There was a small smile on Ry’s handsome face as he looked into her eyes in the light of the street lamp.

But just when Kate expected more cajoling and coaxing, that wasn’t what he did.

What he did was lean over the door to press his mouth to hers. Only for a moment. Stealing a kiss instead.

And then it was over so quickly she hadn’t even had a chance to react or kiss him back—not that she’d wanted to.

“I thought I wasn’t your type?” she said, raising her chin to him as if that slight buss hadn’t added to the earlier touch of his hand to make her knees go just a little wobbly.

“Yeah…I keep telling myself that,” he said in an almost-whisper.

Dear Reader,

Kate Perry has a goal—to get married and have kids. But she’s wasted a lot of time with immature men who have strung her along. So now she has a plan—she’s joined dating services and will agree to meet only men who list their own goal as marriage and family, men who give no indication of immaturity in any form.

Then in swoops Ry Grayson, flying his own plane, his shoulder injured in a skateboarding mishap, already touted as a daredevil kid-at-heart. So he instantly doesn’t make the cut.

Of course, the conservative, small-town reverend’s granddaughter isn’t Ry’s type, either. He just needs her help solving the mystery of his grandmother’s past. The problem is, sometimes being together reveals that there’s more than meets the eye….

Welcome back to Northbridge. I hope it feels like home to you.

Always the best,

Victoria Pade

The Bachelor’s Northbridge Bride
Victoria Pade

www.millsandboon.co.uk

VICTORIA PADE

is a USA TODAY bestselling author of numerous romance novels. She has two beautiful and talented daughters—Cori and Erin—and is a native of Colorado, where she lives and writes. A devoted chocolate lover, she’s in search of the perfect chocolate chip cookie recipe. For information about her latest and upcoming releases, and to find recipes for some of the decadent desserts her characters enjoy, log on to www.vikkipade.com.

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 Thirteen

Epilogue

Chapter One

“Here he comes!”

Kate Perry heard the announcement of the excited bride just as Kate ducked in reflex to the sound of a plane flying so low overhead that she thought it was going to crash into the Graysons’ house.

Kate watched her soon-to-be-sister-in-law rush through the French doors that opened onto the balcony outside the second-floor bedroom. From there Marti Grayson waved wildly as two of the other bridesmaids followed behind. Kate only reluctantly brought up the rear. She wasn’t sure she wanted to be on the balcony of the decaying old house if the plane made a second pass.

Which it did just as she got outside, towing a banner that said CONGRATULATIONS MARTI AND NOAH.

“That’s Ry,” Marti said with a laugh, enjoying the spectacle as the plane flew off this time.

Marti Grayson was about to marry Kate’s brother Noah. Kate and her sister Meg were two of the four bridesmaids, but Meg was helping Noah with his tie while Kate stayed with the bride and the other bridesmaids.

But Kate seemed to be the only one of the group who had found it alarming to have a plane take a dive toward the house.

“I know Noah said your brother was flying in but did that mean he pilots his own plane?” she asked, wondering if she’d missed that bit of information somewhere along the line.

“That’s what it means,” Marti confirmed. “You name it, Ry does it—flies his own plane, races cars and motorcycles, does extreme sports, dives off cliffs—he’ll do anything. He has no fear, our Ry. He’s just a great big kid at heart. I don’t think he’ll ever grow up,” the bride concluded affectionately.

Kate forced a smile at her soon-to-be-sister-in-law’s amusement. But to Kate, what Marti was saying about Ry Grayson—and many of the other things Kate had heard about him—just made him sound reckless and immature.

She kept her opinion to herself, though, as everyone moved back into the bedroom to continue the last-minute wedding preparations. Her preliminary opinion of Ry Grayson wasn’t important to anyone but her.

“I can’t wait for Ry to meet you, Kate,” Marti was saying. “I know you were out of town for Wyatt and Neily’s wedding a few weeks ago so you didn’t get to meet him then, but you’re going to love him—everybody does.”

Kate did the smile again, adding a nod this time.

She knew everyone who had met the third Grayson triplet when he’d been in her small hometown of Northbridge, Montana, had liked him. And was still talking about him even though three weeks had gone by. Full of life. Will do anything for a good time. Over-the-top crazy man. Fun, fun, fun…

Those were only some of the things Kate had heard said of Ry Grayson. And swooping around in a plane with a congratulations banner? That was going to win him more popularity points with everyone else.

The Grayson triplets were the grandchildren of Theresa Hobbs Grayson, a native of Northbridge who had left town over fifty years ago. Theresa had only recently returned in the midst of a particularly bad episode of the mental instability and dementia she suffered. It had brought her back to her deserted family home in search of something she claimed to have had taken from her.

Her grandchildren, Marti, Wyatt and Ry—who were also her guardians—had opted to let Theresa remain in Northbridge while they sorted through her history and tried to make right the wrongs Theresa believed were done to her long ago.

In Northbridge, both Wyatt and Marti had made love-matches—Wyatt with Neily Pratt, and now Marti with Kate’s brother Noah. But while Kate liked the down-to-earth Wyatt and Marti, she wasn’t looking forward to meeting the more showy Ry.

There was a knock on the bedroom door just then and Kate’s sister Meg came in carrying a box full of tiny white daisies.

“The florist said these are for everyone’s hair,” Meg said as she set the box on the bed.

“They’re a surprise!” Marti informed them. “I asked for these with you in mind, Kate. They seemed like the perfect thing for that curly red hair and the way you’re wearing it pulled back today. So everyone gets them since we didn’t plan headpieces or hats.”

Kate appreciated the special thought and took her share of the daisies to one of several mirrors set around the room for the occasion.

Curly red hair—that was what she had all right. Not wiry, coarse curls, just big waves of thick hair the color of red mahogany.

It was good hair. In fact, in high school, it had been voted Best Hair. But Kate sometimes wondered if it got her into trouble. If maybe the novelty of it drew the attention of the sort of men she was now dead set against getting involved with again.

Maybe she should dye it.

Change her hair color, maybe change her luck with men?

It was a thought….

Careful attention was required for Kate to intersperse the flowers among the curls but even so, she was the first to finish while Meg and the other two bridesmaids continued to place them as artfully as possible in their own hairdos.

She asked if anyone wanted help but since they didn’t, she used the time to make a final assessment of the rest of her own appearance.

Mascara brightened her blue-green eyes. Blush helped accentuate her cheekbones in her otherwise pale skin, and she hoped a slight dusting of it across her nose camouflaged what she thought of as a too-narrow and pointy beak.

Her lips were highlighted with a mauve gloss that matched the calf-length, nondescript bridesmaids’ dresses. And she loved the earrings that Marti had given her as a gift—they were small teardrop diamonds. Traditional and conservative. Like Kate. Who was just an old-fashioned small-town girl through and through.

Everyone else was still fiddling with the flowers when a gust of early June wind came through the French doors, left open since the flyby. Kate went to close them and, just as she did, the loud roar of an approaching motorcycle caught her attention from below.

“That will be Ry again,” Marti said at the sound. “Wyatt left him a motorcycle in the field where he had to land so he could get here as quick as possible. Now we’ll be able to start anytime.”

But her brother had only flown overhead about twenty minutes ago. Had he been able to land a plane, hop on a motorcycle and get here already? Apparently all that racing Marti had mentioned paid off.

Kate closed the doors but curiosity kept her there to peer through the glass at the arrival of the helmeted man in coveralls.

Coveralls? They’d at least have to wait for him to change clothes, wouldn’t they?

Bounding right up onto the old house’s already patchy lawn, the man who was presumably Ry Grayson brought the motorcycle to an abrupt halt, turned off the engine and then sat straddling the big machine with his long legs while he took off his helmet.

