Currant Creek Valley

“Don’t worry. I have a feeling you’ll be back.”

First thing that morning, she had called the animal shelter and the two veterinarians’ offices in town but had come up empty. None of her sources had heard anything about a missing chocolate Labrador retriever.

She had shot a picture of Leo with her phone, uploaded it to her computer and then used her limited design skills to come up with a flyer. It was quite creative, if she did say so herself, and she had promptly emailed a copy to several business owners around town, including Claire for String Fever and Maura for Books & Brew.

She needed to find the dog’s owner before she became too attached to the undeniable comfort of having another creature in the house with her.

He had been the perfect companion while she cooked up a storm that morning. He didn’t seem to mind her steady, rather aimless conversation and he even helped clean up the kitchen by snagging a few items she accidentally dropped on the floor while slicing and dicing and sautéing far too much food.

Okay, yes, she had gone a little crazy. She would freely admit it to herself and to any canines within earshot. She had woken after a fractured night’s sleep with vast quantities of restless energy. Naturally, she had turned to the kitchen to expend some of it doing what she did best, cooking.

In her burst of energy, she had made spring soups and casseroles, pastas and chicken dishes.

The marathon cooking session had yielded some very nice results and she couldn’t wait to share the bounty.

She knew exactly what had generated this burst of energy. That kiss. All through those short few hours of sleep, she had dreamed of entwined breaths, of solid, warm arms around her, and had awakened with tousled sheets and this seething, writhing force to do something with her day.

Sam Delgado was an amazing kisser.

She should have guessed he would be from the preliminary work she had seen him do at Brazen. A man who gave such scrupulous attention to detail, such loving care, in one area of his life, likely tended to bring the same concentration and focus to others. When he kissed her, she felt as if nothing else in the world mattered to him but that moment and her mouth and making sure they both took away what they needed.

She blew out a breath as she turned off Currant Creek Valley Road and headed toward the old section of town.

If it were only a kiss, she wouldn’t also have this vague sense of unease, rather like she had when she was a kid and she was about to take on a ski run that was slightly above her capabilities.

She really liked him, that kiss notwithstanding. She hadn’t enjoyed an evening that much in...well, she couldn’t remember when. Sam had been great company, clever and sexy, with a finely wrought sense of humor.

All morning, she had been fighting the temptation to take a quick little drive up the hill to the old fire station on some flimsy excuse, just to see him again.

She imagined him building her kitchen right now, sweaty and hard muscled, that tattoo flexing while he used some scary-looking power tool. Her toes tingled as if she had missed a step racing down for breakfast, as if she stood on the brink of the high dive, prepared to take a plunge into unexplored waters, but she did her best to ignore her purely physical reaction.

She wasn’t about to go to Brazen, no matter how tempting that image...or the man. Instead, she had spent the morning cooking up a storm with a funny dog at her side and now had three dozen meals to show for it. That was certainly a much more constructive outcome than if she had wandered to the restaurant site to moon over something she couldn’t have and shouldn’t want.

The first stop of the day was a small, neat residence around the corner from the house where she had grown up. She pulled into the driveway, where a sweeping, low-hanging branch of the Japanese maple along the drive scraped the top of her SUV. She made a mental note to ask Riley if he could bring his chainsaw over and cut back some of the trees. Pruning should have been done in March but Caroline’s health had been fragile for months and many things slipped off the priority list.

Though the Hope’s Crossing growing season was only just beginning, the gardens Caroline tended with great love and care already looked weedy and overgrown. Her friend would hate that. She probably looked out the window and cringed when she saw the perennials that hadn’t been cut back properly in the fall, the bare spots where she hadn’t planted bulbs.

She would have to ask Claire to add Caroline’s yard to the Hope’s Crossing Giving Hope Day, when the town residents gathered together to help their neighbors in multiple ways. The event was still several weeks away, though. Maybe she could grab her mother, Evie and Claire before then and have a work party to handle some of the more pressing needs.

In the meantime, she had deliveries to make. She opened the back hatch of her SUV and pulled out the first dozen of the meals she had fixed. Leo thrust his brown nose between the seats to watch her out of big, curious eyes.

“Do you want to come?”

He actually moved his head as if nodding, though she knew no dog could be that smart. Her mother would probably consider taking a strange dog into someone else’s home rude but she happened to know Caroline loved dogs. Her own beagle-cross mutt had gone to doggie heaven about four years ago, but Alex had vivid memories of Caroline in overalls and floppy straw hat, working in the garden while her dog looked on.

