An unlikely attraction brings comfort, joy and unforgettable romance this holiday season!

Librarian Julia Winston is ready to ditch the quiet existence she’s been living. She’s made a list of new things to experience, but falling for Jamie Caine, her sexy military pilot neighbor, isn’t one of them. Julia’s looking to conquer life, not become the heartbreaker’s latest conquest. But when two young brothers wind up in Julia’s care for the holidays, she’ll take any help she can get—even Jamie’s.

Happy to step in, Jamie reveals a side of himself that’s much harder to resist. Not only is he fantastic with kids, he provides the strength Julia needs to tackle her list. She knows their temporary family can’t last beyond the holidays, but the closer she gets to Jamie, the more she wonders if things could be this merry and bright forever...

Praise for New York Times bestselling author RaeAnne Thayne

“Romance, vivid characters and a wonderful story; really, who could ask for more?”

—Debbie Macomber, #1 New York Times bestselling author, on Blackberry Summer

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

—Library Journal on Evergreen Springs (starred review)

“This holiday-steeped romance overflows with family and wintry small-town appeal.”

—Library Journal on Snowfall on Haven Point

“A sometimes heartbreaking tale of love and relationships in a small Colorado town.... Poignant and sweet.”

—Publishers Weekly on Christmas in Snowflake Canyon

“This quirky, funny, warmhearted romance will draw readers in and keep them enthralled to the last romantic page.”

—Library Journal on Christmas in Snowflake Canyon

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

—Fresh Fiction

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

—RT Book Reviews

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

—RT Book Reviews on Riverbend Road

Sugar Pine Trail

RaeAnne Thayne

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For all the wonderful readers who have been asking me for years to write Jamie Caine’s book!

As always, I have legions of people to thank for helping to bring this story to life. I am deeply indebted to my editor, the wonderful Gail Chasan (and her assistant Megan Broderick); to my agent, the indomitable Karen Solem; to Sarah Burningham and her hardworking team at Little Bird Publicity, for tirelessly helping spread the word about my books; and to everyone at Harlequin—from the art department for their stunning covers to the marketing team to everyone in editorial and sales (and anyone else I have neglected to mention!).

I must also thank my hero of a husband and our three children, who have somehow managed to put up with my deadline brain more than fifty times now. I love you dearly.

Finally, this particular book would not have been possible without two amazing, brilliant friends, Susan Mallery and Jill Shalvis. I adore you both and can’t thank you enough for all your help!

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Praise

Title Page

Dedication

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

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

EPILOGUE

Extract

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

THIS WAS GOING to be a disaster.

Julia Winston stood in her front room looking out the lace curtains framing her bay window at the gleaming black SUV parked in her driveway like a sleek, predatory beast.

Her stomach jumped with nerves, and she rubbed suddenly clammy hands down her skirt. Under what crazy moon had she ever thought this might be a good idea? She must have been temporarily out of her head.

Those nerves jumped into overtime when a man stepped out of the vehicle and stood for a moment, looking up at her house.

Jamie Caine.

Tall, lean, hungry.

Gorgeous.

Now the nerves felt more like nausea. What had she done? The moment Eliza Caine called and asked her if her brother-in-law could rent the upstairs apartment of Winston House, she should have told her friend in no uncertain terms that the idea was preposterous. Utterly impossible.

As usual, Julia had been weak and indecisive, and when Eliza told her it was only for six weeks—until January, when the condominium Jamie Caine was buying in a new development along the lake would be finished—she had wavered.

He needed a place to live, and she did need the money. Anyway, it was only for six weeks. Surely she could tolerate having the man living upstairs in her apartment for six weeks—especially since he would be out of town for much of those six weeks, as part of his duties as lead pilot for the Caine Tech company jet fleet.

The reality of it all was just beginning to sink in, though. Jamie Caine, upstairs from her, in all his sexy, masculine glory.

She fanned herself with her hand, wondering if she was having a premature-onset hot flash or if her new furnace could be on the fritz. The temperature in here seemed suddenly off the charts.

How would she tolerate having him here, spending her evenings knowing he was only a few steps away and that she would have to do her best to hide the absolutely ridiculous, truly humiliating crush she had on the man?

This was such a mistake.

Heart pounding, she watched through the frothy curtains as he pulled a long black duffel bag from the back of his SUV and slung it over his shoulder, lifted a laptop case over the other shoulder, then closed the cargo door and headed for the front steps.

A moment later, her old-fashioned musical doorbell echoed through the house. If she hadn’t been so nervous, she might have laughed at the instant reaction of the three cats, previously lounging in various states of boredom around the room. The moment the doorbell rang, Empress and Tabitha both jumped off the sofa as if an electric current had just zipped through it while Audrey Hepburn arched her back and bushed out her tail.

“That’s right, girls. We’ve got company. It’s a man, believe it or not, and he’s moving in upstairs. Get ready.”

The cats sniffed at her with their usual disdainful look. Empress ran in front of her, almost tripping her on the way to answer the door—on purpose, she was quite sure.

With her mother’s cats darting out ahead of her, Julia walked out into what used to be the foyer of the house before she had created the upstairs apartment and now served as an entryway to both residences. She opened the front door, doing her best to ignore the rapid tripping of her heartbeat.

“Hi. You’re Julia, right?”

As his sister-in-law was one of her dearest friends, she and Jamie had met numerous times at various events at Snow Angel Cove and elsewhere, but she didn’t bother reminding him of that. Julia knew she was eminently forgettable. Most of the time, that was just the way she liked it.

“Yes. Hello, Mr. Caine.”

He aimed his high-wattage killer smile at her. “Please. Jamie. Nobody calls me Mr. Caine.”

Julia was grimly aware of her pulse pounding in her ears and a strange hitch in her lungs. Up close, Jamie Caine was, in a word, breathtaking. He was Mr. Darcy, Atticus Finch, Rhett Butler and Tom Cruise in Top Gun, all rolled into one glorious package.

Dark hair, blue eyes, and that utterly charming Caine smile he shared with Aidan, Eliza’s husband, and the other Caine brothers she had met at various events.

“You were expecting me, right?” he said, after an awkward pause. She jolted, suddenly aware she was staring and had left him standing entirely too long on her front step. She was an idiot. “Yes. Of course. Come in. I’m sorry.”

Pull yourself together. He’s just a guy who happens to be gorgeous.

So far she was seriously failing at Landlady 101. She sucked in a breath and summoned her most brisk keep-your-voice-down-please librarian persona.

“As you can see, we will share the entry. Because the home is on the registry of historical buildings, I couldn’t put in an outside entrance to your apartment, as I might have preferred. The house was built in 1880, one of the earliest brick homes on Lake Haven. It was constructed by an ancestor of mine, Sir Robert Winston, who came from a wealthy British family and made his own fortune supplying timber to the railroads. He also invested in one of the first hot springs resorts in the area. The home is Victorian, specifically in the spindled Queen Anne style. It consists of seven bedrooms and four bathrooms. When those bathrooms were added in the 1920s, they provided some of the first indoor plumbing in the region.”

“Interesting,” he said, though his expression indicated he found it anything but.

She was rambling, she realized, as she tended to do when she was nervous.

She cleared her throat and pointed to the doorway where the three cats were lined up like sentinels, watching him with unblinking stares. “Anyway, through those doors is my apartment and yours is upstairs. I have keys to both doors for you along with a packet of information here.”

She glanced toward the ornate marble-top table in the entryway—that her mother claimed once graced the mansion of Leland Stanford on Nob Hill in San Francisco—where she thought she had left the information. Unfortunately, it was bare. “Oh. Where did I put that? I must have left it inside, in my living room. Just a moment.”

The cats weren’t inclined to get out of her way, so she stepped over them, wondering if she came across as eccentric to him as she felt, a spinster librarian living with cats in a crumbling house crammed with antiques, a space much too big for one person.

After a mad scan of the room, she finally found the two keys along with the carefully prepared file folder of instructions atop the mantel, nestled amid her collection of porcelain angels. She had no recollection of moving it there, probably due to her own nervousness at having Jamie Caine moving upstairs.

She swooped it up and hurried back to the entry, where she found two of the cats curled around his leg while Audrey was in his arms, currently being petted by his long, square-tipped fingers.

She stared. The cats had no time or interest in her. She only kept them around because her mother had adored them, and Julia couldn’t bring herself to give away Mariah’s adored pets. Apparently no female—human or feline—was immune to Jamie Caine. She should have expected it.

“Nice cats.”

Julia frowned. “Not usually. They’re standoffish and bad-tempered to most people.”

“I guess I must have the magic touch.”

So the Haven Point rumor mill said about him, anyway. “I guess you do,” she said. “I found your keys and information about the apartment. If you would like, I can show you around upstairs.”

“Lead on.”

He offered a friendly smile, and she told herself that shiver rippling down her spine was only because the entryway was cooler than her rooms.

“This is a lovely house,” he said as he followed her up the staircase. “Have you lived here long?”

“Thirty-two years in February. All my life, in other words.”

Except the first few days, anyway, when she had still been in the Oregon hospital where her parents adopted her, and the three years she had spent at Boise State.

“It’s always been in my family,” she continued. “My father was born here and his father before him.”

She was a Winston only by adoption but claimed her parents’ family trees as her own and respected and admired their ancestors and the elegant home they had built here.

At the second floor landing, she unlocked the apartment that had been hers until she moved down to take care of her mother after Mariah’s first stroke, two years ago. A few years after taking the job at the Haven Point library, she had redecorated the upstairs floor of the house. It had been her way of carving out her own space.

Yes, she was an adult living with her parents. Even as she might have longed for some degree of independence, she couldn’t justify moving out when her mother so desperately needed her help with Julia’s ailing father.

Anyway, she had always figured it wasn’t the same as most young adults who lived in their parents’ apartments. She had an entire self-contained floor to herself. If she wished, she could shop on her own, cook on her own, entertain her friends, all without bothering her parents.

Really, it had been the best of all situations—close enough to help, yet removed enough to live her own life. Then her father died and her mother became frail herself, and Julia had felt obligated to move downstairs to be closer, in case her mother needed her.

Now, as she looked at her once-cherished apartment, she tried to imagine how Jamie Caine would see these rooms, with the graceful reproduction furniture and the pastel wall colors and the soft carpet and curtains.

Oddly, the feminine decorations only served to emphasize how very male Jamie Caine was, in contrast.

She did her best to ignore that unwanted observation.

“This is basically the same floor plan as my rooms below, with three bedrooms, as well as the living room and kitchen,” she explained. “You’ve got an en suite bathroom off the largest bedroom and another one for the other two bedrooms.”

“Wow. That’s a lot of room for one guy.”

“It’s a big house,” she said with a shrug. She had even more room downstairs, factoring in the extra bedroom in one addition and the large south-facing sunroom.

Winston House was entirely too rambling for one single woman and three bad-tempered cats. It had been too big for an older couple and their adopted daughter. It had been too large when it was just her and her mother, after her father died.

The place had basically echoed with emptiness for the better part of a year after her mother’s deteriorating condition had necessitated her move to the nursing home in Shelter Springs. Her mother had hoped to return to the house she had loved, but that never happened, and Mariah Winston died four months ago.

Julia missed her every single day.

“Do you think it will work for you?” she asked.

“It’s more than I need, but should be fine. Eliza told you this is only temporary, right?”

Julia nodded. She was counting on it. Then she could find a nice, quiet, older lady to rent who wouldn’t leave her so nervous.

“She said your apartment lease ran out before your new condo was finished.”

“Yes. The development was supposed to be done two months ago, but the builder has suffered delay after delay. I’ve already extended my lease twice. I didn’t want to push my luck with my previous landlady by asking for a third extension.”

All Jamie had to do was smile at the woman and she likely would have extended his lease again without quibbling. And probably would have given him anything else he wanted, too.

Julia didn’t ask why he chose not to move in to Snow Angel Cove with his brother Aidan and Aidan’s wife, Eliza, and their children. It was none of her business, anyway. The only thing she cared about was the healthy amount he was paying her in rent, which would just about cover the new furnace she had installed a month earlier.

“It was a lucky break for me when Eliza told me you were considering taking on a renter for your upstairs space.”

He aimed that killer smile at her again, and her core muscles trembled from more than just her workout that morning.

If she wasn’t very, very careful, she would end up making a fool of herself over the man.

