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told her to eat. She ate.
    “A body’s going to need some big plans to burn all this off,” Alex said, spooning some scrambled eggs onto his plate.
    Gretchen paused with her fork halfway to her mouth. “I plan to work.”
    Gram chuckled as she set a mason jar of homemade strawberry jam on the table and sat down. “Gretchen doesn’t like to talk much over breakfast. She’s usually working out in her mind what she needs to get done for the day.”
    “Fair enough. This looks too delicious to let get cold, anyway.”
    Gretchen frowned at her plate. Her grandmother was right, but hearing herself described out loud like that made Gretchen want to wince. She was damn proud of being
like
her grandfather, but she didn’t actually want to
be
him. She was too young to turn into an old man, for goodness’ sake.
    “Do you have any plans today?” she asked Alex after taking a bracing gulp of strong, black coffee.
    He looked surprised for a second, since he’d just been told she didn’t like breakfast conversation, but then he nodded. “I’m heading over to see Coach in a little while. Then I’ll probably wander around for a bit. I might hit the library and see if I can poke around the archives for some background history.”
    “I have some books that need to go back,” Gram said. “And a murder mystery I requested came in. I got a call about it and then totally forgot.”
    “Do you want to go into town with me, or do you want me to return your books? I’m sure if you call, they’ll let me pick up your murder mystery.”
    “You don’t want to drag me around town all day, but if you don’t mind stopping at the library for me, that would be wonderful.”
    Gretchen forced herself to keep eating and stay out of it. If Alex didn’t want to help Gram out, he wouldn’t have offered. And since they were so at home with each other, they could figure it out. Meanwhile, she’d just sit there and apparently channel her grandfather.
    “You okay?” she heard Alex ask, and she realized he was talking to her.
    “Yeah. Why?”
    “You just sighed, like something was wrong.”
    “Just kicking myself for sleeping in,” she lied. “I usually take care of the horses before breakfast, so I’m already behind.”
    “It’s not like you to lie in bed half the day,” Gram said, despite the fact that it wasn’t even seven thirty. “Are you feeling okay?”
    Forcing herself not to so much as glance at the reason she’d been “lying in bed half the day” lest she blush at the memory of her nocturnal thoughts, she nodded. “I’m fine, Gram. First night in a new room and all.”
    “Sorry about that,” Alex said.
    She smiled at him in case he was actually feeling guilty. “I’ll be fine, and we’re glad to have you here.”
    He smiled back at her, his dark eyes crinkling at the corners. “I’m glad to be here.”
    Wondering if those laugh lines were a detail her imagination would add to the fantasy version of him she’d been tormented by last night, Gretchen turned her attention back to her eggs. If she was going to work hard enough to keep fantasies of Alex at bay, her body was going to need a lot of fuel.
    —
    A lex drove down Eagles Lane—so renamed after Alex and his teammates brought home the first football championship—and did a slow roll up to Coach’s house.
    He’d been a sullen fifteen-year-old the first time he’d walked up the front steps of the old New Englander the McDonnells called home, and sitting on the porch with Coach that night had changed his life forever.
    It had been Alex’s seventh or eighth trip to the police station for fighting, and Coach happened to stop in on other business just in time to see Alex’s mom break down in tears. With a husband who was out of patience with his stepson and two young daughters who didn’t need his bad behavior setting an example, she didn’t know what to do with Alex anymore.
    Coach had comforted Joanne and then offered to take Alex home with him for the