She was right of course. He shouldn’t maul her on her front porch. What if her neighbors saw? He needed to protect her reputation. She was important in the community and people looked up to her. As her husband, he’d need to always keep such things in mind. “I’m sorry, let’s take this inside, shall we?”

“I’m really tired, Alex. I think I’ll pass on any company. Thanks for the game and dinner.” She took a step back, fumbling with the door knob directly behind her.

He exhaled sharply. She held herself away from him and that was not all right. But he had to let her know he was there for good. She was just worried he’d love her and leave her. “Fine. I’ll call you later. You know what, Maggie? You’re my girlfriend, right?”

Her eyes darted around until finally coming back to look at his face. “Um, well, no. We’ve dated, yes, but to my mind, that takes a lot longer than a few dates.”

“Goodnight, Maggie.” He turned and walked away from her without another word before she could say anything else.

Moving into the house quickly, Maggie locked the door behind herself. She also threw the deadbolt. Her hands shook. He sat in her driveway for several minutes more and finally pulled away. With a sigh of relief, she sat in a heap on her couch.

After the nausea passed, she went through the house and checked to make sure her doors and windows were locked as she replayed the evening in her mind. The way he spoke to her, held onto her all the time—it was really frightening and totally inappropriate. It’d started out sort of nice but went right to patronizing, clingy and then outright scary in really short order.

No more dates with him, that was for sure. No, when she got up the next day she’d talk to Liv and work out a way to break things off that made it clear she wasn’t interested but also didn’t make things worse.

Chapter Three

The day started out pretty darned good when she was downtown picking up ingredients for the banana bread.

Distracted as she shopped for baking supplies, Maggie was walking down Main Street when she literally bumped into Shane.

“Sheriff Chase, you seem to make a habit of knocking into me.” Her flirtatious laugh died in her throat as she looked up his body and into his face. Try as she might, she couldn’t ignore the tightening in her stomach at the sight of his khaki colored uniform stretched tight across his muscles.

“You’re a menace, Miz Wright.” He laughed back. “Tell you what? To make up for crashing into me, yet again, why don’t you buy me a cup of coffee and cinnamon roll?”

Unreality slid into her. Did the man just ask her for coffee? Still, she managed to hang on to her flirty tone. “All right, if it’s that or go to jail, I suppose I’d better bribe you.”

They walked the two blocks to the Honey Bear Bakery. “Why don’t you grab a table and I’ll get the drinks and cinnamon rolls?” Maggie waved at an open corner table.

Shane blushed. “Oh no! I was just kidding. I’ll buy.”

“Nope, not this time. It’s my treat. Now go on, get a table, I’ll be over in a sec.” Maggie made shoo motions with her hands.

He hesitated for a moment and she could see him wrestling with how he could wrangle his way into paying but he soon gave up and sighed. “Fine. I’ll get us a table.”

At least being alone at the counter and getting the giant rolls and steaming cups of coffee to the table without spilling gave her the chance to concentrate on something other than the fit of his uniform and why in the world he’d be interested in her to begin with. But eventually, she arrived at their table and had to unload the tray and sit down.

“You know, when I went away to school, my dad would mail me these cinnamon rolls at my birthday and holidays.” The pleasant memory of her father cut into the happiness she’d been feeling.

“That was nice. Sounds like something my mom would do.”

“Your mother would bring them herself.” She laughed, thinking about Polly Chase and that mile long car of hers.

He chuckled. “You know her pretty well then.”

“I happen to think your mother is an amazing woman. So old world in many ways but she always surprises me with how modern she is. I have to laugh every time I hear the click clack of those heels coming down the hall when the Historical Society meets. Everyone stops messing around and waits patiently and quietly until she comes in. Every time she does the same thing—slams that massive purse of hers down on the table, gives her hair a primp and flops into the chair.”

“According to my father, she started out with a tiny purse back before she had me and it’s gotten bigger over the years. We all thought that when all of us moved out and it was just her and Dad again, it would get smaller.” He shook his head. “But I swear she needs the car just to cart the purse around.”

Maggie burst out laughing. “She came to my house you know—to apologize for you.”

“She’s the ultimate meddler but her heart is in the right place.”

“Hey, don’t complain, you could have Cecelia Wright as your mother.” She winced as it came out, more bitter than she expected. “Oh god, never mind, that just sounded awful.”

“How about this? Why don’t you let me take you to dinner tonight and you can tell me the whole story?”

Her eyebrow went up and a smile played at the corner of her mouth. If she’d been watching herself from a distance she wouldn’t even had suspected her stomach had just run riot with butterflies and she had a mental picture of herself doing the somersault of joy.