Time for a Change—or Three!

Stefanie Stahl has a husband with renovation ADD. He can’t seem to finish anything he starts and her house is littered with his “projects.” If he doesn’t smarten up, she swears she’s going to murder him and bury him under the pile of scrounged lumber in the backyard.

Her friend Griffin James is suddenly single and thinking maybe she needs to sell her fixer-upper and follow her career bliss up the ladder of success, even if that scary ladder is clear across the country. Getting her place ready to sell proves harder than she originally thought. She needs help.

She’s not the only one. Cass Wilkes, their neighbor, has an empty nest—with a leaking roof. When her ceiling crashes in, she knows it’s time to do something. When Grant Masters offers his handyman services at a fund-raiser auction, the three women go in together to outbid the competition and win their man. (Cass’s friends think she should win Grant in a different way, too!) Now it’s time to make some improvements...in their houses and their lives.

Praise for the novels of Sheila Roberts

“The latest in Roberts’ completely charming Icicle Falls series is both a delightful celebration of the joys of small-town life and a richly rewarding romance sweetened with just the right dash of bright humor.”

—Booklist on Home on Apple Blossom Road

“Engaging, sweet, and dusted with humor, this emotional romance tugs at the heartstrings.”

—Library Journal on Home on Apple Blossom Road

“Roberts engages readers from the first page with her colorfully distinctive characters and her amusing storytelling. She expresses the pitfalls that occur through the holiday season with flair and fun. A delightful read.”

—RT Book Reviews on Christmas on Candy Cane Lane

“[Roberts’] polished storytelling, a tender plot filled with charming, colorful characters, along with the lively dialogue between them, will hook readers. This sweet story will warm any reader’s heart. A truly delightful read.”

—RT Book Reviews on A Wedding on Primrose Street

“The Lodge on Holly Road is the ultimate in feel-good family drama and heart-melting romance.”

—USA TODAY

“The common thread and theme of making changes in your life for the better serve as an inspiration and make this novel a real page-turner.”

—RT Book Reviews on The Cottage on Juniper Ridge

Starting Over on Blackberry Lane

Sheila Roberts

www.mirabooks.co.uk

For Roberta,

who’s done such a good job of starting over.

Acknowledgments

I’d like to start by thanking my editor and friend Paula Eykelhof, not just for the work you’ve put in on this book but for the countless hours you’ve given me these past years. You have been wonderful to work with! And speaking of wonderful, thanks as always to my agent and friend Paige Wheeler. You’ve always been there for me and I appreciate it. You’re the best! A big thanks to my husband the tool man for helping me with all things construction in this book. A house build and a remodel and we’re still together. Yay, us! Finally, a huge thanks to the whole Harlequin team for working so hard on my behalf. An author may write the story but it takes a team to make a book.

Dear Reader,

Thanks so much for taking time from your own busy schedule to spend some of it with me. I hope you’ll enjoy this story of restarts and do-overs. I don’t know about you, but I’ve had times in my life where I’ve taken a wrong turn and had to reboot. I’ve definitely lived with remodel nightmares just like Stefanie Stahl, hauling slabs of plywood in from the rain, begging workers not to leave, sprouting gray hairs right and left. And I definitely know the pain of losing someone. I also know that somehow, with persistence, we manage to make it over life’s hurdles. If you’re facing one right now, let me encourage you by saying that you’ll make it over that hurdle. Meanwhile, I hope you’ll enjoy the latest adventures of some of the residents of Icicle Falls as they work on starting over.

Sheila

SOME OF YOUR FAVORITE ICICLES

Icicle Falls is populated with so many interesting people. Here are the ones you’ll meet most often

Samantha Sterling-Preston: Samantha runs her family’s business, The Sweet Dreams Chocolate Company (also known as Sweet Dreams Chocolates or just plain Sweet Dreams).

Cecily Goodman: Cecily is Samantha’s sister, and she, too, works at Sweet Dreams. With her gift for knowing who should be with whom, she gives Cupid a run for his money.

Bailey Black: Bailey is Samantha and Cecily’s little sister. She owns Tea Time Teashop. Stop in for a cup of tea and some of her lavender cookies!

Charley Masters: Charley owns Zelda’s, one of the town’s favorite restaurants. She’s married to Dan Masters, owner of Masters Construction.

Cass Wilkes: Cass is good friends with the Sterling sisters and Charley. She owns Gingerbread Haus and keeps everyone in town happily supplied with gingerbread houses and gingerbread boys and girls. (If you’re wanting something fancy to serve for dinner, try her cream puff swans.)

Muriel Sterling-Wittman: In spite of being widowed twice, Muriel has managed to find a positive outlook on life. With a blossoming career as a writer she is considered the town’s wisewoman.

Pat York: Pat owns Mountain Escape Books and she and Muriel have been friends for years.

Olivia Claussen: Olivia is another one of Muriel’s close friends and owns the Icicle Creek Lodge. She recently married James Claussen, who now helps her run the lodge.

Dot Morrison: Dot, also a member of Muriel’s group of friends, is known for her smart mouth and her goofy sweatshirts. And her big heart. Her restaurant, Pancake Haus, is the place to go for a great breakfast. She’s also good friends with Cass Wilkes.

Tilda Black: Tilda the cop helps keep law and order in Icicle Falls. She’s a tough cookie but, like her mom, Dot Morrison, she has a good heart.

Stacy Thomas: Stacy owns Timeless Treasures, the perfect place to find a lovely antique or a china teacup.

Beth Mallow: The town’s seamstress. For years her mother was a mover and shaker in the community. Beth never had children of her own, but that didn’t stop her from taking in foster kids or helping her mom raise her nephew Colin.

Ivy Bohn: Looking for the perfect Christmas decoration or ornament for your tree? Go see Ivy Bohn at Christmas Haus.

Maddy Donaldson: If you need someone to make something happen, talk to Maddy. She is the quintessential volunteer. (Ask anyone who lives on Candy Cane Lane.)

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Praise

Title Page

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Dear Reader

SOME OF YOUR FAVORITE ICICLES

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Epilogue

Recipes

Apple Stir-Fry

Strawberry-Rhubarb Crisp

Apple Scones

Extract

Copyright

Chapter One

Cass Wilkes had wanted to liven up her empty-nest existence, but having her dining room ceiling fall in was not on her list of ways to do it. She’d just come home at three in the afternoon from the usual Saturday swamping of customers at her bakery, Gingerbread Haus, with sore feet and a desire for a bubble bath and a cup of chocolate-mint tea. Looking at the water and the soppy chunks of Sheetrock on her dining table and floor, and the white glop everywhere, she now had a desire for something with more of a kick.

Currently there wasn’t anything stronger than cooking sherry in the house. That meant there was only one way to deal with this situation. She walked right back out the door and to her car. Destination: Zelda’s, one of Icicle Falls’ favorite gathering spots, owned by her friend Charley Masters. Charley would give her a Chocolate Kiss, a boozy chocolate number that was one of the restaurant’s specialties, and hopefully she’d also dispatch her husband, Dan, owner of Masters Construction, to deal with the ceiling problem.

Back in her car Cass texted her friend. Emergency. Have Chocolate Kiss ready.

You okay? came the concerned reply.

Yeah, but my house isn’t.

Uh-oh, Charley texted back. Will have drink ready.

On my way.

The restaurant was empty, set up for the evening rush, which would start around five with the sundowner crowd, seniors taking advantage of the early dinner bargains. By six thirty there wouldn’t be an empty seat anywhere, and people would be crowding in, waiting for a table. She was glad it was quiet now. If she had a complete nervous breakdown the only witnesses would be Charley and the staff.

True to her word, Charley was at a booth in the back of the restaurant with a Chocolate Kiss martini set at Cass’s place, along with a plate of nachos. “The crisis kit,” she said, stealing a cheese-drenched chip. “Chocolate, booze and carbs.”

Cass slid into the banquette. “Bless you.” She took a sip of her drink and then dived into the nachos. “I so needed this. Well, not my butt.” That seemed to be ever expanding. “My soul, for sure.”

“What’s wrong at your house? Did your rotting deck finally fall in?”

“Worse than that. Half my dining room ceiling is now sitting on the table.” Grandma’s dining table. Her grandmother had given her that when she first bought her house in Icicle Falls. She only used it on holidays but it had huge sentimental value. If not for the protective pad and a tablecloth it would have been completely ruined.

Good friend that she was, Charley looked properly horrified. “Oh, no.”

“Oh, yes,” Cass said miserably. “I knew I was going to need a new roof soon, but I didn’t think it was this bad. I didn’t go up to the attic to see what that’s like. It must be grim, since my dining room is now a war zone. Please tell me Dan can fix this so I don’t have to pull out my hair.”

“Dan can fix it,” Charley assured her. “But count on him telling you that you need a new roof.”

Cass glanced out the restaurant window at the rain dumping on the window boxes of the various shops and buildings, bouncing off car roofs and slithering along the street in streams. April showers bring May flowers, her mom liked to say. They also brought roof leaks and wrecked mahogany dining room tables. Ugh. How long had that water been collecting in her attic before it crashed through the ceiling? And shouldn’t it have given her a warning by dripping a little?

Except when was the last time she’d been in her dining room to notice any drips? Other than hanging out with her pals for their chick-flick nights, she hadn’t had much of a social life. Her daily schedule consisted mainly of work, eating takeout from Zelda’s or the Safeway deli while watching TV, and sleeping. Repeat. This was alleviated by occasional visits home by the kids, but those visits weren’t nearly frequent enough, and mother-child text sessions never lasted long. Afterward it was just her, rattling around in a house that was as much in need of fixing up as she was. This was her life now that the last little chick had left the nest.

She missed those chicks. Sometimes Cass could hardly believe they were grown. The slide into this new phase had felt both gradual and sudden. When her three kids were small the chaos of life as a single parent had seemed never-ending. But now, suddenly, here they were, launched and mostly out of the house. Dani was happily married and a mom herself, and her bakery in Spokane was doing well. Willie was graduating from college with a degree in environmental science and resource management in June and this would be his last summer home, although she knew she wouldn’t see much of him. Amber, the baby, was a freshman at Western and was only home during the summer. Between working and hanging out with her friends, she was gone more than she was around.

Even Tiny, the family Saint Bernard, was no longer there to fill the empty spaces. Tiny had gone to doggy heaven a year ago and Cass hadn’t been able to bring herself to replace him.

She took a guzzle of her Chocolate Kiss. “My life is driving me to drink.”

“Don’t worry,” Charley said, picking up her cell phone. “Dan will make everything better.”

Cass thought of her current existence and muttered, “He won’t be able to make everything better.”

Charley frowned in concern, but before she could comment, her husband had answered and she was busy dealing with Cass’s crisis. “Thanks, babe,” she said after explaining the problem. “He’s just finishing up the new place on Cedar,” she told Cass after she’d ended the call. “He’ll be right over.”

“Poor guy, having to work on a Saturday.”

Charley showed no sympathy. “It’s good for him. Keeps him out of trouble. Anyway, it’s nice that things are booming here in town. Job security.”

“I hate to bug him when he’s working so hard,” Cass said. “But he was the first one I thought of.”

“That’s how it should be with friends,” Charley said. “Anyway, he doesn’t mind.” She studied Cass. “So, what else is bothering you? I get the impression the ceiling is just the final straw.”

“I don’t know,” Cass said with a shrug. “I guess I’ve got a case of empty-nest syndrome. Coupled with getting-olditis,” she added. “I’m going to be flippin’ forty-six next month.” Eew. She consoled herself with more of her Chocolate Kiss. “And you know what comes after that?”

“Forty-seven.”

“And then fifty-seven and then...” She finished off her drink. “My life is evaporating before my very eyes.”

“You’re not that old,” Charley protested.

“I’m not that young, either. Where am I going? What am I doing with my life?”

“You’re kidding, right?”

Cass scowled at her empty glass.

“You’ve raised three great kids single-handed. You’ve got a thriving business. Everyone loves you.”

But no one in particular loved her. Other than her kids, of course, and they had to. It came with the territory.

Oh, well. You couldn’t have everything. “I don’t know what my problem is.”

“I do,” Charley said with an emphatic nod. “You need a man.”

