Excerpt

Ancient pine and oak boughs creaked overhead, their leaves cackling mockery even over the jingles and groans of the coach as it jostled the last few miles toward the Maine coast.

Lenore Eugenia Brownley caught herself patting the sleek twists of her chignon to make certain no hair was out of place and sighed. Like so much else familiar to her, the empty gesture belonged to another life. Fleeting images of pastel and lace teagowns and the distant chink of fine silver on even finer saucers in the rectory parlor at the Brookline's All Saints Church whipped through her thoughts, seeming so much farther away than the actual physical distance of this journey.

She laced her primly gloved fingers together to both prevent further useless fussing and banish the wave of homesickness that threatened to overtake her.

"As if anyone in the wilds of Maine really cares about appearances." She spoke her thoughts aloud.

"Beg your pardon, Miss Lenore." Her maid, Jenna Watson sitting on the opposite side of the carriage, answered her without turning her head from the passing view. "I was so busy admiring the scenery I did not quite hear you. It's been so long since the family journeyed to your grandmama's I'd nearly forgotten how impressive the trees are and how fresh the air smells so far from the city."

She took a chest-swelling breath as if to emphasize her feelings and closed her eyes before letting the air out on a long, satisfied sigh.

The further they got from Boston the less formal and more gregarious the maid got, Lenore had noted more than once without rancor. She'd been glad of Jenna's company when the maid left her perch atop the coach after their stop for lunch to join her in the Brownley's elegantly appointed interior. She'd grasped onto the idea of this trip as a means to seek a new direction for her life, only to discover that being left alone with her own scattered thoughts and indirection was tedium beyond belief.

Lenore allowed her own glance to wander the towering forest surrounding them. Jenna was right. There was something indefinable here. Ageless existence? Primordial wisdom? Something that brooked little of the modern age's transitory artifice, the very illusions she veiled herself with in an effort to be exactly what her parents wanted. Somehow all the efforts she exerted along that path seemed inconsequential in the midst of these hoary evergreens and tall-standing oaks. Surely they spurned the fears and uncertainties of one young refugee from a society which placed so little value in the primal knowledge carried in tantalizing wisps on each pine scented breeze.

"Miss Lenore?" Jenna fixed Lenore with an appraising look. "Are you feeling quite well? You seem a trifle out of sorts and have been ever-so quiet all day. We're nearly there as I recall."

They were indeed.

The cold rock of nervous dread, growing steadily larger as the miles passed, settled harder in Lenore's stomach. They had crossed the Piscataqua River some time ago, surely Grandmother Worth's cottage would come into view at any moment.

She shrugged aside her doubts about coming face to face with a past that seemed even further away than Boston. "You could hand me my bonnet from the case, please, Jenna. The one with the gold-shot ribbon. I want to look my best when I greet Grandmother Worth."

No one in Maine might care about appearances, but she did. At least she cared about her grandmother's first sight of her in nearly six years. She wanted to begin this visit on a new footing with Grandmother Worth. To show her she'd grown from a gangly spotted adolescent into a sophisticated and well-bred young woman. She struggled to ignore the inner voice insisting that was all she was.

Well-dressed and well-bred. A hollow doll.

She gripped her hands tighter together in her lap.

"Perhaps she will not spend the entire visit this time frowning at me and telling me to straighten my shoulders."

"You were so self-conscious over your height when you shot past Miss Margaret that spring." Jenna shook her head and unlocked the case on the seat beside her. "What was that, five years ago."

"Six." Six long years since her grandmother had last invited her for a visit. With a pang, Lenore remembered every single invitation that had not included her. Maggie had come every summer in between, but Lenore had not been on a visit after that last disastrous time.

She had told herself she didn't care every summer when Maggie had departed Boston and she had been left to the exclusive attentiveness of their parents. That it didn't matter because she was benefiting from things Maggie would never understand. Singular focus from her mother and her father. Detailed and protracted advancements in society. But the painful twinge inside her had put lie to each statement every year without fail. This year Grandmother's ready consent to her proposed visit had surprised her and warmed her straight to her toes. And even better, delighted her parents as they saw a clear path to making inroads to her grandmother's affections.

So why was she so desperately nervous now?

