Downtown Pine Harbour was still quiet as Matt did his third gruelling climb up the hill from the glittering blue waters of Lake Huron into the main stretch.

He’d never been a die-hard runner before Sean was hurt. There was no keeping up with the youngest Foster brother, who’d always run like a gazelle, effortlessly and forever. They all tried anyway, to support him and be good brothers. But Jake was the only one who ran all the time. Dean and Matt did it with protests, because it would be so much more fun to hit something, lift anything, or climb hand over hand until everything screamed.

Now Matt craved all of that and the hard pounding of his feet on the pavement.

He regretted never being more into it while his baby brother was a world-class athlete.

Bile rose in his throat and he churned his legs faster, like he could outrun guilt if he just trained hard enough. Before and after shifts and always alone. He liked these pre-dawn runs the best. In the darkness, with blood thumping in his ears, there was no room for the feelings that plagued him when all was quiet.

And he worked.

He worked himself to the bone, happy to take extra shifts, long patient-transfers, whatever filled the coffers. He’d made noises before Sean got hurt about getting more serious about his career, about advanced training. Time to grow up, he’d said.

He hadn’t known shit.

Still didn’t.

He worried about why he hadn’t figured anything out, and he ran even faster.

On his arm, his phone vibrated from a special pocket in his shirt. He slowed at the top of the hill and dug it out.

Even though it was early, his youngest brother was already up. It had been a long, brutal summer for the entire family—his baby brother particularly—but after months of rehab, Sean was solidly on the road to recovery. And with a gorgeous wife at his side.

Matt hated how nobody in his family thought he was reliable enough to remember things like the date of the regimental party marking Sean’s retirement from the military. He swallowed that frustration and typed back a more enthusiastic response.

He didn’t need the reminder that those days were behind all of them. Sean had been a steady wingman, always up for a night of clubbing or hitting a house party, and the thought of either of those things just wasn’t the same without his brother. At first, they’d been sidelined by Sean’s injury, and now, even though his brother was recovering, he only had eyes for Jenna, and zero interest in being anyone’s wingman.

Matt’s party style had been altered—permanently.

It wasn’t a lie. He had a shift starting in an hour. Getting his run out of the way was step one in having a good day.

Step two would be saving as many lives as he possibly could.

Nine hours later, Matt was back at the station after three back-to-back calls. He had a date with a meatball sub, and nothing was going to stand in his way.

Except apparently Owen, who was leaning his big, broad frame against the fridge, his tattooed arms crossed over his chest. “How’s it going?”

“I’m starving, and if you don’t move, I might kill you.”

“Seems like an over-reaction HR might object to. Listen, I need a favour.”

“Personal or professional?”

His former partner thought for a moment. “Bit of both. Let’s say I’m asking as your supervisor, but the details are friend-to-friend.”

Matt groaned. “Can I eat while you ask me?”

The chief EMT chuckled and stepped out of the way. “Sure. I’d like you to go to Port Elgin day after tomorrow for a three-day training course on electronic patient records.”

Fuck. “I’m on the schedule all week.” Matt grabbed his sandwich and a can of sparkling lemon water, and threw himself into a chair at the big table.

Owen sat across from him. “I’ve found people to cover those shifts.”

“Without asking me?” Matt wanted to protest again, because he loathed the idea of taking a course right now. There was a lot of sitting around, a lot of downtime.

A lot of silence for his thoughts to take over and wreak havoc.

But something in the big guy’s face stopped him. “Were you going to go on this?”

Owen lifted one shoulder in a resigned shrug. “Yeah. My ex can’t take my daughter after all, so…”

Ah. And that wouldn’t be something he’d tell just anyone. Owen was fiercely protective of his daughter, who was sixteen going on twenty-five.

Having been the asshole kid who took advantage of parents being away to sleep with his fair share of classmates back in high school, Matt couldn’t blame his friend for not wanting to go away.

Shit. It looked like he was stuck in a classroom for the week. “All right. Count me in.”

