Polly swept her gaze up to take in the full view of the stranger standing in her driveway.

She saw the cowboy boots first. They totally set the tone for what was to come—jeans, denim shirt over broad shoulders. From what she could see in the shadow of the brim of his dark brown cowboy hat, he had a likeable face, not too handsome, not too rugged, and a subtle but earnest smile.

“I was passing by on my way home, saw you lying in your driveway under your car and I thought, well, either A, you had run over yourself, in which case you’d have a story I couldn’t miss hearing.” His smile took on a hint of teasing. “Or B, I thought maybe you could use a hand.”

“B, definitely B.” Polly smiled.

“Sam Goodacre.” He took her hand in his.

Their eyes met and held. She had been in town for all of a few hours and already met a guy who made her heart race. So much for taking things at a slower pace here….

Dear Reader,

My children have said for years that I should write a children’s book and title it No, No, Donut! just like the story in this book. They got the idea because it’s such a frequent phrase heard around our house about one of our dogs, of course named Donut. Of our own triple threat, Donut is the clown who always seems to get into mischief but is so full of love that just to look at him makes your heart sigh. He has taught us much about the nature of love, of giving of oneself fully and of knowing when to be humble in asking forgiveness. Isn’t it funny how a small mixed-breed mutt can be the source of such spiritual lessons?

That’s why I was so pleased to do a story involving a little lost dog, a family who needed healing and a heroine just trying to find out who she is and where she belongs. It has been great fun to create the Goodacre family and the character of Polly Bennett and to mix in a little of my own personal life with Donut, the dog who just wanted to be loved, as we all do.

Triplets Find a Mom

Annie Jones

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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If your gift is serving others, serve them well.

If you are a teacher, teach well.

—Romans 12:7

For Emma Dobben and Alleyah Asher

and whoever comes along after—

I am looking at YOU Rob and Melissa—to share

our love and grow our family in God’s promises!

Chapter One

If you can’t beat ‘em … run away.

The finality of the moving truck trundling off made the last thing her sister had said to her loom large in Polly Bennett’s thoughts. Too exhausted to move, she stood hip-deep in the stacks of boxes in her rented two-bedroom cottage five hundred miles from everyone she knew. She eased out a long, satisfied breath and smiled. For once in their twenty-six years on this earth, Esther, Polly’s identical twin sister, was wrong. Polly hadn’t run away from anything; she had run to something.

Polly had run to the place where she would build a life, pursue a career, make a difference in people’s lives. She closed her eyes to form a short, silent prayer that this would be the place where she would meet a great guy, fall in love and raise a family—where she would make her home.

“Amen,” Polly whispered, her heart light and her head swirling with a million things she needed to get done. She moved around the boxes that held the contents of her life, boxes marked Kitchen and Living Room and Fragile. She took a deep breath, tugged open the uppermost one and immediately recognized a series of paper-wrapped rectangles. The newsprint packaging rattled as she uncovered a set of four sleek silver frames. Her shoes squeaked on the polished wood floor as she went to put the series of family photos on the mantel of the painted brick fireplace.

“Giving y’all the best spot in the house to watch over me …” she murmured in her soft Georgia accent. First she placed the photo of her brother and sister-in-law and their two kids, who looked as if they’d stepped out of a catalog of perfect families, then added, “But not be able to tell me I’m doing it all wrong.”

Next she settled in the photos of her mom and her mom’s new husband, and her dad and her dad’s soon-to-be next wife, on either side of the first frame. The second she did it, she felt a cloud of heaviness in her chest, so she moved them both onto the same side. That did little to ease the ache in her heart over her parents’ split, even though it had happened almost sixteen years ago. Finally she arranged the pictures so that if you stood in just the right spot and gazed at them at just the right angle, you would see the two faces of the parents she loved so dearly side by side. That helped.

A little.

One last frame to unwrap. Polly tugged it free and let the paper tumble down over her ratty tennis shoes. Her eyes lingered over the image of herself and her sister seated on either side of a wrought-iron table under a red-and-white-striped restaurant awning. Unlike the others, it was not a professional portrait but a shot taken the day her sister had accepted her job as first assistant chef. That same day Polly had decided to quit working as a permanent substitute teacher and find her way in the world, wherever that quest took her.

Esther’s hair was pulled back so tight that if it were blond instead of jet-black, she might have looked bald. Polly had to peer closely to see the slip of a ponytail high on the back of Esther’s head. In contrast, Polly’s unruly black hair, which was only a little bit shorter than Essie’s, fell forward over one dark eyebrow. It flipped up at the ends against her shirt collar and stuck out on one side.

While Essie’s makeup was simple and perfect, Polly had chosen that day to try something dramatic with eyeliner, making her dark pupils look almost black. And despite the fact that Essie worked preparing food in a hot and hectic restaurant kitchen all day long, she looked crisp and cool. Polly was the one with an orangey cheese snack smudge on her shoulder, from where one of her students had hugged her.

She shook her head and sang under her breath, “‘One of these things is not like the other …’”

Deeper in the box, she found the big envelope containing her letter of acceptance as the newest second-grade teacher at Van Buren Elementary School. She took it out and hugged it to her chest, filled with gratitude for the last-minute decision by an older teacher to retire that had resulted in Polly getting the chance of a lifetime.

Outside, the rustling of bushes, the snap of a twig made her pulse kick up. She checked out the curtain-less window in the front room. The long shadows of late afternoon made it impossible to see much, but the neatly kept houses settled cozily on the treelined street left her with a sense of well-being she had never really known. Renting it sight unseen after her video interview had worked out, after all. She couldn’t help but smile at the sight. Even though she hadn’t been in this town since she was six years old, she had known this was where she belonged.

“Baconburg, Ohio.” She held out the envelope and trailed her fingers over the town’s name on the return address then over the cancellation stamp dated July 15, just a little over two weeks ago. To the average person the letter was simply the confirmation of her last-minute contract offer. But to Polly? A flutter of excitement rose from the pit of her stomach and she gave a nervous laugh. “This is my ticket home.”

Her whole life since that childhood move she’d felt as if she was at odds with … well, everything. She’d never found peace in Atlanta, Georgia, where her parents had moved to make a better life for their family.

Polly shook her head and sighed, but that did not even begin to unravel the knot in her chest that the memories of those early years in Atlanta always brought. Better?

Richer. Faster. More driven, maybe. But better?

Polly didn’t see it. The fighting between her parents had started not long after that move and escalated with the driving pace of their lives in the city. They tried to hold the family together, and Polly tried to accept things how she’d been raised—that everything presented an opportunity to be seized, a competition to be won.

But the truth was that Polly just loved kids. Teaching them, guiding them, watching them grow and learn and embrace life in their own unique ways seemed like the greatest ambition anyone could have. Her family did not get that. Sometimes Polly felt her own family did not get her.

They especially did not get her longing to return to Baconburg.

“But here I am—” she swept her gaze over the unpacked boxes in her small house “—on my own. Alone.”

The rustling under her front window interrupted her musings again. She set the envelope aside, went to the shallow window seat and peered out. Nothing. She sank to sit on the window seat. The rays of the late-afternoon sun slanted across the gleaming hardwood floor. So she was done running. Now what?