"Six. That's right. Miss Margaret stayed the whole summer that year, recuperating from the measles." Jenna pulled out a rice straw confection trimmed with silk ivy greens and pale yellow artificial roses. "I'm certain Mrs. Worth will see how well you have grown into your stature. You are quite the picture, as always, Miss Lenore. It's a pity Miss Margaret's off to Ireland visiting her new family and all. I'm sure she'd agree."

Not for the first time Lenore wished her elder sister would be there. She'd missed her more than she'd anticipated when Maggie ran away last year to marry their coachman and settle in Maine with Grandmother. But Maggie's absence had made Mama and Papa much more willing to let their younger daughter try to win back Grandmother's favor. Perhaps if this visit went well she would be able to arrange to come back when the new Mr. and Mrs. Reilly returned from their trip.

Lenore tied the bonnet ribbon in a jaunty bow and smoothed the topmost flounce of her pale green traveling dress. With its gold velvet trim and fashionably wide pagoda sleeves, she hoped to make a good enough impression on her grandmother to at least buy her some uncensured breathing room while she contemplated her future and how best she could undo the mess she had made of it. She could only hope she would please her grandmother some how. Despite her wishes to change what she was, her appearance had proved her best accomplishment as she made her way through society's shoals at her mother's elbow. It was all she had to offer at the moment.

We shall no longer bow to the dictates of others, but seize our destinies with our own hands, wasn't that part of the pledge they'd all taken only a few weeks ago in the safety of the Carlton's front room? The Brookline Daughters of Grace, issuing a defiant challenge to the whims of fate and vowing not to accept a future not of their choosing. She'd snickered at first with Amelia in the corner of the rectory parlor, then joined in the outrageous rebellion a few moments later in the much smaller group, little realizing how deeply the second repetition of their pledge would affect her.

The cry of a gull in the distance pulled Lenore back from a the despair threatening to consume her thoughts. The road brightened just ahead. They were close indeed. Her heart beat faster with a jolt of anticipation as the trees came to an abrupt halt and a meadow spread before them, bright green with a sprinkling of wild flowers.

She craned her neck out the window in a decidedly improper fashion to catch sight of Grandmother Worth's cottage on the rise at the far end of the clearing. Rough hewn and stalwart as the massive trees the coach left behind, the house stood on a natural pedestal of rolling hill providing an excellent view of the ocean beyond Belle's Cove just out of sight on the other side.

Everyone indulged Grandmother's habit of calling the imposing structure a cottage, but it was a grand mansion. Two stories high with glistening windows and enough rooms to comfortably house a family of a dozen members with rooms to spare for guests. Lenore hadn't realized just how much she'd missed coming here until a wave of homesickness swept through her, tightening her throat as she clutched the coach window.

A few minutes more and she was up the steps and across the wide porch that wrapped the house, leaving Jenna and her husband, Marcus, to tend the baggage and horses.

"Grandmother," she called, eagerness lilting her voice despite her attempt at calm as she pushed the door open and stepped into the open foyer. "Grandmother, are you here?"

There was nary a sound beyond the ticking of a mantle clock in the distance and the lingering echoes of her shouted greeting to an empty hall. Grandmother Worth did not appear to be home.

"Grandmother?" Lenore couldn't halt the forlorn little girl feeling sweeping through her. Nor the small flare of hope that either Grandmother Worth had not heard her arrival or had merely stepped out for a moment.

Had she really expected the grand dame to be standing by the door waiting to greet her with open arms? What with Grandmother running the lumber yard full time again, Lenore doubted she'd see much of her at all during this visit. Isn't that why she'd come in the first place? To seek a quiet place to contemplate her future course? Still a corner of her heart seized with disappointment.

She closed the door behind her with a snap and paced to the center of the foyer past the open doorway to the formal reception room and the closed pocket doors of the dining room opposite the grand staircase. Should she await grandmother in her study or in the parlor that faced the ocean?

"So much for making an grand entrance." She pulled off her new bonnet and gloves and tossed them on a hall table, trying to avoid the tall mirror on the wall above the polished mahogany surface and thereby shun the havoc her wary emotions were surely playing on her complexion.

A cream colored envelope tucked into the gilt edge of the mirror drew her closer than she had intended. Lenore scrawled across the front in Grandmother's handwriting. Obviously Grandmother had held no intention of greeting her younger granddaughter in person.

As Lenore reached past the polished silver surface of the mirror, she couldn't help noting the stain of color on her cheeks and the shimmer of disappointment at the corner of her eyes. How childish. She could hardly expect to govern her life if she couldn't even govern her reactions to trifling letdowns. Surely Amelia and Tori were not letting small disappointments interfere with their own quests for independence.

