The man looked older than the woman by twenty years, and she already had a pure-white bob and a face lined with distinguished wrinkles.

“Rob,” Leith said, “do you remember Jen Haverhurst? Used to come here every summer and stay with Bev at the Thistle. She and I stole the lawn furniture from in front of your hardware store that one year.”

An uncomfortable laugh erupted from Jen’s throat. While their harmless little pranks weren’t unknown, she just didn’t feel like reminding people of that side of her at this particular point in time.

“Ahhh,” Rob said in a hoarse voice, narrowing rheumy eyes on her. “That was you, huh. Remember you set the furniture back up in the middle of the high school football field.”

“And then we put it all back,” Jen added, throwing a disbelieving look at Leith, who looked ready to burst into laughter any second now.

“And now you’re back to run the games?” Rob asked skeptically.

Jen folded her hands and tried to look as professional as an admitted thief could. “Just for this year, yes.”

Leith touched the older woman’s shoulder. “And this is Bobbie, Rob’s wife.”

As Bobbie shook Jen’s hand, Rob pinched his wife’s butt. He said, “We met online.”

“How nice,” Jen said, not knowing how to take that.

“Yeah,” Leith said with a waggle of his eyebrows. “Bobbie’s a bit of an . . . Internet celebrity.”

Please, please don’t let that mean what they’re making it out to mean.

“You two need to stop doing that,” Bobbie said, slapping Leith’s arm. “You’re giving people heart attacks.”

“She’s got one of the biggest followings of any scrapbooking website,” Leith amended.

Jen let out a relieved laugh. “Scrapbooking. Oh! There used to be a store across the street.”

A pained, regretful look crossed Rob’s face while Bobbie swished the air with one graceful hand. “I should’ve known it wouldn’t work,” the older woman said. “It was always a dream to own my own store. I thought the online success would translate to a physical presence in my lovely new town, but it didn’t.”

“I’m sorry,” Jen said, and meant it.

“My belly says we need to go,” Rob said abruptly, and then the couple—please don’t let their last name be Roberts—left, hand in age-spotted hand.

As Jen and Leith turned back to the counter, the disgruntled former employee slid their plates in front of them. Jen eyed hers skeptically, wondering if he’d spit in it, but Leith shoved his fork into a mound of scrambled eggs and took the biggest bite she’d ever seen.

“The Roberts are good people to know.” He washed down the gigantic bite with a swig of orange juice.

“No way. That’s really their last name?”

“Heh, no. It’s just what everyone calls them.”

They talked and ate, with nearly everyone in the Kafe either coming up to Leith or him calling them over to their spot on the bar. At one point, a woman dressed in a pristine, belted dress and sunglasses the size of her face came in. Leith said she was Irene, married to a Hemmertex manager who’d chosen to retire rather than relocate out of New Hampshire, and one of Leith’s few remaining lawn maintenance clients.

By the time Jen’s belly was distended with perfect hash browns and homemade bread slathered with honey, Leith must have introduced—or reintroduced—her to half the town.

Sue McCurdy and her breakfast companion watched all the exchanges, and as Jen rose to leave, Sue’s friend gave Jen a slow nod that might have actually bordered on approval.

Chapter

8

Jen and Leith left the Kafe together, exiting into a brilliant morning. Sun sparkled through the thick tree boughs that draped themselves over the main street, their massive trunks tucked behind the old buildings. Jen squinted, imagining the storefronts filled with merchandise, their signs lit, and tourists ambling up and down the sidewalks. It filled her with such purpose, with such hope, that she smiled.

Leith stood next to her at the corner, hands in his back pockets. An unspoken, comfortable companionship laced them together. She tried to recall feeling this way ten years ago, but they’d been different people then, all nerves and excitement, completely oblivious to anything beyond that day, that moment.

A car slowly rolled past; the driver, a man with two children whom Leith had introduced her to, honked politely and called out a farewell, adding a “Good luck with the games” to Jen. She’d been here three days now and no one had wished her that.

Then it hit her, what Leith had just done.

She turned to him. “Thank you.”

He shrugged and threw her a sideways grin. “Not exactly the first date I’d have normally picked, but the eggs were good.”

“That’s not what I meant.” She touched him without thinking, her fingers sliding around the firm warmth of his forearm. There was power under that skin, as well as a generosity and a kind soul that she’d thought she understood, but really had only just begun to uncover. It made her heart hurt, to wonder about the man he’d become, to think about what she’d once given up.

Regret was the ugliest feeling in the world.

He winked, gently tugging his arm from her grip. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.” He started to cross the street in loping strides. “If they start to see you as the Jen that knows this place, that cares about it, and not just a big-city girl swooping in to shake up their town and then leave, they’ll listen. They may not push back so hard. And they’ll definitely come to the games to see what you’ve done, when so many of them haven’t gone in years.”

“Who was the woman sitting with Sue?”

“Vera Kirkpatrick. Town council. She was watching you the whole time.”

“Thank you,” she said again, which was answered by yet another one of his shrugs. She couldn’t decide if he really was denying his actions, or if he honestly thought they were no big deal.

The Kafe door pinged across the street and she watched Aimee and Ainsley exit and head in the opposite direction, toward the Thistle.

“You raised her right, little sis.” Behind her, so close, Leith’s voice had gone deep and soft. “The years here have been good to Aimee. You can see that, right?”

Her sister and niece disappeared around the two-pump gas station, their heads bent together, talking.

“Yes,” Jen replied. “But—” She cut herself off. She understood what he was saying with a few carefully placed words: that Aimee was an adult and could take care of herself. But Jen also knew Aimee forward and back. With that woman, there was a wild tornado inside, constantly trying to get out. And when it busted free, take cover.

Jen drew a deep, deep breath, loving the scent of this place, how she could almost smell the nearby lake between the breezes. If she remembered correctly, the central park was just over that little stone footbridge spanning the creek, beyond those thick hedgerows. She pointed. “Does the park still look the same?”

“Uh.” His small laugh sounded strangely uncomfortable. “Yeah. Sorta.”

Well, now she had to look. “You coming?”

He twisted to glance back at his truck, taking up half the small parking lot just behind the Kafe. “Don’t you have, you know, work to do?” He gestured to the bulge of her phone in her pocket. The thing was, for once, blissfully silent.

“Let me think.” And she did. The best events captured the perfect atmosphere and reflected the host’s personality and vision. Sure, so far she’d reorganized what she could, balanced the budget, and made new plans to present to the city council, but there was still something missing. Something she couldn’t quite put her finger on.

Crossing the footbridge was like crossing over a line in time. Leith’s feet dragged. They both stopped to gaze over the side to where they’d once had a contest to see who could land the most number of pebbles on that flat, wide rock twenty feet out.