Niyol made the short trek into town the next afternoon, kicking himself for agreeing to this favor. He’d sensed Rose was up to more than just a simple dinner invitation when she had asked him to go see Margery, but he hadn’t felt the need to examine things further.

After thinking about it all morning, however, he knew it would be a bad idea to spend any more time with Margery. She had captivated him upon their first meeting, and she was sure to do so again. Still, he had agreed to Rose’s weird request, and there was no turning back now.

He was probably overreacting, anyway. What could Rose be up to? It was just a friend reaching out to another for comfort and companionship. And Rose had been busy this morning and through the afternoon helping Jill and Luke set up the nursery.

Niyol slipped out of his car and made the brisk walk from the lot and up the hill to historic downtown Springvale. The weather had turned even colder than the day before with a distinct smell of rain in the air. If the temperature kept dropping, that rain would turn to ice and snow.

As he stepped into the warm diner, he shook off the cold and melancholy of his ride into town. Glancing around, he took the time to appreciate the restaurant’s beauty. Margery had put a lot of thought and love into the renovations. Pairs of comfortable chairs and sofas mixed with wood tables and chairs padded in an array of bright colors to furnish the eclectic dining area. The large stone fireplace gave off ambient heat, the sound of crackling lending to the comforting atmosphere. Tasteful western-style decor adorned the walls, adding to the Old West feel of the place. The breakfast counter sat to the right of the doors, and Niyol noticed that old wagon wheels covered the front of it, a detail he’d missed yesterday. He had been too busy trying not to listen to the fight brewing between Margery and Mitchell to pay much attention to the decor. Then, when Margery had turned her attention to him, he hadn’t been able to keep his eyes off her.

Niyol walked toward the counter and took a seat on one of the barstools. He didn’t have to wait long before a young waitress came to take his order.

“What can I get for ya?” she asked, smiling brightly at him.

“I’m looking for Margery.”

“Lucky Margery,” the waitress said, giving him an appreciative look that ended in a wink before flouncing off to get Margery. At least, Niyol hoped that was where she was going. He wasn’t used to such blatant flirting, and it made him uneasy.

“Niyol?” The sound of Margery’s soft alto made his heart skip a beat.

“Margery,” he answered, turning and giving her a small smile as she walked up to him.

“I know for a fact that Rose Callahan is just as good a cook as I am, so what are you doing back here so soon?” she asked, her voice full of laughter.

“It was Rose that sent me,” Niyol answered with a chuckle. He couldn’t help but brighten when her smile and laughter were so contagious. “She wants you to come to dinner tonight.”

“She does? Whatever for?”

Niyol shrugged, a little uncomfortable. “I may have mentioned your fight with your ex and that you were alone for the weekend.”

Margery pursed her lips but said nothing.

“She also wants your help with some recipes,” Niyol added quickly, his face turning red. “For Thanksgiving, I believe.”

Margery hesitated, but it had been a while since she’d a long talk with Rose. And anyway, she hadn’t felt too excited about going home to an empty house and obsessing over how Ainsley was doing at Mitchell’s house. A night with her best friend would cheer her up.

“I guess I can come for dinner.” She glanced at the clock. “I can leave in an hour. I want to make sure everyone is ready for the dinner rush. And then, I have to run by my house to change and grab the recipe cards.”

Niyol nodded. “I can wait.”

“You don’t have to.”

“Nonsense,” Niyol answered. “I would be more than happy to drive you to the inn and then back to your house.”

Margery bit her lip. “Well…”

“It looks like it might snow,” Niyol explained. “I have four-wheel drive, and Rose would kill me if anything happened to you on the way there.”

Margery smiled. She had driven in snow many times before—you couldn’t live in Utah your entire life and not drive in bad weather—but it was nice to have someone worried about her for a change. Besides, she did not have four-wheel drive on her car. The pass through the canyon to Rose’s inn was rough at the best of times, never mind during bad weather. If it snowed, her little car wouldn’t make it, and she would have to turn around.

