Free Escape by Barbara Delinsky

still doing the same tight perms, when I heard another car, this one
mine
, coasting around the green. Slowing, it turned into the parking lot of the Red Fox. A second car followed and waited while the gangly boy who’d been driving mine went inside. This would be his ride back to the garage.
    The responsible thing would have been to act. Nestor’s son should be thanked, and he would need to be paid. But I remained in the shadow of the bench, watching as the door of the second car opened and a chocolate lab hopped out. It trotted across the street and onto the green, pausing to pee before making for me. Its nose was cold, but its eyes were beseeching, and when I scratched its ears, its whole rear end wagged. Its tongue followed, licking me into a laugh.
    I loved dogs. We’d always had one when I was growing up, first Morgan, then Dane. I cried for weeks when Morgan died, and leaving Dane when I went to college was harder than leaving my mom. At least Mom and I could talk on the phone. She used to put the handset to Dane’s ear, and she told me that my voice made him grin, but did he understand where I was, why I was there, and that I loved him even though I’d left?
    Did James?
    At the sound of a whistle, the dog loped back to the car. I wanted to think he watched me out the window as, with Nestor’s son inside, they drove off. I wanted to think we had connected and that he would seek me out whenever I was within sniffing distance. I wanted to think it had been love at first sight.
    My car dying had been a sign telling me I was right to have come to Bell Valley. I wanted to think meeting this dog was a sign I should stay.
    Foolish me. It was a sign, all right—a sign that I was hungry for love. Thought of that choked me up, and since I was tired of crying, I closed my eyes, put my head back against the side of the bench, and changed the subject.
    With one sense closed off, the others sharpened. The Grill might be the only restaurant for miles around, but the lack of competition hadn’t hurt it any. The food had always been good. From the smell of it now, nothing had changed. My mind’s eye pictured a bacon cheeseburger, a BLT, even a Cobb salad with warm goodies crumbled all over the top.
    I was definitely hungry. But having lunch at The Grill would mean Exposure with a capital “E.” So I returned to the Red Fox and entered the kitchen through the back door, then stopped short when I spotted Rob. Brown-haired and lanky, he was standing at the counter forking down lunch. I might have backed away, postponing the moment of reckoning, if he hadn’t looked up.
    “Hey,” I said with a sheepish smile. I had always liked Rob. He was quiet, perhaps a tad boring, but kindhearted. Taking off my hat, which somehow felt wrong in such a personal place, I kissed his cheek. “Good to see you, Rob.”
    “And you,” he replied, and though I heard caution, his voice felt like home. “Vicki’s putting Charlotte in for a nap.”
Chahlette
. Definitely like home.
    “That’s good.” I leaned against the counter. “She’s precious, Rob. And a new baby on the way?” I clucked in admiration. “That’s great.”
    He was studying me, waiting.
    I sighed. “I’ve been a bad friend, Rob. I’m sorry. It wasn’t intentional.”
    “Vicki was hurt.”
    “I know.”
    “Don’t do it again.”
    I smiled. With Vicki the talker, Rob never said much. Like her, though, he let you know where he stood.
    “I’m serious,” he said, but I could see he was softening.
    “Hey, in shutting her out, I hurt me, too. I need to mend that for both our sakes.”
    Looking down, he studied his fork as it moved macaroni and cheese around the plate. When he looked back at me, there were furrows on a brow that was normally smooth. “It isn’t just Vicki and me or even Charlotte. It’s the rest of Bell Valley. You left abruptly.”
    “So did Jude.”
    “Jude’s one of ours. You’re not.”
    “But if Bell Valley is a refuge, shouldn’t