Pretending to be in love…or building a new future?

Nothing wrong with helping out an old friend...

But she’s so much more to him.

When his ex-girlfriend returns home and hires him to overhaul her family’s general store, contractor Bo Carter’s determined to keep an emotional distance. But to convince her old boss she’s home for good, Toni Redding needs another favor—a pretend romance. As Bo starts to fall for her all over again, might their fake love lead to a real second chance?

ALLIE PLEITER, an award-winning author and RITA® Award finalist, writes both fiction and nonfiction. Her passion for knitting shows up in many of her books and all over her life. Entirely too fond of French macarons and lemon meringue pie, Allie spends her days writing books and avoiding housework. Allie grew up in Connecticut, holds a BS in speech from Northwestern University and lives near Chicago, Illinois.

Also By Allie Pleiter

Wander Canyon

Their Wander Canyon Wish

Winning Back Her Heart

Matrimony Valley

His Surprise Son

Snowbound with the Best Man

Wander Canyon Courtship

Blue Thorn Ranch

The Texas Rancher’s Return

Coming Home to Texas

The Texan’s Second Chance

The Bull Rider’s Homecoming

The Texas Rancher’s New Family

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.

Winning Back Her Heart

Allie Pleiter

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-0-008-90708-2

WINNING BACK HER HEART

© 2020 Alyse Stanko Pleiter

Published in Great Britain 2020

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

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www.millsandboon.co.uk

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She stood with her hands on her hips.

“So this is…” she glanced up into the rafters as if the word for whatever this was hid among them “…a bit weird, I know.”

A bit weird? Bo managed what he hoped looked like a calm shrug. “Doesn’t have to be.” It became immediately apparent that wasn’t the best choice of response.

“But it does have to be professional. I just want to be clear this is a business relationship. Clear boundaries.”

So she’d been worrying about this, too. The knowledge of her anxiety over how their mutual history could cloud things over only sharpened his radar. After all, she was the one who called him.

“Absolutely,” he agreed, because it seemed the safest thing to say.

Toni crossed her arms over her chest. “No extras, no cozy chats, no ‘remember whens.’”

She wasn’t drawing boundaries, she was throwing up twenty-foot walls. Given how much time together this job would take, would that even work?

Dear Reader,

Life’s choices can take us down paths we never dreamed. When we commit those paths to God’s sovereignty, however, we can always trust that they lead to our best futures. That’s a hard promise to hold when we feel our choices have tangled our lives into knots, but as Jake Sanders points out, we serve a God who specializes in impossibilities.

I hope Toni and Bo’s story gives you hope for the knots in your life. God is the great untangler, and it is my prayer that their happy ending reminds you of what is possible in your future.

If you’ve grown as fond of Jake Sanders as I have, know that his heart is the next one to find a happy ending in Wander Canyon.

Until then, you can always reach me on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, or drop me an old-fashioned letter at PO Box 7026, Villa Park, IL 60181.

Blessings,

Allie

And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten.

—Joel 2:25

To the unseen rebuilders everywhere—those who quietly shore up homes, buildings, hearts and lives.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Note to Readers

Introduction

Dear Reader

Bible Verse

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

Epilogue

Extract

About the Publisher

Chapter One

Despite his every effort not to, Bo Carter found himself parked on Main Street staring at the blue-and-white awning of Redding’s General Store. Toni Redding was back in Wander Canyon for the weekend, inside that store.

Get it over with, he told himself. You can’t avoid seeing her. The Colorado town he called home didn’t have enough places to hide. Certainly not when half the town knew his history with Toni. Wander being the small-town gossipfest that it was, Bo could think of six people off the top of his head who might contrive a meeting just to see if they’d yell or hug the first time he and Toni saw each other.

He didn’t know which he’d do, either.

Bo watched the store lights flick off and the two lantern-style lights on either side of the big red wooden door come on. Bo didn’t need to check his watch to know Toni’s father, Don, was closing up for the night. Redding’s closed at 5:30 p.m. every night like clockwork. He saw the old man reaching up to flip the Open sign to Closed the same way he’d watched Don do it for years. How many long-ago evenings had he sat on the bench outside the shop waiting for Toni to be done behind the register so they could go to the movies or grab a pizza? It had to be hundreds. It felt like twice that.

How many hours had he and Toni spent on that bench? Laughing, holding hands, making up all kinds of silly dreams about what life would be like after high school. Pretending that they were meant to be together forever.

This is a bad idea. You’re not ready to see her. Go someplace—anyplace—else. Bo knew the smart thing to do would be to drive off when Don shuffled out the door. He shifted his truck out of Neutral. Any street in Wander Canyon would be safer for him than where he was right now.

Still, when he caught sight of the particular shade of red that was Toni’s hair—a color he figured would never leave his memory—he froze. The ridiculous belief that if he stayed still she wouldn’t see him pinned him to his seat. Impossible, since the truck door panel directly below his window read Car-San Construction. Toni knew he’d launched this business with his high school buddy Jake. She’d know it was his truck.

She’d know it was him.

It happened just like he knew it would. The air changed when she came into view. The crazy curls of her red hair had softened to sophisticated waves, but he’d know those dimples anywhere. She had a big-city polish about her that was poised and beautiful.

He, on the other hand, was as grimy and rugged as he was after any long day at his construction business. Why didn’t he choose a time when he was clean and showered and ready? Because you’d never be ready, that’s why.

He knew the moment she saw him. She stopped helping her dad, frozen by the sight of him even though he was clear across the street. Bo had the odd sensation that he could have been standing halfway across the canyon and she’d have seen him.

He had hurt Toni. Badly. He’d always known that, but in this moment he knew it down to his bones. Her eyes told him so. He’d made the choice back then to end things badly—cowardly on his part, but his pride had tangled his sense, convincing him it would hurt less to let her leave if she hated him. He couldn’t have stood knowing she had walked away still loving him.

But it had hurt either way. It hurt like an avalanche roaring through him, taking down everything in its path. And as he caught the ice in her eyes just now, the wound ripped wide-open, as if she’d said goodbye yesterday.

He forced himself to breathe when Toni said something to her father and headed toward him as Mr. Redding made his way over to the bench in front of the store.

A wordless gulp of a prayer, something along the lines of Lord, please let me not be a jerk, rose up as Bo turned off the ignition.

Toni was a beauty, still, but there was something new about her he couldn’t quite name. A strength? A grace? Confidence? Whatever it was, it made her twice as gorgeous, and Bo felt his pulse rise as she came closer.

