She'd slept on it. That sounded really bad considering the word "sleeping" wasn't something she really wanted to continually think about right now, excpet that she finally had gotten some sleep, unlike the other night when "sleeping" had a different connotation. The point was, Lisa had gotten a decent sleep finally, mostly out of complete and utter exhaustion. Today was a new day, and she had worked all morning and feeling pretty good about things with work, was now running errands all afternoon.

She'd had to mail off a few things for work, so that was first on the list. Truthfully, now that she was settling into life after her dad, she realized how little she'd been in Hudson. Lisa had spent the majority of the last year plus in Calgary at appointments for her dad (he'd had a lot), and then, for the last many weeks in and out of the hospital. In her trips to and from Calgary, she'd picked up things on the way, and for her, Hudson had not been on the way. Now that life was starting to settle down, she was starting to venture out to this new town-but it wasn't new-she had grown up here. Still, it was new in many senses of the word. People had moved on, and anyone she'd really kept up with wasn't around anymore, well, except Dan who yes, had bought some stable and was setting up shop nearby. Joy of joys.

Right now, she didn't want to think about Dan.

She didn't want to think about Jack either, and she was doing her best not to, at least not to think about what they'd done. Her talk with Tammy had been good, surprisingly. Leave it to them to connect over a one-night stand. Tammy's lack of judgment had helped, and Lisa now had been telling herself to just move forward. What's done was done, and she hoped that the next time she saw Jack they could move beyond any awkwardness. She was aware, however, that next time would be at his wife's funeral, so maybe that wouldn't be the time to clear the air, but still, soon. Hopefully, in this small town, eventually, she wouldn't think about this man she'd fallen into bed with-could you really say that if it wasn't done in a bed? Anyway, point aside, Lisa shook her head trying to push those thoughts out of her mind as she continued her errands.

Things had been mailed. Banking had been done-a lot of it, and yes, she'd learned that her bank was about to really expand online banking-wow, how the world was changing. She'd also recently gotten a cell phone. Technology was changing too, and while it was still very expensive to use a cell phone, being charged by the minute and for an roaming, she was a modern woman ready to embrace these new things. Online banking and cell phones would definitely help her business.

So, after those errands, she'd also dropped off her dry cleaning and had splurged and gotten her nails done-that hadn't been on the plans, but she'd really needed to do so and hadn't spent much time yet to find somewhere local for that. She wasn't sure she wanted to drive to Calgary anytime she needed her hair and nails done, so she'd tried a local spot. She did feel like a new woman now after a manicure and pedicure. Maybe she'd be okay staying local for some things after all.

As she stepped out of the flower shop after ordering an arrangement to be sent over to Jack's place-see, she still couldn't get him out of her mind, trying to be kind to a grieving family, Lisa eyed Maggie's. She'd had a very light and early lunch. Maybe she should try it for dinner. Maggie's had been Stella's as a child to her, and even in all this time she'd been back, Lisa hadn't been in the new to her Maggie's. The place was a dump when it had been Stella's, dirty with terrible food, but she'd heard from many of her stable hands that it served up a really good menu of food now. With her mind set on trying all things Hudson today, she walked toward Maggie's. The place looked updated from the outside. Gosh, even back in school, no one wanted to go in there. Stella was mean and old and would run out the teenagers. It was not a place to hang out, but this place looked a lot more inviting. Maybe her stable hands were right. She was going to find out and go over her list of stops. After this, she needed to stop at the supermarket, and yes, best to do that on a full stomach. Now, she had no interest in going home and cooking, so yes, she'd see what all the fuss was about at Maggie's.

"Hi, welcome to Maggie's," she heard as she stepped inside. She couldn't help but smile. It was cozy inside and cool from the unusually humid day that she'd been outside walking around in. Lisa glanced around, and before she could say anything, the woman continued, "Haven't seen you before. Tourist? Anyway, food this side," she waved, "and supplies and outdoor gear this side. So?"

