Only one thing had not gone according to plan in Kyle Ames’s entire life.

Her name was Hannah McIntire.

And she was currently sitting at a back table in the bar in his tiny hometown of Sapphire Falls.

Even from across the room, with the inside-a-bar-at-night lighting, he could tell she looked exactly the same. Her long brown hair, streaked with red and gold highlights, was perfectly styled. Her long legs were crossed under the skirt of a pretty flowered sundress, paired with a sweater and sandals that matched exactly. He couldn’t see her hands or face from here, but he knew that her nails would be manicured and her makeup would be flawless. He also knew that the glass in front of her was filled with iced tea and flavored with one packet of calorie-free sugar substitute, and that the only thing on the menu she would be interested in was the grilled chicken sandwich. And she would scrape the cheese off that as soon as she saw it.

Hannah McIntire was the most put together, predictable, organized, goal-oriented person he’d ever met. She was his soul mate in every way.

Or, at least she had been, before she’d become the most unpredictable thing to ever happen in his life.

Kyle’s chest tightened and he took a step in her direction. It was time for some answers.

But he was brought up short after step two by his best friend. Derek stepped in front of him, putting a hand on Kyle’s shoulder. “Whoa, what are you doing here, man?”

Kyle scowled and tried to move around him. “I'm here to welcome Hannah back to town.”

Derek moved with him, cutting him off. “Well that's a horrible idea.”

“Knock it off,” Kyle said, stepping the other way. “You texted me to tell me she was here.”

Derek took a wide-legged stance in front of Kyle, blocking his view of the room. “That’s bro code. I can’t see my best friend’s ex back in town after three years and not tell him. But I was really hoping you wouldn’t come down here.”

Kyle gritted his teeth. “Why were you hoping that?”

“Because I was kind of hoping that you wouldn’t care.”

Yeah, well, Kyle had kind of hoped that he wouldn’t really care too. He’d assumed that at some point before he died, Hannah would show up back in their hometown. And he’d really fucking hoped that by then, he wouldn’t care. But he’d also hoped he’d have another couple of years before that happened. Or ten. Or that he’d be old and senile and not remember her.

That hope had been dashed the second he’d read Hannah’s here.

Because he cared. He definitely cared.

He just wasn’t sure if he cared because he’d never been so pissed at someone in his entire life as he was, still, at Hannah McIntire.

Or because he’d never loved someone as much as he’d loved Hannah McIntire.

“So all your bullshit about being over her was actually bullshit,” Derek said, giving Kyle a look that said I know you.

Kyle glared at him. “I am over her.”

“Then why did you come running the second you knew she was here?”

Because he hadn’t really thought it through. He’d just reacted. It had been instinct. Is that what Derek wanted to hear? That Kyle had seen the words Hannah’s here come across his phone screen, and he’d gotten in his truck and driven straight over? “Maybe I came to yell at her.”

“Yeah, you can't do that either.” Derek wrapped a huge paw around Kyle’s upper arm and nudged him, not so gently, toward the kitchen.

Derek was taller than Kyle by about three inches, but built more like an All State wide-receiver than the All State running back Kyle was. Kyle took three steps with him, only because he realized that it was possible Derek had a point, but as soon as they were behind the bar, with a solid piece of wood between him and Hannah, Kyle yanked his arm out of his friend’s grip.

Unfazed, Derek pushed open the swinging door that led to the kitchen area. “In here.”

Kyle sighed and stepped through the door. Derek followed, letting it swing shut behind him.

“So I can’t talk to her at all?” Kyle asked.

“Not in this mood,” Derek said. “Whatever this mood is. You need to calm the hell down.”

“I’m calm.” He was always calm. He was driven. He was confident. He was determined. But he was always calm and cool.

“You’re not calm. You look like you want to shake her, or throw her over your shoulder. And really, neither is a good choice.”

Kyle felt Derek’s observation and the truth of the situation hit him directly in the chest.

Hannah was here. Here. At home. In Sapphire Falls. For the first time in three years. For the first time since they’d broken up. And yeah, there had definitely been a moment of mine that had ripped through him at seeing the words Hannah’s here.

“I just want to talk to her,” he said, trying like hell to sound calm and cool.

“Not tonight. Not first thing like this,” Derek said. “You knew you were going to see her in a couple of weeks. Just stick with the plan.”

The plan. Two of Kyle’s favorite words. He loved plans. He lived by plans. A plan implied preparation and control. Two of his other favorite words.

He shoved a hand through his hair. He had not been prepared for Hannah being back in Sapphire Falls.

No, that wasn’t true. He’d known for almost a month that Hannah was going to be back in town. And even if he hadn’t been certain to run into her because of Alice’s medical care, he would have seen her anyway. It was Sapphire Falls. You couldn’t order extra bacon on your cheeseburger around here without people knowing and having an opinion about it.

