“Cool,” she muttered to herself. But she had no desire to be anywhere near them. She sat on the porch swing and listened to the barking, the whistling, the quiet, rinse and repeat.

She put her kitten in the carrier to keep her out of mischief while she was gone, packed up her computer and drove to town.

Given it was midafternoon, there were only a few people in Jack’s Bar. He called out her name, greeting her, and even though it had only been a couple of days it had much the feel of Cheers—friendly and familiar. She went to the bar for a Diet Coke, found a table in the corner away from the door and bar, and opened up her computer.

She forced herself to write one page of her novel. She was desperate to make some progress and the best way she could think of was to toss a dead body in there. To make it interesting, the body had several bullet wounds and was discovered by one of her favorite recurring characters—a seventy-eight-year-old woman, a busybody with a fierce interest in forensics.

Then she flipped over to the other document.

The last thing she had any interest in was a man or a romantic encounter. She noticed that Landon spent a lot of time outdoors with his horses and his garden. She couldn’t help but see him. A lot of him. The way his jeans fit seemed to be particularly appealing, not that she was checking him out. She told herself she wouldn’t have noticed the jeans if it hadn’t been for his lovely personality. He was so comfortable around her, so accommodating and affable. His eyes were so shockingly blue and his smile both frequent and engaging. When he smiled at her she felt her pulse pick up a little. She couldn’t help but watch him when he was in sight.

She wondered if they might become friends while she lived in his guesthouse. And she hoped to become better friends with the bartender and his wife—they were so kind and generous, not to mention fun.

“Hey, it’s the fire girl,” someone said. She looked up to see Mike, the guy who had been behind the bar the first night she was in town. She had since learned that he was Jack’s brother-in-law and lived next door to Mel and Jack. Today he was wearing a badge on his belt. “The writer.”

“We’re going to have to go with names and not reputation,” she said, sticking out her hand. “Kaylee Sloan.”

“Mike Valenzuela, how you doing?”

“Great,” she said. “I didn’t know you were the police.”

“Constable for this town. How’s the new place?”

“It’s very nice,” she said. “Just what I was looking for since the Templeton house is off the market. I’m lucky—it was just a lucky break.”

“Have you heard from the Templetons?”

“Not since I talked to him right after the fire. Gerald said he’d give me a call once he learned more about the cause. He thinks he’ll have to come up here and plan some repairs. He or one of his sons.”

The door opened and a tall man came in and walked toward Mike and Kaylee. “Hey there,” he said. “I think I saw you at the fire. I’m Paul Haggerty.”

She recognized him as one of the many men gathered around the dregs of the fire. “Kaylee Sloan.”

“Did I hear you say the Templetons were friends of yours?”

“That’s right. I was going to use their house for a few months.”

Paul pulled a card out of his pocket. “Next time you talk to Gerald, tell him I’m hoping for a chance to bid on the remodel. I have a construction company in town. He knows me, but I don’t know if he’ll remember I’m a builder. I do a lot of remodels and upgrades around here.”

“I’ll be sure to pass that on.”

“Thank you. Are you doing okay?”

“She’s renting that extra house out at Landry’s,” Mike said.

“It’s nice out there. I helped Landry tear out a wall in the big house and he works with me from time to time.”

“Oh, this is the girl from the fire,” someone else said.

Over the next hour she chatted with Connie, the owner of the Corner Store; Noah, the minister; Colin and Luke Riordan, names she’d heard before, and then of all people to drop by, Landry came in, greeting her as if they were old friends. There was a lot of hand shaking and howdies, a couple of beers, a couple of sodas, a black coffee. Mel came in to take her afternoon break with her husband. Kaylee met the cook, Preacher, and his wife. Before she realized what had happened, she’d been in the bar for two hours and the place was beginning to fill up with construction workers or farmers or people from businesses around town.

At five Jack asked her if she was staying for dinner. “Not tonight,” she said. “I have a kitty to feed.”

“Something to go?”

She’d been to the store; she did a mental inventory of what she had on hand, but somehow it didn’t create a picture of a meal in her mind. “A salad to go?” she asked.

“Sure. Can I give you a chicken breast with that?”

