RaeAnne Thayne - Wild Iris Ridge

He followed after her and had walked only a few steps when he realized Lucy was still standing where he had left her, in front of the Browns’ driveway.

He turned around, struck by how lovely she looked there in the long shadows of afternoon with the fading sunlight haloing her hair and burnishing her skin.

He didn’t want to notice that about Lucy or any woman. Not yet. He forced himself to push it out of his mind.

“You’re not coming with us?” he asked gruffly, gesturing after the kids.

She blinked a little at his tacit invitation then smiled. “Oh. Yes. I could use a walk this evening.”

He waited until she caught up with him, and they walked in silence for a few moments. The air was pleasantly cool. He always enjoyed this time of year, when the grass was beginning to green up again and the trees were bursting with buds.

“I had forgotten how pretty Hope’s Crossing is in the evening,” she said.

He had lived here most of his life, except the few years he was away on a scholarship playing college football and earning his degree and then the two short years he played pro football before a knee injury permanently sidelined him. To him, Hope’s Crossing was just...home. But on a spring night in April, he could see the appeal of the well-kept, charming houses, the tree-lined streets, the mountains that encircled the town.

He waved to old Mr. Henderson, driving past in his beat-up old Chevrolet pickup truck. “It’s a nice little town, especially for kids.”

“I suppose that’s true.”

They walked a little farther and he raised a hand in greeting to two more people driving past.

“You must know everybody in town,” she said.

“Not even close. We’ve got so many people moving in or building second homes in the area, it’s hard to keep track. I just happen to know those two. And that one, my neighbor, Mrs. Peabody.”

He waved at the longtime widow who used to teach him in Sunday school. He saw her shield her eyes with a hand as she tried to make out the identity of his companion and his stomach dropped.

He suddenly regretted asking Lucy to join him on this little excursion. Hope’s Crossing was a small town. People were bound to take notice when their favorite object of pity, that poor widower Brendan Caine, started walking around town with a woman new to Hope’s Crossing—or at least recently returned to town.

The last thing he needed were rumors starting up about him and Lucy. He didn’t want anybody deciding to put more into this than exactly what it was, a casual walk to the park with his kids.

In reality, they were two people who disliked each other, linked only by the woman they had both loved and by the two children who rode ahead of them.

He needed to keep reminding himself of that and not allow himself to be seduced by a lovely evening, an even lovelier woman and the quiet enjoyment of a little adult companionship, for a change.

* * *

A WEEK AGO, if somebody had told her she would be spending a beautiful April evening sitting at a park in Hope’s Crossing on a bench next to Brendan Caine, she would have laughed out loud at such a preposterous notion.

Life had the strangest way of throwing curveballs at a woman when she least expected it.

A week ago, she had been confident she had the world figured out—or at least her place in it. Now everything had changed, and she was left trying to find her way again.

Once again, she questioned her decision to return to Hope’s Crossing. It had seemed so right at the time, coming back to this place where she had always found peace and comfort with Annabelle.

But Annabelle was gone and nothing would be the same.

Maybe she should have stayed in Seattle. She had a condo there she had paid cash for a few years earlier. She could have lived there basically rent free while she sent out feelers for other jobs. With her contacts in the industry, it probably wouldn’t have taken her long to find something new. Being fired from her previous job didn’t exactly look that great on her résumé but maybe her track record before the disastrous software launch would speak for itself.

Instead of following logic and sense, she had gone with her gut, for once, and had come back to the only place that had ever felt close to home.

Now, sitting next to Brendan Caine, she wondered again if it had been a huge mistake. He didn’t want her here, that much was obvious—at the park or in Hope’s Crossing. She hadn’t missed his discomfort, just walking through town with her.

Too late to second-guess herself now. She was here now and just needed to make the best of things—and maybe that started with finding common ground with Brendan.

“I had a nice chat with your sister yesterday morning at the café,” she said.

“Did you?”

“She looked fantastic. And she told me she’s getting married to Spence Gregory. That must have been quite a shock for you and your brothers.”

He shrugged. “They seem happy together. Spence was always a good guy. He just lost his way for a while.”

Apparently, there was a lot of that going around.

“And I understand Dylan’s tying the knot, too, with Genevieve Beaumont,” she said. “Shock number two.”

“Yeah. That one’s a little harder to take in, but somehow they work together.”

“How is her family taking it?”

“You mean their little princess hooking up with a disfigured war veteran?” he asked, his voice cold.

“Your words. Not mine,” she answered in the same tone.

He studied her for a moment and some of the protective harshness seemed to ease in his handsome features. “Sorry. It’s a touchy subject. The mayor and Mrs. Beaumont weren’t very thrilled at first, especially since Dylan was unemployed for a while there. And of course, they didn’t hesitate to let their objections be known far and wide throughout the land.”

“I remember the Beaumonts. That doesn’t surprise me.”

“Gen stood up to them, which was a surprise. The way I hear it, she told them if they put her in a position to make her choose between her family or Dylan, she would choose him, every time.”

Lucy decided she was liking Genevieve Beaumont more and more. “How romantic.”

“Or something,” he murmured.

“You don’t think so?”

“It’s easy to make grand sweeping statements like that. Not so easy to live with the consequences of them.”

“But Genevieve must have stuck by her guns. They’re getting married, right?”

“Dylan had a long, tough talk with Gen’s parents. When he’s not being all gruff and cranky, he can be quite a charmer, apparently. I think he must get it from Pop.”

“Too bad that trait wasn’t handed down universally to all the Caine brothers.”

He snorted, a small, amused smile teasing the corner of his mouth. “Isn’t it, though?”

She felt inordinately pleased that she had brought a smile to his face, even such a tiny one.

“He’s also started a partnership with a fairly new contractor in town, Sam Delgado. From what I understand, they have more business than they know what to do with right now. And he’s still a regular volunteer at A Warrior’s Hope, the recreational therapy program Spence and Charlotte started for wounded veterans. A war hero, a volunteer, a thriving businessman. How could Laura and William possibly object to such a paragon for a son-in-law?”

“Not to mention he’s the man their daughter loves.”

“There is that.”

He started to say something else but Carter called out from the swings in an imperious tone.

“Daddy! Push me.”

Brendan sighed. “How did my children both get to be such bossy little things?”

She rose from the bench. “I’ve got this. Relax.”