Her stomach grumbled and that seemed like the answer—eat something. She started to head toward the kitchen, then realized she didn’t even have any food in the house.

If she were back in Atlanta she’d just hop in her little hybrid and scoot over to her sister’s restaurant or over to her mom’s house to raid the fridge. She certainly didn’t know anyone well enough to do that here. She didn’t really know anyone here. And the only restaurant she knew of in Baconburg was a fast-food spot out on the highway.

This time the noise outside sounded like a low whine. Probably a corner of one of the shaggy bushes scraping against the glass or the metal gutters creaking. A car pulled up in the drive across the street and two children came scrambling down the walk to greet the man climbing out from behind the wheel. Her stomach rumbled. The people went inside. She glanced over her shoulder at her family’s photos on the mantel and it all hit her.

She had no one here. A wave of loneliness swept over her. Real loneliness. She always carried her faith within her and with it her connection to God and to all her friends and family, who routinely held one another in prayer. So it wasn’t a matter of being completely abandoned. But …

Finally a clear whimper at her front door made her catch her breath. She shut her eyes, hoping again that she had only imagined it.

Another whimper.

Tension wound from between her shoulder blades through her body to tighten into a knot in the pit of her stomach.

She had seen that little dog hanging around her yard as she moved boxes in. She assumed it belonged to one of the families on the block and forced herself not to try to gather up the sweet-faced little animal.

You never get a second chance to make a first impression. Polly could practically hear her mother schooling her in an attempt to get the imperfect twin to be more like her sister. It must have sunk in a little because Polly had not wanted the first impression she made to be that she had stolen her neighbor’s pet.

This time a series of three short whimpers, then a snuffle moved her to action. She went to the front door and opened it slowly. She’d just steal a peek and—

A soft golden-brown muzzle poked into the crack between the door and doorframe.

“Oh! No, puppy.” She reached down to push the animal back outside. “This is not your home. You should go back where you belong.”

A small, cold nose filled her palm followed by a soft warm tongue. She glanced down and her gaze met a pair of huge, soft brown eyes.

Polly was lost. She had always been a pushover for brown eyes. And these? Looking up at her from the sweetest little face of a doggy who, like her, wasn’t sure if he would be welcome in this new environment. Oh, yeah, she was lost for sure.

“Okay, I’ll take you in for the night, but starting tomorrow morning I am going to do everything I can to find your real own—” She’d hardly started to pull open the door when the animal nudged his way inside.

He had the elongated body and uncapped energy of a dachshund. The long ears and short, stocky legs of a basset hound maybe, but with the coloring, brown eyes and nose of a golden retriever. Tongue lapping and tail wagging, he jumped on her and threw her off-balance. She sank to the floor and the little guy squirmed into her lap, laid his head against her cheek and sighed.

For one fleeting moment her loneliness eased—until she realized she couldn’t allow herself to get too attached. Her first responsibility to this little fellow was to get him back to those who loved him. Much like her duty as the town’s new second-grade teacher was to encourage children to learn and grow and then to move on.

“Okay, let’s get some food.” She stood and brushed the dog hair off her clothes, snapped up her purse, then went to the door. “Tomorrow I’ll run up to the school and get whatever I need to make some flyers.”

She’d brought paper, markers, glue, scissors and other supplies with her from Atlanta because she didn’t know what she’d find in Baconburg. “Then I can take a picture of you, scan it into my laptop, make a flyer and post them around town. But for now?” She opened the front door and motioned for him to follow. “Wanna go for a ride in the car?”

Apparently he did not.

“Come out from under there!” Gingerly, she poked her nose under the back end of her car where the dog had darted after she had stepped outside.

The puppy whimpered.

She recognized the sound of a car engine cutting off, a door opening and falling shut again. She couldn’t stop to think about what kind of first impression she was making on some neighbor. Despite her thoughts on wanting to leave her competitive upbringing behind, she couldn’t help herself—she was determined to win this little battle of wills. A battle not for her own benefit, but this time to help the frightened animal.

“Just a little closer …” Her cheek flattened against the cold bumper. She stretched out her hand, straining her fingers to try to reach some part of the animal. “I wish I could make you understand that this is for your own good. Can’t you just give a little bit, too?”

“I know people who name their cars. Even some who give them pep talks or good swearing outs, but trying to guilt your car into running? That’s totally new to me.”

Polly gasped at the deep, masculine voice. She wasn’t frightened so much as mortified to be caught in this awkward position.

“Uh, hello, I wasn’t … That is … Hang on a sec …” She knew it would take her a minute to work her arm back enough to get leverage so she could free herself. Maybe she should say something about how silly she looked to make him chuckle, but nothing sprang to mind.

“I, um, I was just … I wasn’t talking to …” Heart racing, she finally got herself out from under the car, banging the back of her head on the plastic bumper as she did. That slight injury—more to her ego than her noggin—did not explain her reaction when she swept her gaze up to take in the full view of the stranger standing in her driveway.

She saw the cowboy boots first. They totally set the tone for what was to come—jeans, denim shirt over broad shoulders, a relaxed, open stance that instantly put her at ease. From what she could see in the shadow of the brim of his dark brown cowboy hat, he had a likable face, not too handsome, not too rugged, and a subtle but earnest smile.

“I was passing by on my way home. Saw you lying in your driveway under your car and I thought, well, either A, you had run over yourself, in which case you’d have a story I couldn’t miss hearing.” He used his left hand to tip his hat back. No wedding ring. His smile took on a hint of teasing. “Or B, I thought maybe you could use a hand.”

He would have laughed if she’d said something about her silly situation while backing out and she sort of wished she’d done it now. There could be worse things than planting herself in this guy’s memory. She swept back the fringe of her shaggy bangs, and stole a peek at the man’s hunter-green truck parked at the end of her driveway with the painted logo Goodacre Organic Farm. The Farmer Sows the Word. Mark 4:14.

“B, definitely B.” Polly smiled. A farmer and a Christian—who better to deal with one of God’s creatures? “I could use some help, thank you.”

“I’d be happy to take a look.” He squatted down, sweeping his hat off as he did. Suddenly they were at eye level. And what warm brown eyes they were.

“I have to admit I don’t know a lot about fixing cars, but I’m willing to give it a go.” He settled the hat on the drive, then ran his hand back through the short-ish waves of sandy-brown hair. “What’s the problem? Loose muffler? Oil leak?”

He bent down low to peer under the car. A cold nose thrust forward, a flash of tongue.

“Scared dog,” Polly said, her timing just a bit off.

“Hey!” The man whipped his large hand across his chin and nailed Polly with a stunned look. “There’s a dog under there.”

“I know. That’s who I was talking to.” Hadn’t she made that clear? The second she’d laid eyes on her champion farmer she’d had a hard time following the conversation. “Can you help me coax him out?”

“Does he bite?”

“He hasn’t bitten me.” She pressed her lips together to launch into a more thorough explanation, but he didn’t give her time.

“All right, I’ll give it a try.” He clapped his hands together.

A soft woof came from beneath the car.

Polly sucked air between her teeth. “Thanks, I really appreciate your coming to our rescue. I guess this is one of the benefits of small-town living.”

He opened his mouth to say something, but instead a woman’s voice called out, “Hey, Sam! Need any help?”

