LITMIR.BIZ

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he was.

      Thanks to one Lacy Steele.

      What a name. But he’d liked the way she’d kidded about it. She’d probably heard so many jokes she just blew them off.

      In the end it went well enough. He found that the local lumber store he’d feared would be too small to have what he needed actually had a decent selection, thanks to a storage yard a short distance away. And there he found a guy who seemed to have a good knowledge of what he’d need and some tips on how to proceed, and the name of a good drywall guy for the texture coat, which Tate wrote down, thankfully. Best of all, they had a small pickup he could borrow to get the stuff home, then come back and get his bike.

      No, he thought as he made the trip back, the best thing was that everyone he’d encountered on this supply trip had known, and obviously liked, his grandfather. The steady condolences were a little rough when he was still grieving rather fiercely—being in Gramps’s house, amid his things, was turning out to be both blessing and curse—but it was good to know he hadn’t been forgotten.

      There was a lot to be said for this small-town stuff, he thought.

      And Mom would cringe at the very idea. Reason enough to stick it out.

      He was honest enough to admit tweaking her prejudices might be the tiniest bit of his motivation for not just accepting this inheritance, but actually coming here with the intention of staying. His ultra-cosmopolitan mother had shuddered at the very idea of living in a town of less than five thousand.

      By late afternoon he had the last scraps of the destroyed shed cleared away, tackling that first to give the area more time to dry out from the fire department’s efforts to keep the damage to a minimum. He might need to give the guts of the damaged wall time to dry completely, as well, so he limited himself to cutting away the ruined drywall with his newly acquired drywall saw and clearing out the section of damaged roof and ceiling.

      He assessed the situation and his condition. There was still plenty of light, but he could feel the slight hum in his head that told him he was tired. And that was when mistakes happened. So he decided further work should wait until tomorrow, when he would hopefully have had a decent night’s sleep. This wasn’t his area of expertise—he wasn’t sure what, if anything, was anymore—and he wanted to go slowly and carefully. So he would—

      The doorbell, with Gramps’s selection of the chimes of Big Ben in tribute to his time in England before and after the war, interrupted his thoughts. Since Tate knew no one else here, it wasn’t a surprise to find Lacy on his front porch. His first thought was that she was even prettier than he remembered, although he thought he preferred the sleep-tousled look for rather primal, male reasons.

      His second thought was that whatever she had in that pot she was carrying smelled so good it woke his stomach up with a vengeance.

      “I rang this time,” she pointed out.

      He nodded. Made an effort. “I thought maybe you were that dog again.” He realized suddenly how that sounded. “I only meant—”

      She waved it off with a laugh. “He does seem clever enough to figure out how to ring a doorbell, doesn’t he?”

      He was relieved she hadn’t taken offense; he’d already ticked her off quite enough.

      “I was making beef stew for dinner, so I made extra.” She held out the pot, which she was holding with a towel between it and her hands, so apparently it was hot.

      “Extra?”

      “For you,” she said patiently, lifting the pot slightly. “I figured you’d be too busy to fix anything. You could have borrowed my car, you know.”

      He blinked. “What?”

      “My car. To go get your stuff.”

      “Oh.”

      If he had ever done worse at casual conversation, he couldn’t remember when. And she clearly noticed, because after a moment of silence she gave him an amazed look and a slight shake of her head.

      “I would have invited you over for dinner, but since you don’t seem inclined to socialize, I brought it here.”

      A sudden image shot through his mind of sitting across a table from her, like a normal person, chatting easily rather than stumbling along like this, uncertain of why he found it so difficult.

      “It would help,” she said, rather pointedly again, “if you took this. It’s getting heavy.”

      Hastily he reached out.

      “Take the towel, too, it’s hot,” she warned.

      “You didn’t have to do that,” he said as he took the indeed heavy pot, wondering if he sounded as awkward as he felt. And as if on cue, his stomach growled loudly.

      Her smile was genuine this time. “Obviously somebody needs to feed that beast.”

      Somehow he found the grace to smile back at her. “Guess so.”

      “When was the last time you ate?”

      His brow furrowed as he thought.

      “The fact that you have to try to remember means it’s been too long. No wonder you’re grumpy. Eat something.”

      His mouth twisted wryly. “Grumpy was a dwarf,” he said.

      She arched one eyebrow at him. “Old Disney references?”

      “Gramps,” he explained.

      “Ah. A traditionalist.”

      “Still on videotape, if I remember right.”

      She laughed at that. He liked the sound of it.

      “Thank you,” he said, lifting the pot. His stomach growled again.

      “Eat before it gets cold. If you have leftovers, it’s good over noodles.”

      He nodded. Realized much too late that he’d made her stand outside holding a heavy pot for far too long. Feeling that required...something, he said hastily, “I’d ask you in, but it still reeks in there.”

      “Like a place that’s had a big hole blown in it?”

      He nodded again. Drew in a deep breath as he set the pot on the glass table beside the door, which thankfully hadn’t shattered from the concussion of the blast. And wondered why this seemed so hard. “About the grumpy... It was a long trip, and then the explosion. I—I’m sorry.”

      She gave him a look he couldn’t quite interpret. “Actually, I think it’s the dog you should apologize to. I can at least understand.”

      He sighed then. “I know.”

      “You don’t like dogs?”

      “I love dogs. I just... He reminded me of another one.”

      “Does he? I’ve never seen one with coloring like that.”

      “I don’t mean looks. More intensity.”

      “He is that, isn’t he.” It wasn’t a question, so he didn’t answer. “Who’s the other dog?”

      “Sunny. Well, Sunniva, which is Latin for something. But we always called her Sunny, because...well, she’s that, inside and out. She’s an MWD—Military Working Dog—who was with us overseas. She’s the reason I’m still alive, along with most of my squad.”

      He was a little surprised he’d said so much. Normally he would have said, “Just a dog I knew,” or some such. But nothing seemed to be normal just now, him least of all.

      “Dogs are amazing, aren’t they? They give so much and ask so little.” Her voice was soft, her tone utterly genuine and more than a little awed. Exactly how he felt when he thought of Sunny and what she had done. “She wasn’t hurt, was she?”

      He liked the urgency in her question, the concern for an animal she didn’t

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