“Hello, Bo.” That voice. She’d always had a silky alto, but somehow it had deepened and become even more smooth. This was a bad idea. He should have gone straight home.

“Toni.” He couldn’t quite figure out what else to say.

She exhaled and shifted her weight. “I figured I was going to bump into you at some point.”

He scrambled for some shred of conversation. “I’d heard you were back for Mari’s bridal shower. And the wedding in a couple of weeks.” He tried to shrug. “Wyatt Walker. I didn’t see that one coming.”

She gave a tense laugh. In truth, the unlikely pairing of local rebel Wyatt Walker with the sweet mother of young twins really did raise a few local eyebrows. “I know, but Mari’s really happy. She’s had a rough go of it, so I’m glad for her, you know?”

“Yeah.” Being widowed at a young age was tragic enough, but Mari Sofitel had been betrayed by her late husband and left alone with twin daughters. It had been the talk of town for a while.

“I had ideas,” Toni said, “about what I’d do when I saw you again.”

“Like maybe a good solid slap across my face?” he joked, then regretted it instantly. It was a stupid thing to say. He hadn’t expected her to unnerve him quite this badly.

“As a matter of fact...” she began. “Not that I would.” She looked back over her shoulder at her father, and for a split second they were teenagers again, vying for time under a parent’s watchful eye.

“I’d deserve it.” He would. There were a hundred better ways to part with Toni than what he’d chosen. Being eighteen and heartbroken didn’t excuse the jerk he’d made of himself that fall. He should say something mature and heartfelt. The only thing he could manage was “How are you?”

That softened her. Not a lot, but a bit. “I’m good.” She cast her glance back over her shoulder again. “Worried about Dad, I suppose.”

“Don? He’ll go on forever.” Which wasn’t true. He looked at Don as he sat on the bench. It was as if someone had peeled a film off his vision and he could see how the man had aged since Toni’s mom, Irene, had died. The slump of his shoulders, the way he leaned on a cane with the weariness of someone well beyond his years. The store needed a paint job and a hundred other repairs. Irene used to sweep off the sidewalk in front of the store every morning, but no one did that anymore. Hadn’t Hank Walker at church said Don had been having health issues?

“I...um...well, I suppose you should hear it from me.” Toni twirled a strand of hair around one finger the way she always did when she was nervous. “I’m back.”

“Well, sure,” he replied. “For the shower and the wedding and all.”

She shifted her weight again. “No, I mean I’m coming back. For good.”

Toni watched Bo take in the dramatic declaration she’d just made. The decision to stay in Wander was minutes old—or months, it was hard to say. The sensation that she was approaching a tipping point in her life had filled her since she got off the plane this morning. Spending the afternoon with Dad at the store, she’d been startled by the state of his health and the decline of the business that had been her family’s whole life.

Within those few hours, the realization crystallized: she wasn’t back just for a visit. She was coming home for good. Sure, it was sudden, but this wasn’t impulsive. It was decisive, and that was a different thing entirely.

Still, this moment was the first time she’d said it out loud. And to Bo Carter, of all people.

He looked stunned. He had every right to. It was a stunning moment.

“I’m moving back to Wander,” she repeated, almost more for herself than Bo. It should have felt like an enormous pronouncement, a whiplash turn of events, only it didn’t. Even if her motivations were still a bit on the fuzzy side, her words felt like this was the right thing to do. “I’m going to run the store. I’m going to turn it into my version of Redding’s so Dad can retire.”

The only catch was that Dad didn’t know. Yet.

Surprise raised Bo’s eyebrows. “Wow. He must be happy about that.” He’d always had a gift for saying either the right thing or the thing to pull the rug out from under her. Clearly, he still had that gift.

Toni felt her face redden and a new wave of uncertainty wash over her. “Well, no,” she stammered. “Because he doesn’t actually know. Well, not yet, anyways.”

Bo’s face took on the “you gotta be kidding me” expression she knew so well from high school. “Don doesn’t know?”

Coming home to Wander Canyon and taking over Redding’s was the solution to all the questions and frustrations that had been piling up for the last two months in New York. For the last year of nearly buckling under the pressure of working for someone as impossible as Faye Collins.

Of course, there was the little matter of how, but she’d figure that out. While loads of people had gotten themselves fired, no one dared quit on Faye Collins. It just wasn’t done. Still, God would clear a path if it really was the right thing to do, wouldn’t He?

Toni planted her hands on her hips. “I’ve only just now decided.”

Bo’s deep brown eyes gave her a “tell me more” gaze that could always render her defenseless. “How recently ‘just now’?”

“About thirty minutes ago.” She straightened her spine and added, “But I’ve been thinking about it for weeks. Months, actually.”

His expression shifted and warmed. Bo chose his words carefully, and it unnerved her that he seemed to sense how fragile an idea this was for her. “I’ve always thought you were born to run the place. And not just because your last name is Redding.” He shifted his hands on the truck steering wheel, and she noticed the scar on the back of his hand that he’d gotten when they went fishing once. There was so much history between them. It made it hard to know how to act, what to say. “So I take it New York is not so great anymore?”

How had he summed it up in such simple terms? The reasons why she was ready to leave were a four-hour conversation, not an exchange of words on the sidewalk while Dad was waiting. “You could say that.”

“Or is it on account of Don?”

“Little bit of both.” Dad might be the reason she was ready to come home, but Faye was a big part of the reason she was ready to leave New York.

She’d grown disillusioned with Faye Collins and her job at Hearth Homegoods. Being Faye’s personal assistant had been the job of a lifetime, but it had consumed her whole life. She no longer loved her work. The prestige of scoring the assistant position straight out of college, of being considered Faye Collins’s protégée, had swept her up at first. It was dazzling to be taken in by someone so influential and important. But in the past year, it had become exhausting and overwhelming.

“It’s just... Well, there are some things I want to do that I think I can only do here.” There were things about the Colorado mountains, the lifestyle here that she’d come to realize were the core of who she was. Faye had taken her in like a daughter, filled the aching hole that had been left when Mom died. But Faye had also changed her into someone else, and Toni couldn’t ever remember agreeing to that.

Bo didn’t offer a response, and the stretch of silence between them felt prickly and awkward. Each of them fidgeted, grappling with the idea of her permanent return. They’d see each other like this often now. Wander Canyon wasn’t so big that they could hope to avoid regular encounters. Toni hoped it would get better as time went on, because right now it felt awful.

