Harley Blume stood outside The Pit, the beachfront bar her brother Sam co-owned, digging the heels of her boots into the sand in the parking lot. Sam had been quick enough to invite her to come to Starfish Shores, Alabama, when she’d confessed her woes to him, but telling him on the phone was one thing. Seeing the pity in his eyes was something else.
Poor pitiful Harley, dumped by her high school sweetheart, left without a place to live, stuck in a dead-end job because she’d been an idiot and followed Asshole Tony to Nashville, where he’d been so certain he’d make it as a country songwriter. He hadn’t been bad, truly, but songwriters in that town were a dime a dozen. So were the girlfriends who supported their dreams by answering phones in an office and fending off too-friendly bosses. Naturally, once Asshole Tony started seeing some success, he celebrated by sleeping around.
So here she was, twenty-five and homeless. Sam had offered her a place to stay until she could figure out what to do next.
A fresh start. That’s how she’d look at this. The first step was going into the bar and facing her brother. She rolled her shoulders and stepped through the door leading in from the street.
She hadn’t been to his bar before, so when he’d told her it was an open bar, she hadn’t been sure what to think. What it was, was, well, an open bar. Ahead of her, across the weathered decking, were the beach and the ocean. Around the deck, space heaters were placed at measured intervals. To her left was a wood and tin structure where the main part of the bar was located. Bleached wood fronted the bar, painted in alternating colors one would see on beachfront houses, but the color had worn down so some of the wood was exposed. In front of the bar was a row of similarly painted barstools, and clear bulbs hung on strings from the posts in the bar outward over the seating area in a fan shape. Cute.
Behind the bar, however, looked like Sam’s old dorm room. The University of Alabama sports paraphernalia—elephants wearing red sweaters, cups and other things bearing giant scrolling “A’s”— littered the shelves in between the bottles, signs were hammered to the walls there, and on the wall to her right. It made sense—Sam and his college roommate Liam had played football with the Crimson Tide, and were of course in Alabama, where football was king. And the decor went with the flat-screen TVs mounted in shielded areas, both showing different sporting events. But seriously, these were two men, almost thirty, reliving their glory days?
Customers gathered near tall space heaters. Maybe her blood had thickened in her time in Nashville, because she wasn’t cold at all. She was, however, surprised the place was so busy on a Tuesday night in December.
“Harley!”
Her brother’s voice carried cheerfully above the conversation and the sound from the TVs. She barely turned before he caught her up in a bear hug.
Instantly, she relaxed in her big brother’s arms. She’d heard horror stories of sibling rivalry, but had honestly never experienced it with Sam. Maybe because he was five years older, but he’d always been protective and she’d always felt safe with him.
It didn’t hurt that he was six three and in the Coast Guard Reserves.
He drew back to look at her, and his cheerful expression collapsed. “You look like hell.”
“Gee, thanks, what I love to hear.” She passed a hand over her hair. “Not so much sleeping going on lately. A lot of worrying.”
“Yeah, well, you don’t have to worry now. You’ve got a place to stay as long as you need it, while you figure out what you’re going to do next.”
God knew she would need time, because she had no flipping idea what she was going to do.
“Look, come say hi to Liam, then we’ll take off, I’ll get you settled in the house and then I’ll come back.”
Liam. She hung back just a bit. If she looked as bad as Sam’s reaction suggested, she did not want to face Liam. She’d had a major crush on him when he and Sam were in college. Of course she’d never said anything, because how childish was that? She’d been fifteen at the time, gangly as hell, and Liam was one fine specimen. Even now, she looked like something the cat dragged in. Plus, Jesus, if Sam told Liam her pathetic story, she may just as well go bury herself in the sand over there.
But Sam tugged, and she staggered forward to where Liam worked behind the bar.
If she’d hoped he’d gotten fat and bald in the few years since she’d seen him, well, she would have been stupid, that was for sure, because that would be a waste. But no, if anything, he’d gotten better with age, his face leaner, bristling with a bit of stubble. He still kept his dark hair almost military short, which only emphasized his blue eyes. Damn, he had pretty eyes. Right now they were trained on a blonde who was toying with a beer bottle and clearly in no hurry to leave the bar, but then Sam drew his attention and he focused his gaze on Harley.
Holy crap. “I love Alabama,” she whispered.
“What?” Sam asked, but she waved him off.
“Harley!” he greeted, and used the bar to lift himself up to give her a kiss on the cheek.
She didn’t know what she appreciated more, the way the muscles in his arms rippled when he lifted himself, or the brush of his stubble against her cheek. Suddenly, she felt tons better.
“Hi, Liam.”
“Hey, you want a beer?” The words came at her like bullets. She’d forgotten how, er, energetic he was.
“No, thanks.”
“I’m going to take her to my place and get her settled, and I’ll be back in a bit,” Sam said. “You got this?”
Liam gave a casual wave. “No problem. Sure you don’t want to have a drink first?”
“I’m sure,” she promised, backing away. The sooner she got to Sam’s and could hide, the better.
Only that wasn’t to be. If she thought Sam would just drop her off and head back to the bar, she was mistaken. Instead he took her to the two-bedroom bungalow where he lived, a little more than half a mile from the beach, a cute enough place for a bachelor—and a hell of a lot more than she had to her name. He showed her to her room, almost completely taken up by a full-sized bed, but she could see he’d made an effort to clean out his gym equipment and other paraphernalia to make room for her. The Coast Guard recruiting poster featuring him still hung in the room, grinning at her. Yeah, great. Big brother was watching.
He set her suitcase on the bed and hefted a hip onto the corner of the dresser.
“So, you know you’re welcome here as long as you need to stay.”
“You’ve said,” she said, stopping with the key halfway into the lock of her suitcase. Where was he going with this?
“I was just wondering why you wouldn’t rather go home. Especially since it’s almost Christmas.”
She braced her hands on top of the suitcase and met his gaze. “Okay, let’s say you were living with someone your parents thought was worthless, and you thought you knew better, that she was awesome, and it turned out your parents were right. Would you be in any hurry to come face-to-face with them? Christmas will be soon enough, and long enough, and then I’ll escape back here with you.”
He grunted, and she turned back to opening her luggage.
“I’m sorry I’m pretty clueless right now. Still reeling, though I should have seen it coming.”
“The offer to go kick his ass still stands.”
She sighed. That had been Sam’s answer for everything since she started dating. As satisfying as it might be... “I need to start kicking asses all on my own.”
“That is true.” He stood with a sigh and kissed her forehead. “There’s Diet Coke and lunch meat and stuff in the fridge. I got some bananas and M&Ms, too. Not sure which you might be in the mood for.”
She hadn’t been in the mood for much of anything, to be truthful, and had dropped seven pounds. Her jeans hung looser on her than they ever had. “You’re a good brother.”
“I hate to leave you, but I don’t want Liam to have to close up on his own.”
“I meant to ask, how are y’all so busy in December? People still come to the beach in December?”
“A lot of them, actually, because it’s off-season and cheaper. We get snowbirds, and locals, and more tourists than you’d think. Not as busy as we’ll be in March, and later. But we’re doing okay. You want to come back out tonight?”
“Definitely not. I’ll be fine, Sam. Go ahead and go. I’ll just watch some TV and hopefully get some sleep.”
“I’ll try to be quiet when I come in.” He leaned over and kissed her forehead.
“Look, Sam,” she said as he started out the front door.
He stopped and turned.
“I don’t want to cramp your style. If you want to bring someone back, don’t worry about me.”
He gave her a grin that she couldn’t quite interpret, and headed out.
* * *
It turned out she could fall asleep, but couldn’t stay asleep. She stared at the clock beside her bed, willing the numbers to change. Sam was asleep in the next room, or she’d turn on the TV to soothe herself. She checked the weather on her phone. Upper forties. Warmer than back home.
No, wait. There was no “back home.” She sighed and pushed herself out of bed, then peeked out the curtain at the quiet dark street. The beach wasn’t far away, and Starfish Shores was a small town. She’d go for a walk. Maybe the ocean air would kickstart her brain, or relax her enough to go back to sleep.
She dressed quietly in yoga pants, a T-shirt and a hoodie and crept out the front door, making sure she had a key to get back in. Sam would not like being awakened by her banging on the door. She tucked a couple of bucks in her pocket, in case she came across an open bakery or something. Not likely at barely five in the morning, but possible. At the last minute, she rummaged for a flashlight, tested it to make sure it worked, and put it in her hoodie pocket.
The chill in the air stole her breath for a minute, but as she walked briskly to the end of the street, she warmed up enough to unzip the hoodie. She could smell the ocean, and the lure of it increased her pace. She crossed the main street of the town, and stepped with more force than necessary on the wooden walkway that led over the dunes and to the beach.
She paused. It was darker out here than she expected, even with the lights from the condos that lined the beach. Ahead of her, at the edge of the water, she saw a few people with flashlights aimed at the sand, probably looking for shells. She pulled out her own, flicked it on and grimaced at the weak beam of light. But she was here, and the sand was calling to her. She toed off her shoes, scooped down to pick them up and stepped onto the sand.
Holy crap, it was cold! She did a little dance in the sifting grains before curling her toes into it. Again, she thought about heading back to the warmth of the bungalow, but no. She could deal with the chill.
She’d forgotten how hard it was to walk in loose sand, so staggered a bit toward the water, stopping a couple of times when small crabs darted past her crappy flashlight beam.
“It’s okay, little dude, I don’t want to step on you any more than you want to be stepped on.”
Finally she reached the packed sand, and like the people she saw around her, shone the flashlight in search of shells.
She was so engrossed in the search—and shells bulged in her hoodie pockets—that she was unaware of the sky lightening and more people joining them on the beach, some searching, some out for a run. Which had been her original plan, to run herself, she realized guiltily.
She heard pounding footsteps and moved out of the way, only to meet a wave coming in. Her shriek of alarm rang out along the quiet beach, drawing everyone’s attention and once more making her want to bury herself in the sand.
And then it got better. The runner whose path she’d been clearing caught her by the arms to steady her before she fell on her ass in the water, and she looked into the blue eyes of Liam Channing.
Of course she did.
His hoodie fell back and his eyes brightened when he recognized her. “Hey, you’re not wanting to go for a swim, are you?” Instead of letting her answer, he pulled her away from the water, placing himself between her and the waves. “It’s low tide, but it can still sneak up on you.” He released her and stepped back. “What are you doing out here so early?”
“Couldn’t sleep.” Good Lord, he’d said more words than she’d thought all morning.
“Yeah, well, good call. Nothing like a walk on the beach.” He pointed to her lumpy pockets. “Find anything good?”
“Um.” Yep, she was always so verbose around him.
“Let’s go get some coffee, and you can show me what you found. One time when I was out early, I found a sand dollar that was still alive.”
“No way.”
“Yep. You could see its little tentacles or legs or whatever sticking out the sides, as it tried to swim away. They’re darker than the shells, you know. It was cool.”
“Are you sure you need coffee?” she blurted. “You seem wide awake to me.”
He laughed, another sound that carried over the beach. “Believe it or not, it calms me down.” He tapped his temple. “ADD.”
“I never would have guessed. Do you sleep? I mean, didn’t you close the bar last night?”
“Sure, I did, and sure, I sleep. But I like to run on the beach, too, and this is the best time of day. So, coffee?”
“Sam will be wondering where I am.” She took a step backwards. “I didn’t leave him a note.”
Liam snorted. “He won’t see daylight for another four or five hours at least. Come on. We’ll get some coffee, then you can come fishing with me on the pier.”
Her stomach rumbled and he grinned, as if he’d already won. “The place I get coffee has great pastries, too.”
Even though she’d been thinking of pastries all morning, she resisted. “If I get pastries, I’ll have to start running, too.”
“Good, then I’ll have someone to run with. Sam is too competitive. Plus, he sleeps late.”
“From what I remember, you’re pretty competitive yourself.”
“Stubborn. Stubborn is what I am. So come on. Pastries and coffee sound really good right now.” He started walking up the beach and despite herself, she fell in step.
“Aren’t I holding you back from your run?”
He turned back as if to gauge the distance. “Nah, I did okay.”
“So you’re going fishing? Do you have your gear? And doesn’t that require, I don’t know, patience?”
He flashed a grin that made her knees wobbly. “I’m plenty patient. Again with the stubborn, see. I can out-wait just about anything.”
She didn’t know why she got a feeling he was sending her a message. Maybe it was just her sleep-deprived mind drawing lines where there weren’t any.
“So how long are you in town?” he asked as they continued down the beach.
“I don’t know yet.” She was sure Sam had told him the whole story, but she so didn’t want to go into it with him.
“Yeah, well, the reason I was asking is that once Sam goes on his annual training maneuvers, I’m going to need help at the bar.”
She stopped. “When he goes where?”
“He didn’t tell you? He’s got annual training coming up starting this weekend. He’ll be gone until just before Christmas.”
“Why wouldn’t he tell me that?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he was waiting until you got settled in or something. Don’t worry about it. You’ll have the house to yourself when he goes.”
But she didn’t know a soul in Starfish Shores, didn’t have a thing to do. But what had she wanted, really? Him to babysit her? Entertain her?
And technically, she did know Liam. Working at the bar might give her something to do, though that meant working beside Liam. She’d have to think about it.
Finally Liam turned and started hiking toward the road. Harley was slightly gratified to see that he had as much trouble walking in the sand as she did. Still, he reached out to steady her when she staggered, his hand hard and warm.
She should not be noticing what his hands felt like. She’d just ended a long-term relationship, and Liam was her brother’s best friend. The fact that he was smoking hot should not weigh on her consciousness at all. Still, she felt her face heat as she pulled away, breaking contact.
Once they reached the wooden walkway that would take them over the dunes—a different walkway than she’d used to come down to the beach—the sun was peeking over the horizon, and the shorebirds were making a racket as they soared overhead against the high clouds. Liam touched the small of her back to guide her forward, though she could now clearly see the coffeehouse in front of them. She should move away. She really should. But that might send him the wrong idea, that his touch affected more to her than it should. So she let his hand ride on the small of her back and ignored the tingles of awareness shooting through her body.
For God’s sake, she’d just broken up with Tony. Was she any better than him, if she was turned on by Liam’s touch? She gave a little skip to outpace him, and broke contact.
The aroma of coffee reached past the sidewalk, and she disguised her move as eagerness to get to it. She pushed through the door to find the shop dark-paneled and cozy, the menu and prices written in looping script in different colored chalk on a chalkboard on the back wall. The other side of the L-shaped counter contained a few sample cakes and a fancy binder with the title, “Wedding Cakes.” A few small tables were scattered about, but this wasn’t a restaurant. At this early hour, the place was quiet except for the sound of the brass coffeemaker behind the counter. When Harley crouched to inspect the variety of baked goods behind the glass counter, a redhead with her curls tucked into an unruly ponytail popped out from a doorway that led to the back, presumably the kitchen. Her eyes brightened when she saw Liam. She wiped her hands on her apron and hurried forward.
“Liam, you’re running a little late. Want your usual?”
Harley straightened and the redhead jumped, her hand on her heart.
“Oh. Hi. I didn’t see you there.” But her smile definitely dimmed.
“Brenda, this is Harley Blume, Sam’s little sister,” Liam said easily. “Harley, Brenda Wesley, the best baker in Starfish Shores.”
The wattage turned up a bit, and Brenda slid a flirtatious look in his direction. “The only baker.”
He leaned on the counter. “Doesn’t mean it isn’t good. Give me the usual, plus a bear claw for Sam, and whatever she’s having.”
Her mouth was watering, the first time she could remember wanting to eat in weeks. “That cupcake, and a mocha.” She pointed to a cupcake swirled with rich chocolate icing.
“A cupcake for breakfast?” Liam asked as Brenda moved to select it for her.
“How is that worse than a doughnut?” She pointed to the powdery confection Brenda had put on a plate for him. “And you don’t need to buy me breakfast. I brought money.”
“You get it tomorrow.” He placed a bill on top of the counter.
“If you eat like this every day, no wonder you need to run.” She took her cupcake and turned toward one of the small tables. Okay, she’d not thought this through. She’d be sitting in this small coffeehouse at a small table, and eating one of the messiest foods. She knew of no graceful way to eat a cupcake.
It didn’t matter, though. She didn’t need to impress Liam. He was Sam’s friend, was all. And she might be working with him if he was telling the truth about Sam’s yearly training. Why would he lie?
But then, why wouldn’t Sam tell her?
Brenda brought their coffee to their table, along with a bag with Sam’s bear claw. Then, to Harley’s surprise, she pulled up a chair and sat down. That was probably good, to distract Liam’s attention from her.
“So where are you from, Harley?”
“Originally, Oregon. More recently, Nashville.”
“So, visiting Sam for a few days?”
“A few weeks, I think. Not sure how long I’ll stay.”
Brenda widened her eyes. “So you don’t work?”
“I recently left my job. Just wasn’t what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. What about you? Do you own this place?”
“I wish. No, I’m just the baker, and during the off-season, also waitress and cashier. It’s a great job if you don’t like sleep.” She cast a wistful glance at Liam. “Or going out. I haven’t been to The Pit in ages. I heard you have a new band playing Friday nights.”
“They’re pretty good. You should try to come out.”
“One beer and I’d fall asleep. I swear, I’m worthless after eight, since I wake up around four. How is it?” She pointed to Harley’s cupcake.
Since Harley had bitten into it, the icing had streaked her nose and she was trying to wipe it away discreetly before Liam noticed. She sent a mental gee, thanks to Brenda when Liam grinned, leaned over and wiped the errant frosting with his thumb. Brenda’s eyes narrowed at the casual gesture.
“It’s good,” Harley managed.
“Are you looking for a job in Starfish Shores?”
“Harley’s going to work at The Pit,” Liam said.
“Harley has not said she’s going to work at The Pit,” Harley countered. Harley doesn’t know what she’s going to do. But tending bar, or waitressing in her brother’s bar, did not seem to have any more of a future than answering phones and dodging her boss’s hands. “Harley has never waitressed before.”
“Nothing to it. And you can make some decent tips.”
Right. Tips were going to help her start over. But to look at it another way, it might show her what she didn’t want to do. It might give her the motivation to figure the rest of her life out. She looked at Brenda. The woman was probably her age, maybe younger, and had a career. Liam and Sam had careers, hell, were business owners. How had she missed out on knowing what she wanted to be when she grew up?
She polished off the cupcake, picked up her paper cup of coffee and the bag with the bear claw. “Thanks for breakfast. I’ll see you.” And she bolted out the door.
* * *
Harley sat on the corner of Sam’s bed with a bounce, waking her brother, who grunted and tugged at the covers before rolling onto his back and opening his eyes. She made a show of reaching into the white bakery bag and tearing off a piece of the bear claw, and shoving it into her mouth.
“When were you going to tell me you were leaving?” she demanded around the pastry.
He climbed on his elbows until he was in a sitting position. “Where have you been?”
“On the beach.”
He blinked, coming awake. “You ran into Liam.”
“More or less. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You had enough going on, and I thought you might think I wouldn’t want you here when I was gone, and I knew you didn’t want to go home to Mom and Dad, so I waited. I was going to tell you today.”
“You’re going to leave me in a place where I don’t know anyone, alone, for two weeks.”
“You know Liam. And who do you know back in Oregon anymore, anyway? It’s just two weeks, and when have you ever lived on your own? This will be a good experience.”
All the benefits, none of the risk, she supposed. “When are you leaving?”
“Saturday.”
Saturday. Three days away.
“Do Mom and Dad know? Will you be back for Christmas?”
He grimaced. “Christmas Eve. I won’t make it up there in time. But hey, you weren’t going to go, either, remember.”
Because she’d been going to spend Christmas with Asshole Tony’s extended family, in a lake house in Minnesota. The idea had seemed so romantic and cozy, something straight out of a Christmas card. Now she was going to spend the Christmas season on the beach. Not Christmasy in any way. But she wasn’t ready to tell her parents what had happened, not yet.
“Liam wants me to help out in the bar while you’re gone. I don’t have any experience with that.” She didn’t have much experience with anything, come to think of it.
“You don’t have to do anything for two weeks. Just get your life sorted out. Now, give me that.” He reached over and snatched the bakery bag.
* * *
Truth was, there wasn’t much to do in a coastal town in December, not when one was avoiding the bar and the bakery after making a fool out of oneself. Sitting around the bungalow feeling sorry for herself wasn’t working, either.
She found herself at The Pit the following night. Again, the place was surprisingly busy. Probably more people like herself who didn’t want to be home alone. She didn’t let Sam know she was there, just kept to the back and watched he and Liam work side by side behind the bar, joking with each other and the customers as a hockey game played on the screen overhead. Something tugged at her, and she was reminded of how she felt at Tony’s gigs, watching him with the band, him a part of something he loved, she on the outside. It was the same thing with Liam and Sam and their neighbors, only this time she’d been invited in. She had a feeling it wouldn’t take her long to get to know the people of Starfish Shores if she worked here.
She watched the waitress wheel about the crowd in tight jeans, tray held high, balancing half a dozen drinks or more without spilling them. Could she learn to do that?
She moved forward, and Liam spotted her. His grin split his face and he waved her over to the end of the bar.
“What’s your pleasure?” he asked, leaning over to hear her answer.
Was he ever in a sour mood? Just once, she wanted to see that. “If you ask all the girls like that, no wonder you’re so busy.”
He winked. “Missed you on the beach this morning.”
She’d actually slept last night, something like seven hours straight. That was part of the reason she’d come out. She could function again without exhaustion dragging at her.
“I’ll take a beer.” She pointed to the sign with her preferred brand. “So how long did it take her to learn how to do that?” She gestured to the waitress, who was loading up another tray.
“Cindi? Few days. Why? You going to come work for us?”
“Better than sitting home alone, I guess.”
His grin widened. “I can get Cindi to start training you tonight.”
“Er, I’d really rather do it when there weren’t so many people around watching me make a fool of myself.”
“All right,” he said. “Come in tomorrow around three. I’ll be in early to get things ready for Sam’s going away party. You can get some practice in then.”
Surprisingly, now that she’d made the decision, she wasn’t so jittery. “I’ll be here.”
She stayed at the end of the bar, invisible, watching. The girl on the other end of the bar flirting with Sam might be a tourist, but the guys joking with Liam were local, as was the group of girls, including Brenda from the bakery, watching Liam from one of the tables on the deck.
Harley had grown up in a city and moved to another city, but she thought she could get used to living in a small town.
“Heading out already?” Liam asked when she slipped off her barstool.
She jolted and bumped into the next barstool. She hadn’t realized he’d been paying attention.
“I’m not quite ready to close the place down.”
“Okay. Three o’clock tomorrow, then. Or come find me on the beach in the morning. I’ll be there.”
She didn’t know what to do with that invitation, so just waved and ducked out.
* * *
She didn’t make it out to the beach, even though she was awake and tempted. She didn’t want Liam to think she was following him around like some lovesick girl. Instead, she did the thing she’d been dreading since she walked out on Tony.
She called her parents.
“Hey, Mom,” she said as brightly as she could, channeling Liam and his blasted perpetual good mood. “What’s new?”
That was probably the wrong thing to say, since her mother went on forever about the new neighbors who had three adorable children and often needed a babysitter, and the new alarm system that kept going off at all hours, and the unseasonably warm weather.
“What’s new with you?” her mother finally asked.
“Funny you should ask.” Harley missed the days of phone cords that she could twist when she got anxious. “Tony and I broke up.”
Then she listened to another five minutes about Tony and how her mother had always known and had warned Harley. Because that’s what every daughter likes to hear. “I told you so.”
“So what happened?” her mother finally asked.
Harley considered lying after that diatribe. Instead, she took a deep breath. “He cheated on me. A lot.”
This tirade was shorter, about his wandering eye and his big ego, followed by, “I’m so sorry, sweetheart. He had no idea what he had. I’m sorry he hurt you.”
“Well, the plus side is, I’ll be home for Christmas.”
Silence on the other end. Holy cow, her mother was never silent.
“Mom?”
“Sweetheart, since you and Sam weren’t planning to come home for Christmas, your dad and I made other plans with some friends from the neighborhood. The group of us are going skiing in Aspen. I’ve always wanted to go at Christmastime, and we were able to get a good deal. It’ll be like a second honeymoon.” Hesitation. “You could come with us, if you’d like, and sleep on the pull-out bed.”
Right. Just what she wanted to do, crash her parents’ second honeymoon. But wow, that was unexpected. She wasn’t sure how she felt—disappointed, or glad she didn’t have to go home and listen to more “I was right about him” lectures. “I’m good here.”
“You could come stay in the house, though I’m afraid it’s not really Christmasy.”
“I’m staying at Sam’s for now. I quit my job in Nashville. I’m going to work at The Pit while he’s gone to his training, help out a little.”
More silence. Then, “Oh, that’s good. And then what are you going to do?”
“I haven’t figured that out yet. Maybe my Christmas miracle will be ambition of my own.”
One could only hope.

