This Is Insane...I Can’t Marry Wild Jed Ryder, Letter to Reader Title Page About the Author Dedication Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Copyright

This Is Insane...I Can’t Marry Wild Jed Ryder,

Adora Beaudine thought. Until forty-eight hours ago, I hardly knew the man. And he’s nothing like my dreams of who I’d marry....

But if she didn’t marry him, he’d lose custody of his little sister. And Adora really did believe that would be wrong. So very wrong.

Jed seemed to read her indecision in her eyes. “Never mind. It’s a bad idea. Forget it.”

“No.” She went to him, in the shadows, lifting a hand and clasping his shoulder. She felt like a child on a dare, holding her palm over a flame. She would be burned—and yet nothing seemed so urgent as that she not let go....

Dear Reader,

LET’S CELEBRATE FIFTEEN YEARS

OF SILHOUETTE DESIRE...

with some of your favorite authors and new stars of tomorrow.

For the next three months, we present a spectacular lineup

of unforgettably romantic love stories—led by three

MAN OF THE MONTH titles.

In October, Diana Palmer returns to Desire with

The Patient Nurse, which features an unforgettable hero.

Next month, Ann Major continues her bestselling CHILDREN

OF DESTINY series with Nobody’s Child. And in December,

Dixie Browning brings us her special brand of romantic

charm in Look What the Stork Brought.

But Desire is not only MAN OF THE MONTH! It’s new

love stories from talented authors Christine Rimmer,

Helen R. Myers, Raye Morgan, Metsy Hingle and new star

Katherine Garbera in October.

In November, don’t miss sensuous surprises from BJ James,

Lass Small, Susan Crosby, Eileen Wilks and Shawna Delacorte.

And December will be filled with Christmas cheer from

Maureen Child, Kathryn Jensen, Christine Pacheco,

Anne Eames and Barbara McMahon.

Remember, here at Desire we’ve been committed to bringing

you the very best in unforgettable romance and sizzling

sensuality. And to add to the excitement of fifteen wonderful

years, we offer the chance for you to win some wonderful

prizes. Look in the pages at the end of the book for details.

And may we have many more years of happy reading together!

Senior Editor

Please address questions and book requests to:

Silhouette Reader Service

U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269

Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3

The Midnight Rider Takes A Bride

Christine Rimmer

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHRISTINE RIMMER

is a third-generation Californian who came to her profession the long way around. Before settling down to write about the magic of romance, she’d been an actress, a salesclerk, a janitor, a model, a phone sales representative, a teacher, a waitress, a playwright and an office manager. Now that she’s finally found work that suits her perfectly, she insists she never had a problem keeping a job—she was merely gaining “life experience” for her future as a novelist. Those who know her best withhold comment when she makes such claims; they are grateful that she’s at last found steady work. Christine is grateful, too—not only for the joy she finds in writing, but for what waits when the day’s work is through: a man she loves who loves her right back and the privilege of watching their children grow and change day to day.

THANKS...

To everyone at the Child Protective Services offices in

both Sierra and Plumas Counties, as well as to

Dan Geffner, Deputy Public Defender in Nevada County.

You all have answered my endless questions so patiently

and I sincerely appreciate your helpfulness.

One

“Honey, all I’m saying is I hope you’re not just sitting alone feeling sorry for yourself.”

Adora Beaudine tucked the phone beneath her chin and then carefully, quietly, blotted her streaming eyes and swiped at her running nose. Yes, she was feeling sorry for herself. But that didn’t mean her mother had to know.

“Honey, are you there?”

Adora brought the receiver near her mouth again. “Yes, Mom. I’m here.”

“Are you all right? You sound so strange, dear.”

Adora felt a sob bubbling up. Quickly, she turned to the base of the phone that hung on the wall right behind her and punched the mute button. Then she blew her nose. Then, ignoring the champagne flute in front of her, she reached for the bottle that waited at her elbow and took a long swig.

It tasted lovely, all popping and sparkly, going down. And it should. It was good champagne: Möet & Chandon. Adora had bought it last fall, along with a pair of crystal champagne flutes, right after she’d met Farley Underwood—the rotten, dirty creep. She’d bought it because she’d been utterly certain that one day soon Farley would pop the question. She had pictured them celebrating their engagement with champagne.

But Farley had never popped the question. And now the rat was long gone. And as a birthday present to herself, Adora intended to drink up the evidence of her own folly. Moreover, once she’d emptied the bottle, she meant to smash it—along with both of the crystal flutes.

“Adora? Adora...” The voice on the other end of the line had acquired a frantic edge.

Adora turned and gave the mute button a second poke. “I think the connection was bad there for a minute, don’t you, Mom?”

“Oh, was that it?”

“Seemed like it to me.”

“Well, all I’m telling you is I just don’t want you to get bitter. Thirty-five isn’t that old. I just know this will be the year that you find the right man for you.”

Adora had to gulp down another self-pitying sob. Every August eighth for about a decade now, her mother had been telling her that this year she would find “the right man for her.”

Her mother went on. “And you know that your family loves you and that we’d all be there for your special day if we could. But your sisters do have their own families to think of now. And Bob and I, well, we’ve been so terribly busy lately.” Bob Shanahan was Lottie Beaudine Shanahan’s second husband. Bob had met the widow Beaudine at a Bingo game three and a half years ago. They’d married a few months after that. “We’re redoing the house, did I tell you?”

At her mother’s mention of redecorating, Adora cast a melancholy glance around the small, bright kitchen where she sat. Farley had taken a hike seven months ago. Since then, to keep depression at bay, Adora had done some redecorating of her own. The old-fashioned cabinets were now a soft white and there were cheery fruits and vegetables stenciled along the ceiling line. It was charming. But it didn’t help much. Charming kitchens were supposed to have kids in them. And husbands asking “What’s for dinner, hon?”

“Adora. Are you there?”

“Yes, Mom. Of course I’m here. And you did tell me you’d been redoing the house.”

“The living area is finished. I wish you could see it. All blues and mauves. So soft and inviting. Stylish, yet livable. Bob just loves it....”

Lottie prattled on, about Bob and their four-bedroom, passive-solar house in Tucson and the wonderful, creative things they’d done with the interior. Shamelessly Adora tuned her out. She poured herself a little more champagne, drank it between the “Ums?” and “Ummhmms” that her mother’s monologue required of her, and carefully continued blotting away the stubborn tears that kept leaking from the corners of her eyes.

“And I wish you could see the master bath. Shell pink and pale green. Gold tone fixtures. It’s a treat to take a shower....”