“Got it under control, thanks!” The man, whose name was Sam, it seemed, waved back. He gave Polly a wry look, clearly not quite put out, not quite thrilled with the attention they had drawn. “Another ‘benefit’ of small-town life—wherever you go … there you are.”

Polly gave a light laugh at the oversimplification of his frustration with being spotted.

“More precisely, there your friends are, or your family, or your pastor.” He gave a shrug, then nodded to the car tag sporting a frame from an Atlanta auto dealer on the back of her little red car. “Not the kind of thing you have to worry about where you’re from, I guess.”

“Or here, actually. I’m Polly Bennett, by the way.” She held out her hand.

“Sam Goodacre.” He took her hand in his.

Their eyes met and held. She had been in town for all of a few hours and already met a guy who made her heart race. So much for taking things at a slower pace here. She drew in a deep breath of fresh summer air. “It’s good to meet you. I just—”

A pathetic whimper from under the car kept her from launching into her story.

“Why don’t you go around to the other side of the car in case he heads that direction?” Sam directed her by drawing a circle with one finger.

Polly nodded and hurried around to the other side of the car and started to get down on one knee, but before she could, Sam’s head popped up over the roof of her small vehicle.

“Got him.” He lifted the dog up. Floppy ears and tongue flapped out, all landing in Sam’s smiling face. “Yeah, yeah. No need to get all mushy about it … What’s his name?”

She gave a big sigh at the overload of adorableness, then shifted her gaze to the pup. “I don’t know.”

“What?”

“He’s a stray,” she admitted, twisting her hands together. “I just saw him around earlier today. Then when I opened the door to check on him, he ran inside, then back outside and now I can’t … I just … I couldn’t …”

“Don’t tell me. You’ve fallen in love with him already.”

“Don’t you believe in love at first sight?” Okay, that was way too flirty to say to a man she’d just met. Still, Polly tipped her head to one side and waited for his answer.

“Believe in it?” He lowered the dog out of face-licking range and gave a resigned kind of smile, his brown eyes framed by the faint beginnings of laugh lines. “I think it’s unavoidable.”

Her pulse went from racing to practically ricocheting through her body.

“Especially when you’re talking about a little lost dog as cute as this.” He looked down and rubbed the dog behind the ears, then came around the front end of the car to bring the animal to her.

“Of course.” Polly let out a breath she hadn’t even realized she’d been holding. “I still want to try to find who he belongs to, of course, but if nobody claims him …”

“He’s a lucky dog.” He bundled the dog into her waiting arms.

“I don’t believe in luck.” She ran her fingers along the dog’s smooth, silky ear. “I believe in God’s blessings.”

“I’ve had a few of those in my life.” He nodded but didn’t offer any further explanation, just turned and headed for his truck.

“So …” Polly looked up and down the street, not sure what to do next. Her gaze fell on the truck. “Oh! Do you know … I mean, it’s about food.”

“I have been known to eat food, yes.” He patted his flat stomach even as he slowed his pace slightly and spoke to her over his shoulder. “What do you want to know?”

I want to know that everything is going to work out fine. I want to know if I made the right choice moving here. I want to know when I’ll see you again. “I don’t have any dog food in the house, so I was going to take him with me to grab a fast-food burger. Do you think it would be okay if he ate one of those?”

“I think it would be okay if you ate one of them.” He shook his head and scratched his fingers through his thick, light brown hair. “But there’s a gas station with a little fresh market near the burger place. You can get a can of dog food there—for him. You should probably stick with the burger.”

She laughed. “Thanks, and thanks for your help.”

“Glad to do it.” He started toward his truck again, tossing off a friendly wave. “Nice to have met you. Both of you.”

“You, too, from both of us.” She took the dog’s paw and waved it.

He opened the driver’s side door to climb in, then paused and leaned inside the cab, as if looking for something.

“That right there—” she whispered with her cheek pressed against the animal’s head “—is the whole reason I came back to Baconburg.”

She didn’t mean the man. She meant the man’s willingness to take time out of his own schedule to help a stranger. Okay, Polly could not lie, even to herself—maybe the man … a little. Or a man like him. What Polly really wanted in Baconburg was the life she had always dreamed possible, and that included a good man and her own family that would stay together no matter what.

Before she could shuffle the little dog into the backseat of her car, the animal dashed around the back of the car. Polly glanced back and there was Sam walking across her front yard, heading back toward her. And he had his hand up in a wave. She raised her hand as the dog returned and ducked into the back of the car.

“Wow, maybe I do mean that guy is the reason I came here,” she whispered to her canine companion as she took in a sharp breath. “He sure seems like he isn’t ready for me to go yet.”

The dog paced back and forth over the seat. If she kept him, she knew she’d have to invest in a safety restraint but thought for now this was safer than leaving him in her house or outside.

“Maybe I should see if he wants to join us for burgers.” Polly gripped the door.

Sam came to a halt in her yard. His raised hand fell to his side.

She smiled and worked up the courage to say, “Hi, it looks like you’re thinking what I’m thinking …”

He cocked his head and narrowed his eyes. “That your dog has my hat?”

“Your … Oh, no! You set it on the driveway, didn’t you?” She glanced back in time to see the animal give the hat a shake. “No!”

Sam put his thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose. Probably unable to look at what the dog had done.

“I am so sorry.” She hurried to the back door, reached in and grabbed the hat by the brim. It took a firm tug to rescue it, but she held it out to him.

He looked down, his expression guarded.

Polly stared at the damp brim and the crown the dog had shaken into a shapeless wonder. “I’m so sorry,” she said again. Her voice was barely a whisper.

“What’s done is done.” Finally he put his own hand up and turned his head to one side as if to say, I don’t want it now. “It’s okay. Don’t feel bad. It was just an old Christmas gift from my wife.”

“Wife?” Now she felt careless and a bit silly. “I didn’t think you were—”

“My late wife,” he clarified. He frowned down at the mash up of brim and crown. “Hmm. Well, okay, then. I guess that’s the end of that.”

He flicked it with one finger as if to say, Goodbye, old friend, then raised his hand in a sort of salute to her, turned and headed for his truck.

“Your taking this so well only makes me feel worse,” she called after him. “Isn’t there something I can do with it?”

“Maybe we can cut ear holes in it and let the dog wear it.” He didn’t look back.

Polly climbed into the car and looked her only friend in all of Baconburg in the eye. Poor little thing. Of all of God’s creatures, he could understand her fear, sadness, embarrassment and loneliness when she said, “Maybe Essie was right. Maybe running away isn’t going to be the big solution to my problems that I thought it would be.”

Chapter Two

“So, let me get this straight.” Sam’s sister, Gina, slipped off her computer glasses and aimed her sharp-eyed gaze at him. “You just left your hat in her hands and drove off?”

“Hey, it wasn’t like I was going to wear it home.” Sam moved around the kitchen table gathering up the three empty bowls where a few minutes ago his daughters had been eating ice cream. He stacked Juliette’s “sprinkles, please, Daddy, and no nuts” dish inside Hayley’s “chocolate on chocolate with a side of chocolate” one. Finally he took up Caroline’s “whatever you give me is fine, Daddy” dish, held them up and said to his sister, “Anyone who thinks those girls are completely identical has never had to feed them.”

