Lisa Peretti had stopped believing in fairy tales somewhere between her mother’s third divorce and her first year of nursing school. But right now, pushing Molly McGraw’s wheelchair down the sidewalks of Jupiter Point, she wondered if she’d missed something. The town had storybook charm oozing out of every cedar shingle and wrought-iron lamppost. It was enough to make even a jaded big city ER nurse like herself give a sentimental sigh.

Of course, it was all designed to inspire that reaction. Jupiter Point knew how to draw in the honeymooners and the tourists, not to mention the stargazers. Like naming every business with a “star” theme. Come on. Moon Glow Spa and Hair Salon. Really?

“Give me a Supercuts any day,” Lisa told Mrs. McGraw as they approached the salon, whose glass storefront was decorated—adorably—with beaming golden moons. “Haircuts are one thing, but I flat-out refuse to glow.”

Molly tilted her head back and laughed up at her, her lined face haloed by a white fluff of hair. Molly was, in fact, glowing. She had a perfect right to do so. She didn’t leave the house much anymore, with her advanced Parkinson’s. But with her daughter Evie getting married, and the whole family busy, they’d hired Lisa as a temporary caregiver. And Lisa’s first mission had been to get her out of the house more.

“But you, my dear, are another matter.” She smiled affectionately at the older woman. “You’re going to be glowing so much we’ll have to wear sunglasses to the wedding.”

“Be c-careful,” said Molly. “That smile glows.”

In the two weeks that Lisa had been working for Molly, they’d developed a teasing kind of banter they both savored. “You know me, I’m a hardhearted cynic. We don’t weep and we don’t glow.”

“But you smile. That’s a s-start.”

They reached the entrance. Lisa stepped around Molly’s wheelchair to open the door to the salon, only to find it already swinging wide. An older woman with foil in her hair held it open for them with a beaming smile.

“Molly McGraw, what a treat to see you here.”

A chorus of agreement and greetings came from the other ladies in the stylists’ chairs and under the hair dryers. The flowery scent of shampoo and overheated hair products made Lisa’s nose prickle.

A young woman with a pink bob wiped her hands on her smock and hurried toward them. She bent down to kiss Molly on the cheek. “You didn’t have to come all the way here. You know I’m happy to come to your house.”

“I know. But Lisa here is g-getting me on the move. I have to do what she says because she’s my f-favorite nurse. B-beautiful and kindhearted, although she tries to hide it.”

Lisa felt a blush sneak across her face. She hated her tendency to blush because it went counter to her badass, never-miss-a-beat crisis-manager reputation. “Where would you like us?” she asked the stylist.

“Call me Annie, and you can bring her right over here.”

Lisa pushed the wheelchair over to the spot Annie indicated, set the locks, then pulled a covered plastic cup with a straw from her tote bag. She gave Molly a sip, then made way for Annie, who offered her a warm smile.

“You can help yourself to water, or something from the Keurig.” She waved a hand at the cozy seating area just inside the bay window up front. “We have a pile of old magazines or you can just enjoy some good old-fashioned gossip.”

“We already covered all the big news in town, thanks to me.” The woman with the foil, who Lisa now recognized as Mrs. Murphy from the Third Book from the Sun bookstore, settled back under a dryer. “Now we want to hear about you, Molly. So you have a new nurse, do you?”

Lisa started to answer, but Molly forestalled her. “This is Lisa, she comes from T-Texas, she’s been with me for two weeks and I won’t have you s-scaring her away with your interrogations.”

Lisa laughed, though she had to admit she was relieved. Questions made her nervous. Not that she had anything to hide, but…well, she did. Two words defined her existence since she’d left Houston. Low. Profile. It had been nearly a year, and maybe soon she’d feel completely safe. But not yet.

Mrs. Murphy’s tinfoil quivered like a set of antennae as she eyed Lisa. If anything, she looked even more curious.

“I won’t be in town for long,” Lisa told her. “I’m sure you have better topics to discuss.”

“Yes, like Evie’s wedding.” One of the other hairstylists jumped in.

Letting out a long breath, Lisa picked up a copy of a tabloid and casually leafed through it as the discussion swirled around her. She had no interest in weddings, having been in more than her share. Her mother had remarried three times and her stepsisters had already racked up five weddings. Everyone in her family liked to get married—multiple times, apparently. Except her.

