“Did you ever look for your birth parents? I have this workbook…?. Did you ever do anything like this?” He pulled a book out of his backpack. Before You Find Them.

“No, I never did,” Posey answered, glancing at Kate, whose concentration was still on the donut. She flipped through the book. “But this is cool. How’s it going?”

“Well, I haven’t really started yet,” James said. “This is just stuff to think about. Some wicked cool horror stories in here. Some nice ones, too.”

“What are the horror stories?” Brie asked.

“Um…come on, I’ll show you the worst ones.” He gestured toward a Victorian sofa, and after a long stare, Brie sighed and got up.

“Very smooth,” Jon murmured as the two teenagers walked away.

“A few more decades, and she might like him back,” Posey said, a trifle proudly.

“So, Kate, how do you feel about that?”

“What? Oh, the birth parents thing? Go for it, I say,” Kate answered blithely. “If he wants to know, I’m all for it.” She licked some cream off her pinky finger.

“So, like, Posey?” Elise said, dragging her eyes off Mac, who continued to work silently in the back. “I heard your cousin’s coming back? The Barefoot Fraulein? Seriously? Because I’m a huge fan. She’s so pretty, right?”

Posey exchanged a look with Kate and Jon. “Yeah, she’s very pretty,” Posey said.

“Also, a bitch,” Jon said.

“Seriously?” Elise breathed. “Oh, no!”

“Oh, yeah,” Kate confirmed.

“Gretchen hates Posey,” Jon said.

“How could anyone hate you?” Elise looked like Jon had just bitten the head off a kitten. “No way!”

“Way,” Jon said. “They’re rivals.”

“She’s not my rival,” Posey corrected. “But she always seems to be gunning for me, it’s kind of true.”

“I blame Gretchen’s mother,” Jon said.

“Well, she’s dead, so that’s not very nice,” Posey murmured, reaching for another donut.

But it was true. Ever since Posey could remember, Gretchen had been doing her best to make Posey feel inferior. Why, Posey had no idea, because Gretchen sure seemed to have it all. Stacia and Gretchen’s mother, Ruth, were identical twins. The Heidelbergs also had a German restaurant, but in New York City, which they considered vastly superior to Bellsford. Both Stacia and Ruth had had trouble getting pregnant. The same year Max and Stacia adopted Posey, Ruth and Ralphie had had Gretchen, and the comparisons began. Ruth would call Stacia, detailing Gretchen’s list of many triumphs, from losing her first tooth to baking her first batch of pfeffernuesse, often remarking on Gretchen’s great beauty and strong resemblance to their mother. And Gretchen was beautiful. Posey was not. Gretchen was tall and confident, with long blond hair, bright blue eyes, and a generous, curving figure she’d been showcasing since she’d bought her first bra at age nine.

As a kid, Gretchen had always been full of advice when the families got together—“Posey, you should let your hair grow so people can tell you’re a girl. Posey, if you eat more cheese, you might get boobs.” As they got older, she’d simply ignore Posey—unless the adults were watching, when she’d be saccharine-sweet and utterly fake.

Then, horribly, Aunt Ruth and Uncle Ralphie had died in a car accident. Gretchen and Posey had been seventeen, and Gretchen came to live with the Osterhagens. All through senior year, Posey had tried to be kind, trying to include Gretchen in her own meager social life, telling her she looked pretty in a certain shirt or sweater. But Gretchen had been too good for all that. She loved Stacia—her mother’s twin, after all—and Max, and was pleasant toward Henry on the rare weekends he came home from medical school, but as for Posey, she had nothing but veiled insults and fake affection.

“Should I, like…hate her now?” Elise asked.

“Yes,” Jon and Kate answered.

“No!” Posey said. “She’s…you know. She’s fine. It’ll be nice for my parents to have the help. And who knows? Business might pick up a little.”

“Why is she leaving her show?” Elise asked. “No offense to your parents, right? But it’s kind of a step down? Was that rude to say?”

