crossing.

Praise for USA TODAY

bestselling author RaeAnne Thayne

and the Hope’s Crossing series

“Thayne’s series starter introduces the Colorado town of Hope’s Crossing in what can be described as a cozy romance…[a] gentle, easy read.”

—Publishers Weekly on Blackberry Summer

“Thayne’s depiction of a small Colorado mountain town is subtle but evocative. Readers who love romance but not explicit sexual details will delight in this heartfelt tale of healing and hope.”

—Booklist on Blackberry Summer

“Plenty of tenderness and Colorado sunshine flavor this pleasant escape.”

—Publishers Weekly on Woodrose Mountain

“Thayne, once again, delivers a heartfelt story of a caring community and a caring romance between adults who have triumphed over tragedies.”

—Booklist on Woodrose Mountain

“Readers will love this novel for the cast of characters and its endearing plotline…a thoroughly enjoyable read.”

—RT Book Reviews on Woodrose Mountain

Currant Creek Valley

RaeAnne Thayne

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Janice Thayne, whose banana nut bread recipe

I’ll never quite be able to replicate, no matter how hard

I try. I love you dearly! Thank you for your

loving example over the years, and especially

for raising your son to be such a wonderful man.

Special thanks to Karen Proudfoot for the delicious

food descriptions that made me so hungry.

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

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

EPILOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

ALEXANDRA MCKNIGHT opened the door to her dream-come-true restaurant and held her breath.

She loved this place already and she wanted her dearest friends to see beyond the sawhorses and scaffolding and unfinished surfaces to the potential awesomeness of it.

The members of her book club filed in, a little out of breath after walking up the hilly Main Street from her sister Maura’s bookstore in downtown Hope’s Crossing. At least they had a lovely April day for the walk, sunny and pleasant, with only a few puffy clouds overhead.

Claire McKnight, Alex’s best friend and now sister-in-law, was the first one inside. She moved past the new double-sided river-rock fireplace that separated what would be the reception area from the first-floor dining room.

Claire whirled around to take in the walls, peeled back to bare brick, the original wood flooring and the intact fire pole that descended from the second-floor dining area that used to be the sleeping quarters of the old firehouse, back in the days when Hope’s Crossing was a rough and rowdy mining town.

“What a fantastic space,” Claire exclaimed. “I’ll admit, I was more than a little nervous when you told me Brodie and Jack were cooking up this idea. I mean, this old place has been an eyesore in town forever! I thought they should have torn it down years ago. Now that I see the renovations, my mind is racing with possibilities.”

“I know, right?” Alex beamed at Claire and her other friends and several family members gathered beside them.

“Pure genius to replace the fire-truck doors with that big sliding wall of windows,” Charlotte Caine exclaimed, her pretty features alight. “What an incredible view of Woodrose Mountain and downtown. You can see everything from here.”

“I know. And on summer days, we can roll the windows to the side and make the whole thing a big outdoor space.

“Oh, darling. This is fantastic,” her mother exclaimed. Mary Ella squeezed her hand, and Alex was so glad she had brought them to the restaurant for the quick tour and an impromptu picnic dinner to take care of the Bites part of their Books and Bites name.

“Brodie is so excited about Brazen.” Evie Thorne tucked a strand of long blond hair behind her ear. “I haven’t seen him this enthusiastic about a project in a long time.”

“Jack really did a fantastic job with the design,” Mary Ella said, looking around.

“Of course he did. He’s Jackson Lange.” The wife of the man in question smiled with a contentment Alex never thought she would see again on her older sister’s features, after the hellish time two years ago. She owed Jack so much. The creative architectural genius that had gone into designing this space was the very least of her debts to him.

She smiled at this group of women she loved dearly. “I’m am indeed blessed to have friends and sisters who are not only brilliant and talented in their own rights, but who also have the good taste to marry well...so I don’t have to.”

As she might have expected, her words earned a laugh from nearly everyone except her mother. Alex didn’t miss the spark of worry in her mother’s eyes behind their trendy little glasses.

She ignored it, as she customarily did. She wasn’t going to let her mother’s concern bother her. Not when she was so relieved at their excited reaction to the restaurant, even at this embryonic stage.

“Thank you for walking all the way up the hill for lunch today. As a reward, you get to be the first to enjoy a meal here at Brazen, of sorts. I packed a picnic for us. It seemed appropriate, given the infamous picnic in this month’s selection.”

“I still say we should have picked Pride and Prejudice instead of Emma. Mr. Darcy is a much sexier hero than Mr. Knightley,” Brodie’s mother, Katherine, opined, a distinct gleam in her eyes.

“We read P and P two years ago, remember?” Mary Ella reminded her. “Alex made that fantastic white soup and the trifles.”

“I do hope you don’t have pigeon pies and cold lamb in that hamper you lugged all the way up here,” Alex’s oldest sister, Angie, said.

“How do you remember what they ate at the picnic in Emma?” Charlotte asked with a laugh.

Angie grinned. “I’m all about the food. You should know that by now.”

“No pigeon or lamb. Boring cold fried chicken, potato salad and fruit. But I do have pie. And other things.”

She pulled open the large hamper, reached inside for the blanket and spread it out on the wooden floor. “Sorry we don’t have tables and chairs yet. They’re on order but won’t be here for another few weeks. If you prefer not to sit on the floor, you can sit on the stairs. Katherine, Mom, Ruth, you three can sit on the hearth ledge.”

“Perfect,” Katherine Thorne declared.

Alex set the dishes out in the middle of the blanket, and for the next few moments, everyone in the book club was busy filling plates.

This had been a crazy idea to bring them here for the picnic. They all would have been far more comfortable back at Dog-Eared Books & Brew, Maura’s shop, but Alex had been dying to show everyone the progress.

“You must be so excited for the restaurant to open,” Janie Hamilton, one of their newer members, said around a mouthful of chicken salad sandwich.

“I can’t wait,” Alex said, though she declined to add that part of her also quaked with fear, if she let it.

Running her own restaurant had been her dream since she first decided to go to culinary school. Now that the opening date was drawing closer and the dream was quickly on its way to becoming reality, raw anxiety warred with her anticipation, the fear that she didn’t really have the necessary skills and creativity to make Brazen shine amid the crowded Hope’s Crossing restaurant scene.

“As far as I can tell, only one small detail is missing,” Angie said.

“What’s that?” Mary Ella asked.

Her sister scanned the open space again. “Maybe I’m missing something but, um, where’s the kitchen?”

“Oh, my word, you’re right,” Janie exclaimed. “There’s no kitchen!”

“Where’s your brilliant architect of a husband now?” Katherine teased Maura. “He left out the most important part.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Alex said, though she felt a stab of nerves. She needed a kitchen! “It’s coming. Another three weeks, according to Brodie. The contractor who has done most of the rehab work so far had a medical emergency in his family and Brodie had to hire someone else to finish up.”

“Sam Delgado,” Evie said. “He’s worked with Brodie before on some projects closer to Denver. I’ve met him a few times. He’s really nice.”

“I don’t care how nice he is. I just want him to get his butt in gear and finish the kitchen so I can start stocking it and we can set an opening.”

That uncertainty was just one of the worries keeping her up at night. After years of being a sous-chef in someone else’s kitchen, she finally had the opportunity to prove herself. As owner and developer of the restaurant, Brodie was giving her this chance, and she couldn’t afford to blow it.

She would be fine, she assured herself again. She was hardworking and talented and had years of experience under her white toque. What else did she need?

“I read something once that said nine in ten new restaurants close in the first year,” Ruth Tatum said, wiping a napkin daintily at the corners of her mouth.

“Mom.” Claire grimaced.

“What? I did.”

Alex was quite used to Ruth’s pithy comments, since she had practically grown up with Claire, but the words and the pessimism behind them still stung. “That’s actually a myth,” she was quick to point out. “The actual number is about one in four in the first year. Closer to three in five after about three years.”

Yet another worry that kept her up at night. How would she face everyone in town who believed in her if she couldn’t make Brazen a success?

“This place is going to be one of the restaurants that makes it,” Mary Ella declared loyally. “Assuming you do get a kitchen and don’t have to cook everything on a barbecue grill out back.”

Alex sighed. “For now, you’re going to have to use your imagination about the kitchen. Trust me when I tell you it’s going to be fantastic. I’ve gone over the plans with Jack and Brodie. You’ve all seen Brodie’s other restaurants in town. I’m sure you can guess this one is going to have state-of-the-art everything.”

“So when will we actually be able to eat here?” Maura asked.

“You’re eating now,” she retorted. “A particularly delicious chopped spinach salad, if I do say so myself.”

Her sister made a face. “That’s not what I meant, Alexandra. When is Brazen supposed to open?”

She firmly ignored the flutters in her stomach. “Near the end of May but before Memorial Day weekend. We wanted to have a few weeks to work out the kinks before the summer tourist season hits.”

“That doesn’t give you much time, if the contractor still needs three weeks to finish the kitchen,” Ruth pointed out, helpful as always.

“Yes, I know. He’s supposed to be coming to town this weekend. It won’t be soon enough for me.”

“He’ll be here,” Evie assured her. “And I promise, you’ll love the job he does.”

She still couldn’t believe the single most important component of her new restaurant wasn’t complete. The previous contractor should have started in the kitchen and worked out from there, as far as she was concerned.

“Don’t worry. Everything’s going to be fantastic,” Claire assured her. “Everyone knows what a brilliant chef you are. You’re going to have people lined up from here to Silver Strike Canyon, waiting for your food.”

