The fine line between BFF and happily-ever-after...

Tucker Llewellyn and Libby Worth—strictly platonic!—realize they’re each at a crossroads. Tucker is successful, but he wants a wife and kids: the whole package. Libby knows that small-town life has her set in her ways; the tearoom owner needs to get out more.

So they form a pact: Libby will play matchmaker and Tucker will lead her on the adventure she desperately needs. But the electricity Libby feels when they shake on it should be a warning sign. Soon the matchmaking mishaps pile up, and a personal crisis tests Libby’s limits. Will Tucker be there for her as a best friend...or something more?

“I want to love somebody, Lib.”

He smiled as charmingly as ever, but his eyes remained solemn.

“What if this woman you care about doesn’t want kids?” What if this woman he “cared about” was like Libby? But she wasn’t going to think about that.

“I don’t know. I don’t have all the answers. You asked me what my wish was, and that was it.” His voice was as chilly as the air over the frozen six hundred acres of Lake Miniagua.

Tucker had been her friend her whole life. When no one had asked her to dance in the seventh grade, he had—and seen to it his friends followed suit. When her mother died when she was fifteen, and her father committed suicide a few years later, he’d supported her through all the stages of grief until she could bear it. He’d bought her the telescope that time. “See the stars?” he’d said. “They’re still there. Wish on them if you want.”

Sixteen years later, she still wished on stars, and counted on him to be there if she needed him. The least she could do was try to make this one wish come true for him.

“I’ll help.”

Dear Reader,

The Happiness Pact wasn’t the book I intended to write when I first presented the idea to my editor. It was meant to be a funny and gentle journey through the courtship of friends. Then clinical depression inserted itself into the story and it became much more. While the humor and gentleness stayed because they were inherent parts of Libby and Tucker, their journey had some unanticipated twists and turns.

Authors aren’t supposed to have favorites—I think it’s one of those unwritten rules. But from Libby’s messy braid to Tucker’s klutziness, as their story led me to those places I never intended, I fell in love with the book, the people, and—once again—Lake Miniagua. I hope you do, too.

Liz Flaherty

The Happiness Pact

Liz Flaherty

www.millsandboon.co.uk

LIZ FLAHERTY retired from the post office and promised to spend at least fifteen minutes a day on housework. Not wanting to overdo things, she’s since pared that down to ten. She spends nonwriting time sewing, quilting and doing whatever else she wants to. She and Duane, her husband of...oh, quite a while...are the parents of three and grandparents of the Magnificent Seven. They live in the old farmhouse in Indiana they moved to in 1977. They’ve talked about moving, but really...forty years’ worth of stuff? It’s not happening!

She’d love to hear from you at lizkflaherty@gmail.com.

My heartfelt gratitude goes to Danna Bonfiglio, who introduced me to Venus and inspired me to make it Libby’s guardian planet in a way I never could have imagined on my own. Danna’s commitment to the high school students she teaches is an even greater inspiration.

Thanks also to author Jim Cangany, whose wholehearted sharing of his knowledge of clinical depression made The Happiness Pact a better book. I couldn’t have written it without his answers to my shamelessly intrusive questions.

In nearly every town there is a building full of books, CDs and DVDs, there for the education, enlightenment and pleasure of all who enter. I work in one, have had cards in others and appreciate every one of them, so it is to libraries—and to their tireless librarians, boards and Friends—that this book is dedicated.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

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

Extract

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

LIBBY WORTH TAUGHT the primary class at St. Paul’s when Mrs. Miller wasn’t there, tended bar at Anything Goes Grill when Mollie needed a night off and quilted with friends on Sunday afternoons. She made pastries for Anything Goes and the Silver Moon Café because she loved to bake and because sometimes she needed the money. She owned, operated and loved the Seven Pillars Tearoom and lived in a spacious apartment above it with her Maine coon cat, Elijah.

Her very favorite thing was to stand in her backyard and peer into the eyepiece of her telescope. Her knee-trembling, heart-pounding fear of thunderstorms was no match for her fascination with the light show offered by the sky. Besides, Venus was her guardian planet. Other people had guardian angels, she was fond of saying, but her mother made sure she had a whole planet.

She liked country music, high school football and reading travel brochures. She never went anywhere—she’d only been in the states whose borders kissed Indiana’s—but someday she was going to visit all those places. Someday.

Seventeen and a half years ago, on prom night, she’d been in an automobile accident that killed three people and forever changed the lives of the other nine in the church van they’d used for transport. The losses had caused ripples in the small community of Lake Miniagua that could still be felt all this time later. The wreck had come almost exactly a year after Libby’s mother’s death from cancer, and a year before her father’s suicide.

Everything had changed with that painful string of events, naturally enough, but she’d made a life for herself in its aftermath. Although that life was mostly uneventful, she never lost the feeling that any minute now, the other shoe would drop.

Today was New Year’s Eve. It was also the day she turned thirty-four. Looking into the mirror in the corner of the tearoom kitchen that morning, she’d been pretty sure her jaw was softening and the double chin she’d always had a touch of was generating a third tier.

“Yo, Lib.”

The shout from the front foyer of the big old Victorian on Main Street startled her before she could get good and depressed about the life she had a feeling she’d slept through. She looked up at the schoolhouse clock on the wall and flinched when she saw that it was nearly a quarter past eleven. The tearoom had opened for business ten minutes ago and here she was standing in the kitchen with an unbaked quiche in her hands.

She slipped it into the empty oven. “Be right there!” She stopped in front of the mirror again to tuck her brown hair behind her ears—she’d forgotten to put it in its customary braid that morning—and frowned at her round face with its freckled nose and slate-gray eyes. She pushed her wide mouth into a smile, tucking in the corners with her fingertips the way her mother had when she was a child. The memory made the smile genuine, and she stepped through the door.

Tucker Llewellyn, the best guy friend a girl ever had, was at the antique buffet that she really needed to move. While there was enough space for the swinging door to clear the piece of furniture, there wasn’t enough room to keep her from walking smack into him.

He caught her before they both fell, pulling her clear of both the buffet and the door. He gave her a quick hug and kissed her forehead in the process. “We have to quit meeting like this. You know the lake grapevine. We’ll be having kids by sunset.”

She laughed, shaking her head and pushing away from him. “We’ve had that talk. I don’t want kids. I want excitement. Adventure.”

“Hey, look at my nephew, Charlie. Believe me, that kid’s absolutely an exciting adventure.”

“You’re right about that.” Libby handed Tucker his regular to-go cup of coffee. “You want an early lunch?”

“I do, but I can’t. Jack and I are working this morning to keep the office from being such a crazy place when the plant opens back up after New Year’s. I came by to remind you about the party at Anything Goes. Want me to pick you up?”

She quirked an eyebrow at him. “So I can drive us both home?”

“Probably.” His grin was not only infectious, it was gorgeous. As were his cornflower blue eyes, streaky blond hair and the way he tilted his head to one side when you talked to him. It was a pity the man she’d known ever since he was born the New Year’s baby when she was twenty-seven minutes old had absolutely no romantic effect on her. He might be her favorite man in the world—she was closer to him than to her brother—but he was just Tuck.

And he invariably drank too much at their shared birthday party. When it came to liquor, he was a complete lightweight. He probably was about other things, too, but she loved him anyway.

“We’re thirty-four, although you are a day older than I am,” he said, reminding her of what she’d been perfectly content not thinking about. “You’ve been driving me home from birthday parties ever since high school. It’s my turn.”

“At least. The way I figure it, you need to drive me home until we’re in our fifties.” She waved when the front door opened, admitting Marie Williams and her daughter, Kendall. Marie had been in their high school class, and Libby thought resentfully that she still looked seventeen. She could probably still do the splits and be the top tier in a cheerleader pyramid if she was so inclined. “Do you want to take Jack some coffee?”

But Tucker didn’t answer her. His attention had already strayed. He went to greet Marie with a hug, seeming not to be in a hurry anymore. Libby shook her head, ignoring a ribbon of sadness the couple’s seemingly mutual attraction created at the back of her mind. She liked being single, always had, but sometimes it would be nice if someone looked at her the way Tuck was looking at Marie.

“Hey, Kendall.” Libby plastered on a smile for the twelve-year-old who’d gone to stand in front of the shelves holding the tearoom’s collection of cups and saucers. “Choose your cup and we’ll fill it with whatever you want to drink.”

“Can I drink soda out of these cups?” The adolescent reminded Libby of herself at that age. She was a little overweight and awkward in the bargain, and Libby sometimes had the impression she was a disappointment to her busy beautiful-people parents.

“You sure can. I drink water out of them all day long. Help yourself to whatever you want and give Elijah a good rub—I tossed him on the floor this morning when I got out of bed, and he’s feeling neglected. You want quiche when it comes out of the oven? It’s your favorite kind today.”

“Yes, please.”

“Hey, Lib, can I get Jack a cup, too?” Tucker stood near the coffee urn. Marie went to join her daughter at a corner table.

“It’s been a whole three minutes since I asked you if you wanted some for him.” Libby moved to fill a cup for Tucker’s brother. “You picking me up at seven?” She smiled sweetly and tipped her head in Marie’s direction. “Or do you have another date by now?”

“Be nice.” He took the cup from her. “I’ll see you tonight.” He bent his head to peck her cheek as he always did, but she was turning to look at the door at the same time and the kiss landed on her mouth.

It wasn’t a peck, exactly. And Libby felt a little ripple along her spine.

Obviously she needed some caffeine to clear her head.

* * *

OTHER THAN AN addiction to coffee and tea, Libby wasn’t much of a drinker, but she loved the bourbon-laced hot chocolate that was a specialty of Anything Goes Grill. She usually had just one, and even then only on special occasions. Like when the Miniagua High School Lakers had won the football sectional in November or when the tearoom had ended the previous year not only in the black, but in the very black.

Even more occasionally, if she was out with friends and one of the others was driving, she’d have two mugs of the delicious concoction. They always sat at the bar and begged Mollie for the recipe, but she never gave it. Libby tried to duplicate it every time she filled in for the bartender but hadn’t yet mastered it. She had never had more than two hot chocolates from the Grill.

Until now.

All the presents—mostly gag gifts but some not—had been opened. Midnight, complete with many champagne toasts and a cacophonous rendering of “Auld Lang Syne” and the birthday song as a medley, had come and gone. Jack’s fiancée, Arlie, who was the resident designated driver, had confiscated Tucker’s keys.