“Probably ratings,” Kate said. “Up against Rachael Ray? Please.” Kate was a veteran of food and cooking shows, owned literally hundreds of cookbooks and knew every celebrity chef out there. Not that she cooked—another thing Posey and she had in common.

“Not according to her,” Jon said. At Posey’s questioning look, he added, “She sent Henry an email last week. Oh, is that the new model you’re working on?” He got up and went over to Posey’s work area, where a half-constructed model of a Colonial home was underway.

“Yep,” Posey answered. “That’s the Austin house. Mac and I took it apart last fall, remember?”

“Right, right,” Jon murmured. “We should have you come into class sometime. Well, maybe the art department should have you. This is gorgeous, Pose.”

Before Posey had gotten into salvage, she’d been a model-maker for an architect. The tiny details, the precision of the work, the lovely, warm idea that she could condense something so big…it was addicting. When she opened Irreplaceable Artifacts, she’d kept it up. Now, instead of creating a replica of a building that would someday be built, she made models of buildings that would soon be demolished…her gift to the owners, and a way of preserving the past.

“James!” Kate called. “Hey, bud, can you run out to the car and see if I have any tampons?”

“Mom, no. I have boundaries. I’m fourteen. Get your own tampons.”

Jon snorted. “Kate. Be kind to your boy.”

“What? We’re very close, that’s all. Right, James?”

“Not that close.”

Brianna was wheezing with laughter, and James gave her a look, then smiled.

“So, guys, guess what?” Posey said, lowering her voice. “I’m having a talk with Dante tonight.”

This brought Jon back to the counter. “And what are we saying?”

“Are you gonna propose? Because that would so romantic? Oh, my gosh. Wow,” Elise said.

“No, no. No proposals. Just…you know. Time to take things to the next level.”

Jon and Kate exchanged a look. “Best of luck with that,” her brother-in-law said.

“What? You don’t like him?”

“How could I say? I’ve never met him, except when I ate there, and if you tell Stacia that Henry and I went, I’ll murder you in your sleep. No, Posey, it’s just…I think he’s using you, that’s all.”

“For sex. He’s using you for sex,” Kate clarified.

Posey glanced over at the kids, who were fortunately immersed in birth-family horror stories, snorting with laughter. “Oh, I don’t think so. It’s just early days, that’s all.”

“Well, if he only calls you after 9:00 p.m. and only wants you to come to his house for a shag, has never introduced you to his friends or family, has no interest in meeting yours, I’d say Kate’s spot on,” Jon said, raising an eyebrow.

“We have a date tonight,” Posey protested.

“What time and where?” Jon asked.

She hesitated. “Nine-thirty. His place.”

“Call me after,” Jon said. “I have to go. Believe it or not, home-ec teachers have papers to grade. Ciao, bellissimas! Oh, and Posey, just in case things don’t work out with Dante, I’m teaching a singles cooking class for the adult-ed program. You’re welcome, too, Kate.”

When she closed up shop later that day, Posey came upon James’s book about finding birth parents in the cushion of the sofa. She’d never looked for her birth family. Max and Stacia were her parents, the end. Well, that wasn’t exactly true. Of course she’d wondered. Conjured the typical fantasies as a child. To say that Max and Stacia—especially Stacia—were overprotective was an understatement. Every time Posey wasn’t allowed to go to the public pool with her friends (“The pool? The pool? That’s where people get kidnapped!”) or was whisked to the E.R. to rule out concussion (“But she bumped her head, Doctor! She has a lump! You think it might be a tumor?”), she’d imagine more mellow parents, parents who didn’t view sauerkraut as a daily necessity for a healthy diet, parents who were—forgive her—cooler, younger, more hip.

But aside from that, no. Max and Stacia were wonderful, and she’d never been inspired to find her roots. She tucked the book in her backpack to make sure she got it back to James, then went home to get ready for her date. If it was a date. Jon and Kate had a point.

