He ambled toward her, as lazy as a long, cool drink of something wicked. Letter to Reader Title Page JENNIFER GREENE Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Copyright

He ambled toward her, as lazy as a long, cool drink of something wicked.

He confounded Maggie. It was absolutely ridiculous for a practical, grounded, capable twenty-nine-year-old woman to feel bowled over by the look in a man’s eyes. But there it was. Dam it, Andy was so darling she just wanted to sip him in.

His mouth kicked up a grin long before he reached her. Those eyes of his were darker than a midnight sky. He gave the length of her a once-over, from the floppy socks to her jeans and baggy sweater to her hair flying every which way. Maggie knew darn well there was nothing in her appearance to earn that sizzling spark.

And then Andy asked her the question she’d been dreading all day.

“Remembered anything yet that I need to arrest you for?”

Dear Reader,

Hectic life? Too much to do, too little time? Well, Silhouette Desire provides you with the perfect emotional getaway with this month’s moving stories of men and women finding love and passion. So relax, pick up a Desire novel and let yourself escape, with six wonderful, involving, totally absorbing romances.

Ultratalented author Mary Lynn Baxter kicks off November with her sultry Western style in Slow Talkin’ Texan, the story of a MAN OF THE MONTH whose strong desires collide with an independent lady—she’s silk to his denim, lace to his leather... and doing all she can to resist this irresistible tycoon. A small-town lawman who rescues a “lost” beauty might just find his own Christmas bride in Jennifer Greene’s heartwarming Her Holiday Secret. Ladies, watch closely as a Thirty-Day Fiancé is transformed into a forever husband in Leanne Banks’s third book in THE RULEBREAKERS miniseries.

Don’t dare miss the intensity of an innocent wife trying to seduce her honor-bound husband in The Oldest Living Married Virgin, the latest in Maureen Child’s spectacular miniseries THE BACHELOR BATTALION. And when a gorgeous exmarine shows up at his old flame’s ranch to round up the “wife who got away,” he discovers a daughter he never knew in The Re-Enlisted Groom by Amy J. Fetzer. The Forbidden Bride-to-Re may be off-limits...but isn’t that what makes the beautiful heroine in Kathryn Taylor’s scandal-filled novel all the more tempting?

This November, Silhouette Desire is the place to live, love and lose yourself...to sensual romance. Enjoy!

Warm regards,

Joan Marlow Golan

Senior Editor, Silhouette Desire

Please address questions and book requests to:

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Her Holiday Secret

Jennifer Greene

www.millsandboon.co.uk

JENNIFER GREENE

lives near Lake Michigan with her husband and two children. Before writing full time, she worked as a teacher and a personnel manager. Michigan State University honored her as an “outstanding woman graduate” for her work with women on campus.

Ms. Greene has written more than fifty category romances, for which she has won numerous awards, including two RITAs from the Romance Writers of America in the Best Short Contemporary Books category and a Career Achievement award from Romantic Times Magazine.

One

White. When she opened her eyes, everything around her seemed bewilderingly white. White noise, white pain, white walls, white sheets.

The last thing she remembered was an explosion of vivid color. Vague pictures flashed in her mind from just before that. She was pretty sure she’d been driving. Alone. It had been snowing like a banshee, on a night blacker than a witch’s soul. And then suddenly metal screeched on metal with the screaming sound of a crash, and all those jeweled colors had exploded in her head. Then nothing.

Really nothing. She swiftly realized she was lying in a hospital bed—and her body was creaking and groaning in too many places to worry that her brain wasn’t functioning. She hadn’t lost her mind. Just her memory. Her name, who she was, refused to come to her. There seemed nothing in her head but all that white fuzz... and a sick, terrible feeling that something bad had happened—something that she was responsible for.

“Well, now. You’re finally waking up for us, huh?” The nurse who charged in had a round face framed by bustling, bouncing brown curls. The smile was sweet, but the eyes were all business. “Now don’t try getting ambitious, honey, you just lie there. I’m going to take your pulse and get your blood pressure—”

Her throat was dry, her voice so thick that she had trouble getting the words out. “Something happened. An accident, I think—”

“Uh-huh.”

“I was responsible? I caused it, didn’t I? Oh God, was anyone hurt?”

“Well, I didn’t hear much—no one ever tells us anything up here—but when Bertha wheeled you up from the ER, she said something about you being hit head-on. Didn’t sound like your fault in any way to me.” The nurse pried open her eyes, shot in a harsh spear of light, then flicked it off. “Feeling a little confused and disoriented, are we?”

“I can’t seem to remember anything about it—”

“That’s not at all unusual, hon. Just be patient and give yourself a little time. An accident’s always a shock to the system, and after the body pumps up all that adrenaline, sometimes the mind just seems to shut down and take a little rest right after.” The nurse squeezed two fingers on her pulse, then strapped a cuff on her upper arm. She seemed to have five hands, and when they weren’t busy, she was talking.

“You don’t need to worry about a thing. Not real likely you’re going to win a beauty contest for a couple of days, but there were no broken bones, no internal injuries. I’ll bet it feels like you tangled with the Marines, though, huh? You’ve got a prizewinning lump on your head and some Olympic-sized bruises, but you’ll be perfectly fine and healed up before you know it. Doc Howard’ll be in shortly. We’ve just been waiting for you to wake up. And the sheriff’s waiting to see you, too—you know Andy Gautier? He’s a sweetheart. If you feel up to it, he’s got some questions about the accident—”

“I don’t know what help I could be. I don’t remember.” Her voice was coming stronger, the whole hospital room sharpening in focus. The only thing still muzzy was her stupid mind. “Darn it. I really can’t seem to remember. Anything—”

“Now just take it easy. If you’re that worried about it, let’s just try you out on some basics, okay? Do you know your name?”

To her relief, it came. “Maggie. Maggie Fletcher.”

“There now. You aced that one. And your driver’s license claims that you’re twenty-nine, brown hair, green eyes, 110 pounds. That sound like you?”

Maggie would have nodded, except that any movement made her head feel like someone was crushing shards of glass in her skull. Wryly she admitted, “I think I lied about the weight.”

The nurse chuckled. “Don’t we all, dear. How about your address? You know that?”

“302 River Creek Road.”

“Another ace. But we’ll try a couple tougher ones. You know what day it is? Where you are?”

“Yeah. It’s Friday—the Friday night after Thanksgiving. And I haven’t been here before, but this has to be the hospital at White Branch.” The concerned frown on the nurse’s face was swiftly disappearing, and Maggie told herself she should be feeling equally reassured. It was all there. As if someone flicked the light switch on her memory, all the details of her life were relighting up. She could picture her cabin in her mind, knew what her job was, knew that she’d had Thanksgiving dinner at her sister’s the day before. She hadn’t lost...herself. Everything really was okay.

Except that she still couldn’t remember a single detail after going to her sister’s for the holiday dinner. The twenty-four hours before the accident were simply a blank. And that wouldn’t particularly matter—except that she couldn’t shake the anxious feeling that she’d done something seriously wrong.

The nurse obviously considered her ability to answer those questions as a sign there was nothing to worry about. “See now? What’d I tell you? You’re starting to remember just fine. You just had a big jolt to your system, perfectly normal to feel fuzzy for a bit, and you’ve got a concussion to boot.”