“Been there, done that. Maybe I’ll get a puppy and call it good.” One divorce had been enough. Marriage was risky business.

“Puppies are great,” Charley agreed. “Men are even better. Why don’t you splurge and get both?”

“Oh, sure.”

“Online dating, baby.”

Cass shuddered. “You’ve decided me. I’ll get a dog.”

They’d just finished the nachos when Dan Masters joined them. At six foot two and with shoulders like a bull, he was a commanding presence, the kind of man you knew could handle any crisis. Wouldn’t it be nice to have something like that of her very own?

Yeah, but not likely. The population of Icicle Falls wasn’t exactly brimming with men her age. The closest was Dylan Wright, who’d been single for years. Somebody would come along and whip him into shape someday, but considering the lack of chemistry between them whenever he came into the bakery, it wouldn’t be her.

“So your roof’s leaking, huh?” Dan said, seating himself next to his wife.

He kissed Charley, and Cass felt a tiny stab of envy. She looked wistfully at her empty glass. “It’s gone from leak to ‘get the ark.’ I have a major flood happening at my place.”

Dan shook his head. “I warned you that roof was starting to look grim. Up here in the mountains you really need a metal roof.”

“I think my place was built before there was such a thing,” she said. “Anyway, I’d have to sell a kid to be able to afford a metal roof.” Even with Mason pitching in his share for the kids’ college, she still had a lot of money going out.

“Well, no worries. We’re supposed to have sun tomorrow. I can come over and patch the leak and fix your ceiling.”

Thank God.

“Meanwhile, put out a bucket.”

“Or a horse trough. I really appreciate it, Dan. I owe you gingerbread boys for life.”

“You already give him plenty of gingerbread cookies,” Charley said.

“Hey, don’t discourage the woman,” Dan told her. Then to Cass, “Patching the roof is only a temporary fix. You’re bound to have more problems in the future, so you’d better start looking for a roofer.”

“And a pot of gold,” Cass said. The restaurant window framed a gray, rainy sky. “Where’s the darned rainbow when you need it, anyway?”

* * *

Stefanie Stahl came home with her son late Saturday afternoon from a visit with her sister in Seattle to find that her husband had been busy in her absence. She was greeted by the whine of a table saw, and where there’d once been a wall between her living and dining rooms, now there were only studs covered with an opaque plastic sheet. A fine film of dust had crept out and was covering the hardwood floor in the living room as well as her furniture. She could see a pile of Sheetrock behind the plastic curtain, and beyond that hung one of those lamps carpenters often used when working at night. In its murky shadow stood a man happily creating chaos.

The day before the bridal shower she was throwing for her best friend.

That did it. She was going to hit Brad over the head with his hammer and bury him in the backyard under the pile of scrounged lumber that had been there since last August.

“Daddy!” their six-year-old son, Petey, called and began pawing at the heavy plastic in an effort to get where the action was.

“You stay right here,” Stef commanded. “It’s dangerous in there.” And it was going to be really dangerous for a certain husband when she got to him.

The plastic had been taped in place, but she made her way through and marched over to where Brad stood, happily whipping up sawdust, and tapped him on the shoulder. He just about jumped out of his skin.

“Hey, don’t sneak up on a guy like that!” he said. “I could’ve sawed my hand off.”

“You’re lucky I don’t saw your head off. What are you doing?”

He flipped up his safety goggles. “What do you mean, what am I doing? You said you wanted an open-concept floor plan and an eating bar off the kitchen. That’s what I’m doing.”

“I said that months ago.” And she certainly hadn’t meant for him to do it.

“So you should be glad I’ve finally got the time. I’m all caught up at the office and decided I’d start on it. This, by the way, is your eating bar,” he informed her, pointing to a pile of boards.

Brad had taken over a lucrative branch of a national insurance company, which was what had brought them to Icicle Falls. He was still a one-man operation with no office help other than the occasional assistance Stef gave him. Surely he had something more to do at work, someone who needed life insurance. Right now he needed plenty of it. She knew she should’ve left Petey at home with him. Then he would’ve been too busy with their son to trash the house.

She threw up her hands in disgust. “Now? You had to start on it now?”

“Sure. Why not?” Down went the safety goggles and he reached over to turn on the saw again.

She grabbed his hand to stop him. “Because Griffin’s bridal shower is tomorrow. That’s why not. How am I supposed to have a bridal shower here with this mess?”

Brad seemed shocked by that. Which showed how much he listened. “Aw, shit. That’s tomorrow?”

“I told you that!” Did he have sawdust in his ears? “And now my guests get to look at this...disaster.”

She was about to march off when he took her arm. “Sweet Stuff, I’m sorry. I just wanted to surprise you.”

“You surprised me, all right,” she said with a scowl.

Meanwhile, Petey was bouncing up and down on the other side of the curtain, shouting, “Daddy, Daddy!”

“Just a minute, big guy.” He pushed the goggles back up on his head and gave her a pleading smile. “Come on, Stef—don’t be mad. I only wanted to make you happy.”

Yes, he’d had the best of intentions. He always had the best of intentions. Sadly, he was better at good intentions than he was at finishing projects, as the half-done patio with its pile of paving stones out back could attest. Not to mention the master bathroom with the missing tub. That had been last month’s project. When it came to home improvement projects, the man was totally ADD.

“You haven’t even finished the bathroom,” she reminded him.

“I was going to, but then I remembered you wanted that wall knocked out and I thought you’d like it done for your party. Which I forgot was tomorrow,” he hastily added. “I thought I had time.”

He always thought he had time. Bradley Stahl operated on his own unique timetable.

If he operated at all. When they’d first bought the house, they’d talked about ways they could improve it. But they hadn’t shared the same vision. Stef had assumed they’d go at it methodically, one project at a time, hiring competent contractors. Brad had envisioned himself as perfectly competent, insisting on doing the work and saving them money. So far this was not working out.

“Da-ad!”

“Coming, big guy,” Brad called and beat a hasty retreat before she could say anything more.

With a growl Stef kicked the pile of sawdust. She wished it was Brad’s behind. What was she going to do now? She had a dozen women coming the next afternoon. Even if Brad skipped church, he couldn’t get rid of this mess before the bridal shower.

Maybe she could get someone else to host, like Cass. Cass Wilkes had taken her and Griffin under her wing when they’d arrived in Icicle Falls a year ago, both new to town, both wondering how to go about fitting in. Cass had connected Griffin with a book club, and when she found out that Stef was a movie buff, she’d included Stef in her weekly chick-flick-night gatherings with her friends. Not only had Cass become a good friend and neighbor, she also was single. No husband underfoot messing things up. She probably wouldn’t mind if they switched the party to her house. Stef could bring the eats, and Cass could provide the sawdust-free environment. She put in an SOS call.

“Oh, Stef, I’d do it in a heartbeat but—”

Uh-oh. If there was a but, that meant trouble.

“I have Sheetrock all over my dining room.”

“On purpose? You didn’t tell me you were doing a home improvement project.”

“I am now. My roof sprang a leak and my ceiling caved in. I discovered it when I got home from work.”

Okay, that was even worse than a Brad breakout. “Oh, no. I’m sorry.”

“Oh, well,” Cass said philosophically. “It is what it is.”

Cass had a dozen years on Stef. Did a woman master that sort of give-me-the-grace-to-accept-the-things-I-can’t-change attitude as she got older? Stef needed it now.

“Why do you want to relocate the bridal shower?” Cass asked.

“Bradley.”

Cass knew what that meant. “Don’t tell me. He’s started a new project.”

“He’s started a new mess. He forgot that the shower’s tomorrow and decided this would be a good weekend to pull down the wall between the dining and living rooms. He’s got his saw set up and hung a big plastic sheet between the two rooms. A lovely setting for a bridal shower, don’t you think?”

Cass chuckled. “It’ll be interesting. But don’t worry. Everyone on the guest list is either married or has been. We know what men are like.”

“Brad is in a class by himself. He’ll tear up the floor, too, and then the one in here because it’ll all have to match. Then that mess will sit for about a million years while he figures out his next step.” He was still figuring out the next step for installing a new tub. Good thing their house had two bathrooms.

“At least he’s making an effort,” Cass said, obviously trying to help her look on the bright side.

True. But every time Brad made an effort, it wound up an unfinished disaster. She sighed. “This is going to be so...embarrassing. Some of these women haven’t even seen my house.”

“Trust me, they won’t care. It’s about being together, and no one’s going to judge you. Anyway, like I said, they’ve all seen men in action. Your plastic curtain will be a conversation piece.”

“Yeah, but it’s supposed to be about the bride. If this doesn’t give Griffin cold feet...” Except lately it seemed she was already getting them.

“I think she’s already got them,” Cass said, voicing Stef’s thought.

In the last few weeks, Griffin had been a little less enamored of her husband-to-be, a little crankier with him. Okay, he didn’t help out around the house much, but he could be trained. And yeah, he wasn’t a big reader like Stef, but when he was busy gaming she had plenty of free time to read or hang out with friends. He was good-looking and fun-loving, and his sense of humor balanced Griffin’s more serious nature.

They both had interesting jobs. Griffin was a food photographer. (She didn’t make much, but it was a heck of a lot more fun than Stef’s boring part-time job as a teller at the bank.) Steve was a video game tester. (Brad had been extremely jealous when he learned what Steve did for a living...until he learned what Steve made.) Granted, they weren’t rich yet, but the earning potential was there. They had no kids, no responsibilities, and Griffin’s house wasn’t in a state of perpetual disaster. Life on her side of the fence looked pretty good.

“Do you think she’s being too picky?” Stef asked.

“I don’t know. Having been down the divorce road, I’m wondering if there is such a thing as too picky. Better to be sure than be sorry.”

“But her wedding’s the first of June.”

“That’s still several weeks away,” Cass pointed out.

“Maybe I should’ve had the shower closer to the wedding date,” Stef mused. “What if she backs out?”

It would be so awkward for her friend if she had to return all the presents. Still, Stef had picked the early date because she knew Griffin’s old friends in Oregon were planning a shower for her next month. Starting the celebrations early had seemed like a good idea at the time. Now she wondered if she should’ve delayed the party.

“Things have a way of working out,” Cass said. “Meanwhile, we’ll party tomorrow and commiserate with you on the work in progress.”

Stef frowned at the ugly plastic sheet and the mess beyond. This was so...subpar. “Maybe I could switch the shower to Zelda’s.”

“You can try. But I think you’ll find the party room already booked. I’m pretty sure Charley said something about a fiftieth wedding anniversary dinner for some people from Wenatchee.”

Stef cast wildly about in her mind. Bailey Black’s tearoom? Except that was normally closed on Sundays, and she didn’t feel comfortable asking Bailey to go to the inconvenience of opening up.

Here came Brad again, Petey skipping along behind him, hauling the old bedroom curtains she’d planned to donate to Kindness Cupboard. Oh, no. Now what?

“I’d better go,” she said to Cass. “I don’t know what Brad’s up to, but it doesn’t look good.”

Cass laughed, then, after assuring her once more that all would be well, let her end the call.

“What’s with the drapes?” she asked Brad.

“Camouflage,” he replied. “You were getting rid of them anyway, right?”

“Right,” she said cautiously.

“So, it won’t matter if they get wrecked. I’m going to nail them up in front of the plastic. Then no one will see. Brilliant, huh?”

He was obviously fishing for a compliment, but she was too irritated to admire his manly creativity. Instead she told Petey, “It’s bath time.”

“I want to help Daddy,” Petey whined.

“We’ll be done in five minutes. Then I’ll give him his bath,” Brad said. “You go relax.”

“Okay, fine.” She’d recorded a mystery on the PBS channel. She’d watch that and imagine her husband as the murder victim.

The corpse had just been discovered when her two boys stopped by the family room on their way to the bathroom (the one that still had a tub). “Take a look,” Brad told her. “It’s not half-bad.”

She cocked an eyebrow. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he said confidently. But she noticed he took their son and hurried upstairs before she could render a verdict.

The living room now had tan drapes hanging closed on one side. Okay, maybe someone who used her imagination could pretend the drapes were covering a window.

Yes, everyone had a window in the middle of her house between one room and another.

But it beat the plastic curtain. Barely.