Golden-blond sun-streaked hair gleamed in the late Sunday-afternoon sunshine. It was cut short at the sides and in back, but with the removal of the helmet, he ran a big hand through the longer top, managing to muss it to perfection by ruffling his fingers through it.

From the distance Kate couldn’t tell the details of his face, but she could see that he was as handsome as she’d heard. He had a sculpted, masculine bone structure and a well-defined, strong chin. There was no doubt in Kate’s mind by then that the man was Ry Grayson because he resembled his siblings. And even without close inspection, Kate could tell that Ry was the jewel in the crown when it came to looks. Wyatt and Marti were more than attractive, but Ry was striking.

He hung his helmet on the motorcycle’s handlebars and swung a long leg over the seat to get off, standing tall and lean and broad shouldered. Then he yanked apart what must have been snaps holding the coveralls closed and shrugged out of them to reveal a dashingly tailored tuxedo underneath.

First the plane, then the motorcycle and now the stripping off of coveralls to transform into the debonair groomsman—the guy seemed to think he was James Bond.

There was a knock on the bedroom door just then, followed by the photographer asking to take a few shots of the bride and her attendants getting ready.

“Will you let him in, Kate?” Marti asked.

Kate took one last glance at Ry Grayson as he headed for the house, then she tore herself away from the French doors to do the bride’s bidding.

But even as she did, she became aware that there was suddenly a tiny flicker of eagerness in her to get this show on the road so she could have a better look at the man who was just coming in downstairs.

But it was a flicker she stomped out the minute she realized it was there.

No more Peter Pans! she swore.

And she meant it.

But why was it that they always seemed to come in such prime packaging? she wondered as she showed the photographer in.

“Kate! There you are! Finally! Every time I think I’m going to be able to introduce you to Ry you slip away.”

Kate smiled at her new sister-in-law as if she didn’t know what Marti was talking about when, in fact, Kate had been doing her best to avoid the introduction since the minute the wedding ceremony had ended.

Only now Marti had literally cornered her in the dining room.

“Ry, this is Kate, Noah’s other sister—the one you haven’t met because she couldn’t make it to Wyatt’s wedding. Kate, this is Ry.”

“Kate,” he repeated in a deep voice that was so sexy it made just the saying of her name sound like an endearment.

“Nice to meet you,” she lied, feeling her smile tighten as she raised her gaze for her first steady, open, straight-on look at Ry Grayson—something else she’d been avoiding.

And was he less handsome when she could scrutinize every detail? Oh, no, it would have been too much to ask for anything about him to have been ordinary. Instead—of course—he was so, so much more handsome close-up than when seen at a distance from the French doors in the bedroom, so much more handsome than she’d been able to see when she’d been averting her eyes.

That prominent chin had a dimple. The corners of his lips quirked up with an intriguing aura of mystery. When he smiled at her, two laugh lines bracketed his mouth like parentheses around a secret he was silently sharing. His nose was exactly the right length and width and straightness. And his eyes weren’t merely silver-blue; they were a spectacular, sparkling, metallic silver-blue.

“Where are you in the family order?” he was asking. “Eldest, youngest, somewhere in the middle?”

Kate forced herself to stop counting the ways she could have a weak spot for him if he was a different sort of man and concentrated on his question.

“I’m the youngest but at this time of year, Meg and I are the same age for a while because we’re only ten months apart. Jared is the eldest, Noah is second, then Meg and me.”

He probably hadn’t wanted the details, she chastised herself, he was merely making small talk. It was just that the way he looked in that tuxedo was causing her to be a little scatterbrained.

“I’m the baby of the family, too,” he joked. “Wyatt was born first, Marti seven minutes later and me ten minutes after that.”

“Does that account for you being the spirit-of-youth in your family?” Kate said then, mostly to remind herself.

His eyebrows dipped together in an amused frown. “The spirit-of-youth?”

“The daredevil,” she qualified.

“I have been known to take some risks, that’s true,” he confirmed.

“You nearly scared poor Kate to death when you flew over earlier,” Marti contributed in explanation. “I think she thought a plane was about to crash into us.”

He hadn’t taken his eyes off Kate even when his sister spoke, and he didn’t now. “You must be easily frightened,” he goaded.

“It did sound like you were going to land in the bedroom,” Marti said.

He grinned as if that was exactly what he’d been going for. But he finally glanced away from Kate to look at Marti. “I had to let you know I was on my way,” he countered remorselessly. “And I wanted you to see the banner.”

Marti rolled her eyes at him, apparently not wanting him to know she’d been delighted by his antics.

But it was to Kate that she said, “I’m forgiving him everything today because he got Gram out of hiding in the kitchen for my wedding—that was where she watched Wyatt’s because she’s so skittish about being around a lot of people. I don’t know if you saw her and Mary Pat, but they came down the stairs and watched from just behind where everyone else was sitting—it made me feel like she was at least a little more a part of it.”

“I did see her and her nurse,” Kate said. She’d also noticed out of the corner of her eye during the ceremony the frequent glances Ry Grayson had cast in that direction, accompanied by reassuring smiles.

“She’ll do things for Ry that none of the rest of us can ever get her to do. He’s a master,” Marti said with admiration.

“Your grandmother wouldn’t stay downstairs afterward, though?” Kate asked because she hadn’t seen Theresa since the pronouncement of Noah and Marti as man and wife.

“Not even Ry could get her to do that, no,” Marti said sadly. “She’s fearful and phobic. And she’s particularly embarrassed about facing people in Northbridge—I’m sure Noah has told you that we’re just piecing together why that is and trying to convince her that she doesn’t need to be.”

But as if that wasn’t a subject for a festive occasion, Marti changed it and said to her brother, “Ry, I also wanted you to meet Kate because she’s a masseuse.”

That brought a slow, lascivious smile to Ry Grayson’s handsome face. “A masseuse. Really? You know, when someone says masseuse the first thing you think of is—”

“Medical massage therapist?” Kate challenged, knowing what he was insinuating.

“Ry…” Marti said in an exaggeratedly reprimanding tone. “You are not honestly making a massage-parlor innuendo to the Reverend’s granddaughter—who you just met—at my wedding, when I’m trying to get you medical aid, are you?”

“Who? Me?” he asked, the picture of innocence were it not for the gleam of mischief in his remarkable eyes.

Marti shook her head and said to Kate, “He can be incorrigible.”

“I never would have guessed,” Kate responded partially under her breath.

But rather than being insulted by her remark, Ry Grayson laughed again and his gaze locked onto Kate’s once more as if he were enjoying the polite sparring.

“Anyway,” Marti continued. “What I was about to tell you, Kate, is that Ry hurt his shoulder yesterday—trying out his neighbor’s son’s skateboard, if you can believe it. I thought there might be something you could do to help since he couldn’t see anyone in Missoula before coming here.”

Kate didn’t have a chance to respond to that because her own brother appeared behind Marti right then, insisting that there was someone his new bride needed to meet.

“Can I trust you alone with Kate?” Marti asked Ry, rather than merely agreeing to go.

“Absolutely. I’ll be on my best behavior,” he swore, raising his right hand.

Marti must not have been completely convinced because she still said, “Do not give Kate a hard time. Remember she’s my sister-in-law now and the Reverend’s granddaughter.”

“Best behavior,” Ry repeated.

Marti cast him a warning look before abandoning Kate to him. Kate, who was still backed into a corner.

She raised her chin, wondering if Ry Grayson was going to keep his word to his sister or not, ready for it if he didn’t.

Then he surprised her and did.

“So you’re Noah’s little sister,” he said conversationally. “Wyatt and I both think a lot of him.”

“I’m glad,” Kate said, meaning it.

“We weren’t sure anyone could ever replace the guy Marti was with before—Jack. We all knew him since we were little kids and he was more than a friend. He was like one of us. When he was killed in the car accident on the way to their wedding, Wyatt and I grieved almost as much as Marti did.”