The Grill emptied quickly. By twelve thirty, there were fewer than a dozen people at the tables, four or five more at the bar.

“You know—” Libby spoke softly, because the sound of her own voice was intolerably loud in her ears “—my real wish now that I’m thirty-four is for a little adventure. Nothing big like a trip to Europe or Hawaii, just something more exciting than deciding which quiche and which tea are the specials of the day.”

Tucker blinked owlishly. “Huh?”

She’d forgotten the hearing loss that made him tilt his head. It made him seem exceedingly adorable, especially after she’d partaken of three mugs of the Grill’s chocolate.

Rather than raise her voice, she moved to sit beside Tucker in the chair her brother, Jesse, had vacated when he’d left a few minutes past midnight. Libby repeated her birthday wish.

He blinked again. “You have very pretty eyes. Did you know that?”

She rolled them. At least, she was fairly certain she did. They didn’t seem to be stopping quite where she wanted them to. “They’re battleship gray.”

“No.” He leaned closer to stare into them. “They have little blue sparkles around the edges of—what is it you call the colored part?”

“I call it Iris in my right eye and Georgina in my left. And there isn’t any blue there, unless bourbon and Mollie’s secret ingredient interfere with your vision. Which could well be,” she conceded and peered into their mugs. “These are empty.”

Mollie brought clean cups. “Chocolate’s all gone, but the coffee’s fresh and free. Enjoy.”

“So, about this adventure. What would you like to do?” Tucker sipped his coffee, then gave it a suspicious look. “This might keep me awake.”

Libby gave the question some thought. “I’d like to go skiing. I’ve never done that. I mean—it is winter.”

“I noticed that. The snow was a dead giveaway.” He nodded, his lips pursed as if he were in deep thought. “What else?”

“Parasailing. Zip-lining. Niagara Falls. Go to a casino with a whole two hundred dollars I don’t mind losing. Can you imagine that? I’ve whined over a twenty before.” She leaned in close again and whispered into his good ear. “Skinny-dipping. Of course, I’d wear a swimsuit, because I wouldn’t want to scare the fish or anything.”

He squinted at her. “It’s not skinny-dipping if you wear a swimsuit.”

She straightened, offended. “It is if I say it is.”

He started to answer but must have thought better of it and nodded.

“What’s your birthday wish?” She took a drink of coffee, reflecting that it tasted better than the chocolate had. Maybe she wasn’t meant to drink alcohol. Although that buzz—which was already settling down into a quiet little hum—was kind of fun.

“You won’t believe me.”

“Try me.”

He shrugged. “Okay. But I’ve never told anyone this.” He raised a peremptory finger. “Don’t laugh, either. You know how easily I cry.”

She snorted. She could count on one hand the times she’d seen him cry, not counting when they were in the same room in nearby Sawyer Hospital’s newborn nursery—and anything she said about that would be pure conjecture. The last time had been at Arlie and Jack’s impromptu engagement party only a few days before. Libby had been the one who brought him to tears, and she’d loved it. “Let’s hear it, big boy. Your secret will be safe with me.”

After clearing his throat, finishing his coffee and clearing his throat again, he said, “I want to get married. I want to have a kid. I want to buy a house that’s just a house—you know, four bedrooms, two baths and a basketball hoop in the driveway. With a garage that’s too full of sports equipment and garden tools to get the cars in it.”

She stared at him, aghast. “You have the Alba...the Hall. It’s a mansion. Why do you want a house?”

“You can call it the Albatross—Jack and I do. We both hate it, but I’m the one stuck living in it since Grandmother died in the spring. We’re thinking about selling the whole estate. That’s what I wanted to talk to Marie about this morning—she’s a Realtor.”

“Oh.” Libby was a little pleased by that, although she couldn’t have said why. “So, why don’t you do all that? You’re rich. You always have a beautiful girlfriend. Or more than one.” She grinned at him. “You know where babies come from.”

“No.” His voice was quiet suddenly. Serious. “I want to love somebody, Lib. I don’t have to be completely over-the-top about it, but I want to care about someone and have a family with her. I want her to care about me and having kids and maybe planting flowers. Someone’s gotta use those garden tools in the garage.” He smiled as widely and charmingly as ever, but his eyes remained solemn. “I’m thirty-four—no one knows that any better than you, since you’re even older than I am—and if I’m going to umpire my kids’ baseball games, I need to do it before my knees give out. I don’t want to wait on the kid thing.”

“What if this woman you care about has a career? What then?”

He put an arm around her shoulders and spoke patiently, just as though she were a small and not-too-bright child. “I do believe two-career families flourish all over the world, even on the shores of Lake Miniagua, Indiana.”

“What if she doesn’t want kids?” What if this woman he cared about was like Libby? She wasn’t going to think about that. Not on her birthday. Or his. For this day, her secret would just stay in the dark place she kept it.

He hesitated, and she sensed his withdrawal. It was as if a cold breeze shot between them, leaving gooseflesh on her arm.

When he spoke, his voice was stiff, as chilly as the air outside the windows that looked out over the six hundred frozen acres of Lake Miniagua. “I don’t know. I don’t have all the answers. You asked me what my wish was, and that was it.”

He had been her friend her whole life. When no one asked her to dance in the seventh grade, he had—and he’d seen to it his friends followed suit. When she’d had her appendix removed during freshman year, he’d brought her homework and helped her do it. Her mother died when she was fifteen, and he’d supported her through all the stages of grief—over and over again—until she could bear it. Her father’s suicide a few years later had thrown her right back into the maelstrom of mourning, and Tucker had been there for her again even though life had dealt him some hurts of his own.

He’d bought her the telescope that time. “See the stars?” he’d said. “They’re still there. Wish on them if you want, but they’re their own reward. No matter what happens, the stars will guide you to a safe place. You’ll be able to see Venus up close and talk to her whenever you like.” He’d never laughed at her assertion that Venus was indeed her guardian planet—and feminine in the bargain.

Seventeen years later, most of which he’d lived in Tennessee, she still wished on stars, talked to Venus and counted on Tucker to be there if she needed him. The least she could do was try to make this one wish come true for him.

“I’ll help.” She nodded and smiled thanks at Mollie when the bartender topped off their cups. “I’ll introduce you to women. I know you better than most anyone, and I see people every day. What are your specs?”

“My what?” The coolness was gone, but now he looked befuddled.

“You know, specifications. Blonde? Brunette? How old?”

He shrugged, and she knew the I-don’t-care gesture was legitimate. While Tucker had dated a lot of beautiful women, he’d dated even more who weren’t.

“You know me as well as I know myself,” he said. “If you want to play matchmaker, I’ll go along for...oh, say six months. Provided.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Provided?”

“Provided we use the same six months for me to grant your wish. You introduce me to prospective wives and mothers to my children and I’ll introduce you to adventure. What do you say?”

She arrowed a look at him. “I say you had one too many of those hot chocolates.”

“Hey, if I know anything, it’s adventure. That’s why when Jack and I divided up the CEO job at Llewellyn’s Lures, I got all the travel parts. Even when I headquartered at the Tennessee plant, I traveled to Michigan at least a half dozen times a year. That meant I stopped at all points in between just in case I’d missed something along the way.”

“I can’t travel. I can’t afford it, for one thing, and I have the tearoom, for another—which I’m going to enlarge this year by making the carriage house into a smallish event center. I need my adventures to be of the cheap, two-hour variety.”

“You have Sundays and Mondays off and an assistant manager who’d love to have some time in there without her micromanaging boss.”

As much as Libby hated to admit it, that part was probably true. Neely Warren had owned her own tearoom in Michigan before retiring to the lake with her husband a few years before. She’d been one of Libby’s most loyal customers, and when her husband asked for a divorce, Neely asked Libby for a job. Libby had agreed hesitantly, but it had been one of the best decisions she’d ever made.

“All right,” Libby said cautiously. “Let’s try it. You need to come to my church tomorrow. There’s someone there I want you to ask out. She’s a single mom, and she’s really nice. She has a beautiful garden, so I’m sure she likes planting flowers, too. I’ve never been to her house, but if it doesn’t have the four-and-two combination, you can buy a new one.”

“Tomorrow is New Year’s Day. It’s my birthday.” He looked at the clock behind the bar. “Well, actually, it’s already my birthday. I think people should sing to me again.”

“It’s also Sunday. St. Paul’s has never yet closed due to hangovers within its congregation. And you don’t need to be sung to anymore.”

He sighed so deeply she felt its vibration in the arm that lay alongside hers. She got gooseflesh again. “Okay. Fine. Ten o’clock service?”

“Yes.” She got to her feet. The Grill would close soon, and Jack and Arlie already had their coats on.

“I’ll be there.” Tuck finished his coffee and stood, holding her coat for her to slide her arms into. “Ground rules. I won’t hold you responsible if you introduce me to entirely unsuitable women—”

She planted her hands on her hips, her coat hanging loose from one shoulder. “I would never—”

He talked right over her, tucking her arm into the empty sleeve. “—and you won’t screech and get all girly when I choose adventures. Shall we shake on it?”

She extended her hand, then snatched it back. “I never screech.” Except for that time there had been bats in the attic of the tearoom and Tuck and Jesse had come to get them out. She’d cowered under a table in one of the dining rooms. Screeching the whole time.

“Then you won’t have a problem agreeing not to.” Tuck grinned at her, and she knew he was remembering the bat incident. The fact that he didn’t mention it was only one of the things that endeared him to her.

“Okay.” She slipped her hand into his, her breath catching a little at the warmth of his touch. They might have been just friends forever, but he was still an attractive guy and she was a girl who hadn’t had a boyfriend for a while. She withdrew her hand, pulling on her gloves. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Right.”

“Actually, you’ll see each other in the car. Arlie’s the designated driver, remember?” Jack, a bearded, glasses-wearing replica of his ten-months-younger brother, grasped Tuck’s scarf and towed him along, gesturing for Libby to precede them toward the door.

When they reached Seven Pillars, Tucker walked Libby to the back door. “Happy birthday, older-than-me.” He scrubbed a hand through her hair, which she’d worn down for the occasion. The friction created sparks.

“Happy birthday, sweet young thing.”

He hugged her, then kissed her cheek. She thought she felt a few more sparks, but that must have been leftover effects of the hot chocolate. Had to have been.

“Tomorrow, after church and once I meet your friend, you and I are taking off.” He smiled cheerfully. “You’ll want to dress warm and bring an overnight bag.”

