But Lucy saw the concern in her eyes, not that she was stupid enough to mention it. “And here I thought you were turning into a kinder, gentler person.”

“Later.”

Lucy barely managed a smile.

BREE SPENT THE LATE AFTERNOON extruding more honey from the heavy frames, and she didn’t have a chance to clean up before dinner. Lucy insisted on doing the dishes afterward, and Bree put up only a cursory protest. She was heading for the shower when she overheard Mike and Toby talking on the front porch. She stopped to listen.

“I think you should ask Bree out on a date,” she heard Toby say. “I know she didn’t like you at first, but she’s changed her mind. Did you see her at dinner? She laughed at all your jokes.”

Bree moved nearer the front curtain where she could better hear Mike’s response.

“I wouldn’t make too much of it,” he said. “Lucy laughed, too.”

“But Bree laughed more,” Toby observed. “And she’s always looking at you. You should ask her to go out to dinner or something. Not to Dogs ’N’ Malts, but like to the Island Inn or someplace nice.”

“I can’t do that, Toby,” Mike replied with an uncharacteristic stubbornness.

“Why not?”

“Because I can’t.” A dish clattered in the kitchen. Mike’s chair creaked. “Bree’s worried about what will happen this winter. She wants to make sure she can count on me if she needs help. I’d do exactly the same thing if I were in her shoes.”

And Bree thought she was being so clever … She should have realized no one built a business as successful as Mike’s without having some insight into people’s motivations.

Toby wouldn’t give up. “I still don’t see why you can’t take her out to dinner.”

“Because she’d have to say yes, even if she didn’t want to.”

“She’d want to,” Toby insisted. “I know she would.”

“Toby, this might be hard to understand....” His voice was patient, the way it always was when he explained anything to Toby. “I’m not interested in Bree that way.”

He wasn’t?

She heard a chair scrape followed by the solid tread of his steps across the porch. “Martin!” Mike shouted. “Come back here! Toby, go rescue him before he gets to the highway.”

She’d never quite believed Mike’s recent display of indifference. She’d counted on his steadfastness, consoled herself that—even though Scott had long ago lost interest in her—Mike would yearn for her forever. What a fool.

She pressed her hand hard against her chest. She couldn’t bear another rejection, not from Mike of all people. Her heart thudded against her palm. She came out from behind the curtains, pushed open the screen door, and stepped onto the porch.