A Daughter's Homecoming. Ginny Aiken

she stay away?

      The dog.

      She really got a kick out of the stray, but she had to be honest. She’d wanted to see more than the little terrier. She’d wanted to see the shelter director, too.

      Zach Davenport was a very attractive man. And more than just in looks. The way he cared for those animals was unexpectedly endearing. A man with such a heart was one Gabi couldn’t resist.

      And she hadn’t really been trying to resist him. Even though she should. Gabi had to remember she was in Lyndon Point only to right the sinking ship otherwise known as Tony’s Pizzeria. She couldn’t afford to let her emotions get tangled up with the shelter, much less the shelter’s director.

      “You’re here to turn the restaurant into a chic, gourmet Italian eatery,” she reminded herself as she marched back to Tony’s. “And to move Mama and Papa’s way of doing things into the twenty-first century.”

      To accomplish any of that, she had to focus all her attention on stopping the restaurant’s downhill slide rather than on the intriguing man she’d just left. The sooner she had everything cleaned up and headed toward a better future, the sooner she could return to her real life, her job and her hard-won independence.