Libby’s mouth dropped open, although she didn’t realize it until his tap on her chin prompted her to close it. “Overnight bag?”

“Yup.” He winked. “The adventure begins.”

CHAPTER TWO

“CHEMISTRY? HOW CAN you possibly know there was no chemistry? You talked for all of two minutes in the fellowship room.” Libby sat sideways in the passenger seat of Tucker’s Camaro, her hands lifted in supplication. “It was barely long enough to exchange phone numbers.” And how could anyone female possibly be with Tucker and not feel chemistry? Other than herself, of course. She never felt anything—the sparks the day before had been purely imaginary. Even if they hadn’t been, the knowledge that he wanted kids and that he would drive her insane within minutes was enough to put out any fires.

“Which we did not do, because her kid bit me.” Tuck held out his hand to show Libby the barely visible teeth marks. For the third time. “Fasten your seat belt.”

“It is fastened. He probably felt threatened.”

“After he bit me, he called me something I’d have gotten my mouth washed out for saying when I was in high school, for heaven’s sake. Then he threw his cookie on the floor and stomped on it. Calling me a name is one thing, but wasting one of Gianna Gallagher’s cookies is just ridiculous. I’m pretty sure I saw Father Doherty cross himself.”

Libby rolled her eyes. “He’s a priest. That’s his job.”

Tuck snorted. “He did it to keep himself from hiding the rest of the cookies.”

“What did Allison do?”

“Nothing. She said it was nice to meet me but that it probably wasn’t a good idea right now. I agreed. We smiled pleasantly and I ate another cookie. I must admit your church has excellent cookies and coffee.”

“Doesn’t yours?” She knew it did—she’d been there with him.

“I don’t know. When I do make it there, I’m usually late. I sort of slip in after everyone’s done shaking hands and sit in the back pew.”

“Where are we going?” She frowned when he turned onto the highway heading south.

“You’ll see.”

“You do realize I’m hungry, right? Do I get lunch on this adventure?”

“How long do you think you can wait before you expire from hunger?”

“Probably about ten minutes.” She gave him a pointed look. “If there’d been any cookies left by the time I finished applying first aid salve to your hand, I probably wouldn’t be that hungry.”

“Think so, huh? Well, then.” He turned the car sharply so that her shoulder bounced against his.

“What are we doing here?” She frowned at the Hall as he drove around to the back of it. She could count on one hand the number of times she’d been in the Llewellyn mansion, although she probably knew every inch of its grounds. Tucker and Jack’s grandmother had never welcomed their friends inside.

“Having lunch.”

“You’re cooking?” As far as she knew, Tucker’s culinary skills started and ended with microwave popcorn and takeout menus.

“No. Even my sense of adventure has limits.”

By the time she had her seat belt unfastened, Tucker was opening her door for her. She stared at him. “What’s this? The last time you opened a door for me was when I fell out of a tree and broke my arm.”

“I had to then. It was our tree and I felt guilty because I might have pushed you a little. Now I’m doing it because it’s part of the adventure.” He led the way to the back door of the huge house and opened it for her, too. “Don’t get used to it.”

The kitchen of the Hall was outdated and gloomy, even more than the one at Seven Pillars had been before Libby gutted it. Frowning at the worn linoleum, she was glad she didn’t have to cook here. “I thought you had the Hall remodeled last year.”

“We did, but we left the kitchen so that whoever ended up buying the hall could oversee its design.” He pushed open a door to their left. “This is the breakfast room, but the dining room is a nightmare in formality, so we’re eating here.”

“Oh.” The space was charming, with yellow walls, white-painted trim and a hardwood floor. A small round table sat in front of the large mullioned window, dressed in white linen and set with what Libby was certain was Royal Copenhagen china and sterling silver flatware. Not that she had anything like it at the tearoom.

“Have a seat.” Tucker pulled out a chair for her, then sat across the table. “Colby, one of the college kids who works summers and vacations at the plant, is studying culinary arts, and this semester is French cuisine. I think today we are his term paper. He was hiding in the pantry when we came in and will be serving any minute now. Wine?” He held up the bottle at his elbow. “It’s not French. I hope that’s not a problem.”

“Not at all.” Libby recognized the label from Sycamore Hill, the local winery. She served their wine at private parties in the tearoom, but beyond the specifications of red and white, she didn’t know one from another. “Actually.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Actually?”

“I’d rather have ice water. With lemon.”

His eyes lit, and his smile broadened. “I thought maybe. Wait here.”

He was back in a couple of minutes, carrying two glasses and a pitcher of ice water garnished with lemon slices. “Colby assured me that drinking l’eau glacée avec citron with our meal wouldn’t lower his grade.”

“Well, I’m impressed. The only French I know is merci beaucoup, which I only know because the French teacher at the high school comes to the tearoom for lunch every Saturday and she says that. Quiche is a French word, too, and I say that a lot. Every now and then someone will say ‘kwitchee,’ and I’ll have to stop myself from doing that the rest of the day.”

“Don’t be too impressed. Colby had to say it to me three times before I got it even close to right—he kept flinching at my pronunciation—and I couldn’t repeat it now. ‘Kwitchee’ works well for me.”

The food and presentation were excellent. The student was earnest in his descriptions of the appetizer, the soup, the main course and the dessert. His service was impeccable. Although he was respectful, he wasn’t obsequious. The experience made Libby wish aloud that she’d taken classes instead of poring over cookbooks and using her friends as guinea pigs when she developed Seven Pillars’s menu.

Tucker stayed her hands when she started to stack dishes. “Leave them. You’re the guest today, and it may be the last time—surely to heaven someone will buy the Albatross soon. Let’s get going on our first adventure.”

Back in the car after heaping praise and a substantial tip on Colby, Tucker headed north and east. “Why didn’t you take classes?” He frowned at the hovering clouds.

She shrugged, thinking back to those putting-one-foot-in-front-of-the-other days. “Jess was out of the navy, but still in vet school. We’d just sold part of the farm’s acreage to the Grangers for the winery and were finally out from under the threat of foreclosure. I was still living on the farm and managing the dairy, but I hated every minute of it. I only intended to stay until he finished school and came back there to live, but one weekend when he was home, he found the realty poster for the house on Main Street. It wasn’t a tearoom then, just a grand old lady who needed some new clothes, but I had all the plans written out for making it one.” She laughed, remembering. “I had a business plan, too, written in longhand in a spiral-bound notebook, and even paint chips for the outside and the trim. I’d never even been inside the house, but it was my dream and Jesse knew that. He suggested we sell the cows and invest the profit in Seven Pillars. Inside of a week, that’s what we’d done. I suppose I should have given things more time and more thought, but it had been rough since my mother died. I couldn’t wait to start a new life.”

She stopped. “Why did I just tell you that? You were there for the worst of it.” Tuck had been there with her the whole way, flying home from wherever he was at the time on weekends to scrape and steam wallpaper until he swore he’d never get either the paste or the moisture-induced curl out of his hair.

“I was,” he agreed. “But you never let anyone see how bad things were. You just kept laughing.”

“That was how I kept going. Jesse just clammed up. I couldn’t do that—I’d have gone out of my mind—so I stayed social and laughed a lot.” She smiled at him. “It’s a tactic you recognize.”

She didn’t have to say more. Of course he recognized it. It was a coping mechanism they shared. There was more to her story, too—things Tucker didn’t know. And she wanted to keep it that way.

“Where are we going?” Libby loved farmland, but she saw it every day—Lake Miniagua sat smack in the middle of it. Driving through it wasn’t all that adventurous.

He reached to place his hand over her eyes. “I’ll wake you when we get there.”

“I never fall asleep in the daytime,” she said scornfully. And promptly did just that.

* * *

TUCKER LOVED DRIVING. It would be fine with him to just keep going until they reached Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where one of the satellite plants of Llewellyn’s Lures was. He flew up there sometimes, if the visit was urgent, but he preferred the drive. It would be a great place to show Libby, even in the dead of winter. They both had their passports with them, so they could go on into Canada whenever they liked. But she would panic if they did that. She was okay with spending the night somewhere, but she needed to be back by Tuesday morning—Seven Pillars was as much a safe haven for her as driving was for him.

Adventure. He’d promised her that, but he had no idea how to deliver on the promise. The lunch back at the Albatross had been great, but he hadn’t made up his mind where to go from there.

While Libby slept, he thought about the young woman she’d introduced him to that morning. In all fairness, Allison had been both attractive and pleasant—he’d enjoyed what little conversation they shared. He didn’t mind her kid being bratty, either. In his experience, most of them were at one time or another. Charlie, Jack’s precocious and hilarious twelve-year-old son, had gone AWOL from his grandparents’ home a few weeks ago—during an ice storm, no less—and had the family and everyone else at the lake in an uproar. Of course, the kid was still grounded. Jack insisted puberty would be a nonissue because Charlie was going to spend the duration in his room.

But, as Tucker had told Libby, the chemistry hadn’t been there with Allison. It was too bad. Really, it was. He’d meant what he said—he honestly did want a wife. A family. A home. But he wanted what Jack and Arlie had, too, that click between them that was both indefinable and undeniable.

He looked over at where Libby slept with her head tucked into the pillow he kept in the car. It would be nice if they could develop that chemistry, because she was pretty close to being his favorite person. But, regardless of what happened in some of the movies she’d dragged him to and he’d pretended he didn’t like, he didn’t believe friends necessarily made good lovers.

As he drove, the sky appeared more and more as if it was filling up with snow to dump on them. Winter had been an ongoing progression of record-breaking badness so far, each snowfall or ice storm heavier than the one before it. Buying the new Farmer’s Almanac had done nothing to prepare him for the unpredictable weather.

It had promised a cold but clear day today, but no one who lived in the Midwest ever took promises like that seriously.

Taunting him, the clouds opened and began the process of dropping their contents. They weren’t on the interstate, which made driving through the snow in a Camaro even more of a challenge than it might have been otherwise.

Two inches of snow later, the clock in the car insisted it was four, but the lowering sky indicated it was lying. The wind speed had increased at least ten miles per hour, making the thick white stuff even more impenetrable. Libby came abruptly awake. “Where are we?”

“The North Pole. I took a wrong turn.”

She called him a mildly profane name in a pleasant voice, then reached back between their seats. “Coffee?”

“Please.”

She found the thermos and filled their cups. “I’m sorry.”

He sipped, welcoming the warmth, and arrowed her a quick glance. “For what?”