“It must have been awful,” Kate said, her guard dropping a little in spite of herself because what he was saying—confiding—seemed genuine and heartfelt.

“Jack was a hard act to follow,” Ry continued. “And even though we never said it to Marti, we didn’t think it was possible for us to ever like anyone else as well. But we’ve talked about it—Wyatt and I—and while Noah is different from Jack, we think he’s great.”

Okay, so Ry Grayson was gaining ground with every kind word he said about Noah. Kate couldn’t help it; she was close to her brothers and sister, they were important to her, and it was nice to know Noah’s in-laws were welcoming him so warmly. Nice for Ry Grayson to tell her….

“We feel like we’ve hit the jackpot with Noah when it comes to the remodel and with the work on the Home-Max location, too,” Ry was saying.

Noah was the contractor who had been hired to update and refurbish Theresa Hobbs Grayson’s long-neglected childhood home. It was how Noah and Marti had met and from that, Noah had also agreed to do construction on the building that would house the Northbridge branch of the family’s chain of home-improvement stores.

Ry went on with his accolades. “There are places in the house where Noah has replaced a section of the original crown molding or the spindles in the staircase and even I can’t tell what’s new and what’s old.”

“He is good at what he does,” Kate agreed. Then, testing to see just how fond of her brother the Graysons were—and knowing that Noah had been concerned about what Ry and Wyatt Grayson thought about the fact that Marti was pregnant with Noah’s baby due to a one-night stand at a hardware convention—she said, “What about the baby? Are you and Wyatt okay with that?”

The question didn’t seem to faze Ry. “We’re fine with it. Actually…”

He moved slightly toward her as if what he was about to say was even more of a confidence, and Kate caught a whiff of clean, citrusy cologne that was like a breath of fresh orchard air enticing her a fraction of an inch closer to him, too.

“…I hated what Marti had told us before,” he said in a slightly quieter voice. “She claimed she’d had artificial insemination and I was afraid she’d done it because she was so lonely after losing Jack that it had driven her to extreme measures. I felt like Wyatt and I must have dropped the ball, that we must not have given her enough time or comfort or attention. That we’d really failed her. But the thought that she had met somebody who made her realize that she hadn’t died along with Jack? Somebody she wanted to spend the night with? That just proves she’s human and let me know she was getting over Jack’s death. And to tell you the truth, it was a relief to me not to have to think we’d let her down somehow.”

Kate couldn’t help smiling at that. And wishing he hadn’t just given her a reason to like him.

“What about your side?” he asked then. “A reverend’s family? Are you all wanting to hang your heads in shame because the pregnancy came before the wedding? Or thinking less of Marti because of it?”

“No,” Kate said without hesitation. “I mean, those of us who know Marti is pregnant don’t want to hang our heads in shame and we definitely don’t think any less of her.”

“Those of you who know?”

“Noah hasn’t told the Reverend yet—”

“You call your grandfather the Reverend?”

“No one calls him anything else,” Kate said. Then she went back to answering his question. “The Reverend would be outraged that a member of his family had conceived a child out of wedlock, so Noah put off telling him. In a month or so, Noah will announce it to him as if it’s just happened and leave it at that. But the rest of us know, and since this will be our first niece or nephew, we can’t wait. Well, I can’t wait. And Meg is excited, too. We’ve already started buying baby things. And we really do love Marti. We think of her as another sister. We couldn’t have picked anyone better for Noah ourselves.”

“No, you couldn’t have,” Ry Grayson confirmed. Then, with that subject exhausted, he smiled a smile that was reminiscent of his earlier devilish one, and said, “So, we’re talking medical massage?”

This time there was nothing about his teasing that seemed offensive. “That is what I’m trained in, yes,” she said. “And you hurt yourself riding a neighbor’s kid’s skateboard?”

He grinned, deepening those lines around his supple mouth. “I suppose it was some of that spirit-of-youth,” he countered facetiously. “But I’ve dislocated the shoulder twice before so it doesn’t take much to set it off and when I tried the half-pipe I wiped out a few times. As a result the shoulder is pretty stiff and sore. But usually a therapeutic medical massage helps.”

The way he said that—with a grin—made her smile, too. It was just so dangerous to be enjoying herself with a grown man who had hurt himself skateboarding. Kate knew it as surely as she knew she was standing there. But could she help it? Apparently not, because she was enjoying herself.

But just for now, when there was no escape. It wasn’t going beyond this.

“I’ll be at my office at the hospital in the afternoon tomorrow,” she said, forcing a heavy dose of professionalism into her tone. “I’m booked solid but if you come at six, I’ll stay an extra hour as a favor to Marti, since you’re family,” she said, thinking that maybe it might help to put him into those ranks.

“Family…” he repeated. “Hmm…I don’t know that I like thinking of my masseuse as family.”

“That’s what we are, though,” she insisted. “Just plain old family.”

His smile then was small and amused as he shook his head, and his gaze touched on her hair before he said, “I hate to tell you, but there is absolutely nothing about you that’s plain.”

The hair always did seem to be a factor, she thought, trying to take his flattery with a grain of salt.

Rather than responding to his comment, she said, “It’s my turn to take the Reverend home and I’m sure he wants to leave since the cake’s been cut. So what’ll it be? Six tomorrow night or taking care of it yourself?”

Ry Grayson laughed. Spontaneously, boisterously, wickedly. “Oh, I definitely don’t want to take care of it myself. I’ll be there at six—I’m sure someone can tell me where the hospital is.”

“It’s on the west side of Main Street, a block up from South. You could walk from here.”

“I’ll be there,” he assured.

At some point after the lure of Ry’s confidences, Kate must have pushed herself against the corner walls again without realizing it because she had to straighten away from them now. But Ry had apparently not backed up any because when she did, it put her much closer to him than she wanted to be. Close enough to smell that cologne again. Too close for comfort.

And he didn’t step away and give her any breathing room. He stayed where he was, looking down at her from a full six-foot-three-inch height that towered over her five foot four.

His smile this time was boyish and sexy, and it made Kate’s heart beat a bit faster.

“Absolutely nothing plain about you,” he repeated, more to himself than to her.

Then he pivoted on his heels like a door opening to let her out, and Kate went past him.

“Let me know if you change your mind about tomorrow night so I don’t wait around for you,” she instructed.

“I need the massage, I won’t change my mind.”

“I’ll see you then, then,” she said, feeling dumb for not finding a way to say that without using the word then twice.

But once she had moved beyond him, she kept going, searching for her grandfather so she could get out of there before she had to see Ry Grayson again.

Because while, yes, it was probably good to have established a relatively friendly rapport with her brother’s new brother-in-law, that was as far as it would go.

He had a skateboarding injury, for crying out loud.

Even without the other things she’d heard about him, even without both of his over-the-top entrances today, what could scream I-don’t-want-to-grow-up louder than that?

And not only had she reached a point in her life where she knew exactly what she wanted, she also had experience to teach her what kind of man she could never get it from. Nothing she’d learned about Ry Grayson after meeting him had changed her preliminary opinion of him as that kind of man.

The fact that he was fantastic looking, and as personable and fun loving as all reports had claimed, on top of it?

That just made him a triple threat.

And definitely not a candidate for what she was looking for.

Chapter Two

“So now you’re going to be with me for a while, Ry?”

“I am, Gram,” Ry confirmed for his grandmother. He didn’t point out that it was the third time she’d asked the same question already today and they’d only just finished breakfast. “Marti has gone on her honeymoon and Wyatt went back to Missoula. He’ll be here with us one day this week but otherwise, it’s just you and me, babe,” he joked, making her smile. “Well, you and me and Mary Pat,” he amended then.

Theresa’s nurse, Mary Pat, suggested she take Theresa to dress for the day. As the two women got up from the table, Theresa said to Ry, “I don’t think you’re going to like it here.”

