“Who are you?”

Vince looked down into clear green eyes like pale jade marbles. He backed up a step from the door.

“I’m, uh, Vincent Cutler. You left a message on my—”

“Well, it’s about time!” she exclaimed, and bent to grab a shopping bag by the door. “I’ve got a whole bag full of your mail here.”

He looked past her. She’d done wonders with his old place. The apartment had a homey, put-together feel about it that he quite liked.

“Sorry about this. I don’t mind coming after it again, if you’ll just call. Here’s my card.”

“I’ll send it. So long, Vince Cutler.”

“Wait a sec. I’d like to know your name, at least.” He smiled.

She considered a moment. “Jolie Kay Wheeler.”

His smile stretched into a grin. “Good night. Jolie Kay Wheeler. Maybe I’ll see you around.”

He didn’t know why, but even as that door closed to him, he knew somehow that he hadn’t seen the last of spunky, pretty Jolie Wheeler. Strangely enough, that thought was quite all right by him.

ARLENE JAMES

says, “Camp meetings, mission work and the church where my parents and grandparents were prominent members permeate my Oklahoma childhood memories. It was a golden time, which sustains me yet. However, only as a young, widowed mother did I truly begin growing in my personal relationship with the Lord. Through adversity, He blessed me in countless ways, one of which is a second marriage so loving and romantic it still feels like courtship!”

The author of over sixty novels, Arlene James now resides outside of Dallas, Texas, with her husband. Arlene says, “The rewards of motherhood have indeed been extraordinary for me. Yet I’ve looked forward to this new stage of my life.” Her need to write is greater than ever, a fact that frankly amazes her, as she’s been at it since the eighth grade!

Deck the Halls
Arlene James

Show me Your ways, O LORD;

Teach me Your paths.

—Psalms 25:4

For my husband, who has taught me how real

and rewarding love can be.

Dear Reader,

Have you ever forgotten to have your mail forwarded or change an address? I certainly have, and the experience impressed upon me the knowledge that God does indeed move in mysterious ways. I’m always amazed at the many, many ways He uses to touch us. He can and does employ unusual and profound circumstances to work in our lives, but He also uses the small, mundane, often irritating, everyday matters, too.

It’s not just a matter of circumstance, though. God uses people, thankfully. I earnestly hope, in some small way, to be one of them. And I want each of my readers to know that by the simple act of picking up one of my books and spending time with it, you have made yourself a blessing to me.

So seldom do we actually deserve the rewards and blessings that God heaps upon us that we too often turn a blind eye to them, certain that such largesse is not meant for us and unwilling to be disappointed by expecting too much. Yet, when we first seek to learn the ways of God, we begin to become acquainted with His boundless love. Only by learning that happy lesson are we able to truly receive all that He has in store for us.

So, once more, here’s to love.

God bless,

Contents

About the Author

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

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter One

The voice on the answering machine, while obviously feminine, sounded curt and cheeky.

“Come to your old apartment and get your mail before I trash it. Never heard of mail forwarding?”

Vince smacked the heel of one hand against his forehead. Where was his brain? He hadn’t given a single thought to having his personal mail forwarded. In the past few weeks he’d been too busy settling into the new house, replacing his business accountant and hiring enough mechanics to fulfill a city maintenance contract to think about his personal mail.

Just about everything important came to the offices of Cutler Automotive, but that was no excuse. He should’ve realized that the new tenant of his old apartment would have to deal with his share of circulars and the other junk that routinely clogged every mailbox in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex. Besides, something important did occasionally find its way into his residential mailbox. In fact, the materials he’d been expecting about the spring singles’ retreat at his church would undoubtedly be among the papers waiting for him at the old apartment.

He hit a button and listened to the message again. Her irritation couldn’t have been more obvious, but he found himself smiling at the huskiness of her voice melded with the tartness of her tone. He heard both strength and vulnerability there, an odd combination of toughness and femininity. Since he was still wearing his jacket over his work clothes, he decided that he might as well go at once, make his apologies and relieve her of the unwanted burden of his mail.

Picking up his keys from the counter, he jauntily tossed them into the air, snatched them back again and retraced his steps through the new, sparsely furnished house to the garage and the shiny, white, three-quarter-ton pickup truck waiting there. Glancing at the sign proudly painted on the door, he climbed inside and started it up. The powerful engine rumbled throatily for a moment before he backed the truck out onto the drive and in to the street.

As he shifted the transmission into a forward gear he tossed a wave at his next-door neighbor Steve, who was taking advantage of the clear, early-November weather in the last hour of daylight to walk his dog. The Boltons were nice people. Wendy, the missus, had been one of the first people to welcome Vince to the neighborhood. They were about his age and the proud parents of a sixteen-month-old curly-top named Mandy, who took most of their time and attention, but Wendy seemed determined to “fix him up” with one of her single friends. Steve had confided that his wife found Vince too “tall, dark and delish” to be still single at twenty-nine, but that she’d have felt the same way if he’d been a “bald warthog.”

Vince didn’t know about being “tall, dark and delish,” but he didn’t think he was a “bald warthog,” either. He’d happily give up the single state the moment that God brought the right woman into his life. So far he hadn’t stumbled across her—not that he’d exactly been out beating the bushes for the future Mrs. Cutler.

He was a busy man with a booming business, three garages and a large extended family, including his parents, four sisters and half a dozen nieces and nephews, with one more on the way, not to mention the brothers-in-law and innumerable aunts, uncles and cousins. That, church and a few close friends was about all he could manage, frankly.

As he drove toward his old apartment building, a feeling of déjà vu overcame him. He remembered well the day, almost a decade ago, when he’d first moved into the small, bland efficiency apartment. A heady feeling of liberation had suffused him then. He’d felt so proud to have left the home of his parents and struck out on his own, leaving behind two pesky younger sisters and two nosy older ones.

Of course, with more freedom had come greater responsibility. Then had come the hard-won understanding that responsibility itself could be counted even more of a joy than any foolish, youthful notions of “freedom” that he’d once entertained. A fellow could take pride in meeting his responsibilities and meeting them well, whereas freedom—as he had learned—could become an empty exercise in keeping loneliness at bay.

Other lessons had followed. He’d found his best friends in moments of difficulty rather than fun, though that was important, too. Most significant, Vince had learned that those who truly loved him—his family, particularly his parents—were bulwarks of support rather than burdens of bondage. The mature Vince possessed a keen awareness that not everyone was as richly blessed in that area.

For the life he had built and the man he had become, he had his parents, with their thoughtful guidance, patience, loving support and Christian examples, to thank. For his parents, he could only thank God, which was not to say that from time to time they did not make him wish that he lived on a different continent, particularly when it came to his single status.

By the time he pulled into the rutted parking lot of the small, dated, two-story apartment building, Vince was feeling pretty mellow with memories. He was by nature a fairly easygoing type, but he possessed a certain intensity, too, an innate drive that had served him well in building his business. Looking around the old place as he left the vehicle and moved onto the walkway, he saw that nothing whatsoever had changed, only his circumstances.

Onward and upward, he mused, setting foot on the bottom step of an all-too-familiar flight of stairs. His heavy, steel-toed boots rang hollowly against the open metal treads as he climbed. After passing three doors on the open landing, he stopped at the fourth and automatically reached for the doorknob. Only at the last moment did he derail his hand, lifting it and coiling it into a fist. Before his knuckles could make contact with the beige-painted wood, however, the door abruptly opened and a feminine face appeared. Obviously she had heard him coming.

“Who are you?”

Vince looked down into clear green eyes like pale jade marbles fringed with sandy-brown lashes. Large and almond-shaped, they literally challenged him. He backed up a step, lowering his hand and took in the whole of her oval face.

It was a bit too long to be labeled classically pretty, just as her nose seemed a bit too prominent to be called pert. But those eyes and the lush contours of a generous mouth, along with high, prominent cheekbones and the sultry sweep of eyebrows a shade darker than her golden-brown hair made a very striking, very feminine picture, indeed. The hair was the finishing touch, her “crowning glory,” as the Scriptures said. Thick and straight with a healthy, satiny shine, it hung well past her shoulders, almost to her elbows.

Vince suddenly had the awful feeling that his mouth might be agape. He cleared his throat, making sure that it wasn’t, and finally registered her question.

“I’m, uh, Vincent Cutler. You left a message on my—”

“Well, it’s about time!” she exclaimed, sweeping her wispy bangs off her forehead with one hand and then instantly brushing them down again. “I’ve got a whole bag full of your mail here. You must be on every mailing list in the country.”

He nodded in thoughtless agreement, but she whirled away too abruptly to notice. He watched the agitated sway of her hips as her long legs carried her across the floor. She moved toward the narrow counter that separated the tiny corner kitchen from the rest of the single room and he instinctively followed.