“If we weren’t going on an adventure, we wouldn’t be driving through a snowstorm.”

He laughed, reaching over to give her hair a tug. “It’s not the first one we’ve driven through.”

“That’s true.” She peered through the windshield. “Are we near a town?”

He nodded. “About six more miles, I think, judging by that sign about an hour ago that said it was eleven miles away.”

She punched his arm lightly. “Do we exaggerate much?”

His cell phone made a percolator sound that signaled a text. Tucker sighed. “There’s my brother, telling me to get off the road. He’s so predictable.”

“Do you want me to check it?”

“Yeah, you’d better. The last time I drove in a storm, the plant had a fire and Charlie ran away.”

“But the Colts won that day, so it wasn’t a total loss.” Libby tapped his phone to read the message. “You’re right. It is Jack. He says if you’re driving to get off the road, you—” Her eyes widened. “I don’t think that was a very nice thing for him to call you.”

“You’re just mad because you didn’t think of it first.”

“There is that.”

They laughed together, their timing as on as it always was. “Man,” he said, “look at that truck coming. No headlights and he’s flying.” The other driver had no intention at all of sharing his landing strip, either. Tucker stretched his arm out in front of her. “Hang on, Lib.” He edged over as far as he could, praying the right-side wheels of the Camaro wouldn’t slide into the ditch.

The petition went unanswered when the car not only went into the ditch, but hit a culvert that was under an unseen driveway. The truck went on by, going fast enough the Camaro trembled—Tucker thought probably with rage—when it passed. His hand, shaking, went to her shoulder. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.” Her fingers covered his. “Are you?”

He nodded, searching for and finding the emergency blinkers. The car wasn’t going anywhere. As far as he could tell, they were mostly off the road. He squinted, peering through the driving snow at the farmhouse at the other end of the lane they were blocking. “I hope whoever lives here wants company. Why don’t you stay in the car while I go for help?”

“Why don’t you not be an idiot?” She shrugged into her coat and pulled on her gloves, flashing him a smile. “Quite the adventure so far, Llewellyn. I’m impressed, but I’m really scared to ask what’s next.”

“Good thinking. At least wait there until I come around to help you.”

“Okay, my hero.”

As he inched his way around the front of the car, he found a spot of ice under the snow. His feet, still clad in the slick-soled shoes he’d worn to church, went out from under him. He landed flat on his back, coming to rest jammed against the bumper of the car, which was all that kept him from sliding under the engine as if he were on a mechanic’s creeper.

The passenger door opened and closed, and a few seconds later, Libby knelt beside him. Good Lord, she’s wearing a dress. He hadn’t even realized that.

“Are you okay?”

He met her eyes as her face hovered close to his. “You’re laughing, aren’t you?”

“Give me a little credit here. I’m trying not to.”

She didn’t try hard enough, and by the time she’d helped him to his feet and was brushing snow off him, they were both laughing so hard they could barely stand.

“Come on.” He tucked his arm around her and they started toward the farmhouse. “If we stay in one spot too long, they’ll find us frozen in place when everything thaws.” He squinted into the snow. “Is anyone home? I know it’s early, but it’s dark enough there should be lights on and I don’t see any.”

She pointed. “In the barn. I’d say it was milking time, but I don’t see any signs of dairy.”

They plodded through the snow, growing more breathless as they discussed the combined lack of foresight that resulted in her dress and his slick shoes. When they got to the white barn, Tucker rapped sharply on the tall door before pushing it open enough for them to slip inside the hay storage area. “Hello?” he called, keeping Libby’s hand in his as they moved toward the light source.

“In the stable.” The voice was muffled, but they were able to follow it.

The scene they walked into was one Tucker thought he’d only seen on television. A man stood in a roomy stall with his arm around a boy who looked about eleven or twelve. A woman, visibly pregnant, was outside the stall with a little girl who was probably five beside her. The little girl was holding a cat.

The adults looked helpless. The boy was trying not to cry, leaning his head into the man’s chest and wiping his nose on his sleeve.

Tucker remembered being that age, when for whatever reason it wasn’t okay to cry anymore. The dog he and Jack had shared had died. His mother and Libby and the Gallagher girls had been in tears, but he and Jack and Jesse had toughed it out. They’d buried the dog under an elm tree in the woods around the Albatross without shedding a single tear. Instead, they’d used a lot of forbidden swear words and taken the rowboat out to one of the little islands in the middle of the lake. They’d stayed out there until Jack got hungry and Tucker got leery of being on the island after dark.

He didn’t think this kid had an island available to him right now, and he was losing the fight against tears. Also standing in the stall was a black-and-white cow—a Holstein like the Worths always had—who didn’t appear to be enjoying herself. Unless Tucker missed his guess, she was in labor, and it wasn’t going so well.

The man seemed to realize for the first time that the family was no longer alone in the barn. He shook himself a little, his hand stroking through his son’s hair. “I’m sorry. May I help you?”

“We slid off the road,” said Tucker. “I’m not sure you have anything to tow with, but I’m pretty sure we’d get too cold out there waiting for a truck. We’ve come to beg warmth.”

“I’ll pull you out soon. I hope you don’t mind waiting.” The man gestured toward the straining cow. “Joanna’s having some trouble.”

“Wow, she sure is.” Libby took off her coat and gloves and carried them over to the little girl. “Will you and your kitty watch these for me? I’m always losing things.”

The little girl nodded, her expression solemn.

“My name is Libby Worth, and my friend is Tucker Llewellyn. What’s yours?” Libby was looking around, smiling when her gaze encountered anyone else’s.

“I’m Mari,” said the little girl. She pointed at the boy. “That’s Gavin. He’s my brother.”

“And my name is Dan. This is my wife, Alice,” the man said, finishing the introductions. “Joanna is Gavin’s 4-H calf, all grown up.” He shook his head. “I’m afraid being midwife to a cow is outside all our skill sets.”

Libby nodded. “Do you have shoulder gloves?”

Gavin drew away from his father. “The vet gave us some, but we don’t know what to do with them.”

“Well, I do, and so does my friend Tucker here, although it’s been long enough for him he probably doesn’t remember. Do you have some chains for calving?”

“Yes. They were left here.” Gavin’s father looked apologetic. “I’m afraid I don’t know how to use them, either. Sometimes moving to the country from the suburbs seems to have been a mistake.”

“No, it’s not,” his wife protested softly. “We just haven’t learned everything yet. What do you need us to do, Ms. Worth?”

“It’s just Libby.” She smiled at the woman, who’d come to stand nearby, her hands resting on the large mound of her stomach.

Tucker thought the whole barn, even Joanna, relaxed in the glow of that smile.

“Okay. I need water, please. Warm, if you have it.” Libby pulled the long glove into place and stepped behind Joanna. “Gavin, this is your cow. Are you going to help her have this baby?”

The boy’s eyes were wide. Tucker thought his own probably were, too. “Yes, ma’am.”

“I was about your age when my cow Arletta had her first calf, and she took her time about it, too.” Libby nodded at Dan. “Will you hold her tail? If I make her mad—which I very well might—and she flips it around, she could knock me down.” She aimed a smile at Tucker. “You need to get your coat off if you’re going to help here.”

Which he obviously was, whether he wanted to or not. Her expression told him there’d be no good in arguing that point. Tucker took off his coat, gloves and the pullover sweater he’d worn to church. The shirt he’d worn under it was fairly expendable, but the sweater was cashmere and he really liked how it felt.

“My brother is a vet,” Libby explained to Gavin, “and we grew up on a dairy farm, so I really do know how to do this. Understand, I don’t like doing it, so you’ll probably have to do something wonderful for me after this, like make me some cookies or something.”

Holding the calving chains until she asked for them, Tucker listened to Libby as she spoke first to the worried boy and then to the frightened cow. “My friend delivers human babies, and she’s given me all kinds of new instructions I didn’t know about,” Libby said, her voice soothing and quiet. “You need to breathe just right, Joanna. Do the hoo-hoo, hee-hee thing like they show on television. I’ll bet Alice can tell you how. That way I can put the chains around your baby’s legs and help you out a little.”

“That’s right about the breathing, although I never considered it for a cow.” Alice was at the cow’s head but standing outside the stall, little Mari and her cat at her side. The woman stroked the side of Joanna’s neck. “You can do this, girl.” She looked over at where her husband stood holding firmly to a long and manure-encrusted tail. “We can do this, too, Dan Parsons.”

Her husband smiled at her, reminding Tucker of how Jack and Arlie looked at each other. He wanted that. Maybe he wanted the whole over-the-top part of it, too.

He didn’t think he wanted any cows, but if that came with the package, he guessed he could live with it.

He flinched as Libby slipped her arm into where it had to go, talking to the cow all the time. “Just be glad it’s me instead of Tuck or my brother, Joanna. They have big hands and arms and...ouch...let me get that...no, hold still.” She stopped for a moment, panting as Joanna did, biting down on her bottom lip. “Okay, let’s try that again. Let’s get this baby out for you so you can have a nice rest. Attagirl...oh, ouch, ouch, ouch, you’re not being very grateful, are you?”

Tucker stepped forward, but she shook her head at him. “I’m okay.” She smiled and patted the cow’s hindquarters with her free hand. “She is, too. She’s just tired.”

“Do you think it’s going to be all right?” Gavin’s tone was solemn. “Sometimes cows die giving birth. Their calves die, too.”

“You’re right.” Libby’s expression was as serious as the boy’s. “It seems as if there are risks in everything you do, but if you don’t risk anything, you don’t gain anything, either.” She grinned suddenly, her face lighting up. “And you’ll never have any adventures. Right, Tuck?”

“Right.” He sounded too hearty, he knew he did, but the boy’s face brightened, too, so it was okay.

“Okay, good. There we go. Tuck, you set to back me up? Dan, you want to be there to give Gavin a hand if he needs it? He probably won’t, but just in case.” Libby stepped away, holding the end of one of the chains and giving the other to Gavin. “Now, when she strains, we’re going to pull real slow and steady, working with her contraction. Don’t jerk and don’t pull too hard. Think you can do that?”

“Yes, ma’am.” He looked frightened, but no more so than his father.

“It scares me, too,” Tucker told the boy, moving into place behind Libby, “and I’ve done it before. I think you’re supposed to be worried about it.”

Gavin took a deep breath. “Well, if I am, I’ve got that part down. Now, ma’am?”

“Now.”

