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of her more impressive traits that would surely lead to success later down the road.
    Her mom liked to tell her she might need therapy to overcome some of her “obsessive tendencies.”
    “What about Gretchen?” she asked. “What if she needs you? Shouldn’t you be close by?”
    “Already called the doc early this morning. No visitors who aren’t family until she’s out of ICU. Besides, I need to keep busy,” he answered. “And the job doesn’t run itself. Gretchen wouldn’t want me crying at my desk, wringing my hands. She’d tell me to get my ass out there and make the money that helps pay her salary. That’s just the kind of woman she is.”
    “Sounds like she’s…quite the woman.”
    “She is.”
    Piper heard the pride in his voice and she felt a tiny pinch of jealousy. It wasn’t that she didn’t have a great support system—her parents were her biggest fans—but for a small, infinitesimal moment she wanted to hear him say something about her with that tone. And that wasn’t going to happen. Not now, not ever, because even though he talked a good game about making nice, after she wrote the piece on his father and the Red Meadows incident, he likely wouldn’t want to speak to her again.
    She worried her bottom lip, unsure why that bothered her. You had to break a few eggs to make an omelet, she reminded herself. To get to the top, you had to step on a few heads. She was sure there were plenty of clichés she could lean on to support her belief but even as she repeated them in her head like a mantra, it only served to intensify the lonely feeling filling her chest.
    Focus. She needed F.O.C.U.S. Piper cleared her throat and brought out her notepad. “I can take notes while we drive,” she announced brightly. “Like background stuff.”
    “Background? What do you mean?” he asked, wary.
    “Well, like a bio. Stuff you’d put in a eulogy.”
    “That’s morbid.”
    “True, but it serves an excellent purpose. It’s like the highlight reel of your life. A synopsis, if you will.”
    “What’s on your highlight reel?” he asked, throwing it back to her.
    She waved away his question with an airy chuckle. “That’s easy and stuff you already know. Raised on a hippie nudist commune by two anthropology professors. Boring. End of story.”
    “In that one sentence alone I have a million questions.”
    She smiled. “Ah, too bad you’re not the one doing the writing. Now, back to you.”
    “All right. Ask your questions.”
    “Start with your childhood,” she suggested casually, though her palms had begun to shake with her excitement. It was one thing to read about something but to have someone who went through it personally is completely different.
    Owen focused on the road, his mouth losing the sensual softness she’d been trying really hard to ignore and she knew he was struggling with what to share and what to leave out. She could either use the direct approach and flat-out bring up the Red Meadows incident or she could take the circuitous route. She opted for the latter. He needed loosening up.
    “How about we start with Big Trees Logging. How did you end up the owner?”
    He visibly relaxed once she pulled the focus from his childhood to his livelihood. “That’s easy. An opportunity came up to purchase the company from the previous owner, who had made some bad investments and was nearing bankruptcy. I had a background in forestry and I’d always known I wanted to return to Dayton at some point.”
    “You were raised by your aunt, right?” she supplied, hoping to impress him that she knew some of the obscure details. But he surprised her when he shook his head.
    “My aunt gave me over to the state, said I was too much of a handful for a single woman who’d never raised kids. A woman named Mary Jo Bell, or as we call her, Mama Jo, raised me. She’s my true family. Along with my two brothers, Christian and Thomas. They’re all still back east in West Virginia.”
    She digested