From outside on Bridge Street, Adora heard the hard, heavy drone of a big engine—a motorcycle or a souped-up sports car, probably. She listened as it turned into the driveway beside her building, rolled under her kitchen window and stopped in the parking lot out back. Adora shrugged. Her hairdressing salon downstairs, the Shear Elegance, was closed for the rest of the day. If someone wanted to use one of her parking spaces for a few hours, she supposed it wouldn’t hurt anything.

“And I sent you a little something special. Did you get it yet?”

That required actual words for an answer. Adora mustered them. “No, Mom. Not yet.”

“Do you have a summer cold or something, Adora? Your nose sounds stuffed up.”

Adora went ahead and honked good and loud into her soggy tissue. “Yes, Mom. Now you mention it, I have been fighting a cold.”

“Oh, honey. Take care of yourself.”

“I will.”

Right then, someone knocked at the door on the other side of the room. The door led out to a tiny landing and down a narrow set of stairs to the parking lot and also to the back entrance of the Shear Elegance.

“Get some of that nighttime cold medicine,” Lottie was suggesting. “The lemony kind you add to hot water. I think it works just great. Bob had a cold last week and I—”

“Listen, Mom. There’s someone at the door. I have to go.”

“But, Adora—”

“Really. Gotta go.”

“Now you call me, when you get that package....”

“I will. Love you.” Adora twisted in her chair to hook the phone back in its cradle. Then she faced front with a sigh and picked up her glass of champagne.

There was a second knock at the door.

Adora sipped slowly, looking at the door, thinking that maybe she wouldn’t bother to answer it, after all. She knew who it would be: Lizzie Spooner, her best pal. Lizzie had said she’d be over as soon as she finished her shift at the Superserve Mart. Adora thought the world of Lizzie, but right now she didn’t feel like dealing with anyone. She set down her glass. And then, to take her mind off answering the door, she picked up the champagne bottle and began reading the back label.

But then the knock came for a third time, louder and more insistent than before. With another mournful little sigh, Adora rose and went to the door.

She started talking before she even had it all the way open. “Listen, Lizzie, I don’t really feel like—” The sentence died in her throat, because it wasn’t Lizzie after all.

It was Jed Ryder, whose mother, Lola Pierce, was Adora’s single employee at the Shear Elegance downstairs. Adora remembered the loud, pounding sound of that engine she’d heard moments ago and realized it must have been Jed’s Harley.

“Oh. Hi.” Adora swiped a tear from her cheek and tried a friendly smile.

Jed didn’t smile back. And she couldn’t see his eyes, because he was wearing a pair of wraparound, black-lensed sunglasses. As always, he looked like the basic definition of the word dangerous, dressed in denim and leather, with all that black hair streaming around his massive shoulders and that single diamond stud he always wore glittering in his right ear.

He spoke at last, in that low, eerily gentle voice of his. “Sorry to bother you. But I called the shop downstairs and got no answer.”

“I closed up early.”

Though she couldn’t be sure with those dark shades hiding his eyes, he seemed to be looking at her strangely. Maybe he was wondering about the tear streaks on her cheeks, her runny nose—and the champagne bottle she still clutched in her hand.

He asked in that careful, quiet way of his, “Listen, are you all right?”

“Sure. I’m great. Just terrific.” She stuck the bottle under her arm and dug a rumpled tissue from the front pocket of her shorts. Then she wiped her eyes and blew her nose, bending to the side a little, to keep from dropping the champagne.

When she stopped blowing and looked at him again, Jed Ryder had shoved his hands into the pockets of his tight, worn-out jeans. He’d turned his head away, toward the parking lot. And he was actually shuffling his feet in their heavy, black biker boots.

Why, I’ve made him nervous, she thought.

Adora swiped once more at her nose with a dry corner of the tissue—and hid a smile. To the bikers who sometimes hung out over at the local tavern, Jed was nothing short of a legend. They called him the Midnight Rider. He was a loner and a maverick, even among their kind. A man to be shown respect, a force to be reckoned with.

But he obviously didn’t have a clue about how to handle a crying woman.

Adora found the thought that she made him uncomfortable reassuring. It occurred to her that there was no reason in the world why they had to stand here with the door open to talk. She should let him in.

In response to that idea, she heard her mother’s voice, clear as a bell, chiming inside her head: Adora Sharleen, don’t you dare let that Hell’s Angel inside your home.

Adora tucked the tissue away and got a firm grip on the neck of the champagne bottle. Then she stepped back. “Come on in, why don’t you?”

At first he didn’t move, except to cant his head sideways as if smelling a trap. She felt certain he would refuse her invitation. But then he shrugged and crossed the threshold. Once inside, he stood looking around cautiously, like a wild animal that had been brought indoors—a careful wild animal, one who suspected he’d made an error to let himself be confined in so small a space.

Adora shut the door, then gestured at her Country French oak table and the four matching chairs around it. “Have a seat.”

He shook his head. “I’m just looking for Ma, that’s all. I thought maybe you’d know where she is.”

“No, I haven’t seen her since around one.” Adora slid around him and went to a cupboard near the sink. “We had nothing booked for the rest of the day, so I just sent her on home.” She spoke over her shoulder as she brought down that other champagne flute, which she filled from the bottle in her hand. Then, feeling naughty, daring and defiant, she turned and held the flute out to him. “Champagne?”

He stood very still. Since the shades masked his eyes and the rest of his face bore no discernable expression, she hadn’t a clue as to what he might be thinking. He just looked at her. Or at least, she assumed he was looking at her. For a very long time.

In the end she couldn’t stand the silence. Her lip started quivering. She bit it to make it be still and thrust the glass in his direction once more. “Please. Take it.”

“Why?”

“We’ll have a toast.”

One black eyebrow arched up a fraction from behind the mask of the sunglasses. “To what?”

“To...the single life.”

He grunted. “What’s so great about bein’ single?”

The feeling of naughty defiance had evaporated as swiftly as it had come. Now she felt lousy again, about her life and herself—about everything. She also felt just reckless enough to tell him the truth.

“There is nothing great about being single. But maybe if I make a toast to it, I can convince myself not to hate it so much.”

His full-lipped mouth, which was surrounded by a well-trimmed and rather soft-looking beard, quirked up just a little at both corners. He peeled off his shades and hooked them on one of the pockets of the black leather vest he wore.

For what seemed like the first time, she met his eyes. They were a beautiful silvery-gray, and startling in contrast to his raven black hair.

He was definitely smiling now. “Bad day, huh?”

The laugh that escaped her came perilously close to being a sob. “Bad isn’t a strong enough word.”

His smile faded. He just waited—for her to go on, she supposed.

So she did. “It’s my birthday.”

“How old?”