But what the hell was she doing here now? Alice’s surgery was still two weeks away.

He’d known that she would be accompanying Alice to her appointments with him, but he’d thought he had time to get ready for that. Damn, he’d had no idea he would react like this to the news she was officially back in town. In the flesh. Within driving distance.

He’d thought he was prepared. But seeing Hannah and here in the same sentence had sent a need coursing through him that he never could have prepared for. He was definitely not in control of his emotions right now. And that was absolutely not okay.

It shouldn’t surprise him, he supposed, that Hannah was the one thing, the one person, who could really shake him up. But it did. Because for ten years, Hannah had been the most stable, reliable thing in his life. It was one of the things he’d loved best about her.

“You have to pull yourself together,” Derek said, obviously reading Kyle’s agitation.

It had to be surprising to the other man. Kyle simply did not get agitated. But Derek must have sensed that it was a big deal, because he rarely passed up a chance to give a friend a hard time.

“And you have to keep yourself pulled together. If you look like this, you’re going to upset Alice,” Derek said.

Kyle blew out a breath. “I didn’t realize how I would feel knowing she was home. I thought I could handle it.”

Derek nodded. “You will handle it. You know she’s here now. You can get your shit together before you see her.”

Fuck, he hoped so. He felt like he’d just downed a couple of energy drinks, just knowing she was in the next room. He just wasn’t sure if it was good energy or bad.

He scrubbed a hand over his face. “Yeah. Okay, you’re right. I’ll pull it together for Alice. But no promises that I won’t get Hannah alone for a few minutes at some point,” he said.

Derek cocked an eyebrow. “And what would you be doing for those few minutes alone with Hannah?”

Kyle frowned at him. “Not whatever you’re thinking.” He couldn’t touch her. Couldn’t kiss her. The fact he even thought those things was annoying. “Yelling. Chewing her out. Probably some swearing.”

Derek nodded. “Fair enough. But watch it. Alice is thrilled Hannah’s back, and you better not do anything that might upset Hannah to the point that Alice might notice.”

Alice McIntire was five feet two inches, one hundred and five pounds of pure sweetness, topped with bright white hair. She never forgot a name, had never met a person she couldn’t charm within five minutes, had an uncanny ability to know what people needed—a hug, a scolding, advice, a nonjudgmental ear…or a cookie. She also had a laugh that could make anyone smile. Getting on her good side was as easy as saying “good morning”. And getting on her bad side was extremely difficult. But possible. And involved messing with her family. Particularly her one and only granddaughter.

Alice had everyone in the town of Sapphire Falls wrapped around her little finger, and while she didn’t abuse the power, she was able to get pretty much anyone to do pretty much anything she wanted.

“Hannah was the one who upset me,” Kyle pointed out. “She was the one who broke things off. Not me.”

“Right, but Alice doesn't know that. Because you have been protecting Hannah.”

“No,” Kyle said, stubbornly shaking his head. “I've been protecting the town and her parents and Alice. She was upset enough by Hannah’s decision to stay in Seattle.”

Hannah had broken promises to everyone, and while her staying on the West Coast instead of coming home had messed up a lot of things, Kyle had known that if he was upset, it would have made it worse for everyone else. So he’d powered through his own heartbreak, put on a smile, and assured everyone that it was a great decision, and he was behind Hannah and her “amazing professional opportunity” all the way.

“Alice doesn't need to know all the details.”

No one needed to know the details. He had come out of Hannah’s betrayal looking like a freaking liberated, real-life hero. Everyone thought they were still the best of friends. In fact, the whole town—minus his two best friends, Derek and Scott—thought that Kyle was amazing for loving Hannah enough to let her go after her professional dream.

Yeah, her fucking dream had been to come home to Sapphire Falls, marry him, practice next door to him, and grow old surrounded by the eight children, three dogs, four cats, and town full of people who loved them. Or so she’d said. For ten years. He didn’t know what the fuck she was doing in Seattle.

But no one here knew that. No one here knew that he could barely say her name without his chest tightening and gut churning.

He’d done it because he couldn’t stand to see her family and friends—who were also his family and friends—hurt. And because Kyle Ames always had control. He didn’t get surprised. He didn’t get shaken up. And certainly not by a woman he’d known all his life and had loved for ten years.

The town counted on him to be steady and sure. It wouldn’t have done anyone any good to know that their rock-solid town physician had had his entire plan turned inside out, his heart trampled, and that he’d started questioning everything he thought he’d always known. They needed to trust that he always knew what was going on and, more, that he was orchestrating everything.

