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again.”
    He could read the certainty in her expression and because he knew how much she’d loved her husband, he figured it was likely true. There wouldn’t ever be room for another man in her heart. And didn’t that just strike a sour note, too? But hell, he could be wrong about that. She could be wrong.
    She could fall for someone else someday.
    As he stared into her face, he saw her gaze shift over his shoulder. Her spine stiffened.
    “What?” he asked.
    “There,” she whispered. “At the counter. That’s one of them. It’s the one named Nikki.”
    Noah glanced over his shoulder. A woman stood by the cash register, dressed in checked chef pants and a starched tunic. Her brown hair was streaked with gold and worn in loose braids on either side of her head. In that baggy getup, it was hard to say if she had the same sleek body as Juliet. It was impossible to tell if they were related at all.
    A trickle of relief coursed through him. If Juliet was wrong about being related to the chick at the counter, then she could be wrong about never loving ag—
    The woman he was watching turned. As her gaze roamed around the room, Noah’s thought process seized.
    He stared.
    Oh, hell. It looked as if it was going to be like Juliet had said after all. She’d go on with her life, he with his. And she’d be the ghost that haunted him forever, the ache that he’d remember every morning as he woke from his dreams.
    Just that.
    Only that.
    Because she was certainly right about this. That woman at the counter, the woman with braids and with one blue and one green eye, just had to be Juliet’s sister.

Three
    Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired.
    —ROBERT FROST
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Malibu & Ewe’s front door was propped open and as Juliet and Noah crossed the threshold she detected a faint chemical smell over the salty ocean scent pouring through the sliding doors at the rear of the shop. Lingering a few steps inside, she could see what she’d missed the night before. Those sliding back doors led to a balcony overlooking the sunlit expanse of the Santa Monica Bay.
    Yet while the outside view was stunning, the store’s interior had its own charms. The afternoon sun bounced against the sand-colored walls and lit up like jewels the many-hued skeins of yarn that were tucked in wooden bins stacked on the floor and reaching to shoulder height. A seating area of overstuffed furniture took up the center of the room, each piece draped in a knitted throw of lush colors and textures.
    Last night, she’d wandered in, a stranger. Today, the store felt almost familiar. Familiar . . . like family. Is that what she’d truly find here?
    She’d missed the closeness of other women. As the media dubbed “Deal Breaker” and “Happy Widow,” not to mention the wife of a man with a daughter near her very own age, she’d come up against blatant criticism. But there’d been subtler snipes from the older women in their social circle as well.
    Put their distrust together with the onset of Wayne’s illness early in their marriage, and you ended up with the fact that she’d become reclusive during the past few years. Over the last eleven months it had only gotten worse.
    But no longer! As the sun rose that morning, she’d resolved to make changes. Changes like a job. Changes like taking real action to ensure Wayne’s book succeeded. And she could do both of those with or without sisters.
    One of whom seemed to be MIA anyway, she realized, as she made another perusal of her silent surroundings. The shop appeared to be absent its owner.
    Noah walked up behind her and she glanced at him. “Maybe we should visit another time.”
    Before he could answer, a woman’s voice drifted from a back hallway. “You’re amazing,” she said with a little laugh. “Who would have thought we could be together like this?”
    A male grunt responded. “It’s because you’re following orders for once, just as I like it. Now