Aimee hadn’t slept with Gleann’s sole plumber just once. A single occurrence might actually have made things easier to handle. No, apparently they were an ongoing thing. And in this case, “ongoing” meant “dramatic” and “exceedingly strange.”

Jen stood in the middle of the Thistle’s front sitting room, her sister hovering in the kitchen doorway and Owen, the handsome, middle-aged man with the gigantic metal toolbox, inspecting the buckled drywall on the walls and ceiling.

“I need to cut into this so I can get to the pipes and see what caused the burst.” Owen was cool as could be, but Aimee was watching him with her arms crossed.

Aimee said to Jen, “Ask him how long until it’s all done. New pipes. New walls and painting and everything.”

Owen’s eyebrows shot into his forehead.

Jen rolled her eyes. “Seriously? He’s right here.”

Ainsley flounced into the room, her sandy blond ponytail swinging, her oversized, crooked teeth chomping into an apple. She took one look at her mom and Owen, and heaved a sigh worthy of a guilt-loving grandma. “Are you guys fighting again? Hi, Owen.”

Owen turned from where he was running fingers down bubbled, soggy wallpaper. “Hey, you. If your mom wants to play games, tell her I said hi, and that I’m sorry.”

“What’d you do now?” Jen thought Ainsley said around a mouthful of apple.

Owen smiled. An affectionate dad’s smile. He wasn’t Ainsley’s dad, but he was someone’s, that was for sure. “Nothing I can tell you.”

“Ew.” Ainsley came over to Jen and gave her a quick hug.

Owen chuckled in a way that said he’d been teasing.

Ainsley seemed shockingly comfortable with the sudden reappearance of her aunt, considering how badly Jen had left them high and dry during their first and only New York City visit. Nine-year-old Ainsley didn’t care what happened three years ago, but Aimee would never forget. And really, could Jen blame her?

Last night Jen and Aimee had taken the girl to the Stone for fish and chips since the B&B’s water was still off, and Jen had desperately grabbed for something to talk about. But Ainsley, apparently a seasoned pro and a social natural, had it all covered. She’d chattered on in a way that reminded Jen so much of Aimee at that age, all opinion and I-don’t-care-what-you-think. Her favorite topic was these two older girls she seemed to emulate—someone named Lacey, and another she just called T.

Jen turned to her sister. “You have insurance, right? Money to cover repairs?”

Owen pulled out a long, narrow saw from his toolbox. “Aimee, I’ll only charge you for materials, as usual.”

Aimee ignored him and looked at Jen with worried, glassy eyes. “I’ve got a little put away, and insurance will cover some of it. But I need the income from during the games. The Scottish Society president is staying here and I’m fully booked. The rooms have to be perfect. Can you ask Owen when he’ll be done?”

“Maybe he’d be done quicker,” Jen noted, “if you didn’t play these games. What is going on here anyway?”

Ainsley laughed. Owen added wryly, “Yeah, I’d kinda like to know, too.”

Aimee worried her lip and suddenly looked sheepish. “Old habits,” she mumbled. Just as Jen had figured.

“I don’t have time for this, Aim. I’ll let you explain that comment to Owen.” Jen pressed a hand to her forehead. “You brought me here for another reason and I have to take care of that.”

“Taking care of that” involved getting out to the fairgrounds and seeing firsthand all the supplies and tents and signage stored there. She also needed to do a location assessment, make sure she agreed with the layout and found the grounds suitable.

“Aimee,” Owen said with a chuckle, “tell your sister it was nice to finally meet her.”

“Jen,” Aimee said wearily, “Owen says good-bye.”

Brother.

Owen whipped around to face Aimee. “Ha!” His wide grin made the silver in his cheek stubble shine. Aimee had always gone for older guys. So had mom. Two peas in a pod, those two, and usually not in the best ways. “Gotcha. You’re talking to me now.”

Aimee’s oval face went splotchy red and she glanced up at Jen in embarrassment. She kicked at a baseboard. “Oh, hell.”

As Owen started to cross to Aimee, his intent plastered all over his expression, Jen threw up her hands. “I’m out of here. You guys figure . . . this . . . out.” She headed for the front door.

“What was that all about?” she heard Owen say to her sister.

“I’m sorry,” Aimee replied.

“So am I,” he said, and there the talking ended.

