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I shifted carefully so she could sit down without us smashing together again. As much as I wanted that to happen. At that moment, I wanted nothing more than to wrap her in my arms and tell her… what, that I was sorry her life had been so hard? That I would have given anything to know her earlier, to be able to protect her from all the looky-loos on her blog?

“I didn’t know how serious that appointment had been,” I said instead. “That day I first met you. I should have asked.”

Her eyes flashed with that darkness again, then she straightened her shoulders and looked away. “I wouldn’t have told you. I didn’t want to tell anyone. That’s why I wrote the blog post. Easier to say it once, you know?”

“Michelle?” I asked as the band began shuffling back on stage. The lead singer hooked a guitar strap over her neck and a few people cheered.

She looked me in the eye, her sharp gaze a challenge.

I didn’t back down from challenges.

“Does the blog make you happy?”

She stiffened. “Of course it does.”

I didn’t say anything. In business school I learned that one of the best techniques to get people to reconsider their position was to allow silence. I wasn’t negotiating with Michelle, but I didn’t believe her.

I knew she didn’t either.

“It was therapeutic for me to write everything down,” she said, “and it was good for me to have a record of the life Joe and I had together, for the girls. Now—well, I love food, and showing people how to make delicious food.”

That didn’t mean she liked the direction her blog had shifted. I couldn’t help but think of a ship drifting off course.

“Did you always want to write a food blog?”

Michelle huffed. “No. I used to want to run a restaurant.” She softened for a minute. “A romantic Italian place. I’d keep the menu small. Serve the dishes my grandmother taught me, with farm-fresh local ingredients.” Then she glanced over at me, her face flushing.

“It’s not too late,” I said. “If it’s what you want.”

“No. That was a pipe dream. A restaurant is a ton of work, and I have the girls to look after.”

It might be. But there were ways around it, I knew. I helped businesses set up in the town all the time. And with all the new tourist programming we were planning a cozy Italian restaurant would kill here. I opened my mouth to tell her that when she folded her arms and fixed her gaze on me.

“What doyouwant anyway?” Michelle asked. She was being defensive.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“You’ve been the town manager forever, right? You said yourself you have ideas for the place. Why aren’t you making them happen?”

A flicker of anger ran through me. She was lashing out, that was all. But there was something in there that stung. “Iammaking them happen. I can get a lot of shit done with my job. I do, every day.”

She raised an eyebrow.

But the lights dimmed before I could say anything else.

She’d won that one. Despite the finger she’d pressed in my wound, I couldn’t help but admire her. Hell, more than admire her. I wanted to keep going. To keep doing this. To spar with her, to go out on dates like this with her.

To wrap my arm around her and know this was where I wanted to be.

The last dregs of my irritation drained away, and as the band launched into a song, I sat back, settling into the seat, thinking about the woman sitting next to me with something aching in my chest, wishing things could have been different for both of us.

9

Michelle

“Okay, this one’s definitely going to make it,” I said to Emma, Macy, and Reese, who sat at the kitchen table on the edge of their seats.

I shook the frying pan hard and the pancake inside flew up, did an arc, and… landed half in the pan and half on the floor in a surprisingly loudsplat.