Free Recipe for Romance by Olivia Miles

her head with a mischievous smile. She picked up her knitting needles and resumed where she had left off earlier. “Well, half the town will be talking about it by noon tomorrow.”
    “Julia...”
    Julia flashed her a glance, her expression the picture of mock innocence. “What?”
    Emily dipped her chin. “Don’t go spreading gossip.”
    “Me? I’m insulted you would even suggest such a thing. I mean, I can’t exactly help it if I have a knitting circle tomorrow morning, or if the expected topic of conversation will be the return of Scott Collins...”
    Emily picked up her book and stood, stretching until her back arched. With a tired sigh, she regarded her sister and shook her head. “You missed your calling, my dear. You should have taken to the stage. You’re all about drama. Especially when it’s not your own.”
    She walked over to her sister, planted a kiss on her the top of her auburn hair and then padded off down the hall to her bedroom, unable to stop thinking of the fact that Scott Collins—the one man other than her father she had loved with all her heart her entire life—was somewhere on this floor, only a matter of twenty feet away from where she now sat, on the edge of her bed, staring out the window onto the quiet streets of Maple Woods.
    She wondered if he was awake, or if the strange events of the night had exhausted him. She wondered if he was still thinking of her, of their conversation. She wondered if in the past twelve years he had been gone, he had ever really thought of her at all. Or if that was just another one of his lies.

Chapter Four
    I t had rained overnight, a soft and pleasant tapping of drops against the windows accompanied by random bursts of lightning that lit the dark sky. The spring storm started at about midnight and went on until just past three, and Scott knew this because he was awake the entire time. Thinking about Emily.
    He couldn’t resist the relief he felt to know that Mrs. Porter had moved out of town, and that he wouldn’t have to face her, too. She’d always been a kind woman, pleasant despite her circumstances, with a dullness in her soft gray eyes—the light having been replaced by sadness. For all the time that he and Emily had dated, her mother had always been off at one odd job or another, coming home harried and tired, but always with a smile on her face at the sight of her daughters. Mrs. Porter had always been kind to him, even as a child. He remembered the time when he was riding his bike down Willow Road and hit a rock, she had run outside to help him, inviting him to come sit on her front porch while she cleaned and bandaged his scraped knees, offering him a glass of cool, sweet lemonade with a reassuring smile. “I don’t have any sons,” he remembered her saying with a wistful grin, “but I imagine you get into your share of trouble around here.”
    More trouble than she knew.
    The memory of that hot summer afternoon made him feel queasy and restless, and he fitfully tossed and turned as the small room above the diner—just a mere twenty feet from Emily and Julia’s apartment—illuminated with lightning, until the storm passed over and he finally fell into a disoriented sleep filled with nightmares, waking drenched in sweat only a few hours later.
    The morning glow filtering through his window came as a welcome relief and by seven he was dressed and eager to escape the confines of his small room. He drove past the job site, surveying the damage to the historic town library. It was an accident, he knew: a stupid, careless incident that had resulted in serious structural damage of an entire wing of the building. He didn’t blame Bobby. He hadn’t done it on purpose. But could the same be said for Emily? Would she blame him?
    Scott narrowed his eyes as he inspected the wreckage. Some accidents were pardonable. Others were permanent. They could never be put right.
    He picked up a chunk of cement and tossed it back to the ground with a sigh.