And then there was Alice. He’d seen how heartbroken Alice had been by Hannah’s decision not to move home. He had refused to pile onto that by letting on he was also heartbroken. No one was as important as Hannah to Alice, but he was a close second. The grandson of Alice’s best friend since kindergarten, he was more of another grandson than anything, and he knew she loved him dearly. She’d been upset about Hannah not returning to live and work in Sapphire Falls as planned, but if she’d thought Hannah had hurt Kyle in the process, Alice would have been devastated.

He didn’t give a shit how Hannah felt. He wasn’t protecting her for her sake. But he’d be damned if he’d let her hurt Alice more than she already had.

“You know that everything Hannah did, or didn’t do, is not on you, right?” Derek asked.

“Yeah, well I'm the one who's here and has to make it work. It’s better for everyone to think that I’ve got it all covered.”

“You don’t have to always have it all covered, Doc,” Derek said.

For all of his laid-back, fourteen-year-old-boy-in-a-twenty-nine-year-old-body tendencies, Derek was a great man and a great friend. Kyle knew that Derek was actually concerned about him. “Actually,” Kyle said. “I do.”

It was what he did. He had it all covered. And he liked it that way.

Not that he was the only one in town who did things. He was looking at one of the men who kept the town going. Derek was everyone’s go-to guy for everything from maintenance and repairs to rallying the troops. But Kyle was the planner. The guy who saw a problem and knew how to solve it. Derek, Scott, and any number of other people in town were more than willing to jump in and make the plan happen, but Kyle was the problem solver. And he loved that. It was where he was comfortable and where he felt he contributed most.

Derek shook his head. “Man, I think you love Alice more than your own grandmother.”

Kyle cracked a smile at that. “She's sweeter than my grandmother. My grandma cheats at pitch, can't bake a cookie to save her life—and doesn't care—and still threatens to swat me with a wooden spoon.”

“I love your grandma,” Derek said with a grin.

Alice, Kyle’s grandmother Ruby, and Derek’s grandmother Susan, had been friends since they’d been little girls. And they routinely got together and beat Kyle and Derek in card games. Pretty much any card game.

Kyle loved his grandmother too. Ruby was awesome. She was the sassy one. She was incredibly loyal and generous with her friends, and she was happy having just two friends she could completely trust and count on. She said what she thought and tended toward grumpy more than congenial. Alice was the one who was sweet, outgoing, and friends with everyone. And Susan was the shy, quiet observer. Which was hilarious once you got to know her grandson. Though Kyle had to admit that Derek had inherited some of his grandmother’s observant and insightful genes.

“Okay, so, you can go out the back,” Derek said.

Kyle glanced toward the window in the swinging door.

“Kyle,” Derek said warningly, moving between Kyle and the door. “Out the back. You can deal with all of this, with her, tomorrow.”

God, he really wanted to go out there. But why? Did he want to yell? That would make sense. He certainly had plenty of bottled-up bitterness and anger. But that didn’t feel like the main reason. He just wanted to…see her. In person. Up close. To make sure she really was okay.

Dammit.

She’d stood him up. They were supposed to meet at the gazebo at midnight two years, eleven months, and one week ago. She’d known he was going to propose. That had been the plan. He would propose when she finished PT school and came back to start her practice in Sapphire Falls. They would be engaged and plan the wedding during his last year of residency. Then when he was done and came home to start his practice right beside hers, they’d get married.

Sure, it had been cheesy and unnecessary to make it all An Affair to Remember and to choose the gazebo as their Empire State Building. But it had also felt right in so many ways. He’d wanted it to be a grand gesture, meaningful and memorable. So he’d chosen the heart of the town they both loved and the gazebo where he’d first kissed her. The moment he’d known she was The One.

Burning the thing to the ground had crossed his mind only about a dozen times since then.

And that wasn’t totally off the table, now that she was back.

“Fine. But,” Kyle added as he headed for the back door, “Hannah McIntire is going to hear the things I have to say.”

“Fair enough.”

“And don’t fucking text me about where she is anymore.” The last thing he needed was someone keeping tabs on her for him and distracting him all damned day.

As it was, he was sure he was going to be all too aware of Hannah and what she was doing and where she was and who she was with.

It was going to be a long six weeks.

* * *

“You can’t write this,” Hannah said, looking up at Kade and trying, still, to ignore the fact that they were sitting at a table at the Come Again in Sapphire Falls.

It was common for them to sit across the table from one another at a café or coffee shop and talk about Kade’s writing. So this should be like every other time.

Except that it was nothing like every other time.

Other than the fact that he’d written something that made her roll her eyes. New York Times bestselling author. Whatever.

“What do you mean?”

“You can’t make everyone say ‘y’all’.”

“It adds local flavor.”

“Except that we don’t say ‘y’all’ here.”

Kade scratched his neck. “You sure?”