“I tried dropping it off at the post office,” she complained, “but they just kept sending it right back to me. Doesn’t matter that it hasn’t got my name on it. It’s got my address. That’s all they care about apparently.”

“Guess so,” Vince mumbled, shrugging.

A raised ten-by-ten-foot platform set off by banisters denoted the sleeping area, and the remaining floor space served as dining and living rooms. A small bathroom containing a decent-sized closet opened off the latter. He knew all this without bothering to look, the apartment being as familiar to him as his own face in a mirror. Besides, his attention was fully taken by the tall, slender, feminine form in worn jeans and a simple, faded T-shirt, mostly obscured by the fall of her hair.

When she bent to open a cabinet door and reach inside, gentlemanly impulse sent his gaze skittering reluctantly around the room. Color jolted him as his eyes took in a bright-yellow wall and a neat, simple plaid of yellow, red and green against a stark white background. Potted plants were scattered about, and he registered a smattering of tiny checks and a few ruffles, but the room was not overly feminine as his mother’s and sisters’ houses were inclined to be. The furnishings were sparse and dated, obviously used, but the overall effect was surprisingly pleasing, much better than the drab, often cluttered place that he had inhabited.

“Wow,” he said, and the next thing he knew, she was flying at him, both hands raised.

“What are you doing? Get out! Get out!”

She hit him full force, palms flat against his chest, propelling him backward. Vince threw his arms out in an attempt to regain his balance and then felt them knocked down again as he stumbled backward through the door, which summarily slammed in his face, just inches from his nose. Automatically reaching up, he checked to be certain that it hadn’t taken a blow and felt the small familiar hump of a previous break. That was when he heard the bolt click and the safety chain slide into place.

For another moment, he was too stunned even to think, but then he began to replay the last few minutes in his mind, and gradually realization came to him. He slapped both hands to his cheeks. Good grief! She hadn’t invited him in; he’d just followed her like some lost puppy, right into her home! Her home, not his, not any longer. No wonder she’d freaked! He dropped his hands.

“Oh, hey,” he said to the door, feeling more and more like an idiot. “I—I didn’t mean to alarm you. I would never…that is, I—I used to live here,” he finished lamely.

She, of course, said nothing.

He closed his eyes, muttering, “Way to go, Cutler. Way to go. Probably scared the daylights out of her.”

Shifting closer, he tried to pitch his voice through the door without really raising it; he knew too well how thin the walls were around here. “I’m sorry if I frightened you.”

He waited several seconds, but there might have been a brick wall behind that door rather than a living, breathing woman. Actually, he had no idea if she was even still in the vicinity. She might have been cowering in the farthest corner of the room, though he couldn’t quite picture her doing so.

No, a woman like that wouldn’t be cowering. More likely she was standing there with a baseball bat ready to bash in his head if he so much as turned the doorknob. Clearly, a prudent man would retreat.

Despite recent evidence, Vince Cutler was a prudent man.

He turned and walked swiftly along the landing, then quickly took the stairs and swung around the end of the railing toward his truck. A certain amount of embarrassment mixed with chagrin dogged him as he once more climbed behind the wheel, his errand an obvious bust. Yet, a smile kept tweaking the corners of his mouth as he thought about the woman upstairs.

She was all dark gold, that woman, dark gold and vinegar. Spunky, that’s what she was. He recalled that the top of her head had come right to the tip of his nose. Considering that he stood an even six feet in his socks, she had to be five-seven or eight, which would explain those long legs. It occurred to him suddenly that he didn’t even know her name; that, more than anything else, just seemed all wrong.

As he turned the big truck back onto the street, he also turned his mind to mending fences. She still had his mail, after all, and he couldn’t let things lie as they were. Good manners, if nothing else, decreed it. The question was how to approach her again. Frowning, he immediately sought solutions in the only manner he knew.

“Lord, I don’t know what happened to my good sense. I scared that girl. Please don’t let her sit there afraid that I’d hurt her. The whole thing was my fault, and if You’ll just show me how, I’ll try to make up for it.”

Just then he drove by a minivan with the tailgate raised. It was parked in an empty lot and surrounded by hand-lettered signs touting Tyler roses, buckets of which were sitting on its back deck. A strange, unexpected thought popped into his head, one so foreign and seemingly out of nowhere that it startled him, and then he began to laugh.

That’s what happened when you relied on God to lead you. As his daddy would say, when you ask God for guidance, you’d better get out of the way quick. Now all he had to do was pick his time and his words very carefully. That was to say, very prayerfully.

Vince polished the toe of one boot on the back of the opposite pants leg, not a work boot this time but full-quill ostrich, one half of his best pair of cowboy boots. Armed to the teeth with two dozen bright red rosebuds, he took a deep breath, squared his shoulders and rapped sharply on the door. He counted to six before the door opened this time.

Green eyes flew wide, but he thrust flowers and words at her before he could find himself facing that door again.

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t meant to frighten you or seem disrespectful.” When she didn’t immediately slam the door in his face, he hurried on. “I guess I just lived here so long that it seemed perfectly natural to walk inside. I didn’t think how inappropriate it was or how it would seem to you.” She frowned and folded her arms, giving her head a leonine toss. He found himself smiling. “Honest. I feel like a dunce.”

“You’re grinning like one,” she retorted, and then she sniffed.

His smile died, not because she’d insulted him—he didn’t take that seriously—but because she’d obviously been crying.

“Oh, hey,” he said, feeling like a real heel. “You okay?”

She swiped jerkily at her eyes and lifted her chin. “Yeah, sure I’m okay. You going to beat me with those flowers or what?”

“Huh?” He dropped his arm then quickly lifted it again, saying, “These are for you.”

One corner of her mouth quirked, and humor suddenly glinted in those clear green eyes. “Yeah, I figured.”

“For, uh, your trouble.” He shifted uncertainly. “The mail and all.”

“And all?” she echoed, arching one brow.

He gave her his most charming smile and waggled the roses in their clear plastic cone. “I said I was sorry.”

She reached out and languidly swept the flowers from his grasp, drawling, “Right. Thanks. I suppose you want your mail now.”

He nodded and fished a folded card out of his pocket, offering it to her. “I’ve already turned in one, but I thought you might want to drop that in the box yourself, so you’ll know for sure that it’s done.”

She glanced at the change-of-address card, and that brow went up again. “That’s you? Cutler Automotive?”

Nodding, he dipped into the hip pocket of his dark jeans and came up with a couple of coupons. “That reminds me. Maybe you can use these sometime.”

She tucked the change-of-address card into the roses and took these new papers into one hand, cocking her head to get a good look at them.

“Hmm,” she said, reading the top one aloud, “Fifty percent off service and repairs.” She looked him right in the eye. “This on the up-and-up?”

“Absolutely.”

“No catch? I don’t have to spend a certain amount or agree to some extra service?”

“Nope. You just present the signed coupon, we knock fifty percent off your bill.”

“No strings attached?”

“We don’t accept photocopies,” he pointed out, calling her attention to the smaller print at the bottom of the paper. “But that’s it.”

She nodded, apparently satisfied. “Okay. Great. If you wait right here, I’ll get your mail.”

“These feet are not moving,” he promised, but the instant she turned her back, he craned his neck to get another look around.

She’d done wonders with the old place. Despite the dated furniture and faded fabrics, the apartment had a homey, put-together feel about it that he quite liked, and he told her so.

“Never looked this good when I lived here.”

She laid the flowers on the counter and turned to face him. “No?”

He shook his head and shrugged. “Guess I just don’t have the knack.”

“What guy does?”

“None I know of, not many women, either, from what I can tell.”

“You pay attention to that sort of thing, do you?” she asked, seeming surprised. It had sounded a little odd, now that he thought about it.

“Lately, I do. Since the move.”

“Ah.”

She bent and extracted a small shopping bag from the cabinet.

“This is it,” she said, carrying the bag toward him. “Two more pieces came just today.”

He reached through the open doorway to accept the bag. It was stuffed with papers.

“I’m sorry about this. I usually take better care of business.”

“I just hope there aren’t any overdue bills in there,” she said dryly.

“Naw, I try not to have any of those.”

“We all try,” she quipped wryly, but he detected a troubled note.

“Not all,” he said, wanting to reassure her somehow. “You’d be surprised how many people make no attempt to pay their bills.”

“Maybe they can’t.”

“Maybe,” he admitted, “but if they try, we work with them.”

She tilted her head and her brows bounced up and down at that. “Cutler Automotive, you mean.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Huh.”

After a second or two it became apparent that she wasn’t going to say anything else, and he couldn’t for the life of him think of any way to rectify that. He shuffled his feet in place.