It took effort, but she fought the urge to return his smile. This was business, she told herself. That’s all. She had something he needed, a place to stay, and he was willing to pay for it. She, in turn, needed funds if she wanted to maintain this house that had been in her family for generations.

“It works out for both of us. You’ve already signed the rental agreement outlining the terms of your tenancy and the rules.”

She held out the information packet. “Here you’ll find all the information you might need, information like internet access, how to work the electronics and the satellite television channels, garbage pickup day and mail delivery. Do you have any other questions?”

Business, she reminded herself, making her voice as no-nonsense and brisk as possible.

“I can’t think of any now, but I’m sure something will come up.”

He smiled again, but she thought perhaps this time his expression was a little more reserved. Maybe he could sense she was uncharmable.

Or so she wanted to tell herself, anyway.

“I would ask that you please wipe your feet when you carry your things in and out, given the snow out there. The stairs are original wood, more than a hundred years old.”

Cripes. She sounded like a prissy spinster librarian.

“I will do that, but I don’t have much to carry in. Since El told me the place is furnished, I put almost everything in storage.” He gestured to the duffel and laptop bag, which he had set inside the doorway. “Besides this, I’ve only got a few more boxes in the car.”

“In that case, here are your keys. The large one goes to the outside door. The smaller one is for your apartment. I keep the outside door locked at all times. You can’t be too careful.”

“True enough.”

She glanced at her watch. “I’m afraid I’ve already gone twenty minutes past my lunch hour and must return to the library. My cell number is written on the front of the packet, in case of emergency.”

“Looks like you’ve covered everything.”

“I think so.” Yes, she was a bit obsessively organized, and she didn’t like surprises. Was anything wrong with that?

“I hope you will be comfortable here,” she said, then tried to soften her stiff tone with a smile that felt every bit as awkward. “Good afternoon.”

“Uh, same to you.”

Her heart was still pounding as she nodded to him and hurried for the stairs, desperate for escape from all that...masculinity.

She rushed back downstairs and into her apartment for her purse, wishing she had time to splash cold water on her face.

However would she get through the next six weeks with him in her house?

* * *

HE WAS NOT looking forward to the next six weeks.

Jamie stood in the corner of the main living space to the apartment he had agreed to rent, sight unseen.

Big mistake.

It was roomy and filled with light, that much was true. But the decor was too...fussy...for a man like him, all carved wood and tufted upholstery and pastel wall colorings.

It wasn’t exactly his scene, more like the kind of place a repressed, uppity librarian might live.

As soon as he thought the words, Jamie frowned at himself. That wasn’t fair. She might not have been overflowing with warmth and welcome, but Julia Winston had been very polite to him—especially since he knew she hadn’t necessarily wanted to rent to him.

This was what happened when he gave his sister-in-law free rein to find him an apartment in the tight local rental market. She had been helping him out since he had been crazy busy the last few weeks flying Caine Tech execs from coast to coast—and all places in between—as they worked on a couple of big mergers.

Eliza had wanted him to stay at her and Aidan’s rambling house by the lake. The place was huge, and they had plenty of room, but while he loved his older brother Aidan and his wife and kids, Jamie preferred his own space. He didn’t much care what that space looked like, especially when it was temporary.

With time running out on his lease extension, he had been relieved when Eliza called him via Skype the week before to tell him she had found him something more than suitable, for a decent rent.

“You’ll love it!” Eliza had beamed. “It’s the entire second floor of a gorgeous old Victorian in that great neighborhood on Snow Blossom Lane, with a simply stunning view of the lake.”

“Sounds good,” he had answered.

“You’ll be upstairs from my friend Julia Winston, and, believe me, you couldn’t ask for a better landlady. She’s sweet and kind and perfectly wonderful. You know Julia, right?”

When he had looked blankly at her and didn’t immediately respond, his niece Maddie had popped her face on to the screen from where she had been apparently listening in off-camera. “You know! She’s the library lady. She tells all the stories!”

“Ah. That Julia,” he said, not bothering to mention to his seven-year-old niece that in more than a year of living in town, he had somehow missed out on story time at the Haven Point library.

He also didn’t mention to Maddie’s mother that he only vaguely remembered Julia Winston. Now that he had seen her again, he understood why. She was the kind of woman who tended to slip into the background—and he had the odd impression that wasn’t accidental.

She wore her brown hair past her shoulders, without much curl or style to it and held back with a simple black band, and she appeared to use little makeup to play up her rather average features.

She did have lovely eyes, he had to admit. Extraordinary, even. They were a stunning blue, almost violet, fringed by naturally long eyelashes.

Her looks didn’t matter, nor did the decor of her house. He would only be here a few weeks, then he would be moving in to his new condo.

She clearly didn’t like him. He frowned, wondering how he might have offended Julia Winston. He barely remembered even meeting the woman, but he must have done something for her to be so cool to him.

A few times during that odd interaction, she had alternated between seeming nervous to be in the same room with him to looking at him with her mouth pursed tightly, as if she had just caught him spreading peanut butter across the pages of War and Peace.

She was entitled to her opinion. Contrary to popular belief, he didn’t need everyone to like him.

His brothers would probably say it was good for him to live upstairs from a woman so clearly immune to his charm.

One thing was clear: he now had one more reason to be eager for his condo to be finished.

CHAPTER TWO

“SERIOUSLY? WE HAVE Book Club in less than four hours, and you’re only now checking out the book we’re supposed to be discussing?”

Samantha Fremont shrugged and swiped at a lock of auburn hair that always seemed to be falling into her eyes.

“I’m sorry, but I was in the middle of a Coco Chanel biography and I couldn’t put it down. Fascinating stuff, that. Anyway, I just need a copy to skim through on my lunch hour. You can tell me what happens, can’t you?”

Julia sighed and handed over a copy of Filling Your Well, the feel-good self-help memoir that had been chosen by this week’s discussion leader, Roxy Nash.

“It’s all about designing your life the way you want it, about taking chances and pursuing your goals,” she said,

“Oh. One of those books.” Sam made a face. “I should have known. Maybe I’ll stay home and watch reruns of Project Runway.”

“You have to come. We had a last-minute venue change, and it’s at my house.”

“Ooh. In that case, I’ll definitely be there. I understand Jamie Caine is living upstairs from you in all his glorious gorgeousness. How is it? Tell me everything!”

Julia rolled her eyes. “He’s lived upstairs from me for all of three hours now, and I’ve been working that entire time. It’s a little premature for me to offer an opinion.”

Samantha was a flirt of the highest order. In that, at least, she and Jamie were perfect for each other, though he was about a decade older.

“If Jamie lived under the same roof with me, I would never want to leave my house.”

Funny. Julia had the opposite reaction. She was wondering if she could bring a few blankets and pillows and camp out on the sofa in her office.

“I mean, think about it,” Sam went on. “He’s going to be showering up there. And sleeping, too, all warm and tousled and cuddly. I wonder if he wears pajamas.”

Julia’s imagination began to drift into dangerous waters, until she yanked it back safely to the shores of reality.

She cleared her throat. “Do you want to check out any other books to go with this one?” she asked, holding out Filling Your Well.

Sam gave a dreamy sigh. “No. This will do. Unless you know any hot romance novels featuring tall, gorgeous pilots.”

Julia could name several off the top of her head, but she had a feeling Samantha was only joking.

“I’ll make you a list and give it to you tonight. Maybe you can pick one for the next time you lead the book group,” she said, knowing perfectly well Sam’s tastes usually ran to celebrity memoirs and the occasional meaty historical drama.

“Perfect. So you said Jamie’s been there three hours. Has he brought any women home yet? Are they gorgeous?”

Oh, cripes. She hadn’t even thought about that.

“Again. I’ve been working here the entire time. I don’t expect I’ll have much reason to talk to the man at all.”

Sam looked disappointed that she didn’t have more dirt to dish up about her new tenant. “I might have to find some kind of excuse tonight to borrow a cup of sugar from your upstairs neighbor.”

“You would probably be disappointed. I’m not sure how many groceries he’ll have on hand. He seemed to be traveling light, just a duffel and a couple of boxes. One of them might have sugar, but I have a feeling baking cookies isn’t his primary goal in life.”

Sam snickered. “From what I hear, that’s an understatement.”

Why, oh why, had she ever said yes to Eliza?

Julia sighed and finished checking out the book for Sam. “Here you go,” she said.

“Thanks, sweetie.”

“Bundle up. It looks nasty out there,” she said, as her friend slipped the book club selection into her slouchy hand-sewn purse.

Sam tightened her scarf and pulled on matching mittens. “The perfect weather for an afternoon of cuddling by the fire with hot cocoa and a certain someone. I don’t have a fireplace or a certain someone right now, so I might have to settle for hot cocoa and the latest episode in the series I’m glomming right now.”

That actually sounded like a lovely afternoon to Julia, if she didn’t have to work.

“Here’s an idea,” she suggested. “You could always actually read the book you just checked out. We don’t meet until eight tonight.”

She would have preferred earlier, but the late meeting was a concession for those who had small children and liked to get bedtime out of the way first.

“Maybe. I’ll have to see. Catch you later tonight. Give Jamie a kiss for me.”

She rolled her eyes as Sam gave a cheery wave and headed out the door.

Sam always made Julia feel ancient. She wasn’t sure why. Yes, she was a few years older than Sam’s twenty-six, but thirty-two didn’t exactly make her a tottering old crone, did it?

Give Jamie a kiss for me. Why did Sam have to put that particular image in her head? The very thought of it left her feeling slightly breathless.

What was she going to do about this ridiculous crush she had on the man?

For the rest of the afternoon, she tried to put thoughts of Jamie out of her mind. It helped that the library was far busier than she expected for the Monday before Thanksgiving. She would have thought everyone in town would be too busy grocery shopping or cleaning their houses for upcoming family parties. Instead, a regular stream of patrons came through, renting videos, seeking reference information, or trying to go online. And plenty of her patrons still checked out books, much to her continual delight.

“Here you go,” she said as she scanned in Muriel Randall’s regular weekly allotment of cozy mysteries. “That should hold you for a few days.”

“I figured I had better stock up. We’ve got snow coming tomorrow, plus you’re closed on Thursday and Friday. I would hate to run out.”

Julia smiled at the neatly dressed older woman whose late husband had once run the butcher shop in town. “What are you doing for Thanksgiving dinner?” she asked.

Muriel slipped the books into her library bag with a smile that looked more than a little forced. “I was supposed to go to my son’s house in Boise, but his wife decided they should go to her family’s again this year. I’ll probably cook a turkey tenderloin and cuddle in with a good book.”

Julia’s throat tightened, both at the lonely image Muriel painted and because it felt entirely too familiar, given her own circumstances. “I’m helping to serve at the nursing home in Shelter Springs this year,” she said. “We can always use another set of hands. Why don’t you join me?”

“What could I do?” Muriel held up her shaky, wrinkled hands. “I’m not much good in the kitchen these days. I’m afraid I would cut myself.”

“There’s plenty to do. You can help set the table or set out water glasses or be the official greeter. I would love to have the company, and I would be happy to give you a ride.”

Muriel looked touched. “Thank you for the invitation. That’s very nice of you. It might be better than sitting home by myself.”

“Is that a yes?”

“It’s a maybe. I’ll think about it,” she said.

She smiled. “Perfect. Unless I hear otherwise, I’ll plan on picking you up about 10:00 a.m. on Thursday.”

“I said I’ll think about it,” Muriel said in an exasperated tone. “Give me five minutes to do that, would you?”

“You can have from now until 10:00 a.m. on Thursday,” Julia said.

The older woman snorted as she picked up her book bag and headed for the door.

After she left, Julia glanced at the clock. The library closed early on Monday nights and only a few patrons remained.

She walked through, reminding those stragglers that the library would be closing in ten minutes. To her surprise, in one of the alcoves in the children’s section, she found two young boys she had seen come in hours earlier after school.

They must be dedicated readers, since she had seen them here Friday and most of the day Saturday, too.

As a librarian, she certainly couldn’t find fault with that, though she did think it a little odd, especially since she hadn’t seen them here very often, prior to the previous weekend.

They looked up when she approached them. “The library is going to be closing in a few moments,” she said, glancing out the window where the gray light of early evening was punctuated by a few stray snow flurries. “Do you have someone coming to pick you up?”

