“You know, folks say
I’m a pretty good listener.”

Adam looked at her then and, tucking in one corner of his mouth, shook his head. “Seems you’re pretty good at lots of things.” Blue eyes blazing, lips trembling, he added, “Wonder how good you are at forgiveness.”

Forgiveness? What in the world could a man this good, this decent, have done to make him feel unworthy of forgiveness?

While she stood there, trying to decipher his comment, Adam grasped her upper arms. “How much do you know about me?” he demanded in a raspy voice.

Kasey had never seen a man more tortured, more troubled. She felt helpless, inept, unable to put a stop to his misery. And so she did what she’d always done in times of trouble, and turned to God.

Lord, she prayed, guide me. Help me know what Adam needs to hear right now….

LOREE LOUGH

A full-time writer for nearly fifteen years, Loree Lough has produced more than two thousand articles, dozens of short stories and novels for the young (and young at heart), and all have been published here and abroad. The author of thirty-seven award-winning romances, Loree also writes as Cara McCormack and Aleesha Carter.

A comedic teacher and conference speaker, Loree loves sharing in classrooms what she’s learned the hard way. The mother of two grown daughters lives in Maryland with her husband and a fourteen-year-old cat named Mouser (who, until this year—when she caught and killed her first mouse—had no idea what a rodent was).

His Healing Touch
Loree Lough

www.millsandboon.co.uk

The Lord is gracious, and full of compassion; slow to anger, and of great mercy. The Lord is good to all: and His tender mercies are over all His works.

—Psalms 145:8-9

To my family…the heart of my stories…and my life!

Dear Reader,

Though Webster’s defines “guilty” as “the state of one who has committed a crime,” the word means different things to different people: blameworthy, sinful, wicked, offensive… The list can be long and unwieldy, indeed.

The most difficult guilt to bear isn’t the kind we assign to others, but that which we drape around ourselves…to protect others from our supposed corruptness, to protect us from dealing with their judgment.

Like Adam and Kasey in His Healing Touch, we’ve all done things we’re sorry for. But Adam and Kasey learned that together they had the strength to shed their guilt—forever—and that’s what I wish for you and me.

Next time guilt looms large in your life, try to see yourself through the eyes of God, for “great are His tender mercies” (Psalms—119:156) and “He delighteth in mercy” (Micah 7:18). I have faith I’ll be surprised and amazed at how swiftly my own guilty heart will turn!

If you enjoyed His Healing Touch, please drop me a note c/o Steeple Hill Books, 300 East 42nd Street, 6th Floor, New York, NY 10017. (I love hearing from my readers and try to answer every letter personally!)

All my best,

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Prologue

Halloween Night

Buddy’s instructions had been simple: Dress in black. Smuggle the assigned item out of the house. Meet at the graveyard, near the angel tombstone, eleven-thirty sharp….

It was eleven twenty-five, and Adam Thorne’s skin prickled with uneasiness as he walked along the eerielooking iron fence surrounding Crescent Lawn Memorial Gardens.

He didn’t like the way the moonlight, slanting down from above, turned tree branches into gnarled, witch-finger shadows. Didn’t like the way it glinted from the wide golden eyes of the owl, perched above his head, either. He couldn’t decide which caused the dread coiling around his spine…the winged hunter’s hollow hoot, or the dried leaves scuttling across the sidewalk like rodents fleeing the owl’s crooked beak.

The nippy October wind moaned. Dogs howled. Cats screamed. Sixteen-year-old Adam couldn’t have asked for a more perfect Halloween. So why did he have this…feeling?

Crouching, he slid between several missing spike-topped fence pickets. He hadn’t been here in years, but if he remembered right, the appointed meeting place was just on the other side of the caretaker’s toolshed.

Sure enough, like a tiny red beacon, the telltale glow of Buddy’s lit cigarette signaled him.

As Adam got closer to his buddies, a bigger-than-life marble angel came into view in the graveyard. In the bright silvery moonglow, it seemed that she stared…directly at him. Distracted by the creepy-crawly sensation, he tripped over a tree root, nearly dropping the basketball-size pumpkin Buddy had ordered him to bring.

“You’re such a klutz, Thorne,” Buddy taunted, grabbing the jack-o’-lantern and handing it to Luke.

The others watched as Luke jammed it onto the metal rod—his “assignment”—that served as the dummy’s neck. Travis brought the hay, and Wade, a faded plaid shirt and torn work pants. Good ole Buddy, never one to overlook a detail, added boots and a grease-stained fedora to the ensemble.

“Man,” Travis said, snickering, “he could make The Guinness Book of Records, he looks so real!”

Wade said, “Y’mean cuz his head’s so big?”

“That,” Luke put in, “and there’s so much hay stuffed in him, he can practically stand on his own.”

Adam didn’t join in their laughter.

Luke gave him a playful punch on the arm. “What’s your problem?”

“Nothin’. I just…I think this whole thing is…it’s stupid, that’s what.”

Buddy wrinkled his face in disapproval. “Put a lid on it, mama’s boy.” Sneering, he looked at the others. “Who thinks Thorne is a mama’s boy?”

Luke, Wade and Travis exchanged guilty glances. “Well,” Luke started, “what we’re doin’ is kinda—”

Quick as a bullet, Buddy’s hand shot out, knocking off Luke’s baseball cap. “You put a lid on it.” With one icy glare, he silenced any further disagreement.

Of the five gathered round the tombstone, only Buddy hadn’t made the Centennial High football team. Adam thought it odd that the outsider did the best Coach Jones imitation of the lot of them: “‘Get with the program, boys,”’ Buddy aped, as they waited for his next order. “‘Time’s a-wastin’!”’

As if even the B & O Railroad was afraid to disobey, a tremor pulsed beneath their feet, a sign that the midnight train was fast approaching.

Buddy leaped up, punching the air with a hard right cross. “Yes-s-s!” came his hoarse whisper. “I’ve been lookin’ forward to this all day!”

Shaking his head, Wade wrapped his arms around the dummy’s waist and, half dragging, half carrying it, headed for the tracks. Luke and Travis followed, muttering to one another as they huffed up the grassy incline. When the foursome crested the hill, their leader looked back at Adam, who lagged behind.

“C’mon, mama’s boy,” Buddy said, his voice a sarcastic singsong, “or you’re gonna miss all the fun….”

The uneasy feeling that had been dogging Adam all night took another nip at his heels. Was he edgy because Buddy’s harebrained ideas had gotten them into trouble, dozens of times? Was it that this time, Buddy had decided to hone the fun-slash-risk factor by tossing a Halloween dummy onto the railroad tracks in front of a moving train?

Or was it simply that despite their obvious reluctance, the rest of them had agreed to go along with one of his schemes…again?

Engineer Al Delaney wished he could belch. Just one good healthy burp, and maybe this discomfort would end.

All day, he’d been feeling, well, odd. He blamed a sleepless night. Overwork. The bologna-and-sauerkraut sandwich he’d stuffed into his mouth an hour ago. Cranking his left shoulder in a clumsy forward-then-backward circle, he peered through the train’s front window, wondering what to blame for the pressure that had been tightening across his chest for the past half-hour or so.

Wincing at this latest troubling twinge, Al thumped his chest. Well, he thought, taking a deep, difficult breath, I’ll be clockin’ out in half an hour, and then—

Movement up ahead caught his eye. Something—looked to him like a man—on the tracks.

“What the—?”

Heart pounding like a parade drum, Al reached for the whistle with one hand, the brake stick with the other. The high-pitched squeal of locked wheels strained against polished steel tracks.

But it was too late.

Kasey Delaney woke to the repeated dinging of the doorbell. Knuckling her eyes, she padded into the upstairs hall and croaked a sleepy “What’s going on?”

“Probably just Buddy and his gang,” her mother said.

It would be just like the neighborhood juvenile delinquent to need a Halloween finale, but why he’d think ringing people’s doorbells in the middle of the night was fun, Kasey couldn’t guess.

“Mrs. Delaney?”

Her mom stood at the top of the stairs, one hand on the newel post, the other clutching her bathrobe tight to her throat. Kasey reached for her hand, but froze when her mother whispered, “Dear God, don’t let it be—”

Her mother had always been calm, practical, easygoing. Hearing the fear in her voice frightened Kasey, too. Heart beating double time, she said, “What, Mom? Don’t let it be what?”

She watched as her mom took a deep breath, smoothed back her bangs. Despite the outward attempts at bravado, her voice trembled when she exhaled. When she opened her mouth to answer her daughter’s question, the grandfather clock chimed, announcing two o’clock, tolling in odd harmony with the doorbell.

A cold chill wrapped around Kasey’s shoulders. “Where’s Dad?”

“Oh, you know your father,” she said, squaring her shoulders. “I’ll bet he took Jimmy’s shift. His wife was supposed to have her baby tonight, you know.”

Kasey nodded. That would be just like her dad, all right, stepping in to help out a pal. Still…wouldn’t he have called?

“Mrs. Delaney? Mrs. Al Delaney!” The man on the porch had stopped ringing the bell and started banging on the door.

Lifting the front of her nightgown with her right hand, her mother started down the stairs, the left hand making a soft, hissing sound as it dragged over the polished banister. “Go back to your room,” she said from the tiny foyer.

“But Mom—”

“Don’t argue with me, Kasey Delaney!”

Kasey took two reluctant steps back, shut her eyes tight and leaned her forehead against the doorjamb. “Please, God, please, God, please, God,” she chanted, hands clasped in prayer, “let Dad be okay.”

Kasey opened her eyes in response to the loud, grating sound of the deadbolt. Its echo, resounding up the uncarpeted stairs, reminded her of the noise her father’s hammer had made when it drove in the steel pins that secured the landscape timbers surrounding her mother’s flower garden. Seemed he was always doing things for others….

“Mrs. Delaney?”

The door was open now, and the overhead porch light cast the man’s shadow on the foyer floor. He was a policeman, as evidenced by his short-billed hat.

“What is it?” her mother asked in a thin, little-girl voice. “What’s happened?”