A photo in the tabloid caught her eye. It was a red-carpet photo of a couple arm in arm. The woman was a willowy blond actress whose name Lisa couldn’t quite place. The man looked like an Italian prince—dark-haired and stunningly handsome. And familiar. She stared at it, trying to remember where she’d seen him. In a movie? On a billboard?

Then her gaze dropped to the next photo. This one was taken in a hospital room. The same blond woman posed next to the bed—Lisa could tell it was a pose, having seen thousands of actual women next to real patients. In the bed lay the same dark-haired man, except now the entire left side of his face was covered in red burn marks.

Annika rushes to bedside of wounded fireman hero, read the caption.

Oh please. Could their writers be any more overdramatic? She skimmed the story, which talked about a “burnover” in the Big Canyon Wilderness. Twenty firefighters had nearly died when a wildfire had changed direction and they’d taken shelter inside their emergency tents.

So the mystery man was a fireman. Had she met him last summer, when she’d volunteered at the Breton Forest Service lookout tower? A memory tugged at her.

An excited voice caught her attention.

“Oh my goodness. Would you look at that?” Mrs. Murphy jumped to her feet, bonking her head on the metal dome of the hair dryer. It didn’t faze her one bit as she rushed to the door of the salon. “Finn’s back. And he has that actress with him. They must be here for the wedding.”

Finn. Finn. Now she remembered. In excruciating detail.

* * *

It had happened a few weeks ago, when she’d first returned to Jupiter Point. She’d decided the town would be a good place to stay off the radar. She knew the area because she’d spent all the past summer at the Breton lookout tower volunteering for the Forest Service—but hiding out, really. For six months, she’d been mostly alone in the remote wilderness looking for smoke that would indicate a wildfire. She’d loved every quiet, healing minute in that tower.

So the first thing she did when she got back to town was hike out to Breton, which wasn’t staffed in the winter. But instead of the peace and quiet she’d expected, she’d stumbled onto an engagement party. Twinkle lights lit up the observation room, some of them spelling the words “Bri and Rollo 4 Ever.” Brianna, the bride-to-be, had invited her to stay, so she’d accepted a glass of champagne and some cheese and crackers.

And then someone had planted himself in front of her. Someone extremely good-looking—and extensively scarred on one side of his face, from jaw to cheekbone. Burn scars, she knew from experience. Wide shoulders, lean build, thick dark hair, smoldering brown eyes with ridiculously long eyelashes—the entire package was breathtaking. And he was staring at her as if he never wanted to stop.

It made her so uncomfortable, she nearly swallowed a cube of cheese. She didn’t want attention. Not even from an attractive man.

“So, do you come here often?” He winced as soon as he asked the clichéd question. “Don’t answer that. What I mean is, I think I saw a picture of you on that corkboard.”

He waved in the direction of the kitchenette where she’d cooked her meals last summer.

She nodded, making a mental note to confiscate that photo as soon as possible. She hadn’t known it was there.

“So, I figure you’ve been here before. Not that I’m stalking you or anything. I didn’t know you’d be here. I mean, I kind of hoped you would be.” He clawed one hand through his dark hair, leaving it romantically tousled. With a pained—but charming—smile, he finished with, “I’m making a mess out of this, aren’t I?”

She wrinkled her forehead, still not really getting it. “A mess of what, exactly?”

“Let me try again. I hiked out here a couple months ago with some friends. I saw that photo, which I now know is you, and I thought, ‘I hope I meet that woman someday.’ And here you are. Sounds like destiny to me.”

“Destiny?” She finished her cheese and wiped her fingers on a napkin. “Sorry, I’m not much of a believer. I put destiny in the same category as cheesy pick-up lines.”

“Are you a magician?”

“Excuse me?”

“Every time I look at you, everyone else disappears.” He looked at her expectantly, waiting for her to smile.

She narrowed her eyes at him instead. “That’s the cheesiest line I’ve ever heard. It’s actually an insult to cheese.”

He laughed. “Did you read Dr. Seuss as a kid?”

“What?”

“Because green eggs and damn.” He shoved his hands in his pockets, raking her with an exaggerated, appreciative survey.