“Can you not say anything? To anyone yet?” Toni felt her face redden again. “I’m not even sure why I just told you. I mean, before I told Dad. What’s up with that?”

Her question pricked something in Bo’s eyes. The hard truth that maybe, while they had loads of history, they couldn’t be close, not after what he’d done. It stung way deep down in her chest, a long tamped-down wound that sprang open again at the sight of him.

She’d worked so hard to make their parting sweet and friendly, and he’d gone and turned it into something awful. She’d tenderly kissed him goodbye that night on the very bench where Dad now sat. Bo had driven her home to sleep her last night in town before getting on a plane to design school and a new life in New York City.

She’d been sad to end it, of course, but proud of how they put an honorable sort of closure on the different direction their lives were taking.

But Bo had gone out later that night and made a total mess of himself. The stories reached her quickly: half a dozen girls, months of carousing, a wrecked car and enough wild behavior that he only barely escaped landing up in jail. “A total train wreck,” Mari had called it. What’s worse, people were woefully quick to decide she’d driven him to it. As if the wild boy he became was somehow her fault.

“I won’t say anything.” Bo’s reply snapped her back to the present. His words had the air of an apology. Still, anything he did now could never make up for what he’d done that night. And those months after. He’d made her feel like a heartbreaking snob, as if she were cruelly discarding him and all of Wander in her grand plans to show New York what a mountain girl was made of.

“I appreciate that.” She used to be able to tell Bo anything. He could pull the most private dreams and wishes and fears out of her. Perhaps he knew more about her way down deep inside than anyone else on the planet.

But the six years she’d been gone had changed them both. Up until this second, she’d viewed revamping Redding’s as a giant leap forward. Looking at Bo, feeling the whirlwind of emotions spinning in her at the moment, it suddenly began to feel like a dangerous falling back.

That’s not true, she told herself. Decisive, not impulsive. This is what you want. What Dad needs. Be strong enough to go for it.

“You look great,” he offered a bit sheepishly, as if he wasn’t sure that was okay to say.

Toni didn’t know how to respond. The years had sat well on him, too. He was still fit and handsome, with a touch of a boy’s mussy hair but a man’s hint of dark brown stubble on his angled features. In many ways she’d left a boy behind in Wander and was now looking at a man. One who still had brown eyes that could sparkle light or simmer dark, and a smile that could undo her in a second.

She’d purposely not kept up on his life. Mari would occasionally drop a fact here and there, but not much more. She knew he was still single and that he’d gone into business with Jake.

Bo glanced over her shoulder to where Dad was sitting. “I should probably let you go.”

“Yeah.” Toni wanted to whack her forehead at the ridiculous small talk they could only seem to manage despite all their history. She shrugged and turned to go.

“Hey,” he said as she took her first steps back across the street. She turned around to see that smile, just as disarming as it had always been. “That wasn’t as bad as I thought it’d be.”

“What?”

“Seeing you again. A little rough, but we powered through.” He used to say that about football practice, or chemistry exams, or when he got his wisdom teeth out.

“I suppose.”

No, it wasn’t as bad as she’d thought it would be.

It was worse.

Chapter Two

“So that’s what I want to do with Redding’s.” Toni swallowed hard after she laid out her plans for the store to her father after dinner.

Mom and Dad had always stood behind her. She’d been amazed how Dad had encouraged her decision to move to New York. Even when it left him alone in Wander Canyon, since her mother had died just over a year before. “It’s what your mother would have wanted,” he’d said. Would Mom have approved of the proposal she’d made just now?

Dad didn’t answer right away, and it made Toni’s stomach tumble in doubt. What she’d just proposed to him couldn’t have come as anything but a shock. He had likely toyed with the idea of her taking over the store at some point. Only what she’d just outlined wasn’t just a takeover. It was a complete overhaul of Redding’s into something entirely new.

“It’s different,” Dad said. His tone wasn’t quite enthusiastic.

“It is,” Toni replied. This was the answer—she knew it in her bones. “And it’s a lot to take in, I know. But Dad, I really think this could be the future—my future here—with Redding’s.” She saw a flicker of curiosity fill his eyes, along with the startled disbelief that his daughter might actually be coming home to stay.

She could also see what she’d hoped to find in his expression: relief. He might not be ready to admit out loud that the store was too much for him, but they both knew it.

“You’ve been holding down the store for years without Mom.” The last two words caught thickly in her throat. “You deserve to take it easy,” Toni went on. “I want to do this. For you, and for me.” She felt her voice catch a bit. “I don’t belong in New York anymore. I belong here.”

Dad’s eyes glistened. “I never liked you living so far away. But...” His words trailed off. Redding’s had been his life, the thing he’d built from the ground up with Mom. Asking to change the store felt like asking to change their legacy. Was that brave? Or disrespectful?

Dad gave a shaky little sigh. “It sounds awfully newfangled.”

Toni smiled at the old-fashioned word to describe the new Redding’s. She made the decision right then and there to use “newfangled” in her marketing. “That’s exactly what it is, Dad.” New, but rooted in the old. Unstuffy but not behind the times.

“It’ll be a big job, won’t it? All by yourself?” It was the closest Dad had come to admitting just how far the physical state of the store had slipped in recent years.

“Well, yes. But with the right people and all the work I plan to put into it, I don’t think it will take too long. I’ll start right away, and we might be able to manage a grand reopening for the third of July.” The Redding’s Third of July Sale was a Wander Canyon tradition, so linking the reopening to the sale helped Redding’s keep its roots while spreading new wings.

Dad’s eyes widened. “You’ll close the store for renovations?” Redding’s had never closed, even during blizzards or any other number of disasters. It had been a point of family pride that anyone could get what they needed at Redding’s any day of the year—except, of course, Sundays and major holidays. Mom and Dad had never opened the store on the Lord’s day.

Toni had anticipated this reaction from her father. “Not completely. I think we can keep about half of the store open while we work. We’d just have to section off the parts where construction would make it unsafe for customers.”

“Gotta keep it safe.” He was coming around to the idea, she could see.

“I want everyone to see the work happening, to watch the transformation take place.” The more she spoke about it, the more the dream anchored to her soul. Toni hadn’t even realized how much energy her life had lost until she felt it rekindle.

She held her father’s gaze for a moment, then summoned up her courage to ask, “What do you think?”