“So, not too bad, huh?” Brad prompted after they’d tucked their son in and kissed him good-night.

“It’ll have to do,” she said grumpily.

He put an arm around her. “Come on, Stef—have a heart. Are you going to punish me all night?”

“I might.”

“You wanna just kill me and be done with it?”

With his round face, reddish hair and snub nose, Brad looked like a perpetual teenager. And when he wore that penitent-little-boy expression it was hard to stay mad at him.

But she was still willing to try. “Yeah. And I know where to hide the body.”

He frowned. “You’d miss me. Admit it.”

She sighed heavily. “Promise me this project will get done before I’m eighty.”

He crossed his heart. “Promise.”

“Like next weekend?”

“Petey starts T-ball next Saturday. Remember?”

And Brad was the team’s coach. “This is never going to get done,” Stef groaned.

“Don’t worry, Sweet Stuff. It will,” he said and pulled her close. “Now, how about we kiss and...” He waggled his eyebrows.

“No makeup sex for you,” she said. “Not until I solve my mystery.”

He grinned. “I can wait.”

And that was the problem. He was never in a hurry to finish anything. Maybe she should make him wait for sex until he got the great room finished. Of course, if she did that, she wouldn’t have another orgasm until she was seventy.

Later that night they had some great makeup sex. If only her husband was as good with his other tools. Sigh.

Chapter Two

Griffin James finished straightening her hair, then double-checked her makeup. Okay. Done. She went into the living room of the old Craftsman she shared with her fiancé, Steve Redford, and found him still happily streaming his favorite online video game. Busman’s holiday—wasn’t that the saying for doing the same thing on your day off that you did during the rest of the week? There was a reason Steve’s job was perfect for him. He was a gaming addict.

She stopped by the couch on her way out the door to the shower at Stef’s house. “How do I look?”

“Good,” he said, never taking his eyes off the TV screen.

“I dyed my hair purple. What do you think?” she asked, flipping her strawberry blond locks.

“Yeah, great.”

She glared at him. “Wanna know how you look?”

“Good, yeah.” He punched the controls.

Of course he didn’t. The avatars didn’t care. It was two o’clock on a Sunday afternoon and there he sat in his ratty old T-shirt and pajama bottoms, his hair pulled back in its usual man bun. He hadn’t shaved yet, hadn’t even brushed his teeth. Too busy killing imaginary enemies.

“I’m leaving now,” she said abruptly. “I’m going to lie down in the bathtub and open a vein.”

“Have fun.”

“Steve!”

He glanced up with a start. “Hey, babe, you look good.”

Nice of him to finally notice. “Thanks.”

“See you later,” he said, and his head swiveled back to the TV screen.

She should have been an avatar. He’d have paid more attention to her. As she walked down the street to Stef’s house, Griffin tried to convince herself that she was excited about this bridal shower, that she was excited about getting married.

She needed to be excited. She and Steve had been together for five years, ever since her junior year in college. Now they’d finally be solemnizing their relationship with a wedding, something that had her grandmother very relieved and her mother looking forward to the next step—grandchildren. But lately Griffin found herself wondering if they should take this first step. What were they stepping into?

When they were first together they’d actually gone places, like the Grand Illusion Cinema in Seattle’s U District to watch foreign and revival films or to Jet City Improv. They’d gone to local pubs with friends and played Trivial Pursuit. Steve had ridden his bike a lot. (The extra forty pounds he was carrying now attested to how much he rode his bike these days.)

He’d also played video games with his buddies back then. He had to do that, considering the fact that he was going to school for a career in the game industry. Then he’d gotten his entry-level job as a QA tester and it was as if he’d found El Dorado. The job was supposed to lead to bigger things, but once he got hooked on testing games, he’d forgotten about bigger things—including a bigger salary.

Living anywhere near Seattle wasn’t cheap. Since they could both work from home, they’d opted for small-town life. Living off the land. Blah, blah. The only one living off the land last summer had been her when she’d gone blackberry picking with Stef one Saturday and they’d made jam together. Steve had used it for everything from ice cream topping to PB&Js and then asked when she was going to make some more. She’d said she would if he’d go berry picking with her. He hadn’t. There’d been no more jam.

He’d promised to get working on the house, too. Her parents had lent them the money for a down payment on their fixer-upper. The only proviso was that the house had to stay in her name until they were married (Dad’s doing). Steve was going to take care of the sweat equity and fix the place up. The house was in need of paint both outside and in and had a broken step on the back porch. In spite of the fact that she’d weeded the flower beds, it was a bit of an eyesore. She was sure most of the neighbors had hoped when they moved in that they’d whip the place into shape. So far there’d been no sweating, other than by her—Steve had been too busy “working,” even when he wasn’t—and no whipping. But painting was on his to-do list. Come summer, he was going to get out there and get busy.

Dad had his doubts. And not just about the home improvements getting done.

Now Griffin was starting to have doubts, as well. She tried to picture her life with little Steves running all over the house. Or rather, sitting all over the house. Playing video games. While the back porch step got saggier and the paint continued to chip. Her parents had come to visit Thanksgiving weekend, and Steve had been his usual easygoing, jovial self. Dad had looked around the house and frowned a lot.

Dad wasn’t the only one frowning these days. Griffin wasn’t exactly happy about their life together. Sometimes she felt it had shrunk to the size of a TV screen. Other than a Friday night at Stef and Brad’s, they didn’t do much as a couple. If it hadn’t been for Stef and the other women who had befriended her, Griffin would have felt completely marooned on a gamer’s desert island.

That would change, she’d told herself. Once they had kids, they’d do things as a family—go on picnics, take hikes in the mountains. It was part of why she and Steve had moved here to Icicle Falls, to get out into nature, get moving. So far she was the only one moving. And all that lovely snow last winter, perfect for snowboarding? He’d gone a couple of times, but then, well, there was this new game...

She’d been so excited when they first moved to town. Where was the excitement now?

Through Stef’s living room window, she could see several women, all ready to shower her with presents and hear how the wedding plans were coming along. The wedding plans were coming along fine. The invitations were addressed and ready to send. But she hadn’t mailed them yet.

As she stepped on the front porch, the burble of voices drifted out to her. Everyone was having fun. She’d be having fun once she got inside. Of course she would. And she and Steve were going to be happy. He’d regain the balance in his life. They’d start doing more stuff together, talk more. He was just going through an adultolescent stage.

She realized she was frowning, just like her dad when he came to visit. She reminded herself to smile as she knocked on the door.

A moment later Stef opened it, looking like her usual put-together self, wearing jeans, great jewelry and a really cute blouse that said, I’m new. Stef could afford new clothes. She worked part-time at the bank and her husband made a decent living. She even bought books new at Mountain Escape Books. Griffin bought them used on Amazon and haunted the library.

“You look great,” Stef gushed.

She’d had this sweater for three years. The pants had come from a thrift store outing and the shoes weren’t exactly new, either. But classics never went out of style, right?

She walked into the living room and the misplaced drapes immediately jumped out at her. Oh, boy. Stef had to be happy about that. Not.

“Brad’s...” Stef stopped, unable to continue.

“He decided to knock out the wall,” Griffin finished for her.

“I nearly knocked him out when I came home yesterday. I’m sorry things are such a disaster,” Stef finished as she led Griffin into the room to a chorus of hellos.

“At least he does something,” Griffin said. Stef’s husband was trying. Steve was...playing video games.

“We don’t care,” said Bailey Black, who was within hearing distance. “And it’s not that bad.”

“Yeah, it is,” Stef said, “but thanks.”

“It’s such a guy thing to do,” Bailey’s big sister Samantha said. “Blake’s favorite trick is to start a project right before we have to go somewhere.”

“Yeah, but at least he finishes his projects,” Stef muttered. “Here, come into the kitchen and get some punch,” she said to Griffin. “We also have lavender cookies from Tea Time, and Cass made an apricot torte.”

Griffin followed her out and helped herself to a cup of champagne punch, passing on the other treats.

“I swear, you’re not human,” Stef said in disgust.

“When you take pictures of food all day, it kind of turns you off,” Griffin lied. Actually, she loved food, but she’d been fat when she was a kid and she was never going there again, even if she had to starve herself. Which it seemed she did a lot.

“I was hoping we could move the party to Cass’s place,” Stef said, “but her ceiling fell in.” She nodded at the apricot torte. “You’d better have a bite of that or her feelings will be hurt.”

Griffin had a bite of a gingerbread boy every week for the same reason when she met Stef on her day off for coffee. Stef always finished her cookie for her. Stef had to be a witch, because she somehow magically sucked the calories out of stuff before she ate it.

“You got that right,” said Cass, who’d joined them.

Griffin cut a sliver and put it on her plate. “Your ceiling fell in?”

“Roof troubles,” Cass said with a sigh. “Thank God Charley loaned me her man for the day. He’s over there fixing the mess while I bury my sorrows in carbs.” She shook her head. “I dug my table out from under all the gook that was on it. Thank God I had a pad covering it, or the whole thing would’ve been toast.”

Stacy Thomas drifted out to the kitchen. “This is fun,” she said to Stef. “I love showers.”

“We should’ve had it at your house,” Stef said, frowning at the misplaced drapes.

“You should’ve said something. I would have. But really, Stef, nobody minds. We just all like being together.” Stacy took another piece of the apricot torte. “This is addictive,” she said to Cass.

It was good. Griffin had one bite and set the rest aside.

“You’re killing me here,” Cass said. “Do you rent out willpower?” She cut a piece from the other end of Griffin’s ignored torte and popped it in her mouth. “Never mind. Willpower is overrated.”

The doorbell rang, and Stef hurried to let in another guest.

Griffin and the other two women returned to the living room, which was packed with guests and extra folding chairs. Muriel Sterling-Wittman, the town’s local celebrity, was entering the room now. She wrote as Muriel Sterling and all her books were prominently displayed in the bookstore window. One of these days Griffin was going to buy one.

Talk turned yet again to the remodel in progress. “Men,” Dot Morrison groaned. “If Duncan had done this to me, I’d have beaned him.”

Dot’s husband had died early. One of the cattier residents of Icicle Falls once joked that he did so to get away from Dot. No one who knew Dot well paid attention to that. She was feisty and a bit of a smart-mouth, but she also had a big heart.

“I was ready to, believe me,” said Stef. “Why does he do this? Why can’t he finish anything?”

“I’m guessing it’s his one besetting sin,” Muriel said softly. “Every man has something that makes him human. Just like we do.”

“Didn’t you say I was perfect?” Samantha joked.

“All my daughters are close to it,” Muriel replied with a smile. Her daughters, Samantha, Cecily and Bailey, like their mother, were the uncrowned royalty of Icicle Falls. The family owned Sweet Dreams Chocolate Company. Often referred to as Sweet Dreams Chocolates or simply Sweet Dreams, it was the town’s source of both employment and chocolate.

“The problem,” Muriel continued, “is that when we consider our men’s flaws, we always think we’ll be able to fix them.”

“But what you see is what you get,” Dot added.

Griffin couldn’t help recalling what she’d seen before she left the house. Was that what she wanted to get? Okay, he wasn’t all that bad. He was nice, fun-loving.

Lazy, inattentive.

“Well, I liked what I saw and I’m glad I got him,” Bailey said with a decisive nod.

“Me, too,” seconded her sister Cecily.

“Me three,” Samantha chimed in.

“I’m keeping mine,” said Dot Morrison’s daughter, Tilda, the cop.

Stacy laughed. “You’re too newly married to get tired of him.”

Was Griffin tired of Steve? Was that the problem? And they weren’t even married yet.

“Okay, it’s time for a game,” Stef announced and pulled out sheets of scrambled words for everyone to puzzle out. “These are all things you find at a wedding. I’ll give you two minutes.”

Griffin found it hard to concentrate on the game. She kept mulling over what Muriel had said. The mulling didn’t end with the game. It continued as she opened presents and Stef put together her “practice wedding bouquet,” an arrangement of ribbons and bows mounted on a paper plate.

“A baby for every ribbon you break, kid,” Dot teased as Griffin tore a ribbon on a box from Stacy.

How many little Steves did she want, anyway?

