Max sauntered into the reception area, where Carol presided over their only coffeepot. He’d ordered another one for the office break room, but it hadn’t yet arrived.

“What in the world did you do to that girl?” Carol asked. “She flew out of here like her hair was on fire.”

“We have a history,” Max said, hoping that would end the matter, but of course it didn’t. Carol always wanted to know everything that was going on and she had an unhealthy interest in Max’s love life. But she was very good at her job, juggling phone calls and packages, soothing ruffled feathers and keeping all those plants alive. She was a keeper, even if she was a tad nosy.

Carol removed her reading glasses and arched one well-plucked eyebrow at him. “I gathered that. I guess you aren’t going to hire her.”

“Actually…I’m thinking about it.”

“Mm-mm, Mr. Remington, are you letting your hormones make decisions for you? I’ll admit Jane Selwyn is a beautiful woman, but-”

“She’s very talented. And she needs the job.” That was something Carol should understand. She was recently divorced, too, and she hadn’t been the most qualified candidate, either. But he’d followed his instincts and hired her. His instincts seldom led him astray.

So what were his instincts telling him about Jane?

The jury was still out.

“THANK YOU SO MUCH for looking after Kaylee,” Jane told her friend Sara, who happened to be married to Reece Remington, another of Max’s cousins. Port Clara had experienced something of a Remington invasion back in the spring, when the three cousins had inherited the fishing business from their uncle.

Jane thought it rather peculiar that two of her best friends were now married to Remingtons, but they all seemed so happy. Around them, she always tried to reflect back that happily-ever-after feeling they both radiated.