In eight weeks, she’d seen Dante six times. That seemed like dating…sort of. The truth was, Posey’s record with men was a little sporadic. Ron the Gay had been pretty great, the whole “we both like boys” thing aside. You’d think a woman with a g*y brother would sense a tremor in the Force, but no. One night, as they were curled up in front of CNN, Posey had admitted to wanting just one hour alone and na**d with Anderson Cooper. “Who wouldn’t?” Ron had murmured appreciatively. Then they’d looked at each other, realization dawning for both of them. Ron later wrote an article for GQ magazine: “How Anderson Cooper Helped Me Out of the Closet.” He still sent Posey Christmas cards.

Then there’d been Jake—perfectly nice, a carpenter she’d hired as a subcontractor for a job in Maine. It was his suggestion that she get breast implants that ended their thing. Kind of hard to overlook that. A few first dates here and there, sometimes a second or third date, once in a great while a fourth…but no. Posey hadn’t been in a real relationship for quite a while.

So Dante needed to pony up, Posey thought as she held the truck door for Shilo, who gazed at her beseechingly until she hefted him in. She wanted a real boyfriend. Even if she had a great dog and three cats. And especially—this was a little hard to admit—but especially because Liam Murphy was back in town. Having a boyfriend would just put him to rest, that was all. Make her feel a little safer.

To be honest, Dante Bellini’s interest had been a surprise. He was suave and urbane—not words she’d have pinned to herself, that was for sure. Extremely good-looking in that Mediterranean way. Extremely well off, too, which certainly didn’t hurt his appeal. He lived in Midnight Cove, a complex of gorgeous condos on the water. The ocean, not the river, which offered a much more working-class view. It might be a case of opposites attract, but clearly there was something there.

Yep. Time to shore up the defenses. Dante liked her. They’d slept together six times. She’d head home, put on pretty underwear and girl clothes, tell Dante how she felt, and he’d say yes. He probably wanted the same thing.

“YOU DON’T?”

“It’s not that, Posey. I just don’t have the time right now. The restaurant. You understand, I’m sure.” Dante smiled, his white teeth glinting like a pirate’s against his swarthy skin. “But I really do enjoy spending the time with you, even though it’s not enough time.” He handed her a glass of wine and reached out to touch her neck.

“Um, right.” The fire crackled in the fireplace, and across the cove, the lights of other houses gleamed discreetly. Posey shifted on the leather couch. She kept sliding down, and it was irritating. “It’s just that we can’t stay at this level forever. I mean, I’m not asking for a ring and a date, Dante. But don’t you want to…move things forward a little? Do stuff together? Meet my parents?”

“God, no,” he said, then seemed to realize what he’d said. “I mean, I’m sure they’re nice people. It’s just that they hate me.”

“Well, they don’t hate you per se,” Posey murmured. “It’s more your restaurant.”

“Right. Even so.”

She took a deep breath. “Okay. Look. We’ve been, um, together for what…a few weeks?” Eight weeks, Dante. Six times. “But I’d like to go out to dinner once in a while. Catch a movie. Be able to…be seen with you, Dante. I like you. You’re fun. This isn’t really enough for me.”

“And you’re fun, too,” he said, smiling.

“So…it’s not like I’m naming our babies, I promise,” Posey said.

“I know. But Inferno needs every spare moment. This, though…this is perfect.” He picked up her hand and kissed it.

“Huh,” Posey said, slumping back against the couch and sliding down yet again. Dante took this as an invitation to kiss her neck. He smelled awfully good… Whatever shampoo he used, she was sure she couldn’t afford it. She sighed…not in rapture, either. Dante’s hand moved under her shirt. She grabbed it. “Okay, wait a sec.”

He raised his head, giving her that sleepy, sexy look that had first gotten her attention as she lugged in the statue of the martyred virgin St. Agnes of Rome. “Shall we move to the bedroom?”

Men. “No, Dante. You just told me this is as good as it gets for the foreseeable future. It’s not good enough for me.”

“What are you saying?”

“Well…” Time to take a stand, Posey, or be a booty call forever. “Maybe we should put things on hold. For a while. See how we feel then.”

He blinked, opened his mouth, then closed it. “Well, fine. If that’s what you want.”