“You’re right,” Margery said to Niyol. “I’ll be just an hour, and then you can follow me to my house.”

Niyol nodded and settled into one of the plush armchairs by the fire to wait. Margery gazed at him for a few moments, appreciating the casual grace with which he moved and the strong lines of his face before mentally shaking herself and rushing off to do her work.

Normally, she wouldn’t invite a man she barely knew back to her house, even if it was just to drop her car off and change real quick. But there was something about Niyol that told her she could trust him—and he was Rose’s cousin, after all. Rose was an excellent judge of character, and she would never send someone she didn’t trust to pick up Margery.

After forcing her mind off Niyol and back onto her work, Margery finished getting the diner ready for the dinner rush in only forty-five minutes. Niyol had said he didn’t mind waiting, but her experience with Mitchell had taught her that men rarely liked to wait on women, so she was glad she had finished up early.

“All done,” she said brightly as she walked up to Niyol’s armchair. “I’m sorry I made you wait so long.”

Niyol gave her an odd look and glanced at his watch as he stood. “You said an hour, and it only took forty-five minutes. Why are you sorry if you finished early? Besides, I told you I didn’t mind waiting for you. I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t mean it.” And with that, he turned and strode toward the door.

Margery stared after him. He hadn’t said it unkindly, but rather as if he wanted to convey something more than his words. She wondered what he had heard about her, and why he was being so nice to her. In her limited experience, men weren’t this attentive unless they wanted something.

Stop that, she chastised herself as she followed Niyol out the door and into the cold November evening. Not everyone is like Mitchell. Niyol is being nice to you because you are Rose’s friend and he is a good guy. Don’t look for problems where there are none.

As they neared the parking lot, Margery gestured to her small, four-door sedan. “I’m over here.”

“I’ll follow you,” Niyol said, smiling.

He watched her slip into her car and start it before heading to his SUV parked not too far from her. He followed her out of the parking lot and down a few back roads until she turned off onto a long gravel drive that ran for about a mile off the main road, thick woods closing in on both sides. She stopped just outside a small cottage nestled at the base of an enormous red cliff. He could see the mountains in the distance as he pulled in behind her car.

Sliding out of the driver’s seat, Niyol gazed around her small front yard. Margery had kept up a yard full of lush green grass that was only just now turning brown for the winter. Trees lined the yard, adding to the privacy of the secluded lot on which the cottage sat. Old stonework covered the front of the cottage, and ivy climbed up the stones, giving it a woodsy feel.

He admired the chrysanthemums lining the stone walkway as he followed her to the door. Margery opened her blue front door and motioned him to follow her inside. The front entryway branched off into a hallway leading further into the house and a room lined with floor to ceiling bookshelves filled to bursting with books. The only other thing in the room was a comfortable looking sofa and a few lamps. Margery flipped a switch and walked down the hallway. Niyol followed her. The hallway ended in a kitchen about half the size of the one at the Twin Peaks Inn. A small, round table sat in front of a bay window to one side of the kitchen and off to the side, stairs led upward. On the other side of the kitchen, a small open doorway led into a large living room, a stone fireplace with a raised hearth taking center stage on the far wall.

“If you’d like to wait in the living room, I’ll run upstairs and change real quick,” Margery said, making him jump.

“Sure,” he said, giving her a small smile.

“Can I get you anything while you wait? Water? Something to eat?”

“No, thanks. I’m fine.”

Margery smiled and scampered up the stairs while Niyol settled himself on the couch in the living room. To pass the time, he surveyed the room. Above the mantel hung a flat screen television, but what drew his attention was the line of pictures across the mantel. He got up to study the pictures, smiling at the images of Margery with a little girl. The little girl’s age ranged in the photographs from newborn to seven or eight, however old she was now.

He noted, surprised, that Mitchell was absent in every picture, including ones from when Ainsley had just been born. Maybe Margery hadn’t put those pictures up, not wanting a reminder of her ex-husband, but that didn’t seem like something she would do to Ainsley. He got the sense she tried to foster a relationship between the young girl and her father regardless of her feelings toward Mitchell. Niyol shrugged. Maybe Mitchell took the pictures of himself with him when he left.