“Don’t try to change the subject on me.” Gina wriggled in the high-backed oak chair, then kicked it up on two legs, bracing her hiking shoe against the table leg to stabilize herself. “Marie gave you that hat.”

“I am well aware.” Sam plunked the bowls into the sink. He turned on the water to rinse them out and said, loudly enough to be heard over the splashing, “By the way, if Mom were here she’d tell you she didn’t care if you are the owner of this place now, you keep both your feet and all the chair legs on the floor, young lady.”

Gina rocked the chair slightly and crossed her arms defiantly, not even flinching when her long, dark blond braid got snagged under one arm. “Tell me again who this woman is.”

“Mom?” He faked surprise to cover his determination not to prolong any discussion of Polly Bennett. “I know she and Dad have been living in Florida for a few years now, but—”

“You know who I mean. The mysterious woman who got you to help rescue a dog. A dog, Sam. That’s huge for you.”

He finished washing up the dishes, then moved to drying them off with the towel that usually hung from the handle of the oven door. “I don’t dislike dogs and she’s not mysterious. Her name is Polly Bennett from Atlanta, Georgia.”

“New in town?”

“Didn’t say.” He put the bowls up and shut the cabinet, wishing he could finish up this conversation that easily. He wouldn’t normally have even mentioned any of this to Gin, but she had asked if he had left his hat at work when he’d come home. And when she didn’t get an answer had wondered aloud if he had left it in her truck and she’d have to get it out of there later. She wouldn’t let it go, even several hours later.

“You don’t suppose this Polly Bennett is the new schoolteacher?” Gina asked.

“Thought of that myself.” But he’d dismissed it almost instantly. Polly Bennett, with her wild, dark hair, her fresh face and pint-size stature, didn’t look like any grade-school teacher he’d ever had. “But then I remembered you said word on the grapevine was they’d gone with someone born here in Baconburg.”

“That’s right.” The chair legs came clunking down. She shifted her laptop around on the table as if she was about to get back to work promoting the farm’s upcoming fall pumpkin-themed festival, the Pumpkin Jump, online. Instead she looked up at him again. “And you just left your hat with a stranger?”

“Stop this ride.” He held up his hands. “I am not going around again.”

“Fine.” She leaned in over her keyboard and put her fingers over the touch pad. But always one to want the last word, she said, “You know, they say if you leave something at a person’s house, it’s a subconscious way of giving yourself an excuse to go back.”

“Then they don’t know me because I don’t go back.” He headed out the kitchen door into the hallway.

“Walking away is not the same as moving forward, you know.”

“I’m not walking away. I’m going to check on the girls and tell them good-night.” He paused at the bottom of the stairs.

“Good luck with that.”

“I don’t believe in luck. I believe in God’s blessings.” He wasn’t sure why he’d said it, but the words, and thinking of the woman who had said them, actually made him smile.

“Fine, go say good-night to your little blessings. Remember they’re all wired up about getting their classroom assignments tomorrow. I hope you’re ready to deal with the fallout.”

“I was born ready.” Whatever came his way, Sam met it, wrestled with it, made it his or left it behind. Nothing slowed him down. Full speed ahead. Farm kid. College football hero. Hometown business owner. Husband. Father. Widower. Single dad to three six-year-old girls.

He moved forward, always forward, tackling every new role with his faith to uphold him. When he made up his mind, applied his experience and attitude, he could handle anything.

Except second grade.

Sam took a deep breath, stepped into the doorway of the room shared by his daughters and made one loud clap of his hands. “Big day tomorrow, girls! Second-grade registration and we find out who your new teachers will be.”

“There’s only one new teacher,” Hayley, the most outspoken of the three, reminded him.

As if he needed reminding. Three second-grade classes at Van Buren Elementary, three Goodacre girls aching for a chance to be teacher’s pet to somebody who hadn’t known them since they were toddlers. A school with a policy not to put multiples in the same classroom, and one new teacher. He didn’t have to be a math whiz to know he was going to have a couple of upset girls tomorrow, maybe for a big part of the whole school year.

“Okay, let’s not borrow trouble.” Especially not triple trouble, he thought. “We’ll deal with whoever gets the new teacher the way we deal with everything. And how’s that?”

“With grace and with gratitude, with a never-give-up attitude.” The trio repeated in unison another line from the bedtime stories their mother had created, stories that they each knew by heart.

He thought of Marie saying those same words, and on the heels of that, he thought of the cowboy-hat Christmas gift she’d given him as a joke. No one expected him to wear it. Which was why Sam had put it on the day they moved out to the farm, a month after Marie had died. He’d worn it every day since. It was his way of making himself embrace change. Now …

In the blink of an eye, his mind went to Polly Bennett. Polly.

What a great name. Fit her, too. Upbeat. Fresh, yet maybe a little old-fashioned. And a good heart. He’d seen it in her from the moment their eyes met until she looked at him with true regret over ruining his hat.

Unpredictable, too, just like that crazy hair of hers. Sam had had to clench his fingers tight a couple of time to keep from brushing it out of her eyes. Then that whole deal with that little lost dog …

That thought snapped Sam back into the moment. He shifted his boots on the old farmhouse floorboards. His mind did not usually skip the tracks like that. He had to get ahold of himself. “Actually, I meant that we’d meet the problem head-on and not look back because …”

“The rest of our life is ahead of us.” Hayley and Juliette repeated one of the many mottoes Sam had taught them. Caroline just looked at him, saying nothing.

“That’s right. Never look back.” He didn’t just talk the talk in this case. Sam had made these past few years about demonstrating those traits to his girls. People had told him he kept the girls too busy and spent too little time making a new life for himself.

He knew what they meant by that. They thought Sam needed to fall in love again. What those people didn’t understand was that he had made up his mind that all his time and energy had to go into his girls, into making sure they did not miss out on anything because they were missing their mom. Maybe one day he’d be able to let up a little and meet … someone. But that certainly wasn’t going to be tomorrow. Tomorrow presented its own problems. “Now say your prayers and go to bed.”

He reached along the wall and flicked off the light, but instead of turning around and leaving the girls to do what was expected of them, he lingered to listen as they thanked God for their day, their home, the food they ate and then began the list of the people they loved.

“Bless Daddy.” Always the leader, Hayley’s request came clear and firm.

“And bless Uncle Max,” Hayley’s carbon copy, Juliette, chimed in to add the youngest of Sam’s siblings.

“And bless Aunt Gina.” Caroline tacked on a request on behalf of Sam’s sister.

“And also, if You don’t mind …” Hayley started again, her tone uncharacteristically tentative. “If Mommy is close by to You in heaven right now …”

Don’t look back … Sam wanted to plead with his child, Let your mother go and don’t dwell on the loss. A lump rose in his throat, which he pushed down again. He turned away. No point in standing there having his heart tugged toward a past he could not change. His life … more importantly, his daughters’ lives, lay ahead of them and he had to keep fixed on that and never stop moving forward. It was the only way they could survive.

“If Mom is there with You,” Juliette took over for her sister, her tone bright and cheerful, “give her a hug from us.”

Sam froze in the dim hallway.

And finally Caroline added softly, “And tell her we will never forget her.”