She loved Claire dearly for her unwavering faith but had to take it with more than a grain of salt. Claire would probably bite her own tongue off before she would say anything that might be construed as even a sprinkle or two on Alex’s parade.

“Thanks, hon.”

To her relief, the conversation shifted away from the restaurant and on to the reason they ostensibly met, the book they had read that month. They discussed the mismatches in the book, Emma’s strong and sometimes unlikeable personality, how different she was from many Austen heroines.

By the time the lively discussion trickled out and the conversation shifted again to gossip around town, most of the book club members had moved on to dessert.

“Charlotte, how’s your brother?” Mary Ella asked into a rare lull.

Charlotte set down the sugar-free cookie Alex had specially fixed for her. Whenever she fixed a meal for the book club, she tried to remember that the candy-store owner was very aware of each bite after losing nearly eighty pounds over the past year.

“He’s coming home, finally.”

“Oh, I hadn’t heard!” Katherine exclaimed. “That’s wonderful news.”

Charlotte didn’t look as if she completely agreed but she gave a forced-looking smile. “He was officially released from Walter Reed several months ago but he stayed in the area for rehab. Dad will be happy to have him home.”

Much to Alex’s amusement, Katherine looked a little flustered at the mention of Dermot Caine, who owned the Center of Hope Café in town. The two of them shared a mutual crush but so far neither had done anything about it.

Dermot would certainly take good care of his son’s nutrition needs, but Alex still made a mental note to add Dylan Caine to her informal list of food deliveries. The café served good, hearty comfort food, but a war hero like Dylan deserved gourmet fare once in a while.

“We’ll have to throw a barbecue for him or something,” Mary Ella said.

Charlotte shook her head quickly. “He would hate that. He’s very...different from the Dylan you all probably remember. He will barely talk to any of us.”

Charlotte came from a family as large as Alex’s, though she was the only girl in a household of boys, while Alex had four sisters and only one brother, Claire’s husband, Riley.

“I guess I should get back to the bookstore,” Maura said. “Jack has Henry this afternoon over at his office and he’s probably ready for a nap.”

“Who? Jack or Henry?” Mary Ella asked.

“Both. Definitely.”

Maura’s adopted son was just about the most adorable ten-month-old Alex knew, but he was already turning into a handful.

“I need to go, too,” Claire said. “We left Hannah in charge of String Fever while we were gone. She has such a soft heart, she just might give away half my inventory.”

Alex had to swallow a laugh at the irony of Claire worrying about anyone else’s soft heart when she was renowned for her overwhelming generosity.

“I really do love your place, Alex,” she said.

“Same goes,” Maura said, kissing her cheek. Alex almost wanted to cry to see her sister’s obvious happiness, when she thought Maura would never be able to find joy again.

“We’re all coming on opening night. Just try to keep us away,” Katherine added.

Her friends gathered up their things, and Alex watched as they all began heading down the hill toward downtown.

Her mother was the last to leave. Mary Ella hugged her hard, surrounding her with the familiar scent of flowers and fabric softener. “I love this place, darling. It’s so good to see you happy.”

She drew away from her mother’s embrace. “What are you talking about? I’m always happy.”

“Are you?”

She wasn’t in the mood for her mother’s concern today. “Yes. I’m so happy, I beam with it. I’m a freaking glow stick. Why wouldn’t I be?”

Annoyance flickered in Mary Ella’s green eyes that she had passed on to each of her children.

“The restaurant is going to be wonderful. I just...hope it’s everything you want.”

“It will be,” she said firmly.

“You know I worry about you.”

“Because I’m not happily married, you mean, like everybody else, and cranking out grandbabies for you.”

She meant her tone to sound flippant but she had a strong feeling she sounded prickly and sensitive instead.

Mary Ella stiffened. “That’s not what I’m talking about.”

She didn’t want to get into this right now with her mother, not after their lovely book club meeting. She adored Mary Ella and admired her greatly for pulling the shattered pieces of her life together and moving on so many years ago, but sometimes her mother had very decided tunnel vision on some topics.

“Are you sure? Lila and I are the last ones standing, now that Riley and Maura have taken the leap, and Lila’s too far away in California for you to meddle with.”

“Do I meddle?” Mary Ella asked, her tone mild but her eyes flashing.

That wasn’t fair to her mother, she knew. “No,” she admitted. “But I know you would like to see me settled in a relationship like everybody else.”

“Only if that’s what you want. I don’t care if you never marry, Alex. I’ve spent the last twenty years of my life single and thought I would remain that way for the rest of it. I certainly never expected Harry Lange to come blustering in.”

She was glad Harry made Mary Ella happy, for reasons she still didn’t understand, but that didn’t mean she wanted to discuss her mother’s love life.

“You can stop worrying about me, Mom. I have nearly everything I want.”

“Nearly?”

She gestured around to the empty, echoing space. “I just need Brazen to catch fire on the local restaurant scene, so to speak.”

Mary Ella didn’t look convinced but she said nothing as she slipped her arms through the sleeves of the jacket she had shed during the picnic.

“I just hate to see you so...restless.”

The term was painfully apt. She couldn’t focus on anything, she was cooking up a storm trying out new recipes, she wasn’t sleeping well.

Alex wanted to think her trouble was only jagged nerves prior to the restaurant opening, but she had a deep-seated fear the root was something else.

She had been looking for something for a long time since she had returned to the States. She had convinced herself it was only anticipation for this time in her life, when she was finally in control of her own restaurant, but what if Brazen still didn’t fill that emptiness inside?

“I’m perfectly content with my life. Everything is just the way I want it.”

Mary Ella stepped in to brush her lips to Alex’s cheek. “If that’s truly the case, then I’ll try to stop worrying.”

“I do believe you could survive without air and water longer than you could go without fretting over one of your children.”

Her mother smiled, as she had intended. “It’s a good thing I have so many of you to spread the love, then, isn’t it? Imagine if you were an only child.”

“The mind boggles.”

Her mother’s laugh trailed behind her as she headed out into the April afternoon.

She closed the door behind Mary Ella and twisted the lock then returned to stand in the empty space that would shortly—she hoped—hold her dream kitchen.

Though the kitchen faced away from the street, leaving the prime views for the diners, Jack had still designed this space with a few well-situated windows that offered lovely views of some of the older homes in Hope’s Crossing that climbed the hillside and then the mountains beyond.

This was hers. She loved it already.

All the years of planning, working, dreaming, and in a few more weeks, that dream would be real.

She had worked as a sous-chef in other restaurants for years, since she had returned from Europe. She had been offered opportunities in the past to take over as executive chef but none of those situations had ever felt quite right. Either she had always told herself she wasn’t ready or she didn’t like the restaurant owners enough to work that closely with them or she had just plain been afraid.

When Brodie Thorne approached her with his plans for this old firehouse, she had instinctively recognized this was her time. She had known Brodie her whole life and she trusted him completely, both as a savvy businessman with a well-established track record of running restaurants and, more importantly, as a person.

The stars had aligned and she couldn’t make any more excuses.

She closed her eyes for a moment and imagined this place crowded with customers, standing in the middle of a gleaming kitchen giving orders to her own sous-chefs, smelling delicious things cooking, listening to the clink of glasses and contented conversation.

And a string of colorful words coming from the back entrance.

She jerked her eyes open as the words pierced the last of her hazy fantasy and sent it whooshing away.

A man was here, in her restaurant. An unhappy man, by the sound of it. Seriously? Somebody really thought they could break into her restaurant in broad daylight, probably hoping to steal construction tools left on the site?

Guess again, asshole, she thought.

She reached for the closest weapon she could lay her hands on, a two-by-four about the length of her torso, and edged around the corner.

A hallway led off the main dining room toward the restroom facilities, as well as a space she intended to make a separate dining room for private parties.

With her heart pounding, she peeked around the corner, two-by-four at the ready. Afternoon sunlight filtered in through the windows and she registered only a few quick impressions of height and muscled bulk, dark short-cropped hair and an unmistakable air of menace.

The man had already pilfered a reciprocating saw in one hand and had a tool belt dangling from the other. Thieving bastard. No way was she going to let him get away with robbing her place, even if the stuff belonged to the contractor responsible for these knuckle-gnawing delays.

She was too angry to think about the wisdom of taking on a very large man presently armed with power tools. This was her restaurant and she had worked too blasted hard for it to let some jerk think he could march in here and loot the place.

Gripping the two-by-far in suddenly damp hands, she stepped forward. “Don’t even think about it.”

He whirled around, even tougher and scarier than she had first thought. He was also surprisingly clean-cut for someone up to no good.

“Don’t think about what?” he growled, his voice as hard as his features.

“You picked the wrong place to rob, buster. My brother just happens to be the chief of police.”

He cocked his head, one eyebrow lifted. “Is that right?”

“You better believe it. Now put down the tools and get out of here before I call him.”

“Trust me, you don’t want to do that.”

Her anger kicked up a notch at his tone. As a sous-chef, she had spent more than a few years in the kitchen with temperamental, patronizing little men who thought they could intimidate her with their bluster and bluff. She was tired of it, yet another reason she couldn’t wait to open her own restaurant.

She refused to acknowledge the grim truth of his words. She absolutely didn’t want to call in Riley to help her deal with this. As a general rule, she had always tried to take care of herself, not drag her family into her problems.

She wasn’t about to tell him that. Instead, she shifted the board—now growing increasingly heavy—and whipped out her cell phone. In this case, she would do whatever was necessary. Even if that meant turning to her brother. She scrolled through her address book and found Riley’s number but paused, her thumb hovering over the name.

