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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