Turning from the pictures, Niyol glanced to the right where two glass doors opened into the small library he had glimpsed on his way into the cottage. Next to the doors was a breathtakingly beautiful painting of a mountain scene.

Entranced, Niyol moved closer to inspect the painting. It was as if the artist had breathed life into the scene with each stroke of the brush. A gorgeous sunset spilled over bright red mountain peaks embraced by yellow aspen trees and a roiling river. At the river’s edge, a small herd of deer gathered to drink. The longer Niyol looked at the painting, the more lost he got in its strong brush strokes and lifelike splendor. He felt like he could reach in and graze his fingers over the deer’s soft hides or the water’s cool surface.

“Do you like it?” Margery whispered from behind him.

He whirled around, startled. He hadn’t heard her come in—which was odd since nobody had ever snuck up on him before. But he had been so captivated by the painting, he hadn’t heard her footsteps.

“I do,” he answered, his voice cracking a little. “Very much. Who painted it?”

Margery smiled. “I did.”

Niyol turned to look at the painting again, admiration and surprise thrumming through him. “It’s beautiful,” he whispered. “I didn’t know you painted.”

“My father was a painter. He died when I was ten, and I picked it up after that. It helped,” she added thoughtfully. “With the grief. It helped calm me.”

Niyol glanced at her. “I can understand that. After my wife died, I was overcome with grief. A friend of mine got me into photography, and it helped to take pictures and get lost in the images. It seems art can channel many emotions.” He turned back to the painting. “Some beautiful, and some much darker.”

“I painted that after Mitchell left,” Margery said, gesturing toward the painting. “I wish I could say I grieved when he left, but, more than anything, I felt relief. Things had been so hard for so long, and I had grown tired of the constant battle. After he left, I felt… at peace.”

“It shows,” Niyol murmured.

“I guess it does. I’ll admit, the stuff I painted when my father died—then my mother and grandfather—was a lot darker than this painting. Which is why those are in storage, and this is on display.”

Niyol gave her a wry smile.

She smiled back but then grew serious. “Eventually, the art turns peaceful. Life doesn’t always have to be dark and melancholy. There’s light out there, too. You just have to know how to find it.”

Niyol stared at her. How he wished he could find more light in his life. He mentally shook himself. What was he talking about? He had Jill in his life now, and Rose. He had his first grandchild coming in a few months and a home to call his own. And he had met the most intriguing lovely woman he could ever hope to meet. His life was not all darkness. It was his guilt that was making him think that way.

He wondered if he would ever get over the guilt and sadness of what happened to Haseya. Undoubtedly, it would be a long journey, but he knew one way to start, and that was to take care of their daughter now that he had found her—or, rather, she had found him. She needed him, and he would be there for her, no matter what. He couldn’t allow anyone to distract him, not even someone as beautiful and kind as the woman in front of him.

Niyol cleared his throat. “Ready to go?”

“I’ll just grab my recipe box, and then we can head out,” Margery answered, turning toward the kitchen.

She rifled through a few cabinets before striding back into the living room, a small wooden box clutched in her hands.

“Ready,” she said, leading him through the hallway and out the front door.

He helped her into the passenger seat of the SUV and then slid behind the wheel, starting the car and turning the heat on full blast. The temperature had dropped several degrees while they were inside. As the car warmed up, Margery settled back into her seat with a small sigh, stowing the recipe box on the floor near her feet.

Niyol turned the SUV around and then pulled out of the long driveway onto the deserted main road. As they drove to Rose’s inn, the first snow of the season began to fall, dusting the world like sparkling white fairy dust. Niyol glanced over at the woman sitting beside him—at the way the cold had brushed her face with a rosy glow and the way her blue eyes shone as she watched the snow fall—and realized the weather wasn’t the only thing about the situation that made him think of fairytales. He just couldn’t be certain this fairytale ended in happily ever after.