Strangers When We Meet by Marisa Carroll

still too small.” Randi regarded her pile with dismay. “I’ll hurt myself if I jump into this one. Hurry, Emma, we have to rake faster. Keegan’s helping Robin too much.”
    “I’m raking as fast as I can.” Emma laughed, giving her taskmaster’s pigtail a tug.
    “What if I help you ladies rake all the leaves into one big pile?” Blake offered.
    Emma leaned on her rake and looked at him. He was wearing a black pullover and snug, faded jeans that looked as if he’d had them for years. The midday sun picked out gold highlights in his dark brown hair.
    “A really big pile,” Randi and Robin chorused in unison, jumping up and down, pigtails flying.
    “I’m not doing this just for the kids, Weston. I want a pile big enough for me to jump into. So grab a rake and put your money where your mouth is,” she said, rushing her words a little. He looked good enough to eat, standing there, one hip resting on the deck railing. And she could think of all kinds of places she’d like him to put his mouth. She turned the direction of her thoughts hurriedly away from the visions she’d conjured in her mind. What had gotten into her? She never had that kind of lascivious thoughts about Daryl and the things they could do in the darkness and privacy of the night.
    He vaulted the deck railing in one smooth, easy motion. Emma watched with her heart in her throat, and Keegan gave an appreciative whistle. “Not bad,” he said, pumping his fist in the air. “Not bad.”
    Certainly not the moves she’d expect from a Wall Street financier, but then she remembered he had grown up on a farm and been a Marine.
    His wristwatch and running shoes were expensive, but his jeans had probably been new when he left the Marines, and he drove a pickup—not very practical for the city, but not as pricey as an SUV. He had money, but he spent it wisely. She liked that in a man, too. He didn’t look out of place raking leaves and playing with children in the back yard of a New England farmhouse. In fact, he looked just right. She could imagine Keegan and the twins as his—as hers. Once more her unguarded thoughts had led her into unacceptable realms, and she vowed not let it happen again. She attacked the carpet of oak leaves with renewed vigor.
    Robin handed Blake her rake and started tossing handfuls of leaves on the pile. “You’re bigger. You can do it better than me.” Her sister watched in silence for a couple of minutes and then set her rake against a tree trunk and began to do the same thing. Everyone worked in earnest, and in five minutes they had a truly impressive waist-high pyramid of brown and gold leaves.
    The twins dived in head first with whoops and hollers that echoed into the hills, and came up looking like denim-clad wood sprites with red maple and yellow oak clinging to their auburn hair.
    “You too, Emma.”
    Emma propped her rake against an Adirondack chair and let herself fall backward into the pile. She came up laughing and brushing leaves from her hair and the front of her dark purple sweater.
    “You look like you’re having as much fun as the twins,” Blake said, leaning on his rake.
    “Second childhood.” Emma felt color steal into her cheeks. She bet the women he was used to being around in Manhattan never jumped into a pile of oak leaves. Certainly not if they were like the polished and sleek woman she had seen with Daryl that night at the restaurant. Or, from what little Blake had said about her, the beauty who had broken his heart.
    “Let’s cover Emma all up,” Randi said in a stage whisper that carried halfway to the village.
    “Yeah.” Her sister in crime giggled. “Cover her aw up. So you can’t see anything at aw.”
    “Hey, you little monsters know you’re not supposed to do things like that to paying guests,” Keegan warned, but his green eyes sparkled with gleeful anticipation.
    Blake had much the same expression on his face, but the look in his eyes was darker, more determined and far