Dearest Reader,

How lovely of you to come to my one hundredth book! After all, you were there when it all began, and I certainly couldn’t have done any of this without you. It’s hard to believe that seventeen years have passed since I stepped out of the shower, seven months pregnant with my second child, to take a phone call from my agent that would change my entire life. She’d called to tell me I’d sold my first novel, Tried and True, to Silhouette Desire. The struggling writer had finally made it to the gates of the Promised Land. The rest, as they say, is history. A very long and fruitful history for which I never stop being grateful. Although I’ve had my favorites, I can truly say that I loved writing each and every story that found its way to the Silhouette imprint. I’ve tried to write the kind of stories that I’ve always enjoyed reading, stories with warmth and humor, and that leave me with a smile at the end. I sincerely hope they do the same for you and that they have found a place in your hearts the way they have in mine.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to start on the second hundred. Thanking you from the bottom of my heart for always being there, I wish you happiness and love.

Sincerely yours,

Dear Reader,

You asked for more ROYALLY WED titles and you’ve got them! For the next four months we’ve brought back the Stanbury family—first introduced in a short story by Carla Cassidy on our eHarlequin.com Web site. Be sure to check the archives to find Nicholas’s story! But don’t forget to pick up Stella Bagwell’s The Expectant Princess and discover the involving story of the disappearance of King Michael.

Other treats this month include Marie Ferrarella’s one hundredth title for Silhouette Books! This wonderful, charming and emotional writer shows her trademark warmth and humor in Rough Around the Edges. Luckily for all her devoted readers, Marie has at least another hundred plots bubbling in her imagination, and we’ll be seeing more from her in many of our Silhouette lines.

Then we’ve got Karen Rose Smith’s Tall, Dark & True about a strong, silent sheriff who can’t bear to keep quiet about his feelings any longer. And Donna Clayton’s heroine asks Who Will Father My Baby?—and gets a surprising answer. No Place Like Home by Robin Nicholas is a delightful read that reminds us of an all-time favorite movie—I’ll let you guess which one! And don’t forget first-time author Roxann Delaney’s debut title, Rachel’s Rescuer.

Next month be sure to return for The Blacksheep Prince’s Bride by Martha Shields, the next of the ROYALLY WED series. Also returning are popular authors Judy Christenberry and Elizabeth August.

Happy reading!

Mary-Theresa Hussey

Senior Editor

Rough Around the Edges
Marie Ferrarella

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Leslie Wainger and Pat Teal, with me at one and still with me at one hundred.

Thank you, with love and gratitude,

Marie

Praise for bestselling author
MARIE FERRARELLA

“Marie Ferrarella shines among the brightest stars….”

—Romantic Times Magazine

“Ms. Ferrarella has created another enchanting romance with style, passion, and unforgettable characters.”

—Rendezvous

“Ms. Ferrarella demonstrates a mastery of the storytelling art as she creates charming characters, witty dialogue and an emotional storyline that will tug at your heartstrings.”

—Romantic Times Magazine

“Ms. Ferrarella’s engaging style leaves readers wanting more.”

—Rendezvous

“As usual, Ms. Ferrarella finds just the right balance of love, laughter, charm and passion.”

—Romantic Times Magazine

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter One

The wide, gregarious smile that had become his trademark faded the moment Shawn Michael O’Rourke stepped outside the Irish-style pub he’d discovered his second weekend in Bedford, California.

There was nothing to smile about and no reason to pretend any longer. There was no one to see him. His friends were all inside.

Ordinarily, meeting and sharing a pint or two at the Shamrock with his friends would smooth over whatever was troubling O’Rourke at the time. He wasn’t a happy-go-lucky man, but he met life head-on, facing what it brought and moving on. But this was no ordinary situation and he was worried.

Worried clear down to the bone, as his grandmother used to say.

The light showers that were falling when he’d entered the pub had turned into a full-fledged storm while he’d been inside. He turned the collar of his jacket up, but it did little to keep the March rain off his neck. He hunched his shoulders in. But it was more than the rain that was making him feel beaten down.

There had to be something he could do.

He knew that if he didn’t come up with a solution—and soon—everything he’d worked for these past few years, everything he’d dreamed of over these past ten years, would mean nothing. He’d be done for. It didn’t seem fair that a random act of birth could have such an effect on a man’s life, a man’s future and that of his family’s.

O’Rourke hurried to the rear of the building, to the postage-stamp-size parking lot that was filled to capacity tonight. He dug into his pocket for his car keys.

Had he been born on the other side of the Atlantic, today would have been just another day in his life, a day in which he was working toward the culmination of his dream.

Instead, it was one day less he had. One day closer to when he had to leave. Leave the country, leave his hopes and his dreams. Sure, he could attempt to start over again back home in Ireland. After all, the dream had begun there, in his head. But it was right here, in a converted loft in Bedford’s Industrial Plaza, that all the visible components were housed.

To Shawn Michael O’Rourke, America really was the land of opportunity. He’d found everything he’d needed on this side of the ocean: the education he required and the financial backers, both men of experience and dreamers like himself. Dreamers who weren’t content only to dream, but to do.

All that wouldn’t mean anything anymore come thirteen days from today. That was his deadline. In thirteen days, he was to be gone from these shores. To return home just another failed dreamer.

Muttering words under his breath he knew his late, sainted mother would have taken a very dim view of, O’Rourke got into his van. The rain followed him in, covering the steering wheel and everything else in its path with a fine layer of mist before he shut the door. He hardly noticed. He jammed his key into the ignition and turned it. The motor hummed to life, along with the CD he’d left in his CD player, a compilation of songs from the seventies and eighties. He loved everything American.

Gloria Gayner began extolling the need to find some “hot stuff” as he drove out of the parking lot. He didn’t need any hot stuff, he thought. He needed a miracle, pure and simple.

O’Rourke frowned as he looked out the windshield. It wasn’t the state of his brain but the rain that was beating down that made it hard for him to see. Had he imbibed enough at the Shamrock to cloud his mind, he would have happily continued until he would have gotten good and drunk.

No, he wouldn’t have, he thought, turning down another street. Drinking to the point where his problem no longer seemed important was only a temporary fix, one with a huge price tag on in. Namely the morning after. Tying one on with his friends would only bring him a huge headache and interfere with his being able to think.

He needed to be clearheaded. There were responsibilities weighing on his shoulders, people depending on him, both here and in Ireland. People he was going to let down in thirteen days. Not that anyone would say anything. But he’d feel as if he was letting them down.

Damn, there had to be a way.

