With Daisy in the crook of his arm, George paused at the top of the stairs that led from the apartment down to the shop, took a deep breath of morning air, and nearly burst out singing. After wrangling over the price for weeks, he’d finally bought a project car. He’d take possession in about a month, after the O’Neill brothers switched out the engine. Restoring the rest of the vehicle would keep him busy for months more—once he’d found a secure garage for the project. And then …

He imagined himself at the wheel, cruising Main while the monster engine made that long black hood vibrate with pent-up power. Or he’d take the car cross country for the pleasure of turning it loose on a deserted stretch of highway out west. Or he’d take it to classic car rallies closer to home and have the chicks falling all over him.

Because a man who took his mother’s ridiculous dog everywhere he went was an irresistible chick magnet.

With a rueful grin, he carried Daisy down the stairs. While she did her business on his scrap of lawn, he studied the parking area and brooded over his situation.

His van stood there, an ugly but reliable workhorse. A ding in the side panel wrinkled the M in Antiques on Main so it looked more like Nain. That didn’t bother him, though. Nor did the trees that rained their junk down on the van. But when it came to his project car … That baby deserved a proper sanctuary. But he couldn’t even start the project until he had garage space.

He shouldn’t have been in such a hurry to sell his mother’s house, but it was too late now. Two years and two owners too late. And the new owner, rumor had it, was something to be reckoned with.

The jingling of Daisy’s tags jolted him out of his thoughts. Trotting toward the street, she was nearly gone already, her nose in the air. Sniffing freedom.

He chased her, catching up as she rounded the corner onto the sidewalk. He snagged her with both hands and picked her up. She tried to flatten herself against him, her heart beating at an insane pace—which was only appropriate.

“You thought you were on your way again, didn’t you? I can’t have you off your leash for one minute, can I?”

He carried the neurotic little dog to the front door. His uncle Calv had already turned on the lights and put the Open sign in the window. George pushed the door open with his shoulder, activating the bell above him.

“It’s me,” he said, the familiar smells of furniture polish and dust tickling his nose. “Don’t get up.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Calv answered from the rear of the store.

George ambled down the narrow aisle, pausing to adjust the hanging price tag on an antebellum kerosene lamp, and entered the back room. He set Daisy on the floor and nudged her in the general direction of her crate. She moved just out of reach and looked over her shoulder, radiating self-pity.

Stooped, lanky Calv sat at the worktable, his dirt-gray hair hanging in front of his suntanned face as he oiled a mysterious mechanical gadget he’d picked up at a yard sale. “I keep telling you, the dog’s depressed. She still misses your mother.”

“No, she doesn’t. The little schemer wants us to feel sorry for her.”

Calv shook his head. “My neighbor’s dog, he got depressed when she kicked her husband out. He moped around for weeks. The dog, I mean, not the husband. He wouldn’t play with the kids. Wouldn’t even eat.”

“Daisy eats. Believe me, she eats. Grain-free, gluten-free, all natural …” George sighed. He’d promised his mother. Now Daisy ate better than he did.

He sat behind his desk in the corner, somewhat cramped but safely removed from his uncle’s messy, greasy project. “I guess you’ve heard the news? Si sold the house to a McComb.”

“Yep. I heard it straight from him, ten times over. I’ve never in all my born days seen him so riled up.” Calv flicked his hair out of his eyes and gave George a solemn stare. “I asked him where she’s from that she don’t know the score, and he said Detroit or thereabouts. Said she had Michigan plates on her car. And an attitude. He said she called him early-early so he’d be half-asleep. She caught him off guard, and then she nagged and nagged until he caved in.”

“Si’s got his knickers in a knot about needing to sell. He’s not trying to put her in the best light.”

George frowned, recalling the woman he’d seen leaning against a white Volvo while she took pictures of the house. He hadn’t noticed Michigan tags, but he hadn’t been looking for them.

“She has exactly the same name,” Calv said. “You think it’s a coincidence?”

“Buying that particular house? It can’t be a coincidence.”

“Especially because she lied about it.”

George gave his uncle a sharp look. “You sure about that?”

“That’s how Si tells it, anyway. She gave him the wrong name from the get-go—Patricia instead of Letitia—and she wouldn’t say her last name until she’d worn him down on the price.”

“That was pretty shrewd,” George said. “Si wouldn’t have budged if he’d known who she was.”

“It was a steal. I know, I know, that doesn’t make her a literal thief, but Si’s got his gussy up. He’s even mad at her for wanting an inspection.”

“An inspection is just standard procedure. Si has really let the place go, too. If I were her, I’d be concerned about some basic maintenance issues.”

“I know, but he says she’s a penny-pinchin’ trash-talker.”

“Even if he’s right, we will be nice to her.”

“Sure we will. She’ll need a good dose of nice. She’s gonna have a tough row to hoe in this narrow-minded town. Besides the obvious, I mean. Si and Shirley’s friends won’t take kindly to her either.”