Sam dragged air into his lungs, ignoring the dull ache that still caught him by surprise even two years after his wife’s death. Maybe pain was the wrong word. Emptiness? Sadness? He didn’t know anymore. He’d made his peace with his loss, accepted it as God’s will and got on with normal life for his girls’ sake.

That’s why he had moved them from the house he and his wife, Marie, had owned in their small town out to the family farm his sister had taken over from their parents. He did it to show the girls how life was about change and growth. What better place to show that than a farm? Were they not getting it? What more could he do?

“And bless the new teacher, whoever gets her.” This time Hayley led off. “I hope she’s fun and smart and nice.”

Again a twinge of emotion, only this time it was not grief but a mix of misgivings.

“And it wouldn’t be bad if she also thinks triplets are cool. And also if she’s pretty—” Juliette turned her head enough to peer over her shoulder through one half-opened eye “—and not married.”

It hit Sam like a sucker punch. This was why he needed to stop listening in on his girls’ prayers, because he did not want the girls using their prayer time to try to make a point to him. It didn’t matter if the teacher was pretty or single—all he cared about was how she would help whichever daughter landed in her classroom to have a successful school year.

“What did you say?” He put his hand to the side of his head to remind them he was standing right there within earshot.

“Amen,” Hayley concluded.

“Amen,” the others agreed.

“Go to bed,” Sam muttered, his hand on the doorknob. Just before he pulled it closed, he leaned in to add, “And tomorrow don’t make me remind you of my own personal set of no-no’s.”

“We know. Dad, we know all about your no-no’s.” Hayley sighed, got to her feet and threw back the covers on her single bed. “No dogs.”

That sounded particularly harsh all of a sudden after helping Polly Bennett wrangle that sweet little lost dog. But they had imposed enough on his sister’s time by moving in. To add pet care while he ran and remodeled Downtown Drug and while the girls were in school, and dance classes and tumbling and T-ball … just wasn’t fair.

“It’s not the ‘no dogs’ rule I’m talking about,” he reminded them. “No …”

Juliette and then Caroline rose, each flipping back the covers on their own beds, too.

Three little sighs and three sets of eyes—probably rolling in irritation as they climbed into their beds.

“And no …” he prompted one more time.

“No matchmaking,” they all said as one. Then one, two, three, they pulled up their covers in a way that made Sam think of cartoon princesses flouncing off in a huff.

“That’s right. Good night, sweethearts.” He gave them a nod and turned to shut the door at last, but just before he pulled it closed, he heard one of those little princesses mutter an addendum to his hard-and-fast no-matchmaking rule.

“For now.”

Ready? Had he thought he was ready? Oh, no. He was not ready for this. Not ready at all.

Chapter Three

Early that next morning, Polly hurried to the school, still feeling badly about the whole hat thing. With that weighing on her mind, she didn’t even feel like chattering out loud to her canine passenger as she drove the four blocks from her house to the place where her street, Mills, met Main. At the intersection, governed only by a four-way stop sign, she took a moment to read the official signs.

“Baconburg Business District.” She glanced toward the road that she knew wound around toward the highway where a chain hotel, a couple of fast-food places and a mega grocery store dotted the landscape.

She took a peek down at a patchwork of buildings that told the story of a town that had known growth spurts and setbacks. Polly smiled. “Baconburg Historic District, which means the cool stuff is thataway.”

But Polly was headed straight down Mills to the school and she couldn’t linger any longer. She sighed. “Too bad there isn’t a hat-blocking place back there.”

Oblivious, the dog bounced right to left, then right again. In a few minutes she pulled into the school parking lot. The only other cars seemed to belong to the staff.

Today was the day the students would be finding out whose classroom they would be assigned to. The principal had okayed her coming in to collect some supplies but had asked that Polly not stick around to avoid “complications.” Polly understood the code word for school politics. She knew that as a fairly new teacher—just three years out of college—and totally new to Van Buren Elementary, some parents would have misgivings about their kids being assigned to her. Others would demand to have their children in Miss Bennett’s class, thinking she would have fresher perspective, all the latest approaches and no preconceptions about which were the good kids and which were the “problems.” Though Polly couldn’t really imagine how much of a problem your average small-town second grader could be.

“No more problem than you right now, mister.” She whirred the window down a few inches, got out and shut the door. She started to turn toward the front door of the single-level blond-brick building, then suddenly felt compelled to explain, “You just have to stay here for two minutes while I run into my classroom here to get some paper. I can make up flyers there so we can find your parents, okay?”

The thick tail thumped against the back of the seat and he whimpered softly as if to tell her he understood.

She tapped the window. Did she really have to make flyers today? She had moved here to learn to take her time, relish the past and not be so anxious to press forward, after all.

A silvery-blue minivan came gliding up past her car and pulled up to the curb in front of her.

Parents were beginning to arrive. She had two choices. Go inside and get what she came for and get out. Or run away.

The passenger door of the minivan swung open and Polly couldn’t help taking a peek.

One little girl with a bright red ponytail, dressed in canvas-colored overalls over a lime-green camp shirt scrambled out onto the sidewalk with so much energy that she almost fell over herself. No, that wasn’t herself she had fallen over. It was …

“Twins!” Polly couldn’t help it. She whispered the word in a rush of excitement to the little dog.

The second child emerged. Her red hair was woven into a gorgeous French braid tied with a pink ribbon. In fact, everything she wore was pink. Pink top, pink skirt, pink sparkly shoelaces in pink sequined tennis shoes.

Polly laughed out loud at the sight. “A set of identical—”

A third child climbed out.

“Triplets,” Polly murmured.

This one wore tennis shoes, too, plain white ones. With faded jeans and an ill-fitting gray shirt. Her hair was caught up in pigtails, the right one a good two inches higher than the left.

That was the one that got to Polly. She felt a smile start that grew beyond simple amusement to recognition of a kindred spirit. All three girls turned and looked at her, their eyes wide.

Polly wondered if she should say hello. It seemed wrong to just get in her car and rush off now. Maybe she should wave and say, See ya soon, I hope. Or should she ask their names? Before she could speak or move or even make up her mind, the driver’s door swung open.

“I told you girls we were leaving too early. I don’t know if the doors are even open yet.” A large, weathered cowboy boot hit the concrete followed by more than six feet of tall, muscular man.

Polly leaned back against the car, a bit for support, a bit to give her room to take in the whole view. “You!”

“Me!” Sam grinned as he shut his door and started toward her. “So, you have a kid in this school, too?”

“Too?” Polly looked at the children, then at the van and realized nobody else was getting out.

He pointed toward the girls each in turn. “Hayley, Juliette and Caroline.”

“Those are … your daughters?” Sam Goodacre had identical triplets. Some women might have wanted to run from a situation like that, but for Polly, just seeing these girls made her feel less homesick for her own twin.

“Yeah.” He held up three fingers. “All mine. And you …”

Three high-pitched squeals tore through the quiet air of the summer morning.

“You … brought … a dog.” They all sang out a variation of almost the same thing.

“I don’t have any kids, Sam. I’m not even married.” Polly moved closer to him to speak softly enough that the girls wouldn’t hear as she whispered her confession, “I’m the new teacher.”

“Of course you are.” He shook his head. “You are the single, new teacher with an adorable, homeless puppy.”