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Erich Harlan idled the Ford F-250 at the curb, aware San Antonio Airport Security was eyeing him. Where the hell was Aubrey? She’d always been stubborn, sure, but to keep him waiting when he knew her plane from Houston had landed half an hour ago was something she’d never done. Maybe he should park and go in to look for her. Maybe she’d missed her flight.
He’d balked when his boss, Adam Cavanaugh, tasked him to collect Aubrey from the airport. He hadn’t been alone with her—a conscious decision on both sides—since she left the Hill Country ranch at eighteen. In her brief visits home since, she had been eager to get back to the city, which made him wonder why she was coming out two weeks ahead of Christmas.
And how he was going to keep his distance from the boss’s daughter, his first love.
In his rearview mirror, he saw the security cops confer, then start toward his truck. Just then, Aubrey Cavanaugh pushed through the glass door, wearing shades and a leather jacket, looking like ten miles of bad road.
She tossed her bag into the bed of the truck, yanked open the door and heaved herself in. Even across the cab, the alcohol fumes burned his eyes. Well, he guessed he knew what had delayed her.
“My folks still on their California RV trip?” she asked, her words carefully enunciated, not slurred.
“They turned around when they heard you were coming home, but they won’t be back for a few days. They were all the way up by Eureka.” He let his voice trail off, hoping she’d pick up on it and tell him why she was home so long. The drinking led him to his own conclusions—a break-up, maybe? His brain immediately formed an image of another man making her cry, making her hurt, and a swell of protectiveness rose in him. Funny thing was, Aubrey had never been one who needed to be protected. But something in her had changed, made her vulnerable, and that tugged at him.
She buckled herself in, then slumped against the door. “Aren’t you the foreman now? How did you get roped into coming to get me?”
“I needed to pick up some supplies.” He gestured to the truck bed, loaded with feed and a few spools of barbed wire, a task that had taken too long when his mind had been wrapped up with thoughts of her.
“Great. Now I’m just another sack of feed.” She turned to look out the windshield, arms wrapped tightly around herself.
“I’d say more like the barbed wire,” he countered, and she whipped her head around to look at him, her expression unreadable behind the shades.
“How’s Houston? How’s the cop life?” he asked as he pulled out of the airport and onto the frontage road.
He never expected she’d become a cop—she’d been pretty spoiled growing up as an only child, a daughter of a prominent rancher—but he’d thought on her previous visits that it had suited her. She’d always had a sharp mind, and now she was a detective on the Houston PD. He forgot which division. Vice, he thought.
The furrow between her brow deepened. “Just peachy.”
She was usually a lot more chatty, but to be honest, he’d never seen her drunk. Drunk on him, maybe, drunk on lust, back when she’d lived at the ranch and he’d been a diversion, the cowboy who’d popped her cherry and so much more. Maybe she was thinking about that, which was ridiculous because it had been a dozen years since she moved to the big city, and on the rare occasions she’d come home to visit, she’d pretended that nothing had been between them.
Still, he couldn’t look at her without seeing her naked, though damn, now she was too thin.
“Did you get anything to eat? Want to stop somewhere?”
“I thought maybe we could stop at Barney’s on the way.”
He frowned. Barney’s bar might have chips, but not food. He’d seen his favorite chain restaurant on the way into town. “Why don’t we stop there?” He pointed to a billboard advertising it.
She shrugged, and he signaled to exit the highway.
Once they were seated in a booth near the bar, beneath a flat-screen TV playing a sports channel, she ordered a margarita first thing, didn’t speak much until she got it, then drained it and ordered another one. This one she drank slower, but she didn’t seem interested in conversation, just traced the patterns in the tiles on the table.
Erich was no conversational wizard himself, but he didn’t care to eat with a sulky companion. “Going to help out with the Cascade Christmas Festival this year? I know your mom was hoping you would.”
Aubrey made a face. “I’m not feeling much like socializing.”
He chuckled. “Then you came at the wrong time of year.” The town of Cascade loved nothing better than a party, and took every advantage to do so. Christmas was their very favorite time to celebrate.
She said nothing.
“What’s going on, Aubrey? Why’d you come home for Christmas two full weeks early?”
She took a long drink and finally met his gaze—just as the waitress arrived with their food. She picked at her meal—no wonder she was so thin—but he couldn’t help devouring his. She didn’t answer his question, which meant she had a reason, but wasn’t going to share, and he didn’t bring it up again.
“Want me to box that up for you?” the waitress asked Aubrey, who shook her head and opened her mouth to order another drink.
“Can we get a couple coffees to go?” Erich interjected.
The waitress nodded and headed off.
Moments later they were in the truck, Aubrey as far away from him as possible.
“You didn’t answer my question,” he reminded her once they were on the road to the ranch. But when he looked over, she was asleep.
* * *
Aubrey walked into her parents’ empty mission style house in a fog. Fog was good—it blurred everything: pain, fear, helplessness, guilt. And it buffered her against the jostle of emotions at being home. She hadn’t had a bad childhood, but as the only child, there’d been expectations she didn’t want to live up to. Being back here brought back that smothering feeling along with other, happier memories. The fog kept the edges blurred.
Just as well her parents were gone—Aubrey wasn’t up to facing them just yet, having to rehash everything, because they’d want to know. They should know, since she’d come running home with her tail between her legs seeking—well, she didn’t know what she was seeking, actually. Peace wasn’t something she often felt in Cascade, despite the quiet, the open land, the distance from neighbors. Distance?
Safety?
Right now she’d settle for oblivion. She went into the sun room where the dry bar was, snagged a couple of bottles from the cabinet and headed up to her old room. With any luck, she’d pass out, and when she woke up, she’d have some defenses back in place.
Sad she felt she needed them when she came home, but her parents hadn’t been in favor of her decision to become a cop, had been even less supportive when she moved to Houston. She didn’t know what they wanted—okay, she did. They wanted her to live out here in the middle of nowhere, be a rancher’s wife. Well, she’d already been a rancher’s daughter and discovered small town life wasn’t for her. Her mother had adjusted, falling in love with Adam when she was a successful lawyer in San Antonio, and was now a pillar of Cascade society, but that wasn’t the life for Aubrey. She liked having restaurants within ten minutes instead of half an hour away or more. She liked the bustle, the noise.
And she’d loved her job until a few days ago.
She battled back the images that assaulted her, the smell of blood and trash and death. As she walked into the bedroom that hadn’t changed since she left home twelve years ago, still decorated in what her mother called “shabby chic” and she called “nothing like her,” she wondered if she would ever love her job again.
* * *
Knowing Aubrey was home and not seeing her was odd. Sure, she’d been home on break in the past, but those had mostly been whirlwind trips. Usually she was out and about, hanging with her parents, but so far she’d been rattling around in that old house all by herself. The few times Erich did see her wander out on the patio, she had a tumbler in her hand. He needed to get her out of there, though he wasn’t sure just what being together would change. He knew what he’d want to change, but Aubrey had always gone her own way.
Finally he had a break in mending fences on Thursday morning. He saddled two horses, his roan and Mrs. Cavanaugh’s bay mare, the daughter of the mare Aubrey used to ride, and headed for the house. He looped the reins over the post in front, the post Mrs. Cavanaugh wanted removed but Mr. Cavanaugh insisted on keeping, since they were a working ranch. Erich strode to the door and banged the wrought-iron knocker against the oak door. Silence on the other side, so he banged again. And again.
Finally the door swung open and Aubrey glared at him. He realized it was the first time he’d seen her eyes since she’d arrived. What he saw there made him take a step back, almost wish he hadn’t taken the initiative to come for her. They were shadowed, reddened and haunted.
“You need some fresh air,” he said. “Let’s go for a ride.” He gestured at the waiting horses.
“The last thing I need is to go for a ride,” she muttered, hunkering in the shadow of the house, her hand on the door.
Quickly he moved forward, blocking her intent. Her eyes widened as she looked up at him. Too late he realized he might have frightened her, but no, Aubrey wasn’t afraid of anything.
“You need to quit feeling sorry for yourself and come for a ride. I’ll give you a couple of minutes to change.” She was wearing city shoes, not good for horseback riding. “And dress warm.”
He’d never had to talk her into going for a ride before. She’d always been eager—because the rides had meant getting away from the house, finding privacy and getting naked. He shifted as his body reacted to the memory of laying her down on a blanket, filling her, letting her flip him onto his back and ride him.
She folded her arms stubbornly beneath her breasts. “That’s not who I am anymore.”
“I’m not taking you out to get laid,” he growled.
He couldn’t decipher the look on her face, but it kind of looked like he’d punched her in the stomach. He blew out a sigh. “Aubrey, just get changed. You need to get out of the house.” And away from the liquor he could smell on her breath. Damn, it was early for that. The pain she was trying to mask had to be pretty bad. Not a man, he was pretty sure. The Aubrey he knew wouldn’t let herself get that worked up over a man.
Finally she turned and headed toward her room. He followed, not sure if she was trying to ditch him. She stopped and faced him with her hand on the bedroom door.
“I’m going to change, all right?”
“You have five minutes before I come in there.”
Her nostrils flared and she slammed the door in his face. But less than five minutes later, she was standing in front of him in a sweater that hugged her curves, cowboy boots that went up to her knees, and a look on her face that told him he didn’t know what he was asking for, a look he’d seen many times before. He swallowed and took a step back, his blood running hot.
“You might want a jacket, too,” he managed, and turned around to lead the way out of the house, away from the bed behind her.
A few moments later they were out of sight of the house, loping over the field, stirring up dust behind them, taking the same route they’d taken time and again, always ending under the big oak on the hill, always ending with multiple orgasms. What was he doing, bringing her the same way? Tempting fate, was what.
“The place hasn’t changed much,” she said when they slowed to walk the horses up the path.
He looked over the winter-deadened grass, the scrub brush still a deep green against the gold of the thirsty grass, the occasional bunches of cactus. This was the land he worked, never an easy job, sometimes disappointing, but he always loved it. Always wanted to be a cowboy. “We had some trouble during the drought, had some fires, had to sell off quite a few head at a loss. But your dad always had good business sense and we pulled through. Could use some rain right about now.” He took a deep breath. “So what’s going on, Aubrey?”
She stiffened in the saddle, toyed with the reins. “Don’t know what you mean.”
“You’ve been home a few days, don’t leave the house, don’t do much besides drink. Something’s going on. You break up with someone or something? Because I can go kick his ass.” He already knew that wasn’t the issue—she would never give another person that much power over her life, her happiness.
She offered a wan smile. “No, nothing like that.”
Relief warmed his chest. “Well, what then?” He’d lost patience with her evasions. “It’s not like you to be here so long before Christmas, for one thing, for you to be cooped up in the house. You always say you come here to get outside. So what’s different?”
She heaved a breath, sagged a little. “I guess you don’t get Houston news out here?”
“You know we get San Antonio news.” What was she talking about?
“Let’s wait until we get to our spot.”
Curiosity piqued, he nudged his horse forward and she fell in behind him.
Once they reached the hill where they used to rendezvous, he dismounted and tethered his horse. She did the same, her movements stiff and out-of-practice. He kicked a couple of rocks and branches out of the way, tugged a blanket out of his pack and spread it on the ground. Again his groin tightened, remembering happier times. He sat, but she stood at the edge of the blanket, arms wrapped tight around herself.
“You didn’t happen to bring any wine to go with that blanket?” she asked, the corner of her mouth lifted.
Still he had an idea that she was mostly serious. “Nope.”
She walked toward the tree and leaned her shoulder against it. “Remember when we used to steal wine coolers and bring them up here?”
He did. For years he’d associated the taste of her with the taste of those fruity drinks. But he refused to be distracted. He kept his posture relaxed, though he didn’t feel relaxed, with her standing over him, tense.
“What happened in Houston, Aubrey?”
She picked up a blade of dried grass and twirled it between her fingers. “I had this case. Drug bust. Only the bad guys knew they were coming and recruited some kids to haul out some of their supplies, including guns, while we were approaching. One of the kids thought he was a bad-ass and raised his gun at my partner. I shouted a warning, but he didn’t lower his weapon. I could see his hand shaking, right, his finger on the trigger.” Her hands clenched into white-knuckled fists, her eyes grew unfocused. “I couldn’t risk my partner, so I shot the kid in the leg, but he was so skinny. The bullet shattered his leg and severed his femoral artery. He bled out before the ambulance got there. He was fourteen.”
“Jesus, Aubrey.” What could he say to that? Horror clogged his throat, horror that a kid would be in a situation like that, horror at the decision Aubrey’d had to make, that she had to live with.
No wonder she was drinking.
He reached over to take her hand but she shifted out of reach, locked inside herself.
“It was the first time I’d fired my gun in the line of duty, and I killed a kid.” She threw the blade of grass away and shoved herself away from the tree. “It was justified—I was cleared of any charges, but he died in my arms. I see that every time I close my eyes. I replay the scene every time I try to go to sleep.” She stood over him and nudged his pack with the toe of her boot. “Sure you don’t have something to drink in there?”
He dragged it closer and pulled out a bottle of water and handed it to her, deliberately misunderstanding. She gave him a rueful look, but took the bottle anyway. She folded her legs to sit beside him, closer than she’d been before, and drank. So maybe not locked inside herself. Maybe looking for a way out.
“So you’re here because?” Had she been suspended because of her drinking?
“The captain wanted me to get my head together, and away from the media, who as you can imagine had a field day with a cop shooting a teenager. I had vacation time, but not a lot of vacation cash, so I came home.” She stared out over the distance. “I could be on a cruise ship somewhere getting sloshed.”
“And falling overboard.”
She dragged a hand through her hair. “Or jumping.”
“Aubrey.” Her tone made his gut tighten. Surely her thoughts hadn’t really headed in that direction. “Are you talking to anyone?”
“Sure, the department makes sure I talk to a therapist. Since I’m out here we’re doing it through a video chat.”
Was that enough? “What about someone you know, are friends with? Your fellow officers?”
“Sure, but people I’m particularly close to don’t know what it’s like.”
He sure as hell didn’t, could hardly imagine the helplessness, the uncertainty. But Deke...Deke would get it. “I may know someone.”
She turned sharp eyes to him. “You? How?”
“I have a friend who was in Afghanistan. I’ll see if he’s willing to talk to you, if you want.”
“Does he have whiskey?” she teased, though an edge sharpened her voice.
He didn’t answer, refused to, just watched as she sat back, her hands braced behind her, and closed her eyes, lifting her face to the breeze. She almost looked peaceful, and he imagined that was rough for her, after what she’d just told him. Damn it, this protectiveness he felt for her was going to kick him in the balls, but he couldn’t help himself. He reached out and stroked her hair, just as soft as he remembered. He thought she’d pull away, but instead she turned her face into his hand and rested her cheek against his palm.
Against his better judgement, he leaned over and brushed his lips against hers, just to see if she tasted like he remembered.
She opened her mouth on a moan and turned into his arms, digging her fingers into the back of his scalp like she was drowning and wanted him to save her. Jesus, he wanted to save her, especially when he tasted the whiskey-flavored desperation on her lips.
He should have pulled away. He sure as hell shouldn’t have let her climb on his lap, press her body against his as her mouth devoured his. She reached between them to unbutton his shirt, dragged her fingers over his bare skin. Everything in him wanted to tumble her back on the blanket, wanted to kiss his way down her body.
Instead, he captured her hands and eased back, breaking the kiss.
“Please,” she whispered, and broke his heart with the haunted look in her eyes.
“Not when you’re hurting.”
“I won’t be, not if you make love with me.”
He took a breath, considered. “When you’re sober.”
She gave a harsh laugh and pushed herself off his lap. “That was never a problem before.”
“We were involved before.”
She made a sound he couldn’t decipher. “We were involved with getting each other naked.”
Had it been like that for her? He had been in love with her, with her sass and her dreams and her daring. He’d missed her like hell when she left, and it had been more than sex. He’d missed the rides and the conversation and the laughter.
He didn’t want to make love with her until he could hear her laugh again.
She was pissed now, though, as she rose to her feet in a fluid movement and turned toward the horses. “I need to get back. Dad has a bottle of Scotch calling my name.”


Christmas in the Cowboy's Arms is available at all retailers! 

Lauren Stokes raced down the stairs as fast as she could without tripping over her own feet. Her heart slammed against her ribs, warning her if she wasn’t fast enough it planned to escape without her. Short rapid breaths left her mouth bone-dry. She sensed her pursuer closing, so close she heard his heartbeat, felt the brush of fingertips along her shoulder.She pushed harder, the choice between capture and a fall down the stairs being one of survival. The staircase she’d descended for years became dark and unfamiliar, her vision tunneling on the steps ahead. At the bend in the staircase Lauren vaulted over the rail and into a living room full of men riveted to the football game on TV. The men shouted in protest and she panted apologies, racing past the big screen and launching over the back of the couch, determined to reach the back door and safety.
The door was bolted—she’d never known it to be so in the middle of the day. Trapped! Wildly, she cast a glance at the closed door. Did she dare face what was on the other side, or the man chasing her
Raising her hands in surrender, she turned to her best friend, who barely breathed hard despite the pursuit. Dark eyes glinted in triumph, and she nudged just a little farther into the corner. “Seriously, Seth, you don’t want me on your team. I stink at football.”
“Doesn’t matter. It’s a Thanksgiving tradition. And you lost the bet.” Seth caught her around the waist and flung her over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. His muscular shoulder jabbed into her middle, knocking out her breath with an oof. Since shouting wasn’t an option, she pounded his back over the sound of her mother’s voice from the now- open kitchen door.
“Lauren! You get down from there! For God’s sake, you’re twenty-four years old!”
Disbelief, and her upside down position, had her choking.
“Sorry, Mrs. Stokes, Lauren has a bet to settle,” Seth Escamilla said, and Lauren could just imagine the grin that had every female in San Antonio melting at his feet. “Ooh, watch the feet there, Lauren.”
“Ugh! I’d rather cook than play football!” Lauren grunted as he carried her out the front door.
“Then you shouldn’t have bet you could beat me on the PlayStation. You should know I’m the champ.” He set her down and slapped her butt. “You’re on Rey’s team.”
Great. Bad enough she’d been chased through the house, been yelled at, then dragged out to play a sport she loathed, but he’d compounded it all by foisting her off on his brother’s team. Rey always lost. That knowledge didn’t stop her from making the claim, “We’ll win.”
He edged closer and squared his shoulders in some kind of macho swagger. Dark eyes sparked as he met the challenge. “What do you want to bet?”
She lifted her chin. “If my team wins, I get to go on a ride-along.”
“Geez, again? How many ride-alongs can you go on before it gets boring?”
“I don’t know. Are you bored yet?”
He stepped closer. The light sheen of sweat on his skin, the scent of him—like autumn leaves and woodsmoke—sent an unsettling tickle through her. She’d learned long ago to bottle such reactions to Seth Escamilla. The only way to stay friends was to pretend he wasn’t the best looking guy she’d ever seen. It worked. Most of the time.
“No, but see, I get to go in and fight the fires. You,” he poked her in the chest, “get to sit on the truck with the dog.”
The tickle mellowed to a, not-unpleasant buzz low in her belly. She knew that buzz, had felt it many times recently. Lately, just watching a Brad Pitt movie did it. So no surprise a look from Seth would too. He was male, after all.
But she moved away on the off chance he could hear that buzz, and talked over it. “Still, it’s what I want.”
“All right. If my team wins, you come to Sierra Cliffs next Friday night and sing with the band.”
She twisted her hair back and secured it with a plastic clip, using the action as an excuse to move away, regain her senses. “Oh, Seth, you really don’t want me up there with a microphone in front of all those nice people, do you? I could tell stories that would have your groupies scattering.”
“Then please lose,” he said with a grin.
She scowled and marched over to Rey’s defensive line. She crouched at the end, as far from the football as possible, then bared her teeth at Seth, who flashed a grin. He took the snap, running back and inspecting his team for an open man as Rey bore down. Lauren thought she could handle blocking Seth’s eight-year-old nephew Beto, but she was wrong. The little guy proved to be fast and slippery, and Lauren scrambled after him, her sneakers skidding in the grass.
A shout made her turn to see the ball hurtling toward her head. She threw her hands up and intercepted it, almost accidentally. She barely had a moment to exalt in triumph before someone plowed into her middle and tossed her on the damp ground, knocking her breath out and pinning her down. After her head cleared, she opened her eyes to Seth’s smirking face, and his full weight along the length of her body.
“You didn’t tell me it was tackle football,” she gasped, pushing at his chest. Damn, the man was solid and warm, not an ounce of fat. All that maleness pressed against some long denied parts of her body in an interesting way. Was that a flicker of something—realization she was a girl, maybe—in those eyes? The emotion disappeared fast and he took his sweet time getting up, sliding his body down her legs.
The buzz heightened for a minute, only to be drowned out by the pain coursing up from her knee, which was turned at an awkward angle beneath her. She dropped her head back, wincing as the hair clip pinched her scalp, and stared up at the bare branches waving against the sky. “I think I just got excused from dish duty.”


