The Next Always by Nora Roberts

to her heart, but she only shook her head. “Everything about this strikes me as odd. My kids are over playing video games, and I’m here, with you. I should get back. At this rate it’s going to take me a year to see the whole building.”
    “All the time you want. Come out with me tomorrow night.”
    “I . . . I can’t. I’m having Avery and Hope over for dinner. And before you ask, because I hope you were going to, Saturday I promised the kids a movie marathon. They start school on Monday, and Murphy’s starting kindergarten. It’s a big deal.”
    “Sure it is. Soon then. Say when.”
    “Maybe next Friday. If I can get a sitter.”
    “Next Friday.” He kissed her, lightly, to seal it. “Don’t change your mind.”
    She stepped away because she wanted to step toward. “Sorry, but the kids. I don’t even know how long we’ve been gone. It got fuzzy.”
    “Not that long.” He took her hand to draw her down the hall.
    “It’s dreamy here,” she began. “I can, if I think about it, layer image over image. It’s the strangest thing, the way I could picture the rooms when you talked about them, even before I looked through the binder. I should’ve brought it with me. I have it at the bookstore.”
    “I could use it. How about we run down and get it?”
    “Ah—”
    “Hang on.” He pulled out his phone as they crossed the main level to the back door. He let them out, relocked, then stood, sheltered with her by the floor of the overhead porch as he called Ryder.
    “Hey, kids okay?”
    “Yeah, no problem. We sold the older two for twenty each to a traveling circus. Let the runt go for a six-pack. Good deal.”
    “We’ll be about five more minutes.”
    “Okay by me. They ate your pizza, man. The runt went for the jalapenos like candy.”
    “Hold on. What do you like on your pizza?”
    “I was going to have a salad.” When he just stared at her with those deep blue eyes, she sighed. “Just pepperoni works for me.”
    “Order up a pepperoni,” he told Ryder. “Five.”
    He clicked off, took her hand again. “I’ll buy you a pizza, a traditional first date. Your kids ate mine.”
    “Oh, I’m sorry.”
    “I’m not. It’s giving me the first date. Rain’s slowed down. You can give me the bookstore keys, head right over.”
    “I don’t mind a little rain. Plus it’ll be easier and quicker if I get it. I know just where it is.”
    They circled the building. “Did you know Murphy likes jalapenos?”
    “He’ll eat anything.” She laughed when Beckett made a dash for it, pulling her along. Laughed when the rain cooled her skin, dampened her hair. “Beckett? This is already a really nice first date.”

    BECKETT DOUBTED A traditional first date included a trio of kids begging for quarters, his brothers and the owner of the restaurant playing chaperone—and video games—and people dropping by the now-sprawling table to catch up on news or ask about the inn.
    But it suited him fine.
    Plus the casual, crowded circumstance would keep everybody from speculating. He didn’t mind town gossip; hell, it was part of the fuel that ran the engine. He’d just as soon not have his personal life discussed over breakfast at Crawford’s or scooped up like a banana split at The Creamery.
    He and his brothers put business on hold until Clare packed her kids up.
    “One more game. Please!” Liam, the designated negotiator, put on his best begging face. “Just one more, Mom. We’re not tired.”
    “I’m tired. And I’m out of quarters, plus you have to pay off your current debt cleaning your room tomorrow.”
    She watched his eyes slide toward the Montgomerys and narrowed her own. “Don’t you even think about tapping that source again.”
    “Sorry, pal.” Beckett lifted his hands. “Nobody bucks a mom.”
    “Aw, come on,” Liam began before his mother’s eyes narrowed a bit more.
    “I think you meant to say something else to Beckett, and to Ryder and Owen, and Avery.”
    He sighed,