Kitabı oku: «Big Sky Reunion», sayfa 2

“Pastor Redmond surely knows how to preach, doesn’t he?” Martha said. “I feel renewed every time I hear his sermons.”

Melinda didn’t respond. She’d spotted Daniel off to the side of the parking area shooting baskets with a half-dozen high school boys. It appeared to be a two-on-six game as he agilely dribbled past two boys, sank a banked shot, then stole the ball back from another youngster. He flipped the ball to a man in a wheelchair, who neatly made a lay-up shot.

Her forehead furrowed and she squinted. Could that be Daniel’s brother, Arnie?

She dragged her gaze away and pushed her aunt’s wheelchair toward the car. After settling Aunt Martha in the front seat, Melinda walked around to the driver’s side. She took one last look at the basketball game.

A young woman, probably in her twenties, wearing heels and a floral-print dress, went tiptoeing out onto the basketball court and snatched the ball away from Daniel.

“Hey!” he complained, trying to grab it back.

The brunette scooted toward the basket without bothering to dribble the ball. “What’s the matter, Danny? Don’t you let girls play in your league?”

The teenage boys hooted and hollered. A couple of teenage girls, who’d been preening as they watched the game, shouted, “Way to go, Ivy.”

Standing with his legs wide apart, hands on his hips, Daniel watched the young woman with an amused smile on his lips.

She launched the ball underhanded toward the hoop. It fell well short and one of the teenagers snagged it on the bounce.

“Oh, well.” The brunette cocked her hip toward Daniel and gave him a long, leisurely smile. “You coming in for the Sunday special, Danny?”

He intercepted a pass between two teenagers. “Nope, I’ve got a date with April.”

Melinda chose not to watch any longer. Daniel hadn’t changed. He still had an eye for the women, and they reciprocated the feeling.

Which was of no concern to her.

As she backed the Buick out of its parking spot, she said, “I was surprised to see Daniel O’Brien at church.”

“Oh, yes, when he was a youngster he was a bit wild, but he’s become a fine young man. Not at all like his no-account father, God rest his soul. Daniel’s taken an interest in the church youth group.”

Probably to lead them astray, Melinda thought uncharitably. “Was that his brother in the wheelchair?” Arnie had been the solid, responsible older brother. So far as Melinda knew, he’d never gotten into trouble or broken any laws. Daniel had had almost as many battles with his brother as he had with his father.

“Yes, that was Arnie. Poor boy. Had a terrible accident a few years back.” Martha pulled a hankie from her purse and dabbed at the perspiration on her face and neck. “Can’t remember just how long ago. It left him paralyzed from his waist down. The past few years, those two boys have been nearly inseparable.”

There Melinda went, sliding down the rabbit hole again.

The whole world had slipped off-kilter since she’d seen Daniel at church.

That wasn’t an image she’d ever had of him. She couldn’t believe what she’d seen and learned about him. It had to be an act, all smoke and mirrors.

A wolf couldn’t change his killer instincts.

Daniel couldn’t change his instincts, either. Beneath the charade, he was still Potter Creek’s baddest of bad boys.

He had to be.

Back at the ranch, Daniel made himself a roast beef sandwich with mustard and lettuce, and washed it down with a soda. In the upcoming Potato Festival in Manhattan, he and April, his best cutting horse, were entered in the cow-cutting and trail-riding events. Last year Charlie Moffett from Three Forks had beaten him in both events, Daniel’s first loss in six years.

Charlie had lorded it over him for nearly a year.

Daniel took a big bite of his sandwich and chewed down hard. That wasn’t going to happen again. The reputation of the quarter horses he raised and trained was at stake. Not to mention the income they produced for O’Brien Ranch.

The double prize money when he won both events would punch up the bank account so they could pay the balloon installment on this year’s mortgage bill, a result of refinancing the ranch to modernize the place seven years ago.

Outside the afternoon had heated up. In the distance, dark clouds had begun to form over the mountains. They wouldn’t amount to much this time of year. Along about August they’d bring some much-needed rain, even a few gully washers, and plenty of thunder and lightning. Maybe even start a wildfire or two.

In the shade of the barn, Daniel saddled April. A sorrel with a blond mane and tail, she was a sturdy girl with strong legs and a sweet disposition.

