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hadn’t jammed since Dad’s incarceration.
    After his arrest, the FBI took years to bring their case to court. Meanwhile, Mom, Cole, Chris, and Cap grew hopeful. Maybe the charges of fraud wouldn’t stick.
    But a new trouble brewed. Dad lost his construction company, so he took to drinking, wrinkling the family name with a new kind of shame.
    Sitting astride his Harley 750, Cole fired up the engine, shifting his emotions away from the conversation with Chris. The past was the past. Dad’s reputation was not his.
    Old things have passed away . . . all things become new.
    Shifting into gear, snapping on his helmet, he breathed in the night, the air pregnant with snow. The Farmer’s Almanac predicted a lot of winter precipitation. If so, it would be bad for business, and Cole didn’t have the bank account for a long, lean winter.
    One shift of the clutch and a little gas, he’d be out of here, off on a date .
    Yet he didn’t have to go. He could cancel, go inside, watch bowl games with his brother, and order another pizza.
    Wait, that’s exactly what he’d been doing the past year. Hiding. Retreating. This was a new year. Time to move forward, get on with life.
    He eased out of the garage, closing the door behind him. He’d be warmer in his truck, but he felt the need for speed. For the cold to press through his leather jacket and jeans, to wake up his dull, sleeping self.
    Down the street, past golden windows where families gathered, past the festive flicker of a few remaining red, blue, and green Christmas lights, Cole turned right on River Road, heading for town and First Avenue.
    He eased off the gas as he drove past the old wedding shop, a three-story brick construction sitting alone under a sentry of shading elms. The large front windows were dark, a pair of sad eyes watching the world go by.
    He’d always liked the charm of the place, appreciated the shop’s role in Heart’s Bend’s history. Both of his grandmothers and a great aunt bought their wedding dresses from Miss Cora.
    But the shop’s days were numbered.
    “Sorry,” he whispered against his helmet. “But you had a good run, no?”
    A wind gust happened by and the no-good For Sale sign, barely visible under the amber street light, swung from its white post.
    The city had tried to sell it to a business-minded person who might finally turn the space into a viable part of the downtown commerce, but so far only Akron Developers ponied up any money. But they wanted the land. Not the building. They needed a parking lot for their new lofts and outdoor shopping mall.
    Demolishing 143 First Avenue was one of the jobs Cole had bid on for the winter.
    It was time. The old shop had stood empty more than not in the past thirty-five years. Whatever it once stood for—brides flooding in to purchase their trousseaus from noted Heart’s Bend citizen Miss Cora—had long been forgotten.
    Tammy had some emotional attachment to the shop. Something about playing there with Haley as kids. How the two of them decided, at age ten, they were going to reopen the old wedding shop someday. Return it to its former bridal glory.
    But Cole had doubts. Tammy talked about law school and Haley was off with the air force, fighting a war. And frankly, he couldn’t see that girl running a wedding shop for nothing.
    He’d been beaten up twice in his life. Once in first grade by Jeremy Wayne for calling him a cheater. And once in fifth grade by Haley Morgan—the more humiliating of the two—for telling her she looked pretty.
    Cole gunned the gas, moving on. The time for reminiscing had passed.
    When he pulled up to the Burger Barn, he saw a woman waiting on the front bench, her slender legs peeking out from the hem of a pink, fur-trimmed coat. She stood as he rolled up.
    Cole cut the engine and removed his helmet, smoothing his hair in place. “Betsy?”
    “Mariah told me you were hot, but I didn’t know you rode a Harley.”
    “Mariah likes to exaggerate.” But he’d take