Josh shook his head. “Why don’t you come with me? We’ll find something better.”
“Oh, no,” she said instantly. Not when their business relationship was just getting established.
He hesitated. “C’mon, Lori. I know you said you didn’t want me to introduce you to any men, and I respect that. But I know some other people you might like to meet.”
“Oh, I couldn’t.” She drew her chair closer to the desk to make sure he got the message. “There’s the phones, the business…”
“The machine will take the calls and this is business,” he countered. “I’m going over to the Hip Hop Café to check the crew’s progress. I told you about that project, right? We’re rebuilding the restaurant after the arson fire last month. As the company’s receptionist, you should know the kinds of things we do. I’m meeting the owner there, Melissa North. I’ll introduce you. You’ll like her.”
Melissa North. Lori hoped her face didn’t betray her sudden eagerness. Melissa North. She weighed the prospect of meeting Melissa North against the danger of spoiling this very newfound peace with Josh by spending more time in his company.
As if he sensed her mental struggle, Josh used his own weapon. He smiled, that easy, patient, warm one. “Let’s go,” he said, nodding toward the door. “It’s business.”
Because it was business, Lori didn’t feel obligated to keep up a conversation on the short drive from the office to the heart of downtown Whitehorn. When Josh turned his big, black four-wheeler into a parking place, she was out of her seat and on the sidewalk before he had the emergency brake on. One business associate certainly didn’t expect another business associate to open her door for her and help her out, despite the long leap to the ground.
Because it was business, she kept her attention strictly on the discussion between Josh and the Hip Hop site foreman as they toured the reconstruction. The restaurant had burnt to the ground a few weeks before and the Anderson crew was just beginning to rebuild.
Though she didn’t understand all of the conversation, Lori was fascinated to learn that some time capsules had been found buried in the restaurant’s original foundation. When Josh bent over to inspect the cavity where they’d been discovered, his thigh-length parka rode up. It might not have been completely businesslike of Lori to notice the long muscles of his hamstrings or the tautness of his gluteus maximus muscles beneath his worn jeans, but it was natural, right? She had an interest in fitness.
By the time Josh straightened, she was perusing a set of plans unrolled on the hood of the foreman’s truck. All business.
Josh checked his watch. “Time to meet Melissa,” he said.
Lori looked up. “She’s not coming here?”
“We’re meeting her at the counter of the Big Sky Five & Dime.” His thumb jerked to the small variety store across the street. “She’s probably waiting for us.”
Lori’s heart hammered as she crossed the street in Josh’s wake. Now that the moment had come, she wondered if she should have stayed safely back at her desk after all. Melissa North.
At the door of the Big Sky Five & Dime, Josh turned to watch Lori’s reluctant progress. One of his eyebrows rose. “Something the matter?”
Taking a breath, she shook her head, then hurried her footsteps. Josh had witnessed enough of her craziness for one day. With a businesslike cloak, she’d hide from him her inner turmoil.
He held the door for her. “There’s a counter and a couple of booths at the back that have gained new life since the Hip Hop went out of commission.”
At a calm pace, Lori walked down the narrow aisles in the direction Josh indicated. Her gaze darted over the customers she encountered, though, her stomach clenching as she wondered if she would recognize Melissa.
As the smell of french fries and coffee grew stronger, Josh called from behind her, “Take a right.” Lori obeyed, coming upon a counter with five stools and beyond that, two four-person booths upholstered in red vinyl.
In the nearest booth a couple sat side-by-side. The woman laughed, and her dark hair slid away from her cheek as she lifted her face for the man’s brief kiss. Then he whispered something in her ear, and she turned her head toward Lori and Josh.
She looked beautiful, with fair skin and blue eyes. She looked happy and friendly.
She looked just as Lori had imagined her half sister might.
It was lucky that Josh stepped in to make the introductions, because Lori felt anything but businesslike as she met Melissa and Wyatt North. In seconds she was knee-to-knee with the other woman, though, as she and Josh took the seat on the other side of the booth.
Lori’s tongue remained knotted, so it was lucky, too, that it took some minutes to order their lunch— Josh told her the only substantial food offered was grilled cheese sandwiches—and get the Hip Hop details out of the way. By the time her plate was in front of her, Lori had relaxed a little.
When the men started talking about the arson investigation, Melissa grinned at her. “Would you be horribly offended if I snitched a french fry?” she asked.
“Oh. Oh, no.” Lori flushed and pushed the plate toward the center of the table. “I should have offered. Forgive me.”
“Done.” Melissa bit into the french fry with relish. “It’s the only thing they make nearly as good as the Hip Hop.”
Lori took up her own fry, but her stomach was too nervous to eat. “I’m sorry to hear about what happened to your restaurant.”
Melissa shook her head. “Don’t get me started. Half the time I want to cry and the other half I want to strangle whoever did such a destructive thing.”
“They haven’t caught who did it?”
“No.” Melissa sighed, but then took another french fry and turned her attention to Lori. “So tell me about you.”
“I…” This wasn’t the time or place to blurt out the truth. Lori licked her lips. “I’m new to Whitehorn. As Josh said earlier, I’m his temporary receptionist.”
“He’s a good man,” Melissa said, then her gaze sharpened. “But you know that, right?”
Lori bit into her french fry so she could nod instead of talking.
“Still, it can’t be easy to settle someplace new,” Melissa went on. “Did you have a special reason for coming to Whitehorn?”
Lori swallowed. “I wanted to set down some roots.”
Melissa nodded, as if she understood. “I grew up in Whitehorn, and then my mother and I moved when I was a senior in high school. I spent the next few years mooning over Wyatt and doing what I had to come back.” She cocked her head. “But it was coming home for me. How did you even hear about Whitehorn?”
“My mother told me about it. She was from Whitehorn.”
One of Melissa’s dark eyebrows rose. “From here? Who is she?”
Lori didn’t think her mother’s name would mean anything to Melissa. Her mother had said that Charlie Avery, Lori and Melissa’s father, had been a philanderer, and that her parents had moved the family out of state as soon as she’d discovered she was pregnant. “Jill Hanson. The daughter of Roy and Jane Hanson. But they’re all gone now.”
“Oh.” Melissa’s face softened “I’m sorry. That must be lonely sometimes.” She reached out and covered Lori’s hand with her own.
Lori froze. Women didn’t send her into a panic, but she hadn’t felt comfortable with anyone’s touch in