“You’re a sweetheart, aren’t you, love.” He tightened the cinch under her belly and checked the stirrups. “This time we’ll leave Charlie and his swayback nag in the dust. He’ll stop his crowing on his Facebook page. Best Quarter Horse Breeder in Montana, my foot.”

Arnie and his dog, Sheila, arrived at the corral on his ATV. “You’re sure spending a lot of time with April. The other horses are getting jealous.”

Daniel snorted. “She’ll keep them in their place.” He tugged the reins loose from the fence rail and mounted. “Time us, will you?”

“As always, your wish is my command.”

Eyeing his brother skeptically, Daniel settled his Stetson more firmly on his head. “Since when?”

“Since you started telling Ivy to get lost.”

“Not lost, exactly. She’s not my type. She’s too young. Too clingy.” Although a few years ago the waitress at the diner might have been. But not now. The kind of female that was looking for trouble no longer appealed to him.

The picture of Mindy walking into church with Aunt Martha popped into his head. A summery dress that skimmed her calves. Golden curls bouncing as she pushed her aunt along. Blue eyes that sparked like a summer wildfire, challenging him to keep his distance.

Like the upcoming riding events, he’d always loved a challenge.

Too bad she hadn’t still been at the knitting shop when he went back to town for Arnie’s prescription.

Daniel reined April into the ring where he’d set up an obstacle course—a low bridge to walk over, logs laid out in a path to be daintily stepped over, a rail to straddle. Although the trail event wasn’t timed for speed, the time to finish the course was limited, and time penalties were added for every misstep or refusal the horse made.

“Okay, here we go.” With the almost imperceptible pressure of his knees, he urged April toward the bridge.

“The clock is ticking,” Arnie announced.

Without faltering, April went up and over the bridge. Daniel maneuvered her to the next obstacle, the row of logs, which she took with ease. Throughout the course, she didn’t falter once. Even when he dangled the required bundle of burlap on a rope in front of her face, she didn’t flinch.

They reached the end of the course, and Daniel trotted April over to the fence. “How’d we do?” he asked Arnie.

“A perfect ride. More than two minutes under the limit, bro.”

“Ha!” He gave April a congratulatory pat on her neck. “Eat your heart out, Charlie Moffett. This year you’ll meet your match. And eat our dust.”

Chapter Three

Monday morning, Melinda took her aunt to Manhattan for her three-times-weekly physical therapy appointment. When they got back home, it was time for lunch, followed by a much-needed nap for Aunt Martha.

Melinda gathered up a bucket, rolls of paper towels, plastic trash bags and cleaning supplies and carried them to the shop. The door opened much easier this time and she stepped inside.

A groan escaped her lips. Where to begin?

“Take your pick, Melinda Sue,” she said aloud. The whole shop had to be cleaned up eventually.

Leaving the door open to let some fresh air in, she walked over to the cash register beside a glass case that displayed yarn winders and bobbins.

She’d checked the cash drawer on Saturday and found less than twenty dollars in change. Tugging a plastic box out from beneath the register that was crammed with file folders, she squatted down to go through the records.

Invoices from three years ago were mixed with even older records. None were noted as paid. A handwritten ledger showed checks written from 2001 through most of 2006 and a bank balance that wasn’t worth writing home about. Hadn’t Martha paid any bills since then? Maybe she’d switched to a different bank account.

Blowing out a discouraged sigh, she made a cursory examination of the rest of the business records, then set the box aside. She’d have to talk to Martha about the bookkeeping. Her time while Martha napped would be better spent cleaning and tossing what wasn’t usable.

On her knees, she pulled everything out of the display case, set the items aside and used window cleaner on the neglected shelves and inside of the case. Years of grime darkened paper towels as one section of glass after another began to sparkle.

“Hello? Anybody here?”

Melinda started at the sound of Daniel’s familiar voice.

“The shop’s not open,” she called from behind the counter.

“Your door is.” His boots tramped across the wood floor until his long, jeans-clad legs materialized in front of the display case. “Hey, Goldilocks. Looks like you’re hard at work.”

“I am.” She considered asking him if he’d enjoyed his date with April, but thought better of it. Instead, she squirted window cleaner on the next section of glass.

“Is Aunt Martha planning to reopen the shop?”

“We’re thinking about it.” She swirled the glass cleaner around, blurring her view of his legs.

“That a fact?” he drawled, an arrogant grin in his voice. “Want some help?”