Without realizing it, he fingered the St. Jude medal he wore, a last gift from his mother, as he waited for the light to change. St. Jude, patron saint of lost causes. That had been him, once, a lost cause, until something had brought him around, taking him away from a life of carousing to something far more steady. His mother swore it was her prayers to the saint whose medal he wore around his neck. He figured it was his finally coming to grips with his father’s death that had done it.

Maybe if he thought long enough and hard enough, he’d come up with a solution. One that would keep him from being sent back to his native Ireland with his tail between his legs now that his visa, and every single extension he could put on it, was finally up.

The streets he was driving through were close to being deserted, even though it was only a little after nine in the evening. On a night like tonight, people stayed in their homes.

And that’s where he should be, O’Rourke decided. Home. For as long as it still was home to him.

He noticed that the rain seemed to be coming down harder. Angel’s tears, his mother used to say. She also said the angels were shedding the tears because of him.

He could see her, even now, fixing him a look with those deep blue eyes of hers, her arms crossed before her as she watched him come staggering in in the wee hours of the morning. Following the same path his late father had before him.

“When are you ever going to amount to something, Shawn Michael? You’re my firstborn, boyo. What am I going to say to my Maker when the time comes to face him and let him know what I did with the life he sent me to guide?”

O’Rourke smiled now, his mother’s words echoing in his head as clearly as if she’d actually spoken them. “You died before I could show you, eh, Mum?” he murmured to the memory that existed in his mind. “Except, I guess I won’t be showing you at that, not if this fine government has its way,” he added with a sigh as he turned down the next block.

Kitt Dawson didn’t think the day could get much worse. But each time she had thought that today, fate, with its twisted sense of humor, had gone out of its way to prove her wrong.

Kitt gritted her teeth together, grabbing on to the steering wheel even though she wasn’t moving. Here it came, another one. Another killer contraction. She held her breath, praying for it to end.

The top of her head felt as if it was going to come off. And then the contraction ebbed away, leaving her shaken, sweaty and scared.

She loosened her fingers from around the steering wheel. The baby wasn’t due for another two weeks. The fact that it was coming didn’t really surprise her, not beyond the initial salvo of disbelief when her water broke fifteen minutes ago. Nothing was going the way it should have gone today, why should this be any different?

It was a day for the record books. She’d lost her job because the aerospace company she was working for had lost its contract. She’d come home, hoping for a word of comfort, only to discover that she’d lost the foundation of her life as well. Jeffrey, the man to whom she’d given her heart, not to mention half her apartment, had left. Cleaned out the apartment the way he never had while they were living together. He’d taken everything of worth, including the new car he was supposed to have taken in for an oil change today. Taken it and every single dime she had in the world. He’d cleaned out the joint bank account as neatly as he had the apartment.

It had been her bank account, really. She’d been the one to put the money in. The only time he touched it was to take money out. She’d made herself a million excuses, saying things would get better once Jeffrey was back on his feet again.

He’d found his feet all right, she thought now. Found them and used them to run off with her things and the leggy brunette down the hall.

She should have seen it coming, Kitt upbraided herself. Maybe she had at that, but had refused to acknowledge it because love was blind. And she had loved Jeffrey. Dearly.

And now she was paying for it. Also dearly.

Okay, so love was blind, but she was supposed to have brains.

She was also supposed to have an umbrella, she thought as she looked through the windshield of her dead car with mounting exasperation.

It was raining. Not drizzling the way the weatherman had laughingly promised, but raining. Building-an-ark-and-collecting-two-of-everything kind of raining. And her car, the second-hand lemon that had actually belonged to Jeffrey, had just died a few feet passed the intersection, refusing to come back to life.

Just like Jeffrey after he’d discovered that she was pregnant, she thought, struggling hard not to give in to bitterness.

Well, the car was not about to suddenly rise from the dead and the rain was not about to abate. She had no choice but to get out and walk.

“It just keeps getting better and better,” she muttered, snapping off her seat belt.

Opening the door, Kitt wiggled out from behind the steering wheel she was wedged against. Another contraction began to build. Kitt froze. The pain that ran through her felt almost lethal, stealing her breath away with a vengeance. She had to get to the hospital. Now. She was in no mood to give birth on the corner of MacArthur and Fairview.

The way her luck was running, the next thing that would happen would be a flash flood.

With growing despair, she looked up and down the street. Nothing.

Why didn’t they have cabs prowling the streets here? She’d heard they did that in the big cities, why was that a restricted practice? For that matter, where was a police car when you needed one? If she’d gone through that light, she bet one would have popped out of the ground with a pre-printed ticket on the dashboard.

Maybe that wasn’t fair, but she didn’t feel very fair right now. She felt angry and cheated and in pain.

The rain lashed at her from all directions, pushed around by the wind that went first one way, then another. Kitt struggled to keep her orientation. She started to feel dizzy.

Thoughts began to slip in and out of her head like pulses of lights on a faulty circuit.

Maybe she could find a phone and call 911. The police were bound to get here faster than any cab she’d call.

Now all she had to do was find a phone.

Now all she had to do was see in this godforsaken awful weather, she amended. It seemed as if actual sheets of rain were coming down, wiping out any visibility beyond two, maybe three feet. Squinting, Kitt could barely make out the traffic signal across the street.

A haloed green ball of light shone like a feeble beacon. Kitt stepped off the curb, praying she could get across the street before another contraction hit, incapacitating her. Biting her lower lip, her head down against the wind, she tried to cross the intersection as quickly as possible.

Her own bulk combined with the lashing rain slowed her down. The light turned yellow just as she’d made it hardly more than halfway across the street. Pushing herself, she strove to move faster. Her eyes were half closed, trying to keep the rain at bay.

The squeal of brakes from the oncoming vehicle had her screaming in response. The next second, there was water hitting her not just from above, but from the street as well, drenching her legs as her foot made contact with the sidewalk.

Everything started to swirl around in her head. Kitt reached out to steady herself, but there was nothing to grab onto. She vaguely thought she heard a man’s voice shouting at her.

Or maybe that was to her, she wasn’t sure. It didn’t seem important.

Her outstretched hands made contact with cement. Hard. Tearing at the fleshy part of her palms and making them sting.

She’d fallen.

The thought telegraphed itself through her brain at the same instant the pain registered. The next second, she felt someone cradling her.

“Are you all right?” There was a hint of a lilting accent in the deep voice. There was more than a hint of concern.

With effort, Kitt managed to bring the world back into focus. Some man she’d never seen was holding her against him.