This time her laugh was more of a snort. “Is that any kind of question to ask a woman?”

He started to smile again. “Probably not. As I remember it, you were a few years ahead of me in school.”

“Oh. right. Rub it in.”

“How old?”

She gave in and confessed, “Thirty-five.”

He continued to study her.

She glanced down at the flute she still held. “Look. If you’re not going to drink this—”

“Hell.” In two steps he stood just inches away. He lifted the glass from her hand.

She blinked and stared up at him. He really was an imposing man, especially this close up. His shoulders went on for days. And from the torn-off sleeves of his denim shirt, his massive arms emerged thick and hard as slabs of granite. Over the shirt, he wore that black leather vest with a thousand zippers and pockets on it. His belt and his boots were of black leather, too. And he also wore fingerless black leather riding gloves. Adora thought she could smell all that leather—which was odd. A moment ago she couldn’t have smelled anything; her nose had been plugged solid due to her birthday crying jag.

But Jed Ryder seemed to be the kind of guy who could clear out a woman’s sinuses just by stepping up good and close.

A silver cross gleamed on the wedge of sculpted chest between the top two buttons of his shirt. Adora stared at that cross, thinking that she should probably be frightened, here alone with him in her apartment. But he didn’t scare her. Maybe because she knew his mother so well, and knew how Lola loved him and counted on him. Or maybe because of Tiffany, his much-younger half-sister. Tiff adored Jed.

Really, who could say why he didn’t scare her? He just didn’t. Not at all.

He watched her look at him. Then he held out the champagne he’d just taken from her. “Where’s yours?” She gestured toward the table behind him. He turned around and scooped up her flute. After handing it to her, he raised his high. “Here’s to you. Happy damn birthday, Adora Beaudine.”

“Thank you, Jed Ryder.” They drank at the same time, not stopping until both of their glasses were empty.

He held out his glass to her, and Adora obligingly refilled it all the way to the rim. Then she poured more for herself as well.

He proposed a second toast. “And here’s to you find-in’ whatever you’re looking for.” He waited for her to drink with him.

She decided to provide a few specifics first. “A good-looking, upscale kind of guy with a friendly attitude, a steady job and marriage on his mind would be nice.”

He actually chuckled at that. They drank again, to the bottom of their glasses, as they had before. She raised the bottle, offering another refill.

But when she tipped it over his glass, only a few drops came out. She made a small sound of regret, then suggested, “I think I have some brandy under the sink.”

He shook his head and backed up enough to set his glass on the table. “I gotta go.”

She made a tsking sound and shook her head. “Why did I know you’d say that?”

He looked at her in that studied, patient way of his.

She mentally counted to five, giving him a chance to say something. He didn’t, so she answered her own question. “I knew you would say that because it’s what men are always saying to me. ‘I gotta go.’ Or, ‘I really do have to go.’ Or, ‘Adora. Back off. I said I’m going now.’”

He was squinting at her a little, as if trying to figure her out. “Aw, come on. It can’t be that bad.”

“Sure, it can.” She turned and plunked the champagne bottle on the counter, then whirled back to face him. “I drive men away. I try too hard. Everybody in town knows it. No one’s ever going to marry me. I’m going to be single for the rest of my life.” She hadn’t set her glass down, so she gestured wildly with it. “All my sisters are married. My mother’s remarried. They’ve all moved away to other parts of California—or to Arizona, in my mother’s case. They’ve left me alone here in Red Dog City, with my beauty shop and my cute two-bedroom apartment and my simple little dreams of love and a family that are never going to come true. It’s pitiful. I’m pitiful.” She held out both arms then, and looked down at her body. “Just look at me.”

He said nothing, as usual. After a moment spent staring at her own pink blouse and flowered shorts, she raised her head and met those startling eyes that gleamed the same burnished silver as the cross around his neck. Something warm and sweet seemed to move inside her for a moment. But then, as swiftly as it had come, the sensation faded.

Adora gulped and told herself that it was nothing. Except possibly the effect of too much champagne.

The silence had gone on for way too long. She broke it. “Well, you had a nice, long look. Now tell me. What’s wrong with me?”

“There’s nothin’ wrong with you. You look fine.”

She glared at him, a glare that gradually turned to a glum frown as she realized that she was making a complete fool of herself. Again. She let her head fall back and stared at the ceiling with its darling little rim of marching fruits and vegetables. “Oh, what am I doing?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know.” She made herself lower her chin and look at him. “Dragging you in here. Making you drink champagne with me. Telling you things you don’t even want to know. I really do have ‘desperate woman’ written all over me.”

He looked uncomfortable. In a moment he’d be shuf fling those big, black boots. “Hey. It’s all right.”

“No, it’s not.” She leaned back against the counter and ran her finger around the rim of her glass. Then she looked up at him. “But you’re a gentleman to say so.”

He relaxed and chuckled for the second time, a low, purring growl of a sound.

She smiled in response. “Did I say something funny?”

“Not really. I just don’t get called a gentleman too often, that’s all.”

“Well, you should. ‘Cause you are.” She pushed away from the counter and stood up straight. “You said you can’t find Lola?”

“Yeah.”

“Tiff’s been with you?”

He nodded. “We went camping over the weekend.”

“That’s right, Lola said you two had taken off together. And we missed Tiff at the shop today.”

Tiff, who was eleven, liked to make herself at home in the shop downstairs, visiting with the customers, helping out with anything the adults would let her do. And some afternoons, when the workday was through, Tiff would come on upstairs. Adora always enjoyed those times. She had grown up with a houseful of sisters, after all. She liked having other females around. Tiff would help Adora with her various decorating projects. They’d drink lemonade. Sometimes Adora would do Tiff’s hair. And other days they’d just lie around watching “Oprah” in companionable silence.

Adora asked, “So is Tiff around the corner now?”

“Yeah.” Lola and Tiff lived in the small house Jed had bought for them, around the corner from Adora’s, on Church Street. “I left her snoozin’ on the couch. Poor kid’s beat. We hiked all the way to Crystal Falls yesterday and didn’t get back to my place until late. Then I had work to do this morning, so Tiff hung around the cabin until I could run her into town.” Jed owned a machine shop out on Jackson Pike Road and lived in a cabin right next to it. “Now I gotta get back to check on things at the shop. But I don’t want to leave Tiff alone without knowing where Ma’s off to.”

“You know, before she left today, Lola mentioned that the blackberries are ripe down by Trout Creek. She said that Tiff just loves blackberry pie.”

He lifted his shades from where they hung on his vest. “Thanks. I’ll check down by the creek next.”

Adora watched him as he hid those beautiful eyes once more, remembering all the old rumors about him. He had been a wild boy, in trouble all the time.

