Jen drew a deep breath, cleansing herself of the past. “Hi,” she said to Chris, offering him a genuine smile. “Great to meet you.” Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Leith’s shoulders relax.

Chris was chewing, nodding, but there was a wide-eyed worry in the way he stared at her. After he swallowed, he said, “We still get to play at the games. Don’t we?”

Jen gave him an exaggerated look of appraisal and pretended to consider it. “Have a digital file you can send me?”

Chris wiped his hands on his jeans, leaving smears of powdered sugar. “Oh, absolutely.” She gave him her email address and he practically jumped from his seat. “I’ll get that to you right now. I promise you, there won’t be any issues with the guys. Then I’ll get to Mayor Sue’s yard. That okay, Dougall?”

“Issues with the guys?” she asked Leith when Chris had gone.

“Remember I said he had problems with one of his roommates? That guy’s also the drummer. Alcohol problem he’s trying to kick. I don’t know if it’s working, though.” Leith picked up his coffee cup and said into it, “So what other Scottish folk rock band do you know that could possibly play here on such short notice?”

She steepled her fingers. “Oh, I have resources you couldn’t possibly know about.” Then, seriously, with a wave of her hand, “I’ll take Chris at his word that things will work out.”

He gave her that slow, sexy grin. “You shouldn’t tease a man like that.”

“Says the guy who taped false stalker notes to my door.”

“Hey, Lindsay wasn’t a stalker. He was just . . . interested.”

She leaned down and she could smell his shampoo. “Who exactly teased whom?”

His eyes flicked up over the top of his mug, and in them she saw the same desire from last night.

“Sit down.” He pivoted to face the bar. “I’ll buy you hash browns. I remember you liked them here.”

“Ooooh, are they still the same?”

He pointed to the silver-haired man at the burners, who was cooking so furiously and fast that little pieces of food flew everywhere. Jen recognized him and grinned. A middle-aged man wearing an apron, jeans, and checkered shirt came over to take their order, and the icy glare he threw at Leith was unmistakable.

“What was that about?” she asked Leith under her breath as the server shuffled off. “The only person within a twenty-mile radius who doesn’t worship at the feet of Leith MacDougall?”

Leith pressed his lips together and nodded. “Used to work for me. Had to let him go, along with two other full-time guys. Chris is the only one I have left.”

“Oh.” That had to have been hard for him. She was about to ask him more about it, when he turned and lifted a muscled arm to an older couple who’d just entered the Kafe. They came over, wearing the looks of delight she’d come to associate with being recognized and acknowledged by Leith.

The man looked older than the woman by twenty years, and she already had a pure-white bob and a face lined with distinguished wrinkles.

“Rob,” Leith said, “do you remember Jen Haverhurst? Used to come here every summer and stay with Bev at the Thistle. She and I stole the lawn furniture from in front of your hardware store that one year.”

An uncomfortable laugh erupted from Jen’s throat. While their harmless little pranks weren’t unknown, she just didn’t feel like reminding people of that side of her at this particular point in time.

“Ahhh,” Rob said in a hoarse voice, narrowing rheumy eyes on her. “That was you, huh. Remember you set the furniture back up in the middle of the high school football field.”

“And then we put it all back,” Jen added, throwing a disbelieving look at Leith, who looked ready to burst into laughter any second now.

“And now you’re back to run the games?” Rob asked skeptically.

Jen folded her hands and tried to look as professional as an admitted thief could. “Just for this year, yes.”

Leith touched the older woman’s shoulder. “And this is Bobbie, Rob’s wife.”

As Bobbie shook Jen’s hand, Rob pinched his wife’s butt. He said, “We met online.”

“How nice,” Jen said, not knowing how to take that.

“Yeah,” Leith said with a waggle of his eyebrows. “Bobbie’s a bit of an . . . Internet celebrity.”

Please, please don’t let that mean what they’re making it out to mean.

“You two need to stop doing that,” Bobbie said, slapping Leith’s arm. “You’re giving people heart attacks.”

“She’s got one of the biggest followings of any scrapbooking website,” Leith amended.

Jen let out a relieved laugh. “Scrapbooking. Oh! There used to be a store across the street.”

A pained, regretful look crossed Rob’s face while Bobbie swished the air with one graceful hand. “I should’ve known it wouldn’t work,” the older woman said. “It was always a dream to own my own store. I thought the online success would translate to a physical presence in my lovely new town, but it didn’t.”

“I’m sorry,” Jen said, and meant it.

“My belly says we need to go,” Rob said abruptly, and then the couple—please don’t let their last name be Roberts—left, hand in age-spotted hand.

As Jen and Leith turned back to the counter, the disgruntled former employee slid their plates in front of them. Jen eyed hers skeptically, wondering if he’d spit in it, but Leith shoved his fork into a mound of scrambled eggs and took the biggest bite she’d ever seen.

“The Roberts are good people to know.” He washed down the gigantic bite with a swig of orange juice.

“No way. That’s really their last name?”

“Heh, no. It’s just what everyone calls them.”

They talked and ate, with nearly everyone in the Kafe either coming up to Leith or him calling them over to their spot on the bar. At one point, a woman dressed in a pristine, belted dress and sunglasses the size of her face came in. Leith said she was Irene, married to a Hemmertex manager who’d chosen to retire rather than relocate out of New Hampshire, and one of Leith’s few remaining lawn maintenance clients.

By the time Jen’s belly was distended with perfect hash browns and homemade bread slathered with honey, Leith must have introduced—or reintroduced—her to half the town.

Sue McCurdy and her breakfast companion watched all the exchanges, and as Jen rose to leave, Sue’s friend gave Jen a slow nod that might have actually bordered on approval.

Chapter

8