He’d made it around me, but moved in to lean down and touch his lips to Gram’s creased, paper-thin cheek.

“Next Friday, Miss Mildred,” he murmured while lifting up. “Thanks for the tea.”

“Look forward to it, son.” Grams twinkled up at him. “And you’re more than welcome anytime.”

Raiden turned and looked down at me. “Later, Hanna.”

“‘Bye,” I mumbled.

His lips twitched, then his body moved and I watched him walk away.

It was a good show.

From where I stood I could see all the way to the front of the house, so I enjoyed the show until the front door closed on him.

“He’s the cat’s pajamas,” Grams declared, and I looked down at her to see she’d twisted so she was curled around her chair so she could watch the show, too.

“Time to clean toilets!” I declared brightly, purposely trying to break the mood.

I sallied forth into the house to do just that, avoiding Grams’s eyes, which I knew would hold rebuke.

Fifteen minutes later, I found something that cured thoughts of Raiden Miller, how beautiful he was and how much of an idiot I acted around him.

Cleaning toilets.

I could not do this every moment of my life, however.

Therefore, if he kept popping up, I was in trouble.

Chapter Four

Chick Flick

That evening…

“Seriously?” my best friend KC asked in my ear.

“Seriously,” I replied.

“Seriously?” she shrieked.

We were on the phone. I was lounging sideways on the swing on my front porch, a half-finished afghan on my lap, a glass of white wine on the table beside me.

I’d just told her about Raiden’s visit to Grams. I’d already told her days before about me bumping into him at the pet store.

Now she was freaking. Like me.

I had not, however, told her I’d gone to Rachelle’s a mortifying number of times to catch a glimpse of him.

That said, KC and I had been best friends since seventh grade, so she, along with me, had a crush on him while growing up. Somehow, both of us sharing this crush and both of us crushing huge did not destroy our relationship. It could happen to girls of that age, regardless of the fact that neither of us had even the remotest shot of that particular dream coming true.

This was how close we were.

I adored her.

She gave that back to me.

Now she was married, had a daughter and another one on the way.

I thought her husband Mark was a jackass, but no matter how close we were, I did not share this with KC. At least not openly.

She thought he walked on water.

My thoughts on this subject were that this mostly had to do with him being particularly talented in the bedroom, something which she shared, in detail, even if it meant I had to become really good at fighting my lip from curling in disgust. A feat I bested, and now I was a practiced hand, seeing as they had sex. A lot.

I didn’t want to think this of my bestie, but it could also have to do with him making a very decent living.

She said he was a lot sweeter when people weren’t around.

I hoped that was true.

Now she was freaking with me about Raiden, who I had not (outside of when I was cleaning toilets, vacuuming, dusting, doing laundry and changing sheets) been able to get out of my head.

So I was making an afghan that would eventually make me a silly huge amount of money, drinking wine and letting KC and my home work their magic.

I grew up in my house and bought it from my parents when they moved, thus I got a screaming sweet deal.

At my behest, they’d sold all the stuff inside before they moved so I could make it my own.

And that I did, going to every antique shop from Denver to Cheyenne to Albuquerque. I wallpapered. I painted. I refinished. I restored. And I made my childhood home all about me.

Countrified splendor with a healthy dose of quirk and a hint here and there of edge to knock off some of the pretty, cutesie and girlie.

It was fabulous.

Like my front porch with its white posts and railings, latticework at the edges of the posts where they meet the porch roof, its swing and wicker furniture with mismatched cushions and pillows that said what my grandmother’s porch furniture said.

You’re welcome here, so sit back and stay awhile.

I lived there, and again, like my grandmother, when it was warm I was out on my porch in my swing, sitting back and staying awhile.

Like now.

“What do you think this means?” KC asked in my ear.

“I think it means Mrs. Miller told her son to check on Grams, and he’s a good guy so he’s going to mow her lawn,” I answered.

“It does not,” she returned and I smiled.

“It does, KC.”

“How about this scenario?” she began. “He got a load of you being cute and goofy and he’s into that, so he popped by your Grams on a day when every-freaking-body knows you go over there to get another fix of Hanna-Style Cute and Goofy.”

I burst out laughing, and after I did this for a bit, still laughing, I told her, “Seriously, I’m not his type.”

Silence then, “You know his type?’

I had also not shared that I saw him with the pretty, cool skank. That had been too painful to share, and further, I adored KC, and even though she was married that didn’t mean she couldn’t crush, and I didn’t want to pollute her fantasy either.

Now, however, was the time to share.

Forcing nonchalance, I answered, “Yeah. I saw him making out with someone a while back. Lots of hair. Lots of chest. Lots of tight clothes. Skinny-minnie and short.”

More silence then, “That’s damned disappointing.”

It was.

But whatever.

“Anyway, half of Willow troops to Grams’s and offers to help out. It was a Miller’s turn,” I told her.

“I prefer to think Raiden Ulysses Miller is into cute and goofy, not skinny, short, big-boobed and big-haired,” she retorted.

I preferred to think that, too.

Incidentally, like every girl who knew him way back then, KC thought of him with his middle name. That made a cool name doubly cool, and thus we frequently referred to him as such in spoken conversations.

Like now.

“Well yeah, but he isn’t and whatever,” I said. “Helping Grams out is just a cool thing for him to do. Now Grams can pocket Dad’s yard money and blow it on mah jongg.”

“She’s got an extra twenty bucks to bet, she’s going to own half the town. My Gram says she’s kills at mah jongg.”

I blinked at my wool. “She tells me she’s always losing.”