“You’ve got until the count of three to clear out,” she said, aware she sounded perilously close to something out of a spaghetti Western.

He apparently agreed. “You’re going to feel really stupid if you call in the cavalry right now. I’m not doing anything wrong.”

She sniffed. “Funny, that’s exactly what I would expect a criminal to say.”

“I’m not a criminal.”

“Again, I would have totally expected you to say that.”

He gave a rough laugh that seemed to sizzle through her. Just nerves, she told herself. To fight them, she gripped the board more tightly and stared him down.

He looked a little bit old to be doing the smash-and-grab thing, maybe her age or slightly older, but he did have a biceps tattoo dripping beneath the short sleeve of a worn T-shirt that showed off every hard muscle.

All in all, he was really quite gorgeous, for a criminal, even if he didn’t seem in the least threatened by a woman holding a two-by-four and a cell phone.

“Can I ask who you are and what you’re doing here?” he actually had the effrontery to say.

She gaped at him. “None of your business! You’re the one who’s trespassing.”

“Really? You think? Then why would I have this?”

He reached into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out a key that looked remarkably similar to the one she had used to unlock the door for her book club over an hour ago.

“You think I’m stupid enough to fall for that? For all I know, that could be a key to the storage shed where you hide your victims in barrels full of acid.”

He blinked a few times but didn’t lose his amused half smile. “Wow. Been watching a few too many horror movies, have we?”

Okay, maybe it was a bit of an overreaction to accuse him of being a serial killer, but she wasn’t about to back down now. “My point is I don’t know who you are or why you’re breaking into my restaurant.”

“Your restaurant? Wrong. This is Brodie Thorne’s restaurant.”

The board slid a little in her hand and she finally set it down to rest one end on the ground, wondering uneasily if she might have made a teensy little mistake here.

“Okay, technically, yes.” The restaurant was Brodie’s, if one considered that he was the person who took all the risks and paid all the bills. “But I’m his chef.”

The guy’s half smile turned into a full-fledged one and her stomach fluttered at the impact of it. Oh, my.

“We appear to have a little misunderstanding here. You must be Alexandra McKnight.”

She squinted at him. “Maybe.”

“Brodie told me about you, but for some reason I thought you would be older.”

She made a face. She would be thirty-seven this year, which felt ancient sometimes. “Okay, so we’ve established who I am. Now who the hell are you?”

“Oh, sorry.” Coming out of that rough-edged, dangerous-looking face, the charm of his friendly smile caught her off guard.

“I’m Sam Delgado. I’m going to be finishing up your kitchen.”

His words finally penetrated her thick skull and she wanted to throw her face in her hands. She was an idiot who shouldn’t be let out in public.

This man was charged with building her kitchen in an insane handful of weeks and the first thing she did to welcome him aboard the project was accuse him of stealing what were probably his own tools.

If she wanted this kitchen to provide ideal working conditions, she had to work closely with the contractor Brodie had picked. How would she be able to do that now, with this inauspicious beginning?

She propped the board against the wall and faced him with what she hoped was an apologetic look. “Oops.”

To her relief, he didn’t seem upset, even though a little annoyance would be completely justified. “Now aren’t you glad you didn’t call the police?”

“It was an honest mistake. You have to admit, you’re a scary-looking dude, Sam Delgado. It must be the ink.”

“I’m a pussycat when you get to know me.”

“I doubt that.”

“Just wait.”

She knew perfectly well the words shouldn’t send this little tingle of awareness zinging through her.

At least he was being decent about her almost beaning him with a board. She had to give him points for that. “I wasn’t expecting you until the weekend. Brodie said you couldn’t start until then.”

“I wrapped up some other projects in Denver ahead of schedule and was able to break away a few days early. Figured I would come to town and do a little recon of the situation before my crew comes up tomorrow.”

The way he spoke, the short haircut and what she glimpsed of his tattoo—which she could now see looked vaguely military-like—reminded her that Brodie had told her the guy was ex-army Special Forces, like Charlotte’s brother, Dylan.

She figured it was safe to move closer to him. “Well, welcome to Hope’s Crossing, Sam Delgado. I can promise you, not everyone in town will greet you with a two-by-four.”

He smelled good, she couldn’t help noticing. Like wind and sunshine and really sexy male. She really was an idiot to even notice.

“I don’t blame you for being cautious. Any woman would have to be a little wary to find a stranger invading her space. No harm done.” He set the reciprocating saw down on the floor and the belt with it.

“Brodie tells me you have definite ideas for your kitchen. I’m glad you’re here, actually, so we can go over what you want. Care to fill me in?”

“Now?”

He shrugged. “Sure. Why not?”

She could think of several reasons, beginning with her heart rate, which still hadn’t quite settled back down to normal. “Um, sure. Come on through to where the kitchen should be and we can talk.”

“Let me grab your plans,” he said, pointing to the back door.

When he returned, he unrolled the blueprints and she spent the next few moments detailing what she wanted in the kitchen, and the design she and Brodie had already come up with. Much to her delight, Sam had a few suggestions that would actually improve the work flow and traffic patterns.

“Are you sure you can bring us in with only a month before our projected opening?” she asked.

“It will be a push, I’m not going to lie to you, but my guys are up to the challenge. I wouldn’t have taken the job if I didn’t think we could do it.”

“I admire confidence in a man,” she said. That wasn’t the only thing she was admiring about Sam Delgado, but she ordered herself to settle down. For all she knew, he might indeed have a storage unit full of severed heads.

On the other hand, Brodie trusted him, and that carried a great deal of weight, as far as she was concerned. He wouldn’t have brought Sam in on the project unless he had vetted him fully.

Even if Brodie weren’t giving her this unbelievable chance at her own restaurant, he was also the husband and son of two of her dearest friends.

What was wrong with a little harmless flirtation? In fact, Sam Delgado might just be the cure to the restlessness her mother was talking about. She hadn’t dated anybody in months, not since Oliver, the very funny Swiss ski instructor who had returned to the Alps midseason.

Sam was actually just her type—big, gorgeous and only in town for a few weeks. He would be leaving Hope’s Crossing as soon as he wrapped up work on the restaurant. Why couldn’t she spend some enjoyable leisure time with him while he was here, as long as he still had plenty of time to finish the project?

“Looks clear enough,” Sam said, rolling up the blueprints he had pulled out of his pickup truck. “Since all the appliances and shelving and counters are already here, it’s only a matter of putting everything in place. You should still be able to have your mid-May opening.”

“I’m going to hold you to that, Mr. Delgado,” she said.

“Once my crew comes tomorrow, we can dig in.”

“How many guys will you have?”

“Three others, besides me. We’ve all worked together a long time.”

“Does everybody have a place to stay?”

“Brodie has made reservations at a hotel on the edge of town. Nothing fancy but it will do for now.”

“Good. Good.” She smiled. “Well, let me know if you need anything.”

“I’ll do that.”

It was now or never, she thought, and plunged forward. “So I don’t see a ring. Is there a Mrs. Delgado?”

Plenty of men didn’t care to wear a wedding ring, either out of personal preference or deliberate obfuscation. When she was interested in a man, she was scrupulously careful about double-checking that particular point.

Some hard-earned lessons tended to stick with a woman.

Sam Delgado blinked, obviously a little bemused by the question. If she hadn’t been watching him carefully for some sign of deceit, she might have missed the tangle of emotion in his gaze.

“As a matter of fact, there is. My brother’s wife.”

“But you don’t have one of your own?” she pressed.

“Not currently.”

His guarded reaction didn’t seem particularly encouraging. He could be engaged—another hot button of hers because of family history—but she hadn’t missed that sadness in his eyes and sensed he was telling the truth.

“Do you anticipate that changing anytime in the near future?”

“Not that I’m aware of, no. Why are you so curious?”

She shrugged. “Personal rule. I don’t date men who are married, engaged or otherwise involved in a long-term relationship.”

A corner of his mouth danced up. “I didn’t realize we were planning on dating.”

“Planning on it? No. But if the opportunity arose, I like to be certain ahead of time that both parties are...unentangled. Poachers bug the hell out of me. And men who allow themselves to be poached are even worse.”

He gazed at her for a long moment as if he wasn’t quite sure how to answer. “You don’t have any problem speaking your mind, Ms. McKnight, do you?”

“Please. Call me Alex. Especially considering we might be planning on dating at some point in the foreseeable future.”

He laughed as he shook his head. “Here’s something you should know about me then. Call me old-fashioned, but I like to be in the driver’s seat in these sorts of things.”

She gave him a sultry smile over her shoulder. “Oh, you foolish, foolish man. You might think you’re behind the wheel when it comes to most women, but that’s only because we’ve decided to hand over the keys.”

He chuckled that rough, sexy laugh that sent shivers down her spine again. “I don’t know what sort of p—er, pansies—you traditionally date, Alex McKnight, but I’m a former Army Ranger. Know what our motto is? Rangers lead the way. And we don’t just mean into enemy territory.”

She hadn’t been this attracted to a man in ages. She generally didn’t go further than second base with the guys she dated, but something about Sam Delgado made her suspect he was just the sort of guy to tempt her into changing her mind.

“I’ll keep that in mind. I guess I’ll see you around, then.”

She gave him a smile and a wave, tucking a strand of flyaway hair behind her ear as she picked up the basket of picnic supplies and headed for the door.

“Wait a minute,” he called out. “You can’t just leave. We were having a conversation here.”

