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all
happening, she thought with an inner grin. Her whole life was changing right
before her eyes. Georgia would never again be the same woman she had been when
Mike had walked out of her life, taking her self-confidence with him.
    “Our Sean’s been busy as well, hasn’t he?” Maeve mused aloud.
“Been a help to you right along?”
    Cautious, Georgia slid a glance at the canny woman beside her.
So far she and Sean had kept their…relationship under the radar. And in a
village the size of Dunley, that had been a minor miracle. But if Maeve Carrol
was paying attention, their little secret could be out.
    And Maeve wasn’t the only one paying attention. Laura was
starting to give Georgia contemplative looks that had to mean she was wondering
about all the time Georgia and Sean were spending together.
    Keeping her voice cool and her manner even cooler, Georgia said
only, “Sean’s been great. He’s helped me get the paperwork going on getting my
business license—” Which was turning out to be more complicated than she’d
anticipated.
    “He’s a sharp one, is Sean,” Maeve said. “No one better at
wangling his way around to what he wants in the end.”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “Maggie Culhane told me yesterday that she and Colleen Leary
were having tea at the pub and heard Sean talking to Brian Connor about his
mum’s cottage, it standing empty this last year or more.”
    Georgia sighed inwardly. The grapevine in Dunley was really
incredible.
    “Yes, Sean was asking about the cottage for me. I’d really like
to live in the village if I can.”
    “I see,” Maeve murmured, her gaze on Georgia as sharp as any
cop’s, waiting for a confession.
    “Oh, look,” Georgia blurted, “here comes Mary Donohue with the
keys to the store.”
    Thank God, she thought, grateful
for the reprieve in the conversation. Maeve was a sweetie, but she had a
laserlike focus that Georgia would just as soon avoid. And she and Sean were
keeping whatever it was between them quiet. There was no need for anyone else to
know, anyway. Neither one of them was interested in feeding the local
gossips—and Georgia really didn’t want to hear advice from her sister.
    “Sorry I’m late,” Mary called out when she got closer. “I was
showing a farm to a client, and wouldn’t you know he’d be late and then insist
on walking over every bloody blade of grass in the fields?”
    She shook her mass of thick red hair back from her face,
produced a key from her suitcase-sized purse and opened the door to the shop.
“Now then,” she announced, standing back to allow Georgia to pass in front of
her. “If this isn’t perfect for what you’re wanting, I’ll be shocked.”
    It was perfect, Georgia thought,
wandering into the empty space. The floor was wood, scarred from generations of
feet tracking across its surface. But with some polish, it would look great. The
walls were in need of a coat of paint, but all in all, the place really worked
for Georgia. In her mind, she set up a desk and chairs and shelves with samples
stacked neatly. She walked through, the heels of her boots clacking against the
floor. She gave a quick look to the small kitchen in the back, the closet-sized
bath and the storeroom. She’d already been through the place once and knew it
was the one for her. But today was to settle the last of her nerves before she
signed the rental papers.
    The main room was long and narrow, and the window let in a wide
swath of daylight even in the gray afternoon. She had a great view of the main
street, looking out directly across the road at a small bakery where she could
go for her lunch every day and get tea and a sandwich. She’d be a part of
Dunley, and she could grow the kind of business she’d always wanted to have.
    Georgia breathed deep and realized that Mary was giving her
spiel, and she grinned when she realized she would never have to do that
herself, again. Maeve wandered the room, inspecting the space as if she’d never
seen it