A Baxter's Redemption. Patricia Johns

She leaned closer, watching as his fingers moved over the engine, looking for the issue. He spotted the loose wires almost immediately.

      “How long are you back in town?” he asked.

      “For as long as I need to. I don’t have a leaving date yet, if that’s what you’re asking.”

      James raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything as he tightened the connections. So the prodigal daughter had returned—for now. He doubted that many people in this town would be happy to hear that. Isabel had been a beauty, but she’d also left her mark, Andrew being just one of her casualties. Andrew claimed they were dating for months, but there was no outward sign of it. James had thought his cousin was making it all up until he actually spotted them together one evening. Andrew was a math whiz, and Isabel had needed some tutoring. Apparently, it panned out, because she’d gotten into Yale. James had always suspected she got more than just the tutoring out of Andrew, because she’d continued with the relationship for a few months after the SATs. It was when her friends found out she was dating a poor boy from the raggedy side of town that she’d dumped him and told the school that it was nothing more than tutoring—that Andrew had made it all up. Andrew had been heartbroken and left for boot camp before prom. He was sent to Afghanistan and never did make it home.

      We’ll take that road trip together before I go, his cousin had promised... It hadn’t happened.

      “Your father hired me as the family’s legal counsel,” James said, dropping the hood back down with a bang. “That includes you.”

      “I might be better off getting my own lawyer,” she said. “To protect my interests.”

      “Against Britney, you mean,” he clarified.

      “Yes.” A spot of color appeared in her cheeks. “You have to admit that things are complicated. I’m not entirely sure that my father has my best interests at heart right now.”

      “My job is to offer you legal advice,” James said. “I’m not interested in playing sides. I’m a lawyer, and a good one. Your father is footing the bill. I’ll never tell you his private business and I’ll never tell him yours. If you hire another firm, legal fees will cut into that nest egg your father is signing over to you, but it’s up to you.” He straightened and nodded toward the driver’s seat. “Try again.”

      Isabel got back into the car and turned the key. The engine coughed to life.

      “Thank you,” she said, the old smooth voice again, a cool mixture of sweetness and indifference. She paused, cleared her throat and changed her tone. “What did you do?”

      “Reconnected loose wires on the starter. It happens sometimes.”

      “Well...” She smiled. “I’m grateful.”

      “No problem.”

      She eyed him for a moment. “What are they like?”

      “Who?”

      “My father and... Britney.”

      “Happy,” he said with a shrug.

      “You have to say that, don’t you?” Bitterness laced her tone.

      “I don’t have to say anything,” he replied. “And I can’t say more than that. Like I said, discretion is part of the job.”

      “Of course it is.” She smiled tightly. “Well, thanks again.”

      She put the car into gear and pulled away, her tires crunching along the drive.

      James was no longer a smitten teen. He’d never acted on his crush on Isabel because Andrew was dating her, but her cruelty was what doused his feelings for her. She was heartless and self-centered.

      Would it have been different if she’d had the compassion to sit down and talk to Andrew instead of publicly mocking him? People broke up all the time, and it didn’t end their lives. Would Andrew have made different choices, maybe been more careful over there in the war zone, if her cruelty hadn’t pushed him out of town early? She hadn’t remembered him—and it made him wonder if Andrew had slipped from her memory, as well.

      He’d do his job. He’d give her the advice her father wanted her to have, and he’d provide legal counsel should she require it. But after that, Isabel Baxter was on her own.

CHAPTER TWO

      HAGGERSTON WAS A TOWN that landed like a splatter in the middle of open prairie, cut through by a highway, and left on its own in the patchwork of Montana’s fields and pastures. It was large enough to have the main amenities—a supermarket, a hardware store, a veterinarian clinic—but small enough that everyone still knew each other.

      Isabel had been born here, and when she left home to go to college, she never thought she’d return. Not like this. She’d always imagined her homecoming to be a triumphal entry—a successful, beautiful woman come back for a quick weekend where she showed off her husband and kids. She’d be the topic of local gossip, word of her arrival spreading faster than the flu.

      She had the gossip part down, she realized wryly, but not the way she’d hoped. Life had a way of turning full circle and swallowing a person whole.

      When she’d graduated from Yale and moved to New York for her first job—a desk job in a marketing company—life had seemed shiny and exciting. And it was. For a young woman with family money, New York had a lot to offer.

      One rainy evening after work last year, Isabel had headed out to catch a cab home. As she’d stepped out into the street to hail one, a bike had swerved around her and pushed her into oncoming traffic. She didn’t remember the car hitting her at all, but she did recall waking up in the hospital, in agony from head to toe. Her face had been badly cut, and from that moment on, she knew that her life would never be what she’d imagined.

      After that first surgery, she could remember feeling like a heavy weight was on her chest, refusing to let her inhale. It was like being smothered from the inside, and when the doctors told her that she’d nearly died on the table, she knew she wouldn’t have another surgery. Vanity wasn’t worth dying for, but the adjustment to becoming ordinary when she’d been used to being stunningly beautiful was a difficult one. No one jumped to open doors for her anymore. No one checked her out in the street—unless one wanted to count the double takes from passersby when they saw the scars. They weren’t looking with admiration. They stared in pity, then dropped their gazes.

      So when her father suggested that she might come back to Haggerston for a while, that old yearning to finally be a part of the family business—maybe even take it over—resurfaced. New York was a big and scary place for a woman who’d lost her beauty, and she’d already been passed over twice for a promotion at her marketing job. She’d gotten her education, had four years of work experience under her belt, and she was no longer the beauty queen who’d left town eight years ago. Perhaps a shot at Baxter Land Holdings wasn’t as out of the question anymore. So she packed up her things to make the move.

      It was then that she’d seen the ad for a tiny house for sale. It was beautiful—a miniature home on wheels like a trailer, but built to look exactly like a house, complete with sloped roof and a small porch on the front. Inside, it was arranged with artistic precision. The front door opened onto the wee sitting room, behind which were the kitchen and bathroom. Overhead was a sleeping loft, with long, narrow windows spilling light under the sloping roof. The entire inside was made of natural wood, softened by wax, and was at its most beautiful in the afternoon light.

      Everything had to be carefully arranged so that not an inch was wasted, and that was part of what made Isabel fall in love with the tiny house. It forced her to reexamine her life and the items that she’d collected along the way and pare them down to the essentials.

      Who was she underneath the makeup, the fashion, the money... What mattered most?

      So she’d bought the house, hooked it up behind her SUV and began the long