“That’s impressive,” he said warmly. “Congratulations.”

  “Congrats are premature, but thank you. It’s taken a lot to even get this far. I went to screenwriting school and live in LA.”

  “You know what you’re doing, obviously. What genre is your screenplay?”

  “If I equate it to books, it’d be sports romance. The series features a professional baseball team, so there’s a lot of that, but there’s also a bunch of hot, single guys who need to find the right women.”

  “Of course. Sounds like it’ll appeal to both women and men with the sports angle.”

  “I’m hoping so, even though romance is female heavy. I’ve read romance for years, and everything I write seems to have at least a little in it.” Which was weird when you considered my own failure-ridden romantic history. Eternal optimism maybe? “You said you started recently. Are you working on your first book?” I nodded toward his laptop, which he’d set on top of his notebook.

  Knox crossed an ankle over his other knee and relaxed into the chair. “Second. I came to Dragonfly Lake in June and wrote fiction for two solid weeks on a vacation from my full-time financial work. The story just sort of poured out of me. I took another few weeks to finish the book after my day job was done, then I sent it off to a content editor and am working on a different story until I get it back.”

  “Smart.”

  “I keep getting ideas,” he said. “Like, at all hours of the night. So many ideas. I just need to figure out how and when to write them.”

  Smiling, I said, “Sounds familiar. So you’re on an extended stay here while you write?”

  “I’m moving to Dragonfly Lake, actually. I’m on the house hunt, just waiting for the right place to come available.”

  “Wow. I don’t know if I can be considered a resident, but welcome to town and good luck with the hunt.”

  “Thanks. It started out as a vacation and an experiment. Something about the lake air and the slow pace sparks my creativity. I’m still doing the financial stuff—I can work from anywhere—but my dream would be to write fiction full-time.”

  “We have something in common then,” I said. “What’s your book that’s with the editor about?”

  He stumbled around for a couple of minutes, trying to summarize, and I totally got that. I’d done that plenty when people asked me the same. Being able to summarize a full book in a few sentences was a skill set that took time to develop.

  Knox explained a little about his world—which was a fictional planet—and his storyline. I hadn’t read a ton of sci-fi, but I was intrigued anyway and asked him if I could read what he had.

  “Seriously?” he asked. “You don’t have to.”

  I laughed. “Obviously I don’t have to. It might take me a while to get to it, because this place is keeping me hopping, but I’d love something to get my head out of reality for a while. If you’re up for it.”

  “It’s raw.”

  “I’ve been a beginner before too.” I told him my email address and he jotted it down in his notebook.

  “Okay. You’re on,” he said as I registered a sound behind us, coming from the front lobby. “Just be gentle.”

  “Absolutely.”

  I turned toward the lobby doorway in time to see Cash walk into the room with a frown on his face as he sized up Knox.

  Chapter 7

  Cash

  Ava had been on my mind for the past seventy-two hours.

  Her aunt’s funeral was today, and I hadn’t been able to get away from the restaurant even for an hour because Zinnia had something in Nashville that she couldn’t skip.

  I remembered how draining and awful my mom’s and grandma’s funerals were. In Dragonfly Lake, people showed up in droves, with everyone wanting to help somehow, and I heard it had been no different today. I was sure there’d been a thousand well-meaning hugs, hundreds of condolences, countless looks of sympathy to endure.

  I was absolutely worn out after the funerals in my family. And though the Diamond ladies had rallied around Ava this week, at the end of the day, she was all alone.

  Tonight at Henry’s, I’d heard from Abe Powers, Kona’s husband, that the poker group had gathered at the inn to remember Phyllis, and I was sure Ava had been a part of that.

  I realized what she must be going through, and I couldn’t stand the thought of her being alone.

  Except when I walked into the main room at the inn at a little after ten after closing down Henry’s, she wasn’t alone. She was with the new chump in town, who I barely knew from Adam. I’d been introduced to Knox Breckenridge by Holden at the restaurant. I might’ve exchanged a grand total of six sentences with him. I didn’t have anything against the guy, just didn’t have any reason to be his friend.

