“Yes. I know this about you.”
Natasha poured the last of the liquid from her mug into a potted plant. “You know, Mom can’t decide whether to be thrilled that you’re spending the next few months in Misty River or despondent over the fact that you’re staying at the cottage and not with her.”
“I do know.”
“What do you think of your landlord?”
The mention of Sam triggered a picture of him from last night, standing in front of her. Those grave features spoke of caution. His body, of easy strength. Mentally, she clasped the image to herself, dwelling on it because it filled her with warm pleasure. “I think he’s very ... direct. But he seems to have a good heart.”
“He’s hunky.”
“You think so?”
“Of course I do. I haven’t officially met him yet, but I’ve seen him at his restaurant. I think he’s hunky, and you think he’s hunky, too. As you should.”
“But you shouldn’t because you’re married.”
“I’m a married person with twenty-twenty vision and there’s justsomethingabout Sam Turner.”
“We struck a bargain when he agreed to rent the cottage to me, and his final condition was that I not fall for him.”
Natasha’s mouth sagged open. “You’re kidding.”
“No.”
Natasha snorted. “That’s preposterous! Objectively speaking, you’re a nine out of ten.”
“May you receive a crown in heaven for your tremendous generosity—”
“Yeah, yeah,” Natasha interrupted good-naturedly. “You’re a nine, so it seems narcissistic of him to assume you’d want to fall for him.”
“I think it was past experience more than narcissism that motivated that condition. Maybe women throw themselves at his feet all the time and it’s becoming a distraction?”
“Possibly,” Natasha allowed. “Single, good-looking men are as rare around here as Captain Ahab’s white whale.”
“Well, this white whale isn’t interested in me. Which is for the best, because I’m clearly not in a good enough place to embark on a romance at the moment.”
Mom’s five-year-old Lexus sedan pulled into the driveway. Genevieve and Natasha crossed the lawn to her.
“Make way for Aunt Genevieve.” Playfully, she elbowed Natasha behind her so that she could open the rear door and unbuckle her beautiful little niece and nephew from their car seats. She scooped them up, one in each arm, and gave them loud smacking kisses on their necks until they laughed. She exclaimed over the cuteness of their pink-cheeked cherub faces.
Natasha had attended Belmont University ahead of Genevieve. From there, she’d gone on to law school, where she’d met Wyatt MacKenzie. Red-haired and genuinely friendly, Wyatt had provided Natasha with a winning ticket in the dating lottery. He was a fan of all things Star Wars, but he was an even bigger fan of Natasha.
No slouch in the decision-making department, Natasha had married Wyatt at the age of twenty-six. At twenty-nine, she’d had their first baby. Three-year-old Millie was imaginative and social. Like her father, she’d taken to Star Wars. She also, more inexplicably, had taken to cows. When Millie wasn’t wearing Han Solo garb or toting a lightsaber, she dressed in cow-themed items. Today’s cow offering: a pair of boots covered in faux cowhide.
Owen, who’d recently celebrated his first birthday, tended toward quiet and serious. He typically had either a ball or a package of crackers clasped in his tiny dimpled hand.
When Owen had been born blond just like his sister, Natasha had whispered to Genevieve that she was probably going to have to go for a third because she could hardly marry a red-haired man and accept zero ginger-haired babies in return. Genevieve had no doubt that, before all was said and done, her determined sister would receive her ginger-haired offspring.
There were times—at Natasha’s wedding, on the days Natasha had announced her pregnancies—when Genevieve had struggled to quash her envy toward her sister. Ultimately, though, Genevieve liked Natasha too much to stew in that emotion for long.
“I missed you!” Genevieve exclaimed to her niece and nephew. It struck her that she’d been taking Oxy about as long as Owen had been alive. Looking into his face, she wondered if she’d missed any crucial details of his or Millie’s lives because of her painkiller haze.
“We missed you, too!” Millie answered, placing her hands on Genevieve’s cheeks.
“Ball,” Owen told her, cautiously opening his fingers to reveal a small hacky sack.
“Imissed you,” Mom said. “It’s been so long.”
