Show description

Anyway, I’m only going for a couple of days. Just for the weekend. We can talk when I get back. ” He smiled. “I’d rather not put it off. ” There was an odd light in his eyes. His voice hardened almost imperceptibly. “So let’s go off by ourselves and talk for a while, and then you can go wherever you’re going. ” A guy walked past the car, whistling. She bit her lip, thinking fleetingly that she had better get out of the car right now, while she still had the chance, and— He put his hand over hers on the steering wheel and she was suddenly aware of his strength, his size, his physical presence—and something else, some sort of animal intensity she hadn’t seen in him before.

All three centers may not show a big profit every month, but they do bring in business. I can live with that. Back at the shops, Ruby was getting ready to open—she would manage both the Cave and the herb shop until I closed the booth. That’s the advantage of having side-by-side businesses: one of us is always around to keep an eye on things. In the tearoom, Cass and Lisa, a young woman who comes in to help with the lunch crowd when we’re busy, were setting the tables. And at our booth, the shelves were filled, the tables were nicely arranged, and everything looked attractive.

So it was just the two of us this Saturday, picking and packing in the early-morning sunshine. Caitlin, eleven, is my niece, my half brother Miles’ daughter. She’s been with us for less than a year, but it already feels like a lifetime. And there’s an irony here. For decades I cherished an independent and solitary life, putting off marriage to a man I loved while I stubbornly hung on to my freedom. Now, improbable as it often seems to me, I am married. I am raising two children. Life is full of surprises.