"Oh, right, ahh, food," she gave a nod of her head and a small smile. The place had two men at the counter, but otherwise at 3:45 was not busy at all. Perfect for her. Lisa was so used to being alone, she rather preferred a quiet setting, at least right now. She almost felt she had to "reintroduce" herself to the world to start getting back out there.

"Great, obviously, it's really busy, so if you can find a free table," the woman waved, coming around the counter with a menu. Lisa broke into a huge smile, liking this woman's sarcasm right away, and Lisa walked to the corner and put her bag down as she pulled out the chair to sit. "Where you from?"

Lisa's head snapped up as the woman approached. She misjudged how quickly the woman made her way to Lisa, and she paused trying to collect her thoughts and whatever the woman had said.

"Oh, I'm from here," she told her with a polite smile as she situated herself at the table. When she glanced up, the woman had crossed her arms like she didn't believe her.

"Really? I don't think I've seen you. I'm Maggie, as in the diner, and I thought I knew most people."

"Lisa Stillman," she held out her hand to greet her. "Nice to meet you."

"Stillman, oh, as in Art? Was he your dad?"

"Yes," she smiled brighter. "I moved home over a year ago to take care of him and the family business. Now that he's passed away, I'm trying to get everything in order and basically rejoin society. So, yes, I did grow up here, and as I was deciding if I should try out your restaurant, I thought about how much better it looks than it did when it was Stella's."

The woman, Maggie, threw her head back and laughed loudly. She started to shake her head as she kept laughing, "Oh, man, it's been some time since someone mentioned Stella. What a mean old woman. My husband and I had a dream to buy this place, and she was interesting. My husband almost didn't see the dream through the filth."

"Well, as a long-time resident," Lisa glanced around, "it really does look great. You and your husband have done a wonderful job."

"Thank you," she paused and frowned, then dropping her head. "Just me now."

"Oh, I'm so sorry-" Lisa put her hand to her chest. "I'm divorced myself."

"Widowed," Maggie nodded. "My husband died two weeks after our daughter was born-motorcycle accident. He knew I hated those things-"

Lisa's eyes widened. She couldn't believe how she'd put her foot in her mouth. Everyone she was meeting had such tragedy.

"I'm so sorry," Lisa looked to her, almost panicked. "I really had no idea."

"You wouldn't. It was now three years ago. My little Sorayah is three, light of my eyes. Anyway, I didn't have time to really sit and feel sorry for myself. I had a newborn, a business I could not let fail, and I needed to put food on the table, quite literally. So, here we are, and I think my husband would be quite proud."

"I'm sure of it," Lisa told her with a reassuring smile. "It's very nice to meet you. I like strong, independent women, especially those who run their own business. You and I have that in common. I just deal with horses."

"Yeah, I'm sorry to hear about your dad. He was a kind man, used to come in here once a month or so with a few of his friends for coffee and pie. I knew he had been sick for a long time."

"He was," she nodded. "He was a really great man, although," she waved her hand, "I can't believe he didn't tell me how great this place turned around. Now," she folded her arms and rested her elbows on the table, "tell me-what's good here, and I'm not taking this 'everything is good' comment. I know it all has to be good, but what should I order?"

"Besides pie," she winked, "because the pie here is the best," Maggie smiled, "ahh, well, the turkey special or the BLT are favorites. Sounds like a simple sandwich, that BLT, but we have a special sauce and pile on plenty of bacon."

"That sounds divine. I love a good BLT," Lisa nodded at her. "I'll have that with an iced tea and ahh, any sort of pasta salad for a side?"

"Coming up, and Lisa," Maggie pointed at her, "we're going to be good friends. That's my favorite lunch right there, and I'll even throw in a piece of blueberry pie, your dad's favorite."

Lisa caught her breath at the mention of that and felt her eyes well up briefly. She eyed Maggie and smiled, "That sounds great. Thank you."