That was a new one.

Ry raised his eyebrows at her. “Why is that, Gram?”

“It isn’t your kind of place. It’s quiet, things move more slowly. I don’t think it’s going to be enough for you.”

“You know I can usually stir things up a little,” he said, winking at her because he knew it always tickled her.

She waved a hand at him as if she were swatting a fly but giggled anyway before Mary Pat ushered her out of the kitchen.

Ry took a drink of his second cup of coffee.

His grandmother might not always be in her right mind, but there were still some things she had insight into. And despite his making light of it, he thought the possibility that Northbridge wasn’t for him was one of those things.

Granted he’d only been here for Wyatt’s wedding three weeks ago and again now for Marti’s, so he hadn’t seen much of Northbridge. And he knew his brother and sister were enamored of the small town. But in spite of the fact that he’d met a lot of nice people, the town itself did seem a little too sleepy for him—too slow and quiet, just like his grandmother had said.

But whether he liked Northbridge or not, he, Wyatt and Marti had always shared the responsibility of their grandmother. When she’d run away from Mary Pat to come here, he and his brother and sister had agreed that if Northbridge was where Theresa wanted to be, Northbridge was where she should be—even if it meant they had to rotate being here with her.

Of course with both Wyatt and Marti married to locals now, there was talk of them relocating permanently. If that happened, Ry thought he could hold down the fort in Missoula where Home-Max was headquartered. Then he wouldn’t have to spend much time in Northbridge. But for now, here he was, taking his turn at helping with Theresa.

And not excited by the prospect of being basically sequestered in the Montana outback—as he thought of the small town.

It wasn’t that Northbridge was a bad place—from what little he’d seen, it had plenty of charm. But it was a small town and any small town had its limitations. And Ry didn’t like limitations.

He liked—he thrived on—activity and choices and always having more options for things to do than he had time to do them. Slow and quiet? That was the last thing he wanted.

In fact, he’d meant it when he’d assured Marti and Wyatt before they’d left this morning that he was glad to take over all they’d passed along for him to do. Because even if they had had to pile it on, he would always rather have too much on his plate than not enough.

But he definitely had a full plate for this round.

Along with keeping his grandmother company, there was the new Home-Max they were opening in Northbridge. They’d purchased a series of neighboring storefronts on Main Street that needed some work before they could house the new store, and overseeing the final stages of that was on his to-do list.

He also needed to inventory stock as it was delivered, and organize the beginning of the actual setup of the store.

No question about it, he had more than enough to keep him busy with all of that.

And there was also this Hector Tyson guy he had to look up, the guy who had taken unfair advantage of the young Theresa and who now had a lot to answer for, a lot Ry was determined to make him answer for.

Plus, along those same lines, there was the mystery from his grandmother’s past that he and his siblings were trying to solve once and for all—he’d promised to get into that, too, to try to figure out what exactly it was that his grandmother claimed had been taken from her, what exactly it was that she’d come to Northbridge to reclaim. If it might be more than the land Tyson had done her out of. If it might actually be a lost child…

And of course there was his massage tonight….

From Kate Perry.

There hadn’t been any shortage of thoughts about her to occupy him since he’d first set eyes on her yesterday. Even though he wished they would stop coming.

But damn, what a beauty she was! He’d already known that Northbridge had more than its fair share of pretty women from the abundance of them at Wyatt’s wedding. But Kate Perry? He’d hardly been able to believe his eyes when he’d gotten his first glimpse of her. And even though she’d been coming down the aisle between two sections of folding chairs in his grandmother’s old house, his first thought was that she could have been a vision emerging from a mist on an Irish countryside.

Not that he had any idea if she was even Irish. It was just her coloring that made him think Irish lass—that incredible, lush, thick red hair and that pale alabaster skin. Add to it the delicate lines of her nose and apple-colored cheeks, and the pure elegance of her jaw, and she looked more like she was made of porcelain than skin and bone.

Then her compact, posture-perfect, curves-in-all-the-right-places self had reached the makeshift altar where the ceremony was to be held. And in casting her eyes back the way she’d come to watch for the remainder of the bridesmaids and the bride, they’d briefly touched on him where he’d stood with Noah and some of the other groomsmen across the aisle.

But the glance had been just long enough for him to see that her eyes weren’t merely blue, they weren’t merely green; they were a perfect combination of the two—like the mingling of sea and sky. Bright, vibrant, almost electric—they were amazing eyes to complete the picture of a truly, amazingly beautiful woman.

Just the memory was enough to take his breath away a little.

One look at her at that moment and everything else—every other person in the room—including his sister walking down the aisle—every sound, every note of the music being played, every scent of perfume and flowers, everything had faded into a blur as the only clear image he’d had, the only thing he’d been aware of, was Kate Perry.

It was the weirdest thing that had ever happened to him.

Of course he’d shaken it off and poured his concentration back into the wedding. But as he sat there at the breakfast table Monday morning, taking another drink of his coffee, he still couldn’t help thinking about it, thinking about her. And how it was slightly unnerving to have had such a powerful first reaction to her.

But regardless of how powerful or weird it had been, it was meaningless, he told himself. She might be one of the most beautiful women he’d ever laid eyes on, but she wasn’t the kind of woman he meshed with and that had been brought home to him as they’d talked at the reception.

The kind of woman he meshed with was full of life, free-spirited, lively and adventurous, outgoing and game for anything—like him. The kind of woman he meshed with would have flirted audaciously with him when Marti had introduced them. She would never have taken seriously his joking about her occupation, and probably would have shot back a few innuendos of her own.

But a prim reverend’s granddaughter? A woman who held herself so stiff and straight she could have had a pole running up the zipper of her bridesmaid’s dress? A woman who not only hadn’t found the fact that he’d been hurt on a skateboard funny, but who had given him the impression that she thought it was just a stupid, childish thing to have done? A woman who was that reserved and subdued and stuffy?

Huh-uh. No thanks.

He’d tried it with a few women like that, and he knew they were not for him. That his personality, the way he liked to live his life, clashed with theirs and their expectations of who he should be and how he should behave.

So even if Kate Perry was a beauty, even if he had gotten a kick out of the verbal back-and-forth with her and the evidence that she was clearly nobody’s fool, he wasn’t interested.

Besides, there was also the fact that she lived in Northbridge and that she was Marti’s sister-in-law.

Northbridge was not a place he wanted to be tethered to any more than he had to be to take care of his grandmother.

And messing with an in-law’s sibling? He’d already been dumb enough to hook up with someone with that kind of family connection—Wyatt’s first wife’s sister. And when it didn’t work out? Backlash and awkwardness to spare. Not to mention strain on his relationship with Wyatt.

So as far as he was concerned, Kate Perry was a no-go all the way around.

Well, except that she was doing his massage tonight.

If he didn’t have to have his shoulder loosened up so it didn’t hurt like hell, he would cancel that appointment—there was no question about it.

But he really needed the massage, no matter who was giving it; otherwise, he was going to have to pop pain pills and he didn’t want to do that.

Still, he was a little worried about what might happen—purely involuntarily—when someone who looked like Kate Perry touched him.

But he just had to suck it up and have the massage.

Maybe if he kept reminding himself over and over again just how not-for-him Kate Perry was, it would help.

But just in case it didn’t, he was keeping his pants on and letting her deal with the shoulder and nothing but the shoulder.

Get in there, get it done, get out.

That was what Kate told herself as she stood outside the door to the treatment room in the office she shared with the local chiropractor.

The receptionist had just taken Ry Grayson to the treatment room, given him his instructions and left for the day. The chiropractor wasn’t in on Mondays. That meant that there were now only two people in the office—Kate and Ry Grayson, who was waiting for his massage.

A massage that would be no different than any massage she’d ever given because he was just a client, she told herself.

