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making, Cade reached her.
    “You’re a difficult woman to find.” This time, his smile touched her alone, leaving aside her sharp-tongued cohorts. “I’ve been to the jailhouse, Dr. Finney’s medical office, your father’s church and the schoolhouse—I was told you sometimes volunteer with schoolmarm McCabe. And now here you are in the very last place I thought to look.”
    “Well, you always find everything in the very last place you look, don’t you?” Violet couldn’t help staring. She felt defenseless against his charisma, spellbound by his voice, fascinated by his just-for-her smile. With Cade Foster inside it, her charity kitchen suddenly felt much too small and meager. “If you kept on searching after that it would be silly.”
    Cade Foster blinked. Then he laughed. “That’s true.”
    “You may be glib, Mr. Foster, but I’m sensible.” Violet ladled up some soup for the next recipient. She gave the needy woman a smile, then received a warm thank-you in return. The line of recipients moved up a pace. “As you can see, I’m quite busy here, as well. So if you want to talk charming nonsense to me, I’m afraid you’ll just have to do it later.”
    A shared gasp came from nearby. Evidently, her colleagues were still eavesdropping, and they fully expected her to fall at Cade’s feet, lovesick with longing, at the first opportunity.
    He gave her another grin. “You think I’m charming, then?”
    “And glib. I also said ‘glib.’ Didn’t you hear that part?”
    “I heard it. But I don’t think you believe it.”
    Violet smiled. “I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t.”
    “Truly?” Mr. Foster seemed intrigued by that notion, commonplace as it was. He moved closer, nearly shoulder to shoulder with her. “Do you always say exactly what you think?”
    “Why not?” Violet stirred her soup. “Don’t you?”
    “I’m a professional sporting man, Miss Benson. I make my living on hope and happenstance. Honesty doesn’t enter into it.”
    “It seemed to do so last night. Between us.”
    At her words, he seemed taken aback. “Well, I was honest with you about not being a desperate man,” Mr. Foster said, “so if that’s what you mean regarding honesty between us—”
    “No,” Violet interrupted gently. “I mean that, after we danced, you told me I would be swamped with suitors. That’s what you said. Honestly. I didn’t believe you, but you were right!” Gleefully, she confided further, “After you left the Grand Fair, I went through two more dance cards!”
    Alone in her bedroom afterward—with care and no small measure of disbelief—she’d pressed those signature-filled dance cards between her Bible pages for safekeeping. She’d thought they might be her only mementos of that extraordinary night. But now that Cade Foster had arrived, all broad shouldered and fascinating, at her charity kitchen, the world felt ripe with possibilities. Given his occupation, he seemed twice as likely to be capable of satisfying her urge for extra zest in her dutiful, workaday life.
    “ Two dance cards? You danced that much?” Relief softened his features, lending sparkle to his vivid eyes. “That must have been fun.”
    “It was unprecedented,” Violet told him candidly. She handed a hunk of bread to the next recipient. “I’ve never danced so much in all my life! I’m sure it was because of you. By dancing with me last night, you seem to have kindled some sort of curiosity about me, Mr. Foster.”
    “The men in Morrow Creek aren’t alone in being curious about you.” Intimately, he lowered his voice. “I am, too. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you.”
    “I’ll only be sorry when it’s over.” Violet sighed, still reminiscing about last night. “Before long, folks in town will forget this, and I’ll be back to cheering up the wallflowers at parties while everyone else...” She paused, belatedly realizing the astonishing admission he’d made. “ You? Thinking about