She opened the box to find a lovely illustrated wedding memories scrapbook that offered her opportunities to record how he popped the question (“Hey, babe, I’m getting a raise. Let’s get hitched.”) to where they were honeymooning (they still hadn’t decided—he wanted to hang out in Seattle, she wanted Hawaii).

“What a lovely way to store all those happy memories,” said Muriel.

Happy memories, happy times—fake happy smile. What was wrong with her? This was her bridal shower, for crying out loud. She and Steve were finally getting married. She should be having fun. She should be ecstatic.

With the presents opened and the loot piled up by her chair, the women agreed it was time for more punch. As they moved back to the kitchen, Griffin found herself next to Muriel.

“Do you know where you’re going on your honeymoon?” Muriel asked. “Or is Steve surprising you?”

“We haven’t decided,” Griffin said.

Muriel nodded as if it was completely normal for people not to know where they were honeymooning in two months.

Griffin gnawed on her lip. Should she fess up here, at her bridal shower, that she was having second thoughts? At least if she did, then everyone could take their gifts back home with them. She wished her mom and grandma had been able to come. Mom had the flu, and Gram wouldn’t drive all the way up from Lake Oswego by herself. If Mom was here...

“Is everything okay?” Muriel asked gently.

Griffin found herself shaking her head. “How did you know your husband was the right one?”

“I had two husbands, and each time I knew.”

“But how?”

“By looking at him and seeing us together in the future and feeling happy about it. Each time I could hardly wait to start our new life together.”

There was the problem. Griffin could wait. They’d already started their new life and she wasn’t all that happy. “I don’t feel that way. I think I want...more.” Once upon a time, when they were younger, Steve had been enough. But now... What did she want? What was she holding out for, anyway? There was no Mr. Darcy. There was no mysterious, passionate Mr. Rochester. There was no Rhett Butler. Most men were Steves.

Except you wouldn’t think so to listen to the Sterling sisters. Or Tilda the cop, who’d let Griffin off with a warning a few months back when she slid through a stop sign; Tilda had said married life was making her mellow. Even Stef, although she complained about Brad’s unfinished projects, seemed pretty content with her life.

“Then perhaps you should hold out for more,” Muriel said. “There’s no shame in changing your mind.”

“At your bridal shower?”

“At any time before the big day.”

Griffin nodded, taking that in. “Thanks, Mrs. Wittman.”

She returned to the punch bowl for a refill and tried to assess her situation. She still loved Steve—at least she thought she did—but somehow it was no longer a big love. Was it a good idea to get married when your love had shrunk? Probably not.

She took a sip of punch and tried to screw up her courage to expose her cold feet. Around her everyone was chatting and laughing. The only one not having fun at her bridal shower was her. If that wasn’t a sign, what was?

The party was about to break up when Griffin stopped everyone in their tracks. “Thank you all so much for doing this for me. But...” Oh, boy, this was so embarrassing. Some of these women she still didn’t know all that well. She felt like a fool.

But after listening to everyone talk, she realized she couldn’t go through with her wedding. And she certainly couldn’t keep their gifts. “I need you to take back your presents.”

“You’re kidding, right?” Tilda said, staring at her.

“I can’t. I think... Oh, crap,” Griffin said and fell onto the nearest folding chair.

Muriel joined her and laid a comforting hand on her arm. “It’s a lady’s prerogative to change her mind.”

“Griff, are you sure?” Stef asked, kneeling in front of her.

“No. I...don’t know. This is feeling less and less right,” Griffin said and wiped a stray tear from her cheek. “I mean, it’s not like I don’t love him. But I don’t think I love him. I mean, I don’t know if I want to be with him forever. I just...don’t know.”

“Not knowing is a pretty big clue that you really do know,” said Cass, who’d taken a seat on the other side of her.

“I feel so stupid,” Griffin muttered.

“Better to feel stupid now than end up being stupid later, kiddo,” Dot put in. “Marriage can be hard enough when you’re crazy about the man.”

And that was the problem. She wasn’t crazy about Steve anymore. Somewhere along the way she’d outgrown him. He was still stuck in college frat boy mode, and she suspected he’d be in that rut for the rest of his life. There had to be more to love than what they had.

“If you’re not sure, pull the plug now,” advised Tilda. “I don’t mind keeping my blender. I needed a new one anyway,” she cracked, coaxing a smile from Griffin.

The bridal shower ended up as a communal shrink session, and by the time Griffin got home, she’d resolved what she had to do.

Steve was still planted in front of the TV, killing avatars. “You back?” he said absently.

“Yeah. I returned all the presents.”

“Presents. Good.”

She walked to the TV and stood in front of it. “I said I returned the presents.”

He frowned and his fingers stopped moving on the game controls. “What?”

“I can’t do this. I can’t marry you.”

He blinked and set aside the controls. “Griff, what the hell are you saying?”

“I’m saying I don’t want to get married.”

He sat there a moment, staring at her. “You’ve been wanting to get married for the last three years.”

She shrugged. “Now I don’t.”

His brows drew together. “You want to just keep living together? Your mom won’t like that.”

“I don’t want to keep living together. I don’t want to be together anymore.”

“What the...?” He leaned back against the couch cushions, dumbfounded. “What the hell did those women say to you?”

“Nothing. It’s what I said to myself.” Behind her, something boomed as one of the players on the screen went down. “This has been building for months. I guess I didn’t want to admit it.”

He shook his head. “You aren’t making any sense.”

“I’m making sense to me.”

He glared at her. “You need to explain how we’ve gone from being a couple to you coming home from your damn wedding shower not wanting to get married.”

She joined him on the couch. “We’ve been drifting. We’re not together for the right reasons anymore. We’re just...a habit.”

“We’re a good habit,” he said and slipped an arm around her shoulders.

She pulled away. “No, Steve, we’re not. Not really. I don’t want this to be the rest of my life.”

“This what?” He held out his hands as if waiting for her to drop a better explanation into them.

“This life we’ve ended up with.”

“What’s wrong with our life? It’s great.”

“It’s boring.”

He shrugged. “Okay, so we’ll do more stuff.”

She shook her head. “No, we won’t. You won’t change.”

His expression made her think of a kicked puppy. “Sorry I’m so boring.”

The apricot torte and punch weren’t playing well in her tummy anymore. “It’s not you.” Well, yes, it was. “It’s just that this isn’t going to work. I see that now. We don’t have enough.”

“Enough what? Sex?”

“Enough...anything. We don’t talk.”

He moved closer again and put his arms around her. “I can talk. What do you want to talk about?”

“Us.”

He frowned. “We’re fine, Griff. I don’t know what those women told you, but they’re wrong. We’re good together.”

“I don’t want good. I want better.” Okay, that hadn’t come out right.

He set his jaw. “So you’re breaking up with me after all these years?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Because you want someone better.” He dropped his arms.

“Just someone better for me.”

That hadn’t exactly softened the blow. His face turned to stone. “Fine. I’ll start packing.”

She felt like the rottenest woman on the planet. “Steve, I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, right,” he snapped and stormed out of the living room.

And now they were over. In less than five minutes. Just like that. He’d hardly fought for what they had, which showed how little they had. She stayed on the couch and stared at the stupid avatars on the screen and wished she’d blown up the TV when they first moved to Icicle Falls.

Steve was packed and gone in two hours, leaving her with the parting words “Keep the ring and have a nice life.”

She already had a nice life. And that was the problem. She wanted more. What if she never got it?

What had she done?

Chapter Three

Cass returned home from Griffin’s shower to find Dan Masters and Tilda’s husband, Devon Black, packing up their tools.

“We can’t do much more with the ceiling until it dries out, but we’ve patched the hole. Don’t forget what I told you about that roof.”

“I know,” Cass said with a sigh. “I’ve been putting off dealing with it.”

“Some things you don’t want to put off,” Dan warned. “A new roof is one of them.”

“The Linds put one on this summer, and it cost them thirty thousand dollars.” She didn’t have that kind of money in savings. She supposed she could take some out of her retirement fund. Or get a home equity loan. Ugh.

“Ralph’s Roofing,” Dan said with a knowing nod. “They’re not cheap.”

Devon shrugged. “At that price it’d be blue tarp city for Tilda and me. Thank God that’s not on the list.”

Devon and Tilda had a fixer-upper and they’d been putting in a lot of work into it. Lucky girl to have a man to help her with her home repairs.

“I can recommend someone who’ll help you,” Dan told Cass. “My dad.”

“He a roofer?” Cass asked.

“He’s an everything. There’s nothing he doesn’t know about houses. He started Masters Construction.”

“So you worked for your old man?” Devon asked.

“Yep. He taught me everything I know. Left me the business when he retired.”

Before her pal Charley married Dan Masters, Cass had never heard of Masters Construction. They had worked primarily in Wenatchee and its close environs.

But then Charley had needed her restaurant rebuilt after a fire, and Masters Construction won the bid. After that the construction company was very much in demand in Icicle Falls. They did good work—and they looked good, too. Women came into Gingerbread Haus talking about the “hunky construction guys.” Dan fell for Charley and was almost instantly off the market, but his employees were all single. They were also in their twenties and thirties—cougar prey.

Cass wasn’t exactly cougar material. Those guys soon all had girlfriends anyway.

“Is your dad gonna come back and work for you?” Devon joked.

“Nope, but he is coming back to work. I knew that whole early-retirement thing wouldn’t last.”

Cass had met Dan’s dad when she went to Las Vegas for Dan and Charley’s wedding. Her jaw had dropped at the sight of him. He’d been happily married back then, to a woman who had found her husband’s effect on other women more amusing than threatening. Of course, she’d been pretty and obviously secure in herself, sure of his love.

There was no wife now.

A sudden fantasy of herself getting pulled into the arms of a bare-chested man sporting jeans and a tool belt invaded Cass’s mind and she felt instantly guilty. The man was a widower, for crying out loud.

How long had his wife been gone? She couldn’t remember. It didn’t matter anyway. He probably wasn’t interested in pudgy bakers.

Oh, well. At least she could now drool over him with a clear conscience.

“He went down to Mexico,” Dan continued. “Got tired of it and now he’s on his way up from Cabo. Planning on starting a new business—repairs and handyman stuff.”

“Repairs?” There was the magic word.

“He’ll be more affordable than Ralph,” Dan said.

Anyone would be more affordable than Ralph. The big question was, could she afford anyone?

And was Grant Masters seeing anybody?

Oh, stop, she scolded herself. Not gonna happen. Anyway, the man thing hadn’t worked the first time around. She didn’t need a man to be happy. She had her business, her kids and her friends. And no sex life.

Oh, well. A girl couldn’t have everything. Darn.

* * *

Griffin woke up Monday morning, still sleeping on the left side of the bed, leaving the right side empty for...the man who wasn’t with her anymore. It was weird to wake up alone. She felt a little like an orphan, which was rather silly considering the fact that she’d orphaned herself.

She couldn’t help feeling sad. She and Steve had been together for so long, made memories, made plans. She’d crumpled up five years just like that and thrown them away. And she’d hurt him in the process. She hadn’t wanted to hurt him.

She was also tired. She hadn’t slept well, kept hearing noises, noises she’d never been aware of when there was another body next to her in the bed. Once she’d gone as far as getting up to tiptoe to the bedroom door and peer out. Of course, she’d seen nothing. Burglars were hardly a common occurrence in this town. Anyway, what self-respecting burglar would bother with a place in need of paint and repairs? It didn’t exactly scream money.

She went into the bathroom and it seemed naked without Steve’s razor and toothbrush in there. She showered and dressed, made her morning mug of coffee. Then she sat down at her old wooden kitchen table, looking out the window at a sunny day. A robin was hopping around in the backyard. The apple tree was beginning to bloom. Very idyllic.

And a little lonely. Still, she knew she’d done the right thing breaking up with Steve. The fact that he hadn’t stuck around to fight for her was proof that what they’d had was more habit than grand passion. He’d be fine without her, was probably already ensconced in his parents’ basement, absorbed in testing a new video game. And she’d be fine without him.

But they’d been together so long, she couldn’t help feeling slightly adrift. What was she going to do now?

For the moment, work, although she certainly wasn’t making her fortune as a food photographer. Not for lack of trying, though. She had pictures for sale on a couple of stock-photography websites and was putting a lot of effort into her own website, offering pictures for sale there, as well. She had a food blog and some followers. She’d even managed to sell a couple of pictures to local magazines. But so far the kind of success she’d dreamed about had eluded her.

