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skittered, their color matching the sheep that ambled below.
    Outside. This was his.
    He took a deep breath and rested his open palm on the back kitchen door. He’d found this door in a salvage yard in Half Moon Bay. He’d spent two days sanding and varnishing it.
    He’d rather stay outside—hell, he’d rather live outside than have this next conversation, but they had to talk. He pushed open the door.
    “Good morning,” Abigail said, sounding careful.
    Good. She needed to be careful.
    “You found the coffee. When you replace it, I like Ethiopian fair-trade blends. There’s a market on Main that sells it by the pound.”
    “Of course.” She nodded and sat at the table. At his table. He’d won that silver-and-red Formica table in a card game the night Lloyd Seelers drank too much Knob Creek and lost everything in his kitchen.
    Cade rummaged in a drawer near the sink. “Here.” He tossed a coaster at her, but she missed it and it landed on the floor.
    Served her right.
    She leaned over and picked it up.
    “This is nice.” She turned it over. “Beautifully crafted.”
    “Walnut,” said Cade. “From a tree that died three years ago.”
    “You made these?”
    He nodded.
    She slid the coaster under her coffee mug.
    He poured himself a cup, hoping she’d made it strong enough.
    “We need to talk,” he said.
    “Okay. I want to have a few more sips of this, though. I’m not awake yet. What time do you get up, anyway?”
    “Four thirty.”
    “In the morning?”
    “So the clock tells me.”
    “By choice?”
    “Things need doing in the morning.”
    “But you have sheep, not cows. I thought cows were the early-morning chore.”
    “Know a lot about ranching, huh?”
    “Not much, apparently.”
    He took a swallow of his coffee, expecting flavored water and finding instead a decent cup of strong coffee. Huh.
    Nor had he expected how sexy she would look in the morning. He was grateful that she had dressed, hadn’t wandered downstairs in those silly pink sheep pajamas.
    He wondered if she always wore pajamas to bed. Or did she change it up? A camisole? Or a tee shirt?
    Or nothing?
    He took another sip.
    She was wearing a red tee shirt and a soft pink sweater over blue jeans, and she looked young and freshly scrubbed. He could smell a light flowery soap scent in the kitchen along with the coffee.
    “Good coffee,” he said. He might as well give her that.
    “I’m glad you like it!” Her voice was eager, and he could see her trying to rein herself back in. “I mean, um, most people say I make it too strong. I’m glad.”
    “We need to talk about how to do this.”
    “I know.” She put her hands to her forehead and then back down in her lap. “Eliza really didn’t tell me about any of this, you know.”
    “I told you last night that I believed you. But that doesn’t make it any easier, does it, that I’m losing my land?
    “Only part of your land, and I told you…”
    “Let’s not go back to that.”
    “I’m only borrowing that room upstairs temporarily. Very temporarily. I’ll fix that cottage up in two shakes of a, well, a lamb’s tail?” She grinned. “Get it?”
    Cade stared at her.
    Her eyebrows drew together. “What, you think I should bow out?”
    “It’s crossed my mind.”
    “Legally, I’m kind of stuck here.”
    “Not a bad place to be stuck, wouldn’t you agree?”
    “I just inherited something from someone I loved. Something big and unexpected. There’s a huge part of me that’s mourning for Eliza, and there’s a part of me that’s flipping out, thrilled that I have a home now.”
    He opened his mouth to stop her, but she jumped in. Pushy , he thought.
    “I don’t mean your home, I just mean a home. Any home. I’ve never really had that, and I could make something here.”
    “Here is mine. This is my space.”
    “Gah! Listen to me. Put yourself in my shoes,” she said. “I feel like an ass, but I don’t have much choice, because I needed to leave where I was.