  It was irrational and unreasonable, but seeing Ava sitting with him, all cozy and locked in intimate conversation, made me grumpy.

  “Breckenridge,” I said with a somber nod as I walked up between their chairs.

  “Hey, Cash.” He stood and offered a hand. I had to summon every bit of my upbringing to shake it and play nice. It was late, I’d had a long couple of days, and I wasn’t the friendliest guy on a good day.

  I turned my attention to Ava and found smiling easier. “Hey, Ava.”

  “Hi, Cash.” She managed to smile back. “What’s going on?”

  “I was worried about you,” I said pointedly, then held up the Henry’s bag. “Brought you something.”

  Her eyes lit up as she took in the sack, and I’m not proud to admit that made me stand up a little taller, as if I’d scored one on the lanky dude sitting with her.

  “Pull up a chair and join us,” Ava said.

  “Actually, I need to head back to my room,” Knox said, apparently understanding I had zero desire to be a third wheel. Credit to him.

  “I hope we didn’t scare you away. You barely got started writing,” Ava said.

  Knox closed his laptop, then picked up his notebook. “I was on the deck for a couple hours, until the bugs got too thick. Got a few hundred words in.”

  I realized they must have bonded about writing. That should’ve made me relax, should’ve made me glad Ava had made a connection with someone, but there was something about that guy I didn’t trust.

  “That’s great—all but the bugs,” Ava said, frowning. “I need to screen in a section of that deck. Anyway, it was great talking to you.”

  He stood. “You too. Good to meet a fellow writer.”

  “Don’t forget to send me your manuscript,” she said as he went toward the door with a wave over his shoulder.

  Once he left, I released my breath and really looked at Ava. She was harried and exhausted, with shadows under her eyes, her hair pulled up in a messy knot, and a faint smile. She wore shorts, a turquoise T-shirt, and a lightweight, oversized, short-sleeved jacket thing that I’d heard my sister refer to as a kimono wrap. On her feet were sandals with wedge heels and straps that went around her ankles. In spite of enduring her aunt’s funeral today, she looked casual yet professional and so damn pretty. Time had been kind to her, if not the day, and in my opinion, she looked even prettier now than she had at twenty.

  “It’s late.” Her tone said, You shouldn’t have come.

  “I was betting you haven’t eaten.”

  The bluster seemed to drain out of her, and she gave me a sheepish smile. “I haven’t eaten. Not since the meal at the church.”

  Holding up the carryout bag again, I asked, “Will you?”

  Ava looked between the bag and my face. “I wouldn’t want to be rude by not eating what the chef brought.”

  “Good answer. I brought a little for me tonight too. Long shift. I forgot utensils though.”

  She held up a finger and walked over to the dining area. When she returned, she had utensils and napkins. “You just got done with work?” she asked, as she came up to the couch where I sat.

  I nodded, then patted the cushion next to me. “Take a load off.”

  Ava looked toward the doorway to the lobby. “I can’t see if someone comes in from here.”

  “But you can hear. Besides, it’s a Thursday night, going on eleven. It looked like the whole inn was tucked in for the night when I drove up.” Except for Breckenridge.

  She bit her lip for a second, eyeing the doorway again, then she strode over to it, reassured herself the small lobby was deserted, came back, and sat down on the other half of the couch.

  Finally. My goal wasn’t just to feed her but to get her to relax. One glance at her told me she needed it.

  I handed over a container with brisket and homemade beer-battered onion rings and opened my own of the same, leaving the large slice of hummingbird cake in the bag.

  We ate in silence for a couple minutes, then she said, “You don’t have to keep doing this, you know.”

  With an onion ring halfway to my mouth, I paused to say, “I’m not doing it because I have to,” then bit into the crispy ring.

  “Why are you? Are you trying to make up for the past?”