Was that what he called it? She smiled. “I thought we were done.”

“What time am I picking you up tomorrow night?”

Oh, she really, really liked a man who took the initiative.

“I’m working tomorrow night until nine.”

“Perfect. I’ll probably be busy here until late and will need to unwind a little before I head to the hotel.”

“Do you play pool, Army Ranger Delgado?”

“I’ve been known to chalk a few cues in my time.”

“Great. Why don’t I meet you at The Speckled Lizard? It’s on Front Street, two blocks west of the center block of Main Street. It’s one of the few places that stays open late on a Thursday night during the off-season.”

“I’ll see you then. Tomorrow, twenty-two hundred, Speckled Lizard. It’s a date.”

She smiled and headed out the door, anticipation winging through her.

All in all, she was very glad she hadn’t hit him with a two-by-four.

CHAPTER TWO

SAM WATCHED BRODIE’S CHEF walk down the hill toward town swinging a picnic basket at her side, her blond curls bouncing behind her as she walked.

His heartbeat was still racing and he didn’t know what the hell just happened there. Right now, he felt as if he’d just spent the past thirty minutes tumbling around in a cement mixer.

This surge of adrenaline and anticipation and life churning inside him was unfamiliar, uncharted territory.

When he walked into this old firehouse, he certainly never expected to stumble across a woman like her, brash, funny, brimming with energy.

What was it about her? She was beautiful, yes, with those huge green eyes and the endless spill of hair, but he knew plenty of beautiful women.

Though he continued to insist it wasn’t necessary, Nicky’s wife, Cheri, was always trying to hook him up with some friend of hers or other. For a stay-at-home mother, his sister-in-law seemed to know an unusually large number of lovely women, many from her previous job as a public-relations executive.

While he might have been attracted to a few of those women Cheri had found for him, none of them had ignited these wild sparks that still snapped and buzzed through him, even after Alex McKnight had turned down a side street and disappeared from view.

He would have to tread carefully here. The situation had the potential to spawn a whole morass of complications.

For the next month, he would have to work closely with her on the Brazen project. She was the chef, after all. Not only that, he knew from conversations with Brodie that Alex was good friends with Brodie’s wife, Evie.

His whole life hinged on making a success of this project, on finishing the work on budget and on time and on doing a good enough job that Brodie would continue to contract with him and would recommend him to his friends around Hope’s Crossing.

Sam couldn’t afford to screw things up.

He looked at the scene below him, the neatly quaint downtown with its wide streets and graceful old historic buildings, the rows of established clapboard houses mingling with higher-end log homes.

Colorful spring blooms already burst out in patches, and the trees leading down the street had new pale green buds on them. He could imagine the place would be spectacular in the summer, with those raw, rugged mountains looming as a backdrop.

He breathed in the high mountain air. It seemed sweeter here, though he knew that was probably just the abundance of pine and fir trees around, sending out their citrusy fragrance.

This was the new start he wanted, that he needed, and he couldn’t afford to screw up his chances of making a life here.

A couple kids rode down the hill on bicycles, legs sticking out as they let gravity take over and flew past him, their laughter ringing loudly.

Across the street, an older lady with snow-white hair tended to flowers in a box hanging from her porch railing, and farther down from that, a couple people stood talking beside a mailbox.

It looked peaceful, comfortable. Perfect.

A few weeks ago, he had come up from Denver to check things out. From the moment he had driven into the city limits, he had felt the tension in his shoulders relax, the dark edges retreat.

He wasn’t naive enough to think trouble couldn’t find him here. While the surface of Hope’s Crossing might look like something out of a Norman Rockwell illustration, the reality was never as ideal.

After all, he had met Brodie at the Denver Children’s Hospital when Sam had been working on renovations to an office suite there at the same time Brodie’s teenage daughter was a patient, after she had suffered a terrible accident here in Hope’s Crossing.

Bad things happened in small towns just as easily as big cities like Denver. Marriages still fell apart, plenty of kids dabbled in drugs and alcohol, people still got cancer and died.

He grimaced at that thought and turned around to head back into the restaurant just as his cell phone rang. After a quick glance at the caller ID, his frown disappeared.

“Why, hello,” he answered. “If it isn’t my favorite son.”

“Favorite and only,” Ethan said primly.

Sam smiled, picturing his nearly seven-year-old’s dark curls and the blue, blue eyes he had shared with his mother. “Maybe so. But even if you had a half-dozen siblings, you’d still probably be my favorite.”

“That’s hypothetical, though. We can’t really know that for sure, can we?”

Hypothetical was apparently the word of the week. Last week it had been enumerate and the week before precocious. Spoken in that sweet young voice that still had a trace of a lisp, the hundred-dollar words always made Sam smile.

Love for his terrifyingly brilliant son was a sweet ache in his chest. “How is everything at Uncle Nick and Aunt Cheri’s?”

Ethan’s sigh was heavy and put-upon. “All right, I guess. I had to play Barbie dolls today with Amanda. I was Malibu Ken and she had Hula Barbie and they were supposed to be going on a date. I decided they should go on a date to the beach and we had them go surfing down the rain gutter in front of the house. How was I supposed to know Malibu Ken would fit down the sewer grate?”

“I bet that went over real well with your cousin.”

“Aunt Cheri made me stay in my room for an entire half hour. I don’t see why I had to be punished when it was simply an estimating error.”

“Life isn’t fair, is it?”

“Rarely, in my experience,” Ethan said glumly.

His son was six for a few more weeks but acted as if he was thirty-six most of the time.

“When can I come see Hope’s Crossing again, Dad?”

He grimaced, though there was no one but the lady across the street with her flowers to see. He missed his son already. “I’ll bring you up first chance I get, I promise.”

“I want to live with you for good in our own house, where I don’t have to play Barbies or share a room with somebody who still watches Barney.”

“I want that, too, more than anything. I’m working on it, I swear. Soon, okay? Six weeks. You have to finish the school year first and I need to find a decent place for us to live.”

“Six weeks seems like forever.”

“I know. To me, too. But we’ll spend every weekend together and before you know it, school will be out and you can come here for the summer when Uncle Nick and Aunt Cheri take off to Belgium. Then next fall you’ll have a whole new school and new friends.”

“I don’t want to go to a new school,” Ethan said, that stubbornness creeping into his voice.

“I know you don’t, son. But Hope’s Crossing is too far for us to drive to St. Augustine’s every day. If we’re going to live here, we’ll have to find a school here, too. Don’t worry. I’ve heard this one is terrific. You’ll see.”

Beyond the two-hour distance involved, Ethan attended a very elite private school. He had thrived at St. Augustine’s, where they celebrated his brain and had spent the past two years trying to stimulate it.

Move or not, he couldn’t continue there now. For one thing, Sam’s former in-laws had insisted on paying the hefty private school tuition but those funds had dried up a year ago.

They loathed Sam now. While they claimed they wanted to continue a relationship with Ethan, he couldn’t allow it, not when they filled his son’s head with lies and vitriol.

The whole thing was such a mess. When his late wife’s father had been arrested, the tuition payments stopped. Sam had managed to scrape together enough to keep Ethan at St. Augustine’s this year but he certainly couldn’t continue paying that much unless he wanted to deplete Kelli’s entire life insurance policy before Ethan even reached college age.

“You were going to have to go to a new school either way, kid. You know that. You couldn’t stay at St. Augustine’s. The schools here in Hope’s Crossing are supposed to be excellent. We’ll have all summer together to get ready for second grade.”

“I miss you,” Ethan said, his voice small.

“Oh, son. I miss you, too. It’s only a few weeks and then things will be better. You’ll see.”

“I guess.”

“Hang in there and be good for Uncle Nick and Aunt Cheri. I’ll call you every night to check on your homework and I’ll come home next weekend, okay?”

After a few more moments, he hung up with his son. As he gazed down at the picturesque little town, he decided he could use some of the town’s eponymous Hope.

He sincerely hoped he was making the right move here. He had to make a living and that was becoming increasingly difficult in Denver. His reputation in Denver construction circles suffered coming and going.

From J.T.’s friends, he was considered a traitor for whistle-blowing on his own father-in-law and starting the chain of events that had led to J.T.’s conviction. Sam still didn’t know what else he could have done except go to authorities in Denver with his suspicions about his father-in-law. After all, Sam had first given J.T. the chance to make things right when he had discovered Tanner and Sons Construction was dangerously cutting corners—and using shoddy imported materials—but billing full price on government contracts.

From the honorable contractors left, Sam was painted with the same ugly brush as his father-in-law because he had been J.T.’s second-in-command for the last three years and should have known what was happening under his nose at the company. They didn’t seem to make allowances for a floundering man who had been helping his wife fight cancer and then grieving when she lost the battle.

Hope’s Crossing offered a chance to make a new start, away from all that ugliness. Thanks to Brodie and a few of his contacts, he had jobs lined up for several months. He had no doubt he could keep them coming, as long as he focused on the work at hand.

That was all the more reason to keep things casual and friendly with Alex McKnight. He couldn’t afford the distraction and the complication of a woman like her. He would meet her the next night for a game of pool and some friendly conversation, but that was as far as he would let things go.

His future—and, more importantly, his son’s—depended on it.

CHAPTER THREE

THE NEXT NIGHT, THURSDAY, Alex escaped to the employee restroom after her shift and quickly changed out of her white jacket and black slacks to jeans and a tailored soft green shirt. She added a chunky hammered silver necklace she had made a few months ago and a matching pair of earrings and bracelet.