In the world of pictures, competition was stiff, and trying to stand out in a sea of internet images was no easy feat. It seemed that the most successful food photographers worked with food stylists in New York, where all the big magazines and advertising companies were.

At least she was making enough to live on (or had been until Steve left), and she was slowly developing her own unique brand, which focused on outdoor living and entertaining—things she had easy access to here in this small town.

During the summer, many of her pictures had featured not only local goodies but local people—like Cecily Goodman’s daughter in pigtails and coveralls, poised over a bowl of fresh blackberries (plump and perfectly ripened with the help of a few dabs of black shoe polish). And Mia Wright, wearing an old-fashioned apron and holding a harvest of late-August apples (made extra-shiny with glycerin).

She loved taking pictures, always had. She felt more comfortable behind the camera than in front of it, and capturing special moments of life for posterity had quickly gone from a hobby to a passion. She’d started taking photography classes in college, and the next thing she knew, her passion had become her trade.

There wasn’t much you could do with a major in literature anyway, not unless you were a writer (which she definitely was not) or you wanted to teach. Standing in front of a room full of high school students trying to pull them away from their cell phones to imagine Ashley Wilkes rather than look him up on the internet didn’t appeal to her at all.

Anyway, taking pictures was art. She couldn’t tell a story with words but she could with a snapshot. Like the saying went, one picture was worth a thousand words.

Now she was working with Beth Mallow, who had put together a cookbook featuring favorite recipes of her deceased mother, Justine Wright, and wanted to add pictures. Griffin had never met Justine, but from what she’d heard, the old woman had been one of a kind and much loved by everyone in Icicle Falls. She’d certainly known how to cook. So did Beth, who was creating her mother’s recipes for Griffin to photograph.

Griffin finished off her coffee and headed out the door to Beth’s house. Today they were going to be using natural light, and she wanted to get there while it was still streaming in through Beth’s kitchen window. Apple scones were the subject of the day, and when Beth let Griffin in, the aroma that wafted out to her from the kitchen was enough to make every taste bud in Griffin’s mouth spring a leak.

“I put out the red-checked tablecloth,” Beth said as she led Griffin into the kitchen, which was serving as their work studio. “And I picked up some apples at the store in case we want to use them. I’ve got three cake stands. You can see if any of those will work. Or, if you prefer, I also have a cute basket we can put them in with a cloth napkin.”

Who needed a food stylist when you had Beth? “I’m sure we can come up with something great.”

“By the way, I’m sorry I missed the shower.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Griffin said and hoped they could drop the subject.

“I’ve got a little something for you, though. Did you get lots of nice gifts?”

Okay, there would be no subject-dropping today. “I did, but I didn’t keep any of them.”

Beth blinked at her. “You didn’t?”

“We’re not getting married.”

Another blink, followed by a cautious “Oh.”

“It’s okay,” Griffin assured her. “We were sort of growing apart.”

“Well, better to be sure,” Beth said diplomatically.

That was what her mom had said when Griffin called her after Steve left, along with statements like “We never thought he was good enough for you” and “You can always move back home.” Yes, that would spell success.

At least they hadn’t spent a lot on the wedding. It was going to be in her parents’ backyard and she’d planned to wear her grandmother’s bridal gown. Maybe someday she’d get to.

Griffin nodded, then moved on. “These look great,” she said, checking out the batch of scones fresh out of the oven and sitting all golden brown and lovely on their cooling rack. Good enough to eat. Which was why she never had breakfast before coming over to Beth’s. Somehow she always ended up eating.

“I hope you can find a hero somewhere in this batch,” Beth said, using the new term she’d learned from Griffin.

A hero was the one picture-perfect food that would wind up being the final shot. They all looked delicious, but only three made the cut.

“Is that enough?” Beth asked. “I can bake more.”

“No, this will be fine.”

“I had Mark help me move the kitchen table,” Beth said. The vintage red Formica table her family had used for years had been moved aside for this shoot, and a small white oak one that she’d found at Stacy Thomas’s shop, Timeless Treasures, was now placed in front of the window. The light was ideal.

“I think for this shot we won’t use the tablecloth or the cake stand,” Griffin said.

“What about the apples?” Beth asked.

Griffin didn’t want to offend Beth. After all, it was her cookbook. Still... “I’m a little worried they’ll distract from the perfection of the scone.”

Beth shrugged, unoffended. “No problem. I’m sure I can find something to do with them.”

Griffin smiled. Beth was so easy to work with, so easy to please. “Did you say you had some cloth dinner napkins?”

“Oh, you’re going to put them right on the napkins?”

“It’ll look really pretty,” Griffin said. “And what if we took a bite out of one?”

Beth smiled. “Fun! You want to do the honors?”

Beth was always tempting her with fabulous goodies, and it was hard to stay strong. Sugar and carbs were like crack to her. “How about if you do it?”

Beth shook her head. “Has anyone told you recently that you’d blow away in a stiff wind?”

“I don’t think there’s any danger of that.”

“You need fattening up.”

She’d been there, done that. “If I have even one bite, I’ll eat the whole batch, and then we won’t get our picture,” Griffin said with a smile.

“Okay. For now I’ll let you off the hook, but you need to let me send a couple of these home with you.”

No doubt about it. Beth was a food pusher. Griffin would take one back to the house just to placate her.

Back to the house. Interesting language. Beth had said home and Griffin had thought house. Hmm.

She tried to ignore that random thought and got busy choosing from among the assortment of napkins Beth produced.

Food photography styles were ever changing. They shifted from an overhead perspective to mimic the way a person usually saw her food to being shot with romantic lighting and props to extremely simple, clean and natural with few props, and even going messy, allowing crumbs or dribbles to sneak into a shot. There would be no crumbs allowed today, but Griffin did like the idea of having one scone with a bite missing, as if someone had been unable to resist it.

An hour later they had their picture, the scones cuddled together on top of a red plaid cloth napkin.

“I love it,” Beth said. Which was what she’d said about everything Griffin had done so far. It was hugely gratifying.

“Now, why don’t I put on some water for tea and we’ll have a bite of one that didn’t make the cut.”

Just a bite, Griffin decided, and helped Beth move her regular kitchen table back in place. Five minutes later they were seated with mugs of steaming tea and little plates, each bearing an apple scone.

Griffin sampled hers and was sure she’d died and gone to carb heaven. “This is amazing.”

Beth smiled. “My mom was amazing.”

“So are you,” Griffin told her. “I don’t know how you do it, but your house has this great vibe. I feel so at home here.”

“Good. That’s the goal, to make people feel at home when they come over. Oh, before I forget...” She left the room to return a moment later with a small box wrapped in pink paper and tied with a satiny white ribbon. “Your present.”

“But I’m not—”

“You can use this no matter what,” Beth said, nudging it forward.

Feeling guilty but knowing Beth wouldn’t let her refuse, Griffin opened it. Inside, nestled in pink tissue paper, were two china cups and saucers; one set was gold trimmed and decorated with pink roses, while the other had lilies of the valley on the cup and a pale green saucer.

“They’re lovely,” Griffin said.

“My mother always said things taste so much better when they’re served in something pretty.”

“They were your mother’s? Then I can’t...” Surely Mia Wright, Beth’s niece by marriage, would want them.

“No. I found these at Timeless Treasures when I bought the table. I know most of us are more casual these days, but sometimes it’s fun to enjoy a little elegance. And even though there’s only one of you right now, you can still have a girlfriend over and use them.”

“Thank you so much. I will,” Griffin said.

In addition to the cups and saucers, Beth did, indeed, send her home with scones. When she got back to the house, she tossed the fat bombs before she could be tempted to inhale them. Then she gave the teacups a special place in the kitchen cupboard, which was full of cheap dishes and bits and pieces her mom had given her.

“I promise I’ll feature you in a picture somehow,” she murmured as she shut the cupboard door.

She put on a thick sweater, made herself a cup of tea in her favorite mug, then wandered out onto her back porch and plopped down on the steps. Steve had been promising to fix that broken one since last August.

Rain clouds were gathering and now they started spitting on her. A good day to edit some pictures on her computer. With a sigh she went back inside.

She spent the rest of the day working on her pictures, then decided to write something for the blog.

She needed a new photo, but it wouldn’t be right to use any of the ones she’d taken at Beth’s. Although Beth had said she didn’t mind, Griffin felt those pictures should be kept top secret until the cookbook came out. So, what visual could she use?

Her new cups and saucers called to her from the cupboard. Of course! She pulled out the lace tablecloth her grandmother had given her and draped it over her coffee table. Hmm. Just cups and saucers wouldn’t work. She made an emergency run to Bailey Black’s tea shop and purchased some of Bailey’s lavender cookies.

“I didn’t think you were big on sweets,” Bailey said in surprise as she loaded up the perfect cookies Griffin had selected.

“I’m not, but I want to feature these in a picture. I’ll say I got them at Tea Time.”

“Really? That’s so cool. And in that case, the cookies are free.”

“It’s only for my blog,” Griffin said.

“It’s great advertising,” Bailey said. “And for the cost of some cookies? Anytime.”

In addition to the cookies, Bailey threw in a couple of Sweet Dreams truffles and some petits fours. Delighted, Griffin thanked her and hurried back home. It took her forty minutes to get everything set up but she was happy with the way her picture turned out. She posted it with the blog, which she’d titled “New Friends and Old Treasures.”

Then she put all the goodies in a plastic container and braved the rain once more to drop them off at Stef’s. With her house a mess, Stef could use some cheering up. No one was home yet, so Griffin left them on the porch and texted her friend.

Left goodies for you.

Yeah?

From Tea Time.

All right! Thanx.

Better your thighs than mine, Griffin thought. Not that Stef would gain so much as an ounce.

Her work done for the day, she put together a salad, which she ate sitting on the couch while surfing from one social media site to another. Her old college friend Joelle had just gotten engaged and flashed her bling on Instagram.

Griffin looked down at her own ring. What was she going to do with it now? Sell it, she supposed. She could use the money to live on.

She wasn’t sure she wanted to stay here all by herself now that her future had changed. She liked Icicle Falls, loved the people, but somehow rattling around in this old Craftsman didn’t feel right. It wasn’t a huge house, but it felt too big for her now that she was on her own.

She hated being alone. She’d never in her whole life been alone, always living with someone—her family, her dorm roommate, Steve. Alone was...lonely.

If she fixed up the house she could sell it and probably make a small profit. Pay back her parents. Then what? Move to New York? Now that she was single, she had no reason not to go where the real business of food photography happened. This was the logical time for a change.

But she’d made good friends here. Did she really want to leave them and go someplace where she didn’t know anyone? She stared at her computer screen, contemplating. These days you could keep up with friends wherever you lived.

And she could make new friends in New York. It was the center of the universe, with lots of action and excitement and energy. She’d probably earn a lot more money in New York.

But New York was big and expensive. And the idea of moving there was a little scary.

Still, if she didn’t at least go check it out, would she look back in ten years and regret it?

That brought her back to the question of the day—what was she going to do? She could stay in Icicle Falls and keep scraping by. She could move back home for a while. No, not an option.

A text came in from Steve. I’m at my parents’ if you change your mind.

She wouldn’t, and that made her feel a little guilty. Poor Steve. She’d really hurt him.

But she’d done the right thing—she was sure of it.

She spent the evening poking around online, researching, considering her options. She crunched numbers and gave herself several pep talks.

Finally, she left a message at Mountain Meadows Real Estate explaining that she’d like to know how much money she could sell her house for and asking one of the Realtors to call her. There. At least she’d made a decision.

Chapter Four

Grant Masters followed the path of flying bronze fish embedded in the terminal floor as he exited the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport on Monday evening. Fish. He’d seen enough fish to last him for a long time.

At first the idea of retiring early and living it up in Mexico fishing, drinking beer and flirting with pretty señoritas had sounded like paradise. He’d worked hard to build his construction company. Actually, he’d worked hard all his life. So after a year of coping with the loss of his wife and trying to run a company, he’d decided it was time not only to take life easier, but to take life easier someplace far from the memories. He’d turned Masters Construction over to his son who’d been managing most of the projects anyway, and took off.

