Free Redemption Road (Jackson Falls #5) by Laurie Breton

that, no matter how tempting, no matter how beautiful,
was out for just one thing: to take care of Number One.
    The grin faded as Annabel rushed into the entry hall. “Five
minutes to dinner!” she shouted, and clattered up the stairs in search of Rob’s
teenage daughter, followed by a long-legged, loping canine. Paige was seventeen,
and therefore a big deal to his twelve-year-old daughter. A mentor, an older
woman who knew everything that Annabel herself was so eager to learn. Paige
seemed like a good kid, but God only knew what kind of stuff she was teaching Annabel.
    “We might as well go into the living room,” the ice princess said.
    He left his shoes in the front hall. In the living room, a roaring
fire crackled on the hearth. Harley stood in front of it, rubbing his hands
together in a vain attempt to warm up some portion of his frigid anatomy. No
matter how many years he spent in the Northeast, his pathetic Georgia ass would
never adjust to winter weather. “You were right,” he said.
    Perched primly on the arm of a chair, her legs crossed, some kind
of frou-frou, expensive, girly shoe dangling loose from her bare foot—bare, in
Maine, in January—she said, “About what?”
    He forced his attention from the curved arch of her foot back to
her face. “About the weather. It’s snowing like a son of a gun out there.”
    “I rest my case, Counselor.”
    He’d thought she lacked a sense of humor, but maybe he’d been
wrong. He opened his mouth to speak, and Casey appeared in the doorway, her
face flushed, her hair a little mussed. Quite possibly there’d been more than
cooking going on in the kitchen. “Dinner’s ready,” she announced.
    As if by telepathy, the girls seemed to get the message. They came
clomping down the stairs like a herd of antelope, and the six of them, plus
baby and two dogs, gathered in the formal dining room. Looking around, he
surmised that the room wasn’t used often. Casey and Rob MacKenzie weren’t
formal people. But their kitchen table was too small for company, where the
dining room could hold up to twelve people without anyone rubbing elbows.
    The smell of meatloaf, loaded with ketchup and onions, almost
brought tears to his eyes. As a bachelor, his cooking left a lot to be desired.
Anything he could take from the freezer, spread out on a baking sheet, and toss
in the oven was good enough. But Casey MacKenzie was a world-class cook, the
meals she made hearty and delicious. Good, old-fashioned home cooking. Comfort
food. He’d forgotten how much he liked coming here. Good food, good company,
good conversation.
    Rob opened the bottle of Merlot and offered it around, but Harley
was the only one to partake. While he and Rob filled their wine glasses, the
women poured iced tea from a tall glass pitcher clinking with ice cubes.
    Everything about these people was warm, welcoming, and a little unconventional.
Instead of sitting at opposite ends of the long dining table, Rob sat at the
head with his wife at his left elbow, baby in her lap, close enough to touch. Or,
Harley thought, close enough to play footsie under the table. The group busied
themselves scooping up mashed potatoes and meatloaf and green beans from
Casey’s garden. They buttered rolls, filled glasses, forked homemade
bread-and-butter pickles onto their plates. While at their end of the table, the
girls dissected the latest teen movie, he glanced across at the ice queen. Those
blue eyes met and held his for what seemed an eternity before she picked up her
napkin, shook it open, and dismissed him.
    At her end of the table, Casey scooped a tiny amount of mashed
potato onto the tip of her spoon and fed it to the baby. “You probably remember,”
she said, addressing Harley, “that I had an ulterior motive for inviting you
here tonight.”
    “I do seem to recall you saying something about wanting to talk to
me.”
    She smiled at him, fed the baby another bite of potato. “You told
me once that your parents raised