Hannah rolled her eyes so he could see it this time. “I lived in Sapphire Falls, Nebraska, for twenty-two years of my life. Yeah, I’m sure. And we’re farmers. Not cowboys.”

“I like ‘y’all’.”

“Then set your stupid book in Texas.”

Kade lifted an eyebrow. “It’s going to be a long six weeks.”

Hannah sat back in her chair. “You’re telling me.”

She was grateful that her best friend had agreed to accompany her to Sapphire Falls. Okay, “agreed” was pushing it. She’d had to do the “you owe me” thing. Twice. But he was here and she was glad. She could not face all of this alone. And thankfully, their relationship was based on three things they could both get behind every time: sarcasm, no bullshit, and coffee. Lots of all three.

“And it has to be six weeks?” Kade asked. Again.

“Yes. At least.” She kept adding the “at least” but he seemed to miss it each time. She was actually hoping it would be more like four weeks. Her grandma was tough, and if anyone could breeze through rehab after a hip replacement, it was Alice McIntire. But Hannah had promised up to six, so that was a possibility.

“And I have to be here the whole time?” Kade asked. Also again.

“Yes. Unless you want to spend even longer dealing with me after I get home and go through rehab again.”

He seemed to be thinking about that.

“Remember the whining? The hot yoga?” she asked.

“Jesus, I’ll never forget hot yoga,” Kade groaned.

“And remember how you hated it all? Especially the weight gain?”

“That’s because I gained weight too.”

“I was talking about you.”

He sighed. “Fine. I’ll stay. But someone in this town is going to die.”

Hannah shook her head. “Why can’t you write happy books?”

“My therapist says it’s because my ability to see the goodness in life is tarnished.”

“No, your ex-girlfriend said that. She just happened to be a therapist. She was not your therapist.”

“She certainly psychoanalyzed me a lot,” Kade said, turning his attention back to the screen in front of him, clearly disinterested in the topic of his ex.

“Well, the psycho part of that is true,” Hannah agreed. She studied her best friend as he clicked away on the keyboard, writing his next bestseller. That just happened to be set in a small Nebraska town named Aquamarine Ridge. He thought that was hilarious. Hannah did not. Nor would the rest of Sapphire Falls. He’d promised to change it before the book went to his publisher, but Hannah knew she was going to have to read it before then because she didn't trust him a bit not to leave that in there.

He was a little grumpy about coming to Sapphire Falls with her. For six weeks. That could be a very long time. But she had to do this. She hadn’t been home in three years. And this wasn’t just a visit. This wasn’t just coming home because she’d been gone so long. This had nothing to do with her family’s aversion to flying and visiting the big city. This was the only way for her grandma to avoid a long and potentially costly stay at a nursing home for her rehab.

The guilt was already weighing on Hannah. Alice had put the surgery off for several months because she’d been waiting for her superstar physical therapist granddaughter to come home. For good.

Too bad Hannah had screwed everything up, from the superstar part to the physical therapist part to the coming home part. And hadn’t been able to face her family.

Yeah, six weeks was going to be a really long time.

“How’s everything over here?”

Hannah looked up to find Derek Wright standing next to the table. She smiled. “Good. The food was great.”

He gave her a smile but it didn’t quite reach his eyes, and Hannah felt a twinge in her heart. It wasn’t like she would have picked the Come Again for dinner, given a choice. But they hadn’t gotten to town until after ten, and she wasn’t going to show up on her family’s doorstep expecting to be fed at that time of night, and nothing else in Sapphire Falls was open. So, the one and only bar in town was it. But it also happened to be the place that Derek Wright now managed. She and Derek had been friends. Good friends. She’d spent a lot of time with him. They had a lot of private jokes and great memories. Of course, pretty much every one of those also involved Kyle.

The twinge in her chest turned into an outright stabbing, and Hannah fought to not visibly grimace. Yeah, she and Derek were not friends anymore. Of that she was certain. Because of Kyle.

Kyle Ames. Her first…everything. Her ex. The man she’d practically left at the altar. Okay, she’d left him at the gazebo, but it was kind of the same thing. She’d known he’d been planning to propose. She’d been very aware of every step of his life plan, in fact.

And now the man who would, very likely and quite understandably, never want to speak to her again was her grandmother’s physician and, as such, would have to talk to Hannah as Alice’s primary post-op caregiver.

Yeah, that was going to be awkward.

Actually, she’d love it if it was only awkward.

She was sure it would be downright painful.

“Can I get you anything else?” Derek asked.

Hannah looked at Kade. “You good?”

“Fine,” he said with a nod, not looking up from his screen.