Seth cradled her against his chest, careful not to jostle her leg as he carried her back into the house. Her body, which had been so soft on the ground under him now tensed with pain.
Pain he had caused.
He chased everyone off the couch and gently lowered her, unhooking her hands from the back of his neck with some reluctance. He straightened her leg, then shouted for Beto to bring an ice pack and a pair of scissors.
She rose up on her elbow at his last request. “Scissors?”
“If it’s your knee, you don’t want me taking off your pants.” Horror flashed across her face so he added, “The pain. These jeans are a little snug.”
“No they aren’t!” She tugged at the waistband. “Plenty of room for turkey! It’s probably just a sprain. Just a sprain!” she said louder when Beto returned carrying scissors. She grabbed Seth’s wrist in protest, inadvertently pressing his hand down on her knee; her eyes rolled back in pain. But when she caught her breath, she reiterated her plea. “Not my jeans. Please, Seth, I just got these the way I like them.”
“I’ll buy you another pair,” he promised, and she closed her eyes as the scissors ripped through denim. The fabric fell apart to reveal her knee, approximately the size of a grapefruit and still swelling. “Wow.”
“Wow? What wow?” Lauren curled up to see, and everyone who’d gathered around the couch leaned forward before Seth waved them off. He eased her back with a hand to her chest and gingerly probed the smooth flesh around her knee. She sucked in a breath, and the sound went straight to his guilt. Dislocated, and he’d done it.
“Mom, bring me some Advil, or whatever’s the strongest. Maybe we’d better call an ambulance.” He said that last more to himself then looked to his father for a second opinion. His dad worked as an EMT at the same firehouse, and though Seth was EMT trained, he didn’t have the years of experience.
Lauren again propped up on her elbow, but Seth saw the beads of sweat on her forehead. “No way, Seth. I do not want to go to the ER on Thanksgiving. You broke it, you fix it.”
He hated to see her suffer, but knew his training wouldn’t be enough to help her. “I’m not a doctor, Lauren. There could be some ligament damage.”
“I don’t want to go to the hospital.” Her voice rose in desperation. “Fix it.”
He couldn’t blame her for wanting to skip the ER.And even though both his dad and hers, the fire captain, were better qualified to treat her, he was the best to bully her. He used that excuse to avoid giving over the responsibility. “Dad, get her foot. Mitch, hold her still.” Her father gave Seth a look of trepidation before pressing Lauren’s shoulders deep into the couch. Seth’s father took her feet. Seth looked from one man to the other. “Ready, on three. One...” And he popped her knee back in place.
She shrieked, arching back into the couch. “Three!” she gasped. “You said three!”
“You were already tensing up. It’d only hurt more.” He molded the ice in its Ziploc bag onto her knee and she cried out, jerking her leg away.
Seth sucked in a sympathetic breath. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he whispered. “Dad, can you—I’m pretty sure we have a few Ace bandages in the bathroom upstairs. Can you get me one?”
Seth hovered while he waited, rubbing his thumb over the smooth skin above her knee. Lauren hissed, but this time he didn’t think it had anything to do with pain. He snatched his hand back, not looking at her, afraid she might realize where his thoughts had strayed.
Oscar returned with the bandages and Seth removed the ice to gently wrap her knee, snugging the fabric enough to give it support, smoothing it over her instead of touching her skin.
“Okay, stay off it till the swelling goes down.” He dragged a hand through his hair as he double-checked his handiwork, then looked up at her. “Please let me take you to the ER.”
Her eyes were a little out of focus from the pain, and her indecision showed as she looked at her knee. “Can we eat first? I don’t want to ruin everyone’s dinner.” She looked up at her mother. “Sorry I won’t be able to help.”
Valerie turned back into the kitchen. “I knew nothing good would come of that fooling around.”
“Thanks for the sympathy,” Lauren muttered, and pushed into a sitting position.
“Whoa, whoa, where do you think you’re going?” Seth stopped her with one hand out.
She looked around at those who’d drifted away in disinterest now that her kneecap was back where it should be and wrapped out of sight. “I have to go to the bathroom,” she said, color returning to her face all at once.
Seth turned to his father, who’d settled back on the other couch. “Dad, do we still have those crutches?”
Oscar shrugged, his attention back on the game. “Somewhere.”
“Can you go look?” Seth asked with a touch of impatience.
“Um, Seth?” Lauren touched his arm. “I can’t wait.”
“All right, then.” He bent down, slipped one arm beneath her legs and the other behind her back. His thumb brushed the side of her breast and he quickly readjusted his touch before lifting her. He grunted when she settled against his chest, curving her arms around his neck, her hands soft and cool against his suddenly overheating skin. That was just the result of exerting himself in front of the fireplace his mother insisted on burning—not because of Lauren’s skin, or her breast. Damn, he couldn’t even think about the word breast in the same sentence with Lauren. “I’m not going to keep doing this after you eat three helpings of sweet potato casserole.”
“I can hop.”
“And fall down and hit your head.” He started down the hall and through his parents’ room to the master bath. He would only do so much penance; climbing the stairs with Lauren was not on the list. “Then I would have to take you to the ER and miss Thanksgiving dinner anyway.”
He started through the bathroom door, but she grabbed the doorjamb. “Oh, no you don’t. I can take it from here.”
“Are you sure?” He set her carefully on her good leg and got his hands off her. Quickly.
“So very sure.” She eased inside, bracing herself on the sink. “And don’t stand out here listening like you did in the sand dunes when we used to go camping.”
“I didn’t just listen,” he teased.
“Oh!” She slammed the door in his face.


God, her leg hurt, not only the knee, but even the toes and hip. She leaned on the sink and edged toward the toilet, trying to figure out how to do this.
“Lauren? You all right in there?”
She snapped her head toward the door. He sounded so close. “Give me a minute!”
“Honey, you’ve been in there nearly five.”
She swayed with the knowledge. “Minutes? Really?” “You want me to go get one of my sisters?”
Shame outweighed that temptation. “No! No, just wait there, okay?”
“Okay,” he said softly. “I’ll be right here.”
Now why did he go and say something like that? Why was he being nice? She could handle Seth the tease, and Seth the bully, but when he was nice—well, she didn’t have much resistance for that. And she prided herself on being the only woman in San Antonio who could resist Seth Escamilla. She’d had the most practice.
She was washing her hands when Seth came through the door. Good Lord, she hadn’t even locked it? She slapped a hand up against the wood. “God, Seth!”
“You need help?” His eyes were dark with concern, his brow furrowed. Oh, no. She needed the old light- hearted Seth back. She didn’t want to be carted around by this guy. He was too dangerous.
“Did your dad find the crutches yet?” She hooked her hand behind his neck. This close, she noticed how neatly he kept his hair trimmed, noticed the touches of red threaded among the black. Back, damn hormones, back. Back! She envisioned stuffing the girly-looking, fairy-type things back in a bottle and corking it shut for another ten years.
“He’s carving the turkey right now. He said he’d look after dinner.”
The rumble of his voice echoed in his chest and she resisted the alien urge to rest her head on his shoulder. Whoa, those drugs worked fast. Wait a minute. She hadn’t taken any yet. She turned her thoughts to something less disturbing, like the pain in her leg. At least that pain was fleeting. Lusting after a guy like Seth could scar her for life.
Seth set her on the couch. “I’ll bring you a plate. What do you want?”
“Turkey and cranberries,” she said, trying to get comfortable, not easy without moving her leg.
He looked skeptical. “That’s it?”
“Right.” She shoved an extra pillow behind her for support. “Pile it on. Everything but corn, okay?” 
“Gotcha.”
He disappeared into the kitchen and she dropped her head to the back of the couch. She listened to the buzz of conversation from the dining room table, hidden from view by the back of the couch. No one seemed to miss her.
Seth returned with two plates and dragged the coffee table closer to Lauren. She sat up with some effort. “Two plates? How hungry do I look?”
“One’s for me.”
“Oh, good.” She took the one he offered and pointed her fork at the other. “I don’t like my food all smashed together like that.”
“You can fit more stuff that way.” He put a pillow from the back of the couch on her lap beneath her plate. “I’ll get our drinks and be right back.”
“You don’t have to sit with me,” she said when he returned with two glasses of iced tea.
“Well, sure.” He made room for himself at her feet. “I don’t want you to eat your Thanksgiving dinner alone.”
“A guilty conscience is a terrible thing,” she teased, popping a piece of a roll in her mouth. Damn, he was being nice again.
“Turn off the TV,” his mother Sandra called.
Seth reached across the coffee table for the remote, clicking off right in the middle of a kick-off. The men groaned. Sandra shushed them and the two families offered grace.
“Isn’t it sweet the way Seth is looking after Lauren?” Sandra said, sotto voce. “Maybe this is the answer to my prayers.”
“We can hear you!” Lauren called. She couldn’t look at Seth. Their parents’ fondest wish was for the two of them to hook up romantically. It was not something either of them discussed.
Sandra lowered her voice. “He should take her to the ER so they can spend that time together.”
Oh yeah. In that haven of romance. Lauren wanted to roll her eyes, but respected Sandra too darn much.
“They’re together all the time anyway,” Valerie said. “I swear, if she didn’t have her friend Hilary, I’d worry she had no female influence at all. Lord knows she never listens to me.”
“Can still hear you,” Lauren reiterated.
“It would be wonderful if they’d only realize how perfect they are for each other,” Sandra went on. “It would keep our families connected and it would settle them down.”
Wordlessly, Seth clicked on the TV, drowning out the conversation. Their families didn’t need a connection. Their fathers had been best friends since high school, had joined the Marines together, fought in Vietnam together. They came home and married within a month of each other, and now worked at the same firehouse. While Lauren was an only child—thus the only hope for a marital connection—Seth had three sisters and a brother. Lauren had always preferred Seth’s adventures to those of his sisters. It was just always comfortable. She didn’t want that to change. And if she managed to keep control of herself, it wouldn’t.
“I don’t want to go to the emergency room,” Lauren said petulantly after Seth cleared their plates. She knew it was necessary, but was scared of what the doctors would find. She cast a pleading look at him as he waited, unflinching, her jacket folded over his arm.
“You might have torn something. I’d rather be safe than sorry.”
“I’m perfectly fine.” She swung her bad leg off the couch and struggled upright, all of her weight on her good leg. “See? No problem.”
He dropped his hands down in front of him, feet slightly apart in a challenge. “Put your foot down.”
“All right, I’m putting my foot down. I refuse to go to the emergency room.”
“All right, then. I can’t make you.” He placed her folded coat on the back of the couch. “I’ll tell Mom you’re ready to help with the dishes.”
“You play dirty.” Washing dishes for a crowd of twenty held less appeal than the ER. She staggered and touched her toe to the floor to regain her balance. Everything went white and Seth gripped her arms.
“Okay, here we go.” He picked her up once more. “We’re going!” he called to the rest and carried her out to
the car.
* * *
The emergency room was a madhouse, whimpers of pain underneath loud protests echoing off the tile walls. Lauren kept her eyes averted from the electric knife accident, and several other amateur football injuries. She sat beside a man who smelled like he had a digestive problem. Food poisoning victims were well represented, making Lauren oddly grateful for her knee. Seth was engrossed in the game on the tiny TV mounted in the corner, and Lauren dozed against his shoulder, sleepy from the turkey.
She woke with a start when a woman charged into the waiting area carrying a damp blanket and screaming for help. Seth was on his feet in an instant and took the bundle, calling for a gurney. “It’s okay,” he assured the stricken woman. “I’m an EMT. What happened?”
“I couldn’t find her,” the woman half gasped, half sobbed. “She got caught in the pool cover and I didn’t see her.”
Seth glanced up at the woman, then peeled back the blanket. He made a small noise Lauren recognized as horror, but kept his expression impassive. In a calm voice, he instructed the man from the admissions desk to get the trauma doctor immediately and the woman’s voice went shrill.
“Is she dead?”
Seth didn’t answer, only tilted the child’s head back gently, swept his finger in her mouth and bent his head to cover her mouth with his. The certainty of his movements was at odds with his hesitation with Lauren’s injury earlier. Ignoring her own pain, Lauren edged closer, fascinated.
Seth rose for a quick breath. “How old is she?” 
“Three.”
Lauren closed her eyes and swallowed the overwhelming sadness.
“What’s her name?” How could Seth stay so calm when the little body was so still beneath his hands? Was this what he did every day? How could he bear it? She felt the urge to go to him, put her arms around him.
“Jackie,” the woman said.
Seth sent another puff of breath into the child’s lungs, then drew back, sitting on his heels as the child started coughing.
“Okay, Jackie, you’re going to be okay,” he said to the faceless bundle, his hands moving over her assessingly. “You’re at the hospital and the doctors are going to make you all better.” Lauren could tell by the brightness in his voice that he didn’t believe it.
When a trauma team finally rushed forward to take the child, Seth looked over at Lauren, silently asking permission to see this through. She nodded once, a lump in her throat, her chest tight, and he disappeared through the double doors.
Seth found Lauren after she’d been wheeled back to an exam room, while she waited for x-rays, ignoring the shouts of pain on the other side of the curtain.
“Hey.” He slid onto the rolling stool beside her and took her hand. He smiled, but tension pulled at the edges of his mouth. She looked from his soaked sweatshirt to his face but he wouldn’t meet her eyes.
“How is she?”
He shook his head. “It’s going to be tough going for awhile, but her mother got her here pretty quickly. That could make a difference.”
She squeezed his hand, unable to say anything. Just as well—anything that came out would probably sound stupid and insensitive. “That poor woman.”
He looked at her with something like surprise in his eyes.
She was taken aback at his reaction. “What, you don’t think I can be sympathetic?”
“Well, no, not that.” He sat back and waved his hand as if swatting the thought away.
“Then what?” she asked, straightening up on the exam table. Did he think she was so self-absorbed she couldn’t feel for someone else’s pain, that she was too involved in her own? 
“Nice to know you think I’m shallow.”
“I don’t. I just—didn’t expect—I don’t usually see people at their best. I never thought about you seeing that part of my life.”
Ah. Not about her at all. He was uncomfortable with what she’d witnessed. She reached out. “You were great with her.”
He made a noncommittal noise through his nose, which meant he didn’t want to talk about it, but she had to know.
“So you—deal with that sort of thing a lot?”
“The pay’s good, lots of overtime. I only fill in when they need me. It’s intense. Little kids are the worst. I’d rather fight fires.” He pulled his hand away to support his bent head.
Lauren fluttered her touch above his shoulder, the back of his head. She’d never seen him so upset. They’d always been good friends, but most of their interaction was lighthearted. Even the tragedies they’d faced together—her bad break up, his dropping out of college— paled in comparison to this. She’d never seen him cope with anything so traumatic, never realized he could feel so deeply over someone else’s pain, and the way he’d gone straight to work, without even thinking about it stunned and impressed her. This competence, this compassion was beyond her experience, made him more of a man than the carefree boy she’d loved forever, and something inside tightened in response.
She dropped her hand lightly against the back of his head, stroked his hair soothingly, the knot of leather at the back of his neck that held his St. Florian medal, patron saint of firefighters. His hands fell to his lap, his broad shoulders drooped, and he closed his eyes, accepting her caress. After a few moments, after she’d appreciated the thick silkiness of his hair, the warmth of his skin, he turned just enough to look at her, not enough to dislodge her caress. Now there was something she hadn’t seen in his eyes before, a sort of speculation she’d only seen when they were out in public, and never directed at her. Her breath caught.
“Miss Stokes? We’ll take you to x-ray now,” an orderly announced, pushing aside the curtain of her cubicle.
Lauren snatched her hand away like she’d been lit on fire and Seth jumped up. Whoa. What had that been? Geez, she’d touched him before, playful smacks and brief commiserative touches, but she’d never caressed him like that. He’d never wanted her to stop touching him before.
Maybe he was overly sensitive after dealing with the little girl. He avoided the EMT assignment for this reason; it left him too open, too raw. He wanted to push the feelings back behind a wall, like his father had done, wanted to keep it impersonal, but today’s incident caught him off guard. The holiday and being with Lauren intensified his reaction. He didn’t want to show her that side of his life. He shook his head to chase the child’s image, and her mother’s, from his mind.
Maybe he had an overdeveloped sense of guilt for hurting Lauren, for dragging her into the game, for tackling her too hard. Yeah, he’d taken a little too much pleasure in taking her down. All he knew was, this was wild.
He gripped the handles of the wheelchair once the orderly settled her in. “Let’s see what’s going on here,” Seth said with forced cheerfulness and wheeled her out of the exam room toward x-ray. His step stuttered when he recognized the child’s mother standing in the hall, staring out a window, hugging herself and rocking on her heels.
He wanted to speed past, pretend he didn’t see her, didn’t know her sad story. He wanted to push her pain away. But he found himself slowing, releasing Lauren’s chair to approach her. This woman shouldn’t be alone— why was she alone at a time like this?
He touched her arm. “Is there anything I can do for you?”
She jumped in surprise. Once she recognized him, she gripped his bicep like a lifeline. She raised her face, ravaged by pain and guilt, and unable to help himself, Seth opened his arms. She pressed her face to his chest, her hands fisting in his sleeves, and let the sobs rip through her. Her tears soaked into his t-shirt, the tremors of her body shook his soul.
Through his own tears he looked over the woman’s head at Lauren, who wept silently watching them them. He wanted to go to her so they could cry together, share the woman’s sorrow, comfort each other, and that desire touched him someplace deep inside, a place he didn’t know he had, a place he was afraid to name.

​Where There's Smoke is available at all retailers. 
​

“So, what do you think?” Patricia DiNorio folded her arms on the split-rail fence and turned her hopeful expression to Willow. 
Willow Hawkins opened and closed her mouth a few times, not certain she had understood the woman correctly. “Jerry is going to live here?” She gestured to the three-story Victorian home in front of her. Would a son want to live right next door to his mother? Not any man she knew. 
“You and Jerry,” Patricia clarified. “Won’t it be wonderful? We’ve already spoken to the bank and gotten preapproved for the loan. Wait until you see inside! There are a few things that need fixing, of course, in a house this old, but I’m sure Jerry can do a lot of the work himself.” She must have seen the doubt in Willow’s expression, because she added, “This is every girl’s dream home.” 
Not hers. Not a Victorian monster with gingerbread trim. No, she liked sleek and modern, and if she was going to buy a house, she was going to pick it out herself, damn it. 
“Just close your eyes,” Mrs. DiNorio urged. 
Willow did what she was told out of instinct more than any desire to humor the woman’s delusions. 
“Now, imagine yourself ten years down the road, your husband and children playing in the yard. Can’t you see it?” 
Ten years down the road. She did want a husband, and children, but the nameless, faceless man she imagined giving piggy‐ back rides to a little blond boy or pushing a little blonde girl wasn’t slender, pale Jerry. No, he was tall, and dark-haired, strong but gentle. Familiar somehow. 
Willow felt herself shaking her head, and opened her eyes. She couldn’t be certain if the woman was serious—after all, she’d only met her a few hours ago, when Willow and Jerry had arrived early for Thanksgiving. This could all be a big joke, right? Mrs. DiNorio had never even spoken to Willow until today. How could she presume to know her taste? 
And for heaven’s sake, though they worked together, Willow had only been on a few dates with Jerry, including one to her friend Judith’s wedding. She admitted to being charmed by him, and maybe a little swept away by wedding fever after seeing how happy Judith was. But no way was she ready to buy a house with Jerry. She shouldn’t even have come home with him for Thanks‐ giving, she realized now. Her best friend, Cam, had warned her visiting Jerry’s family could be misconstrued. But she’d had no other options, with her mother in Vermont with her new boyfriend, and Cam’s family off to Minnesota to celebrate with his very pregnant sister. Cam had stayed behind, but hadn’t told her why. Nor had he suggested they do Thanksgiving on their own. At loose ends, she’d accepted Jerry’s invitation and now his mother wanted to buy her a house. Was Jerry that hard up for dates? 
She took a step back from Mrs. DiNorio’s too-cheerful face, toward the DiNorio home. Jerry would talk some sense into his mother, no doubt. “You know, I think Jerry mentioned meeting up with some of his friends before dinner,” she said. “I should get ready.” 
“Don’t you want to see the inside of the house? I have the key.” Mrs. DiNorio dangled it in front of her. 
Willow took another backward step. “No, that’s okay.” 
Mrs. DiNorio lowered her hand to her side, her smile dimming only a little. “I understand. You want to see it with Jerry for the first time. I can understand that completely.” 
That wasn’t it at all, but Willow didn’t argue as long as it would aid her escape. “I’ll just—” She pointed at the DiNorio home to telegraph her intention, then pivoted and willed herself not to run away. She would get Jerry to talk to his mother, to make him see what they had wasn’t serious. It wasn’t...anything but a mistake. 