Over the next hour, Lisa relaxed more than she had in a long time and spent much longer at Maggie's than she'd ever planned, not that it was a bad thing. She had just expected to grab a quick bite to eat-alone-and be on her way. Instead, she'd not only found a great local gem of a place to eat, she'd made a new friend. Magie was lovely, a breath of fresh air in Hudson and in Lisa's life. She could see why the diner was doing so well, and Maggie admitted it was doing very well. Maggie hadn't been wrong about the pie; it was fantastic, maybe the best she'd ever had, which was saying a lot with her travels and all the fine dining she'd tried. The two woman chatted, getting to know each other, until the place started to fill up with the early dinner crowd. Maggie was direct, and Lisa liked that, even laughing when Maggie straight up asked her about her ex-husband. Lisa shared that he'd followed her to Hudson and was surprised to hear Dan had beaten her to trying out Maggie's.

"Dan Hartfield?" Maggie raised her eyebrows as she nodded. "Oh, yeah, he's been in, few times, usually with some of the snaky real estate guys I can't stand. Sorry," she shrugged.

"You don't have to apologize a bit," Lisa sighed, eyeing Maggie. "He's ex for a reason, capital EX."

With some basic information exchanged, and Maggie now getting busy, Lisa made her way to the register to pay, and as she waited for Maggie to ring her up, she eyed the pie in the display cases. "Say, Maggie, could I order a full pie for Saturday?" Lisa thought that taking a pie to Jack's place would be the respectful thing to do. Yes, she'd sent flowers too, but that almost didn't seem like enough to hand to the man who now knew her intimately.

"Sure," Maggie turned from the register. "Whole pie is $30, what kind?"

"Honestly, anything, ahh, you tell me."

"Apple or peach this time of year, although that blueberry you had-"

"Was divine," Lisa groaned and grinned.

The jingle of the door had the two glance toward it, and Lisa's eyes widened at the sight of the man she'd been trying to put out of her mind. There he was-Jack. Their eyes met at the same time, and she was pretty sure hers conveyed the same shock his did at seeing her.

"Jack, oh, Jack, you come here," Lisa heard Maggie say and watched as Maggie stopped everything she was doing to walk over to him. "You're getting a hug, even if you're not a hugger, you goat. I am so sorry, Jack. I can't believe she's gone."

"Thank you, Maggie," he said quietly as he returned her hug, Lisa now honestly even closer to Jack as he was leaned down hugging Maggie. His face was now inches from Lisa's, and when Maggie let go of Jack, she stepped back. Lisa felt so in the way now and wanted to just leave. Why had she ordered the pie? Had she let it go, she'd have had her change and would have well-probably run into him outside.

"Lisa Stillman, meet Jack Bartlett," Maggie introduced them.

"Oh, ahh, we've met," Lisa waved. She eyed Jack, hoping this wouldn't get awkward.

"Yeah," Jack wiped at his mustache, "ahh, we met at the hospital, weeks ago-"

"Oh, gosh," Maggie put her hand to her chest and looked from one to the other. "I didn't even think about that. Lyndy and Art would have been-"

"At the same hospital, yes," Lisa nodded, waving to Jack. "I, ahh, just met Maggie, first time in here."

"Oh, well, nothing better around," he said as Maggie wrapped her arm around Jack. Maggie squeezed Jack's side and smiled softly at him.

"That's sweet of you to say, Jack. You know I'm here for anything your family needs."

The trio turned to the door again as the bell clanged, and Lisa really wanted to get out of this awkward situation. She couldn't take her eyes off Jack, but he was trying to answer Maggie's questions. Here, all she wanted was to not have things be awkward, but this was neither the time nor the place to clear the air.

"Oh, honey," Maggie waved her hand to the teenager at the door. "Come here. I'm going to make you your favorite, a milkshake.

Lisa watched as this teenager grinned at the suggestion, and she stepped out of the way to let the girl around. She noticed that Jack didn't budge, but instead watched as he turned to the girl.

