Page 28 of Sweet Temptation

For a second Garret thought his sister might have lost her mind, and then he remembered, they had a town to convince and his aunt Vicky would be as good as Iris Hathaway at spreading the word.

“Thank you, dear.” His aunt rested her hand on Jillian’s arm. “I wish I could but I need to get back to the shop.” She turned to face Garret. “Which is really why I came over. There are a few boxes in the back of my pickup that need to go into the store room and they weigh more than I do. Could you please help us unload them?”

“Of course.” He reached for Jackie’s hand. “I’ll only be a few minutes. Why don’t you ladies go ahead and get us a table?”

All three women nodded and he wondered, not for the first time, if he was getting into much more than he could handle for a whole year.

“No, Grams, I’m fine. Really I am. I know. Yes, change can be good.” Or tough. Or maybe just a bit of a miracle. “No, I don’t need any money.” Not any more. “I have a nice place to stay. How much?” She probably shouldn’t have told her grandmother she’d left Houston. Avoiding the never-ending questions was becoming harder and harder. “What? No, I’m not being evasive.” But now she was fibbing. Sometimes she felt like her grandmother still saw her as the ten-year-old girl, confused by the sudden loss of her mom, and lying to her now, that’s exactly how she felt. Nodding at her grandmother’s ramblings about staying warm, safe, and eating well, her gaze landed at the far corner of the café. It couldn’t be. Could it? Her brows buckled and she narrowed her eyes in an effort to see more clearly. How could that be?

“Is something wrong?” Jillian and Rachel’s heads bounced left then right, from her to the direction she was gazing. “Is your grandma okay?”

At the same time, her grandmother was repeating her name in her ear, she realized she was staring open jawed at none other than Brad Peters, but who the heck was the woman with him? “Grams, I have to go, folks are waiting on me… Yes, I love you too.”

It took her a few more seconds to say her goodbyes and then she grabbed hold of her racing thoughts.

“You look an odd shade of green.” Rachel continued to stare off, searching for what had triggered Jackie.

Clearing her throat, there were a couple of things she realized: first, she’d been surprised to see Brad, but nothing else. No longing, no sadness, no regrets, just confusion about who he was with. The other thing that came to her was that in only a few days, she’d grown fully at ease with Garret’s sisters. Enough to tell them the truth. Or at least, some of it. “By any chance, do you know who the blonde in the pink shirt is at that back table with that man?”

Both their eyes scanned in the same general direction before the two sisters nodded their heads slightly at the same time. They were not identical twins by any stretch of the imagination, but whenever they made unified reactions like a moment ago, boy did they look like two peas in a pod.

“That’s Angela Simpson,” Rachel volunteered.

Jillian continued to watch the table. “You know the type—head cheerleader, Harvest Queen, and always has man candy on her arm.”

“She doesn’t seem to be changing her ways.” Rachel studied the two people at the back table. “That guy looks like he could be on the cover of a magazine.”

“So you don’t know him?” Jackie asked as casually as she could.

Both heads turned from side to side.

Again, Rachel spoke first. “Definitely not from around here. You can’t hide looks like that from the gossip mill.”

Boy, did she have gossip to add to the mill. “His name is Brad Peters. He used to live in Houston. Now he lives in Millers Creek.” Here went nothing. “With his wife.”

Like a pair of matching bookends, big blue eyes rounded, surrounded by a large swath of white.

Rachel’s head whipped around to face her. “Are you sure he’s married?”

She didn’t bother speaking, just nodded.

Her gaze narrowed, Jillian tipped her head, facing her slowly. “And you know this how?”

This was it. “He’s the reason I came to Millers Creek.”

Now the two siblings blinked, raising their brows high on their foreheads, completely forgetting about the couple across the café.

“Don’t stop there.” Rachel’s gaze remained fixed on Jackie.

“I thought he was the perfect catch. When he lost his job in Houston and had to move back to where he was from, I thought he ended things because he didn’t want to subject city girl me to country living.”

Patiently, their expressions blank, the two sisters waited for her to continue. At least so far, they didn’t seem to be judging her.

“I got it in my head, once he saw me in his world and realized that I was happily willing to give everything up to be with him, that he’d change his mind about marriage and children and we’d live happily ever after.”

“Everything?” Jillian asked carefully.

“I quit my job, sold or donated most of my things, and foolishly landed on his doorstep.”

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