Holiday Homecoming. Jillian Hart

run that place?”

      “Yeah. They make the best chocolate shakes anywhere.”

      “I was just thinking about that. Thick and sweet and so chocolaty.” Ryan’s stomach growled. “Wow, I remember you and your sisters would ride your horses into town and tie them up in the parking spots in front of the café.”

      “And you would ride your bike.”

      His bike. As Kristin navigated along the snowy street, where previous tracks of chained-up vehicles had broken a clear path, he saw snatches of the boy he’d been. Pedaling on his secondhand mountain bike down the wrong side of the road, a rebel without a cause and a chip on his shoulder. Holding down two jobs, bagging at the grocery on weekends and cleaning barns for Kristin’s uncle. Wanting his mother’s life to be easier. Hating that it wasn’t. Missing his dad so much, it hurt to breathe.

      I never should have come back, he thought, his eyes stinging. It was too much. Earlier, he’d vowed to keep his thoughts in the present. But what did a guy do when the past was tangled up with the present?

      “The closer we get to home, the sadder you look.” Kristin sounded concerned. Caring, the way a friend was.