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friendly, yes.
    Charming, no.
    Attracted to her? Oh, yeah . He couldn’t help what he felt, but he didn’t have to act on it. Six months, he reminded himself. He had made a promise to God and himself, and he intended to keep it.

    In typical mountain fashion, the earlier storm had knocked out power to parts of Meadows, including Leona’s house at the end of Quail Court. Kate could live without electricity for a few hours, but hot water was another matter. Fortunately the gas water heater was an old model with a pilot light. She lit it, waited an hour, and indulged in a long soak. Somewhat renewed, she put on ski pants and a moss green sweater she kept at Leona’s for winter visits. Her insides werestill quivering and probably would for a while, but her hands were steady when she used the house phone to call Dody.
    As things turned out, Dody was visiting her daughter and grandkids in Fresno. “I’ll come back tomorrow if you need me,” she said after Kate told her the story.
    “No, don’t come. I’m fine.”
    “Honey, are you sure?”
    “Positive.”
    “If you need anything at all, call Nick. Did he give you his cell?”
    “No.”
    “Well, he should have,” Dody said with a hint of impatience. “If you need the number, it’s in the address book in the desk.”
    Leona had used the same red book since moving to Meadows twenty-some years ago. It overflowed with scraps of paper, different colors of ink, and scribbled-out entries that marked changes of all kinds—moves, deaths, and friendships faded with time. Kate had moved so often she had an entire page. She wondered what Nick’s entry looked like and paused to consider his friendship with Leona, a woman more than twice his age.
    “Dody?”
    “Yes, honey?” Dody called everyone honey.
    “It seems odd that Leona and Nick are such good friends. She’s seventy, and he’s . . . what? Thirty?”
    “Thirty-one,” Dody confirmed. “He writes for the paper, which is how they met, but it wasn’t long before Leona adopted him. Nick’s a writer, so they have that in common. Plus he recognized your grandfather’s name.”
    “That makes sense.” Nothing made Leona happier than remembering the glory days with Grandpa Alex, especially the years he spent covering the effort to save the California condor from extinction.
    “Nick’s easy on the eyes,” Dody said with a smile in her voice. “With Joel out of the picture—”
    Kate laughed. “Forget it.”
    “Why?”
    “Bad timing.” She liked Nick well enough, but she didn’t need the stress of a relationship, especially one destined to be temporary. In two months, she’d be back at Sutton, working on the new proposal for Eve Landon. Eve had loved Kate’s work on the first print campaign, and Kate reveled in the entire creative process. Matching images and words to convey concepts put order in her life and satisfied her in a deep, personal way.
    Dody broke into her thoughts. “I have to go, but if you need anything call Nick.”
    “I will.”
    Dody offered another dollop of sympathy, then excused herself to change her granddaughter’s diaper. Someday Kate wanted to be a mother—not for a while, but sometimes she heard the tick of her biological clock, in part because of Julie. Her best friend was thirty-eight years old, married, and desperate for a baby. If the latest hormone treatments didn’t work, she and her husband planned to undergo in vitro fertilization. Kate worried about Julie, and Julie worried about her. Under normal circumstances, Kate would have already sent her a text announcing her safe arrival in Meadows. Instead she called Julie from Leona’s landline and left a voice mail her friend probably wouldn’t check until after work.
    Eager to settle in, Kate borrowed Leona’s slippers and ambled down the stairs to the living room, which felt more like home than her own condo. The sliding glass door opened to a wide deck that looked up to Mount Abel, and the Ben Franklin stove