“Well, you have a nice evening.”

She reached for the door. “Yeah, you, too, if you can with all that to go through.” She nodded at the sack in his arms. “If any more comes, I’ll send it on your way now that I have a good address.”

“I don’t mind coming after it again,” he assured her quickly, “if you’ll just call.”

“I’ll send it,” she stated decisively.

Defeated, he nodded. “Okay. However you want to handle it.”

“That’s how I want to handle it,” she said flatly, backing up to push the door closed. “So long, Vincent Cutler.”

He put up a hand. “Wait a sec. I’d like to know your name, at least. I mean, if you don’t mind.” He shrugged. “Seems strange bringing flowers to a woman whose name I don’t even know.”

She considered a moment longer then said, “Jolie.”

“Jo Lee,” he repeated carefully.

“No.” She rolled her eyes. “Jolie. J-o-l-i-e.”

“Ah. That’s pretty. Jolie what?”

She flattened her mouth, but then she answered. “Jolie Wheeler. Jolie Kay Wheeler.”

He smiled again for some reason. It just sounded…right. “Jolie Kay. I’ll remember that.”

“If you say so.”

His smile stretched into a grin. “Good night, Jolie Kay Wheeler. Maybe I’ll see you around.”

“I doubt it.”

He didn’t. He didn’t know why, but even as that door closed to him once again, he knew somehow that he hadn’t seen the last of spunky, pretty Jolie Wheeler. Strangely enough, that thought was quite all right by him.

Jolie reached into the cabinet overhead and brought down a big pickle jar to serve as a vase. After filling it with tap water, she turned to the counter where the tightly budded roses waited. No one had ever brought her flowers before. Figured it would be some goofball like Cutler. First he doesn’t bother to have his mail forwarded, and then he strolls right in as if he owns the place, as if an open door is an automatic invitation to invade the premises.

The good-looking ones were always like that, thought they had a right to the whole world just because they were easy on the eyes. He was easier than most, with that pitch-black hair, lazy, blue-gray eyes, square jaw and dimples. More polite than most, too.

He had immediately apologized yesterday for invading her space, but her heart had been slamming against her rib cage so violently that she hadn’t found enough air to reply. Then embarrassment had taken over, and she’d mulishly let him stand there and wheedle until he’d given up and gone away.

Actually, he seemed harmless enough. Now.

The day before when she’d looked up and found him standing there in the middle of her apartment as if sizing up the joint, he’d appeared eight feet tall and hulking. Today, of course, he’d been his usual six-foot—or thereabout—self. She hadn’t imagined those broad shoulders and bulging biceps, though, or the slim hips and long legs. The truth was, she had panicked, which wasn’t like her, but then she didn’t know what she was like anymore. Nothing was as it had been. Without Russell.

She pushed away thoughts of her nephew, rapidly blinking against a fresh onslaught of tears.

This was getting to be a habit. She’d be okay for a while, and then something would remind her of that sweet baby face, that milky, gap-toothed smile and little hands that grasped so trustingly, coiling themselves in her hair and shirt. The loss still devastated her. More, it made her angry, at herself as much as at her sister and brother.

She should never have let herself love little Russ so completely. She should have treated him as nothing more than a foster child, his presence in her life temporary at best. After all, she knew only too well how the game was played. Ten years of experience on one side of that equation should have prepared her better for the other.

Oh, she had been placed with foster families who had truly tried to make her feel a part of the group, but she had always known that it would end. Something would happen, and she would be on her way again, shuffling from one home to another with heart-numbing regularity.

Somehow, though, she hadn’t let herself think that it could happen with Russell. When Connie had first gone to prison, pregnant and unwed, she had talked about giving up her child for adoption. Then, after his birth, when she’d asked Jolie to take him and give him a good home, saying that he ought to be with family, Jolie had seen her opportunity to really have someone of her own.

She and Connie had never discussed what would happen after Connie got out. For one thing, Jolie had never dreamed that a judge would actually hand over the child whom she had raised as her own to her misguided younger sister, no matter that said sister had given birth to him. It wasn’t fair, and to have their adored big brother Marcus side with Connie had been the unkindest cut of all.

Jolie was still grieving, but she supposed that was to be expected. It had only been days since she’d last seen him, eleven days, two hours, in fact. She could know how many minutes if she was foolish enough to check her watch, which she wasn’t. Of course she was still grieving. She’d grieved her mother’s absence for years, until she’d found out that Velma Wheeler was dead. Strangely enough, knowing that her mother had died was easier than believing that her mother had simply abandoned her children to the uncertain kindness of strangers.

Jolie shook her head and willed away the tears that had spilled from her eyes, telling herself that she would get on top of this latest loss. She’d had lots of practice.

Reaching for the roses, she slid them from their plastic cone and began arranging them in their makeshift vase. She did not realize, as the pleasing design began to take shape, that she made it happen with an innate, God-given ability which those lacking it would surely treasure.

Never once in her entire life had she ever imagined that anyone could admire or envy anything about her.

Chapter Two

Jolie picked up the two small rectangles of heavy paper from the counter top and studied them again, each in turn. One was the fifty-percent-off coupon that Vince Cutler had explained to her. The other promised a free tow. She wondered again what the catch might be, but she wasn’t likely to find out until she had need of the services offered. And the need was very likely to arise.

Her old jalopy was a garage bill waiting to happen. The thing had been coughing and gasping like an emphysema patient lately. She’d literally held her breath all the way to work this morning.

If the dry cleaners where she was employed had been situated just a little closer to the new apartment, she’d have walked it every day just to save wear and tear on the old donkey cart, but five miles coming and going on a daily basis was a bit more than she could manage, especially with the evening temperatures hovering in the thirties. Just to be on the safe side, Jolie tucked the coupons into her wallet—never know when they might come in handy—before going back to the ironing with which she augmented her meager income.

Since the death of his wife, Mr. Geopp, owner and operator of the small, independent dry cleaners where she’d worked for the past six years, had chosen to outsource the delicate work rather than invest in the new machines that could handle it properly, and he’d stopped taking in alterations and regular laundry altogether.

One day, Jolie mused, Geopp would retire, and then what would she do? Her heart wasn’t exactly in dry cleaning, but she didn’t seem to possess a single exploitable talent. It was a familiar worry that she routinely shoved aside.

With the tip of one finger, she checked the temperature of the pressing plate, judged it sufficiently cooled not to damage the delicate silk blouse positioned on the padded board and carefully began removing the wrinkles from the fabric. Her mind wandered back to the coupons.

If she took in her car for an estimate, would she see Vince Cutler again?

She glanced ruefully at the flowers he had given her. They were a pretty pathetic sight now. The buds had opened and half the petals had fallen, but she couldn’t bring herself to toss them just yet. Not that she was harboring any secret romantic fantasies about Vincent Cutler. She wasn’t in the market, no matter how good-looking he was, and he was plenty good-looking. Why, the only thing that saved the man from being downright beautiful was the little hump on the bridge of his nose.

She couldn’t help wondering how his nose had been broken, then she scolded herself for even thinking about him. Vince Cutler was nothing to her, and she intended to keep it that way. Secondhand experience had taught Jolie that romantic entanglements were more trouble than they were worth.

Her mom had been big on romance, and all that had gotten her was three kids by three different men, none of whom they could even remember. Still, every time some yahoo had crooked his finger at Velma Wheeler she’d followed him off on whatever wild escapade he’d proposed, often leaving her children to fend for themselves until she returned.

Sometimes they were out of food and living in the dark with the utilities shut off when she’d finally remember that she had a family. One day she simply hadn’t returned at all, and eventually Child Welfare had stepped in to cart Jolie and her siblings off to foster care.

For years Jolie had harbored the secret fantasy that her mother would come back a changed woman, determined to reunite their scattered family, all the while knowing that Velma would have had to learn to care for them a great deal more in her absence than she ever had while present. Then one day Jolie had been told that her mother had died in a drunk-driving accident and been buried in a pauper’s grave somewhere in Nevada. A simple typographical error had resulted in the misspelling of her name and an incorrect filing of records. Her mother had been gone four years by that time.

With Velma as their lesson, Jolie and her sister Connie had sworn that they would not go from man to man. Then Connie had somehow settled on that jerk Kennard and doggedly refused to give up on him. Jolie understood that Connie had feared being a serial loser just like their mom, but only after Kennard had gone to prison for the rest of his life, taking a pregnant Connie along with him, did she turn away from him. Of course, Connie had claimed that she hadn’t even known that an armed robbery was being committed that day, let alone a murder, despite the fact that she had been sitting in front of the bank in a running car.

