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risk.
    He rounded the corner and ducked into the alley behind Lacy’s row of buildings. One of the sheriff’s office cruisers was parked back there.
    Must be that enemy patrol Lester was talking about.
    Jake glanced up in time to see Daniel Scott bounding up the metal staircase to the iron decking that led to Lacy’s new apartment.
    And there goes the Cong.
    It made twisted sense that Lester would mistake his son for an old army foe. The now homeless vet had abandoned his family and Coldwater Cove near the end of Danny and Jake’s senior year. Jacob had tried to forget about what had happened. He and Dan certainly never talked about that night or what had gone on in the Scott home leading up to it, but after the old man left, Danny’s mom made a lot fewer trips to the emergency room.
    But screw the past. Jake was inclined to side with Lester on this one. Everyone in town knew Danny and his wife Anne were separated, but they were still married. He had no business sniffing around Lacy Evans.
    Jake started up the flight of stairs, his titanium leg clicking with each riser. Time to engage the enemy. He had meat loaf, blackberry cobbler, and—if he did say so himself—a killer smile in his arsenal. Danny Scott had a slightly tarnished wedding ring and a handful of otherwise empty fingers.
    â€œGame on, Cong.”

Chapter 4
    Marriage is a lot tougher than it looks. Given the domestic disturbance calls we get every day, it looks pretty darn hard.
    Â 
    â€”Daniel Scott, deputy sheriff
    Â 
    Â 
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    L acy’s furniture had been tentatively placed in the appropriate rooms. Boxes filled with her belongings were stacked on the kitchen counter, the small dining set, and her built-for-stout-not-for-looks coffee table.
    â€œComing,” she called out when she heard a rap on her door. She was happy to quit unwrapping the box of coffee cups to answer the knock. So far she’d counted five broken ones.
    When she opened the door, she discovered Daniel.
    â€œWhat are you doing here? I mean . . . well, that sounded rude,” she said. “I just . . . I thought you’d probably be manning the speed trap on Route 59.”
    â€œMabry’s got the laser gun tonight,” Daniel said. The trap was designed to catch tourists in a hurry to connect with the scenic Talimena Byway. The locals knew the troopers would be there so they tended to behave themselves, but lookee-loos from other parts were none the wiser. It was no skin off the town fathers’ noses if outsiders got to make not-so-cheerful donations to the county coffers.
    â€œCan I come in?”
    â€œOh, yeah, I’m sorry.” Sheesh! I must have misplaced my manners somewhere around Cleveland. Lacy waved him in and he took off his hat. He still had that determined set to his jaw. His shoulders were broader than she remembered and he needed a haircut, but he still seemed like the same Daniel.
    When he met her gaze, she hoped to heaven her face didn’t show the way her insides jittered. It was stupid really. He might look like her Daniel, but he wasn’t. In all the ways that mattered, they’d both changed. A lot.
    He’s married, for pity’s sake.
    But her stomach didn’t seem to realize it.
    Daniel crossed around to the other side of the kitchen peninsula and hitched a hip on one of the bar stools.
    This is good. It’s safer to have that countertop between us.
    â€œAre you getting settled in?” he asked.
    â€œSort of.” She unwrapped the next cup and found that its handle was cracked in two places. “Oh, darn. This was my Grandma’s.” She wasn’t usually attached to things, but there were a few pieces that meant something to her because they’d belonged to people she loved. She narrowly resisted the urge to swear over the loss of this one.
    â€œKeep track of your breakage,” Daniel advised. “You can get the moving company to reimburse