That was pretty standard Michael Kade stuff, and Hannah kicked him under the table for it. Most of the time she told him after the fact that he’d been rude. But she’d instructed him very carefully in how things went around Sapphire Falls, and that he had to not act like the big-time, too-busy, head-in-his-story bestselling author that he was, and had to be tuned-in, polite and charming.

She was also paying for his room and all the coffee he could drink while in Sapphire Falls in exchange for his good behavior.

He frowned at her, then lifted his gaze to Derek. “I’m fine, thank you.”

Derek nodded. “Okay then. Last call.”

Hannah glanced at the clock on the corner of her screen. It was ten to eleven. “You close at eleven?” she asked.

Kade was a night owl, typically writing from about ten p.m. until four or five in the morning. It allowed him to avoid, well, all other people. Even virtual ones. He got no phone calls, texts, or emails during that time. Exactly as he preferred it.

Hannah, on the other hand, was definitely not a night owl. She went to yoga at six every morning and was in her clinic by seven-thirty many mornings.

Kade had chosen the Come Again as his new office within five minutes of walking inside. The bar was the only place in town open past six p.m., it had tables and outlets and, unlike at the house where they were renting the only open room, it was socially acceptable to ignore the other people in the building.

“Yep,” Derek said simply about closing time.

“I thought bars in Nebraska stayed open until one or two a.m.,” Kade said.

Derek nodded. “We can stay open ’til then. But we can also choose to shut down early.”

Hannah looked around the room. It seemed that everyone else had cleared out except for the table where Peyton Wells was still on her laptop.

Derek caught her glance at Peyton. “We can also choose who gets to stay after hours.”

Ouch. Yeah, she hadn’t asked. But Derek had taken the opportunity to point out her demotion in his life anyway. “Got it.” And she did. She was his best friend’s ex. That was easy enough to understand. She closed out of the file for chapter one of Kade’s new book. “We’ll just get out of here.”

Derek gave her a single nod and headed back to the bar.

She watched him go, feeling a funny sense of loss. She hadn’t talked to Derek in three years. Maybe even longer than that. While she’d been in college, she and Kyle had made trips home and hung out with friends and family, but once she’d been accepted to PT school in Washington and he’d started med school, getting home had been more sporadic. Still, she suddenly missed Derek, and the way he used to tease her and flirt with her to piss Kyle off, and his always inappropriate but hilarious comments and jokes. Shit. This trip was going to be hard. If Derek being indifferent made her miss things, she was going to have a hell of a time resisting all the charm and good things in Sapphire Falls.

She and Kade packed their stuff and headed out into the warm May night. They started across the grass between the jail and City Hall that would lead them to Main Street and the town square. One of those charming, good things that she’d definitely missed.

Kade didn’t say anything until they were at the gazebo.

“You sure you really want to do this?”

She knew exactly what “this” was.

“This” was all of it. Coming back here, getting involved with her family again, seeing Kyle. And she didn’t want to talk about it. Again. Unfortunately, they were still a good six blocks from where they were staying.

Hannah took a deep breath. “We’re not going over this every day for the next six weeks. My grandma needs me. I’m here. I’ll get her through the hard part and then you and I will go back to Seattle and everything will be fine. I can do anything for six weeks. And so can you,” she said, shooting him a look. “Besides, you’re behind on your deadline. This is the perfect place to hole up and write a book.”

He’d joked to his editor, Sonya, while Hannah had been in the room that maybe what he needed to get back on track with his writing was a new series. And that maybe he’d set it in the tiny little town in the middle of America that Hannah was dragging him to for six weeks.

Hannah had given him the finger.

His agent, Mark, had given him two six-figure offers from two different publishing houses the next day.

So, he was now writing a book set in Aquamarine Ridge—though Hannah was absolutely going to make him change that name before it went to Sonya.

“Yeah.” Kade looked around the town square.

The gazebo was the heart of the town, set right in the middle of the square that was bordered by the main highway on the south side, Main Street on the north, City Hall on the east, and other businesses, including the post office, on the west. From here they could see all of the main businesses in town—Dottie’s Diner, Anderson’s Hardware, the grocery store, the clothing shop—and the backside of the bakery that sat along the highway beside a furniture shop and other specialty businesses.

“I think I’ve seen all the sights already,” Kade said. “Not many distractions.”

Hannah laughed and grabbed his sleeve, pulling him with her as she continued across the square. “Stop it. It’s small. But there’s a lot here.”

“Well, there is a lot of land where a body could be hidden.”

She looped her arm through his as they walked. She knew he was talking about his book, but she said, “There is that. So watch yourself. Sonya’s the only one who knows you’re here, and she gets frustrated enough with you to understand if someone who’s been cooped up with you on airplanes and in a rental car suddenly snapped.”