Jolie had been inclined to believe Connie at the time. Now she just didn’t know.

Maybe if Connie had made a better choice than Kennard…but then, Jolie reminded herself, she wouldn’t have had Russell. It was worth any hardship to have a little boy like that. Wasn’t it?

Jolie shook her head. Thinking that way could get a girl in trouble. Better just to go it alone.

Jolie had learned that lesson the hard way after the authorities had split up her and her siblings when sending them into foster care. At first she and Connie had been placed together, but that hadn’t lasted for very long.

Oh, they’d maintained contact. The department was good about that sort of thing. But the years had taken their toll. Jolie had been nine, Marcus only a year older and Connie just seven when their mom had disappeared.

Two decades later, Jolie was again alone.

With Russell to fill her days and nights and heart, it had seemed that she had family again, but only for a little while. Now all she had was a pile of other people’s clothing to iron and a single room with a private bath to call her own—so long as she could pay the rent.

That thought sent her back to the job at hand, and for a time she lost herself in the careful placement and smoothing of one garment after another. Funny how you could take pride in something so small and insignificant as smoothing wrinkled cloth, but a girl had to get her satisfaction where she could.

“Come on, baby, just a little farther.”

Jolie patted the cracked black dash encouragingly, but the little car sputtered and wheezed with alarming defiance. Then it gave a final paroxysm of shudders and simply stopped, right in the middle of rush-hour traffic.

“Blast!”

Someone behind her did just that with a car horn.

“All right, already!” she yelled, strong-arming the steering wheel as far to the right as she could. The car came to a rolling halt against the curb.

Tires screeched behind her. Another horn honked, and then an engine gunned. A pickup truck flew by with just inches to spare. Jolie flinched, put the transmission in Neutral and cranked the starter, begging for a break. The engine turned over, coughed and died again. The second time, the engine barely rumbled, and on the third it didn’t do that much. By the fifth or sixth try, the starter clicked to let her know that it was getting the message but that the engine was ignoring its entreaties entirely. Jolie gave up, knowing that the next step was to get out and raise the hood.

She didn’t dare try to exit the car on the driver’s side. Instead, she turned on her hazard lights, put the standard transmission in first gear, set the parking brake and released her safety belt to climb across the narrow center console and the passenger seat to the other door. Stepping out on the grassy verge between the curb and the sidewalk, she tossed her ponytail off one shoulder and kicked the front wheel of the car in a fit of pique. Pain exploded in her big toe.

Biting her tongue, she limped around to the front end of the car to lift the hood and make her situation even more visible to the traffic passing on the busy street. After that, all she could do was plop down on the stiff brown grass to wait for someone to come along and offer to help as there was no place around from which to make a telephone call. Looked like she might be trying out those coupons from Cutler Automotive sooner rather than later. Provided someone with a telephone stopped.

More than half an hour had passed and her toe had stopped aching before a Fort Worth traffic cop pulled up behind her aged coupe, lights flashing. Traffic moved into the inside lane to accommodate him as he opened his door and got out. He strolled over to Jolie, a beefy African-American with one hand on his holster and the other on his night stick.

“Ma’am,” he said pleasantly, “you can’t leave your car here like this.”

“Sir,” Jolie replied with saccharine sweetness, “I can’t get the thing to move.”

He rubbed his chin and asked, “Anyone you can call?”

“Could if I had a phone.”

He removed a cell phone from his belt and showed it to her. Heaving herself to her feet, she walked over to the car to take her wallet from the center console. Pulling out the coupon from Cutler Automotive, she handed it to him. Nodding, he punched in the number and passed her the phone.

The number rang just twice before a voice answered.

“Cutler Automotive. This is Vince. How can I help you?”

Vince. She swallowed and shifted her weight. “This is Jolie Wheeler.”

“Well, hello, Jolie Wheeler. Have you got mail for me?”

“Nope. I’ve got a coupon for a free tow.”

“A free tow?”

“That’s what it says. Any problem with that?”

“No, ma’am. Where are you?”

She told him, and he said he’d be right there before hanging up. She handed the phone back to the officer and thanked him. He nodded and turned to watch the passing traffic, trying to make small talk. They’d covered how the car had been acting and where she was going and where she’d been and the state of disrepair of the Fort Worth streets by the time the white wrecker, lights flashing, swung to the curb in front of her crippled car.

Vince bailed out with hardly a pause, and Jolie’s heart did a strange little kick inside her chest. Then he walked straight to the grinning cop, ignoring her completely.

“Jacob,” he said, shaking the other man’s hand.

The policeman smiled broadly and clapped Vince on the shoulder. “How you doing, my man?”

“Staying busy. How’re you?”

“Likewise, only with very little sleep.”

“New baby keeping you up nights?” Vince asked, flashing his dimples.

It was at this point that Jolie folded her arms, feeling very much on the outside looking in.

“Oh, man, is he ever!” came the ardent reply. “Rascal’s got a set of lungs on him, too, let me tell you.”

“Well, he sure didn’t get those from his soft-spoken mama,” Vince said with a grin.

“Soft-spoken?” Jacob the cop echoed disbelievingly. “Soft-spoken? My Callie? Man, you know better than that. You’ve sat in front of her at a football game.”

Vince just grinned wider. “I’m going to tell her you said that.”

“Not unless you want to attend my funeral.” Both men laughed and back-slapped each other before Jacob moved off toward his patrol car. “You’re in good hands now, ma’am,” he called jovially to Jolie as he sauntered back to his vehicle.

Vince shook his head, still chuckling, and parked his hands at his waist, striking a nonchalant pose before finally turning to Jolie.

“Well, I’m glad you got a nice visit out of this,” she said sarcastically.

Vince Cutler arched his brows, but his smile stayed firmly in place. “Jacob and I attend the same church, but because of his schedule we don’t often get to the same service, so I’m glad to have seen him. Now, what’s the problem with your car?”

She threw up her hands, disliking the fact that he’d made her feel glad, jealous and petty all in the space of a few minutes.

“How would I know? The hateful thing quit, that’s all.”

“Uh-huh.” He stepped up to the bumper and looked over the engine. Gingerly, he wiped a forefinger across one surface and rubbed it against his thumb. “No oily emission.”

“Is that good?” she asked anxiously, her concern about her transportation momentarily overcoming all else.

“It’s not bad.”

Whatever that meant.

She flattened her lips and tried to see what he saw as he leaned forward and fingered first one part and then another, poking and prodding at hoses and wires and other unnameable organs. Finally he turned to lean a hip against the fender.

“So what happened, exactly, before it quit running?”

She pushed a hand through her bangs, tugged at her ponytail and sucked in a deep breath, trying to remember exactly. Finally she began to talk about how the car had been coughing and sputtering by fits and starts lately and how the dash lights had blinked off from time to time.

He listened with obvious attention, then asked, “Any backfiring?”

She considered. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Okay.” Pushing away from the car, he moved toward the driver’s door. “Keys in the ignition?”

“Yes.”

He opened the door and folded himself into the seat behind the wheel. The starter clicked for several seconds then stopped.

Vince spent a few moments looking at the gauges on the dashboard, then he got out and walked back to the wrecker, returning quickly with a small tool box and a thick, quilted cloth, which he spread on the fender before placing the tool box atop it. He opened the box and extracted a strange gizmo that resembled a calculator with wires attached, which he carried back into the car with him.

Jolie walked around to the passenger window and looked in while he wedged himself under the dash and began pulling down wires. He separated several little plastic clips and attached leads from the gizmo to them, then he studied the tiny screen before turning the ignition key on and off several times in rapid succession.

“What is that thing?” Jolie asked, curiosity getting the better of her.

“I call it my truth-teller.”

“Oh, they sell truth at mechanic’s school, do they?”

“They sure do,” he drawled, ignoring her sarcastic tone.

“That’s not what I heard.”

“You heard wrong, then.”

He removed the leads, reconnected the clips and tucked everything back up under the dash. Then he rose and carried his equipment around to the front of the car again. Jolie joined him there, more curious than ever. He didn’t keep her waiting.

“You’ve got a sensor going out, and I’d guess that the alternator needs to be rebuilt, too.”

Dismay slammed through her. She covered it by rolling her eyes. “And what’s that going to cost?”

He shrugged. “Can’t say without checking a parts list.”

“More than a hundred?”

“Oh, yeah. Plus, you’ve got half a dozen hoses ready to spring leaks and at least one cracked battery mount that I can see. That’ll have to be replaced before your next inspection. And if I were you, I’d have the timing chain checked.”

She caught her breath, stomach roiling. How would she ever pay for all that? she wondered sickly.

“I’ve reset the sensor,” he went on, “so it should behave for a little while, and I’ll give you a jump to get you started, but you really ought to bring the car in soon as you can because this will happen again. Just a matter of time.”