It had heated up a good ten degrees since Jen had been delayed by Aimee’s retreat into her seventeen-year-old dependent self. Jen was already sweating through her wrap dress and her feet felt like they were swimming in her heels, but this was still work and she refused to dress down, even if she did sort of feel like she was playing a part while she was here. Besides, they were the only articles of clothing she’d managed to clean and get dry after yesterday’s waterlogging. The rest of her belongings were strung up all over the rental house on Maple. She didn’t trust that ancient dryer not to cook her delicates down to a size zero, which she definitely wasn’t.

Halfway to her car, Jen heard footsteps behind her. She turned to find Ainsley on the flagstone path, squinting up at her, the sun shrinking the pupils in her bright blue eyes to tiny specks. Aimee said her daughter looked exactly like the thirty-year-old guy who’d gotten Aimee pregnant at nineteen and then took off as soon as he got the news. Jen had just started college then, with Aimee stuck back in Iowa, so Jen had never known the guy. But Ainsley definitely didn’t take after her mom, and Jen wondered how long it had taken Aimee to get used to the everyday reminder of the asshole.

“They’ll be okay, you know,” Ainsley said, shaking her head. “They fight sometimes, but then it’s all good.”

Jen hid a smile. “So you like Owen? Is he good to your mom?”

“Sure, yeah. It’s only when he’s with the guys too much that Mom gets upset. That’s probably what that was about in there.” She looked at her dirty fingernails. “And sometimes things with Melissa don’t let them see each other.”

“Who’s Melissa?”

“His wife.”

“Wait . . . what?”

A serious, stomach-dropping worry swept through Jen. Two peas in a pod. How could Aimee do that, get involved with a married guy, especially after all the crap they’d had to deal with as kids?

She closed her eyes and mouth and breathed carefully through her nose. One problem at a time. Technically, it was Aimee’s problem, but when had Aimee’s issues ever only been her own?

She opened her eyes to find Ainsley tossing the apple core into the herb garden. “Melissa and Owen are still married and they live in the same house. That big old white one over on Catalpa?”

Jen ground the heel of a hand into her eye socket. “And Aimee knows this?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“What about Melissa?”

“Oh, she knows, too.”

Jen thought she might be sick.

“T and Lacey say it’s no big deal,” Ainsley said. “So do I.”

Those girls again. “And who are they exactly?”

“Owen and Melissa’s kids. Relax, Aunt Jen.” The girl actually put a hand on Jen’s arm and gave this little bat of her eyelashes that screamed Aimee. “They’re getting divorced. It just hasn’t happened yet. Or maybe it won’t. I don’t know.” Then she shrugged and the kid was back. “Whatever.”

Whatever was right. Jen started to laugh. She couldn’t help it. “Alrighty then. My sister is dating a not-yet-divorced guy who still lives with his wife. Hey, where are you going?”

Ainsley turned from where she’d been heading down the sidewalk, away from downtown. “To Bryan’s. He got a slingshot yesterday.”

As Ainsley walked away, Jen turned to look through the big front window of the Thistle, where she—and anyone else walking by—could plainly see Owen the still-married-but-whatever plumber and her sister making out. What the hell was going on here?

Jen couldn’t help but flash back to so many days of her youth. To the embarrassing, awful, public scenes she’d been forced to witness—and sometimes break up—between her mom and the random women who seemed to know Frank, the live-in boyfriend who wasn’t Jen’s or Aimee’s dad, all too well.

No time for that, she reminded herself with a shake of the head. Now she was working, and the past was the past. First, she had to run back to the rental house and switch out her shoes for something more appropriate to traipsing around fairgrounds.

But when she pulled up to 738 Maple, there was a huge white pickup truck consuming the driveway. MacDougall Landscape Design was stenciled in green on the sides.

Jen sat there clutching the steering wheel and closed her eyes. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to see Leith—she did; she really did—she just wasn’t ready. She hadn’t prepared herself. Hadn’t thought it all through, as she was so good at doing. For a small, sleepy town, everything was happening so incredibly fast.

Maybe if she opened her eyes slowly, her mind would admit it had played a trick on her and he wouldn’t actually be here right now. She opened them. The truck stared back at her.

And then, there was Leith MacDougall sauntering out of the open garage. He lifted his thick arm to wipe the side of his sweaty face on the shoulder of his stained white T-shirt. The old poster tacked to the vacant store window downtown hadn’t done him justice. That kilt had hidden the true power of his thighs, but the dirty jeans he wore now showed them off like trophies. He was at least thirty pounds bigger than in high school, maybe more. Not ’roided out or disgustingly cut, but firm. Unmistakably strong.