Currant Creek Valley. RaeAnne Thayne

instantaneously, not even back with...

      Out of habit, she jerked her mind away from even thinking about the past, from that long-ago girl she had been who had given her heart so freely and so foolishly.

      “Yeah. Wow. Funny, that’s just what I was thinking.”

      She leaned a hip against the door of her SUV, fighting the urge to step back into his arms and stand here kissing him for a few more hours.

      Hadn’t she spent all evening reminding herself of all the reasons why she couldn’t afford this complication with him, no matter how tempting?

      She was apparently a weak-willed woman.

      “I should go. It’s late and I probably need to get Leo settled in for the night.”

      “And I’ve got to be at the work site bright and early in the morning. You never did give me a direct answer. When do you think we can do this again?”

      How about now? And then five minutes from now? And then ten minutes after that?

      “I didn’t, did I?”

      Despising herself for the cowardice, she gave him a quick smile and slid into the driver’s seat of her vehicle then quickly closed the door. Before he could protest or she could do something completely stupid like make another date with him, she yanked the gear shift into Drive and took off, leaving him standing on the sidewalk, looking just as dazed as she felt.

      * * *

      WITH DESIRE STILL PULSING through him, Sam watched her drive off in a sporty little SUV that probably came in handy during the cold high-mountain winters.

      He hadn’t intended anything more than a fast, polite kiss but then she had moved her mouth against his and heat had rushed in on a relentless tide, blasting away any chance he had of hanging on to his sanity or control.

      Alexandra McKnight, with her blond curls and those incredible green eyes and that smart, delectable mouth, was a dangerous woman. He couldn’t remember when he had smiled so much in an evening or known this effervescent sense of anticipation and sheer fun.

      He shook his head. This was not why he had come to Hope’s Crossing. A relationship was the last thing on his mind as he considered uprooting his son and setting up shop in a new town, away from his entire support system.

      The timing couldn’t be worse. He had more than enough on his plate right now, trying to build a new life here.

      The two of them stirred up enough sparks to burn down the whole town. Chemistry wasn’t everything, he reminded himself. The trouble was, he genuinely liked her, too. She was funny but not at the expense of other people. She had to be a kind, compassionate woman to pick up a stray dog and take him home with her.

      With a sigh, he headed for his pickup truck. He had to tread carefully here. She was obviously well-known in town. The short tour she had taken him on had illustrated clearly that every store in town had some link to her. Sisters, best friends, neighbors. Everyone here was interconnected.

      If he started something with the very appealing Alexandra McKnight and it went south, he had a strong suspicion he would automatically be blamed, by default. He was an outsider and in small towns like Hope’s Crossing, people tended to be quick to circle the wagons around one of their own.

      He wanted to build a life here, to start a business. How could he hope to do that if he managed to piss off half the town before he even had a chance to settle in?

      He would be smarter to take things slow, he decided. Back off, use his head. He would focus on keeping Alexandra happy with the work he did for her and avoid any more intimate evenings that reminded him just how very long he had been alone.

      CHAPTER FIVE

      “YOU CAN COME with me, but only if you behave,” Alex said sternly to Leo early the next afternoon.

      The dog gave her what looked uncannily like a grin and planted his haunches by the front door, waiting for her to hook up the extra leash she kept around the house for the times she doggie-sat Chester.

      She clipped it on him then juggled the leash while she picked up a heavy cooler and headed out.

      “I mean it,” she went on as she carried the cooler down the steps of her garage to the open hatch of her SUV. “Caroline loves her flowers. It breaks her heart right in half that she can’t tend them as she likes anymore. I won’t have you digging up any of her few perennials she has left, understood?”

      The dog gave one well-mannered bark, smart as a whip, and she smiled. He was good company, this unexpected guest. He had been docile and easygoing when she had bathed him the night before and hadn’t even soaked her much.

      Last night, he had politely eaten Chester’s leftover dog food and then had trotted out in the yard for his business before coming back and waiting with surprising patience by the door to be let back inside.

      She had settled him for the night on some old blankets in a corner of her laundry room and he hadn’t made a sound all night long, until she had checked on him after she awoke. She could only wish all her houseguests were so trouble free.

      Leo settled in the backseat of her SUV and lolled his tongue, overcome with joy when she rolled the window down.

      As they pulled away from her house, she could see it in the rear windshield, the hewn logs gleaming in the afternoon sun. With two gables and a wide front porch that looked out on the mountains, the house looked warm and lovely, though she still tended to see all the work she needed to do.

      After years of neglect, first as a vacation house with mostly absentee owners and then in foreclosure when the owners had walked away from the mortgage, the house was a work in progress. The window boxes in the upper window and along the porch railing that ran the length of the house were still empty and the garden was a wild tangle.

      She was working on it slowly, determined that by summer’s end, the house and yard would glow once more.

      The house was a labor of love, just like the restaurant. She loved this place, had since she was a girl. She could remember riding her bike on this road to visit a friend who grew up on the next development over.

      All the houses in this area were lovely, mostly log, stone and cedar that had been constructed to meld with the mountain setting and separated from each other by tall stands of pine, fir and aspen.

      She had always loved the serenity she found here as she passed fields of wildflowers and that musically rippling creek bordered by wild red- and black-currant bushes that had given the neighborhood its name. This specific little cottage, though, had always called to her.

      Maybe it was the decorative shutters or the scrollwork gingerbread trim on the gables that always made the house seem charmed to her, like something out of a fairy tale.

      She remembered telling Claire from the time they were young that someday she would live here. Of course, back then she had dreamed of a husband and a house full of children, just like the big family she had known growing up.

      Funny how a person’s life journey could sometimes meander off in completely unexpected directions. Here she was, without the husband and without the passel of kids, but in the house she had wanted forever.

      The dog in the backseat barked as she pulled away from the house and now she glanced in the rearview mirror at him.

      “Don’t worry. I have a feeling you’ll be back.”

      First thing that morning, she had called the animal shelter and the two veterinarians’ offices in town but had come up empty. None of her sources had heard anything about a missing chocolate Labrador retriever.

      She had shot a picture of Leo with her phone, uploaded it to her computer and then used her limited design skills to come up with a flyer. It was quite creative, if she did say so herself, and she had promptly emailed a copy to several business owners around town, including Claire for String Fever and Maura for Books & Brew.

      She