The younger boy opened his mouth to answer, then closed it again with a quick, somewhat nervous look at the older boy. Up close, it was obvious the boys were related. Both had wavy hair the color of rawhide, a scattering of freckles across their respective noses and eyes the same shade of green.

The older boy, who looked to be about eight or nine, placed a hand on his brother’s arm—whether in reassurance or warning, she couldn’t quite tell. “Yes,” he said. “We can get a ride.”

“Good. It’s dark out there and can be dangerous for pedestrians, especially this time of year when the roads are icy.”

“We’ll be fine. Come on, Davy. Let’s put these books away and get our coats on.”

His brother didn’t look thrilled at the order, but he obediently scooped up the large stack of picture books beside him.

“You know you can just put them in the return cart, right?” Julia said. “That way we can make sure they’re reshelved in the right place.”

The younger boy nodded. “If they get all mixed up, people won’t know where to look if they want to read them. That’s what Clinton told me.”

“Clinton is exactly right,” she said. She always admired when children could be respectful of others. “Thank you so much for your help with keeping the library organized.”

She had other duties that occupied her attention for the next few moments, while she prepared to close down the library. Still, she kept an eye out for the boys as they returned books and loaded their belongings into two ragged-looking backpacks.

Who were these boys? She couldn’t remember them ever coming in with a parent or guardian. Come to think of it, she didn’t know if they had ever used a library card that might have an identifying name on it. They never checked out books, only seemed interested in reading storybooks in the library.

There was a time when she knew just about everyone in Haven Point. The town was growing so much these days, with the development of the new Caine Tech facility a few years earlier. New people were moving in all the time, and she found it hard to keep up with them all.

After she checked the library one more time, then turned off the lights and locked the door, Julia hurried outside. Her new matador-red Lexus SUV was the only vehicle in the parking lot, and when she unlocked the door, the intoxicating smell of glossy leather seats greeted her.

The engine purred to life, and she sighed with guilty pleasure. She loved this vehicle, even if it was a big reason her cash flow had slowed enough that she had to rent out the top floor of her house.

As she carefully pulled out of the parking lot, she noticed the two boys passing under a streetlight about a block down the road.

She frowned, troubled for reasons she couldn’t quite identify. They had lied when they said someone was picking them up. Though in retrospect, they hadn’t actually said that. We can call someone to pick us up. That’s what the older boy said, not we will call someone.

She hoped they didn’t have far to walk. Those stray snowflakes on the November wind could bite into bare skin like tiny, vicious arrows.

Where did they live? If the boys came in the next night and again stayed until closing, she would investigate further.

For now, she had to worry about the book club showing up at her house in twenty minutes.

And, of course, the man who suddenly lived upstairs.

* * *

ROXY NASH STOOD in front of the book club and gave a sharp smile that filled Julia with apprehension.

“Tonight I thought it would be fun to try something different,” she said.

“You mean like actually read the book?” Samantha asked in an undertone that made everyone sitting close enough to hear laugh.

“Since the theme of Filling Your Well is wringing every drop of joy out of life while you can, I thought it would be so fun for us to write down some of the things on our own bucket lists. We’re about to head into a new year. What better time for a little self-reflection?”

Beside her, Megan Hamilton groaned. “I already don’t like this,” she muttered.

Julia completely agreed.

“At least the booze is good,” Sam said, taking another sip of the autumn sangria Roxy had so thoughtfully provided for the book club.

Julia had to agree with that sentiment, as well.

“Ask yourself, what am I not happy about?” Roxy said to the room of twenty or so women gathered in Julia’s large living room. “What would I like to change about myself? Remember, this is not about resolutions. This isn’t about saying you want to lose ten pounds, though that might be a worthy goal. I want you to think a little deeper.”

“Fifteen pounds?” Julia murmured, which made Megan laugh.

Roxy didn’t seem to find their side comments amusing. She gave their corner of the room a stern look before she pulled out a stack of papers from a pink file folder.

“To help you out a little, I’ve printed out a form for each of us. At the top, it says, This year I want to... For this exercise, I’d like you to put at least five things on the list, things that have been hovering on the edge of your mind, things you might not even have admitted to yourself you want.”

“I want more sangria. Does that count?” Megan asked, making both Julia and Sam laugh and earning another glare from Roxy, which made Julia wince.

Considering she was the hostess for the gathering, maybe she should be setting a little better example. She dutifully got up to help Roxy pass around the papers, along with pencils from a tin she kept in her kitchen.

When everyone had a paper and a writing instrument, Julia returned to her seat and gazed down at the paper, not sure what to write.

For so long, her goals in life had involved taking care of others. Her parents, her library patrons.

Maksym.

She wasn’t very good at projects like this. Whenever she was forced to take a good, hard look at her life, she rarely liked what she saw.

“Can I put something involving Jamie Caine and his pecs?” Sam asked, tilting her head to look at the ceiling as if he might somehow appear there and wink down at them—and perhaps flex said pectorals.

Julia took another sip of her sangria. The man wasn’t even home, though she didn’t bother telling Sam that. She hadn’t seen his vehicle earlier. When he did get home, he wouldn’t be able to pull into the driveway, as it was filled with the vehicles of her book group friends.

“Really?” Roxy said. “Is that the first thing that comes to mind when you look at what would bring you joy next year?”

“Yes,” Sam said emphatically.

Megan laughed, though Sam’s mother rolled her eyes from across the room.

“What’s wrong with that?” Samantha said. “You specifically wanted us to think about something missing from our lives. I would have to say that is definitely missing from my life.”

“Thanks,” Wynona Emmett said with an eye roll of her own. “Now we’re all thinking about Jamie’s pecs.”

Megan snorted. “Why would you care about that when you have a hot man in uniform waiting for you at home?”

“Yes. Yes, I do.” Wyn said with the sort of self-satisfied smile that made Julia ache with envy.

Once, she thought her life would turn out like Wyn’s, married to a man she loved, with children and a home too small to hold in all her happiness.

Things hadn’t quite turned out that way.

She gazed down at her paper as all the wasted years seemed to march across the empty whiteness.

“You can put whatever you want on your list,” Roxy said. “There’s no right or wrong here. It’s your list. Your dreams. But be honest with yourself. Like we learned in the book, you are the chief architect of your life. No one else. I’ll give you ten minutes to finish this.”

To set the scene, Roxy turned on the music she had brought along, tuned to some kind of new age harp music playing Christmas songs. Julia didn’t find it necessarily very helpful. Between the music and the sangria, now she just wanted to take a nap.

She stared at her paper for a long moment while a hundred thoughts chased themselves around in her brain. The sad truth was, she didn’t have a problem coming up with things missing in her life. The problem was narrowing the list down so she wasn’t writing a novel about it.

She took another sip of her drink and finally wrote the first thing that came to mind.

Drive my new car on the Interstate.

She had owned the Lexus for a month and so far had avoided any highways or freeways that might require her to put the pedal to the metal. That was fine when she was running around town, but it was becoming apparent to her that she was starting to go out of her way to avoid having to travel too fast. What was the point in owning such a fine vehicle, if she was afraid to drive it?

And while she was thinking about speed, another lifelong dream popped into her head, and she wrote it down before she had time to think.

Learn to ski.

She lived in the mountains, for heaven’s sake, where they could have snow upwards of seven months out of the year. How could she have lived to be thirty-two and not ever have tried the area’s most popular winter sport?

“Learn to ski. That’s a good one!” Megan said. “Can I use that one, too?”

Julia fought the urge to cover her paper. “Um, sure. If that’s your dream.”

“One of many, hon. One of many.”

“No peeking at each other’s papers,” Roxy said sternly. “You can share later if you choose, but for now I want you to do this on your own.”

Megan sat back in her chair. “Wow, harsh. Roxy is as bad as Miss Chestnut. Remember her?”

“Oh, yes,” Julia said. Agatha Chestnut had been the librarian in Haven Point for years. She had a dour, pinched face, a beehive hairdo and cat glasses that magnified her eyes about a hundred times. All the children had been terrified of her.

“Okay, you should have written down at least half of your list,” Roxy said.

Julia had exactly two items. She looked down at her list and quickly wrote the next thing that came into her mind.

Fly in an airplane.

How humiliating that she even had to write that one down. She had more than three decades on the planet, for heaven’s sake, and a long list of places she wanted to go.

Her family had taken vacations when she was young, but her father never had much time away from his business, so they usually only traveled places they could drive to in a day.

She had always dreamed of seeing India, China, Paris.

The Ukraine.

She should have gone home with Maksym.

Old, long-familiar regrets haunted her. How different her life might have been if she had followed the instincts of her twenty-one-year-old heart and chosen love over obligation.

If only she had taken a chance, once in her life.

“Okay,” Roxy said. “Only five more minutes. You need to be wrapping things up now.”

Julia gazed down at her mostly blank paper. She wasn’t writing a stupid novel here. No one else needed to see it. She only needed to write down a few of the many things she longed to do. How hard was that?

She took a long, fortifying drink of sangria and wrote quickly, forcing herself not to self-edit.

Try escargot.

Kiss someone special under the mistletoe.

Get a puppy.

That one made her stop. Why didn’t she get a puppy? Her parents had never wanted one when they were alive, but they were gone now. There was nothing really stopping her, was there?

“Okay, one more minute. You’ve got time to add one, maybe two more things to your list.”

All the possibilities crowded through her mind, and she quickly wrote one that seemed bigger than the rest.

Make a difference in someone’s life.

“I know I said we were done, but now I want you to add one more.”

Everyone groaned, but Roxy just gave an evil grin.

“I want you to write the very next thing that comes into your mind. Don’t edit it or run it through any internal filters. Just write it.”

Julia stared at the page, her mind a jumbled mix of the book they had read—of the author’s heated relationship with a hot-blooded Spaniard she met on her journey of self-discovery—all tangled up with memories of Maksym and her own brief time with him, when she had been too young and naive to know herself and what she needed.

She swallowed the last of her sangria and wrote quickly, before she could change her mind.

Have an orgasm, with someone else.

The moment she wrote the words, she wanted to cross them out, but it was too late. Besides, they were written in purple Sharpie. She folded her paper, hoping like hell nobody else saw it.

“Now, wasn’t that fun?” Roxy beamed at them all.

“Sure,” Megan muttered. “Next time, let’s all go get colonoscopies together.”

“Anybody want to share something off her list? Remember, this is a no-judgment zone.”

Barbara Serrano was the first to break the silence. “I want to stay home this Christmas Eve and not have to cook a single thing for anyone.”

“Hear, hear,” Charlene Bailey said enthusiastically. “And I’d like to go on another cruise, one to Alaska this time.”

Everyone seemed inclined to share something on her list. Julia was going to remain quiet and let them have all the fun, but on impulse, when the conversation began to wane, she blurted out the least embarrassing thing on her list.

“I’d like to get a puppy. I’ve always loved dogs, but my parents never wanted one. My mom always had cats and my dad thought dogs were too big of a mess and bother.”

“Oh, you should!” Andie Bailey exclaimed. “We adore our dog.”

“What’s stopping you?” Katrina asked.

Julia shrugged and poured another drink. She wasn’t driving home, so why not?

“I live alone and I work long hours. I don’t have time to give a puppy the attention it deserves—to train it and walk it and play with it. It wouldn’t be fair.”

“Get two puppies,” Eppie Brewer suggested. “That way they can entertain each other.”

And chew up every antique in the house, too.

“I think I’ll stick with one of the other items on my list.”

She would stick to driving her car on the freeway or trying escargot.

Right now, anything more seemed wholly out of reach.

* * *

THE REST OF the book club meeting was much more enjoyable. Roxy—clever girl—brought out more sangria to go with the potluck meal. By the time everyone decided to pick up their lists and go home, Julia realized that for the first time since McKenzie Kilpatrick’s bachelorette party a few years before, she was more than a little tipsy.

The best kind of guests always cleaned up after themselves. And her friends were the absolute best. Julia looked around her gleaming kitchen, touched that she didn’t have hours of dishes ahead of her. The only thing left was to take out the last bag of trash.

She opened the door to her guest bedrooms, where she had contained the cats for the evening so they didn’t bother her company, then picked up the garbage bag and headed out, propping her door behind her.

