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later as they had root beer floats at Herman’s.
    â€œSure. It’s a nice little town, a heck of a lot smaller than Seattle. Don’t know if I’d want to live here all my life.”
    That made the ice cream in Muriel’s stomach harden into a rock. “Where would you want to live?”
    He shrugged. “Don’t know yet. I’ve got a lot of country left to check out.”
    â€œYou could look all over the world but you’d never find a place as nice as Icicle Falls.”
    â€œIt’s okay,” he said. “Might be hard to find success in such a small place, though.”
    â€œWhat kind of success are you looking for?” Muriel had always felt that simply having a life filled with family and close friends qualified as success.
    Friends.
She thought of Pat and pushed away her glass.
    â€œI don’t know that, either,” Stephen said. “I know I want to make something of myself, but I haven’t figured out what.” He frowned. “One thing I do know, I’m going to be successful. My old man wasn’t much,” he added. “He doesn’t think I’ll be much, either, but I will.”
    â€œI believe you,” she said. “But you don’t need a big city to do that. A man can make something of himself in a small town.”
    â€œPeople can be prejudiced in a small town.”
    â€œPeople can be prejudiced anywhere.” She remembered how her father had looked at Stephen, the “long-haired hippie” when he came into the Sweet Dreams gift shop. Was Stephen remembering that, too?
    He glanced around the restaurant. “Doesn’t look like there’s much to do here except run a shop.”
    â€œOr own an orchard,” she put in.
Or a chocolate factory.
    â€œNah. I’m not a farmer. I’ll figure it out, though. One thing I
can
tell you, I want a woman who’s willing to leave everything to be with me.”
    Muriel got the message. For Stephen she could do that. She nodded. “That’s what love is—giving up what you care about the most for the person you want to be with.”
    He smiled at her as though she’d just passed some kind of test. Well, she’d said the right thing. But could she really leave her home?
    Of course she could.
Home is more than a place,
she told herself,
it’s wherever two people in love can be together.
It was probably too soon to talk about love, but she knew what she felt and she knew what she wanted. Stephen.
    Now she had to find a way to convince her father that she wanted the right man. At some point she was going to have to bring Stephen home. But not yet.
    So she kept insisting on meeting him places—Riverwalk Park, the pool, the movies. And June slipped by like a dream. The only part of the dream that wasn’t perfect was the fact that every time she saw Pat, her friend turned her back and went the other way.
    So what? Maybe she wouldn’t be here much longer. Maybe she’d marry Stephen and move away. That thought cheered her up. Almost.
    By July 3, the town of Icicle Falls was surrounded by campers, and people were taking rafts down the river, picnicking in mountain meadows and enjoying the town’s amenities. The Fourth of July celebrations were underway, with food booths set up on Alpine Street and an arts-and-crafts show in the park. And Stephen and Muriel were getting out of town.
    She met him by the gazebo and hopped on the back of his motorcycle to go for a drive. It always made her nervous climbing on the back of that big, noisy bike, and she’d hold on to Stephen for dear life every time they hit the open road. But she also got a secret thrill out of being seen by the other kids. The guys all wanted to be Stephen and the girls all wanted to have him. Too bad. He was hers.
    She was just looking around, gloating, when she saw someone staring at her from the corner across the street. And that person didn’t seem happy