"At least Grandmother did not forget I was arriving today," she lectured the image in the mirror, then pulled out the folded note to read, "I had hoped to be home when you arrived, but there are pressing matters at Worth Lumber that require immediate attention. If Kate is not back from her trip to the market, pray make yourself comfortable in the room you used in years past. Mr. Warren and I will look forward to seeing you at dinner this evening. Fondly, Sylvia Worth"

As if she were signing an impersonal business letter rather than a greeting to her granddaughter. Had she really believed Grandmother might have been looking forward to a visit from her? Grandmother had always far preferred Maggie over Lenore. Lenore stuffed the note back into the envelope, tempted to spin on her heels and announce to Marcus and Jenna that they were leaving immediately for Boston.

Only there was nothing for her in Boston either. Nothing save speculative glances and a stifling life of superficial smiles and empty chatter. She hadn't come all this way to let Grandmother's disinterest turn her away.

"Miss Lenore?" Marcus Watson stood in the doorway. "Have you any idea where I'm to put your trunks? Mrs. Butler does not appear to be in the kitchen."

"Tell Jenna I'm to stay in the same room I used as a child, please Marcus. And would you ask her to put out the gold plaid taffeta dinner dress? Mrs. Worth is expecting company for dinner tonight."

"Very good, Miss." Marcus disappeared from the door.

Lenore had always liked Jacob Warren, a kindly man with a twinkle in his eye and lemon drops in his pockets. Much to Papa's chagrin, Grandmother treated Mr. Warren as more stalwart family friend than employee for all the years he'd worked as the lumber mill's manager.

His son Jake had practically run tame here during the summers. Not that Jake ever paid much attention to Lenore. He'd been more Maggie's friend, merely tolerating her own presence on berry-picking or fishing expeditions or when they scrambled over the Belle Cove rocks below Grandmother's cottage. She'd tagged along anyway, entranced by the rumble of his voice and the glint of humor in his hazel eyes. And the tickle the combination seemed to make in her belly whenever he had deigned to acknowledge her.

An irresistible need to see the cove overtook Lenore. She'd always loved the sunlight sparkling on the waters and the tang of salt in the air. Jake used to tease her that she must have been a pirate in an earlier life with all the time she spent gazing at the sea.

She crossed the remainder of the central entrance and opened the heavy oak door to the front porch. Blinking at the brightness of the sun on the water, she stepped over to the rail. Everything was just as she remembered.

Better than she remembered.

Pine trees and scrub-brush clung to the rough-hewn rocky bluffs surrounding the cove. Gentle waves soothed the edges of sand at the base of the small cliffs. Gulls dipped and swirled on the air currents rising over the water to nip her cheeks and nose.

Evergreen, salt and fresh air filled her as she counted the bright yellow and white corks bobbing near the far point, marking Job Pruitt's lobster pots lurking on the bottom for the unwary sea treats. They looked tiny from here, but up close they'd be bigger than both her hands fisted together. How she and Maggie had squealed when Jake taunted them with his living haul as he tended Job's pots, and how they had enjoyed the sweetness of the catch served steaming hot for a Saturday supper when even Grandmother ate the succulent meat with her fingers. Remembering the long ago days sent a pang straight through her.

She missed Maggie.

Missed her with an intensity she'd smothered for not only the year that had passed since her sister ran away to help Grandmother with the mill and marry the man of her own choosing. They hadn't been close for most of the time since Lenore had left Maine and Maggie behind to return to Boston with Mama and Papa so long ago.

"I wish you were here, Maggie. I wish I had your courage to know what I want and go after it," she whispered. "I wish you could help me figure out what I am to do."

But in truth if Maggie and her husband, Devin, had been in residence Papa would never have allowed this visit to take place. Because the newlywed Reillys had sailed to Ireland to acquaint Maggie with her husband's family and homeland, William Brownley, Sr. had acknowledged now as the perfect time to send their darling Lenore to attempt seal the breach with his mother-in-law after the disaster of the previous summer's encounter.

What with the Lawrence scandal tempering her chances of a match at the moment and our own financial difficulties, it might serve us well to get back into Mother's graces, Lenore's mother had pointed out when Lenore had first broached the idea of a visit to Maine to her parents. She'd been so relieved when she'd gained their consent she remembered how her chest had hurt from holding her breath in.

