Currant Creek Valley. RaeAnne Thayne

losing nearly eighty pounds over the past year.

      “He’s coming home, finally.”

      “Oh, I hadn’t heard!” Katherine exclaimed. “That’s wonderful news.”

      Charlotte didn’t look as if she completely agreed but she gave a forced-looking smile. “He was officially released from Walter Reed several months ago but he stayed in the area for rehab. Dad will be happy to have him home.”

      Much to Alex’s amusement, Katherine looked a little flustered at the mention of Dermot Caine, who owned the Center of Hope Café in town. The two of them shared a mutual crush but so far neither had done anything about it.

      Dermot would certainly take good care of his son’s nutrition needs, but Alex still made a mental note to add Dylan Caine to her informal list of food deliveries. The café served good, hearty comfort food, but a war hero like Dylan deserved gourmet fare once in a while.

      “We’ll have to throw a barbecue for him or something,” Mary Ella said.

      Charlotte shook her head quickly. “He would hate that. He’s very...different from the Dylan you all probably remember. He will barely talk to any of us.”

      Charlotte came from a family as large as Alex’s, though she was the only girl in a household of boys, while Alex had four sisters and only one brother, Claire’s husband, Riley.

      “I guess I should get back to the bookstore,” Maura said. “Jack has Henry this afternoon over at his office and he’s probably ready for a nap.”

      “Who? Jack or Henry?” Mary Ella asked.

      “Both. Definitely.”

      Maura’s adopted son was just about the most adorable ten-month-old Alex knew, but he was already turning into a handful.

      “I need to go, too,” Claire said. “We left Hannah in charge of String Fever while we were gone. She has such a soft heart, she just might give away half my inventory.”

      Alex had to swallow a laugh at the irony of Claire worrying about anyone else’s soft heart when she was renowned for her overwhelming generosity.

      “I really do love your place, Alex,” she said.

      “Same goes,” Maura said, kissing her cheek. Alex almost wanted to cry to see her sister’s obvious happiness, when she thought Maura would never be able to find joy again.

      “We’re all coming on opening night. Just try to keep us away,” Katherine added.

      Her friends gathered up their things, and Alex watched as they all began heading down the hill toward downtown.

      Her mother was the last to leave. Mary Ella hugged her hard, surrounding her with the familiar scent of flowers and fabric softener. “I love this place, darling. It’s so good to see you happy.”

      She drew away from her mother’s embrace. “What are you talking about? I’m always happy.”

      “Are you?”

      She wasn’t in the mood for her mother’s concern today. “Yes. I’m so happy, I beam with it. I’m a freaking glow stick. Why wouldn’t I be?”

      Annoyance flickered in Mary Ella’s green eyes that she had passed on to each of her children.

      “The restaurant is going to be wonderful. I just...hope it’s everything you want.”

      “It will be,” she said firmly.

      “You know I worry about you.”

      “Because I’m not happily married, you mean, like everybody else, and cranking out grandbabies for you.”

      She meant her tone to sound flippant but she had a strong feeling she sounded prickly and sensitive instead.

      Mary Ella stiffened. “That’s not what I’m talking about.”

      She didn’t want to get into this right now with her mother, not after their lovely book club meeting. She adored Mary Ella and admired her greatly for pulling the shattered pieces of her life together and moving on so many years ago, but sometimes her mother had very decided tunnel vision on some topics.

      “Are you sure? Lila and I are the last ones standing, now that Riley and Maura have taken the leap, and Lila’s too far away in California for you to meddle with.”

      “Do I meddle?” Mary Ella asked, her tone mild but her eyes flashing.

      That wasn’t fair to her mother, she knew. “No,” she admitted. “But I know you would like to see me settled in a relationship like everybody else.”

      “Only if that’s what you want. I don’t care if you never marry, Alex. I’ve spent the last twenty years of my life single and thought I would remain that way for the rest of it. I certainly never expected Harry Lange to come blustering in.”

      She was glad Harry made Mary Ella happy, for reasons she still didn’t understand, but that didn’t mean she wanted to discuss her mother’s love life.

      “You can stop worrying about me, Mom. I have nearly everything I want.”

      “Nearly?”

      She gestured around to the empty, echoing space. “I just need Brazen to catch fire on the local restaurant scene, so to speak.”

      Mary Ella didn’t look convinced but she said nothing as she slipped her arms through the sleeves of the jacket she had shed during the picnic.

      “I just hate to see you so...restless.”

      The term was painfully apt. She couldn’t focus on anything, she was cooking up a storm trying out new recipes, she wasn’t sleeping well.

      Alex wanted to think her trouble was only jagged nerves prior to the restaurant opening, but she had a deep-seated fear the root was something else.

      She had been looking for something for a long time since she had returned to the States. She had convinced herself it was only anticipation for this time in her life, when she was finally in control of her own restaurant, but what if Brazen still didn’t fill that emptiness inside?

      “I’m perfectly content with my life. Everything is just the way I want it.”

      Mary Ella stepped in to brush her lips to Alex’s cheek. “If that’s truly the case, then I’ll try to stop worrying.”

      “I do believe you could survive without air and water longer than you could go without fretting over one of your children.”

      Her mother smiled, as she had intended. “It’s a good thing I have so many of you to spread the love, then, isn’t it? Imagine if you were an only child.”

      “The mind boggles.”

      Her mother’s laugh trailed behind her as she headed out into the April afternoon.

      She closed the door behind Mary Ella and twisted the lock then returned to stand in the empty space that would shortly—she hoped—hold her dream kitchen.

      Though the kitchen faced away from the street, leaving the prime views for the diners, Jack had still designed this space with a few well-situated windows that offered lovely views of some of the older homes in Hope’s Crossing that climbed the hillside and then the mountains beyond.

      This was hers. She loved it already.

      All the years of planning, working, dreaming, and in a few more weeks, that dream would be real.

      She had worked as a sous-chef in other restaurants for years, since she had returned from Europe. She had been offered opportunities in the past to take over as executive chef but none of those situations had ever felt quite right. Either she had always told herself she wasn’t ready or she didn’t like the restaurant owners enough to work that closely with them or she had just plain been afraid.

      When Brodie Thorne approached her with his plans for this old firehouse,