“Gabe?” A smile flickered around Emily’s lips even as surprise filled her eyes. “Really?”

“He’s got an eye, good hands, an interest—and a work ethic I imagine he got from you. We’ll talk about it. Meanwhile, I maybe need a lawyer, too.” Darby shifted to Zane. “Do you handle real estate?”

He’d spotted the tattoo, found it nearly as fascinating as her eyes. “Not so far. But things change. Why?”

“I’ve got my eye on a place up for sale. If it works out, don’t I need somebody to handle the property search thing, and the settlement, all that?”

“Wouldn’t hurt.”

“You’re hired. I was going to take one more look, but I’m going to go ahead and make an offer tonight. I feel like all this is a sign.”

“The Hubbard place, right? I heard you’ve been looking at it. You remember that place, Zane? This side of the lake, closer to town, and back down that steep lane.”

“Yeah, vaguely.”

“The house isn’t much, but I don’t need much there. What it has is five-point-eight acres, and I need that. Greenhouse, equipment shed, and so on. It’ll work. Anyway, the bungalows. They won’t look like this.”

Emily jerked back. “But I love this. I want this.”

“For this one. You don’t want your bungalows—those homes away from home—to all look the same, to be uniform, like a development. Each one should be unique to its topography, its view, its setting. You’ll have, we’ll say, a look, a flow, but not cookie-cutter. I’ve got some designs worked up on my laptop. Why don’t I get it, you can look? You could pick where you want me to start next.”

“She always zero to sixty?” Zane wondered.

“In my limited acquaintance, yeah.”

“Sorry, if you don’t have time now, I can bring them to you tomorrow morning.”

“I’ve got wine, got my boy. I’ve got time.”

“Great. Be right back.”

Zane frowned after her. “Does she ever wind down after hitting full speed?”

“Not that I’ve seen.” Emily tipped her head to his shoulder. “I’m so glad you’re home, Zane.”

He brushed his lips over her hair. “Me, too.”

* * *

Zane had the guest room in the rambling old house. His usual spot on visits. He knew Emily and Lee would be perfectly content to have him live there, open-ended. But he’d find a place. If he was back, he was back, and needed to reset his roots, so to speak.

Gardening terms, he thought as he tried to settle in for the night. Probably came from the landscaper.

He needed to start looking at houses. No condos like he’d had in Raleigh. Time for an actual house. Hell, he could hire the landscaper to do whatever with a yard if he ended up with one.

A view of the lake—an absolute must. Reasonable proximity to his family, to town, where he’d need to set up an office. It appeared the landscaper—again—would be his first nonfamily client in Lakeview.

She sure as hell made Emily happy, and that earned her major points in his book. Happy enough, after the family celebration meal—man, Emily could cook—that she’d dragged the whole family down to the bungalow.

And there, in the moonlight, they’d been treated to the lighting Darby had added. The quirky lamppost with its copper cap, the walkway lights, little lights under the eaves, front and back, that added charm and practicality.

She’d come out, of course. Cleaned up, and she cleaned up well. Of course, she’d looked just as interesting in a sweaty T-shirt and dirty jeans.

Interesting, he thought as he stared up at the ceiling, rather than a beauty like his sister, his aunt. The short, not quite red, not really brown hair exposed the little tattoo on the back of her neck.

An infinity symbol. Had to be a story there.

She had a wiry kind of build, and he figured it suited her, as she seemed wired altogether to him. Eyes so blue they read kind of purple in a face of sharp angles. And a nose slightly, just slightly, off angle.

Broken at some point, he thought. He knew how that felt.

Lost her mother in the last year, Emily had told him. Had sold off, packed up, and moved. That took either guts or a streak of recklessness.

So did the initial deal she’d made with Emily. Maybe she had both.

He had a feeling Lee knew more, but hadn’t asked. He expected Lee would have run her background, just as a precaution—and since he’d watched Lee with her, had to assume Lee hadn’t found anything to worry him.

The boys liked her, Britt liked her, Silas, too. The baby and the dogs apparently considered her their new best friend. So Zane decided he wouldn’t worry either.

Plus, anyone who could talk Roy Dawson into a structured job had some sort of magic going. So he’d put all that to bed even if he couldn’t seem to do the same with his brain.

He rose, went to the window.

He could see the lights across the lake, could pick out the security lights glowing on the house where he’d once lived in fear and misery.

Someone else lived there now. Not the someone else who’d initially bought it once Graham and Eliza had sold it, but another someone else. He hoped any residue from his life had long been banished.

Eliza had, to his knowledge, never come back to Lakeview. He knew where she was. Once she’d served her term, she’d moved to Raleigh, and there visited her husband in prison every week. Clockwork, never missed.

Zane had never run into her, something he was grateful for. Raleigh proved big enough for all of them. Or it had. In the last few months, he felt it closing in on him. Had begun to feel, however good his life, however satisfying his work, he’d never be fully shed of them if he could turn a corner one day and run into Eliza.

And more, Graham would very likely make parole the next time out—and that was coming right up. That had crawled under his skin and stayed there.

For a long time he’d believed he couldn’t live in Lakeview again, live with the memories of that fear and misery. Then he’d come to believe he needed Lakeview, and the good memories, the people who made his real family.

He’d missed Audra’s birth by an hour because he lived in Raleigh and couldn’t get back in time. He’d played basketball with Brody, but had never been to one of his games. Only made it to a couple of Gabe’s baseball games due to the luck of timing on visits.

The kid had an arm on him.

Standing, looking at the lights, Zane picked up the baseball he carried—a replacement for the one he’d long ago worn down.

They wouldn’t come back here, he thought. There was nothing for them here. There could be everything for him here. All he had to do was take it, and make a life.

He went back to bed, the ball in his hand. Rubbing the stitching, he listened to the sigh of the breeze from the lake, the whisper of it through leaves gone green with spring.

And slept.

CHAPTER TEN

He didn’t expect to run into Darby again so quickly. Lakeview wasn’t Raleigh, but it held more than five thousand people, not counting visitors.

Still, within a couple of days he spotted her car on the lake road, slowed to give a wave.

She rolled to a stop, gesturing, so he stopped. Since he had the top down, he waited for her to lean out her window.