PRAISE FOR MARIE FERRARELLA—AUTHOR OF SEVENTY-FIVE SILHOUETTE NOVELS! Letter to Reader Title Page Dedication About the Author Letter to Reader 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

PRAISE FOR MARIE FERRARELLA—AUTHOR OF SEVENTY-FIVE SILHOUETTE NOVELS!

“Marie Ferrarella is a charming storyteller who will steal your heart away.”

—Romantic Times magazine

The Baby Came C.O.D. (SR #1264):

“Marie Ferrarella pens another winner.... As usual, Ms. Ferrarella finds just the right balance of love, laughter, charm and passion.”

—Romantic Times magazine

“This is a hilarious, slapstick read.... It will leave you in stitches while wanting more.”

—Rendezvous

Do You Take This Child? (SR#1145): “The strong romantic flavor...will win the hearts of romance fans everywhere.”

—Romantic Times magazine

Father in the Making (SR#1078): “Lively, heartwarming characters make this poignant romance...a read to cherish.”

—Romantic Times magazine

Wanted: Husband, Will Train (SE#1132): “This is an irresistible, sparkling and sometimes funny story. Absolutely delightful.”

—Rendezvous

“Taking a classic plot and adding her own humor and passion, Ms. Ferrarella gifts readers with a grand romance.”

—Romantic Times magazine

Dear Reader,

Silhouette welcomes popular author Judy Christenberry to the Romance line with a touching story that will enchant readers in every age group. In The Nine-Month Bride, a wealthy rancher who wants an heir and a prim librarian who wants a baby marry for convenience, but imminent parenthood makes them rethink their vows....

Next, Moyra Tarling delivers the emotionally riveting BUNDLES OF JOY tale of a mother-to-be who discovers that her child’s father doesn’t remember his own name—let alone the night they’d created their Wedding Day Baby. Karen Rose Smith’s miniseries DO YOU TAKE THIS STRANGER? continues with Love, Honor and a Pregnant Bride, in which a jaded cowboy learns an unexpected lesson in love from an expectant beauty.

Part of our MEN! promotion, Cowboy Dad by

Robin Nicholas features a deliciously handsome, dutyminded father aiming to win the heart of a woman who’s sworn off cowboys. Award-winning Marie Ferrarella launches her latest miniseries, LIKE MOTHER, LIKE DAUGHTER, with One Plus One Makes Marriage. Though the math sounds easy, the road to “I do” takes some emotional twists and turns for this feisty heroine and the embittered man she loves. And Romance proudly introduces Patricia Seeley, one of Silhouette’s WOMEN TO WATCH. A ransom note—for a cat!—sets the stage where The Millionaire Meets His Match.

Hope you enjoy this month’s offerings!

Mary-Theresa Hussey

Senior Editor, Silhouette Romance

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

One Plus One Makes Marriage
Marie Ferrarella

www.millsandboon.co.uk

In the memory of Miss Anne J. Nocton,

who took a shy, awkward fifth grader and made her see

her own potential.

Thank you.

MARIE FERRARELLA lives in Southern California. She describes herself as the tired. mother of two overenergetic children and the contented wife of one wonderful man. The RITA Award-winning author is thrilled to be following her dream of writing full-time.

Dear Reader,

In One Plus One Makes Marriage, I have the opportunity to share with you a little of one of my passions—old movies. The heroine was raised in the movie business and thus has a clear view of reality while still believing in the magic of life—and love. It’s a lesson she finally manages to pass on to the hero, but not easily. Therein, hopefully, lies the entertainment.

This book is rather special to me. It marks my seventy-fifth book with Silhouette. I remember the exact moment I sold my very first book to Silhouette. I was in the shower. My agent called to tell me the good news, and it was like getting a reprieve from heaven. I was seven months’ pregnant with our second child, and my husband had been laid off for thirteen months from a very depressed aerospace industry. The wolf was not at our door yet, but he was circling the area. Thanks to Silhouette and you, he never arrived. I’ve been writing for Silhouette for fifteen years now, and I still feel as if I’m in the honeymoon stage of a wonderful marriage. So far, I’ve had seventy-five “children”—how’s that for a world record?—and a world full of neighbors to come and enjoy them with me.

All my love,

Chapter One

“I’ve never seen such a wonderful collection of photographs. And all autographed, too.”

Staring at the uniquely decorated wall for a moment, the small, matronly woman’s gray eyes became as round as a child’s, lighting up her face and adding color to the almost-translucent, sagging skin. Wrinkles and stiffness, the outward heavy signs of her advancing age, magically faded. Like twin beacons breaking through a thick fog, her eyes scanned the back wall of the shop again, picking out familiar, well-loved faces of movie stars, many long gone except for the miracle of celluloid. She sighed in what sounded to Melanie like ecstasy.