“No, I’m not all right. I’m pregnant,” she snapped. Angry at the world at large and frightened, Kitt tried to sit up. She couldn’t. The man asking the stupid question was holding her.

My God, he’d almost hit a pregnant woman with his van, O’Rourke thought, trying to shake off the numbing fear the realization created. Rapidly pulling his wits about him, O’Rourke looked at her, searching for signs of bleeding.

“You came out of nowhere.”

“I came out of my car,” she contradicted him curtly. “And I was trying to cross the street. Didn’t anyone ever teach you how to drive?” She yanked her arm away from him and tried vainly to gain her feet. She felt like a turtle flipped onto its back. A huge, pregnant turtle.

“I didn’t hit you, did I?” Swiftly, O’Rourke ran his hands up and down her limbs, checking for any damage. “I mean—”

Where the hell did he come off, trying to touch her? What was wrong with him? Again she tried to get to her feet, but between the rain, her labor pains and the exhaustion that was sinking in, it was beginning to feel like an impossible feat.

“Look, I’m in labor.” At least she could manage to push his hands away, which she did. “I would really, really prefer if you didn’t try to cop a feel or mug me right now.”

O’Rourke sat back on his heels, ignoring the rain falling into his eyes. “I’m just checking for broken bones—” His mouth fell open. “Labor?”

She bit her lower lip, trying very hard to focus on something other than the pain. Trying very hard not to get hysterical.

“Yes, labor,” she ground out.

What the hell was she doing wandering around in her condition? “You shouldn’t be out on a night like this.” O’Rourke looked around, trying to spot someone who might have been with her. But there was no one on the street and only one car had passed since he’d darted out of his van. “Especially not alone.”

“Not my choice,” she bit off. Turning, she tried to get to her knees. The pain had her gasping. And then suddenly, just like that, in the middle of her contraction, she was airborne. The pain left. The surprise didn’t. The stranger had picked her up.

Rising to his feet, O’Rourke couldn’t help marveling at the woman in his arms. She didn’t feel as if she weighed enough to be having a baby, not even sopping wet. But there certainly was no arguing with the huge mound that met his eye. The woman was definitely swollen with life. Stepping back with her, he took momentary shelter under the awning of a shop that sold bridal gowns.

O’Rourke glanced down the length of the block. He saw a car, its hazard lights on, in the opposite intersection. “Is that your car?”

Kitt nodded her head. “It’s dead. I need 911. An ambulance,” she added when he said nothing.

The pain came again, harder and faster than before. Bent on breaking her in half from the inside out. Without realizing it, Kitt dug her fingers into his arm, squeezing hard.

Even through his jacket, he could feel the intensity of her grasp. For a little woman, her strength was surprising.

“How far apart are they?” She looked at him with wide, dazed eyes. “The contractions,” he prompted. “How far apart are you having them?”

Her breath and voice returned as the pain receded. She all but went limp in the stranger’s arms. “I haven’t timed them.”

“Guess.”

She said nothing, but grasped his arm again, harder this time.

“Okay, I’ll guess for you,” O’Rourke said, a sinking feeling taking hold of the pit of his stomach. “Not far apart at all.”

Released from the contraction’s viselike grip, Kitt began to pant. That had been an exceedingly hard one. How much worse was this going to get? She was afraid to find out. Really afraid.

“Good guess,” she rasped, trying valiantly to maintain a brave front. “Do you have a cell phone?”

“Not yet.” It was something he’d been promising himself to get. Now there didn’t seem to be any reason. Not if they deported him.

She closed her eyes, searching for strength. It only made the spinning in her head intensify. Kitt opened her eyes again, looking directly at the man who was still holding her.

“Great, the only other person in Southern California without a cell phone and I had to run into him.” She looked toward what she’d thought was a public phone from across the street. But there was an Out of Order sign taped across it. “We need to get to a phone. I need an ambulance.”

He heard the hitch of rising hysteria in her voice. And then she was clutching at him again, her nails digging into his chest this time. Less than one minute had elapsed between contractions. She was going to give birth any second.

“You need more than that, ma’am.” O’Rourke looked around, but everything looked closed for the night. “You’re having the baby.”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you.”

“Now,” he emphasized. He saw panic beginning to etch its way into her features even though he’d only put into words what he knew she had to already be thinking. “Don’t worry, I’ll help you,” he promised.

There was no place else to go. He had to put her in the back of his van. At least she could lie down there. As long as he pushed back some of the computer equipment he’d packed on the van’s floor.

“Are you a doctor?” she asked warily.

Something else his mother had wished unsuccessfully. O’Rourke smiled as he shook his head.

“No, a brother.”

Her head was swimming again. Kitt desperately tried to make sense of what she was hearing. Rain was falling in her face again. They had moved out from under the shelter of the awning. Was that a good thing?

“You mean like some religious order?”

Leaning her against him, he did a quick balancing act and opened the rear doors of his van. “No, like a sibling who saw a fair number of his brothers and sisters come into the world.”

“This isn’t exactly a spectator sport,” she said.

As gently as possible, he lay her on the floor of his van, then hopped up in beside her. There was no blanket available. Stripping off his jacket, O’Rourke turned it inside out and bunched it up, creating a makeshift pillow for her head.

Lifting her head slightly, he slipped his jacket beneath her. “Don’t worry, I know what to do.” At least, he hoped he remembered. He gave the woman what he hoped was his most confident smile. “My mother used to give birth so fast, there was no time to get her to the doctor or have the midwife come to her.”

Kitt could feel another contraction taking root. She licked incredibly dry lips and wished she was six again. Six and sitting in her family room, watching cartoons. Or eighteen and taking her college boards. Any place but here, any time but now.

“So you helped?” she heard herself ask as she mentally tried to scramble away from the pain there was no escaping.

O’Rourke saw the look in her eyes and took her hand, holding it tight. She held it tighter. “I was the oldest of six.”

She felt as if she was in a doomed race. Kitt began to breathe hard. “You’re sure you’re…not some…weirdo who gets…off…on this kind of thing?”

She was pretty, he thought. Even in pain, with her blond hair pasted against her face, she was pretty. Leaning forward, he brushed the wet hair from her forehead, wishing there was some way to make her comfortable. “Not very trusting, are you?”

That was a laugh. “I have absolutely no reason to be-e-e-e.” Arching, she rose off the floor and screamed the last part against his ear.

O’Rourke took a deep breath, shaking his head as if that could help him get rid of the ringing. “So much for tuning pianos,” he quipped, drawing back. She was shaking. The only thing he had to offer her was his sweater. “I know it’s not comfortable, but it’s the best I can do right now.”