Much to her dismay, she had spent hours before her shift trying to figure out what to wear for her little outing with Sam. Discarded clothes were still strewn all over every flat surface of her bedroom.

She wanted to set just the right tone for the way she had decided the evening should proceed. She would be friendly and fun but completely casual. No more of that high-octane flirting from the other day.

She couldn’t deny she was fiercely attracted to Sam. He was big, gorgeous, tough...but he was also building the kitchen of her dreams. She couldn’t afford to screw this up.

Earlier that day she had stopped in at Brazen to check things out and had been astonished at the progress he and his crew had made in just a single morning of work. They already had one whole section of cabinets installed and had been close to finishing another.

A gruff guy named Joe—who hadn’t met her gaze more than a millisecond when she talked to him, and who had only said three or four words at a time—told her Sam had been out picking up a few things at the building supply store.

She tried to convince herself she wasn’t at all disappointed to miss him but she recognized that for a lie. She had been disappointed, seriously bummed, which was when she had decided she needed to think twice about entangling herself with him.

Any man who could make her react like a teenager driving by her crush’s house a half-dozen times a day spelled trouble.

The door opened and Lucy Martineau, the pastry chef, walked in and headed for the open stall. “You look great. Hot date?”

“No. Not a date,” she was quick to assure her friend. “I’m just meeting somebody at the Lizard for drinks and some pool.”

“Anybody I know?” Lucy asked. “Stupid question. Of course he wouldn’t be. Let me guess. Is he in town on business or fun?”

Mascara wand in hand, she paused her quick makeup job long enough to make a face in the mirror at Lucy, who was washing her hands at the other sink.

“Very funny.”

“Which is it? You know you never date anybody longer than a few weeks, Alex.”

“Not true,” she protested.

“Isn’t it?”

“I went out with that musician for nearly a month, until his gig up at the lodge ended.”

“I forgot about him.”

So had Alex, but she wasn’t about to admit that to Lucy. “It’s easier to date somebody who’s moving on anyway. We both know where things stand from the outset and nobody develops unrealistic expectations. It’s cleaner, all the way around.”

“If you say so.” Lucy looked doubtful, but then, she had been married for a decade. “So who’s the guy?”

She didn’t want to answer but since others would probably see them together at The Speckled Lizard, she didn’t see any reason to lie. “He’s the contractor finishing up the remodel at Brazen. Our relationship is strictly professional. I figured I would introduce him around, help him feel welcome here, that sort of thing. I figure if he’s happy during his stay in Hope’s Crossing, he’ll be more motivated to make sure he does a good job on my kitchen.”

Lucy didn’t lose her skeptical expression. Alex couldn’t really blame her since it all sounded like a load of manure to her, as well.

“Well, have a good time.”

“I intend to.” Even if that meant backing away from the flirty fun of the day before, she thought with a sigh.

To her amazement, she quickly found a parking place right by The Speckled Lizard. This was a happening spot from December to March, jam-packed with skiers and boarders looking for somewhere to relax after a hard day on the slopes. The bar served generous drinks and usually had live music on the weekends.

During the summer months, it wasn’t quite as busy but still did a lively business, both tourists and regulars. They grilled a mean burger out on the patio in warm weather and it was always a fun place to meet up with friends.

Like many establishments in town, the shoulder seasons—April to early June and then September to mid-November—belonged to the locals.

She was early and didn’t see any sign of Sam Delgado, of the broad shoulders and warm dark eyes. She waved to Mike from the bike shop in town, who was sitting with Cathy and Jonah Kent, both paramedics.

She always hated sitting by herself at the bar and was about to ask if they minded if she joined them while she waited when someone walked right in her path.

“Hey, there, Alex.”

She gave a mental cringe. “Hi, Corey.”

He had a tumbler of what looked like whiskey in his hand and a bleary-eyed look that indicated it wasn’t his first of the night. No surprise there.

“You look fantastic,” he said, stumbling a little over the adjective as he threw an arm around her shoulder.

Her mental cringe turned into an actual one but Corey Johnson didn’t seem to notice. He never did. To Corey, the three dates they went on in high school twenty years ago apparently left him feeling entitled to paw at her whenever he wanted.

“Pat, bring the lady a drink. My treat.” He beamed at her as if he were bestowing a huge honor and she squirmed a little more.

How was she going to play this? Being firm was generally not a problem for her but she had to admit, she felt a little sorry for Corey. About six months ago, he had lost his job as a mortgage loan officer because of the struggling economy and hadn’t been able to find anything since.

Though he’d been scrambling to make ends meet and the family had even had a few visits from the Angel of Hope—the mysterious anonymous benefactor who went around town doing good deeds—his wife had finally tired of their ride to Nowheresville and had taken their kids to Grand Junction to stay with her mother.

Things weren’t going all that great for old Corey, but that didn’t mean she was willing to be his consolation prize. He was still married. Even if he wasn’t, she hadn’t been interested enough in anything but a handful of dates in high school and she was less interested now.

“I’m good, Pat. I’m just having mineral water tonight,” she told the bartender, who lived down the road from her.

“Oh, come on.” Corey leaned in close and the blast of liquor on his breath seared her nasal passages. “You need something more than that after a hard day.”

“No, really. Mineral water is enough.”

“You’re no fun anymore, Al. You used to be fun.”

“I’m still fun. I’ve just never needed alcohol to get me there.” She forced a smile, which in retrospect was a bad idea. Corey took that as encouragement.

“What do you say you and me go out back and see just how much fun we can have together?”

Eww. Seriously? She tried to edge away but Corey had won second place in the state wrestling championship for his weight class their senior year and still had a pretty darn good half nelson.

“Yeah, I’m going to have to pass on that charming offer,” she said firmly.

“Come on. We can just make out, if you want.”

The very thought made her glad she hadn’t eaten anything since lunchtime. “No, thanks. Let go, Core.”

Instead, he tightened his grip and leaned his head down to her ear and whispered a filthy suggestion. She decided she didn’t have any sympathy left for Corey and hoped like hell his wife had taken every penny of whatever the Angel of Hope had given the family when she made her way out of Dodge.

“Let go. Now,” she said firmly but Corey ignored her.

Nobody else at the bar seemed to have noticed her predicament, probably assuming it was just a warm chat between old friends. She was trying to figure out whether he would even feel a sharp elbow shoved into his slight beer belly or if she would have to knee him hard where it counted when another voice intruded.

“The lady said no, I believe.”

She shifted her gaze and knew she shouldn’t be so glad to see Sam Delgado standing next to them in all his rough-edged, ex-Army Ranger glory.

She totally had this and didn’t need rescuing, but it was still really, really nice of Sam to step in.

Corey turned his red-rimmed eyes in Sam’s direction. “Mind your own business, asshole,” he slurred.

Sam’s expression didn’t change. She might have thought it almost apologetic, if she didn’t glimpse the hard steel in those dark eyes.

“Technically, this is my business. I’m afraid Ms. McKnight is my date.”

Something in Sam’s tone, his massive size or his deceptively casual stance seemed to pierce Corey’s alcoholic stupor. It was fascinating to watch his bluster trickle away like beer out of a cracked bottle.

He pulled his arm away. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “I didn’t mean anything. Alex and I are old friends, aren’t we, Al?”

She said nothing but Corey didn’t seem to need a response—or maybe was grateful she didn’t offer one.

“Talk to you later,” he mumbled and ambled away with his drink.

Not the most auspicious beginning for their evening together. How was she supposed to put things back on a fun, casual footing now after he rescued her from being pawed by a drunk and disorderly high school classmate?

“Sorry I’m late,” Sam said. He didn’t offer any explanation other than that and she had the odd feeling he was troubled about something.

“No problem. You’re here now. That’s the important thing.”

Oops. That came out more flirtatious than she intended. Apparently it was a hard habit to break.

He looked around The Speckled Lizard, with its high tin-stamped ceilings, the long, gleaming bar and the dark-paneled woodwork carved in elaborate designs.

“Any chance the grill is still open? I haven’t had time for dinner.”

The nurturer in her wanted to take him home and cook something delicious for him, but that sort of offer would almost certainly be misconstrued.

She was hungry, too, she suddenly realized. One of life’s little ironies, that she spent all night cooking for others and sometimes didn’t take time to eat, herself.

She glanced at the clock. “The grill here stays open for ten more minutes. I happen to know the cook, though, and I bet we can persuade her to keep it warm a bit longer. They have really excellent burgers. You can have beef, bison or beefalo if you want.”

“Beefalo? Is that anything like a jackalope?”

She laughed. “Nope. Cross between bison and beef. It’s actually quite good.”

“Think I’ll stick with beef, if it’s all the same to you.”

“Give me a couple minutes and I’ll get you fixed up.”

She headed back to the kitchen, waving to Pat as she went, then found the irascible Francesca Beltran in the small galley kitchen, all three-hundred pounds of her.

“Hey, Frankie.”

“What you doing in my kitchen, baby girl?” She was so round, her only wrinkles were around her eyes.

Alex grinned. “Got me a friend who’s hungry. I know you’re probably ready to wrap things up. Any chance you’d let me throw on an apron and burn us up a couple burgers?”

She narrowed raisin-black eyes. “I was just about to clean the grill.”

“He’s really hungry, Frank. Come on. Please? He’s been working hard all day building my kitchen at the new restaurant. If I can’t cook for him here, I’ll have to take him to my place to feed him and who knows what will happen then? I can’t do that. You know I’m a nice girl.”

