“You’re not much of a liar, Maren Minnesota.”

“I don’t get much practice.”

“That’s good.” The softly whispered words hung between them. “Honesty is a very sexy quality in a woman.” Jared brushed a soft kiss against her hair. He felt his heart aching. He hated this tangled web.

“You make me want to do things, Maren.” He framed her face in his hands, his heart speeding up and beating wildly in his chest. “Wild, insane things.”

She could feel her breath backing up in her lungs. She wanted to believe him, believe in the moment, in what was happening between them, even as every sane bone in her body begged her to run for cover. But she wasn’t listening to sanity, she was listening to the rush of desire as it overtook her.

“Such as?”

He didn’t want words any longer.

He wanted her.

Dangerous Disguise
Marie Ferrarella

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MARIE FERRARELLA

This RITA® Award-winning author has written over one hundred and twenty books for Silhouette, some under the name Marie Nicole. Her romances are beloved by fans worldwide.

To

Mark.

Nothing is impossible,

as long as you

believe.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 1

He was too good-looking.

The thought telegraphed itself across Maren Minnesota’s mind the moment she walked into her office. Tucked away behind the kitchen, the small, windowless room was crammed with not one desk, but two since she shared the space with Joe Collins, the accountant for both branches of Rainbow’s End and the man she regarded, for all intents and purposes, as her father. Two of the walls were lined with shelves that housed books, knickknacks, and an antiquated stereo system.

The man sitting in the chair by her desk made the rest of the room fade away.

She was running a few minutes behind, which was unlike her. Maren had completely forgotten that she had an appointment to interview a Jared Stevens and that said Jared Stevens was waiting for her in the office. If it hadn’t been for April, the salad girl, prompting her, who knew how long the man would have gone on waiting. He was interviewing for the position of assistant chef, a job that had suddenly become vacant.

As manager of Rainbow’s End’s main restaurant, she’d seen three candidates so far in the last two days and none had impressed her as particularly right for the job. She knew she was being too fussy. In her experience, it took a certain zest to cook creatively, a certain passion for food, a flair for color to make an outstanding chef. The other people she’d interviewed—two men and a woman—had résumés that were decent enough, but she didn’t quite have the feeling that they could offer as much dedication as was needed.

It was her goal to make this particular branch of Rainbow’s End the best.

But this man, who had brought over Papa Joe’s chair and angled it beside her desk, well, she detected a little too much passion to suit her. More than likely, that passion wouldn’t be strictly aimed at the vegetables and meat.

She knew this because her breath had caught in her throat when their eyes met. Jared Stevens had turned in his chair when she’d opened the door. His incredible green eyes made instant contact with hers, as if their meeting had been preordained somewhere in some vast eternal book.

If she had been a battleship, she would have immediately been sunk.

It took her half a second to recover.

He reminded her of Kirk. And that was a bad thing. A very bad thing.

Kirk Kendell had been almost mind-numbingly good-looking, too, with the same jet-black hair and green eyes, the same chiseled, sexy looks. That would have been the only way she could describe it. Mind-numbing. Because, during their relationship that occurred the last two years she was in college, her mind had certainly been numbed. Or, more accurately, missing in action. On the occasions that she allowed herself to look back, she silently referred to that time frame as her stupid period.

She didn’t like being reminded of it.

Which gave Jared Stevens a very big strike against him.

“Is something wrong?” The deep voice filled the room and rolled over her like a warm desert wind. It made her think of chocolate, deep and rich.

Still standing in the doorway, she took a breath. Took control. She became the epitome of efficiency as she willed her legs to move. “No, why?”

He was smiling now and she felt her stomach lurch, then tighten. He had the kind of smile that whispered “seduction.”

“Because you’re staring,” he told her as he rose to his feet.

At least he has manners, she thought.

Maren cleared her throat and walked into the room, purposely leaving the door open behind her. Air tended to become scarce in the small office at times and, right now, she needed all the air she could get.

She said the first thing that popped into her head. “Just trying to envision you in a chef’s hat.”

He looked surprised and somewhat bemused. One dark, perfectly shaped eyebrow raised itself higher than the other. “Then I have the job?”

“No, you don’t.” She did her best to sound professional and not curt. “I was just jumping ahead.” It was a lie, but she wasn’t at her most creative right then.

Taking her chair, she motioned for him to sit down again. Maren picked up the résumé on her desk. Although she’d already gone over it once, she scanned it again. The names of his previous employers were far from run-of-the-mill or average. Valentino’s in New York and The Cattleman in Dallas. Both restaurants demanded perfection.

“Impressive,” she commented. Normally gregarious and bent on putting people at their ease, she held herself in check. There wasn’t an ounce of emotion evident in her voice. She raised her eyes to his. “You seem to move around a lot.”

“Not a lot,” he countered. She noticed no trace of a regional-defining accent in his voice. “Just New York City and Dallas. I always wanted to see them,” he added in a tone that seemed unsettlingly intimate, as if he was sharing a secret with her. “And a man has to eat.”

“That’s what we’re counting on,” she responded in her most crisp, distant voice.

The open door wasn’t helping. The air stood still today. His eyes looked as if he could see right into her thoughts, her sudden vulnerability.

She liked to think of herself as a confident woman. Despite everything that had happened in her life, or maybe because of it, she hung on to confidence as if it were a cloak. It shielded her from unsettling situations. She worked hard to make sure that nothing interfered with that confidence and sitting across from this man with the bedroom-green eyes made her feel anything but.

She wanted to have as little to do with men like Jared Stevens as humanly possible.

Outstanding résumé or not, hiring him as assistant chef wouldn’t be wise. She wasn’t given to agonizing over her decisions, but she wasn’t prone to snap judgments, either. Except in this one sensitive area.

Maren made up her mind without bothering to call either of the two highly regarded restaurants he had listed, or the names he’d included under references.

He wasn’t going to get the job.

She’d sooner go with the woman who had come in yesterday. The small, chatty blonde was fresh out of cooking school and eager. Eager could be molded and taught. She knew that firsthand. She’d been eager. Once.

Jared leaned over and broke the pregnant silence. “Would you like to give me a test run?”

Maren’s head jerked up as surprise blossomed all through her. Was the man propositioning her in exchange for a job? “Excuse me?”

“In the kitchen.” He nodded his dark head toward the area just beyond the office. “Would you like me to cook something for you? I can whip up anything you name.”

Arrogant, just like Kirk.

Maren shored up her beaches. Turning someone down for a job was always done best swiftly, like ripping off a Band-Aid from a wound. Going slowly only prolonged everyone’s agony.

“No, I don’t think that’s going to be necessary. I’m really sorry, Mr.—” Stumbling, Maren glanced at the top of the form again. “Mr. Stevens. But—”

She saw him open his mouth, undoubtedly to argue her out of her decision or perhaps to bargain his way into a trial period, but just then a blood-freezing shriek filled the air. Maren’s eyes widened as she turned her head toward the source.

The shriek came from the kitchen.

Before she could gain her feet, the would-be chef whose interview she was terminating was dashing toward the origin of the sound.

Right behind him, she saw it the second she crossed the threshold into the kitchen.

Flames shot up from within one of the frying pans on the stove. The blaze looked ready to cut loose and spread throughout the kitchen in less than a heartbeat. Max, the head chef, April, the salad girl, and Rachel, one of the dessert chefs, were all backing away from the stove. April had been the one to scream, and she was still screaming.

Only Jared was moving toward the fire.

