The Coldwater Warm Hearts Club

The
C
OLDWATER
W
ARM
H
EARTS
C
LUB

L
EXI
E
DDINGS

KENSINGTON BOOKS
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Table of Contents

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

 

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Kensington Publishing Corp.
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Copyright © 2016 by Diana Groe

 

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

 

Kensington and the K logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

 

eISBN-13: 978-1-4967-0404-7
eISBN-10: 1-4967-0404-5
First Kensington Electronic Edition: October 2016

ISBN: 978-1-4967-0403-0

 

 

—Lacy Evans, who's never really been in trouble . . . until now

 

 

 

“H
ome is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in. At least according to Robert Frost,” Lacy Evans muttered. “But he didn't say you have to like it.”

She didn't usually talk to herself, but she'd been on autopilot for two bleary-eyed days. After driving halfway across the country, she tooled into Coldwater Cove, Oklahoma, at six o'clock on a Sunday morning.

The town was one step up from rustic, a hundred steps down from trendy. It was the last place on earth she'd ever thought she'd live again. But that was before her business partner ran off with half a million dollars in client funds and left her holding the empty bag.

It was too early to pop into her parents' house. Mom needed her “beauty sleep” until eight at least. Dad was probably puttering about in the kitchen, making his abominable coffee, but if Lacy tried to slip into the house now, his booming welcome would be loud enough to wake the dead in the cemetery next door.

Besides, after what had happened in Boston, she didn't deserve a welcome. So she drove around the narrow streets, looking for evidence that time had passed since she was home last.

Coldwater Cove was a quiet little place where Arkansas tossed a rumpled blanket of hills and hollows over the Oklahoma state line. The air that morning was so still there wasn't a single ripple on Lake Jewel, the blue eastern boundary of the town. The tired peaks of the Winding Stair range brooded over the lake, their velvety foothills bathed in an Ozark haze. Nothing ever seemed to change here.

In a weird way, Lacy was glad. If nothing was different in her hometown, it was almost like Boston never happened.

The lights were on in the Green Apple Grill on the Town Square. Her stomach rumbled, a reminder that she hadn't eaten since those stale Twinkies in Peoria. She pulled up in front of the hurt-your-eyes green door. There were still no parking meters on the Square around the Victorian gem of a courthouse, so she got out, locked her Volvo out of habit, and went into the Green Apple. A trio of bells tinkled over the door.

“Have a seat. Be with you in a minute.” The rumbling baritone came from a guy on the other side of a half wall that separated the kitchen from the rest of the place. His broad-shouldered back was turned to her. The grill hissed when he gave it a quick scrub-down with a damp rag.

Lacy slid into the nearest booth, hoping they still had Belgian waffles on the menu. Just thinking about melted butter and powdered sugar made her mouth water.

“Lacy? Lacy Evans, is that you?”

Jacob Tyler peered at her from the kitchen. Superstar halfback, homecoming king, voted most likely to succeed—he was Mr. Big Stuff when they were in high school. Lacy never expected he'd still be in Coldwater Cove, much less manning the Green Apple's grill.

“Hey, Jake. How've you been?”

“Can't complain. Besides, no one would care if I did.”

Lacy doubted that sincerely. Jacob still had that devastating dimple in his left cheek and a megawatt smile. It was almost enough to make her forget the flotilla of broken hearts bobbing in his wake.

Almost. The last thing she needed was more man trouble on top of everything else.

“What can I do you for?” he asked.

“Coffee, and—please, God—waffles.” They weren't listed on the plastic-covered menu affixed to the wall.

“For you, anything.”

That was Jake Tyler's gift. He made a girl feel special. Only trouble was, he made
all
the girls feel special.

While he went to work on her breakfast, Lacy took a deep breath and enjoyed the sensation of not moving. When she pulled a tablet from her backpack, her hand shook a little. She chalked it up to lack of sleep. She refused to think of it as residual panic.