Her eyes widened as she saw him stripping off the sweater. He was some kind of weirdo. A weirdo with what looked like a washboard stomach.

Her purse, where was her purse? She had pepper spray in there if she could just get to it. “What are you doing?”

He tucked his sweater around her upper torso as best he could. It wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing. “Trying to keep you warm.”

He sat back on his heels, taking her hand again. “What’s your name?”

“Kitt—with two t’s. Kitt Dawson.”

“Please to meet you, Kitt with two t’s.” Shifting his hand so that hers slipped into his, he shook it. “I’m Shawn Michael O’Rourke.”

It was coming. Another contraction. She tried to brace herself. “That’s some mouthful.”

He grasped her hand again, sensing another contraction was about to seize her. “My friends call me O’Rourke.”

Her eyes met his. It was blurry inside his van. “And are we going to be friends?”

He grinned. “Well, Kitt-with-two-t’s, we’re certainly going to be something after tonight.”

In response, Kitt screamed again.

Chapter Two

Kitt’s scream echoed in his head, making his ears ring.

“I guess this means it’s showtime, so to speak,” O’Rourke said, bracing himself.

He only hoped he was up to this.

True, he’d helped his mother when it came to be her time, but Sarah O’Rourke gave birth so easily it was almost as if she were a mother hen laying eggs. There was nary a whimper out of her, not even once. Just biting down on what she’d come to call her “birthing stick” and within a half an hour, O’Rourke found himself with a new little brother or sister. He always felt that his mother had simply had him in attendance, off to the side, on the off chance that something went wrong. He’d held her hand, mostly, and mopped her brow.

His father was never around for the momentous occasions. James O’Rourke was too busy trying to earn enough money to support all the hungry little mouths he and Sarah kept bringing into the world.

Standing there, holding his mother’s hand, O’Rourke had thought little of it then. It was just the circle of life continuing, nothing more. The impact of it was never as great as it was at this moment. This was some strange woman he was helping.

What if…?

O’Rourke refused to let his mind go there. He had no time for “what-ifs.” The woman was screaming again like a bloody banshee, arching so that she looked as if she was trying to execute some incredibly convoluted yoga position from the inside out.

O’Rourke tried to think, to remember. His mother had always seemed so calm about it.

“Gravity’ll help you, Kitt.” Suddenly inspired, he grasped Kitt by the shoulders and positioned her so that her shoulders were propped up against the wall of boxes in the van.

Wearing a thin cotton blouse that was soaked clear down to the skin, Kitt felt the rough cardboard digging into her back. For the first time, as the twisting corkscrew of pain abated for a moment, she noticed her surroundings. There were boxes everywhere. Big boxes. Was he some kind of bootlegger?

“What…what is all this?” She tried to crane her neck, her hands resting protectively around her swollen belly. “Are…you…a…smuggler?”

O’Rourke bit back a laugh. “Why? Do I look like a smuggler?”

She looked at him with eyes that were beginning to well up with pain again. “You…look…” She searched for a word. “Dangerous.”

He’d certainly never thought of himself in that light. “Dangerous?”

She hadn’t meant to insult him. He was trying to help her. “The…good…kind of…dangerous.”

Amusement curved his mouth even as she clutched at his hand again, squeezing his fingers hard. “There’s a good kind?”

“Yes…like you.” With his black hair and bright blue eyes, half naked, he made her think of some kind of tortured, poetic hero. “Dangerous…the kind who…lives…on the edge.” She blew out a long, cleansing breath, knowing another contraction was about to smash into her. She talked quickly, wanting to get it all out before she couldn’t. “Makes a woman’s heart flutter. That’s my problem. I’m attracted to the window dressing—only to find out that the sale’s been over…for months.”

The pain was making her delirious, O’Rourke decided. Maybe this wasn’t such a piece of cake as he’d hoped. Stories he’d heard from his mother about two-day-long labors came back to him.

He looked past the woman’s head toward the front of the van. Maybe there was time to drive her to some hospital after all.

Kitt grabbed his attention and his arm, digging in her nails and crying out.

And then again, maybe not, he amended.

“I’m breaking,” she screamed to him. “I’m…breaking…in half…. Someone’s…taking one leg…and pulling it…one way…and…the other’s…snapping…off.”

He’d heard his mother describe it that way. It was when his brother Donovan had made his appearance in the world. Donovan had come in at just under twelve pounds. His father’s chest had stayed puffed up for a week despite his mother’s choice words about the experience.

“Nobody’s pulling either leg, Kitt,” he told her as gently as he could while still keeping his voice raised so that she could hear him. “It’s your body telling you it’s almost time.”

“Almost time?” she echoed incredulously, able to focus on his face for a second. “My body’s…in…overtime! I’ve been…in…agony since before…I…left…the house.”

He didn’t doubt it. She looked like a strong woman, despite her small frame. Good breeding stock, his grandmother would have probably called her. He figured maybe he should put what she was going through in perspective for Kitt. “Women have been known to be in labor for thirty-six hours.”

That’s not what she wanted to hear at a time like this, when she felt like a ceremonial wishbone. “If I’m going to die,” she ground out between tightly clenched teeth, “you’re…going with me.”

He laughed as he wiped an unexpected bead of perspiration on his forehead with the back of his wrist. “Not at your best under pressure, are you, Kitt-with-two-t’s?”

“Yes,” she gasped as the pain began again. “I am…but there’s only…so much…pressure a person should…have to…take.” Her eyes flew open. This was the worst ever. She didn’t know if she could get past this latest wave. “Oh-God-oh-God-oh-God.”

He could tell by the way she was arching her back that this one had to be a doozy. He had to get her to focus her attention on something else.

“Now, you listen to me. Look at me.” When she didn’t, he took her chin in his hand and physically made her look in his direction. “Right here, focus your eyes and look at me.” O’Rourke pointed to his own eyes as he released her face. “We’re going to have this baby and we’re going to be done with it right quick, do you hear me? When I say ‘push’ I want you to bear down and push to the count of ten and then stop. Ready?” He said it with firm authority, belying his own queasy feelings.

She panted several times before she had enough energy to answer. “Ready.”

“Okay.” He braced himself. “Now push. Two-three-four…” He continued counting until he reached ten. “Okay, stop.”

As if all the air had been let out of her, Kitt collapsed, her head rolling to the side. She lay so still O’Rourke thought she’d fainted until he saw her tense again. Another contraction had taken hold, he thought. “Bear down, Kitt, bear down.”