She lifted her head too fast, whacking it on the inside of the display case. She rubbed the back of her skull.

“No! I’m fine.” She looked up at him. Foolish woman! She should’ve known he’d be grinning at her, a wolfish grin, a grin that crinkled the corners of his eyes and made them flash with amusement.

“You got another one of those squirt bottles? I can do the outside of the case while you’re working on the inside.”

Trapped on the inside, he meant.

She wanted to tell him no, she didn’t have another bottle of window cleaner. But he was just clever enough to look over the display case, spot her spare bottle and see that she was lying.

She reached for the bottle and tossed it up and over the case, following that with a roll of paper towels. “There you go, Swagger. Do your best.”

“I intend to.”

An odd shimmer of unease slid down her back. What did he mean by that? And did she want to know?

Over the next few minutes, she kept her head down and her hand moving on the glass. At one point, her hand and his were only the thickness of two paper towels and the glass apart. His heat seemed to burn right through the transparent barrier to her palm.

She snatched her hand back. Beads of sweat formed on her forehead.

“I wouldn’t think Aunt Martha would be well enough to keep the shop open by herself,” Daniel commented in a casual tone.

“Probably not.”

“She going to hire someone to help?”

Melinda sat back on her haunches and wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. “If you must know, I’m going to manage the shop for her.”

“Yeah? You know enough about knitting to run this kind of operation?”

“I ran a very successful knitting shop in Pennsylvania until—” She clamped her mouth shut. She didn’t want to finish the sentence. Daniel had no need to know about Jason. She didn’t want his sympathy and didn’t want to discuss the subject. The depth of her loss, her failure, was far too painful.

“Then I bet your aunt is happy you’re staying in Potter Creek.” He took a final swipe at the outside of the display case. “So am I.”

She didn’t respond. She couldn’t. The sincerity in his lowered voice had nearly undone her. Her chin trembled. She tamped down the emotion welling in her chest as hard as she could and dug deep to find the protective shield that had kept her sane the past three years. A shield that kept the PTSD at bay most of the time.

She balled the damp paper towel in her fist. “Don’t feel you have to stick around on my account. I’m sure April would be happy to see you,” she said.

He laughed. A big, booming, masculine laugh that exploded from deep in his chest and bounced off the walls of the cluttered knitting shop.

Confusion knitted her brows. Why did he think her remark was so funny?

Standing, his grin unnerving her, he placed the glass cleaner and paper towel on the counter. “I’ll be sure to give April your regards.”

The rest of the week was a blur of taking Aunt Martha to physical therapy, scrubbing the shop clean and sorting yarn, creating bins of fifty-percent-off odd skeins and discarding others that had faded or become hopelessly tangled.

Invariably, sometime during the day Daniel showed up. Once he came with a bucket and a squeegee on a pole to clean the front window, inside and out.

Another day he came with a container of chili Arnie had made that he wanted taste-tested for the chili cook-off at the Potato Festival. Daniel stayed long enough to climb up a ladder to clean the ancient light fixtures and replace burned-out bulbs.

Aunt Martha and Melinda devoured the chili for dinner that night.

Melinda wasn’t sure what Daniel was trying to accomplish. She hadn’t given him any cause to think she was interested in him. On the contrary, she was often sharp with him. The fact that she’d begun to look forward to his arrival didn’t mean a thing.

Or so she told herself.

She didn’t want a relationship with anyone, certainly not with someone like Daniel, a consummate flirt and ladies’ man.

A man who had always made her heart beat faster.

By the following Monday, Melinda declared she’d scrubbed, cleaned and sorted all she could. Now she needed new, fresh stock, which would enable her to hold a grand reopening next Saturday. Her dream was to someday add needlepoint to the inventory, but not yet. She had to get the yarn sales on a solid footing first.

She was on her cell phone, having placed an order for yarn and other supplies with a Denver wholesaler, when Daniel strolled into the shop. She acknowledged him with a quick lift of her hand, palm out, sending a message that she didn’t want to be interrupted.

“I’m sure Aunt Martha’s Knitting and Notions has had an account with you for many years,” she said into the phone. “I’ve seen the invoices.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but that account has been inactive for a long time,” Jeff, the sales rep, replied.

“Well, then, let’s reactivate the account, shall we? We’re planning to reopen this Saturday and I need that merchandise. Please.” She used her sweetest, most persuasive voice to cajole the man on the other end of the line.

