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only met Bryce yesterday, for heaven’s sake! And he was her boss , after all. Besides, she’d barely put the Joey fiasco behind her. No way she intended to go down Romance Row again. At least, not this soon. “No offense,” she began, “but I’m not in the least bit interested in a relationship right now.” Sam paused. “In fact, I may never be interested in a man again.”
    “Aww, some cad broke your heart, eh?”
    Just as Bryce preferred not to discuss his battle scars, Sam didn’t like talking about her most recent failure with the opposite sex. Especially not Joey Michaels, who’d led her to believe that “happily ever after” could happen in real life and not just in fairy tales. She’d devoted herself to helping him build his construction company. When she wasn’t at work or school, Sam could be found in his basement office drumming up business, finding innovative ways to get him a little free publicity, designing mailers and brochures, business cards and letterhead, furnishing and decorating his office, and taking great pains to ensure he’d look presentable and professional on every possible level. Sam had refused to accept a salary, too, even though she usually clocked twenty hours weekly on top of her other job and college schedule…believing that someday, the company they’d built together would support their growing family. Their hard work paid off, too, and before long, Michaels Construction had more work than she and Joey could handle. It had been Sam who’d placed an ad and interviewed candidates to take over her duties when graduation and final exams loomed, so didn’t she feel like the little ninny when, three months later, Joey announced he’d fallen in love with her replacement.
    “Cat got your tongue?” Olive asked.
    “No. Sorry. My mind’s just wandering, I guess.”
    Sam’s brothers had often teased her, saying, “Whatever’s in your head is written all over your face!” But she’d managed to balance work and daydreaming before. Hopefully, Olive wouldn’t see what her brothers had.
    “What’s his name?”
    “Joey,” she said, forcing a grin. She didn’t even need to close her eyes to remember how he’d blamed her for the breakup, saying that if she’d spent less time at school and more time with him…
    “Take it from a gal who knows, sweetie. When the man God has chosen for you comes along, you’ll forget all about this Joey character.”
    “Yeah, and I guess I’ve come to the right place,” she said, laughing. “I read there are five men to every woman in Alaska.”
    “Hmpf,” Olive snorted. “Just another one of those crazy rumors that goes around so many times it sounds authentic. Way out there in the boonies, that might be true, but then isn’t the same thing true for every other state in the U.S.?” Softening her tone, she patted Sam’s hand. “All you need is one man, Sammie-girl. The right one.”
    Sam wondered where Olive had picked up such wisdom when it came to relationships, because hadn’t Bryce mentioned that she’d never married? As if to answer Sam’s unspoken question, Olive continued.
    “Just because no man has put a ring on my finger doesn’t mean I haven’t come close a time or three,” she said, winking again. And handing Sam the last of the Christmas music boxes they’d been cataloguing, she whispered, “Can you keep a secret?”
    Sam’s mood brightened. “I love secrets, especially when they don’t involve me!”
    Olive glanced right and left to assure herself the coast was clear. “When I leave for Florida in a couple weeks, it’ll be for my honeymoon.”
    Though Sam barely knew this woman, her heart overflowed with joy on Olive’s behalf, mostly because of the happiness radiating from Olive’s dark eyes. “Oh, that’s wonderful news! But…why keep it so hush-hush?”
    Smile fading, Olive shook her head. “Bryce has been through a lot these past half dozen years or so. First, he lost his best friend in Iraq,