Outside, a cold November wind blew through her sweater, making her shiver. They were supposed to have a few inches of snow that night, and the air had that funny, expectant, heavy feeling to it.

A black SUV was in her driveway, and she gazed at it for about five seconds, wondering if one of the book club guests might be in the bathroom, before she remembered it belonged to Jamie Caine.

Her tenant was home. Somehow in all the commotion of the party, she had missed his return.

Not that she had been watching for him or anything.

She shivered again, more from the lie she was telling herself this time than from the cold. Of course she had been watching for him. She had a man living in her house, and this was the first night he had spent under the same roof.

How would she possibly make it through the next six weeks?

CHAPTER THREE

HE HAD A VISITOR.

At the third plaintive yowl in as many minutes from the landing outside his new apartment, Jamie set down his book and headed to the door. When he opened it, he found one of Julia Winston’s cats, the same lithe black beauty he had held earlier. She bounded inside to rub against his leg and instantly began to purr.

He chuckled and picked her up, holding her out so he could gaze into her green eyes.

“Hi there. I don’t think you’re supposed to be up here, but maybe you didn’t get the memo.”

She meowed in answer, giving him an unblinking stare.

“Are you looking for something? Did you leave your favorite toy up here?” he asked, stroking her silky fur.

She purred and rubbed her head against his hand, making him smile.

It had been a long time since he’d had much to do with cats. His mother had always loved them, but the succession of big, boisterous dogs he and his brothers and Charlotte were constantly taking home to Winterberry Lane in Hope’s Crossing didn’t always make for the most comfortable environment for its feline occupants.

His poor mother had put up with so much from her brood. As always, he felt a pang when he remembered Margaret Caine, gone too young from cancer.

He petted the cat a few more moments, finding an odd sort of peace in it. He would like to have taken her in, charmed more than he might have expected by the idea of sitting by the gas fireplace in his apartment on a cold night, with a good book and a cat on his lap. He couldn’t just commandeer a cat. His landlady would probably be looking for her.

“You’d better go home,” he said, trying to set the cat down. She yowled in protest and wriggled to stay in his arms.

“Fine. I’ll take you down myself,” he said.

Jamie didn’t bother with shoes as he headed down the steps to the entryway. He was about five or six steps from the bottom when the doorknob to the outside door turned and a moment later, Julia walked inside.

Her hair looked a bit messy, as if tangled by a stiff wind, and she wobbled a little as she pushed the door open. She was humming a song, and it took him a few bars before he recognized the tune. “Blue Christmas.”

She didn’t appear to notice him as she came inside, still humming and looking a little unsteady.

Jamie decided he had to announce himself, since she still didn’t appear to notice him even when he walked the rest of the way down the steps.

“I think I have something of yours.”

She shrieked and jumped a foot into the air, then whirled around with her hands in front of her in a classic martial arts defensive pose.

Whoa. Ninja librarian.

He knew the instant she recognized him. Color soaked her cheeks, and she dropped her hands.

“Oh! You scared the daylights out of me!”

“Sorry about that. I should have announced myself somehow.”

“It’s not your fault. I... I guess I must have been...thinking about something else.”

The words something else came out slightly slurred and as he approached her, he noticed her cheeks seemed a little bit more flushed than he could attribute to a normal blush and her violet eyes looked a little dazed.

Unless he was very much mistaken, his prim, uptight landlady was slightly tipsy, maybe from the gathering that had just broken up down here within the last half hour or so.

He had to admit, he found this soft, flustered version of Julia Winston rather appealing.

“I had a visitor upstairs, and I thought you might be looking for her.”

He held out the cat, who still seemed reluctant to leave his arms.

“Oh. Audrey Hepburn. You rascal.”

He couldn’t hold back his smile. “Your cat’s name is Audrey Hepburn?”

“Not my cat,” she corrected. “My mother’s cat. They’re all my mother’s cats. Yes, her name is Audrey Hepburn. My mother was a big fan of Roman Holiday.”

“Charade is my favorite of her work.”

“Same here!” Her eyes were wide with disbelief, as if she couldn’t fathom the idea that they might share a favorite movie.

It surprised him a little, too. He might have figured her for someone who preferred dry literary movies or the kind of foreign films he couldn’t understand without subtitles. Then again, she was tipsy in her hallway after a wild gathering with friends on a weeknight. Maybe he wasn’t as good a judge of character as he thought.

“Sounds like you were having quite a party earlier.”

“Oh. I’m sorry I didn’t warn you about my book club. I hope we didn’t bother you.”

“It sounded a little raucous for a book club.” He didn’t mention the fact that she seemed a little buzzed.

“We’re not usually this crazy,” she confided. “Roxy Nash brought this really great autumn sangria. It had apples and cinnamon and pears and was so good. We all got a little carried away. I think we might have underestimated slightly the alcohol content. I promise. I don’t have wild book club parties very often.”

“Too bad. Make sure you invite me to the next one. I’d love to see Hazel and Eppie get smashed.”

Much to his shock, her gaze seemed fixed on his smile.

Or his mouth, anyway.

Now what would a prim and proper woman like Julia Winston find so fascinating about his mouth? Did he have something stuck in his teeth?

He gave her a closer look and his interest sharpened. Her lips parted and then she swallowed hard. If he didn’t know better, he would swear that was a little hint of attraction he saw in her eyes.

Who would have guessed?

“You know Hazel and Eppie?” she asked after a long moment.

“Oh, yes. They’re two of my favorite people in Haven Point.”

“Mine, too,” she said, in that same surprised tone. He had the feeling she wasn’t all that thrilled at finding more points of commonality between them.

He decided to quit while he was ahead.

“Anyway, here’s your cat.”

He tried to hand the little beast to Julia, but once more she clung to him and yowled her protest. “Sorry. Apparently she likes me.”

“Of course she does,” Julia muttered darkly. “She likes you and she hates me. They all hate me.”

He heard a little thread of despondency in her voice that troubled him.

“Who all hates you?” He had to ask.

“The cats. My mother’s cats. Audrey hates me the least, I guess. Empress and Tabitha despise me.”

“I’m sure that’s not true,” he answered, with no other idea of what to say in this circumstance.

“It is true. All they do is turn up their noses like they’re too good to even notice me. It’s not fair. I feed them, I house them, I clean up their... Well, you know. You would think they might show a little gratitude.”

“Cats aren’t exactly known to be overflowing in appreciation for others.”

“I know, right? They act like I should be the grateful one that they’re letting me clean up after them. Seriously. It’s so unfair.”

She glared at him, as if the temperament of the entire feline species was his fault. “Look at her. I should have known Audrey would love you. Everything female does.”

What was he supposed to make of that particular statement? Was he supposed to apologize? He also wasn’t quite sure what he should do about his tipsy landlady. He didn’t feel right about leaving her alone in this condition.

On the other hand, he barely knew the woman. For all he knew, maybe she went on a bender every Monday night.

He didn’t think so, though. Julia Winston struck him as someone who rarely let herself unwind.

While he was trying to figure out his best response, she apparently decided she was done talking with him.

“Come on, Audrey. Let’s go.”

She stepped closer, and he caught the scent of apples and pears and cinnamon, with a heady undertone of white wine. As she reached out again to take the cat from him, her hands brushed his chest. Was it his imagination or did they linger there a little longer than strictly necessary as she tried to scoop up the reluctant animal?

That tentative touch combined with the awareness he had seen in her gaze earlier sent heat curling through him.

Seriously? He was starting to be turned on by his half-drunk, stuffy librarian?

Only because it had been way too long since he’d had a woman’s soft, warm hands anywhere on his body, he told himself.

She didn’t look much like a stuffy librarian now, with that soft hair slipping free and her cheeks pink and her little tongue darting out to lick her bottom lip.

Somehow seeing this unexpectedly unbuttoned side of her was more sensual than if she’d shown up at his door wearing sexy lingerie.

The cat still didn’t seem inclined to leave his arms, but between his efforts and Julia’s, they managed to extricate her. Julia set the cat down, and after a moment, the animal sauntered inside, probably to share her evening adventure with the other two cats.

Julia frowned after her.

“Sorry if she bothered you.”

“She didn’t. I like cats.”

“Of course you do,” she said, that grumpy tone in her voice again. She gave a heavy sigh. “Why do you have to be so gorgeous? It’s not fair.”

The inappropriate attraction he heroically had been trying to suppress slithered back as if someone had set a match to a detonating wire.

“It’s not?” he said stupidly.

She shook her head so vigorously that more hair came loose from her messy bun. “No. Can’t you do something about that? I mean, I wouldn’t want you to have a disfiguring accident or something. That would be horrible. A scar, maybe. Something that would make you not quite so...perfect.”

He wasn’t perfect. Far from it.

“Maybe I could develop adult-onset acne,” he suggested.

The scowl disappeared as her eyes widened with approval. “Yes! That would be great.”

He laughed. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“See? You’re so nice. That’s why all the girls like you so much. The girl people and the girl cats.”

He laughed again, more intrigued than he had been by a woman in a long, long time. Maybe living upstairs from the town librarian wouldn’t be such a hardship, after all.

“Thanks for that. Are you going to be okay? I’m not sure I feel right about leaving you alone in your...condition.”

“What’s my condition?” She narrowed her gaze at him like a confused baby owl.

“Sleepy. The best thing for you right now, trust me, is to get some rest.”

As if his words had planted the seed, she yawned suddenly. “I am tired. I guess you’re right.”

“Good night, Ms. Winston.”

“You can call me Julia. If you want to.”

As she stood with her hand on the door and her hair falling loose, she looked vulnerable and alone and a little lost.

He had the odd thought that the two of them just might be kindred spirits.

The moment the idea entered his brain he pushed it violently away. Kindred spirits? He and an uptight, prickly librarian?

How stupid was that?

“You got it, Julia. And I’m Jamie.”

“I know,” she whispered.

He had to get out of here before he did something stupid.

“Good night.”

He started to close the door behind her, but she stuck her foot it in and stood with her face wedged between the door and the frame. “Wait. If we were on a date, you would kiss me.”

Her lips suddenly seemed eminently kissable, plump and pink and delicious looking. What would she do if he pulled the rest of her wayward hair down, buried his hands in it and pressed her back against that door?

She was impaired, he reminded himself.

“Maybe. If you wanted me to.”

“I would,” she whispered.

She was impaired, plus she was a stodgy librarian and totally not his type, he reminded himself. Still, he couldn’t help wondering what it would be like to taste her.

Because she looked so lonely and because he tried to be that nice guy to girl people and girl cats alike, he leaned in and kissed her forehead.

“Good night, Julia. Sleep well.”

She gave a wistful-sounding sigh and closed the door.

Heart pounding far more than it should be, Jamie headed for the stairs.

Julia Winston was trouble.

Who would have guessed? His tight-laced, no-nonsense landlady had a core of passion and heat inside of her. The man who could unleash that would be very lucky, indeed.

He wasn’t that man. He could never be—no matter how hard he might wish otherwise.

CHAPTER FOUR

“HOW ARE YOU holding up, my dear?”

Julia managed a half smile for Barbara Serrano as she scanned her pile of library books into the system.

“I’m here and I’m breathing. That’s something, right?”

Barbara laughed. “That sangria was lethal. Trust Roxy to get us all hammered, right before Thanksgiving. I haven’t had a hangover since my sorority days.”

The very dignified restaurant owner still didn’t appear to have a hair out of place. Lucky.

“I’m doing okay so far. Over the last few hours, my headache has slipped down to this sucks level, which is a big improvement from this morning’s, when I thought I was going to have to borrow a power drill to relieve the pressure in my skull.”

Barbara chuckled. “It was a fun night, though, wasn’t it? I hope we weren’t too loud for your new neighbor.”

At the reminder of Jamie, the vague, unsettling feeling that had been haunting her all day returned with a vengeance.

She couldn’t seem to shake the feeling that something...untoward had happened with him the night before.

She had these odd snippets of memory, and she wasn’t sure if they were real or some fantasy-fueled dream. She could picture him, clear as day, standing on her stairs in his bare feet, holding a cat.

Would she have conjured that up out of her imagination? Possibly. But what about the masculine scent of him, bergamot and cedar with a little hint of cloves? Why did that seem so clear in her memory bank?

Worse than that, somehow the words Jamie and kiss had become intertwined in her mind. That was ridiculous, of course. Wasn’t it?