Rewarding the efforts of a small woman in a red dress, a determined young boy and an extremely tired Holstein, a large calf was born in a rush of fluid. Tucker stepped away from Libby in time to catch it, although he fell under its weight.

“You did it, Joanna! You did it!” Gavin dropped the chain and ran around to hug his cow’s neck. “It’s a...what is it, Dad?”

“A heifer,” said Dan, helping to rub the calf down with straw. “A big, strong girl.” He looked up at where Libby was shaking her arm to regain full feeling in it. “We can’t thank you enough.”

“Yes, you can,” she promised. “I know you don’t know us at all, but if you’ll let us take a bath and change our clothes, I think we’ll consider ourselves thanked.”

“I’m pretty sure we can accommodate that,” said Alice, “plus there’s a roast in the oven just crying out to be eaten.”

Tucker exchanged glances with Libby and shrugged slightly. “Sounds great.”

A few more inches of snow had fallen while they’d been in the barn. Drifts created whipped-cream mountains everywhere they looked, some of them all the way up to the eaves of the garage. “I have a tractor,” said Dan. “I’ll be able to get you out of the ditch, but you might want to plan on spending the night. I don’t think you’ll get far, especially without all-wheel drive.”

“We don’t want to put you out,” Libby protested.

Alice and Dan laughed together. “You haven’t been inside yet.”

Except for its fully finished and beautiful kitchen, the old farmhouse was a construction zone. “It will be wonderful someday,” said Alice.

Tucker looked around, at framework with doors but no walls, at the living room subfloor partially covered with area rugs, at the beautifully curved stairway without a rail. He saw where the children had hung their coats inside the back door in what would eventually be a mud/utility room. He watched as Dan Parsons patted his wife’s stomach, high-fived his son over the birth of the calf and knelt to talk seriously to little Mari about how the new baby would be all right sleeping in the barn with her mama.

It will be wonderful someday. “No.” Tucker met Libby’s eyes. This is it. This is what I want. “It’s wonderful now.”

CHAPTER THREE

LIBBY SLEPT ON an inflatable mattress on the floor of Mari’s room. When Stripes, the kitten, crawled into bed with her, Mari followed, bringing her own pillow. The blow-up mattress was twin-size, so it didn’t leave a lot of room, but Libby slept well anyway, the little-girl scent and warmth of her roommate making for a comfortable night.

She woke before dawn, dressed in the clothes Tucker and Dan had brought in from the car last night, and plaited her hair into a messy braid. She tiptoed downstairs to the kitchen, stopping on the landing to look through the window and find Venus, clearly visible in the post-storm sky. “Hi, Mom,” she whispered, and went down the rest of the stairs. She found her hostess at the table with a cozied pot of what smelled deliciously like Earl Grey. “Ah,” said Libby, keeping her tone hushed, “a girl after my own heart.”

Alice waved her to a chair. “And one after mine, who knows any voice over a whisper will wake my children at the crack of dawn on a snow day. We homeschool, but we adhere to the public-school schedule.”

By the time she and Alice had drunk two pots of tea and told each other most of their life stories, she’d constructed a quiche guaranteed to make the kids happy. “But don’t call it a quiche,” Libby warned. “Call it something else so they don’t know that’s what they’re eating. In the tearoom, we call it yellow junk with bugs in it. They all know it’s not really bugs, but they do love the whole gross-out part of the story.”

“Do they know it’s spinach?” Alice slipped the pie plate into the oven.

Libby gave her a blank look. “Know what’s spinach?”

After breakfast, Dan drove his tractor up and down the driveway, a blade on the front pushing snow out of the way. Tucker, with Gavin’s help, shoveled out from under the Camaro so that the wheels had a place to go when Dan pulled it out. There was some damage done to the bumper and the spoiler, but they were repairable. More importantly, the car didn’t want to pull in one direction or the other when Tucker drove it. If the roads were semiclear, they should be able to get home without encountering any more ditches—provided they didn’t meet other trucks whose drivers had homicidal tendencies.

They visited the barn, where Joanna was munching cheerfully on some hay and little Liberty was gamboling about the stall. “Do you mind?” said Gavin. “Mom said not everyone would want to have a cow named after them.”

“Well, I would.” Libby gave the boy a hug before he could get away and grinned at his mother. “We had a cow named Alice, too. I think she had an even dozen calves. My dad really liked her.”

Alice grabbed her stomach and groaned. “Three’s going to be enough for this Alice!” She hugged Libby, then reached past her to hug Tucker, too. “We’ll be down to see you in spring.”

“We’ll be waiting,” Libby promised. She knelt to smile into Mari’s eyes. “Thank you for sharing Stripes with me. When you come see me, I’ll introduce you to Elijah.”

“Will he like me?”

“Yes, he will.”

“I’ll bring him a present.”

“Thank you.” Libby wanted to cry. She made her eyes really wide and blinked hard against the tears. They didn’t come, of course. Libby often wanted to cry, but she never did.

Tucker was beside her then, taking her hand when she straightened. “I have to help her walk,” he explained to Mari, “so she won’t slip.”

“You could carry her,” the little girl suggested. “Daddy carries me sometimes so I won’t fall.”

Libby gave Tucker a none-too-gentle push with her elbow, almost knocking them both off balance. “It’ll be okay. He might hurt his back.”

A few minutes later, they were in the Camaro and back on the freshly plowed road headed toward Miniagua. Tucker reached to tweak her braid. “I’m sorry about the adventure.”

She laughed, clasped his hand and gave it a squeeze. “I thought that was a pretty good one, myself. How do you beat making a whole family of new friends and having a calf named after you?”

* * *

“THE NEW NURSE-MIDWIFE at A Woman’s Place—” Libby looked around the tearoom to be sure no one needed anything and almost flinched at the Valentine’s Day decorations she thought she might have overdone. Satisfied everyone was taken care of, she took the empty chair at the table Arlie shared with her stepsister, Holly, and her stepmother, Gianna. “Is she single?”

Arlie nodded. “Divorced.”

“How old is she?”

Arlie tilted her head thoughtfully. “Thirty.”

“Ish,” Holly added.

“Very pretty,” said Gianna.

“What’s her name?”

“Meredith.”

“Kids?” Libby poured some tea into her cup.

“Two.” Arlie set down her fork and stared fixedly at her. “One of each. Six and eight. I think maybe she’s a Taurus. She puts purple highlights in her hair and it looks great—I might hate her a little for that. Anything else you want to know right off the top of your head?”

Libby thought of Allison’s little boy. And of Allison. No chemistry, Tucker had said, and when Libby had urged him to at least give it a chance, he’d caved and asked Allison out to dinner. She’d gone, and they’d ended up back at Anything Goes laughing because their chemical disconnect was so complete they thought maybe they were siblings separated at birth. Tucker had introduced Allison to an engineer who worked at Llewellyn’s Lures and now they were dating.

Next had been Cindy, who worked at the winery, followed by Risa, who taught algebra and coached middle school volleyball. After Risa, Libby had threatened Tucker’s life if he used the word chemistry in her presence ever again.

“Well,” Libby explained, taking in the three pairs of curious eyes at the table, “Valentine’s Day is in two weeks. I thought maybe I could find Tucker a good date for the party at the clubhouse. My last day off, he took me to the casino at Rising Sun and gave me two hundred dollars. When I won two thousand and he lost five hundred, I tried to give the two hundred back, but he wouldn’t take it.” She was a little embarrassed. “I think I could really like gambling, so I probably don’t want to go back.”

“Seriously? You won?” Holly’s eyebrows rose. “I don’t think I’ve ever done that.”

Libby nodded. “Yes. I’d won before, but to me winning just meant not losing, as in I went home with the same twenty dollars I took to gamble with. So two thousand was great.”

“What did you do with it?” Arlie went back to eating.

Libby sighed blissfully. “I got a new stove. I’d been getting by on the two four-burner ones I bought used when I opened the tearoom ten years ago. They were okay for a long time, but I was down to two burners on one and three on the other, and one of the ovens wasn’t working right. If I had to bake for a party or got a double order from someone, I was in a mess.” She nodded at Gianna. “You know that—I borrowed your oven often enough. You need to come into the kitchen and see it before you leave. I feel like a kid at Christmas.”

All of the Gallagher women loved to cook, so they had to understand the feeling. “Well, then, you do need to find Tuck a good date. He earned at least one.” Holly chuckled. “I think he’s spent time with about everyone on the lake, though, except maybe Mollie and you and me. And don’t even think of asking me,” she warned. “That would be way too much like dating my brother.”

“I get that.” Libby took a moment to ponder offering her real brother up to Holly. That was a thought that deserved some serious consideration.

“I’ll say something to Meredith if you like,” Arlie offered. “She’s mentioned dating, but only in general, not specifically, so I don’t think there’s anybody special.”

“Thank you. Maybe you could have them for dinner at the same time? I’m always there for these introductions, and Tucker and I end up talking about high school basketball or constellations. The woman he’s supposed to be entertaining...er...isn’t entertained. I don’t go on actual dates, thank goodness, but I’m still in the way when they meet.” Libby smiled, although she didn’t feel quite as happy as she had a little while ago.

Arlie nodded. “We’ll do the dinner thing.”

“Thank you.” Libby looked around again. “I need to get back to work. Enjoy your lunch. The tea’s on me since I just drank half the pot.” She kissed Gianna’s cheek and waved at Arlie and Holly before going to refill coffee cups and teapots.

The day was busy. Even the little gift shop in the sunroom did a booming business, a good thing for the local vendors who stocked it with their creations.

Libby was more relieved than usual when she locked the doors at four o’clock. She wondered sometimes if she should consider staying open for evening hours all the time instead of just when a party booked the tearoom. The extra income might be nice, but since she’d have to give up baking for Anything Goes and the Silver Moon, she might lose money in the long run.

If she hurried, she could get a walk in before darkness fell. She wasn’t usually alone, since many of the lakers gathered to walk or ride bicycles in the evening, but she liked it best on the rare occasions that Tucker came. They didn’t walk together, since the group had the usual divisions—gender, age and interests—but they usually ended the walk with a glass or cup of something at Anything Goes.

He wasn’t around tonight, though. She walked half her normal route and turned to go back. “I’m just tired,” she said when some of the others expressed concern.

At home, she prepared dough for the morning. She loved baking, loved kneading and forming the dough, but her fatigued muscles burned a path of protest across her shoulder blades when she was done. The long shower she took afterward was like an answer to a prayer.

