Hometown Sweetheart. Lenora Worth

dog.”

      Rick let out a snort. “Didn’t look like you were in any kind of hurry to take Shiloh home to me.”

      “I’m leaving—right now.”

      “Yeah, right.” Rick gave him a long hard look. “I do believe I see a sparkle in my old brother’s eyes. Coming to talk to the pretty lady—there’s a new concept.”

      Simon wished he’d stayed inside. “I had to be polite, now, didn’t I?”

      “I didn’t think you knew how to be polite.”

      Gayle walked up, her smile sure and steady. “I saw you talking to Shanna. Isn’t she the nicest girl?”

      Nice. But certainly not a girl. A woman. Simon had flirted with a woman for the first time since Marcy’s death. And that thought alone was enough to sober him into being his old anti-social self.

      “Real nice. So nice she just about burned down the woods and the cabin the other afternoon.”

      With that, he turned and stomped back toward his workshop, leaving his mother and his brother staring a hole through his back.

      But when he turned at the door, the only person he saw in the late afternoon sunshine was Shanna White.

      And he also saw the hurt, confused look in her eyes, too. But he told himself it didn’t bother him.

      Not one bit.