"Did you tell the florist whatever you wanted to tell her?" She nodded and frowned, and Lisa, studying things, her eyes widened, as the realization hit. The girl was with Jack. Before she could speak, Jack turned back to Maggie and Lisa, "She wanted to pick out her own arrangement for the funeral."

"I need to pick up a few things," the girl hooked her hand toward the store side of Maggie's and quickly moved off. Maggie frowned at Jack.

"Hitting her hard, eeh? We knew it would. They were so close. I'll make that milkshake. Ahh, and I'm sending dinner home with you."

Maggie moved quickly down the counter area, and somehow, Lisa was left standing there with Jack. She met his gaze, finding him studying her and offered up maybe a truce? They weren't fighting. They weren't anything. Well, yes they were. They'd had a one-night-stand, and now it was so awkward she wanted to crawl out of her skin.

"Umm," Lisa gave a nod to the store area, "I suppose that's your daughter?"

She was looking directly at him, so the shock and recoil in his face surprised her, "My daughter? You mean Lou?" Jack gestured to the other end of the store. "Lou's my granddaughter. I'm sorry. My mind is elsewhere. I should have introduced you."

"You're, you're granddaughter?" Lisa's felt her face redden as that fact hit her. She tried not to let her thoughts of pure horror show on her face. He had a granddaughter? A teenage granddaughter? All this time, mentioning his daughter at home-she just assumed the daughter was a teenager, 16 or 17. How old was he? Seriously, had Tammy been right? He was a GRANDFATHER? She shuddered thinking about normal images that popped into her head of grandfathers. No, Jack wasn't that. He wasn't the grandfather who used a walker or was sitting in a retirement home. He wasn't the wrinkly grandfather who had an arsenal of pills to take each morning. Had she seriously slept with a grandfather? What was wrong with her? Now, as she tried to recover from that, she looked up to Jack, her eyes wide. He caught on and tilted his head at her.

"My daughter, Marion, this is her older daughter, Lou-"

"Older daughter," Lisa repeated, trying to grasp what was happening before her.

"Yeah, I have two granddaughters, Lou and Amy." He waved his hand before he put his hand on the counter to lean against it, "You thought she was my daughter?"

"I'm sorry. We never discussed that, I mean, their ages, or that you had granddaughters. That's my mistake. You mentioned daughter, and I-"

"Lisa, oh, I'm so sorry. I didn't finish your order," and at that, Jack and Lisa's heads snapped to Maggie hustling down the counter. Maggie had out her order pad, and Lisa noticed as she abruptly stopped and eyed Lisa and then Jack and then Lisa again.

"Am I interrupting something?"

"No," Lisa turned her head to give Maggie another smile. "Thank you for the lovely meal. I really do need to get my errands done."

"You wanted that pie-what flavor?"

"Ahh," Lisa grimaced slightly, hoping her expression wasn't evident. She didn't want to talk about a 'peace offering' of a pie in front of the man for whom it was intended-a grandfather. What was she going to do about that? That would be another call to Tammy when she could come to terms with that angle of it-no time soon, though. Lisa heard Maggie speaking again and snapped out of her stupor.

"Jack, she was asking about best pie flavors? Chime in."

Lisa glanced to Jack and then to Maggie, so desperate to be anywhere but here. Jack shrugged, "Blueberry is the best there is, Maggie."

Lisa caught Maggie maybe smirk? Before Lisa could say more, Maggie caught Lisa's eyes and nodded, "See, I'll have a blueberry pie ready for you. Jack, let's talk about food for Saturday."

"I need to go," Lisa hooked her hand, and again, she caught Jack gazing at her. She turned back to Maggie, "I'll pick it up later, and thanks again," stepping to the door to escape before she had to talk more to the GRANDFATHER.

