“Still supporting the pecan industry, huh?” he teased.
“Have to.” Shay’s eyes twinkled as she glanced at him over one shoulder. Gold sparks of mischief lurked in their emerald depths. “I guess you haven’t heard. I bought back my grandfather’s farm. Support the pecan farmers,” she chanted in imitation of a protestor.
Surprise held Nick immobile as Shay chose a grassy spot and set Maggie gently against the smoothed-off trunk of a towering palm tree. A moment later the former model’s melodic laughter burst into the sunlit afternoon, her face glowing with happiness and health as she folded her long legs beneath her and settled next to the child.
Nick strode toward the store but jerked to a halt when, for the first time since the accident, he heard Maggie giggle. Choked up by the sound, he hurried inside to buy the ice cream, overwhelmed by the fact that his old friend had made his usually somber niece laugh.
As Nick waited for his order to be filled, he puzzled over Shay’s decision to purchase her former home. She was famous—she’d been one of the best-paid models in the world. She’d spent years wearing elegant clothes and expensive makeup—neither of which, in Nick’s opinion, she needed to enhance her loveliness. Shay could have bought the nicest house in town. She didn’t need to dirty her manicured nails with nuts and soil.
So why buy back the farm?
Nick studied her through the window. The stunning woman now sitting with Maggie seemed worlds apart from the shy, grieving English girl who’d arrived in Hope having just lost her mother. Back then, quiet, reticent Shay had struggled to fit in at school. But Shay had lost that shyness when Jessica, Zac, Kent, Brianna, Jaclyn, Nick and Shay had all become good friends.
Then, in her junior year of high school, Shay’s grandfather died. After that, her dad lost the farm. They’d struggled until, on a dare from Brianna and Jaclyn, Shay had entered a contest at a mall in Las Cruces and won a modeling contract in her senior year. Instead of studying physiotherapy to join the clinic she and her friends were going to build to honor Jessica, Shay had opted to model so she could support her father.
Now Shay Parker was back in Hope. It sounded as if she had her future happily mapped out. Nick wished he felt the same. The assistant coaching job his football team had offered him was not the career he’d planned for himself. Shrugging away his disquiet, he muted his concerns about the future, paid for the cones and carried them outside.
“You’re having vanilla?” Shay demanded as he handed over the ice cream. She blinked at his nod. “Forty-one flavors and you chose vanilla? Who are you and what have you done with the adventurous, always unexpected Nick Green? Maggie, are you sure this is your uncle?”
The little girl giggled, and Nick marveled at the sound again.
“Well, I’m shocked. The old Nick would have chosen green bananas with licorice or huckleberry with liver pâté—anything but vanilla,” Shay teased.
“You know they don’t even make those flavors. Anyway, the old Nick is gone.” And been replaced by whom? Nick asked himself. Shay had given up her career of her own volition, but Nick felt as if his had been stolen from him.
“I’m sorry—I wasn’t thinking. Was the surgery successful?” Shay frowned.
“The doctors said it was a total success. Now it only hurts when I move,” he joked. Shay didn’t laugh. “I can’t throw a football fifty feet,” he admitted. Her eyes darkened with sympathy that Nick didn’t want, so he moved the focus back to her. “Why did you buy the farm, Shay?”
“Because it’s my home. I know every nook and cranny of that land, and I always liked living there.” She smirked. “I like it even more now. The old house was a wreck, so I had it torn down and built a new one. You should visit me. I’ve got the best view in this county.”
“But surely you don’t intend to farm? The orchards must be in very bad shape.” Nick couldn’t fathom what this model-turned-physiotherapist would do with a pecan farm.
“Well, I was told the harvest in December didn’t yield much. But I do think the trees will come back eventually. I’ll wait and see. For now I have to concentrate on my practice.” Her voice softened. “Anyway, it’s not the orchard I wanted, Nick, as much as my home. Dad had big plans for the family place. I’d like to fulfill some of them, but that’s down the road. For now, I have to live somewhere, so it might as well be on familiar territory.”
Nick searched her face. He knew her well enough to know there was something she wasn’t saying. Shay avoided his intent look by tossing the scant remains of her cone in a nearby trash can. She offered Maggie a tissue to clean up her hands then asked, “Would you like to try the swing, honey?”
The little girl frowned, her eyes speculative. Finally she nodded, very slowly.
“I’ll help you.” Shay lifted his niece into her arms and carried her to the swing. With an ease that surprised Nick, she set Maggie on the seat, told her to hang on then gently pushed until the swing swayed back and forth.
Concern grabbed at Nick as alarm filled Maggie’s face.
“Uh, Shay, maybe you shouldn’t—”
She pinned him with her world-famous stare. “It’s okay, Nick,” she assured him, her quiet, firm tone communicating that she had everything under control.
Nick’s argument died on his lips. He nodded and she continued pushing Maggie, offering encouragement.
“Can your toes touch the sky, Maggie?” Shay’s casual gaze intensified as she assessed the child. “Wow! That’s amazing.”
Nick sat on the end of a child’s slide and observed Shay coax Maggie through a series of moves using little dares that began with “Betcha can’t...” Maggie responded every time, engrossed in the tasks as she pushed herself to prove she could do it. After a few minutes Shay slowed the swing, hugged the little girl and said something that widened Maggie’s grin. Shay took the swing beside her and together they swayed back and forth, chattering like magpies. Eventually Shay beckoned him over.
“I think Maggie has had enough swinging,” she said, tilting her head to indicate Maggie’s drooping body.
Nick took his cue, strode forward and bent to lift his niece free. Before he could, Shay reached out and touched his hands, her fingers firm as she rearranged his grip.
“Higher,” she murmured in his ear. “Like this. Not under her knees.”
So he had been hurting Maggie. Inside him, anger exploded at his clumsiness and the seeming hopelessness of her situation. The doctor’s words today hadn’t been encouraging. Maggie wasn’t moving as much as expected. Small wonder. She had missed so many therapy sessions in Las Cruces. It wasn’t his mom’s fault but—well, at least he was here to help now. If only he could do more.
Using great care, Nick set Maggie in the truck and fastened her seat belt. He waited for Shay to climb inside, but she pushed the door closed.
“I’ll walk back. I need the exercise after that gigantic cone.” She patted her flat midriff and grinned. “I’ve gained five pounds since I’ve been back.”
He couldn’t see where. Shay looked fantastic in her white fitted pants and navy blue shirt. Her peaches-and-cream skin, flawless except for the trademark spattering of freckles across her elegant nose, glowed radiant in the unrelenting desert sun.
Nick blinked in surprise as a thud of male appreciation hit him. Shay was gorgeous, of course. Always had been. But he wasn’t attracted to her—they’d been friends, that’s all.
“Uh, we’d better get—”
“Nick, can you come to my place tonight?” Shay asked quietly. “I need to talk to you about Maggie.”
Since that was exactly what he wanted to talk to her about, he nodded. “Seven-thirty?”
She