Dressed in pajamas and a robe, she carried a glass of wine and a book out to the enclosed porch off her living room. She settled into the wing chair that had been her mother’s and that Libby had reupholstered in soft teal corduroy. The porch was insulated and heated, with windows all around and a skylight in the ceiling. The enclosure had been a Christmas-and-birthday gift from Jesse and Tucker two years ago—the best present ever. She kept her telescope downstairs so it was easy to take outside, but she watched the sky up here, too. She was never alone as long as she could sit in a comfortable chair and see the stars and talk to Venus.

Elijah settled into her lap, bumping his head against the bottom of her book when she went too long without petting him. She relaxed, sipped her wine and thought about what a nice life she had. She had wonderful friends, a fairly successful business, a brother she loved and a nice cat. She dated sometimes when she wanted to or when the stars were aligned just so. She was happy. No, contented.

And sometimes she was lonely.

* * *

TUCKER LOVED TIME with his family. He loved coming to the Toe, Arlie’s house that sat on a skinny inlet of the lake called Gallagher’s Foot. However, coming here to meet a woman felt weird. And uncomfortable. Where was Libby? She was the one who’d arranged it—she should be here to pick up the pieces when it all fell apart. As it invariably did.

“Meredith is a nice girl. She has good kids and a neurotic poodle-mix puppy.” Arlie didn’t even look at Tucker. She was reading Charlie’s journal entries for eighth-grade English class. “Did you help with this?”

“No.” Tucker shot his nephew a scowl. “I offered, but he indicated he was likely better off without me.”

His future sister-in-law finished reading, initialed the pages and caught Charlie in a headlock so she could kiss his cheek loudly. “Good job!”

“With the journal or because I didn’t let Uncle Tuck help?”

She grinned at him. “Both, wise guy. Go tell your dad supper’s ready. Tucker, Meredith is walking up to the front door. Answer it and be on your best behavior. Got it?”

Charlie moved toward the stairway, walking backward. “Do I have to stay? You’re just going to talk about grown-up stuff, and Grandma Gi said I could come to her house. That way you could talk about me and it would at least be interesting.”

Jack came down the stairs, catching his son before he could trip over the bottom step in his reverse progress. “The kid has a point. Not that he’s interesting but, you know, we should let him go because we’d probably have more fun without him.”

Tucker hiked an eyebrow at Arlie. “And you’re worried about my behavior?” He opened the door, smiling a greeting. “You must be Meredith. Welcome to the Toe, where madness and dysfunction prevail.”

Man, she was...gorgeous. As in the drop-dead variety. Her hair was short and spiky, dark with purple tips. She was wearing a slim black skirt—Libby called them pencils or stovepipes or something—and a sweater the same color as her hair.

“I realize I look ridiculous—I should be wearing a coat,” she said. “February first on a lake in central Indiana calls for it, but the kids got a puppy, and she peed on it.”

“Don’t say you got a puppy in front of Charlie.” Tucker put his hands over his nephew’s ears. “He’ll think it’s a new trend.”

The boy rolled his eyes. “It’s nice to see you again,” he told Meredith politely. “I’m going over to my grandma’s. She needs help eating her lasagna.”

“I’ll pick you up at nine thirty,” said Jack.

“Wear your coat,” said Arlie.

When the door had closed behind Charlie, Tucker said, “I’m Tucker. It’s nice to meet you.” He didn’t know what else to say. He’d dated beautiful women before, but he’d never gotten particularly good at just talking to them. He would never admit it to his already-too-smart nephew, but they seriously intimidated him.

“You, too.” She smiled at him, but the expression faded. “I’m sorry. You’re the first date I’ve had since...well, since I got married, I guess. I don’t know how good I’m going to be at it.”

Huh. She was beautiful, but she was also scared and unsure of herself. And a puppy had peed on her coat. The least he could do was be a nice guy. “My friend Libby says I’m really lousy at the whole dating thing, so you’re in good company.”

Jack stepped forward. “Don’t listen to him, Meredith. He’s never good company.”

“Dinner’s ready. Let’s get started so that Meredith and I can talk shop about our shared profession and turn you guys green,” said Arlie brightly. “I haven’t had a good breech-birth conversation during the main course in a long time.”

Tucker gestured for Meredith to precede him to the dining area. “That’s okay. Jack and I can hold forth about fishing lures and go into graphic detail about when Paul Phillipy had to extract a hook from my leg.”

The evening was okay. More than okay, really. Tucker liked Meredith. He asked her if she’d like to go into Sawyer one night to see a movie and have dinner. Her kids could come, too, if she liked. Tucker liked kids.

She said she’d like to, blushing the whole time, but that she’d get a sitter. She didn’t think they were at all ready for the idea of Mom dating. She shook her head then, and Tucker thought for a minute she was going to tear up, but then she admitted, “I’m not sure Mom’s ready for it, either. But I like you. I’d like to go if it’s a chance you’re willing to take.”

Tucker thought it was.

She left at nine, anxious about the children she’d left with someone they didn’t know well. Tucker refused her offer of a ride. He hadn’t walked in a few days, and the weather was unseasonably mild. “Come on,” said his brother. “I’ll go with you as far as Gianna’s. Arlie has someone on the verge of delivery, so she’s not leaving her post.”

They walked around the lake, and Tucker felt a familiar rush of gratitude to be so close to his Irish-twin brother again. Born ten months apart of different mothers, they’d been reared mostly together. But Jack had left Lake Miniagua the autumn after the prom-night accident, guilt driving him away from both Arlie and his younger brother. Their father, who’d been driving drunk and caused the collision, had been angry at Jack at the time. In Jack’s grieving seventeen-year-old mind, he should have been able to prevent the accident and keep everyone safe. Not until their grandmother’s death had he returned and made his peace with both himself and the people he loved.

When he moved back to the lake, Tucker did, too.

“You’re a great dad,” Tucker said as they walked toward Arlie’s mother’s house. “Where’d you learn that?”

Jack laughed. “From Charlie. Same place you learned to be a great uncle.”

They walked on in silence. Finally, Jack said, “What’s on your mind, Tuck? Why the sudden urge to jump onto the marriage and family wagon?”

Tucker grinned at him. “At the risk of sounding like the stereotypical younger brother, I want what you have. What you and Arlie have. I don’t think I’m going to feel about anyone the way you do about each other—unfortunately I’m wired more like our father than my mother. The feelings just don’t go that deep. But I can like somebody a lot, and she can like me and we can both love kids. There are worse reasons to be married than just wanting a family.”

“There are.” Jack’s marriage to Tracy, Charlie’s mother, had been based on friendship alone—in college, he’d wanted to help the lab partner who’d been impregnated by an abusive boyfriend. The fact that Charlie wasn’t Jack’s biological son had never had any bearing on anything. “Tracy and I are still close. We probably always will be.” He slowed enough to capture Tucker’s gaze. “But we couldn’t be married. Friendship wasn’t enough to base a marriage on.”

“I know. If it was, I’d marry Libby.” As soon as the words were out, Tucker regretted them. They sounded disrespectful, as if she would be a fallback choice. Libby Worth might not be particularly beautiful, based on society’s magazine-cover criteria, and her only claim to a degree was a diploma from Miniagua High School, but she was no one’s last resort.

His brother hooted laughter that rang out across the still lake. “Like she’d have you.”

Tucker walked to Seven Pillars from Gianna’s, suddenly anxious to talk to Libby about Meredith. He hadn’t seen his best buddy since her new stove was delivered, when she’d called him to come and see what she’d done with her gambling spoils. She’d pulled a small cherry pie out of the new oven while he was there, gotten out two forks and poured two cups of coffee. They’d eaten every bit of the pie and emptied the coffeepot, laughing the whole time.

Maybe she’d be up for a cup of Mollie’s hot chocolate at the Grill, although the lights on in the tearoom kitchen usually meant Libby was still baking for the next day. He tapped on the back door and pushed it open. “Lib? You still working?”

She looked up from the island Caleb Hershberger had built from scrap wood when he’d helped remodel the big Victorian that housed the tearoom. She smiled a welcome that went a long way toward warming Tucker’s cold feet. “Come on in. Help Nate test the new pie recipe.”

Another survivor of the accident and the owner of Feathermoor, the golf course near the lake, Nate Benteen was also a lifelong friend. He was sitting on a stool at the far end of the island with a cup and a plate in front of him. He looked comfortable there. Very comfortable.

But what was he doing here? He was supposed to be in North Carolina designing links-style golf courses. Even as he was shaking hands, Tucker asked the question.

“The owners of the new course are coming up for a few days in April. They want to get a look at Feathermoor now that it’s been here a few years and matured, so to speak,” Nate explained. “They’re going to stay at Hoosier Hills—not the campground, but the cabins. I was looking for a place to have long business dinners with them without going into Sawyer or Kokomo, so I came to beg Libby to feed us.”

Libby handed Tucker a cup of coffee and waved him to a seat. “Did you meet Meredith? Did you like her? More to the point, could she stand you?”

“Yes and yes, and she said she’d go out with me, so maybe. She was fun to talk to.”

“Good. Are you taking her to the Valentine’s party at the clubhouse?”

“On a first real date? No. Although if the first date works out well, the party would be a great second or third one. Are you going?”

“I’m going with Nate. We figure our last date was when he was a senior and I was a junior, so maybe we should try again.” She beamed, but there was something a little off in the expression. What was it?

Oh.

That had been the night of the accident, when everyone’s lives had changed. Nate, who’d had a golf scholarship and plans to play professionally, had ended up with pins in his hips. He’d settled for designing golf courses for a living instead, starting with Feathermoor. Back then, it had still been his parents’ farm that had abutted the Worth place. Nate didn’t like the term settled, though, and he was one of that happiest people Tucker knew.

Tucker had lost most of the hearing in his left ear that night, Holly had lost a foot, Sam Phillipy an eye, Arlie her singing voice. People had died. Libby had suffered a head injury that left her in a coma. She never talked about it, even to him, but he knew she still got headaches.

But they’d come back, except for the ones who’d been lost. And except for Cass Gentry, who’d left the lake and never been heard from again. Jack and Arlie had come full circle and were going to be married in May. Maybe Nate and Libby would, too.

Tucker couldn’t come up with a single, solitary reason he hoped that wouldn’t happen.

But he hoped it anyway.

CHAPTER FOUR

NATE CALLED LIBBY after church on the day after the Valentine’s Day party and asked her if she’d like to play golf that afternoon. Since the alternative was waxing the tearoom floors, Libby agreed. How hard could it be to hit a little ball around?

