LITMIR.BIZ

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in and out all the time.”

      “No. He’s very quiet, actually, when he’s here—and you should get those roses home. Cut an inch off the stems, at a slant, and—”

      Her mother waved the hand that had been so busy with the pearls. “I know, I know. Remove any leaves below the waterline.”

      Jane smiled. “That’s right. And use that flower food I gave you.”

      Virginia sighed. “I will, I will—and how is Celia?”

      Celia Tuttle was one of Jane’s two closest friends. Her name was Celia Bravo now. A little over two months ago, at the end of May, Celia had married Cade’s oldest brother, Aaron.

      “Happy,” said Jane. “Celia is very, very happy.”

      One of Virginia’s eyebrows inched upward. “Pregnant, or so I heard.”

      “Yes. She and Aaron are thrilled about that.”

      “I meant, a little too pregnant for how long they’ve been married.”

      Jane shook her head. “Mother. Give it up. Celia is happy. Aaron loves her madly. They are absolutely adorable together, totally devoted—and looking forward to having a baby. I’d like to find a man who loves me the way Aaron Bravo loves his wife.”

      Her mother made a prim noise in her throat. Jane folded her arms and gave Virginia a long, steady look heavily freighted with rebuke.

      Virginia relented. She waved her hand again. “All right, all right. Celia is a sweet girl and if she’s happy, I’m happy for her.”

      “So good of you to say so.”

      “Don’t get that superior tone, please. I don’t like it when you do that—and I know, I know. Celia is your dearest friend in the world, along with Jillian.” Jane and Celia and Jillian Diamond had been best friends since kindergarten. “I ought to have sense enough never to say a word against either of them.”

      “Yes, you should.”

      Virginia stepped closer, the look in her eyes softening. She reached out and smoothed Jane’s always-wild hair in a gesture so tender, so purely maternal that Jane couldn’t help but be soothed by it. Jane did love her mother, though Virginia was not always easy to love.

      “You haven’t mentioned how your date went Friday.”

      Jane gave her mother a noncommittal smile. “I had a nice time.”

      Virginia looked pained. “My. Your indifference is nothing short of stunning.”

      Indifference. Sadly that pretty much summed up Jane’s feelings about Friday night. It had been her second date with that particular man. He taught Science at the high school and Jane had met him over a year ago now. He’d come into her bookstore looking for a good manual on Sierra birds and a well-illustrated book on weather patterns. He really did seem the kind of man she’d been looking for: steady and trustworthy, kind and wise. A man who had sought to be her friend first. He’d told her he admired her straightforwardness, said he respected her independence and valued her intelligence. Jane believed him when he said those things.

      And he was nice-looking, too, with thick brown hair and a muscular build. There was nothing not to like about him. Jane did like him. She also knew in her heart that liking was all she felt for him.

      Was she asking too much in daring to want it all—decency and steadiness and a kiss that turned her inside out?

      Probably.

      “Gary Nevis is a great guy, Mom. I just don’t think he’s the guy for me.”

      “Now. Give it time. You might discover there’s more there than you realized.”

      “Good advice,” Jane agreed without much enthusiasm.

      “And on that note, I’ll take my roses and go home.”

      Jane walked her mother out the door and down the front steps.

      “A beautiful summer we’re having,” her mother said as they proceeded down the walk toward the car at the curb.

      “Oh, yes.” Jane turned her face up to the warm ball of the August sun. “A splendid summer.” Northern Nevada’s Comstock Valley was, in Jane’s admittedly biased opinion, the best place in the entire world to live. A place where the pace of life was not too hectic, where you knew your neighbors, where people were always forgetting to lock their doors and it never mattered because nothing bad every happened. Here, folks enjoyed reasonably mild winters and summers where daytime temperatures tended to max out in the low eighties.

      At the curb, about twenty feet from the low, celadon-green sports car parked in front of Cade’s house, Jane took the roses and held the door open while her mother got settled into her Town Car, sliding onto the soft leather seat and taking the sunscreen out of the windshield, folding it neatly and stowing it in back.

      “Here. Give me those.” Virginia took the bundle of fragrant pink blooms, turned to lay it carefully on the passenger seat to her right, then smiled up at her daughter once more. “Thank you for coming to church with me.”

      “I enjoyed it.”

      “And for the lunch.”

      “My pleasure.”

      Virginia lifted her cheek for a kiss.

      Jane fondly obliged. Then she stepped back and swung the door shut. Her mother fumbled in the console for a moment, came up with the key and stuck it in the ignition. A moment later, the big car sailed off down the street, turning at the corner onto Smith Way and rolling on out of sight.

      Jane turned back toward her house. She got about two steps and paused to admire the scene before her.

      Her house was Queen Anne-style. It had a turret with a spire on top, touches of gingerbread trim in the eaves and a multitude of cozy nooks and crannies.

      Her garden stole her breath. It was late-summer glorious now, a little overblown, like a beautiful woman just past her prime. The Jack clematis that climbed the side fence was in full flower. Black-eyed Susans thrust their gold-petaled faces up to meet the sun. The big patch of lacy-leaved cosmos to the right of her walk was a riot of purple, white, lavender and pink.

      Among the cosmos, on pedestals of varying heights, Jane had mounted a series of gazing balls, one blue, one pink, one green, one that looked like a huge soap bubble, crystal clear with just the faintest sheen of mother-of-pearl. The cosmos partially masked them. They peeked out, smooth reflective spheres, giving back the gleam of sunlight.

      Oh, it was all so very lovely. If she didn’t have her dear aunt Sophie anymore, at least she had a house and a garden that filled her heart to bursting every time she took a minute to stop and really look at it.

      Jane let out a small laugh of pure pleasure. Enough with basking in delight at the beauty that surrounded her. She needed to put on her old clothes and her wide straw hat and get after it. With the bookstore closed, Sunday was prime time for working in the yard. She had the rest of the day completely to herself—and the tomatoes and carrots out back cried out for harvesting.

      She started up the walk again—and spotted Cade Bravo, just emerging from the shadows of his porch.

      She hadn’t meant to look toward his house, she truly hadn’t.

      But somehow, she’d done it anyway. And as her glance found him, he emerged into the sunlight, those long, strong legs of his moving fast, down the steps, along the walk.

      The sunlight caught in his hair. Oh, he did have beautiful hair—not brown and not gold, but some intriguing color in between, hair that made a woman want to get her fingers in it. He kept it short, but it had a seductive tendency to curl. Jane secretly thought it was the kind of hair a Greek god might have, hair suitable for crowning with a laurel wreath.

      He waved, just a casual salute of a motion, long fingers to his forehead, so briefly, then dropping away as he moved

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