Jolie bit her lip. Maybe he was just shilling for the garage. Maybe this would be all it took. Whatever, she had zero intention of taking the car in for repairs until she had no other option. She folded her arms again as he went back to the wrecker and returned with what looked like a battery on wheels.

“How much is today going to cost?” she wanted to know, not that she had much choice at the moment.

“This? Nada.”

Jolie blinked. “Nothing?”

“I can charge you if you want,” he said, mouth quirking at the corners.

She wrinkled her nose. “Thanks, but no thanks.”

He smiled knowingly, dimples wrinkling his lean cheeks. “Okay, then.”

With that he got busy hooking up everything. Finally he got in and started her car. The engine fired right off and settled into its usual, uneven rumble. Jolie almost dropped with relief.

“Thank goodness.”

He started disconnecting and packing away gear.

As he dropped the hood, she lost a short battle with herself and asked, “You won’t get in trouble with your boss, will you? For not charging me, I mean.”

Vince wiped his hands purposefully on a red cloth that he’d pulled from his hip pocket, holding her gaze.

“No problems there.”

“You’re sure?”

“Jolie, I am the boss.”

She felt a tiny shock, but she’d practiced nonchalance so long that it came easily to her.

“Well, if you say so.”

He folded the cloth and stuffed it back into his pocket with short, swift movements, saying, “Fact is, I own and operate three garages.”

She blinked, impressed, but of course that would never do.

“All by yourself?” she quipped blandly.

He chuckled. “Not exactly. I have twenty-two employees, not counting the outsourcing, of course.”

“Outsourcing,” she echoed dully.

“Um-hm, bookkeeping, billing, that sort of thing.”

“Ah.”

And here she’d figured him for a regular joe. Just goes to show you, she thought, eying his dusky-blue uniform with reluctant new interest.

“If you call the shop tomorrow,” he told her casually, “I can work you in.” She lifted her eyebrows skeptically, and he went on, prodding ever so gently. “You really ought to have that work done.”

Now she knew it was a scam. Soften up the mark with a little freebie, make her think you’re as honest as the day is long, then get her in the shop and soak her good. Resetting that sensor was probably all the car had ever needed.

“We’ll see.”

“Okay,” he said lightly. “Well, I’ll be seeing you.”

“Oh, really?” She tilted her head, studying him for signs of dishonesty. Had he somehow sabotaged her car so that she’d have to bring it to his shop?

He glanced away pointedly, his sculpted mouth thinning. “You know, not everyone in the automotive-repair business is a crook. In fact, despite our reputation for rip-offs, most mechanics are honest and highly trained.”

To her absolute disgust, color stained her cheeks. “I didn’t say you were a crook.”

He just looked at her, his smoky-blue eyes flat as stone. “No, but you were thinking it.”

Her chin rose defensively. “You have no idea what I was thinking.”

“Don’t I?”

He just stood there, staring at her, until she suddenly realized what he was waiting for. Her hauteur wilted in a pool of mortification. Still, she wasn’t about to apologize.

“Okay, maybe I was thinking it, but you don’t know how often someone like me gets ripped off.”

“Someone like you?” he echoed uncertainly. “And what makes you so different from the rest of us?”

“I’m a single woman, for one thing.”

His expression grew suspiciously bland. “I had noticed that.”

“And I don’t have a lot of money for another,” she snapped, trying to offset the little thrill that his droll comment had produced.

“I would think that would make you less of a target for the unscrupulous, frankly,” he said calmly.

Bitterly, she shook her head. “You would think wrong.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

She gulped at the sincere tone of his voice. “The thing is, I don’t know enough about cars to guard against getting ripped off.”

“You could learn,” he suggested lightly. It sounded almost like an invitation.

She looked down at her toes. “I doubt that. I’m not the mechanical type.”

“Just the suspicious type,” he countered dryly.

Rolling her eyes up, she met his gaze. “I have reason to be.”

“I wouldn’t know about that,” he said, his voice softening, “but I know this. You have nothing to fear from me, Jolie Kay Wheeler. On any score. Ever.”

Now what could she say to that? Apparently he didn’t expect a reply, for he started toward the wrecker.

“Well, you try to have a good evening.”

“Yeah, you, too,” she grumbled, disliking the mishmash of feelings that swamped her.

He flipped her a wave, climbed into the truck and drove off, leaving her standing there in the gathering twilight like some oversized, ponytailed traffic cone. Glancing around self-consciously, she made her way to the driver’s seat of her little car and dropped down into it.

A sedan flew by with the blare of a horn. Traffic had moved back into the outside lane the instant Vince and his flashing lights had pulled away, but she had barely noted that fact. Shaking slightly, she switched on her headlamps, jammed the transmission into gear, put on her blinker, turned off her hazard lights and prepared to merge.

It hit her then. Like a ballpeen hammer to the back of the head.

She had never thanked him. A handsome, apparently successful man had gotten her car running for free, and she hadn’t even had the grace to thank him properly. She tried to remember all the reasons why she had been right to suspect his motives, but somehow they didn’t quite ring true.

Jolie brushed her bangs up, then down, blowing out a stiff breath and closing her eyes until the world righted itself and equilibrium returned and she could look at the situation dispassionately.

On second thought, it just didn’t figure. He had to have some ulterior motive, something so slick and cagey that she couldn’t even think of it. And maybe—good gracious—maybe he was just a nice man who liked to help people. Stranger things had happened.

Somewhere.

Sometime.

Telling herself that it didn’t matter, she took a last measuring look at traffic, then pulled away from the curb.

The problem was, somehow it did matter. A lot. Enough to make her feel small and petty and unreasonable.

She was halfway home before it occurred to her that she still had both of those coupons.

Vince shifted in his seat, the safety belt biting into his shoulder. He craned his neck, trying to work out a kink there. It was ridiculous, getting this worked up over a little thing like having his motives questioned. Everyone was suspicious of everybody, at least until they got to know one another. He’d been accused of having ulterior motives before, though not in quite some time. It wasn’t pleasant, but it wasn’t fatal.

So she didn’t trust him. So what? The world was full of people who expected automotive repairmen to rip them off. It was foolish to think she would be any different. And what difference did it make, anyway? God had obviously brought her into his life so that he could get her old car running for her again, and that was just what he’d done. End of story.

The thing wasn’t going to run for long, though. With just a cursory inspection he’d found enough wrong under that hood to keep him busy for days, but he’d only mentioned the worst of it because it was obvious that she didn’t have much money. It was just as glaringly obvious that she wouldn’t be easy to help, either.

Maybe that was the point.

If so, he’d definitely be seeing her again. He believed that God had a purpose in all that He allowed into the lives of His children. So if he never saw her again, so be it. It wasn’t his business, after all, to second-guess God, and he was just fine with that.

So why was he fighting the urge to turn around and give her a lecture on the stupidity of looking a gift horse in the mouth?

Ridiculous. Just ridiculous.

He didn’t know her well enough to be this disappointed in her attitude. And he probably never would. A hole seemed to open in his chest, burning hot around the edges.

Vince sighed and tried to concentrate on his driving. He passed an intersection on a green light and immediately heard the screech of tires followed at once by the crunching of metal. Automatically, Vince flipped on his warning lights and pulled out of traffic.

Looking around, he saw that two cars had collided in a grocery-store parking lot across the street. It didn’t seem serious, and it wasn’t impeding traffic, plus, he was off-duty. The fact was, he didn’t make wrecker runs anymore. At least he hadn’t until Jolie Wheeler had called. Well, that would teach him.

Shaking his head, he began making his way across the busy street to the parking lot. What was he going to do? Leave without making certain that no one needed his assistance? Not his style. Then again, neither was embarrassing himself, but he’d managed to do that twice now with Jolie Kay Wheeler. Twice was quite enough. Why couldn’t he just leave well enough alone?

He reached the scene of the mishap, killed his engine and slid out onto the tarmac. Two women were glaring at each other over the hoods of their tangled cars. Vince put on a smile and waded into the fray.

“Can I help, ladies?”

Almost an hour later he’d managed to uncouple their bumpers and pull out a fender so both could be on their way, still angry but maintaining their civility even as they each contemplated a hike in insurance rates. Twenty bucks richer—the one with the crumpled fender had insisted on compensating him—Vince swung the wrecker through a fast-food lane to pick up a burger to eat at home. Alone.

He could’ve dropped in on his mom or one of the girls. They were always willing to set an extra plate at the table for him, but they were always wanting to know where he’d been and who he’d seen lately, too, and he just wasn’t in the mood to answer questions about his nonexistent love life or hear how he worked too much. He wasn’t in the mood to eat alone, either, but those were the options. With a sigh, he resigned himself to the latter.