It was a grease fire, Maren realized. She saw the man who’d just been in her office, the man she’d been ready to send away, grab a cast-iron lid and quickly drop it on the pan.

“Fire extinguisher!” he yelled to her. “Where’s your fire extinguisher?”

Rather than answer, Maren yanked it from the wall and rushed toward him. Jared grabbed the canister out of her hands and liberally sprayed directly at the flames that were trying to escape the pan. The sparks vanished, but he still sprayed all around the area. The fire was out in less time than it took to tell about it, leaving behind an awful smell that threatened to hang in the air for hours.

Jared switched on the two exhaust fans directly above the frying pan.

Lowering the now-empty canister, he glanced at Maren over his shoulder. “Is this what you call trial by fire?”

She could only shake her head. This could have really been a disaster. If it had gotten out of hand, at the very least, the fire could have forced them to close down for several weeks. Maren looked at the man with new eyes.

She wasn’t being fair to him, condemning him because of his face.

“That was quick thinking. Thanks. Just put it down out of the way,” she instructed when he offered to hand her the extinguisher. Max, April and Rachel had all come forward again, gathering around her. Relief was etched on each of their faces. Maren looked from one to the other. “What happened?”

Rachel, the oldest, looked somewhat chagrined. “I don’t know, Maren. I was just preparing the sweet tarts and I must have knocked over the oil. The pan was still hot and…” Her voice trailed off as her thin shoulders rose and fell. “I’m sorry, Maren, I don’t know how that oil got there. I know I didn’t put it there myself—”

Maren raised her hand, waving away the apology before it made a reappearance. She wanted this behind them.

“That’s all right, nothing happened,” Maren said, her eyes shifting toward the man who had just possibly saved her from an incredible amount of inconvenience. Things could get out of hand quickly in a kitchen. “Thanks to Mr. Stevens.”

There was that smile again, the one that could melt concrete, she thought. “Jared,” Jared corrected.

Max looked him over. It was evident that the man regarded Jared as competition. “You the new guy?” he asked.

“I don’t know.” Green eyes turned toward Maren. “Am I?”

That uneasy feeling was still there, making her feel as if she were searching for a door that had been there a moment ago but had somehow disappeared. The feeling was not unlike the one generated by similar dreams she’d had. It made her leery.

But after what he’d just done, added to the résumé that sat on her desk, it didn’t seem fair to turn him away. His only flaw was that he reminded her of someone she didn’t want to remember.

Jared Stevens was too good-looking, she thought again. Good-looking men tended to wait for things to be handed to them. Like opportunities. And hearts. She was being childish. As well as unfair. And Maren had always believed in being fair.

She dragged her hand through dark blond hair the color of gold nuggets at sunset. “After what you just did, it wouldn’t seem fair to turn you down without a trial run.”

She saw him breathe a sigh of relief. It made her think that he really needed this job.

“That’s all I ask, Ms. Minnesota.” His smile widened. “A fair chance.”

Something rippled through her. Maren looked away from her newest staff member. Unconsciously she ran her tongue along her lower lip. It was something she did when she was feeling less than confident about the wisdom of a decision. But she’d already hired him, albeit on a trial basis. His position was contingent on how well he lived up to the praise in his résumé and just as importantly, how well he melded with the staff. She prided herself on running a well-oiled machine.

“Can you start tomorrow?”

“Absolutely.” Genuine enthusiasm throbbed in his voice and she felt a little better about her decision. Maybe this would work out in the long run.

Jared put his hand out to hers. After a beat, she took it, sealing the bargain.

He grinned at her, releasing her hand a bit slower than she thought he should have. “My dad always said you could tell a lot about a person by their handshake.”

Said. She wondered if he was just using his words loosely, or if this meant that his father was deceased. At any rate, if the man was any more charming, she thought, charm would literally drip from his fingertips.

The specter of Kirk was difficult for her to shake. Kirk had been a charming manipulator, something she’d found out too late to save her heart.

She decided Jared Stevens was the kind of man who never truly “needed” anything. He got by on his looks and charm. And wits, she added, thinking of the fire he’d just averted. She supposed if he cooked as well as the résumé seemed to indicate he did, she could do a lot worse than having a man like him on the staff.

As long as he kept his distance.

But not for now. She looked back toward her office and straightened slightly. Business first, self-preservation later.

“Then come in, I have some papers for you to fill out and sign.” She offered him a perfunctory smile that remained strictly on her lips and didn’t reach her eyes. “On behalf of Mr. Shepherd and Mr. Rineholdt, welcome to Rainbow’s End.” At least for now, she added silently as she led the way back into the office.

Half an hour later, his fingers cramping from the writing he’d just done, Jared got in behind the wheel of the slightly less than pristine electric-blue Mustang the department had him driving these days.

He breathed a sigh of relief, glad that was over. Women didn’t generally prove to be an obstacle for him. But this boss lady hadn’t been as easy as he’d thought she’d be, he thought as he started up his car. It coughed and then rumbled awake. He missed his sporty convertible, but that didn’t go with the image he was trying to project. That of someone working his way up.

Backing out of the parking lot, Jared pointed his vehicle straight for his uncle’s house. He had a lot to do before tomorrow.

It was a lucky break that the fire had begun when it had, otherwise he wasn’t all that certain that the lady with the killer body and drop-dead long legs would have hired him. At least, not without a great deal more persuasion from him. She’d looked reluctant in her office before that girl had screamed. But then he’d always had more than his share of luck, he mused, turning up the sound on the radio. The station was playing a song he liked and he let the beat energize him.

The odd thing was, the reluctance Maren Minnesota had displayed seemed to have been immediate, before she’d looked at his credentials. She’d already seen his résumé, so her problem with him couldn’t have been anything on the paper, otherwise she wouldn’t have asked him to interview in the first place.

He wondered if she was naturally leery of strangers or if she was reacting to something specific about him. An amused smile played on his lips. His song was over, but he left the volume on high, letting the music surround him. Maybe the woman had a keen sixth sense when it came to undercover detectives, he mused. The idea no sooner came to him than he frowned. He sure as hell hoped that wasn’t it. Anonymity was the name of the game.

But then, who knew how she figured into all of this. She could be the ringleader to the restaurant’s criminal operation. Just because she looked melt-in-your-mouth delectable didn’t mean she didn’t have the brains of a master criminal. Being a woman had never gotten in the way of people like Catherine de Médicis and Lucrezia Borgia.

Everyone was a suspect until he sorted this latest assignment out.

Right now, he wanted one last brush-up lesson from his uncle. It never hurt to be too prepared when dealing with criminals.

He’d downloaded the Rainbow’s End menu, both lunch and dinner, off the Internet last night. He’d familiarized himself with all the ingredients that went into preparing every dish. Overkill, maybe, but when his life might be on the line, it didn’t hurt to wear suspenders and a belt.

To counterbalance that, his nature demanded that he take risks and play long shots, but never at the beginning of an assignment. Then he wanted to make sure all his ducks were in a row and swimming to the best of their ability.

After taking the freeway for one exit, Jared got off. Midday traffic was light in this part of town. His luck was holding.

Out of all the Cavanaughs, he supposed he was the best cook. Not counting Uncle Andrew, of course. Andrew Cavanaugh, former chief of the Aurora California police department and family patriarch, had put himself through school working as a short-order cook. After his wife Rose had disappeared over fifteen years ago, Andrew had taken over the duties of both parents. His cooking improved. And once he retired from the force, his talents continued to flourish.

Things hadn’t changed when his wife was found last year, not in some shallow grave or in the river, the way everyone feared, but suffering from amnesia.