In the instant before the officer answered, a thousand pictures of her father flashed through Kasey’s mind: tossing her a softball; sitting beside her at the piano, playing corny duets; helping her with math and science homework. He’d taught her to tie her shoes, to swim, to twirl spaghetti like a Rome-born pro, forced himself to eat every bite of every oven-baked fiasco she’d ever cooked up.

Kasey pressed the heels of her hands against her ears, but she still heard the policeman say, “Ah, may I come in, Mrs. Delaney? I think this might be easier to hear if you were sitting down….”

Easier? Was the man out of his mind? Kasey slammed her door, knowing even before her teary face met her pillow that nothing would ever be easy again.

The radio alarm jarred Adam awake.

“…and the vagrant reportedly hit by the train was never found,” the rise-and-shine announcer was saying. “Engineer Al Delaney is survived by his wife and daughter.”

Heart pounding, Adam leaped from bed, bare feet slapping on the hardwood as he raced toward the kitchen. “Mom,” he gasped, “where’s the Sun?”

Without looking up from the Today section, she pointed.

Adam paged through the rest of the paper scattered on the tabletop, eyes narrowed as he searched for a corroborating story. And then, on page twelve of the main section he found it: Vagrant Missing; Engineer Dead. The article explained how, just before he’d breathed his last, Al Delaney told paramedics that a vagabond had staggered onto the tracks behind Crescent Lawn Memorial Gardens.

Thirty-five-year-old Al Delaney, the report said, had a long history of heart disease. The tidbit didn’t matter one whit to Adam. What mattered was that Mr. Delaney probably wouldn’t have died last night if it hadn’t been for—

Adam’s gaze froze on the black-and-white photograph of the Delaney family—Al, his wife Karin, their daughter, Kasey, age twelve.

Twelve. Same age Adam had been when his own dad died, four years earlier.

Overwhelmed with guilt and shame, Adam stood and, taking the paper with him, trudged woodenly back to his room.

“Do you see the time, young man?” his mom said from behind the paper. “School starts in less than half an hour, y’know.”

Yeah, he knew. But he wouldn’t be going to school today. Too much to think about….

Five minutes later, when he opened the back door, his mom was at the sink, rinsing her coffee mug. “Where’s your book bag? And what about your lunch?”

“Don’t need ’em.”

She started toward him. “Adam Thorne, where—?”

“Got stuff to do,” he muttered.

“Stuff? What stuff?”

Truthfully? Adam didn’t know what, exactly. But he knew this: A man had died last night because he hadn’t had the guts to put a stop to a moronic stunt—and now, he had to do something.

Shrugging, he stepped off the porch. “Love ya, Mom,” he said over his shoulder. “Have a good day at work.”

Today, Adam intended to work, too…at finding a way to make right something that had gone so very wrong.

Chapter One

Fifteen years later—Halloween Eve

Kasey Delaney squinted through the windshield.

Should she turn right or left? Exhaling a sigh of frustration, she threw the car into park and grabbed the directions, written by her so-called assistant in purple ink on lavender notepaper.

Yes, she thought, she’d followed each instruction to the letter. Which meant there should be a sign at this crossroads that read Kaplan’s Herb Farm. Kasey looked up. There was a sign, all right. A big white one in the shape of an arrow. But it said Thorne’s Getaway in bold, black letters.

She glanced around, at thick underbrush spilling onto the gravel, at autumn leaves, at deep murky puddles that had collected beside the road following last night’s downpour.

She hated to admit it, but she was lost. And if there was anything she hated more than being lost, she couldn’t name it at the moment. But she had no one to blame but herself.

Not two hours ago, she’d barely sidestepped a run-in with Aleesha.

“I wrote the directions down ’zactly as the lady told them to me.”

“But Aleesha…”

The girl’s lower lip had jutted out and her dark eyes misted with tears. She tucked a black cornrow braid behind one ear. “You ain’t never gonna trust me.”

The last thing Kasey had wanted was to hurt the kid’s feelings.

She leaned her forehead on the steering wheel, remembering how they’d met three years ago through an inner-city mentoring program. Fact was, Kasey couldn’t love Aleesha more if she were a flesh-and-blood relative, which was why, despite the protests of half a dozen well-meaning friends and relatives, she’d legally adopted the girl. Hoping the action would prove her trust, Kasey had tucked the directions into her pocket.

“Should’ve known better,” she muttered now.

Immediately, she felt guilty for the harsh thought. Aleesha had come a long way in the year they’d been a bona fide family. And she’d go even farther, “with a little more patience and a whole lot more love,” Kasey said to herself.

She reached for her purse. She’d call Information, get the herb farm’s phone number, and call for directions herself…if only her dinosaur of a cell phone would work way out here in the middle of—

The phone wasn’t in her purse. Grimacing, Kasey realized that Aleesha had borrowed it earlier that afternoon, and returned it with a dead battery.

“You shouldn’t leave here without it,” her mother had warned, when Kasey plugged it into the charger. “Marty Bass said we’re in for severe thunderstorms tonight.” Then she said, “What’s wrong with the charger in your car?”

Kasey’s silent nod toward Aleesha had been hint enough: misplaced. “I’ll only be gone an hour or so,” she said with a reassuring smile. “What could possibly happen in an hour?”

“A million things,” her mother said.

One of which, Kasey admitted now, was getting lost.

Well, no point dwelling on it. “When life gives you lemons, you quote tired old clichés.”

Grabbing her pruning shears and a wicker basket for cuttings, Kasey decided to take advantage of the acres of wildflowers on either side of the road. She climbed out of the sports car, immediately wrinkling her nose at the sucking sound her hiking boot made when she lifted it from the mud.

What could happen in an hour? “You could get lost and mired in mud.”

Squaring her shoulders, Kasey plunged into the hip-high grass. The whole area was lush with seed pods and willow branches. Better to concentrate on work than the occasional cricket. “Now I remember what I hate more than being lost,” she grumbled, lurching at every insect’s hip-hop. “Bugs.”

Shouldn’t a person who traipsed through fields on a regular basis be used to things that crawled and flew and stung? She’d been the proud owner of Fleur Élégance for more than five years, after all. The floral creations she designed for hotels, restaurants, department stores and art galleries had won numerous awards—and secured Kasey impressive contracts. Her trademark, right from the get-go, had been the gnarled branches, wild mushrooms and dried leaves she’d artistically interspersed among realistic-looking silk flowers.

Fortunately for her, very few insects lurked in late October. But there were enough. Too many for her liking! Dusk was settling over the field as a yellowjacket buzzed near her head. “Isn’t it time for you to go to bed, or hibernate,” she said, waving her free arm, “or something?”

Soon, she’d gathered a basketful of cuttings for her next project. Smiling, Kasey could almost picture the arrangement she’d create with them on a marble pedestal in the center of the Columbia Bank’s main branch.

A glance at her watch told her that more than an hour had passed while she’d snipped and trimmed. She could almost hear her mom, her neighbors, even Aleesha teasingly referring to her as a scatterbrain for letting time slip so easily away from her. Kasey had never let the jokes get to her. Instead, she told herself that becoming immersed in projects, losing all track of time, was a trait that almost always guaranteed—

That’s weird, she thought, approaching her car. I never realized that it sat so low to the ground—

And then she understood why it looked that way. Kasey hadn’t noticed when she’d stopped alongside the narrow, rutted road, but she’d parked in a huge mudhole. In the hour that had passed as she collected flowers, her tiny convertible had sunk to its floorboard. “Oh, fine. That’s just great,” she complained. “Stuck in the middle of nowhere, no phone, no food…”

She smiled and shrugged. “When life gives you mud,” she mused, “pucker up!”

She decided to think of this as an adventure, a compelling tale to tell when she got back to civilization. Worstcase scenario, she’d have to spend the night here in the car, and walk to the main road in the morning to flag down a tow truck.

Right?

As if in answer, thunder rumbled overhead. Couldn’t be a good sign, Kasey thought, especially not this late in the year. Seconds later, a sizzling flash of lightning sliced the darkening sky. Suddenly, her predicament didn’t seem quite so funny. In fact, it didn’t seem funny at all.

Because, for one thing, she hadn’t seen another vehicle as she’d driven out here. Not a farmer’s truck. Not a horseman’s van. Not even a kid on a bicycle. And, though she’d been in that field for over an hour, she didn’t remember hearing anything drive past, either.

Kasey had never admitted it, not even to her mother, but thunderstorms scared the willies out of her. Waiting one out in a minuscule convertible didn’t seem the least bit appealing. And, though she’d given up her night-light more than a decade ago, she wasn’t overly fond of the dark, either. Especially when, thanks to an impending storm, it fell as fast as a stage curtain.

But being alone in the woods in the dark…

Shivering, Kasey squinted toward the horizon. Was that a light? Heart pounding, she did a squishy little jig, right there in the mud. Yes, yes it was a light! Now, if she could just make it that far before the storm hit….

“Please, God,” she prayed, “let it be a cozy little cabin with a nice, happy family in it.”

Her stomach growled. “And I hope they’ll be sitting at the supper table, eating cheesy lasagna and buttery garlic bread.” She licked her lips. “And that there’ll be cold lemonade in the fridge.”

Kasey reached for the sports car’s door handle. No point lugging the overflowing basket of wildflowers through the—

Something scurried across the toe of her boot, and Kasey let out a wail. Whatever it was wouldn’t get a second chance to tramp on her foot! She took off like a sprinter and headed straight for that light, and didn’t stop until she stood on the porch of a tidy log cabin.

She stared at the wide wooden door. Golden light, filtering through the curtained window beside it, glowed with welcoming warmth. Would the people inside be warm and welcoming, too?

She was drenched by now, and shivering in the wind. Kasey frowned. Much as she hated to admit it, her mother had been right. She never should have come all the way out here so late in the day.

No sleep last night. Nonstop supervision of Aleesha. Her mother’s up-again, down-again health. If she wanted to, Kasey could make a long list of excuses for her rash decision. But right now, all she wanted was to get inside, out of the wind and rain. Summoning what was left of her courage, she knocked.