Finally, she laughed. It was an involuntary, incredulous laugh, but still. “Okay, you got me. That is the worst pick-up line I’ve ever heard.”

“Oh, I’ve got more. I have an extensive collection.”

Honestly, she was surprised he needed pick-up lines. A guy like him, with his looks and charm, could probably pick up a woman with half a wink of one eye. “Strange thing to collect.”

“Yes, well, I grew up in LA.” He gave her that flashing, groove-in-the-cheek smile again. “Misspent youth on Sunset Boulevard. How about you? Where are you from? I’m Finn Abrams, by the way.”

“Well, Finn, I don’t think we’ve reached the sharing-life-stories phase, sorry.”

“I think I heard a ‘yet’ in there. We’re not at that phase yet. But I know a good way to get there. So how about we back up and start again. Will you have dinner with me, mystery tower woman?”

She shook her head, bewildered by how quickly the conversation had morphed so it felt like she actually knew this stranger. Like she wanted to know him. Wanted to know how he’d gotten the scars, why pain still lurked behind his eyes. How he could still be so charming, despite such a recent—to her expert eye—trauma.

But she had to stay cautious. And she didn’t go for the charming type anyway.

“We’re in a tower in the middle of the wilderness. What exactly did you have in mind?”

“Leave it to me. We’ll gorge on cheese and crackers and drink champagne under the stars.”

Everything about him was so warm, so inviting, so enticing.

So not happening. “It’s January.”

He cocked his head at her. “Do you believe in love at first sight?”

She gaped at him.

“Because I can walk by again.” Mischief glittered in his dark eyes.

She snatched her backpack off the floor. This engagement party was nice and all—Rollo and Brianna seemed great— but this was crazy. “Let’s start over completely, shall we?”

“Good idea.”

“We’ll back up to the part where you’re celebrating your friends’ engagement and I’m about to walk in.” She stepped backwards, pulled the door open, and slipped out.

“Wait. Don’t leave. Just tell me your—” he called through the door, before she shut it tight.

She leaned against it, torn between laughing and wanting to run back in. It felt like there was a magnet behind that door, drawing her back into life and sparkling fun and bright possibility.

Sparks with a stranger—definitely not on her agenda.

She ran down the staircase, back to the trail, starlight illuminating the path. Forget that sexy, scarred charmer. She’d never see him again anyway.

Yeah, about that…

Lisa whipped her head around to look outside. The first thing she saw was the back of a photographer side-stepping along the sidewalk as he snapped photos. When he stepped out of her line of sight, she finally got a glimpse of the glamorous couple strolling arm-in-arm down Constellation Way. The very same couple she’d just been reading about. And the same man she’d met at the tower.

“It’s Annika Poole,” Mrs. Murphy was saying. “Molly, I can’t believe an actual celebrity is coming to Evie’s wedding.”

Across the room, Molly sniffed. “Finn can do much better, in my opinion.”

“With those scars?” Mrs. Murphy shook her head and hmphed. “It’s a shame, it really is.”

“Stop that.” Molly’s body was trembling. She always shook to some extent, but when she was upset it got worse. Lisa pulled her gaze away from the couple and hurried to her side. “I adore Finn. He’s a sweet boy. He brings me flowers when he visits.”

Sweet boy? Lisa nearly snorted out loud at that description. During her encounter with Finn Abrams, the phrase “sweet boy” had never crossed her mind. She’d pegged him as the flirtatious player type.

“And he’s still very handsome,” Molly added.

“Obviously, you’re not the only one who thinks so,” Lisa said dryly. “I spy a movie star on his arm.” She glanced at Annie, who had pulled the scissors away from Molly’s head of flyaway white hair. “How’s the haircut coming?”

“Almost done. And Mrs. McGraw, I absolutely agree with you. He’s still a hottie in my book. You don’t have to worry about Finn Abrams. He’s a charmer.”

Lisa snuck another glance at the street outside. Annika had stopped to take a call and was speaking heatedly into her cell phone. Her other arm was wrapped tightly around Finn’s elbow. Wearing a stocking cap, a woodsy brown sweater and trousers, with both hands in his pockets, he looked casual and mouthwatering and…bored.

Huh. He definitely hadn’t looked bored when he’d flirted with her back at the Breton tower.