These days, Jared thought with a warm smile, his uncle and aunt sometimes competed for control of the kitchen. No one had the heart to tell Aunt Rose that Uncle Andrew could cook rings around her. But then, in his opinion, no one could hold a candle to Uncle Andrew.

He’d been taking lessons from Andrew these past two weeks. Ever since this assignment had come to light. At the time, the assistant chef at Rainbow’s End hadn’t left his position yet. But the man had come to the police department with very grave suspicions and some very serious allegations.

What the man had to say had been heard and duly noted. The chef had then been persuaded to take a leave of absence from work citing a sudden “family emergency.”

And he was the man the department had sent to fill the vacancy, Jared thought as he drove past a strip mall to the light. The other three applicants for the job had been from the police force as well. His father, the current chief of detectives, Brian Cavanaugh, was taking no chances. He was loading the deck, not wanting to lose the opening that the department had arranged in the first place.

The others were good, but he was better, Jared thought with absolutely no conceit. He was born for this kind of work. Making a right, he drove into his uncle’s development. There was no doubt about it. He had a passion for undercover work, for never being the same person twice. It turned each day into a challenge and he liked challenges. They kept him on his toes, kept him from getting stale.

Jared pulled up into the driveway of the house where he’d had breakfast just a few hours ago. Making breakfast for not only his immediate family but his extended one as well was a ritual his uncle had insisted on over the past dozen years or so. Never more so than now when his own five children—all detectives on the Aurora Police Force—had left the “nest” to begin their own families.

No doubt about it, they were dropping like flies, Jared mused as he got out of the Mustang. His cousins, all seven of them, even his older brother Dax, had all succumbed to the lure of marriage.

But not him, he thought. Never him. Marriage wasn’t something that had ever fit in with his plans, much less held any appeal for him. He liked meeting new women, being with new women.

Like that one he’d met today.

But he was getting ahead of himself. First the bust, then the rewards, if there were to be any.

Jared knocked on the back door and then tried the doorknob. As always, the door was unlocked. Jared walked into the kitchen, which somehow always managed to have warm, delicious smells permeating the air.

You’d think that the former chief of police would take a more aggressive stand toward safeguarding his house, Jared thought not for the first time.

“Uncle Andrew,” he called out. “It’s Jared. I thought maybe I’d squeeze in one last lesson unless you’re too busy.”

A man of average height and in his fifties, still in very good shape for his age, appeared almost immediately in the opposite doorway. A patient, genial smile was on his lips. These days his uncle looked more like a professor than a policeman, Jared thought.

“Cooking is an ongoing process,” Andrew informed him as he walked into the room. “There is never a ‘last lesson.’”

Rose was right behind her husband. From the slightly ruffled appearance of her clothing, Jared had a sneaking suspicion that maybe his unscheduled appearance had interrupted something. Rose caught his eye and shook her head, as if to tell him not to say anything. Humoring her husband, she gave her nephew a wink. “You keep learning until you’re taken off to that big kitchen in the sky.”

“Amen to that,” Andrew chimed in, giving her a quick kiss on the cheek, an opportunity he’d professed he was never going to take for granted, not even until his dying day.

With a grin, Jared cleared his throat. “Well, I’m not about to be taken off to the big kitchen in the sky, but I am short on time….”

Andrew laughed. “Then I guess we’d better get to it.” And they did.

Chapter 2

The nature of Detective Jared Cavanaugh’s work did not allow him to clock in and clock out. It demanded his attendance 24/7. When he worked, he worked hard. And because of this, he played even harder when he had the opportunity.

Last night he’d gone to his local police haunt, the one he frequented when he wanted to just be himself, the second son of Brian Cavanaugh. Because he was slipping into character in less than twenty-four hours, he’d spent most of the evening at Malone’s in the company of an attractive blonde who had indicated to him several different times that she would have been more than willing to see the night end with him in her bed. He’d been tempted, but he needed a clear head to face the following day. So with much regret, he took a rain check. A rain check he had every intention of using when he had the chance.

He enjoyed living life to the fullest, drinking deeply from the well before continuing on his journey.

The same set of rules that governed his life had him sitting here this morning, for probably the last morning in at least several weeks to come, at his uncle’s table. Enjoying being part of the family.

Jared knew from an early age that he was born lucky and he never took that fact for granted. His line of work, amid the dregs of society, only brought it home to him that much more clearly.

He was a Cavanaugh, part of the Cavanaughs, and family mattered.

In total, the Cavanaugh family had nine police detectives, one chief of detectives, one retired police chief, an assistant district attorney and a vet. But even the latter was involved with the force. His cousin Patience treated the dogs that were part of the department’s K-9 squad. It was that very connection that had led her to meet the man she was eventually to marry. Brady was partnered with a German shepherd and now they were both partnered with Patience.

When they all showed up at breakfast with their various partners and a number of short people who’d been added to the grand total, the custom-made kitchen table needed all of its leaves. It took up most of the room, leaving very little space for Uncle Andrew to operate in.

It didn’t matter since Andrew always seemed to manage, no matter how many people showed up for a meal. And somehow, the food just kept on coming out of that vast cornucopia his uncle called a refrigerator. There were times when Jared could have sworn Andrew was part magician. Other times, he was sure of it.

This morning saw only half the Cavanaugh brood. Various appointments and duties kept them away. Jared found himself wishing that he could see them all this morning. It was the same wish he always had just before going under cover. There was something about the danger of the situation that both thrilled him and made him oddly sentimental, making him feel that he needed to see his family one last time before he took on another life.

Not that he was about to admit this to any of his relatives, he thought, helping himself to a huge stack of his uncle’s pancakes. He smiled at his Aunt Rose as she passed him the syrup dispenser she’d just refilled.

Undercover work made him hungry.

His eyes swept over the group again, memorizing expressions, absorbing scents and sounds as if they would somehow sustain him until the next time. Then burying them deep inside for future viewing.

This assignment was different from the ones he usually took. The other personas he’d taken on had lived on the fringes of society, associating with the dregs of humanity, a fact that made him doubly grateful to have the family he did. This time, though, he was going to be entering a world filled with a better class of people.

At least on the surface, he amended, digging into his meal. If what the witness said was true, the restaurant was a front for money laundering. The only thing that set the people involved apart from the usual class he dealt with was that the former bunch wore better clothes and had nicer homes.

But dirt was dirt no matter how you dressed it up.

“You seem a little preoccupied.”

Jared started as he realized that Andrew was standing at his elbow, a platter in hand. The man had bent over to whisper in his ear. There was concern on his uncle’s face. “Sure you got everything down?”

“I’m aces, Uncle ’Drew,” Jared said, grinning.

“He’s just getting in character,” Janelle, his sister commented. She was the only attorney in the lot, other than his cousin Callie’s husband, the Honorable Judge Brenton Montgomery. Her eyes were shining as she looked across the table at her big brother. “Don’t worry about him, Uncle Andrew. He’s in his element. He really likes to playing pretend, don’t you, Jared?”

Her playful tone masked the fact that, like the others, she was concerned about Jared. About the way he left himself open, vulnerable to retaliation, without benefit of backup close by.

Concern and fear were things they all had to make peace with in their own way. It was something they all had to live with.

Alex, his cousin Clay’s little boy, looked at him with eyes as wide as saucers. “You’re playing pretend? Can I play, too?”

Jared laughed, absorbing the noise, the warmth and the good-natured teasing. Hoping it would somehow last inside of him until the next time he could see them.