Scurrying—much like what she’d heard in the underbrush on the way from the car to the cabin—sounded on the other side of the door. Then, footsteps. Big, heavy footsteps.

She held her breath as her fertile imagination went to work: Maybe the cabin was a hideaway for a gang of jewel thieves. Maybe a murderer had holed up in there. What if a serial killer had slaughtered all the people inside, so they’d never be able to testify against—

“Who’s there?”

The suddenness of the deep baritone startled her so badly, she let out something that sounded like “Eek!”

Sighing, Kasey rolled her eyes, because she’d always hated it when women did that in the movies. And yet, when the door jerked open, she said it again. On the heels of a silly giggle, she sputtered, “Uh, um, h-hi!” in a tiny voice.

Backlit by the interior light, he was little more than a shadow on the other side of the screen door. And it was definitely a “he.” A tall, very broad-shouldered man who said nothing, nothing at all.

“Um, my, uh, my car got stuck in the mud back there?” She used her thumb to point behind her. “I was gathering flowers?” She held up the basket, in case he needed proof. “My, um, assistant gave me the wrong directions, so I’m lost?”

He continued to stand there, one hand on the frame, the other holding the brass knob of the inside door. He didn’t nod, didn’t smile, didn’t speak.

What’s with you? she wanted to ask him. Cat got your tongue? “I, uh, well, then it started to rain.” She giggled again, and this giggle sounded even sillier to her own ears than the last one. “There was thunder and lightning and the whole nine yards, y’know? And I thought, ‘Uh-oh, what’re you gonna do now?’ And then I saw your light? And—”

Kasey clamped her teeth together, wondering what on earth was making her spew out information in the form of questions. She’d never done anything like it before.

Maybe she was dreaming. Sure. Why not? That made sense, because this whole situation was beginning to feel like a nightmare. The darkness, the weather, this house and its owner—if this huge, silent man hadn’t killed the owner—all had the makings of a Hitchcock flick. She’d always wondered why heroines seemed to deliberately put themselves in danger in those movies. Now, feeling enormous empathy for the poor, delicate things, Kasey believed they’d probably only been desperate to get in out of the cold rain.

And speaking of rain, how long did this guy intend to let her stand here, dripping and shaking? Didn’t he have any manners at all?

“Oh, sorry,” he said, opening the screen door. “Where are my manners?”

Had he read her mind? Or had she, in her high-strung state, been thinking out loud? She decided she could just as easily do the rest of her thinking inside.

She slipped past him, taking care not to touch him—no easy feat, big as he was—and made a beeline straight for the heat of the fire. She’d prayed for a cozy cabin and a nice hot fire, something to eat and drink. Two outta four ain’t bad, she thought, thanking Him. Now what were the chances her host was a normal, decent guy? She’d settle for anything less than a criminal at this point.

He closed the door just then—a little louder than necessary, Kasey thought. When he bolted it, she swallowed, hard.

“I don’t get much company way up here.” He laughed softly. “Especially not during a thunderstorm.”

Well, she told herself, at least he has a nice laugh. Then her smile faded as she remembered that lady reporter’s interview with Ted Bundy. He’d had a nice laugh, too.

Frowning darkly, the stranger said, “You’re soaked to the skin.”

Which should have been the least of his worries. Between the mud that had clumped in the treads of her boots and the rain that dripped from her pants cuffs, she’d tracked in quite a mess. And now it was puddling on what appeared to be a polar bear rug. “Oh, wow. I’m so sorry,” she said. “When I get back to town, I’ll—”

“Easy. I know how to use a scrub brush.”

With no explanation whatever, he disappeared through a nearby doorway, leaving her alone near the fire. Had he gone to fetch his hatchet? A handgun? Maybe a rope and a roll of duct tape, so he could tie her up and torture her before—

He clomped back into the room on brown suede boots. Who is this guy? she asked herself, staring at the big shoes. Paul Bunyan? Then she noticed that he carried something white, and something red, neatly folded and stacked on his hand. On his unbelievably large hand. Larry from Of Mice and Men popped into her mind.

They stood for a moment, blinking and clearing their throats, as if trying to come to grips with the fact that she was stuck here, at least for the time being.

“You can change,” he said, nodding toward the room he’d just vacated, “in there.”

She nodded, too, as he handed the clothes to her. “Wow. Neat. A sweatsuit. And a towel, too,” she said. “This is great. This is good.” What inane thing would pop out of her mouth next? she wondered. “Let us thank Him for our food”?

Smiling, both dark brows rose high on his forehead. “Lemme guess,” he began, “your name is Red.”

“No, it’s—” She followed his gaze to the basket of cuttings still clutched in her free hand. Getting his Red Riding Hood joke, she laughed. Way too long and way too loud, but what did he expect after the chilly greeting he’d given her?

“I—I own a… These are for…” She put the basket on the nearest end table. Maybe she’d explain later. And maybe you won’t. “I’ll just go and change now.” And backing through the door, she said, “Thanks. Really. I appreciate it.”

The instant she closed the door, Kasey checked for a lock. “Rats!” she whispered through clenched teeth. “Whoever heard of a door without a lock?”

You have, was her silent answer. Her own bedroom door didn’t have a lock on it. Neither did her mom’s, or Aleesha’s. And while her bathroom door had one, it had been broken for as long as she could remember. Besides, if the guy on the other side of this door aimed to harm her, a lock wouldn’t stop him. And if that was his aim, wouldn’t he have done it by now?

Possibly.

And he might just be one of those killers who got his jollies by watching his victims suffer….

Trembling, Kasey leaned her back against the door. Get hold of yourself, ’cause if he is a murderer, you’ll need your wits about you! Then, trading her wet clothes for his gigantic, fleecy sweatsuit, she vowed to get her overactive imagination under control.

Adam had just placed two mugs of hot chocolate on the coffee table, when she came out of the bedroom. He hadn’t known what to expect, considering the shape she’d been in when she arrived, but surely not this….

No way she could’ve been taller than five foot five. He knew, because when she’d slunk past him to get inside earlier, the top of her head had barely reached his shoulder. Somehow, she looked even tinier in his bulky sweatsuit.

Her hair had looked darker, straighter, when it had been all plastered to her head by the rain. Now, thick waves that fell almost to her waist gleamed like a new penny in the firelight.

“I suppose it’s too much to hope that you have a phone way out here….”

“Cell phone,” he said, “but the battery is dead.”

“Seems to be a lot of that going around lately.” Then she noticed the mugs. “Oh, wow,” she said, smiling. “Hot chocolate, my favorite.”

The smile put a deep dimple in her right cheek at exactly the same moment as a loud, gurgling growl erupted from her stomach. She placed a hand over it. A very tiny, dainty hand, he noticed.

“Hungry?”

Her cheeks turned a rosy red. “Well, I hate to put you out. I can make myself a sandwich, make one for you, too…if you have the fixin’s.”

“You just sit there by the fire and get warm. I’ll whip us both up a bite to eat.” He headed for the kitchen. “Do you like grilled cheese?” Standing at the counter that separated the kitchen from the living room, Adam picked up a can of tomato soup, opened his mouth to offer that, too, when she spoke up.

“Do I!” She sat on the hearth, hugged her knees to her chest. “Only way I like it better is with a bowl of tomato soup.”

“Well, then. We have two things in common.”

Well-arched brows disappeared behind wispy, coppery bangs.

“An aversion to being cold and wet, and grilled cheese with a side of tomato soup.”

Either she hadn’t heard his response to her unasked question, or chose not to respond, for his surprise houseguest was leafing through a copy of Architecture Today. He wondered which house had her wrinkling her nose that way. Hopefully, the ridiculous-looking one the magazine had decided to feature on the cover. Adam didn’t know why, especially when his own house was a glass-and-wood contemporary in Ellicott City, Maryland, but he’d never been overly fond of modern-looking houses. Give him an old Victorian, like his grandma used to live in, and—

“I could never live in one of these.”

“One of what?”

“These houses that have more windows than walls.” She met his eyes. “Where’s a person supposed to hang pictures?”

He’d been trying to butter the bread when she said it, and buttered his hand, instead. After wiping it clean on a kitchen towel, he stirred the soup and shrugged. He didn’t have anything on the walls at his place, so the question had never occurred to him.

She stood, returned the magazine to its pile, then bent to make a tidy fan shape of the stack. “So,” she said, walking toward him, “mind if I ask you a question?”

“Fire away.”

“Actually,” she added, sliding onto a stool, “it’s more like a couple of questions.”

What was it with women? Did they all need name, rank, and serial number before they could carry on an ordinary conversation? “Name’s Adam Thorne,” he began dryly, adjusting the flame under the frying pan. “I’m thirty-two, unattached, and practice medicine for a living.”

“Whoa.” She held up a hand, traffic-cop style. “A doctor without a phone? How will your patients get hold of you in case of an emergency?”

“My partner takes over when I’m away, and when he’s gone, I do the same for him.”

“I didn’t see a car out front—”

“Friend dropped me off.” As if it’s any of your business, he added mentally. “He needed to borrow my pickup and—”

She stopped his explanation with a weary sigh.

“Sorry,” Adam said, “but it’s too late to hike out of here tonight, especially with this weird weather—”

“When will your friend be back?”

He grinned at her interruption. “First thing tomorrow morning.”

She straightened her back, tucked her hair behind her ears and bobbed her head. “Oh, well…” she said, shrugging.

He liked her grit. For all she knew, he was a madman. Yet there she sat, pretending not to mind that the wind had blown her into a stranger’s house.

“…lemons and puckers and all that.”

He would have asked what that meant…if he hadn’t looked into her eyes. Adam couldn’t help noticing how big they were, how long-lashed, how green. And then she smiled, and he had to add beautiful to the list.

There was something about her, though, something vaguely familiar….

He set the thoughts aside when she made a thin line of her mouth, slid the pucker left, then right. “What I really wanted to know was, what are you doing way out here in the middle of nowhere, all by yourself?”

