This Just In...

He’d needed some family time after this morning’s run-in with Sabrina. Not that anything bad had happened or would happen, but it had unsettled him. He carried Daisy up the stairs and back into the house.

“Mommy, Mommy. Uncle Noah’s here.” Daisy wriggled to be let down.

Noah sent her off with a pat and made his way to the kitchen where he could smell whatever Marissa was cooking for dinner. The scent made his mouth water and reminded him that other than the half scone he’d managed at the morning meeting, he’d had nothing but coffee today.

“Uncle Noah’s here,” Daisy said again before darting out the kitchen door and into the backyard. The door slammed shut behind her.

Marissa sighed and wiped her hands on a dish towel. “Noah.” She came forward to give him a peck on the cheek. “To what do we owe the surprise?”

“Just thought I’d drop in.” His stomach grumbled, giving him away.

She laughed and pulled down another plate. “Put this on the table.”

He did, feeling guilty now that he’d barged in on them. He spent a lot of time at Kyle and Marissa’s house, but sometimes he worried that he was an intrusion on their life. “I brought dessert.” He offered the cardboard box containing cupcakes that he’d bought at the bakery before heading over.

“You didn’t have to do that.” But she looked pleased and accepted the gift. “Kyle’s out back with the kids.”

Noah could hear them all in the backyard. Five-year-old Daisy screeching at the top of her lungs and eight-year-old Paul trying to talk over her. He glanced out and saw Scotty, who’d just turned two, running with them, his little legs pumping to keep up. Kyle stood at the edge of the patio keeping an eye on his brood while the baby, Timmy, slept on his shoulder.

Noah opened the back door and stepped out. Daisy spotted him and let loose another loud cry of happiness before hurtling toward him, hell-bent on hugging him or taking him out at the knees. He picked her up before she could do any real damage. He rarely had trouble with the old knee injury he’d sustained in college hockey, but a determined five-year-old moving at full speed wasn’t a risk he wanted to take.

Kyle grinned when he saw him. “Heard you were here.”

“I wonder who from.” Noah jiggled Daisy until she laughed and then plopped her back down on the grass and moved to stand beside his brother. They were almost the same height and coloring and looked more alike than most siblings.

They watched as the kids tore around the grass. Paul dribbling a soccer ball, sending a gentle pass Daisy’s way. She missed the ball, but cheerfully ran after it, Scotty trailing behind her.

“I talked to Sabrina Ryan today.” Noah broached the subject casually. Though his brother worked at the dealership and Noah could have pulled him aside at any time during the day, it hadn’t felt appropriate. This was a personal matter and should be treated as such. “She wants to interview me.”

“Really?” Kyle turned an interested face toward him. No sign of any discontent or distrust, but then Kyle was like that, friendly and forgiving, like an overgrown puppy. “What for?”

“She’s interviewing the candidates for mayor.”

“Nice.” Kyle clapped him on the shoulder. “When?”

“I didn’t say yes.” Noah ran a hand through his hair and looked to his brother’s face for clues, but found only idle curiosity. “What happened when she interviewed you?”

Although Noah had read the article, they’d never discussed the details. Noah hadn’t wanted to press and Kyle hadn’t seem interested in analyzing it.

“Nothing as exciting as you think.” Kyle shifted Timmy to his other arm. “She called and asked if I’d be willing to talk to her. She said she was trying to make an impression on her boss at the paper. Something about trying to get promoted from intern to a paid position. Apparently, my failure to return to training camp was of interest. So she came out and I told her that I wasn’t going back to camp, but was staying in Wheaton with Marissa.” He patted his infant son’s back.

“Did she know about you two before she got here?”

“Ah, no.” Kyle winced and looked away. “We should have told her before she arrived. It’s not like Sabrina and I were still together. We’d broken up months earlier, but I don’t know. It felt weird. Telling my ex that I was marrying her best friend.”

Noah thought it was weirder that Kyle hadn’t foreseen how things might turn out, but that was all in the past. And despite the fact that Sabrina had blasted his family publicly, Noah felt a pang of sympathy for what must have felt like a betrayal. It was no excuse for splashing their personal business all over the Vancouver Tribune, but it helped Noah understand why she might have done it. “Do you think she’s still mad at you?”

