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  “Why’s he willing to lower the price on the building?”

  “Got me,” Georgia admitted with a shrug. “But the market’s down and he knows it. Plus, his wife wants to move to Montana to be closer to their grandchildren.”

  Their own parents had up and moved to the wilds of Oregon five years ago, Laura remembered and wistfully almost envied them the courage it took to pack up and go. To discover new places, see new things. But she was rooted in California and couldn’t see herself living anywhere else.

  “So all we need is a giant down payment.”

  “Yes,” Georgia agreed wryly. “That’s all.”

  “Okay, won’t be easy, but if we really work the next few months, we should be able to swing it. I could take out a second on this place and—”

  “No.” Georgia spoke up fast and firm. “That’s crazy, Laura. You’re not going to risk your home for this.”

  “Our home,” she corrected.

  “Thanks for that, but I still say no. We’ll find another way.”

  Thankfully, even in a bad housing market, there were always a handful of people looking for upscale homes. Enough of those commissions and they’d be able to manage it.

  “Okay then, we’ll find a way to make it work.”

  “Now see,” Georgia said, catching her sister’s eye, “why is it you can be positive about our prospects for getting enough money together to buy the building but not about Ronan?”

  “Can we not?” She stared down at her laptop, willing the darn thing to boot up already. Why did it take so long? She could be typing, entering information, focusing on work and more able to shut out Georgia’s questions.

  “I’m supposed to be the cynical one,” her sister pointed out. “I am the one with the loser ex-husband. The one who had to move in with you when she got divorced because said loser took everything out of our bank accounts on his way out of town with Busty the Cheerleader.”

  Laura laughed shortly at the description. It was dead-on. Georgia’s ex-husband had been a football coach at a small college in Ohio. Two years ago, when their season ended, the beloved coach and the head cheerleader—who also happened to be the Page sisters’ distant cousin—ran off to Hawaii, taking every cent out of a joint account and most of Georgia’s self-confidence.

  It had taken her sister a while to work her way through the betrayal and the humiliation of being tossed aside. But finally, the Page family temper had come in handy and Georgia had finally gotten angry. Much easier to live with than feeling sad—as Laura knew all too well.

  “So,” Georgia said, “I know why I don’t trust men in the slightest. But my question is, are you ragging on Ronan because of what Thomas did to you?”

  Thomas Banks. Her ex-fiancé. Five years ago, she had lost a dream, but it was so long ago now, that she barely remembered why she had thought herself in love with the man anyway.

  “No. This is different. Thomas was supposed to be forever—well, until he broke up with me in favor of Dana—”

  “May she’ll go blind from the sun glinting off that tacky huge ring he bought her,” Georgia put in.

  “Good image, thanks!” Laura took a deep breath. “Anyway, losing Thomas didn’t really hurt, Georgia. I don’t think I ever loved him and he deserved better.”

  “So did you,” Georgia put in.

  Smiling, Laura said, “And I shouldn’t let myself be hurt by Ronan, either. I knew going in that he was just temporary. He’s danger. I’m cozy. I’m stay at home, he’s adventure. Never the twain is going to meet or whatever.”

  “And yet, you kept his dog.”

  There was that small ping of guilt again. Especially when she recalled the dumbfounded expression on Ronan’s face when she refused to hand the dog over. “Well, it wasn’t Beast’s fault who his owner was.”

  “Was?”

  Beast whined in his sleep, and Laura reached a hand down to pat him. “Beast is mine now, and he’s going to stay mine.”

  “Good luck with that.”

  She’d need it. Yes, Ronan had left, but he’d be back. Laura knew that. Ronan Connelly didn’t accept defeat. Ever. Ronan was the kind of man who made things happen to suit himself. He had built his company into the premier private security business in the world. He traveled by private jet. Knew the famous and the infamous and swept through life with the confidence of a gladiator.

  Which was both attractive and annoying. Impossible to have a good argument with a man who never thought he was wrong.

  “This isn’t really about the dog anyway,” Georgia reminded her softly, “and we both know it.”

  Laura’s gaze flicked to her sister’s, and she braced herself. She didn’t want to talk about this.

  But Georgia was too stubborn to let it go.

  “You can’t blame him for something he didn’t even know about.”

  “I’m not blaming him,” Laura countered, though a part of her did, as ridiculous as that sounded. “I’m really not. Ronan’s in the past, that’s all. That affair of ours had an expiration date stamped on it. I knew that going in.”

  “Doesn’t have to be over,” her sister suggested.

  “I’m not the one who ended it, remember?”

  When Georgia would have argued, Laura spoke up fast. “He’s not here forever, Georgia. He’s going back to Ireland and we both know it. Well, I live here. And besides all of that, we want different things. Move in different worlds. It’s just…doomed.”

  “And you’re not going to tell him what’s behind all of this? Don’t you think he’s got a right to know?”

  “Maybe he does.” Laura shifted her gaze to the trees outside and watched the last few yellowing leaves flutter in the wind before snapping free of the branches and flying off in a twisting dance. Rain pelted from the sky in a burst and tapped at the windowpanes like impatient fingertips against a table.

  Funny, their mother had always hated fall and winter. She’d actually called autumn the Death of Hope season because it would be so long until summer again. Funny that she’d chosen to move to such a rainy place. Laura hadn’t thought of that in years. Now, it seemed unerringly apt.

  Because in this Death of Hope season, she was finally accepting that what she had had with Ronan was over. Finished. Hope was ridiculous when there was absolutely no reason for it.

  Turning her gaze back to her sister’s, Laura said, “What point is there in telling him that I miscarried his baby?”

  “You said it yourself,” her sister pointed out gently. “It was his baby. Maybe that’s point enough.”

  But it wouldn’t change anything, Laura thought. And what if she told him and he didn’t care? She didn’t think she wanted to find out what Ronan’s reaction would have been to almost being a father.

  ISBN: 9781459241510

  Copyright © 2012 by Brenda Streater Jackson

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