“But there’s still this whole gap. I don’t know where I was going, anything I did that whole day, why I was driving anywhere at night, the accident... you’re not lying to me, are you? About someone else being hurt? About it being my fault?”

“If I knew more about the accident, I’d tell you. The truth is, I just don’t But—I’ll make you a deal. You close your eyes and just rest for a few minutes. Now there’s an IV in your arm—just glucose—but I don’t want you getting out of bed without calling me. I’m just going to leave you alone and go get the doc. And if he okays it after seeing you, I’ll let Andy in here for a couple minutes, and you can ask him more about the accident. Does that sound like a plan?”

The nurse left. Then Dr. Howard came and went. The two of them were a matched set. They both poked where it hurt, bossed her around, and went through identical litanies about “You’re fine” and “nothing to worry about” and “a little temporary memory loss is common after a traumatic accident.”

Once they both left, Maggie sank back against the pillow, exhausted from all this being taken care of. Outside the door, she heard the clattered wheels of a cart, phones ringing, voices echoing down the hall. Her only sojourn in a hospital before this was a few hours as an outpatient when she’d had her tonsils out at age six. She liked it even less now. The bed was too hard, the whole room so sterile and alien, and she’d never liked being fussed over.

She wanted to be home. Now, immediately. Her head burned like fire; her ribs ached; bruises were announcing themselves all over her body. If she were just home, in her own bed, everything would be better. She could rest. She could think. Maggie squeezed her eyes closed, disturbingly aware that that strange knife of guilt was still stabbing her conscience. There had to be a reason for it. She just had to make herself concentrate....

“Maggie Fletcher? Maggie?”

Her eyes shot open again. She’d forgotten about the sheriff. One look at the guy standing in the doorway, and Maggie doubted she’d make that mistake twice.

There were times she wouldn’t mind meeting an attractive man. Tonight definitely wasn’t one of them. She was feeling way too battered and beat up to conceivably have a functioning female hormone...but it seemed a couple stubborn ones perked up. The wayward thought skimmed through her mind that the stranger could probably arouse a woman from a coma without half trying.

“Maggie, I’m the sheriff, Andrew Gautier...Andy.” He ambled toward the bed and stuck out his hand. The handshake barely lasted two seconds, no more than a polite greeting, carefully gentle. But his palm was warm and strong, his grip as straightforward as he seemed to be.

“I got a mixed review on whether it was okay to talk with you,” he said wryly. “We can do this another time if you’re not up for it. The consensus seemed to be if I’m real good and don’t get y’all riled up, I can stay for a few minutes. There’s always paperwork to fill out after an accident—not my favorite thing, but I was in the hospital, anyway, and I tend to procrastinate if I don’t get it done. And Gert seemed to think you might feel reassured if I filled in some blanks for you on the accident as well.”

“Yeah, that’d be fine. I’d appreciate it, in fact.”

“Okay...”

He pulled up a chair, yanked a small spiral notebook from an inside pocket, and stretched out his long, lanky legs. He really was darling, Maggie mused. Not Mel Gibson, but he sure had the eyes.

He wasn’t wearing any sheriff’s uniform, dressed more like he’d been called from home and had to hustle out into the night. A beat-up leather jacket showcased linebacker shoulders, and both his charcoal sweatshirt and jeans looked like old, worn friends. His hair was cut short, starling-black, but it was thick and rumpled and still had a glisten from the damp snowy night. She thought he must have some Indian blood from the ruddy warmth of his skin tone and the sharp high cheekbones.

He was striking—so striking he could give any woman that nice, edgy aware feeling—but the eyes looked like trouble to her. Deep, dark, spicy. If he was the law, he sure wasn’t looking her over in any lawful way. Those dark, exotic eyes prowled her face with more blunt masculine interest than she’d been treated to in quite a while.

Maggie mentally sighed. Obviously she was crazy, unhinged by the accident, imagining things. He surely wasn’t really communicating interest, and she had serious stuff on her mind—nothing related to hormones. Yet the first thing that blurted out of her mouth was an inane “Cripes, I have to look like something a cat dragged home from an alley.”

He didn’t miss a beat, but she caught just the edge of a sneaky grin. “Yeah, I see some bumps and bruises, but let’s put it this way. If my cat’d dragged you home, he’d be in tuna for the rest of his life.” He patted his inside pocket. “Hell. I’ve lost my pen again. I swear, if I buy a dozen, I lose twenty-four.” He vaulted out of the chair, wagged a long finger in front of her nose. “Just stay here, okay? No leaping tall buildings in a single bound until I get back. I’ll just go steal another pen from Gert—she’s used to it.”

He was only gone a minute, came back, and stretched out again with his notebook. “Okay, first thing I need to ask you is who you want me to contact? We got your basic stats and medical insurance information from your wallet, but there was nothing in there about next of kin, and I didn’t find any other Fletchers in the phone book...”

“I have a sister living here. Joanna Marks. We don’t have the same last name because she was married—widowed now.” Even mentioning her sister’s name brought shadowed, troubling memories tumbling into her mind. “But I don’t want you to contact her. I’ll call her. She’d just panic if a policeman called, and I’m fine—”

“So the doc said—and that he wasn’t letting you out until tomorrow, earliest—but you’re going to need someone to drive you home then. And some clothes. And I think she’d probably want to know something like this had happened to you—?”

“She would, but I just don’t want to upset her.” Her sister was fragile right now, but trying to explain Joanna’s circumstances was none of the stranger’s business and just took too much energy to even try. Maggie left it.

“Well, maybe there’s someone else? Husband, boyfriend—?” There was just a spark of the devil in his eyes again, making Maggie feel like the question implied more than a fill-in-the-blank on his police form.

“No. Friends, of course...but it’s the middle of the night. I can’t see waking someone up and scaring them for no reason. And I’ll call my sister in the morning.” She swallowed hard. “As far as the accident, I keep trying to remember what happened, but it just won’t come. I have this terrible feeling that I was to blame. The nurse—Gert—didn’t think so, but I don’t know if she was telling me the truth. Oh, God. Please tell me there wasn’t a child involved—”

“Hey, take it easy there.” Andy leaned forward, his notebook form forgotten. “A drunk driver swerved in your lane. Hit you head-on. There was no way you could have avoided him.”

“You’re sure?”

“I didn’t actually see it, didn’t get there until about ten minutes after it happened. But it was right on Main Street, and four witnesses saw the accident. They all gave me the same story, and the skid marks, condition of the cars—all the evidence—pointed in the same direction. In fact, my coming in here at all was just policy, to complete the report. But there was no doubt about how the accident occurred. You were not responsible.”

Maggie searched his face. People fibbed for so many reasons—some of them well-meaning, like the doc and nurse who could have shaded the truth to reassure her. Yet she saw the character lines etched on his brow, the way Andy met her gaze like an unflinching straight shooter. She just sensed a man who’d never soft-soap the truth. And that was great. She believed him. Except that if she hadn’t caused the accident, she felt even more confused why that anxious, guilty feeling was still haunting her conscience. “The man who smashed into me, the drunk driver—is he all right?”

“He won’t be, after I get finished slapping charges on him and he sees Judge Farley,” Andy said dryly. “But as far as injuries—he’s less beat-up than you are. And you haven’t asked, but there’s no way to pretty up the news about your car. I’m afraid it’s totalled. Not that I have a mechanic’s judgment, but the front end was crushed like an accordion—when I first saw it, I was afraid we weren’t getting you out in one piece.”