“To reactivate the account, I’ll need you to complete our credit forms and submit them. They’re online at our website. You can download them.”

Aware that Daniel was poking around the shop, flipping through pattern books, looking as relaxed as he would in a public library, Melinda gritted her teeth. “How long will it take to get them approved?”

“Two or three weeks is the usual time period.”

She groaned and dropped her head into her hand. “Let me explain again, Jeff. I want to reopen the shop this Saturday. That’s five days from now. I need the merchandise no later than Friday to stock the bins. I cannot wait two weeks for approval of credit.”

“It often takes three weeks, ma’am.”

Holding the phone away from her ear, and holding her temper in check, she looked up at the ceiling. She drew a steadying breath and brought the phone back to her ear.

“What do you suggest I do in the interim while you check our credit?”

“You could charge the merchandise to a personal credit card. We’d ship this afternoon and you’d have the delivery by Wednesday.”

“A personal credit card.” The words landed with a thud in her midsection. Since declaring bankruptcy, she’d been living on a cash basis. She didn’t want to run up any personal debt. The one credit card she possessed had a very low limit, which she’d almost exceeded buying the airline ticket to Bozeman and hadn’t paid that off yet. “I don’t have my card handy,” she hedged. “I’ll have to check with the shop owner.”

“I’d be happy to wait, ma’am.”

That wasn’t likely to help much. Aunt Martha seemed to be living on her Social Security, which was less than munificent. Assuming she had a credit card, Melinda doubted it had a high enough limit to cover the cost of the merchandise she’d ordered.

Daniel crossed the shop to the counter and handed her his credit card.

Gaping, she stared at the silver card embossed with Daniel’s name and O’Brien Ranch. She shook her head.

“Ma’am, are you still there?”

“Uh, hang on a minute, Jeff.” She covered the phone with her hand. “I can’t use your card, Daniel,” she whispered.

“Why not? You need the merchandise. When you get the shop open and doing business, you can pay me back.”

“I’m buying more than a thousand dollars’ worth of yarn and notions.”

He lifted his shoulders in an easy shrug. “That’s fine. Think of it as a loan.”

“I may not be able to pay you back right away.”

He touched her hair, twirling a finger through one of her curls. His lips curved ever so slightly with the hint of a smile. “We’ll work it out.”

Goose bumps sped down her spine and her knees went weak. She definitely shouldn’t let him do this. It wasn’t right for him to pay for what she couldn’t afford. But if she didn’t, how could she reopen the shop without a decent selection of yarn?

“Ma’am, did you want to call me back when you work something out?”

“No, I, uh…”

Daniel slipped the cell phone from her hand. “Hi, Jeff. I’m Daniel O’Brien, a friend of the shop owner. We’ll put the charges on my card. How does that sound?” He winked at Melinda.

While she stood staring at him dumbstruck, Daniel reeled off all the necessary information to charge his card over a thousand dollars.

When he finished, he handed the phone back to her. “You’re all set. Everything should arrive Wednesday and you’ll be ready for Saturday’s opening.”

“You shouldn’t have…” she stammered, her face flushing. “I mean, I shouldn’t have let you—”

“The proper response is, ‘Thank you, Daniel.’”

She closed her eyes to block out the intensity, the caring, she saw in his. Self-consciously, she fiddled with the same strand of hair that he’d twirled over his finger. “Thank you, Daniel.”

“Good girl. Now what have we got to do to get ready for Saturday?”

She stepped back, trying to think, trying to blot out the gratitude that was making her act stupid and jumbled her thoughts as completely as a kitten could unwind a ball of yarn. She didn’t deserve his kindness.

“I need to make up some flyers to post around town. A big sign for the shop’s window.” The gears in her brain that had stalled under Daniel’s determined assault began clicking again. “Place an ad in the newspaper. Get a reporter to cover the opening.”

“Sounds good. You get the flyers made and I’ll deliver them to the stores in town, get the owners to post them in their windows.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“Sure I do. I need you to be a big success so I’ll get my money back.”

That sounded ever so logical except for one little problem: Melinda was pretty sure Daniel had a totally different agenda in mind.

Chapter Four

Freshly printed flyers and advertising copy in hand, Melinda headed on foot toward the office of the Potter Creek Courier, the town’s semiweekly newspaper.