“I am bearing down,” she spat out, her entire face scrunching up.

Agony was imprinted on her every feature. Her hands fisted, leaning down hard on her knuckles, Kitt hunched forward and pushed for all she was worth. Gasping, trying desperately to get in enough air to keep from passing out, she fell back before O’Rourke reached ten.

She’d stopped when he’d reached eight. This wasn’t going to get them anywhere. “Ten, Kitt, you stop at ten, not before.”

The man was a tyrant, a tall, good-looking, pig-headed tyrant. She didn’t even have enough strength to level a dirty look at him. “You stop at ten, I ran out of steam. As a matter of fact,” she said, her energy returning to some degree, “you have the baby. You’re better at this than I am.”

O’Rourke’s eyes narrowed as he looked at her. The uncanny instinct that had brought him to these shores and steered his career in the right direction told him what to do. “You didn’t tell me you were a slacker, Kitt-with-two-t’s.”

If she had the energy, she would have hit him. “You…didn’t…ask.”

“Kitt—”

The words of encouragement he was about to resort to never had the chance to be spoken. Kitt groaned and then whimpered. The desperate sound wrenched his heart. Another contraction was coming and it was obvious she had no strength for it.

She was going to pass out on him, he realized suddenly, his mind scrambling frantically for a course of action. She had to be up to this, there was no other way. O’Rourke took her hand, wrapping it in both of his.

“Come on, Kitt-with-two-t’s,” he coached earnestly, “you can do this. Mothers have been doing it since the beginning of time.”

“Fine…get one of…them…to do…it.”

He focused his eyes on hers, willing her to remain looking at him. “You know better than that, Kitt. It’s your baby, you have to do it.”

There were tears in her eyes as she dug her fists in on either side of her. “Okay, okay, okay…here comes…another one. E-e-e-e!” She shrieked for all she was worth, her body jolting from the force that slammed into her.

“Push,” he ordered. “Push like a life depended on it. Harder, harder—” He saw it then, the crown of the head. His heart began to beat as rapidly as he thought hers undoubtedly was. “He’s coming! He’s coming, Kitt. Your baby’s coming!”

“He?” she questioned breathlessly. “That…part’s coming out…first?”

Slightly giddy himself, perspiration falling into his eyes, O’Rourke laughed at the image that created. “No. The head, Kitt-with-two-t’s, the head’s coming out first. Now push! One…two…three…”

She could hardly hear him counting. Kitt bore down, her head swirling again as she fought for consciousness and against the pain that was shredding her into tiny pieces. “Then…how…do you…know it’s a…boy?”

“Just a pronoun, nothing more, Kitt.”

Wasn’t the baby out yet? It felt as if she’d been pushing since the beginning of time. “How big…is this…head?”

He should have been keeping her up to speed on progress. But he was so awed by the miracle of life, he’d forgotten.

“Shoulders, we have shoulders.” He looked up and saw that she was close to completely collapsing. “Come on, Kitt, we’re almost done, just a little more, push a little more—”

Her eyes squeezed shut, Kitt bore down and pushed as hard as was humanly possible for her.

And then she heard it. The lusty howl of a life entering the world.

Her baby. He was here.

Finally.

Exhausted beyond belief, she fell back against the stack of cardboard boxes like a used, limp cleaning rag. “Is he…is he all right?”

O’Rourke’s heart was pounding with exhilaration as he looked down at the tiny life-form howling in his hands. He’d held larger computer manuals.

They’d done it. They’d really done it. O’Rourke felt himself grinning like a fool and not caring.

“Your son’s a girl, Kitt-with-two-t’s. A beautiful, fairylike little girl with soft downy hair and eyes the color of sapphires kissed by the sun.”

“A girl?” The wonder of it sliced through the pain that still bracketed her body, allowing her a touch of freedom. “I have a daughter?”

“That you do.” Grinning, he looked up at Kitt. “She’s a mite messy, but anyone with eyes can see she’s a beauty like her mother.” Very carefully, O’Rourke handed the tiny being to her mother. “Say hello to your mama, love,” he coaxed.

Drenched in perspiration, relief and joy, Kitt accepted the precious bundle into her arms. The instant she held her daughter, she felt her heart swelling.

“So this is what all the fuss was about,” she murmured quietly, looking down into the face of her newborn child.

Was it possible to fall in love so fast? In the blink of an eye? She supposed it had to be, because she’d just fallen in love with her daughter.

You’re a fool, Jeffrey, to be walking away from this. You have no idea what you’re missing.

Now that the excitement was over, O’Rourke became aware of the temperature within the van. It was downright chilly outside and that was seeping its way into the vehicle.

Leaning over both of them, he moved the sweater he’d tried to cover Kitt with. It had fallen in a heap on the side during the birthing.

“Maybe you’d better wrap my sweater around your little girl,” he suggested. “It’s big enough to cover her completely and it’s a wee bit cool for her.”

With the sweater wrapped around the small body, Kitt curved her arm around the baby. She looked up at O’Rourke. “What about you?” For the second time, her eyes slid over his body. And for the first time she realized how really close he was. “We’ve only left you your pants.”

He glanced down at himself, as if he’d forgotten that he wasn’t wearing anything from the waist up. The grin grew broader. “Good thing you weren’t having twins.”

The next moment, someone was opening the rear of the van and shining a flashlight inside, nearly blinding O’Rourke.

“Everything all right in here?”

The question and the beam of blinding light were both coming from the heavyset policeman in his late forties who was peering into the van.

The man’s curious expression transformed to one of surprise as the sight of O’Rourke’s semiunclad body and Kitt’s compromising position registered. “Hey, just what the heck’s going on here?”

Thinking quickly, O’Rourke pulled Kitt’s skirt back down, covering her, then placed his body in between the man and Kitt, summoning his most genial expression. Years of practice from living on the shadier side of the straight and narrow made all this second nature to him.

O’Rourke rocked back on his heels. “You’re just in time, Officer. Do you have any matches on you?” He pulled out an Exacto knife from his pants pocket as he asked. The policeman raised one thick eyebrow in silent question, his other hand moving over to his gun and holster. “I’ve yet to cut the cord between mother and daughter and I need something to sterilize the blade.” He held the Exacto knife up for the man’s inspection.

The policeman’s face paled a little, the full impact of what he was looking at registering. “You mean she’s just…?”

O’Rourke nodded as solemnly as an altar boy. “Just this minute, yes. Had you been here a couple of minutes sooner, you could have lent a hand in bringing about life’s biggest miracle, Officer.” He put out his hand to the man, holding the Exacto knife in the other. “Do you have those matches, sir?”