“I don’t care about the stupid car.” She backpedalled swiftly. “Well, of course I care. I’d rather eat clams than go car shopping, and I’m allergic to clams. But the car’s insured. And it just doesn’t matter, not compared to somebody being seriously injured. Just tell me one more time, okay? That no one else was hurt?”

“You were not responsible. And no one else was hurt.” When she still studied his face suspiciously, he scratched his chin. “Still having a hard time believing it, huh? Didn’t anyone ever tell you it was okay to trust the law?”

Well, he made her smile. “You think I should trust a guy I don’t know from Adam?”

“Hell, no. Just me. Honest to Pete, I’m trustworthy as a Boy Scout.”

“Uh-huh. Well, the truth is, sheriff...” Maggie hesitated. “Did I hear that ‘sheriff’ right? Or was it supposed to be lieutenant or deputy? Not that I haven’t had tons and tons of run-ins with the law, but I’m not sure what I’m supposed to call you—”

“Andy will do fine.”

She saw the dance of humor in his eyes—he didn’t seem too worried by her vast claims of previous run-ins with the law. And she told herself there was no reason not to skip the formalities and move to first names...his job pinned him as a good guy, and his face was darn near an atlas of integrity lines. Even without knowing him, Maggie instinctively sensed he was hard-core honest. It was just that other factor.

The man-woman thing. Any man who could arouse a rapscallion set of female hormones in a battered woman defined dangerous to Maggie. Interestingly dangerous. Maybe darn-near fascinatingly dangerous—especially since she hadn’t felt that tug for a guy in a blue moon. But she was all too aware that her judgment was temporarily and annoyingly goofy. To assume he meant something by that eye connection and those slow, lazy smiles seemed foolish.

Cripes, she was just trying to sit up and a dozen aches screamed distractingly at her, and her head pounded like hammers at a carpenters’ convention. Embarrassing her no end, her hands were even shaky. “Well, what I started to stay... Andy,... is that I bumped a fender when I was sixteen, but that’s the closest I’ve ever been to a real accident until tonight. This not being able to remember is driving me crazy. I just want to go home. I’m positive it’d all come back if I were just home, around my own stuff...”

He seemed to sense where she was leading, because he shook his head. “The way I heard it, Ms. Fletcher, there isn’t a chance in hell they’re letting you out before tomorrow morning.”

“Yeah, I already tried arguing with them. But maybe if you’d consider using the power of the law on my side?”

“I’m real willing to use the power of the law. On their side. Trust me, Gert’ll watch over you better than a mom. I’m telling you, she’s ruthless. I’ve run across her before—with my job, you get some bumps and bruises now and then. She’ll drive you stark crazy with all the fussing.”

“But that’s exactly the problem. I hate people fussing over me.”

His mouth kicked in another grin. “Yeah, you kind of gave me that impression. Feeling helpless not exactly your favorite thing?”

“I can take care of myself.”

“I’ll bet you can. But not tonight I’m pretty sure you won’t die from being spoiled for one night, will you?”

“Yes.”

Another grin—which definitely wasn’t every man’s response when Maggie got touchy on the subject of self-reliance. “I can’t figure out how come I haven’t met you before. In a small town like White Branch, I usually run into everyone sooner or later.”

“Well, I moved here about four years ago, but I don’t usually run around robbing banks or causing trouble—except in my free time, of course. And car accidents just haven’t been my thing. Until tonight, anyway. Darn it.” She lifted her hand to the incessantly throbbing bump on her head. “This not being able to remember is just so stupid. I’m not the type to get shook up in a crisis. The opposite is true. I do rescue work, for Pete’s sake. But the last twenty-four hours are just a total blank in my mind, and I can’t seem to make a single detail come back.”

“Maybe it’ll all come to you after a good night’s sleep.”

“Maybe it’d come to me if I were just home.”

The curly-haired nurse popped her head in the doorway. “Andy! You low-down skunk. I told you ten minutes, max, and you’re still in here!”

“I’m leaving, I’m leaving.” Andy grabbed his notebook and battered Stetson from the bedside table and lurched to his feet. He winked at Maggie before turning around. “Gert—just so you know, she was trying to talk me into springing her out of here.”

Maggie’s jaw dropped at his betrayal—for all the good it did. Gert turned on her faster than a ruffled hen. “Over my dead body. You don’t belong anywhere but right here, honey. A concussion is nothing to fool around with...” The nurse continued nonstop with impressive plans involving bedpans and ice chips and needles.

Maggie met Andy’s eyes from around Gert’s side and mouthed, “If we ever meet again, you’re dead meat.”

Andy murmured unrepentantly, “You go, Gert.” But he hesitated right when he reached the doorway. There was just a two-second window when Gert had to take a breath before expanding on her health lecture. Two seconds. Then his eyes prowled her face one last time, and he said, “You can take it to the bank, Maggie. We’ll meet again.”

Two

When Andy pulled in Maggie’s drive two days later, he told himself the visit was justified. White Branch had little serious crime, but like any other community, there were always problems and always the potential for more. Part of the reason Andy loved his job was the power—not the power of his badge and gun, but the power to head off trouble before it started. If he had to flash a badge, he always figured he’d failed. Keeping a mean, keen eye on brewing trouble was an effective way of preventing disasters from escalating. For that reason, he regularly cruised certain neighborhoods. When anyone had an accident or traumatic problem, Andy just traditionally followed up to make sure things were okay.

Maggie had been in one hell of an accident.

Ergo, it was perfectly reasonable for him to accidentally be driving down River Creek Road and to stop by to see how she was.

Maybe the memory of those velvet-green eyes had hung out in his sleep for the last couple nights. Maybe she was the first woman since his four-year-old divorce who’d itched on his mind like a mosquito. Maybe that spirit and gutsy humor of hers had gotten to him—especially since she’d looked so vulnerably battered in that hospital bed. And yeah, maybe a peek at the alluring, shadowed swell of one breast in the dip of her hospital gown had mangled with his mind some, too.

But that had nothing to do with it.

Checking on people was simply his job.

As he pushed the gearshift to park, though, Andy thoughtfully scratched his chin. Maggie was there. Standing by her front door. And she’d spotted his truck driving in and turned her head to face him, so it was a little late to slither back out of her driveway and hide himself in the nearest avalanche.

It would definitely seem, however, that she was having absolutely no difficulty recovering from her injuries... judging from the enthusiastic way she had her arms around another man.

She dropped her arms from the guy, and with a look that was half curious, half puckish, promptly took a step toward Andy’s truck. As she was obviously coming to greet him, he didn’t figure he could pull a disappearing act for at least a couple minutes. He swiftly pushed open the door and climbed out.

A bitter wind instantly burned his cheeks and crawled down his collar. Judging from the thick, murky clouds roiling in from the west, he guessed they’d have a fresh foot of snow by morning. Shame he hadn’t taken those ominous clouds as an omen—or else picked up a premonition from those dancing green eyes of hers. Andy was inclined to give himself a whack upside the head. No thirty-four-year-old man—with a brain—should need any such omens to guess Maggie wasn’t likely to be lacking male company.

“Well, hi again, Sheriff. This visit’s a surprise. Did you think of something to arrest me for after all?”