But he finally got tired of catching marlin and trying to use his rusty Spanish. The damned sun never stopped beating down and the weather never changed. Just another day in paradise.

With no purpose and no sweet wife, the days were too long. He missed the mountains; he missed his kids. He even missed work. Not that he wanted to work as hard at sixty-two as he had at forty-two, but he wanted something to fill the days. Part-time would do it. He had skills. Might as well use them.

That had been his reasoning when one night he’d sat down with a Corona and a notebook and pencil and his new company, Honey Do, was born. Every woman had a honey-do list, and a lot of women these days were single with no honey to do it. By the end of the night, he had a business plan and a plane reservation for Seattle. Next stop, Icicle Falls, where his oldest son was living.

Now here he was, back in the States. At this time of night, traveler rush hour was past, so he didn’t have to fight the usual crush of people. He was thankful for that, as he was now too tired to cope with women mistaking him for George Clooney and wanting his autograph. There’d been enough awkward moments on the plane.

He picked up his luggage, rented a car and then hit the freeway, heading to the north suburbs of Seattle. He’d spend a night in the city with his younger son, purchase a used truck the next day and then drive over the mountains to Icicle Falls. He already had a room reserved at Gerhardt’s Gasthaus there, and that would do until he could buy a place he liked. Something modest, perhaps in need of some work.

But not too close to town. He hadn’t spent much time in Icicle Falls, but he knew enough about the place to know it had become a big tourist attraction. He didn’t need to encounter gawking strangers around every corner. Someplace in the woods or maybe on the river would suit him just fine—a place with easy access to mountain trails so he could hike in his spare time.

Hopefully, he wouldn’t have too much spare time hanging heavily on his shoulders. He’d had business cards made up online, and he’d get busy posting them around town and see what happened. He was ready to start a new life.

Louise had been gone three years now, and he still missed her like crazy. What he’d had couldn’t be replaced—he knew that. But maybe he could find something to ease the constant low-grade ache in his heart. Being close to the boys would be good.

Yep, coming back had been the right decision. Lou would have approved.

He hit his son’s house, a small place Matt and Lexie were renting, around ten.

“Hey, Dad, welcome home,” Matt said, giving him a hug and a slap on the back. “You ready for a beer? I’ve got some Hale’s Supergoose double IPA.”

“Sounds great,” Grant said and followed him into the kitchen.

The place looked a little bare, sparse on furniture and missing those feminine touches that proclaimed there was a woman in the house. No knickknacks, no flowers anywhere, and some of the pictures had left the wall. The kitchen was downright Spartan. No bowl of fruit on the counter, no figurines of French chefs. No canisters. Not a good sign. He knew his son had been having trouble in his marriage, but the impression he was getting here suggested they’d gone way beyond that.

“Where’s Lexie?” he asked as he settled on a chair at the kitchen table.

Matt frowned at the bottle of beer he was opening. “She’s gone.” He handed it over and got busy with his own.

“Gone. As in forever?”

“Yeah. The divorce will be final end of May,” Matt said and took a long drink of his beer.

Grant studied his second-born son. Dan had gotten Grant’s darker coloring but Matt resembled his mom—less square jawline, light brown hair, freckles. He’d been a cute kid and he was a good-looking man. He and Lexie had made a fine-looking couple. Too bad they hadn’t managed to make a fine marriage.

Grant wasn’t surprised to hear it, though. He’d thought the girl was spoiled. And a whiner. Unlike his Lou, who’d been hardworking and always had a smile, this babe had been a leech and a downer. Matt needed someone positive in his life, someone to encourage him. Grant wasn’t sorry to hear she was gone.

He did feel bad for his son, though, and it saddened him that Matt hadn’t felt he could call and talk to him. Too embarrassed, he was willing to bet, considering the fact that Grant had questioned whether he and Lexie were really a fit when Matt first started getting serious.

“Want to talk about it?” Grant asked.

“Nope.”

Then this wasn’t the time to tell his son that everything would be all right, that somehow his life would go on. He nodded. “Okay. Got any pretzels to go with that beer?”

Matt dug out a bag, ripped it open and laid it on the table. “You know what really gets me?”

Yep, didn’t want to talk about it. “What?”

“She didn’t even give me a hint that she wasn’t happy.”

“Are you sure, son?” Women left hints, verbal and nonverbal cues that they laid out like a trail of breadcrumbs for a man to follow. Only problem was, it seemed that most guys had a tendency to step right over those breadcrumbs and not even see them. He knew. He’d done his share of missing the clues when he and Louise were first married.

Matt shrugged. Now he was blinking furiously, trying to fight back unmanly tears.

Men ought to be allowed to cry, Grant thought, saving his son’s pride by pretending not to see.

“I could never please her. I mean, I was working my butt off at the restaurant and then doing roofing jobs on my days off. She was never happy, no matter what I did or how much extra money I made. What more did she want?”

Who knew?

“Well, screw her,” his son muttered.

That was how the kid had ended up here in the first place. If you asked Grant, kids jumped into relationships way too quickly. He kept his mouth shut on that topic and simply said, “I’m sorry, son.”

Matt shrugged. “Shit happens, right? That’s what you used to say. You hungry? I can make you a Philly steak sandwich.”

“Oh, man. I haven’t had one of those in ages.”

It used to be his specialty. Lou had loved to bake, but she’d found the meat-and-potatoes stuff challenging. Grant had often pitched in and helped in the kitchen on weekends. He’d been the king of the grill and of Sunday-morning breakfast.

Matt had been his kitchen buddy, always happy to help out. The kid had wound up going to culinary school at Seattle Central, turning himself into a top-rate chef. He’d often talked about having his own place someday, but for the moment he was cooking at a high-end restaurant on the Seattle waterfront that specialized in seafood.

Matt nodded and began cutting sirloin into thin strips. He seasoned it with paprika, chili powder and a mess of other herbs, then cut up onions. He dragged out the old cast-iron skillet that had been his mom’s, poured in olive oil and got to work. Half an hour later, they were both sitting at the kitchen bar, downing the best thing Grant had eaten in the last year. Oh, yeah, it was good to be in the States again.

“So, you’re going back over the mountains, huh?” Matt said and chomped off another chunk of sandwich.

“I think so. Your brother tells me there’s a real demand for handymen in Icicle Falls.”

“There’s a real demand for handymen everywhere,” said Matt, who’d been lobbying for Grant to move to Seattle. “Way more action here than over there.”

“At my age I don’t need action,” Grant informed him.

“Jeez, Dad, you’re not dead.”

There was an awkward moment as Matt realized he’d just brought the ghost of his mom into the room with that one word. “Shit,” he muttered and stuffed more of his sandwich in his mouth.

Grant clapped him on the back. “It’s all right, son. I know what you meant.”

Now Matt really looked like he was going to cry. “I miss her, Dad.”

It wasn’t hard to figure out which “her” his son was referring to. “I know. I do, too.”

Lou had been a stay-at-home mom and the heartbeat of their family. Death had come for her way too soon. So many times Grant had wished it had been him who’d had the heart attack and not her.

“I wish you were gonna stay here.”

Poor Matt. People were leaving him right and left. “It’s not that far over the mountains. We’ll see a lot of each other, a lot more than we did when I was in Mexico.”

Both his sons and their wives had come down to visit him at Christmas, and they’d all had a great time. Well, except for Lexie, who’d topped off a bad sunburn with a case of Montezuma’s revenge. She’d been miserable and she’d done her best to make everyone else miserable, too. Yep, no loss there.

“I’m coming up on weekends during the winter,” Matt threatened with a grin.

Skiing and snowboarding—both his boys loved their winter sports, just like he did. He’d see more of Matt now that he was back in the Pacific Northwest. And he’d sure see a lot more of Dan.

As he’d discovered, he wasn’t cut out for the life of an old hermit crab.

Matt wanted him to stay a few days but had to work at the restaurant for the rest of the week, and Grant didn’t want to sit around cooling his heels. He was anxious to get to Icicle Falls and get settled.

So a day later he had a truck and by late afternoon he’d arrived at his temporary new digs in one of Icicle Falls’ favorite (and more affordable) B and Bs. “You’ll get my Ingrid’s incredible breakfasts every morning,” Gerhardt bragged as he checked Grant in. “And my alpenhorn serenades.”

Grant had heard about Gerhardt’s famous alpenhorn serenades. One time he’d had too much of his German beer and serenaded himself right off the B and B’s dining room balcony and broken his arm. The guy was a character.

Grant thanked him and towed his oversize suitcase to the room. It had everything he owned in the world—a couple of changes of good clothes, his favorite old work shirt and jeans, his tool belt, toiletries and his share of the photo albums his wife had so carefully kept over the years. Everything else from his life in America he’d given to the boys or sold before he went south, and what he’d accumulated in Mexico, he’d left behind. Except for his trophy marlin, which was being shipped up to him, care of Gerhardt. He’d hang that over the fireplace once he got a house.

After he was settled in, he walked to Zelda’s Restaurant, which was owned and run by his daughter-in-law Charley. There was a bite in the air. The sun was still out but starting to cast shadows on the town before its evening slide behind the mountains. The shop owners had already welcomed spring, filling their window boxes with plants and putting up hanging flower baskets.

Icicle Falls was set up to look like a German village, with Bavarian-style architecture and murals painted on the buildings. The closest Grant had ever gotten to Germany was pictures he’d seen in magazines or glimpses of the country in movies. This place sure seemed like a dead ringer to him.

Charley’s face lit up when he walked in. “Dad! You made it.” She hurried over and hugged him and, darn, it felt good to be hugged, good to be back with family.

“How you doing, gorgeous?” he said and gave her a kiss on the cheek.

“Doing great,” she said.

She looked like she was doing great. At least one son and his wife were enjoying married bliss. Charley practically glowed with happiness.

“Dan should be here in about ten minutes,” she said. “We’ve got a table reserved for you.”

He followed her to a booth toward the back of the restaurant. The retired set was already there, enjoying drinks and meals from the senior menu.

“Would you like a beer while you wait?” she asked.

“You know it,” he said, and she went to put in an order for him.

A few minutes later, a cute little gal was setting an icy cold one in front of him. “On the house, Mr. Masters,” she said with a grin. “I’m Melody and I’m new here.”

“Thanks, Melody,” he said. “And it’s Grant. May as well get on a first-name basis, since I plan on being a regular.”

“Grant,” she repeated, smiling, and hurried off to deliver some kind of fancy drinks to two women seated at a table in the middle of the room. One of them, he noticed, was a real looker, with beautiful green eyes and chestnut curls. She glanced his way, blinked, blushed, then turned her head.

No, I’m not him. Thank God no one had come up to ask for his autograph so far. It often took a while to convince people that he wasn’t George Clooney. Once he did, they were embarrassed, and so was he. He wouldn’t mind if the redhead came over, though.

Charley was back now and saw him watching. “That’s Muriel Sterling-Wittman, and yes, she’s single.”

He smiled and shook his head. “Just lookin’. Not in the market.”

“You never know,” Charley said. “I sure wasn’t in the market when I met your son, who, by the way, is the best thing that ever happened to me.”

Speaking of his son, there he was, obviously just out of the shower with his hair still damp, and wearing clean jeans and a shirt. “Dad, you made it,” he said and hugged Grant. Then he slid into the booth, and Charley sat down and joined him. “How was Seattle?”

“Crowded.”

“Matt’s pissed you don’t want to live there.”

“Matt needs to move up here.”

“That’s what I keep telling him,” Dan said. “He could come work for Charley.” Charley seemed a little uncomfortable at that, so he added, “Well, if her chef ever quits.”

“He’s a good one,” she told Grant. “And he’s been with me for several years.”

“Loyalty’s important,” Grant said diplomatically.

“But so is family,” Dan said.

Grant shrugged. “Then why don’t you guys open a second restaurant and let Matt run it?”

“Not a bad idea,” Dan said, “but we’re gonna be busy for a while.”

“Oh?” The minute he saw Dan and his wife exchange smiles he knew, but he played dumb. “With what?”

“With a baby,” Charley said, beaming.

“Well, now, that’s terrific news,” Grant said. “Congratulations, you two. When’s the stork coming?”