“Sabrina?” Kyle frowned as though the thought had never crossed his mind. “I don’t think so.” He looked up. “You should do the interview.”

“I’m thinking about it.” But every time he started to lean one way, a new thought crept in, made him reconsider.

Marissa cleared her throat behind them. “I wouldn’t be so sure about that. Sabrina didn’t need to throw us under the bus to do her job.” Her blue eyes were frosty. “I’m not saying she’ll do the same to you, Noah, but you should keep it in mind.”

He was, which was why he’d yet to commit.

Marissa looked tired as she waved the kids in. “I just want you to really think about it before you agree. I don’t know what she told you about her reasons for the article, but I can assure you, she’s got an angle.”

“Marissa.” Kyle looked pained. “It was a long time ago.”

She nodded and looked at Noah. “Just be careful around her. Now, can you two handle the kids and their hand-washing?” She took Timmy from Kyle and walked back inside.

Noah was left with his thoughts and a dirty niece and a couple of dirty nephews to wash up.

* * *

SABRINA PULLED INTO her parents’ driveway smelling of coffee grounds, sugar and the milky tea Mrs. Thompson had spilled on her table and then on Sabrina when she’d arrived with a cloth to wipe up the mess.

The spill had been an obvious ploy to ask Sabrina what she thought of their town’s venerable mayor. Apparently, everyone thought their little meeting outside had some romantic overtones and no one had believed her when she’d told them it was a business discussion. Finally, just to shut Mrs. Thompson up, Sabrina had told her that the mayor had a nice butt. Which she’d noticed when he’d bent over to put the coffee in his car.

Only she’d forgotten how quickly a statement like that would spread and she’d spent the rest of the day fielding questions about what other parts of Noah’s body met her approval. Mrs. Thompson had been texting away before Sabrina had even finished wiping up the spill. No doubt the entire town had heard about her appreciation for Mr. Mayor’s butt by now.

And yes, there was her mother coming out the front door with her hands on her hips. “Did you tell Linda Thompson that the mayor has a nice rear?” She asked as soon as Sabrina hopped out of the SUV she’d borrowed from her parents while she was here.

Sabrina found it worked best to deal with these kinds of things directly and succinctly. Some of her former interviewees would have done well to practice that. “Have you taken a good look at it?” She locked the door behind her and tossed the keys into her purse. “Spectacular.”

“Really, Sabrina.”

“Yes, really.” Her feet hurt, her clothes stank, and the last thing she wanted was to have a long and involved discussion about Mr. Mayor’s finer features with her mother. Her heels clacked against the cement driveway, drowning out the sounds of nature. The whine of mosquitoes, bird calls, the rustle of wind through the trees. Sabrina missed the sounds of the urban jungle. Honking cabs, the whoosh of the electric bus, the constant chatter of people on their phones.

Her mother sighed and followed her into the house. “How was the rest of your day?”

“Fine.” Sabrina unzipped her boots and dropped them in a tangle by the front door, grateful to feel the blood rushing back into her toes. She wriggled them a few times to speed the process. All she wanted to do was get clean in a nice, hot bath.

Her mother had other ideas. “Anything interesting happen?”

Besides the fact that it was now a known fact she’d checked out the town’s mayor? “Not really.” Sabrina rolled her neck, letting the ache ease from her shoulders. She was used to sitting in front of a computer all day; standing on her feet, reaching and pulling on the coffee machines worked a whole different set of muscles and she felt the burn. She knew her mother had missed her and just wanted to bond, but she just wasn’t up for it. Not smelling like old tea and dried sugar. “Can we talk later? I need to change.”

“Of course, sweetheart.” Her mother stepped forward to give her a quick hug, but stopped short, her nose wrinkling. “What is that smell?”

“Mrs. Thompson’s tea.” She headed up the stairs, already untucking her shirt. The blood was rushing back into her feet now and the throb worsened with each step. She winced. Apparently, heels weren’t meant to be worn for standing eight hours straight.