He’d love to level a charge on her—notably disturbing the peace. His peace. But that wasn’t something he was willing to confess. “I didn’t figure I had to worry about you robbing any banks for a couple of days...you had enough bruises to keep you out of trouble at least that long. But I started thinking how remote your place is here and just thought I’d stop by. With your car out of commission, I wasn’t sure if you had any wheels yet or might have needed some help.”

“That was really nice of you. And I’ve certainly been trying to cause more trouble, but my nephew’s been coming over every day by snowmobile to pitch in, bringing groceries and shoveling snow and everything else. Colin, come meet Sheriff Gautier. And Andy, this is Colin Marks, my sister Joanna’s boy....”

Her smile had a lot of mischief in it, enough to make a man feel as though he’d been struck by lightning if he wasn’t careful. Andy was still trying to recover from that smile when her words sank in. Nephew. Boy. And then the kid edged in front of her with a mannerly hand stuck out.

The boy was six-two—Andy’s own height—with a cowlick sticking from his crown that probably added another inch, and the tea-brown hair and green eyes that easily labeled him as Maggie’s kin. It was just the height and shoulder breadth that had Andy first assuming he was a grown man. A second look would have noted the gangling limbs and kid’s awkward nerves, but Andy really hadn’t been noticing much but Maggie. “Nice to meet you, Colin.”

The kid shied back from the handshake, almost tripped over his own feet. “Nice to meet you, too.” Those eyes skittered away from him fast. “Maggie, I got to be going. Mom’ll be wondering where I am.”

Andy had a cop’s sixth sense that something was a little off, something more happening than just a teenager’s awkward nerves, but maybe that was a mistaken first impression. The boy was obviously in a hustle to be gone. Maggie gave him another warm hug, and seconds later Colin was pelting for the snowmobile parked beyond her door. The machine engine roared on and the boy disappeared in a wake of snow.

“Fifteen?” Andy guessed his age.

“On the button. And I’ve got one other nephew, Rog. He’s a year younger. Colin’s more the high energy devil. He can get a wild hair now and then—but he’s got a good heart. They both do. Their dad died last year, really threw both kids and my sis for a long painful loop. And before I tell you any more family history you don’t want to hear—are you gonna keep an invalid outside freezing like this, or come in and have some coffee?”

“You don’t look like much of an invalid.” She looked breathtaking, in his objective opinion, but that wasn’t to say Andy was buying her instant recovery quite at the wholesale price she was selling it. Her hair was worn loose and smooth to her shoulders, the silky brown color shot with honey and sunshine. She’d brushed it over her right temple, but he could still see the blotchy jewel colors of a bruise hiding beneath. A little careful makeup was obviously intended to conceal the circles under her eyes, and her red jacket collar was pulled up over a bandage on her neck. Maggie clearly didn’t want anyone worrying about her—and that smile and full-of-hell spirit could easily distract a man from believing she’d ever been hurt.

“Well, all my best bruises are out of sight. They’re so brilliantly colorful at this point that I’d love to show ’em off...but I’m afraid I won’t do a strip search without a warrant, even for you, Sheriff.” She hesitated. “Of course if you brought a warrant...?”

“Damn. No. But if you give me a second, I’ll try to think up some charges—”

She chuckled. “Well, in the meantime, you like your coffee black or prettied up?”

“Black’d be great—but I don’t want you going to any trouble.”

“Nonsense, I’m freezing and could use something hot to drink myself. Come on in—and no, you don’t have to take off your boots. This floor’s seen snow before.”

He stomped in behind her, shrugging off his jacket and placing it on a hook, next to where she hung hers. Under the outer gear, she was wearing a red turtleneck sweater over jeans and thick socks. Practical, comfortable clothes, but the loose cut of her jeans still showed off the curve of her fanny, and the sweater faithfully outlined ripe, firm breasts.

He was only watching her—he told himself—to judge if she were really as recovered from the car accident as she made out. Her movements seemed a little careful and deliberate to him, and he noticed she unconsciously pressed a palm to her ribs, as if the bruises there were still giving her trouble. Still, she was obviously getting around okay... which made it all too easy to shift his eyes to body parts that had nothing to do with any judicious, altruistic motives.

Forcefully he cut his attention to safer territory, while she bustled around finding mugs and coffee. It wasn’t hard to inhale her place in a single gulp.

The main floor was all open space, with the kitchen two steps up from the great room. The kitchen had brick walls, with an old-fashioned baking oven built into one. A vanilla-colored counter served as her table. Pots hung from a metal turnstile overhead, and spaghetti sauce simmered on the stove, the scent hot and spicy. Somehow he didn’t think it came from opening a jar.

Below, the great room had one stone wall with a fireplace carved in—where a huge fire now roared, splashing sparks up the chimney. Two sets of double glass doors led to a wraparound cedar patio, with a view of secluded woods and a sharp ravine.

Maggie obviously liked blue. Furniture clustered in the room’s center, blue couches, blue chairs, and a thick plush blue carpet made for bare feet. Nothing looked too pricey or overly color-coordinated...more like she just plain loved blue, and had chosen comfortable furniture big enough to curl up in.

She came up behind him, carrying two steaming mugs. “You might as well just tell me that you think the place is splendiferous. You’ll hurt my feelings if you don’t.”

“I think it’s beyond splendiferous. The whole place has a great hideaway feeling.”

“Good boy.” She grinned. “Built it myself. Or that’s the story I tell. The truth is more like I couldn’t possibly have handled the chimney or window fittings or plumbing. But I designed it, did the stonework and even the roof, so I figure I should get the lion’s share of the credit.”

“You won’t get any argument out of me. I’m impressed. Seriously.”

“Well, I almost killed myself tackling the roof...got my feminist knickers in a twist trying to play Superwoman, when I should have had the brains to call for help. But that’s water over the dam.” She took a fast sip from a royal blue mug, and then motioned with it “Come on, I’ll show you the rest. There isn’t much. Just a sleeping loft upstairs and my office and a storage room...”

The storage room combined laundry with a squared-off space for sports gear—she was an experienced skier and climber both, judging from the sturdiness of her equipment—and she had a shop section with tools serious enough to make a man drool. Her office, by contrast, was pure female. A fancy high-tech computer setup was back-dropped by girl stuff everywhere—scented candles and bowls of potpourri, a hanging lamp with a fringy shade, doodads and plants and pictures all fighting for the same space.

“I take it you work from your home here?” he asked.

“Yeah. I do technical writing for Mytron, Inc.—they’re out of Boulder. I put together brochures and manuals for them, that sort of thing. Once every few weeks—at least once a month—I drive to Boulder and stay overnight, do the face-to-face meetings kind of thing. Otherwise all I really need are the phone, fax and modem to make the telecommuting style work just fine. And I’ll show you the loft, but only if you promise to blind your eyes.”

He had to chuckle. “Trust me, I’ve seen messy before.”

“Uh-huh. I’ve heard big claims like that before. But I’m talking bad messy. I’m talking disgrace. I’m talking my sister is ashamed to know me, it’s so bad.”

An open staircase led up, where a waist-high balcony viewed the stone fireplace below. The room was a cluttered mess, so much so that Andy’s first thought was Good, not too likely she’d had men sleeping over recently.

She whipped a bra out of sight, kicked a scrap of something pink under the bed, kept him chuckling, but a second and more serious thought had already followed the first...for all her apparent pep and lively spirit, she’d had some rough nights since the accident. Her queen-size bed had a white down comforter over salmon sheets. The sheets weren’t just rumpled but untucked and pulled out, as if her dreams had been wild and troubled.