“Maybe some other time, sport.” The disappointment he saw registering on the boy’s small face had him adding, “Tell you what, when I get back, we’ll play anything you like.”

“When will you get back?” Alex pressed, echoing a question that occurred to several of the others at the table.

“I’m not sure, but the second I do, you’ll be the first one I look up.”

Alex looked thoughtful for a moment, then stuck out his hand. “Deal?”

“Deal,” Jared declared, shaking the small hand. He looked over the boy’s head toward Clay. “He’s just like you were at his age. Except he’s a lot more likable.” He winked at the boy, who beamed broadly. “Digs right in and wants to pin you down.”

“Everybody wants to pin you down,” Dax interjected.

Like Troy and Janelle, Dax had made a special effort to be here this morning for their brother. No one knew how long Jared would be gone or when they would see him again. There was no set timetable for the kind of assignments Jared took on. A week, two, a year; he would have to keep at it until either the job was done or his cover was blown. Jared’s father was the only one who was kept fully apprised of everything that went on at the station house.

At that moment Andrew made the short trip from the stove back to the table. In his oven-mittened hand he was holding another helping of his special French toast, something that was always welcomed at breakfast. “You need anything, you call,” he instructed Jared.

“Careful, Dad,” Teri warned. “Otherwise you’re going to get calls in the middle of the night for an emergency food run.”

Andrew laughed, obviously enjoying the idea. “Wouldn’t mind that, either.”

He was only half kidding, Jared thought. Again he was struck by the thought that he was one of the lucky ones who walked this earth. If he wanted a best friend, someone to confide in, or even a child to borrow for the afternoon in order to enjoy the fruits of a familial relationship without having to be tied down by the same, it was all right here, waiting for him.

He felt sorry for anyone who was deprived of these things. Nothing beat having a family as a support group.

It was something that Maren Minnesota could only fantasize about.

She’d never known a large family, never known what it was like to feel a mother’s touch. But rather than deprived, she thought of herself much in the same terms that Jared did. She felt lucky. Lucky to have someone like Joe Collins, “Papa Joe”, in her life for as long as she could remember. He cared for her. It was because of him that she was here, working at Rainbow’s End.

It was because of him that she was anywhere, she thought, not for the first time. The tall, broad-shouldered man had taught her how to look on the bright side of life, to see the good in everything and to never be afraid of going after what she wanted.

She owed him so much and she meant to pay on that debt every day of both their lives.

As was her custom, she came into work early and opened the place up. This morning it was the produce man and the butcher whose deliveries she anticipated. She had them all on rotating schedules. Some came every day, others every two days, making their deliveries in the early morning hours so that by the time the doors opened at eleven-thirty, everything was running like proverbial clockwork.

Maren liked being in control, liked being on top of things and prided herself on being able to meet every emergency with some sort of a contingency plan. She’d come here two days after graduation, her business degree still warm, and gone right to work. That was a little more than five years ago, and she hadn’t stopped since.

After signing for two deliveries, she entered her office and paused to flip the page on her calendar. She’d just passed the new guy, Jared, as he was coming in to work. He’d surprised her and the word “hello” had all but backed up in her mouth.

Maren realized that she was working her bottom lip and stopped. Usually she forged ahead with confidence and rarely second-guessed herself. But she wasn’t altogether certain she’d done the right thing by hiring this new man. She’d hired him on impulse after seeing him in action. Not hiring him would have been on impulse, too, she silently pointed out. Not hiring someone because they were too good-looking wasn’t exactly a credible reason.

Just a gut instinct geared strictly toward self-preservation.

She shook her head, laughing at herself. What self-preservation? It wasn’t as if they were going to spontaneously combust within five feet of one another. And it wasn’t as if she was going to have anything to do with the man outside of the confines of work, she silently insisted. Maren sat down at her desk and picked up the coffee that Max had brought her.

There was nothing to be uneasy about.

Unless, of course, the new man couldn’t cook.

Jared couldn’t make up his mind whether or not his so-called boss was a genuine ice princess, or if Maren Minnesota just believed that there was a strict dividing line between management and staff.

Or if it was something about him that made her act icy.

The thought nagged at him. Granted he’d only been here a couple of hours, but he’d found that women usually warmed up to him immediately. It didn’t matter whether they were young, old, married, single, he had the ability to make them light up like Christmas trees whenever he put his mind to it. Women were also an excellent source of information and he made the most of that, becoming their confidant at lightning speed.

But Maren had ignored every opening he’d left for her so far. Other than the chance encounter this morning, he’d stopped by her office twice, each time on some pretext or other. Each time she’d answered his questions about work crisply, without any embellishments or going off on any tangents. He was dropping bread-crumbs right in front of her and she was oblivious to it all, crushing them beneath her size six shoes.

She didn’t take up any of his leads.

Unlike April, the salad girl with the excellent lungs, he mused. He caught her struggling with a large basket of freshly washed celery. Gallantly he took the basket from her and carried it over to the butcher block. Beaming, she thanked him and he lingered at her workstation, handing her stalk after stalk as she prepared them for the salad bar.

Ever flexible, he decided to cultivate April first. There were a number of hostesses and waitresses he could work on before having to turn to Maren. No point in having her linger on his mind.

But she did.

“How long have you been working here?” He watched April work the large knife like a machete and found himself thinking she needed to go slower.

“Six months.” She slid the coarsely chopped pieces into an aluminum bowl, then took another stalk and began the process all over again. “My uncle got me the job. He knows Joe.”

That would be Joe Collins, the bookkeeper, Jared thought. But there was no way he was technically supposed to know that since the man hadn’t been in during the interview yesterday. He looked at her innocently. “Joe?”

“Joe Collins.” The sound of her knife hitting the butcher-block table punctuated her every word. Her smile was guileless as she added, “Great guy. Heart as big as the Grand Canyon. Maren’s crazy about him. I guess we all are.”

The man who had come to the department with his story about money laundering hadn’t bothered to fill them in on this detail. Jared displayed just the right amount of interest to keep the woman talking. “He and Maren have a thing going?”

He wasn’t prepared for her response. April began to laugh, her knife never missing a beat. “Him and Maren? No way.” Her mind paused to think, but her hands kept going. “Although, strictly speaking, I suppose it would be all right.” She raised her eyes to his face. “I’ve seen movies where that kind of thing happens.”

She’d lost him. It sounded as if April was talking about something unsavory or tasteless. Was the manager sleeping with the bookkeeper? The DMV photograph they’d pulled up of Joe Collins had been of an older man. Was April talking about May-December romances, or possibly something worse?

“What kind of thing?”

“Hey, you—new guy,” Max Anderson, the heavy-set man who occupied the position of head chef as zealously as a despot controls a tiny kingdom, cut into the conversation.

Jared turned to see Max waving him over. His weight and demeanor, not to mention his full black beard, made him look like a Kodiak bear. At the moment Max stood in front of a huge pot that was moments away from boiling over. “I want you to watch and learn.”

“Better go.” April lowered her voice. “Max has a temper and he thinks he runs the place.”

Jared nodded. “Thanks for the tip.”

He made a mental note to get back to the conversation that had been interrupted, even though on the surface it didn’t seem as if it had anything to do with the real reason he was here. Still, knowing everything he could about the people he was dealing with made him feel as if he was better prepared to handle whatever might come up. Because something always came up. It was the first thing he’d learned on the job.