Lisa couldn't help but shudder the entire walk to her car. The day had actually gone so well-coming into Hudson and re-learning the town she'd grown up in. She'd been so happy meeting and getting to know Maggie. How in the world in all these weeks had she not discovered Jack was a grandfather? He'd not mentioned the girls, but in his defense, they really had kept to talking about things with their ailing family members. They'd talked a little about their private lives, but gosh, she really was off.

How old was he?

How did she not know he was a grandfather?

How did she sleep with a man old enough to be her father?

Because, yes, if he was a grandfather, he could be her father.

Oh gosh, that meant his daughter-she had to be OLDER than Lisa. Lisa was 30. The teenager-what did Maggie say her name was? Lou? Lou looked to be around 13 or 14. Ben was still young-just six, so she wasn't completely set on teenager ages, but Lou wasn't that old, certainly not driving. So, even with basic math and not knowing a thing about this daughter of his, the daughter, Marion, she could be just a little older than Lisa.

She thought she might be sick to her stomach. She fumbled for her keys and slumped into her car. This seemed bad enough when it was a recent widower. Now, Jack was a grandfather? She didn't know why she had such a volatile reaction to it, but something about losing her own dad and thinking about Jack being somewhat near that age-no, it was just so strange. She'd thought maybe he was 40, early 40's, which was plenty older than she was anyway, but a grandfather? HOW OLD WAS HE?

Lisa sat in her silent car, stunned, thinking about things. He didn't look like the sickly grandfathers she envisioned. That's how she saw her own grandparents in her head, may they all rest in peace. Oh, she could get her hands on the obituaries from the paper. Jack's wife's information would be in the paper, yes. Everyone in town knew she'd passes away. Ordering flowers had been easy. Small town. Everyone knew your business.

As that last thought settled in her mind, Lisa groaned, smacking her handrest.

Everyone in town could NOT know her business, could not know she'd slept with a grandfather. She'd be laughed out of town.

Great, just great. She did like Jack-as a friend, and if things weren't complicated enough, trying to make things less awkward now would be even harder. She'd slept with a grandfather and was really struggling with that.

Of course, as she sat and thought about it, had the circumstances for Jack been different, meaning that had he not lost his wife hours earlier, well, he probably would very proudly be strutting his cowboy boots at bedding a 30-year-old woman.

Good grief. What had she done?

She'd suck it up, go to the house on Saturday for the reception, give Jack the pie-his favorite as Maggie had dragged out-oh, gosh, did Maggie do that on purpose and suspect something? She couldn't think about that. She'd stop by the house, give Jack her regards, probably meet the daughter-the WOMAN older than Lisa herself, meet the granddaughters, tell all of them how sorry she was they lost their mom and GRANDMOTHER, and that would be it. Hopefully, in due time and when things had died down, she could work beyond this awkwardness and be able to at least great Jack in town without being dumfounded and horrified.

A grandfather.

Jack was a grandfather.

She had to hand it to him-he didn't look like a grandfather at all. Yes, his hair was graying, but that happened to men at all ages. He was certainly in good shape-

No, she wasn't going to go there. He was in good shape. She could attest, but HE WAS A GRANDFATHER.

Lisa groaned and smacked her head against her headrest. She wasn't in the mood to go to the store, but she needed food at home. Of course, the alternative was to come to town again tomorrow, but with her luck, she'd probably run into Jack again.

A grandfather.

Well, at least he was in good shape, good health-not needing someone to spoon feed him mashed potatoes. Why did her mind go there? That was maybe the last image she had of her own grandfather before he died. Her dad would sit and spoon feed him at the nursing home, and well, that was a grandfather to Lisa.

A grandfather was not a good-looking man she'd slept with the other night. No way.

Except he was.

Yup, this might need therapy in the form of a call to Tammy, but of course, Tammy had said she thought he was much older. What was worse-holding this in or admitting Tammy was right?

She'd call Tammy. Tammy would laugh but well, maybe had done something similar, knowing her wild sister.

A grandfather.