Man, but she was cute! Adam cleared his throat. “I come up here every other weekend or so. You know, the old ‘get away from it all’ routine.”

She nodded. “How in the world did you ever find this place? I mean, it’s so…” Fingers drawing little arcs in the air, she hummed the tune to an old Beatles’ song. “It’s so nowhere, man!”

Chuckling, he said, “Inheritance. The property belonged to my grandparents.”

“They lived here?”

Adam shook his head, biting back the sadness the thought aroused. “Not exactly. Theirs was a traditional farmhouse, swing on the porch, potbellied stove in the dining room…. Unfortunately, it burned to the ground a decade or so ago.” He swallowed as the flash of memory prickled his mind. “I had this one built a couple of years back.”

Another nod, another glance around. “I like it. I like it a lot.”

So now I can go to my grave a satisfied man, he thought, grinning. Adam sliced each sandwich in half, poured the soup into two deep bowls.

“I feel like a lazy oaf, just sitting here while you do all the work. Let me set the table, at least.” She hopped off the stool. “Where do you keep the silverware? And the napkins?”

Adam opened a drawer, saw her eyes widen and her mouth drop open. “What?” he asked.

Blinking innocently, she said, “O-o-oh, nothing.”

“Seriously, what?”

“Well, if you hadn’t already told me you were single, I’d have figured it out after poking my nose in there, that’s for sure!”

What was she rambling about?

“How do you ever find anything?”

“I just dig ’til I come up with what I went hunting for.”

She bobbed her head from side to side. “Makes sense, I guess.” She pointed at the contents of the drawer. “You need a license to hunt in there, ’cause it looks dangerous.”

If she hadn’t punctuated the comment with a wink, he might have taken offense. But then, it seemed he took offense at just about everything these days. Adam put the food on the counter, topped off her hot chocolate with more. “Now then—”

She held up a hand to forestall the question. “I know, I know. Turnabout is fair play and all that.” Laughing softly, she said, “My name is Kasey Delaney. I’m twenty-six years old—well, I’ll be twenty-seven in a couple of weeks—and I, too, am single. I’m a floral designer by trade and—”

“Floral designer? What’s that?”

“You know those big bouquets you see in department stores and hotel lobbies and what-not?”

He hadn’t. But he nodded, anyway.

“Well, that’s what I do.”

“You make them?”

“I make them.”

He came around to her side of the counter, sat on the stool beside hers. “So, you’re artistic, then.”

“Maybe.” She held her thumb and forefinger half an inch apart. “Just a little.”

But wait just a minute here…. What had she said her last name was? Something French. No, Irish. De-something. Devaney.

Delaney.

His pulse raced and his mouth went dry. She couldn’t be that Kasey Delaney, could she? But then, how many Kasey Delaneys could there be in the Baltimore area? “’Scuse me a sec, will you?”

She blew a stream of air across the soup in her spoon. “Sure, but don’t be gone too long. Might not be anything left when you get back.”

He hadn’t prepared the meal to satisfy his own hunger, anyway. The main reason he’d made a sandwich for himself was so she wouldn’t feel uncomfortable eating alone. But now Adam was the uncomfortable one. Because what if…what if she was—

Only one way to find out.

He’d carried the photograph in his wallet for fifteen years, to the day, almost. He’d cut it out of The Baltimore Sun the morning after Halloween that wretched year. For a few years after that, he’d carried it as is, but as it yellowed and turned up at the edges, Adam began to worry it might disintegrate. And he couldn’t have that. He needed the article to remind him who and what he’d been, who and what he could become if he didn’t force himself to remember what he’d done that night. It had been encased in plastic since his eighteenth birthday.

In the bright overhead light of the bathroom, he slid his wallet out of his back pocket. It required no hunting to find the article; he’d read it numerous times since…since the night that stupid, stupid prank went so wrong.

He looked at it now, reminding himself that the girl in the black-and-white photo had been twelve when the picture was taken. She wore braces, a ponytail, one of those dark-plaid, private-school–type uniforms. One look at those big, smiling eyes cinched it. The Kasey pictured here and the one in his kitchen, who’d made him laugh and smile—and mean it for the first time in years—were one and the same.

Why did life have to be so full of bitter irony? he wondered.

How much should he tell her, if indeed he told her anything at all? Was her visit here truly an accident? Or had she shown up for a reason?

He doubted that. He’d always been very careful to keep his identity a secret from the Delaneys, hand-delivering cash payments in the middle of the night, never at the same time of the month, so he wouldn’t risk having Kasey or her mother catch him making “deposits” in their mailbox.

It had started small, just ten dollars that first month, earned from his part-time job changing oil filters at the local lube center. Remorse-ridden that his cowardly silence had been partly responsible for a man’s death, for a woman’s widowhood, for a child losing her father, Adam had taken a second part-time job, upping the amount to twenty dollars the next month. And although the amount in the last envelope had increased to nearly a thousand dollars, the guilt hadn’t decreased.

“Hey,” she called, “you okay in there? Should I send up a 9-1-1 smoke signal?”

Adam slid the article back into his wallet and tucked the wallet into his jeans pocket. Heart beating against his rib cage, Adam did the breathing exercise that always calmed him before surgery. Smiling, he headed back to the counter.

“So,” he said, forcing a brightness into his voice that he didn’t feel, “did you save me any soup?”

She insisted he let her do the dishes, and he insisted right back. “Okay. All right,” she conceded. “But I’ll wash, you dry, since you know where everything goes…more or less….” And that’s how they ended up side by side in his tiny L-shaped kitchen.

Sharing this everyday chore with a virtual stranger felt good, felt natural, making Kasey wonder if she’d lost her mind somewhere between that field of flowers and this isolated cabin. In an attempt at rational balance, she tried to rouse some of the fear she’d felt earlier, when thoughts of murderers and robbers had her heart beating double time.

But it was no use. Rational or not, she felt safe with Dr. Adam Thorne. It didn’t seem to bother him, either, that as the minutes passed, neither of them had said a word. Kasey added “comfortable” to the things he made her feel.

“So tell me, what kind of medicine do you practice?”

“Cardiology.”

“In Baltimore?”

“I’m affiliated with several area hospitals—GBMC, St. Joseph’s, Sinai, Ellicott General—but my office is in Ellicott City.”

She looked up at him. “You sound like a TV commercial.”

He laughed at that.

“I live in Ellicott City, too. Small world, huh?”

Adam looked away suddenly. “Yeah. Real small.”

Kasey didn’t know what to make of the dark expression that accompanied what should have been an innocuous agreement. “So why cardiology instead of—”

The plate he’d been drying shattered on the floor.

“Careful,” she said, squatting beside him, “you don’t want to cut yourself.”

But he didn’t seem to have heard her. And his hands shook slightly as he reached for the fragmented ceramic.

She grabbed his wrists. “I’ll do that. You probably have surgery scheduled bright and early Monday morning. I’d feel terrible if you had to cancel, get your partner to do the operation, because you cut your finger on my sandwich plate.”

One side of his mouth lifted in a wry grin. “How do you know it was your plate? Could have been mine.”

“True, but it’d still be in the cupboard now if I hadn’t shown up. Now really, let me clean this up,” she repeated. “It’ll make me feel better about all the trouble I’ve put you to.”

When he hesitated, she put on her best “do as I say” look, hoping it would have more effect on Adam than it did on Aleesha.

Amazingly, it did.

“Do you have a dustpan?” she asked as he stood.

He pointed to a narrow door.

She pulled out a hand broom, too, then proceeded to sweep up the remnants of the plate. “What would you be doing if I wasn’t here?” she asked, eye-level with his worn hiking shoes.

“Watching something on TV, I guess.”

It was just a broken plate; the miserable way he sounded, a person would think he’d killed someone! “Then go watch something on TV. Pretend I’m not even here.”

The shoes—and their owner—hiked into the living room, and seconds later, the theme from the Channel 13 news filled the air.

When she joined him after cleaning up, he was in his recliner, TV listings in one hand, clicker in the other. Kasey sat on the end of the couch nearest his chair and hugged a quilted toss pillow to her chest. “Anything positive happening tonight?”

“Nah. Typical news day.” He brightened slightly to add, “The Dow Jones is up a couple of points, though.”

Yippee, she thought. Kasey knew as much about the stock market as she knew about cardiology. “Have they said anything about the weather yet?”

“Only that we’re in for a doozie of a storm.”

Yippee, she echoed silently. It’d be just her luck for the tail end of that hurricane that had been wreaking havoc in the Atlantic to choose tonight to head up Chesapeake Bay. If that happened, they could be stranded here for…for who knew how long! Several years earlier, when the weather had taken a turn like that, downed trees and power lines had Baltimoreans fighting in store aisles over the dwindling supply of ice and batteries. Kasey sighed inwardly.

A huge clap of thunder, followed immediately by crackling lightning, shook the cabin.

Wonderful, Kasey thought. What else could go wrong?

As if in answer to her question, the lights went out. She watched as the TV’s picture shrunk to a bright white pinpoint, then disappeared altogether. She’d never seen such total darkness, not even in the basement furnace room at home.

“Stay right where you are,” Adam said. “I’ll get a flashlight.”

“Don’t you worry, I’m not gonna move a muscle. I can’t even see my hand in front of my face.”

She could hear him, rummaging somewhere off to her left. Hopefully, he hadn’t stored the flashlight in that kitchen drawer, because he was likely to pull out the proverbial bloody stump instead of a flashlight.

Much to her surprise, he was back in no time, illuminated by the pyramid-shaped beam of a foot-long flashlight.

“Here,” he instructed, handing her a battery-powered lantern, “turn that on.”

And before she could agree or object, he was gone again, leaving nothing but a bobbing, weaving trail of light in his wake. Kasey fumbled with the lantern until she found a switch on its side. Minutes later, Adam placed a glass-globed lantern beside it, and once lit, the oil-soaked wick brightened the entire room. He placed a matching lamp on the kitchen counter.

“Well,” she said, laughing, “what in the world will we do without the TV to entertain us?”