“It’s at a conference centre and they’ve got rooms booked for all participants for the entire week. There’s a mixer tomorrow night with local politicians and allied health partners, but you can skip that.”

Yeah, Matt would find something better to do.

Or someone.

Except that wasn’t who he was anymore. The old him—before Sean got hurt—would have had a field day with being out of town and having a hotel room. No strings attached sex was his favourite kind.

Really, his only kind. But something inside him had shifted and now he only had a vague, muscle-memory instinct to use this opportunity to get laid.

He’d been off his game for six long, dry months.

That needed to change, because he hated the restless, uncomfortable feeling he got when he didn’t have anything to do with his hands. There were only so many overtime shifts he could sign up for, only so many projects to start with his brothers, before people started to look at him weirdly.

Maybe he should head to the Green Hedgehog in Lion’s Head after work. No reason to put off getting laid to tomorrow.

But he didn’t go out to the pub. He finished his last patient transfer, passed the rig over to the next team, bade his partner, Will, a good night, and went home.

Netflix and chill with his right hand seemed to be all he could manage lately.

He fell asleep to the news quietly flickering on the television, and woke up at the crack of dawn, driven out of bed by familiar and unwanted dreams. After a punishing run, he had a quick shower, then threw clothes for a few days and his toiletry kit into a duffel bag. The only thing worse than feeling restless was dealing with that discomfort inside the quiet box of his Spartan apartment.

He grabbed a coffee and breakfast sandwiches to go from Mac’s, the diner on the edge of town, then rolled down his windows and soaked up the bright morning sunshine as he drove south.

Pine Harbour sat halfway up the Bruce Peninsula, overlooking the glittering blue of Lake Huron. Cottage country to some, home to others. Where he’d been born and raised. Further north, at the tip of the long, narrowing stretch of land, sat Tobermory, where Lake Huron met Georgian Bay. South of him, southwestern Ontario stretched wide, small towns and farm country neatly divided in a way the bedrock of the peninsula didn’t allow.

Wiarton was the dividing point, the town where the peninsula met the rest of the province. He knew it well—his military unit was based there, and as a paramedic, it was the nearest hospital. Sometimes they’d have to transport further south, to the bigger towns of Owen Sound and Port Elgin, but more often than not, Wiarton was his destination. It was also where he banked and grocery shopped, but today he was driving straight through.

He was on a mission now. Get to the conference hotel, figure out where he needed to be tomorrow morning, then find a soft body to get lost in for a few hours. Ha. Wishful thinking, but maybe it could happen.

The change of location could be good, too.

His whole game had shifted. He didn’t understand the new rules, that much was clear. But he didn’t know where to start in figuring them out. And thinking about that—about the restlessness, about the confusion and chaos deep inside him—made everything worse. So he cranked the music, rolled down his window, and stepped on the gas.

At the conference centre in Port Elgin, he gave the check-in clerk his trademark winning smile as she handed over his room key. Pretty, blonde. She was cute, friendly—definitely his type. “Where would you recommend for dinner tonight? I’m looking for something casual but fun.”

She pulled a printed map out from under the counter and circled a pub right in the heart of town. “Bailey’s is probably the best option. Good wings, great music. Pretty young crowd.”

“Sounds great. You ever go there?”

“Sometimes.” Her eyes twinkled. “With my boyfriend.”

Swing and a miss. “I’ll have to check it out myself sometime this week, then. How about during the day? Anything you’d recommend to kill a few hours?”

She pointed to a bulletin board in the library off the lobby. “There might be something posted there. And there’s always the Saugeen First Nation Amphitheatre. The gardens are lovely, and there are paths down to the river.”

“I’ve been there before, yeah. Good rec, thanks again.”

He didn’t have high hopes for the bulletin board, but a bright pink flyer right in the middle caught his eye. A weekly series of cooking classes at rotating restaurants in town. Today’s class was cake decorating at a bakery, and when he punched the address into the map app on his phone, it was only a short walk from the conference centre.