  I stopped chewing as her words sank in. After swallowing the bite, I said, “I thought we’d laid the past to rest.”

  “We did.”

  “Did we though? If that’s what you’re thinking…”

  “I’m sorry. I just… I don’t understand why you’re doing this.”

  “What is ‘this’? Bringing you food two times now when you haven’t eaten for hours and hours?”

  “Acting like it’s your responsibility to take care of me. I can take care of myself, Cash. I’ve been doing it for practically my whole life.” She shrugged like it was no big deal, simply a fact.

  It was a fact, I realized. Her parents had divorced when she was young, eleven years old if I remembered right, and that had forced her to grow up too early. She’d been devastated when her dad moved to the West Coast, leaving Ava and her mom alone. Ava’s mom had been heartbroken and had self-medicated with alcohol.

  Phyllis Sharp had swooped in and given Ava and her mom, Pamela, an opportunity to recover and start fresh at this inn she bought with her late husband’s life insurance money, inviting her younger sister and niece to move to Dragonfly Lake and run it with her. But Pamela had never gotten over her husband leaving. She’d helped at first, mostly at the front desk, but as the months and years passed, she’d relied more and more on liquor and worked in the inn less and less.

  Ava had stepped in to compensate for her mom’s lacking, helping Phyllis after school, in the evenings, and on weekends, the two of them becoming jacks-of-all-trades and juggling nearly all the responsibilities between them. The way I understood it, Ava had worked almost full-time while in high school and had never had time to make lasting friendships. As the years went by, her time had become split between inn duties and caring for her mom, who’d eventually died of liver disease.

  Her mom had relied on Ava to cover for her and care for her. Her dad had all but deserted her, managing phone calls a couple times a year. I didn’t know anything about the guy Ava had been married to, but obviously, if they’d split up, he hadn’t given her the love or care she deserved. Not that I had any room to talk. I’d screwed up with Ava before he had.

  Bottom line, no one had taken care of Ava the way she deserved. There was something in me that still wanted to be the one who did.

  My family liked to say food was the way I cared for people and showed affection, and it was probably true. I just hadn’t realized I still cared about Ava. I hadn’t let myself think about her. She’d been a checkmark on my lengthy failure list.

  “I know it’s not my responsibility,” I finally said in between bites. “Damn straight you can take care of yourself. But I wanted to tonight. I can’t imagine how hard your day was, and here you are, what? Pulling the overnight shift at the desk?”

  Ava pulled her legs up and crossed them on the couch in front of her as she shoved more food in her mouth, and I let her eat in silence. The answer to my question about the night shift was evident.

  “There’s so much to get done here,” she said after several minutes. She’d finished her onion rings and was picking at the leaner parts of her brisket.

  “Here? At the inn?”

  “Updating it. Getting a new roof. Painting. Fixing. Plus finding someone to manage it.”

  “No leads on that yet?”

  “I just posted it yesterday, thanks to help from Loretta and Dotty. I haven’t checked for responses.”

  “You’ve had other things to tend to today,” I said. “Pretty hard things.”

  “Yeah.” Her chest rose and fell with a deep breath.

  “I wasn’t able to get away for the service but I heard the turnout was big.”

  The corners of her mouth tilted up into a sad, wistful smile and she nodded. “So many people loved my aunt. This town still turns out en masse for funerals, huh?”

  “They’re can’t-miss social events around here. Bigger than weddings because you don’t need an invite.”

  She let out a quiet laugh, then her expression fell, and she sucked in another big breath and blew it out. “I don’t want to think about it right now. I’m tired of crying.”

  “Understandable. But if you need to cry more, my shoulders can take it.” I finished my dinner and closed the foam container. After pulling out the cake container, I tossed the empty one into the sack. I set the closed cake container on the oversized ottoman between my legs and hers. “How much of your to-do list needs to be finished before you can hire someone?”

  “In an ideal world, all of it, but that’s not realistic. I need to buy a property management system and get it installed first and foremost. My aunt’s systems were archaic.”

