Page 1 of Just One Kiss

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Carly Collins hated running late. She’d carefully calculated the amount of time it would take to drive from her house to downtown Harbor Pointe (eight and a half minutes), but she hadn’t accounted for being stopped in the driveway by Frieda Jenkins, who walked her corgi, Elmer, at the same time every single day.

Frieda was sweet and lonely, and she was a talker.

After a long and detailed description of her arthritic challenges, Frieda said, “If you need some help with the yard, my nephew Barry is available. It must be hard to keep up with everything as a single mom.” Frieda tossed a disdainful look at Carly’s overgrown yard.

“No, ma’am,” she said with a smile, “my son and I enjoy taking care of our yard.”

Enjoymight’ve been pushing it.

Frieda raised one thinly lined eyebrow and gave a tug on Elmer’s leash. “Best get to it, then, I suppose.” She trotted off, Elmer at her side, leaving Carly feeling like a Harbor Pointe pariah, the single mom with an embarrassingly overgrown yard and no real plans to catch up in that department.

Who had time?

As she drove downtown, she glanced at the clock on the dashboard of her Honda Civic, well aware that she was cutting it very close.

Sometimes life was simply too much.

The Memorial Day weekend traffic was, as expected, insane. She’d had the perfect parking place in mind, but as she neared Mulberry Street, she found the road blocked.

I should’ve walked.

Her phone buzzed.

You’re going to miss him! Hurry!

Her sister Quinn’s text shifted Carly’s nerves into panic mode. Carly’s son, Jaden, was riding on a float in the big parade, and Carly didn’t want to miss it, though at sixteen, Jaden probably didn’t care one little bit if his mom was there. But that was just it. He was sixteen—and Carly knew he wouldn’t be home many more years. She’d already moved in to “soak it all up” mode thanks to the nurses she worked with.

Her unit manager at work, Dara Dempsey, made a point to lament the fact that her youngest was heading to college in the fall, leaving her to become a “lonely old cat lady with no social life whatsoever.” Dara would always follow up with, “It goes so fast, Carly. Get all the time you can with that boy because he’s going to grow up and leave you and then what will you be?”

Actually, Carly didn’t say so outright, but she hoped she would be Dara’s successor. The woman had announced on Thursday she’d decided to take an in-home private care position that would allow her the freedom to set her own hours, better for visiting her youngest in college.

Carly had immediately thrown her hat in the ring as a candidate for the pediatric nurse unit manager at Harbor Pointe Hospital.

And she thought she had a really good chance of getting it.

Carly had spent the last sixteen years of her life asJaden’s mom, ruled byhiscalendar andhisschool events andhisactivities.She didn’t want to completely lose herself once he went away to school or, more likely, to train for some big ski competition. A promotion would be just the challenge she needed to make a life for herself now that Jaden was growing up.

And maybe it would keep her mind off the fact that her son was growing up, whether she wanted him to or not.

She shook the thoughts aside as she pulled her Civic into a spot on the grass that was absolutely not supposed to be a parking place.

Desperate times.

If she got a ticket, she’d take it up with her dad. The perks of being the sheriff’s daughter.

She locked the doors and rushed out into the crowded street. Memorial Day was the big summer kick-off, the weekend when the seasonal residents returned, bringing with them extra business for the community and extra crowds for the locals. And, for Carly, extra bodies in the beds at the hospital. How many tourists did they treat every summer? And while the increase in revenue was good all around, it was hard for Carly to wish for anyone to be injured or ill.

She pushed her way through the crowd like a salmon swimming against the current, and finally found her family set up in front of the Forget-Me-Not Flower Shop,her sister’s business. She spotted an open sling-back chair next to Quinn.

Oh good, they saved me a seat.

Her sister, decked out in red, white and blue attire and wearing a giant firecracker-inspired bow on top of her head, spotted her in the crowd and waved. “I thought you’d never get here. They already started!”

Carly hugged Beverly and her dad, waved to Judge and Calvin and finally dropped her purse next to the chair and sat down, heart still racing from her scramble downtown.

“It’s good to see you, dear.” Beverly gave her shoulder a squeeze.

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