“Where’s your competition?” She nudged him playfully with her shoulder as they walked.
“I still can’t believe Liam talked me into that.” He rubbed his hand over the back of his neck. But when Riggs yanked on the leash at the sight of a kid spilling his chocolate ice cream right off the cone, Ford was forced to use both hands to keep the pup in line. It only made those muscles more defined. Cadence should look away, but she didn’t want to.
“It’s at the edge of the park, near the water. There’s a clearing over there,” Ford finally answered once he got Riggs to sit. “You’re gonna reset, you hear?” he said to the dog in his stern dad voice. “Reset until you’re ready to try this again.”
Cadence had to turn away to hide her smile, as Riggs kept stealing glances at her.
“You don’t have to watch it,” Ford added to Cadence. “If you have something better to do—”
“Oh, I’m going. I’ll be there with Rilee to embarrass you from the sidelines.” Yes, she was flirting. And no, she didn’t care. Though tragedy had brought her back to Sunset Ridge after all these years, fate was pulling her to stay. If Ford was part of that larger plan, she could live with that. Denying she was falling for him was futile.
She hadn’t given a lot of thought to actually quitting her job. To moving thirty-six hundred miles away. The daunting thoughts had been easier to avoid. None of it would matter anyway until she figured out how to convince her sisters that keeping the lodge was the best option. It could sit on the market for a year without interest, a valid concern for a commercial property with a high price tag in a small, remote town. But if that was her only angle, she was doomed.
When Ford had Riggs back under control, he reached for Cadence’s hand as they walked. She let him take it, intertwining their fingers.
She’d dated off and on before her recent job, but she’d never met anyone who had the hold on her that Ford Harris did. If Cadence wasn’t careful, she could fall hard very quickly for this man. He was everything she could want: kind, selfless, funny, trustworthy. Like jumping off the edge of a steep cliff into the water. If she leapt, the plunge was inevitable.
“Tell me about your sisters,” Ford said.
Her heart swelled from the question that could bring them even closer. Though they had grown apart, her sisters were an important part of her life. “Tessa’s the most ambitious of us, no doubt about it. She’s not only planning to compete on that reality show, she’s already decided to win.” Cadence wouldn’t be a bit surprised if Tessa had packed up her apartment in New York and sent everything to a storage unit in Vegas. “She’s always looked out for us, though; she had to when our mom died. Dad was so lost. I think it’s where she honed that take-charge personality.”
Ford gently stroked her hand with his thumb, nodding to a food cart with funnel cake. The aroma floated halfway across the park, and Cadence had no interest in turning it down. Riggs apparently figured out the plan as well; his tail swished quicker as they approached the line.
“Sophie married a surgeon and moved to Hawaii. Her daughter, Caroline, just turned four.” Cadence yearned to see them both. To see them all, really. Because the last time they had all been together was for a funeral. “She’s a stay-at-home mom. Or, well, she was.” It was reflex to check her phone, hoping for a text or missed call even though the cell hadn’t so much as buzzed in the back pocket of her shorts today.
“Do you think Patty wanted you girls to run the lodge together?” Ford asked. They’d approached the back of the funnel cake line, fingers still interlocked. Tingles danced up her arm at the contact that made her feel so safe and reassured. Such a simple gesture, but such a powerful feeling.
“I don’t know.” Cadence turned to Ford. “I suspectyoumight know that better than me.”
“Uh—”
“You did work for her, after all.”
“She mentioned it once or twice.”
“I think it would make her happy,” said Cadence, glancing toward the cloudless sky. They’d been blessed with another sunny day, as predicted by the locals.Fireweed Festival magic. “But she wouldn’t expect us to uproot our lives.”Not with how successful some of us are. She wanted to make this work, but she couldn’t figure out how it was possible. “I think she wished we were closer,” Cadence added.
Ford ordered a funnel cake for them to share, topped with Alaskan blueberries. Their mouths would both be stained, but Cadence didn’t care. They found a deserted picnic table to sit down. Riggs lay in his alert, sphinx pose, nose pointed at the plate. He didn’t beg, exactly. But he wasn’t about to miss out on an opportunity by losing focus.
“You aren’t close with them?” Ford asked after a couple of bites, his lips already hinting at a blue stain. The same lips that had kissed her into dizziness. Cadence hoped they would again—tonight.
“We used to be.” She picked off a piece of the cake with the least amount of added goodness and tossed it to Riggs. “But we grew up. Moved away from each other. I’m the only one who stayed in Kansas.”
“Why?”
“My dad was there. Felt like one of us had to stay close.” Their dad had been gone for over a year now, and she wondered more every day why she stayed. Why she threw herself into her work and gave up a social life of any kind. “Now my job’s the only thing really keeping me there. Well, that and an apartment lease, if that counts.”
“Why?”
When Cadence didn’t answer right away, and couldn’t bring herself to meet his gaze, he reached for her hand across the worn wooden planks and squeezed. Had she ever trusted anyone more than she trusted Ford? “I guess once my dad was gone, I still wanted to prove to my sisters that I was living an exciting life, too. Studying under the top agent in the state, I guess I thought someday I’dbeher. That my sisters would accept me into their elite club if I was successful like they were.”
Cadence had never voiced those words out loud before, and it’d been easier to pretend they weren’t real by keeping them silenced in the corners of her mind. But now that they were out, in front of Ford, she couldn’t deny their truth any longer.
“But does it make you happy?”
“Hey.” Liam’s voice caught them both off guard. They’d been so engrossed in conversation—and Riggs with the food—that not even the dog had signaled his approach. “They moved us up a flight. We got to go get ready. Maxwell’s got some twist.”
* * *