She hadn’t seen the man the night before. She was almost positive of it. But then, she only had loose recollections of the evening from about her fourth sangria on.

She hoped with all her heart that she was imagining those little flickers of memory. It would have been beyond humiliating if Jamie had seen her in that condition.

“How are your tatted snowflakes coming for the booth at the Lights on the Lake festival?” Barbara asked.

“Fine,” she lied.

The truth was, while she had loved the craft she learned from Mariah—the delicate knots and rings with thread to make lace—lately she had struggled to summon any enthusiasm. Sitting in her huge Victorian with her cats and her tatting made her feel so old and spinsterish.

“Can you believe it’s Thanksgiving in two days and then all the holiday craziness is upon us?” Barbara’s eyes gleamed with an anticipation that made Julia tired.

“Where did the year go?” she asked rhetorically. She knew too well. It went to working, dealing with the house, fixing the furnace, visiting her mother, then arranging her mother’s estate after her death.

“Are you sure you won’t come over for dinner?” Barbara asked when Julia finished checking out her books. “We’ll have a full house and would love one more.”

“Thank you again for the kind offer but I’ll be fine. I’m already signed up to help out at the nursing home. I’m taking Muriel Randall.”

“Oh, that will be good for her.”

The place in Shelter Springs where her mother had spent her last few months had several patrons without families. Julia didn’t love it there but also couldn’t bear the thought that anyone might feel alone.

“Well, I’d better run,” Barbara said after they chatted a bit more. “I would love to finish a few chapters of that new Nora Roberts book before some of our houseguests show up in the morning.”

“Enjoy,” she said.

Julia was busy most of the afternoon with patron questions and checkouts. She answered three phone calls to the reference desk, asking how to thaw a turkey. There would be more the next day, she suspected.

By early evening, her headache had abated, leaving just an echo of throbbing.

She made the rounds to the few groups of teenagers at the study tables to make sure they knew the library would be closing soon. When she rounded a corner of the stacks, she found Davy and Clinton, the boys from the day before, quietly playing a card game at a table.

She hadn’t seen them come in. Perhaps they had entered the library when she had been taking a break.

Both boys looked up with wary expressions when she headed in their direction.

“Hi, Davy. Hi, Clinton. How are you boys this evening?”

Davy gave a dramatic sigh. “I’m hungry, but Clint says he’ll make me another peanut butter sandwich when we have to go home.”

That particular statement disturbed her on several levels. Julia tried to conceal her reaction. Where were their parents? From what she had seen firsthand and from what she had inferred from Davy’s comments, it seemed Clint was doing more parenting than an eight-year-old boy should.

Something was going on here, but she had no idea how to figure out what or how to fix it. She did know Davy was hungry, and she had the means to remedy that.

“You know,” she said casually, “I happen to have a sandwich in the back. It’s turkey instead of peanut butter, but I think you’ll find it quite tasty.”

“Really?” The little boy’s eyes lit up. “I thought we weren’t s’posed to eat in the library.”

“Food isn’t allowed out here in the book stacks, but you’re fine to eat in the back. I do it all the time. Do you know, if we cut the sandwich in half, I think it would be more than enough for two boys.”

She’d had such good intentions that morning when she packed her lunch, but her hangover had been too wicked earlier in the day to tolerate anything solid. She had ended up heating a cup of soup in the microwave.

“Did you hear that, Clint? Miss Winston has a sandwich she said we could eat!”

While the younger boy looked thrilled, his brother’s reluctance showed through. He shook his head with a stubborn look. “No. We’d better not. Thanks anyway, Miss Winston.”

“Nonsense,” she said in a brisk tone. “You’re hungry, and I have an extra sandwich that will only go to waste if you don’t help me out by eating it. Think of it this way—you would be doing me a favor.”

Davy looked at his brother. “Mom said we’re supposed to help other people out when we can, especially this time of year. Remember? Miss Winston needs someone to help her eat her sandwich.”

Clinton didn’t look particularly convinced by that argument, but after a moment he shrugged. “I guess it would be okay. As long as we’re helping you.”

She smiled, touched beyond words that these two boys in their threadbare coats were concerned about helping others—but she was also undeniably troubled. She admired their mother’s sentiment about helping people out, but where was the woman? And why was she allowing her young boys to go hungry?

“Why don’t you both come to the back with me, and I’ll find the sandwich for you? There might be a cookie or two in my desk, as well.”

They stuffed their belongings back into their backpacks and followed her through the door that read Library Staff Only, to the inner workings of the library. Three doors down, she led them to the small room her staff used for breaks.

“Sit down and I’ll find the sandwich for you.”

From the refrigerator she pulled out her favorite reusable lunch bag with the pink and purple flowers and pulled out the sandwich. It was an easy matter to cut it in two and set it on paper plates for the boys.

“Look at this. There are chips and carrots here, as well as a brownie.”

She had been looking forward to that brownie, a leftover from last night’s book club, but she would willingly sacrifice to these two little boys, who inhaled the sandwich as if it were the best thing they had ever eaten.

Once she set the bounty in front of them, Julia took a chair at the table and sipped at the water bottle that hadn’t left her side all day. Hydration was one of the best cures for a hangover, she had read online that morning through the blur of her headache. It hadn’t worked yet, but she could still hope.

“I bet your mom fixes you nice lunches for school, doesn’t she?”

Davy looked at his brother, then quickly back down at his plate. Neither boy answered her. They simply shrugged. Obviously this was a sore spot.

“What about your dad?”

“Our dad died,” Clint said, his voice flat. “He was in the army, and he got shot three years ago.”

Emotions clogged her throat at the no-nonsense tone. “Oh, no. I’m so sorry.”

“I was only three,” Davy informed her. “I don’t even remember him much. Clint was five, though.”

They couldn’t have been from Hope’s Crossing or even Shelter Springs. She would have heard about a soldier from the area being killed in the line of duty. And why were the sons of a dead soldier wearing such ragged coats and eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches?

“That must have been very hard for you and for your mother.”

“It was,” Clinton said. “Our mom was in the army too, but she came home right away. She cried a lot. We were living with our Aunt Suzi then.”

“Are you going to your Aunt Suzi’s house for Thanksgiving?” she asked, trying to probe for answers as subtly as possible without it sounding like a blatant interrogation.

Clinton gave her an exasperated look. “That’s all the way by Disneyland! That’s too far. And she’s not there anyway.”

“That’s in California,” Davy informed her. “It’s warm there all the time—not like here, where our house is cold all the time.”

Clinton poked his brother, giving him a shushing sort of look that Julia pretended not to see.

“California does have beautiful weather. That’s true. Why did you move away?”

“Our mom got a new job here, but then she got sick and had to quit,” Davy said.

It was obvious Clinton thought his brother had said too much. He set down his napkin and slid away from the table. “We should probably go now. Our mom will be wondering where we are.”

“Really?” Davy said.

“Yes,” Clint said with a meaningful look. “Thank you for the sandwich, Miss Winston. It was very good.”

“You’re welcome.”

Julia was at a loss as to what to do next. Did she tell the boys she suspected something wasn’t quite right with them? That she wanted to have a talk with their mother to find out a little more about their situation, but she had no idea where they even lived?

The boys hadn’t left a scrap, Julia realized. They had all but licked the plates clean, poor things.

She was suddenly ashamed of herself. She had so very much—good friends, a job she loved, a beautiful home that kept her warm in the winter.

At this time of Thanksgiving, she realized again how very blessed she was. In the four months since her mother died, how much time had she wasted feeling sorry for herself?

What about the years and years before that?

The three of them walked out of the library offices together and out into the stacks. Very few patrons remained.

“I guess I’ll see you later, then.”

“We’ll probably be here tomorrow since we don’t have school,” Davy said.

Why? She loved libraries as much as the next person. More, probably. Still, what kid with free time would choose to spend every moment of it in one?

“You know the library closes early tomorrow, right?”

Clint and Davy looked shocked and rather glum to learn this.

“What time does it open?” Clinton asked, brow furrowed.

“We’ll be open from ten to three.”

“That’s not too bad, I guess. Come on, Davy. Let’s go.”

Before they walked outside, Clint stopped to zip up his younger brother’s coat and tug down his beanie. It was those small, loving gestures that compelled her to action.

The wind was howling fiercely, and snowflakes swirled around the pair. She couldn’t possibly let them walk home in those conditions.

She hurried over to the clerk behind the circulation desk. “Mack, do you think you can close up by yourself? I need to run a little errand.”

“Sure thing.” Mack Porter gave her a wide smile. “It’s only twenty minutes, and I don’t think too many more people will be showing up tonight. It’s getting ugly out there. Be safe.”

All the more reason she wanted to follow those boys. “Thanks. Have a great night.”

“Same to you, my dear.”

It took her three minutes to grab her coat and purse from her office, shut down her computer, lock her office door and hurry to her Lexus. Had she missed them? She scanned the direction she had seen them take the night before, fretting until she found them about a block away, walking along the lakefront road.

A cold wind blew off the water, harsh and mean, biting through her clothing with merciless teeth and hurling tiny ice pellets into her skin. She started up her SUV, spent another minute or two brushing off the new snow, then drove out of the parking lot and along the mostly empty road toward them.

She passed them and pulled off to the side of the road just ahead of them. After opening her door, she turned to face them. She had to raise her voice several decibels to be heard over the howling wind. “Let me give you a ride.”

“We can walk,” Clint said, that steely stubbornness she had noticed before coming through loud and clear.

“Y-y-y-es. We’re f-f-fine,” Davy said. His thin coat wasn’t nearly enough protection to fight off that wind.

“Please. Let me give you a ride. Where do you live?”

They had reached her vehicle now, trudging through ankle-deep snow. “Can we, Clint?” Davy asked. “My feet are freezing, and we hardly made it a block.”

The older boy looked undecided, glancing first at her vehicle, then at her, then at the road ahead of them.

His mouth pursed as he tried to figure out what to do. She gave him another push in the direction she hoped he would take.

“Come on. Get in.”

“We’re not supposed to take rides from strangers,” he finally said, though she could hear the clear reluctance in his voice. “Come on, Davy. The faster we go, the faster we’ll be home.”

They took a few more steps past her vehicle. Davy looked miserable, his nose red and his chin tucked into his chest as he fought to make his way through the cold.

“I’m not a stranger. I’m the librarian. You see me every day when you come to my library,” she pointed out.

“She’s right,” Davy said.

“It’s not safe for you boys to be out here. The roads are icy, and drivers can’t see you very well through the blowing snow, especially now that it’s dark. Please get in.”

He still looked reluctant, so she tried one more card, playing a hunch. “Would you feel better if I call my friend, Chief Emmett, to give you a ride home in his police car?”

In the glow from her open door, she saw a flash of fear in his eyes. Julia felt bad for putting it there, but not if it meant the older boy would let her give them a ride home.

“We can take a ride, I guess,” he finally said.

She made sure they were buckled safely in the backseat of her vehicle before she pulled slowly onto the road.

“Where am I going?”

“Five-fifty Sulfur Hollow Road,” Davy said promptly.

Traffic was basically nonexistent as she drove with care to their house. The roads were slick enough that she couldn’t go fast. Her hands were tight and clammy on the steering wheel by the time they made it to the address they provided.

The sight of the small, thin-walled house was not reassuring.

“Here we are. The lights are off. Where did you say your mom was?”

“She’s home, I bet,” Clint said. “She’s probably sleeping. She works at night sometimes.”

“Oh? I thought you said she lost her job. Did she get another one? Where does she work? And who stays with the two of you when she’s working?”

He mumbled something she couldn’t hear, unhooked his own seat belt, then his brother’s and then practically jumped out of the vehicle, tugging Davy out after him.

“Thanks for the ride. We have to go. Bye, Miss Winston.”

“Bye,” Davy said. He beamed at her. “Thanks for the sandwich and the brownie. You’re a good cook.”

“Um. Thanks.”

The boys hurried up the walk. Clint pulled a key out of his coat pocket, and before she knew it, they had yanked open the door and rushed inside.

Julia stood for a moment, watching a pale light go on inside.

Dropping them off at home had done nothing to ease her concerns. If anything, seeing the small, dingy house gave her fresh reason for concern.

She was trying to manufacture some plausible reason to go to the door when she suddenly spied something red on the backseat that hadn’t been there before the boys climbed inside.