“November,” Charley replied.

That explained why his daughter-in-law looked so happy. There was something about a pregnant woman. She glowed like a candle in the dark.

As for his son, Grant sure recognized that goofy grin. If there was anything as exciting as learning you were going to have a kid, Grant didn’t know what it was. “You got names picked out?”

“We’re thinking Amanda Louise if it’s a girl.”

To honor both Charley’s mom and Lou. Lou would have been out of her mind over all this. Damned heart attack. That should have happened to him, not her.

“And Ethan Grant if it’s a boy,” said Dan.

“A nod to Dan’s neglected first name,” Charley teased, nudging him.

“Sorry you get second billing, Dad.”

“At least I’m on the bill. That’s real nice of you. You two will be great parents.”

“I hope so,” Charley said. “I never thought I’d end up being a mom.”

“It’s happening, babe.” Dan slipped an arm around his wife. “So, Dad, you’re gonna be a grandpa.”

“Works for me,” Grant said.

And now he was really glad he’d decided to come back stateside. A new kid in the family and a new business. What else could a man want?

He caught a glimpse of the pretty woman at the other table and suddenly remembered what else.

* * *

Stef normally had Tuesdays and Thursdays off. Once upon a time, BD (Before Destruction), she’d enjoyed staying home on her days off, watching HGTV or puttering in the garden, doing craft projects or playing with Petey. These days, home wasn’t exactly where the heart was, so on Thursday she was more than happy to take a latte break with Griffin at Gingerbread Haus.

“I’m going to poison Brad now and be done with it,” she informed Griffin as they entered the bakery. “Then I’ll replace him with a real carpenter.”

“From what I hear, they aren’t always very fast at getting work done, either,” Griffin said. “Anyway, he’ll get the living room finished eventually,” she added, obviously trying to be encouraging.

Stef did not feel encouraged. “Eventually? Maybe. Right now, it’s looking more like never.” Stef shook her head. “I thought we were so perfectly compatible when we first got married, but I didn’t know about...this.” She sighed. “I do love the guy. What I don’t love is the way he keeps starting projects and never finishing them. It’s making me nuts. I just want to find someone to finish this so we can be done with it, but Brad keeps insisting he’ll get to it.”

Cass, who was ringing up some swan-shaped cream puffs for Muriel Sterling-Wittman, greeted them. “Still nowhere near done, huh?”

“He’ll never be done.”

Muriel took her purchase and smiled the all-knowing Mona Lisa smile she was famous for. “When we’re in the middle of something challenging, it always seems like it’ll last forever, but trust me, even the hard times come to a close.”

“Thanks,” Stef murmured, feeling like the queen of the wicked witches. Here Muriel Sterling had been widowed twice—talk about hard times—and she never complained. Stef’s chaotic reno project, which had been feeling like a mountain, shrank to a molehill. Muriel gave her a reassuring pat on the arm and Stef sighed as the older woman left the shop. “I’m a bitch.”

“No, you’re not,” Cass assured her. “I’d feel the same way if I was in your house. I feel the same way in my leaky house, only I don’t have a husband to blame.”

Another woman with no husband. Now Stef really felt guilty for complaining. Sometimes Brad did not bring out the best in her.

Oh, yeah. Blame it all on Brad. She needed therapy. “Give me two gingerbread boys and a large caramel latte,” she said to Cass. “I’m going to smother my sorrows in sugar.”

“Good idea.” Cass looked at Griffin. “Are you going to walk on the wild side today and have a gingerbread boy?”

“I’ll just have a cup of gingerbread tea. Beth’s been stuffing me full of goodies the last three days.”

Cass smiled. “Next to me, she’s the best baker in town. Well, except for Janice Lind. I’m sure she’ll win the Raise the Roof bake-off again this year.”

“That was before you moved here,” Stef told Griffin. “It was really fun, kind of like a county fair, but without the cows and pigs. At the end they auction everything off. They also have a silent auction. Last year I won a dinner for two at Der Spaniard and a huge basket of Sweet Dreams chocolates. You should come. I bet you’d get some great food pictures.”

Griffin nodded thoughtfully. “I might have to.”

As if on cue, Maddy Donaldson, one of the town’s busiest volunteers, came into the shop, selling tickets to the event. “It’s for a good cause,” she reminded them.

“What does it raise money for?” Griffin asked.

“The proceeds go to maintaining our historical buildings in town. It’s a big part of what keeps Icicle Falls beautiful, and the tickets are only ten dollars, a real bargain.”

“I’m all for that,” Stef said, digging her wallet out of her purse. “I’ll take four,” she told Maddy, then said to Griffin, “You can come with us.”

“I can pay for my own,” Griffin insisted.

“I know, but I want to.” Griffin no longer had Steve to share expenses. Her budget had to have shrunk considerably.

“I’ll take one, too,” Cass said. “Give me a minute to get my money from the back room.”

“I’ve got it,” Stef said. “We can all go together.” Was she being bossy or what? But it would be fun to have her two favorite Icicles with her.

“That’s sweet of you,” Cass said.

In light of the many times Cass hadn’t let them pay for their treats, that was the least she could do.

“Raise the Roof is going to be great this year,” Maddy said as she took their money. “We have so many wonderful things for the silent auction. The art gallery is donating a painting by Gray Wolf Dawson. And Sweet Dreams has come through again.”

“I’m interested in that,” Stef told her. “Now, if you could raffle off a temporary husband...”

“Funny you should say that. We have a new business in town—Honey Do—and he’s going to be offering a whole day of work.”

“It’ll take more than a day to clean up my mess,” Stef grumbled.

“You can always hire him for however long it takes after that.”

“I hear he does roofs,” Cass said, “so I’ll be all over that.”

“I’m sure he does. It’s Dan Masters’s dad. He’s just moved here from Mexico. I talked to him on the phone yesterday and he’s really nice. I hear he’s gorgeous.”

“He is,” Cass said. “I met him when Charley and Dan got married.”

“If that’s the case, there’s bound to be a bidding frenzy,” Maddy said with a smile.

“I suspect there’ll be a bidding frenzy anyway,” Cass told her. “We’ve got two of us right here who’ll bid on a handyman.”

Maddy hung around for a while to chat, then went on her way, and Stef and Griffin settled at one of the bakery’s bistro tables with their drinks and the gingerbread boys. Cass took a moment to join them.

“I sure would like to win that handyman for a day,” Stef said. She could already see her new great room with its polished hardwood floors. All that space! Of course, what she needed would take more than a day. Maybe she’d hire him for...life. “If I could get the guy to finish some of Brad’s other projects, I wouldn’t have to murder my husband.”

“You have to stop saying stuff like that in front of us,” Cass teased her. “If anything happens to Brad, we’ll get called into court to testify.”

Stef sighed. “I know. It’s just that he makes me so mad sometimes. Why can’t he finish anything?”

“He’s a visionary,” Cass suggested. “Lots of great ideas.”

“Well, maybe he needs to envision sleeping on the couch for a while.” The weekend was around the corner and had he saved any time to work on the house? No. Friday night he was sitting in for someone at Ed Fish’s weekly poker game, Saturday was T-ball for Petey, followed by a birthday party they’d all be going to, and Sunday he’d committed them to staying after church for a potluck. Generous of him to volunteer her to bring a casserole and dessert.

“That’ll never happen,” Griffin said. “You’re too soft. He wouldn’t be on that couch longer than a couple of hours.”

“I’m done with being soft,” Stef said. “I should’ve come down on him with the first unfinished project. I’m so bidding on that handyman.”

“Me, too,” Cass warned her. “I need a new roof.”

“I may need someone, too,” Griffin said. “I’m thinking of selling my house.”

Stef nearly dropped her latte. “What?”

“With Steve gone, I’m not sure it’s practical to stay there. I talked to a Realtor this morning, and she’s coming later this afternoon to look at it and tell me what she thinks I can get.”

They’d walked all the way down here and Griffin hadn’t said a thing to her. Stef felt slightly hurt. Maybe Griffin had been afraid she’d try to talk her out of it. Maybe she would have.

“You’ll probably get more for it than you paid,” Cass said. “Real-estate values here are going up even on older homes. Where would you move?”

“I’m wondering if this might be a good time to go to New York and really pursue food photography.”

“New York? Wow, that does sound glam,” Stef said. “But do you have to go all the way to New York to do that? These days can’t you do everything over the internet? Anyway, you’re getting business right here.” Yep, this was why Griffin hadn’t said anything.

“I know. And part of me doesn’t want to leave.”

“Then don’t,” Stef urged. This was all Steve’s fault. If he hadn’t been such a loser...

“I think I could do better there. It’s where all the big business is. And if I want to get noticed, I need to relocate, at least for a while. Now, when I’m on my own, might be the time to at least try, even though it kind of scares me.”

“You know we’d all hate to see you leave,” Cass said, “but I say go for your dreams.”

“Cass is right,” Stef said. “I hate the idea of you moving, though.” She picked a cinnamon candy eye from her gingerbread boy and frowned at it.

“I haven’t decided yet,” Griffin said. “I need to see what I can get for the house first. And I need to finish up my project with Beth.”

“I hope it takes a long time.” Okay, totally selfish.

“Speaking of that, I’ve been sitting with you two for way too long. I have to get back to work,” Cass said and left them to finish their treats. Well, Stef would finish hers, anyway.

She returned the conversation to the subject of Griffin’s moving, and Griffin sighed.

“I doubt I can afford to stay here on what I’m making now, not living alone.”

“New York won’t be cheap, either.” No hidden agenda in that remark.

“No, but if I actually wind up making good money it won’t matter.”

“True. Okay, I obviously need to be a noble friend and support you. But I’d rather find you a roommate. What about a really hot guy? Or somebody rich to support you while you work on your photography.”

Griffin frowned and cocked an eyebrow. “A sugar daddy?”

“No. Someone who’ll fall madly in love with you and believe in you enough to foot the bill while you’re becoming a superstar on the internet, which is totally different from a sugar daddy.” She wasn’t sure how, but that was beside the point.

“I won’t hold my breath on that one. Anyway, I’m not ready to jump into another relationship. Even if I don’t like being by myself.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” Stef admitted. “You don’t want to rush into anything and end up with someone who drives you nuts.” Gee, who could she have been thinking of when she said that?

When she got back to the house, seeing the drape hanging in the middle of her living room and knowing what was behind it didn’t exactly improve her mood. She was glad she had to work the next day. At least she wouldn’t have to be home to look at this. Brad had better pray she won that handyman in the Raise the Roof auction.

The fundraiser was the first weekend in May—not that far off. Still, living with this mess, it felt like it was a million years away. She hoped she could hang on that long.

Chapter Five

Nenita Einhausen from Mountain Meadows Real Estate arrived at Griffin’s house promptly at three in the afternoon. She was short and slender and professionally put together in a black power suit and heels, her dark hair caught back in a ponytail to accentuate her delicate features.

Griffin, who hadn’t bothered with makeup and wore jeans and a sweater, suddenly felt dumpy. Like her house. “Thanks for coming over,” she said.

“I’m happy to,” Nenita said cheerfully and walked into the room like a woman on a mission. “This place has so much potential. If I didn’t already have a house of my own, I’d buy it in a minute.”

That was encouraging. “So you don’t think I’ll have any trouble selling it?”

Nenita shook her head. “No, we’ll find you a buyer. Hardwood floors, nice. Can I look at the kitchen?” Before Griffin could answer, she was on her way there. Griffin followed and watched as she assessed the dated appliances with a silent nod, then poked her nose out the back door. “Lovely little yard. The back porch needs some help.”

“I know. My ex was going to get around to that,” Griffin explained, then felt her cheeks burning. Why was she telling that to a perfect stranger?

Nenita gave her a sympathetic smile. “Been there, done that. As it turns out, it was the best thing that ever happened to me. It motivated me to get into real estate, which I love. What do you do?”

“I’m a photographer.”

“Really? Can we see the upstairs?” Nenita asked and started power walking toward the stairs. “Do you do portraits?” she asked as Griffin trailed her up them. “Would I have seen your work for sale at any of our festivals?”

“No. I specialize in pictures of food.”

“That sounds like fun.”

