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to see Ryan. The steps were too heavy to be Kaley’s. Besides, what would Kaley be doing outside at this time of day? Ryan had probably been up for hours, tending to his animals, when Victoria thought he was still asleep.

      Sure enough, it was him, dressed in a plain white tee, blue jeans and work boots, with his medium-length hair mussed from the morning breeze.

      “The coffee smells good,” he said. “I was just coming in to make a pot.”

      She shifted in her seat, feeling far too self-conscious, while he stood there, looking far too gorgeous. “I beat you to it.”

      “That you did.” He walked over to pour a cup.

      She watched while he added an abundance of cream, but only one spoonful of sugar. She’d doctored hers with lots of both.

      He leaned against the counter. “So Kaley isn’t a morning person?”

      “Sometimes she is. She was probably wiped out from yesterday.”

      “The traveling and everything?”

      She nodded. “I’m wiped out, too.”

      “You don’t look beat. You look pretty.”

      Her heart fluttered from his praise. Bad, stupid heart. “I wasn’t fishing for a compliment.”

      “I didn’t think you were. I’m just saying that the years have been good to you.” He made a flat motion with his hand, mimicking the straightness of her hair. “I like the way you style your hair now. I used to like the curls, too. The way it blew every which way.”

      She made a face. “And frizzed up in the rain. A constant issue with the weather here.”

      “You were always tying scarves around your head or pulling your hoodie up real tight. My favorite times were when you’d get caught in the rain without a cover-up.”

      “That didn’t happen very often.”

      “It was still fun.”

      He smiled, and she battled the bewitchment that was Ryan.

      A few minutes later, Kaley walked into the kitchen. The product of their union, Victoria thought. She’d more or less stumbled out of bed. She was still wearing her pajamas, and on her feet were novelty slippers that looked like fuzzy creatures with eyeballs. She called them her purple people eaters after an old song she thought was funny.

      “Morning,” Victoria quickly said. “Now that you’re here, I’ll start breakfast. Ham and cheese omelets with hash browns on the side.”

      “Yum. Okay. Thanks.” Kaley plopped down at the table and said, “Hey,” to Ryan.

      “Hey, yourself.” He smiled at her outfit.

      Victoria began by peeling potatoes. She loved cooking for her daughter, relishing the mommy feeling it gave her. She would have to be careful that whipping up meals for Ryan didn’t create a wifely feeling. Old dreams. Old bewitchments. This was not a family in the making.

      Ryan said to Kaley, “I got the box down from the attic this morning. So anytime you’re ready, we can look through it.”

      “Really? Wow. That was fast.”

      No kidding, Victoria thought. Not only had he spent time outside, he’d rummaged around in the attic, too.

      “We can look through it after breakfast,” Kaley said. “Then afterward, I’ll get my photo album.” She grinned. “We can have a picture party.”

      Ryan grinned, too. Boyish as hell. Victoria cursed the knee-jerk reaction it gave her.

      He said to their daughter, “Too bad we don’t have any cake and ice cream to go with it.”

      Kaley tapped her purple people eaters together, making the eyeballs roll around. “Victoria is going to teach me to bake.”

      “Yes, she told me. That’ll be cool. You two can fatten me up while you’re here.”

      He was still leaning against the counter, with his lean male hips and whipcord arms. Cake and ice cream wasn’t about to fatten him up. Funny thing, too, he probably stayed in shape from his country-fresh lifestyle, hiking and biking and lifting bales of hay, whereas Victoria belonged to a trendy gym, taking scheduled classes and running on a treadmill like a hamster on a wheel.

      He refilled his coffee and asked Kaley, “Do you want a cup?”

      “No thanks. I’m more of a cappuccino girl.”

      “With purple feet?” He chuckled. “There’s a gourmet coffee machine in the break room at the clinic. It’s one of those single-serve models with disposable brewing cups. No one ever really uses it. I can bring it in here, if that suits you.”

      She shot him a winning smile. “Thanks. That’d be super.”

      He left by way of the mudroom.

      After he was gone, Kaley sad, “He’s nice. He’s handsome, too, for the dad type. But so is my dad. I wonder if they’re going to become friends.”

      “They’re not going to know each other very well, honey. It could be a long time before they ever meet.”

      “Why? Because they live so far away? They’re going to have to hang out, eventually. I want both of them to be at my college graduation.”

      “You’re only just starting school in the fall. You’ve got at least a full four years to go.”

      “I know, but there are other things, too. Like me getting married and having kids. If they don’t become friends, stuff like that will be awkward for everyone.”

      “Let’s focus on one life-altering event at a time.” Victoria didn’t want to consider how many times in the future that she would be required to see Ryan.

      He returned with the gourmet coffeemaker and set it up, brewing a single cup of flavored cappuccino for Kaley.

      Victoria finished making breakfast and set the table.

      “This is nice,” Ryan said, as the three them sat down.

      Apparently Kaley thought so, too. She hummed while she ate, tucked cozily between her birth parents. Victoria was glad that her daughter was enjoying herself, but that still didn’t make them a family.

      Ryan remarked how good the food was, and Kaley agreed, marveling over the fact that they were feasting on fresh eggs and drinking milk provided by a miniature cow.

      “This feels so fifties,” Kaley said.

      “That’s the era this table is from,” Ryan told her. “It belonged to my dad.”

      Victoria spoke up. “I’ve been wondering if it was the same one.”

      He shifted his attention to her. “You recognized it?”

      She nodded. Everything about the past was resurfacing. Everything she’d worked so doggone hard to forget.

      He said, “When I first bought this place, Dad moved in with me because he was recovering from a stroke. He insisted that he was going to get well and to move back out on his own. So I put all of his stuff in storage, including this table.” He ran his fingers along the Formica. “But Dad didn’t get well. About a year later, he had another stroke and died. I ended up keeping the table, maybe because it had been around for so long.”

      “How long?” Kaley asked.

      “Since before my mom died, and I was five when it happened.”

      “How did she die?”

      “In a car crash. I was too young to hear the specifics, and I never asked about it later. Soon after she died, Dad boxed up any reminders of her, and that was pretty much the end of it. She was a wife and mother who no longer existed.”

      “That’s sad,” Kaley said.

      Victoria

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