Cancer could be a bitch. In Caroline’s case, the chemotherapy had messed with her brain chemistry and a series of resulting strokes had left her clinging to her remaining independence with both hands.

She rang the doorbell and waited several long moments. Finally, after knocking again, she tried the knob. It turned in her hand and she pushed open the door.

“Caroline? It’s Alex. Are you home?”

A moment later, she heard a shuffle-shuffle-thud and Caroline’s walker came into view.

“I’m here. Hello, my dear.” Caroline’s voice was a little garbled, as if she spoke through a mouthful of the smooth, shiny stones at the bottom of her goldfish pond.

“Sorry. I was...in the laundry room...moving a load from washer to dryer.”

Every time Alex visited, Caroline’s once-strong frame seemed to have dwindled a little more. She only weighed about eighty-five pounds, her wrists so thin a child could probably circle them with thumb and forefinger.

“I told you I was coming this morning. Why didn’t you wait and let me help you?”

Despite the fact that she could only get around with her walker, had little energy and fought steady pain, Caroline hated to be a bother to anyone.

“It’s enough...that you come to visit. I don’t need you to do for me, too.”

Leo chose that moment to move into the room, sniffing at the legs of one of the stately Queen Anne recliners Caroline favored.

The left side of Caroline’s face lifted in a smile while the right remained immobile. “A dog! I didn’t know...you had a dog!”

“I don’t. Not officially, anyway. I found him running loose downtown last night. I’m just keeping him company until we find his owners.”

“You’re a beauty. Yes, you are.” Leo stood with touching docility as Caroline rubbed his head with one gnarled hand.

For just a moment, she had the crazy idea of leaving the dog with her friend, but reality quickly intruded. That would never work. Caroline could barely take care of herself, try as she might. She couldn’t handle the needs of another living creature right now, though Alex was convinced she was getting better every day.

But if she was going to respond with such enthusiasm, Alex could certainly bring the dog around to visit while he was staying with her.

“You’re a good boy, aren’t you? What’s your name?” Caroline murmured.

“I’ve been calling him Leo. He doesn’t seem to mind it.”

“Why should he? It’s a good name. I had a beau once...named Leo. He ended up marrying my best friend’s little sister and moving to...Grand Junction.”

She kissed her friend’s papery cheek. “Idiot. He didn’t know what he had.”

“Oh, he knew.” Her half smile was mischievous. “I dumped him...long before then. Broke his heart, too, I did.”

“I’ll bet you did, along with dozens of others.”

“Not that many...but a few.” It might have been the way her mouth could only lift partway, but her expression suddenly seemed pensive and almost sad.

Alex couldn’t allow that. “I’ve brought you a few meals for your freezer,” she said, quick to change the subject. “All of them have instructions, as usual, and they’re in individual portion sizes. All you have to do is thaw them first, either in your refrigerator or the microwave, and then heat and eat.”

“You need...to stop doing that.”

“If I don’t do it, my mom will, and we both know I’m a much better cook.”

That wasn’t strictly true, as Mary Ella had fine skills in a kitchen, but it still made Caroline smile, just as Alex had hoped. That shadow of regret and sorrow was gone.

“Besides, you’re the closest thing to a grandmother I have, you know,” Alex said. “My dad’s parents both died before I was born, and my mom’s mother was a cranky old biddy who thought we McKnight kids were hooligans, every one.”

“Weren’t you?” Caroline asked with that mischievous smile again.

“True enough.”

Despite that, Caroline had always welcomed Alex and her siblings to her home. Her first memory of the woman had been probably around kindergarten age, when she had sneaked through Caroline’s garden gate to pick some flowers to give to her mother. If she remembered correctly, she was in trouble with Mary Ella for something or other—nothing new there—and thought the flowers might help smooth things over.

Like most kids, she’d had no concept of abstract things like ownership and had picked indiscriminately until Caroline had finally noticed her and come out to put a stop to her thievery.

Most of the details of that encounter were hazy but she could still remember Caroline’s kindness as the woman had taken the mangled flowers from Alex’s hand, patiently trimmed off the root ends she had tugged up and arranged them into a passably pretty bouquet.

Alex had loved her ever since, stubborn independence aside.

When Alex had returned to Hope’s Crossing bruised and broken and full of secrets, she hadn’t been able to face living at home among the questions. Instead, she had rented Caroline’s now-empty basement apartment at a rock-bottom price. Caroline hadn’t asked questions, she had only offered quiet acceptance, steady love and that riotously beautiful garden that had provided peace and comfort—along with fresh-cut flowers and a seemingly endless supply of fresh-baked banana nut bread.

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