There was a nerve-racking pause as Dad looked at his hands. It was foolish to think he’d jump on the bandwagon right away—the store was his life’s work. He’d never done anything else, hardly ever taken a day off since Mom died. Handing Redding’s over to her represented a huge change in both their lives. Toni had the dizzying sense of Redding family history hinging on this moment.

Two weeks ago, as she watched her evenings and weekends disappear behind a long list of tasks Faye had given her, she could have never predicted life would have brought her to this moment. Now, she was on the brink of stepping into the future God had waiting all along—or so she hoped.

Dad’s smile was bittersweet as he squeezed Toni’s hand. “I guess newfangled sounds like it could be dandy.”

Dandy. There wasn’t a word that captured Dad better than that. “Yeah, it could.”

Toni watched a little sparkle of acceptance come to his blue eyes. She had her father’s chin and his height, but she’d gotten Mom’s bright green eyes and slightly unruly cascade of red hair. Growing up, Toni had been annoyed at how easily she was marked as Irene Redding’s daughter. Now she loved having a bit of her mother with her always.

“I suppose,” he said slowly, “it might be fun to take up fishing again. Haven’t had much time for that.”

“You deserve to do all the fishing you want.” The glimpses of fragility she’d seen in her father gave the words a tender weight. How much time for fishing does he have left? He shouldn’t spend his golden years minding the store.

Toni got off the couch and sat next to him. “Please, Dad. Let me do this. For me, and for you.”

The laughter and hugging—and perhaps a few tears—that followed his nod felt like the world shifting and laying itself open before her.

She wasn’t just coming home—she was coming home to become who she was always meant to be.

Bo barely remembered any of the drive home. The ache in his chest seemed to swallow him whole, and he drove home on sheer muscle memory.

There were a million things he should have done when he got back to his apartment. Ordinary tasks to yank him out of the fog Toni had plunged him into. He should have eaten. Fed and walked his dog, Dodger. Opened the mail. Answered the call from his sister, Peggy about having breakfast tomorrow. At least tossed a ball in the patient beagle’s direction.

He hadn’t done any of those things. Instead, Bo stood in his backyard and stared off into the mountains, barely even noticing Dodger’s pleas for attention at his feet.

The voice of his friend and business partner, Jake Sanders, came from behind him. “You did it, didn’t you?” He’d been so lost in the storm of his thoughts that he hadn’t even heard Jake’s truck come up the drive.

“Did what?” The low angle of the sun made him wonder how long he’d been standing there. An hour? Ten minutes?

Jake rolled his eyes. “Went and saw her.” He leaned down and scratched Dodger behind the ears.

“Did you follow me or something?”

“Didn’t have to. The way you looked at the end of the day gave you away easy. Plus, Redding’s is in the opposite direction of here, and I saw you leave.”

“Okay, so, yes, I went to the store and saw her.” Bo held on to the slim hope that Jake would let it go at that.

Of course, he didn’t. “I don’t like the look in your eyes, buddy. She left, Bo. She left you. You can’t really still have a thing for her, can you?”

“No.” Who was he kidding? “Maybe.”

Jake walked over to the bucket of tennis balls beside the back door and lobbed one halfway across the yard. Jake hadn’t been Wander High’s star pitcher for no reason. He eyed Bo as Dodger lumbered off after the ball, thrilled for someone to finally be playing with him. “That’s insane. You know that, right? You have plans you’re about to kick into gear. August. Florida. Your folks.” After years of working together, he and Jake were making plans to open two Car-San locations—Jake running a business up here in Colorado while Bo opened another down in Florida, ready to help his parents and the loads of other people who needed to rebuild during and after hurricane season.

Toni Redding’s return to town shouldn’t affect those plans one bit. That would be the logical way to look at it. But since when was anything he thought or felt about Toni Redding logical?

“Don’t, man.” Jake cautioned when Bo didn’t answer. “Don’t even think it. We’ve almost got the split all set up and ready to go.” While they were technically running two arms of the same business, Jake always referred to their next move as “the split.”

“Besides, I’m in no mood to scrape you up off the sidewalk again. She’s here for a week, tops. A couple of days for the shower and a couple of days for the wedding. You can power through that, right?”

If only that were true. She was here for good, back in Wander, if not back in his life, but he’d promised Toni not to say anything. Her return pummeled him with an excruciating blend of terror and optimism that spun his insides like a cement mixer.

“Look, you got the hard part over with. You came, you saw, you did the awkward chat thing, you got the worst of it over.”

Oh, it is so far from over. I don’t know what it is, but over isn’t it.

Jake grabbed Bo’s shoulder. He got the sense Jake was tamping down the urge to shake him. He’d earned his friend’s annoyance—Jake’s remark about scraping Bo up off the sidewalk wasn’t much of an exaggeration. “If you can’t shake her, then make yourself scarce. Head down to your folks’ in Florida now instead of in August. I’ll hire a couple of guys and finish up our summer projects without you.”

“You can’t do that...”

“I can. And believe me, I’d rather do that than watch you go under again.”

Bo had originally agreed to spend the slower winter season down in Florida helping his parents rebuild from the hurricane that had damaged their house. But he and Jake were turning it into more than that. They were going to leverage the advantages of both locations. And Bo knew that the minute he disclosed his plans to take up permanent residence in Florida, Mom and Dad and Peggy would jump on it as the solution to worrying about Mom and Dad. Because it was.

“Rebuild your parents’ dock so fast you fall into bed exhausted at night,” Jake pressed. “Then rebuild their garage. And their porch. And the neighbor’s porch. Rebuild the entire subdivision if that’s what it takes to get Toni out of your system.”

He could rebuild Mom and Dad’s house from the foundation up—and a dozen others beside—and it wouldn’t be enough. The truth was that despite thousands of miles and six years’ time, he’d never really let go of Toni. He’d measured every woman he’d ever dated—and there weren’t that many of them, as Jake often reminded him—against Toni. Even after how much she’d hurt him.

“It won’t help.”

“Sure it will,” Jake persisted. “Sunshine, Florida beaches...” Bo watched his friend’s eyes take on a worried look. “You can’t let a little visit from her take you under like this.”

“She’s staying.” Bo justified the small betrayal by telling himself he’d only promised not to say anything to Toni’s father.

Jake froze at that. “She’s what?”

“Toni’s moving back to Wander.” It wasn’t fair what those words did to his insides. “No one knows yet.”

“But you do.”

“It slipped out while we were talking.”

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Jake made a frustrated sound. “So Toni Redding is back in town. For good.”

“That’s about the gist of it.”