Frankie’s deep, full-bodied laugh always made her smile.

“Yeah, yeah. Okay. Make it fast.”

She grinned and kissed the woman’s cheek, threw a spare apron over her clothes, washed her hands and went to work.

Ten minutes later, the result was two perfectly cooked burgers, spiced just right and the buns toasted. Frankie deigned to drag them through the garden for her—one of her favorite diner slang terms for topping it with condiments—and even added some of The Speckled Lizard’s signature crisp, fresh-cut fries.

She carried them out and found Sam sitting at a quiet booth, a bottle of one of the local brews open in front of him.

“Sorry about the wait. I had to sweet-talk the cook. She can be a little territorial about her grill.”

“You cooked this?”

She knew she shouldn’t find such satisfaction from the surprise and, yes, delight in his eyes. “Frankie’s great, don’t get me wrong, but I have my own preference when it comes to my burgers.”

“I really didn’t mean to put you to work.”

She slid into the booth across from him and picked up her napkin. “I was hungry, too, as you can see. Anyway, I like to feed people. It’s kind of a thing with me.”

As a relatively self-aware woman, she didn’t need months of psychotherapy to explore the reason. When she was a girl, she had loved cooking for her whole family but especially for her dad. As the youngest girl, she had been the proverbial apple of her father’s eye. They had bonded over grilled cheese sandwiches and pancakes at first and as she’d gotten older, she had expanded her repertoire and tried new things, always to gratifying raves from her father.

She had figured out a long time ago that she was compelled to feed people in some vain hope of making them love her enough to stay this time.

Not that she wanted Sam Delgado to stay anywhere. Sometimes a meal was simply a meal, right?

He took a bite of the burger and an expression of pure bliss crossed those rugged features. “I do believe that just might be the most delicious thing I’ve ever tasted.”

She laughed, pushing away all thoughts of her childhood. “Oh, you poor man. If that’s the case, I have so much to teach you.”

The burger was good, she had to admit, with the bun toasted just right, the flavors of meat and good sauce harmonizing together perfectly.

He took a few more bites, concentrating all his attention to the meal. She didn’t mind. She did love a man who knew how to enjoy his food.

Finally he set the second half of the burger down as if he wanted to prolong the pleasure and wiped at his mouth. “So, Alexandra, what do you do in Hope’s Crossing besides cook very delicious burgers?”

Very few people called her Alexandra anymore. In school, all her teachers had used the full version of her name, as well as the principal, with whom she had been entirely too well acquainted.

Then later Marco had also used her given name, during their time together. In his heavily accented English, her name had sounded exotic and extravagant.

To everyone else, from her family to her wide circle of friends to the men she dated, she had been just plain Alex as long as she could remember, though her mother still sometimes went for Alexandra Renee when she was exasperated with her.

She liked the way Sam said her name and decided not to correct him.

Cooking was who she was, what she did, so it took her a moment to figure out how to answer him.

“I like to cross-country ski and snowboard,” she finally said. “I just bought my first house a few months ago and I’ve been fixing it up the way I like it. Nothing of the scale you do, of course, just new paint, furniture, that kind of thing.”

“What about in the summer?”

Did he really want to know about her or was he simply being polite, laying the groundwork for what he hoped might eventually be a seduction? It was always a hard call on a first date. Not that this was a date, she reminded herself firmly.

“I hike. Mountain bike. Garden. Hang out with my family and friends.”

“Your family lives close, then?”

“Just about all of them. I come from a pretty big family. Six kids. My mother and four of us children still live here in Hope’s Crossing. Two of my sisters live out of state, one in California and one in Utah.”

“Wow. Six kids. Seriously? That must have been crazy. I can’t even imagine having that kind of family.”

“It has its moments. Some bad but most of them good. We McKnights are all pretty close. Amazingly, we all get along. Except Riley, the only brother. He can still be a pest sometimes. It doesn’t help that now he’s a pest with a badge.”

“Right. You mentioned he was the police chief.”

It took her a minute to remember she had threatened him with calling her brother when she thought Sam was breaking into the restaurant the day before. Heat soaked her cheeks and she really hoped she wasn’t blushing. She never blushed.

“What about you?” she asked, to distract him from remembering what an idiot she had been. “Do you come from a big family?”

“One brother, that’s it. He lives in Denver with his wife and kids. That’s where my s...” His voice trailed off. “My stuff is. I’m between places.”

She had the distinct impression he meant to say something else. What? She had a zero-tolerance policy for deception in a man.

“So how long have you been out of the Rangers?”

“Three years.”

Now, there was a verbose answer. Did his clipped tone indicate a hot button?

“What did you do for the Rangers?”

He took another bite of the burger and a drink of beer before answering. “Oh, the usual. Kick butt, take names, general mayhem.”

He spoke in that same clipped tone, but she saw a little muscle quirk at the edge of his mouth as if he were working to hold back a smile.

She really liked Sam Delgado.

Too bad.

“General mayhem, hmm. I imagine building my kitchen must seem fairly tame to a guy like you, then.”

“Not really. You’d be surprised how satisfying it can be to set those stainless-steel countertops exactly how the customer, in this case you, envisioned.”

No trace of sarcasm or irony there. He was dead serious, she realized. She very much respected a man who enjoyed his work.

“Why did you leave the Rangers?” she persisted. The routes people took in their lives to bring them to a certain point in time endlessly fascinated her.

“Didn’t really have a choice at the time.” Again, the clipped tone.

“Conscientious objector or dishonorable discharge?”

He laughed roughly. “Anybody ever tell you you’ve got some cheek?”

“So my family says.” She had always been the sassy, smart-mouthed sister. Since she didn’t feel as if she could compete in looks or brains with four older sisters, she had found her own way to stand out.

After their father left, that had been one more way to manage the pain.

“So why did you leave the Rangers? Judging by your ink, you were a loyal soldier. I figure somebody who cares enough about a particular branch of the military to make it a permanent part of his body ought to stick with it as long as he can.”

He sighed. “You’re not going to let up, are you?”

“Would you like me to?”

He gave her a long look and appeared to be choosing his words as carefully as she picked over the fresh fish selection from her suppliers.

“I left the Rangers after my wife was diagnosed with stage-four breast cancer.”

And there was the problem with being a smart-mouth. Sometimes you missed important signals and ended up feeling like a jerk.

She remembered him telling her the only Mrs. Delgado was his brother’s wife. She believed him, so either his wife had gone into remission and divorced him or she had lost her battle. Alex was afraid it was the latter.

“I’m sorry.”

He shoved away from the table, long fingers loosely clasped around the neck of his brew. “That was delicious. Let’s go play some pool.”

He obviously didn’t want to talk about his late wife. It was one thing to flirt with a player who had no more interest in anything long-term than she did. It was something else entirely when the man was a grieving widower whose pain was so raw he couldn’t even talk about it.

She grabbed her mineral water and followed him to an empty pool table. The Lizard had four billiard tables, two of them currently in use.

To reach the table where Sam was now setting up, she had to pass a group of college-age guys—mountain biking tourists, if she had to guess. With them was one woman wearing a skintight pair of pegged jeans and a white halter top that was completely inappropriate for a Rocky Mountain spring night.

She laughed suddenly, overloud and overfriendly, and playfully punched one of the young studs on the shoulder.

Only when Alex had nearly reached Sam’s table did she happen to glance at the woman from an angle where she could see her face, and a shock of recognition just about made her stumble.

Of all the people in town she might have expected to find flirting and half-drunk at The Speckled Lizard, Genevieve Beaumont would have come in dead last. Even behind Katherine Thorne.

“Hey, Genevieve.”

The younger woman shifted her gaze, and her eyes widened. “Alex.” She gave a noticeable sniff and turned back to her boy toys.

Bitch.

On some level she had sympathy for Gen Beaumont, who had been through some definite emotional turmoil the past year. She also would freely admit to a healthy degree of respect for at least one of Gen’s decisions to break off her engagement a year ago when she found out her fiancé impregnated Alex’s niece Sage.

But Gen had taken her anger at her fiancé and turned it into definite antipathy toward all things McKnight, as if the whole family was responsible for the man’s decision to screw around with a vulnerable young woman.

Sage was doing well now, busy at school studying to be an architect like her father, Jack, but Alex had deep sympathy for what she had endured with her unexpected pregnancy. She had planned to put the baby up for adoption but, in the end, Maura and Jack had adopted the baby and were raising Henry as their own son instead of their grandson. On the surface, it might look as if everything had worked out for all parties concerned. That pretty picture tended to gloss over all the complicated snarls of emotions.

She pushed away her family dramas and any concern for Genevieve Beaumont and the old tendrils of pain, and grabbed a cue off the rack on the wall.

“You want to break?” Sam asked her.

“Sure. I’ll warn you, I haven’t played in a long time. I’m afraid I won’t be able to give you much of a game.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’m pretty rusty, too.”

An hour and three games later, he won two out of three, but just barely.

“Not much of a game.” He snorted. “I haven’t had to work that hard for a win since basic training, when I came up against a guy who hustled new recruits for fun.”

She smiled. “We had a pool table in the basement when I was growing up. My dad, brother and I used to play for matchsticks. At last count, I think Riley owed me about eight hundred thousand. One of these days, I might have to collect.”

“Why do I feel like I’ve just been scammed?”

She smiled. “You won, didn’t you?”

“Barely.”

“I wasn’t lying when I said I hadn’t played in a while. But I guess it’s like so many other things. Once you take those first strokes, it all comes flowing back.”