In a flash of red curls and giggles, the girls ran up to the car. The puppy rushed to the side and licked the place where the small hands pressed against the glass.

“You say ‘new teacher’ like it’s a bad thing.” She ducked her head to try to meet his lowered gaze. “It’s because of the hat thing, right? It’s the hat?”

“Forget about the hat. That’s the past.” He waved his hand as if actually pushing it behind them. “No, it’s more complicated than that, starting with the fact that my girls are starting second grade this year. This is Hayley. That one is Juliette.” He pointed to each girl as he spoke. “And that is Caroline.”

“Oh.” Polly whipped around and saw the girls in another light—not as fellow multiples but each a potential student.

The one Sam called Caroline gasped, her eyes grew wide and in that second there was a light in her to rival her other sisters’ natural vivaciousness. Caroline turned her head to tell Polly, “I like your dog.”

“He’s not mine, really.” She slipped away from Sam and went to the children. “I found him hanging around my house. I’m going to put up flyers to see if I can find his real owners.”

“You don’t have to do that. I know his real owners.” Caroline jerked her head around to fix her huge, pleading eyes on her father.

“Me, too.” Juliette ran to the car to peer inside.

“Me, too, too,” Hayley said with sweetness but conviction.

Sam strode forward from the parking lot to the sidewalk, motioning the girls away from the car. “Okay, girls, you know the rules.”

“We weren’t matchmaking, Dad,” they all protested together in perfect harmony, a trick only identical multiples could fully pull off.

“Matchmaking?” Polly laughed, a bit too nervously for her own comfort. What was this all about? Sam had a rule against matchmaking?

Sam scowled. “I meant the rule about dogs.”

“Oh, so we can matchmake?” Hayley rushed forward.

“No.” He spread his hands wide as if calling a runner out at home plate.

Polly felt a blush rush from the constriction in her chest to the tips of her ears. She didn’t know if she should say something or get out of there fast.

“You know we can’t have a dog right now. You have too many activities. Juliette, you want to give up ballet?”

The girl opened her mouth, but before she could actually give an answer, the man moved on, intent on making his point quick and clean. It was a familiar means of “communicating” in her family and it made Polly tense up.

“And, Hayley, you have your hands full with your 4-H projects, right?”

Hayley put her shoulders back and didn’t answer—a means of getting her message across that Sam did not seem to notice.

“And, Caroline … well, when school starts I’m sure you’ll find some things to keep you busy. We’re all busy. Bringing a dog into our lives now wouldn’t be fair to your aunt Gina having to care for it, or to the dog not getting our full attention.”

Caroline glanced back and the dog. “But …”

“We don’t even know.” Sam tried to glower at the girls then at the dog, but he didn’t quite pull it off. “This dog may belong to someone.”

“He does belong to someone, Daddy, to us,” Caroline insisted in such a plaintive voice that Polly could feel the longing in her own bones.

“No.” Sam’s insistence told a story of something more going on than his simplistic explanation. “He is not ours.”

“He should be ours,” Hayley said firmly.

“He could be ours.” Juliette spoke a bit more tentatively.

Caroline fixed her eyes on her father and added, “If Mama was alive, he would be ours.”

Sam pressed his lips into a thin white line.

Maybe she was overly sensitive because she’d been so lonely last night, or because she felt so guilty about Sam’s hat, or maybe because she honestly liked Sam and felt a connection to his daughters. Whatever the reason, Polly couldn’t stay quiet another minute. She hurried to the driver’s side door, her keys jangling in her hand.

“You know,” Polly said as she rushed to his rescue and put the key in the lock, “I think I’ll just take care of him until we find out if someone is looking for him. Right now I’ve got to go. The teachers aren’t supposed to be here when the kids and parents start to show up. Bye, girls, it was so nice to meet you.”

The girls all groaned.

Sam mouthed a thank-you that made her feel good and a little sad at the same time. How she longed to point out those missed clues with the girls. Why wouldn’t he allow them to have a dog? And the no-matchmaking deal?

Suddenly instead of seeing a funny, kind man of faith she perceived the hurt he hid even from himself.

As she drove away from the family scene, her gaze fell on the hat that she had left in the car last night. She couldn’t talk rules or matchmaking with Sam, couldn’t interfere with his parenting, but she could help him out here. She could do everything within her power to get this puppy back to his real home so that she could give the dog and the girls a happy ending. But to do that she had to act fast.

“You know, for someone who came to Baconburg to slow down the pace of her life—” she told her passenger, who woofed softly in response “—I sure have been in an awful big hurry ever since I met that Sam Goodacre.”

“So?” Sam’s younger brother, Max, called out the second Sam came blowing through the back door of Downtown Drug.

He had taken the girls back to the farm after they’d gotten their class assignments. The whole process had taken longer than he’d expected and he was late getting in to open the store. The girls had actually taken their assignments pretty well. Hayley and Juliette patting Caroline on the back as a kind of congratulations, even, and saying they didn’t mind. Until they learned just who the new teacher was.

Sam had met the cries of “unfair” and pleas for him to go to the school and let them all be in Miss Bennett’s class with his usual “let’s not let this slow us down” answers, which hadn’t helped much. Maybe it was because for the first time in a long time, he hadn’t really believed his own proclamations. In finding out Polly had this connection to his children, it wasn’t just the two girls in the other classes that felt just a little bit cheated.

“So?” Max’s voice rang out again. “Just how cute is this new teacher?”

The first thing Sam encountered was the last thing he had the time or patience to put up with.

“I spoke with her for five whole minutes in front of the school this morning.” Sam slipped the long white lab coat he kept hanging on the door of the pharmacist’s station over his street clothes. He strode farther into the old store where his little brother, Max, stood amid a disarray of power tools, how-to manuals and a row of still-crated restaurant-grade appliances. “Do not tell me it’s all over town already?”

“Hey, you belly crawl across the new lady in town’s driveway one evening, then get spotted talking to her in front of the school the next day?” Max grinned his famous cocky grin, and gave an unconvincing shrug. “People are gonna talk.”

“She’s Caroline’s teacher.” In Sam’s mind that was the end of the discussion. He moved on toward the front door, flipping on display lights and setting things in their rightful spots.

“So?” Max called after him, not budging so much as an inch to help prep the place for the coming day.

So. Max had a way of asking something that Sam had no way of formulating an answer to.

“Look, it’s Baconburg. Everyone is somebody’s teacher or scout leader or church youth-group leader or cousin or … You get it. As long as you keep things on the up-and-up and don’t give anyone reason for concern vis-à-vis the whole teacher-as-a-role-model thing, I think you could manage a few dates with the lady.”

Sam gripped the door’s ice-cold metal handle until the chill sank through all the way to his fingertips. He clenched his jaw and looked out at the town where he had grown up, the place that had cheered him in his youthful triumphs and embraced him in his time of deepest grief. He had fully prepared for his faith and this town to sustain him as he raised his girls and they grew up and had their own triumphs. That had been his sole priority.

Then he’d seen Polly Bennett trying to rescue that stray dog from under her car and for a split second his whole life hit Pause.

“She takes in strays,” he said loud enough for Max to hear, but not so much for Max’s benefit. “Raggedy, sad-eyed, not-too-great-smelling strays.”

“Great. That means you might actually stand a chance with her.”

