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weren't good for each other.
    "I'll see you tomorrow, then," he said, setting her suitcases inside the door. "At the church."
    "Yeah, at the church..."
    Unless she talked Molly out of going through wilh the marriage, which was her intention. She passed through the kitchen doorway, her back nearly grazing his chest. She suppressed another shiver, due no doubt to the cool night air. And not to Clayton's proximity, nor the memory of the way the muscles in his arms and shoulders had rippled as he'd carried her bags.
    "Hey, man," Rory said from where he leaned against the center island. "What took you so long? They're having a slumber party." He rolled his eyes, trying to act macho either to impress his older brother or just because he was a teenage boy.
    "Wait for me in the car, then," Clayton suggested. "I'll just bring these bags upstairs."
    "That's not necessary," Abby protested as she followed him up the back stairs to the second story. Why did he have to act macho, too? Was that a brother thing? "I can carry my own bags. They've kicked Rory out. You're not supposed to be up here, you know."
    "My eyes are closed," he insisted, in deference to the pajama parly. "What room did Mom give you?"
    When she said nothing, he opened his eyes again, his gaze meeting hers. "Mine. Of course." He dumped his bags inside the open door.
    "It's not your room anymore," she reminded him, but she followed his gaze toward the bed she'd be sleeping in. His bed. A shiver raised bumps on her bare arms. She had to remind herself that she was still mad at him for calling Lara a mistake. Honesty forced her to admit that he really hadn't called her daughter that; he'd figured that was Abby's reason for keeping her secret. Shame. But the only shame she felt was over her attraction to a man who would always think the worst of her.
    "Abby, I'm really..."
    She didn't want another apology. She just wanted him gone. "Go, get out of here." She gestured toward the stairs. "Girls only!"
    "He probably wanted to hang around to catch a glimpse of you in your pj's," Colleen teased, leaning out her bedroom doorway as Clayton tromped down the steps. "He has always stared at you."
    "He was just trying to intimidate me into going home." Never mind that the McClintocks' house had always felt more like home than the rented bungalow she'd shared with her mother while her father spent most of his time away, driving a semi. But her mother actually hadn't spent much of her time at their run-down place, either. She'd mostly been in the bar.
    "So where's Brenna?" she asked as she joined the two sisters in their old bedroom. Even though Clayton's room was empty. Colleen and Molly still doubled up when Molly came home from school. Abby envied the closeness between them. Growing up, she had wanted a sister desperately, and so she'd made the McClintock girls into hers.
    "Brenna stayed behind to help her mother clean up," Molly explained as she painted her nails on lop of some newspapers spread across the comforter. "And she didn't want to leave her parents alone with T.J. and Buzz."
    Buzz was undoubtedly the twin whose dark hair had been "buzz" cut much shorter than his brother's. Abby suspected he'd borrowed his father's electric razor.
    "Why? They were managing fine." Abby recalled Mr. and Mrs. Kelly's smiling faces and easy laughter as they'd played with the boys. Clayton probably wasn't the only one under parental pressure to provide grandchildren.
    "Maybe too fine," Colleen agreed. "Mom might have to fight them for rights as a grandparent."
    "That's just like Brenna to choose responsibility over fun," Abby observed. "She and Clayton would be a perfect match." So why wasn't his mother trying to set up the two of them? Why was she playing matchmaker with Abby, who didn't even intend to stay in town? To keep her and Lara in Cloverville? Mrs. Mick was the only "grandparent" Lara had ever known.
    "Clayton's never looked at Brenna the way he looks at you," Colleen teased her. She had