“JERRY, you might want to talk to your mom,” she said as they drove in his sedan to the bar where they’d meet up with his friends. She wasn’t wild about heading to a bar at four in the afternoon, but most of his friends had plans tonight, and this was the only time they could meet. “I don’t think she has the right idea about us.” 
“What idea would that be?” 
“Well, she tried to put us in the same room and we haven’t slept together,” she reminded him. 
He lifted a shoulder. “She’s just trying to show she’s modern.” 
Willow found her anything but, though her concerns were interrupted when Jerry swung the car into a parking lot and greeted two men getting out of another vehicle. 
Soon Willow found herself in the center of a sports bar, surrounded by the glories of Jerry’s high school football career and his former teammates, all of whom were watching her like a pack of hungry wolves. She could almost see the gleam of saliva on their teeth. And Jerry—Jerry had his arm draped over her shoulder, his hand dangling over her right boob so that, at any moment, she expected he’d give it a honk, just to show his possession. Her back hurt from leaning away from the curl of his fingers. Every word out of his mouth was accompanied by his warm yeasty breath against her cheek, and the words them‐ selves... Man, she had really screwed up, thinking she knew him. 
“Sweetheart, could we get a couple more beers over here?” Jerry leaned past her to ask the blonde bartender. He didn’t say it in the charming way some men did, with a sexy purr. No, his words had a layer of condescension that Willow hoped the bartender didn’t pick up on. 
“Then you could bring yourself over,” one of his friends, Steve, added with a leer. All the men laughed as though it was the most original statement ever. 
Willow met the blonde’s eyes and mouthed, “Sorry.” The bartender just rolled her eyes as if she was used to it. 
The phone in Willow’s pocket buzzed, giving her an excuse to pull away from the group. She ducked from under Jerry’s arm, drawing the phone out. She glanced at the unfamiliar number, then remembered that Mr. LeFleur, her boss at the ad company where she and Jerry worked, had awarded her the campaign for a hotel chain hoping to revitalize its image. He’d warned her that the hotel’s new CEO was a workaholic, but so was Willow, so she hadn’t minded. Success on this project meant a good influx of cash into their small agency, putting it in the black for the first time since the recession started, which might mean a promotion for her. She hadn’t expected a call until the weekend was over, however. 
She strode quickly toward the door, answering only when she could hear herself think over the clacking billiards, men shouting at the basketball game on TV and the pervasive country music underlying it all. 
“Willow Hawkins,” she said, one hand on the door. “Willow, this is Gwyn Liedka, from Nightengale Hotels.” 
No apology for calling the night before a holiday, but Willow let it go. 
“I just wanted to touch base with you on the design you sent over. I’m very pleased with it, but—” 
Willow didn’t hear the rest of the sentence. A hand gripped her shoulder and turned her around. She looked into Jerry’s frowning face. 
“A client,” she mouthed, but maybe he couldn’t see her in the darkened parking lot. She held out a hand for him to wait, then covered her ear to better hear the tail end of Gwyn’s sentence. 
“...image we want to project. More upbeat and modern, you know?” 
“I do know,” Willow said, though she had no idea. 
Jerry held out a hand. For a moment, Willow stared at it until he made a “give me” motion with his fingers. She raised her gaze to his, unable to believe he could really mean what she thought. He wanted her phone? Oh, hell no. She lifted her eyebrows in a challenge. He wouldn’t really ask for it. 
He didn’t. He just plucked it out of her hand. Willow stared as he snapped it closed and tucked it into his shirt pocket. 
“Come on, Willow,” he cajoled. “We’re here to have fun.” 
Her nostrils flared. She couldn’t remember ever being so angry, so humiliated. The rage rolling through her stole her breath, and her eyes burned from what she suspected might be tears. Jerry of all people should know how important clients were to their agency. She wanted to rip his pocket off and shove it in his mouth. 
“Please give me my phone,” she said through her teeth. 
He inclined his head in a condescending manner. Screw his pocket. She wanted to rip off his face. “Do you promise not to use it again tonight?” 
“Jerry, that was my new client.” A horrid thought occurred to her. Was Jerry jealous that Mr. LeFleur had assigned her to this account? Willow had been with the company longer, and Gwyn Liedka had indicated she wanted to work with a woman. 
“She can wait.” Though he was smiling, there was an edge in his voice. 
That put her back up. She stepped toward him, her hand extended in an imitation of his earlier gesture. “Jerry. Give me my phone.” 
His jaw set stubbornly and for a moment she thought he’d refuse. She’d seen that expression before, regularly, on the face of her mother’s controlling second husband, Tucker. Her stomach churned. She couldn’t put herself in the same situation that had made both her mother and her so miserable. She would fight to make sure it never happened. 
Finally he drew the phone out of his pocket and offered it with a stiff grin. “No more business this weekend, all right?” 
Ignoring him, hating herself for being such a fool, for taking her eyes off her goal and giving into emotions sparked by Judith’s wedding, she turned and strode back into the bar.


“Cam, I need you to come get me.” Willow pressed a hand to one ear and her cell phone to the other. She’d pled a headache to get Jerry to bring her back to his parents’, and he’d been so solicitous, she’d been afraid she’d have to sneak out the window in order to use her phone. Instead, she’d slipped out the front door while his mother was preparing dinner. 
On the other end of the phone, Cameron Trask grunted, signaling that he’d just woken up. He must be working nights again. “Where are you?” 
“Triple Creek, Wisconsin. Jerry’s parents’ house.” 
She heard rustling through the phone. Him getting out of bed, maybe. She hoped he was alone. “What happened?” he asked, his voice more alert, tinged with concern. 
“I just—I can’t stay. I’ll explain when you get here. Please?” 
She held her breath, waiting for his answer. Yes, she was asking him to drive three hours in the snow the day before Thanksgiving. She was out of options. Triple Creek didn’t have an airport or bus station. The town boasted only two cabs, and neither would drive her back to Illinois, or even to the next town to rent a car. Though she and Cam texted at least once a day and talked on the phone at least once a week, she hadn’t seen him in weeks. Both of them were too wrapped up in their jobs. But he had been her best friend since third grade. He would do this for her. 
“Triple Creek?” he asked. 
She heard the familiar squeak of his computer chair, the tapping of his fingers on the keys of his computer. “It’s just over the border,” she told him. 
“I see it on the map. It’s a speck.” 
“Which is why you’re my only choice. I can’t get out of here any other way. And believe me when I say I need to get out of here.” 
“It’s about two hundred miles, Will. I won’t be there in the next five minutes.” 
“I know.” She bounced on her toes and hugged herself, both against the cold and the uncertainty that he would let her stay here with her mistake. She scrambled for something, anything, to convince him. “Look, I’ll pay for gas, food, everything. Anything. You have to get me out of here.” She glanced over her shoulder to make sure no one had come out of the house. “He’s more like Tucker than I thought.” She closed her eyes, waiting for Cam’s I- told-you-so. 
Instead of gloating, he sighed. “I’ll call when I leave Illinois.” 
Relief sent a wave of warmth through her. Trust Cam to come to her rescue. “Thank you, Cam. I owe you.” 
“Don’t forget it,” he said, but his tone was light. 
Willow hung up and squared her shoulders as she faced the door leading back into Jerry’s parents’ house. She didn’t want to do this, but running off without a word was immature. After all, she’d have to face Jerry again on Monday. 
Jerry opened the door, startling her, slapping his hands over his chest as if he’d been the one standing on the porch instead of her. 
“What are you doing out here? It’s got to be thirty degrees out.” He reached out and she fought every instinct to flinch when he caught her arm and drew her inside. “Come on, Mom wants to get to know you better.” 
She couldn’t bear the thought of letting them think for another minute that she was going through with this relation‐ ship. She took a deep breath as he propelled her forward, and hoped Cam would hurry. 


Cam stood in the middle of his apartment, hands on his hips as he tried to figure out what to do. He had planned to leave tonight on the train to Seattle. He hadn’t told Willow he’d sold his car and now took public transportation, because sometimes he sensed she was impatient with his attempt to reduce his carbon footprint. So how was he supposed to ride to her rescue? 
Then there was Libby. The poor girl had warmed his bed all day, and he couldn’t leave her here. But how could he take her with him? She watched him now with those big brown eyes, head tilted to one side as if she sympathized with his dilemma. 
But Willow was in trouble. She never asked for help—for his help anyway—and while he’d finally taken steps to get on with his life, to get her out of his system once and for all, he couldn’t leave her in the lurch. He’d tried to make the separation gradual, cutting down on their face-to-face meetings by claiming work, reducing the number of their phone calls, limiting their interactions to IM. That way he wouldn’t see her face, hear her voice, and lose his resolve to take charge of his life. But now she needed him.  
He’d loved her since high school, though she’d never seen him as more than her best friend. 
An idea popped into his head, so clearly the answer he couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of it before. Okay, he probably hadn’t thought of it before because Brian would kill him. But Brian was out of town, already on his way to Melanie’s for Thanksgiving. He wouldn’t know. A six-hour round trip, maybe. Nothing would happen to Brian’s precious classic car. Then Cam could catch the train tomorrow. He’d be cutting his schedule a bit close, but this was Willow. 
Feeling lighter, he straightened his shoulders and considered Libby, still sitting among the rumpled bedclothes. She would be a more difficult issue. Because the eight-month-old puppy, half pug and half Chihuahua, was spoiled and used to getting her way, she’d stayed with him while the rest of the family traveled to Minnesota. His plan was to ditch her with the neighbors tomorrow night, but they weren’t home now. He hoped they’d be back by the time he returned with Brian’s Chevelle. 
“Okay, Lib, need to go out?” he asked, drawing out the words as he’d heard his parents do, grinning when she cocked her head comically and then leapt off the bed and headed for the door. 


WILLOW SAT in the Triple Creek Diner on Main Street, her hands folded around a cup of coffee, her luggage on the floor beside the booth and her ears ringing with accusations hurled by Jerry’s mother. She’d led him on, she’d made promises, she’d broken his heart, she was a selfish girl, only thinking of her career instead of the security Jerry could offer her. 
Doubts spun through her head. She agreed with the last assessment. She was selfish. But the other accusations—she didn’t think so. She was very careful with men and their expectations. She hadn’t slept with Jerry, though his mother had seemed to think that was the case. But Willow had agreed to go home with him for the holiday. There was her mistake, and Cam had warned her. Cam, who should be here any minute now. 
Any minute. She had to get out of this place. 
The rumble of a big engine drew her attention. She recognized the yellow classic Chevy with the black stripes along the hood, but she didn’t recognize the driver, not really. Cam’s shaggy chestnut hair had been trimmed to a more stylish length, though it still covered the tops of the ears he thought were too big. His face was leaner and his shoulders looked broader under the coat he wore. She sucked in a sharp breath. The nameless faceless husband from her fantasy earlier—it was Cam. 
She immediately shut the feeling down. Cam was her rock. He was off-limits. She’d never had success in relationships—witness Jerry—and she couldn’t risk losing Cam. He was her family. So she’d made a conscious decision never to set her sights on Cam and was good with the choice. 
Most of the time. 
He met her gaze through the plate-glass window and she scrambled to drop a bill on the table. She grabbed her luggage and purse and practically bowled over an older couple coming in the door in her urgency to leave. 
Cam smiled and stepped forward to take her suitcase. Tender‐ ness lit his brown eyes. When he touched her arm, a horrible sound came from the car, shrill and insistent. She pivoted to look at the sharp teeth of a small, fawn-colored dog. 
She turned to Cameron and lifted her eyebrows. “A dog?” 
“Mom and Dad’s baby, Libby. They didn’t want to take her to Mel’s, and they didn’t want to kennel her, so they left her with me.” 
“Why didn’t you go to Mel’s?” she asked, following him as he loaded her suitcase in the backseat. “And why are you driving Brian’s car?” 
“Get in,” he said, nodding across the top of the car. “I’ll explain on the way.” 
That was easier said than done, because when Willow touched the handle of the passenger door, the dog charged, barking ferociously through the glass. Not until Cam sat in the driver’s seat, making soothing noises, did the dog back away. The animal rested its front paws on Cam’s jean-clad leg, casting threatening glances at Willow as she slid in. The dog’s growls rumbled across the seat, replaced only by the growl of the engine as he turned the ignition. 
Willow felt as if the whole town watched as Cam drove down Main Street and out of town. She felt a twinge of guilt for Jerry. How would it look to his friends and neighbors that she left with another man? In her desperation, she hadn’t considered that. His mom was right. She was selfish, though she preferred to think of it as self-preservation. 
“What happened?” Cam asked, as she’d known he would.
“He wasn’t who I thought he was.”
Cam slowed. “Did he hurt you?” His voice deepened with threat.
“No! No, nothing like that. He’d be short a hand if he had. He just, well, you were right. I shouldn’t have come. It led him to believe we were more serious, and I couldn’t let him think we had a future. His mom took me to the house next door and said she’d buy it for us as a wedding gift. Can you imagine that? Can you imagine me living in a place like this?” 
“What about your job?” 
“Exactly! Apparently, I am supposed to stay home and raise four kids—a nice even number—while Jerry commutes and takes care of me.” Willow knew some women, like her mother, saw that as security, but for her, security was being able to take care of herself. After all, she’d seen her mother abandoned more than once. 
“Sounds like Jerry doesn’t know you very well, either.” 
She ignored the last word. “The thing is, he does. But he let his mother override his good sense with her ideas of how things should be. She was even telling me how to decorate the house she was going to buy me. I’m sure she’d tell me how to raise my kids too, and how to make love to my husband. I had to get out of there, Cam. Thank you so much for coming for me.” She reached to touch his arm, but a warning growl from the dog stopped her. “Sorry, doggie.” 
“Her name’s Libby. I wanted to leave her with a neighbor when I came to get you but no one was home. She wasn’t too bad on the ride up.” 
“Hi, Libby,” Willow ventured, but the dog only growled louder. 
“She’ll get used to you.” 
Willow shifted in her seat and adjusted the vents. “Why aren’t you at Mel’s?” 
“I didn’t have time. Work.” 
She didn’t press, her mind still preoccupied with the past day’s events. “Thank you again,” she murmured, resting her cheek against the headrest and smiling. 
He glanced over and smiled back, dimple flashing. “Anytime.” 
Whoa. He’d always had that dimple, but the sight of it never made her belly flutter before. She must be more grateful than she thought. She shoved that flutter way down, suppressing it. Clearly she couldn’t be trusted with her own emotions. “I like your hair like that,” she said, to rein in her wandering thoughts. “Why did you cut it?” 
“Work.” 
She sighed in frustration at his lack of elaboration. “I hate that you don’t love your job.” He’d been employed as an IT for a Fortune 500 company for five years and was still at the bottom rung, working the crappy hours. He was entirely too brilliant to put up with that. 
“Not all of us are as lucky as you.” 
“True.” She was lucky. She adored her job as an ad designer, loved playing with colors and designs and fonts. She got along well with the people she worked with and even had happy dreams about her job. That Cam understood that fact when Jerry didn’t warmed her. “When do you have to be back?” 
“Why?” 
“Because we’re already halfway to Melanie’s.” And she could use some normal family interaction after dealing with Jerry’s overzealous family. 
Not that she really knew what a normal family was, but she’d grown up in the middle of Cam’s family since she was eight years old, the only child of a working mom. The loud group—three brothers and a sister, generous mother and soft-spoken father— had absorbed her when they realized how often she was alone. Her mother worked two different jobs just to keep their modest house. 
“You want to go to my sister’s for Thanksgiving.”
“I think you do.”
He pressed his lips together, considering. “I don’t know.” Which meant he wanted her to make the decision. She had no problem with that. She sat back in her seat with a toss of her head. “Okay, then yes, I want to go to your sister’s. If you don’t have to be back at work too soon.” 


Cam mentally pulled up train schedules. He’d have to travel to St. Paul after dinner to catch the train to Seattle, but he could make it if he left early enough. He’d considered the route when he’d learned his interview would be the Monday after Thanksgiving, but discarded the idea since he didn’t have a car. He would have to find a way from his sister’s house to St. Paul, which meant leaving her house early in the evening, disrupting everyone’s holiday. Simpler to leave from home. 
“Maybe just you and I can have Thanksgiving dinner,” he suggested, though now that she mentioned the idea of his family...well, he wanted to see his sister about to pop with her first child. 
Willow scoffed. “Which of us will cook?”
“They have restaurants open now.”
She shook her head sadly. “Not the same.”
Ah, damn, he never could resist that wistful tone. “Where’s your mom this month?”
“Vermont, I think, or Connecticut.”
“New guy? Have you met him?”
“She’s stopped introducing them to me until she gets a ring on her finger.”
Cam liked Brenda Hawkins-Bryant-Whatever-she-would-call-herself-next, but he’d spent too many years watching her disappoint her daughter as she searched for a man to take care of her. He couldn’t blame her, really. She’d worked two jobs for the first ten years he’d known her, never getting ahead unless she had a man in her life. But her behavior explained Willow’s violent reaction to Jerry’s idiotic suggestions. “You think that will happen this time?” 
“Who knows? I’m sure he’ll see through her before long.” She shifted in the seat and Libby growled. “So? Melanie’s?” 
“They aren’t expecting us.”
She raised her eyebrows. “You think they’d turn us away?”
“It’s three hours home, five hours to Melanie’s. Even if we make good time, we won’t get there until midnight.”
Her shoulders slumped. “All right. Home, then.”
He drove farther down the road, then turned into a gas station. Libby pushed to her feet in excitement as Cam slowed, and he nudged her aside, glancing over his shoulder as he guided the car through the lot, pulling back onto the road in the opposite direction, toward his sister’s house. Willow said nothing, just leaned forward and reached for his iPod, a smile curving her lips as she plugged it into an adaptor hooked up to the radio. 
“Hey,” he warned. 
“What have you got on here?” She ignored him and scrolled through his albums. 
“Springsteen, U2, Tom Petty? What century do you live in? Oh, my God. Really? Anita Baker? You have Anita Baker on your iPod.” 
A flush crept up his throat. “It was our class song.” That she didn’t remember surprised him. Or maybe not. She wasn’t exactly the sentimental type. 
“That doesn’t make it good.” She gave an exaggerated shudder. 
He took the iPod from her and placed it back in the adaptor. “Rules of the road: driver picks the music.” 
She held up her hands in surrender. “Just not Springsteen. I’m begging you.” 
He swirled his thumb over the controller and clicked. Tom Petty rolled out of the speakers, and he set both hands on the wheel again. 
“I’m surprised Brian lent you his car. Something wrong with yours?” 
“I sold it.”
“Really? Why?”
He considered what to tell her. She knew he made a conscious effort to be green, but this might be a step too far for her. Would he ever stop thinking of her every time he made a decision? “I can get anywhere I need to be with public transportation, and even one car off the road makes a difference.” 
She shook her head. “I can’t imagine being without a car.” 
“You live life at a faster pace than I do,” he pointed out.
“True.” She rubbed her hand back and forth over the dashboard. “So it must be killing you to drive this gas guzzler.”
A grin curved his lips. “I don’t know. It’s got some power.” He tapped the gas and the car ate up the road on the way to Highway 90. 
Cam didn’t work up the nerve to ask the question that had plagued him for a week until they drove into the next town. “Still surprises me that you decided to go home with Jerry for Thanksgiving. You’re always so careful about things like that.” 
“You didn’t go to Judith’s wedding,” she said, like an accusation. 
He blinked. “Yeah. I had to work.” 
“But you didn’t see it. It was gorgeous, and so romantic. Jerry took me, and was so attentive, so when he asked, I said yes.” 
“So it’s Judith’s fault.”
“No, of course not. But I kind of got swept away.”
“You’re not the swept-away type.”
“Now I remember why.” She rubbed her hands up and down her thighs. “I’m not made for impulsive.”
“Because you’re a control freak.”
“Maybe.” Her lips quirked.
“No maybe about it.”He pulled into a gas station and parked at the pump. “You want anything?” He gestured to the attached convenience store. 
“You don’t want real food?” 
He glanced at his watch. He didn’t want to take the time to stop at a restaurant. As it was, they’d get to Mel’s place around midnight. He’d call when they crossed the border into Minnesota to let his family know they were on their way. Once he got there, he’d have to contact Amtrak to change his ticket. “Are you hungry?” 
“Not as hungry as I’ll be by the time we get to Mel’s. I’ll buy.” 
He looked at Libby. “What will we do with her?”
She frowned. “Let me think.”
“Right.” He swung out of the car to pump gas. “Take her to the area there to do her business.” He pointed to a patch of snow-covered grass. “Her leash is in the glove box.” 
When Cam closed the door behind him, Libby put her paws on the door and whimpered through the window, then turned and snarled at Willow. 
Willow popped open the glove box and drew out the slender pink leash, then considered the growling dog. “Look, honey, we’re going to have to learn to get along.” She did not want to be useless to Cam, not when he’d come for her. She held up the leash for the dog to see. “Don’t you want to go for a walk?” 
If a dog could look indecisive, Libby did. She tilted her head at the leash, then snapped when Willow moved cautiously in an attempt to attach it to her collar. 
Cam opened the door and stuck his head in. “Hey, you doing okay?” 
“Peachy.” She reached to click the leash onto the collar while the dog was distracted by Cam, but Libby turned her head to snap. Willow snatched her fingers back. 
“Here.” He held his hand out for the leash and attached it easily. Libby jumped out of the car and then turned to gaze at him adoringly. 
Willow watched as he led the little dog to the snow-covered area, kicked some snow aside and waited for her to squat. He used the available plastic baggies to dispose of the mess. 
Patience, that was Cam. She wished she could be more like him. To be honest, she didn’t have the patience to learn. Though this trip had been her idea, she was already antsy. She wanted to be there now. 
He returned to the car and caught her gaze through the wind‐ shield. His sudden grin took her breath away. Okay, she was going to have to do better about controlling these little moments of attraction if they were going to spend the next couple of days together. Her emotions were too jumbled to be trusted right now. 
He helped himself to the hand sanitizer by the pump. When he opened the door, Libby hopped in. She glared at Willow before turning her back and waiting for Cam to get in. Once Cam got the car started, Libby positioned her front paws on Cam’s thigh, her head between them, tail thumping. 
“Sorry,” Willow said. 
“She’ll get used to you. Maybe if you give her a t-r-e-a-t, she might warm up. They’re in the glove box too.” He handed her the leash to put back. 
She opened the glove box and saw Libby perk up. Willow drew a treat from the brown paper bag. 
“Libby? Do you want a treat?” 
The dog scrambled around on the seat, quivering as she looked from the treat to Willow’s face. Obviously she wanted the treat, but wouldn’t accept it from Willow. 
Hardheaded mutt. 
“Wow. She really doesn’t like me.”
“Put it on the seat beside you. She’ll warm up.”
“You sound confident about that. Did she take a while to get used to you?”
He didn’t answer right away.
“She didn’t, did she?”
“I’ve known her since my parents first got her, Will. Not the same.”
Willow placed the treat on the seat by her thigh. The little dog whimpered and lay on the seat between them, black nose twitch‐ ing, longing in her eyes, body shaking with the desire to get to the treat. Willow had mercy and pushed the treat across the seat. The puppy snapped it up and promptly returned to Cam’s lap. 
He shook his head. “You have no patience.” He nodded at a restaurant with a to-go entrance. “Will that work? Drive and eat?” 
“Easier for me than you.”
“I can manage. Better than leaving Libby in a cold car.”
“Okay. I’ll go place the order.”
He parked and shut off the ignition. “See if they’ll give it to us in something besides Styrofoam.”
She frowned. “You know they won’t.” 
He shrugged. “It’s worth a try. I’m going to run in and use the restroom.” He glanced at the dog on the floorboard, gnawing on her treat. “She should be okay that long, right?” 
Willow’s stomach rumbled loudly. “I suppose.” She hopped out. 
Cam hurried up the sidewalk and opened the door for her, so she ducked under his arm. She’d forgotten how tall he was. Definitely not his coat making him look so broad. Her nerves did a little feminine trill as she passed him. 
Once again she shoved the awareness down and took his request. He disappeared into the restaurant while she stepped forward to place their order. 
Twenty minutes later, she walked out, the scent of the warm sandwiches wafting from the paper bag, to see Cam leaning into the backseat. 
“Cam? What’s going on?” 
He straightened, banging his head on the door frame and swearing, his hand on the back of his head. 
“Will, I’m sorry. I was only inside a few minutes.” 
She was close enough now to see colorful bits of fabric across the backseat. A moment passed before she recognized the fabric as her underwear. 
What used to be her underwear. 
She dropped the bag of food on the hood of the car and charged forward. “What happened?” 
“She got into your bag. I don’t know how. Your jeans are okay. Your sweaters and...other stuff...are not in such good shape.” 
“She ate my clothes?”
“I don’t think she ate anything. Just chewed.”
“And that’s better?” She closed her eyes and prayed for patience before glaring at him over the door. “It’s the night before Thanksgiving. Where am I going to get clothes?” 


