Willowleaf Lane

She enjoyed finding yet another point of commonality between them. Maybe that explained her sympathy for the girl, who appeared so lost and unhappy.

While Charlotte hadn’t been uprooted at this tender age to a new community, she might as well have been. Her entire world, her whole perspective, had undergone a dramatic continental shift at losing her mother. She had felt like she was living in a new world, one where nobody else could possibly understand her pain.

While Charlotte cut, weighed and wrapped the fudge, Peyton wandered around the store looking at some of the Colorado souvenirs Charlotte stocked.

The husband half of the older couple clutched a bag with saltwater taffy while his wife had several boxes of jelly beans in her arms. The two of them moved to the chocolate display and started debating the merits of dipped cashews versus cherries.

Charlotte smiled politely, waiting for the argument to play out. When Peyton approached the cash register, Charlotte held out the bag of sweets.

“Here you go,” she said.

“Thanks.” Instead of taking it immediately, Peyton reached into her bag and retrieved a hard-sided snap wallet with splashy pink flowers on a black background. She pulled out a credit card and Charlotte spied several more inside the wallet.

She felt a moment’s disquiet. Why would a girl barely on the brink of adolescence need multiple credit cards? Had she stolen them? Charlotte wondered fleetingly, but discarded the idea just as quickly.

She had certainly been wrong about people before. She would be delusional to believe her instincts were foolproof. History would certainly bear that out. She had instinctively liked Peyton, though, and didn’t want to believe her a thief.

She probably had self-absorbed, indulgent parents—divorced, more than likely—who thought throwing another credit card at her would fix any heartbreak or trauma.

Charlotte slid the card back across the clear counter. “Tell you what. No charge. Why don’t you consider this a welcome-to-Hope’s-Crossing sort of thing?”

Peyton’s mouth dropped open a little and she stared at Charlotte, obviously astonished by the simple kindness. “Seriously?”

“Sure. It’s a gift for you and your family.”

At her words, the look in Peyton’s dark eyes shifted from incredulity to a quiet sort of despair before she veiled her expression.

“I don’t have a family,” she declared, her voice small but with a hint of defiance.

Was she a runaway? Charlotte considered. Should she be alerting Riley McKnight, the police chief of Hope’s Crossing, so he could help reunite her with whomever she had escaped? With the vague idea of keeping the girl talking so she could glean as much information as possible, she glanced at the other couple and saw they were busy sampling every variety of fudge.

“Nobody at all?” she asked.

Peyton shrugged, the movement barely rippling her thin shoulders inside the T-shirt that looked a size or two too large. “I had a mom but she died last year.”

Ah. Maybe that explained Charlotte’s instant empathy, that subtle connection she felt for the girl.

“I’m sorry. My mom died when I was about your age, too. Sucks, doesn’t it?”

Peyton made a sound that could have been a snort or a rough laugh. “You could say that.”

“So who do you live with, then?” she asked with studied casualness.

“My stupid dad,” Peyton said and Charlotte felt herself relax. Okay. The girl had a dad. One she wasn’t crazy about, apparently. No need to jump to conclusions because she said she had no family.

“Where is your dad?”

She pointed out the door. “He stopped to take a phone call. I got bored waiting around so I came in here.”

“No brothers or sisters?”

“No. Just me.”

“So you and your dad are moving to Hope’s Crossing together?”

“Yeah.” Her mouth tightened. “He took a job here even though I told him I didn’t want to move. I had to leave all my friends in Portland, my best friend, Victoria, this boy I like, Carson, and the mall and everything. This dumb town doesn’t have any good stores.”

Charlotte, for one, had hated clothes shopping when she was Peyton’s age. Even before her mom died, she had been pudgy, with plenty of baby fat that stubbornly clung on. Afterward, the pounds just piled on until she couldn’t find a single thing that fit in any store except what she had considered the fat old lady stores.

Now her favorite thing was to go into a clothing store and actually have choices.

“We have a pretty decent bookstore and a couple nice boutiques that specifically cater to teens. And a killer candy store,” she added with a smile.

Peyton didn’t look thrilled about any of those offerings. “Yeah. I guess. It’s not the same as Portland. I could buy anything there.”

Charlotte wasn’t sure the shopping options were the measure of what made a good town, but she decided not to offer that particular opinion.

“The good news is, as long as you’ve got an internet connection, you can still find everything you like. And Denver’s only a few hours’ drive.”

“I guess that’s true.”

Peyton still didn’t look convinced of the wonders of Hope’s Crossing. Charlotte couldn’t blame her. Change could be tough for anyone, especially a young girl who had no control over her own circumstances.

“Thanks for the fudge,” Peyton said.

“You’re welcome. Come back anytime. Next time maybe I’ll have cinnamon fudge for you.”

“You make that? Really?”

“Sure. It’s generally something I have only around the holidays but I’ll see about a special order.”

The small cowbell hanging on the door rang out. Charlotte looked up from Peyton, donning her customary friendly smile of greeting—then the smile and everything else inside her froze when she caught sight of the man who’d just walked through.

Oh, crap.

Her stomach dived like the time she accidentally wandered into a black-diamond ski run when her older brother Dylan took her up to the resort once.

“There you are.” The man was gorgeous, with a square jawline, a slim elegant nose and hazel eyes fringed by long lashes.

Smokin’ Hot Spencer Gregory. The cameras and sports magazines had loved him, once upon a time.

“Why didn’t you tell me you wanted to leave? One minute you were there, the next I turned around and you were gone.”

The curious girl who had tasted Charlotte’s fudge with such appreciation disappeared, replaced by a sullen, angry creature who glowered at the man.

“I did,” she muttered. “I said I wanted to come in here. I said it like three times. I guess you were too busy with your phone call to notice.”

He frowned. “Pey, you can’t just wander off. I was worried about you.”