Chapter One

      Trish Wright-Roper stuck the fork tines through the paper napkin, ruining it. Normally, she didn’t mind rolling silverware. It was a mindless activity, really. But on a day like today, when her brain was too busy remembering, it was irritating her beyond reason.

      She could hear Milo finishing up in the kitchen. Earlier he’d dropped a steam table pan onto the tile floor and the clang had echoed through the empty café. She’d gone back to investigate and he’d been staring at the pan, his face flushed with anger.

      Not at himself. Not at the pan. Not even at her.

      For her. Because everyone who knew Trish well knew that four years ago today, Rafe Roper had died and her heart had been broken. And everybody who cared about her, which definitely included Milo, was on edge. No one would admit it, though. Instead, they’d practically turn somersaults to get her to think of something else.

      Milo was no different. “What do you say you and me catch a movie in Hamerton tonight?” he asked, coming out of the kitchen. The man’s hair was pulled back from his face in a tight ponytail and it hung practically to the middle of his back. He was an ex-con who’d applied for work just weeks after Rafe’s death. He’d been a lifesaver because she’d been in no shape to work, to hold up her share of the responsibilities.

      “You hate movies,” she said. “You think it’s ridiculous to pay ten dollars to see something that you’ll be able to see for nothing in just a couple of months.”

      “Yeah,