One of Davy’s ragged mittens.

Had he left it there on purpose? She couldn’t be sure, but returning it to its rightful owner seemed exactly the excuse she needed.

Apprehension settled in her stomach as she made her way through unshoveled snow to the sidewalk. She had no idea what she would encounter on the other side. Was their mother a gorgon? Maybe she was ill, and the boys were staying at the library until all hours to give her some peace and quiet.

She had to know.

She knocked, clutching the collar of her coat closed to keep out the vicious wind.

A moment later, Clint opened the door, his expression pinched and wary. He hadn’t yet taken off his coat, she noticed—probably because the air inside the small house felt every bit as cold as the outside air here on the porch.

“Davy left one of his mittens in my car.” She held it out.

“Oh. Thanks. Bye.” He grabbed it from her and started to shove the door closed, but she pulled the old trick of shoving her boot in it before he could, and pushed her way inside.

The house was lit by only a bare bulb here in the hallway. It was clean, but there was a palpable air of neglect.

She saw a space heater in one corner and a couple of sleeping bags neatly rolled up nearby. Were the boys sleeping in here with the space heater?

She could hear no sign of their mother, or, indeed, any adult.

“Clint. I need to talk to your mom. Is she here?”

He opened his mouth, then closed it again. “No. She must be working.”

“Where does she work? Can you give me her work phone number?”

He said nothing and she tried again.

“Does she have a cell phone number I could call?” she asked.

“You could try, but she’s not answering.”

His voice broke on the last word, but he clamped his mouth together tightly, as if afraid that once he started talking, he wouldn’t be able to stop.

Something terrible was going on here. She still didn’t know what, but she suddenly knew she couldn’t stop until she found out.

She uttered a fervent prayer that she could figure out the best way to reach him. Somehow she sensed he would respond better if she were on his level, so she knelt down and took one of his cold hands in hers.

“Clinton,” she said softly. “How long since you’ve seen your mother?”

He hitched in a ragged breath, eyes wide. She could see he didn’t want to answer her, but his fingers curled in hers, and she saw all his bravado begin to crumble. Tears welled up in his eyes, and one trickled down the side of his nose.

“Friday. She had a doctor’s appointment at the army hospital place in Boise, and she...she didn’t come back. And the furnace is out, and I don’t know how to make it work, and I tried to start a fire, but I couldn’t do that either. It’s cold everywhere except in here with the space heater.”

“You said she’s not answering her phone?”

He shook his head. “I tried and tried and tried to call her, but she didn’t answer. I didn’t know what to do so I just took care of Davy the best I could, and we spent the days at school and the library, where it was warm and safe.”

“Oh, honey.”

Four days they had been on their own. She couldn’t imagine what he had been going through. He was only eight years old, far too young for that kind of responsibility.

He sniffled again, and it was too much. Heart breaking, she held out her arms. “Come here. Come here.”

He sagged against her, as if sharing the burden he had been carrying had left him boneless and exhausted.

“Please, don’t call the cops. If you do, we’ll go to foster care, and they’ll split us up.”

“I have to call someone, honey. Children aren’t supposed to be left alone for days at a time.”

“Please, don’t. Just go.” He slid away from her and stood looking fearful and impossibly young.

“I can’t do that,” she said softly. “You know I can’t. You need help, and I have a good friend whose job is to help children in just this kind of situation. I’m going to call her, and she’ll fix things.”

He didn’t look convinced as she hit her speed dial for Wynona Emmett, who used to be a police officer but was now a social worker with the state child welfare agency.

As she waited for Wyn to answer, Julia had the uncomfortable realization that an hour ago, her biggest problem was a lingering hangover and the stupid crush she had on the neighbor upstairs.

CHAPTER FIVE

“WHAT’S GOING TO happen to them?” Through the kitchen doorway, Julia eyed the two little boys sitting side by side on the tattered, raggedy sofa.

Since the moment Wynona Emmett showed up, Clinton had been visibly—and audibly—upset, full of accusations and pleas for them to go away. Davy mostly seemed confused, though he took his cues from his brother and sniffed every once in a while.

Julia felt horrible about the whole situation. Maybe she shouldn’t have gotten involved, should have simply looked the other way.

How could she have, though? Any person with an ounce of compassion would have done the same thing she had, called in the state’s department of child welfare. If ever two children’s welfare needed looking after, it was Clint’s and Davy’s.

The boys couldn’t stay here in this cold, cheerless house. Their mother was nowhere in evidence, and it looked as if they hadn’t had a decent meal in days.

“I don’t know what will happen to them,” Wynona admitted. Her eyes were soft with compassion as she looked through the doorway at the boys. “They’ll go into foster care, definitely, probably a short-term facility in Boise for now, until we can find a longer-term placement.”

“So they’ll have to leave their friends and their teachers? While we were waiting for you, Clinton was so pleased to tell me about how well he’s doing in school.”

“I wish I could find something closer to Haven Point. Believe me, there’s nothing I would love more. It would be better, all the way around. But local foster families are in short supply, especially this time of year when the need outpaces the available resources. There is a chance I could place one of them in the area, but not both.”

Out in the living room, Clint put an arm around his brother, who had started to sob—whether from fear or exhaustion, she didn’t know.

“You’ll have to split them up?”

“Most likely,” Wyn admitted. Julia could tell she wasn’t any happier about that idea than Julia. Wyn’s expression plainly conveyed her frustration with the situation.

“Any idea where the mother might be?”

“We’ve put out a BOLO on her. Be on the lookout. Sorry. I forget not everybody knows cop-speak.”

“I watch TV occasionally,” Julia said. “I know what a BOLO means.”

“She never showed up for her appointment at the VA. We’ve been able to figure that much out.”

Wyn gave a careful look toward the boys, then turned her body away and spoke in a low voice. “I really hope we can locate her. Her counselor at the VA couldn’t tell us much because of privacy laws. Reading between the lines, though, it sounds like Mikaela Slater has been struggling the last few weeks.”

“Oh, I hope she’s okay. They’ve already lost their father. I hate thinking they might lose their mother, too. What about extended family? Clint told me the boys lived with an aunt and uncle while their parents were both deployed.”

“It might take us some time to track them down. Clinton says they’re working in a country that starts with an A or an I. He couldn’t remember which one. That doesn’t narrow it down much.”

In the other room, Davy sobbed, and Clint patted his back and said something to him.

Julia’s distress must have shown on her features. Wyn reached out and squeezed her arm. “You did the right thing, honey. You know you had no choice. I’ll see the boys find a good placement.”

“You’ll let me know what happens?”

“Absolutely. I won’t know anything definite until tomorrow anyway. Tonight they’ll go to the temporary facility in Shelter Springs, where they’ll be well taken care of, I promise.”

“Thank you.”

Wyn squeezed her arm again, and Julia recognized the gesture as one of both comfort and dismissal. Wyn had more important things to do than allay her concerns.

Feeling helpless and superfluous, Julia walked out into the living room to say goodbye to the boys.

Before she could open her mouth, Clinton threw her a look of deep mistrust.

“This is your fault,” he said, voice vibrating with anger and his eyes dark with betrayal. “We should never have let you give us a ride. No, we shouldn’t have gone to the library in the first place.”

“Oh, honey. I’m sorry.”

“We were doing just fine. I heard what the lady said. Now they’re probably going to split us up.”

“I’m sorry,” she said again. The words seemed wholly inadequate.

“We thought you were our friend, but you’re not. You’re just a big...poopie,” Davy cried. That was probably the worst word he could come up with. Right now, it felt pretty accurate.

“Just go,” Clint said.

Julia wanted to gather both boys close to offer what little comfort she could, but she knew they wouldn’t welcome the gesture right now.

Oh, she hoped Wyn was able to find their mother—and soon. She couldn’t bear considering the alternative.

Her heart felt as cold and heavy as the wind blowing through Sulfur Hollow as she walked out to her car.

* * *

ALL HE WANTED was a lousy shower. Was that too much to ask?

Jamie knocked hard again on his landlady’s door, willing her to answer, even though all the evidence indicated the woman wasn’t home.

He had made two trips to California that day, transporting Caine Tech employees who had family there home for Thanksgiving. The last one had been through a vicious storm.

Okay, he wanted a shower and a beer, maybe, and his nice, warm bed.

He knocked one more time, though he already knew it was futile. Inside, he could hear a couple of cats meowing at him, but no approaching footsteps.

She wasn’t home, which meant he wouldn’t have hot water.

Okay. No hot shower. He could either suck it up and have a cold one or heat up some water in the microwave so he could at least wash up.

He had been deployed to the Middle East twice. He had survived much worse conditions.

He turned away from the door and was about to head up the stairs to his apartment when he noticed headlights pulling into the driveway and into the detached garage on the property.

A moment later, the front door opened, and Julia Winston walked in, moving slowly, as if her bones weighed more than she could support. Something was wrong. He wasn’t sure how he could be so confident when he barely knew the woman, but he knew it at a glance.

Surprise flickered in those hauntingly lovely eyes when she spotted him. He saw a quick flash of something that looked suspiciously like dismay.

Was she thinking about the night before, about those heated few moments?

You’re so nice. That’s why all the girls like you so much.

He had been thinking about her all day. He had done his best to push those thoughts away, but it hadn’t worked very well.

At random moments, he would remember those beautiful eyes of hers and the tousled bedroom hair and the way her tongue had darted out to lick at her plump bottom lip.

Now those same lips tightened. “Oh. Hello. I’m sorry. You’re looking for me. Have you been waiting long?”

“A few minutes.”

He immediately wanted to demand she tell him what had upset her but that would probably sound ridiculous.

“I was...held up after work. Did you need something?”

Yes. For you to tell me what’s wrong. He couldn’t say that, of course.

His real reason for knocking on her door seemed silly, and suddenly he didn’t want to burden her with one more thing. It was obvious she had greater worries than his hot water—or, more specifically, the lack thereof.

Without telling her the truth, though, he couldn’t think of a good excuse for standing outside her door.

He sighed. “It’s not a big deal, and I hate to bother you with it. I don’t have any hot water. I was heading into the shower and ran it for about ten minutes, and the temperature seemed to only get colder.”

“Oh.” She looked totally defeated, as if all color and light had leached away from her world.

“I’m sure it’s something simple. Do you mind if I take a look at your water heater? I might be able to figure it out.”

“I...no. Of course not.”

“Is it inside your apartment or...” He let his voice trail off.

“Oh. Yes. You want to go inside.” She unlocked the door and pushed it open. “I’m sorry. It’s been a...long day.”

She unlocked the door and pushed it open. Immediately, a trio of cats rushed past her to greet Jamie.

She didn’t blink at that, as if their defection was all she deserved.

Inside her house, he had the same impression as the other night, one of fussy tidiness. Some instinct told him the decor on this floor of the house wasn’t the real her, that she was only maintaining the antiques and collectibles out of obligation. She would fit much better among the delicate, feminine furnishings upstairs.

Saying nothing, she led him through the living area to her kitchen, where she opened a door and flipped on a light. Stone steps led the way down to a large stone basement that had likely once been the root cellar of the house. Now, as Julia led the way down the stairs, he discovered a furnace and water heater that both looked new.

He looked around the space. “This is quite a cellar.”

“I know. I hated coming down here when I was a girl. I’m still not that crazy about it, if you want the truth. I avoid it as much as possible.”

As soon as she spoke the words, she looked as if she wanted to take them back, as if she hated revealing a weakness about herself.

He wanted to tell her he found it charming. It also made him wonder what she had been like as a little girl, all gorgeous, serious eyes and long, dark braids. He didn’t know how he knew she had braids, but he could picture them, clear as day.

“The water heater shouldn’t be having trouble. It’s brand-new and still under warranty,” she said. “I had it installed when the furnace went out this fall.”

“Let me just take a look.”

He didn’t know much about water heaters, but he figured if he could fix some of the tricky mechanical problems of his airplanes, he should be able to figure this out.

He tinkered for a moment and quickly realized the pilot light had gone out on the water heater.

After trying the regulator on the pilot a few times with no success, he sought an alternative.

“Got a match?” he asked.

“Not on me,” she answered with a rueful look. “But my father always kept some down here to light the pilot on our old furnace.”

