LITMIR.BIZ

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sank in. “Really?”

      He sighed. “Why are you surprised?”

      “You aren’t exactly welcoming. I know you’re doing all this to teach Chase a lesson, so it’s not like you asked me to visit, but you didn’t have to take me out to dinner just because Maya asked you to.”

      “You didn’t have to say yes.”

      “I was hungry.”

      “So was I.”

      * * *

      ZANE KNEW THAT he and Phoebe were no longer talking about the same thing. At least not when it came to hunger. She would be thinking fish and chips, and he was thinking more along the lines of naked.

      He wanted to tell himself it was simply because he was a man and she was a woman, but he knew it was more than that. As he’d admitted, he liked her. She was cute and funny. When she looked at him with her big brown eyes, he wanted to grab Tango and ride his horse into the sunset to save something for her. Talk about idiotic. He barely knew her.

      Yet there was something about Phoebe Kitzke. An innocence, maybe. No, that wasn’t right. It was how she seemed trusting. More fool her. Or maybe him.

      Not that it mattered. Wanting wasn’t having. She was here as Maya’s friend. Possibly to keep watch over him so he didn’t hurt Chase. Because Maya wouldn’t trust him.

      “You’re looking fierce,” Phoebe said.

      Her hair was long and loose. Sexy. He deliberately steered his brain away from that line of thinking.

      “My sister brings out the fierce in me.”

      “Because of how she’s always thinking you’re too hard on Chase?”

      “Maya talks too much.”

      “She says less than you think,” Phoebe told him. “It’s more what she doesn’t say. She worries about Chase.”

      “Everybody does.”

      Phoebe wrinkled her nose. “She worries about you, too.”

      He raised a brow. “I doubt that.”

      Phoebe raised her shoulders, then let them drop back into place. “Okay, maybe she doesn’t say that exactly, but I know she does. We’re friends.”

      “Being friends gives you insight?”

      “Of course. It’s not like being family, but it’s close.”

      “Family can be a pain in the ass.”

      “Maybe,” she said, “but it has to be better than being alone.”

      Maybe if he didn’t feel so responsible for Chase, he would be able to enjoy his brother more. As it was, he walked that precarious line between brother and father figure. He spent half the time annoyed with some of the boy’s boneheaded decisions and the other half worried the kid was going to screw up his own life.

      “An optimist.”

      “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

      “It’s important to be realistic.”

      She leaned toward him. “It’s important to have dreams. To see the possibilities.”

      He’d believed that once, he reminded himself. Before he’d destroyed what mattered most to his father. Before he’d understood that some things were unforgivable. No matter how much a kid tried to make them right.

      Their server came by to take their drink order. Phoebe asked for a glass of red wine while Zane got a beer. When they were alone again, Phoebe leaned toward him.

      “Tell me about Fool’s Gold.”

      “What do you want to know?”

      He was expecting a question about the tourists, or the history. Instead she surprised him by asking, “What do you like best about living here?”

      “It’s what I know.”

      She nodded slowly. “Because you’ve lived here all your life. I get that. You have a connection with the town and the rhythm of the seasons. You probably have friends from when you were really small.”

      He stared at her. “You don’t need me around for this conversation, do you?”

      She laughed. “Sorry. I can get carried away.”

      “That’s okay.”

      “So do you have friends from when you were little?”

      “Sure.”

      She glanced out the window. “I like the window boxes with flowers.”

      “You should see this place at Christmas.”

      Her eyes brightened. “All decorated?”

      “Every inch.”

      “That’s so nice.” She jumped a little in her seat. “Oh, wow. Do you get snow? Are we high enough for snow?”

      “There’s nearly always a white Christmas.”

      He had no idea why he was trying to sell her on the town. While he liked it well enough, he wasn’t looking to join the tourist commission or whatever it was called. What did he care if Phoebe was impressed by Fool’s Gold or not? Yet he found himself wanting her to think it was special.

      Which made him a fool, and for the life of him, he couldn’t say why he was bothering.

      * * *

      C. J. SWANSON REFUSED to look at her husband, Thad. Instead she stared out the window and tried to ignore his words. He didn’t understand...he would never understand. Yes, the problem was with both of them, but somehow she always felt guilty. As if there was something wrong with her.

      “They’re just kids,” Thad was saying. “Why would you want to deprive them of this vacation?”

      “Why is it my responsibility?” she asked before she could stop herself. “Why do I have to be the bad guy? It’s not my fault that the couple going with them had a death in the family. It’s not anyone’s fault.”

      “C.J....” Thad reached out and touched the back of her hand.

      She turned away again. “I can’t. You’re asking too much. What would be the point? We aren’t interested in them. They were horrible. That boy’s a thief, Thad. Have you forgotten? His sister is just as bad. She might not have taken the money, but I would bet you anything she put him up to it.”

      “They’re just kids,” her husband said in his calm, reasonable voice. Normally she appreciated his willingness to see things clearly, without being blinded by emotion, but today he was really getting on her nerves.

      “Con artists, you mean.”

      C.J. tried not to sound bitter, but she didn’t think she was successful. After so many years of trying, after so many disappointments, she felt as if she had finally reached the end of the road.

      She and Thad would never have children. Not their own and not any they adopted. She and her husband loved each other. They had a strong, healthy marriage. That would be enough—she would make it enough.

      Beside her, Thad turned her hand over and laced his fingers with hers.

      “I like them,” he said softly.

      Her chest tightened. Of course he did. Because he was a good man. Because he always rooted for the underdog, whether it was in his personal life or in the courtroom. After fifteen years of practicing law, he’d been appointed to the bench where he could put all his idealistic notions into practice. Her husband, the man whom she had loved since the first moment she’d seen him seventeen years ago, would like a ten-year-old pickpocket and his con artist younger sister.

      She turned her head to study his familiar features. The steady gaze of his blue eyes,

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