Still, he didn’t see how he was going to get out of it, as he was already here. He’d make it quick. She was probably putting the baby to bed, so he’d just get it done and get out of her way.

Like a man condemned, he dragged himself out of the truck and to her front door. Through the screen he could see the flickering lights of candles. He shifted his feet and noticed that music was playing, something with weeping strings and soaring piano.

He’d never felt more ridiculous in his life than he did standing there on Grace’s front porch holding a recipe for a pasta dish while music slid around the warm summer night.

He knocked on the wood frame, not too loudly, as he worried about waking Aubrey. He gave serious thought to sticking the card in the door and hightailing it, but he knew that would be cowardice, plain and simple.

And Anna would want to know why he hadn’t brought her the instructions for Grace’s fried chicken.

When he saw her he wished to God Almighty he’d taken the coward’s way.

She walked out from the kitchen, at the back of the house. It was a tiny place, had always made Ethan think of a dollhouse, so she didn’t have far to travel. To him it seemed he watched her walk through that music, that light for hours.

She wore pale, fragile pink that skimmed down to her ankles, with a row of tiny pearl buttons from the hollow of her throat to the hem that flowed around her bare feet. He had rarely seen her in a dress, but now he was too thunderstruck by the sight of her to question why she was wearing it.

All he could think was she looked like a rose, long and slim and just ready to bloom. And his tongue tangled up in his mouth.

‘‘Ethan.’’ Her hand trembled lightly as she reached down, opened the screen. Maybe she hadn’t needed a star to wish on after all. For here he was, standing close and watching her.

‘‘I was . . .’’ Her scent, familiar as his own, seemed to wrap around his brain. ‘‘Anna sent you—she asked me to bring this by.’’

Mystified, Grace took the card he held out. At the sight of the recipe she had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing. Her nerves backed off just enough that her eyes smiled when she lifted them to his. ‘‘That was nice of her.’’

‘‘You got hers?’’

‘‘Her what?’’

‘‘The one she wants. The chicken thing.’’

‘‘Oh, yes. Back in the kitchen. Come on in while I get it.’’ What chicken thing? she wondered, nearly giddy from suppressed laughter that she knew would come out well on the hysterical side. ‘‘The, um, casserole, right?’’

‘‘No.’’ She had such a tiny waist, he thought. Such narrow feet. ‘‘Fried.’’