Jake fixed Bo with a somber glare. “Leave tomorrow morning. I’ll take you to the airport myself, man. ’Cause if you don’t, you’re toast.”

New cash register system.

New floor plan.

New shelving.

New lighting.

Refinished floors.

That night Toni looked at her to-do list—her very long to-do list—and thought she’d have to win every lottery in Colorado to finance all the repairs to Redding’s that were needed. Either that, or invest a whopping load of elbow grease.

Only it would take way more than elbow grease and determination to get Redding’s back up to speed. It would take skills and expertise way beyond what she had. She needed a contractor, and a great one at that.

Her heart sank when an internet search brought up only one local company: Bo’s. She’d already decided every aspect of this overhaul would have to be done as locally as possible. The newfangled Redding’s had to be homegrown. But using Bo?

On the upside, he seemed to have earned the respect of many people in Wander while she was gone. While it might be a mountain of awkward, she’d get an honest price and fair work out of Bo and his partner.

But doing a big job fast and frugal meant she would be logging in long hours alongside Bo. That was a shaky prospect at best. Or an invitation to the world’s longest emotional baggage–laden argument at worst.

If she chose Bo, this would either go very well...or very badly.

She clicked over to the Car-San website from the listing, nearly laughing at the friendly photo of Bo and Jake grinning in front of their truck. Contractors You Can Trust, the caption said.

“Can I trust you to be a grown-up about this?” she asked the image out loud. “Keep things on a professional level? You can be too charming.” She scowled at Bo’s image. “And I’m in a bit of a shaky place at the moment.”

The new Redding’s needed to be locally sourced. Her vision included goods and crafts and art from people right here in the canyon or nearby. The plain truth was that if she gave the renovation job to someone outside the canyon, it would undercut that vision from the start.

There was nothing for it. She had to at least give him a chance to bid on the project. Inhaling a deep breath of clear mountain air—something that still felt like a spectacular privilege after so much New York City grime—Toni typed an email to Car-San Construction asking Bo to meet her at the shop tomorrow.

He could be too busy to take this on, right, Lord? she prayed, even though she knew Bo was the kind of person who would make time to help her out. I’ll take this step, but I’m going to leave the outcome up to You. Nobody else knows if this is a great opportunity or a giant mistake.

The answer came in seven minutes. “For you, I’ll find the time.”

Chapter Three

Peggy gave Bo one of her sisterly looks over coffee and muffins at the Wander Canyon Bakery early the next morning. Peggy’s husband, Carl, was the high school track coach, so mornings were the best time for her to grab a moment away while her two young boys were in school.

“So,” she began in a parental “let’s have a discussion” tone, “you know what weekend it is?”

That was the trouble with older sisters. They never let you get away with anything. “Wow. You made it halfway through your muffin before you brought it up. I figured you would start in the moment we sat down.” He bit into the flaky egg-and-cheese sandwich that made for a heartier breakfast than his usual choice of a bear claw or a muffin. Today he was going to need fortification. Come to think of it, he was going to need fortification for this current conversation.

“Have you seen her yet?”

Seen her? I might be working with her. “We bumped into each other yesterday.”

“And how was that?”

“It wasn’t as awful as I thought it might be.” That was true. Sort of. To say he and Toni hadn’t left off on the best of terms was an understatement. Sure, they’d been head over heels for each other in high school and the summer after, but he should have known how it would end. Toni had always been heading in a different direction than him.

College? New York City? That would never be him, and the strength of what he felt for her would never have been enough to make that work.

Just like what she’d felt for him wasn’t enough to make her stay.

Peggy cleared her throat, and he realized his thoughts had wandered. Again. His concentration had been shot since the moment he’d heard Toni was coming to town. Maybe Jake was right and the only thing for it was to get out of Wander pronto. And permanently, now that she was staying. Of course, that flew in the face of the meeting he was about to go to after breakfast.

“Well, at least she’s only here for this weekend and then for the wedding.”

“Actually...” Bo began, almost wincing at how he knew Peggy would respond to the news he was about to share. Toni had mentioned in her email that she’d gotten her father’s agreement to overhaul the store, which meant he wasn’t bound to his promise of silence anymore.

His sister’s eyes narrowed. “Actually what?”

“She’s taking over the store so that Don can retire.”

Peggy’s expression was a combination of protective and suspicious. “And you know all this how?”

She’d find out soon enough—better Peggy heard it from him than from someone else. “She’s asked me to bid on doing the work on the store.”

“You said no, right? I mean, you can’t if you’re going down to Mom and Dad’s.”

“I can do it and finish before August. I’m heading over there after this to talk to her about it.”

Peggy practically dropped her muffin. “Why on earth would you do that?”

“She asked me to bid on the project. How would it look if I just turned her down without talking to her?”

Peggy sat back. “Like you had a bone of sense in your body.” Mom shouldn’t worry one bit whether he was being mothered while his parents were in Florida. Peggy was filling that role just fine, even if he was twenty-five and didn’t need it.

“It could be an important job for Car-San. I get that the timing—and the customer—are a bit tricky.” He tried a diversionary tactic. “But it’s not a social thing. I’m not even invited to the wedding, so I won’t see her outside of work. If I take the job.” Peggy and Carl were friends with Marilyn Sofitel’s parents, so they were invited, but Bo wasn’t surprised at all to be off the wedding invitation list. He was relieved, in fact.

Peggy would not be diverted. “So come up with another reason to turn it down. We can make up some reason you had to head down to Florida early.” Her eyes softened. “Mom and Dad need your help, and you certainly don’t need to be here.”

“I can’t just leave Jake hanging,” he fibbed. “We have a bunch of jobs to finish up before the fall.” That wasn’t quite true. In fact, there wasn’t much at all stopping him from heading down south as soon as he wanted to. Not that he’d ever tell Peggy that.

“I’ll work on Jake,” Peggy offered. She’d always been a champion meddler.

“Don’t. Just let me work this out on my own, okay?” A huge part of him wanted to see if he could use this job to make things right with Toni. To put right the one thing that had felt out of order in his life for years. And what he’d said about the timing was true. If she really wanted the quick timetable she mentioned in her email, he could do the job, put a better ending on the sad story of their relationship and head to Florida before Labor Day with a clear conscience and a bit more money in the Car-San coffers. It wouldn’t be easy, but maybe he owed it to himself—and Toni—to try.

Peggy leaned in, concern filling her features. “I think it’s a bad idea. You were a mess when Toni left the last time. I don’t want to see you back there.”