Aunt Martha’s physical therapist had cut her back to one appointment per week, telling her she should keep up her daily exercises at home. Thoughtfully, a church friend of Martha’s had volunteered to take her to the therapist this morning.

On a Monday, Main Street was quiet. Two preadolescent boys went racing by on their bikes, whooping and hollering, their baseball caps worn backward on their heads. By afternoon, they’d probably join other youngsters at the municipal pool at the far end of town.

Most of the vehicles on the road were pickups, often with a bale of hay in the back. Older women seemed to have a preference for cars rather than trucks, their gray heads barely high enough to see over the steering wheels, their speed a few miles per hour slower than the youthful bicyclists.

Older teens and young adults who had jobs or chores to do gathered later, near sundown, at the picnic area at Riverside Park. They’d swim in the wide spot in the river, listen to music played on boom boxes or from car stereos, make out behind the bushes.

Melinda’s face warmed and her steps slowed at the memory of being with Daniel at the park. If she had known about DeeDee Pickens, she never would have gone to the park with him. Not even once.

She reached the building that housed the Courier, a one-story stucco structure with wooden siding that mimicked an old Western town. The headline on the most recent edition of the newspaper, which was posted in the front window, announced VFW Elects New Officers.

Hard to imagine any news more exciting than that in Potter Creek. Her lips twisted into a wry smile. Finding excitement hadn’t been her goal by coming west.

Finding inner peace and starting over were closer to the truth.

The cowbell over the door clanked as she stepped inside and got a whiff of printer’s ink and old newsprint. A stack of newspapers sat at one end of a long counter along with racks of Potter Creek postcards and area maps. The two desks behind the counter were both piled high with papers that threatened to topple over with the least provocation.

A woman appeared from the back room. Probably in her early fifties, she wore a bright, friendly smile.

“Morning. What can I do for you, hon?” she asked.

Melinda introduced herself and placed one of her fuchsia flyers on the counter. “I’m Martha Raybin’s great-niece. I’m going to be reopening Aunt Martha’s Knitting and Notions, and I’d like to place an ad in the paper.”

“Oh, I’d heard Martha’s niece was in town helping her out. I’m Amy Thurgood, editor of the Courier.” She moved her glasses from the top of her head, where they’d been perched, and slipped them on to study the flyer. The banner on the flyer read Grand Reopening on a background that resembled a knitted scarf with needles and yarn bordering the pertinent information. “Martha’s a dear lady. Guess she had quite a fright with that stroke ’n’ all.”

“She seems to be recovering well.”

“I’m so glad to hear that. Is this the ad you want to run?”

“Yes, I brought you a CD. I thought that’d be easiest for you rather than scanning the master copy.” At the Pittsburgh knitting shop, one of Melinda’s jobs as manager was to create and place their advertising in the local paper. She’d spent most of Sunday afternoon designing this ad and the flyer.

“Perfect.”

“I was also hoping you might assign a reporter to cover our grand reopening.”

“A reporter?” Amy looked over the top of her glasses at Melinda, her hazel eyes sparkling with good humor. “Hon, around here I’m the editor in chief, sole reporter and general gofer girl. I do have a couple of stringers who cover high school sports and write the Ag column for me. But what you see is what you get, all-round newspaper woman with printer’s ink in her veins.”

Chuckling, Melinda warmed to this outgoing woman. Potter Creek might not compare in size to Pittsburgh, but it certainly topped the big city for friendliness.

As they talked, she discovered a three-column ad would cost less than a third of the price the Pittsburgh paper charged, although it would still make a dent in her minuscule checking account. Amy promised to run the ad in both Wednesday’s and Saturday’s editions. She also volunteered to post a flyer in her front window and agreed to drop into the shop during the opening.

Amy pushed her glasses back to the top of her head. “So, are you planning to stay here and run the shop for Martha?”

“That’s the plan.” Fingers crossed that she could turn a profit and keep both her and her aunt from the poorhouse.

“I’m glad to hear that, hon. Folks in Potter Creek are turning pretty gray these days. We can use more young people who’ll stick around and raise their families here.”

An ache bloomed in Melinda’s chest. “Aunt Martha is my only family.” Her voice caught. She’d lost everyone she had loved, and the most precious of all, dead virtually by her own hand.

Once outside, Melinda drew a deep breath to clear her head and shake off her memories. Memories that ripped open her splintered heart. Memories that had the power to drive her to her knees if she let them.