And, of course, there had been the rape scandal all those years ago, when he’d been caught by Charity Laidlaw in her daughter’s bed. That had been an ugly mess, complicated even more by the fact that it had been a family matter; Charity Laidlaw’s brother had been Lola’s second husband—and Jed’s stepfather.

Dangerous, most folks in town called Jed. Dangerous and bad.

But no matter what they all said, Jed Ryder was kind at heart to listen so patiently to her self-pitying babble the way he had. And he was so conscientious about his family....

Adora heard herself asking, “You know where the best berries are along Trout Creek?” He shook his head. She set down her empty champagne glass. “Come on, then. I’ll show you.”

That huge, gleaming chopper of his was waiting, right where she thought it would be, down in the small parking lot behind her shop.

Jed reached for his helmet when they stood beside the thing. “Get on.”

Adora took in a long breath. Yes, she knew for sure now that dangerous Jed Ryder was really a very nice man. But that didn’t mean she’d let herself be seen on the back of his Harley. In a small town, word got around. And she could do without rumors about the two of them.

“No. I, um, don’t have a helmet.” She could feel his eyes on her behind the shades and sensed that he knew the real reason she wouldn’t ride with him. But he didn’t say a word.

“We can walk,” she added hastily, not quite daring to look straight at him. “The creek isn’t far. And you couldn’t take the bike on the trail, anyway. Come on.” She started off, and felt a vague sense relief when he fell in step beside her.

They strolled between her building and the next one over, which housed Denita’s Donuts. When they reached the sidewalk, they headed north on Bridge Street, past Church Street and on up to River Street, where they turned right. Once around the corner, they left the shops and stores behind. Wood frame houses, most of them two stories high, lined either side of the street.

In the middle of the block they came to the one-lane bridge that crossed Trout Creek. Adora led the way down the bank to creekside.

The day was cool for August, and in the shade of all the close-growing trees, with the creek bubbling along nearby, it should have been cooler still. But to Adora, the water and all the greenery seemed to make the air uncomfortably moist. Her hair clung to her temples and felt clammy on the back of her neck. They hadn’t gone far along the trail when she stopped and began searching her pockets.

“Gotta do something about my hair,” she muttered apologetically. “Ah-ha.” She came up with a pink ribbon. Swiftly, she tied up her shoulder-length brown curls into a high ponytail. “There. That’s better.”

Jed Ryder said nothing, only waited patiently until she was ready to move on.

A few minutes later the trail cut up the hillside for quite a long stretch. Though it was rugged going, Adora remembered her manners and never let the branches of dogwood or mountain laurel snap back at the man behind her. Periodically they would stop and call Lola’s name. They got no answer.

At last the trail peaked and headed down once more. At the top, panting from the climb, Adora turned back to Jed with a smile. “It’s not far now.”

Unfortunately she started walking before she bothered to look ahead. On the first step she tripped on an exposed tree root. With a little squeal of alarm, she went flying. Seconds later she landed on her backside in the dirt.

Jed was there immediately, kneeling, taking off his shades and hooking them on his vest. “You okay?”

She groaned. “I’m going to be black-and-blue where the sun don’t shine. But I’ll survive.” She rolled to one side and rubbed the sore place gently. “Ouch. One of these days I’ll learn to pay more attention to where I...”

He was watching her, silent as ever, sort of half smiling. She breathed the end of her sentence, barely giving it sound. “...put my feet.”

And then words deserted her. And she could have cared less. There was too much going on for her to think about talking.

All at once the air had grown hotter, sweeter, closer. And Jed seemed to... fill up the world. She could smell leather and dust. And she couldn’t help noticing the sheen of sweat on his skin. She wanted to reach out her hand and feel his beard, to find out if it was as soft as it looked. To put out her tongue and taste his sweat...

Adora hitched in a tiny gasp. She couldn’t believe her own thoughts. Such thoughts weren’t like her at all. She’d never had any interest in that sort of thing. Oh, sure, she’d had a lot of boyfriends in all her years of trying to snare herself a husband. But she’d never gone to bed with any of them. Until Farley Underwood—the weasel. And Farley had made a special point of telling her before he left her what a big, fat zero she had been in that department.

And she supposed if she wanted to go ahead and be depressingly honest, that Farley had been right. She’d wanted to be good at sex. Because it seemed to be something that a well-rounded woman ought to be good at. And she’d tried her best to convince both Farley and herself that she’d enjoyed making love.

But she hadn’t. Not at all. There had just been too much sweating involved—not to mention those unpleasant noises that Farley would make. Yuck. Sometimes the only way to get through it had been to imagine the clever things she could do with window treatments once they were married and had their first house. Or to try to decide whether or not it would be pretentious to monogram their towels.

But right then she could have cared less about window treatments. And monograms were the last thing on her mind. Right then her own sweat felt erotic. And Jed Ryder’s sweat looked delicious. And even the air seemed, somehow, to be humming in a way that set every nerve she had singing. Her body felt heavy. And yet quick and ready at the same time.

It was not yucky. Not yucky at all.

It must be the champagne.

But she knew that it wasn’t. The trek along the trail had banished the glow she’d felt back at her apartment. She was now plain sober. As well as sexually aroused.

Jed said, “Come on.” He continued to smile, and he looked right into her eyes. “Let’s see if you can stand up.” He held out his hand.

Adora took it. He had never removed the fingerless black gloves, so all at once her hand was engulfed in leather and heat. Her whole body seemed to tingle, from the moist skin at her hairline to the pink-enameled toes inside her pink tennis shoes. With a small groan at the effort, she stood.

“Okay?” he asked softly.

She coughed—and ordered herself to pull it together. “Sure. Fine, just fine.” ,

He released her hand. Smiling like an idiot, she brushed off the back of her shorts. He gestured for her to take the lead, so she did.

They started down the trail. Right away she wished she’d let him go first. Her bottom felt numb, and her insides quivered like jelly. It took all the concentration she could muster to walk with some degree of dignity.

They went on as before, not saying anything. And with the silence between them, the wild sounds all around seemed suddenly magnified. From the rude call of a mockingbird to the croaking of the creek frogs, every sound had a sensual intent. Even the buzzing of the honeybees that swarmed the blackberry bushes on either side of the trail struck her as louder, more intense somehow.

Which was ridiculous. The bees were not buzzing any louder than before. It was just her imagination. And nothing had happened between her and Jed Ryder. She’d fallen on the trail and he’d helped her to her feet. End of story.

Now they would find Lola and go their separate ways. And the next time she saw him, she’d smile politely, say hello and walk on by.