The policeman shook his head. “The wife made me give up smoking. Called it an anniversary present. It was cheaper than buying her that gold bracelet she fancied—but twice as hard.”

O’Rourke nodded knowingly. “That it would be,” he said sympathetically. “Never mind, then,” he consoled the policeman. “I’ve got a cigarette lighter I can use. Provided it works,” he added almost under his breath. “Never had any use for it myself.”

Looking embarrassed now for his intrusion, the policeman withdrew from the van, the flashlight dangling by his side. “Um, I’ll go call for an ambulance,” he said, jabbing a thumb in the air behind him toward his squad car.

“You do that, Officer,” O’Rourke encouraged him from the front of the van.

“O’Rourke?” Kitt called to him weakly.

“In a minute, love.” Waiting a moment after pushing the lighter in, he pulled it out again and passed the glowing red circle over the shaft of the Exacto knife blade. He blew on it to cool it. “There, that should do it.”

He popped the cigarette lighter back into place, then snaked his way back to Kitt and the baby. Sitting on his heels again, he blew out a breath. He didn’t exactly relish this part, but it had to be done.

“This won’t hurt a bit,” he promised Kitt. Or so his mother had said. His eyes went from her to the baby she held against her breast. Nothing prettier than that, he thought. “Either of you.”

Kitt pressed her lips together apprehensively. It wasn’t herself she was thinking of, but the baby. The way O’Rourke phrased his assurance told her he’d read her thoughts. “How did you know?”

“You’ve got that new-mother, protective look about you. I’ve seen it often enough to be familiar with it.” Taking the umbilical cord, he made a quick cut, severing the connection. Then, with a bit of thread, he tied it around the tiny part left above the baby’s navel.

“Where did you get the thread?”

The grin flashed again. “I’m a handy man to have around. Never know what’s up my sleeve—so to speak,” he added with a wink.

Probably a lot of tricks, she thought. She knew his type. As handsome as the day was long and as honest as a leprechaun’s promises.

The policeman returned, popping his head in. “Ambulance is on its way,” he told them. This time he made his way into the interior to keep the rain from coming in. “Here, I think you could use this.” Stripping off his raincoat, he handed it to O’Rourke. “You don’t want a bed right next to your wife’s in the hospital, do you?” He followed the question up with a hearty chuckle that turned into a belly laugh.

O’Rourke put on the rain slicker. “She’s not my wife,” he corrected the policeman.

Although he’d been in love with someone once, he thought as he glanced at Kitt, who looked a great deal like her. Susan O’Hara. Susan got tired of waiting for him to propose and married the banker’s son as soon as she was out of high school, he recalled with a touch of nostalgia. Last he’d heard, they had four children and were expecting a fifth. He hoped she was happy.

“We’re not married,” Kitt chimed in.

The policeman, his attention almost completely captivated by the smallest person in the van, shook his head at the information. Looking from one to the other, he seemed genuinely disappointed.

“I know it’s not supposed to be necessary in this day and age, having a marriage license and all, but believe me, inside—” he thumped his barrel chest “—you’ll both feel a whole lot better if you give this little guy a stable home and a full-time mother and father he can have around him every night.”

“She,” O’Rourke corrected him before Kitt had a chance to do the same.

“She,” the policeman repeated with a nod of his head. “Even more important, then. Girls need good examples to help keep them on the straight and narrow.” He eyed O’Rourke. “You wouldn’t want her having babies of her own without a wedding ring and a loving husband somewhere in the picture, now, would you?”

No, he supposed he wouldn’t, O’Rourke thought. If the little doll in Kitt’s arms was his. “But you don’t understand,” he began.

The policeman laughed dismissively. “Hey, just because I’ve got a few years on you doesn’t mean I don’t know what it’s like to be young. I do. I remember it real well.” Shifting toward O’Rourke, he slung one arm around his shoulders in camaraderie. “But marriage is better, trust me. There’s something great about having one person to come home to. One person to turn to no matter what.” He smiled at Kitt. “Now, you might say that you can do all that without a silly piece of paper, but if it’s so silly, I say, what’s the harm in having it? Right? And believe me, in the end, it’ll come to mean a lot to you. It’s the thing that makes you try one more time when you think you’ve had it and it’s time to go your own way.” He sighed deeply, as if remembering. “I know what I’m talking about. Why, if it wasn’t for my marriage license—”

This had the earmarks of going on even longer than the storm outside, O’Rourke thought. “Officer—” he began, trying to explain.

“Gary,” the policeman interjected. “Officer Gary Brinkley.”

“Gary,” O’Rourke allowed. “You don’t understand. We’re two strangers.”

The smile on the round face turned knowing. “Everyone feels like that sometime or other. Hell…” He stopped abruptly, slanting a look at Kitt. “Excuse me, heck, my wife and I feel that way, too, sometimes. But it’s the long haul that counts.” He fixed O’Rourke with a look, then swept it toward Kitt. “Promise me you two’ll think about it.”

O’Rourke and Kitt exchanged glances and both smiled as if on cue.

“Okay,” O’Rourke allowed, knowing there was no other way to call a halt to the kindly lecture. “We promise we’ll think about it. Won’t we, love?”

She was aching and exhausted. Why being addressed by a generic term should have caused a small thrill to dance through her made absolutely no sense to Kitt. So she didn’t even try to figure it out.

Chapter Three

O’Rourke stood outside his van in the rain as the two ambulance attendants, a maternal-looking woman named Martha and a thin-faced man of about thirty, quickly placed Kitt and her baby onto a stretcher.

Because no one seemed to be doing anything to try to keep the rain away from them, O’Rourke took off the rain slicker and held it above Kitt and the baby. He succeeded in keeping their faces dry.

The smile she flashed him made up for the fact that he was now soaked clear down to the bone.

“Can’t seem to keep you dressed, can we?” the policeman commented. But as O’Rourke glanced back at him, he could see that Gary approved of the gallant gesture.

O’Rourke slipped the rain slicker onto his now-drenched arms. He might still be a wee bit rough around the edges, he thought, remembering something his mother had once said about him, but at least chivalry wasn’t entirely dead within his heart.

“You coming?” the female attendant asked as her partner stabilized the stretcher inside the rear of the ambulance.

O’Rourke shook his head. Chivalry notwithstanding, his part in all this was technically over now that there were more competent people on the scene. Time for the Good Samaritan to be finding his own way home. He began to back away.