“Absolutely,” she said. “And a hunk of bread?”

“You got it.”

A few minutes later she made her way out of the bar with her sack of takeout. She had noticed that Landry left just before she did and when she got home she saw that he was in the fenced yard with the dogs. He waved to her.

“You need anything, Kaylee?” he shouted.

She lifted her bag. “I’m all set, thanks.”

“Have a great night,” he yelled.

“You, too,” she called out, waving.

Now, that wasn’t such a big deal. Just neighbors being friendly, that’s all. But there was much about him to enjoy, not the least of which was his kindness. He didn’t have to ask if she needed anything. He was also handsome. And sexy. And right next door.

She fed her kitty, ate her salad, put on her pajamas and sat on the big bed with her laptop. The sun was setting but she had not achieved much by way of writing, so she opened the laptop while the kitty played beside her on the bed, frequently jumping onto the laptop keys. She forced herself to deal with the dead body in the story, though nothing could have interested her less.

Then she flipped over to that other document, to the fantasy world of her new fictional characters Caroline and Landon. She decided that her own life story lacked pizazz so she made a few adjustments for Caroline. Instead of grieving the loss of her best friend, she decided it would be more interesting if Caroline was a young widow and no one in her new town knew the details.

The only job she could find was a temporary position as an assistant to a producer who happened to be shooting a docudrama in the small town she chose for her escape, for her second chance. It was nothing but busywork, handing out scripts, setting up chairs for a reading, making sure everyone had what they needed, whether that was a coffee or a masseuse. Once, just a few days into her new job, the director stopped her and said, “Do us a favor and read this scene.”

“But I don’t act,” Caroline said.

“No problem, we’re not looking for acting from you. Just read so my leading man can do his thing. It’s only a rehearsal. And he needs it.”

“Okay,” Caroline said. “But don’t hold it against me.”

“Of course not.”

There were about ten people total around the set. She could fake it. She took the script, gave it a quick read, understood the emotion and pauses, silences and outbursts. It was all of two pages. She stood before the outrageously attractive leading man. He gave her a reassuring smile, coincidentally just like Landon’s.

They began. It was an argument that would end with her in tears and him putting his arms around her to reassure her. She accused him of being interested in a woman named Carla, snapped back when he tried to make excuses, stood speechless before him while he fought back, and then (because it said so in the script), she began to cry and fuss about the pain his indifference caused.

The small set was on location in the woods, and when the rehearsal of the short scene was at an end, there was a deafening silence all around. Stillness. Everyone was frozen.

Caroline wiped away the tears she had forced. She had wanted to cooperate as well as possible, after all. She looked around. Silence and open mouths faced her.

“Well, holy shit,” the director said. “I’ve never seen anything like that.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Was it terrible?”

“Terrible? Darling, you’re an actress,” the leading man said.

She came back to reality and stopped typing.

Crap, Kaylee thought. Why can’t I fantasize like normal people? The next door neighbor waves at you and you write a scene that reeks of romance and yearning. That’s not normal.

I think it’s adorable, her mother’s voice said. What can it hurt?

“A man is the last thing I’m looking for,” she said aloud.

Whatever. He seems like a pleasant distraction.

“Hush, now. You know that’s not what I want.”

But she played around with that scene, went back to the beginning of this totally outrageous story and reset it, giving it a proper beginning, and typed for three hours. Kitty fell asleep next to her and when she couldn’t keep her eyes open any longer she closed the laptop. She slept like that, a laptop and a kitten sharing her space on the bed.

She slept well and with a smile.

4

THE UPSIDE TO being known as the girl from the fire was, she was not considered a stranger. She might be learning the names of the folks around town and their connections to each other slowly, but they all had her down. No matter where she went—on her daily walk, shopping, stopping at the vegetable stand, hanging out at Jack’s—she was greeted as if she were a friend. And because of the fire, she had a history here. There was something comforting about that.

She was still feeling a little lonely, especially in the evenings. This was naturally time she would either phone her mother to share events of the day or maybe she’d drive the few miles from her apartment to her mom’s house. They often ate dinner together. There was no changing that history so she often reached out to some of her friends who were not yet sick to death of her grieving and would talk to her, FaceTime with her.