It was, she learned quickly, kind of hard, but by the time they parked the cart in the garage beside Feathermoor’s clubhouse, she thought she liked golf. She’d like it even better, Nate promised, when it was more than forty degrees and they weren’t the only people on the golf course. He mentioned that lessons would be a good idea come spring and that it was perfectly all right to swear when she lost her ball in the weeds—everyone did that.

She liked Nate, too. He was tall and handsome and fun to be with, but so was the golden retriever rescue Jesse had brought by with the suggestion she and Elijah might like some company. Libby hadn’t been sure about the addition to the family, but Elijah had given in right away, so now Pretty Boy slept on a rug in Libby’s room and made the occasional appearance in the tearoom.

Nate, on the other hand, was a good conversationalist and didn’t shed in the house. Elijah wasn’t fond of him, but he drove a nice car and told good jokes, and the only time he kissed her she thought maybe the earth might have moved a little. It didn’t—they’d looked at each other and laughed—but it had definitely been enjoyable.

That had been after the party, when she’d worn her favorite red dress and five-inch black stilettos. The shoes had necessitated rubbing Icy Hot on her calves and feet before she went to bed and wearing sneakers to church the next morning, but it had been worth it.

Tucker came after she closed for the day on Tuesday to help change lightbulbs in the chandeliers in the parlors. “The party was fun,” said Libby, handing him the little flame-shaped bulbs.

“It was. Meredith had a good time.”

“She’s beautiful.” An old and not-missed boyfriend had referred to Libby as “pretty enough”—that was as close to beautiful as she’d ever come. She couldn’t quite keep the envy out of her voice.

“She is.”

She cleared her throat. “Are you seeing her again?”

“We’re taking her kids bowling day after tomorrow.”

“That’ll be nice.” But would it? Didn’t he always play poker on Thursday nights? Was Meredith becoming that important to him that quickly?

“You seeing Nate again?”

“He’s back in North Carolina until the first of March.”

“That’s too bad.” But Tuck didn’t sound as if he thought it was too bad. He sounded kind of like a smirk looked.

“He asked me to come down there for a weekend. He has a house on Topsail Island. It won’t be beachy weather, he says, but still warmer than here.”

Tuck screwed in a few more lightbulbs. “Are you going to go?”

“What do you think?” She stepped from one achy foot to the other, feeling like a ten-year-old uncertain about whether she was ready for fifth grade. “Do you think I should?”

He hesitated and didn’t look at her when he answered. “I think you’re an adult, Lib. I can’t tell you what to do when it comes to relationships.” He reached to take more bulbs from her. “Don’t go this weekend, though, okay? It’s time for another adventure. Can you take an extra day off?”

“Probably. Neely pushes me out the door every chance she gets.” Libby put the old bulbs into a box for recycling. “Which is great for me. I’m thrilled the business can support us both. It just feels weird. I haven’t taken extra time off for years, and all of a sudden I am. What should I pack?” She knew better than to ask where they were going—he never told her.

“Walking shoes.”

She stifled a groan. She’d better pack the Icy Hot, too.

* * *

“FLYING? WE’RE FLYING?” Libby’s gray eyes were huge. Unless Tucker missed his guess, the little blue lights in them were shooting sparks directly at him. “Tucker, I’ve never flown anywhere. I’ve barely left Indiana.”

“About time then, isn’t it?” He pulled into a parking lot.

“Where are we going?”

He swung into a parking place and grasped her chin gently between his thumb and forefinger, forcing her to meet his eyes. “Trust me. Okay?”

“Why would I do that?”

It was there again, that look he couldn’t quite grasp the meaning of, and he’d have said he knew all Libby’s expressions. He’d seen it when they’d mentioned the night of the accident in her kitchen. She was grinning, open and challenging, but there was something missing, too.

He sniffed. “You wound me with your lack of faith. I’ve never told anyone about you losing your lunch when we rode the bullet at the 4-H fair when we were in the seventh grade, but you still don’t trust me?”

“Well, since I did it in front of half the county, I’m really impressed that you kept my secret. Okay, I trust you. But if I lose my lunch on this plane, you’ll be sorry.”

He opened his door. “Come on, Nausea Nellie, let’s go. See that shuttle coming? We’re going to ride it to the terminal.”

By the time they’d checked in, he’d had to tell her they were on their way to Nashville, Tennessee. To be tourists, something she’d spent precious little of her life doing, and go to the Tennessee branch of Llewellyn’s Lures and his apartment in nearby Gallatin. He’d lived there until moving to Indiana to share the CEO duties with Jack at corporate headquarters. He still missed it.

He never flew first-class, considering it a waste of money, but for Libby’s first flight, he’d booked two of the roomy front seats on the plane. They were still on the ground when she was holding her first cup of coffee.

“See there?” He pointed to the pocket in front of her. “That bag is for when your stomach decides you don’t like flying. You did have breakfast, didn’t you?”

“Just that drive-through biscuit.”

“Oh, Lord.” The biscuit sandwiches were good, but they also sat like lead on a normal stomach—heaven only knew how hers would react. “Read the magazine.”

But she couldn’t. She was too excited. When the plane taxied down the runway a little while later, her eyes widened with anticipation. “I’m not scared. I thought I’d be scared.” But she grabbed Tucker and cut off all circulation to his right arm.

Other than a little gasp when the plane lifted, she did well with takeoff. “Well,” he said, “that’s a relief. I don’t have to be embarrassed.”

“Right. Like you can be embarrassed.” She sipped the last of her coffee and set the cup aside. “So, now that I’m an expert in commercial flying, let’s talk about your personal life.”

He snorted. “If you want a nap, just say so. You know my personal life is boring.”

“Well, sure, I know it, but I didn’t know you did.” She patted the hand that was only beginning to resume normal blood flow. “Tell me about Meredith. She’s come into the tearoom with Arlie. She seems very nice. And beautiful.”

“She is nice. And beautiful. Her kids are good, too. They miss their dad.”

“That’s too bad.”

“It is. It’s not like Jack and me—we never missed ours at all. From everything Meredith says, he’s a good father. He lost his way in the marriage, though.”

“Do the kids see him?”

“Yeah. He lives in Indianapolis and he comes and gets them every other weekend and drives up and has dinner with them one night during the off week. Pays support right on time, even early. But he and Meredith don’t communicate at all except for texting about the kids or the very occasional phone call. When he picks them up, she sends them out to the car. When he brings them home, she stays inside and opens the door when they come onto the porch. She’s never said why they broke up, but it must have been serious stuff.” He hesitated. “Is that more than I should say about her?”

“I don’t think so. I—” Libby stopped. “You know what? It probably is. I mean, I’m not going to repeat anything you tell me. You know that. But if I were dating someone, I wouldn’t want him talking to another woman about me, even if that woman was twenty-seven minutes older than him and no competition whatsoever. I’d feel as if he owed me some loyalty, or at least confidentiality.”

“You’re right.” She was, and it bothered him that he hadn’t hesitated at all in talking about Meredith. If he had known truly private things about her, if they were having a physical relationship, he would have felt safe talking to Libby about that, too.

Sometimes he wasn’t nearly as sure about his nice guy status as he wanted to be. “But, hey,” he said, picking up on something she’d said, “what do you mean, if you were dating someone? You are. You’re dating Nate.” Although it didn’t feel right to him, and he couldn’t really figure out why. Nate was one of the good guys, too.

But maybe not good for Libby. Maybe that was what didn’t feel right.

“Not really dating. I think he still looks at me only as Jess’s little sister. There’s someone in North Carolina, too. The more he tries not to mention her name, the more often ‘Mandy’ enters the conversation.” She smiled, a lazy, sleepy expression, mildly regretful. “He is fun, but it’s definitely a buddy thing.”

The flight attendant came around, bringing more coffee and assuring them the weather in Tennessee was going to be great today. She smiled at Libby’s drowsy expression and procured a blanket and pillow from the compartment above.

“Do you want something more?” Tucker asked when the woman had moved toward the back of the plane. “More than fun, I mean.”

“I do.” She drank, then set her cup down on the tray table and turned her head to look out the window. “I want to be something besides good old Lib to someone.”

* * *

“OH, RHETT!” LIBBY fluttered her eyelashes at Tucker as they toured the gardens at the Hermitage, the home of Andrew Jackson. “How you do go on.”

“You’re in the wrong state, Miss Scarlett. I assume you know that?” He lifted his phone to take pictures of either her or the flowers in the beds behind her. In case it was her, she tried to straighten her hair a little and wished she’d freshened her makeup before they left the airport.

“Of course I know that. I’ve read Gone with the Wind at least once a year ever since seventh grade. But I figure this is the closest I’m going to come to Tara in this lifetime.” She knelt to look at the crocuses peering out from between the tulips. The flowers were the same as the ones that grew at home, but Tennessee was well ahead of Indiana on the color scale. “It’s so nice to be here. I’m ready for a glimpse of spring, aren’t you?”

More than a glimpse, she realized. The depression that was nipping at her heels was becoming frightening. She needed light, lots of light, and February in the Midwest offered very little. Spring tossed other demons in her path, but at least she got to fight them with sunshine in her arsenal.

“I think the long winter is easier for me because I travel so much.” Tucker’s eyes were darker than usual, and he wasn’t smiling. “What’s wrong, Lib?”

Am I trying too hard? “Nothing.” She kept her voice bright. “Except I’m hungry. You picked me up at zero dark thirty this morning and all I’ve had since the drive-through are those crackers on the plane, which I lost while we were landing in Detroit. I never knew Detroit was on the way to Nashville, did you?”

“You learn new geography every time you fly.” He helped her straighten, then went on in a truly appalling Humphrey Bogart voice, “Stick with me, sweetheart, and you’ll be throwing up all over the world.”

She laughed, elbowing him, and didn’t draw away when he pulled her in close and kept his arm around her as they went to the on-site restaurant for some lunch.

“Where do we go from here?” she asked after they’d ordered and she’d consumed a small pot of tea.

“Downtown.”

They walked for miles, stopping to listen politely to every fresh-air musician they passed and leave generous tips in open guitar cases. They rode a tourist bus all over town, ending at the Grand Ole Opry.

