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“For her? What about for us? Especially you. You don’t know how to not get attached, Sin. I love that about you. You’re all in. But we can’t ignore our own needs to try and make her comfortable, either. I say let’s see what unfolds naturally.”

“But we’ve been here two years and I’ve never seen her. Not once. How is anything gonna unfold if we don’tnaturallycross paths?”

Enzo took another forkful of food and gave me a speculative glance. A wicked twinkle entered his dark eyes. “Maybe she’ll break into our house again.”

“You’re not interested in her,” I surmised. “Is that it?”

Something had to be the reason for his detached approach to this. Or maybe I really was being too much of a lover boy to see this from his pragmatic point of view.

“Sin,” he sighed and the sound sent a dreadful tendril of angst through me. “That’s not it, I always want you to have?—”

His landline rang and clipped that sentence. We both stared at the phone as it rang a second time.

“I can ignore it,” he offered, but he was already spinning in his chair to get closer to it.

“It’s fine,” I excused, rising to my feet. “Take it. I’m gonna go for a drive.”

The phone rang again and Enzo split his gaze between me and the black device. “Are we okay?”

“Of course.” I smiled, bracing my hands on the desk to lean closer to him. “Kiss me before I go.”

Relief seemed to wash over him at my request and he obliged me, letting our lips meet in a quick kiss before I pulled away.

“I love you,” I said over my shoulder.

His response came before I could pull the door closed behind me. “I love you too, Sin. More than you’ll ever know.”

“Ms. Ruby,I can’t take all these nectarines.”

“’Course you can, honeybee. There’s plenty where that came from and we’ll have even more next week,” she told me with a proud smile, not caring that my arms were weighed down with her offering.

I visited Ruby’s fruit stand at least twice a week, and she never failed to send me away with enough produce to feed a small family, even though she knew it was just me.

But today took the cake. It was officially nectarine season and she took one look at me when I got out of my van and shoved two baskets in my arms.

“You’re too sweet.”

“We take care of each other here. You ain’t used to it yet?” Her smile deepened as she fisted her hands at her chunky waist.

She reminded me of my grandmother, down to her aggressively kind demeanor and full figure. She was everything I wanted to be as I aged: firm, kind and someone who cared deeply for people even if they were strangers.

And that made me remember my run in from two days ago…

“Ms. Ruby, I have a question.”

“I got an answer, honeybee.”

I smiled at the pet name she’d given me right out the gate. She said my blonde hair reminded her of a bee and hadn’t stopped calling me that since. I wasn’t sure she actually knew my real name and I was okay with that.

“I met three men the other day and I was wondering if you’ve heard of them.” Of course, I knew she’d heard of them. Ruby knew everyone in Bliss Peak. She even knew ofmebefore I ever made my first visit to her roadside fruit stand.

The other woman looked down the bridge of her nose at me, waiting for me to go on.

“Sincere, Lorenzo and Romeo. I don’t know their last names, but they live near the lake?—”

“In a house straight out of a magazine?” Ruby finished for me, nodding vigorously. She swatted a few flies away from her inventory and looked at me with a curious tilt of her head. “Yea, I know them. They keep to themselves out there in the woods. What you want with ’em?”

Her question made me giggle and I fought to readjust the fruit in my arms without spilling anything. “I don’twantanything with them, I’ve never seen them before and I guess I was feeling nosy.”