He wasn’t particularly interested in piping sugar roses onto a birthday cake, but hell, a daytime cooking class might be a great place to meet women.

Everyone else hated Mondays, but for Natasha Kingsley, they were magical. After a weekend of working too much and not sleeping enough, the start of everyone else’s week was the beginning of her weekend. And once she got her niece and nephew off to school, she had six hours with her daughter, Emily, to do whatever they wanted to do—watch a movie, go to the park, cuddle, or search for new treasures at the thrift store.

Mommy and Millie time, Emily called it, with all the wide-eyed innocent joy a three-year-old could pack into four words.

Natasha knew, given her circumstances, she was lucky to get as much time with Emily as she did. They got all day together, just the two of them, all week.

And on Monday, Natasha got to put Emily to bed, too.

Her heart ached that she didn’t get to do that the other six nights.

It was paying off, though. Because they were living in her sister and brother-in-law’s basement, she could save all her earnings as a bartender at Bailey’s, except for the necessities she needed to buy for Emily. At one point, she’d been saving toward her Big Dream Plan of having her own inn. Now her dreams were more practical. A house of her own, a nine-to-five job working in someone else’s hotel, maybe. Hard to find, though, so in the meantime, she worked with what she had and was always mindful that she had a lot to be thankful for even though her life had drifted well off track from her original hopes and aspirations.

And she made sure she gave back to Meredith and Dan as good as she got. She happily did the before-and-after-school childcare, prepared dinner, and did all the grocery shopping.

Happily. It was a weird word. Was she happy?

She was grateful.

And she found ways to eek out a bit of selfish pleasure here and there. Like this morning, she was taking Emily to the new bakery on the outskirts of town for a cake decorating workshop. It was part of a series of cooking classes she’d latched on to.

It wasn’t quite using her hospitality and tourism degree to the max, but beggars couldn’t be choosers when it came to professional development.

She’d thought she’d have time to get serious about jobs later.

Then Emily happened.

Now her every waking minute was scheduled around the needs of the most perfect three-year-old in the entire world, and any real professional development would be later. Way later. Like…in a decade, maybe.

You could move to the city.

Except the thought of the noise, the traffic, the concrete…it all made her want to cry. She’d done it twice and then spent countless weekends there after moving away, returning for time in David’s bed, going out for fancy dinners and to the best clubs.

It wasn’t for her. No, deep down she knew the small towns of Bruce County were where her heart was happiest. Where she’d imagined building a business one day, and now where she saw herself building a life for Emily.

Because it was an understatement to say that David hadn’t been enthusiastic about the accidental pregnancy—he’d wanted nothing to do with the future baby, so when her sister had poured a big pot of tea and told her the basement was hers for as long as she needed it, it was a no-brainer decision.

She’d traded her nomadic life and a pile of dreams in for regular childcare she didn’t need to pay for, because there was no way she could afford full-time daycare on her own.

Now cake decorating was what she had.

It would have to be enough because it was the only thing on offer.

“Mommy,” Emily said as they locked up the house.

“Yes?”

“What’s your favourite kind of cupcake?” She asked it with all the solemnity such an important question deserved.

Natasha grinned. “Vanilla with chocolate icing.”

“Mm.”

“You don’t agree?”

“I like pink cupcakes.”

“Pink isn’t a flavour.”

Emily frowned as she climbed into her car seat. “Yes it is.”

“Not really, honey.”

“I love pink.”

“I know, but—”

“It’s my favourite kind.”

“Right. Okay. Well, I guess it is a kind, even if it isn’t a flavour.”

“Will they have pink icing today?”

Natasha sure as heck hoped so.

Her phone vibrated as she put the key in the ignition. Her neck burned hot at the sight of her least favourite person’s name on the screen.

It had been a month since they’d done that last, and that conversation hadn’t gone well because he’d asked her to make Emily be quiet.

She didn’t have time for this right now. Yes, talking to a three-year-old on the phone was an exercise in patience. So was raising one every single God-damned day.