So why was she dreading it so much?

Or was she feeling something else?

No, it was dread. It had to be dread. Why would it be anything else? Anything like excitement to see him again?

It wouldn’t be.

And even if it was, she wasn’t having any part of it.

She was husband-hunting. She wanted what she’d always wanted—to find the one man she could build her life with. The one man who would want what she wanted—to get married, to buy a house, to settle down and have a family, to raise that family together. And she was tired of being distracted from that goal by men who ultimately—even if they said it was what they wanted—didn’t want that same thing.

Steady, stable, serious, rock solid—that was the kind of man she was looking for. Someone who was clear in his convictions, who knew himself and what he wanted. Someone like her.

Certainly, someone who wouldn’t mislead her into thinking he did want what she wanted and then just string her along.

And any man who gave her the slightest indication that that wasn’t who he was, absolutely was not a contender. Absolutely was not someone she was putting an ounce of energy or a minute of her time into. Because doing that three—three—times was enough. More than enough—three engagements that ended short of the altar were more than any one person’s limit.

So no more fly-by-nights.

Or, as in the case of Ry Grayson and his arrival for yesterday’s wedding, no more fly-by-days, either.

His own sister had said that he was just a kid at heart, that she didn’t think he would ever grow up. And even if Kate hadn’t had a preconceived belief that that was the kind of man he was, Marti saying it was a glaring warning that Kate was not taking lightly. In fact, she didn’t need any more confirmation than that to cement Ry Grayson on the do-not-touch-with-a-ten-foot-pole list.

So, all right, maybe he had gotten to her a little at the wedding and maybe that was why what she was feeling could possibly be excitement at the prospect of seeing him again. Opening up to her, letting her know he liked her brother, confiding his feelings about his sister’s late fiancé—there was no denying that the man could be charming and appealing.

But she’d learned—three times—that charm and appeal didn’t get her to the altar. And she couldn’t let charm or appeal blind her again. She had a goal, she was unwavering in her pursuit of that goal and that was all there was to it. She absolutely would not allow herself to be waylaid by anyone she honestly didn’t believe was a potential life partner.

And when it came to this massage, she was a professional and she could do this and keep it purely in that arena—business as usual. And no business-as-usual massage excited her.

With that sorted through in her mind, Kate set her shoulders straight and imagined her goals and resolve protecting her like a shield from Ry Grayson’s charm and appeal. She took several deep breaths for strength and to clear her mind. And then she knocked firmly on the door.

“I’m indecent, come on in.”

Well, no one had ever said that before.

Kate suppressed a smile and went in.

“Hi. Sorry if I kept you waiting,” she said unapologetically.

“I think I dozed off, so even if you did keep me waiting, I didn’t know it.”

He was lying facedown on the massage table, his arms at his sides. He hadn’t used the sheet he’d been given to cover up with, probably because he was still wearing everything from the waist down. But he was naked from the waist up. Naked, tanned, muscular and broad-shouldered at the top of an impressive V that narrowed to his waist and an equally impressive rear end that she almost wished he hadn’t left encased in jeans because one look at his backside and a slight shiver ran up her arms.

“Is it cold in here?” she asked.

“I’m fine,” he said.

“As long as you’re comfortable,” she lied to cover her own reaction.

Business as usual, she reminded herself.

“Which shoulder is giving you trouble?” she asked, moving closer to the side of the table.

“The left,” he answered.

“I can use oil or lotion—which would you prefer?”

“Makes no difference to me.”

Kate chose oil, pouring some into her hands to warm it and trying as she did not to admire the pure, raw masculine magnificence of those shoulders and that back that could make a person drool, and biceps that were honed and carved and looked as if they were amply able to pull his body weight and more up the sheer sides of mountains.

Business as usual.

She went from the side of the table to the head of it.

“Fancy feet!” he exclaimed the minute she was in position and he could see her from the opening of the headrest. “Polish and a toe ring? That’s a surprise.”

Leave it to him to say something about it.

“The polish was for the wedding—open-toed shoes. And the ring has been there for so long it won’t come off,” she said as if there was no more to it.

But the truth was, she’d refreshed the polish, and she never tried to take off the ring. She just didn’t want him to know that she secretly liked that thin, silver bit of nonconformity that had come out of her late teens.

She also didn’t mention the fact that his view would have ordinarily consisted of only clunky clogs, but that she’d opted for sandals today. With him in mind, although she didn’t want to admit it even to herself.

“I’m going to touch you now,” she warned because sometimes her clients liked to know in advance.

“Go for it,” he said with a laugh that managed to sound sexy even through the slight muffle of the headrest.

“I’m pretty strong, so if I hurt you at all, let me know right away.”

“Give me all you’ve got, I think I can take it.”

And yet her hands hovered over his shoulders.

You said you were going to touch him, now do it!

It was just that she had some concerns about what touching him was going to do to her. Maybe nothing—after all, she’d never had any kind of personal reaction to touching anyone else. But Ry Grayson? There was something different about him.

Still, she had no choice, so she took a deep breath and laid her hands on his shoulders.

Another wave of those shivers went from her palms all the way up her arms again. But she put every effort into ignoring it. And when she did, she began to get an idea of what she was dealing with therapeutically.

“Wow, those are some big, hard knots,” she said.

“Big and hard—isn’t that supposed to be a good thing?” he countered with another laugh.

The man was definitely incorrigible.

Kate took her hands away. “I’m going to have to loosen the knots with some heat before I can deal with them,” she informed him without acknowledging his remark.

Then she escaped from the room and collapsed silently against the wall just outside the door.

She took more deep breaths. She told herself she was being ridiculous. She told herself again why she could not allow herself to be affected like this by Ry Grayson.

But only after about the sixth deep breath did she feel strong enough to cross the hall to the supply area of the office and continue with what she was supposed to be doing.

She took some hot packs from a drawer and heated them in the microwave. Then she retrieved two warm, damp towels from the Crock-Pot where she kept them heating, and went back to the treatment room.

On went the first towel, then the heat packs, then the second towel over them.

And the moan that came from Ry Grayson in response sounded much too much like the kind of moan he might make during the course of far more intimate activities.

Kate swallowed with some difficulty, pressed herself flat against the wall inside the room this time and decided to try polite, innocuous conversation to keep her mind and her reactions to him on another path.

“Did your grandmother end up making it through everything yesterday without any upset?” she asked.

“She did okay, actually. She’s pretty fond of Noah and she was glad to see Marti happy again.”

“And she was all right with Marti leaving on her honeymoon? I know Marti was worried about how Theresa would handle it.”

“There’s a reason for that—Gram is up and down, and we never know how she’ll handle anything. But Marti and Wyatt both leaving this morning didn’t seem to bother her. She was almost chipper all the way through lunch today. Then she took a nap and had a nightmare she keeps having—I don’t know how much Noah has told you about what’s going on with Gram.”

“He didn’t think it was a secret—especially since we are all family now.” Kate threw in that reminder again for her own sake and for his. “I know that when your grandmother was seventeen her parents died and she ended up being taken in by Hector Tyson and his wife. That he bought a major chunk of land from her for a song and got rich himself from selling it off in lots, and then also selling all the building materials for the houses that were built on it because he’s always been the only game in town when it came to lumber and hardware—”

“Something we’re going to change by opening a Home-Max—which he doesn’t like.”

“I know that when Theresa first came to Northbridge, she said it was to get back something that was taken from her,” Kate continued. “And that your family thought she was talking about the land. But when Marti and Noah told Theresa that Marti is pregnant, your grandmother got really upset and claimed that Hector seduced her and that she had his baby—”

“And we believe her, especially since Marti talked to some woman named Emmalina—”

“She was the wife of the minister at the time,” Kate filled him in.