It was only later as he bit into his burger at the kitchen counter that he wondered if Jolie would call on Cutler Automotive when her old jalopy finally conked on her again, because conk it would—and she still hadn’t redeemed those coupons.

Feeling a little better, he enjoyed the rest of his burger.

Chapter Three

“Aaargh!”

Jolie smacked the steering wheel with a closed fist. Not again! This time the engine wouldn’t even turn over. No cough, no sputter, nothing.

She’d have cried if it would’ve done any good, but tears wouldn’t pay for automotive repairs. Air wouldn’t either, and that’s what was in her checking account at the moment, with payday still two days away and rent due next week.

To make matters worse, she was going to miss at least a few hours of work this morning. The week was not starting out well. Sick at heart, she wrenched her keys from the ignition and crawled out of her old four-banger—no-banger at the moment—to head back upstairs.

Her first telephone call was to Mr. Geopp, who told her only to get into work when she could. He was a pleasant enough employer but somewhat distant personally. His late wife had been easier to talk and relate to. She’d cut Jolie every possible break, especially after Russell had arrived.

Jolie would stay with Geopp for no other reason than loyalty to the memory of his wife. She just wished that he would display a little more emotion, if only to let her know for sure where she stood with him in moments like this. It was one more worry on a long list of worries.

Jolie sat down to think through her options with the car. It had started before with a simple jump from a battery charger. Maybe that would work once more. She judged her chances of getting it done for free a second time at slim to none, however, especially if she called Cutler’s again. After questioning Vince’s integrity, she doubted that he’d cut her a break. Then again, neither would any other emergency service in town.

She thought of the coupons and shook her head in resignation. Cutler Automotive probably jacked up the price twice as high as normal before giving their fifty percent discount, but at least the towing would be free. They couldn’t jack up free.

Sighing, she reached for the telephone once more. This time a perky-sounding female answered the call.

The wrecker arrived twenty-four minutes later.

Jolie was sitting on the bumper tapping one toe against the pavement when the familiar white truck swung into the lot. Her stomach lurched in anticipation, but then a stranger opened the driver’s door and got out.

“You Ms. Wheeler?”

Nodding, Jolie tamped down her disappointment and straightened away from the car to look over this newcomer.

He seemed roughly the same age as Vince and had a shock of very dark hair falling forward over his brow, but that was where the similarities ended. This fellow was shorter and wider than Vince with a noticeable bulge around the middle and a slight under-bite that made his lower jaw seem overlong. His brown eyes twinkled merrily as he thrust out his right hand.

“I’m Boyd. What can I do for you?”

“You can make my car go.”

“Well, let’s have a look,” he said noncommitally, taking a toolbox from the truck, “and while I’m looking, why don’t you tell me what’s been going on with it?”

Jolie started with that morning’s fiasco and worked her way backward over the past couple weeks, leaving out only Vince’s diagnosis. By the time she was through with her tale, he was nodding his head knowingly.

“Sounds like the alternator and probably a bad sensor. I’ll try resetting the sensor and jump-starting it.”

Jolie breathed a sigh of relief, but it was for naught. The sensor would not register, according to Boyd, and the jump did no good.

“Well, I’ll tow her in and see what a full diagnostic turns up,” he said blandly.

“What’s that going to cost?” Jolie asked, fishing the coupons from the hip pocket of her jeans. “I have these.”

Boyd took the coupons, kept the one for the free tow and handed back the other, saying, “These’ll help.”

“So how much?”

He shrugged. “Provided it’s what I think it is and we don’t find any other problems, I’d say about three hundred, but a lot depends on the parts. This is a domestic car, but a lot of the parts are foreign-made, so…” He shrugged again.

Jolie felt physically ill.

“Is that three hundred before or after the discount?”

He looked at her sympathetically. “After.”

She momentarily closed her eyes.

“I can’t afford that!”

“Aw, don’t worry,” he told her. “The boss will cut you a deal.”

That would be the boss whom she’d practically called a crook.

“I wouldn’t count on it,” she muttered.

Boyd chuckled. “No, really. Vince is a good guy. He helps people out all the time. Between you and me, he’d probably give the business away bit by bit if I didn’t keep reminding him that he was supposed to be making a profit. But then, the way I figure it, God takes care of His own.”

Jolie didn’t know about that. She just knew that life had suddenly gotten immeasurably more difficult for her personally, and it hadn’t exactly been a walk in the park to begin with.

“I don’t know how I’m going to manage this.”

“Listen, just call the shop later and speak to Vince,” Boyd urged. “Use the second number on the coupon. Okay?”

“Sure.”

The two of them were probably working the scam together, she thought sullenly, and the nice-guy acts were just a carefully coordinated part of it.

Then again, the car wasn’t faking it. The thing had been bugging out on her since well before Vincent Cutler had showed up on the scene.

Boyd had her put the car in Neutral so he could push it out of its parking space and “get a good hook on it.” A few minutes were all that were required to secure the towing device. Then he just started up the automatic winch, and they stood there watching the front end of her car slowly rise off the ground.

“I have to find a ride to work,” Jolie muttered to herself.

“Yeah? Where do you work?”

She told him, and he jerked his head toward the cab of the truck. “Get in. I’ll drop you.”

She brightened. That was the first bit of good news she’d had today.

“Really?”

“It’s on the way.”

“Great.”

She climbed into the cab of the truck while he finished securing the tow. It was spotlessly clean, despite a gash in the vinyl of the bench seat, and sported a two-way radio, GPS system and some sort of miniature keyboard attached to the dash with an electronics cord.

As soon as Boyd slid beneath the steering wheel, he picked up the keyboard and typed in some letters and numbers, then he triggered the radio and informed whoever was on the other end that he was headed back to the garage with a car in tow, rattling off both make and model.

Soon Jolie was standing in front of the dry cleaners watching her car move away behind the wrecker, its front end pointing skyward. Mindlessly, she swept her bangs back and then smoothed them down again before turning to enter the shop. Bumping into one of their regular customers, she pasted on a smile. A glance showed her that the shop was full and the counter vacant while Geopp evidently searched for garments to be picked up. She went to work.

“How are you, Mrs. Wakeman?”

“Arthritis just gets worse and worse,” came the usual doleful reply.

“That’s too bad. How many pieces today?”

“Three, and be careful of the gold buttons on the blazer. They tarnished last time.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The rest of the morning proved as busy as those first few minutes, but Jolie’s mind was never far from her troubles.

Immediately after lunch, she called the garage, using the number on the card that Boyd had given her. Vince answered this time.

“Cutler Automotive. This is Vince speaking. How can I help you?”

She gulped inaudibly. “This is Jolie Wheeler again.”

“Oh, hi. We’ve got the car on diagnostics now.”

He sounded perfectly normal, as if she hadn’t insulted him, as if they were friends or something equally ridiculous. For some reason that rankled, adding a dry edge to her voice.

“So you still don’t know what’s really wrong with it?”

“We don’t have confirmation, no.”

“And when will you have confirmation?”

“Shortly.”

“Call me as soon as you know what it’s going to cost,” she demanded.

“All right.”

“Before you do any work.”

Several seconds of silence followed that, and when next he spoke, his voice was tinged with annoyance.

“No one’s going to take advantage of you, Jolie.”

She went on as if she hadn’t heard him.

“Because I really can’t afford a big repair bill.” Or any repair bill for that matter.

He sighed gustily.

“I realize that. Look, why don’t you just come by the shop after work? I’ll show you exactly what’s wrong with your car and what it’s going to cost to fix it, and we’ll figure out how to take care of it. Okay?”

He couldn’t have sounded more reasonable, so why did she feel like needling him?

“And just how would you suggest I get over there without transportation? Take the bus?”

It was an entirely plausible possibility, which made what happened next all the more inexplicable.

“I’ll pick you up,” he said lightly. “What time to do you get off work?”

She didn’t even balk, which in itself was appalling.

“Six o’clock.”

“Okay. See you then.”

They quickly got off the phone after that. Jolie stood staring at the thing for a long moment, wondering what on earth had possessed her to agree that he should pick her up, but then she shook her head.

Why shouldn’t he? He had her car, after all. She hoped she could wangle a ride home out of it, too. Beyond that, she just refused to think, period.

Vince pulled up to the curb in front of the dry cleaners at precisely three minutes past six. The shop had obviously seen better days. Its storefront looked outdated and rather dingy, but the area was clean and safe. Because he was in a ten-minute loading zone, he kept the engine running and settled back to wait.

He didn’t have to wait long. The door opened just moments later, and Jolie burst out onto the sidewalk. He grinned at her dropped jaw. Her ragged little car was purring like a contented kitten.