The reaction pleased Melanie. Melanie McCloud had hammered in every single nail herself that supported the 126 photographs, painstakingly recreating Aunt Elaine’s old parlor.

Her shop, Dreams of Yesterday, now had the atmosphere of a cozy room, where someone could seek refuge from a frantic world for an afternoon—the way she had so often in Aunt Elaine’s parlor, she remembered fondly. It was there that the photographs had originally hung. Most of them were personalized with a salutation from a movie star, and some had short notes, all directed to her late aunt.

Melanie smiled to herself as she silently watched the woman next to her. The woman’s excitement grew in direct proportion to her recognition of the various celebrities. It was her first time in the shop, and she didn’t know where to look first, afraid of missing something in her scattered, shotgunlike approach to viewing the photographs.

“Oh, look, there’s Rita Hayworth.” She sighed again, beaming. Without being fully conscious of it, she patted her own strawberry-tinted hair as she commented, “Such a beauty.” Turning her head a fraction of an inch, the woman spied another star. “And Tyrone Power. My mother was just crazy about him. Oh, and Errol Flynn.” Standing on her toes, she looked closer at the inscription, then blushed over the risqué message written in a bold hand across the actor’s bare chest.

Melanie bit her tongue to keep from laughing. That particular photograph, one of her aunt’s treasures, was not for sale, but she knew her aunt would have gotten a kick out of having people see it. As a matter of fact, she would have insisted they see it. She was proud of the. fact that the handsome actor had come on to her in print.

The elderly woman paused and turned toward Melanie, astonishment mingled with the joy of discovery. That was half the fun of owning a place like this—seeing the way people reacted to items that she had, for the most part, taken for granted while she was growing up.

Scarlet nails fanned out as the woman touched Melanie’s arm in instant, intimate camaraderie. “Tell me, my dear, where did you get all these wonderful things, and who is Elaine?”

It was evident by the look on the woman’s face that she thought Elaine was in an enviable position, to have known so many great stars.

“Elaine was Elaine Santiago, my great-aunt.” There was pride in her smile. There was little that Melanie loved more than reminiscing about her aunt.

“Was?” A tinge of disappointment entered the woman’s voice.

Melanie nodded. “She died a little over two years ago. But she left me her collection of memorabilia.” Melanie gestured around the shop. “About half of all this was hers.”

The rest Melanie had gone out of her way to acquire for this little shop in Bedford, California, like the large shipment that had arrived just this morning, thanks to a successful afternoon at a Hollywood memorabilia auction. She couldn’t wait until she closed up tonight, so that she and Joyce, her partner, could go through everything. Not just to see if it was all there, but just to enjoy it.

The woman looked at the wall again, still overwhelmed by the wealth of photographs hanging on it. “She was a big movie fan?”

That was putting it mildly, Melanie thought. Aunt Elaine had crammed her head full of colorful stories and a myriad of trivia by the time she was old enough to read. Aunt Elaine was a walking font of information and she never forgot anything.

“The biggest. She worked at MGM in the wardrobe department for years, then went over to Paramount Studios, where she went on to become a makeup artist.” For someone like Aunt Elaine, the job had been a dream come true. And everywhere Aunt Elaine went she made entire platoons of friends. She believed it was her mission to leave everyone’s life a little brighter for knowing her. In Melanie’s opinion, she succeeded beyond her wildest dreams.

“In her time she knew them all. Everybody loved Aunt Elaine. That was what they all called her, Aunt Elaine.” And that was what she’d tried to be, everyone’s aunt. The thing about Elaine Santiago was that she truly cared about people. And everyone knew it. “She always seemed to know when someone had a problem, and she was always willing to lend a sympathetic ear. No one could keep anything from her. She was exceptionally easy to talk to.”

Melanie grinned, remembering one of her aunt’s favorite stories. “Burt Lancaster once said to her that she could probably get a stone to talk. She had that way about her.”

The greatest compliment Melanie had ever received was when someone had compared her to her aunt. Her mother had put a slightly different spin on it, saying that she could coax words out of a mime, but it was one and the same, Melanie mused. She and Aunt Elaine loved people, all manner of people.

A hint of envy entered the gray eyes. “She must have been a remarkable woman.”

She’d get no argument from Melanie. “She was, in every sense of the word.” Melanie still missed her fiercely. She knew a part of her always would.

“Melanie, you want to come here a second?” Joyce Freeman’s raised voice broke apart the easy tempo of the conversation. When Melanie turned in her direction, Joyce gestured with a touch of urgency that was underscored by the frown on her small mouth. “I think someone here wants to talk to you.”

There was a nervous note in Joyce’s voice. So what else was new? Joyce wasn’t happy unless she was worrying about something. Melanie gave the woman at her side an encouraging smile.

“You’ll excuse me?” she murmured, beginning to back away. “Feel free to browse as long as you like. I’ll be back to answer any questions in a minute. Maybe two,” she amended as she glanced again in Joyce’s direction and saw the depth of her best friend’s frown. Even from across the shop, it looked pronounced.

