Chapter 2
TWO
JOE
Tuesday
Joe wasn’t used to being the center of anything. He’d built a life out of staying just outside the frame, the quiet observer behind the camera. All the best travel journalists were. You watched, you waited, you learned to breathe in rhythm with the world until it forgot you were there.
But then he saw her. The Queen Bee.
Krista. Her face golden in the firelight, a story spilling from her soft lips.
Something about the tilt of her chin, the wild curls framing her heart-shaped face, made him forget everything he’d planned about fading into the background.
He couldn’t take his eyes off her. And he could sense, from the barely concealed smirks of her friends, that they had noticed.
He sat on a wicker couch, a cold drink in his hand. The glass sweated against his palm, leaving a circle of moisture on his jeans. Across from him, a group of women talked over one another in the easy way only old friends could. Their voices rose and fell like music.
Even now his fingers itched for his camera. He wanted to capture the effortless camaraderie that spoke of years of friendship. But most of all, he wanted to capture her.
“So, Joe, what brings you to Maple Falls exactly?” asked the redhead—Madison, he thought.
“Work,” he said. “Originally, covering the Local Blooms project, the garden for veterans and children.”
Zoe, the town’s florist, raised her glass with a smile. “Thanks again.”
“But then he met me, and we’ve expanded it to a wider piece on Maple Falls,” Elsie, Maple Falls’s publicist and self-proclaimed idea machine, added.
Joe raised his drink in acknowledgement.
Elsie leaned forward with sparkling eyes.
“You know what we should do? A feature on Joe doing a feature on us.” She gestured wildly, her bright fingernails flashing like signals to alien ships.
“Does that make sense? Maybe not. It’s the margarita talking.
” She laughed. “No wonder these went viral. Dangerous stuff.”
Joe took a sip. First, lime and salt, then a curl of heat from the jalapeno, and finally a slow, lingering sweetness. The drink was complex, fiery, unexpected.
Much like the woman who’d made it.
Something soft brushed his leg. A black dachshund trotted toward him out of the shadows, tail wagging like he’d been searching for him all night.
“Well, hey there, buddy.” The pup clambered into his lap, paws on his chest, sniffing under his chin. Satisfied, he flopped down with a sigh.
“What the heck, Frankie?” Krista looked at her empty lap. “That is completely unlike him. He hates strangers, normally.”
“He knows I’m a good guy, don’t you? Though I might be tempted to steal him.” Joe scratched Frankie behind the ears. The dog leaned in, approving.
The hum of voices weaved through his veins like tequila. He was an outsider, like always. It was a new town with new people. Yet the warmth he felt here made him feel as though he’d known them all far longer than a single evening.
He’d rolled into town twenty-four hours ago and somehow felt he’d met half the town just stopping to get a cup of coffee at the bakery.
Kit had chatted him up first, as if he stopped in there every day for a cup of joe.
Then there was Mrs. Bishop. The older woman had insisted on knowing if he was single, and when he told her he was, she bought him a piece of cherry pie and wanted to know how long he’d be in town for.
The woman next to her—Mrs. C., he thought—thought it would be best if he stayed a week, maybe two, to experience a true midwestern summer, and to try the peach scones “before they vanish with the season.”
Walking up to the group moments before, he had spotted Kit first, or maybe he heard her first, her laughter rolling like the waves on the lake. Then there was Zoe, who’d been so welcoming with her partner, Jackson, at the farm, earlier. Somehow, they all already felt familiar.
He had traveled across the country, sometimes across the world. But nowhere had felt quite like Maple Falls. It was hard not to feel instantly connected to the place, and that was both comforting and unsettling for a man who never felt he belonged.
“What’s that?” Zoe asked suddenly, motioning to a black-and-white photograph Krista had set on the table.
“Oh.” Krista tilted her head. “That,” she said, “is a little mystery for us.”
“You have my full attention,” Madison said, grabbing the photograph. She flipped it over and read the back. “Isabel. Who is Isabel?” She shared the photograph around.
“She was my great-grandmother. Apparently, she went missing,” Krista supplied .
“Wait, what?” Elsie asked. “Disappearance as in Dateline episode disappearance?” She passed the photograph to Joe.
Krista shook her head. “She came back nearly a month later. No one ever said where she went or why. Grandma doesn’t seem to remember much, and it’s not like I can ask my mom about it.”
Joe knew there was a story there, just like there was a story in this image.
He studied the woman’s expression. There was something else there, beyond her smile.
A tightness around the eyes, a flicker of hesitation.
“She looks sad, thoughtful,” he said quietly, “Like she already knew something was about to happen.”
Krista looked at him, surprised. “You see that too?”
“Yeah,” he said softly. “I used to be an investigative journalist. Guess I can’t help reading between the lines.”
Zoe’s eyebrows shot up. “You used to chase crime stories?”
“Mostly I chased truth.” He smiled softly, his gaze never leaving Krista. “If you ever want help figuring out what happened to Isabel, I’d be happy to look into it.”
Krista considered him, a flicker of fire mirrored in her eyes. “I might take you up on that.”
For a heartbeat, everything around them fell away: The conversation, the lake, even the snap of the fire disappeared. There was only her.
Krista had the kind of beauty that would light up any room. Stray curls blew wild in the breeze, catching the flickering light of the flames. Her skin was kissed bronze by the sun, a fine sheen of honey-gold.
She was summer personified. And those curves. Joe’s gaze lingered, helpless. He could almost feel the shape of her waist beneath his palms, the curve of her hip beneath his fingertips—thoughts that startled him with their urgency.
But it wasn’t just her looks that held him captive. It was the confidence in her laugh, the spark of wit that danced behind her eyes, the restless energy that made her seem like she was everywhere at once. She drew him in like a current.
Joe’s fingers tightened around his glass. He’d photographed models, landscapes, and strangers all over the world, finding beauty everywhere.
Nothing compared to this woman.
He’d come here to photograph local beauty and intrigue and then leave, not get tangled in it. But in Krista’s golden-brown eyes there was a spark. A promise. A challenge. And it was one he absolutely couldn’t resist.