It was her architecture and design she was showing off, though, so he played along. The slanted roof had a skylight. The floor was carpeted with an Oriental rug that looked ankle-deep, but it was tricky to tell the pattern with the clothes and papers and books she had piled all over. The adjoining bathroom was big enough to have a square tub and a sit-down counter space. Her scent pervaded the bath. Soft, not sweet, not a scent he knew or could pin down, but distinctive and evocative. Like her.

“So how long have you lived here?” he asked.

“Almost four years now. Grew up in Colorado Springs, got the job at Mytron in Boulder when I graduated from school. But I really like country life, and my sister lived here, and when her husband was diagnosed with cancer about then...well. She’s my family and they needed some help. It took a while to convince Mytron that I could do the job via telecommuting, but once I could see that was going to work out, I started looking at land to build a place. I really love the area.”

“I was born and raised here, but I love it, too. Think I’m addicted to the mountains, and I can’t imagine living in a place where buildings close you in.” As they climbed back down the loft stairs, Andy again noticed the slight limp in her right leg. But a shadow moving on her porch snapped his cop’s eyes in that ditection...at least for a second. “Um, I believe you’ve got a deer on your patio.”

“Yeah. Horace. He’s a voyeur—around this time of day, he usually shows up for a handout and peeks in my windows at the same time. He was in love last fall. God, there is no worse doofus than a buck in love. Brought Martha up to the patio to meet me. But I haven’t seen her since, think the love affair must have gone sour, and he’s gone back to peeking in my windows again.”

Andy scratched his chin. “I’m not sure there’s a charge for a sexually deviant deer.”

“It’s okay. I don’t think Horace is highly motivated to reform anyway. The only neighbor who gives me real fits is Cleopatra—she’s a raccoon, and I swear she steals anything that isn’t nailed down or padlocked. You want a refill on that coffee?”

“Thanks, but I really should be going.” Andy figured he’d stayed long enough for an uninvited visitor. “Never heard a name like Cleopatra for a raccoon before.”

“Well, it seemed to fit. Honestly, if you saw her, you’d fall for her. All the guys do. She turns up pregnant every spring. I think it’s in the eyes. She’s got that fatal allure kind of thing.”

“Maggie?” She made him chuckle again, imagining a raccoon with fatal allure. But they were ambling through the kitchen toward his coat. Andy considered he only had a few minutes left to get in anything serious, and Maggie cocked her head curiously when she heard the change in his tone.

“You’re pretty isolated on this stretch of road. You really getting around okay since the accident?”

“Yeah. Really. Just fine.”

“How about wheels?”

“Well, I have to get around to car shopping. A fate worse than death, if you ask me...but I’m fine for now anyway. Colin brought in some fresh groceries, and this time of year I’ve always got a stocked freezer because there’s always at least one blizzard before Christmas. My sis has a car I could borrow if I had to. Really, I’m fine.”

“You want some company car shopping?”

She’d paused to stir her spaghetti pot, glanced up. “Frankly, I wouldn’t ask that of my worst enemy, Andy...but if you mean it...sure.”

“Yeah, I mean it. The doc clear you to be out and around?”

“The doc ordered me to sack on the couch for a couple of days. I’ve rested until I’m blue in the face,” she said dryly.

“So rested that the memory came back that was bothering you so much? You remember the accident now?”

It was the first time he saw that upbeat smile of hers falter. The shadows darkening her eyes made him think of that rumpled, torn-up bed. “No,” she admitted quietly. “It’s like that whole twenty-four hours before the accident was just wiped off my map.”

He unhitched his leather jacket from the hook, burrowed into it, but his eyes stayed honed on her face. “It still just happened a few days ago.”

“I know. And the doc must have told me a dozen times that it’s really common. It’s just... Andy, you don’t know me. But I’m just not a person who folds in a crisis. I do rescue work. I hiked the Appalachian Trail alone when I was a kid. I’m no wimp. And especially since the accident wasn’t my fault, I just don’t understand why I can’t make those memories come back unless something else serious happened.”

She was so frustrated, she didn’t seem to realize she was waving her spaghetti spoon around, spattering bits of red on her brick-tiled floor. Andy’d told himself—several times now—that it was time he left. But he instinctively stepped back into the kitchen to remove the lethal weapon from her hand. “I don’t know what you’re worried that ‘something else’ could be. You think you held up the local liquor store earlier that day?”

She had to know he was teasing, but he still couldn’t win that smile back. “Heck. Maybe I did.”

“And maybe cows fly. You’re right that I don’t know you, Maggie. Not well. Not yet, anyway. But offhand, I’d say the community’s safe from your thieving, murderous ways. No offense. But I’d bet the bank you don’t even hit the aspiring criminal ranks near any of the seven deadly sins.”

“Hey, I speed,” she said defensively.

“Well, hell. Let’s cuff you right now and send you up the river.”

“Darn it, Andy. Cut it out. You’re making me feel better.”

“Um...that was kind of the idea. In fact, seems to me if speeding’s enough to give you a guilt attack—whether you can remember the specifics or not—I think you can safely rest your mind that you didn’t rob any banks that day.”

“Okay, okay, I admit I really doubt I did anything like that either,” she said wryly, but then she sighed. “Only I keep waking up from these dreams. Nothing there. No substance. But my heart’s pounding and my hands are sweaty. And the whole feeling just tastes like guilt, like I must have done something really wrong.”

Andy was standing close enough to touch her, but he never intended to. His hand just somehow lifted to her cheek. The thing was, she seemed so troubled about that little twenty-four-hour memory lapse, when everything about her came across as strong and honest. She was a woman who damn near reeked integrity. He just wanted to communicate empathy, reassurance, and words alone didn’t seem to be getting the job done. Possibly, conceivably, there were a few other small factors motivating his need to touch her, too.

Like the little swish in her behind when she walked. And the mischief in her humor. And her naming a deer Horace. And that elusive, evocative scent she wore. And the way being near her had his rusty hormones kicking up an unsettling tizzy, when that hadn’t happened to Andy in a dog’s age. He didn’t lack for female company and he wasn’t particularly wary—hell, every matchmaker in town had been throwing single women at him since the divorce. But leaping for an impulse just wasn’t his way. He was too old to be impressed by a cute tush, and the kind of attraction that mattered took both time and seriously testing the compatibility waters before risking a bunch of grief that wasn’t worth it.

So it was way too soon to even think about touching her.

And way out of line to be thinking about kissing her.

But once his palm touched her cheek, she lifted her face. Something was there. An expression that made him feel heart-punched, a connection in her luminous eyes that made his thumb instinctively stroke the edge of her jaw. She didn’t move. She met his eyes, with all the wariness of a doe edgy with a buck in her territory. But she watched him on that long, long trip when he was bending down. And her lips were parted by the time he’d traveled the distance to hers.

Soft. She tasted soft and warm and tremulous. Both times he’d met her, she’d come across with that I’m-sturdy, I-can-take-care-of-myself routine. He believed it. It was probably why he’d taken to her so damned impossibly fast. But that wasn’t how she kissed.

It’d been so long since he kissed anyone he figured he’d forgotten how. Real quickly he realized that past experience wasn’t going to rescue him from this problem anyway. This wasn’t like any other kiss. She wasn’t like any other woman.

