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half expecting a passel of blond children in seersucker to come charging from the shadows, a blond wife with perfect eyebrows she never had to wax to hang on his arm and call him darling.
    Jackson had to be some woman’s darling.
    Though perhaps he was too young for all of that. He didn’t look thirty.
    “With your parents?” she asked, imagining a Tennessee Williams scenario brought to life.
    “No, actually, my parents are dead. A car accident.”
    She blinked, stunned at the sudden revelation of such personal information from the polished man. He looked slightly stunned himself, as if he didn’t know where the words had come from.
    “I’m so sorry.”
    He tried to wave it away. “It’s okay. I’m not sure why I brought it up. It’s a long time ago, now.”
    Jenna used to do this thing when she was lying about the pain—she’d smile real wide as if everything were fine, but her whole body would stiffen as if braced for a punch. Jackson was doing the same thing, lying with his face, telling the truth with his body. However long agoit may have been, he was living with his parents’ death every day.
    Amazing , she thought— we have so much in common .
    “Would you like a drink? We’re all set up in the back.”
    “Sounds great,” she said, falling into step with him as they headed through the rest of the house, past a white tiled kitchen with aging appliances.
    The back garden was like a scene from a movie, or a magazine article about how to throw an elegant outdoor party.
    “It’s so beautiful,” she sighed. The lights, the slight flap of the linens on the table—it was all so inviting.
    “I’m glad you like it. Wine?” He dug a bottle of white wine from a bucket of ice and water, but she shook her head and pointed to the glass decanter of lemonade sweating in the humidity.
    “Lemonade would be great.”
    He seemed slightly surprised, but there was nothing she could do about that anymore.
    “So what was America Today coming over for?” she asked, accepting her lemonade. Her finger brushed his on the handoff, and something charged and slightly painful swirled through her. Awareness, sexual and sharp. She took a step back, her heel sinking into the grass. “Or do you often have morning shows over for dinner?”
    Jackson poured himself a glass of wine and she couldn’t help but watch him, the sharp line of his nose, the delicate lace of his outrageously long eyelashes. Why did men always get those kinds of eyelashes?
    “ America Today and Maybream Crackers are hosting a competition for small towns that have lost industry. Maybream will move its whole operation to the town that wins the contest. We’ve made the semifinals.”
    She blinked, eyes wide, a bunch of incredulous rude words springing to her lips, but she swallowed them.Clearly, her experience in this town was not the norm. This was a beloved home to lots of people; she’d be well served to remember that. “Congratulations.”
    “Thank you.” He inclined his head. “Though so far it just means we have a suitable factory. The hard part comes this week.”
    “You have to eat those cookies they make?”
    He laughed. “No. At least I hope not.”
    “They are gross.”
    “That is the consensus.”
    “So how did I get the invite and not them?”
    “I had left the invitation to dinner with the hotel staff and told them to pass it on to the producer and crew, who are supposed to arrive sometime in the next few days to film. And considering how few celebrities we get out here, Gwen must have thought you were involved in some way.”
    “ ‘Celebrity’ is a stretch.”
    “Your book has made you famous. I heard they were talking about making a movie—”
    A bee buzzed over her lemonade and she waved it away, feeling its wings momentarily against her fingers, a minor brush with danger. As close as she got these days. “There’s always talk.”
    “Still, from what I understand it’s a very popular book.”
    She eyed him shrewdly,