The Coldwater Warm Hearts Club Read Free

the round of small talk again. It was basically the same ground she’d covered with Jacob, only Daniel didn’t sit with them. A question tromped around on the tip of her tongue, but she bit it back.
    The bells over the door jingled again. A group of folks dressed in church clothes filed in for the breakfast special before Sunday School.
    â€œGotta go.” Jake slid out of the booth to take care of his customers.
    â€œMe too.” Daniel put his hat back on, and when he looked down at her, one side of his mouth lifted. She would have given her last penny for the thought behind that half smile. “It’s good to see you, Lacy. Welcome home.”
    His lips parted as if he was about to say something else, but then he turned and walked away. Still looked pretty incredible doing it, too, but Lacy didn’t need to ask that other question anymore.
    She’d seen the ring on his left hand.

Chapter 2
    Once a marine, always a marine. I was born to kick butt and take names, sir. I’ll just have a little more titanium in my kick from now on.
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    â€”Jacob Tyler to his commanding officer, after coming out of surgery for the injury he received in Afghanistan
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    B ack in Boston, the streets had been rimed with crusts of dirty snow, the remnants of a late-season nor’easter. Lacy had chased warmer weather half the way across the country and arrived in Coldwater Cove in time for full-blown spring. Crocuses and daffodils pushed through the red clay soil and forsythias erupted in a yellow riot on every block.
    In her parents’ yard, the War of Squirrel Insurgency began afresh.
    Lacy had never actually seen the squirrels in action, but her dad was convinced they broke off twigs from his oak trees and threw them down into the yard for pure cussedness. Of course, it didn’t help matters that her parents’ neighbor, Mr. Mayhew, put out bird feeders that had the (hopefully) unintended effect of enticing even more squirrels to the Evanses’ yard. According to Lacy’s dad, the feeders were supply depots for the enemy. As she pulled up, the first casualties of this year’s opening salvo littered the grass.
    Dad was out front, gathering fallen twigs from under the ponderous oaks. Fergus, his little Yorkie, nosed around the trunks, always alert for the stray “rat with a fluffy tail.” Her dad had been warned not to break out his shotgun in town anymore, so Fergus was all the firepower he could muster against the furry foes.
    Still, the battle must be enjoined each spring.
    Again, Lacy was glad some things didn’t change, however ridiculous they might be.
    She was barely out of the car before her dad had her in a solid hug. Sometimes, her parents’ affection was like being smothered by a blanket of molasses, too sweet to resist and too sticky to escape. But now Lacy sank into her dad’s loving acceptance with gratitude, blinking away tears.
    She was the baby of the family. On a scale measuring good behavior, Lacy fell somewhere in the lower middle between her perfect sister, Crystal, and her black sheep brother, Mike. It had been tough going through school with teachers expecting her to either be as brilliant and good as her sister or as wild and irresponsible as her brother. Lacy was never given the benefit of a totally clean slate either way.
    When her dad patted her back, the years sloughed off, as she’d feared they would, and she was reduced to childlike dependence again. Amazingly enough, that wasn’t as bad as she’d expected. For a few moments, she allowed herself the fantasy that she had ever been that innocent. Then she pulled away.
    She was back in Coldwater Cove because she hadn’t been careful, because she hadn’t been professional. Because she wasn’t . . . good enough to cut it in the big city.
    â€œLacy-girl, we weren’t expecting you till this afternoon.” Dad’s resonant voice echoed off the stand of