“No, I—”

“Sure, he’s coming,” Gary told the woman, putting out one hand to stop her from closing the ambulance doors. “He’s the daddy.”

Time to set this man straight. “Actually—” But O’Rourke got no further.

Like a conspirator, unmindful of the rain, Gary lowered his head in close to O’Rourke. His voice was nothing if not sympathetic. He spoke like a man with years of domesticity behind him.

“Now, you don’t want to go planting seeds of doubt and discord with the little mother at a time like this, do you? She’s been through a great deal.” Gary arched a knowing, shaggy brow. “Whatever went down between you from your first time together to now’s all in the past. She needs you, boy.” The policeman all but pushed him toward the ambulance. “Go hold her hand and tell her she’s beautiful.”

With rain plastering his hair to his head and pouring down his face, O’Rourke stared at the other man incredulously. In his experience, policemen didn’t stand around, doling out advice like some kind of psychologist. “What?”

“Beautiful. Tell her she’s beautiful,” Gary repeated, raising his voice as the wind began to pick up. “A woman needs to hear stuff like that, especially when she looks as if she could scare the paint right off the walls.” He looked toward the interior of the ambulance. The female attendant was scowling at him, waiting to close the door he wasn’t releasing. “She’s just had your kid, and it looks like she’s done a great job, if you ask me. Give her the support she needs. Believe me, you’ll come out a winner in the end.”

Before O’Rourke had a chance to say anything to protest the blatant assumptions the policeman had made, Gary propelled him into the ambulance.

“Got one more for you, Martha,” Gary announced triumphantly.

Suddenly, O’Rourke found himself inside the ambulance. The doors behind him were being closed and Kitt was looking up at him in dazed confusion. He had no choice but to take a seat beside the strapped-in gurney.

“I’ll follow you in.” The policeman’s voice wedged itself into the ambulance just before the rear doors were shut. “It’s a slow night.”

Not for everybody, O’Rourke thought.

The next second he heard the siren wailing as the ambulance driver picked up speed. They were on their way to the hospital. This evening was definitely one he was going to tell the others about when he phoned home.

Or arrived home, he amended, thinking of the deportation notice on his desk at the apartment.

Was she imagining it, or was the stranger with the washboard stomach at her side again? Kitt blinked twice, trying to clear her vision. The man remained sitting where he was.

“What are you doing in here?”

O’Rourke laughed shortly, trying to stay out of the attendant’s way as Martha monitored Kitt’s vital signs. “I’m asking myself the same question.” He glanced toward the closed doors, wondering if the policeman was making good his claim and was following the ambulance. “The good constable seems to think you need moral support.”

His attention drawn back to the woman who was the reason for all the mayhem he’d found himself in in the last half hour, O’Rourke looked at her. There was no doubt that she was exhausted, but there was also no need for him to serve up empty platitudes about her appearance the way Gary had suggested. Despite what she had just been through, wet hair notwithstanding, Kitt Dawson looked radiant. Above and beyond the call of new motherhood. There was something in her face that transcended her ordeal.

O’Rourke had a sneaking suspicion that, fixed up, Kitt Dawson immediately became the center of attention in every room she entered.

Moral support, Kitt thought dully. She could certainly do with some of that right about now. Too exhausted to concentrate, she knew she was going to have to puzzle out what her next move was going to be—and sooner than later.

When she was discharged from the hospital, she could probably stay with Sylvia, her best friend, in her Newport Beach studio apartment. But two people—two and a half people, Kitt silently amended, looking at the sleeping bundle in her arms—living in such close quarters got awfully old fairly quickly.

But at least it would give her a little time to think. And hopefully come up with a viable plan. Right now, she had nothing.

Her Good Samaritan was talking to her, she realized. Concentrating as best she could, Kitt tried to absorb what he was saying to her and not think about how much she hurt. Physically and emotionally.

“Besides,” O’Rourke was saying, “you’ve still got my sweater and my jacket and I sort of thought I’d be taking them back by and by, once they have you settled in at the hospital.” He figured it was as good an excuse as any. Besides, the sweater had been Beth’s going-away gift to him. His youngest sister would be hurt if she thought he’d just given it away.

Kitt realized that the sweater was still wrapped around her baby. The jacket had somehow managed to come along with her when the attendants had transferred her from the van to the gurney. She felt beneath her head now.

“Your things,” she acknowledged with a note of embarrassment. “They’ll probably need a lot of work before you can wear them again.”

“Don’t be worrying about that.” As the attendant withdrew, O’Rourke unconsciously drew in closer to Kitt, placing his hand over hers in a silent bond that was as natural to him as breathing. “My mother taught me how to take care of my things well and make them last,” he told her with a smile. She’d had to, he added silently, doffing his cap to his mother. When there were six children, money only stretched so far. Fabric stretched farther. “So, what’re you going to call her?” He nodded toward her sleeping bundle.

Kitt tightened her arm around the bundle instinctively. She hadn’t thought of names, at least not girls names. Something inside of her had been convinced she was going to give birth to a boy. Just like something inside of her had been convinced that Jeffrey was going to make a miraculous turnaround and suddenly become responsible.

Good thing she didn’t make her living as a fortune teller, she thought sarcastically. She would have starved to death a long time ago.

Looking down at the bit of heaven in her arms, Kitt sighed now. “I don’t know yet.”

He’d had a sibling or two who’d had to wait for a moniker, O’Rourke thought. As if sensing she was the topic of conversation, the baby opened her eyes and looked directly at him.

O’Rourke felt his heart being claimed in an instant. “So you’re nameless, are you, little one?” he whispered to her softly.

As if in response, the baby made a noise and then closed her eyes again.

Very gently, taking care to only touch his hand lightly along the downy hairs, O’Rourke passed his hand over the small head. “I supposed this qualifies as our first conversation.”

Kitt found she couldn’t say anything in response. There was suddenly a large lump in her throat, blocking any words.

The next moment, the ambulance had stopped, its rear doors parallel with the doors leading into Harris Memorial’s emergency room. The doors flew open. Kitt and her baby were engulfed in a sea of activity as the attendants quickly took her out of the ambulance. An awning sheltered them from the rain.

As a nurse hurried out from the hospital to flank one side of the gurney, an emergency room physician took the other while Martha rattled off Kitt and the baby’s vital signs to them.

O’Rourke found himself swept up in the wave, hurrying along to keep up, although logically he knew he should just drop back and let the natural progression of things take over and sweep Kitt and the baby away from him. After all, he wasn’t needed any longer.