Adam leaned back in his recliner. “Oh, I have a feeling you’ll think of something.”

For a reason she couldn’t explain, the way he sounded just now matched the expression he’d worn earlier. Suspicious was the only word she could think of to describe it. And she couldn’t for the life of her come up with a reason he’d have to feel that way. “We could play a game, I suppose. Do you have a game cupboard up here?”

“Actually, it’s a game chest.” He nodded at the coffee table. “What’s your preference? Scrabble? Monopoly? Life?”

Last thing Kasey wanted to do right now was think. She wrinkled her nose. “How ’bout War?”

“That baby game?” he said, grinning.

“Truthfully, if it’s all the same to you, I’m not really in much of a game-playing mood right now.”

Adam sighed. He’d never liked games. Not even as a kid. “Good, ’cause I’m never in much of a game-playing mood.”

“Really?”

He watched her tuck one leg under her, hug the other to her chest. In the lantern light, her hair gleamed like a coppery halo, her eyes glittered like emeralds. “Why’s that? Are you a sore loser?”

She had a lovely, lyrical voice, too, he thought, smiling when she laughed. “Sore loser? Hardly. For some reason, I rarely lose.”

“I see. So you turn other people into sore losers, then.”

And that smile! Did she realize it made him want to kiss her?

“Something like that, I guess.”

She started to get up. “So, how ’bout I snoop around in your kitchen, whip us up a cup of hot chocolate. Or tea.”

Somewhere under that thick, oversize sweatsuit, was a curvy, womanly figure. He knew, because earlier, her soaking-wet blouse and trousers had acted like a second skin, making it impossible not to notice. He was surprised at the caustic tone of his “Mi casa, su casa.”

She padded into the kitchen on the thick-soled athletic socks he’d loaned her and turned on the gas under the teakettle. And as she opened and closed cabinet doors in search of tea bags and sugar, he said, “So tell me how you got into this flower business of yours.”

“It’s a long boring story.” She shook an empty box. “And by the way, you’re out of hot chocolate.”

“Well, one thing we’re not out of is time.” He linked his fingers behind his head.

And you’d better spend it wisely, he cautioned, because he couldn’t afford to give in to his feelings.

He had a pretty good life, all things considered. His mom was still healthy, thank God, and he had good friends, a good job, a nice house, a place to hide from the everyday stresses and strains of the world. Only thing missing, really, from his American Dream lifestyle was a wife, two-point-five kids and a golden retriever. The scene flashed in his mind—he and Kasey and a couple of rosy-cheeked, red-haired tots….

Ridiculous! He could see it now: “Hey, how would you like to marry me? And by the way, I killed your father….” He wouldn’t live his dream life with Kasey.

Yes, he’d lived a pretty good life, but aspects of it had been less than fair. Tonight, for example. He’d been sitting here, alone, browbeating himself yet again, knowing full well that he had no one but himself to blame for his solitary status.

Still, if he’d shown a little courage fifteen years ago, Al Delaney wouldn’t have died—at least, not on that night. Adam knew, even back then, that he’d pay for his moment of cowardice for the rest of his days. And if he needed proof of it, he only needed to look into his kitchen, where a gorgeous creature was humming as she prepared him a cup of tea.

He couldn’t afford to fall for her, no matter how cute and sweet she was, no matter how funny. If he did, well, eventually she’d find out he was responsible for her father’s death. And he’d rather die himself than have her hate him because of it.

Keep it casual, keep it friendly. She’d be gone in the morning and he’d probably never see her again. Not outside the confines of his own private thoughts, anyway….

“So,” he said in a calculatedly easygoing tone, “tell me the so-called long and boring story about how you got into the flower business.”

Chapter Two

A filled-to-the-brim steaming mug in each hand, Kasey trod slowly toward him. The tip of her tongue poked out from one corner of her mouth as she concentrated on every cautious step. Adam could think of just one word to describe her at that moment: Cute.

Knees locked, she bent at the waist and carefully centered his mug on a coaster on the end table beside his chair. After depositing her own cup on the tile-topped coffee table, she flopped onto the couch.

“Whew,” she said on a sigh. “I’ve developed a whole new appreciation for waitresses.” One dainty forefinger indicated the hot brew. “That’s dangerous work!”

Chuckling, Adam lowered the recliner’s footrest, rested ankle on knee and steepled his fingers beneath his chin. “You were about to tell me how you got into the flower business.”

Her laughter reminded Adam of the wind chimes that once hung outside his grandma’s kitchen window.

“I guess you’d have to say I just fell into it.”

Adam continued to watch, transfixed as she gestured with small but clearly hardworking hands, her incredible green eyes flickering with wit as she smiled, pursed her lips, tucked in one corner of her mouth.

“‘Falling into it’…now that,” Adam interjected, “sounds dangerous.”

Her brows knitted in confusion. “How so?”

“Well, look at those things—” He indicated the basket of cuttings. “Briars big enough to saddle, spears that could harpoon a Great White.” He met her eyes. “I sure wouldn’t want to ‘fall into’ any of that!”

She laughed again, and again Adam noticed the way the sound of it rang inside him, like the silvery note of a bell. Get back on track, he thought. “So how, exactly, does one ‘fall into’ floral design?”

Resting both elbows on her knees, Kasey leaned forward, puckered her lips and blew across the surface of her tea. “This stuff is hot enough to fog your glasses…if you were wearing any.”

He wondered when—if—she intended to tell him about her work; how she’d try to keep him distracted if she decided not to. Wondered why she’d want to keep something so everyday-ordinary from him. The only reason he wanted to know, really, was to prove to himself that what he’d done fifteen years ago hadn’t destroyed her.

She sat back suddenly and crossed her legs. “My shop is called Fleur Élégance, and—”

“Your shop?”

Wearing a proud little smile, Kasey nodded. “Couple of years ago, I paid off my mother’s mortgage. We’d always had this big shed out back, but I was never allowed in it. Dad always said, ‘You could poke an eye out in there.”’ She imitated a deep, growly voice. “Which was probably true. The thing was filled to overflowing with…stuff.”

Kasey laughed softly. “He used to call Mom a clutter-bug. That was true, too.” Resting her head against the sofa’s back cushion, she continued. “Mom saved everything. Rusted tools, extension cords with bared wires, broken-down lawn mowers, bald tires, bent lawn chairs…a lifetime of junk.”

Adam thought he could listen to her talk, hours on end. She loved life, and it showed in every movement of her curvy little body, in every syllable that passed those well-shaped pink lips.

“Dad had been gone nearly ten years when I struck a bargain with Mom—I’d clean out the shed and set up a yard sale, and Mom could spend the proceeds in the bookstore.” Smiling, Kasey rolled her eyes. “The woman has more books than a public library! Anyway, she agreed to the deal, so I cleared everything out, installed new windows—”

He knew the answer to his next question even before he asked it. “Installed windows. Yourself?”

Her expression said, Well, sure. Doesn’t everybody?

If he hadn’t made that promise to himself to keep a safe distance from her, Adam would have given her a hug—maybe more than just a hug—while trying to convince her that not everybody installs their own windows. Especially not pretty, petite girls.

“Once I’d put down a new floor and painted the walls, I had myself a right nice little place to do business.” She gave a nod. “Now getting the business, that was the hard part. At least, at first.”

She sat forward to take another sip of tea, a length of cinnamon hair falling over one shoulder when she did. She flipped it back, exposing the delicate creamy-white skin of her inner wrist, and dangly silver earrings.

He had a new word to describe her now: Stunning.

Adam shook his head. Snap out of it, man. He couldn’t deny how much he liked Kasey. Couldn’t deny how much he disliked what he was beginning to feel for her, either.

Which is what? he wondered.

He was attracted to her, to be sure. And what man wouldn’t be captivated by a gorgeous, green-eyed redhead with a knockout figure and the voice of an angel?

But there was more to it than that. So much more.

Somehow, being with Kasey these few hours had forced him to admit he didn’t like his solitary lifestyle. She hadn’t done it with smoke and mirrors. Hadn’t done it with feminine wiles. Rather, she’d made him see how much he yearned for love and companionship, simply by being, well, by being Kasey.

During the past fifteen years, he’d probably looked at her picture a thousand times. Each time he’d seen that sweet, innocent face looking back at him, Adam had prayed she’d stay that way, forever. He’d likely said a thousand prayers for her, too; he may never know if all the heavenly requests made on her behalf had been met, but he could see, looking at her now, that that prayer, thankfully, had been answered.

Better get a grip, Thorne, he reminded himself. He’d had no way of knowing it at the time, but when he made the choice to go along with Buddy’s prank all those years ago, he chose his destiny. His cowardice had been one of the reasons she’d lost her dad, and his throwing a little money at her family once a month hadn’t changed that.

He chalked up what he’d begun to feel for Kasey to guilt. Had to be some kind of cockeyed contrition, right, because what else could it be? They’d only known each other for a few hours.

Several times over the years, he’d considered digging deeper, finding out more about Kasey and her mom. But nothing he might have learned could replace Al Delaney, so why try? Protectiveness had spawned that idea—was it also responsible for what he’d been feeling since he opened the door, saw her standing there, drenched and dripping and shaking like the last autumn leaf? Had he confused protectiveness for something deeper?

“How’s your tea?” she asked, interrupting his thoughts.

Mechanically, he picked up the cup, took a sip. By now, it was cooler than he liked it. Fact was, he preferred coffee to tea, but he didn’t say so. “It’s good.”

“Sweet enough?”

On the rare occasions when he did drink tea, he used no sugar at all. But he’d have eaten the stuff raw, right off the spoon, if she’d asked him to. “It’s perfect. Thanks.”

Then, more to get his mind off his roller-coaster emotions than for any other reason, he asked, “So how’d you get your first job?”

“Well…” She tucked stockinged feet under her. “A friend was getting married, and she had no money for a bouquet—for floral arrangements of any kind, for that matter. My dad always said I had a green thumb, that I was pretty good at arranging flowers from Mom’s garden….”

