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had split? Three years? Maybe not quite. Julie was the woman Luke had intended to marry. She was the woman he’d bought the ring for, had gotten down on one knee for, the whole nine yards.
    She was the one who had broken his heart.
    “What a surprise,” she said, walking cautiously forward.
    She looked as gorgeous as ever, her blond hair cut stylishly short, her figure trim and athletic, only a few months past bearing her first child. “How are you?” he asked.
    “Good,” she said, and stopped at his bumper, her gaze flicking over the Bronco. “Still running, huh?”
    “Better than ever.” Luke turned to look at his Bronco, but a movement caught his attention. It was a tiny car with a donut spare drivingslowly past. Blue Eyes was leaning forward, squinting up at the signs above his head.
    “You look good,” Julie said, not noticing the car. “But then, you always did.” She laughed, and touched her earring. It was a simple but familiar gesture that took Luke back a few years. They would sit on the porch swing out at the ranch, talking about everything and nothing, and she would idly play with her earring.
    “Thanks,” he said. He didn’t know what more he should say. All he could think was that if everything had gone according to plan, he and Julie would be married, and her child would be his. If it hadn’t been for Mom and Leo—
    “Are you still in Denver?” she asked.
    “Yep. I just came home to check in with Dad and Leo.”
    Julie nodded. She smiled coyly. “Girlfriend?”
    He hated that she felt she had the right to ask. He shrugged. “Sometimes.”
    She laughed. “I bet you have them falling at your feet, Luke. So how is Leo? I haven’t seen him around.”
    Luke’s breathing hitched a tiny bit. “He’s good,” he lied. “Doing great. And Brandon?” he asked, referring to her husband, although he could care less how that ass was doing. Did he hope it, or did a slight shadow glance over Julie’s face when he asked about her husband?
    She shoved her hands into the pockets of her jeans. “He’s a proud papa.” She didn’t say more than that. They stood there, looking at each other, maybe looking past the weeks and months and years since it had ended between them.
    Fortunately, Luke was saved from saying something stupid or inappropriate by the little car, which caught his attention once more. It drove by again, but in the opposite direction.
    “Well,” Julie said. “Tell your Dad and Leo I said hello, will you?”
    “Sure.”
    She smiled warmly. “It was really good to see you, Luke. Really good.”
    There was something in her voice, something he didn’t quite understand, but that he felt in his gut. He stood there a moment too long;he could feel himself softening. Luke made himself move first. “You, too, Julie.” He turned around, walked to the driver side of his Bronco.
    Julie Daugherty had let him down in the worst way, and somehow, Luke had picked himself up and gone on with his life. He wasn’t going to go backward now.
    He looked back over the hood of his truck. She was still standing there, her hands tucked into her back pockets, biting her bottom lip, almost as if she was trying to keep from speaking. Her gaze was full of yearning and it sent a shiver of disturbing familiarity down Luke’s spine. He got into his truck and turned the ignition before he made the mistake of asking her why she was looking at him the way she was.

    If Pine River had a backwater part to it, Elm Street was it. On this street, the houses were smaller and a little more run-down than elsewhere in town.
    Luke found the house where his dad and Leo were staying easily enough—it looked just as Dad had described it when he explained he and Leo were temporarily renting a place. It was a little green clapboard that sat in the middle of a square patch of manicured lawn, surrounded by a chain-link fence. The detached garage was only big enough for one car. A doghouse that looked new sat under a towering