He cleared his throat and she couldn’t hold in a smile at the sudden glazed look in his eyes. Was he, like her, thinking about something else completely? “Do you want to go for best of five?”

A loud burst of laughter from Genevieve’s group drew both their attention. While she and Sam had been playing, a couple others had joined Gen’s crowd. On the other occupied table, two rough-edged guys were arguing heatedly about a move. A couple danced nearby to an up-tempo country song playing on the jukebox.

Sometimes the loud, hard-partying scene at The Speckled Lizard grated on her nerves, especially after a long night at the restaurant. The only problem was, during the off-season, the after-hours nightlife in Hope’s Crossing was basically nonexistent, other than a few fast-food joints that stayed open 24/7.

She could always call it a night but she selfishly didn’t want to. She liked Sam. The way he moved, the way he smelled, the way he played pool. It had been a long time since she had met someone so intriguing.

“How do you feel about taking a little walk?” she asked on impulse.

He blinked at her, cue in hand. “Now? It’s past eleven. The whole town is closed down, in case you didn’t notice.”

“Why not? It’s a beautiful evening. These kind of mild spring nights are something of a miracle here in the high mountains.”

Don’t say no, she thought. The idea of going back to her house by herself tonight depressed her more than it should. Not that she had any intention of taking Sam there, but she definitely wanted to spend a little more time with him. This was a nice compromise.

“We don’t have to,” she added. “I only thought maybe you might like a quick guided tour of Hope’s Crossing, being new in town and all.”

He leaned a hip against the edge of the pool table, all those rangy ex-army muscles in delectable view.

Maybe inviting him out for a walk wasn’t the smartest idea she’d ever had, when she had to keep reminding herself he was the contractor at the restaurant and she couldn’t afford to mess things up now that her dream was within reach.

“A walk could be...interesting.”

“Great. Let’s go.” She ignored the flurry of nerves in her stomach as they hung up the cues and settled their tab with Pat at the bar.

He helped her into her jacket and then pulled on his own—a soft, thin leather jacket that made her think of motorcycles and bad boys—and then they walked out into the sweetly scented spring night.

CHAPTER FOUR

THE NIGHT WAS RELATIVELY WARM for mid-April with a southerly breeze that smelled moist and earthy. She wouldn’t be surprised if Hope’s Crossing saw rain before daybreak, the kind of sweet and cleansing storm that blew through quickly and left everything fresh and clean, saturated with color.

She loved walking on these kinds of nights, when the rest of the world seemed huddled in for the dark hours but she was alone with the rustling music of the breeze in new leaves.

Except this time she wasn’t alone. She was accompanied by a big, tough-looking man who had secrets she hadn’t begun to guess.

“Let’s walk up to the fire station and I’ll give you the high points of Main Street along the way.”

“You’re the tour guide.” He flashed a lopsided smile, looking sexy and almost rakish, and she had to remind her hormones to settle down.

She adopted a deliberately casual tone, her best officious voice. Maybe if the restaurant thing didn’t work out, she could get a job at the tourist welcome center. “You probably already know this but Hope’s Crossing was once a wild and woolly mining town, with more brothels and saloons than houses.”

“I’d heard that, yes. Tell me this. Don’t you think it’s odd that even with that sort of start, the town was still named a sweet, flowery name like Hope’s Crossing instead of, oh, I don’t know. Something like Hell’s Armpit.”

She laughed. “While both names are equally appealing, of course, I’m guessing Hope’s Crossing might be a bit more of a tourist draw than anything with the word armpit in it. But what do I know?”

His smile gleamed in the night and she fought down another shiver of awareness.

“My friend Claire is a lot better at recounting history, but from what I understand, the miners originally called the town Silver Strike after the first mine to produce anything worthwhile up in the canyon. One of the mine owners, Silas Van Duran, happened to fall in love with the only schoolteacher in town, a woman named Hope Goodwin. When it came time to officially name the town, he insisted on Hope’s Crossing. Since he had the money, I guess, he also had the power to push through what he wanted.”

“A little on the cheesy side, don’t you think? Most women I know would prefer a share in the silver mine instead of the rather dubious privilege of having a town named for them.”

“Aren’t you cynical? You’re not a romantic, then. Good to know.”

“Hey, I can be romantic when the mood strikes.”

“You do know there’s a difference between romantic and horny, right?”

He laughed and warmth sizzled through her. He had a really sexy laugh, low and full-throated, with just a hint of surprise to it, as if he didn’t do it that often. She wanted him to do it again.

“I’ve heard that, yes,” he said. “Thanks for the reminder. Though in my experience, they’re not mutually exclusive emotions.”

She was really going to have to settle down here. She drew in a breath and forced herself to return to tour-guide mood as they walked past her favorite boutique.

When they passed String Fever, she paused in front of the lighted display, a combination of ready-made items and a brilliant scatter of loose beads.

“Ooh, looks like Claire is carrying a new line of hand-painted beads. She didn’t tell me. The woman is evil. I spend half my paycheck inside String Fever.”

He gazed at the necklace that had caught her attention and then back at her. “Somehow I wouldn’t have pegged you for a crafter.”

“Beading is an art form and I’ve got serious skills. I made this.” She pulled out the hammered-silver necklace. He had obviously once been someone’s husband because he was smart enough to dutifully admire it.

“Nice.”

“I know,” she said smugly. “And it’s not even my best work. Claire, the owner, has been my BFF since we were in first grade. She’s actually married to my brother now. They’re having a baby in a few months.”

Why was she compelled to add that last part? She wasn’t quite sure. Her own emotions about Riley and Claire combining DNA to bring a new life into the world were as tangled as her jewelry drawer.

She had mostly come to terms with the fact that her best friend and the person she still considered her pesky little brother were head-over-heels crazy about each other. She would never tell either of them this, but she even thought it was kind of sweet the way they couldn’t seem to keep their gazes off each other in a crowd, the way they touched whenever they were close, the happiness that just seemed to surround the two of them like a big, puffy cloud.

Even so, it still sometimes freaked her out.

Then there was the issue of the upcoming birth, something that left her both thrilled for them and aching for...something.

Throw in her mother’s relationship with Harry Lange and she was probably due for some serious therapy anytime now.

She didn’t want to talk about any of it. What she really wanted to do was kiss this big, sexy construction foreman. Too bad things were so complicated.

“This is the Center of Hope Café, a fabulous place for breakfast and lunch. Basically anything on the menu is good. You can’t go wrong. I don’t know what magic Dermot Caine possesses but he also makes these turkey wraps that always hit the spot.”

“Seems like a bad policy, to endorse the competition.”

She sniffed. “We’re not in competition. Apples to oranges. You want gourmet cuisine, come to my restaurant. You want good, honest comfort food, Dermot’s your man.”

“Is that right?”

“The French toast alone will make you weep tears of gratitude.”

He laughed, assuming she was speaking in hyperbole. Foolish man. After he tried it, he would know she spoke only truth.

“Around the corner there is Dermot’s daughter Charlotte’s candy store. Sugar Rush. Best place in town for flavored fudge. Blackberry, almond, cashew. She does it all. And she’s one of my good friends, too.”

“Is everyone in town your friend?”

She shrugged. “Basically. What can I say? It’s a friendly town. Why don’t we cross the street here?”

He eyed the crosswalk, thirty feet farther up the street. “A rule breaker. I like that in a woman.”

“It’s nearly midnight,” she pointed out. “The streets are pretty deserted right now. I think we’ll be safe unless we get rogue moose coming through town. Hope’s Crossing doesn’t have much of a nightlife this time of year, I’m afraid.”

“Not a problem for me. I’m not coming to town to party.”

Despite the dearth of traffic, he grabbed her elbow when they crossed the street. She found it incredibly sweet and wanted to lean into the strength of his firm hand touching her, even through the layers of her coat and shirt.

They were only taking fifteen steps across pavement, not fording Currant Creek during runoff, but she still enjoyed that little touch of courtesy.

“This is my sister’s shop,” she said, when they reached the other side. “Dog-Eared Books & Brew is absolutely the best place in town to get good coffee.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

On the other side of the street, she pointed out several of the old buildings in town and the efforts that had been made to keep the town’s historic flavor.

Hope’s Crossing was always so peaceful late at night when most of the residents slept. Instead of going all the way up to the restaurant, the one place in town she knew he had been, she turned them down Glacier Lily Drive, intending to make a loop back to The Speckled Lizard. They had only walked about ten feet when something large and dark came toward them out of the alley behind the fabric store.

Alex jumped and gave a little scream at the same moment, her mind on that moose she had joked about earlier. Moose scared her to death ever since just about being charged by one when she had caught it unawares while out mountain biking one day a few years ago.

She felt extremely foolish when she realized the menacing shape was only an off-leash dog who had apparently wandered away from home.

“Sorry. Sorry. That startled me.”

He didn’t laugh, which was more than most men she knew would have done.

“It startled me, too. We former Army Rangers try to be a little more manly and do our girly screaming on the inside.”

“We should probably find where he belongs. Come here, boy.”

In the small circle of light from the reproduction streetlamp, the dog looked to be a chocolate Lab. He had a frayed collar but no tags. “Oh, dear. Where did you come from?”

The dog licked her, tongue lolling and tail wagging. He smelled like wet dog, sharply pungent.

“I’m not exactly a dog expert but he looks like a purebred,” Sam said.

She had to agree. He had very elegant lines and beautiful hazel eyes that glowed in his dark face in the starlight. “I can’t imagine he’s a stray, even though that collar looks pretty mangy.”