By the look on Max’s face as the other man scrutinized him, Jared figured it was a safe bet that Max didn’t care for competition in his kitchen. Or maybe there was another reason he looked annoyed at having someone new on the premises. New people were liabilities. The competitive thing could have been just an angle, so much camouflage. It bore looking into.

In any event, Jared decided to make it a point for the man not to feel threatened by his presence.

“Heard your résumé was pretty impressive.” Each word out of Max’s mouth was a challenge.

Jared could have sworn he heard the strains of “Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better” as the other man spoke. He all but expected him to pick up a ladle and draw a line on the concrete floor.

He kept his expression mild. “Where did you hear that?”

The man’s nostrils flared, growing wider. Any second now he was going to start pawing the ground. Dislike oozed from the man’s every pore. “Maren told me. If you think you’re coming in to take over—”

“Just want to put in my time, learn from the best, and go home.” Jared offered Max his most genial, innocent smile. The one that could, with a little effort, look as if it bordered on dim-witted.

“Oh.” For a moment it appeared that the wind had deserted Max’s sails. Unchallenged, Jared had a hunch that Max could be a fairly decent man, if somewhat conceited. “Okay, then.” He seemed placated. “Hand me some saffron.” Eyes on the boiling pot, Max wiggled his fingers in the general direction of the spice table. A wealth of containers were arranged on it in a system known only to Max.

Thank you, Uncle Andrew, Jared thought as he selected the glass jar that contained what appeared at first glance to be red, long-legged spiders. Though he had always been talented in the kitchen, the names of various spices and sauces, as well as elaborate food preparation had mystified him. But then the assignment had come up and Andrew had taken him under his wing. His eyes were opened. Food became cuisine and he had discovered that there were more spices than he thought possible. Andrew had drilled him until he knew each one by name, description and sight.

Which, Jared saw, now turned out to be extremely fortunate.

Handing the jar to Max, the latter proceeded to undertake a running commentary on what he was doing. Unlike Andrew, Jared thought, Max sounded extremely full of himself.

“You have to hold the slotted spoon just so as you stir the spaghetti or—”

A particularly loud thwack resonated behind them, at the table where he had left April chopping celery. Celery, it was apparent, wasn’t the only thing that April had chopped.

For the second time in the two days since he’d made her acquaintance, April screamed. Unlike the scream she’d let out yesterday, which had only been filled with surprise and a touch of fear, this one had a blood-curdling quality about it.

“What the hell?” Max exclaimed. The sentence abruptly terminated, to be replaced by, “Oh my God,” as Max looked in April’s direction. The next moment, he was clutching his less than strong stomach, a gurgling sound escaping his lips.

“My finger!” April shrieked, staring at the blood as it gushed with horrified eyes. “I cut my finger! Oh my God, my God, I cut my finger off. I—”

Instantly alert, ignoring the gagging sounds behind him, Jared grabbed one of the small white towels that seemed to be placed on every flat surface in the kitchen not directly in the way of a flame. He only glanced at it to make sure it was clean. The bleeding had to be stopped at all costs.

He almost collided with Maren, who had raced out of her office to see what the excitement was this time. “Sorry,” he bit off. Even as he said it, he was wrapping the towel around the bleeding digit. Finished, he raised April’s hand up high over her head. All the color had drained out of her face.

“Hold it up,” he ordered.

But the second he released her hand, it sank down, as if all the bones inside of it had liquefied. “I can’t,” April wailed. “I…think…I’m…going to…pass…out.”

“No, you’re not.” There was no nonsense in his voice, an order issued to a subordinate.

For a second his command seemed to jolt her to her senses. April attempted to do she was told. But the sight of her own blood, coupled with the trauma of the event and fear had her sinking against him like a bag stuffed with used tissues.

Frustrated, Jared raised April’s arm and held it up high, his other arm wrapped around her waist to support her. He looked around for help and saw Maren. He didn’t hesitate. “Get some ice and something to put the severed part in. We have to pack it and get her to the hospital right away.”

With every word he uttered, April looked as if she was getting weaker and weaker. The next thing he knew, her eyes had rolled to the back of her head and she sank bonelessly against him. He had no choice but to scoop her up into his arms, balancing her so that he could keep her one hand up in the air.

The next thing he was aware of was Maren returning to his side. She held a bag crammed with ice in her hand.

“You’re going to have to put her finger in there,” he instructed.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Max backing away. Jared was fully prepared to have Maren turn squeamish on him, as well, protesting that she couldn’t bring herself to touch the severed fingertip. In his experience, most people did not react well to handling body parts, even small ones.

He saw her grow pale.

Maren could feel her stomach rising up to her throat, threatening to spill its contents. It took effort to block out the sensation and not give in to it. She wasn’t any good with blood. But this wasn’t a time to think about herself. She knew that every second counted. They needed to get April and her finger to the hospital and have them rejoined within the hour if the young woman was to ever regain use of that part.

Taking a breath, Maren picked up the finger from the edge of the butcher block and deposited it into the plastic bag. She tied off the end of the bag tightly.

“I’ll drive,” she told Jared, nodding toward the rear entrance where she’d left her car parked. “I’m going to need you to carry her into the E.R.”

Max deliberately avoided looking at the bag in her hand. “Want me to call 9-1-1?” he offered.

Maren vetoed the idea. “It’ll be faster if I just drive her there.” She turned toward Jared. “C’mon, let’s go.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he murmured, a little surprised. Somehow, the woman had managed to take the command away from him.

Chapter 3

“That’s my car.”

Maren pointed her security device at a light blue Toyota coupe. The vehicle squeaked in response as its four doors unlocked simultaneously.

Moving ahead of him, Maren opened the rear passenger door before hurrying around to the driver’s side. “Get in.”

Jared angled April into her seat before slipping in next to her. The woman had regained consciousness. Hysteria was quick to follow, and she began screaming again. He did his best to calm her.

He took her wrapped hand and held it up while securing her seat belt around her with his free hand. He left his own seat belt open, something he hoped he wouldn’t regret as Maren pealed out of her spot and hit the road. Hard.

The woman wove in and out of traffic as if she were in hot pursuit of a fleeing vehicle, flying through lights that had begun to turn red. Jared braced his body as best he could.

“It’s going to be all right,” he assured April, repeating the phrase over and over again until he’d finally managed to calm her down.

There was a plea in the young woman’s eyes that begged him to tell her the truth. Jared knew he had a gift for convincing people of his sincerity in the face of contradiction. He used it on April. She seemed to vacillate between wanting to believe him and being terrified that she was going to remain maimed by her own carelessness.

“But I cut it off,” April cried just as he thought she’d finally gotten herself under control. “I saw it just lying there—”

“Maren packed it in ice.” He nodded toward the woman in the driver’s seat. “They’ll reattach it. They can work wonders these days. Six months from now, you won’t even remember which finger it was.”

A brand new fear entered the girl’s brown eyes. They darted from Jared’s face to the back of Maren’s head. “I didn’t sign up for the insurance. I couldn’t afford it. They won’t—”

“They will,” Maren told her firmly.

She took another turn. Because he’d failed to brace himself, Jared hit the back of the front seat. He fumbled for his seat belt clasp, trying to anchor himself before there was another turn. Maren’s eyes met his in the rearview mirror.

“Sorry about that,” Maren murmured before glancing in the mirror to look back toward April. “The accident happened at work. Everything’ll be covered under workman’s compensation. Don’t worry about the cost.”

April’s sobs subsided in volume, then finally faded. She hiccuped, wiping away her tears with the back of her good hand. “Are you sure?”