“Right. And this Emmalina said Gram went to talk to the minister, that while she waited for him, she talked to Emmalina about being in love with a married man. And between the things she said and the fact that Gram was all wrapped up in a big coat on a warm day, we believe she was hiding a pregnancy,” Ry said.

“Noah also told me that Theresa says Hector took her baby from her before she even saw it or held it or knew if it was a boy or a girl.”

“We still aren’t sure if that’s a figment of Gram’s imagination or not.”

“But if it’s true, then that baby—which would be as old as our parents by now—could be what Theresa wants back,” Kate concluded.

“So you know plenty.”

“Am I not supposed to?” Kate asked, hoping she hadn’t gotten her brother into trouble.

“No, it’s fine. Anyway, this dream Gram has is that the baby is crying for her. She has problems with depression most of the time but when she has this dream, she really gets bummed out. She ended up crying all afternoon and there was nothing her nurse Mary Pat or I could do to cheer her up.”

“I feel so badly for her,” Kate said. She couldn’t imagine how awful it would be to have a child and then have it taken from her.

“Yeah, it’s lousy,” Ry agreed.

It was definitely easier to talk to him without looking at that handsome face, with his back draped in towels, without touching him while the heat packs did their job, and Kate was feeling more herself.

“We’ve notified this Tyson character that we intend to sue him for restitution over the land,” Ry went on to say. “Our lawyers are putting the finishing touches on that this week, but I think I’m going to have to take the bull by the horns over the baby. Do you know Tyson?”

Kate decided enough time had passed with the heat packs applied to his shoulders and since she felt she could better deal with massaging him, she removed the towels and packs. But before she answered Ry’s question, she warmed more oil between her hands and said, “I’m going to start on your spine to get everything in line before I work on your shoulder.”

“Sure, whatever,” he said.

Talking to him about his grandmother had helped dispel some of her reaction to him because this time when she began the massage, she had something to think about other than how smooth and sleek his skin was.

“Yes, I know Hector Tyson,” she said then, finally responding to what he’d asked. “Everyone does. He’s a cranky old man like my grandfather. In fact, I’ll be seeing Hector as soon as we’re done here. I’m sure you know about that holding barn he bought out from under you to try to keep Home-Max from coming in?”

“Yeah, I know about that.”

“Well, he’s closed on the deal and he wants the title. I agreed to deliver it to him tonight.”

“You’re a masseuse who moonlights as a messenger?”

“I’m a masseuse who’s also the city clerk.”

“Seriously?”

“The city clerk job in Northbridge is only a part-time position—we just aren’t big enough to need one full-time. And since being a masseuse in a small town is also not a huge moneymaker, I do both jobs.”

“Ah, that’s why you were only here this afternoon, not this morning,” he said, although his ah was tinged with some pleasure as she worked her way from his waist upward and began to address those wide shoulders of his, paying particular attention to the injured one.

“So why don’t I go with you when we’re finished here and you can introduce me?” he suggested then.

“I can think of about 100 reasons why not,” she answered before thinking better of it.

“Why is that?”

Of course he would ask, and now that her runaway mouth had gotten her into it, what was she going to say? That she was worried about her own visceral responses to him? That she didn’t want to risk what might happen if she was with him any more than necessary? That the rock-solid muscles of his back were not the kind of “rock solid” she was looking for and so she considered him a waste of her valuable time?

“I just don’t think that would be a good idea,” she hedged. “I’m going to Hector’s house as a civil servant. I can’t bring a date.”

“Who said anything about a date?”

She wished she hadn’t.

“No one,” she backpedaled. “I’m just saying that that’s what it would look like to Hector. And then you’d attack him and—”

“I’m not going to attack an old man. I just want to talk to him. Wouldn’t it be better to start off with an introduction from someone he knows? Someone who can say I’m family now?”

She didn’t appreciate having that table turned on her. But she did know that her brother would want her to help the Graysons in any way she could, especially in getting to the bottom of things for Theresa.

Plus now that she’d shot off her mouth about going to Hector Tyson’s house tonight and then made the other slips of the tongue that had compounded things, if she didn’t concede, this was apt to become a much bigger deal than she wanted it to. And then that could get back to her brother and it all just seemed like it could snowball if she didn’t bite the bullet and let Ry Grayson have his way….

“Ouch!”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, not realizing that in the process of working on his shoulder her own frustration might have made her rougher than she should have been.

She was more careful as she stretched his arm toward his back.

“So what do you say?” he asked. “Will you do the honors with old man Tyson? Otherwise I’m just gonna follow you from here so I know how to get to his place and we’ll end up there at the same time anyway.”

“You weren’t planning to go tonight until you heard I was going,” she accused.

“But now that I know you are, I might as well trail you—it’s easier than finding him on my own. So what’ll it be? Together with an introduction—the way a family member would do with another family member? Or some awkward, coincidental, synchronized arrival on the old man’s doorstep that’ll be harder for you to explain?”

Kate was finished with his massage and rather than be quick about answering him, she left the room to get another warm, damp towel. As she laid it across his back and shoulders when she returned, she sighed elaborately and said, “I suppose—since you are family now—you can tag along.”

“Not gracious, but I’ll take it,” he said.

After another few minutes of silence that she let lapse to make it clear she didn’t appreciate being coerced into something she didn’t want to do, Kate used the damp towel while it was still warm to rub the oil off his back, hating that it gave her a tiny thrill to do it and to hear his sighs of satisfaction when she did.

And now her time with him wasn’t going to end here, she thought, knowing that it was also not a good sign that that excitement she’d been trying to dress up as dread in anticipation of his massage had returned with the prospect of taking him with her to Hector Tyson’s house.

But the massage and taking him to Hector’s house were one-time and one-time-only occurrences, she told herself. After this, there wouldn’t be any reason for her to even see Ry Grayson, let alone spend time with him. Or touch him.

If she could just get through the next hour or so, this would all be over with and she could go back to her single-minded husband-hunting.

That meant going home to her apartment to check the two Internet dating services she’d joined, and looking through the catalog of men she’d received in the mail today from Partner-Finders—the matchmaking firm she’d signed up with in Billings.

Stubborn determination—that’s what she had. Stubborn determination to find herself a mate.

And she wasn’t going to let Ry Grayson get in the way of it.

Even if the feel of every taut tendon and hard muscle of his back seemed burned indelibly into her brain.

Chapter Three

“I told you people before and I’ll tell you again,” Hector Tyson shouted, “these are nothing but the ramblings of a crazy woman and no, there was no baby, let alone one that I took away from her! And I don’t need to talk to anybody who’s threatening to sue me and trying to put me out of business on top of it!”

The old man redirected his venom from Ry to Kate. “First your brother Noah brought that Grayson woman he just married and now you bring this Grayson. If you Perrys don’t quit bringing them to my house, you’re not going to be welcome here, either! Now both of you get out!”

“I’m sorry we upset you, Hector,” Kate said, “but—”

“But nothing! Just get out!”

Kate wasn’t fond of Hector Tyson but she also didn’t like having been a part of aggravating him. And since the man was eighty-four years old and his face was now the color of beet juice with a vein throbbing in his temple, she was worried he might have a stroke or a heart attack.

“Let’s go,” she urged Ry, who was glaring at the cantankerous old man.

“I’ll leave,” he told Hector, “but don’t think this is over by any means. I believe there was a baby and I’m going to find out what happened to it, if it’s the last thing I ever do.”

“That’s not making it better,” Kate pointed out. “Let’s just go.”

Ry apparently felt the need to give Hector the hard stare for another moment. The hard stare that Hector was returning unwaveringly from squinted eyes.

But after that additional moment, Ry turned on his heels and went with Kate from the living room, across the entrance hall and through the front door of the Tyson home.

“Well, that was pleasant,” she said facetiously once they were outside in the fresh evening air again.

