Page 67 of Stuck with my Mountain Daddies

I didn’t even know if she was still in Medford.

Hadn’t dared to ask. Hadn’t let myself hope.

And yet, here she was.

Still Riley.

Still the most beautiful woman I had ever laid eyes on.

She stood beside Lucy, both of them bundled up and rosy-cheeked, mid-laugh at something I was too far away to hear.

Lucy had a powdered sugar smudge on her cheek. Probably from the bag in her hand, which had “Sweet Cravings” stamped on the side.

Harriet and George Cooper were waving to them from the bakery steps, George throwing in a wink and calling out something that made Lucy double over laughing.

Riley looked lighter than I’d seen her in weeks. Not only in appearance, though she looked like she might be feelingherselfagain, wrapped in that too-big coat, her curls tucked beneath a beanie with a fuzzy pom-pom on top… butmore.

The tension she carried in her shoulders, in her guarded eyes, was softened. Not gone. But lighter.

“You haven’t even taken one photo yet,” Lucy said, loud enough for me to hear as they drew a little closer, mock gasping at her friend. “Who evenareyou anymore? Miss Influencer?”

Riley laughed, a real, rich laugh that cut straight through the crowd noise and pinned itself to my chest.

“You’ve been walking around with glitter on your cheeks andno evidenceexists? Unforgivable. We must take one now.”

They veered near the fountain, where Samantha handed them steaming cups from a folding table decked out in Brewed Bean signage. Sam was in a candy-cane-striped hat, chatting a mile a minute as she passed out cocoa and probably low-level gossip.

I didn’t even need to be too close for those words to drift my way.

“Itoldher not to go on that date with Todd Rivers,” Sam was saying to Nancy Hayes, who stood nearby with that graceful stillness she always carried. “I mean, he’s charming and all,but he flirted with Ava GreenandVera Baker in the same ten minutes last week. That man’s ego needs to be iced down.”

Nancy sipped her drink with a knowing smile. “He remembers people’s orders. That’s half the battle in this town.”

“Maybe for booze,” Vera chimed in, nudging Paul, who was, of course, nose deep in his newspaper. “But in relationships? That man would forget your anniversary and blame the bourbon.”

Riley and Lucy both laughed again, blending into the warmth of it all, fitting right in.

But then there was a blur of movement, caught in my left eye as Biscuit slipped free from Lila’s grasp as she tried to focus on her child.

It happened fast.

A shout, a flash of corgi fluff, and the leash trailing behind him like a streamer. Biscuit darted through legs and lantern light, making a beeline straight for Riley, yipping as if he’d just found the love of his life.

Riley barely had time to turn before he hit her legs… too hard, too fast, and on the slick cobblestone, her feet went out from under her.

I didn’t think. I ran.

One second, I was on the edge of the crowd, the next I was cutting through people, past Ava Green who gasped, past Officer Bryan Hall who reached too late, past Dylan Turner with a camera halfway to his face.

She started to fall, arms flailing, drink flying.

I caught her.

One arm around her back, the other beneath her knees. Her weight slammed into me, warm and familiar and real in a way nothing else had been in weeks.

Her wide, stunned eyes locked on mine. And for one breathless moment, neither of us said a word.

I held her.

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