A big-box discount store, that was where. Cam and Willow sat in Brian’s car and ate their dinner, growing colder by the minute as Willow assessed the damage. Her shoes had been gnawed too, of course. And she was going to have to replace them at the only store open this late the night before Thanksgiving. The parking lot was filled with last-minute Thanksgiving shoppers. Willow set aside her chicken sandwich and took a deep breath. The worst thing, she’d realized back at the restaurant, was that she’d brought the wrong credit card. Instead of her debit card, she’d slipped her almost-maxed-out-thanks-to-Judith’s-wedding-and- her-new-couch credit card into her wallet. She hadn’t noticed until she bought dinner and had to hold her breath while the transaction went through. 
Okay, it wasn’t that bad. She had a few hundred dollars available. But she certainly hadn’t intended to replace her wardrobe. 
“I hope they haven’t put their spring stuff out already,” she muttered. 
“I’ll stay with Libby.” 
Willow cast a glare at the dog. “Why? What damage can she do now?” 
“Will,” he chided. “Don’t take too long.” 
She looked around at the sea of cars in the parking lot. “Yeah, I’ll do my best.” 
Half an hour later, she walked out of the store with purchases she wasn’t too disappointed in—new pj’s, two sweaters, a thermal shirt, two pair of shoes and new underwear and bras, for way less than she spent at her usual stores. Flashing lights drew her attention as she approached Brian’s Chevelle, and she stopped short to see two cops beside the car, one pressing Cam down over the hood, his hands behind his back, while Libby barked frantically. 
“You have the right to remain silent,” one of them said, sounding breathless. 
Cam lifted his head and met her gaze, then dropped his head to the hood as the officer snapped the cuffs on.

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Thierry Guenther rubbed his fingertips over his forehead as he looked at the lease his brother Lucien had brought home with him this weekend. As president of the Cascada Encantada Winery, which had been in the family for generations, Lucien always had plans to put the place on the map. But why did he have to come up with such big ideas that always landed so firmly on Thierry's shoulders? 
Yeah, it would be great to have an additional tasting room on Main Street, where other wineries from the area had already ventured, but Encantada already had a contract to get the wine into the grocery stores in South Texas, and increasing the production for that was already a headache. Another tasting room meant more stock, more staff. He had to hire new people and buy new grapes, because while their winery was the oldest in the area, the weather in Texas was a bit more volatile, and his production was down this season because of the cold, dry weather this winter. So he was buying some grapes from Lubbock and more from Washington already. They'd still use Encantada recipes but he always preferred to use his own grapes, especially for the viognier and the syrah. The tempranillo was no problem--those were the grapes he grew the most of. 
So, yeah, he had his hands full before Lucien had this brainchild on his own. 
He looked down at his German Shepherd, Ronan. "I need to have a talk with him and see where he thinks I'm going to get all these grapes, and all the people for the bottling." 
Ronan cocked his head, his no-longer-puppy ears not quite flopping together the way they used to. Thierry had always wanted a dog growing up, but his mother hadn't allowed it, even though they lived on a ranch. Well, she would have allowed it, but the dog would have had to stay outside, and he hadn't wanted that. He wanted a dog that would sleep in his bed, sit at his feet at the table. He'd been home from college now for almost ten years but had been so busy with the winery, he hadn't wanted to get a dog if he didn't have time to devote to it. Last Christmas, he'd decided he didn't want to wait any longer. One of their neighbors had had a litter of German shepherds, which had always been his favorite breed. So he'd bought one and spent months house training him, and leash training him, and now never even put him on the leash. He would probably never get a puppy again, because they were a lot of work, but Ronan was a good dog. Thierry was lucky he was able to bring him to work every day so the dog didn't languish at home while Thierry worked his long hours. 
Thierry rose from the desk at his home office to walk down the hill to the barrel room. Thierry's home office had its own entrance, both for privacy during rare meetings held there, and to keep Thierry from working around the clock. Ronan jumped to his feet, attentive as ever. Yeah, the dog got just as restless as Thierry did when he wasn't doing something. The majority of the paperwork wasn't his responsibility, thank God, but sometimes he just had to see what Lucien was up to.
Lucien didn't work on the property, and actually only came up on weekends lately. He had an office and apartment in San Antonio, and occasionally traveled to other parts of Texas on business. They had agreed, as a family, that they would conquer Texas first, before they moved on to other parts of the country. Thierry was just as glad to have the distance between them. He and Lucien had different outlooks on life, and clashed more often than they got along.
Thierry opened the door of the office and Ronan dashed out into the cool, damp spring morning. This kind of weather was wonderful for grapes, and just what the bluebonnets would need. He'd seen a small patch of them in someone's yard the other day. Pretty soon the roadsides would be covered, and the roads themselves filled with tourists wanting to take pictures in them. The winery made sure to have plenty of help in the tasting room this time of year, so those sightseers that were so inclined could come to the winery, maybe take home a couple of bottles, join the wine club. Yeah, March and April were a good time at the winery. But he was sure his brother Sebastian had a handle on the additional staff. He could count on Sebastian to run the tasting room, make sure everything was stocked and on-hand, just like Lucien could count on him.
Ronan ran toward him with one of the many tennis balls that littered the grounds. Thierry scooped it from him and threw it in one fluid motion. His dad had always wanted him to be a baseball player, but as disciplined as Thierry was, he'd never been drawn to the life of a professional athlete. Playing in high school was one thing, but playing in the majors was another. He didn't even care to watch the games anymore.
Ronan barreled back toward him and Thierry played fetch with him another ten minutes before the dog dropped in front of him, panting and smiling at the exertion. 
Which reminded Thierry he hadn't gone for a run in a couple of days. That was something else a dog was good for--making you got out of the house, away from work. Maybe he should sign up for another marathon and make himself accountable. He needed to do it for himself.
He walked into the barrel building and the hum of the refrigeration soothed him like no other sound. This was his favorite place in the world, the sounds, the smells. This was where he'd learned wine production at his grandfather's knee, and though he'd had to go away to college to get a degree in oenology, nothing had taught him more than spending time here with his grandfather.
He wondered what the old man would think about the improvements they'd made, the plans they'd made to advance the company. Thierry was pretty sure he'd be glad they'd decided to limit their expansion to Texas for now. He'd never wanted a big company, just wanted to share his love of wine with the people of Cascade. 
Thierry noted that his cellar lead was here already, and Charlie Everett lifted a hand in a wave. Thierry nodded his response, and started rolling up his sleeves as he headed to join him. 
* * *
With one eye on the gas gauge, Piper Tobin turned her little car the road toward Cascade, Texas. She'd heard they had the best wineries in the area, and she'd timed her trip so she would hit at peak bluebonnet season. Only, so far, not so much. She had seen one tiny cluster of the state flower near town, but not the blankets of flowers she'd expected. She would get a hotel room for tonight, drive around tomorrow and visit some of the wineries. She had a list of the most picturesque, which suited her needs better than the tastiest. She was a photographer, after all, not an advertising agency. People might be inspired to visit the wineries based on the photo journal she was producing, but they didn't have to like the taste of wine.
She drove down the main street, lined with storefronts adjacent to each other, some limestone, some brick, some wood. Antique shops, a drug store, a few clothing places, some wine tasting rooms occupied the buildings. Pretty cement planters graced the sidewalks, overflowing with geraniums and ivy.
Since her funds were limited, she selected a motor hotel that may have been built in the 1960s, on the main road between Cascade and the majority of the wineries. Maybe she could pick up a short-term job at a bar or something and earn some tips to tide her over. No more than a week, because then she was heading to Lubbock next. Hopefully spring weather would greet her. She'd seen just last night on the news that they'd gotten more snow. 
She parked, then registered with the curious woman behind the counter. Piper didn't give into her natural urge to engage in conversation. She was too tired, and her mind was spinning with thoughts that she didn't want to spill to a stranger in a small town. 
"You here to visit the wineries?" the woman asked. 
Piper was sure not many wine tasters stayed at this dated place, when there were newer hotels in the area. She shook her head. "I came out to take pictures of the bluebonnets."
"Oh, you're a little early. They're starting to come out now, but the peak will be in another two or three weeks."
Again, Piper bit back on her questions. How did this woman know? Had she lived here long? She was fairly certain the woman was eager for conversation herself, but Piper was road-weary and just wanted a bed.
When she walked through the door of the room, though, she had second thoughts. The place smelled damp, and while it was damp outside with cool humidity, this smell was older, probably from the dripping window unit. Ugh. The carpet was wet beneath the window. At least it was the carpet and not the bed, though Piper made a mental note not to walk barefoot by the window. 
She tucked her camera equipment on the bedside table away from the door, set her suitcase on the dresser and looked at the tube television with the rabbit ear antennas. Okay, she'd stayed in worse places, and she could deal with this. At least the art on the walls--Texas wildflowers--was pretty. 
Keeping her shoes on, she investigated the bathroom. Rust stains from yet more dripping pipes striped the tub, but the corners were clean, something she'd learned to look for. She didn't feel so bad now as she showered off the day's travel, toweled off with a tiny rough towel--she'd pick up some towels of her own at Walmart tomorrow--and headed for bed. The remote didn't work, of course, so she set the television on an Austin channel, just for the noise, and crawled into bed. The sheets smelled better than the carpet, and she drifted right off.
* * *
The following morning her stomach woke her, and she checked her insulated shopping bag of food. Since eating out was cost prohibitive, she brought her own food when she could. One more protein bar. She'd have to pick up more of those at Walmart, too. She chowed down on it and washed it down with a bottle of water though her brain screamed for caffeine. Maybe Walmart had a McDonald's or something inside where she could get a cheap cup, because she didn't really trust the ancient coffee pot sitting on the dresser next to her luggage. 
She'd hit Walmart early, unload here, then head out to the wineries. Maybe by then the fog that had been creeping up would burn off, and she would be able to get some good pictures, though the fog might create some interesting effects. 
She walked out to her car and tried to remember which direction to turn to get to the store. The fog had dampened all sound except that of her keys as she pulled them out of her bag. She heard a car drive by, but nothing else. This might get her some cool pictures, though, and she thought about going back in for her camera before dismissing the idea. She didn't know how interesting photos of the Walmart parking lot might be. 
She turned left onto the highway, hoping her sense of direction served her well. Man, the visibility was terrible. Maybe she should just wait, but she really wanted some coffee. And she was already out. So she pulled out onto the highway, where it seemed she was alone in the world. Everyone else had better sense than her.
The deer came out of nowhere, and even as her heart leapt in her chest, she swerved.