She went to a shelf along the wall that still held dusty preserves. After rooting around a moment, she pulled out a box of long matches. “I can’t guarantee they’ll still light,” she said. “My dad’s been gone three years now.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. His pop was still going strong. Jamie hated thinking of a world that didn’t have Dermot Caine in it.

“Thank you. He was a good man, even toward the end. Some people with Alzheimer’s get mean, but my father was always the sweetest, most gentle man.”

Alzheimer’s. That was tough. He knew how heartbreaking that damn disease could be.

Her mother had recently died, he remembered. Eliza had mentioned her mother had spent her last few months in a nursing home after a series of strokes, which meant she had been through more than her share. Eliza had also told him Julia was an only child. That must have been a heavy load to carry alone.

He couldn’t fix that for her, but at least could get the hot water going again. Turning his attention to the task at hand, Jamie adjusted the gas to the pilot light and quickly lit a match to it. The light ignited with a whoosh that made her gasp a little and step back.

When it appeared the water heater was working correctly, Jamie stood up. “That should do it. My shower should be hot in no time.”

“If you have more trouble, let me know, and I’ll call the company in Shelter Springs that installed it.”

“You got it.”

“Thank you for fixing it. I wouldn’t have known the first thing to do.”

“I didn’t do anything except check the pilot light,” he said.

“My mother always called a neighbor every time something went wrong. I’m trying to be a little more...independent. Obviously I have a long way to go.”

She mustered a smile, but her eyes still looked haunted. Something was wrong, he thought again. He had a feeling it had nothing to do with her parents.

“There’s nothing to lighting a pilot light. See that regulator valve? Just turn that to pilot and hold it down for about a minute. If it doesn’t light, you can use a long-handled lighter or match. Just keep your eyebrows out of the way. If you’re fond of them and want to keep them, anyway.”

That teased a little smile out of her, but it slid away quickly.

“After it’s lit, you have to hold down the valve to heat the thermocouple for about a minute, then release it and you should be good to go.”

“I’ll probably just end up calling the neighbor, but thanks for the explanation. I guess that’s it, then. Enjoy your shower.”

The big tank wouldn’t have enough hot water for a shower for hours yet, but he didn’t tell her that. “Thanks.”

He replaced the door on the control panel, then the two of them headed back up the stairs.

When they were once more in her kitchen, he couldn’t ignore the bleak sadness in her eyes any longer. “Is something wrong? Besides the hot water heater, I mean?”

Her eyes widened with surprise. “I don’t...why would you ask that?”

“You seem troubled.”

He wanted to tell her she appeared very different from the soft, appealing, tipsy woman she had been the night before. That hardly seemed appropriate, though, so he held his tongue.

“I’m fine, Mr. Caine. It’s been a very long and difficult day, and the only things on my mind are my comfy pajamas, a cup of tea and a good book.”

He had no right whatsoever to push her to tell him what was wrong, as much as he might want to.

“I understand,” he finally said. The truth was, if he switched the pajamas for sweats and the tea for a beer, his evening would be just about the same.

“Good night, Mr. Caine,” she said woodenly.

What happened to Jamie? he wondered, as he let himself out and headed back up the stairs. Did she remember that she had asked him to call her Julia?

He had to admit, he liked the sweetly soused woman he had met in the entryway the night before much better than this forlorn version. He would even prefer the stiff, prickly librarian she had been when she showed him around the apartment.

CHAPTER SIX

SHOULD SHE OR shouldn’t she?

Julia gazed at her cell phone as she gnawed her lip in indecision. She had already called Wyn four times that day and ended up with her friend’s voice mail each time. Phoning her yet again might be verging on harassment.

She had to know, though. What was going on with Davy and Clinton? Had Wyn found a foster care placement for them? Where? Would they have to spend Thanksgiving in a cheerless facility somewhere?

These questions had haunted her all night long. As exhausted as she’d been the night before, she expected that once she slipped into those comfy pajamas she had mentioned to Jamie Caine and finished her chamomile tea, she would be out like a light. Instead, she had paced and worried and paced some more, under the watchful eyes of three sulky cats.

It hadn’t helped when she finally heard the shower upstairs start up. Her stupid imagination wandered in dangerous waters, and she couldn’t seem to stop thinking about him up there, all wet skin and hard muscles...

She owed the man an apology.

Jamie had offered her only kindness, fixing the water heater and showing concern and asking if something was wrong. In return, she had been stiff and cold, as dismissive as her cats to his efforts at kindness.

What was it about the man that left her feeling so completely flustered? She could carry on casual conversations with her library patrons all day. Strangers, friends, children, senior citizens. But around Jamie, she couldn’t seem to string two coherent sentences together. She was awkward and tongue-tied.

His easygoing manner should have helped her feel more comfortable around him. Instead, it seemed to have the opposite effect, heightening her awareness of him and her own ridiculous crush on the man, until she couldn’t seem to think about anything else.

She wasn’t sure why she found it so surprising that he could be full of charm. Every woman in Haven Point was enamored with Jamie. To draw that sort of adoration, he had to possess more than simply good looks.

She found him entirely too appealing—but right now her crush on her upstairs tenant was the least of her worries.

Julia pulled out her phone again, staring at Wynona’s contact info. She would call one more time, she decided, then stop hounding her friend.

This time, the phone rang only twice before the call was answered.

“Julia!” Wyn sounded breathless and harried. “I’m so sorry I haven’t returned your calls. I’ve been in meetings all morning long.”

Julia could feel her cheeks turn pink, and she shifted in her chair. She should have waited for Wynona to call her back instead of hounding her. “I’m sorry to be a pain. I’ve been so worried about the boys. How is everything going? Did you locate their mother? Have you found a good placement for them?”

A long pause met her question, and she knew the answer even before Wynona replied.

“That’s one of the reasons I haven’t had time to return your call. I’ve been in contact with different agencies all across the southern half of the state. So far we’ve had no luck locating the mother. Everyone is out there looking. Meanwhile, I’m doing all I can to find an in-home placement for the boys, at least for Thanksgiving. Even the various group facilities are packed. I’ve found two available foster homes, one in Pocatello and one in Burley. Unfortunately, they can each only take one boy.”

“You have to separate them.”

Wynona’s sigh clearly conveyed her frustration. “I know it’s not ideal. It’s not my preference either, but I don’t have other options right now. I’m sorry. This is the best I can do.”

“You can’t split them up,” Julia declared. “They need to be together. They’re so close. The bond between them is remarkable. You’ve seen them together. Clinton is so worried about his little brother, and Davy tries his best to watch out for his brother in return.”

“You’re right. They’re sweet together. It’s impressive, especially given the chaos they’ve been through the last few years. Their father’s death, their mother’s PTSD, moving here away from family. I think all that hardship has only made them closer.”

“Then why would you even consider splitting them up and potentially risk compromising that bond?”

Wyn sighed again. “It’s not up to me, honey. Nobody’s made me queen of the world yet, darn it. I’m doing the best I can. I don’t want to split them up either, but separate home placements are really more beneficial than a temporary, overcrowded facility in every way. Trust me on that. Those facilities are usually packed with children who are hard to place for a reason. Usually they’re much older and more world-wise. Under those circumstances, separate home placements would be better in the long run for two young boys.”

Her heart hurt when she tried to picture the two boys being driven away in separate directions. Those poor kids had been through so much already. This seemed more than they should be asked to endure.

“Isn’t there anything we can do?”

“I wish I had a better answer for you,” Wyn said softly. “I’ve been racking my brain all morning.”

The completely preposterous idea that had come to her in the night—the real reason she hadn’t been able to sleep—suddenly didn’t seem as impossible as it had at 3:00 a.m.

“What if I took them?”

The words slipped out before she could think better of saying them, and she instantly wanted to snatch them back. She couldn’t take two little boys. The idea was mad.

Wyn must have agreed. For a long, painful moment, her friend said nothing. The silence dragged on so long, Julia wondered for a moment if the connection had been lost.

The social worker probably had been so shocked, she dropped her phone in her coffee.

“You?” Wyn finally said.

“I know it’s not practical. I’m not a certified foster parent or anything. But these are unique circumstances. These boys lost their father, who gave his life serving our country. We have an obligation to take care of them, don’t we? Surely this case merits an exception to the rules.”

She gripped the phone tighter. She was out of her mind. She had to be. This made no sense, yet here she was arguing her cause like a seasoned attorney. “I have a huge house with plenty of room. I can provide a safe, warm, comfortable place for them to stay for a few weeks, where they can continue on with their friends and school, until you can find something more permanent.”

“It definitely is an intriguing idea, one I hadn’t even considered. Are you sure about this, Julia?”

Far from it. She hadn’t been less sure about anything in a long time. But she couldn’t shake the sense of obligation she felt for those two lost little boys. She wasn’t responsible for their predicament; she was only the one who had discovered and reported it. She understood that intellectually, but she couldn’t shake the image of Clint the night before.

This is your fault, he had snarled, accusation in his eyes and his fists balled.

It wasn’t. She knew that. Like it or not, though, she had a connection to them now. Besides, they were alone in the world right now, something she understood too well.

“I wouldn’t have suggested it if I didn’t mean it,” she said briskly. “I have the room and I want to help. I’m involved in this and have been since they started using my library as their safe haven. I don’t feel right about standing by and doing nothing while they are split up, especially if I have the ability to help. No matter how good the separate placements might be, I feel strongly that these boys need each other.”

“These are two young boys who have already had a rough time. It’s not like taking on a couple of stray puppies.”

“I understand.”

“I hope you do. I can’t even guarantee how long it might take until we can find the mother or the uncle and aunt they’ve talked about—or until we can locate a different foster placement. It could be weeks.”

“That’s fine,” she said. “Do you think it’s even possible, considering I’m not a relative or a certified foster parent?”

“It’s possible. It’s definitely possible.” From her initial shock, Wyn’s tone began to take on a growing enthusiasm. “I would have to pull some strings. It won’t be easy, but maybe, just maybe, we can swing it—at least on a temporary basis through the holidays. Because you work with children at the library, you already would have gone through the necessary background checks, security clearances, fingerprints, etc. Isn’t that right?”

“Yes. My background check was just renewed a few months ago.”

“Perfect. That definitely will stand in our favor. Give me an hour or so to talk to the powers that be and see what we can work out.”

“Okay.”

Now that the option was out there on the table, her hands were shaking, she realized, and her stomach jumped with nerves. Even so, she was also aware of a bubbling sense of anticipation that had been missing from her world for a long time.

“I can’t believe you’re willing to do this, but I have to tell you, I like this idea so much better than the alternative,” Wyn said. Julia could hear audible relief in her friend’s voice. “I always knew you were an angel. This just proves it.”

Julia wasn’t so sure of that. After she and Wynona severed the connection, with Wyn’s promise to call her as soon as she knew anything, Julia gazed off into space, unable to find comfort from the stacks of books that surrounded her.

Now that the adrenaline rush of taking such a huge chance had begun to fade, all her doubts rushed back.

What did she know about making a home for two little boys? And right before Thanksgiving, too!

She had to be crazy. This was the stupidest thing she had ever done, and was destined to end in disaster. The boys would hate her. She was sure to screw up, would probably scar them for life...

She caught herself before the wheel of negative self-talk could totally carry her away. She couldn’t lose sight of two boys who needed help, who needed a home. She had the ability to make a real difference in their lives. This wasn’t some token effort. Serving at the nursing home or making crafts with the Helping Hands was all for the good. This was something real—opening her home, her life, to two boys who needed her.

As long as she kept that in mind, she could handle anything.

* * *

THIS WAS GOING to be an utter nightmare.

Davy and Clinton were staring at her as if she were a Dementor, a Heffalump and an orc rolled into one.

“No!” Clinton exclaimed. “You didn’t tell us we were coming to her house. We don’t want to stay with her! You can’t make us.”

He turned back to the door, but Wynona placed a hand on his shoulder. “Why would you say that? This is a beautiful house, and Julia is one of the nicest people I know. And look! She has cats!”

That might not have been the most effective argument, since all three cats were perched on the back of the sofa, watching the proceedings with various expressions of disinterest.

“I like cats,” Davy said. He looked at his brother uncertainly. Julia hadn’t missed the smile that lit up the younger boy’s expression when he walked into her house and spotted her, but that smile had quickly dripped away in the face of his brother’s objections.

