Wild Iris Ridge (Hope's Crossing) by RaeAnne Thayne Page A

her.
    The feeling of trying so very hard to please someone impossible seemed entirely too familiar. She didn’t have to look very far to see why—a girl growing up with a difficult, demanding, overbearing father knew that feeling like she knew her own imperfect face in the mirror.
    Brendan always viewed her as nothing more than Jessie’s pain-in-the-neck ambitious, driven cousin, who showed up at inconvenient moments.
    Okay, not always. One magical night, he had flirted with her and kissed her and had led her to start spinning ridiculous dreams about something that would never be. That night seemed like a distant scene in someone else’s life, something she almost thought she might have made up in her head, especially after he started dating Jessie just a few weeks after making her think he might actually be interested in her.
    She wasn’t going to say he broke her naive twenty-one-year-old heart, that getting over his rejection of her had been one of the hardest things she’d ever had to do. That would be giving him entirely too much power, and she wasn’t willing to go that far.
    “I’m done for the night,” he answered, and she pushed stupid thoughts of the past away. “The shift is covered now, and the guys with food poisoning are already feeling better. Thanks for saving the day.”
    “No problem.” She rose from the sofa. “Let me grab my things from the kitchen and then I’ll get out of your way.”
    He followed her as she retrieved her raincoat and umbrella.
    “Did you ever catch dinner?” she asked him.
    “No. I’ll grab a bowl of cereal or something before I crash.”
    “Don’t forget, you’ve still got a plate of enchiladas in the refrigerator you can warm up.”
    “I might do that. The phone call from my assistant chief came just as we were sitting down to dinner.”
    “I thought as much.”
    How many plates had he left uneaten over the years?
    “I had a few bites of your chicken enchiladas,” she told him. “I hope you don’t mind, but I hadn’t eaten dinner yet when I came over here.”
    “Not at all. I hope you had more than a bite. There was plenty. You stepped up and saved my bacon. The least I can do is feed you.”
    “They were very tasty. You’re not a bad cook.”
    He made a face but seemed pleased with the compliment. “With Pop around, learning to cook at our house was mandatory, not optional. All of us were required to learn at home and then to work at the café at some point in our lives. Pop had me flipping pancakes before I could talk.”
    She tried to picture him as a dark-haired little boy surrounded by his brothers, both older and younger, trying to learn how to cook. It was difficult to make the image stick when she was confronted by the big, hard reality of the adult Brendan Caine.
    “I love your dad.”
    “You and half the women in town. Young and old, he charms them all. Too bad for you, but his heart belongs to Katherine Thorne...though he’ll never admit it.”
    “Katherine? Really? I had no idea they were a thing.”
    “I’m not sure what kind of thing they are. They’ve never even dated, if you want the truth, but you should see the way Pop blushes whenever she comes into the café.”
    She smiled, charmed by the idea of two people in that season of their life being flustered by each other. Brendan hadn’t specifically mentioned that Katherine returned Dermot’s feelings, but she must. Lucy had always liked Katherine Thorne and considered her to be a woman of good sense. What other choice would she have but to care for someone as wonderful as Dermot?
    “Oh, they’re perfect together! Don’t you agree?”
    She realized she was still smiling when Brendan didn’t answer, only continued staring at her mouth with an odd expression that made her feel suddenly hot and restless.
    “You don’t like the idea?”
    He blinked a few times, and she remembered the poor man was exhausted and probably didn’t like much of anything right now. Especially