“It’s fixed!”

He laughed at her delight, but then her face turned thunderous. Her hands went to her hips, and he knew what she was going to say. Even as she spoke, he released his safety belt, opened the door and stood, one foot still inside the car, one hand on the steering wheel.

“I did not authorize any work.”

“No, you didn’t,” he interrupted, “but it had to be done.”

“You said we’d talk about it first!”

“Jolie, how would you get back and forth to work without your car?”

She put a hand to her head, ruffling her bangs and then smoothing them again. Vince tried not to smile at what seemed to be a characteristic gesture, something she did without conscious thought.

“I can’t pay for it!” she suddenly wailed, as if he didn’t know that.

The sidewalk was not the place to talk about it, however.

“Get in,” he told her, indicating the passenger seat. For a moment she just stared at him. “Get in,” he repeated. “My truck’s back at the shop. We can talk on the way.”

She trudged around and got into the car with all the enthusiasm of a prisoner on the way to her execution. He chuckled despite his better judgment.

“It’s not funny,” she grumbled as he dropped down into the seat and clipped his belt once more.

“It’s not tragic, either.”

“Shows what you know,” she snapped. “When was the last time you had to choose between paying the rent and other obligations?”

“It’s been some while,” he admitted, “but I have been there.”

“Then you understand that there’s just no way…” She gulped. “A—a few bucks a month, maybe, if I—”

“Will you just listen for a minute?” he urged, laying his arm along the back of her seat in entreaty.

She frowned at him, worry clouding those jade-green eyes.

“I have an idea about how we can square this.”

Her mouth compressed suspiciously. It was a very pretty mouth, wide and mobile and full-lipped, but he couldn’t help wondering what or who had fostered that mistrustful expression.

“How?” she asked.

He glanced at the front of the dry cleaners.

“Well, if it’s not a conflict of interest for you, I need someone to do my laundry.”

She blinked.

“Laundry?”

“Yeah, you know, dirty clothes and shop rags, some linens, that sort of thing.”

The clouds were beginning to lift from her eyes, but her tone was tart as she retorted, “I know what laundry is, but why should I do yours?”

She buckled her safety belt, and Vince put the transmission in gear, turning away so that she wouldn’t notice that he struggled with a sudden grin.

“Garages are dirty places,” he began, nosing the car into traffic, “and I own all the uniforms that the guys wear. I thought I could do the washing myself, even bought a top-of-the-line, extra-capacity washer-and-dryer set, but it just doesn’t get done in a timely manner.”

“And you want to pay me to do it.”

“Something like that.”

She flipped the end of her ponytail off her shoulder, obviously thinking.

“I get it. You’re talking about a barter arrangement, basically.”

He nodded and signaled with the blinker that he was moving the car over into the next lane.

“Unless, like I said before, it’s a conflict of interest for you, given that your regular job is with a dry cleaner.”

“Not a problem. Mr. Geopp stopped taking in laundry a few months ago after his wife died.”

“That’s too bad, about his wife, I mean.”

“Yeah, she was a good lady,” Jolie said lightly, but something about her tone let him know that she honestly grieved the woman’s passing.

“Were you friends?”

“Not really,” Jolie replied, looking away. “About the laundry…”

He took the hint and dropped the subject.

“I have to warn you, there’s lots of it.”

“Good. That means I’ll get the debt worked off sooner rather than later.”

He nodded, signifying that they had come to an agreement in principle at least.

“Okay, so all we have to do is negotiate the particulars. I understand that laundry costs are figured by the pound or by the piece.”

“That’s right.”

“I don’t have any way to weigh it, so I say we go by the piece, then, if that’s agreeable to you.”

She named a price that was very much in line with what he’d expected, given that he would be providing the equipment and the necessary supplies. He proposed drawing up a debit sheet so she could mark off her work and subtract the cost of it from the repair bill, which would reflect the fifty-percent reduction that she’d been promised and that would include some extra repairs to her car that he felt were necessary but which he had not yet done.

“I only have two days a week to devote to this,” she warned him.

“And what two days would those be?”

“Sunday and Monday. Those are my days off from the dry cleaners.”

He shook his head.

“Sundays are for church. I’ll be content with Mondays.”

“No matter how long it takes for me to work off the debt?” she pressed.

“No matter how long it takes,” he assured her.

She stared out the window for a long time, her expression hidden from him. He waited, confident of her decision. Finally she looked straight ahead.

“Okay, it’s a deal.”

He let her see his smile.

“Let me show you where you’ll be working, then.”

“Might as well.” She sat up a little straighter.

“Obviously this street is Hulen,” he pointed out, slowing to make a right turn. “We’re going to take the Interstate up here and head west for about a mile.”

She nodded, obviously making mental notes as he drove and talked her through the route.

When he turned the car down his street, she drew her brows together and said, “This can’t be right.”

“What do you mean? It’s right up here.”

“Here?” she echoed uncertainly, indicating the neighborhood around them with a wave of her hand.

The development was brand-new, not even half occupied yet, but that didn’t explain her confusion to him. He let it go long enough to pass by the two empty lots between the corner house and his own at the top of the rise.

“This is it.”

He couldn’t help the note of pride in his voice.

By some standards, it was a modest home, but it was everything he had ever wanted, bright, roomy, well-appointed and undeniably attractive with its gabled metal roof and exterior of natural stone and rich red brick. He’d labored over every detail, probably to the point of driving the architect and builder nuts, but this was the place where he intended to live out the bulk of his life and, he hoped, one day raise a family.

Most folks didn’t look at a first house as a long-term home, but Cutlers weren’t the sort who “traded up.” They were the kind of people who put down roots, sank them deep and let the years roll by in relative contentment. They believed in God, family, personal integrity, hard work and generosity, all notions that he’d once found boring and mundane. He’d gotten over all that, and he hadn’t questioned his values again—until he saw the look on Jolie Wheeler’s face as he turned her old car into his curving driveway.

She hated the place; he could see it on her face, and his gut wrenched. Disappointment honed a fine, defensive edge onto his voice.

“What’s wrong with it?”

“What’s wrong?” she echoed shrilly. “It’s your house!”

“You expected me to take you to someone else’s house?”

“I expected you to take me to your business, one of your garages!”

He stared at her, realization dawning.

“You thought I’d put a washer and dryer in one of my shops?”

“Of course I did!”

He stroked his chin, thinking. Guess he hadn’t ever said that the appliances were at his house, and he had mentioned uniforms and shop rags and dirty garages.

“Never thought about putting a laundry room into the shop,” he mumbled. “Might not be a bad idea. I’ll have to look into that.”

She threw up her hands, clearly exasperated.

“And in the meantime?”

He shrugged. “In the meantime we’ve got what we’ve got, don’t we?”

She dropped her jaw, trying to see, apparently, just how far it could go without dislocating. He clamped his back teeth together and mentally counted to ten before drawing a calming breath and reaching way down deep for a reasonable tone.

“Look, I didn’t mean to mislead you. The thought of putting a laundry room in the shop itself never even occurred to me.”

“And you assumed that I understood you were taking me to your house?”

“Yeah, actually, I did.”

She rolled her eyes at that.

“If you prefer,” he offered grimly, “you can take the stuff to a commercial laundry somewhere.”

“And who’s going to pay for that?” she demanded.

“I will,” he gritted out, hanging onto the wispy tail end of his patience, “but first you really ought to take a look at what my laundry room has to offer and what you’ll have to haul around town if you decide that you just can’t stand working here.”

She turned her head to stare out the passenger window, drumming her fingers on the armrest attached to the door. He didn’t know what else to say, what she expected him to say now, so he just waited her out. After some time she abruptly yanked the handle and popped up out of the car. Vince breathed a sigh of relief. He didn’t know if his relief stemmed from her cooperation or the possibility that her disapproval was not directed at his home after all.

He killed the engine as she moved around the car toward the walkway. He got out, tossed her car keys to her and followed her along the curving walk to the front door. He didn’t usually go in this way, preferring to park in the garage at the side of the house and enter through the back hall and kitchen, but he’d always admired the professional landscaping. In the summertime the flower beds beneath the front windows would blaze with purple lantana. Now he looked at it all with an especially critical eye, wondering what she thought of it, though why he should care was beyond him.

To put it bluntly, the girl was a charity case, and as prickly as a cactus. What difference did it make whether or not she approved of his house? Or him, for that matter? And yet it did. He couldn’t help wondering why, but when it came right down to it, he was almost afraid to know.