“You and Jake both.” He tried to put into words the tangle of emotions Toni’s return had brought up. “I’ll admit, it still stings...to see her, I mean.” Maybe the hurt would soften into the “it was for the best” kind of hurt, but yesterday felt much more like the “girl that got away” kind.

He was glad Peggy didn’t ask him, “Are you over her?” because he didn’t have an answer.

She touched his shoulder. “Be careful, Bo.”

“I’ll have to be, won’t I?”

But could he be?

The truth was that he’d never really gotten over Toni Redding. And the trouble with this job was that it stood the very real chance of pulling that heartbreak out and letting it shred him from the inside all over again.

This is a second chance to put the right ending on everything.

At least that’s what Bo told himself as he walked the short distance down Wander Canyon’s Main Street from the bakery to Redding’s General Store. He believed Toni’s arrival back in town wasn’t just coincidence. He wanted to believe that God had opened a door for redemption with her.

Of course, it was just as likely this job would give him a second chance to wreck it all. Toni could make him crazy in ways no woman ever had or probably ever would. He’d never been able to shake the belief that they belonged together. Her being back here, needing something from him, now...there had to be a reason for it. At the very least, he could show her that the man he’d become wasn’t the same boy she’d left years ago.

Play it cool, he told himself. Keep it professional. He’d half considered bringing Jake with him, but Jake’s lack of tact was too much of a minefield in this particular circumstance. No, this meeting was best kept between himself and Toni.

Their long history seemed to hang in the air between them as Toni pulled open the store’s front door.

“Right on time,” she said, one eyebrow raised in slight amusement. He hadn’t exactly been known for punctuality back in the day. “And with coffee, too.”

As an extra olive branch, Bo had brought coffee from the Wander Canyon Bakery—cream and two sugars for hers. He knew how she took her coffee, just as she knew his favorite pizza came from Cuccio’s down on Garden Avenue. So much history.

“I was having breakfast with Peggy,” he explained, not wanting it to look like he’d gone out of his way to please her.

“How is your sister?” Bo took it as a good sign that she asked about his family.

“Great. She has two five-year-old boys now.” He shrugged. “Just call me Uncle Bo.”

Toni offered a smile at that but seemed to shut it down quickly. She straightened her shoulders. “Where do you want to start?” He didn’t know how to react to the slight touch of unsteadiness in her voice. It was understandable, he supposed, given the amount of raw ground between them. Most—but not all—of that was his doing. It wasn’t going to be crossed overnight. He wasn’t sure it could be crossed at all.

“Anywhere you want. I’m ready if you are.” If he knew Toni—and he did—she’d have the entire renovation all planned out in her head already, with a long list of details. Probably even sketches. It was best to let her run this meeting.

She led him through the cluttered aisles toward the back of the store. “I’m afraid it’s going to be a big job. There’s a lot I want to do.” Even though uncertainty clipped the edges of her words, Toni’s voice had gained a depth and texture that suited her.

“I like a challenge.”

They arrived at a table strewn with papers and sketches. “It’s important to me that everything stays as local as possible. Vendors, supplies, materials—I want to keep Redding’s a Wander icon.”

Bo forced his attention to her detailed notes as she walked him through the long list of upgrades and renovations she had in mind. It was a clever mix of modern technology and convenience wrapped up in the classic, rustic Redding’s atmosphere. Brand-new lighting sunk into old and weathered wood. Video screens framed in barn wood and gingham. New electric and Wi-Fi. She was knocking down the store’s current maze of narrow aisles in favor of an open floor plan.

“I want it to feel as if my customers are walking into a favorite aunt’s country kitchen.” Her eyes sparkled with excitement when she said my customers. He was right—she’d been born to do this. He’d half expected her to open a store after she went off to that fancy New York school. But then again, he’d expected a lot of things of Toni Redding that hadn’t happened. So what made her not just come home, but move home now? Today definitely wasn’t the time to get into that conversation.

“New logo, too?” he asked, pointing to a set of sketched designs that made use of Redding’s red R—the closest thing the store had to a logo—in clever ways like drawer pulls and such.

“Just some ideas to give a designer I’ve found in Denver.”

These sketches and plans were so specific Bo couldn’t think why she’d need to hire an outside designer. Her vision for the store was as clear as day based on the papers in front of him. And it suited her: the entire project looked and felt like her. All the sophistication of her city life somehow slid back into her country mountain roots. It ought to have clashed, but it didn’t. Actually, he found the whole concept pretty brilliant. She’d always had amazing ideas. He just never liked the idea she got in her head to leave him and all of Wander Canyon behind.

Bo let her walk him all the way through every design idea she had until he asked the hard question. “What’s your budget for the project?”

Toni pursed her lips. She wore a touch of lipstick now. He liked that. “I don’t want to ask Dad for money. I don’t want him touching his retirement for this. So my budget is tight.”

“Budgets are always tight around here. It’s been a rough couple of years. We know how to do tight.” He was making a point to use we, not I, as if this were a Car-San Construction decision. It wasn’t, not really. This could never be anything but personal.

“I’m meeting with the bank tomorrow before Mari’s shower, but near as I can tell, this is what I’ve got to work with.” She pulled in a deep breath and pointed to a printout of a spreadsheet.

Bo hid his reaction. Calling the number at the bottom of that spreadsheet barely doable was a compliment. Truth be told, it was closer to unrealistic. Jake might have had another, less kind word for the low figure on that paper. Something like nuts.

Toni made the mistake—or the masterful tactic—of gazing at him with those mesmerizing green eyes. “I plan to be on this job as much as you, doing every bit of labor I can to keep costs down. I’ll skimp in places when I absolutely have to, but I’m ready to reach for what I really want.”

It happened just that quickly. Or maybe he just stopped lying to himself that he’d hadn’t already decided to take the job. Oh, sure, it made a lot more sense to hightail it down to Florida where she couldn’t hurt him again, but it was too late for that. Hearing what she wanted, the unsteadiness in her voice, the emotion of taking over Redding’s—it all made it impossible to say no.

He couldn’t bear the thought of any other contractor being involved. He was doing this job. It was a fitting last job to do in Wander Canyon before moving to Florida to start over. He’d gladly put in twenty-hour days to meet her schedule and maybe even absorb some of the costs on his own to help meet her budget.

He was doing this job. And doing it right.

Just this once, Bo allowed himself to invoke their history. “I’ll do it. You’ll get exactly what you want, Toni, at the cost you can pay. I owe you that much.”