Forcefully, she straightened her shoulders. She had to keep busy, had to keep her demons safely locked away.

As long as she was out and about, she’d drop off flyers at some of the local businesses, meet the owners and ask them to post the flyers. No need to wait for Daniel to do it.

No need at all.

Because the Potter Creek Diner was immediately next door to the newspaper office, Melinda decided to start there. Not only did they have a large plate-glass window perfect for displaying posters, but they might also have a community bulletin board inside.

From across the street she heard the happy laugh of a child. Without thinking, she turned to see a boy about five years old skipping along holding his mother’s hand.

Pain as sharp as an arrow arched into her chest. Her breath lodged in her lungs. Her vision wavered.

No, not now! she silently pleaded. She had too much to do to have a panic attack. Focus on the flyers. Aunt Martha’s Knitting and Notions. Anything except her child who would never laugh and skip again.

She whirled and fled into the diner. She forced herself to take a deep breath and expel the pain that had constricted her chest. She forced herself to focus on these new, safe surroundings, not on the past.

The interior decor of the diner had a Western flavor. At eye level, the paneled walls were covered with black-and-white photos of rodeo events and old-time cowboys. Above those were the stuffed heads of a moose with giant antlers, a cougar with hungry yellow eyes, a snarling wolf and a sad-eyed buffalo.

Dragging her gaze away from the four sets of accusing eyes, she noticed that only two tables were occupied at this midmorning hour, both by middle-aged couples having a late breakfast. An original watercolor painting mounted in a rustic frame hung on the wall behind them. The painting depicted magnificent, snow-covered Rocky Mountains, yet the eye was drawn to the tiny abstract figure of a woman standing alone in a meadow. Despite the beauty all around her, the solitary woman appeared isolated and forlorn.

The aura of sadness in the painting touched Melinda’s heart as she realized that she could have been that unnamed figure.

Turning from the painting, Melinda approached a woman who sat at the end of the counter, sipping coffee from a mug and reading a paperback book. “Excuse me, I’m looking for the owner or manager of the diner.”

The woman lifted her head and swivelled around. Melinda’s eyes widened briefly as she recognized the flirtatious brunette she’d seen making a play for Daniel on the church basketball court.

“Pop isn’t here right now. What can I do for you?”

“I, um, I wanted to put up, um, one of these flyers in your window.” Melinda’s tongue had apparently developed a bad case of nerves, making her sound like a stammering fool.

The woman turned her book facedown to save her place and held out her hand. “Lemme see.”

Melinda passed her a flyer, noting the young woman had wide, nearly black eyes and wore a touch of eye shadow that enhanced their size. No older than twenty, the girl was way too young for Daniel.

“Knitting, huh? I never learned how to knit. Didn’t see much point.”

“I’m going to offer both beginning and advanced classes. The basics are really easy. You’d be surprised how quickly you could learn to make scarves and caps, even sweaters like this one.” She’d intentionally worn a light-weight, vest-style sweater in bright colors as a sample of what she’d be teaching to advanced students.

The woman glanced at the flyer again and shrugged. “Sure, you can put it up in the window. Don’t know that you’ll get many takers.”

“Hey, Ivy,” a man called from one of the tables. “You got any more coffee over there?”

“Sure, sure. Hang on a sec.” Ivy handed back the flyer. “Go ahead. Put it up if you want.”

Her lack of enthusiasm did nothing to bolster Melinda’s confidence. She opened her mouth to thank Ivy, but the young woman was already off her stool heading for the coffeepot simmering on the burner behind the counter.

She tried to repress a surge of annoyance. Or was it jealousy? In either case, it didn’t matter. She’d accomplished what she’d wanted. She could put up the flyer.

Placing the flyer on the window right next to the door, she held it with one hand while she pulled off a few inches of tape and smoothed it across the top of the sheet. She did the same along the bottom, then looked up only to be snared by a familiar pair of dark eyes.

Daniel. Standing on the other side of the window.

Gasping, she took a step back, nearly knocking over a chair that was behind her.

The man had an annoying habit of popping up out of nowhere when she least expected to see him.

His eyes crinkled with a smile and he winked at her.

Her stomach took a tumble. Confound his hide.

Before she knew it, he’d stepped inside the diner and was standing right next to her.

“Hey, there, Goldilocks. I thought that was my job, putting up the flyers.”