“You’ll only be dealing with one tenant,” Mr. Cummings said to Nate. “She rents the store and the apartment above it. Lovely girl. Took over the gift shop after her grandmother couldn’t continue. They’ve been my tenants for ages, and the girl works so hard. Terribly hard. It’s not her fault she’s behind on the rent.”

Nate slowed down. “Excuse me? She owes you money?”

Mr. Cummings started to blush. “Oh, not very much, and she’s good for it, I’m sure. Not that any of this will affect you,” he hurried to assure Nate. “I’ll take care of it with her directly.”

Yeah, but that still meant she was a lousy tenant. Damn. He didn’t want to make a fresh start in Burronga by evicting longstanding renters. Everyone would just shake their heads and say, Well, what can you expect from Nate Hardy? He wasn’t going to fall into that trap, but neither could he support a charity case. If the store owner couldn’t pay her expenses, then she had no right to be in business.

“I’m sure we can work something out,” Nate said smoothly.

“Capital!” Mr. Cummings beamed at him again like Father Christmas.

Nate studied the front of the shop. He’d passed it a thousand times before but had never gone in. THE GIFTORIUM, it said in delicate gold script across the glass. The store window held a tasteful arrangement of the kind of stuff he’d never think of buying. Wind chimes, leaded glass lampshades, embroidered cushions, painted pottery. Clutter, that was all he saw. Dust-collecting clutter.

“So who is she?” Nate moved toward the glass-paned front door. “My new tenant?”

“Ally Griffin.”

Nate’s feet stuck to the pavement. A cold shock ran through him. “Ally Griffin?”

Mr. Cummings gave him a puzzled little frown. “You know her, then?”

“Y-yes,” he managed to choke out.

Ally Griffin. The last time he’d seen her was on her wedding day, when he’d had to tell her there wasn’t going to be a wedding after all. And now she was his new tenant? Oh, shit.