"Here you be, Miss Lenore. Just where I thought to find you." Jenna slipped a silk paisley shawl around Lenore's shoulders.

How long she'd been lost in the memories of her summer visits from so long ago? She could not say, but she was grateful for the shawl's shelter from the breeze. "Thank you. How ever did you guess I'd be out here?"

Jenna moved to stand beside Lenore at the rail, shading her eyes as she too surveyed the view and clutched a wool shawl tight to the bodice of her serviceable black traveling dress.

"Mrs. Butler remembered whenever you went missing as a girl, this was the most likely spot to find you. Unless of course your sister or that Jake Warren had pulled you away on some adventure."

Jenna turned her gaze to the line of caned rockers that stood along the wall. "More times than not you were out here reading something your mother thought inappropriate for a young girl, usually something from the pile your grandmama had set aside for the boy's studies. Mrs. Butler tells me he's a doctor now and quite well respected. Hard to believe how some folks will turn out once they set their minds to something."

"I suppose you're right."

Jake was a doctor and Maggie ran Worth Lumber with Grandmother. Just like they'd talked of doing all those years ago. As for the younger of the Brownley sisters, she'd certainly turned out to be exactly what she'd set her mind to also. An ornament for Boston's finest salons and drawing rooms. A bit of fluff whose greatest worry was what color gown to where and if she had caught the right gentleman's eye. Her parents' darling daughter, hardly fit for anything beyond gossip and organizing a social event. She'd almost forgotten she'd been so lost in memories of happier days.

She shivered, despite the shawl.

"You'll catch your death out here, cold as it is with this wind. Mrs. Butler set a pot of tea to brew for you as soon as she rode in from the market." Jenna fussed. "Would you like it served in the parlor or would you prefer to have a rest in your room after our long journey."

Lenore couldn't face the isolation of a bedchamber, nor the echoing silence of an empty parlor. Too much opportunity for thought. She'd had enough of that for right now. "I think I'd prefer to have a cup in the kitchen like we used to. The kitchen here always smelled so warm and welcoming. What of you and Marcus? Have you had anything since we arrived?"

Jenna shook her head. "It's very kind of you to inquire, Miss Lenore. It has been a long day already. But I've got the rest of your boxes to unpack while Marcus sees to our few things and brushes the horses. We'll both have a bite when we're through."

Lenore nodded and headed down the porch past the rockers to make the turn and use the side entrance into the kitchen. She stretched out her hand and touched each caned seatback in turn, setting them in motion as she had loved to do as a girl. Satisfaction warmed her as she turned and watched them all in motion as if she'd left an unseen band of sentries behind to guard the view in her absence.

Walking into the kitchen she took a deep breath of the sweet cinnamon and herb mix that marked Kate Butler's domain. She'd always loved spending time in this warm sanctuary with its brick floor and polished work tables. Many a happy afternoon had been spent cutting out gingerbread men or having a warm mug of tea or milk with her sister and Grandmother's cook and housekeeper who was more times than not left in charge of them while Grandmother attended to business at Worth Lumber or the Somerset docks.

"Ah, Miss Lenore." A diminutive Irishwoman with a broad smile bustled out of the pantry at that moment and crossed the room to take Lenore's hands in her own and give her a quick glance up and down.

"Aren't ye all grown up and just as pretty as St. Brigid's cross, and that's a fact." The housekeeper nodded in satisfaction her round cheeks still spread wide with her smile. "Herself will be very glad to see that ye've learned to carry yer height with such a grand air."

They both smiled at the memories of Grandmother's admonitions for Lenore to cease stooping when she'd started to grow past her sister. Lenore had been miserable, but Kate, who stood no taller than her former charge's shoulders now, had been the one who comforted her with the wisdom that the world was such a grand place, the height from which you viewed it changed very little. Her words had made all the difference to an awkward girl.

"It's good to see you too, Mrs. Butler." With the exception of a few more creases around her eyes and much more silver in the hair gathered in a knot at the top of her head, Grandmother's cook and housekeeper looked just as Lenore remembered. "You haven't changed a bit."

"I certainly haven't changed into Mrs. Butler while ye've been away. I'm still just plain Kate to you. And that's the way I like it." She chuckled and looked up with a twinkle in her blue eyes. "But ye've changed, and that's a fact. It's hard to believe ye're the same little mite that liked to stand on a stool and help me cut biscuits. Turn around and let me get a proper look at ye."