Her smile went from friendly to whimsical, telling Adam that one memory had conjured another. I miss him still, said the mellow look in her eyes.

She sat up straighter, cleared her throat. “Anyway, Claire ended up getting ten wedding gifts from me—” One finger at a time popped from her closed fists as she counted: “The bride’s bouquet, one for her maid of honor, the groom and best man’s boutonnieres, mother of the bride and groom corsages, and vases for the front of the church.”

Adam nodded. “Let me guess…and all the nice ladies who attended the wedding saw your pretty flowers, and when their daughters got married…”

Kasey clapped her hands together. “Exactly! Word of mouth was all it took. Before I knew it, I had more orders than I could handle.”

“Good news travels fast.”

“Then I got smart.”

He blinked. “Smart, how?”

“My dad used to say ‘why work hard when you can work smart?’ I didn’t figure out what he meant until I’d been in business a year or so.” Staring straight ahead, she lowered her voice, as if what she was about to say was a state secret: “He died when I was just twelve, and he had a lot of ‘sayings,’ so there was a lot to figure out.” Facing him again, she continued in her normal tone of voice. “Anyway, I finally realized I could make more money, a lot more money, if my arrangements were b-i-g.”

Scratching his head, Adam said, “I’m following you…I think.”

“Well, at first, all my clients were individuals. They wanted flowers for weddings, to decorate their homes and vacation properties. Small arrangements, you know? I was barely covering my overhead costs.”

Eyes wide, she clasped her hands under her chin and whispered, “And then I saw a huge urn of flowers at one of those offbeat art galleries downtown. It hit me like that!” She snapped her fingers. “What I needed was a whole new kind of customer. Businesspeople instead of…regular people.”

“So that’s where the shopping malls and department stores came in,” Adam said.

“And financial institutions, and legal firms…any company that wants to set a certain atmosphere for their customers and clients.”

Adam added smart and savvy to his quickly growing list of reasons to like Kasey Delaney. “You’ve accomplished quite a lot in your twenty-six, er, almost twenty-seven years.” Imagine what she could have become…if she’d had a father to nurture and guide her, he tacked on.

“It hasn’t been all that much, really.”

Even in the dim lamplight, he could see that she was blushing. He didn’t understand why she’d feel self-conscious about all she’d accomplished, and said so.

Her voice was soft and sad when she repeated, “It just…hasn’t been much.”

Adam wanted to know more, so much more, about this lovely, talented young woman. Wanted to know what put the sadness in her voice, dimmed the light in her eyes. He’d always made his monetary deliveries in the dead of night, so had no way of knowing if she’d taken a husband, if she had children. Might she be available…?

He’d stayed on the fringes of her life, quite by choice. Every month, like clockwork, he dropped a cash-filled envelope into the mailbox of the house where she’d grown up. He hadn’t felt right about poking his nose into other areas of the Delaneys’ lives. But now, hearing that a home of her own and a successful business didn’t seem like much of an achievement to Kasey, he couldn’t help but wonder what her dreams and goals had been.

His goal hadn’t changed in fifteen years: Fill in for Al Delaney in the only way he knew how…with money.

“I’m going to warm up my tea,” she said. “Care for a refill?”

He shook his head. “You said you lost your dad when you were twelve?”

She nodded over her shoulder, and he winced inwardly as a wary expression darkened her pretty features. What did she know? he wondered. Had the look been prompted by something she suspected…about him?

He thought of that old saying— Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you—and wondered again if her visit here had been happenstance…

…or part of a plan.

And speaking of plans…

“Your father must have planned well for you and your mom.”

Brow furrowed, she gave him a sidelong glance. “Planned well?”

“Well, you seem to have done pretty well for yourself. House that’s free and clear of bank attachments, a successful business… Did you go to college, Kasey?”

“Sure did. Graduated the University of Maryland with a BS in business administration.”

“Well, it’s not as expensive as Harvard, but the tuition sure ain’t free.”

Her frown deepened. “True.” Kasey perched on the arm of the sofa, wrapped both hands around her mug. “My tuition wasn’t paid with funds from my dad’s estate, if that’s what you’re implying. He was a good, hardworking man, but he wasn’t rich. Not by a long shot.”

She focused on some unknown spot behind him. “We had bills, lots of them. In fact, we found bills we didn’t even know we had until after he died.”

Clearing her throat, she stood, walked around to the front of the couch and sat down. “Which is why, first chance I got, I wrote a check to that mortgage company.”

“Sorry,” Adam said. “Didn’t mean to pry.”

She met his eyes and sent him a smile so warm, so sweet, it made his heart ache. Oh, to have a woman like this…so kind and nurturing, so resourceful and dedicated…for his very own!

“You’re not prying, exactly,” she said offhandedly.

“So you made it through college on scholarships, then?”

That made her laugh. “No. I did okay in the grades department, but not okay enough to earn scholarships.”

That surprised him, a fact that must have shown on his face.

“Oh, I think if I’d had the luxury of time to study, time to turn in detailed reports, if I’d had a dad at my elbow, making sure I’d dotted all the I’s and crossed all the T’s, I probably could have done better in school.”

Shame and remorse thudded in Adam’s chest.

“I had to work two, sometimes three, part-time jobs to help out. Mom did what she could, but she’s never been particularly healthy….”

There had never been any indication that Mrs. Delaney was anything but hale and hearty. “What’s wrong with her?”

Kasey shrugged. “Little of this, little of that. My grandmother always blamed it on self-pity. Me? I call it loneliness.”

Mortified, Adam scrubbed both hands over his face. If the woman was lonely, there could be but one reason.

“Lonely for what, I never quite figured out,” she tacked on.

He raked his fingers through his hair, waiting, hoping she’d explain.

“My folks didn’t have the most loving, romantic relationship in the world.” A harsh, nervous laugh punctuated the statement. “And if you had known them, you’d realize what an understatement that is!

“They rarely spoke, and when they did, it was only to insult one another. So it took me by surprise how hard my mom was hit by my father’s death.”

Kasey hugged her legs to her chest, rested her chin on her knees. “I’ll never forget the look on my mother’s face when the grim-faced cop arrived on our front porch to deliver the news,” she whispered.

She met Adam’s eyes. “She looked so lost and alone—like a little girl. It frightened me so much.” She sighed. “Turned out she loved him in her own way, despite all their problems.”

Adam didn’t know what to say, and so he said nothing.

“I was a mess, crying and blubbering like a two-year-old. Mom was too distraught to provide much comfort. Things only got worse the next day, when the cop came back to tell us about the evidence the department had found all around the railroad tracks.”

“Evidence?” His heart thundered. What did she know…and could she connect him to that night? He recalled the article in The Baltimore Sun and the other papers. “Evidence of what?”

“Cigarette butts, footprints and pieces of a pumpkin, of all things, in the cemetery near the tracks.”

Holding his breath, Adam waited for her to hit him, square between the eyes, with the accusation.

“The police found what was left of a scarecrow-type dummy, just down the tracks from the graveyard. They figured it was just a silly Halloween prank—kids probably, who were curious to see how far the train would carry their ingenious little creation. At the time, the cops decided the shock of thinking it had been a real person in front of his engine scared my dad so badly, he had a heart attack.”

What did she mean “at the time”? Adam stiffened, waiting for further explanation.

But she shook her shoulders, instead, as if casting off the dour turn the conversation had taken. “Enough about me,” she said in a deliberately brighter voice. “Tell me how you got interested in medicine. Were you a fan of Marcus Welby, M.D. reruns?”

He’d seen the television show a time or two and had enjoyed it, but he hadn’t made a career choice because of it. He hadn’t gone the route of most students interested in medicine, who, after interning in pediatrics or obstetrics or geriatrics, changed their specialty until they found one that “fit.” Adam had known almost from the morning after that life-changing night which field he’d choose.

But how could he explain that to Kasey?

Just then, the oven timer began chiming.

“Oh, my,” Kasey said, dashing into the kitchen to turn it off. “I must have pushed the wrong button when I was looking for the overhead light.”

Saved by the bell, Adam thought. With any luck, when Kasey came back to her perch on the couch, she wouldn’t pick up where she’d left off.

“I wish there was some way to call home. They’ll be so worried.”

“They?”

Nodding, she snuggled back into her corner of the sofa. “My mom and Aleesha. Who knows what they’re thinking, what with this storm and all. And it’s the night before Halloween.”

The night before Halloween. Fifteen years ago tonight, Adam, Luke, Wade and Travis were huddled in Buddy’s basement, making plans for “the great prank,” each agreeing to bring one element vital to its success….

“Well, you know how it is in Maryland,” he said. “Chances are fair to middlin’ it isn’t even raining in Ellicott City.”

His words seemed to reassure her, for she sent him a small smile.

“True. Still, I’ve never been gone this long without telling them where I was. They’re probably thinking something terrible happened to me.”

“And maybe because they know you so well, they’re thinking you’re a feet-on-the-ground kind of gal who’s riding out the storm in a safe place.”

“You’re very sweet to say that.”

The warmth of her gaze lit a fire in his soul, and as much as he wanted to warm himself by it, it was a blaze Adam knew he had to tamp, immediately.

“So who’s this Aleesha person you mentioned?”

“She’s seventeen now, but I met her three years ago, when I volunteered for the Big Sister program in Baltimore. Her parents died in a house fire at just about the same time my dad was killed. She’d been bounced from foster family to foster family ever since. Poor little thing doesn’t even remember her folks, she was so small when she lost them.”

Kasey hadn’t said her father died, he noticed; she’d said he’d been killed. All the more reason not to stoke what he was beginning to feel for her, because sooner or later, she’d find out he was one of the killers.

“Aleesha and I hit it off, right from the get-go,” Kasey continued. “She’s the most wonderful, loving girl. She has some problems but we’re working around them.”

“Problems? What kind of problems?”

“Learning disabilities, for starters. Plus, she’s very myopic, and wears braces on her legs. I adopted her just over a year ago.”

“Legally?”

She gave one nod. “Legally.”