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Leo Erickson pulled up in front of Bluestone Elementary School and sat for a moment, gripping the steering wheel and fighting the knot in his chest. Feeling anxious about seeing one’s own son was all kinds of wrong, but he hadn’t seen Max in almost two months, and from what Leo’s mom said, the boy was having issues.
Yeah, well, why wouldn’t he, after all the changes in his short life? But Leo was his father, though he didn’t much feel like one these days, so he came home from his assignment in Afghanistan to see what the problem was. Then he’d go back to the war and finish his story. It was too important to be left untold.
He opened the door of the SUV and approached the school with the same trepidation that he’d seen soldiers approach a bunker. The place was scary quiet, as though something dangerous lurked inside, just like a bunker.
Then the bell rang, like a bomb going off. His heart threatened to jump through his ribs. The glass doors flew open and children of all sizes streamed out, the very few teachers calling ineffectively to those who veered off in search of freedom. How could so few adults be expected to control so many children?
An impact against his knees made him grunt and he looked down into the wide dark eyes of a little girl, her black hair parted exactly in the center of her head and braided to her shoulders. She stared up at him, pink Dora backpack slung over her shoulder, and shoved her thumb into her mouth. No telling how long they stood there before a woman—her mother—hurried over to scoop her out of the way, casting a wary glance at Leo.
Right. Small town. Stranger. Never mind that he’d lived here from sixth grade until he could get the hell out. No one remembered him. And though he’d hated living in a small town, he wanted that protective atmosphere for his child.
Who he didn’t see, anywhere.
“Whose Toyota is this?” an annoyed voice called from behind him.
He turned to see a beautiful blue-eyed blonde standing at the fender of his rental. “Mine.”
She huffed out a breath. “Sir, you can’t park here. You’re backing up traffic. Don’t you see the arrows?”
His face heated. He had seen the arrows but thought he’d be long gone before the traffic started to flow. His first time with the after-school business. Livvie had dealt with that, then the stream of nannies had taken over, then his parents. He’d just thought…
“Where should I go?”
“There’s plenty of parking across the street.” She pointed to the supermarket parking lot.
He turned toward the thinning stream of kids emerging from the school. Where was Max? “My son should be out any minute.” He tried his charming smile, so rusty it had to be more of a grimace.
She wasn’t charmed, just folded her arms under her full breasts and waited. Behind her, several cars took up her cause by honking. At him. Well, hell.
With another glance at the school, he turned to the rental, tugging the keys from his front pocket. “Sorry,” he muttered to the blonde as he climbed in and started the vehicle, doing his best not to peel out as he left the place.
By the time he parked—plenty of space his ass—and jogged across the street to the school, most of the kids and traffic had gone. Some older kids milled around, and one smaller one, bent double, sobs racking his body as the blonde woman crouched before him, her hair tucked behind her ear as she tried to comfort him.
Christ. He hadn’t thought—the day Liv died, Max had been left at school, with no one to pick him up for hours. His son had to think something had happened again to turn his life upside down.
“Max! Max, I’m here.” Leo increased his speed and dropped to his knees beside his son, putting his hand on his arm. The boy’s flinch surprised Leo into drawing back. “Hey, buddy. Hey. I’m here.” Helplessly he let his hand fall to his lap as he watched the blonde cradle his distraught son in her arms.
“I…want…my…grandma.”
Leo’s gut tightened at the boy’s refusal to even acknowledge him. He’d thought his mother had been exaggerating, but maybe not. “Okay. Okay. I’ll take you to Grandma’s. We just thought it might be fun if I surprised you.” Actually his mom hadn’t thought that was such a great plan, but Leo hadn’t gotten where he was without being stubborn—in his career and in his life. Look what it got him, a son who wouldn’t look at him, who clung to a stranger instead. Leo’s arms ached with the need to comfort his son.
“Are you his father?” the blonde asked.
He shifted his gaze to the woman. “Yeah. I’ve been out of town. Are you his teacher?”
“The school counselor.”
Right. So she knew Max, who lost his mother and moved to a new town so his father could report on the war in Afghanistan. He watched his son, nonplussed. The kid had loved visiting his grandparents, so Bluestone seemed like the perfect solution when the string of nannies didn’t work out. But the kid before him didn’t look like he was bouncing back from the loss of his mother. He was pale and fragile, almost unrecognizable. Did the boy think the same about him?
“Max, your daddy wanted to surprise you.” The blonde’s smooth, soothing voice even had Leo relaxing.
She rubbed her hand up and down Max’s slender back and made gentle shushing noises, just like Liv had done when Max was little and had colic. Christ, he missed his wife, missed that he hadn’t had to feel guilty when she was around because she took care of everything. Missed that he hadn’t had to feel helpless.
“He came all this way to see you,” the blonde continued.
Her words gave him a jolt. Did she know where he’d been? Probably, since this was Bluestone where everyone knew everyone else.
Max turned his face away from her shoulder with a doubtful sniff as he inspected his father—and no doubt found him lacking. Leo forced another smile. This was his kid and he didn’t know what to say.
“I’ve missed you, buddy.”
Max snuffled and pulled away, just a bit, from the counselor. Leo held out an ineffective hand, knowing the boy wouldn’t take it.
“Want to go home?”
For a moment, the boy’s face brightened and Leo knew he’d said exactly the wrong thing when the boy echoed, “Home?”
“Grandma’s.” Not the beautiful house in Excelsior with the playroom and the neighborhood where his friends lived and the mother who loved him more than anything. “Grandma’s house.” The words lumped in his throat. He wanted to go home, too, to the time before his wife had been killed, when the light that had warmed both his son and him had been extinguished.
The blonde murmured a few encouraging words Leo didn’t pick up over the roar of blood in his ears, and Max finally straightened to stand before his father. Leo flinched at the accusation in his son’s eyes. He rubbed a hand over Max’s arm.
“Wow, you’ve gotten big,” he said in what he hoped was a man-to-man voice. “What are you lifting these days?”
Max only looked at him, and again, Leo felt helplessness flow through him.
“How about some ice cream on the way home?” He glanced over at the counselor. “Is the Dairy Queen open yet?”
She nodded. “Just last week.”
Leo stood and offered a hand to his son. “Let’s go ruin our dinner.”
The blonde rose, too. “Will you be in town long? I’d like to schedule a conference with you and Max’s teacher.”
“I’ll be here awhile,” he said, not wanting to let Max know he only planned to stay a couple of weeks, until things settled again. “I’m Leo, by the way.”
“Trinity Madison,” she said, and extended a hand.
He shook it, briefly, trying not to think about the softness of her skin, the ringless state of it, and he turned to guide his son across the street to his SUV.
Now that he and Max were alone, he was even more clueless. He’d talked to Max on the phone a few times while he was in Afghanistan, but the conversations had been short. The kid apparently followed in his own footsteps when it came to social interaction.
“Have you been to Dairy Queen yet?” he asked as he buckled the boy in the booster in the back seat.
Max shook his head. “Grandma said too much sugar isn’t good for me.”
Leo remembered her saying the same to him, but weren’t grandparents supposed to spoil kids, just a little? And if any kid deserved spoiling, it was one who’d lost his mother. “Yeah, well, it’s not good for any of us, but we’re going to go anyway.”
He closed the back door and rounded the vehicle to climb in, trying to remember what his mother used to do when she picked him up from school. “How was your day?”
“I got a mark.”
A mark? What the hell was a mark? “What does that mean?”
“I couldn’t sit still in class and the teacher yelled and then she gave me a mark in my behavior folder.”
Okay, so he got in trouble. “So what does that mean? Did you miss recess or something?”
“Tomorrow I have to stand against the wall at our break.”
“Well, buddy, I guess you need to stay in your seat so you can play on Friday.”
“Doesn’t matter. No one plays with me anyway.”
His mother had mentioned Max didn’t have any friends, but Leo figured it was just a matter of time. Clearly that wasn’t the case. “Well, that sucks.”
“Grandma says that’s a bad word.”
Leo pressed his lips together. “Yeah, she’s right. Sorry, buddy. So why doesn’t anyone play with you?”
“They think I’m weird. And they’ve all been friends before. They don’t need me.”
Again Leo heard the accusation in the boy’s voice. Man, he’d really screwed this up, moving Max away from the world he’d known so Leo could get back to his life. Worse, he didn’t have the first clue about how to make it better.
* * *
Ice cream apparently wasn’t the way. Max ordered a dipped cone and dripped it all over the booster seat, then the minute they pulled into the driveway at his parents’, Max puked all over the running board. Leo’s mom Nora must have been watching from the front window because she hurried out from the side door, helping Max out of his soiled shoes and casting a baleful glare at her son.
“Ice cream?”
Like Leo needed to be judged right now. “He was upset. I was trying to smooth things over.”
“You did a bang-up job there. Come on, let’s get you cleaned up.” She scooped Max into her arms—the kid was nearly as tall as she was—and marched into the house, leaving Leo alone, his arms still aching to hold his child. Instead, he turned on the hose and washed the ice cream off his car.
When he walked into the kitchen later, Max was at the same counter where Leo had done his homework years ago, freshly bathed, the scent of the shampoo his mother had used since Leo was a child carrying him back. He wanted to press his lips to his son’s head, something he’d done when Max was little but now just felt awkward. Instead he leaned on the counter at a right angle to the boy.
“Where’s your homework?”
“We do it right after dinner,” Nora answered. “We have a routine, Leo.”
Frustration bubbled, but he tamped it down. His mother had called him to come home, but now wouldn’t make room for him.
He turned to his son, drawing on the depths of his patience. “Do you have a lot of homework? What’s it in?”
“Wednesdays are spelling,” Nora said. “Twenty sentences.”
Tension gripped his shoulders as he fought bitter words. He was trying to engage his son in a conversation, and his mother was interfering. But how could he fault her, when he’d asked her to do that very thing so he could continue his career, knowing Max was in good hands?
And he was in good hands. But that no longer seemed enough.
He sat on the stool beside Max. “Why don’t you drag out that homework and we’ll get it knocked out before dinner?”
“We do it after dinner,” Max said, parroting his grandmother.
“Yeah, well, if we get this done, we can play some ball before bed.”
“He’s already had his bath,” Nora protested, turning away from the stove.
“So he can have another one.”
“I don’t like to play ball. Or take baths.”
Leo laughed, something he couldn’t have imagined doing just an hour ago, and he reached out to ruffle his son’s hair. Max flinched.
Leo folded his hand and let it fall to his lap. “Right. Well, let’s get going on that homework. Twenty sentences seems like a lot.”
* * *
He’d had no idea how much of a struggle it was to get ten sentences out of a kid who didn’t want to talk but that was all they managed before his mother instructed Max to set the table for dinner. His mother sent Leo a chiding look when Max went into the dining room.
“He needs things a certain way, Leo. There’s security in our routine. You can’t just come in here and change it.”
“I’m his father.”
“You trusted me to do what’s right for him. So I am.”
Leo rocked back on his heels. He wasn’t willing to admit that he had no idea what was right for his son, only that he wanted to be the one to call the shots. He could almost hear Livvie chiding him, telling him he couldn’t have it both ways—couldn’t have his freedom to do his job and be in charge here, too. He’d made a choice and clearly it was the wrong one. He’d known it at the time, but God help him, he couldn’t bring himself to stay. He needed the job, the way it absorbed him.
And abandoned his kid.
“Is it that he misses her, do you think?”
“Misses her, misses you, misses home. Everything’s changed for him, Leo, against his will. He has no control over his life and it makes him angry. Sound familiar?”
He heard the smile in her voice but wouldn’t meet her gaze. He’d been much the same way when his parents had moved him away from his friends in Milwaukee and planted him here. They’d grown roots. He couldn’t wait to blow away.
Instead of responding to her, he turned toward the dining room. “I’m going to see if he needs help.”
But Max was putting the finishing touches on the table when Leo entered. Max closed the sticking drawer on the breakfront with a grunt, and turned to his father.
“What are we drinking?” Leo picked up one of the cut-glass tumblers his mom had had since he was Max’s age.
“I drink soy milk. Grandma and Grandpa drink ice water. Grandma bought your beer. She said it’s your favorite kind.”
Leo’s mouth watered at the idea of the beverage, but he wasn’t going to indulge before he tucked his son in bed. “I think I’ll have milk, too. Soy milk?”
“Grandma thinks I’m lactose intolerant.”
Leo lifted his eyebrows at the big words. But that would explain the reaction to the ice cream. “Is it any good?”
Max grimaced, drawing another chuckle from Leo. God, he should have spent more time with his kid and less time feeling sorry for himself. Max could have helped him climb out of his grief. They could have helped each other heal. Was that an irredeemable failing?
The milk was nasty, but the meal was good. Leo hadn’t had a home-cooked meal since he’d dropped Max off here two—no, almost three—months ago. The boy had been quiet, but Leo hadn’t wanted to see it, had only wanted to get out of there, get on with his life. He hadn’t seen any other choice, though. He had to work, and Max always loved visiting his grandparents. It had seemed like the perfect solution.
Wrong again.
So he drank the milk in solidarity with his son, and after dinner helped his mother clean up while Max finished the last ten sentences in half the time it took to do the first ten.
“Grandma said my brain needs fuel to do my work,” he said when Leo questioned him.
Leo scanned the sentences, good ones, and read one that caused his gut to clench.
My dad has returned but how long will he remain?
He looked up and saw the question in the boy’s eyes, but couldn’t bring himself to address it. Not long. He had a job to finish, and another after that, and another. And when he came back, how much taller would Max be? How much angrier? “Let’s go play some ball. You have a ball and mitt?”
Max shook his head. “I don’t like to play ball.”
Yet another failing. Leo’s great remaining love was baseball. He’d never shared that with his son. “How do you know if you haven’t tried?”
“I’ve tried. I don’t like it.”
Leo glanced at his mother, who gave a slight shake of her head. Right. He was pushing. “So what do you like?”
“Fishing.”
A smile pulled at Leo’s mouth. “Fishing. With Grandpa?”
“We go every Saturday morning. He has a boat.”
Oh, Leo knew about the boat. Leo hated that boat, that he’d been forced to help his father rebuild, that he’d sat on many resented Saturday mornings. But he’d been a sullen teenager who didn’t know how to sit still. Apparently his son was better at that, except when it came to class.
“Maybe I can join you this Saturday?”
Max made a face. “Grandpa said you don’t like it.”
“Maybe if I tried it now I’d like it better.”
Max frowned doubtfully.
“There’s no time now anyway,” his mother said, stripping off her rubber gloves. Funny, in their whole marriage, Livvie had never used rubber gloves. Her hands had still been silky smooth the day she died. “Max’s favorite show is on in a few minutes.”
“His favorite show?” Leo repeated, looking out the big kitchen window at the gorgeous day. His parents had never been TV watchers when he was growing up. Most of the time after dinner he was damn near shoved out the door. Of course he had a lot more energy than Max. “Nah, come on, Max, let’s go for a walk down to the lake. You can show me Grandpa’s boat.”
“I want to watch my show.”
Leo opened his mouth to push his idea, but a shake of his mother’s head had him closing it again. He didn’t want to fight with his kid his first night here. So he followed him into the living room, where the curtains had been drawn against the bright evening, and sat on the couch with his mother while Max hunkered on the floor in front of the TV and watched a hideously-drawn cartoon with glazed eyes.
Leo scrubbed his hand over his mouth, feeling impotent. His kid, yes, but he’d delivered him to his parents hoping the sense of family would pull the boy through his grief. Clearly that wasn’t happening. And now Leo felt like an interloper with his own son.
“Time for bed,” his mother announced when the program ended, rising from her end of the couch.
Sunlight still streamed around the edges of the closed curtains, and Leo braced himself for Max’s protests, but none came.
“I’ll get him to bed,” Leo said, holding a hand out to stop his mother.
She cast a questioning glance at Max, and Leo figured he’d have another argument, but Max just headed toward the stairs. Leo thought about saying something to his mother, but instead followed his son.
Max stepped into the bathroom and closed the door in Leo’s face. Uncertain what to do, Leo wandered into his old room, which his mother had redone after he left and which Max now occupied, and looked around.
Max had lived here two months and the room showed very little evidence of it. Granted, Liv had decorated his room at home, but there had been little boy stuff scattered around—action figures, a bicycle helmet, Legos, discarded clothes. He’d had a corkboard with drawings he’d made of superheroes and Godzilla, all pretty good for an eight-year-old.
But here, there were no toys, and only a few books. His school backpack sat by the door on one side, and the suitcase he’d used to bring his clothes up here sat by the door on the other side.
Like he was ready to leave at the first moment’s notice. Leo closed his fingers into a fist. He had to talk to the kid—Max was staying in Bluestone. Leo was here to help him settle in, not to move him back to Excelsior.
Max appeared in the doorway, dressed in dark pajamas, his expression solemn. Leo realized he was between his son and the bed and stepped back. He remembered then that Livvie would always read to Max at bedtime, but he didn’t see any books in the room.
“Do you, ah, want a bedtime story?”
“Dad.” Max’s tone was exasperated. “I’m too old for that.”
“Well, yeah, for picture books and stuff like that. I mean, you can read to yourself, right?” Did Max like to read? Leo had no idea. “But I can tell you a story.”
Max angled his head, then moved past his father to the bed. “About Afghanistan?”
Leo tried to think of a story that wouldn’t give the boy nightmares. Hell, Leo had nightmares about the constant shelling and danger there. “Sure. I’m stationed with some funny guys there.” He tucked the sheet and bedspread over his son and sat at the edge of the bed. “We stay in a bunker most of the time, and it can get pretty boring, so they’ve rigged up some games.”
“Like video games?”
“Nah, that’s too tame for these guys. One time the sergeant was sleeping, and his men rearranged the whole bunker into an obstacle course, so that when the man got out of bed, he had to climb over their stacked bunks, belly crawl under a tent made of sheets and wiggle through boxes, just to get to the can.”
Max’s eyes widened. “Did he do it?”
Leo shrugged. “He didn’t have a choice if he had to go, you know?”
“What else do they do?”
Leo shared a couple more of their innovations born of boredom, his heart feeling lighter at bringing his son into his world, even if only to the safe part. Then he glanced toward the window, saw the sun had set, and patted the boy’s leg. “Better get to sleep. I’ll take you to school tomorrow, okay?”
For some reason, those words shut Max down. “Okay,” the boy muttered, dragging the blankets up to his ear and turning toward the window.
What had Leo said wrong?

Bluestone Homecoming is currently free at all retailers.

​

Maddy Saunders studied the brochure as she waited for the ferry to McDavid Island, off the South Carolina coast. The cheap tri-fold on bad paper with bright colors fit a water park better than a haunted tour. The tiny yellow font recounting the history of the island, founded by a family exiled from their colony three hundred years ago because their eldest daughter was accused of being a witch, was giving her a headache, so she folded the brochure and leaned her head against the headrest. Honestly, the guy who ran this operation needed a course in marketing.
Although somehow, her magazine’s new owner had gotten the information. But why had he sent her to write a story about a ghost tour?
She cracked the window of her rented car and the sea breeze rushed in, carrying the scent of fish and diesel fuel, nothing like the scents on the Riviera, where she’d researched her last story.
For years she’d toyed with the idea of leaving "Extravagant,” the luxury travel magazine specializing in getaways for the rich and famous, that her family had owned for the past two decades. After all, she’d gone to NYU with the idea of a much loftier goal, news journalism. She’d been editor of the Washington Square News but had turned down two offers from major papers out of obligation to her family.
Then they sold the magazine without telling her, and "Extravagant" was now "Adventure," an adventure tours magazine.
And she was out here to hunt ghosts.
She toyed with her charm bracelet, lifting her newest charm for closer inspection. She loved the Celtic design with the swirling lines the moment she’d seen it in the display case at her friend Annie’s antique store back in St. Augustine. But when she’d looked at the tag and noticed it was originally from McDavid Island, she had to have it. Usually, she rewarded herself with a new charm when she’d completed a story, but this had been too perfect. Since Annie was having a going-out-of-business sale, Maddy feared the charm might not be here when she got back, so she snatched it up, and at a good price, too.
Maybe finding the charm was a good omen, and this assignment wouldn’t be as bad as she thought.
* * *
Once she arrived on the island, she was pleased to find the picturesque, little town with its sturdy old brick buildings and covered sidewalks lined with flowers quivering in the breeze. The people here had gone to some trouble to turn their homes into a tourist town. But she had to set that angle aside. It wouldn’t suit the magazine’s new platform.
Sally’s diner on Main Street was the meeting place for the tour. When Maddy walked into the glass-fronted building, accompanied by the jangle of bells overhead, several expectant faces turned in her direction.
These folks, in jeans, athletic shoes and ill- fitting t-shirts, looked more like people she’d find on a budget cruise. Three couples sat at two round tables that had been pulled haphazardly together, Coffee cups and many empty sugar and cream packets were scattered in front of them. Three girls, maybe in their early twenties, sat at a booth nearby with half-empty plastic, amber glasses of water in front of them. They wore what her friend, Diane, would call Skank Chic, the low-slung jeans and midriff blouses, displaying their amazing bodies. They looked like they should be strutting their stuff in the big city, not following a ghost tour.
Feeling out of place—odd, since she usually traveled alone—she nodded a greeting and moved to the counter. Eying the menu above the pass-through window, she could feel her hips widen as she read the list of fried foods. Wasn’t seafood meant to be healthy?
The bells above the door jangled again. Maddy turned to see two young men walk in. The first was heavy-set, with curling hair that hung to his shoulders and sideburns that reached his jaw. He wore an Army surplus jacket over a t-shirt that proclaimed McDavid Island was for lovers.
The second man was taller. His broad shoulders filled out a plain blue t-shirt and jean jacket. His dark blond hair cropped close around his ears was longer on top and fashionably mussed, accenting his strong-jaw and high cheek-bones. His swagger as he walked toward the joined tables reminded her of Elvis.
Uh-huh. The presence of the girls made perfect sense now. Maddy watched them titter. Could they have less pride? Elvis angled his head and grinned.
“Welcome back, ladies,” he drawled. “Didn’t we scare you off last time?”
The boldest winked. “Hey, Mal. You have to try harder this time.”
Oh, for... Maddy didn’t roll her eyes, but she wanted to. Ghost hunter groupies. She was in hell.
He stepped back, squaring his shoulders. “Ladies and gentlemen, I’m Mal Sheridan, this is my partner, Justin Stromberg.” He swung a hand in the larger man’s direction. “Welcome to our haunted tour of McDavid Island. It’s good to see so many of you. I hope we live up to your expectations.” He clapped his hands together. “We’ll begin the tour at the house that used to belong to the McDavids themselves. It’s not the original building, where Elizabeth was supposed to have practiced her witchcraft, but the home of their more recent descendants. After that, we’ll call it a night—or, actually, a day—and sleep at the inn, which was once the governor’s mansion. We’ll tour that tomorrow night. Then the third night we’ll be visiting the most haunted place on the island, the old lighthouse. We’ll see how long you can hold out. No one in our last tour made it through the night.” His hazel eyes glinted and the corner of his mouth quirked.
Excited murmurs rolled around Maddy like the sea breeze. She tamped down her own little thrill. It was ridiculous to get excited over flickering lights and, what...drafts?
When the others bent to gather their belongings, Maddy stood. Apparently, her movement attracted Mal’s attention because he turned and skewered her with his gaze.
“You must be the reporter from the magazine.” He crossed to her, hand extended, eyes crinkled in an attempt to charm.
“‘Adventure’, yes.” She still couldn’t say the name without choking.
He eased back to give her one of those once- overs she hated, the ones that always made her feel objectified. The flick of his eyebrows—approval or disdain, she couldn’t tell, and shouldn’t care—didn’t dispel the feeling.
“You don’t look very adventurous.”
“You don’t look very entrepreneurial,” she shot back, surprising herself. There was a reason she was a writer—she did not think on her feet.
Just for a moment, the smirk melted to a genuine smile. He moved away, not taking his eyes off her until he was standing in front of the whole group, who turned to give him attention even though he didn’t call for it.
“We’ll go on down to the McDavid House now, get settled in, get something to eat, and make sure we keep our minds open.”
He looked straight at Maddy when he said it.
What a waste, really, a good looking guy like that, all strong jawed and buff but believing in spooks. Or at least capitalizing on other people’s beliefs in spooks.
“So get what you need out of your vehicles and meet us back on the sidewalk. It’s a lovely day and the house isn’t far.” He turned toward the door. Behind Maddy, chairs scraped as people scrambled after him. He was definitely a con man. So why was this assignment suddenly looking up?
She retrieved the supplies the brochure had told her to bring: a camp chair, snacks, and bottled water, among other necessities.
Mal Sheridan hung back from the rest, waiting for her. She hefted her messenger bag over her shoulder, engaged the car alarm, and crossed the street to join the others, with Mal following closely behind her.
The house was a block down and around a corner lined with other buildings made to look historic. This one was a three story Federal style brick home. A plaque from the historical society was prominently placed near the front door. Maddy’s pulse jolted to see a symbol on the plaque matching the charm she’d bought from Annie. She hadn’t expected to see it displayed, and just as she opened her mouth to ask about it, Mal launched into his spiel.
“This house was built when the island was settled in 1813,” he said. “It housed the descendants of the founding family, the McDavids. Third generation, I think, and they built this house on the spot where the original family settled. The McDavids who built this house had a number of kids—five, I think—they all grew up here, married, and moved back to this house with their spouses. Kind of like that old show ‘Dallas’.”
Chuckles rippled through his audience as they hung on his every word.
“Imagine living that close to every member of your family every day, every week, every month, every year. Some of us barely make it through Thanksgiving dinner.”
More appreciative laughs. Maddy felt a smile tug at her own lips. No lie.
“Finally, one of them snapped from dealing with all of that togetherness. The husband of the middle daughter got in an argument with the husband of the eldest daughter. No one knows what it was about, but speculation ran through the town like wildfire after the event, ranging from love affairs to someone taking more than their share for breakfast. The younger man was a known hot head, had been in trouble before his marriage, and was in love with another girl from town. Some say he’d been forced to marry the McDavid girl after compromising her. Whatever the case, the living arrangements became too restrictive, and he lost his mind.”
Mal paused, looked around.
“He had a shotgun, a Henry, and he took it downstairs into the parlor after the children went to bed.” He gestured to the house behind him. “And he killed the whole family, with the exception of one.”
Silence. No one was even breathing. The man was a master storyteller.
“Who escaped?” asked one of the women, shod in athletic footwear, a hoodie and cargo pants.
“His own wife escaped through the back window.”
“He meant to kill her, too?” the woman’s husband asked.
“As far as we can tell, he meant to kill everyone. The only thing he seemed to do with any foresight was to wait until the children were in bed.”
Not silence this time, but quiet murmurs.
“We will be spending the night.” He paused for effect, as if expecting lightning to flash to accentuate his words. “In the parlor.”
“Where they died?” one of the girls squeaked.
He nodded solemnly, but Maddy didn’t miss the playful glint in his eye. “That’s our best chance of seeing any activity.” He pivoted on his heel and gestured with a swing of his hand toward the door. “Shall we?”
Maddy followed the others into the pristine mansion with gleaming wood floors, white walls, high ceilings, and a curving staircase. She’d expected to see furnishings from the period when the house was occupied. Instead, it was completely empty. Perhaps a precaution on behalf of the historical society before they allowed strangers in to spend the night.
“You want to set your stuff down here in the hallway before we take the tour?” Mal asked, motioning to a stretch of wall in front of closed double doors.
But he didn’t open the doors. Maddy noticed Justin had disappeared. Where had he gone, and what was he up to? Was he in the parlor ready to jump out at them? The others didn’t appear to have the same suspicions as they followed Mal through the kitchen, dining room, and then upstairs to the empty bedrooms. Several of the tourists took photographs without flashes, then immediately studied their view screens.
Her curiosity got the better of her, and she looked over the shoulder at the short brunette’s camera. “What is it you’re looking for?”
“Orbs,” the girl muttered, inspecting her screen. “What are orbs?”
Now she was the one on the spot as everyone
turned to her. Her shoulders tightened defensively. “You’ve never heard of orbs and cold spots?” another one of the girls, the tall blonde, asked incredulously. “Mal, can you believe that?” She turned back to Maddy. “What are you doing here anyway?”
“She’s doing a magazine article,” Mal spoke up, feet parted, palms together, and a playful glint in his eyes. “Perhaps we can educate her. Who would like to explain?”
“Oh, me.” The blonde stepped forward like a star pupil.
“By all means, Joyce.” Mal gestured her to go ahead with a sweep of his hand then folded his arms. “Orbs are balls of energy,” Joyce said, mirroring Mal’s stance. “People believe they’re the spirits. Did you see ‘Haunted Mansion’ with Eddie Murphy?” 
“Did anyone?” she asked, still defensive.
Joyce’s lips twitched in amusement, and Maddy relaxed a little. So did Joyce, who moved ahead in full teacher mode. “Okay, how about ‘Poltergeist’? The scene where the lights are coming down the stairs? Those were orbs. Only in real life, they’re not so grand. Just about the size of a ping pong ball most of the time.”
She sounded so matter of fact. “You’ve seen them,” Maddy observed. The girl seemed to really believe. She may not just be here because of Mal.
Joyce nodded, eyes bright. “On the last trip, we got several photographs of a particularly bright orb. I wish we’d thought to bring it.” She glanced over at one of her friends.
“I get glowing dots on my pictures all the time, especially when the light isn’t good,” Maddy said. “I’ve been told it’s just dust specks catching the light from the flash.”
Joyce’s expression tightened. “If you choose to believe that I can’t convince you otherwise, not without my pictures. But if you don’t have an open mind, how can you write an effective story?”
Maddy glanced toward Mal, who lifted a she- said-it-I-didn’t eyebrow before pushing himself away from the wall and moving toward the door.
“We don’t know if we’ll see anything tonight. Most likely we’ll hear something. That’s what’s happened on previous tours. But not if we stand around talking all night.” He herded the group together and out of the room.
Maddy couldn’t repress the feeling that he was guiding their expectations as they traipsed down to the parlor. She knew all about being manipulated, and in order to pull off this tour time and again, this guy had to be a pro.
The doors of the parlor were open now, and candles lit the room, some on the mantel, some on iron stands. More lined the circle drawn with chalk in the center of the room. Justin was on his knees in the center of the circle, drawing lines with chalk on the wood floor, using sure strokes. Maddy glanced about, but no one seemed concerned at the desecration. Maddy watched as the lines intersected into a five-point star.
A pentagram.
“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” she asked, surprised by the alarm running through her.
He sat back on his heels. “A pentagram isn’t demonic,” he said wearily as if he’d explained it several times before. “It’s protective.”
“You think evil spirits will try to come?”
“They’re always looking for ways,” he muttered, sketching symbols within each point of the star.
He sounded deadly serious, unlike Mal. Like he really believed in this.
“Have you ever encountered one?”
“Yup.”
Okay, he didn’t have Mal’s charm, but his matter-of-factness was compelling.
“Can you tell me about it?”
He dragged his duffel over, passed it to her, open to reveal more white candles. “Start lighting these. Set them in the center of the pentagram.”
“Justin? The evil spirits?” she prodded.
“Leaves you feeling dirty,” he said when she touched the lighter to the first candle. “Slimy inside, and it’s hard to shake.”
She froze, flame flickering inches from her fingers, before she moved to the next candle. “You mean they come into you? Are you like a medium?”
He grunted, his attention on the pentagram. “No, but you get this energy from them. Bad energy. And it’s like poison, gets into you. Trust me, you don’t want it.”
“Where did you experience this?”
“In an abandoned prison in Boston. Again, in a house in Connecticut.” He rubbed the back of his neck, as if he could still feel it. “Apparently, a pedophile lived there. Killed his victims there.”
“But you don’t get those feelings here?”
He shook his head.
“Why not? A mass murder took place here.”
He lifted a shoulder to wipe at a bead of sweat trickling down from his hairline. “I don’t know why.” “How long have you and Mal been doing this?”
“The tours? A little over a year. But we’ve been interested in the paranormal for years. His sister—” 
“We’re taking advantage of popular interest,” Mal said, moving closer and crouching, careful not to scuff the chalk drawing. “Hand me a couple of those candles, would you, Maddy?”
She handed them to him but kept her attention on Justin, even though she sensed him withdrawing with Mal’s presence. Had Mal moved closer on purpose? Was he afraid Justin would give some of his secrets away?
“What made you interested in the paranormal?” she asked Justin, ignoring Mal. “Did you have an experience?”
“Oh, you know,” Mal said, “some kids are into dinosaurs, some kids into sports, some into video games. We were into ghosts.”
“So, you grew up together? Here on the island?” “Since middle school,” Mal replied.
“Have you ever been to Gettysburg?” the man, who’d been introduced as Mick, asked. “I swear, we had some serious chills when we went out there.”
Mal sat on his heels. Maddy watched his expression change, relax, as he went into man-to- man mode.
So sexy, watching men relate to each other. Not that Mal was hard to look at in any case. And what was she doing letting her thoughts go there?
“What happened?” he asked Mick.
“Oh, we didn’t see anything, but the emotions were so powerful. We knew we weren’t alone. And those boys are so sad. I’ll never forget it. I left there with memories that weren’t my own. You definitely need to go, see what you feel.”
“Sounds awesome. We’ll have to check it out.” He motioned for Maddy to place a candle at a spot beyond his reach.
“So, since middle school?” she redirected. “Were you born here or was Justin?”
“Neither. Justin moved from Maryland, and I moved from Texas.”
“I thought that was a Texas accent. Not many ghosts there?”
“Enough. More here, though. So, do you want to interview me?”
She sat back and folded her arms, aware of the defensive stance, but too late to undo without drawing his attention. “Why would I want to do that?”
“For your article.”
“It’s not about you. It’s about the tour.”
“But how good is your article going to be if you don’t believe?” He rose and held a hand out to help her to her feet.
She hesitated, then took it, releasing it the moment she got to her feet to brush off her butt. “And you’re going to try to change my mind with an interview?”
He lifted a hand in concession of the unlikelihood of that. “Maybe just enlighten you a bit.”
“Won’t the tour do that for me?”
“Depends on how active the spirits are.” He walked toward the parlor doors where they’d left their things. Unerringly, he picked up hers and handed them to her.
She opened her mouth to ask how he knew, but the smug expression on his face told her he wanted her to ask, to notice that he’d noticed. So she kept to the topic as she hefted her camp chair over her shoulder. “I suppose it would be rough running a business where you can’t predict outcomes.”
He led the way to a spot by the fireplace with his own gear. “Can you in any business?” He set up his chair with a single shake and placed it in front of the fireplace.
It was Maddy’s turn to concede. “Seems a risky venture.”
He flashed a smile, all white teeth and crinkled eyes, and motioned her to sit beside him. “The only kind worth taking.”