Ry laughed. “Ah, come on, you can’t tell me anything to do with that guy is ever pleasant. You said yourself that he’s cranky.”

Kate was surprised by how quickly Ry could switch gears. He’d been arguing heatedly with Hector for the last twenty minutes, but now he was once again as calm and relaxed as he’d been before meeting the surly elderly man.

“Was that all an act in there?” she asked as they walked to her car. Ry had ridden his motorcycle to his massage so Kate had driven them to Hector Tyson’s house.

“An act?” he parroted.

“I thought you were as mad as Hector was and now you’re happy as a clam again.”

“Ooh, clams sound good,” he said as he opened the driver’s side door for her and waited for her to get in. “I’d like to wring that old coot’s scrawny neck, but I’m not mad at you, so why would I take it out on you? Or let it ruin the rest of this warm summer night?”

That was reasonable. And levelheaded. “I’m glad you didn’t take it out on me. I’m just surprised that you can shake it off so easily.”

He shrugged. “I didn’t expect this to be amiable. It went about the way I thought it would. No sense stewing or brooding over it.”

Or throwing a tantrum, which was what she’d come to expect from men in her past and had thought she might be in line for again now. But Ry merely closed her door and went around the front end of her small sedan.

As he did, her eyes went with him, drinking in the view of him in jeans and a plain white crew-neck T-shirt that fitted him like a second skin and seemed to throw into relief not only that back she’d had her hands on such a short while ago, but also a chest and a set of flat, to-die-for washboard abs. And he didn’t brood, stew or throw tantrums. Kate appreciated that.

He got into the passenger seat then and once again said, “Clams—let’s have some. I don’t suppose there’s a seafood restaurant around here.”

“Sorry,” she said, wondering if he was just assuming they were going to go to dinner now.

“How about pizza, then?” he suggested enthusiastically. “Sometimes I can get clams on pizza and if I can’t have ’em fresh, that’ll do.”

“There is a pizza place, but I’ve never noticed if clams are one of the toppings they offer.”

“Let me guess—because you only eat cheese pizza.”

“I eat more on my pizza than just cheese, but I’ve never eaten clams at all, let alone that way.”

“Then you don’t know what you’re missing. What do you say—shall we go see if we can get a pizza with clams? You can broaden your horizons.”

“Dinner wasn’t part of this errand tonight,” she pointed out. “And what makes you think that I don’t have other plans?”

“Do you?”

“I have things to do at home.” There was that catalog of men waiting for her.

“One of the things you have to do at home is eat, though, right?”

“Yes.”

“So eat with me and then go home and do your things. I’ll buy you dinner as payment for taking me to meet Tyson.”

Besides the sandals on her fancy feet, she was dressed in navy blue scrubs—the clothes she worked in because the hospital preferred that anyone providing any kind of health services wear them. And while she had paid special attention to her makeup today and wound her hair into a loose knot at her crown that left wisps of curls around her face, it was the scrubs she was thinking of when she said, “I’m not dressed to go out to eat.”

“Come on, you can’t tell me that there’s a dress code to eat pizza in Northbridge,” he cajoled as Kate started the engine and backed out of Hector Tyson’s driveway.

She knew she shouldn’t agree to have dinner with him. But there were only leftovers for her at home. And she did love pizza….

“It’s just having a friendly meal together—surely we can do that?” he said as if he knew she was considering it.

“Friendly?” she repeated.

“Nothing but,” he swore zealously.

Friendly was safe. His zeal was a little disappointing somehow, but she didn’t want to analyze why that should be and instead merely told herself that as long as things between them could be friendly and nothing more, she could have dinner with him. Friendly was not going to gum up anything for her.

“I suppose I could do pizza. If it doesn’t take too long. And you do owe me for getting me into trouble with Hector.”

“Yeah, I know how you Good Girls avoid trouble,” he said. “I probably owe you a salad and a soda, too. And maybe my left kidney and my firstborn child.”

“Just the pizza will be enough,” she said wryly.

They were back on Main Street by then. She drove past the redbrick corner building that housed the small medical facility where she worked and where his motorcycle was parked, and went to the pizza parlor instead, coming to a stop nose-first at the curb there.

“Is this still open?” Ry asked since they could see through the storefront windows that the place was empty.

“Sure. But it’s after eight—most people in Northbridge have finished dinner and it’s too early yet for late-night snacking.”

“But not by much, I’ll bet,” Ry muttered as he got out of her car.

Once inside they chose a table in the center of the small establishment and within moments, Ry had discovered clams on the long list of available toppings.

“I suppose they’ll come out of a can, and fresh are a whole other experience, but let’s have them anyway,” he decreed. “Or shall I just get them on half so you can have something else?”

“I think anything that has you in this much rapture had better be tried,” Kate said indulgently.

“Rapture?” he repeated with a crooked smile. “You think this is rapture? This is nothing but a little yen for clams.”

Kate wasn’t about to explore what he considered rapture to be, so instead—when their pizza was ordered and their drinks were served—she said, “If you do believe there was a baby between your grandmother and Hector, and you want to find it, what’s your plan?”

He obviously had one because he didn’t need to think about it before he said, “I know adoption records—especially from that far back—are sealed, but I’ve been thinking that maybe I’ll use the computer to access what I can of newspaper articles and birth announcements at the time. See if anything seems like a clue to who could have acquired a baby that didn’t seem to be their birth child. I could also comb over old records and compare births to census reports from around here—maybe that will tell me whose family grew even though there’s no record of the mother having given birth.”

“I don’t mean to be a naysayer, but that sounds like trying to find a needle in a haystack. And the fact that it was over fifty years ago won’t help anything.”

“You know what would help things, though?”

“Hmm?” Kate asked as she sipped her iced tea.

“If I knew the city clerk—that is who oversees and has access to anything that’s a matter of public record, like census reports and births—isn’t it?”

“Did you have this up your sleeve all along?” she accused.

“I found out you were the city clerk when I was shirtless—just a couple of hours ago. So no sleeves have been involved in this,” he deadpanned.

“You didn’t know I was the city clerk before that?” Kate persisted.

“Sorry to disappoint you when I’m sure you’d be happier if you could believe I was calculating and conniving, but this really was coincidental.”

“Why would I be happier if I could believe you were calculating and conniving?”

He shrugged. “It’s just the sense I get from you—that you want not to like me.”

Great, he was intuitive, too.

But why did the idea that she was trying not to like him seem to strike him as amusing?

“You’re smiling,” she observed. “You have the sense that I want not to like you and you find that funny?”

“And challenging—which is dangerous for me because I can never resist a challenge.”

That comment went unexplored when their pizza arrived just then and Ry was intent on her tasting it and telling him what she thought.

“I love it!” she said without disguising her own shock at finding it true. Since she wasn’t a big fan of seafood, she’d expected to dislike clams on pizza.

Ry grinned but looked as stunned as she was by her declaration. “Really?”

“The tomato and the clams together have this sort of buttery richness—honestly, I love it.”

“If you think this is good, someday you’ll have to have linguine and clam sauce made with fresh clams—that’s something.”

After a few more bites, rather than returning to the subject of her not wanting to like him, he said, “So, how about it? Can I look through your records?”

He made that sound seductive, which caused Kate to roll her eyes as if he were beyond redemption, and turn a bit preachy. “They aren’t my records. They’re city records. And since they’re public, they’re available to anyone who wants to look through them.”

“Tomorrow?”

“I’ll be at that office tomorrow afternoon. The records department is in the courthouse building on the corner of Main Street and South—”

“I know where it is. But how late are you open? I’m swamped with Home-Max stuff tomorrow so it’s going to be tough for me to get away, but I want to jump on this.”

“Government offices close at five.”

He laughed. “Geez, loosen up, will you? You sound like a recorded phone message.”

Had she stiffened at the prospect of seeing him again tomorrow?

