Fiancé In Name Only. Maureen Child

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      For the next few days, Kelly was too busy to spend much time thinking about Micah. And that was just as well, she told herself. Mainly because the minute they returned from their pumpkin-shopping expedition, Micah had disappeared and she’d gotten the message.

      Clearly he wanted her to know that their brief outing had been an aberration. He’d slipped back into his cave and she hadn’t caught a glimpse of him since. Probably for the best, she assured herself. Easier to keep her mind on her own life, her own responsibilities if the only time she saw Micah was in her dreams.

      Of course, that didn’t make for restful sleeping, but she’d been tired before. One thing she hadn’t experienced before were the completely over-the-top, sexy-enough-to-melt-your-brain dreams. She hated waking up hot and needy. Hated having to admit that all she really wanted to do was go back to sleep and dream again.

      “And don’t start thinking about those dreams or you won’t get any work done at all,” Kelly told herself firmly.

      It wasn’t hard to push Micah into the back of her mind, since she juggled so many jobs that sometimes she just ran from one to the next. Thankfully, that gave her little opportunity to sit and wonder if sex with Micah in real life would be as good as it was in her dreams.

      Although if it was, she might not survive the experience.

      “Still,” she mused, “not a bad way to go.”

      She shook her head, dipped a brush into the orange tempera paint, wiped off the excess, then painted the first of an orchard of pumpkins onto the Coffee Cave’s front window. Of all her different jobs, this was her favorite. Kelly loved painting holiday decorations on storefronts.

      But she was also a virtual assistant, she ran websites for several local businesses, and was a Realtor who had just sold a house to that family from California. She was a gardener and landscape designer, and now she was thinking seriously about running for mayor in Banner’s next election, since she was just horrified by some of the current mayor’s plans for downtown. As she laid the paint out on the glass, her mind wandered.

      Kelly had a business degree from Utah State, but once she’d graduated, she hadn’t wanted to tie herself down to one particular job. She liked variety, liked being her own boss. When she’d decided to go into several different businesses, a couple of her friends had called her crazy. But she remembered Sean encouraging her, telling her to do whatever made her happy.

      That had her pausing as thoughts of Sean drifted through her mind like a warm breeze on a cool day. A small ache settled around her heart. She still missed him even though his features were blurred in her mind now—like a watercolor painting left out in the rain.

      She hated that. It felt like a betrayal of sorts, letting Sean fade. But it would have been impossible to keep living while holding on to the pain, too. Time passed whether you wanted it to or not. And you either kept up or got run over.

      On that happy notion, Kelly paused long enough to look up and down Main Street. Instantly, she felt better. Banner was a beautiful little town and had been a great place to grow up. Coming here as a heartbroken eight-year-old, she’d fallen in love with the town, the woods, the rivers, the waterfalls and the people here.

      Okay, Banner wasn’t Edinburgh or Oxford or wherever, but it was...cozy. The buildings were mostly more than a hundred years old with creaky floors and brick walls. The sidewalks were narrow but neatly swept, and every one of the old lampposts boasted a basket of fall flowers at its base. In another month or so, there would be Christmas signs up and lights strung across the streets, and when the snow came, it would all look like a holiday painting. So, yes, she’d like to travel, see the world, but she would always come home to Banner.

      Nodding to herself, she turned back to the window and quickly laid out the rest of the pumpkin patch along the bottom edge of the window.

      “Well, that looks terrific already.”

      Kelly turned to grin at her friend. Terry Baker owned the coffee shop and made the best cinnamon rolls in the state. With short black hair, bright blue eyes and standing at about five foot two, Terry looked like an elf. Which she didn’t find the least bit amusing.