“Very funny.” He glanced back and laughed at the brotherly jab. Max had always been the ladies’ man of the Goodacre boys, so Sam could understand why Max’s mind would immediately jump to the romance conclusion. “But really, how could I ever get involved with someone who wouldn’t hesitate to take in a lost dog, an animal she might have to give back if the real owners showed up? I can’t put my kids through that.”

“Then let them have their own dog, like lots of kids their age do.” Max sifted through the plans and pencils scattered on a makeshift table in the soon-to-be lunch-counter area of the store.

Sam’s throat constricted just enough to strain his words as he shot back, “Lots of kids their age haven’t suffered the kind of loss my girls have.”

“Did you ever think it might be good for them to have a dog to take care of, not to mention a nice lady in their life—in your life?” Max took up a pencil and tucked it behind his ear. “It might help them find a new kind of normal.”

“There’s a piece of the puzzle you’re not seeing.” Sam turned and headed back through the store. Time to get this subject and this day back on track. “This dog she’s found could be the model for the dog in those bedtime stories Marie used to tell the girls.”

“The ones Gina has written up and wants to publish?”

“The triplets have grown up with an idealized version of an adorable little dog who never gets sick, never gets old, never …” Sam gave a thumbs-down gesture rather than say what he meant. He met Max’s gaze and gave his final word on the matter. “No dog could live up to the one in their imagination. It wouldn’t be fair to the animal.”

Sam headed back to the pharmacy.

Max moved around the work space, putting himself in a place to make sure Sam could hear him as he folded his burly arms over his broad chest and asked, “Have you noticed, big bro, that every time you give an excuse for not letting the girls have a dog, it changes a little?”

“I have work to do.” Sam stood still for a moment, aware that Max had a point but that he also didn’t have any say in Sam’s life. “You have heard of that, right? Work?”

Max withdrew the pencil and a tumble of his shaggy, sun-streaked hair stuck out over his tanned ear. “Hey, I’m working on this.”

“If that were true we’d have an operational lunch counter by now.” Sam didn’t mean to sound mad, but he’d reached his limit on this subject today. No dog. No matchmaking with Polly Bennett. Why couldn’t anyone get that? “You know they call it a lunch counter because people expect to come in, sit at the counter and get served a hot, quick lunch, right? Not because everyone is counting the days until this project eats your lunch and you take off again.”

“You know you sound like a grouchy old man, don’t you?” Max laughed. “Go count pills.”

“I will. And while I’m doing that, can you handle taking care of the store? I do not need to be disturbed any more today.”

“Any more? You’re saying something … or someone … has already disturbed your tightly wound little world, bro?” Max chuckled. “Good for her. If she’s as cute as they say, good for you, too. It’s about time.”

Chapter Four

Getting her supplies from the school wasn’t going to work for her flyer project. Polly had taken her wriggling little wet-nosed charge back to her house and settled him in, then headed out to try to find a place to buy more paper. When she found herself at that crossroads between the Historic and Business districts of Baconburg again, she didn’t hesitate.

A few minutes later she was strolling down the sidewalk, soaking in every small detail of the lovely old historic buildings. Nothing was going to hurry her along again today. Brass fixtures, ornate cement trimwork, even the names of the old establishments spelled out in colored tile in the entryways leading to the doors. Try as she might she could not recall any of this from her childhood. She strongly suspected that her parents preferred to do their shopping someplace shiny and sophisticated, upscale and urban. She paused just outside her destination, a sweet little throwback to an earlier time, Downtown Drug.

She blinked at the image of a black-haired, dreamy-eyed young woman reflected back at her. She could easily imagine herself in a pillbox hat and gloves, proper Miss Bennett, grammar-school teacher, strolling downtown circa 1950. How could her family have not loved this town? How could they have run so fast and so far away from it?

If Polly didn’t look just like her sister, Essie, who so clearly belonged with the Bennett family, Polly would have wondered if she had been switched at birth. All of historic Baconburg, right down to the blue-, white- and silver-painted plateglass windows of Downtown Drug put a whole new spring in Polly’s step. She crossed over the threshold of the front door and felt as if she’d walked into another time, a sweeter time, a time when people made time for one another.

She stole a moment to take in the black-and-white-tiled floors, sunny-yellow walls and shelves filled with every sort of thing a person might need. The old store still had a gleaming wooden checkout stand, with a shiny computerized scanner and cash register attached. That didn’t dampen Polly’s enthusiasm for the quaintness of the old place. She could just imagine how for so many years people in Baconburg must have come here for the things they needed—medicine, candy, school supplies and who knew what else.

“Welcome to Downtown Drug. We’ve got whatever your little heart desires.” A warm, deep masculine voice called out from somewhere unseen in the store. “If you need help finding it, I’m back here at the lunch counter.”

“A lunch counter.” Polly sighed. “This I’ve got to see!”

She wound her way back toward the friendly voice, expecting to find a nice paunchy, slightly balding middle-aged man wearing a white bib apron getting a big grill ready for the day’s business.

“Hello?” she called out. She rounded the end of a row of shelves and stopped inches from a pile of red vinyl benches and tables that must have once been booths. Beyond that a bright yellow strip of plastic, the kind she’d seen around crime scenes marked off an area filled with power tools, sawdust and chaos.

Middle-aged? Maybe if the average life expectancy was around sixty. Balding? Not even slightly. Her gaze moved from the shoulder-length waves of light brown hair topped with sun-washed blond streaks to his tanned face and two- or three-day growth of beard. He wore a chain around his neck with a cross on it, and a faded T-shirt rolled up at the sleeves to reveal bulging biceps.

He smiled. “Hey there, pretty lady. You got a question? I don’t actually work in the store, so I’m not sure where you’d find that. If you’d like, I can ask the old man.”

He raised his voice on the last two words and directed them toward the raised platform framed in black-painted wood with sliding glass-panel windows and Pharmacy lettered in gold.

In response, one of the panels slid almost closed.

The man in front of her burst out laughing. “They do get cranky when they get old, don’t they?”

“I like older people,” Polly said in the unseen man’s defense. “And I like older places. I think it’s a shame you’re tearing up this wonderful old piece of local history. Please tell me you’re not going to install one of those fast-food kiosks like they have in quick markets and all over the airport in Atlanta.”

“Atlanta! You’re …” He pointed at her and his face lit up like a kid’s at Christmas.

“I’m what?”

“From Atlanta,” he said as if that was what he had been reacting to—and fairly unconvincingly, too.

What did this construction worker in surfer dude’s clothing know about her? Should she be uneasy or flattered?

“Maybe I should talk to that old man.” She turned and skirted sideways, keenly aware of the smiling carpenter’s eyes on her. Even when she heard the squeak of a door, she did not turn toward the pharmacist’s station. Her gaze locked on the other man, she raised the piece of paper. “I have a list. I just need to get in, get out and get back to getting this little dog I found back where he belongs.”

“I thought you were keeping the dog.”

Polly gasped at the sound of Sam’s voice. The slip of paper with her supply list on it slid through her fingers, flipped in the air and fell between her feet and Sam’s cowboy boots.

“I can’t … That is … you convinced me …” Polly looked at him, her mouth open. Sam Goodacre. The guy who showed up in her driveway. Then at the school. Now … “I can’t believe we keep running into each other.”

