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things with Melissa don’t let them see each other.”
    “Who’s Melissa?”
    “His wife.”
    “Wait . . . what?”
    A serious, stomach-dropping worry swept through Jen.
Two peas in a pod
. How could Aimee
do
that, get involved with a married guy, especially after all the crap they’d had to deal with as kids?
    She closed her eyes and mouth and breathed carefully through her nose.
One problem at a time.
Technically, it was Aimee’s problem, but when had Aimee’s issues ever only been her own?
    She opened her eyes to find Ainsley tossing the apple core into the herb garden. “Melissa and Owen are still married and they live in the same house. That big old white one over on Catalpa?”
    Jen ground the heel of a hand into her eye socket. “And Aimee
knows
this?”
    “Oh, yeah.”
    “What about Melissa?”
    “Oh, she knows, too.”
    Jen thought she might be sick.
    “T and Lacey say it’s no big deal,” Ainsley said. “So do I.”
    Those girls again. “And who are they exactly?”
    “Owen and Melissa’s kids. Relax, Aunt Jen.” The girl actually put a hand on Jen’s arm and gave this little bat of her eyelashes that screamed
Aimee
. “They’re getting divorced. It just hasn’t happened yet. Or maybe it won’t. I don’t know.” Then she shrugged and the kid was back. “Whatever.”
    Whatever
was right. Jen started to laugh. She couldn’t help it. “Alrighty then. My sister is dating a not-yet-divorced guy who still lives with his wife. Hey, where are you going?”
    Ainsley turned from where she’d been heading down the sidewalk, away from downtown. “To Bryan’s. He got a slingshot yesterday.”
    As Ainsley walked away, Jen turned to look through the big front window of the Thistle, where she—and anyone else walking by—could plainly see Owen the still-married-but-
whatever
plumber and her sister making out. What the hell was going on here?
    Jen couldn’t help but flash back to so many days of her youth. To the embarrassing, awful, public scenes she’d been forced to witness—and sometimes break up—between her mom and the random women who seemed to know Frank, the live-in boyfriend who wasn’t Jen’s or Aimee’s dad, all too well.
    No time for that, she reminded herself with a shake of the head. Now she was working, and the past was the past. First, she had to run back to the rental house and switch out her shoes for something more appropriate to traipsing around fairgrounds.
    But when she pulled up to 738 Maple, there was a huge white pickup truck consuming the driveway.
MacDougall Landscape Design
was stenciled in green on the sides.
    Jen sat there clutching the steering wheel and closed her eyes. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to see Leith—she did; she really did—she just wasn’t ready. She hadn’t prepared herself. Hadn’t thought it all through, as she was so good at doing. For a small, sleepy town, everything was happening so incredibly fast.
    Maybe if she opened her eyes slowly, her mind would admit it had played a trick on her and he wouldn’t actually be here right now. She opened them. The truck stared back at her.
    And then, there was Leith MacDougall sauntering out of the open garage. He lifted his thick arm to wipe the side of his sweaty face on the shoulder of his stained white T-shirt. The old poster tacked to the vacant store window downtown hadn’t done him justice. That kilt had hidden the true power of his thighs, but the dirty jeans he wore now showed them off like trophies. He was at least thirty pounds bigger than in high school, maybe more. Not ’roided out or disgustingly cut, but firm. Unmistakably strong.
    Why was seeing him like this affecting her so much? It had been a high school thing, before either of them could even define the word
mature.
Nothing more.
    Reaching over the side of his truck bed for something unseen, he froze. Turned his head. Saw her sitting there in the car.
    Suddenly she couldn’t breathe. Just sat there like a dumbass