Raeanne Thayne Hope's Crossings Series Volume One: Blackberry Summer. RaeAnne Thayne

than being uncle to one of them, Riley had no idea.

      He sighed as he drove past Claire’s house, the brick a warm, weathered rust in the evening light. A basketball suddenly rolled out of her driveway and he hit the brakes just seconds before he would have rolled over it.

      “Hey, Chief,” Owen called from the edge of the driveway, where he had safely waited instead of chasing into the road after his ball.

      “Hey, kid.”

      He glanced up at the house and saw her there, sitting on a wicker chair on her front porch. She shaded her eyes against the light filtering through the trees and although her smile was guarded, it was still about a hundred degrees warmer than the look he’d just gotten next door.

      He lifted a hand in greeting and she waved back with her broken arm.

      “Should I wait for you to go past before I get the ball?” Owen asked him.

      “No, go ahead.”

      The boy hurried to the side of the car and scooped it from where it had come to rest against the front tire. “Hey, you want to play?” he asked. “Macy’s not home and my mom can’t. I’m tired of just shooting by myself.”

      He should give some excuse—just let the boy grab his ball, wait for him to return to the safety of his driveway, then drive on by. That was the smart thing to do. The safe thing. But he was feeling reckless suddenly and a quick game of hoops wouldn’t hurt anything, right? And besides, he had more or less promised Owen he would play sometime.

      “Sure,” he answered and was rewarded with a gleeful shout.

      He parked his patrol vehicle and saw Claire’s wary surprise when he stepped out.

      Chester greeted him with as much enthusiasm as the hound could muster, then plopped back in the cool green grass.

      “Watch this!” Owen said, going for the freestanding basketball standard next to the driveway.

      “Wow, Kobe Bryant. Your left-handed jump is wicked.”

      Owen grinned and tossed him the ball. Riley fired it off and was gratified when it swooshed through the net.

      “Nice.” Owen grabbed the ball and took a ten-foot jumper. It bounced on the rim for a minute with a boing sort of sound, then fell through.

      At his suggestion, the two of them played an informal game of PIG—the younger brother of HORSE—for a while and it was close to a perfect moment for Riley. The warm evening, the setting sun turning every thing golden, the sweet Rocky Mountain air that smelled of home and peace and summer just around the corner.

      Claire had put down whatever she’d been working on, though she said nothing, only watched them.

      He was showing off for her, he realized after one particularly hotdog shot, a one-handed, behind-the-back throw that landed in the sweet spot. It was a rather embarrassing realization, a reminder of all those times when he was a kid trying desperately to make her notice him.

      What would she say if she knew he still probably had the road rash scars on his back from a spectacular bike crash when he was twelve, trying to pop a wheelie in front of her house and failing spectacularly?

      Hunger curled through him, slow and insistent. Stupid. She’d warned him away the last time he was here, told him plainly she wasn’t interested in any kind of one-on-one with him. He would do well to keep that in mind.

      “Okay, what’s a hard one you can’t hit?” Owen said, considering his options. While he set up the shot, Riley risked another glance at Claire and found her watching him. Their gazes locked for a moment, then she quickly looked away, a blush staining her cheeks.

      A tensile thread of awareness stretched between them, taut and shimmery, and he was so busy trying to figure out what the hell to do with it that he completely missed Owen’s shot except for the swish of the net.

      “That’s G for you. I win!” Owen exclaimed after Riley took a wild shot and completely missed the hoop.

      “Good game, kid.”

      “How about two out of three?” the boy said.

      Riley looked at Claire. “How about another day? I should go say hello to your mom.”

      “Okay. I have to pee anyway.”

      Riley set the ball down on the standard’s base, paused to pet Chester’s brown droopy face, then headed up the three porch stairs, the memory of the kiss they had shared the last time he’d seen her playing over and over in his head. He relentlessly tried to shut it down by reminding himself of all the reasons why kissing her was a lousy idea.

      Still, he couldn’t resist brushing her cheek with a light, friendly sort of kiss when he reached her. If he inhaled the scent of her, fresh and lovely as the spring evening, that was nobody’s damn business but his own.

      “Thanks for playing with him for a few minutes,” she said and he wondered if he was imagining that slightly husky note to her voice. “It’s a little tough for me to go in for a layup right now.”

      “And I would guess the cast on your arm probably plays havoc with your shooting percentage.”

      She smiled. “I guess I’m a wuss in that respect. A cast doesn’t seem to bother Owen, obviously.”

      “I hear you went back to work today,” he said after an awkward pause, perching on the white gingerbread railing that encircled the house.

      “Wow. Really? I wasn’t aware it made the Hope Gazette.”

      “I sometimes think the Gazette is a waste of paper around here. I mean, who really needs it because everyone knows everything anyway? Donna Mazell apparently stopped in on her lunch break. She told me about how you’ve got a nice comfortable chair set up by the register like the Bead Queen of Hope’s Crossing.”

      “Queen Claire. That’s me. I forgot Donna came in. She was looking for polymer beads for a project she’s doing with her grandkids.”

      He didn’t know polymer beads from pinto beans, any more than he’d been able to figure out just how exactly Donna had guessed with such accuracy that he might have a particular interest in the comings and goings of a particular bead-store owner of their mutual acquaintance.