“This was the only place my parents ever went on vacation,” she remembered. “They never took us, but every couple of years, they’d hire someone to help with the milking and come down for a few days. Going to the Hermitage, walking around downtown and listening to the heart’s echoes in the Ryman just now—it felt as if I was with my mom. She loved it here. It was where she grew up, and even though she didn’t have any family other than us, she still felt at home here. Dad brought her down when she was sick. He always thought the trip shortened her life, but even if it did, it gave her joy she wouldn’t have found anywhere else.”

Libby didn’t know how many years it had been since she’d wept. The losses were things she kept buried in a safe place. Arlie and Holly’s mother had once called that place a pocket behind her heart, because grief wasn’t measured by tears. Libby remembered feeling so relieved when Gianna said that, because maybe it meant the girl who’d stood dry-eyed at her parents’ funerals wasn’t broken after all.

She didn’t cry tonight, either, sitting beside Tucker in the Grand Ole Opry watching some of the same artists her mother had loved in addition to ones Libby listened to. But her heart ached to a depth she’d forgotten existed. It was good to feel something other than numbness, she supposed, but she hadn’t thought feeling this much would be as heavy as it was. Not after all this time.

Tucker laughed beside her, drawing her attention to the performer on stage. He’d been around since her mother’s time. Oh, her mother used to say, he’s a case, he is. He grew up on the same mountain as I did, only a little deeper in the hollers.

And there he was, at least a decade older than Crystal Worth would have been, still singing the songs she’d sung as she cleaned the redbrick farmhouse where Jesse still lived and helped with the milking. Libby wondered if her mother had ever sat in this row when she came to the Opry. Maybe in this very seat.

“Dad used to say—” Libby spoke before she knew the words were coming, and they stuck in her throat. She had to clear it before going on, leaning to speak into Tucker’s good ear under cover of the music. “He used to say Mom should have sung at the Opry, that her voice deserved a bigger audience.”

Tucker took her hand. “He was probably right. Remember when all the churches had Bible school together in the clubhouse at the lake? Your mom always led the singing and she’d get us to sing, too, no matter how bad we were. I still know all the words to ‘Deep and Wide.’”

Libby chuckled, the weight of old grief lifting a little. “Father Doherty said we created whitecaps on the lake when we sang. I don’t think he meant it as a compliment.”

Tucker laughed, leaning his head back. She looked at the line of his throat above the sweater he wore and thought how handsome he was. How much she appreciated him holding her hand. And how good that felt.

Something in the pool of too-intense emotions she was feeling right then warned her that maybe it felt a little too good. It was like sitting where her mother had been, listening to the songs her mother had heard—it was pleasure to the point of pain.

CHAPTER FIVE

“NO KIDS?” INSIDE the town house in Sawyer where Meredith lived, Tucker looked around and raised his eyebrows. There were no toys in the small living area, no TV noise in the background, no sounds of sibling joy or its noisy opposite. “How did that happen?”

Meredith smiled, although her eyes looked shadowed. “Their dad got an unexpected long weekend and asked if he could have them. He picked them up from school and is taking them for pizza and the movies and then to spend two nights in a motel with an indoor pool. They told me I wasn’t any fun anymore and Daddy was.” The shadow came perilously close to being tears, and she turned away abruptly.

Charlie had played that con-the-parents game with Jack, telling his father that Uncle Tucker was the fun brother. Jack had called Tucker and asked if Charlie could come and live with him because being a dad wasn’t fun anymore. Tucker yelled, “No way!” over the phone, and they all ended up laughing.

He didn’t think Meredith would see the humor in the story, so he didn’t tell it. “Let’s go do something,” he suggested instead, hooking her arm with a gentle hand and turning her back toward him. “Hey.” He thumbed the tears from her cheeks. “They’ll be home in a few days, Mer, and he’s a good dad. It’s not like he’s going to abscond with them.”

“Oh, I know.” She leaned against him, and he held her, dropping a kiss on the top of her head. Her spiky hair felt odd against his lips. Not hard, exactly, but not soft and warm like Libby’s, either. Meredith was taller than average, too. When they’d gone to a wine-tasting party, she’d worn skinny high heels and they’d been eye to eye. He’d liked that. She’d been fun to dance with. She was fun to be with, for that matter. She liked football, made really good potato soup that went well with the crusty bread he bought from the Amish bakery and had nice kids. He was attracted to her.

And yet.

It was the and yet that got him. It was okay that he wasn’t falling in love—other than Jack and Arlie and a few friends here and there, he’d never really observed being in love as all that healthy a part of a relationship. Plus, he and Meredith had only been seeing each other for a short while. He liked her more than anyone he’d dated in a very long time. He enjoyed the kids—he’d even taken Zack with him to play basketball with Jack and Charlie at the elementary school on open gym night. They’d played for an hour, working on Charlie’s jump shot and teaching Zack how to do layups. Afterward, Tucker sat quietly with Zack at the ice cream counter in the Silver Moon and heard between the lines of the eight-year-old’s conversation how much he missed his dad.

“I know he’s a good dad. It was husbanding he failed at.” Meredith shrugged, the movement slight against Tucker. “What would you like to do? We’ve already seen both the movies at the theater.”

“You want to go roller-skating?”

“What?” She pulled away from him, laughing. “I’m thirty. All I do at the rink these days is tie the kids’ skates and be ready with Band-Aids when they fall down.”

Disappointment nudged, although he couldn’t have said why. “Pool?” he suggested. “We could go to Kokomo or even back to the Hall. The table there is regulation.”

She shook her head. “Can we just stay here? Maybe order pizza and stream something on TV? I’m sorry. I’m in kind of a crummy mood.”

“Sure, we can do that. It’s okay.” It wasn’t. They’d seen each other nearly every day since their first date, but they hadn’t reached that stage of comfort and conversation with each other. He didn’t know how either would bear up through an evening of inactivity.

At first, it was okay. They wrangled, laughing over what pizza to order, then again over what to watch. The movie they finally agreed on didn’t hold Tucker’s interest, and he had to work to stay awake. Halfway through, she said, “This is crummy, isn’t it?”

At first he thought she meant the two of them trying to make a relationship out of too little substance, but it was too early in the dating game to make that assessment. At least, according to Libby it was. He still wasn’t sure if she’d forgiven either him or her friend Allison for being completely unattracted to each other from the get-go.

“Crummy.” He let the word percolate between them for a moment. “Why?”

“There’s no plot. The only conflict is stupid stuff Shelby’s first-grade class could have developed. What’s her name has had so much plastic surgery she’s unrecognizable.”

Oh, the movie. He almost laughed, but thought once again that she wouldn’t see the humor in the situation. “It’s not great,” he admitted. “Let’s go have a drink somewhere. We shouldn’t waste an evening on a movie we don’t like. I’ll even buy.”

“Okay,” Meredith said reluctantly, turning off the TV and standing up. “I don’t know any place to go in Sawyer, though. If it’s not kid friendly, I haven’t been there.”

“Sawyer has places, but we can go to the Grill. It’s only five miles over to the lake.” He hoped she would go for that, because he didn’t want to stay here. Her sadness was heavy and all-consuming, filling the room with an unhappiness he couldn’t begin to penetrate.

She nodded. “All right.” She brightened. “What about darts? Do you like to play?”

He did. He and the Thursday night poker players often played when the cards weren’t falling right. Plus, he was glad to see her be enthusiastic—he’d have probably joined the dominoes table in the corner of the bar if she’d wanted to, and he didn’t even remember how to play.

On the way to Anything Goes, they talked about her job and the move from a practice in an affluent suburb to a small-town one with many Amish patients. She liked it, Meredith maintained, because she loved working with Arlie, but she wasn’t completely comfortable with the differences between the two practices.

“The rules are the same, and the laws, and I’m glad to have people call me by my first name and ask how my kids are doing, but it’s just so informal. I never expected to work in a facility that had a hitching rail and a water trough in addition to regular customer parking.”

He nodded. “The Amish workers at Llewellyn’s Lures ride their bicycles to work or ride with one of the English. Jack asked one of the guys if we needed to add hitching rails, and Fred, who’s a supervisor, said no—they weren’t going to leave their horses standing there for eight hours. It wasn’t one of my brother’s brightest questions.”

She laughed, the sound quiet and polite. “You don’t travel much these days, do you? Do you miss it?”

“No. I still go on the road once a month or so, but I really like being settled here.” Although he got lonely sometimes. He’d probably gotten lonely when he lived in Tennessee and spent half his time on the road, too, but he didn’t remember it. Of course, then he hadn’t been in pursuit of the whole wife, kids and four-bedroom house dream.

The dartboard was already in use in the Grill, and literally every table was occupied. Libby and Nate were sitting in one of the booths beside the windows overlooking the lake. Nate waved them over, and Tucker captured Meredith’s hand as they wove between the tables. He waited until she’d slid into the booth beside Libby, then sat next to Nate. “’Sup?”

Libby pointed an accusatory finger in his direction. “You sound like Charlie.”

Tucker grinned at her. “Only because Jack and I practiced sounding like Charlie. The kid can’t start a conversation without saying that.”

“So that’s why Zack’s been saying it.” Meredith beamed over the discovery. “When I asked him to stop doing layups in the living room, he paused for the moment and said ‘’Sup, Mom?’ and dunked the ball right into the ficus tree.”

Libby and Nate laughed, and Tucker did, too, but he wondered where this cheerful woman had been when they were at her house trying to watch a boring movie she’d chosen. She’d been taciturn and moody and on the verge of tears.

They talked about spring—surely it would come eventually—and about golf and the state high school basketball tournament. Tucker asked about Libby’s plans for remodeling the carriage house at Seven Pillars to be used for larger meetings than the tearoom could accommodate, and Nate promised her more business when the expansion took place. Meredith listened and contributed to the conversation and laughed as long and loud as everyone else when it was warranted. Or when it wasn’t—clients in the Grill weren’t picky about what they laughed at.

All four of them left at eleven, parting in the parking lot with hugs and handshakes.

“They’re such nice people,” Meredith said when they were in the car driving toward her house. “How long have you known them?”

“Always.” His answer was immediate, but then he thought about it. “Well, Nate just from kindergarten. I’ve known Libby since she was twenty-seven minutes old. She was my first roommate the night we were born.” He glanced at Meredith. “Do you have friends like that?”

She hesitated, not looking back at him, then said quietly, with pain adding shaky needles to her voice, “I used to. Just one.”

* * *

LIBBY KISSED NATE’S cheek and grinned at him. “See you later. I’m glad you had such a great trip to North Carolina.”

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.