Sabrina stripped off her dirty clothes and dropped them in the hamper of her old bedroom. Nothing had changed since she’d left nine years earlier. The same white wainscoting and camel-colored walls. The same white bedspread and bright blue accent chair. The same green topiary on the oak nightstand. She’d even found her old red cowboy boots in the closet.

Of course she’d tried them on. Just to see if they still fit. They did. That was the great thing about shoes. Almost a decade later and they still fit the same way. Her old prom dress? Not so much.

Clad in only her underwear, she pulled her ratty old terry-cloth robe out of the closet. Her chic black silk one with gold embroidery hung beside it, but Sabrina was chilled. Summer temperatures had yet to arrive in Wheaton and her coastal blood was no longer used to the cooler days and nights. She wrapped the old robe tightly around her. It still fit, too. Though nothing else in town did.

Sabrina sank down to the end of her bed and fished her cell phone out of her purse. Time for her weekly call to the Vancouver newspaper. Though she had little hope that this time would be different, that her editor would tell her everything was fixed and that she was to haul her ass back to the city immediately, she called anyway.

Really, the whole thing was ridiculous. She’d written a short article on Jackson James, son of a wealthy developer. She hadn’t wanted to. Although she did interview local celebrities, she didn’t think Jackson qualified, but Jackson’s father was an advertiser—a big advertiser—and her editor had insisted.

Only Big Daddy hadn’t liked it when her article painted his son in a less than golden light. Please, his son was a wannabe playboy with rocks between his ears and Big Daddy’s insistence otherwise was an embarrassment. The whole thing should have just blown over, like other articles she’d written, showcasing her subject in an unflattering light, interest died down quickly and everyone got on with their lives. Except that wasn’t good enough for Big Daddy.

He believed that she’d sullied the family’s good name with innuendos and half truths and he wanted her to pay with her job. Since the paper wanted to keep him happy, a compromise was reached. His dollars were in and she was out.

Sabrina pushed the disappointment away. Just a few more months and either the paper would see the light or Big Daddy would finally ease up. They had to.

The phone rang a couple of times before her editor’s voice mail picked up. She left a message. The same message she always did. Just checking in. Let me know when things change. Call my cell phone.

Her stomach hurt. The first couple of months after her firing, her editor had been quick to take her calls. But lately, she was lucky to get a return phone call. And when she did, the information was always the same. A terse response that there was nothing new to report. She was beginning to worry there never would be.

She pulled her robe around her more tightly. If she didn’t get her job back, then what? Stay here? Shilling coffee and covering small-town politics for the rest of her life? Her parents would be thrilled, but she would not. She was meant for more than this.

She’d only been away for fourteen days and already she craved the late-night clubs, restaurants on every corner, and constant change and movement. People in the city tried new things, new looks, new music.

Residents in Wheaton seemed to have been caught in a time warp. But not the same one. There was no overarching style that permeated the town, so it didn’t look like a throwback to any specific era. Instead, people remained trapped in whatever look had been current at the time of their high school graduation. Sabrina was pretty sure she saw an old classmate wearing the same Ugg boots she’d worn all through high school. Her own mother was still known to rock the big pageant hair of the ’80s for special events. Mrs. Thompson had been wearing the same baby-blue sweater set she’d worn when she was Sabrina’s third-grade teacher.

Sabrina pushed herself off the bed and padded down the hall to the guest washroom that had been hers when she was growing up. Not much had changed in Wheaton since she’d been gone and not much had changed in the bathroom, either, including the potpourri her mother favored. She considered throwing it away, but the dried petals would no doubt flutter all over the tile and then she’d be on her hands and knees picking them up one by one.

Instead, she turned on the faucet, adjusted the temperature until she was happy and let the tub fill up. When the water neared the top she twisted her hair into a knot on top of her head, slipped off her robe and underwear, and slid beneath the surface, a sigh sliding out from her lips. This might be the one thing she’d missed. In the city, her apartment bathrooms had either a shower alone or an old tub that even she, at five feet four and a half inches, couldn’t fit in comfortably.

Sabrina stretched, letting the water sluice over her and feeling her muscles unkink. She still needed to figure out how to convince Noah Barnes that she only wanted to interview him, not make a federal case. But apparently the Barnes family was still holding on to old grudges.