“I’m positive,” Maren told her with the kind of authority that would calm the worst of fears.

They’d reached St. Luke’s Hospital in record time. After making a left onto the newly renovated compound, Maren pulled into the first available space she saw. The parking lot behind the E.R. entrance was small in comparison to the others, but for once it was relatively empty.

Maren jumped out of the front seat, rounding the hood and hurrying to April’s side of the vehicle. The man she’d had misgivings about hiring beat her to it. He already had April’s door open and now picked April up as if she weighed nothing. It was cold out and he’d rolled up the sleeves on the shirt he was wearing. She saw his biceps bulge as he turned from the car with the girl in his arms.

Maren led the way into the E.R. room. The electronic doors sprang open the second she stepped in front of them. The area was filled with personnel, none of whom seemed to notice them coming in. Looking around, Maren was just about to grab an older-looking nurse when Jared called, “I need some help here!”

Redirected by the entreaty, the nurse Maren was about to buttonhole terminated her conversation with an orderly and focused on the situation.

“What happened?” the matronly looking woman asked Jared.

He rattled off the particulars of the incident quickly and crisply, ending by saying, “Her fingertip was packed in ice.”

The dark-skinned woman whose badge proclaimed her to be Rowena O’Brien looked expectantly from him to Maren. “Where is it?”

“Right there.” Jared nodded toward Maren. The latter quickly produced the plastic bag out of her purse.

Pleased, the nurse nodded her approval. “Good work.” Scanning the area, she pointed toward the first empty bed that came into view. Long floor-to-ceiling curtains separated each bed from its brethren. “Put her right there,” the nurse instructed.

Maren noticed that Jared placed the girl on the gurney as if he were handling something delicate and precious. His compassion impressed her more than the way he conducted himself in an emergency situation.

April clutched at his arm as he began to withdraw. A fresh wave of panic had entered her eyes. “Are you going?”

Jared paused to squeeze her good hand, communicating support and comfort as best he could. “We’ll be right outside,” he promised. “In the waiting room.”

The nurse indicated outer doors that would take them there. It was only as he followed Maren through them that he realized he was still wearing his apron. He slipped the loop off his neck and took off the apron, bunching it up in his hand like an unwanted appendage. He dropped it in the first empty chair he came to.

They had their choice of places to sit since the waiting room was largely empty.

“I take it you’ve been here before.” Maren took the seat beside him.

She looked restless, he thought, as if she didn’t want to be here. Two of his cousins hated hospitals. His uncle Mike had died in one, Aurora General. A bullet to the chest in the line of duty had taken him permanently away from them.

He shrugged in response to her question. “One emergency room is pretty much like another.”

A note of interest entered her eyes. “What was the matter?”

He caught himself thinking that her eyes were beautiful. So blue if you stared at them for any length of time, they could make your soul ache. For a second, he lost the thread of the conversation. “What?”

She wanted to distract herself. Papa Joe had been in a place like this. She was eighteen at the time, about to go off to college, to stand on the brink of new horizons, when he’d been in a car accident. She remembered how terrified she’d been, praying in the small chapel on the premise that he wouldn’t die and leave her alone. One moment he was this big, larger-than-life man, the next, she was facing the possibility of his being taken from her. The edifice of her confidence was never the same again because she’d discovered that the foundations were built on sand.

She’d spent the spring nursing him back to health and the summer arguing with him that she wasn’t going to college, that she couldn’t leave him alone. Eventually he prevailed upon her to go, that he was fine.

Being here brought it all back to her; the fear, the uncertainty. She needed something to get her mind off that. So she turned to the man beside her, hoping for some kind of respite. “Why did you need to go to the emergency room?”

Because my partner was shot buying drugs off a dealer we spent two months setting up. Two cops wandered in, thought we were junkies. Messed up the sting.

It wasn’t the kind of explanation he could give her. Jared thought for a moment, digging around in his past for something plausible that he would remember in case she asked about it later. “My sister had appendicitis.”

A family threat. Instantly she related to it. “Did you get her there in time?”

It had been his father who’d brought Janelle in, but he let that part go, nodding instead in response. “The appendix burst on the operating table. Doctor said it was touch and go at the time.”

So this wasn’t an isolated incident. Maren took new measure of the man beside her. “You’re pretty cool under fire, aren’t you?”

The smile he offered her was almost shy. Maren felt herself warming to him despite resolutions not to. “Don’t see much point in losing your head. Just makes things that much worse.”

She liked that. The man didn’t fold under pressure. So many people stood back, waiting for someone else to do something, never wanting to be the first. Maybe hiring him was not such a bad thing, after all. “Your sister, how old is she?”

He found it safest and easier to stick as close to the truth as possible. Lies had a way of tripping you up. He’d played so many people since he’d joined the force, the various names were hard to keep straight. If he’d added a different life for each, it would have been impossible. Besides, something told him that Maren Minnesota reacted well to tales of hearth and home. “Younger than me by a couple of years.”

“Just the two of you?”

He was right, he thought. There was more than just mild curiosity in her voice. It was as if she was hungry for information. Almost as hungry as he was, but for an entirely different reason. His job was to find out as much as he could about everyone there and to see how they figured into this tale of money laundering that had been brought to the department.

“Four,” he corrected. “I’ve got two more brothers.”

Her blue eyes became almost animated. “Younger? Older?”

He thought of Dax and Troy, both were detectives in the Aurora police department, although neither had ever gone under cover. “One of each.”

He watched in fascination as a smile literally lit up her face. “Must be nice.”

“It has its moments,” he allowed. It was no secret that they were close. All the Cavanaughs were now that they had reached adulthood. “But when we were growing up, my mother would have given us away to the first person with stamina who came to the door.”

She laughed and he found himself reacting to the sound. It was soft, like wind tiptoeing through rose petals. He pulled himself back. The important thing was that the ice between them had been broken. He couldn’t have done this any better than if he’d planned the scenario.

Shifting in his seat, he looked at her. “What about you?”

He could all but see the edge of the curtain as it began to come down again in her eyes. Maren’s smile remained, but it became a little more formal. She didn’t give her trust easily and he wondered if she had secrets. Was she involved in any part of the money laundering if those allegations turned out to be true?

“What do you mean?” Maren asked as she rose to her feet again.

“Do you have any siblings?” Jared watched as she began to move restlessly around the area.

“No.”

There was a note of longing in her voice. Which would explain the wistful look in her eyes when he’d mentioned his siblings. He turned as she drifted toward the TV mounted on the wall in the far corner. “You’re an only child, then.”

The shrug was casual, dismissive. “As far as I know.”

It was an odd thing to say. Unless she was an orphan, he realized suddenly. April had alluded to a relationship between Maren and Joe Collins. He knew the bookkeeper was a lot older. Was Maren looking for a father figure?

Rising to his feet, he crossed to her. She looked a little uneasy when he came up behind her. “Sorry, I tend to talk before I think.”

Maren relaxed a little. “Nothing to be sorry about. Not everyone comes from a large family.” A trace of a fond smile slipped over her full lips. “I have no complaints whatsoever. It wasn’t as if I ever really lacked for anything. Papa Joe saw to that.”

He cocked his head. Was she talking about the bookkeeper or was there someone else who shared the first name? Joe was about as common a name as you could get, other than John. “Papa Joe?”

Her mouth curved more generously. The phrase about someone lighting up a room occurred to him. “Joe Collins,” she clarified, then added, “He’s the bookkeeper at Rainbow’s End.”

