Always a Hero. Justine Davis

she could when she’d come here, not just for business reasons. She’d had some idea in her head that the small town might close ranks against the outsider. But instead they’d welcomed her, been thrilled that their little town was going to have a music store, and she’d slid into a comfortable place here more quickly than she’d ever imagined possible.

      So, was she about to mess with that, too? Wyatt Blake was one of their own; after all, he’d grown up here. Would they suddenly decide she was an interloper if she started interfering in his life?

      She shook her head, nearly laughing out loud at herself. If that’s all it took, then her place here wasn’t as comfortable as she thought it was.

      She glanced at her watch, saw that it was after nine now. Her mom liked to sleep in on Sundays, and given the dynamo she was the rest of the week, no one was likely to argue with her. She pulled out her cell phone and made the call she’d been meaning to make for days now.

      Her mother never chided her for not calling often enough, which actually made her call more often than her busy life conveniently allowed. Her mother, Kai thought for at least the millionth time, was a very smart woman.

      After the usual catching up, and the pleasant news that her father was feeling so much better after knee surgery a few months ago that he’d gone fishing with some friends, Kai asked the question she’d been pondering.

      “Do you think someone who’s never had kids can ever have good ideas about raising them?”

      “Of course,” her mother said, “if they ever were one.”

      Kai laughed. “Did anybody who’d never had them ever tell you what you should do with me?”

      “I seem to recall your Uncle Brad having an opinion or two on the matter.”

      She laughed again at her mother’s dry tone; her Uncle Brad Reynolds, her father’s brother, made Wyatt Blake look like an overly lenient pushover.

      “I always had the feeling Uncle Brad thought kids shouldn’t just be seen and not heard, they shouldn’t be.”

      “He would be much more comfortable with them if they were born adults,” her mother agreed.

      “Thanks for keeping him at a distance for me.”

      “In my job description,” her mother said with a laugh. “Now, you want to tell me what brought this on?”

      “Just a kid who’s been hanging around the store. He’s having trouble with his dad.”