Willowleaf Lane. RaeAnne Thayne

didn’t consider herself petty or vindictive. She was friendly with just about everyone in town, even the cliquey girls who had once made her life so painfully hard at school and had grown into cliquey women with the same prejudices.

      But a small acrid, angry corner of her heart despised Spence Gregory with a vitriol that unsettled her.

      What was Harry Lange thinking? She had to wonder if Mary Ella knew what her fiancé was up to, bringing back the man who had once been the darling of Hope’s Crossing but was now considered a pariah.

      Maybe it was one of Harry’s twisted schemes. The man appeared to have been turning over a new leaf in the past year since reconnecting with his son Jack and the granddaughter he didn’t know existed, but maybe it was all for show. Maybe Harry wanted the recreation center he had basically financed to fail so he could sweep in and somehow make money off it for his own purposes, perhaps as a tax write-off for a business loss.

      Whatever the reason, she couldn’t believe she would be the only one in town upset at this new development, though she had very personal reasons to be angry about the return of Spence Gregory.

      The cowbell clanked suddenly and, for an instant, fear spiked that she would have to deal with him again, while she was still trying to come to terms with his return.

      Seeing Alex McKnight rush in, her long blond curls flying behind her, was a sweet relief.

      “Hi, Alex.” She even managed a smile, envious, as always, at Alex’s effortless confidence. She was smart and sexy and a brilliant chef—and was comfortable enough in her own skin that none of it mattered to her except the chef part, of which she was fiercely proud.

      “Guess who I just saw walking Front Street?” Alex said, her green eyes wide.

      “Spencer Gregory,” she answered dully.

      “Wow. You are good.” Alex looked surprised and a little amused.

      “Not really. He just left the store.”

      “Can you believe it? The guy must have balls as big as ostrich eggs to show up back in town like nothing ever happened.”

      “Take it up with your stepfather-to-be. Apparently he hired Spence to run the new rec center.”

      Alex’s eyes widened for an instant and then she shook her head. “The man is insane sometimes. What goes on inside Harry’s head?”

      Charlotte didn’t know. And right now she didn’t want to talk about either Harry Lange or Spence Gregory.

      “Can I get you anything?”

      “Actually, I came in to ask you a huge favor.” With a cheerful grin, Alex let herself be distracted. She seemed so happy lately since she had started seeing Sam Delgado, a new contractor in town.

      Charlotte was thrilled for her, she really was, but sometimes she couldn’t help an insidious little niggle of envy. While Charlotte found their developing relationship wonderful for the two of them—especially since she knew firsthand how deeply Sam cared for Alex—Charlotte had once entertained hopes herself toward the man when Sam had first come to town.

      He had endeared himself to Charlotte forever by reaching out to help her troubled brother Dylan, offering him a job with Sam’s construction company despite Dylan’s new limitations. Her brother had refused—no big surprise there—but Charlotte wanted to think the offer had meant something to Dylan. It had certainly meant something to her—so much that she had asked Sam to go to the town’s annual Giving Hope Day gala.

      She had hoped the two of them might hit it off and that he might ask her out again. Sam was new in town. He hadn’t even known her before the changes of the past year and a half and she had hoped that might give her a slight advantage, but it had become obvious fairly quickly that Sam was completely tangled up over Alex.

      During these past few weeks since the two of them had come together, it was transparent to all they were crazy about each other. Alex gave every appearance of a woman deeply in love.

      “I’m glad to help,” Charlotte said now, pushing down that spurt of envy. “What can I do?”

      “You don’t even know what it is, and you’re already agreeing to help. That’s one of the things I love most about you, Char.”

      She cherished all her friends who had supported her on her recent journey toward reinvention, in no small part because they had loved her just as generously eighty pounds ago. “You know I’ll help in any way I can. Unless you need me to rob a bank or taste test one of your new fattening dessert recipes.”

      Alex grinned. “Nope. This one is easy. A friend of Sam’s has been in town helping him with all the work coming his way. He’s thinking about making his temporary stay in our fair little hamlet a permanent thing. He’s a single guy, really sweet but a little lonely, I think.”

      Charlotte braced herself, guessing what was coming next. Her friends seemed to feel a compelling need to set her up on dates with eligible men lately. First Claire McKnight just happened to know a new police officer in her husband Riley’s department she thought would be perfect for Charlotte, then Evie Thorne had wanted her to go out with a business associate of her husband, Brodie.

      She was beginning to wonder if she had subconsciously started sending out some secret bat signal that she was single and desperate. Which so didn’t describe her at all. Okay, she was single. But she hadn’t yet descended into desperation.

      “I don’t know.” She stalled for time.

      “Come on. It will be fun. Sam was thinking we could take him out to dinner to celebrate his move here. Maybe go up to Le Passe Montagne.”

      “Not Brazen?” Charlotte asked, surprised.

      “Well, obviously that’s the best restaurant in town but Sam knows how hard it is to get a reservation there.”

      “Even when a guy is sleeping with the chef?”

      Alex grinned, looking completely pleased with the world. “Even then. If you want the truth, I did suggest we just meet there but Sam seems to think I don’t relax when I’m eating in my own restaurant. Imagine that.”

      Charlotte laughed, despite the lingering disquiet over Spence’s reappearance. It was hard not to laugh around Alex, who deserved every bit of the success her new restaurant was enjoying.

      “I think I can picture it. He knows you well, doesn’t he?”

      Her friend made a face. “So we were thinking next week sometime, maybe Saturday. I’m giving you plenty of advance notice. Will that work?”

      “I’m not really crazy about blind dates,” she said, which was a rather monumental understatement.

      “Don’t think of it as a blind date. Just a few friends getting together.”

      “Two of whom happen to be seeing each other.”

      “Well, yes. Come on, Char. He’s really a nice guy and we want to make sure he feels like he has a few connections in town besides us.”

      She swallowed a sigh, imagining how awkward it would be to go on a double date with Alex and Sam Delgado, considering her prior interest in Sam.

      She opened her mouth to politely decline but clamped it shut again. Just the night before while she had been eating her Healthy Choice dinner for one, she had promised herself she would try to get out more. She had no real reason to say no, other than a little embarrassment at unrealized dreams. And heaven knows, she had enough of those lying around to fill a darn auditorium.

      An image of Spence Gregory, lean and dark and muscled, filled her head but she shoved it aside.

      “Sure,” she said quickly before she could talk herself out of it. “Dinner would be lovely. Thank you for the invitation.”

      “Perfect. We can talk next week but let’s tentatively plan on a week from Saturday, about seven. Does that work?”

      “Yes.”