When she powered up her tablet, Bradford Endicott's face grinned up at her from the screen saver. She quickly deleted him, wondering why it had taken her so long. She was so over feeling anything for the guy but loathing. Deciding her belly was fluttering because she was just hungry, Lacy flexed her fingers and scanned the to-do list.

The first item to tick off was finding a place to live. Her stuff, such as it was, was on a truck en route from Boston. She had two days to call in a delivery address.

Lacy so didn't intend to spend any more nights in her parents' spare room than she could help. Granted, she deserved to suffer for being so stupidly gullible, but being reduced to the status of a perpetual twelve-year-old might be considered cruel and unusual punishment.

Her savings were far from bottomless, but it would be cheap to live in Coldwater Cove. If she was careful, she'd have a month or so to figure out what to do with herself. She'd be broke inside of a week in Boston.

More broke than she felt on the inside.

“I was sorry to hear about your troubles,” Jake interrupted her thoughts. “So, how you holding up?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know. That business about the guy back in Beantown who absconded with your money.”

It wasn't her money. It was their clients' money, deposits on special pieces, for design and renovation work yet to be delivered. And Bradford wasn't just any guy. He was her partner. She and Bradford had been all but engaged. Trusting him was the biggest mistake she'd ever made. She frowned at Jacob. “How did you—”

“Remember where you are, Lace,” he said. “Your mom tells her hairdresser, who confides in her sister, who lets it slip to the UPS guy, yada, yada, yada. Then once something makes the Methodist prayer chain, it's better than going viral on YouTube.” His smile faded. “Seriously, though, are you OK?”

She'd lost her business, her condo, and her professional reputation, but she was better off than Bradford Endicott would be if she ever laid eyes on him again. Lacy wasn't a naturally violent person. But if Belize ever honored the extradition request for him, she'd be more than happy to bloody his nose. Then she'd testify against him for ripping off their high-end design clients and running off to Central America with all the firm's liquid assets.
And
Ramona, their stiletto-wearing, hair-flipping, sure-to-rock-a-bikini assistant.

“I'm fine,” she assured Jake. She wished she could assure herself. Switching off the tablet and stowing it in her pack, she couldn't think about what to do next. At least, not until she got some real food in her. “I didn't make it to the ten-year reunion. What've you been up to? I expected to see you in the NFL.”

“College football convinced me my future lay elsewhere. Two concussions in as many months was too much. Not much point in a football scholarship if you get your brain rattled every week trying to keep it. I need all the gray matter I got.”

“You did OK in school.”

“Yeah, but only in classes where the answer was a matter of opinion.”

Jacob smiled again and a shock of dark hair fell forward on his forehead. Lacy itched to push it back for him, but she scrunched her fingers in her lap instead. She should be immune to his brand of self-deprecating charm.

Still, her chest constricted a bit at his lopsided grin.

“Did a hitch with the Marines after that,” he said.

“Oo-rah.” He came around the half wall with a cup of coffee in one hand and a plate of steaming waffles in the other. She noticed his slight limp for the first time. And the fact that below his camo shorts, his left leg was titanium from the knee down. He caught the direction of her gaze. “Ran into an IED in Helmand province.”

Afghanistan.
According to Mr. Curtis, their high school history teacher, the land of the Khyber Pass was a place where plenty of countries had had their rears handed to them over the last millennium or so. “Jacob, I'm sorry.”

“Don't be. I was one of the lucky ones.” He set down the plate of waffles and coffee in front of her. A shadow passed behind his dark eyes. “Most of the guys in my unit didn't make it back.”

Lacy buried her nose in her cup and wondered how to change the subject. Out of nowhere, she blurted, “So, did you ever get married?”

“Once. Didn't take. You?”

“Almost engaged. Once. Ditto.” She forked up a bite of waffles. Deciding that carbs were better than men, Lacy sank into powdered-sugar bliss.

“Saving yourself for me, huh?” Jacob said as he settled into the booth opposite her.

“You've uncovered my evil plan.” They laughed together. They both seemed to need it.