The path had leveled out, and they were very near the creek. Then they rounded a sharp bend in the trail. It took Adora a minute to realize what she saw on the ground ahead of her. A woman lay there, on her back, in the arching shadow of a birch tree.

It was Lola.

Two

She lay faceup, with her eyes closed. Adora thought that she looked peaceful, except for the bloodless pallor of her skin. A dented tin pail had rolled a few feet away from her, spilling a shiny trail of blackberries out across the ground.

“God. Ma...” The gentle voice wasn’t much above a whisper, but Adora’s heart stopped at the anguish in it.

He shoved around her, ran to Lola, dropped to his knees at her side. “Ma...” Frantically he felt for a pulse. “Ma. Come on, Ma...” He tipped her head back, checked beyond her pale lips for any obstruction and then began to breath into her mouth.

Adora stood rooted to the spot, feeling outside her own body somehow. As if she weren’t really there. As if the desperate man kneeling on the ground wasn’t Jed Ryder. And the still form of the woman wasn’t anyone she knew.

Because that pale, lifeless figure just couldn’t be Lola. Not Lola, who worked for her. Lola, with her scratchy voice and dry sense of humor. Lola, who took care of all the older ladies on Senior Citizen Discount Day, who was so funny and patient with them, giving them the same boring cuts every time and never getting fed up because they wouldn’t even spring for a set or a blow-dry.

Jed looked up at her. Now he was calm. A terrible calm.

“Jed?” she asked, hoping for reassurance, hoping he would tell her that Lola wasn’t really dead.

“Get help,” he said in a whisper that rang in her ears like a shout. “Run like hell.”

And she did. She turned and ran back the way they’d come. She tore along that trail, shoving branches aside, scrambling upward when the trail climbed, half sliding. half running when the trail cut downhill. Each breath burned in her lungs, and her blood pounded so loud through her body that she could hear nothing else. She stumbled often but somehow managed to keep herself from actually falling.

The going got easier once she staggered up the bank that led to the bridge. From there, she ran on pavement, which wasn’t nearly as tough as running on the rocky, uneven trail. She tore down the street as fast as her shaking legs would carry her, her heart working so hard it felt as if it might explode in her chest.

Tilly Simpson, who worked as Doc Mott’s assistant, nurse and EMT combined, was standing behind the little counter on one side of the waiting room when Adora burst in the door of the clinic.

Tilly’s mouth dropped open.

Adora pressed a hand to her side, gulping for breath, noticing distantly that there were no patients waiting. The big clock on the fake-wood-paneled wall between the two Norman Rockwell prints said it was 2:39.

Tilly started sputtering. “Adora, what—?”

“It’s Lola,” Adora got out between starving gulps for air, “Lola Pierce. Down the Trout Creek Trail. Oh Tilly, I think she’s dead.”

They allowed Adora to ride in the ambulance, a very short ride, down the street and around the corner with the siren blaring. And then they let her carry the lightweight, roll-up stretcher, since both the doctor and Tilly had plenty to carry themselves. They tore down the bank to creekside as fast as they could go. But they weren’t more than a few hundred yards along the trail when Jed came loping toward them with Lola’s lifeless body cradled in his arms—and desolation in his eyes.

A few minutes later, right there on the trail, Doc Mott pronounced Lola dead. He looked at Jed with weary regret. “It was a stroke, I think. Or possibly a heart attack. There’ll be an autopsy. And then we can be sure.”

Jed said nothing, only nodded. They’d already laid Lola on the stretcher. Doc Mott took one end, and Jed took the other.

A small crowd had gathered near the ambulance when Jed and Doc Mott reached the top of the bank. Carefully, the two men hoisted their unmoving burden over the low railing onto the bridge. Adora and Tilly followed close behind, laden with the equipment that, in the end, had been of no use.

“Stand back, folks,” Doc Mott said, as they put Lola on the cot in the back of the ambulance. “Please, folks. Stand back.”

Adora could hear them whispering.

“It’s Lola. Lola Pierce.”

“Gone?”

“Yeah, it sure looks like it.”

Deputy Don Peebles, whom Adora had known since grade school, had just emerged from his big, sheriff’s office four-by-four. “What’s the story here. Doc?”

“Lola Pierce has died.”

“Of what?”

“I can’t say for sure at this point. Looks like a stroke or a heart attack. The autopsy will tell us more.” Doc Mott closed the double doors on Lola’s still form.

“Who found the body?”

“Jed here.” Doc Mott nodded in Jed’s direction. “And Adora Beaudine.”

Don turned to Jed. “I’ll have a few questions for you, Ryder.” He looked for and found Adora. “And you too, Dory.”

“You can ask your questions later,” Jed said. “I gotta get to my sister.”

“I’ll ask my questions now.” Don spoke in a tone of unyielding authority.

Adora stepped up. “Can you make it quick, Don? Please? Tiff’s only eleven. Jed should be with her.”

Don shook his head. “I’ve got a job to do. Dory. Now both of you just move over there, beside my vehicle.”

Adora glanced at Jed, whose jaw seemed set in concrete; he looked as if he had no intention of following Deputy Don’s orders. Just what he needs right now, she thought grimly. To get in trouble with the law.

“Come on, Jed,” she coaxed.

He didn’t budge. So she grabbed his huge, hard arm and pulled on it until he went with her to where Don had pointed.

The deputy was already turning, assuming responsibility for crowd control. “All right now, folks. You’ll have to step away from the ambulance. Tilly’s ready to move out.” He gave a quick salute to Tilly as she climbed into the cab on the driver’s side.

Doc Mott came over to Jed and Adora. He spoke quietly to Jed. “We’ll be taking your mom back to the clinic. From there, she’ll go to Reno, where the Washoe County Coroner will handle the autopsy. The whole procedure could take anywhere from twenty-four hours to a few days. You’ll want to have chosen a funeral home by the time they release the body.”

“Okay.”

The doc glanced toward the ambulance where Tilly was waiting for him, and then turned back to Jed. “Folks in town know you treated your mom right, Jed. And it is important that you be with your sister now. I’ll tell Don to make it snappy.”

“Thanks,” Jed muttered.

“No problem.” After sharing a few quiet words with the deputy; Doc Mott got in the ambulance, and Tilly carefully steered it out onto the small bridge. Moments later, the big white van disappeared, turning left onto Buckland Avenue, headed back to the clinic.

Don instructed Adora to wait several yards away while he talked to Jed. And then he wouldn’t let Jed go until he’d heard Adora’s side of the story. He did make it reasonably quick, though. Within ten minutes of asking the first question, he was nodding at Jed, who leaned against the bridge railing, muscular arms crossed over his powerful chest, looking impatient and more dangerous than usual.