His lips touched down, traced hers, in a testing questing kiss that she seemed to answer in the same language. It was like discovering a field of wildflowers in a snowstorm. Magic where it couldn’t be. A time-out from reality that made no particular sense. He could smell her spaghetti sauce bubbling. Feel her kitchen lights glaring. His life was going fine, he wasn’t all that lonely. Until he kissed her.

Her hand lifted, clutched at the folds of his leather jacket. Not pushing him away, just holding on. And that wooing, whisper-soft kiss kept coming on, like a spell being woven from her textures, her scents, the way her mouth fit his like she belonged to him, like he’d been missing her all this time and hadn’t known.

He didn’t try deepening the kiss. Didn’t want to. But he kept thinking there had to be a catch. He kept waiting for the goofy, crazy feeling of a soul connection to disappear, for some common sense to give him a whack upside the head. Only it didn’t. And she responded with the same wary, winsome, tremulous honesty, as if her sanity had been ransomed by that hushed, soft kiss the same as his had.

He got around to lifting his head. Eventually. She got around to opening her eyes. Eventually. They stared at each other like such a couple of shell-shocked teenagers that he had to smile. Eventually.

“I didn’t come here expecting that,” he said.

“I never thought you did.”

“I just came to make sure you were okay. That’s the truth.”

“I believe you, Andy.”

“Seems to me, chemistry that strong pops up out of nowhere—it’s nothing you can trust, just asking for trouble.”

“I couldn’t agree more.”

“Uh-huh.” He zipped up his jacket, grinned at her. “You can count on it. I’ll be back.”

Three

Maggie whisked the dinner plates into the dishwasher and sponged down the counters, but her gaze kept darting to the kitchen window. Predictably by the first of December, the sun had long fallen even this early in the evening. After two days of howling winds and incessant snow, the drifts swirled and curled in mystical shapes that looked like glazed icing in the moonlight. But her driveway was cleared—and empty, except for her sister’s car. Andy wasn’t due for another hour, so there was no reason on earth for her to start looking for him this early.

She grabbed a dish towel to wipe her hands, half amused, half exasperated to realize how nervous she was. Men never made her nervous. Offhand, she couldn’t think of much in life that had ever intimidated her...outside of the strange, unsettling nightmares prowling her sleep since the accident. But that problem had nothing to do with Andy.

She didn’t normally volunteer a house tour to strangers—much less expose her disastrously messy sleeping loft to a man’s eyes. At the time...well, she hadn’t known he was going to kiss her. Didn’t know that kiss was going to knock her for six. But something had been kindling and simmering the two times she’d been around him. And the mistakes Maggie had made with men in the past all had the same roots.

Most guys claimed to be comfortable around a strong woman, but they really weren’t. Someone looking for a vulnerable, traditional sweetie just wasn’t going to find it in her. She’d been self-reliant and independent too long. These days, if there was even the tiniest hint of potential kindling, Maggie just believed in being frankly blunt about who she was. What you see is what you get. No faking it. Being nice just got in the way—if a guy was going to be scared off by her independence or messiness or anything else, better to know it and move on before either of them had a pile of hurtful emotions invested.

But Andy hadn’t been scared off. At least not by anything she’d shown him so far. And for Maggie, that was downright rattling. Men always had some sweet, macho protective thing to say about a woman alone living in such a remote location. They fretted about her safety.

Safety was a relative term, Maggie mused. Trussed and blindfolded, she could capably cope with a dead furnace in a blizzard or a wounded moose wandering in her backyard. Piece of cake. Danger never had been a common word in her vocabulary—until meeting Andy, anyway. It struck her ironic humor buttons that something in those dark, sexy eyes made her feel distinctly unsafe.

And that was new and rattling, too.

“Maggie, for Pete’s sake, I told you I’d do the dishes. I was only gone for a minute! I didn’t mean to leave you with all the work.”

Maggie whirled around when her sister Joanna emerged from the bathroom. “No big deal. The two of us didn’t use enough dishes to take me more than two shakes.”

“But you made the dinner. And I really meant to help—”

“So you can help next time.” Although that would never happen, Maggie suspected. Growing up, the sisters had bickered like cats and dogs over stuff like this. Joanna was infamous for making the virtuous offer, but somehow always managed to be out of sight when it came time to do the dishes or the chore. But that was then, and this was now. “I made a fresh pot of tea—raspberry mint. You want a cup?”

“Maybe a short one. But I don’t want to rush you on time. When’s the sheriff picking you up?”

“Not until seven. And I keep telling you, it’s no big thing. Andy just offered to take me car shopping.” Maggie set a sturdy mug in front of her sister, feeling her heart catch just looking at Joanna’s face.

Any nerves about meeting Andy were backbumered. She was so worried about her sister that she could hardly think. Steve had died more than a year ago. God knew the two had been inseparably in love, but Maggie felt at an increasing loss for how to help Joanna move past her grief.

Her sister was five years older than she, and in Maggie’s view, the real beauty in the family. Now, though, Joanna’s long blond hair was lanky, her elegant features drawn, the huge almond-shaped green eyes deeply shadowed. Her slim white hands trembled even holding the mug of tea.

Maggie had always been the strong cookie of the pair. From the time her brother-in-law was diagnosed with cancer, she’d naturally stepped in. Long before Steve died, she’d had her sister over for dinner once a week, took her nephews all the time, stopped by the house whenever she could. But Steve had been gone a year now, and Joanna seemed more fragile instead of less. Increasingly everything seemed to throw her sister, from finances to leaky faucets to snowstorms. Joanna paced the floor at night, worrying about her two sons. She didn’t sleep right, didn’t eat right, didn’t take care of herself.

Maggie could fix the stupid leaky faucets and sneakily pad Joanna’s bank account, but she didn’t know how to fix her sister. The two may have fought ferociously growing up, but they’d also always been hopeless gigglers. Lately it was tougher than climbing a mountain to win a smile out of Joanna.

“Hey, did I tell you how great Colin’s been to me? I don’t know how many times he’s been over since the accident. Shoveled my walk without asking, stacked my wood. What’s wrong with him?” Maggie teased.

“He always worshiped the ground you walked on. And you’re terrific with both boys. I can’t seem to get either one of them to talk to me...” Joanna spilled a little tea. “I don’t seem to be doing anything right lately.”

Maggie hustled for a cloth to wipe up the spill. “Listen, you goose, you’re doing fine. Quit being so hard on yourself. Do you remember either of us talking to Mom or Dad when we were teenagers? There’s just this stage where it’s hard to talk to a parent. But I do think you should get out more.”

“Mags, I’m not ready to date anyone.”

“So don’t date. But you could take up skiing, or aerobics... you love cards, maybe you could find a euchre club. There’s a dozen things you could do to get out, meet people again—”

“You’ve got ten times more courage than I do, Maggie. I’m just not good with charging into things the way you do. Speaking of which...do you know this guy you’re going out with tonight?”

“Andy? Nope. But being the sheriff, I think it’s a fairly safe bet he isn’t a serial killer on the sly. And how well do you have to know someone to spend a couple hours car shopping with them?” Maggie asked wryly.

“I still don’t know why you just didn’t ask me. I’d have taken you. Or you could have borrowed my car. You do so much for me all the time, Mags, and you never let me return the favor—”

Cripes, they were going down another long, mournful road. “Come on, you,” Maggie said humorously, “I couldn’t see turning down guy help. Not on this. What the two of us know about mechanics would fit in a thimble with room to spare.”

