Once Upon a Valentine Read Free

a copy.”
    “It’s the least I could do. Barber meant so much to so many people around here.”
    He averted his gaze, but not before she saw pain and confusion there. She hadn’t meant to imply Barber MacMillan had meant more to the town than to his own offspring. She’d gathered from Barber’s remarks and Andrew’s infrequent visits that father and son hadn’t been close. Still, being orphaned…well, she knew a thing or two about that. She’d lost both of her parents in the past five years. On each occasion, Andrew had sent flowers, a thoughtful formality, she knew. But he couldn’t have known how much his gesture had meant to her, how many times she’d written the thank-you cards to get the phrasing just right, just like the sentiment she’d written on the Valentine’s Day card she’d given him when she was twelve. She was annoyed with herself that she’d cared so much what he thought.
    She gestured to the lopsided vehicle. “I can call Red to bring the tractor down and pull you out.”
    He worked his mouth back and forth. “No need to bother Red. I think I remember how to fire it up.” He nodded toward the braying horse. “But him, I might need a hand with.”
    “I’ll walk with you and put Max back in the stable,” she said, then looked down at her toenails which were painted a vivid blue. “Uh…let me get my boots.” She hurried back toward the steps leading to the balcony, feeling like a rube. She was relatively sure that women in New York City did not scamper around barefoot. As she climbed the steps, she felt Andrew’s gaze on her. He was probably marveling over the fact that she was still there. In fact, the farthest she’d moved geographically was from her childhood bedroom down the hall to the master bedroom in the home she’d grown up in.
    But she didn’t care, she thought, tossing her head as she walked across the timeworn wooden planks of the balcony to the French doors that opened to her bedroom. She’d had her chances to live elsewhere. She’d gotten a marketing degree from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, but had passed up job offers there to work at the Tiny Caves State Park just a few miles down the road. And she’d never regretted her decision—working at the Park and helping Barber in her spare time kept her busy and fulfilled. She preferred this place, where rush hour was Sunday morning before church and the closest thing to police sirens was the call of screech owls.
    Summer entered her bedroom, wondering how much of a miracle she could perform on her hair in sixty seconds. She stopped at her dressing table and surveyed the tangled mess with a sigh. Some days the long locks were more trouble than they were worth, but lopping them off seemed even more daunting.
    She ran a wide-tooth comb through her hair quickly, tackling the worst of the knots. Then she clasped it into a low ponytail, gave the length a twist into a loose, fat braid and secured it again at the bottom. From the closet she pulled her worn brown-leather boots and stepped into them, hooking her fingers through the pull tabs for a yank. A soft swish against her leg caused her to smile. Gabby, her butterscotch-colored Persian cat, sniffed her, sneezed then began to complain loudly.
    “Yes, Gabby,” Summer soothed, “Truman is a smelly beast, but he’s all alone, so you might have to get used to having him around—or at least the smell of him.” She gave her beloved pet a tickle under the chin, then turned to the mirror and lamented her casual dress, limp and almost threadbare from countless washings. But she wasn’t going to take the time to change now and make Andrew MacMillan think she cared.
    As she secured the French doors from the inside, she glanced down and took him in against the landscape.
    For a man who’d grown up here, he couldn’t look more out of place. And it was more than his polished clothing and sporty car. It was the way he held his big body rigid and apart from everything