“Good evening, Olive,” Lura calls from the kitchen, where the scent of freshly baked bread wraps around me like a hug. “I saved you a loaf. Still warm.”
My heart swells just a little. “Thank you. Did you find the laundry soap I left?”
She waves a flour-dusted, wrinkled hand like I’ve offended her with kindness. “You didn’t have to buy that for me.”
“Sure I did,” I say, dropping my keys into the dish by the stairs. “You’re my favorite person.”
And I mean it.
Lura took me in when no one else would. Gave me a place to live, a second chance, and enough warmth to melt the cold I’d carried with me to Broken Heart Creek.
The town claims to be all about hospitality and to be fair, it is. But not right away. Not to outsiders. Not to girls with a half of her soul missing. But Lura didn’t ask questions. She just made room. Which is exactly why I buy the stubborn woman laundry soap, even though Iknowshe won’t spend the money on it herself. Not when it “costs too damn much for a bottle of bubbles,” as she puts it.
I take the warm loaf she hands me and press a kiss to her flour-smudged cheek.
“Thank you,” I murmur.
She waves it off like affection’s just another dish she forgot in the oven. “No need to thank me. You know Ruby’ll eat five of these when the girls come over tonight.”
Game night. How could I forget? Lura and her friends have a standing card game every Friday in the café kitchen. Tonight, it’s poker or maybe bridge. Ruby, who runs the local bed andbreakfast and once beat a biker in arm wrestling, is Lura’s best friend and game night ringer. And yeah, she probablywilleat five loaves on her own, not that Lura minds.
“I’m going out tonight,” I say as I reach the bottom step. “To Sheridan.”
Lura pauses mid-wipe at the counter, eyebrows raised. “How nice. Do you have a date?”
My cheeks warm instantly. Dammit.
“Oh, youdo!” she crows, eyes twinkling with mischief. “Look at that blush. Tell me everything. Who is he? What’s he driving? What’s he done wrong that I’ll need to glare at him for later?”
I laugh, ducking my head. “It’s not really adatedate. It’s complicated.”
She makes a clucking sound under her tongue, clearly unimpressed. “That won’t do. Complicated never got a girl kissed at the end of the night.”
I roll my eyes as I climb the stairs, but her next words stop me.
“You’re too pretty to be single, Olive.”
I turn, heart catching. “Lura?—”
She’s already back to tidying the kitchen, like she didn’t just say something that landed square in the center of me.
“Wear something that makes you feel lucky,” she adds. “And bring home a story.”
I smile. Not because I believe I’ll get one.
But because for a second, it almost feels possible.
3
I’m ready when Liam pulls up at exactly seven, the rumble of his black truck announcing him before I even step outside. I smooth down the front of my blouse and head out, catching sight of him as he hops down from the driver’s seat like a man born in boots.
He’s changed.
Dark jeans. Black button-up sleeves rolled to his forearms, the top two buttons undone just enough to be distracting. His hair’s still slightly damp, like he just showered, and his cologne hits me a second later. Spiced, clean, and unfair. Liquid panty remover. Straight up.
He flashes me that familiar grin, pure trouble wrapped in charm.
“Evening, honey.” He opens the passenger door with a dramatic little flourish, like he’s escorting me into a carriage instead of his dusty truck.