He chuckled and she relaxed. This was not an ideal situation. For either of them. She got that. But she needed Kade here with her. They’d been through much worse than her facing her family and hometown again. They’d been through rehab together. And she’d literally saved his life. Just as a for instance.

And because of that life-saving moment, he couldn’t be apart from her for six weeks anyway. He would have been on his way to Nebraska after two weeks away from her. He believed she was his muse and that he’d never have another bestseller without her.

It was true that his writing career had taken off after Hannah had restarted his heart on the floor of his apartment two years and two months ago. But it had a lot more to do with him kicking his opioid addiction and his renewed sense of purpose and passion than it did with her. Still, his superstition was part of why he was here. Not the free room or the copious amounts of coffee. He cared about her and knew this would be tough for her. And he didn’t believe he could write a good book without her.

He was full of crap, but whatever. As long as he was here, whatever the reason, she wouldn’t end up opening a pill bottle. Or begging Kyle to take her back.

“So, I’m going to need some local flavor,” Kade said. “I might head out on the town tomorrow while you’re with your grandma.”

“No way. Sapphire Falls isn’t ready for you.”

“Oh, it’s not the other way around?”

She nodded. “Totally the other way around too. But without a stern pep talk before you step out the door, you’ll end up making one of the Blue Brigade ladies cry or saying something horrible about Dottie’s potpies or admitting that you know nothing about football and you’ll end up with a fork in your forehead.”

He grinned. Hannah shrugged. She hadn’t been kidding.

“The Blue Brigade?” he asked. “Oh, please tell me about that.”

“No.”

He pulled his phone from his pocket, swiped his thumb over the screen, and began typing. It was how he took notes when he was away from paper and pen.

“What’s that?” she asked, not wanting to know.

“My first question to the good people at Dottie’s over potpies,” he said. “The Blue Brigade is totally going in my book.”

If Hannah had anything to say about it, the entire book wouldn’t be going anywhere. Kade might enjoy messing around, teasing her about writing a book set in Sapphire Falls, but he couldn’t write one of his typical thrillers based on her hometown. She had a hard time sleeping after reading his stuff anyway, and if he conjured images of her favorite place in the world as she read—and then ruined it with a bloodbath—she was going to have to find a new best friend.

“It’s very difficult being best friends with someone whose books I hate,” she told him. Not for the first time.

“It’s harder for me,” he said with a little frown.

“I’m doing you a favor,” she told him. Also not for the first time. “If I wasn’t around to keep your ego in check, you would be completely insufferable.”

“As opposed to just mildly insufferable like now.”

She lifted a shoulder. “Moderately insufferable. But yes.”

They crossed Main Street two blocks down from the square and then headed the final blocks to Ty’s place.

Ty’s place was what everyone called the huge, old two-story house on Crimson Street that had been turned into what was essentially a boarding house. It didn’t have an official name. It was really just a house. The house Ty Bennett had bought when he’d moved home to be close to the woman he was wooing—the woman who was now his wife. There was one kitchen, one living room, and two bathrooms that all of the guests shared. Then there were four bedrooms upstairs and two down, so only six people could stay at any one time—unless they doubled up. She was going to be at her grandmother’s for the rest of her stay, but since they’d gotten in late, she and Kade were sharing the room tonight.

“So, I guess, if I’m not allowed out of my room alone…” Kade began.

Hannah gave him a look that said, “No you’re definitely not.”

“Then maybe I should come to your grandma’s with you tomorrow.”

Hannah frowned. “No.”

“I don’t know if you should go alone the first time.”

She didn’t know either. After the surgery, when Alice was out of the hospital and home and needing some help getting out of chairs and bed, and had some heavy equipment to move around, Hannah would need Kade there. She couldn’t do that lifting with her neck issues, so Kade had to be her muscles.

But this first visit was to take Alice for her pre-op appointment with Kyle. While Hannah would love the moral support, she was afraid that both her grandmother and Kyle would be too polite if Kade was there. If there were things that needed airing out, Hannah wanted to get it over with so they could get on to the business of Alice’s surgery and recovery.

Because the faster and smoother that went, the sooner Hannah could be back in Seattle. Where she was safe. Where no one expected her to hold things together and fix everything. Where there was no specific plan laid out for years in the future. Where she wasn’t responsible for anyone’s happiness but her own. And maybe Kade’s, when he was stuck on a plot point or behind on a deadline.

“The first time will be the worst. I’ll get through it. I’ll just focus on Grandma and stick close to her house and lay low,” she said. “That’s why I’m here. I don’t need to go out and get a bunch of reminders about everything I left behind or miss, okay? I’ll just…stay in my grandma’s house and pretend it’s in…Michigan.”

“Why Michigan?”

“Because I don’t miss anything about Michigan.”