Read A Ghostly Charm, available at all retailers!

So this was Gabe Cooper.
Peyton Michaels stood at the edge of the group in front of the mess tent to watch the legendary firefighter step up to brief his crew.
Stories about Gabe Cooper and the Bear Claws, the best Hot Shot crew in Montana, had abounded during Peyton’s training to become a wildland firefighter. Most of the stories had been cautionary tales from the instructors, but even some of the trainees had heard about this crew. And when Peyton had been assigned to the Bear Claws, well, nervousness didn’t touch her jitters. Cooper didn’t take rookies, and he didn’t take to reporters. She was both, and would have to work hard to prove herself.
Was she ready?
Scratching her arm beneath the brand-new itchy Nomex shirt, she turned her attention back to the crew leader.
Movie-star handsome, with a long jaw, lean cheeks, deep-set brown eyes framed by long lashes and broad shoulders hugged by a black T-shirt. She’d forgotten how the sight of a handsome, confident man could kick up her pulse.
Cooper’s posture defined self-assurance. The lines that fanned from his eyes and the silver flecking his brutally short hair spoke of his years of experience. His tires-over-gravel voice conveyed his weariness, though it was only July, not quite the middle of the fire season.
The topographical maps on the bulletin board behind him were veined with different colored lines, and Cooper had marked their route in black Sharpie. He traced over it for emphasis, his hand square but oddly graceful as he dragged his finger down the line. The path appeared pretty darn straight, and with all the brush and gullies and boulders, that couldn’t be the easiest way.
Part of his legend was that he didn’t do things the easy way.
Peyton scanned his crew, most of whom cast curious glances in her direction. She could learn a lot about the man by his crew.
A young redheaded woman stood at his shoulder and faced the rest, arms folded, a white bandage on one hand. She wasn’t quite one of them, but also wasn’t in charge. Every time the young woman glanced at Cooper, admiration glowed in her eyes. Cooper didn’t appear to notice. Perhaps he was accustomed to it.
Peyton was a little surprised to see almost a third of the crew were women. Five women besides the redhead, all mid-twenties, not unattractive, proved he had nothing against women.
The men who rounded out the crew ranged from farm boys to rock-band rejects, teenagers to men near her age, some with tattoos and earrings and others with wire-rimmed glasses. All gave Cooper their full attention. He was without question the stuff legends were made of.
Peyton had had her fill of mythical creatures.
“Any questions?” Cooper asked, directing the question at her, sending her nerves skittering. When none were forthcoming, he dismissed them to get their gear, and moved straight toward her.
The skittering nerves started a mambo, and it took everything in her not to step back. The rest of the crew moved slowly as they gathered their gear, watching Cooper.
Not taking her eyes from him, she reached down and hefted her pack onto one shoulder. “There’s been a mistake.” He flicked his gaze to the freshly stenciled name on the pocket of her fire shirt. “Michaels.” His tone had softened a bit from when he was addressing his crew, but still had a take-no-crap edge to it. “I don’t take rookies on my crew.”
She straightened. “I’m not. I mean, I am. A rookie. But I’m Peyton Michaels from Up to the Minute magazine. I’ve been assigned to your crew.”
A reporter. Gabe scowled. That explained everything but the fire shirt that bore no crew insignia. Maybe she’d borrowed it to get into camp. What the hell was she talking about, though, assigned to his crew? He glanced toward the media tent. “I beg your pardon?”
His harsh tone made her draw back, but only a little. “I’m going out with the Bear Claw Hot Shots. Jen Sheridan said you were the best.”
Jen Sheridan. The name kicked him in the chest.
He studied the reporter in front of him. Her elegant features, slender nose, high cheekbones, pale skin, hinted at a privileged upbringing. Her cleanliness pegged her as a rookie. The odd thing was, she was no young girl. Her sharp eyes, the slight creases near them and also around her mouth, made him think she was in her thirties. What kind of job did she think she was walking into?
“The last thing I need is some reporter following me all over the mountain asking stupid questions and getting in the way,” he said.
“I assure you, I’ve done my research and gone through the necessary training.”
“I assure you, I could give less than a damn,” he drawled. “I’m here to get a job done, and I don’t intend to let anyone slow me down.”
“I’m here to get a job done as well,” Peyton said, shifting her pack. “I have my fire card. I can pull my weight.”
He expelled a doubtful snort. “Pulling your weight on my crew isn’t the same as making it through the Forest Service’s sorry course. The Bear Claw Hot Shots are the best of the best, and they’re that way because I don’t tolerate slackers.”
She rolled her shoulders back and lifted her face. “I can understand being the best. That’s what I want, and that’s why I wanted you.”
He took a step closer, dragged his gaze over her. A beautiful woman saying that to him shouldn’t raise his temper. “Ego stroking is not necessary.”
She didn’t move away and returned the inspection. “No, I can see that.” A smile quirked his lips at her boldness.
“Who assigned you to me? Jen?”
She blinked up at him. “Yes. Do you know her?”
Did he know her? When Kim had told him that Jen was IC on this fire, he’d considered asking to be sent to another fire. But to ask would be to admit defeat, to admit working for his ex was too difficult, that his feelings for her were too strong.
If he took the reporter without a fight, Jen would think he was avoiding her.
He gave the reporter—he had to think of her as that and not as the compact little blonde who glared up at him with big brown eyes—a last glance and turned toward the command tent.
Jen was alone in the tent, behind a folding table, her attention on the maps spread in front of her. She looked up at his approach, and her expectant expression froze, morphed into something bland, distant, like she didn’t know him. Way to hit a man right in the ego.
The past three years had been good to her. The healthy tan set off her streaky blonde hair. She appeared—softer, her face fuller. Damn.
“Gabe,” she said quietly, easing back in her chair. “I heard you were on your way out. Good to see you.”
To fight the stab of pain at the encounter, stronger than he’d expected, he slapped his hands on the scarred table between them and glowered down at her.
“Just how much do you hate me?”
Jen returned his gaze unblinkingly, long past being intimidated by him. Hell, why should he intimidate her now? She’d left him without a backwards glance, and here she was, incident commander, his boss on this fire. She’d hold that over him till he got out on the line.
She folded her arms over the maps in front of her and tilted her head back to meet his eyes. “I don’t hate you at all. What are you talking about?”
“The reporter,” he ground out.
“Ah.” She sat back, looking a hell of a lot more relaxed than he felt. “Ms. Michaels wanted the best and I’m giving her to you.”
Her choice of words gave him a moment’s pause, but only a moment. She didn’t hate him, but he’d spent the better part of a year hating her before shutting off all feelings completely. That they’d return now in full force had him reeling. He pulled himself back to the fight at hand.
“She’s a rookie.”
“You’ve taken on rookies before.”
“Not by choice.”
The way she regarded him carried him right back to the last days of their marriage, cold and condescending. “What makes you think you have a choice now?” 
“You’re putting my entire crew in jeopardy to get even with me.”
She blew out a breath and leaned forward again, not releasing his gaze, unwilling to give him that victory. “This has nothing to do with you. With us, anyway. It’s about which crew would benefit her the most.”
“To hell with fighting a fire.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Careful, Gabe. You’re sounding misogynistic. Peyton can do the job. And it won’t be the whole season, just for this fire. Her story’s on wildland firefighters. Once it’s done, she’s gone.”
“Great. As long as she’s invested in the job,” he said contemptuously.
“She’s trying to experience the job. It’s no big deal. There’s nothing scandalous coming out of this.”
He voiced his opinion of that in a few succinct words.
“Jesus, Gabe.”
“One shift, and then you find another crew for her.”
Jen inclined her head. “We can discuss it.” She turned back to her maps. “Is that all?”
Was it? What else could he say to the woman he hadn’t seen in three years? He couldn’t let her go without a parting shot. “Give Doug my best.”
The shocked expression on her face gave him a millisecond of pleasure before he shut that down as well. “You mean it?” Her voice was breathless with hope.
He wished he could be the type of man who would mean it, but he was a bastard. “No. He already got it.”
He pivoted and strode out of the tent.
Fire season was usually hell, but damn, what had he done to deserve this? Maybe this was God’s way of telling him it was time to get out of the Forest Service. Sure, great, but after punching line for twenty years there wasn’t another job he knew as well.
He swore he wouldn’t live in a city again, so being an EMT full time was out. The only way he could bear his time in Albuquerque now was knowing that once spring arrived he’d be back in the mountains. He’d be damned if he’d sit behind some desk in the Bureau of Land Management and send kids into situations out of his control. He was a Hot Shot till the end. Nothing would take him off the line.
So God could just keep on sending those messages. Gabe Cooper was sticking it out.
Peyton Michaels—what kind of name was Peyton, anyway?—sat smugly on a picnic table, waiting for him, her pack still over one shoulder, her ponytail over the other.
He jabbed a finger at her. “If I agree to this, it’s for one shift and one shift only. You do your job without question, understood?”
Those chocolaty eyes went wide. “Yes, sir.”
“I mean it, Michaels. My crew is the best for a reason, and I’d like to keep them in one piece. The way we work is they do what I tell them to do. Got it? And you call me ‘sir’ again, the issue is off the table.” He slashed his hand through the air for emphasis.
“Of course. Gabe.” She even said his name with a smile in her voice.
He lifted his eyebrow. She had guts. Hell, how could she have anything less, walking into a fire camp and asking to go on the line with the best crew? But as a reporter for Up to the Minute weekly news magazine, she knew something about being the best too.
“I meant the part about questions. I don’t give interviews.”
She angled her head in a way that made him feel like an idiot for saying it. “I wasn’t going to ask for one. This is a look-see assignment.”
He grunted. “You have gear?”
She nodded and he could practically feel the energy, the excitement rolling off her. Her body all but quivered with anticipation but her expression remained cool.
“Let’s go,” he said through his teeth, and ignored the little skip of triumph as she followed him to gather his own gear before they met his crew at the edge of the camp.
Peyton joined the middle of the disciplined single-file group. They headed out of camp on the dusty path curving up the mountain between rocks and shrubs. They’d be walking to a remote site. While the energy pulsed through her now, she hoped to maintain her strength up on the line.
As they got farther up the mountain, the unit shifted into bunches of three and four, and made their own path through the high grass and scrub, their excitement growing as they drew closer to the fire. Other crews had been this direction; someone had pounded down the grass before them.
Peyton turned her attention to the man who held such respect from the firefighting community, his crew, yet kept himself apart, plunging through the knee-deep brush alone.
His matter-of-fact, unapologetic manner reminded her of Dan. The recognition had hit her like a blow to her chest, bruising her heart and making breathing difficult. In her mind she saw her husband standing before the brass at his last debriefing, so handsome in his dress blues, so confident as he justified his SWAT team’s decision to invade that warehouse without a search warrant to stop the drug deal. If only he’d been reprimanded, had suffered some kind of consequence, maybe he’d still be alive. Instead, he’d been applauded, rewarded, and had returned to the job that killed him a year later.
Her “In the Line of Duty” articles had quickly gained recognition and popularity. She’d gone from Coast Guard rescue cruisers to EMT crews stationed in bad neighborhoods to this mountain. But still, nothing she’d written so far had shed any light on what the job fulfilled in Dan that life hadn’t.
The story on Cooper was a departure. Her other articles focused more on the jobs than on the men and women who performed them. She’d probably lost a lot of depth taking that route, but had needed the emotional distance as she grieved for Dan. Could she afford to give it up now?
While she worked up the nerve to invade Cooper’s space—she couldn’t very well write his story from this distance—she zeroed in on a conversation between two of the men who walked with chainsaws slung over their shoulders. Her own pack was heavy with her tools, weighted with bottled water, and these guys carried the machines like they were made of Styrofoam. Sheesh. Their ability so impressed her that it took her a minute to tune in to their conversation.
“You’ve been with him long enough to know how he feels about reporters.”
They were gossiping like old women about Gabe. Calling him an old man. Please. Still, intrigued, she moved closer.
“Why would she bust his balls after, what’s it been, three years? Hell, she married someone else.”
Who? Who? Who? Peyton willed them to give her a name.
“Women are like elephants, man. They don’t forget anything.”
Peyton wanted to take exception, but it was rude to interrupt an eavesdropped conversation. 
“I hear she dumped him.”
“She had to have a reason.”
“I thought the smokejumper was the reason.”
Peyton eased back. Who had dumped Gabe for a smokejumper? What was his punishment?
Her?
But gossip wasn’t her purpose here. If she wanted a real story, she needed Gabe. He was her purpose.
* * *
Gabe’s mind cleared on the way to the line. He threw back his shoulders and sucked in a deep breath. Up on the mountain, the smoke wasn’t as bad as it had been at the camp. It skimmed over their heads to settle in the valley like a rumpled blanket.
The incline grew steeper, the dust-dry brush thicker, slowing their progress. From this altitude he could see the orange glow of the sun that had been obliterated in the valley. Above them floated the wisps of cirrus clouds preceding a front.
He swung around to inspect his unit strung along the trail, the loose gaits, the flashing grins, and suddenly felt very old. The next oldest in his crew was a decade younger. He turned to walk a little faster. He’d be damned if these kids could out-hike him.
Peyton trudged along with the others. She had to be in excellent shape in order to get her fire card, but endurance didn’t concern him. Training was nothing compared to facing the dragon up close.
She saw him looking at her and trekked on over, leaving the group in order to angle up the mountain toward him. She had guts, he had to give her that. If she’d been on more fires, she’d know better than to try to talk to him. Even Kim, who had been with him more summers than anyone else, didn’t talk to him on a hike. Beyond Michaels, his team watched with interest, waiting for him to shred the new girl.
But his heart wasn’t in it. Maybe it was curiosity about this woman. That was all it could be.
“I agreed to this for one shift only,” he said. “After this fire is contained, you’re out. You do your job without question, just like the rest of my crew. Got it?”
Her chin had tightened stubbornly as he spoke and he prepared for an argument, but she merely nodded. Okay. Something was not quite right with her not saying anything. After all, she’d come over here. So why was he the one wanting to ask questions?
He settled on, “You drinking plenty of water?”
“I’m fine.” She stumbled, belying her words, and he resisted the urge to reach out to assist her. She wanted to see what the job entailed, she better stay on her feet.
“You’ll be more comfortable on the trail.”
“I’ll be all right.”
Damn, she was hard-headed. Determination, he understood. Stubbornness just to prove she could do it was something else. “This is the easy part. We have a thirty-degree incline ahead of us.”
She grimaced. “And when we get there?” she asked, a little out of breath.
He showed no mercy, couldn’t afford to. Besides, if he kept up this pace, maybe she’d go back to the others. How long could he keep up the curiosity excuse?
“You know the drill. We cut line, cut down trees, stop the fire and go home.”
“As simple as that?”
This time he stumbled. “Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t.”
She snatched her hand back from where she’d reached out to steady him. “You really love this, don’t you? The whole ‘my crew can do what no other crew can do’ mindset.”
He cast her an incredulous glance. “Are you giving me attitude, rookie?”
“I wasn’t aware you needed any.”
Now she was giving him mouth. No one in fire camp—outside Jen—had ever spoken to him like that. He kind of liked the awe with which most of the firefighters regarded him.
He kind of liked the attitude too.
He slowed to get a look at her. She already appeared exhausted. She’d removed her fire shirt and wore a white T-shirt so fitted it couldn’t be cool. Her lacy bra was visible through the thin knit. She’d pulled back her hair and locks of it fell toward her face, brushing the skin of her cheek, her throat. He thought, just for a second, to push her hair back into place but tamped down the urge, instead thinking her exposed skin was going to blister all to hell.
He gave his attention back to the trail where it belonged. “So why are you doing this? There are easier ways to get the story.”
“Do I seem the type to take the easy way?” She sidestepped an outcropping of rock with an agility he hadn’t expected.
“I don’t know,” he drawled. “I haven’t seen enough of you to know.”
He bit back a chuckle when she blushed. Had he stumbled onto some guilt over their sexual attraction?
“Put your fire shirt on, Michaels, and go back with the crew.” He kicked at the smoke hanging low on the ground. The smoke could hide the fire; they could come up on it without warning. The sheer challenge of the lethal hide and seek thrilled him. “It won’t be long now.”
The dragon was close.

