“Maybe it is,” Harper agreed, except she was going home feeling just as hurt and unsatisfied as when she’d arrived. Her mind kept flashing back to that moment when she’d startled Tobias as he walked into the Blue Suede Shoe. She’d wanted to touch him so badly.

She hadn’t told her sister, but she’d texted him in the middle of the night to ask, Is there any way we could still be friends? He hadn’t responded. She knew because she’d checked her phone something like a hundred times.

“Where will you stop for the night?” Karoline asked.

“I don’t know. I’ll find a motel somewhere when I get tired.”

“Okay, but stay in touch so that I know you’re safe.”

“I will.” Harper gave her sister a hug before calling for her kids to get in the car. Terrance had said goodbye earlier, since he’d had to go pick up a new battery for his car, which suddenly wasn’t starting.

“I don’t want to leave,” Piper complained as Harper hugged Amanda and Miranda. “I want to stay with my cousins.”

“So do I,” Everly joined in, but Harper had already been aware of that. Everly, in particular, had been pouting all morning, and now Piper was beginning to behave the same way. “Why do we have to go back to Colorado?”

“Because we live there, and we love it,” Harper said. “Besides, Grandma and Grandpa Devlin live there. You want to be able to see them, don’t you?”

“I guess,” Everly allowed. “But…why can’t we live here and just visit there?”

“Do we really have to leave our cousins and our new friends?” Piper asked.

Karoline shot Harper a hopeful look. “If you get back and you realize that you like it better here…”

“I can’t move,” Harper told her. “It would be too hard.”

“Why?” Everly asked. “You like this town, don’t you? It’s not as cold as Denver.”

“I like it,” Harper admitted. “But…”

“It’s not as though you’d run into Tobias all that often,” Karoline whispered.

Once or twice would be more than she felt comfortable with. Last night’s encounter had made it difficult to sleep. “Denver is home,” she insisted even though, had things gone differently with Tobias, she would have considered moving here.

It took some time to get the girls loaded and to squeeze in all the last-minute bags and toys they were taking home with them.

She’d climbed behind the wheel and rolled down her window so she could say her final goodbyes to her sister and her nieces when a truck pulled in behind her.

“Who’s that?” Harper asked Karoline. And why wasn’t he parking on the street instead of blocking her in? Her brake lights were on. Couldn’t he see she was about to back up?