Lenore dutifully turned in a small circle, drinking in the delight of being in the sun-dappled kitchen as she spun. Save for the unpleasantness of her last visit, some of her happiest memories took place within these spacious four walls with their view of the meadow and trees behind the cottage.

"Ye've grown into a fine looking lady, Miss Lenore. The cut of yer dress and that shade of green suits ye. If Miss Margaret were here ye'd make a dazzling pair." Kate nodded her satisfaction when Lenore faced her once more.

"How is Maggie, Kate?" The longing to see Maggie swept through her again with surprising ferocity. She thought she'd put the worst of her missing her sister behind her months ago.

"She's always busy coming and going to the mill with Mr. Reilly or Mrs. Worth. Busy, but living the life she wanted and as happy as can be, as surely ye know."

"I have no idea how she is getting on." Lenore shook her head. "Mama and Papa refuse to speak of her. I garner what news I can from the letters she sends to her friends."

Upon their return from Maine last year, her parents had all-but ignored the fact that they even had an elder daughter, let alone that she was married now to the son of an Irish shipbuilder and helping her grandmother run the family business.

Kate gasped. "Surely ye don't mean ye haven't gotten her letters. Miss Margaret writes to ye near every week. Sometimes she asks me to post her letters if I'm going to the market, or Dr. Warren sends them if he's off to Kittery, but mostly I think she sends a letter to ye, and one to yer parents, along with her correspondence on behalf of the lumber yard each week."

The revelation stunned Lenore. Maggie hadn't forgotten her. She'd written every week.

Mama and Papa must have intercepted those letters. She wished she could take back all the mean, spiteful thoughts she'd directed at Maggie for deserting her this past year. And she'd been so jealous of the regular letters Tori had received, acting for all the world as if she either already knew or cared little about the snippets of news Tori sometimes shared at a tea.

The suspicion that Mama and Papa had confiscated more than just her mail from Maine sank through Lenore. She gripped her hands in front of her, agonized that she'd never thought of this before. She'd been too proud and hurt to even ask Tori to send a message to Maggie on her behalf when the first couple of letters she'd written herself last summer had gone unanswered. And she'd rebuffed Tori the times she'd approached her to speak privately about Maggie.

She'd given up on her sister, but Maggie hadn't given up on her.

"Are ye well, Miss Lenore? Ye've gone a bit pale. Perhaps ye should sit for a spell or go and have a little lie down. Travel can take a lot out of a body." Kate touched her arm and then directed her gaze to one of the tall stools by the table.

"I wish I'd tried harder..." She sank onto the stool and examined the tips of her soft traveling shoes, ashamed to meet what was surely Kate's disapproval. "...I wish I could let her know...."

"Now, don't fret." The housekeeper put her hand over Lenore's and squeezed. "I doubt she's holding anything against ye. She mentioned she was afraid ye were not getting yer letters or that yers were not getting to her. She always brightens a bit when Miss Carlton's letters include some mention of what ye'd been up to or how ye'd looked or fared at some event or another."

Lenore finally raised her eyes to lock with the compassion in Kate's bright blue gaze. "Besides if ye extend yer stay by a week or two mayhap ye'll have a chance ta talk it over with her yerself. The Reillys plan to return by late July."

Lenore nodded.

We shall seize our destinies with our own hands.

Maggie had done very well for herself in doing just that. Perhaps she could pattern herself after her sister's example.

"Would ye like me to fetch ye a cuppa tea and some of those raisin cookies ye were so fond of? I told yer Jenna Watson I could bring a tray to yer room or to the parlor if ye'd like."

"I'd just as soon sit here, if you don't mind?"

Kate beamed. "Just as ye used to. Ye're one of the few people I never minded in my kitchen. I'll have ye all set up in a trice."

Kate bustled to the stove and the steaming cast iron kettle set to one side. After deftly preparing the tea in a brown pottery teapot, she pulled a matching plate from the shelf and dipped into a large blue tin to fill the plate with the cookies Lenore liked best of all the delights she used to make for her girls as she had called Maggie and Lenore when they were little.