“It is. I’m thinking of moving to New York, where I can get more work.” Or I could move back home and live with my parents forever. Which option should I choose?

“Good idea,” Nenita said. She looked in the first bedroom. “Nice size. So, are you in a hurry to sell?” she asked and moved to the next bedroom.

“Well...” Was she?

“The reason I ask,” Nenita said, “is because you could get a lot more money for the place if you had time to fix it up a little. It needs some updating, a few repairs. New paint. Not that I couldn’t sell it as is, but I assume you want to get top dollar.”

“Of course,” Griffin confirmed. “How much do you think I could get?”

“Fixed up?” Nenita told her and started dollar signs dancing in front of her eyes. “The market’s on the upswing.”

“Tell me what to do.”

The list was daunting. In addition to fixing the broken back stair and painting the outside of the house, Nenita suggested painting most of the inside, as well—two bedrooms and the living room had been deemed in need of freshening.

“You should replace the stove and fridge and dishwasher if you can afford it,” she finished. “Once you get all of that done and we stage the place, it’ll sell pretty fast. Summer’s the best time. People want to get moved and settled before the school year begins.”

Okay, she could do this. It would be great to hire that new handyman everyone was talking about, but she could save money if she did most of the work herself. Painting wasn’t all that hard. She’d tackle that first and then worry about the broken step and the appliances.

Highly motivated, she went straight to the hardware store with her credit card after Nenita left, and started looking at paint chips. So many different shades—it was almost overwhelming. She finally decided on a cream for the living room as well as one of the spare bedrooms and a light turquoise for her own room. It would pick up the colors in her bedspread and pillows, and that would help with staging. The cream would look attractive with the house’s hardwood floors, which Nenita had suggested refinishing. Ugh.

Painting the outside of the house was going to be really spendy and would have to wait until she could work up the nerve to ask her dad for a loan. She selected her paint, brushes, roller and about a million other supplies, and took them to the cash register to be rung up. She swallowed hard when she saw the total but stoically handed over her credit card, reminding herself that you had to spend money to make money. She’d heard that somewhere. She hoped it was true.

She was pushing her cart full of paints out of the store when a man walked in past her. Whoa. “Oh, my gosh, oh, my gosh,” she muttered and pulled out her cell phone.

Stef answered after several rings. “Did you see the Realtor?”

“Yeah, but never mind her. I just saw George Clooney!”

“What?”

“Seriously. I’m sure it was him. What’s he doing in Icicle Falls?” Was he making a movie here? And if he was, why hadn’t it been splashed all over the papers? Why wasn’t everyone talking about it?

“George Clooney in Icicle Falls? Okay, were you in that new cannabis store outside of town? Are you, like, hallucinating or something?”

“No. I swear it was him. I’m going back inside to check it out. I’ll call you later.”

Griffin loaded her supplies in her trunk and then hustled into the hardware store again. Okay, where was he?

“Did you forget anything?” asked Alan Donaldson, who owned the store.

“I was thinking I might need another paintbrush,” Griffin improvised. She knew she was blushing, could feel the heat on her cheeks.

He gave her a sly grin. “You know where they are.”

Yeah, but where was he? She hurried up and down the various aisles, passing everything from sandpaper to gardening supplies. Had she imagined him?

No. She turned a corner and ran right into the man. He dropped the tube of caulk he was carrying and she dropped her jaw. “Oh, my gosh. Mr. Clooney, I’m so sorry.”

“No worries,” he said, bending to pick it up. “And I’m afraid I’m not George Clooney.”

“You’re not?” He stood and she studied his face. Okay, maybe not. This man’s nose was a bit different, and he had a few more wrinkles. But still, wow, you could’ve fooled her. Oh, yeah. He had. “I’m sorry. Of course you’re not. What would George Clooney be doing in a hardware store in Icicle Falls? Except I thought someone was going to make a movie here or...something.” Lame. Totally lame.

He smiled. “It’s okay. It happens a lot.”

“That must come in handy when you’re traveling. Free drinks on planes, stuff like that?” Okay, she sounded like a complete moron.

He didn’t dignify that with an answer. Instead, he introduced himself.

“The Honey Do man! We were just talking about you. Both my friends want you.” Hmm. Did that sound a little...sexual?

“That’s good to hear.”

“We’re all going to be at the Raise the Roof fundraiser,” she went on. What did he care? “I guess we’ll see you then.”

“I guess so. And your name is?”

Idiot Girl. “Griffin James.”

“Nice to meet you, Griffin. I’m Grant Masters.”

He had a friendly smile, and he wasn’t looking at her as if she only had one brain cell. She didn’t feel quite so stupid now and smiled back. “Nice to meet you, too. See you at the fundraiser.”

“Or maybe in here again.”

“I promise not to ask for your autograph.”

“At least wait until I’m famous,” he said, deadpan.

“Oh, sure,” she said. Her cell phone rang and she excused herself and hurried out of the store, answering as she went.

“Did you find him?” asked Stef.

“Yeah, but it wasn’t him.”

“Doesn’t matter. He’s too old for you, anyway.”

“This man really looks like him, though. And guess what? He’s the new handyman and Mrs. Donaldson wasn’t kidding. He’s so nice.”

“That’s not surprising, considering how nice his son is. Dan’s always sending Charley flowers. And he bailed Cass out when her roof was leaking.”

Steve had gotten Griffin flowers. Once. For Valentine’s Day. After she bugged him to. She thought of the broken back porch step and frowned. “Too bad somebody can’t clone him.” Dan, not Steve. One Steve was probably enough.

“I think he’s got a brother. I hear he’s single.”

If the brother looked anything like Dan Masters or his dad... Woo-hoo. Oh, well. She was on her way to New York. She’d hold out for some slick metrosexual. Meanwhile, here in Icicle Falls, she had things to do.

She spent Friday morning working with Beth on another photo shoot—rhubarb-strawberry crisp—and then spent much of the afternoon editing. Come five o’clock, she tossed together cut-up sandwich meat and spinach and called it good (no one would ever take pictures of her cooking). Then she settled down on the couch to eat dinner.

All by herself. On a Friday night.

She’d complained to Steve about their life being boring, but at least they’d had one. Often on Friday nights they’d gone over to Brad and Stef’s to play Mexican Train or watch a movie together or, when she insisted they had to get out, to Zelda’s. She didn’t want to go to Zelda’s alone, and somehow it didn’t feel right to go over to Stef’s when it was only her. Friday night was couples’ night. She wasn’t part of a couple anymore. Now she was a third wheel.

Maybe she’d see if Cass wanted company.

She put in a call and got Cass’s voice mail. “If it’s after eight, sorry, I’m in bed. If you’re calling on a Friday, sorry, I’m pooped. Leave a message, though, and tell me what I missed.”

“You didn’t miss anything,” Griffin said at the sound of the beep. And how pathetic was that? Oh, never mind, she had a new Susan Wiggs book to read. She’d spend her evening with that. Then tomorrow it would be paint day. Oh, yeah. Look at the exciting new life she had now that she’d broken up with Steve.

It was going to be exciting, she promised herself. And it was going to be good to get her house fixed up. Who knew—maybe once it was all painted and pretty, she wouldn’t want to move.

The next morning she donned her grubby jeans and an old sweatshirt and got busy. She decided to start with the living room, the first thing people would see when they walked in. She laid out her drop cloth and opened her paint can. Then she went to the shed in the backyard and hauled in the ladder, a rickety old thing that had probably been around since the fifties. Just as well she didn’t weigh a lot, otherwise it might not have held her.

She poured paint into her tray, set it on the ladder and went to work with her trusty new roller, starting from the top of the wall and working her way down. After she’d done a section, she stepped down to admire her work. Oh, yes. This place was going to look good enough for an HGTV show by the time she was done.

Back to the ladder, up to the top step. Paint, paint, paint, reach out just a little farther...lose balance, let out a screech, grab for the ladder and miss, tipping the roller tray and sending it—and her—flying. Land on right hand, right hip in roller tray. Experience pain. Big pain, super pain. Sit on the floor and wail. Yes, home improvement was such fun.

* * *

Her baking was finished for the day, and the kitchen was cleaned. Cass was ready to sneak away and leave Gingerbread Haus in the capable hands of Misty and Jet, her Saturday crew, and go home to shower and take a nap. Then, for the evening she had big plans—watch all her favorite TV shows that she’d recorded during the week. And make some popcorn. Popcorn and TV, real exciting. As Charley had said, she wasn’t that old. Why was she living like it? Why did her life suck?

Your life doesn’t totally suck, she reminded herself. She had three great kids, whom she’d raised single-handedly, thanks to her ex. He was finally back in the picture, along with his trophy wife and her ridiculous little dog and their trophy toddler. Ever since Dani’s wedding, they’d made a habit of coming up and staying with her at Christmas, along with the kids, giving family holiday gatherings the feel of a cringe-humor movie. But, in spite of that, life in the family department was good. Her business was thriving and she was well respected by everyone in town and had great friends. Okay, her life didn’t totally suck. It only semi-sucked.

But...she’d like to have sex again. Yes, sex would be nice. So would going out to dinner once in a while with someone who had a voice lower than hers.

Remember Mason.

Reminding herself how miserable and frustrated she’d been with her former husband was usually enough to convince her that she didn’t want a man. Men were, for the most part, a selfish and inconsiderate breed. Yes, Charley’s husband was great, and her other best friend, Samantha Sterling-Preston, had done okay. So had both of Sam’s sisters. But Cass was still convinced that those were the exceptions, not the rule. At this point in her life, she didn’t want to sort through the losers to find a winner. That would be like looking for a diamond in a gumball machine.

She’d just removed her apron when Misty raced into the kitchen. “OMG! You’ve got to come see who’s here.”

No, she didn’t. She hadn’t slept well the night before and she wasn’t wearing any makeup to cover the dark circles under her eyes. Her hair was still in a hairnet and she was in her grubbies.

“I’ll pass,” she said.

“No, really!” Misty started towing her out of the kitchen, babbling as they went. “I don’t know what he’s doing in Icicle Falls. Maybe he has family here? Maybe he’s hiding from the paparazzi.”

“Hiding from the paparazzi in Icicle Falls?” Cass repeated with a snort. “Who are you talking about?”

They stepped out into the shop and she didn’t have to ask. For a moment her heart forgot to beat.

“Hi, Cass,” called Dan Masters. “You remember my dad, right?”

She’d have to have been brain-dead to have forgotten.

“I’m taking him around town to meet people. Thought we’d stop in for a cookie.”

Why was she wearing this stupid hairnet? And why didn’t she ever bother with makeup? Why hadn’t she stuck to her diet? Why, why, why?

“How about it?” Dan prompted.

“Hmm?”

“Cookie?”

“Oh, yeah. A cookie, of course! I do owe you cookies for life.” She’d give his daddy cookies for life, too. She’d give his daddy anything. “Jet, how about a couple of cookies for the gentlemen?” she said to her other gape-mouthed employee.

Jet nodded and produced the requested treats.

“No more leaks?” Dan asked Cass.

“So far, so good.”

“Okay. But don’t push your luck. You need to get that roof fixed.”

Cass gave him a salute. “Yes, sir. Will do!” He chuckled.

“We’re off to Zelda’s for lunch. Wanna join us?” he offered.

Like she wanted to sit at a table with Dan and his gorgeous father for an hour so she could leave the man with an indelible impression of herself looking like this. “I’ll pass, but thanks.”

“Okay. We’ll catch up with you later, then,” Dan said and started for the door.

“Nice seeing you again,” said his dad.

“Same here,” Cass lied. Nice was hardly the word for it. Torture would be more appropriate.

“I thought for sure he was that actor,” Misty said after they left. “He looks so much like him.”

Yes, he did. Dan’s father was the male equivalent of chocolate, cream puffs and key lime pie all rolled into one. He definitely made a lasting impression.

She didn’t even want to try to imagine what he might have thought of her. Not that she was butt-ugly, but she wasn’t going to win any beauty contests. A man like that wouldn’t look twice at a woman like her. He probably hadn’t even remembered her.

But since she wasn’t in the market for a man, who cared, right? She took out the chocolate cake she had in the display case and cut off a large piece to take home. There. Who needed a man when you had popcorn, TV shows and chocolate cake?

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