speak slowly and calmly, even when things were in chaos.
Though Melody had cheerfully held a job to help see Kyle through medical school, her true passion in life was making a home, baking cookies, sewing gingham curtains and refinishing antique furniture.
The happiest day of her life was the day she’d brought their new daughter home from the hospital. He knew she had dreams of playgrounds and PTA meetings.
But that was not to be. Kyle grit his teeth until he could feel the pulse in his jaw.
A drunk driver had taken all that away from her—from them. Kyle had wanted to give them so much. What else had he been working so hard for?
But his window of opportunity had been taken from him before he’d even had the opportunity to give them a tenth of what they deserved. One man’s bad decision had robbed him of a lifetime with his wife and daughter.
So while Kyle had no doubt it was a compliment to him that the older women staring so openly at him considered him dating material for a young woman like Gracie Adams, the Women’s League would have to look elsewhere to pair her up.
With a grimace he shifted his gaze—and his attention—back to Gracie, who continued to glide from table to table, catching up with the latest news and gossip from old friends.
Gracie caught Kyle’s tolerant gaze for a moment, then turned to the next table, glad Kyle was so easygoing about her taking a few minutes with her friends.
She especially wanted to have a moment to chat with Constance Laughlin before rejoining her handsome lunch partner. She wouldn’t say she was avoiding Kyle exactly, but the space to catch her breath was doing her a bit of good.
“Constance. I didn’t know you frequented Harry’s,” Gracie said, leaning down to give the dear middle-aged woman a hug and a kiss on her cheek.
Constance flashed her the same wide-eyed, guilty gaze of a child caught with her hand stuck squarely in the middle of a cookie jar. Dual slashes of pink flushed high on her prominent cheekbones, and she shook her sleek, bob-cut black hair in immediate denial.
Gracie had been half-prepared to be the one to field the question about her handsome male lunch companion, the topic at nearly every other table she’d visited.
But Constance hadn’t even appeared to notice. At least not yet.
Which could only mean something else was going on. Something bigger.
She lifted her head and scanned the small restaurant, more than a little curious what that something could be, but nothing looked out of the ordinary, except perhaps the sparkling eyes of Dr. Kyle Hart. He winked and smiled at her, and her heart missed a beat, then raced like mad to make up for it.
Gracie scowled. The man was far too handsome for his own good. And what was worse, he looked as if he knew something she didn’t, something that was amusing him greatly.
For some reason, that annoyed her. And of course, he knew it.
Pursing his lips against his smile, Kyle briefly nodded his head in the direction of the front counter, then slid into the nearest booth.
Again he made the merest nod, then punctuated his gesture with another friendly wink.
Frowning, she turned to see what Hart found so humorous, and spotted Harry Connell, the kitchen’s owner, in a muted, heads-down conversation with none other than Nathan Taylor, Safe Harbor’s resident mystery man. He had appeared out of nowhere one day, but had been regularly spending weekends in the small town.
Constance’s guilty countenance suddenly made perfect, and very romantic, sense. Gracie felt her heart whirl and turn all aflutter as she turned back to her friend, placing her knuckles on the table between them and leaning in with a conspiratorial air.
“Constance Laughlin,” Gracie whispered through her teeth, though never losing her smile, “did you have something you wanted to tell me?”
Constance batted her lips and swallowed hard, but the only thing she uttered was a squeak.
“You wouldn’t be here with Nathan, now would you, dear?”
Constance’s eyes widened and her hands flared up in denial, but after a moment she sighed and leaned back in her seat, clearly resigned to the inevitable.
Gracie laughed, her gaze straying to Kyle for a moment before looking back at her friend. “You know as well as I do you’re practically announcing your engagement to the man just by being seen here with him. You know how the gossip mill in this town works.”
Constance’s face fell, and Gracie slid in beside her in the booth, putting her arm around her dear friend and giving her a hug, feeling instantly contrite for her words. “You know I’m just joking with you, hon. No one cares if you want to have lunch with Nathan, and it’s nobody’s business but yours, anyway.”
Constance nodded, but there were tears in her eyes. “I know. I just—” Her voice cracked and she fell silent.
“Nobody’s rushing you,” Gracie assured her, feeling a surge of almost matriarchal tenderness that was at odds with their varying ages. “Besides, I’m definitely playing the trump card on today’s lunch hour.”
She gestured toward the booth where Dr. Hart was lounging, watching them both with an amused gaze. “Nathan Taylor may be a good-looking man, but why don’t you take a gander at my lunch date? Talk about setting the tongues wagging…”
“Dr. Kyle?” Constance let out a teenagelike giggle and flickered her fingers at Kyle, whose dark eyebrows shot up into his hairline before he hastily responded with a wave of his own. “Are you telling me that hunk of M.D. is taking you out to lunch?”
She laughed. “I’m taking him to lunch.”
“Same difference,” Constance crooned, her expression only freezing for a second when Nathan slid into the booth across from them. He flashed Constance a special, private smile, her gaze flared for a moment, and a cockeyed sense of normalcy resumed.
“No, it’s important that you realize I’m not accepting anything from Hart.” Gracie was quick to defend her way of thinking. Speaking helped her feel less like she was intruding on a special moment between two people, which was how she felt when Nathan and Constance looked at each other. “Trust me, there’s no fodder for the gossip mill in this room.”
Constance flicked her a look that indicated she didn’t believe a word of it.
“Kyle and I have a purely platonic relationship.” She was about to go on and say she’d been the one to invite Kyle to lunch, but then she realized it wasn’t true. She might flatter herself that she was the one paying at the end of the meal, but…
He had asked her.
A shiver ran through her. She had insisted on paying the tab in order to keep some distance between them. She wasn’t sure how she felt about Hart taking the initiative.
Constance, seeing her hesitance, chuckled and gestured to Kyle. “Don’t you think you ought to return to your friend?” she asked under her breath. “Look at him over there all by his lonely self. You wouldn’t want him to get bored and leave without you.”
Gracie