“So what if she has cats? She tricked us, Davy! If she hadn’t stuck her sneaky nose in our business, we would still be at home. She made us think she was nice, but then she called child welfare and now they’re trying to split us up.”

“Not unless we have to,” Wyn said. “That’s the whole reason you’re here. Miss Winston has agreed to take you in temporarily so you can stay together. We don’t have a lot of other options here, kiddo.”

“I didn’t want you to have to move away from Haven Point either,” Julia said. “You told me how well you are doing in school, and I hated the idea that you would have to start over with new teachers and classrooms.”

Davy gave her a half smile, then quickly hid it when Clinton glared. “You should have minded your business. We were doing fine. I was taking care of Davy. He wasn’t going hungry, was he?”

“You’re a wonderful brother, Clint,” she said softly. “Nobody is saying otherwise. I can’t believe how well you watched out for Davy, all on your own.”

Though she might not ever have proof, Julia sensed that while their mother had been missing for less than a week, the older boy had been watching out for his brother far longer than that.

“Here’s the thing,” she went on. “You’re only eight years old. It shouldn’t be your job to make sandwiches and tuck him in and help him get ready for school. Right now your job is to go to school and play with your friends and have fun being eight years old.”

He opened his mouth to answer but apparently couldn’t think of anything to say, because he clamped his jaws closed again and looked down at the ground.

“If you and Davy want to stick together, you need to give Julia a chance,” Wynona said.

“I want to go home,” Clint muttered.

“That’s not an option right now,” Wyn said gently. “You understand that, don’t you?”

Clinton crossed his arms across his chest and stuck out his chin, plainly not happy with that answer.

Wyn’s phone rang, and she glanced down at the caller ID with a harried expression. “This day just won’t stop. I have to take this. I’m sorry.”

“No problem,” Julia said. “You can go in the kitchen if you need quiet.”

When Wyn hurried away, she turned to the boys with a bright smile. “Do you want to see the room where you’ll be staying?”

Davy nodded, but Clint just looked stone-faced. She decided to ignore him for now and led the way to the biggest bedroom, the one her parents had used.

It had been empty since her mother had went into the nursing home. In the few hours since she spoke with Wyn, Julia had scrambled to figure out bedding for them. She had put out a call to the Haven Point Helping Hands, and Megan Hamilton had offered a bunk bed she had bought for one of the rooms at the Haven Point Inn but ended up not using. Her maintenance guy had dropped it off but had been on his way to visit family out of state and hadn’t had time to set it up for her.

“Tonight, you guys might be sleeping on mattresses on the floor, until we can put together the beds for you.”

“Like camping!” Davy said.

“Exactly,” she said with a smile. “But warm and without the bugs, I promise. You can leave your things in here. There are two dressers. You can decide which one each of you would like. I have two guest rooms down here, but I thought you would like to be together. If you’d each rather have your own room, we can do that, too. Whatever you’d like.”

“We’d like to go home,” Clint said. “We want our own beds and our own dressers and stuff.”

“For the next few weeks, I hope you can consider this your home.”

“We won’t,” Clinton snapped.

“Nope,” Davy echoed.

She decided to ignore their objections for now. “I’m afraid I don’t have any boy comforters since no boys have lived here in many years, since my father was little, but I tried to find a few quilts that might work for now. Maybe this weekend we can have the time to go to the store and pick up something you both like.”

“We won’t like anything you pick,” Clint said, stubbornly determined to oppose anything she said.

“Nope,” Davy said, crossing his arms just like his brother.

She sighed. It was going to be a long few weeks if she couldn’t break through this antagonism.

“We’ll all have to make the best of the situation,” she said calmly, leading the way back to the living room as Wyn wrapped up her phone call and joined them, expression grave.

“I don’t want to just drop them off and run, but I have to, uh, drop them off and run,” Wynona said. “I’ve got another emergency. It’s that time of year.”

“Don’t worry. We’ll be fine.”

If she said that enough times, Julia just might begin to believe it.

“I’ll call you later to see if you need anything,” Wyn said.

“Thanks.”

“Thank you. It’s a good thing you’re doing here, Jules.”

She had to hope she wasn’t making a terrible mistake.

“Davy, Clinton, it’s been a pleasure getting to know you the last few days,” Wyn said. “I’m so happy you will have the chance to stay together, as you wanted. Julia’s one of my favorite people, and I’m sure the three of you will get along just great.”

Neither of the boys said anything, just continued scowling.

Wyn didn’t appear to let it bother her. She simply smiled at them both and headed for the door. “I’ll definitely call you Friday, but don’t hesitate to contact me before that if you need anything. Happy Thanksgiving!”

Thanksgiving. Oh, fiddle. Julia closed her eyes. That had totally slipped her mind in the last few hours. She hadn’t planned on cooking a Thanksgiving dinner. And she had promised Muriel Randall she would pick her up to go together and help out at the nursing home in Shelter Springs. She would just have to figure something out.

Something told her she would be saying that a great deal while the boys were here.

“Happy Thanksgiving,” she said, giving Wyn a hug.

“Call me if you run into any problems.”

As Wyn walked out into the lightly falling snow, Julia couldn’t shake the feeling it wasn’t so much a matter of “if” they would run into problems but “how many.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

WHAT THE HELL was going on downstairs?

Jamie looked down at the floorboards as another round of wails worked its way up.

Someone down there was not happy—which was a bit of an understatement. The wailing had been nonstop for the half hour he had been home, echoing through the house as if two or three of Julia Winston’s cats were in labor.

Whatever was happening on the floor below, he couldn’t hear any words, only the occasional high-pitched shouting, slamming doors and those piercing cries, with the occasional cat yowl thrown in for fun.

So much for renting a quiet apartment with a reserved, well-behaved librarian for a landlady.

Should he go down and see if she needed help with something?

The night before, she hadn’t seemed all that grateful for his help with the water heater. Julia Winston struck him as someone used to solving her own problems, mechanical problems notwithstanding.

He supposed he could put on some noise-canceling headphones. A little head-banging rock would probably drown out the commotion. On the other hand, he couldn’t shake the suspicion that something might be seriously wrong, that Julia Winston possibly could need his help.

It was none of his business, Jamie tried to remind himself. She could carry on with all kinds of caterwauling creatures if that was her thing. It was her house, after all.

What if she was hurt?

If Pop could see him up here minding his own business, he would definitely have a thing or twenty to say about it. Dermot Caine had taught all his sons not to stand by when a woman might be in distress.

“Nooo,” he heard a high-pitched voice cry out. That decided him. She might not welcome his help, but a real man offered it anyway.

The commotion grew louder as he headed down the stairs. In the vestibule outside her door, he could pick out three distinct voices, though he still couldn’t hear the words they were saying.

He raised his hand to knock, but before he could, the door jerked open. A young boy of about seven or eight stood there. His cheeks were red and tear-stained, and his eyes glittered with temper.

He didn’t appear to notice Jamie standing there.

“We can just walk to our house,” he said defiantly. “I know the way and you can’t stop us.”

From inside, Jamie heard his landlady. “Clinton Slater. For the last time, you can’t go anywhere. I know you don’t want to be here, but right now, none of us has a choice.”

“Do so,” the young boy retorted. “Come on, Davy.”

Before Jamie could move, the kid rushed through—right into Jamie—followed by another one who looked like a carbon copy but a few years younger.

“Clint, Davy. Get back in here,” Julia snapped as the older boy looked up at Jamie, those intense blue eyes wide with shock.

“There’s a guy out here,” Davy called. “Is he your boyfriend?”

An instant later, Julia’s surprised face popped around the door. Her color was high, too, and her hair was again falling out of the little updo thingy she wore. When she spotted him, he thought that color rose another inch or two.

“Oh. This is Mr. Caine. He’s lives upstairs. He probably came down because you both were making so much noise, with your tantrums.”

“It’s true,” Jamie said helpfully. “I thought the cats were fighting down here. Or maybe having kittens. What’s going on?”

“We don’t want to stay here, but she won’t let us leave,” the older of the two boys said, crossing his arms across his narrow chest.

Jamie raised an eyebrow. “Kidnapping, Ms. Winston?” he teased. “That’s a felony.”

“Yeah,” the younger boy said, crossing his arms just like his brother. “A fella-me.”

“You’re not helping,” she snapped, her chest rising sharply.

“Why don’t we all go back inside?” he suggested. “We can all sit down, and you can tell me what’s going on.”

The boys eyed the doorway, but must have sensed they couldn’t juke past him. He hadn’t been a linebacker on the Hope’s Crossing High School championship football team for nothing.

They reluctantly turned around and went into her living room.

“I’m Jamie.”

“My name is Clinton Scott Slater, and this is my brother David Joshua Slater.”

“Clint and Davy are going to be living with me for a while,” Julia said.

“Only until we run away and go home and find our mom,” Clinton responded.

“You know your mother is not at home,” Julia said through her teeth. Something told him they had covered this ground a few times already that evening. “You can’t go back to an empty house.”

“Why should we believe you? We thought you were our friend, but you were just spying so you could call the welfare people on us.”

“I’m hungry,” the younger boy whined.

Julia sighed and ruffled his hair. Despite his alleged unhappiness, Davy leaned into her hand a little.

“I know you are, buddy. I’m working on dinner. I’ll remind you both that I would have been done twenty minutes ago, if I didn’t have to keep coming out to make sure you weren’t trying to sneak out the door when my back was turned.”

She tried to tighten her mouth into a stern expression, but something about the quiver in her lower lip stirred all the chivalrous instincts ingrained in him since birth. She appeared very much like a woman completely out of her comfort zone.

“Tell you what,” Jamie said, “we can help you finish that delicious-smelling dinner. With all of us working together, the work will go faster—then you can invite me over to eat with you, since I’m starving, too. See, it’s a win all the way around.”

He winked at the boys, earning a giggle from the younger one. While the older boy didn’t look as convinced, he appeared a little less belligerent.

“We can’t ruin your whole evening,” Julia protested.

“What are we cooking?” he asked, ignoring her to lead the way into the kitchen. “Smells like spaghetti.”

Julia and the boys both followed him. It was obvious she didn’t want to accept his help—just as it was obvious to both of them that she needed it.

“Lasagna, actually. It should be done in about fifteen minutes.”

“What can we do in the meantime? Besides wash our hands, of course.”

“I only need to make a salad and set the table.”

“You sit down. You’ve done all the hard work on the lasagna. Clint, Davy and I can handle the salad.”

“Can you?”

He had plenty of nieces and nephews and was quite an accomplished child-wrangler, if he did say so himself, but he decided to let his skills do the talking.

“No problem,” he said. “Just watch us.”

“I’ll set the table,” she said, looking disarmed and more than a little overwhelmed.

“Excellent division of labor.”

He steered the boys over to the sink, where he supervised while they washed their hands, then washed his own.

“All right, guys. What do we need for salad?”

“Lettuce,” Davy said promptly.

“And tomatoes. Except Davy doesn’t like tomatoes.”

“We’ll put those on the side, then.”

All the necessary ingredients for a good tossed salad were in a colander draining in the other sink from the one where they had washed their hands. Jamie put the boys to work ripping up the lettuce into bite-sized pieces while he found a knife and started cutting up the tomatoes, green onions and celery for the salad.

After a few minutes, Julia wandered over to see how they were faring.

“You can handle a kitchen knife,” she said with surprise as she watched him.

He smiled, cutting the avocado in half and slicing it into strips inside the skin with an expert flourish. “My family has a café back home in Colorado. My Pop is more than seventy but still works there every single day. My parents made sure all of us knew our way around a kitchen, so I spent most of my school breaks working there—busing tables, washing dishes, prepping food, working the grill. There’s not much I can’t do.”

What he hadn’t learned at the Center of Hope Cafe kitchen, he taught himself after he first went to school, then military training. A guy could only eat at the mess hall so often—and he quickly got tired of frozen pizzas.

“I can cook,” Clint boasted, bony chin up in the air.

“He makes super good toast and mac and cheese and microwave popcorn,” Davy attested.

“That’s an excellent start. Now you know how to make a basic green salad, too,” Jamie said.

Who were these boys and what were they doing in Julia’s kitchen?

A hundred questions chased around his brain. When she introduced them to him, she said they were staying with her for a while. There was obviously a story here.

You know your mother is not at home. You can’t go home to an empty house, Julia had said to them. Where was home? And where was their mother?

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