  “Still with the index cards?”

  “Color-coded and sorted by week.”

  “A computer system sounds expensive.” I knew the one we’d put in the restaurant when my brothers and I had taken over had cost an arm and a leg. “So is a roof. Did your aunt leave the funds to take care of these things?”

  Ava shook her head as she closed her empty container and added it to the bag. “I’m learning she had a huge heart but not so much of a business mind. I don’t suppose there’s cake in there.” She pointed at the box on the ottoman.

  “Maybe cake.” I picked it up. “There was only one big piece left. I’ll get clean forks if you’ll share it with me.”

  “Deal,” she said with no hesitation.

  I hopped up and brought two forks from the dining area. When I sat back down, I moved closer to the center of the couch as I picked up the cake box and opened it. Ava scooted to my side, and I breathed in her scent like a starving man who hadn’t realized how hungry he was. She smelled of vanilla and light florals. I was certain it was the same fragrance she’d worn seventeen years ago, and damn if it didn’t take me back to the time when we’d been in love. I wanted to lean closer and bury my face in her neck and breathe it in fully.

  “Are you actually going to share or just sit there and stare at me?” she asked, holding out her hand for a fork.

  I handed her one, then extended the box for her to take to the first bite.

  The sweet, fruity scent of hummingbird cake had nothing on Ava Dean. Just saying.

  Since I couldn’t take a bite out of the woman next to me, I settled for a little cake and took pleasure in her enjoyment of what I’d made. With her first forkful, she let out a sound of appreciation. With every bite after, she closed her eyes to savor it.

  Hummingbird cake was the only thing I baked, if I could help it. I left the rest to Kinsey on a daily basis, and though I’d shared my grandmother’s recipe with my pastry chef under strict confidentiality and she could do it just right, it was something I insisted on doing myself.

  “So what are you going to do if your aunt didn’t leave money for improvements?” I asked. “If that’s not too nosy.”

  Ava eyed the bite she’d just forked as if it was the meaning of life. She stuck it in her mouth, did the eye-closing thing as she chewed, then said, “I hope to get a loan, and I also have money I can put toward it.”

  My surprise must have shown on my face, because Ava explained, “My dad is my ex’s mentor in their law firm. He made sure I got a generous settlement.”

  “You don’t think it would’ve worked out the same otherwise?” I asked.

  “I’m sure it wouldn’t have.”

  “Do you have a job besides writing?”

  “I work at a doggy daycare. Enough to pay the rent on my apartment and some expenses each month. I don’t have income from writing yet.”

  “Doggy daycare, huh?” I couldn’t help smiling. “You always wanted a dog.” She’d never been able to have one because she didn’t have time to take care of it on top of the inn and her mom.

  “I did, but Wes was allergic, or so he said, and now I live in a small apartment. Anyway, I’ve stockpiled as much of the spousal support as possible while I get my writing career off the ground. I never planned on the money going to the inn, but it needs it and I have it, and I want to make sure everything is handled perfectly for my aunt.”

  “I don’t mean this in a bad way, but it sounds like anything will be more than what she was managing.”

  “She loved it as hard as she could, but she didn’t have cash or business sense. I plan to make it everything she knew it could be.”

  Her love for her aunt was evident in the passion behind her words and the sudden glassiness of her eyes. Without thinking about it, I grasped her thigh just above her knee and squeezed it supportively since her hands were full of the cake box and her fork. It was only when I was mid-squeeze that I saw her head whip in my direction out of the corner of my eye and realized I was crossing a line between present us and past us without meaning to. Touching her had just seemed natural.

  Instead of apologizing, I acted like it was no big deal and took my hand back, waiting to see if she’d say anything. She didn’t.

  “This place has so much potential,” I said. “It sounds like you’re on the right track. Phyllis would be beside herself with love and happiness.”

  “I just need to figure out how to make it work. It won’t be done by next week.”