Chapter Four

Jolie tried not to be impressed by the sprawling structure sitting proudly atop the gentle hill, but that wasn’t easy. It rose up gleaming and perfect, like something out of a storybook, with its rock and brick exterior and shining metal roof. The walkway underfoot was constructed of the same red brick and brown stone as the house and was flanked by billowing hillocks of greenery and clumps of a spiky plant that looked like a big, spiny artichoke to her. She didn’t know one plant from another, but she knew money on the ground when she saw it.

She couldn’t wait to see the inside of the place, even if the hair had stood up on the back of her neck when she’d first realized where he’d brought her.

His house, for pity’s sake!

What’d he think, that she would be so impressed she’d just fall all over him?

Not likely. No way. Uh-uh. She had better sense than that, thank you very much.

But, oh man, what a place.

Vince slipped past her on the brick porch, which was deeply inset beneath a tall arch, and jammed a key into the lock, giving it a quick twist. The tall, honey-colored wood plank door, inlaid with artistically rusted nail-heads and iron bands, swung open soundlessly, revealing stone floors and smooth walls plastered in pinkish-tan adobe. The tall narrow windows flanking the door were made of stained glass depicting two spiny cacti in a delicate green with blossoms of rose red.

He stepped back to let her pass, and she’d have wiped her feet before entering if there had been a mat of any sort. As it was, she wiped her hands surreptitiously on the seat of her worn jeans, just in case they were dirty, then tugged on the hem of her T-shirt to cover the self-conscious action. She tilted her head back in the foyer, looking up at least twenty feet to the ceiling, past an elegantly rustic wrought-iron chandelier with cut-glass shades.

To her left was a hallway. To her right stretched a huge room set off by tall arches. It was completely empty except for a pair of light fixtures, larger versions of the one hanging over her head, and a leafy fern that sat on the floor in front of a window covered by a faded bed sheet. Straight ahead Jolie spied the back of a nondescript sofa and the overhang of a bar topped in polished granite.

“This way,” he said, leading her through the foyer and into what was obviously a den.

The sofa sat in front of a massive stone fireplace. Flanking the fireplace was an equally massive built-in unit which could easily contain a television set as large as a dining table. Upon it were a small framed photo of several kids with mischievous grins and a pile of paperback books. The only other furnishings in the room were a low, battered table and a utilitarian floor lamp. At least here the windows were covered with expensive pleated shades in a dark red.

The bar, she saw, opened onto a large kitchen, as did the arched doorways on each end. Louvered, bat-wing doors stood open to reveal an island containing a deep stone sink. Behind it rose enough cabinets to stash away all the cookware usually offered for sale in a small department store.

The brushed-steel fronts of the appliances announced that no expense had been spared in outfitting the space, but the countertops were bare except for a small toaster and a coffeemaker. At the end of the kitchen, surrounded by oriel windows and two doors, one that opened to a hallway and another leading outside, was a dining area large enough to dwarf the small round table and two chairs situated beneath another unique light fixture.

“Who lives here?” she wanted to know.

“I do.”

She rolled her eyes at him. “Besides you.”

“No one.”

Bringing her hands to her hips, she stared at him in disbelief.

“You’ve got how many bedrooms in this place, two, three?”

“Four, actually.”

“And you live here all by yourself?”

“That’s right.”

She looked around her, dumbfounded.

“It’s a little bare,” he said sheepishly, and that was putting it mildly. “I really need to get somebody in here to help me do it up right. Just can’t figure out who.”

Good golly, Miss Molly, what she could do with a place like this!

She couldn’t imagine living here, but it was practically empty, almost a blank slate, and she could see just what ought to go where, starting with a pair of big, leather-upholstered, wrought-iron bar stools so company could sit there at the counter enjoying a cold drink while the host prepared dinner. And that island just begged for a big old pot rack, something sturdy and solid, not that the place lacked storage.

“Hire a decorator,” she told him. Obviously he could afford professional help.

He wrinkled his nose at that. “I don’t know. I’m not much for trends and themes. It’s not a showroom, after all, it’s a home.”

“But the right decorator could do wonders in here,” she insisted.

“Yeah, but who is the right decorator?” he asked rhetorically. He then effectively closed the subject by lifting a hand and saying, “Laundry room’s this way.”

He led her through the kitchen and into the hallway. After pointing out that the garage lay to the left, he turned right. The second door opened into a laundry room large enough to sport not only a top-of-the-line, front-loading washer-and-dryer set but also a pair of roll-away racks for hanging clothes, a work table for folding and an ironing board, plus a sink and various cabinets.

Dead center on the tiled floor lay a heap of clothing big enough to easily hide a full-grown man. Sitting up. Jolie’s jaw dropped.

“How long have you been accumulating that?” she asked, pointing at the pile.

“Week, week and a half,” he said mournfully. “By Friday there’ll be about half that much again.”

“Good grief!” she exclaimed, mentally rolling up her sleeves. “Looks like I’ve got my work cut out for me.”

He lifted his hands. “So do I load it up or not?”

“In what?” she asked dryly. “You got a dump truck around here?”

He chuckled. “Not that I’ve noticed.”

“Well, then,” she said with a sigh, “I guess we’ll do it your way.”

He just grinned, blast his good-looking hide, and well he might. In his place she’d be grinning, too. She was smiling on the inside as it was. Working in a place like this was going to be an out-and-out pleasure, even if it was only temporary. If he tried anything funny with her, she’d just walk out and leave him and his laundry high and dry without the least qualm.

Looking at it that way, she couldn’t lose, because whatever happened, her car would be fixed. She almost hoped he did try to take advantage of the situation, but not until her debt was paid off because she didn’t like owing anybody anything.

Yes, sir, smiling on the inside.

For once, things were going to go her way.

“This one?” Jolie slowed the car as they drew near the corner. Vince shook his head.

“No, the next.”

She sped up again, laughing when the little car responded with more pep than usual. “I can’t get over how much better it runs.”

“It’ll drive even smoother with the tires rotated and balanced,” he told her. “You might notice a little improvement when we get all the hoses replaced, too, but probably not. You won’t have to worry about another breakdown anytime soon, though.”

“Music to my ears,” she said, and he couldn’t help smiling.

She drove as she seemed to do everything else, he noted, with an innate wariness. It certainly kept her on her toes and gave him some confidence in her safety on the road, but it also made him a little sad because she seemed to be constantly expecting trouble and catastrophe.

Over all, Jolie Wheeler struck him as a woman who’d had a lot of hard knocks in life, which was, he supposed, nothing new. The odd thing was that he didn’t much like thinking of it.

The way she’d taken in his place had told him that she was unfamiliar with some of the more recent building trends. Later, she’d seemed to be mentally furnishing and decorating the space, and yet she’d remained oddly detached, admiring but certainly not gushing with compliments. He had sensed a kind of assumption on her part that she was out of her element in his house, and that had irritated him a little. Okay, a lot.

He was proud of his home. It was no mansion, but it was comfortable and spacious and extremely well-built. For the life of him, he didn’t see why she shouldn’t feel perfectly at ease in such surroundings, especially as he’d been particularly struck by how right the place felt for her. Maybe that accounted for the new idea noodling around in the back of his mind.

What he’d told her about needing help with furnishing and decorating the place was true. In fact it had begun to take on a certain urgency as his mother and sisters had started pressing him to let them have a go at it. He shuddered mentally, imagining what that might mean. If he wasn’t very careful he’d walk into his own house one day soon and find it outfitted in chintz and lace and filled up with kitschy knickknacks.

He liked what Jolie had done with the apartment much more than what his mother and sisters had done with their respective homes. Could she be talked into giving him a hand with his place? He was trying to think how to broach the subject when his stomach gurgled and growled—more like roared, actually. It was so loud that Jolie burst out laughing.

Mildly embarrassed, he clapped a hand over his belly.

“Feeding time at the zoo, I take it,” she teased.

“Hey, I’m a hardworking man, and it’s dinnertime, okay?”

“Okay by me,” she grinned.

Suddenly his heart was beating a little too pronouncedly as he made a spur-of-the-moment decision. He shifted in his seat, wondering if it was wise but knowing that he was going to do it. Fearing she could get the wrong idea, though, he made the suggestion as casually as he could manage.

“Listen, there’s a pretty good restaurant up here on the right. Why don’t we stop off and grab a bite?”

For a second, he got no reaction. Then she made a face, and he was sure that she was going to tell him to go soak his head. To his surprise, though, her answer was fairly ambiguous.

“I’m not really fit for going out after a day at the cleaners. It’s dirty, smelly work, and—”

“You look good to me,” he blurted and then could’ve bitten his tongue off—until she slipped him an almost hopeful glance out of the corner of her eye. “It’s a casual sort of place,” he added quickly. “I’m, uh, not exactly dressed for anything fancy, either.” He indicated his uniform with a wave of one hand.

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