So the girl who’d grown up without a dad had learned enough about loving, about giving, to share her life—her self—with a needy child. “You’re something else, Kasey Delaney. Something else.”

She blushed, waved his compliment away. “Seemed the least I could do. I mean, God has been pretty good to me.”

God? Adam failed to see what God had to do with who and what Kasey had become. Seemed to him she was self-made, that she’d fought adversities of all kinds, and won—and Adam said so.

“No.” She said it emphatically, in a no-nonsense voice. “I am what I am, if you’ll pardon the Popeye quote, because God saw fit to give me my own little miracle.”

What kind of nonsense was she spouting? She’d seemed perfectly rational and reasonable, until that “miracle” business came out of her mouth. It was ridiculous enough to be laughable. “A miracle, huh?” he asked, hoping the sarcasm he felt didn’t show in his voice.

“Yup. In the form of a generous, anonymous benefactor.”

Adam’s heart beat harder. A generous, anonymous benefactor. So she did know about him! But how? He’d been so careful about his deliveries.

“For fifteen years now, once a month, someone has been leaving money in our mailbox.” She held up her hands. “I know, I know, it sounds like something out of a Dickens novel, but it’s true! He started small, just a few dollars at first, and worked his way up. Last envelope contained over a thousand dollars. Cash.”

Adam swallowed, hard.

“I have a pretty good idea who he is, too.”

He held his breath, grateful for the semidarkness that hid his blush. “But how…how do you know it’s a ‘he’?”

She grinned and tapped a fingertip to her temple. “Two and two, Dr. Thorne, usually equals four.”

“I—I’m afraid I don’t follow.”

“Well, we have this neighbor, see, and after Dad died, he began looking in on us. A lot. Never had two words to say to us before that night—unless you count boyhood pranks—and then suddenly, the day after Dad was killed, he came over to ask if Mom and I needed anything. Day after that, we found an envelope with ten dollars in it stuffed into the mailbox.

“A month or so later, he cut our grass—using his lawn mower and gas!—and we got fifteen bucks in the next envelope. Another time, he trimmed the hedges, and, yep, a couple days later, there was a twenty-dollar bill in the mailbox.”

“That was…nice of him.”

“Not was,” she corrected. “He’s still doing it!” Kasey laughed softly. “Not the chores, of course. He’s a big important businessman now, far too busy for that kind of stuff. But he’s still leaving envelopes full of money every month.”

Adam cleared his throat. “Very…uh, very generous man.”

“I’ll say. If it hadn’t been for him, I would never have been able to afford to go to college. When Mom was able, she’d take in ironing, decorate cakes, things that didn’t tax her delicate system too terribly….”

There was no mistaking the sarcasm in her voice. Kasey didn’t believe for a minute that her mother had a physical condition that prevented her from working. And yet, she’d taken care of the woman all these years. He had to wonder why a girl who’d suspect her own mother’s intentions had such complete faith in the do-gooder from across the street.

“I always managed to find steady work, and pretty much kept the wolf from the door, as they say. But college?” She shook her head. “No way that would have been possible without him.”

It gave Adam a good feeling, knowing his monthly contributions to the Delaney household had served the intended purpose: to make life easier for Kasey and her mom. Suddenly, it didn’t matter who got the credit.

“I say a little prayer for him, every morning. Say another one every night, before I turn in.”

Did she have any idea what she was doing to him, sitting there, pretty as a picture, telling him things like she’d been praying for his miserable soul? Looking into her innocent, trusting eyes, it made him ashamed. So ashamed that he would’ve stood up and walked right out of the room…if there had been anywhere else to go.

“I just wish I knew for sure that it was the man across the street.”

He leaned forward, drawn closer by the sincerity of her tone. “Why?”

Her eyes misted with tears and yet she smiled. “Because I’d like to tell him that, much as we appreciated everything he did for us, we don’t need his help anymore, that we’re doing fine on our own, thanks to him.”

“And this man across the street…what makes you think it might not be him?”

She shrugged one shoulder, wiped the tears from her eyes. “Well, he must know that I’ve guessed what he’s been up to all this time, and yet he seems to think it’ll buy him certain—” she frowned “—favors.” Kasey shrugged. “That just doesn’t quite jibe with the kind of man who’d leave regular payments.”

“What kind of favors?”

“Oh, nothing, really. Drops in last-minute for meals. Stops by unannounced with laundry, mending. Things like that.” She frowned and a huge sigh whispered from her. “He has enough money to buy and sell Mom and me ten times over. And his lifestyle, well, that’s another story altogether!”

“His lifestyle?”

“It’s…well, let’s just say it doesn’t fit the profile of—”

“—a generous benefactor,” they said together.

After a moment of friendly laughter, Kasey said, “I’ll bet you’ve heard of him. Buddy Mauvais?”

A punch to the gut couldn’t have knocked the wind out of him more effectively. Yeah, he’d heard of Buddy Mauvais, all right. Anybody who hadn’t been living in a cave these past ten years knew Buddy…as a two-bit con man. But Adam had a whole different reason to know the name that had appeared in countless newspapers, and been mentioned on local TV news stations every time a crooked stock deal or a get-rich-quick scheme scammed some poor fool. Somehow, Buddy always managed to slither through one legal loophole after another. Not that it surprised Adam; Buddy had been lying and conniving his way out of trouble since he was a boy.

Why hadn’t Adam made the connection earlier? He’d known all along that Buddy lived across the street from the Delaneys. That’s one reason he’d been so careful when dropping envelopes in their mailbox; he wouldn’t have put it past good old Buddy to steal the money, if he’d seen Adam delivering it!

A slow rage began to burn inside him at the thought that Buddy had been taking the credit for his generosity. And to make matters worse, trying to take liberties with Kasey in repayment of it!

“So why don’t you tell me about it?”

He blinked, turned his attention back to her. “Tell you about what?” It came out gruffer, angrier than he’d intended, especially considering she wasn’t the one Adam was furious with. If he could get his hands on Buddy Mauvais right now—

“Obviously, you and Buddy have a history of some kind….”

He put a concerted effort into staying calm. “What makes you say that?”

“Well, just look at you,” she said. “Ever since I mentioned his name, you’re tight as a drum.” Grinning, Kasey added, “And if you don’t stop gritting your teeth, you’re sure to crack your molars.”

He hated to admit it, but she was right. He opened his fists, unclenched his jaw, relaxed his shoulders. Adam shook his head. He needed to get off someplace, be by himself, think this thing through in a rational, logical way. Until then, he knew, he’d better zip his lip. And do a whole lot better job of keeping a lid on your temper while you’re at it.

“Nah,” he said, forcing a grin. “I’m just frustrated with the power company, is all. I mean, you pay through the nose for service, and half the time you’re sitting in the dark, waiting—”

“Adam, do you mind my being completely blunt?”

Well, he thought, that all depended on what she intended to be blunt about. “No. I guess not,” he said carefully.

Adam clamped his lips together and waited, searching for the inner strength that would be required to react appropriately to whatever idea was percolating in that pretty head of hers.

“What I read on your face just now wasn’t frustration at the power company. It was anger, plain and simple.” She scooted to the edge of the seat, leaned toward him and said, “Now, I don’t know why you feel the way you do about Buddy, but don’t you think it’d be a good idea to tell me about it?”

He looked into her eyes, so big and bright, so filled with sincerity. “Buddy and I go way back,” he began. “We were…” He couldn’t bring himself to say “friends.” “We hung around together some when we were in high school.”

“Then, you probably know him better than I do.”

She clasped her hands together in what he read as a gesture of quiet supplication.

“I need to know everything I can about him, and if you can shed some light…” She extended her hands, palms up, beseechingly.

Her voice was trembling, and that made no sense at all. Especially when Adam reminded himself that Kasey thought Buddy was her own personal God-sent “miracle.”

“I’d really appreciate it, Adam.”

“But why?”

She lifted her chin a notch, squared her shoulders and straightened her back. “Because,” she said in that matter-of-fact way of hers, “Buddy has asked me to marry him.”

Chapter Three

Kasey pretended to be so engrossed in pulling up her too-big socks that she hadn’t seen Adam, bobbing his head right to left, working out the tension in his neck. She’d struck a nerve of some sort, mentioning Buddy’s name, struck another by admitting he’d proposed to her. She began searching her mind for an appropriate question, one that would explain why.

“I’m whipped,” he said, getting to his feet. He stretched, gave an exaggerated yawn, then headed for his room. “Back in a flash,” he added over his shoulder.

Adam was carrying a pillow and a blanket when he reappeared a moment later. “I’ll bet you’re even more anxious to start countin’ sheep than I am. Good thing I put fresh sheets on the bed this morning, eh?”

Her head was still swimming from the abrupt change of subject. “Adam, I’m not taking your bed.”

“You’re not taking it, I’m giving it to you.”

“But you’ve done so much already. I can’t let you—”

“Trust me, schweetheart,” he said in a barely recognizable Bogie imitation, “nobody lets me do anything.” He dropped the bedding on the coffee table, as if to underscore his statement.

Kasey put her hands on her hips, to underscore her determination.

Eyes locked to hers, he said, “Okay, but I think it’s gonna be pretty uncomfortable out here, both of us trying to share this lumpy ole couch.”

She glanced at the huge, overstuffed sectional. If need be, two adults and maybe a couple of toddlers could spend a comfortable night here…provided, Kasey thought, looking at Adam, one of them wasn’t built like a Baltimore Ravens linebacker.

“I’ve sawed logs out here plenty of times,” he said. “Believe me, I’ll be fine.”

But why would he put himself through a long, torturous night, when he had every right to the big brass bed, visible from the living room?

She already knew why.

Smiling, Kasey recalled that several times since her arrival—as he rushed around to find her something to wear, as he grilled her a cheese sandwich—she’d thought what a nice man Adam was. It had taken only a few minutes of his hospitality to blot out her fears that he might be a murdering maniac. She’d prayed for a warm, dry place filled with warmhearted inhabitants. True to form, God had provided…not “people,” but certainly someone big enough—and big-hearted enough—to be two people! Silently, she thanked Him.