Wasn’t there a statute of limitations on these things? It was nine years ago, for God’s sake. She shoved down the bubble of guilt that tried to rise. One more reason to get out of here. No one in Vancouver made her feel guilty or as though she’d done something wrong when all she’d done was report the truth.

The whole thing had started out so innocently. Sabrina had been taking journalism classes at the University of British Columbia and trying to find a way to finagle an internship at the Vancouver Tribune, the city’s broadsheet. But a university freshman with a few articles written for her local hometown paper the previous year was hardly the kind of student they were looking to groom.

Until Kyle, an early-round draft pick in the NHL’s draft, had injured his back at practice and herniated a disc. He’d been sent for surgery and then permitted to go home for recuperation and physiotherapy. Except Kyle had never come back.

Normally, an early-round player who crapped out before ever playing a game at the pro level wouldn’t do more than cause a brief mention on one of the morning talk shows. But Kyle had been drafted to Vancouver and he was a B.C. boy, so fans were interested. And Sabrina knew she could get the inside scoop.

Though she and Kyle hadn’t kept in touch after their breakup, she knew he’d agree to her interview and he had, willingly. No arm-twisting required. She’d flown home, expecting to find that Kyle, who’d been a naturally gifted athlete if a somewhat lackadaisical player, had simply decided he wasn’t interested in the work necessary to rehab his back to professional-sport caliber. Or he’d been one of the unlucky ones for whom the surgery didn’t mean full recovery.

She’d never expected that he was staying in Wheaton for Marissa. Or that her best friend was already pregnant with his baby. Her best friend and her ex-boyfriend. Together.

Sabrina hadn’t cared that Kyle had moved on. They’d never been anything serious. But Marissa? Her best friend since they’d met in ballet class as three-year-olds? The one who’d come to visit her for a few days over the holidays before they’d flown home together to spend Christmas with their families in Wheaton? That had stabbed.

So she’d let all her feelings seep onto the page. Snotty and snarky and cutting. How sad that Kyle had given up a promising career. What a shame the whole situation was. She’d never explicitly stated that Marissa was expecting, but anyone with half a brain could read between the lines.

She’d meant to hurt and she’d been successful. By the time her mad wore off and she wondered if she’d taken things too far, the choice had no longer been in her hands. The editor at the paper loved it, ran it as the cover article in the sports section and Sabrina was hired on part-time.

Sabrina shook the old memory off. That was the past and she couldn’t change things now. And right now, she just wanted to enjoy her soak.

She wet a washcloth and laid it across her eyes, sinking down until the water touched her chin. Her eyes shut and her mind quieted. It felt good.

Sabrina was sure she’d only just closed her eyes when a knock startled them open. She pulled the washcloth off, blinking away the wetness on her eyelashes. “Yes?”

“Dinner’s almost ready, sweetheart.”

“Thanks, Mom.” Sabrina climbed out of the tub, noting the water was far cooler than when she’d entered, and toweled off. Back in her room, she pulled on a pair of cute yoga pants and matching hoodie. Just because she was in the boonies was no reason to look like it.

She glanced at her cell phone as she pulled on a pair of warm socks, but she had no new messages. Tucking away the hurt that no one had called her—not her editor, not her friends, not even the mayor—she put the phone back on the nightstand. They were busy, that was all. Unlike her, they still had vibrant lives.

It was probably too much to hope for a call from the mayor’s office anyway. Even though he’d seemed to be considering her proposal, Sabrina didn’t think he was the type to make a snap decision. She resolved to call him first thing tomorrow morning. She couldn’t fix the mess back in Vancouver, but she could get her interview with Noah Barnes. Surely he could see that the interview would benefit him as much as her. And if not, she’d tell him.

Feeling marginally positive that things would soon be going her way, she headed downstairs to dinner with her parents.

CHAPTER THREE

THE MAYOR WAS being difficult. Luckily, Sabrina had worked with difficult interviewees before. The hockey player who’d cancelled three times before she’d finally shown up outside the arena after practice like a groupie and done the interview while his hair was still wet. The singer who’d appeared an hour late, hung over from the night before and answering most of her questions with requests for a cigarette. The actor who’d insisted on staying in character, accent included. All had ended in successful columns for Sabrina.