“Well, that’s true. Clothes shopping’d be a lot more fun,” Joanna admitted. “For that matter, Christmas is coming and I haven’t even started that shopping yet.”

“Good. Neither have I. How about if we block off next Thursday morning and get a start on it together?”

It took a while to get her sister on a more upbeat track. By the time she had Joanna bundled up and headed out the door, though, headlight beams were turning in her drive. Andy. And she hadn’t had two seconds to brush her hair or yank on her good boots, much less slap on some lipstick.

Still, she stood freezing in the open doorway. Andy pulled up next to her sister’s car and stepped out. The yard light didn’t beam far enough for her to identify his vehicle, but it was something low and black instead of the car with the sheriffs logo. He stopped long enough to introduce himself to her sister and exchange a few words.

Before driving off, Joanna turned around to level her a look. Maggie knew That Look from their childhood. It meant she’d neglected to tell her sister some critical tidbit of information...such as that her casual don’t-sweat-it company for the evening was a priceless hunk, for example.

Which he was. He ambled toward the door, as lazy as a long, cool drink of something wicked, his boots crunching in the snow, his jacket open over a thick black sweater.

Her sister’s car lights disappeared down the road, and then there was nothing but him—and a wham-slam of magic that confounded Maggie. It was absolutely ridiculous for a practical, grounded, capable twenty-nine-year-old woman to feel bowled over by the look in a guy’s eyes. But there it was. She hadn’t suddenly stopped worrying about Joanna; no problems in her job or life had instantly disappeared. But darn it, he was so darling she just wanted to sip him in.

His mouth kicked up a grin long before he reached her back porch. Those eyes of his were darker than a midnight sky. He gave the length of her a once-over, from the floppy socks to her jeans and navy angora sweater to her hair flying every which way. Maggie knew darn well there was nothing in her appearance to earn that sizzling spark.

“Remembered anything yet that I need to arrest you for?”

Sparks or no sparks, she had to laugh. “I haven’t robbed any banks since the accident—but that’s all I’m willing to swear to.”

“Uh-huh. That memory loss was the story you gave me last time. I was a little afraid you’d extend that amnesia business to tonight, knowing how thrilled you were at the idea of car shopping.”

“If I didn’t have to have transportation, nothing could talk me into domg this,” she admitted. “And I did think about cancelling. This is an awful thing to ask anyone to do, Andy.”

“As I remember it, I offered. You’re not putting me through anything I didn’t volunteer for. And, speaking for myself, I think this is like toothpaste.”

She’d just turned around to pull on her suede boots and grab her jacket and purse. “Toothpaste?”

“Yeah. There’s just no point in getting all hot and heavy and involved with a woman, only to find out she squeezes the toothpaste tube from the top. I mean, where can you take a wild, immoral affair after that? You just know it’s going downhill.”

“Um...I take your point. I think. But I’m not exactly sure how you got from toothpaste-tube-abusers to car shopping?”

“Car shopping with a woman,” Andy informed her, “gets all those down-and-dirty details out of the way right up front. If you go for the awkward first date, out-to-dinner thing, what do you ever learn? Nobody’s honest. Both sides are too busy tiptoeing around each other, trying to be ultra nice.”

“I sure agree with that. First dates, you’re just kind of stuck, being on your shaved and perfumed behavior, so to speak,” Maggie replied with a chuckle.

“Uh-huh. But if you do something like this, now...” Andy thoughtfully scratched his chin. “You find out what kind of car really seduces her. Like whether she’s interested in looking under the hood or just goes for a showy exterior. Whether she wants to know all the safety features ahead, or that’s just not a concern. How much power turns her on—or off. Whether she likes a slow, steady acceleration or a fast, rough ride.”

“Whew.” Maggie zipped up her jacket and propped her hands on her hips. “That lazy, country boy drawl is really good, Gautier. For a minute there, I almost believed you were talking about cars.”

“I was, I was.”

“Uh-huh. And cats fly. For the record, I don’t look under anybody’s hood on a first date. On the other hand...” Maggie threaded on gloves as she hiked past him. “I think you’ve got a valid theory going. I’d rather do this than the out-to-dinner thing any time—for your sake, really. If by some remote chance you can survive car shopping with me, the future probably stretches in front of us with limitless possibilities. At the very least, you’ll unquestionably earn hero status, sainthood, a couple medals for courage...”

“A drink when this is over?”

“That, too.”

“Well, hell. Let’s go find you a chariot, ma’am, and get that little chore over with.”

By the time they were belted in his dark car and winging down the road, Andy had conquered the urge to kiss her. Actually, the marvel wasn’t that he’d behaved himself. Hell, he always behaved himself—unless invited otherwise. But he wasn’t expecting the power of that temptation. A divorce gave any man an instant Ph.D. in caution.

And he felt cautious with Maggie. The problem with fireworks was that they fizzled out so fast. A light show. Then phfft. So he’d logically figured out that magical redhot sexual pull would settle down if he just saw her, spent some time with her again. Sizzle mattered. Sizzle was nice—deliriously nice, in her case. But Andy was wary of letting his hormones get in a dither before finding out if they had the kind of charge between them that counted.

That was the theory. A double-dose dither had turned out to be the reality. One look at those fading, vulnerable bruises and his first instinct was to pull her into his arms. One look at that soft red mouth connected directly to a hot wire in his groin. The way she cocked her chin, the swish of silken hair framing her face, the gutsy pride in the way she stood, the sparkle and devil in her eyes...hell, there was no one detail that heated his hormones to a bubbling simmer. It was just her. The whole package. No woman had tangled his nerves up like this in a long, long time. He couldn’t stop wondering if she’d take all that sparkle and devil and honesty with her under the sheets. Under his sheets.

Cars, he thought.

He needed to keep his mind on cars.

“A lot of people out tonight,” Maggie remarked.

“Yeah. The early Christmas shopping crowd, I’m guessing.” His windshield wipers fretfully scraped a haphazard splash of snow. Main Street was well lit, but he could see pedestrians slip-and-sliding. The roads were icy slick and the temperature was pushing a mean subzero. Andy doubted most people would normally choose this season or time of day to car shop, but most people didn’t see any accidents the way a cop did. Personally he thought it was an ideal time to test the mettle of any vehicle. “So...are you ready to get down to brass tacks? We’ve got three car dealerships in Silver Township. Probably help if you’d give me a clue what you’re looking for.”

“Something that starts in winter and doesn’t give me any trouble.”

“Okay. That only limits it to about five thousand models. Anything just a little more specific on your wish list?”

“Well...if it can’t behave on snow and rough back roads, it’s no good to me. And I need some room. Like space for skis in the winter, backpacks and tents in the summer. The car that was totalled in the accident? It was new. It was pretty. It had cream upholstery. It was the dumbest thing I could possibly have bought, for me.”

“So you need more of a practical, utility vehicle. Sturdy, four-wheel drive, dual brakes...lots of good choices we can look at in that ballpark. Now to the dicier questions. I don’t want to pry. But before we get near a car salesman, it’d help if you gave me a ceiling and a general idea what your price range is.”

She chuckled. “Money isn’t a problem, Andy. I can handle that part.”

He heard the chuckle, but he also caught the teensy stiffening in her shoulders. Oops, best not go down that road, he thought dryly.