“Okay, you can go,” Don said. “You’ll be hearing from me again, as soon as we get the autopsy results.”

Jed dropped his crossed arms and straightened from the railing. Without a word he headed for home.

The crowd was breaking up, but the folks who still hung around watched Jed as he strode past them. Adora could see the sympathy in their eyes. But none of them said anything; none of them reached out. He was wild Jed Ryder, after all. And who could say what he might do?

Lizzie Spooner, who’d shown up a few minutes before and had been waiting patiently for Don to finish with Adora, now moved to her side. “You okay?”

Adora blinked and looked at her friend.

Lizzie frowned. “You look bad. Come on. I’ll take you back to your place. I was just over there, looking for you. I signed for a package. From your mother. A present, I’ll bet. Let’s go and—”

Jed was almost at the turn to Bridge Street by then. Adora realized she couldn’t just let him go. “Jed!”

Jed stopped. He turned. He hadn’t put those shades back on after she’d fallen on the trail, so she was able to meet his eyes. She saw willingness in them. If she wanted to go with him, to be there when he broke the awful news to Tiff, it was okay with him.

“Wait up!” she called. She felt Lizzie’s hand clutching her arm. She brushed it off. “Gotta go.”

“But, Dory....”

“I’ll call you.”

“I left the package on the back step.”

“Thanks. Later, really.” And she took off at a run.

Jed waited, but only until she caught up with him. And then he was moving again, walking fast.

“I want to get my bike.” They had reached the corner of Church and Bridge. “You go on over to the house.”

“Should I go in without you?”

He cast her a grim smile. “Walk slow. And I’ll beat you there.”

“Okay.”

He took off at a dead run. Adora turned the corner onto Church Street, walking slowly, as Jed had told her to, thinking about Tiffany, who was waiting for her mother to come home.

Jed parked his bike in the attached garage and he and Adora entered the trim wood frame cottage through the kitchen.

They went straight to the living room. There, the first thing Adora noticed was the scent of spiced apple potpourri. She spotted the source: a green glass bowl on a side table, filled with the stuff. Adora had made that potpourri herself.

And Lola had loved it. “It’s autumn and apple pie and my grandma huggin’ me, all just from a smell,” she had declared.

So of course Adora had given her some.

But she would never give her any again.

Blinking back tears, Adora looked around the tidy room, at silk freesias in a dimestore vase on a cheap veneer coffee table. At People magazines and Ladies’ Home Journals arranged in a fan. At the two slightly threadbare flowered easy chairs and the tan velour couch.

Tiff was asleep on that couch, curled up on her side, with one hand under her head and the other pressed against her heart. Her silky auburn hair, which Adora had cut into a cute little wedge for her, lay smooth and straight against her soft cheek. She was smiling a little, as if her dreams were sweet ones.

Looking at her, Adora just wanted to let her go right on sleeping. She glanced at Jed and thought he felt the same.

But then, as if she’d sensed them watching her, Tiff opened her eyes. For a moment she seemed dazed. Then her eyes cleared and her sleepy smile grew wider. She sat up and yawned.

“What’s up, guys?” She looked from Adora to her brother and back again. And her smile faded. Worry clouded her dark eyes. “What?”

Jed dropped to the couch beside her and wrapped one of those huge arms around her. “Tiff...” And that was all he seemed to be able to say.

Tiff nudged her shoulder against him, fond and impatient at the same time. “What?” She looked at Adora for an answer. “Dory, come on...”

Adora prayed for the right words to come to her.

Before they did, Jed said, “It’s Ma.”

Tiff turned to him. “Mom?”

Jed nodded.

Tiff worried her lower lip. “I don’t...um. What do you mean?”

Jed started to speak.

But before he could get a word out, Tiff went on, “It’s weird. I was just dreaming about Mom. She hugged me. She said never to forget how much she loves me. That’s kind of funny, huh? Like I could forget something like that. You know how she is, always grabbing me and kissin’ on me and saying I’m her precious baby girl. She looked...really peaceful in my dream. But her skin was too white, you know?”

Adora remembered Lola lying on the trail. Peaceful. And pale...

“Jed?” Tiff nudged him again. “Jed. What’s the matter?”

And somehow, he said it. “Tiff, something happened. Ma was picking berries. Down by Trout Creek. She had...a heart attack, or something. We’re not sure.”

Tiffany shook her head, her hair fanning out, then falling so prettily against her cheek. “A heart attack? Mom? No. There’s nothing wrong with Mom. Mom is fine. Mom is—” She ran out of words. She turned to Adora, her big brown eyes filling, her face going red. “Dory. Dory, what is he saying?”

Adora gulped, feeling answering tears rising, willing them down. “She’s gone, honey.”

Tiffany gulped in a breath. And then she let it out on a tight little moan. “No...”

Jed rubbed his eyes. “Aw, Tiff...”

Tiffany turned to him again, her soft lips quivering, but her chin held high. “Gone. You mean...dead?”

Jed only nodded.

“Mom?” she whispered. “Mom’s dead....”

And then, with a cry, she flung herself against her brother. She grabbed a handful of his black vest in each of her small fists, and she pressed her face against him, at that shining silver cross. “No,” she said softly.

“Yeah,” Jed whispered tack.

“No!”

This time, Jed said nothing.

But Tiffany couldn’t stop. “No,” she said. “No, no, no, no...” over and over, as if by saying it so many times, she might bring Lola back.

Soon enough, the nos became sobs. And the tears spilled over.

Adora stood there, feeling useless, aching for both of them, as Tiffany cried and Jed held her, rocking her like a baby, stroking the smooth red-brown cap of her hair.

Finally, Tiff calmed a little. She pulled away from Jed. Adora spotted a box of tissues on a side table. She went and got it. Tiff took a handful. She dried her eyes and blew her nose, hiccupping a little, trying to bear up.

Watching her, Adora couldn’t help recalling her own foolish, self-indulgent tears earlier that afternoon and feeling that her own problems weren’t much at all compared to this. She also wondered about the precious minutes she’d kept Jed in her apartment, listening to her woes and drinking champagne. Could those minutes have made a difference? If she’d told Jed right away about where Lola had gone, might they have found her in time to save her life?

Tiff blew her nose for the third time, then scooted over closer to Jed and patted the space where she’d been. “Sit by us, Dory. Please.”

Adora pushed her guilty thoughts away. Now wasn’t the time to ponder them. She sat next to Tiff. With a torn little sigh, Tiff leaned against her for a moment. Then she leaned the other way, against Jed, who wrapped an arm around her and rested his bearded chin on the crown of her head.