All the while Lenore sat watching the little Irishwoman who hummed a vaguely familiar ditty, feeling very foreign and out of place where years ago she had been completely at home. So little had changed here and yet everything was different. She was different. Whatever had happened to the little girl who counted her sister as her best friend in all the world, especially during their summer holidays with Grandmother? How could she have allowed herself to get so wrapped up in becoming the darling daughter her parents envisioned that she seemed to have lost touch with what she wanted? How was she going to recognize her destiny if she barely recognized herself?

"Tell me, now, if ye don't mind me asking." Kate carried a tray laden with the tea and all the trimmings. "With all yer finery and the grand parties ye must attend, is there a special young man that has caught yer fancy down there in Boston?"

The pallid image of Jonathan Adams Lawrence, III, Amelia's elder brother, rose for a moment. There had been a time after Maggie eloped when Lenore had been very flattered that her sister's former suitor had turned his attentions toward the younger Miss Brownley. Mama and Papa had been delighted. Lenore shuddered thinking of his paunch and his meaty hands. She'd come here to escape Jonathan, not dwell on what might have been.

"No," she said a tad too strongly and winced. "At least no one in particular."

"There, there, Miss Lenore. Don't fret yerself. Drink yer tea and forget all about the prying clucking of this old hen." Kate took a sip from her own mug after watching Lenore do so first. "More than likely he was not worth the heartbreak, anyway."

Before she could correct Kate's misconception over her reaction, a clock struck four times in the distance and Kate fairly leaped to her feet. "Well, by St. Peter's sword, think of the time. I've dinner to fix yet and all this still to get settled away. You sit here, Miss Lenore and enjoy yer tea. I must get busy or dinner will be late and ye know how Mrs. Worth is about punctuality."

"I'd love to help you," Lenore could hardly believing her ears as the suggestion tumbled out of her mouth. Proper young ladies knew far more about preparing a menu that they did about preparing the actual dishes on them. Yet spending time with Kate in the kitchen had been her salvation during many a lonely afternoon when Maggie had gone with Grandmother to Worth Lumber and Jake was actually devoting himself to his studies.

Kate cocked her head to one side and rested her hands on her hips, a familiar gesture that showed she was tempted. "Are ye sure? Our last time ended in disaster."

"Of course I'm sure." Lenore stood up. Why not? Papa was nowhere nearby and would be none the wiser. "Some of my happiest memories include helping you and listening to the stories and songs your mother taught you from the old country."

"Very well," Kate beamed. "But first, ye must put on this. And ye might turn back those grand cuffs on yer sleeves as well."

Kate reached into a drawer and pulled out a long bleached muslin bibbed apron. "I'll not have that Jenna Watson taking me to task for a little flour or salt on yer fine dress."

An hour or more had passed and Lenore was elbow deep in a bowl punching down dough for rolls to go with the night's dinner and humming the same tune Kate had hummed earlier when a familiar voice boomed from the doorway.

"Well, now what is this, have you finally admitted you're getting on in years and taken on an assistant Kate Butler?"

The deep timbre and baiting tone sliced through Lenore with a completely unexpected and unsettling effect as it shimmered straight through her stomach.

Jake.

Jake Warren. The memories that had revived this afternoon on the porch had not prepared her for the effect of actually hearing his voice again.

Lenore turned with a start and sent the bowl she was manhandling spinning off the table's edge in her haste. As she lunged to catch it she caught a fleeting glimpse of him framed in the doorway, his face darkened by the sunlight behind him.

Despite the changes the years had wrought in him, she would have known him anywhere.

Staggering, she caught the bowl. Jake's fingers tangled with hers on the rim. A bolt of heat streaked through her. How had he moved so quickly? She pulled the bowl toward her and his other hand slipped around her back to prevent her from falling against the table.

Pulled tight in his embrace, she looked up. Looked past his broad shoulders and the jut of his chin. Looked beyond the curve of his lips and the tip of his nose and straight into the green-flecked depths of his eyes. The scent of sage, citrus, and Jake filled the air.

Her breath locked in her chest.

Caught by the fire in his gaze. Circled by the strength of his arms, realization dawned. Since long before she'd arrived, before she'd taken a pledge to change her life or thought of Maine as her haven, of all the things she'd missed the most from her summers in Maine--Grandmother, the rockers, Belle Cove, Kate, and even her own sister--it was Jake Warren she'd been longing the most to see.

"Hello, Nora," he said with a soft smile. "Welcome home." He bent his head and brushed his warm lips across hers.

She should never have come here.