​Hot Shot is available at all retailers!
​

Griffin Douglas leaned back against the side of the hot tub, every muscle in his body aching. Too many hours on the mountain in the cold. Sure, he’d done this his whole life, but he wasn’t as young as he used to be.
Even his toenails hurt.
This year was his last shot, though. He had one more chance at winning the World Cup in alpine skiing, then hopefully a medal in the Winter Games, before he got too old. 
So he was going to have to live with the pain, and learn how to treat it.
Thus, the hot tub.
He leaned his head back and looked up at the stars overhead. Steam rose from the bubbling water, obscuring his vision a bit, making the stars waver and blur. He was glad to have access to the hot tub, on the deck of the Running Deer Ski Lodge. He was even more glad that no one else had braved the frigid temperatures to take advantage of it, because he had the deck to himself. He could let his mind wander back over the day’s skiing. What he’d done wrong, what he’d done right.
One of the things he’d done wrong was going up that one last time. He’d thought he was in good shape after skiing all summer in South America, but man. The courses there hadn’t been outlined the way this one was, and some of those turns had hurt.
He hoped the decision didn’t cost him this weekend in the downhill race. He needed to come in the top five to bring up his ranking to increase his chance of being chosen for the U. S. team. So he replayed the course in his head, the twists, the dips, and worked out how he could improve his time, each step of the way.
The door to the lodge opened—he heard the noise from inside grow louder and then become muffled again—and he lifted his head to see who had joined him. 
The woman who walked toward him was long and slim, even wrapped in the thick robe from the resort. Her hair was pulled back in a messy ponytail, revealing delicate features and big eyes. She crossed straight to the hot tub and stood over him, smiling down.
“Hey, mind if I join you?”
Man, he did not have time for a flirtation, for a woman seeking him out. Okay, sure, that sounded conceited, but ever since his first appearance in the Games when he was twenty, well, women had been interested. And he just didn’t have time to deal with the distraction right now. He’d rented a cabin on the property instead of staying in the lodge to be away from people.
But he couldn’t exactly deny her access to the hot tub. 
So he drew his legs in and sat up straighter, lifting his hand out of the water to motion that she was welcome to join him. 
She loosened her robe and draped it over a nearby chair, and he had to concentrate to keep his expression neutral.
Long and slim, yes, but with curves in all the right places in the sporty two-piece bathing suit she wore. Her legs and arms as she stretched to drape the robe were toned, her stomach cut. When she turned back to him, lifting her arms over her head to readjust her ponytail, she smiled.
“Long day on the mountain,” she said, and stepped into the water.
Her big long-lidded eyes closed for a moment in pleasure as the heat seeped into her, then she opened them again and sat across from him, ducking so even her shoulders were immersed. She closed her eyes again, and he knew he should avert his gaze, but he just couldn’t.
No time for this, Griff.
He told himself not to ask questions, not to engage, but his curiosity overwhelmed him. “You’re a skier?” Most people at the resort were. Duh, Griff.
“Yup. Today wasn’t fun, though. Ski patrol put a call out for help finding a missing little boy. It all ended well, though.”
He must have been on the mountain at the time, because he hadn’t heard that call. “That was good of you to go look.”
She lifted a hand. “I do search and rescue part time. The team leader today knows me, knows I was here. I couldn’t say no.”
He leaned forward, his curiosity betraying him. “For real? How did you get into that?”
She fidgeted with her ponytail. “Oh, well, you know, I love being on the mountain, and there’s not really a lot of ways to get paid to do that.”
“So you’re ski patrol?”
Something shifted in her gaze. “No, I used to be, but that’s pretty time-intensive. I’m part time, usually on cases where they need more people, where they need someone who’s a trained paramedic.”
“And you are? A paramedic?” Why was he questioning her? He didn’t care, except yes, he did. 
A slight smile curved her full lips. “I am.”
“So what—if you don’t mind my asking—was the case today?”
“Little kid, separated from his parents, found himself really lost. Took four hours to find him. This time, they just needed bodies up on the mountain searching, no paramedic, thank God. I think the parents are either going to put a leash on him, or tie a bell around his neck or something. They were pretty frantic. And they’re from Texas, so not a lot of experience with snow.”
“Glad it ended well.” He wanted to ask more questions, but the side of him that would remain aloof told him to shut up. She wanted to relax, and he needed to. 
“Yeah, more often than not it does.” She trailed a hand through the bubbling water. “Otherwise I don’t know if I could keep doing it.” 
“That makes sense. So I guess in the summer you’re a paramedic?”
Her face scrunched into a sort of grimace. “Yes, that’s actually harder because it’s a lot more iffy on outcomes. So many car accidents. And, well, it’s not on the mountain.”
The questions just kept piling up in his head, like what made her want to be a paramedic in the first place. But he didn’t ask, instead shifted and eased his head back, closing his eyes and trying to close her out of his thoughts.
“So long day on the mountain for you, too?” she asked. 
“Yup. Too many runs.” But his conversation with her was making him forget the pains, was letting his muscles loosen. He knew his own tension at being able, or not, to qualify for the team was part of the reason he was in so much pain. If he could relax on the mountain, enjoy the skiing like he used to, he could probably do better. But he wasn’t in that mindset yet. 
He didn’t know how to get back there.
“Been there,” she said in commiseration, and leaned her own head back against the edge of the tub.
Because his mind had wandered, a second passed before he understood what she meant.
“I imagine you’ve seen some hairy accidents on the mountain, as well.”
“Oh, sure, but cars do a worse number on the human body than gravity does. I’ve seen plenty of bad accidents, more than my share of compound fractures.”
He sucked in a breath through his teeth. “I’ve had one of those.” He stretched his arm out in front of him and pointed to the scar on his right deltoid. He’d been lucky as hell he had broken his arm and not his leg, or that could have ended his career.
Her turn to draw in a breath. “Skiing?”
“Yup.”
She held up her arm, wrist out. “Skateboarding. I was trying to master dropping in on a ramp. Not a compound fracture but I had to have surgery and they put some screws in there. Needless to say, I did not get back on the ramp.”
Skateboarding? He was having trouble picturing her in a helmet and pads. “How old were you?”
“Oh, ten, eleven. My mom took me to the skatepark every week, until that happened. She tried to teach me to sew after that. I was not good at sitting still.”
He chuckled at that. “I have screws in this ankle.” He lifted his leg out of the water and pointed his toes the best he could, because face it, feet were ugly. “Also skiing.”
“And yet you get back on the mountain.”
He shrugged. “I was twelve at the time.”
She lifted her opposite leg and held her toes straight, as he’d done, and what had he been saying about feet being ugly? He had the weirdest urge to stroke his hand down the top of her foot. 
“No screws, but I did have to have surgery when I broke this one. Skydiving.”
That surprised him enough to look away from her shapely leg. “Skydiving?”
She lowered her leg back into the water. “I was convinced I wanted to be a smokejumper. The skydiving part was fun, but one summer on the mountain convinced me I’m a winter girl.”
“You were a smokejumper?” He was incredulous. He’d met some of those guys, and they took some big risks.
She shook her head. “No, a hot shot. I’m glad I didn’t do all that training. I might not have quit and would have just been miserable. But before I joined the crew, I went skydiving just to see if I’d like it.”
“Did you?”
“The first few times. The last time was when I broke my ankle. Have you ever gone?”
He shook his head. “I never have.”
“I have a friend who’s a pilot, if you ever decide to try it.”
Just what he needed, to kill his damn self jumping out of a plane. He’d never make the team if he was broken in a million pieces. But he didn’t want to say that to her. “Maybe.” He leaned forward, the ache in his body a whole different thing now. “What else did you want to be?”
She grinned. “Well, I went from hot shot to park ranger to ski patrol to paramedic to part-time search and rescue.”
He was absolutely riveted. “So you weren’t a paramedic when you were ski patrol?”
Her eyes sparkled in the light from the hot tub. “Not when I was full time, but I saw the benefit of becoming one. I hope to go back to using it full time soon. ”
He wondered what caused that comment. He didn’t recall being so curious about a woman before, but he supposed he’d never met a woman like her before either.
She angled her head at him. “I’ve been doing all the talking.”
“You have a lot more to say,” he countered, and she laughed, her head tilted back, that long sexy neck so inviting. He could almost feel it beneath his lips.
Wasn’t he just telling himself that he needed to stay focused? Like, just now telling himself that? And now he was focused on just one thing.
The wrong thing.
“You want to go get some dinner?”
“Um.” She looked at him, looked up at the stars. “Um. Sure. I guess. Okay. But only since I’ve been doing all of the talking and you’ve done none.” She reached her hand across the hot tub. “I’m Mackenzie. Since we haven’t really introduced ourselves.”
“Griff.”
“Okay, then. Meet in half an hour in the lobby?”
When he nodded, she braced her hands on the side of the tub and launched herself up and out. She did a full-body shake, then reached for her robe. Once she had it wrapped around herself, she looked over her shoulder at him still in the tub.
“See you in half an hour.”
As he watched her walk away without making a move to get out, he wondered what the hell he was thinking.


Mackenzie Burton shivered as she hurried through the warm lobby and up to her suite. Even though she and her nephew Paul lived only forty-five minutes away, his coach had wanted him staying in the resort before the race on Saturday. Right now she was both glad and anxious about that choice.
What was she doing agreeing to go to dinner with a strange man?
Okay, well, he wasn’t strange. He was Griff Davis, four-time member of the U. S. Team representing men in alpine skating, three-time medal winner in the Winter Games, if she recalled correctly. So she knew who he was. She just didn’t know the man.
She did find it interesting that he hadn’t said anything about being a professional skier, just acted like he was a regular guy with a tough day on the mountain. She wondered why. But she didn’t mind. Better than him being all, “Don’t you know who I am?” to get his way.
She probably should have skipped the hot tub. Searching for a little kid had taken a lot out of her, and the cold had seeped into her bones. But when James had called her, knowing she was in the area, needing her experience, she hadn’t been able to say no. After the stress of the day, even though it ended in the best way, she’d wanted some alone time.
When she’d seen someone was already in the hot tub, she should have just turned around and come back up to her room, settled for a hot shower.
But when she’d recognized Griff, well, she hadn’t been able to help herself.
She’d always thought he was cute when he was younger, dark-haired with those blue, blue eyes. Age had only improved him, carved his features even finer, and that scruff on his jaw was sexy as hell.
Her heart was jittery as she opened the door to her suite, called out, “Paul?”
Her nephew didn’t answer. He was eighteen now and they’d agreed she wouldn’t keep such close tabs on him. That allowed them each a bit of freedom. Right now she was relieved that he wasn’t here so she didn’t have to explain where she was going. But tomorrow she was going to remind him that she at least deserved the courtesy of knowing where he was as long as they lived together.
Now, however, she was grateful for privacy as she shrugged off her robe, peeled off her wet bathing suit and pawed through her suitcase, trying to decide what to wear. She didn’t want to take too long, didn’t want to make Griff wait, possibly change his mind, so she grabbed a sweater and tugged on her favorite leggings, checking the mirror to make sure they were as flattering as she remembered.
She needed to do something with her hair, which was currently scraped back in a ponytail, and she should at least put some eyeliner on. Maybe some eyeshadow. And mascara. And lip stain. She didn’t know why she’d packed all those things—she rarely used them.
What had she gotten herself into? She hadn’t wanted to impress a man in, well, she couldn’t remember how long. Taking in Paul six years ago had put a crimp in her love life. She’d managed to hook up every once in a while, but she hadn’t met anyone who wasn’t freaked out that she was a package deal with a teenager.
She was overthinking things. She had been fine out in the hot tub, when they had just been flirting. What did she really think was going to happen? He was a celebrity. She was a nobody. 
But who knew? 
The look on his face when she found him in the lobby by the fireplace made the additional effort she’d put into her appearance completely worth the fact that she may have taken over half an hour to get ready.
He motioned to a table on the other side of the double-sided fireplace, set for two, complete with wineglasses. “Since it’s so late, I was able to get us a good table. Okay with you?”
“Perfect,” she said, and let him hold her chair for her, and who did that anymore? “I’m not drinking right now, if it’s all the same.”
“No, neither am I.” He motioned for the waitress to remove the wine glasses and sat back in his chair. “The truffle ravioli is really good here.”
She knew what was good here, since Paul skied near the resort often, but she merely nodded. “Sounds rich.” 
“It is, but tasty.”
“What are you going to get?”
They both decided on a chicken dish with lemon dill sauce, which still sounded rich but less so than some of the other options.
She thought they’d have trouble picking up their conversation from the hot tub, but no, it flowed pretty easily. He wasn’t seeing anyone, had married once when he was younger, but it hadn’t worked out. No kids, a sister who was married to a retired Air Force colonel who lived in Texas now.
“She hated leaving Hawaii, though,” he said. “She had to give up surfing, but he wanted to be closer to his family.”
“Oh, surfing! That’s one thing the beach has over the mountains,” Mackenzie said with a sigh, almost able to smell the ocean.
He lifted an eyebrow. “You’ve surfed?”
She’d actually loved it, and if she didn’t love the mountains so much, she would totally move to the beach. “Oh, yes. I went to California one summer when I was on break from school and learned, and man, is it a rush. Have you gone?”
“I’ve been, but I think my paranoia about sharks probably kept me from enjoying it.”
She leaned forward. “You’re afraid of sharks?”
He turned his attention to the round loaf of bread the waitress brought to the table. “I wouldn’t say afraid so much as aware of the damage they can do.”
She laughed. “I saw a couple, when I was surfing, but they left me alone, thankfully.” She remembered that rush, the danger just a little more adrenaline-pumping than the actual sport.
He folded his arms on the table. “What other adventurous things have you done?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know that I’d call learning to surf adventurous.” 
“I mean, yeah, it is. So is skiing, I guess, and jumping out of planes.”
“You make me sound like an adrenaline junkie.”
“I mean, if the shoe fits.” He lifted his hand to indicate, well, her.
“I just like trying new things. I try to do one new thing a year.”
He narrowed his eyes. “If you’ve only done one new thing a year, based on what you’ve told me in the short time I’ve known you, you’d have to be fifty years old already.”
She grinned. “Well, maybe some years have had more adventure than others.”
“Okay, what have you done new this year?”
“Well. Hm.” She tapped her chin with her finger, enjoying the way he was studying her as she tried to remember. “I’ve done zip lining, and white-water rafting. I’m trying to remember what it was this year. I think it was rock climbing.”
His eyes widened in appreciation, and a warmth flowed through her. She hadn’t set out to impress him, she just liked to try new things. Take a few risks.
Ahem. Like now.

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Declan O’Hare slapped off the alarm and grunted. Why did he pick a career that woke him up so early in the morning? He should be used to it, since he had been waking at this hour since he was eight years old. Back then, he’d had no choice. Now he made the choice.
He rolled out of his empty bed—because what woman wanted to be awakened at four thirty in the morning?—dragged a hand over his hair in need of a cut, and pushed to his feet. 
After Lexi and Josh graduated high school, or moved on to a more advanced coach, he wasn’t going to take on any more students for a while. Maybe sleep until seven. Stay up to watch the late news. Or even a movie.
But now that school had started again, Lexi and Josh wanted to get in their lessons before their classes, so he met them at the rink at five and they practiced until around seven. They’d be back after school, too, so he’d be at the rink until seven or eight tonight, come home, shower and crash, then do it all again tomorrow morning. His only breaks were on Monday and Tuesday afternoons, when they had dance and gymnastics classes instead.
He shouldn’t complain, he knew, as he tugged on his sweats and padded into the kitchen for a to-go tumbler of coffee. These two ice dancers were insanely talented. They had what it took to go all the way. He’d been coaching them since they were about twelve, but he couldn’t take credit for the natural skill and grace the two of them had, or the work ethic. 
Because he owned the rink, he was paid for both their ice time and for coaching.
He was out of bed and out the door in fifteen minutes, even if he wasn’t fully awake.
He had a staff at the rink, of course, but since he had to be here this early anyway, he was the one to open up, get the lights on.
Yeah, he’d been fortunate to be able to buy this place with the winnings from the endorsement deals he’d gotten after winning gold in Sion. Probably, though, he shouldn’t have banked so much on the notoriety from those days, papering the lobby with his picture, including a big one of him on the podium holding his medal.
At least he’d had the sense—or the pettiness—to block Colby out of that picture.
But he couldn’t block out what had happened next. He had turned to Colby, his partner, on the podium, and went down on one knee. He hadn’t had a ring, but he’d been so overwhelmed with emotion, and they had been America’s Sweethearts at that time, anyway. The crowd had gone crazy. He remembered the confusion on her face, but she’d said yes, and he’d leapt up to fold her into a passionate kiss, and….
Yeah, he wished he hadn’t tied those two events together in his mind. Because everything, everything had gone downhill from there. A lifelong dream, and the beginning of a nightmare. 
He got all the lights turned on in the place—the lobby, where the parents waited, the snack bar, the gym, the rink, the office last. Then he sat behind his desk and reached for his skates. Since he had gotten out the door so quickly, he had time to get some skating in. 
Some days he was able to fit some in later in the day, after the morning rush, when most of the kids who came for lessons went to school, before he went into his office and attended to business, but this morning he needed to be on the ice first thing to kind of center him. He wasn’t sure why.
At the last minute before he stepped onto the ice, he decided to turn on the PA system, plugged his phone in and blasted a classic rock song through the speakers. Then he tossed his guards and skated onto the ice.
Usually he liked the peaceful sound of blades cutting through the ice. But today he wanted the pounding bass, the ringing guitar. He let the music pound through him as he skated the perimeter, gathering speed, before leaping into the air for a quick axel, landing on one blade, the momentum carrying him forward, nothing driving him but the pulse of the music and his love of skating.
Declan had skated with a partner for over twenty years, from the time he was eleven, and he’d liked it, but skating alone was freedom and joy.
The cold air of the rink stung his face, the scent of it more familiar to him than the scent of his own home, the shape of it familiar enough that he could close his eyes as he powered around. He indulged in his favorite jump, the toe pick, because it propelled him forward, and he used that momentum to do a split jump, landed, and skated half the perimeter before lowering his torso and raising his leg to go into a camel spin, his left leg straight behind him as he whipped his body around. Testing his strength, he lifted his left leg in front of him and lowered his body over the spinning skate, his knee giving some protest at the move, but he pressed on. The end of his left skate sent bits of ice flying as he spun before using the last of his strength to stand again.
He was breathing heavily as  he skated to a stop, hands on his hips, his knee throbbing a little. He kept limber with yoga and Pilates, but apparently thirty-three-year-old knees didn’t care.
The applause caught him off-guard, and he looked up to see his students, Josh and Lexi, and their moms, Melina and Cynthia, clapping and cheering as he took a slight bow. 
He didn’t see the fifth person until he skated over, until his phone’s playlist advanced to the next song, even as his brain screeched to a halt.
Colby Martin stood with them, her hands tucked in her puffy silver jacket, not applauding, just staring at him. 
Colby Martin.
His ex-partner, his ex-best friend.
His ex-wife.


“Declan, we took your advice and hired a choreographer for the kids,” Melina said, stepping forward, holding one of her hands out.
Why, Declan didn’t know, and he skated back a bit out of her reach, wishing he’d never turned the stupid music on, because it was blasting and he couldn’t think, and he couldn’t get over to the system to turn it off without passing Colby, who was just…watching him. Not saying anything.
“There are other choreographers,” he said, sharper than he intended, skating down to the other entrance to the rink. His guards were on the floor near Josh and Lexi, but he didn’t care. He’d take his skates off. Anything to get the music off.
By the time he reached the other entrance, Josh was there, offering his skate guards, which Declan took gratefully. Not the kid’s fault his mother hired Declan’s worst nightmare.
“No one is taking new clients,” Cynthia said, following her daughter down to Declan.
“Josh, can you shut off the bloody music?” Declan asked through his teeth as he slapped the skate guards on the blades.
Josh seemed just as grateful to get away, nodding and running up the stairs to the PA controls.
And then the place was silent, just the two hopeful mothers, the young skaters who appeared uncomfortable, and Colby.
All the peace Declan had built was erased, and he stormed up the steps to the lobby.
No one else had arrived yet, thank God, but they’d be coming soon. His students had the ice to themselves right now, and he was wasting their time, but really, he was furious.
“Go warm up,” he said to Lexi, gruffer than he intended. Honestly, he wanted to go into his office and slam the door, but he had an obligation to these kids, and to their parents. “Excuse us,” he said to Colby, and ushered the mothers through the door into his office. He knew that didn’t afford them much privacy, since it was a hollow core door. But at least he wouldn’t have Colby looking at him while he confronted the women. 
He took a seat behind his desk in the small room, but the mothers did not sit in the chairs he gestured to.
“You have to know how difficult it would be to work with her,” he said, wishing he’d had more time to think out his response. “You no doubt know our history.”
“Yes, of course, but she said it would be okay with her. She would be fine working with you,” Cynthia said.
He looked at the woman he had known for years like he was looking at a stranger. “Why didn’t you ask me if I’d be fine working with her?”
“The two of you made such a good team! You won gold! I thought it was kismet when she was available,” Melina said.
“She’s available because she’s extremely difficult to work with.” She hadn’t always been, but the better they’d gotten, the more of a diva she’d become. “And who do you think would know that better than I do?”
“I’m sorry, Declan. We just assumed you’d be professional about this,” Melina said with a small, hurt sniff.
Oh, no, they were not going to put this on him. “You thought I’d be professional?” He’d raised his voice and hadn’t meant to. He glanced toward the door, certain Colby was on the other side of it, listening to everything. He decided he didn’t care. No one had hurt him like she did. No one.
“We want the best for our kids. We want them to have the same chances you did. That’s why we hired you, and that’s why we hired her.”
“Look, can she not just devise the routine, and you implement it?” Cynthia asked. “It’s not like you’d have to work with her for long. Or she can work with them, then you can? Take turns? We really did a lot of investigating into this. No one else was taking clients this year. Please, Declan.”
“You don’t know what you’re asking.” He couldn’t believe he had to keep saying it. Figure skating was a small world, sure, and he hadn’t had to encounter her in the past eight years, mainly because she had gone to Los Angeles, hoping to make it big in acting. He hadn’t heard she’d come back to Aspen, hadn’t heard she’d come back to skating.
He wondered why.
“Could you talk to her?” Melina asked. “Just see if there’s something the two of you can work out?”
“You’re putting your kids in the middle of this,” he said, one last shot at appealing to them. He honestly wanted to tell them to find another coach, but he’d been working with these kids since they were twelve, and he genuinely liked them. He’d known time would come when he’d have to, if not give them up to more experienced coaches, at least give up some of the control he had, to share them with another coach. But he’d never expected to be forced to work with Colby.
“Please, just talk to her. She seemed to think there would be no problem, so maybe she has a solution you haven’t thought of.”
“I need to get to your kids’ lesson,” he said. “If Colby wants to stick around to talk to me when we’re done, that’s fine. I’ll talk to her then.”
Maybe by then he would have figured out what to say. Or she would give up and leave. 
Yeah. Sure. Unlikely.
As he expected, when he opened the door, she was standing just outside it, still silent, making him want to scream.
But he had to rein it in, get to Josh and Lexi so they could take advantage of their two hour block before they had to go to school. 
“Come back at nine,” he said brusquely, not exactly meeting her gaze, but not exactly avoiding it, either. 
She was still so beautiful, smooth skin, big blue eyes accented with perfect makeup, that shiny hair that was not quite brown, not quite red, piled in a messy bun on her head. Those full lips that brought back so many pleasant memories, and through which such nasty things had been said.
“I’m going to stay and watch,” she said. “I need to know what these kids can do before I design a program for them.”
He grunted, since he’d kind of expected she’d say something like that. He didn’t relish the idea of her watching him, judging him as he worked with the kids he’d coached for four years now. 
“You stay in here, not out there.”
“It’s not right, you know,” she said as he opened the door to the rink, standing in the blast of cold air. “You cropped me out of all these pictures.”
“Not all of them,” he said, and pointed to a picture where just the toe of her skate made it into the photo.
With that, he walked out.

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