“How do you expect to find his home tonight?”

“Good question, especially without tags. I’m trying to think if I know anybody with a chocolate Lab. Nobody comes to mind. He doesn’t look familiar.”

“You can’t know every dog in town.”

“Not every dog, no,” she admitted. “But I’m sure I would remember a good-looking guy like this one.”

The dog licked at her hand again and she rubbed his ears. She loved dogs. Claire and Riley’s morosely adorable basset hound, Chester, was one of her favorite creatures on earth. If her life weren’t so chaotic, she would definitely have one of her own.

“Any suggestions?” Sam asked. “Is there an animal shelter in town where we can take him for now?”

“There is, but they’re usually pretty packed.”

She considered her options and came up with only one viable possibility. “Looks like I’m going to have company for the night.”

“You’re really going to take him home with you? What if he’s rabid?”

“He’s not. Look at how sweet he is. I can’t just leave him to run wild on the streets. He could be hit by a car or even attacked by a mountain lion. I can call the shelter in the morning and see if they’ve had any missing pooch reports that match his description.”

“What if they haven’t?”

“I’m pretty connected,” she said modestly. “I can get the word out through the police department and even put a few posters up at the bookstore and Claire’s place. The owner will probably hear through the grapevine that I found a chocolate Lab. I should only have him for a day or two. It will be fun to have company, won’t it, bud?”

The dog woofed at her and licked her hand a third time, almost as if he understood.

“Take off your belt,” she ordered.

Sam angled a sidelong look at her. “I do believe that’s the first time I’ve been propositioned on a public sidewalk.”

She snorted. “That you’ve heard out loud, anyway. I’m sure plenty of women have wanted to proposition you, public sidewalk or not. Seriously, I need a leash and I’m not wearing a belt. I need yours. Don’t worry, you’ll get it back.”

He shook his head. “This is the most interesting evening I’ve had in a very long time.”

“Don’t get out much, then, do you?”

She tried not to ogle as he unfastened his belt and slipped it out of the loops. As he handed it over, his finger brushed hers with a shock of warmth against the chilling night temperature. With one hand, she pulled the belt through the dog’s collar and drew the end through the metal loop.

“There. Now I just need to hope it doesn’t slip through my fingers, but you’re not going anywhere, are you, bud?”

The dog wagged his tail, his haunches firmly planted on the sidewalk.

“Clever.” Sam looked amused.

“I can be. Your pants aren’t going to fall down now, are they?”

“I believe I can manage to avoid that horrifying eventuality for the few minutes it will take me to walk you to your car.”

Oh, she liked Sam. It was really a cruel twist of fate that the planets were so far out of alignment for them.

They walked through the quiet streets of town in a companionable silence, broken only by the dog’s snuffling as he investigated each crack in the sidewalk, the spring flowers blooming in baskets outside the storefronts, each streetlamp, signpost and fire hydrant.

“What’s your name? Hmm?”

The dog gave her a goofy grin in response.

“I think I’ll just call you Dude for tonight.”

“Oh, please,” Sam protested. “Leave the poor guy a little dignity.”

“Okay, okay.”

She considered ideas as they crossed the street again and headed back to The Speckled Lizard. The perfect name came to her when they were almost to the bar. “I’ve got it. I think I’ll call him Leo. He’s exactly the color of my favorite Leonidas Belgian chocolates.”

“Sure. That was going to be my choice, too.”

She couldn’t see Sam roll his eyes in the dark but his dry tone conveyed the same sentiment.

She laughed and squeezed his arm. What a wonderful night. Walking the quiet streets of Hope’s Crossing on a lovely April evening that smelled like spring with a gorgeous man at her side—and now a very adorable dog. What woman wouldn’t have this little bird of happiness fluttering through her?

Soon enough, though, they reached her little SUV and she opened the back door.

“Come on, Leo. Let’s get you inside.”

The dog didn’t hesitate, just jumped right into the backseat as if they had been practicing this routine for years. Her seats were probably going to stink for weeks. First order of business for Leo was a bath, even though it was nearly midnight. Both of them would sleep better for it.

She reached inside and pulled the belt end through the buckle and handed it back to Sam. “Thanks for loaning your belt. And for the evening. I had a really great time.”

She had said those words often on dates but had never meant them as much as she did in that moment.

“I did, too.” His voice held a slight note of surprise, as if he hadn’t been expecting to enjoy himself. “I would like to do it again. Soon.”

Okay, here was the awkward part of the evening. She couldn’t encourage him, not with all the complications, but she liked him far too much to turn him down flat. “Sure,” she finally said. “I’m pretty busy right now, between preparing for the new restaurant and wrapping things up at my current job, but sure. It was fun.”

“You’re an intriguing woman, Alexandra McKnight. I don’t meet very many of those.”

She tried to come up with something flippant in response, but before she could make her brain work, he stepped forward, leaned down and kissed her.

It started as just a brush of his mouth against hers, a simple “thanks for a fun night” sort of kiss. She should have let it stand there but he smelled so delicious, like sunshine and warm male, and he kissed with just the right amount of pressure, not too soft, not too hard, and she hadn’t been kissed in forever.

She moved her mouth slightly under his, just a taste, and was vaguely aware of her hands moving to his hard, slim waist. He made a sound low in his throat that seemed to shiver down her nerve endings, one hand tangled in her hair, the other resting on the small of her back, and deepened the kiss.

One minute the kiss was sweet and easy, almost innocent, the next was heat and fire and the hard churn of her heartbeat.

He could build things, he was kind to stray dogs and he was a fantastic kisser, too. Um. Yes. She wanted to grab hold of those big, gorgeous shoulders, shove him into her car and take him home with her....

Something cold pressed against her back—the metal side of her car, she realized, vaguely aware that he had her caged in by all those muscles against her SUV and was kissing her as if his next mission depended on it.

She couldn’t seem to catch her breath and felt as if she’d just leaped off the highest point of the mountain and was soaring, soaring out into space.

Reality intruded in the form of a stray dog, who poked his head out the driver’s side door where they stood, with a curious sniff. At the feel of that nose nudging at her, Alex realized she was wrapped around a man she had only met a few hours ago while heat coursed through her like the propane torch she used to caramelize sugar for crème brȗlée.

“Wow. Okay. Um. Wow.” She drew in a ragged breath and then another one. So much for casual, flirty fun. She couldn’t remember ever igniting so instantaneously, not even back with...

Out of habit, she jerked her mind away from even thinking about the past, from that long-ago girl she had been who had given her heart so freely and so foolishly.

“Yeah. Wow. Funny, that’s just what I was thinking.”

She leaned a hip against the door of her SUV, fighting the urge to step back into his arms and stand here kissing him for a few more hours.

Hadn’t she spent all evening reminding herself of all the reasons why she couldn’t afford this complication with him, no matter how tempting?

She was apparently a weak-willed woman.

“I should go. It’s late and I probably need to get Leo settled in for the night.”

“And I’ve got to be at the work site bright and early in the morning. You never did give me a direct answer. When do you think we can do this again?”

How about now? And then five minutes from now? And then ten minutes after that?

“I didn’t, did I?”

Despising herself for the cowardice, she gave him a quick smile and slid into the driver’s seat of her vehicle then quickly closed the door. Before he could protest or she could do something completely stupid like make another date with him, she yanked the gear shift into Drive and took off, leaving him standing on the sidewalk, looking just as dazed as she felt.

* * *

WITH DESIRE STILL PULSING through him, Sam watched her drive off in a sporty little SUV that probably came in handy during the cold high-mountain winters.

He hadn’t intended anything more than a fast, polite kiss but then she had moved her mouth against his and heat had rushed in on a relentless tide, blasting away any chance he had of hanging on to his sanity or control.

Alexandra McKnight, with her blond curls and those incredible green eyes and that smart, delectable mouth, was a dangerous woman. He couldn’t remember when he had smiled so much in an evening or known this effervescent sense of anticipation and sheer fun.

He shook his head. This was not why he had come to Hope’s Crossing. A relationship was the last thing on his mind as he considered uprooting his son and setting up shop in a new town, away from his entire support system.

The timing couldn’t be worse. He had more than enough on his plate right now, trying to build a new life here.

The two of them stirred up enough sparks to burn down the whole town. Chemistry wasn’t everything, he reminded himself. The trouble was, he genuinely liked her, too. She was funny but not at the expense of other people. She had to be a kind, compassionate woman to pick up a stray dog and take him home with her.

With a sigh, he headed for his pickup truck. He had to tread carefully here. She was obviously well-known in town. The short tour she had taken him on had illustrated clearly that every store in town had some link to her. Sisters, best friends, neighbors. Everyone here was interconnected.

If he started something with the very appealing Alexandra McKnight and it went south, he had a strong suspicion he would automatically be blamed, by default. He was an outsider and in small towns like Hope’s Crossing, people tended to be quick to circle the wagons around one of their own.

He wanted to build a life here, to start a business. How could he hope to do that if he managed to piss off half the town before he even had a chance to settle in?

He would be smarter to take things slow, he decided. Back off, use his head. He would focus on keeping Alexandra happy with the work he did for her and avoid any more intimate evenings that reminded him just how very long he had been alone.

CHAPTER FIVE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sam Delgado was an amazing kisser.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Do you want to come?”

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

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

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

“Caroline? It’s Alex. Are you home?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“You need...to stop doing that.”

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

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

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

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

“True enough.”

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

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

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

Alex had loved her ever since, stubborn independence aside.

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

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