Her phone buzzed again, and she snatched it off the counter.

It was a group text led shockingly enough by Brick.

Brick: Spoke to the chief. She’s asking for a progress report on our initiative.

Kimber: And by progress report, I suppose she wants more than, “We talked about it and did nothing”?

Brick: That’s my take. Are you two available to meet tomorrow night? We could grab dinner.

Brick was inviting the sisters Ford to dinner to talk. It was the least Brick-like thing he’d done in recent memory. She was getting to him. Not that it mattered, of course.

Kimber: Fine with me. How about the grille at 7?

Brick: That works.

Brick: Remi?

Instead of responding, Remi made a call.

“Hey, Dad. Do you think you can sneak me into the school? I’ve got a special project I need help with.”

21

He felt like an idiot. Not only had he gotten that haircut and shave—plus the hot towel facial Ken had strong-armed him into—he’d also applied beard balm and clipped the tags off a new flannel shirt he’d never gotten around to wearing. All this on the off chance that the woman who was freezing him out would show that night. The woman he was not going to pursue.

The woman who hadn’t been out of his mind for the past fifteen days since she’d returned to ruin his quiet island life.

Her efforts in ignoring him made the temperature on the island feel twenty degrees colder than it already was. Such were the powers of Remington Ford.

In the grocery store, she’d given him a cool nod, looking through him rather than at him. She was treating him like a stranger. Like he was nothing to her. He made it all the way home before he realized he’d forgotten the damn beef broth for his damn stew and had to go back to the store.

They’d both shown up to watch that week’s street hockey game, and when she spotted him, she’d crossed the damn street to watch from the front porch of a fudge shop rather than spectate near him. He ended up catching a ball to the chest because he was too busy glowering at her to watch the game.

Despite her complete and total avoidance of him, there were signs of her in his own house. Like the clean coffee pot resting upside down in the drying rack next to the sink. Or the dozen oatmeal chocolate chip cookies on his kitchen counter with a sticky note that said simply “Rent.”

For the life of him, he couldn’t figure out how doing the right thing had landed him in this situation.

But it didn’t matter. Because he had something to discuss with her. Something she’d want to hear.

He arrived early at the grille, a restaurant that opened on the weekends in the winter for Mackinac’s stalwart residents. It was a few decades overdue for a renovation with its nautical decor, but the food was good, and the heating system worked well.