She rolled her eyes and tapped back a quick reply that any time that afternoon would be fine. There was a slim-to-none chance he’d actually call in a timely fashion, though.

It doesn’t matter. She repeated both mantras until her pulse calmed down, then said them again in her head with more confidence. His actions weren’t within her control, so she needed to let go of how much they frustrated her. They may be tangled together forever because of Emily, but she didn’t have to let David mess with her head. And if he opted out of active parenting, that was his choice. But damn it, she hated how he gave almost nothing, over and over again—no time, the bare minimum financial support, very little contact—and then imperiously waltzed back into Emily’s life. At this point, her daughter only knew her father from photographs and a handful of visits over the last two years, all at Natasha’s urging.

That was what bothered her about today’s text messages. What on earth did David want to talk to her about? She shoved that thought away and put her car in gear. It doesn’t matter. Maybe one day she’d actually believe that.

When they arrived, the bakery parking lot was crowded. She recognized some of the cars from regulars on the cooking class circuit. She looped her bag over her shoulder, then went around to get Emily out of the back seat. “Careful,” she reminded her daughter. “Hold Mommy’s hand in the parking lot. Got it?”

“Got it.”

Nobody warned her that parking lots were the scariest part of parenting. Parking lots and fevers.

Inside, the decorating class had taken over the eat-in part of the bakery space, with all the tables rearranged with chairs on one side, facing a raised demonstrator table with a tilted mirror above it. Normally Natasha liked to grab seats at the perimeter just in case Emily got bored, but every table close to the exit was already filled. There was one at the back, though, so she pointed to it. “Let’s grab those seats, okay?”

Emily nodded and tugged her hand out of Natasha’s grip just as another class regular, Mrs. Cargill, tapped her on the shoulder. “Nice to see you both again,” the older woman said.

Natasha gave her a warm smile. “And you, too. I hope Emily won’t be too distracting today. She’s pretty excited about the icing.”

“She’s never a distraction. It’s a joy to see her—and look, she’s made a friend.”

What? Natasha twisted around just in time to see Emily slide onto a seat next to a man. A stranger. A hot stranger, which wasn’t really the most important thing to take note of right now, although…damn. His cut jaw and broad shoulders were the kind of grade-A masculinity that used to get her purring without hesitation.

She motored over just in time to hear Emily introduce herself, full name and age. “Are you here for cupcakes? Do you like pink?”

The stranger glanced around, and when Natasha stopped beside them, he gave her a kind smile. “Hi,” he said. “Apparently I stole your table.”

“I said, do you like pink?” Emily pushed herself up to her full, but still tiny, height, and propped her hands on her hips.

“I sure do,” the man said blandly, like a small child hadn’t just gotten up in his face about the colour pink.

Natasha’s cheeks flamed bright red. She knew where her daughter got that hands-on-the-hips exasperation. It was a perfect mirror of Natasha’s own behaviour. I said, did you brush your teeth? “Emily, manners.” She glanced around, but now all the other tables were filled. Okay. She took a deep breath. “I think it’s our table to share now,” she said apologetically. She slid into the chair on the other side of Emily. “I hope you weren’t planning on using any of the pink icing,” she muttered under her breath as the instructor stood up at the front of the room. “Because the tiny dictator between us has laid advance claim on it all.”

He chuckled. “It’s all hers.”

Emily gave them both a frustrated look. “I can share.”

That made Natasha laugh. “Yes, I know. You try very hard.”

“Mommy, shhh.” But then Emily gave her the sweetest, most angelic smile, and pressed her own lips together, and…sigh. They’d work on not being totally precocious tomorrow.

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught the handsome man grinning, but they were all looking ahead now. Officially. Unofficially, she was mentally cataloguing all the ways he was totally gorgeous as her lady parts were reminding her it had been four years since she’d had a chance to roll around naked with someone.

Oh, shut up ovaries. You’ve done enough for one lifetime.