She knew how to get what she wanted. And she wanted this interview.

Since their meeting in the parking lot on Monday, she’d had two other opportunities to talk to Noah in person, both instances as she was making his espresso. On each occasion, he’d nodded politely and told her he would get back to her. The four times she’d called his office, she hadn’t even managed to get him on the phone. His assistant had acted as a gatekeeper and brushed her off with the now familiar story that he was in a meeting or out of the office.

But Sabrina was pretty sure he couldn’t avoid her if she showed up on his doorstep. Not that she was turning into some creepy stalker who would wait outside his house and pounce the minute he showed his face. No, she had more couth than that. She was moving in across the hall. Far less creepy.

She’d known her parents owned an income property, half of a pretty little duplex in town, but she hadn’t known Mr. Mayor called the other half home and, upon learning this tidbit, she’d convinced them—okay, there might have been a teensy-weensy bit of begging involved—to let her move in. Their previous tenants had moved out a couple of months earlier and the apartment had been sitting vacant. Sabrina didn’t believe in astrology or fate, but her stars? Those were aligned.

She wondered if Mr. Mayor was a briefs or boxers man. Really, it was the kind of investigative journalism that readers would want to know. Her cheeks warmed.

“What are you thinking about, sweetheart?” Her dad interrupted her thoughts.

“Just excited to be getting my own space.” She rolled down the window. Mr. Mayor wasn’t even her type. She preferred the slightly dangerous bad boys. The ones who demanded rather than asked and kissed a woman so hard that she popped right out of her shoes.

“You haven’t even seen the inside yet.”

Although it was now Friday and she’d talked them into letting her use the apartment on Monday, she hadn’t had a chance to come out until now. The coffee shop had been busy all week as tourists began spilling into town for the start of the summer rush. Sabrina had worked two double shifts already and in the few hours she’d had off, she’d been at the newspaper office getting to know the staff and preparing for her interview with Pete.

But she didn’t need to see the inside to know the apartment was going to be perfect. Already, she could picture curling up in a cozy corner with a book, setting up her computer somewhere other than her bedroom and lingering over a cup of coffee on her mornings off without interruption.

At her parents’ house, she sat at the same dining chair that had been hers since she was old enough to scramble up on it, slept in the same twin bed that she’d graduated to after toddlerhood and had to share the remote for the TV.

It wasn’t that she didn’t love her parents. She did. A lot. But she’d lived on her own for the past nine years—except that one period when she’d had a roommate who spent the entire six months on the couch leaving crumbs on the cushions and smoking a bong. Never again. Sabrina was used to having privacy, playing the music she liked and watching various iterations of Real Housewives without having to justify herself to anyone.

Her father smiled as they cruised through town. Probably because he and her mother were now certain that Sabrina would be staying in Wheaton long-term. She’d heard them talk about it through the wall in her bedroom last night. Apparently, her fib about writing that book hadn’t fooled them. But there was another more important reason to get out and into her own place. The discussion about her future hadn’t been the only thing she’d heard from her parents’ room last night.

Logically, Sabrina knew they were still young and vibrant and sexually active, but she really didn’t need proof of that fact. Ever. Again.

“Here we are.” Her father pulled into a long driveway and parked in front of the house. “Ready?”

Ready? Sabrina was already out of the car and heading up the stairs that led to the long wraparound porch and front door. She hadn’t seen the place in over a decade but it was just as cute as she remembered. From the front it appeared to be a single dwelling with three steps that led to the blue front door.

Matching sets of French doors, one on either side of the main door, opened to the porch, as well. In its original state, the house had been built for one family and the doors led to a pair of sitting rooms and could be opened to catch the summer breeze. Now they provided porch access for each apartment occupant without needing to go through the entry and front door.

They were missing the artful iron vines she was used to seeing on large glass doors and windows in the city, but then security wasn’t such a concern here. Sabrina had been shocked to find her parents still didn’t lock their doors. And not just during the day when they happened to be at home. All the time, day, night, in or out.