Adam’s quiet baritone broke into her thoughts.

“Would you be more comfortable if I tried to scare up something more, uh, more jammie-like for you to sleep in?”

His fumbling, awkward suggestion added yet another item to her quickly growing Reasons to Like Adam list. Kasey patted her thigh. “You’re sweet to offer, but the sweatsuit is terrific.”

She stood and faced him. “I’d like to sleep right here.” Being able to read people’s faces could sometimes make or break a sale. It appeared she hadn’t yet managed to convince Adam she was serious. “Look at it this way—how many chances does a city girl get to fall asleep in front of a roaring fire?”

He lifted his chin, telling her he still planned to spend the night on the couch. Well, she had “stubborn” down pat herself. “I hate to be a pushy guest, but I insist.”

Adam regarded her for a moment before saying, “Okay, but I think it’s only fair to warn you, I set a trap a couple of hours before you showed up.”

A trap? Kasey rolled her eyes and sighed. “Do I seem like the kind of girl who’d leap onto a chair at the sight of a teensie-weensie mouse?”

Her stomach did a little flip in reaction to the quick once-over from his brown, brown eyes, flipped again when she saw a flirty grin lift one corner of his mouth. Then one dark brow rose on his forehead.

“I’ll admit, you don’t look like the ‘eek’ type.”

Kasey recalled the way she’d behaved when Adam first opened the cabin door. “Do I detect a ‘but’ in that statement?”

His grin grew. “Never said the trap was for a mouse.”

Why was her mouth suddenly dry? “Chipmunk, then?” He stood, feet shoulder-width apart and arms crossed over his chest. If he shaved his head and got a big gold earring, he’d look even more like that cartoon sailor in the cleaning commercial.

“Nope.”

She licked her lips. “Squirrel.”

He shook his head.

Her heart began beating a tad faster. “What, then?” She prayed he’d say “fox” or “bobcat,” anything but “snake.”

He looked at her out of the corner of one eye. “Maybe I need to revise my statement.”

“Excuse me?”

“Maybe you are the type who’s scared of things that go bump in the night.”

To her knowledge, snakes didn’t “bump.” But then, her encounters with reptiles had been few and far between…deliberately. Still, it was far too early in their relationship to show him what a scaredy-cat she could be. Kasey grabbed the poker from the hearth and struck a fencer’s pose. “Anything that goes bump in my night will leave here wearin’ a bump!”

Wait—had she thought the R word? She’d only met the man a few hours ago! Just because he’d been nice—and she’d appreciated it—didn’t mean they’d started a…a relationship.

Did it?

Adam laughed, and she realized he was just teasing her.

“All right,” he said, “you win. But if you’re going to sleep out here, at least let me get you some clean sheets, another pillow, a comforter, maybe.”

Kasey was still reacting to the delicious sound of his laughter when she said, “You must be kidding. There’s so much wood on that grate, I’ll probably roast during the night.”

“Then, maybe I oughta come back in a couple of hours,” he mumbled around a yawn, “to turn you over and baste you.”

She headed back to the fireplace, to put the poker back into its stand. Looking over her shoulder, she began, “And maybe you oughta—”

Kasey’s right foot came down on the toe of the too-big left sock Adam had loaned her, throwing her off balance. The poker clattered onto the brick hearth as she held out both hands to soften the landing.

Adam, lightning-quick, grabbed her wrist. One well-timed tug kept her from falling face-first into the blazing fire—and put her directly into the protective circle of his arms.

Pressed tightly against his barrel chest was just about the last place Kasey should be, she knew. And yet, it was precisely where she wanted to be, where she’d pictured herself—a time or two, anyway—during the past few hours.

She looked up slowly, past the wide shoulders and the broad chin. She hadn’t noticed before—perhaps because they’d stayed a careful distance apart, perhaps because of the semidarkness—but a shadowy stubble peppered his face. It made him look even more rugged, even more handsome, if that was possible. When had he last shaved, Kasey wondered. Yesterday? The day before? And what might it feel like if that slightly fuzzy upper lip should graze her mouth with a soft, searching kiss…?

She saw a similar question simmering in his dark brown orbs. Her heart thudded, because she sensed that Adam was going to kiss her, and soon. Sensed, too, that she’d like it, that she’d want another, and maybe another after that.

Dear Lord, she prayed, if You’re trying to tell me Adam is ‘the one,’ I’m getting the message loud and clear!

Adam held her close, torn between pushing her away and pulling her nearer still. Relief—that he’d managed to keep her from falling into the fire—mingled with the exhilaration of having her so near.

Looking deep into her eyes, Adam understood for the first time what the poets meant, for he felt as though he were drowning in a sea of bright green.

Long ago, he’d taught himself to mask his emotions, had made it a regular part of every doctor–patient relationship. Obviously, something in his carefully practiced routine had short-circuited. How else could Kasey have known how very much he wanted to kiss her? And he could see that she did know; she had closed her eyes, tilted her head, lifted her chin.

The logical side of his brain ranted, Stop it! You’re getting in over your head! But the emotional side prodded, She’d be good for you! Why not make hay while the sun shines for a change?

He all but laughed at the irony: sunshine, when it was nearly midnight, and during a raging thunderstorm, yet!

Kasey opened her eyes—her magnificent, glittering green eyes—at the exact moment that a rib-racking clap of thunder shook the cabin. Startled, she instinctively squeezed closer; involuntarily, he tightened his protective embrace.

And that’s all it took to melt the last of his resolve.

Adam leaned down as Kasey stood on tiptoe. You’re gonna be sorry, pealed a warning in his head. But it came too late….

The instant their lips touched, a soft sigh bubbled up from somewhere deep inside her and swept over him like a tepid ocean wave. One moment, he’d been an empty, castaway bottle, bobbing in the sudsy surf. The next, her warmth spilled into him, soaking into his soul and filling his hollow heart. How long before he’d sink completely?

The question caused reality to rear its ugly head, reminding him of the promise he’d made to himself, not an hour ago. You have no business doing this, he ranted inwardly, no business at all!

He was about to disconnect himself from the exquisite sensations of peace and contentment the simple human contact had awakened, when her hands slid up his chest, came to rest on his shoulders. If her reaction to their kiss was any indicator, Kasey, too, had waited a lifetime for…for whatever this wonderful feeling was called.

He’d known her for a long, long time, in a distant, detached way. He realized now that by staying in the shadows of her life, he’d deprived himself of the pleasure of watching Kasey make that graceful change from bony, freckle-faced girl to curvaceous, charming woman. It was probably better that way, because if he had witnessed the transformation, even from the sidelines, living his life on the fringes of hers would have been impossible.

The documentary he’d been watching on TV when Kasey showed up popped into his head; suddenly, Adam felt great empathy for the scraggly gray wolf who, driven from the pack, died of grief and loneliness. Difficult as it would be, now that he’d crossed the invisible line he’d drawn between them, he intended to step back into the shadows, for his sake as well as hers.

Gently, Adam curled his fingers around Kasey’s upper arms, took a careful step back.

One hand still resting on his shoulder, she blinked, and the disappointment in her eyes made his heart ache. As she touched the fingertips of the free hand to her lips, she sighed. “Thanks, Adam.”

His lips were still tingling from their kisses, his mind a muddle from having had to force himself to come up for air long enough to do the right thing. He had no idea why she was thanking him.

Kasey tidied the collar of his shirt. “Earlier, you said you might come out here during the night, to turn me over and baste me.” She looked him full in the face. “Well, if it hadn’t been for your quick thinking just now, I would’ve been toast, not a roast!”

The smile not only curved her mouth up at the corners, but lit her eyes…and every dark place inside him, too. He’d seen TV movies where people fell head-over-heels in a heartbeat. Adam had always scoffed at the silly, romantic plots, because only buffoons and simpletons believed in love at first sight. Evidently, he was a buffoon. Or a simpleton. Or both. Because he believed in it now, with every beat of his Kasey-filled heart!

“So, thanks for saving my life,” she said again. And fluttering her long, thick lashes, she added in Scarlett O’Hara fashion, “You’re mah hee-roe!”

Hero?

The word echoed, thudded like a hammer in his head, because he was anything but a hero, and he knew it. Luke knew it, and so did Wade and Travis. And Buddy—the man who’d asked Kasey to marry him—he knew it best of all!

“Well,” Adam said, taking another step back, “guess I’ll let you get a little shut-eye. Quite a day you’ve had, what with getting mired in the mud, lost in the woods…” His voice trailed off…meeting up with your father’s killer, he finished silently. “If you need anything, anything at all, just make yourself at home, okay?”

She nodded. “Okay, and—”

Unable to listen to another word of gratitude, he held up a hand; what he’d done for her to date wasn’t half what he owed her. He turned quickly and headed for the bedroom, amazed at how difficult it was to walk away, to put even these few yards of hardwood floor between them.

“G’night. And thanks again, for everything.”

“You’re welcome,” he muttered, closing the door.

Adam rubbed his jaw. He should’ve stoked the fire. Should’ve double-checked the door and window locks. Should’ve made sure she had everything she needed. Should’ve kept your hands to yourself!

The memory of Kasey—so tiny in his arms, so strong and yet strangely vulnerable—sparked in his mind. Adam rubbed his eyes, but the vision seemed tattooed on the insides of his eyelids. “What you don’t know can’t hurt you,” he whispered. The old adage made perfect sense, suddenly, because he’d given in to a weak moment, and more than likely, he’d be sorry in the morning.

In truth, he was sorry now.

Moments ago, he’d held perfection in his arms.

And he’d never again be able to settle for less.

The quiet pop and crackle of logs burning in the grate and the steady thrum of rain on the roof lulled Kasey into a near-sleep state. Drowsily, she glanced around the cabin’s living room, where everything, from the deep green plaid valances above the dark wood-trimmed windows to Adam’s well-worn brown recliner, reflected the flames’ buttery glow. It was a tastefully designed space that made her feel safe and secure. Had he hired a professional to create the cozy atmosphere, or had he chosen the furnishings himself?

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