For a moment, he thought she was going to hug him. She certainly looked glad, even grateful. But after a moment’s hesitation, she held out her hand for a professional handshake. And that told him everything about where the lines were drawn between them now.

Chapter Four

“That’s the last of them.” Toni set down the final heavy suitcase in her old bedroom only a week later. “I’m officially moved in. June 1 is the start of my new life back in Wander Canyon.”

Dad hugged her tightly. “I guess that makes June my favorite month. I’m so glad to have you here.” He looked at the trio of enormous suitcases now resting beside the handful of boxes Toni shipped a few days ago from New York. “I’m still amazed how fast you could make this happen. If it weren’t for some help from Pauline and Hank, I’m not sure I could have had your room ready this fast.”

Toni liked hearing how much other people in Wander, like Hank and Pauline Walker, the groom-to-be’s father and stepmother, had pitched in to take care of Dad. But he was right; it had been whiplash fast—and startlingly easy—to extract herself from New York. What did it say that she was able to dismantle six years of her life in eight days? She’d found someone to sublet her apartment in forty-eight hours. “It was so easy I wonder if any of the past six years meant anything at all.”

“It did. You had to test your wings out there in the big city, I suppose.” Dad eased himself into the rocking chair in the corner of her room. “But I doubt it was that easy with Ms. Collins.” He watched as Toni began transferring things from the suitcases to the bedroom closet.

She recalled the shock on Faye Collins’s face when she told her boss she was leaving Hearth. “That was a bit tougher.” She’d expected Faye to take it poorly, but the woman had seen it as a personal betrayal.

“After all I’ve done for you, you up and abandon me?” Faye had yelled, loud enough for the whole office to hear.

“I hoped she wouldn’t hold me to the standard two weeks’ notice,” Toni told her father. “But she let me leave that day.”

That wasn’t the whole truth. Faye didn’t let Toni leave that day—she’d demanded Toni clean out her desk within the hour. “You were already taking too much vacation time for this wedding business,” Faye barked, throwing open the door to her office. “I don’t want you working here another hour. Your precious vacation time starts this minute. Take it all and go.”

“I know I hurt Faye by leaving so suddenly,” Toni admitted to her father, not wanting to get into how ugly things had gotten between Faye and herself. She did feel bad about that. Faye had been a powerful—if extremely demanding—mentor. She’d always said how much she’d seen Toni as the daughter she’d never had. That was a balm of sorts after the loss of her own mother, and perhaps Toni had personalized their working relationship a bit more than was wise.

“Were things going well at Hearth?”

Toni sat down on the bed. “They were for a while. Everybody envied my job.” Everybody outside Hearth, that is. Most people within the organization knew how difficult Faye was to work for and the kind of hours she expected of Toni. “People always said how fortunate I was to have someone as influential as Faye Collins take such a liking to me. At first, I thought so, too. I mean, who becomes Faye Collins’s personal assistant right out of college like that? She’s been on dozens of magazine covers and talk shows. I was kind of starstruck.”

“What changed?”

Toni thought for a moment. “Me, I suppose. She was turning me into a version of herself, and I realized I didn’t want to be that. I wanted to show New York what they were missing from the mountains. Turns out, nobody missed the mountains except me.” She ran her hands along the stitches of the quilted bedspread her mother had made.

“Maybe I didn’t change as much as I just remembered who I was and what I wanted.” She looked at her father. “Faye was pretty heartbroken that what I wanted wasn’t to be her protégée anymore,” she ventured. “I do feel bad for blindsiding her like that.”

Dad eased himself up off the rocker and came to sit beside her on the bed. “Sometimes the things we choose to do have a high cost. People get hurt. You do what you can to keep the hurt small and heal it, but that isn’t always up to you.”

Toni wondered if Dad was talking about Faye or Bo. The fact that his words could have applied to either left a sting in Toni’s chest. Toni Redding, heartbreaker. That’s not who she wanted to be.

She dared to ask, “Do you think I’m doing the right thing, Dad?”

Her father gave a soft smile. “I think you’re doing a big thing. Whether or not it’s right, well, that’s only for you to answer. And I don’t think you’ll know for a spell.” He took her hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “But I sure am glad you’re giving it a try. And that you’re here.”

“And the store?” He’d seemed to come around to an enthusiasm for what she was doing, but her own doubts made her ask over and over.

“You’re a Redding,” he replied. “You’re making a new Redding’s. How could that not work out?”

A whole host of ways, Toni thought. “Bo and I start in the basement stock room tomorrow. I guess we’ll find out.”

Bo’s stomach was in knots as he shouldered conduit and coils of wire off the back of his truck. First day on the job at Redding’s. With Toni. He was trying to pretend this was a job like any other job. It wasn’t working.

As he grabbed his toolbox, he caught Don Redding’s wary gaze out the store window. The man hadn’t spoken fifty words to him since the day Toni left, which was a clever feat in a town as small as Wander. They even went to the same church, and he’d managed to give Bo a wide berth for all those years. What did he think of this plan of Toni’s? Or his role in it?

You hurt my baby, Don’s furrowed brows seemed to say from the brightly lit window bay. He was momentarily glad Toni had gotten her stunning green eyes from her mother and not Don. When God was handing out eye color, He stuck around for a double shift at the Reddings’. It had always made him wonder why the trademark color for Redding’s was red. Sure, Irene and Toni had red hair, and the color was built in to the name, but if you asked him, it was distracting jade-green eyes that made a Redding woman so hard to ignore. And impossible to forget.

He was ten minutes into this job, and already it was harder than he’d counted on. Some corner of his heart wanted to square off at Mr. Redding and shout, “Yeah, well, don’t forget, your baby stomped on my heart!” He knew that was both stupid and useless. He and Toni were going to have to find a way past that if this job was ever going to work. All three of them would, in fact. He’d figured he would find a way to make peace with Toni, but he hadn’t remembered he would have to make peace with Don, as well.

“You’re here.” Toni came up behind him with a pair of coffees and a large bag from the Wander Bakery. He wondered what was inside. She probably favored scones or some other high-brow pastry these days. “You’re early.”

The surprise in her voice pricked at him. Yes, I’m grown-up and punctual now. Truth was, early wasn’t hard to manage when you barely slept. He was never anxious about jobs, but he’d been up all night worrying about this one. The construction aspects of this job were tricky enough, but the real challenge of this project had nothing to do with any blueprint.

Bo admitted no more than “Yeah,” then added, “Much appreciated,” as he lifted his coffee from the cardboard tray Toni carried.