“Listen, I don’t think your being here is a good idea. You know that. But Sapphire Falls has been affecting your whole life,” Kade said, his tone a little gentler. “At first you were dealing with rehab and getting your shit back together. But it’s been together. For almost two years. And you’re not moving on. You don’t date, you don’t make new friends, you don’t go out much.”

“My best friend is essentially a hermit,” she pointed out.

“Yes, you also have bad taste in friends,” Kade agreed drolly. “But it’s also because you can’t get past everything you left here. You need to use this trip to get over this town and these people, and I don’t think you can do that by hiding at your grandma’s. I think it’s possible that you’re remembering things a little rosier than they actually were. Just get out there and prove to yourself that you’re not really missing anything.”

But she already knew how that would go. She was missing Sapphire Falls. She could not sit in the gazebo and watch the town go by without wanting to mail Christmas cards to every person she saw. She could not float down the river on an inner tube and not want to build a house on land that overlooked that very water. She could not take a drive down a dirt back road without wanting to do that every single night for the rest of her life.

And she could not be in this town when the Ferris wheel rolled onto Main for the annual summer festival. She was really praying that her grandmother’s rehab would take more like four weeks, rather than the six predicted. She wouldn’t be able to handle attending the festival without breaking down, pulling out her cut-off denim shorts, and slipping on her boots. And never taking them off again.

“You write gory, psychotic murder mysteries. Since when are you so into nostalgia and heartbreak and moving on?” she asked him crossly.

“Because this is the kind of thing that drives people into psychotic rages that result in gory murders.”

She didn’t believe that he actually believed that. She started up the steps to the porch. “Yeah, come to think of it, the longer we talk, the more murderous I feel.”

“See what I mean?”

She let them in with the key they’d been given when they’d “checked in”—which had consisted of pulling the envelope that said “HANNAH” off the door where it had been taped, and opening it to find the key to the front door, a key to their room, their room number, and a note that said “Welcome”.

There was a small lamp shining warmly from the table just inside the door and a light glowing from the kitchen at the end of the main hall, but the rest of the house was dark and quiet as they stepped through the front door.

She and Kade quietly ascended the staircase, trying not to wake their neighbors. There was a squeaky seventh step, but otherwise they made it upstairs without a sound. Until she stepped from the top step to the second floor. And ran directly into a chest. A naked, wet chest.

The only bathroom on the second floor was the first door on the left, and a tall, lanky male form in only a towel had stepped out of the bathroom just as Hannah turned the corner.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she exclaimed, jerking back.

“Hey,” the man said with a slow smile. “I didn’t know we had girls staying here.”

Kade stepped off the top step just then. The man’s gaze flickered to him, and then back to Hannah. “Oh. You’re not alone.”

She couldn’t help but laugh at his obvious disappointment. “Nope.”

“Right. Got it. I’m Chase. I’m in town doing some time at the dirt bike track.”

“Racer?” Hannah asked. The dirt bike track was a new addition to town since she’d lived here, and she was excited to see it. She, like a lot of the girls in town, were fans of the sport. And that had a lot to do with the men who rode.

“Yep,” Chase said. “You follow the sport?”

“Not as much as I used to,” she admitted. “But yeah.”

“Well, come out and watch me some time,” Chase said, with a confident charm that said he didn’t really care that the man she was with was standing right behind her. “You’ll be able to say you watched me before I was famous.”

“I’ll have to do that.”

“I’d give you an autograph, but I don’t have a pen on me,” he said, running a big hand over his damp chest and down over a six-pack of hard abs.

Hannah laughed again at his less-than-subtle style. “Well, we’ll be here for a while. I’ll catch you sometime.”

He gave her a wink. “You do that.” Then he lifted his gaze to Kade. Who looked completely bored. “You a fan too?” Chase asked.

“Of?” Kade asked.

“Racing.”

“Not even slightly.”

Hannah elbowed him. This was the kind of shit Kade was going to do all over town if she didn’t break him of it.

But Chase simply laughed. “Well, I’ll give you an autograph anyway. Maybe it’ll be worth money someday.”

“Maybe,” Kade said dryly.

Okay, so it was funny that an amateur dirt bike racer was pressing an autograph on a man who’d signed his name four hundred times at his last book signing. Hannah hid her smile.

“When do you race next?” she asked. She’d never been to a race here, of course, but she’d been to many in the past. And demo derbies. She loved those.

“Two weeks,” Chase said. “But then I’ll be back. I’ll leave a note on your door with the date and time.”

She was sure it would include his phone number too. Wow. He was something. It didn’t bother her. Maybe because she and Kade weren’t really a couple. Or maybe because the guy could leave his number if he wanted to—whether or not she called was up to her. Or maybe because she’d grown up in Sapphire Falls. They put cocky in the water here.