“I hate to see them lose the place.” George’s guilty conscience circled, flapping its ugly wings, and came in for a heavy landing. “I never should have sold it to them. I should have listened to my gut.”

“It’s not your fault that they came upon hard times. Nobody saw it coming. Poor Si, though. He loved that big ol’ garage. So did I, until your mama put an end to that business.”

“We both loved it.” George shook his head, remembering the day his mother had decided Calv, her youngest brother, wasn’t fit company for her fatherless and impressionable son. So Calv had packed up his tools—

A glorious idea lit George’s brain like fireworks. If the McComb woman was a penny pincher, she might want to get some rent money out of the garage. He could ask her, anyway, if she proved to be decent. It stood too far from the house to do her much good, but the noise and the fumes wouldn’t bother anybody out there. It was huge too. More than enough room.

Everybody would win. It would solve his problem, but it might help the new owner even more, as a sort of goodwill gesture. It would say George Zorbas wasn’t afraid to do business with a McComb. Best of all, it would bring healing balm to an old man’s heart—if it panned out. He wouldn’t say anything to Calv just yet.

The doohickey slipped from Calv’s hand and crashed onto the floor. Daisy leaped into her crate, her nails clicking, and cowered in the corner.

“Aw, it’s okay, Daisy.” Calv leaned over to pick up the gadget. “Toss her a treat, George. Make her feel better.”

George reached into his top drawer, pulled out one of those outrageously expensive treats, and pitched it into the crate. Daisy blinked several times and finally worked up her courage to inch over to it. She took it delicately in her mouth and crunched, not so delicately.

Life would get interesting once the house changed hands. Every time the dog ran away, he would have to fetch her from the porch of Miss Letitia McComb.

After stopping at the grocery store on her way home from work, Tish grabbed a shopping cart and pushed it inside at a fast clip. Lately, she was always running. Literally and mentally. Always running behind, like some scatterbrained ditz.

Her workday life had always been a whirlwind of paperwork, but now her at-home life had become that too. The mortgage was in process. She’d given notice to her employer and her landlord, and she’d started her online search for jobs around Noble. Her apartment was a mess of moving boxes and piles of giveaways.

She steered the cart toward the produce department in hopes of finding the produce manager. He always had boxes to give away, but she liked to ask him first. She didn’t want anyone to think she was taking them without permission.

Passing a display of Valentine’s Day merchandise—a premature display, in her opinion, as it was still early January—she nearly ran into one of the Henderson brothers coming the other way with one of his little boys. Father and son matched from head to toe: John Deere caps, barn jackets, jeans, and brown boots.

There used to be six stairstep Henderson brothers. Out of habit, not because she needed it anymore, she ran down the mental list that had helped her keep the brothers straight at first. This was Matt, who wasn’t quite as blond as his brothers. Hank was the one with the boyish, contagious laugh. Paul had curly hair. Ryan had the only big nose of the family. Rob was the short, studious one. And finally there was Stephen, the youngest. The one she’d loved.

Matt’s son tugged on his arm and whined for a bag of Valentine’s candy.

“No, buddy,” Matt said. “Your mom already bought plenty.”

“Daddy, please?”

“No, Alex. Sorry.”

Tish felt herself softening, feeling sorry for the little tyke. At four or five, Stephen must have looked very much like Alex.

Tears heated her eyes. If that stupid deer hadn’t run into the road and ruined everything, Alex would have been her nephew by marriage. She would have sent him a Valentine every year. With much love from Uncle Stephen and Aunt Tish …

Laughing at something his son had said, Matt looked up and noticed her. “Tish, how are ya? My mom told me you’re moving to Alabama.”

“Hi, you two.” Tish mustered up the biggest smile she could. “Yep. That’s why I’m here. Picking up moving boxes.”

“It sounds like a real adventure. Why Alabama?”

“A family connection.”

Matt frowned. Maybe he thought she’d gone crazy.

“My mother remarried and moved to Florida,” she said. “Now I’ll be within a long day’s drive of her new place.”

Matt nodded. “That gets important as parents get older. It’s good to stay plugged in tight with your family.”

Easy for him to say. He had family coming out his ears. But Tish only smiled and nodded.

“I hope you’ll love it down there,” he said. “Best of luck to you.”

“Thanks, Matt. Well, give the rest of the family my love. Bye, Alex.”

The little boy gave her a shy smile, but he didn’t know who she was. He’d never known his Uncle Stephen, either.

Tish continued toward the back of the store, finding it difficult to think about moving boxes.

Stephen had moved on, leaving her behind. He was eternally young and carefree in her memory while she marched on toward middle age in her comfy Naturalizers. Wearing small, sensible earrings, with her hair pulled back tight. Driving a Volvo. She was even buying a house. An old house, frozen in time.

Maybe she should have taken her mother’s suggestion and bought a brand-new condo in Tampa. Surrounded by senior citizens, she might have felt like a spring chicken in comparison. Or she might have sped up the process of turning into an old hen.