Sweet Tibby Mack. Roz Fox Denny

at once he stuck his head back inside. “Don’t forget to lock the door.” Then he was gone again.

      She not only locked up but snapped off the front lights. Even in twilight the roses were pretty. Although a dull ache crowded out the joy she’d experienced when she’d thought Cole had sent them.

      Closing her eyes, Tibby rubbed at a niggling headache. Obviously it didn’t take much to turn her head where Cole was concerned. Well, if she needed a dose of reality, she could visualize him and Cicely Sleepover. That’d do it.

      Steps slower, Tibby snapped off the remaining lights. She welcomed the night as she made her way next door to a solitary dinner with her dog. At the door she realized she’d passed up another opportunity to give Cole the letter from Mr. Harcourt. But what did it matter? His mind wasn’t on clearing his land this weekend.

      

      THE MINUTE TIBBY DOUSED the store’s lights, Cole was swallowed by darkness. He skidded to a stop where their properties joined to let his eyes adjust. His weekend certainly wasn’t going the way he’d planned. Instead of a nice romantic dinner, he had one woman ticked off at him and he’d inadvertently hurt another. The look on Tibby’s face when he told her he hadn’t sent the roses bothered him. It dredged a memory from the past. Her birthday. Her fifteenth. No, sixteenth. She’d invited him to a play at the Date Festival—Midsummer Night’s Dream.

      He resumed walking as memories surged in. If he hadn’t been so hot for that tennis instructor, he probably wouldn’t have been so abrupt with Tibby. Recalling the pain in her eyes, he felt guilty.