“What happened?” Tiff asked. And a sob escaped her. She pressed the back of her hand to her mouth, composing herself. Then she took a deep breath. “Please tell me. I want to know.”

Without going into too much detail, they told the sad story. Jed was explaining that it would be a day or two before they knew for sure why Lola had died, when they heard footsteps on the front walk. The curtains of the front window were open. From where he sat, Jed could see the porch and the steps leading up to it. He glanced out—and swore low, with feeling.

Tiff stared up at him. “Who is it?” She turned to look out the window, then moaned. “Oh, no.”

Adora turned to see, but the angle was wrong. Whoever it was had moved out of her line of vision and stood right at the door. The visitor knocked.

Jed pulled his sister just a little closer to his side and caught Adora’s eye. “Answer it, will you?”

“No!” Tiff sounded childish, even petulant suddenly, not at all like the incredibly gallant girl who had asked so bravely to be told how her mother had died.

But Jed was nodding grimly. “We’ll have to deal with her eventually. There’s no sense in trying to pretend we won’t.”

Tiff sniffed in outrage and whirled on Jed. “But—”

“Shh.” He smoothed her hair, then looked at Adora. “Go ahead. Please.”

Adora got up and pulled open the door.

On the porch stood Charity Laidlaw, who was Tiffany’s aunt—as well as the woman who had once accused Jed of rape.

Three

Behind Charity and off to the side a little stood her husband Morton, looking miserable.

Charity spoke first, which was no surprise to anyone.

“Hello, Adora.” Even in greeting, her tone left no room for compromise.

“Hello, Mrs. Laidlaw.”

It was odd, Adora thought. Charity had nice, even features, cornflower blue eyes and ash blond hair that curled softly around her face. She’d kept her figure slim. She should have been attractive. But she wasn’t. She was too self-righteous to be good-looking.

“May we come in?”

Adora glanced at Jed, giving him one more chance to change his mind. But Jed only nodded. So Adora stepped back and pushed open the screen.

“We’ve heard the terrible news,” Charity intoned as she entered, followed at a respectful distance by her browbeaten spouse. “And we’ve come to take our poor niece home with us.” Charity caught sight of Jed right then. Her finely cut nostrils flared, as if she smelled something bad.

Jed and Tiff stood as one.

“Tiff is home, Charity.” Jed seemed to take pleasure in calling Tiff’s aunt by her given name, which few, if any, in Red Dog City ever dared to do. “And I’m here, so I’ll take care of her.”

One corner of Charity’s pretty upper lip lifted a fraction, in a sort of well-bred snarl. “That is the most absurd suggestion I have ever heard.”

“It’s not a suggestion. It’s a fact.”

Charity looked at Tiff, her expression turning marginally kinder. “Tiffany. Dear—”

Tiff hunched closer to Jed. “I’m staying here, with my brother.”

Charity emitted a harumph of impatience. “But that’s impossible, dear. Your brother lives out in the woods in that primitive cabin of his. And questionable men work for him. He’s not set up to care for an impressionable young girl.”

“We’ll manage, Charity.” Jed’s tone was deceptively gentle, as always. But his eyes gave away his true feelings. They were twin points of dry ice. “I’ve got my own room here, over the garage. I’ll move in there full-time. It can all be worked out.”

Charity drew her shoulders back so far it was a surprise she didn’t fall over backward. And when she spoke, it was with great care, as if she were putting everything she had into her effort to remain civil. “But you’re gone all day. The child will run wild.”

Tiff jumped in, insulted. “I don’t run wild.”

Charity sighed. “Now, Tiffany, I know how upset you are and I—”

“No. No, you don’t. You don’t know anything. You’re a mean, old—”

Jed coughed and gave Tiffs shoulder a squeeze. Tiff fell silent.

Charity drove her point home. “You cannot be alone all day long, and that is that.”

Tiff looked up at Jed, pleading with her eyes. But Jed said nothing. Adora knew what he must be thinking: that it wouldn’t be right for Tiff to go completely unsupervised all day, every day. It was a problem, one to which he had no immediate solution.

But Adora did. “Look. I’m just around the corner. I can keep an eye on Tiff during the day, the same as Lola did, from the shop.”

Charity drew in a sharp, indignant breath and focused her narrowed eyes on Adora. If looks could do harm, Adora would have needed medical attention on the spot.

Tiffany crowed in triumph. “See? Dory will help.” She looked up at her brother, her eyes full of fevered hope. “I’ll be with you, won’t I, Jed?”

He gave her shoulder another squeeze. “Damn straight. We’re family.”

Charity would not give up. “I beg your pardon. I’m every bit as much a part of Tiffany’s family as you are. And Morton and I are much more suitable as substitute parents than you’ll ever be.”

Jed didn’t waver. “Look, Charity. Tiff wants to be with me. And I can take care of her. And with Adora helping out, we’ll get along just fine.”

Charity glared at him long and hard, trying to break him with a look. It didn’t work. So she brought out the big guns.

“Let’s be frank here, Jed Ryder. You aren’t fit to raise a child.”

Tiff let out an angry cry. Jed soothed her. “Shh...” Then he met Charity’s venomous glare once more and advised, softly as always, “Don’t go too far.”

Charity’s nostrils had gone dead white. She sucked in a big breath through them and then announced sanctimoniously, “I most certainly will go too far. I’ll go as far as I have to go.”

Morton, looking anxious, actually stepped forward. “Charity, maybe we—”

Charity shot a murderous glance his way. “Shut up, Morton. This has to be said.” She rounded on Jed once more, her lip curling in disgust. “It’s an absolute outrage, Jedediah Ryder, that you could even imagine you’d be allowed to take care of my brother’s child. I’m warning you now—”

But Jed had heard enough. “That’s it. Get out.”

Charity barreled right on. “I will not stand by and let you ruin that child’s life.”

Jed took one step forward. “I said get out.”

Charity sneered. “You are a rude creature. A disgusting, irresponsible—”

Morton scooted between Charity and Jed and grabbed his wife’s arm. “Charity. We’ve been asked to leave.”

“Don’t touch me.” She slapped at his hands. “We have a duty to my brother’s child.”

Jed was through talking. He advanced on Charity.

She gasped, whirled and fled to the door, Morton at her heels. Once there, she couldn’t resist a parting shot. “This isn’t the end of it.”

Morton shooed her over the threshold and pushed her down the steps and along the walk. Adora slid forward and shut the door, resting her forehead against it once it was closed, thinking that she had never in her life been so relieved to see anybody go.

“Thanks.” It was Jed’s voice.

Adora turned to meet those cloud-colored eyes and felt warm all over at the pure gratitude she saw in them. “Hey, what are friends for?”