But as they drove into the first car dealership, he felt increasingly relaxed. He was pretty sure how this was going to go. Not that he knew Maggie so well, but certain things just seemed obvious. She had a couple tons of pride and a big thing about independence. Ergo, it was tough for her to admit to a weakness, and if she’d been bamboozled on price or mechanics or a bad car choice before, it was just natural that she’d be a little prickly.

Like any lawman in a small town, Andy knew the business owners on a first-name basis. He was with her, so she wasn’t gonna get bamboozled this time. He just had to be careful to help her out in an unobtrusive, tactful way. And the second ingredient Andy figured he needed to make this venture go smoothly was a couple buckets of patience.

Maggie was, after all, female. And even a bad marriage could teach a guy certain things. Shopping with women for anything was like trying to communicate with an alien species. They needed time. They needed to compare. They needed space to be indecisive. They took forty years to make up their minds on anything.

Blazing white neon lights illuminated a half acre of cars. Andy stepped out and plastered on his soul-ofpatience smile. No guy she’d ever been with—and for damn sure no guy she’d ever kissed—was ever gonna be as patient as he was.

Cut and dried.

Harvey Lyman barrelled out of the building the instant he saw them climbing out of Andy’s car. “Hi there, folks!” Harvey had a fluff of white hair, cheeks like apples and a gut like a watermelon—four weeks from now he’d be playing Santa, and God knew he had a face that could inspire trust in the unsuspecting. His smile sagged a good half inch when he recognized Andy.

“Good to see you, Sheriff Gautier.” They pumped hands, did the obligatory how’s your dad, isn’t this snow something small talk routine. “So what can I do for you? You’re looking at cars?”

“I brought a friend. She’s looking. Just looking tonight, but....” Andy half turned to introduce Maggie, and found her gone. No tea-brown bobbing head anywhere, no puffy down-filled green jacket that matched her eyes, no nothing.

Harvey was chugging steam by the time they caught up with her. Maggie had just finished circling a sporty white utility vehicle with a dark gray interior. She lifted her face in a smile when she saw Andy. “This’ll do,” she announced.

“Yeah, I think that’s one of the good choices that’d work for you, but...” But he assumed she was kidding.

She wasn’t kidding.

There were dozens of other cars to check out, and they hadn’t even strolled through the other dealerships. She hadn’t sat behind the wheel. He strongly suspected she hadn’t even glanced at the sticker price.

Harvey could smell a sucker at fifty paces, but even he had to choke out a suggestion that she must want to look around. No dice. Maggie patted the big car’s rump. “Really, this fits the bill. Right size. Colors I can live with. I don’t see any reason not to just get this over with—”

Harvey was in danger of an imminent heart attack. He’d probably never smelled such an easy sales commission in his entire thirty years in the business. Still, he managed to puff out, “You’re making a brilliant choice, a fine vehicle, dependable—”

“Shut up, Harvey. Maggie, you’re not buying a car you haven’t even sat in.” Harvey produced the keys faster than a finger snap. She climbed in, sat down, climbed back out again.

“Okay. Feels good. Now can we just get this over with? Where do I pay?”

Harvey went into a spasm of coughing. Andy clamped a firm hand on his shoulder. “She’s going to test drive it. And then she’s going to think about it. Long and hard. The only reason she’s smiling is because that sticker price is so funny. You hear me, Harv?”

Harvey not only wasn’t listening; Harvey had completely forgotten who’d saved his nephew from a drunkand-disorderly charge at Babe’s bar last year. He only had eyes for Maggie, and they were big and soulful and sincere. “You just take it for as long a drive as you want to, honey. Enjoy yourself. It’s such a classy car, I can’t even think of another vehicle that’d be more perfect for you—”

Once Harv was shut out and they were both seated inside the car, Maggie said, “Look, I can see you’re getting exasperated with me—”

On a witch-black night in a pitch-black car, he could still see the wariness in her eyes. Wariness that hadn’t been there before. “Are you kidding? I’m not remotely exasperated.”

Exasperated, no. Dumbfounded, yes. Naturally he kept quiet while she fiddled around, learning where the gauges and controls were, and finally putting the baby in gear. Most people test-drove vehicles in daylight and perfect conditions, but Andy had cleaned up after too many car crashes. Her seeing how the vehicle handled on snow-crusted roads at night was a prizewinning idea, in his view. Only she’d had enough after one round-the-block.

He made her drive it on the highway for a good ten miles, then cajoled her into handling it in an empty iceslick parking lot. But that was all he could talk her into. Actually, he thought the vehicle was a good choice for her and Harvey was likely to make the best deal—he’d never have brought her here otherwise. He just couldn’t believe any woman could make up her mind faster than a speeding comet—much less stick to it.

Harvey was waiting outside when they drove back in, wearing a three-hundred-watt smile to help light the night. “You loved it, didn’t you? I just knew you would. And I’ll help you all through the financing, little lady, don’t you worry about a thing. You’ve picked a great car, a really great car—”

“Harvey,” Maggie said gently, “we’re not going to survive the next five minutes together if you call me ‘little lady’ or ‘honey’ again. Just call me Maggie, okay?”

Twenty degrees, tops, wind so mean it had to be twenty below with the wind chill, but Harvey’s forehead abruptly beaded sweat. “Of course, Maggie—”

“And I won’t need financing. I’ll pay you in cash.”

Harvey’s jaw dropped. Hell, so did Andy’s.

“Well, not cash,” she swiftly corrected herself. “I meant a check. I don’t actually have that kind of cash on me. But a check’s okay, isn’t it?” Her gaze darted from one man to the other. “I mean...I assume I can’t drive it home, that you’ll have to call the bank tomorrow to make sure it clears and all, but...”

“Um, Maggie...” Andy swept an arm around her shoulder to steer her out of Harvey’s earshot. He wasn’t sure what to say—not without bucking into her pride—and those shoulders of hers were stiff, that beautiful jaw of hers jutting at an awfully defensive angle. “Sweet pea, I’m getting the feeling that maybe you haven’t bought too many cars before?”

“Well...no. The thing is, my parents died, Andy. Not together, but about the same time. My mom got sick, pneumonia they couldn’t lick, and my dad was on the way to the hospital when someone smashed into him. We were pretty young—Joanna just out of college and I was in my first year—”

“Aw, hell. I’m sorry.”

“I didn’t tell you to make you feel bad. And I didn’t mean to get into all that—I was just trying to explain about the cars. Joanna already had a car, so I ended up with my parents’ vehicle, drove it for years. When it finally quit...well, the car that just got totalled is the only one I ever bought of my own. And that experience was just as awful and nerve-racking as this one.”

Andy was suddenly getting a whole different picture of why car shopping upset her so much. There’d never been a dad or someone to teach her the basic strategy. “Well, to begin with...it’s pretty rare people pay for cars in cash.”

“Yeah. I know. The guy about had a fit the first time—like he changed his mind and didn’t even want to sell it to me? Cripes, he gave me such a hard time I almost walked out. If I hadn’t needed the wheels, I would have.”

“I understand. But thing is, the sticker price isn’t the whole story. If you want the car, you want the car. But it’s real likely Harv’ll go down some significant dollars if we give him a chance to sharpen his pencil. And the other thing is, you just might not want to deplete any interest-earning savings or capital to pour into a single giant expense like this.”

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