Feeling foolish, reminding himself that he was facing a huge dilemma of his own and that Kitt and her baby were in good hands now, he slowed down. But as he did so, a hand came down on his shoulder, generating an intense sensation of déjà vu.

O’Rourke didn’t have to turn around to know that when he did, he’d be looking down into Officer Gary Brinkley’s face.

“What are you doing here?” O’Rourke asked, only mildly surprised.

Gary jerked a thumb back toward the rear of the hospital parking lot where presumably his squad car was standing. “Thought maybe the new dad would need a ride back to his car. Besides—” the policeman nodded at his torso “—you’ve got my rain slicker.”

O’Rourke looked down at his chest. He’d almost forgotten he was walking around in the oversize black slicker. “Oh, right.” He began shrugging the slicker off his shoulders.

The hand was back on his shoulder, stopping him. “No, hang on to it until you get something else to wear,” Gary urged.

O’Rourke looked after the disappearing gurney. He’d accomplished nothing by coming along. Except maybe to push aside his own problem for a short while longer. But that hadn’t erased it. It was time to get going.

He turned to look at the policeman next to him. “I’ll take that ride now, Constable. If you’re sure that it won’t be taking you away from anything more pressing you have to do—”

The idea of there being something more urgent on tap made the policeman laugh again. He clamped a fatherly arm around O’Rourke’s shoulders.

“Hey, this is Bedford.” He nodded at the disappearing gurney. “That’s probably the most exciting thing that’s going to happen around here all night.” He paused, hesitating before venturing back outside. “Don’t you want to see your little woman before you go?”

To try to explain one last time to the policeman that Kitt Dawson wasn’t his little woman and that he had only happened by at an opportune time for her seemed completely futile to him. For simplicity’s sake, and because he wanted to get home sometime before midnight, O’Rourke resigned himself to going along with the charade.

“No, I thought I’d give her a chance to get cleaned up a little—and I’d like to do the same before coming back to see her and the baby,” he added for good measure, having absolutely no intention of doing the latter even if Kitt did have some of his clothing in her possession. It wasn’t as if that was his last jacket or sweater, and despite his words to the contrary, she was right. There probably was no way he could get them cleaned at this point. Beth would just have to understand.

The answer had the desired effect on the policeman. He seemed obviously pleased. Nodding his head, Gary steered O’Rourke around toward the rear doors. “Okay, then let’s get going.”

The trip back to his van was not one undertaken in silence.

O’Rourke hadn’t really thought that it would be. Officer Gary Brinkley strongly reminded him of Shamus O’Brien, a distant cousin of his mother’s in the old country. It wasn’t that the two men looked alike, but Shamus could talk the hands off a grandfather clock and not take any note of it as he just kept on going. Not because the man liked to hear the sound of his own voice, but because Shamus truly felt that everything he said was important, gleaned on the battlefields of life. He felt it his duty to share those lessons with those who hadn’t had a chance to experience them yet.

And after what sounded like an endless twenty years on the police force, first in Los Angeles County, then here in Bedford, it sounded as if the good constable had a great many lessons of life to impart as well. And O’Rourke found himself the lucky recipient tonight.

It occurred to O’Rourke that he might have been better off walking back to the van in the rain. It would have been a great deal wetter and longer, but on the up side, it would have been a great deal more peaceful.

The topic the police force veteran had settled on was marriage and family. Gary was definitely pushing for the pros. At length.

O’Rourke had a headful of cons to oppose him with, albeit—not wanting to prolong the diatribe any longer than absolutely necessary—he listed them silently. In no uncertain terms, marriage and the family that followed had been both his parents’ undoing. And while O’Rourke loved his siblings with a fierceness that would have made the hearts of the creators of greeting cards swell with joy, there was no doubt in his mind that it was the burden of these same siblings, and himself as well, that had first killed off his father, then his mother. Sarah O’Rourke had died of nothing short of a broken heart a little over two years after her husband’s demise. Leaving the business of family-raising squarely on O’Rourke’s shoulders.

“Nothing like it in the world,” Gary was saying for what seemed like the fourth or fifth time. “But hell,” the man said, turning in his seat, “I don’t have to convince you of that, do I?”

“And why’s that?” O’Rourke heard himself asking the question as curiosity got the better of him.

“Because I saw the look in your eyes when you looked down at that baby. You feel it already, don’t you?”

Mystified, O’Rourke asked, “Feel what?”

“That tug on your heart.” He thumped his chest with his fisted hand. “The one that anchors you in their harbor and makes you vow to do everything in your power to see to it that they get every chance in the world to have the things you didn’t. To be happy and healthy and all that other stuff.”

Turning another corner, Gary pulled up his squad car in front of the van. The rain had subsided, falling steadily and sedately now rather than in sheets and gusts.

“Here’s your van,” Gary pointed out needlessly. He twisted around in his seat. “So, you going to do it? Are you going to make an honest woman of her?”

Now, there was a term he hadn’t heard in a long time, O’Rourke thought. Not since before he left Ireland. Then it had come from Susan, telling him that Patrick was going to be making one of her. An honest woman. It was Patrick’s baby she was carrying, all the while he’d been thinking that she belonged to him. He’d felt his heart crack a little then, but told himself it hadn’t. He’d known that the kind of life he’d planned for himself didn’t include having someone like Susan in it. She needed attention he couldn’t spare.

He’d wished her luck and shut his heart. Just another sacrifice he’d made to get to where he wanted to be. A man who could take care of his own, meaning the family that already was, not the one that might be, if things were different.

Problem was, he hadn’t gotten there yet.

A whimsical smile played on his lips as he looked at the policeman next to him. “Are you a Catholic, Constable?”

The shaggy black-and-gray brows drew together in one formidable hairy line. “What? No. Why?”

“Pity.” O’Rourke unhooked his seat belt. “You’d have made an excellent priest. Father Donnelley back home couldn’t have held a candle to you.” Another man dedicated to long-winded sermons, he thought.

Gary hadn’t gotten to where he was in life by not knowing when he was being given the slip. “So, is that a yes or a no?”

O’Rourke grinned. “Not a candle,” he repeated, getting out. “Thank you for the ride and the advice. And the rain slicker.” Shedding the aforementioned garment, he left it on the passenger seat, then closed the door. He could almost hear the man inside the squad car sigh as he pulled away.

O’Rourke’s grin widened.

It faded when he realized he’d left his van keys in his jacket. The jacket that was now with a dewy-eyed, sharp-tongued woman in Harris Memorial, some fifteen or so miles away.

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