No Gentle Giant (A Small Town Romance)

“Thanks, Dad,” Eli says dryly.

“It’s true.” I chuckle. “But one day—I don’t know if someone snuck him sugar or what—he just got into everything. It was raining that day and the backyard was a mud pit, and he’d rolled around and gotten himself covered from head to toe. Little dirt baby, mud all over, and then he went climbing right up his favorite oak tree. While his mom was standing down there begging him to come down and I was looking for a path up that wouldn’t break under my weight, he decided he was coming down his way, on his terms. He came, all right, skidding down the trunk like it was a slide. Swiped all the mud right off his back till it was the only clean spot on his body. Just this one stripe right down his spine.”

“Ohhh,” Tara says. “Like a skunk. A polecat.”

“Exactly.”

“Sounds like I could learn a thing or two about climbing trees from you,” she whispers.

“Yeah.” Eli’s oddly quiet, though. Then he murmurs, “Mom was actually the one who first started calling me that, wasn’t she?”

I pause, turning the question over, my mind back in the distant past.

“Yeah,” I say finally.

A lot of times, I forget that.

My time with Katelyn ended in such flames I’ve spent years running from it, desperate to make sure the poison can’t creep back in my memories.

And I forget that once, there used to be good days. Warm days. Happy days. It’s easier to face that, now, somehow.

I wonder if this is what closure feels like.

What it feels like to be ready to move on.

To sort the good from the bad with the past, to bury it honorably, to start over with a woman who’ll bring the sunny days back to us, and who won’t blow our world to kingdom come like my dead ex-wife.

Eli’s hand grips at my arm and he leans his lips to my ear. “Uh, you don’t really have to stop calling me that. I just...you know. I like to remember the fun stuff, Dad.”

“Yeah?” I look up at him with a smile and squeeze him closer. “Me too, polecat. Me too.”

I also want to get them home, fixed up, and find that girl I’m aching to forge fun new memories with like nothing else.

I want to make it right with Felicity and let this latest scare be our last big disaster.

23

Gold Digger (Felicity)

It’s been hard pretending everything’s normal today when it’s anything but.

What does normal even look like when we’ve got two missing kids?

Most of my customers are coming in for top-ups on the caffeine they need to keep themselves sharp and moving, all compliments of The Nest when I feel like it’s the only thing I can do to help.

Lunches, too, help make sure everyone participating in the search stays well fueled. Half of my part-timers are brewing huge vats of extra-strength joe and the others man the sandwich assembly line with me, working their fingers to the bone.

Then, sometime in the early afternoon, Blake comes busting in.

So breathless, so tense, for a moment the blood leaves my face.

But I realize he’s grinning...isn’t he?

He’s panting with the rush of relief as he proclaims, “We found ’em, folks! Tara’s got a nasty sprain, but they’re just fine.”

The Nest is almost too small to contain the explosion of euphoria that rips from every mouth in the room.

People who’d been as grey as the rain light up in awesome technicolor, grabbing each other, hugging, some of them even crying with relief.

I’m in the thick of it, my staff jostling me and each other with pure joy. Even I’m close to breaking into tears.

But you’d better believe I can’t stop grinning.

I’m glad.

I’m so glad.

Especially since it means I was wrong, and Paisley doesn’t have Eli. Hasn’t hurt him. Won’t ever get the chance to hurt him or Tara.

What I’ve set in motion now can’t be stopped.

It’s still the right thing to do, a way to stop the danger I’ve inflicted on the town.

I can’t exactly text Paisley and say, Oops, never mind. Turns out you didn’t have the kids after all. Deal’s off, stay home, forget what I said about payback. Ha ha, just kidding, please don’t kill me.

And even if I know Eli and Tara are safe...

It still needs to happen.

No more excuses.

No delays.

I can’t explain how Eli’s come to mean so much to me. This sweet, attentive kid who loves photography like magic. I care about him like he’s my own family, and it finally makes sense.

So does this town.

That’s what places like Heart’s Edge do.

Once you’re here, once you’ve put down roots, you’re family, and they’ll throw everything they have behind you when you’re in trouble.

Which only reminds me that I don’t belong here.

I know—I know there are people here who care for me just as much.