She nodded toward the white paper bag as she pulled the shop door open. He noticed again that the door—in fact, lots of the storefront—was badly in need of a paint job. “Bear claws.”

So she did remember his favorite. Bo wasn’t sure what to read into that, if anything. Yvonne’s bear claws were so good he decided not to care. A little sugar and a lot of caffeine would go a long way to helping ease things this morning.

Toni waved a bit too cheerfully at her dad as he stood in one aisle restocking some shelves. “We’re starting in the basement,” she called, barely slowing down in a beeline toward the cellar stairs.

They’d emailed several times and talked on the phone twice during her final days in New York, creating a flow chart of how the renovations would progress in order to keep half the store open the entire time. The conversations had been clumsy at first, but gradually they slid into a cautious partnership. It wasn’t hard, given that she knew exactly what she wanted and he was determined to give it to her.

But face-to-face this morning, launching into the actual job, the awkwardness roared back. Toni in Wander was all real, all difficult and all permanent. Neither one of them would be able to easily run away from however this turned out. But that won’t matter much if I’m in Florida. Is that what this is showing me, Lord? That it’s time for me to leave Wander? Bo lobbed the question Heavenward as he followed Toni toward the door at the back of the store that led to the cellar.

They had agreed to start on the wiring in the basement because it made sense, but as Toni barreled down the cellar steps in front of him, he caught on to her real motivation. She was hiding.

Toni was in no hurry to navigate the maze of their first day while working together under her dad’s glare. Good, because he wasn’t, either. Hiding in the basement seemed as good a tactic as any. And the bear claws? He never could figure out how Toni kept such a figure when she could stress-eat better than anyone he’d known.

Bo took a fortifying sip of blissfully hot and strong coffee, slid the coils of wire off his shoulder onto the floor, and looked Toni straight in the eye.

Man, he was going to have to remember not to do that.

Instead, he inclined his head toward the store floor above them. “I thought you said Don was on board with all this.”

She avoided his stare, digging into the bag instead. “He is.”

Bo gestured again toward the staircase behind them. “Then what was all that about?”

She pulled out a bear claw and took a sizable bite. “All what?” It was entirely too cute how the flaky pastry garbled her words.

Toni may have been gone for six years, but he could still read her like a book. She talked vision and confidence, but she was as nervous as he’d ever seen her. He chose not to call her out on her false confidence, just raised a questioning eyebrow as he pulled his own bear claw from the bag.

“Dad’s completely on board,” she asserted.

“Then why are we hiding in the basement?” He wanted to see if she would admit the reason. It dropped like a stone in his gut when he realized it was very possible he was the reason. It wasn’t that Don wasn’t in favor of the renovation. He just wasn’t sold on the renovator.

“It was your idea to start with electric.”

It wasn’t, but that wasn’t anything worth clashing over. Not now when they had a thousand things ahead of them primed to start any number of arguments. Renovations were hard enough without the onslaught of history still tumbling between them.

Bo pulled a flashlight from his toolbox and began following the maze of wiring running across the cellar beams as he ate the bear claw. Just get into it. Once you’re doing actual work, it will get easier. Besides, he didn’t need any fatherly approval to make this job succeed.

He chose a diversionary tactic. “Is Mari ready for the big day?” Bo squinted at a pair of ancient connectors and pretended this was a job like the hundreds of others he’d done in his career. Jake usually handled electric, but he was only going to pull Jake into this when absolutely necessary.

Toni gave a small, tight laugh. “Of course she’s not ready. Mari’s a perfectionist, and she’s going crazy trying to manage all the details.”

Good, he’d gotten her talking. He handed Toni a roll of drawings Jake had sent over, being careful that their hands came nowhere near touching. “Is Wyatt helping?”

She managed another laugh at that. “Depends how you look at it. Is he calmer than her? Absolutely. But I think Wyatt would be happy passing out popcorn on the church lawn if he ended the day married to Mari.” Toni cleared off a worktable and rolled out the drawings. “He’s good for her. And she sure deserves to be happy after everything she’s been through.”

Bo wondered, had Toni had any serious relationships in New York? Given how fast she’d transplanted herself back here, he was going to guess no. But he certainly wasn’t going to ask about her love life any time soon.

His examinations led him to the prehistoric fuse box, and he gave a low whistle. “Job one, right here.” He pulled open the cover and began peering at the innards, glad to see a tangle that would keep him busy for most of the morning. The thing was a mess. Not unsafe, but certainly not up to code, and far too small for what Toni had planned for the store.

He poked around the fuses for a minute until a sharp “Okay, look,” came from behind him.

He set down the flashlight and turned to face her.

She stood with her hands on her hips. “So this is a bit weird, I know.”

A bit weird? Bo managed what he hoped looked like a calm shrug. “Doesn’t have to be.” It became immediately apparent that wasn’t the best response.

“But it does have to be professional. I just want to be clear that this is a business relationship. Clear margins.”

You mean clear boundaries, Bo thought to himself. So she’d been worrying about this, too. The knowledge of her anxiety over how their mutual history could cloud things over only sharpened his radar. It was as if the air between them could either harden or soften, but it wouldn’t be up to him. After all, she was the one who’d called him. She was in the driver’s seat here, and the way her chin jutted out told him it had best stay that way.

“Absolutely,” he agreed, because it seemed the safest thing to say.

Toni crossed her arms over her chest. “No cozy chats, no remember whens.”

She wasn’t drawing boundaries—she was throwing up twenty-foot walls. Given how much time together this job would take, would that even work? Maybe Peggy and Jake were right, and there was no hope for redeeming things with Toni. Maybe being this close to her really was going to end up as round two of the worst heart-stomping of his life.

“Look, I know you just want a friendly, effective, working partnership that gets the job done.” The words tasted surprisingly sour to him. Still, he knew that’s what she wanted to hear. Making peace with Toni meant starting from where she was. And where Toni was, right now, was behind a whole moat of anxious stay-aways.

“Yes, exactly.” A bit of the rigidity left her.

“Okay, then, an effective start would be to move things off those shelves over there so we can get up into that ceiling.” He made a mental note to use we whenever possible.

Because he had a different vision for the Redding’s renovation. Insane as it was, Bo didn’t want to just build a Toni a new store. Deep down, he was determined to build a new bridge. One that stretched over the years and crossed the distance between Toni and himself.

If he had to swim that moat to do it, he would. Or drown in the attempt.

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