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Plus, she’d be terrified that one of you would ask too many questions.
“But Josh, you have to admit, the pies aren’t working,” Chad said. “You need a new strategy to win her over.”
“Why don’t you bring her flowers?” his sister suggested. “Or a baby goat? We have three that are just weaned. You could stop by the barn and pick one out. They’re so cute.”
Josh stared around the kitchen at his brothers and sister. He wanted what they had—futures filled with love and family. (Although he’d probably bypass the barn full of rescue animals on a piece of land adjoining his family homestead.)
But he was done playing games. He’d been up front and honest with Caroline. They talked over pie. He knew about her past. Or at least enough about what she’d been through to know she needed time. But more than that, he’d gotten to know her.
She liked ice cream with apple pie. Her humor tended toward dry and sarcastic—which matched his. And she shared his fascination for how things worked—everything from her dishwasher to the mechanical harvester he operated when cutting down trees.
“One of the things I like about Caroline,” he told his siblings as he headed for the back door. “She’s not playing some weird game, waiting for me to bring her flowers or, shit, a baby goat. Pregnancy is messing with your mind if that’s your dating advice, Katie. Now, I’m going to take a shower.”
He stormed out of the kitchen. But paused on the back steps and called over his shoulder: “And don’t touch my pie!”
Walking to his space over the barn, he couldn’t escape the feeling that his brothers and sister might be right. Not about the damn goat or his plan for trying to date her. Still, he wanted to settle down. And instead of dating, he’d spent the past year baking for a woman struggling to get her life back on track. He knew for a fact that life offered second chances, but Caroline seemed
too afraid to take hers.
Maybe it was time that he stopped waiting for her to make the next move. Maybe he should ask her out.
Today.
Over key lime pie.
CAROLINE HEARD THE engine rev before the motorcycle turned the corner of the two-lane country road leading into town. And she ran for the bushes. Ducking low in the underbrush, she waited for the bike to fly by her.
Not a cop.
The Forever, Oregon, police force wasn’t large. And only a few of the officers rode motorcycles. But still, she had to be careful. Although watching her back, refusing to borrow her boss’s car for fear of getting pulled over, led to long walks from her borrowed room in Noah’s childhood home just outside of town to her job at Big Buck’s Bar—on the opposite side of downtown Forever.
Sometimes Noah’s dad gave her a ride to town. And once in a while, her boss stopped by to pick her up. But the house was out of his way now that Noah and Josie had a place of their own.
And if Caroline had any hope of getting her life back on track, of moving on, then she probably needed to stop hiding in the bushes every time a car came down the road.
She dusted off her blue jeans and climbed out of the brush. Back on the shoulder of the road—she wouldn’t hit sidewalks until she reached the university on the outskirts of Forever—she started walking with her backpack slung over one shoulder.
Another car came around the corner and she dove for the trees. But this time she wasn’t fast enough. The vehicle slowed to a stop in the middle of the road. And her stomach turned over as dread put her nerves on high alert.
But one look and her panic eased. She knew that truck and she recognized the woman leaning out the window, her long blond hair whipping across her face.
“Caroline,” Lily Greene called out. “Want a ride?”
She glanced at the blue pickup, which belonged to Lily’s boyfriend, Dominic Fairmore. On any other Saturday, she would have climbed into the truck. Lily—a Forever, Oregon, native, kindergarten teacher extraordinaire, and for a few weeks most Big Buck’s patrons would rather forget, bartender—knew Caroline’s secrets. And Lily still grappled with her own set of fears, though she now faced them with Dominic by her side.
But today Dominic wasn’t riding shotgun. Caroline didn’t recognize the man in the passenger seat. She knew the uniform though—air force dress blues.
“I can walk—”
“Ryan won’t mind making room,” Lily said as she guided the truck over the shoulder on the opposite side of the road.
“But you’re headed out of town,” she protested again. Lily might trust the man in uniform, but Caroline couldn’t take that risk.
“We’ll drop Ryan at his parents’ place first and then I’ll take you to Big Buck’s. I’m guessing you have plenty of time before you need to be at work.” Lily nodded to the passenger door. “Come climb in.”
Lily Greene, I’m never sharing a plate of Josh’s brownies with you again.
Lily knew damn well she had plenty of time. She’d planned to walk to work. “Lil, I don’t want to take you out of your way. And I need to get in early. I fell behind on the dishes last night,” she lied.