“Are you home for good?” he asked.

“I don't know.” It was more like she was home for bad. Coldwater Cove was her penance. And her sanctuary. And the slow-paced, backwater vibe of the place was likely to drive her batty if she stayed longer than six months.

“Think you'll start your own business or will you need a job here?” Jake asked.

Hadn't Boston proved she wasn't much of a businesswoman? “Since I'm not independently wealthy and I'm kind of addicted to eating and sleeping indoors, yeah, I need a job.”

“I hear Wanda's looking for someone over at the
Gazette
. She'd jump at the chance to have you.”

Lacy nearly choked on the waffle. She used to write part-time for the
Coldwater Gazette
when she was in high school, covering ball games and board meetings alike. Back then, everyone figured she'd become an investigative journalist like her uncle Roy. Instead, she shook off the dust of this little wide spot in the road and followed her passion to a design school in New England. She specialized in fusing Old World antiques and architectural features with industrial kitsch. Her work won awards, the important hang-on-your-brag-wall kind.

But that was before Bradford Endicott ran off with their clients' deposits and she had to liquidate everything to try to make it right. From the displays in their trendy Back Bay showroom to the equity in her condo and every last nickel in her IRA, everything she'd worked for was gone. Even after all that, she still had to sign a usurious note with some semi-unsavory characters for a balance that would eat her alive if she didn't find a way to pay it off pronto.

Even though she wasn't cut out to be a businesswoman, she'd never considered that she might have to dust off her reporter hat.

“I don't think I can work at the
Gazette
again. It would feel like going backward. Besides, my uncle Roy says small-town papers are a license to steal,” Lacy said between waffle bites. The local rag filled its pages with puff pieces that ended with “a good time was had by all,” and then charged the earth for advertising space. It was an insult to her uncle's journalistic soul. Since Lacy adored Uncle Roy, she thoroughly endorsed his opinion. “It's like Chinese food, only in print. After you read the
Coldwater Gazette,
your brain is hungry again in an hour.”

“Yeah, well, it might pay the bills. Things change and sometimes you have to do whatever comes to hand.” A hard edge cut through his tone. It hadn't been there before. Jake shrugged. “It was just a thought.”

While she polished off the waffles and made appreciative noises at appropriate intervals, Jake filled her in on what had happened with some of their other classmates. Quite a few had moved on, but more were still in Coldwater Cove than she expected. There'd been marriages and shacking-ups, splitting the sheets and reconciliations. Kids had been born, houses built. Businesses had bloomed or withered. Everyone had been filling up their lives with people and things.

All Lacy had to show for her twenty-nine trips around the sun fit neatly into a relatively small shipping pod. She figured her worldly goods ought to be somewhere in Ohio by now.

“Everyone will be happy to see you back,” Jake assured her.

She smirked. “On the theory that misery loves company?”

“After you've seen Kabul, Coldwater's not so bad,” he said. “Besides, it's not the back of beyond it used to be. We've got cable and Internet on top of the
Gazette
to keep us up to speed. And whatever news they miss turns up on the Methodist prayer chain.”

She took a swig of coffee. It wasn't as bitter as the brew she was used to. She'd become accustomed to coffee that gave her taste buds a smack. “Never figured you for a Methodist.”

“Getting your leg blown off will make you rethink a lot of things.”

Lacy nodded, but Jake looked away, signaling that was all he had to say on that topic. If she waited long enough, he'd probably tell her more. All her life, people had told Lacy the most amazing things, surprisingly personal things, simply because she was willing to sit in silence and wait for them to fill it.

But she didn't want to invade Jake's head. It didn't seem polite after he'd made her waffles and all.

The bells over the door jingled and a guy in sheriff's office khaki came into the Green Apple. Coldwater Cove was too small to have its own police force, so the county boys did double duty. He took off his hat. The tight brim hadn't done his dark-honey hair any favors, but Lacy's stomach lurched in recognition anyway.