“Welcome to life in a small town. The upside is that you tend to make a tight-knit circle of friends and associates who are always there for each other. The downside is that you have a tight-knit circle of friends and associates and they’re always there for each other, whether you want them there or not.”

She thought of her life in Atlanta where she barely knew anyone in her building, or even her church. Where her job meant she rarely worked with the same people more than a few days in a row, and even so, half the time they rarely had time to make eye contact. Of course, not everyone in the city was like that, but that had been her experience and so … “I didn’t say I didn’t like it.”

“Oh?” He tipped his head to one side. “I guess sometimes it is kinda nice.”

Her heart fluttered. She took a breath and held it just long enough until she noticed her head felt light. She let her words rush out in a whisper, “What are you doing here?”

“I own the place. Bought out my father-in-law when he retired last year.” He stuck his thumb under the name tag on his white lab coat, closing the already-too-close distance between them with the starched white fabric.

Polly pressed her lips together to keep from actually reading the tag aloud as she tried to ignore how this man’s nearness made her so aware of everything from the rasp of his coat over his shirt to the pounding of her pulse in her temples.

“You’re …” She glanced over her shoulder in the direction of the lunch counter. “You’re the old man?”

He chuckled softly. “I see you’ve met my brother, Max.”

“Your brother …” Suddenly the guy seeming to know something about her made sense. It also made her wonder if it was Sam who had told his brother about her, and just what Sam might have said. Never in her life had she had this kind of instantaneous reaction to a man. Just being around him filled her with anticipation and the expectation that something good was coming her way. She liked that. Liked him. A good guy. A good dad. A Christian and …

“I thought you were a farmer.”

“Close. I’m a pharmacist.” He walked over to the raised platform and slid the glass back to reveal a plaque with all his credentials engraved under his name. “I just live on a farm.”

“But the truck I first saw you in …”

“Belongs to our family farm. My sister and I trade off depending on our cargo. Her organic produce gets the truck, my redheaded progeny get the minivan.”

She couldn’t help smiling. “Those girls seem like pretty precious cargo to me.”

“Yeah, they are.” He nodded as if he really appreciated her saying that, then suddenly his brow furrowed. “Did you come in here for something special?”

“Oh! My list!” She bent immediately to retrieve the list.

“Let me …” Sam did the same.

They both reached out. Polly clenched her jaw, bracing herself for that dull, painful, embarrassing head clunk. Surprised when it didn’t come, she jerked her head up.

He was standing there, his face inches from hers. In the space of a heartbeat she lost herself in those caring brown eyes.

“I’ll just get …” she murmured.

“Here, let me …” he said at the same time.

Both bent slightly forward, hands extended and faces close. Static electricity in the very air drew a strand of Polly’s hair toward his. For a split second, if anyone had caught a glimpse of them with those words on their lips and their gazes entwined, they might have thought they were just about to kiss.

“Um, I have to go.” Polly jerked her body upright and raked her curled fingers through her hair, pulling it back into place. “I left the dog and … I have to go.”

She didn’t wait for an answer, just spun on her heel and ran. For an instant she listened for his footsteps behind her, or for him to call for her not to leave. Not a sound, not as she fled with her face flushed and her throat tight, not as she hit the door and pushed her way out onto the sidewalk.

In the glass storefront she no longer imagined the daydream of prim Miss Bennett but saw herself. Polly, who wanted to find her place in the world but who never quite fit in had just met a man who made her feel as if anything was possible—except a match made between the two of them.

Sam couldn’t get the near kiss out of his mind the rest of the day. Thoughts of Polly Bennett popped up uninvited in the seconds between the phone ringing and his answering it. Could it be her calling about whatever she had come in to get from the store?

Her image formed slowly in his thoughts as he walked by the spot where Polly had stood. When he caught the whiff of sawdust and bubblegum, the scent in the store surrounding them earlier. So it pulled him up short when, shortly after four, his sister came in to deliver the triplets to him and his brother simultaneously made an announcement.

“All right! Gina’s here.” Max clapped his hands together, then swung his legs over the tarp-covered lunch counter. “I’m off.”

Hayley clambered up onto one of the dozen stools planted around the covered counter. Juliette went on tiptoe, gave a twirl and took the seat next to her. Sam reached out to help Caroline climb up to another stool, frowning at his brother as he asked, “Where you going, Max?”

“To pay a visit to that pretty new teacher.”

“Why?”

“Because she came in here this morning with a list of things she needed and after two minutes in your presence she ran out of here without getting any of it.” The small rectangle of paper caught between Max’s fingers crackled. “So I thought I’d do the neighborly thing—fill her list and take it over to her.”

“We want to go.” Hayley spoke for all three girls.

“I have a motorcycle, girls. One of you can ride behind me and one on my shoulders, but the other one …” He squinted at Sam. The girls understood this was just another example of Uncle Max’s outrageous humor, but Sam recognized the challenge in his younger brother’s tone. He was baiting Sam. “You got a skateboard and some clothesline in this place?”

“Very funny.” Sam met that challenge with his feet planted firmly in front of his daughters, on the floor of his place of business. He wasn’t going to let his younger brother goad him into getting riled up about Polly Bennett. That no-matchmaking rule did not just apply to the triplets.

Max made an exaggeratedly casual shrug, ending with both hands held out as if weighing the two options. “Somebody’s got to stay here. Somebody needs to take these to the lovely Miss Bennett.”

“Dad can do it,” Caroline volunteered, because they clearly all knew Sam wasn’t going to speak up for himself.

Max gave a big ol’ self-satisfied grin. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

Sam opened his mouth to launch into an explanation of his special set of rules to Max, then reconsidered. It wasn’t as if Max ever listened to the rules, anyway.

“How about Gina?” Sam fixed his gaze on his sister, who had paused long enough at the counter to drop some change into the drawer and sell herself a pack of gum. “It would be perfect. You take the girls and deliver this stuff to—”

“Sorry.” She leaned down, rummaged around under the counter, then popped back up holding Sam’s spare truck keys. “I have an appointment with a seed catalog.”

As soon as Gina reached the door, she pitched Sam the keys to the minivan. “See you tonight.”

The keys hit the floor with a metallic clank.

Max bent down to scoop them up and dangled them in front of Sam. “I can hold down the store while you pay a visit.”

“I don’t want the girls getting attached to that dog,” Sam muttered through clenched teeth, not from anger but from trying to disguise the sentiment from his daughters.

“Fine. They can stay with me.” He pressed the cluster of keys into Sam’s palm. “I could use the girls’ help picking out paint colors.”

“Green!” Hayley jumped in the air.

“Pink!” Juliette gave a twirl.

“Can you use wallpaper?” Caroline squinted at the wall as if already taking mental measurements for the job.

The girls threw themselves into the assignment with the kind of enthusiasm that only a chance to do an end run around their dad’s no-matchmaking rule could inspire.

What was he going to do about it? Haul the girls over there and risk their falling in love with that little lost pup? Or send his brother over to Polly Bennett’s house and risk her falling in love with his hound dog of a brother? That shouldn’t matter, but …

He sighed, snagged the bag with the goods gathered up by Max and headed for the door. “I’ll be back in an hour. I’m going to make a delivery.”

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