“Can you take the late-night talk show downstairs?” a gruff male voice interrupted from two doors down.

They all turned to look at the neighbor they’d disturbed. Hannah had her mouth open to apologize. But she froze, mouth gaping.

No, not frozen. Her entire body felt hot suddenly. With shock, with mortification, with…shock.

Because the man standing in the doorway, in only boxers, his hair mussed, scruff on his face, rubbing a hand over his chest, was Kyle Ames.

Possibly because he’d clearly been asleep, it took Kyle three more seconds to recognize who he was talking to. But she knew the instant that he did. He snapped upright, his eyes widened, and he said simply, “Hannah?”

That single word, in his voice, thundered through her. Her heart pounded, there was a rushing in her ears, and her whole body went numb. Shock. She realized what it was even as she knew she had no power to control it or reduce it.

Because Kyle was standing twenty feet away from her, mostly naked, looking sleep rumpled and gorgeous. His dark hair was sticking up on top, he had a line on his cheek where he’d been lying on his pillow, and he had more than a little sexy scruff on his jaw. He scratched said sexy, short beard and blinked as if trying to clear the confusion that was evident in his expression. And—well, he was mostly naked.

He’d always run religiously. The whole staving-off-aging-and-illness thing, at least in part. But he was also no stranger to manual labor. Helping people he knew build fences, load trucks, lay bricks, cut trees, and a million other things that people had to do on farms and even around town to keep things working. She remembered him saying how he missed being outdoors and working while he’d been in school. She also remembered, even then, wondering how he’d do as a physician, inside all day, lifting stethoscopes and pens rather than tools. But he’d assured her that he’d keep busy on the weekends with projects. There was always something going on in Sapphire Falls, and he’d intended to be a part of it.

It looked like he’d done that.

All of those thoughts tripped through her mind as her body reacted to the display of skin and hard muscles that she also remembered so very, very well. It all combined to shoot hot, hard yearning through her gut. She had always been attracted to Kyle, but never more so than when he’d been a little off-kilter and mussed and imperfect. She was the only one who had really gotten to see him like that, and even those times had been rare.

The realization made the desire coiling through her belly mix with a healthy dose of nostalgia and regret, and she suddenly couldn’t pull in the good deep breath that her lungs were demanding.

“Whoa. Okay.” Kade’s hands wrapped around her upper arms, and he pulled her up against him, keeping her knees from literally wobbling.

She was so grateful for her friend who could read her, and her swaying.

“Breathe, babe,” he said near her ear.

“Sorry, man,” Chase said to Kyle. “Didn’t mean to wake anyone up.”

“You’re staying here?” Kyle asked, having not taken his eyes off of Hannah. And Kade.

She nodded dumbly but couldn’t unstick her tongue from the roof of her mouth. Or maybe she didn’t want to unstick it. Because what was she going to say? Dammit. She had not been prepared for running into him like this.

“There aren’t a lot of other options in town,” Kade said smoothly. “We didn’t want to put Hannah’s parents out. She will, of course, be spending a lot of time with Alice initially.”

Kyle’s expression went from flummoxed to hard in a snap. As if Kade’s voice had activated the reaction. “Right. Okay. Well, I have early rounds.” And with that, he turned into his room, shutting the door hard.

Hannah winced. She felt Kade’s hands squeeze her arms.

Chase ran a hand through his wet hair. “You guys know Kyle, I take it.”

“We, um…” Hannah’s mouth still didn’t want to work.

“Hannah is from here. She and Dr. Ames went to high school together,” Kade said, again smoothly stepping in while Hannah tried to make an ass of herself.

Okay, so maybe he was learning a few things about reading a social situation after all.

Though standing with two half-naked men in a hallway after midnight might not be the type of “social” situation she’d been imagining.

“Oh, got it, okay.” But Chase looked like he might want to know more about what had just gone down in that hallway.

“We should get to bed,” Kade said, turning Hannah toward their room and nudging her forward.

“Right. Well, I’ll see you around,” Chase said.

“It seems that it’s nearly impossible not to see people around, here” Kade said.

Chase simply chuckled.

Kade opened their bedroom door and pushed Hannah inside. He shut it behind them quickly and then regarded her with a deep frown.

“You okay?”

“Yes. Great. Of course. Great.”

But she only made it to the side of the bed before her knees gave out, and the adrenaline coursing through her made everything start shaking.

Why? She’d messed up—admittedly pretty big—but she’d cleaned up, she’d gotten her life together, she’d been good. So why did Kyle have to live at Ty’s? Where she and Kade were sharing a room tonight? Where she’d hoped to stash Kade so that he wouldn’t run into Kyle? Or anyone else. But especially Kyle.

But the answer was hard to ignore.

Karma was a bitch.