Maybe she was bored? Or was it simply an attempt to forget about Dylan Howard? Whatever the reason, Piper was regretting it now. She’d much rather be home, either in the hot tub, or curled up watching TV with her favorite cookies.

“So tell me about this Coffee Run. I’ve seen the posters up all over town,” Chad, the man across from her, said.

He wasn’t bad to look at—some would even call him handsome—but Piper just wasn’t in the right mood for small talk with a man who thought he was pretty special.

“It’s an annual thing, Chad.” Piper made herself smile. “We get paired up with someone, then run up and down some of the mountain tied to them while carrying a mug of coffee. First down with the most coffee still inside wins.”

Chad had smooth good looks, golden hair, and a nice smile... a little too nice. It had a fake edge to it. Piper knew that wasn’t fair, and actually what she was thinking was he didn’t have a smile like Dylan’s, which pissed her off, because since he’d rolled into town she’d been hard pressed to push him out of her head.

“Sounds quaint.”

Piper thought that sounded condescending but didn’t say anything.

It wasn’t like she hadn’t met a few nice Chads in her time... or Petes, and Johns for that matter. It was just she was... what? Bored? Unsettled? Needing a challenge, and not just on the man front. Piper needed to do something that pushed her.

Life had slowed over the last few years, and lately she’d been thinking about what she could do to fire up her imagination again. There was a house close to Maggs that had come up for sale. It was run-down and needed some serious work, but she didn’t mind hard work. The old Ledger place could be just the project she needed.

“Oh yes, the Coffee Run is so much fun,” Maggs said, smiling at her man, who was falling all over himself to look down her shirt. “If you’re still here you should come along.”

They laughed it off, and Piper had the feeling that “quaint” meant “backward” to these two.

She let her eyes and mind wander as Chad started talking about himself and how important he was. Piper had already looked over the little house, and it had potential. Her mom hadn’t mentioned Mr. Goldhirsh moving in anytime soon, and Jack and Luke had no plans to leave, but they’d find women to settle down with sooner or later, and Piper wanted a place to call her own when that happened.