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“Well, she’s fine. A little prone to headaches but otherwise okay,” Michelle said.

“I’m glad,” I said. I really was. I wanted to say something more—it seemed like there was more to that—but it was none of my business.

I checked my phone for the time. I should bring Jack back to Eli and get back upstairs. Half of me was desperate to get the hell out, back to safer territory. Work. More work. Remy for the week, now that Hannah was away at college, and more work.

But the other half wanted to stay exactly on this spot, knowing this time might for sure be the last time I’d see Michelle. It was the same part of me—this stupid, hopeful, naive part I thought I’d buried long ago that squeaked out the thought—it doesn’t have to be.

I could have stayed here, and asked her more questions. Just like I could have asked my brother for Michelle’s number when we’d first met. But I didn’t. It was attraction, that was what I told myself last time, and I didn’t want to be around anyone I was remotely attracted to unless I could be sure it’d be a one-time thing. And I couldn’t be sure of that with Michelle. I sure as hell didn’t want to get involved with anyone. Not since discovering my twenty-year marriage had tanked. Painfully.

Just then Jack shrieked. He’d poured sand from a bucket onto his head and was of course trying to get it off his face with sandy hands. I grabbed him, grateful for the distraction, and brushed the sand off his face before he could make it worse. Once he’d calmed down I hoisted him up on my shoulders.

“Can’t get any trouble up there,” I said.

Michelle was looking at me curiously.

What the hell was I doing? “I… better get Jack back to his uncle,” I said, suddenly wanting to bolt. “I have to get back to work.” I looked up to the building where the symposium was happening. A petite blonde woman stood by the front door, tapping into her phone. She looked up and waved, smiling.

“Shit,” I said, under my breath, giving a non-committal wave back.

The woman was a staffer at Millerville Town Hall. Something in the planning department. Earlier that morning, when I’d made a dry joke about hyping up ice fishing to keep tourists here over the winter, she’d laughed a little too exuberantly. I’d given her a discrete once-over before reminding myself I restricted soulless flings to out-of-towners. Living in a small town, it was the only way of assuring things wouldn’t get complicated.

“You work there?”

“No, I’m the Barkley Falls town manager. I have a… thing here today.”

“Thing?” Michelle glanced over at the woman, who chose that minute to flip her weirdly shiny blonde hair over her shoulder.

Shit again.

“I’m at a tourism conference. Symposium. For attracting more tourists.”

Good one.

Michelle raised an eyebrow. “Is she a tourist?”

“I almost forgot how funny you were,” I said. She’d done this last time, too. Teased me. No, jousted with me. I’d fucking loved it.

This time Michelle laughed. It was a throaty, gorgeous, sound that sent something hot shooting down south.

Luckily, just then, two little girls came running over, shrieking. Michelle’s girls. “Mom!” the bigger one—Emma—said. “Macy isnotletting me tag her every time—”

She stopped talking, staring at me.

“Girls, do you remember Will?” Michelle asked. “He’s here with his friend’s nephew, Jack. Will, this is Emma. And that’s Macy.”

I’d forgotten how Emma looked so shockingly like Michelle, with her brown curls and intense, thickly lashed eyes. She had an attitude to match her mom’s too, as I remembered.

Emma folded her arms, inspecting me.

Yep.

The younger one, clinging to her mom’s leg, was just plain adorable. Big eyes, caramel hair, and an upturned nose. “Hi,” Macy said shyly.

“Of course I remember Gemma and Lacey,” I said.

Emma smiled but tried to hide it, but Macy laughed exuberantly. “Noooo,EmmaandMacy,” she corrected, letting go of her mom and standing with her little hands on her hips.

“That’s what I said, Cagney and Lacey!”