“He’s your father?” There hadn’t been any mention of that in any of the notes. He was going to have to get his hands on a more detailed summary of the people at the restaurant.

She crossed her arms in front of her, as if to hold a chill at bay. Instead of looking at him, she’d looked away. “Only father I’ve ever known.”

Which meant that biology didn’t have anything to do with it. If it had, she would have said yes and left it at that. He went back to his revised theory and took a shot at it. “You were adopted?”

She was about to say yes, but caught herself. The antiseptic word didn’t begin to describe what had actually happened to her all those years ago in that Minneapolis back alley.

“I was found,” she corrected. And then she stopped abruptly. Her eyes narrowed like morning glories closing before the approaching dusk. “You always wheedle information out of people this way?”

He grinned, as if she’d discovered his secret. “I like finding things out about people, what makes them tick.” He tried to coax a little more out of her. “Helps pass the time. Everyone’s got a story to tell.”

“Well, mine’s over right now.” Glancing at her watch, she took in the time. They’d already been here over an hour. Maren took her cell phone from her pocket. “I’d better call and tell Max to be on the lookout for the wine delivery.”

A short, dark-haired man wearing nurse’s scrubs looked at her reprovingly as he was about to exit the room. “I’m sorry but you can’t use that in here.” He nodded at her open cell phone. “It interferes with some of the equipment.”

Maren sighed as she flipped the cell closed. Dropping it into her purse, she looked around the area. “Is there a pay phone around here?”

“Right outside those doors.” The nurse pointed toward the ones leading into the main wing of the hospital. Turning back, the man paused to look at Jared. His eyes narrowed as he studied his face. It was obvious that he was trying to place him. “Excuse me, do I know you?”

Everything inside Jared went on high alert, although he made sure that his anxiety didn’t register on his face. Being under cover, he lived daily with the threat of being recognized, being exposed. Of having his cover blown.

The nurse had looked vaguely familiar. And then it hit him. The man had been on duty in the E.R. over at Aurora General the night he’d brought in his partner.

“Sorry.” Jared shrugged casually. “But I don’t think so.”

But the nurse wasn’t ready to retract his question just yet. The man looked at him intently. “You sure?”

“Positive. You must be thinking of someone else.” Aware that Maren was listening, Jared kept his response friendly, low-keyed. “I just moved here a few weeks ago.”

The nurse reluctantly accepted the disclaimer, but he still glanced at him over his shoulder one last time as he walked away.

Maren’s expression was difficult to fathom as he turned back to face her. “He sounded pretty convinced that he knew you.”

Jared laughed shortly, relieved that the man had stopped pressing. “I guess I’ve just got one of those faces people think they’ve see before.”

Maren’s eyes slowly washed over him. He could have sworn he felt the path they took. “Just your average Joe, huh?”

“Yeah.”

Not hardly, she thought. The average man was passable, not handsome, and Jared Stevens’s features were as close to godlike perfection as any she’d ever seen. She searched for a flaw, something that would render him less than perfect, and finally saw one. He had a tiny little scar at the corner of the left side of his mouth.

“Where did you get the scar?”

He didn’t know what she was talking about, only that when she moved around the room, he didn’t know which part of her was more lyrical, her swaying hips or her body in its entirety. Maybe she was involved with someone with underworld ties and that was what this was all about, he thought.

He found he didn’t really like that theory. For a number of reasons. “What?”

“Your scar. This one.” She lightly touched the corner of his mouth. Their eyes met and held for a second. Maren felt something shimmy up her spine, dragging a torch as it went. Momentarily self-conscious, she dropped her hand to her side. “Sorry, none of my business. I’ve got a call to make.” She began digging in her purse for change.

“April’s parents might want a heads up.” Jared handed her a couple of quarters he found in his pocket. “Here.”

“Thanks. And April’s parents live back east. No sense in calling them until it’s over. They can’t do anything three thousand miles way.” She began to walk toward the double doors. “I’ll only be a minute.”

“It was a cat.” Her hand on the double doors, she was about to push them open when he mentioned the feline. “The scar.” He came toward her. “I was on the floor, playing with my mother’s cat, baiting it with some yarn. The cat batted at it, caught my lip with her claw.”

Maren cringed slightly, as if she could feel the blow. “Ouch.”

He laughed at the empathy he saw there. “I believe I said something a little more forceful than that.”

She felt bad about asking. “It’s hardly noticeable, you know. The scar.”

His lips twitched in a smile he didn’t bother suppressing. “You noticed.”

She paused a moment, debating just how honest to be. She decided there was nothing to risk. “I was looking for imperfections.”

His eyebrows pulled together quizzically in confusion. “Why?”

Because she didn’t want him perfect. Not if they were going to work together. Perfect was a place for people like Kirk to reside. “It’s what makes us all human.” The words hung in the air as she went to make her phone call.

“I’m not good at waiting,” Maren said when he mutely raised his eyes toward her. Three other people had come and gone, and they were still waiting to hear how April was doing. In the background, a talk show had given way to a soap opera whose dialogue she was attempting to block. “I always have to know things. Now.”

They had that in common, Jared mused. What else did they have in common? He dropped the magazine he was pretending to read on the chair beside him. It slipped on his apron and slid to the floor. Jared bent to pick it up and this time, tossed it on the small table where the other magazines were sitting.

“Why don’t you go back to the restaurant?” he suggested. “No point in both of us waiting around.”

If she drove off, that would leave him stranded. “How will you get back?”

“I’ll get a cab.”

“Why would you do that? Wait here to find out how she’s doing?” Maren was trying to understand, but unless she was missing something, it didn’t make any sense to her. “You don’t even know her. April’s my responsibility.”

Despite her innocent appearance, the lady was highly suspicious, he decided. “She looked afraid. I felt bad for her. You’ve got the restaurant to run. This is just my first day, how indispensable could I be? You, on the other hand, are very indispensable.”

It made sense, she supposed. She was surprised he saw things in that light. “Do you always know the right thing to say?”

He shrugged casually, playing a part, although he did pride himself on having a knack of knowing what people wanted to hear. When he was growing up, his father had said more than once that he sincerely hoped his middle son would go into law enforcement. Otherwise, the life of a con artist seemed inevitable for his quick-witted progeny. “I just say what I feel.”

“Uh-huh.” The man was too good to be true, Maren thought. And she knew all about men like that. If they seemed to be too good to be true, then they weren’t good at all.

She had the scars to prove it.

Not like the one on his mouth, where anyone could see. But inside. On her soul. Scars that would never heal no matter how much time passed.

She was about to urge him to leave again when the inner doors of the emergency room opened. A tall, gray-haired man in green livery entered the waiting room and walked toward them. “Are you the ones who brought April Turner in?”

Jared was on his feet, crossing to the physician. Maren was right behind him. “Yes. How is she?” he asked before Maren had the chance.

“Very lucky.” There was sincerity in the doctor’s voice, devoid of any melodrama. “I’m Dr. Johnson. I was the one who operated on her. She could have easily lost that finger if you hadn’t acted so quickly. We managed to sew it back on. You got her here just in time.”

Jared grinned, knowing where to give credit. And how to work the scene. He looked at Maren. “You should see her drive.”

The remark had an extremely personal sound to it, Maren realized, as if they’d been friends for a long time instead of two people who hadn’t even known each other three days ago. She knew she should take offense at the tone, knew that there were extreme precautions to take against men who looked like Jared Stevens. And yet, at the same time, he sounded so genial that she found it difficult to erect the concrete barriers necessary to sustain her.

