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asked. “I can stay, if you want.”
    “I’m fine, really. I appreciate the support, but I’m okay. I think I’ll read my book and then go to bed and try to pretend this day never happened.”
    “I’m really sorry your big date ended the way it did,” Aunt Beth said.
    “You know, it would be a little easier if you didn’t phrase it that way,” Harriet said with a tired sigh. She got up and began carrying empty cups to the sink.
    Connie got her purse and coat then went to Harriet and pulled her into a warm hug.
    “Just remember, we all love you,” she said.
    Mavis joined them, patting Harriet on the back.
    “If there’s anything I can do, I’m just a phone call away,” she said.
    “That goes for me, too,” Aunt Beth added. “I know you’re tough, but even the strong need support sometimes.”

Chapter 7
    Harriet woke up early the next morning. She’d actually slept well the night before, probably because her dog had slept over at Connie’s. Scooter usually got up at least once each night to go outside, and he woke crying in the night several times a week. She could only imagine what sort of treatment had left him with nightmares.
    “Hey, Fred,” she said when she’d come downstairs and scooped some of the rubbery glop Aiden had prescribed into her cat’s ceramic bowl at the end of the kitchen bar. “I know this isn’t your favorite, but you have to admit your dandruff has improved.”
    It hurt to think of Aiden, but she pushed the thought to the back of her mind. Today was a new day, and she’d need all her concentration to be on quilts and the upcoming festival.
    She went into the quilt studio and unlocked the door to the outside. No one, including the paper delivery man, used the formal front door to her stately Victorian home. The paper man generally slowed and pitched her paper out without coming close to a full stop, leaving it anywhere from the flower boxes on either side of the small porch to the bushes on the opposite side of her driveway. She opened the door this morning and was surprised to find it lying neatly on the steps beside a white box with a gold bow. She bent to pick it up as a car pulled into her driveway.
    “I see I’m not the first one to think of leaving a present on your doorstep,” the driver called through the open window of his car.
    Tom Bainbridge parked and got out, a flower vase in one hand. Three red roses surrounded a single origami flower that matched a bouquet he had made for her when he was stuck in Foggy Point by the storm.
    “Tom?” Harriet met him at the bottom step. “What are you doing here?”
    “Good morning to you, too,” he countered and handed her the vase.
    “What are these for? Have you been talking to the Loose Threads?”
    “No, I haven’t. You want to invite me in for coffee and tell me what they would have told me if I had talked to them?”
    “Would you like to come in for coffee?” Harriet asked with a mock bow. “But, no, I don’t want to talk about the Threads.” She turned and went back up the steps.
    “Don’t forget this,” Tom said and picked the white box up off the porch where she’d set it when she’d taken his flowers. He followed her into the house.
    Harriet tried to appear casual as she flicked the small card on top of the box open to see if Aiden had sent a peace offering, but her expression gave her away as she read the name inside. Not Aiden.
    “Have I come at a bad time?” Tom asked. “Whatever’s on that card clearly wasn’t what you were expecting.”
    For one fleeting moment, she’d allowed herself to believe Aiden had acknowledged what he’d done the night before—but he hadn’t. James had sent her a box of his handmade chocolate truffles. In case you need some chocolate to drown your sorrows in , the note read.
    “You’re wrong,” she lied. “This box is full of handmade chocolates personally crafted by the owner of the place where I went to dinner last night. He sent them in appreciation of