Tiffany looked up at Jed. “I don’t want to go with her. I couldn’t stand to go with her. She always treated Mom like she wasn’t good enough to be married to her precious brother. And she doesn’t really even care about me, I know it. She only cares that you and me don’t get to stay together.”

Jed shook his head. “There’s nothing she can do.”

“But she said—”

He waved her fears away. “Don’t stew about it, Tiff. With Adora looking out for you during the day, we’ve got it covered. Charity’s threats are empty ones, I promise you.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m dead positive. Now, we have enough to worry about as it is. So let’s forget about your Aunt Charity.”

Tiff closed her eyes and sighed. “I hope you’re right.”

“I am right. Stop worrying.”

Though no one felt much like eating, Adora stayed to cook dinner. As she put together the simple meal, friends and neighbors started calling to offer condolences and aid. Adora handled most of those calls, soothing people, telling them briefly how Lola had died and promising to call them back if there was anything at all that they could do.

After the dishes were cleaned up, Jed, Tiffany and Adora wandered into the living room. Jed and Tiff sat on the couch, and Adora took one of the easy chairs. They began to talk about Lola, remembering the best things about her: her laugh, her generous heart, how sensitive she’d always been to the way other people felt. Tiff and Adora cried some, as they all tried to deal with the fact that someone who had been so much alive that morning was now gone for good.

“I still feel like she can’t be gone,” Tiff admitted.

“Me too,” Adora agreed. “It seems like any minute she’s going to walk in that door.”

It was well after dark when Tiff rose from the couch. “I think I’ll just go on to bed now.”

Adora pushed herself out of the easy chair and held out her arms. Tiff ran to her.

“I’m glad you were here,” Tiff whispered as she hugged Adora close.

“Me, too.” She cupped Tiffs sweet face in her hands and looked into those soft, dark eyes. “I’m going home now.” Gently she smoothed Tiff’s silky hair. “But I’ll be back in the morning, to fix you some breakfast. Okay?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

Once Tiff had disappeared down the tiny central hall, Jed walked out to the porch with Adora. They stood for a few moments, there in the darkness, listening to the crickets and one lonesome frog croaking forlornly somewhere out on the lawn. Eventually Adora felt Jed’s pale gaze on her and turned enough to give him a smile.

He asked, “Do you think I did the right thing?”

She leaned against one of the four posts that held up the porch roof. “Deciding to keep Tiff with you, you mean?”

“Yeah.”

She thought of the Laidlaws, of their settled, middle-class life. They’d already raised two daughters, so it was a job they were familiar with. And Morton was a nice enough man, a retired dentist who had closed his practice in nearby Portola just a few years ago. Adora and her family, like most folks in Red Dog City, had always gone to Doctor Laidlaw when they needed dental work. He knew how to administer a shot of novocaine so you barely felt it.

Jed was chuckling. “Don’t answer. I can tell by your face.”

She wrinkled her nose at him. “What?”

“You have your doubts about me.”

“Actually, I was thinking about Morton Laidlaw. That he’s a nice man, even if he is married to Charity.” She grinned. “You know what Reggie Kratt says about him?” Ancient Reggie Kratt ran Kratt’s Hardware, over on Commercial Row.

Jed knew. He put on a voice like Reggie’s. “‘That man is more than henpecked. He’s henhammered, and it’s a cryin’ shame.‘”

Adora laughed, and Jed did, too.

Then they fell silent. That frog started croaking again. Jed hitched a leg onto the porch rail. “So why did you volunteer to help me out?”

She looked out toward the street. “I don’t know, exactly.”

“Yeah, you do.”

“Well...”

“Tell it like it is.”

She met his eyes again. “Tiff wants to be with you.”

“And?”

“There’s more to raising a child than being respectable.”

“Good. ’Cause most people would say I come up zero in that department.”

“Charity’s...well, I’d hate to have to live with her.”

“And?”

She sought the right words, but didn’t find them.

He urged her on. “Spill it.”

“Charity reminds me of my mother.” It was out before Adora really considered how it would sound. She hastened to amend, “I mean, one side of my mother. The side that thinks she has to control everything. The side that’s always worried about what other people will think.” Adora looked out at the stars. The moon was no more than a sliver. It hung high above them, looking very far away.

She could feel Jed watching her. And when he spoke, she could hear the smile in his voice. “Are you a secret rebel, Adora Beaudine?”

She made a scoffing sound. “No way. You ought to know that, after the things I told you today.” Lord, was that only a few hours ago? It seemed like years, somehow.

He grunted. “Right. You wanna get married. To a guy in a Brooks Brothers suit.”

She had a silly urge to argue the point. But why? “You’re right. A guy in a Brooks Brothers suit is exactly what I want.”

“Still, I know you went with Dillon McKenna. Back in high school, when his reputation was almost as bad as mine.”

She kept her eyes on the faraway moon. “That was different. We were only kids. A crush. And in case you haven’t heard, Dillon’s married to my sister Cat now.”

“I heard.”

Adora thought about Dillon. Like Jed, he’d left town when he was barely grown. He’d returned to Red Dog City just last winter, an international celebrity whose career as a professional daredevil had ended after one of his jumps almost killed him. As soon as he’d set eyes on Cat again, he’d known what he wanted. Cat had taken some convincing. But in the end, Dillon had been more than persuasive enough to win her.

“Jealous?” Somehow, Jed made the question sound tender.

Adora looked at him then. “Of what?”

“That your first love belongs to your sister now?”

She stared at him, wondering how he managed to ask her such personal questions—and yet not offend her at all when he did it. And he’d hit right on the mark, too. She had been jealous. At first. There had been trouble between her and Cat. But it had all worked out in the end. Now Adora couldn’t picture Dillon with anyone but Cat.

She said, “No, I’m not jealous. And if I was, I’d be suffering for nothing. No other woman’s got a chance with Dillon. He’s crazy over Cat. And she’s nuts for him. They’re so in love, it’s embarrassing sometimes to be in the same room with them. They forget other people exist.”

The porch light caught on the diamond stud in Jed’s ear, making it glitter. “You wanna be loved like that?” His voice, always low, was lower than ever. And intimate.

She couldn’t help thinking of that afternoon, on the trail by Trout Creek. Of the impossible way she had felt then. Of the way she felt right now...

“Come on. Say it out straight.”

She gulped, and then she did it; she said it out straight. “Yeah. I do. I want to be loved like that. What woman wouldn’t?”

He grinned, white teeth flashing. The diamond stud gleamed. Right then he looked like a pirate from one of those old movies, that Cat used to take her to when they were kids. “You think Mr. Brooks Brothers Suit is gonna love you like that?”

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