Not that she was a pushover in any sense of the word. Kirk had made her afraid to trust anyone, least of all a man who made words like “delicious” pop up in her head. For once the word wasn’t to describe anything that he might be able to whip up in the kitchen.

She had a hunch that the only ingredients involved in that sort of whipping were a male and a female.

“I’d like to keep her overnight,” the surgeon was saying, “just to be sure no infection sets in.” The doctor looked at Jared, as if he was the one to field his questions. “Ms. Turner said she didn’t know if that was covered by her policy—”

“It’s covered,” Maren injected. And even if it wasn’t, she thought, arrangements could be made. She and Papa Joe would put their heads together to come up with something. “Can we see her now?”

“She’s still sedated. I doubt if she’ll wake up for another half hour or so. She was so terrified, it seemed best to give her a general anesthetic rather than use a local,” he explained. He looked a little uncomfortable as he added, “If you wouldn’t mind stopping at the outpatient registration desk with her insurance information…”

Maren nodded. “No problem.”

Jared thanked the doctor then turned toward Maren. They started walking toward the registration desk that Dr. Johnson had pointed out. “I guess it’s a lucky thing I didn’t talk you into going back to the restaurant.” He held the door open for her. “I haven’t got a clue when it comes to insurance.”

Maren stepped through, nodding her thanks. She sincerely doubted that Jared Stevens was clueless on any subject.

Chapter 4

“I hear the new guy’s pretty resourceful.”

Maren had barely touched the doorknob before she heard the deep voice. She grinned as she entered the office she shared with her favorite person in the whole world.

As she opened the door Joe Collins turned to face her. It was the accountant’s first visit to the office in two days. Things never seemed quite right without him. In his later fifties, Joe still gave the impression of being larger than life. His very presence filled up a room for her, the way it had from the very beginning when he had been her entire world.

She owed him everything.

Maren paused to kiss his cheek before tossing her purse onto her desk and stripping off her jacket. “Nobody told me you were coming in today.”

“I sneaked in like the wind,” he said, winking.

After hanging up her jacket, she pulled her chair away from the desk and sat down. Slowly she felt the tension leach from her body, the way it always did whenever Papa Joe was around. He made her feel that everything was going to be all right, as long as he was close by.

“The wind, huh?” She raised one amused eyebrow. “Then how did you hear about the new guy?”

“Wind with ears?”

His big, booming laugh wrapped itself around her, just as his arms had all those years ago when he had taken her home from the hospital. From the hospital and into his heart and life. He’d saved her from a system that could have very easily stripped her soul if she’d been placed with the wrong people. Or put her in one foster home after another.

She never tired of hearing the story, even though it had gone through many phases over the years. When she’d first asked the man she always thought of as her father why she didn’t have a mother when all the other girls in her kindergarten class had one, he’d told her that she was secretly a princess.

As she listened with wide eyes, he’d gone on to tell her that her mother had been a queen in a distant land. A queen who had saved her from a big, bad ogre, but she’d gotten mortally wounded in doing so. He was the knight who had come by, found her and slain the ogre. Maren remembered always applauding when he came to this part. The dying queen entrusted her infant daughter to him, making the knight pledge to guard her always.

Periodically, as she grew older and brought her questions to him, Papa Joe would revise the story, trimming away the fairy tale and replacing it with a little more of the truth. Then came the time when she’d turned thirteen. After he had swallowed his embarrassment and gone with her to purchase her very first bra, because she’d pressed so hard, he’d told her the complete truth.

Taking a shortcut through a dimly lit alley to his apartment one rainy night, he’d happened across a teenage prostitute named Glory just after she’d given birth. Her pulse was reedy and she’d lost a great deal of blood. He’d known she was dying. Without hesitation, he’d hailed a cab and taken both mother and child to the hospital. He’d left the complaining cabdriver with a huge tip.

But it had been too late for Glory. She’d lost too much blood and had died within the hour. Because there’d been some misunderstanding at the hospital, the attending physician and emergency room nurse had both thought that he was the newborn’s father. Something had stopped him from setting the record straight. Alone, with no family of his own, he’d impulsively gone along with the error.

“You wrapped your perfect little hand around my finger and I was just a goner,” he told her time and again. That part of the story never changed.

For three days, he’d come back to see the baby. On the fourth day, she’d been discharged into his care. He’d paid the medical bills out of his own pocket, making arrangements with the cashier to make monthly payments. And then he’d taken his new daughter home with him.

Papa Joe had also paid for her mother’s funeral. For three months after that, he’d tried to locate Glory’s family. Even hired a private investigator to look into the matter, all to no avail. After three months, he’d stopped holding his breath and finally given up. The baby he’d saved from suffering the same fate as her mother was his.

He’d called her Maren after his mother and given her the last name of “Minnesota” because that was the state they’d been living in when he’d found her. He’d given her her own last name so that she could always feel independent, even though he’d promised to always be there for her if she needed him.

She’d grown up adoring him.

For a second Maren leaned back in her chair, not realizing until this moment just how tired she actually was. But there was no time to kick back. The unexpected run to the E.R. had put her at least three hours behind in her work. There were phone calls to return and orders to place if the restaurant was to keep on running.

She addressed the question Papa Joe had first posed. “The new guy’s cool under fire.”

Saving the figures he’d just input, he studied his adopted daughter’s face as he asked, “Speaking of which, I hear he put out a grease fire yesterday. What was that all about?”

She’d looked into the fire mishap as thoroughly as she could and had drawn a conclusion she didn’t intend to repeat to either restaurant owner, Shepherd or Rineholdt. Although it was the former who was most likely to show up. To her knowledge, Rineholdt had never put in an appearance, either here or at the other branch of the restaurant. He was the epitome of a silent partner, which was fine with her. Over the years she’d come to think of the restaurant as hers to run. Hers to make thrive. She thought of it as a living entity.

“That was just Max being careless.” He had been the one who’d left the oil standing next to Rachel’s elbow.

Joe frowned. Maren had too soft a heart despite the tough-as-nails image she attempted to project. “You’re going to have to have a talk with that man.”

“Already done,” she responded crisply. The man had been warned and had promised to be more careful in the future.

Going into the desktop, she pulled up the software program she needed.

Both she and Joe knew that the head chef hated being taken to task about anything. But the man knew better than to throw a fit or to threaten to leave Rainbow’s End. He was too afraid that he might be called on his threat and subsequently replaced. Maren had made it known that although she was easygoing, she suffered no prima donnas at the restaurant. That was how Max had gotten promoted in the first place. The head chef before him had decided not to show up in protest over a raise he’d felt hadn’t adequately reflected his talents. A severance package had been her answer to his attempt at blackmail.

“Okay.” Joe nodded. “That explains yesterday, what happened this morning?”

“April got carried away with the chopping knife. Severed her index finger.” Maren closed her eyes for a second without realizing it. Just talking about it sent a shiver down her spine.

“Ouch.” Joe pretended to shake in response. “She okay?”

Maren nodded. It was accompanied by a half-muffled sigh. “According to the doctor who treated her, we got her to the hospital just in time. He says that she should be good as new. Thanks to ‘the new guy.’” She smiled as she used the term. “He took over. Wrapped up April’s wound, barked at me to put the finger in a bag packed with ice and we took off.”

“Where was Max all this time?”

“Over in a corner, turning white as a sheet and looking as if he was going to throw up his breakfast.”

Joe’s expression indicated that he would have expected nothing more from the head chef. “Good thing you hired this guy. Looks like he’s going to come in handy for more reasons than one.”

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