Probably. It was just that he made it so easy to be with him and she knew that was a pitfall.

She put some effort into outwardly relaxing, though, and announced that she was breaking her one-slice-of-pizza rule and having half of a second slice.

“Go for it!” he encouraged, taking a full second slice of his own.

Then, as if he were slightly baffled, he said, “So, city clerk, I can see that job for you. But how did you decide to become a masseuse?”

“A therapeutic massage therapist,” she corrected because once more he’d made masseuse sound a little off-color. “I wanted to do something in health care but I didn’t want to be a doctor or a nurse—I wanted something that wouldn’t take too much dedication so that when I have a family, my family can genuinely come first. Being a physical therapist or a chiropractor seemed to offer more flexibility, but Northbridge already has one of each of those, and the town isn’t big enough to support more than that. But there was no massage therapist.”

“You wanted a career in health care but you actually chose what line based on what Northbridge needed, not on what you wanted? As if Northbridge is the only place you could get a job?”

“It’s the only place I intend to live, so, yes,” she said matter-of-factly.

“There’s a great big world out there, you know?”

“But I want to live here.”

“And the whole flexible-hours issue so you could devote yourself to a family you don’t even have yet? You let a lot of outside things dictate your choice.”

“I just thought it through and made my decision based on what I want for myself now and in the future. You find that odd?”

He shrugged. “That just isn’t the way I do things. I like to make choices based on the moment, on going with the flow of things as they happen, on what feels right.”

“Is this the first time it’s occurred to you that we’re different?”

He laughed, pushing his plate away after his third slice of pizza and lounging slightly in his chair while Kate continued to sit very straight in hers.

“Believe me, I know we’re very different,” he said then, his tone wry.

“You say that as if I have a tail or green scales for skin,” she pointed out.

“No green scales—your skin is like cream. And your tail is one of the finest I’ve ever seen. But damn, you’re serious. What if things don’t work out the way you think they will? What if you don’t ever get married and have a family? What if a tornado strikes and there’s no more Northbridge? Will you be able to be happy doing massages anyway or will you regret that you didn’t do something you actually wanted to do?”

“I know that some of life just happens to you, no matter what you do. But I also believe that if you set your priorities and go after what you want with steadfast, single-minded determination, you can achieve your goals. I’m just making accommodations for those goals in advance so that when I achieve them, there won’t be obstacles already mucking them up.”

He studied her for a long moment, smiling a Cheshire cat smile right before he said, “You’re just so centered and sure of yourself and what you want and where you’re going, aren’t you? You think you have everything under control.”

“As much as possible,” she confirmed.

He shook his head and grinned. “God help me, there’s a part of me that wants to rattle that cage you’re in. Who put you there—the Reverend or your parents or a bad experience with a man?”

The waitress appeared just then to ask if they wanted to take the remainder of the pizza. Ry didn’t but Kate did, and while the waitress boxed it for her, Ry glanced at the bill and handed the money to the waitress when she was done.

“I am not in a cage,” Kate felt compelled to say once the waitress had left them alone again.

“Boxed, caged, tied up—any way you want to look at, you’re contained.”

Kate merely shook her head. “From your perspective. From mine, I’m doing just fine, thank you very much. And I certainly don’t need my cage rattled. Especially not by you,” she warned.

He smiled again and Kate had the feeling that every word she said only made her more of a challenge.

“Right, I get it,” he said. “I’m not your type. Don’t worry, you aren’t mine, either.”

That stung. Kate had no idea why, but it did.

She felt her spine stiffen in response. “Well, now that we have that settled, we should probably go.”

He grinned as if he knew that her back was up. “Yeah, since there are so many people lined up waiting for this table,” he said with a glance around them at the still empty restaurant.

He stood, though, and so did Kate, making sure to take the pizza box with her. But before Ry moved away from the table, he rolled his injured shoulder and seeing it sent a flash of memory through her mind of his naked back.

“You are good at what you do, I’ll give you that,” he said. “I feel a lot better.”

“So maybe my occupation wasn’t such a bad choice.”

“I didn’t say it was a bad choice,” he countered, leaving tip money on the table. “If I were you, I’d just be a little worried about what went into making it and if it was the right choice.”

“It was for me,” Kate said decisively.

Ry motioned for her to go ahead of him to the door and as she did he said from behind, “So, do you ever do massages that aren’t for medicinal reasons—like they do at spas?” he asked, apparently to make it clear it was not a goad, but a genuine question.

So that was the way Kate took it. “Sure. I have some clients who just want the pampering aspect. And one Saturday a month I run spa day—I put candles around the office, offer teas and treats. The local manicurist comes in to do pedicures, one of our hairstylists is there for scalp treatments and deep conditioning, and we do as much of a spa kind of atmosphere as I can work out in a medical office.”

“Girls only?”

“It isn’t a rule, but we’ve never had a man come. And if we did, it probably would make everyone padding around in bathrobes, with towels on their heads and toe separators on their feet, a little uncomfortable.”

They were at the front end of her car by then and Ry stopped, nodding up the street in the direction of the hospital. “I’ll walk back for my wheels so you can get right home to those things I kept you from.”

Why did the idea of getting on Internet dating sites and looking through a catalog of potential mates suddenly seem anticlimactic to the way she’d just spent the last few hours?

Kate tried to ignore it.

“Thanks for the massage,” Ry said then. “And for taking me to meet Tyson. Sorry about him slapping your wrists for bringing me.”

“The pizza made up for it—thanks for that. And for introducing me to clams.”

He grinned. “Sure. I’ll have to think of what else I can slide between the bars of your cage to open your eyes to things outside of it.”

Kate again shook her head and once more rolled her eyes. But, for some reason, she also smiled a little.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said, knowing that shouldn’t be something that somehow brightened her outlook on the coming day, but realizing that it did.

“Will you wait for me if I’m a little late?” he asked in a tone that held an enticement all its own.

“We’re talking government office, remember? It closes at five sharp.”

“Come on—small town, you’re the city clerk, I’m betting you have the key to the office door and can make your own hours.”

“I could but why would I?”

“Just to help out? I have a full 18-wheeler coming in from Missoula tomorrow that has to be completely unloaded so it can get back tomorrow night. I’ll be lucky to get to you by five but then there’s that needle in a haystack to look for. How about if I bring dinner and we eat it while we both go through the old records?”

“Oh, now not only am I extending my office hours to suit you, I’m helping you look through the records, too?”

“Think of my poor, suffering grandmother,” he said like a line in a bad melodrama.

What she was thinking about was how good he looked in the glow of the streetlight he was standing under. How sharply cut were the lines of his face.

Which was precisely why she should say no.

But before she’d said anything at all, he repeated, “Think of my poor, suffering grandmother. Think of the clams,” he added equally as melodramatically.

And she laughed in spite of herself and heard herself say, “For Theresa and the clams, I suppose.”

He grinned again, drawing her attention to his mouth and making her suddenly wonder what it might be like to have him kiss her. She had no doubt that he would have a flair when it came to that the way he did with everything else.

But those thoughts were uncalled for and not at all what she wanted to be thinking about!

“Just try to get there as early as possible, I have things to do at home tomorrow night, too,” she said sternly to counteract her own mental wanderings.

“The minute I can get away, I’ll be there,” he assured.

Friendly—that was all tonight was supposed to be and all it had ended up being, Kate lectured herself. It was all tomorrow night would be. They’d agreed they weren’t each other’s types and she was beginning to believe it because while there was a flirtatious undertone to almost everything he said, he didn’t go anywhere with it. It didn’t seem to be leading to anything like that kissing she couldn’t seem to get her mind off of.

She was still trying like mad, though, as she said, “I’ll see you when you get there, then.”

“No, I’ll see you when I get there,” he countered as if it were a game.

Because everything was more of a game to him than it was to her, she reminded herself.