LITMIR.BIZ

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people she loved who loved her back. That was something. More, in fact, than she’d ever thought she would have. She intended to protect what was hers, no matter what.

      First, though, she had to get out of this pickle suit, which felt like a personal sauna, and go somewhere alone so she could think clearly.

      Waddling to the counter, she told Audra, who had worked at the deli longer than she had, “I’m leaving for a couple of hours. If you can hold down the fort, I’ll be back in plenty of time for the dinner shift.” Without Eli at home, she’d be better off working instead of worrying. Maybe if she took a break, she could figure out what to do about Nate Thayer and the child they’d made together.

      * * *

      “We can do this, no problem,” Izzy grunted, standing on the pedals of her bike. “Going uphill is good...for...us.” Her teeth ground together. Every downstroke was harder to come by than the one before as she pumped determinedly up Vista Road. “We’re going to start...doing this...every...day,” she panted to her beloved dog, Latke, a Shar-Pei rescue whose ambivalence toward physical activity gave credence to the distinction nonsporting breed.

      Her heart and head both thudded painfully, but even that was better than the avalanche of questions that buzzed in her brain on the heels of Nate Thayer’s return. So far, she had not a single answer, not even a clue as to what was going to happen if and when her son discovered that his father was in Thunder Ridge...or vice versa.

      Nausea and dizziness the likes of which she hadn’t experienced since she was pregnant overwhelmed her. Eli had questioned her about his father a few times, mostly during the tween years when his own identity was in minute-by-minute flux. The answers she’d provided hadn’t been satisfying, but at least they had cooled Eli’s incessant wondering about the man whose life goals had not included a pregnant teenage girlfriend.

      “’Kay, I think I’m going to puke now.”

      She had to stop pedaling, hop off the seat and close her eyes. Latke accepted the rest stop as an opportunity to prostrate herself in the bike lane.

      Izzy leaned over the handlebars. “We’ll get going in a sec, baby, just as soon as Mama’s heart attack is done.”

      “Would rehydrating help?”

      On a fresh surge of adrenaline, Izzy’s eyes popped open. A clear plastic water bottle, icy cold with condensation dripping down the sides, dangled in front of her.

      “Bike much?” Nate Thayer arched a brow, lips twisting sardonically.

      Silently cursing fate, Izzy stared at him. She had deliberately ridden away from town and in the opposite direction from the dairy farm where Nate had grown up. “What are you doing out here?” The question sounded like an accusation.

      “Tsk, tsk, tsk.” He shook his head. “We need to polish our welcome committee skills. This is the second time in one day that you haven’t greeted me on my return home.”

      “Home?” Izzy felt as if a giant fist were squeezing her stomach. “You’re here to stay?” Her distaste for that possibility was clear as a bell and drew a deep frown from Nate.

      Unscrewing the top of the water bottle, he held it out again. “Take it. You’re about to keel over.”

      “No, I’m not.”

      A smile tugged his lips. “Take it anyway.”

      Willing her fingers to stop shaking, Izzy plucked the bottle from his hand, careful not to touch him. Lowering the kickstand, she stepped away from her bike with Nate observing her every move. Even when she stopped looking at him, she could feel his eyes on her, the way she used to sense him watching her in the deli fifteen years ago. Back then her skin would tingle with excitement, even as she’d pretended not to notice. Today, anxiety made her skin prickle like needle pokes.

      She bent toward her dog. “Here, sweetie.” Tilting Nate’s offering, she let Latke drink. The Shar-Pei’s heavy jowls flapped as she slurped with the grace of a hippo sipping from a martini glass.

      During the summer that she and Nate had been a couple, Izzy had never truly confronted him. How could she? She had been so besotted, so damn grateful that the high school heartthrob had chosen her, a girl with an embarrassing family and no prospects for a decent future. Now, when her dog was finished drinking, she stood and met Nate’s gaze with challenge in her own. “Latke says thanks.”

      He addressed her dog. “You’re welcome.”

      Wearing the same clothes he’d had on in the deli—J.Crew jeans and a sea-blue V-necked T-shirt that matched his eyes almost identically (yeah, she’d noticed), his hair still ridiculously thick and shiny—he shrugged. “I only brought the one bottle. Come back to my room. There’s more water in the minibar.”

      Izzy glanced in the direction from which Nate had come. The heavily shingled roof of the Eagle’s Crest Inn peeked through a grove of pine trees. “How did you even see me from the inn? ” she asked.

      “My room faces the street. And my desk faces the window. When I saw you crawl by, I thought, ‘Well, what do you know? Fate must want us to have a reunion, even if Izzy doesn’t.’” His gaze narrowed. “It’s been a long time. You must have a few minutes to spare for an old friend.”

      There it was, the liquid velvet voice that used to make her feel as if she were wrapped in the most comfortable blanket ever created.

      “I haven’t, actually. I’m due back at the deli.” Shoving the empty bottle into the saddlebag on her bike, she climbed back on and tried to tug sixty pounds of wrinkled canine to a standing position. “Let’s go, girl.” No movement.

      “I think she needs a nap.”

      What her pet needed was a couple thousand volts. “She’s fine. She loves to run. Let’s go, Latke.” Izzy put her right foot on the bike pedal, intending to pull the dog into a standing position if she had to. She jerked with surprise when Nate clamped his fingers around the handlebars.

      He leaned forward, his shadow looming over her. Humor fled his expression, replaced by curiosity and displeasure. “If I didn’t know better, Isabelle, I’d say you plan to avoid me until I leave town. Why?”

      “That’s not my intention at all. I’m just very busy right now. I’m sure we’ll find time before you go. When did you say you’re leaving?”

      “I didn’t say.”

      “Well, I’m sure we’ll run into each other again. And now I know where you’re staying, so...” She tried to back the bike up, but he was still holding her handlebars.

      “So you’ll get in touch?” His voice grew quiet, penetrating. “I should expect a call? Like last time?”

      “Last time.” Izzy’s stomach began to twist so hard she wanted to double over. “What do you mean?”

      “When I went to Chicago, you and I agreed to talk once a week. Then suddenly you were gone, no forwarding address, no warning.”

      Threads of anger wove through Izzy’s fear. “No warning? Yeah, I suppose you’re right. I should have told you all about my plans. Ten minutes once a week wasn’t a lot of time, though. I’d have to talk really fast.”

      “I’m not following you.”

      “You’re not? Every Sunday afternoon,” she reminded him, “from five to five ten Pacific Time? Nate Thayer’s obligatory check-in to the girl he’d knocked up back in Oregon. Very thoughtful, those calls, but you have to admit they didn’t leave a lot of time to talk about anything in depth.” Which, she had thought at the time, must have been the point.

      Surprise hijacked Nate’s features, and Izzy took the opportunity to wrest the handlebars from his grip. He moved in front of the bike immediately. “That’s what you thought I was doing? Just fulfilling an obligation?”

      “That is what you were doing. Look, Nate,” Izzy chided,

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