It undoubtedly had something to so with the tall man who was standing beside her. Melanie lengthened her stride, hurrying over while still giving the impression of taking her time. She could feel the man’s scrutiny as she drew closer. Curiosity began to sprout.

“Something the matter?” She directed the question to Joyce, who looked positively ready to leap out of her skin.

There was confusion in Joyce’s dark brown eyes. She didn’t really care for change in general and absolutely abhorred the unknown. The unknown was standing at her side in the form of a very tall, very somber-looking man with charcoal gray eyes and the darkest shock of black hair Melanie had ever seen.

Hair, she thought, that looked like velvet. The kind of velvet found on the inside of a really expensive jewelry box used to hold valuable, well-loved rings. For a second, looking at him, Melanie couldn’t help wondering if his hair felt as soft as it appeared.

Without thinking, she almost reached out to touch it before she caught herself. Would that have made the man’s frown retreat? Or merely deepen?

Melanie’s eyes shifted back to her friend’s face. There was no relief evident at her approach. If anything, her expression of concern had intensified. Now what? Melanie tried to shrug off the tiny kernel of concern that was beginning to root within her. It was all probably nothing. Just Joy’s way.

They complemented each other that way, Melanie thought. Joy, in direct contradiction to her nickname, worried about inventories and bills, about things that might happen and things that didn’t happen, while Melanie, with what Joy dubbed her terminal optimism, went along assuming the best would somehow manage to push its way through any dark obstacles that stood in its path.

Melanie absolutely refused to spend her time worrying. She firmly believed that if something was going to go wrong, it would happen without her obsessing about it, and if it didn’t go wrong, then worrying that it might would have been a waste of energy and time. She made Joy crazy, especially since most of the time she was right.

Joyce licked her lips. She slanted a nervous look at the man. “I’m afraid he thinks something is the matter.”

Melanie smiled at the stranger with the clipboard in his hand. A wish list perhaps? It wouldn’t be the first time someone came into the store clutching one. Maybe Joyce was upset because they didn’t have any of the items on it. She wouldn’t put it past Joy.

“Can I help you with anything?” Melanie asked engagingly.

There was a dimple appearing and disappearing in her cheek, as if unable to decide whether to remain, as she smiled at him. Lance Reed watched for a moment in fascination despite himself. A snappy answer to her question, which several of the guys at the firehouse would have easily uttered, played across his mind, never making it to his lips. And with good reason. It was largely unrepeatable.

He took quick measure of the petite blonde who’d blown in his way like a sweet, cool breeze on a warm spring day. Unlike the woman he’d been talking to, she didn’t appear to have a care in the world. She also didn’t seem to be aware of the errors she was guilty of committing. Or, if she was, she didn’t care. He guessed that the latter seemed more likely.

That innocent look on her face was probably purely calculated for effect, he decided. Beneath the wide smile and wider eyes lay a devious mind. Lance Reed was well acquainted with the type. Hell, he’d been engaged to the type.

The blonde opened her mouth. The dimple set up housekeeping, calling forth a twin in her other cheek. She was going to flirt with him, he realized. Well, she could flirt until she was completely out of breath, wiles and charm. It wasn’t going to do her any good. She wasn’t going to talk her way out of a citation. Which would be for her own good. Or at least the public’s.

Certainly liked to stretch things out, didn’t he? Melanie thought. She raised a questioning eyebrow in Joyce’s direction, but Joy looked positively spooked. What was going on here?

“I’m sorry, maybe you didn’t hear me. I said, ‘Could I help you with anything?’ ” Melanie repeated.

“I heard you,” the deep voice rumbled. But before answering her question, Lance checked off several items on his clipboard.

He’d only taken on the job of fire inspector a little less than two months ago, helping out until someone permanent could be hired to take the place of John Kelly, who had just retired. He wore two hats these days, one as a fire inspector and his regular one, that of an arson investigator. It wasn’t easy, juggling the two, but there wasn’t much else to fill his hours the rest of the time since Lauren was permanently out of his life.

Thoughts of Lauren, of the way she had just turned and walked away when he had needed her most, dragged sharp, rusted nails through wounds he’d thought he’d finally managed to cordon off so that they could heal.

Showed how much he knew, Lance thought ruefully, disgusted with himself. His mood was not the best as he focused on the blonde standing before him and tapped the clipboard. “It’s not me you’re going to need to help, Ms. McCloud.”

“Melanie,” she corrected, trying to put him at ease with her smile. Being addressed by her surname put much too formal an edge on things. Tutored by her freespirited mother and equally uninhibited great-aunt, formality was something that had never taken root in Melanie’s life.

From the way the stranger looked, it had obviously not only rooted, but flourished in his. He made her think of a soldier, standing just at the line of battle a moment before going into the fray.

An extremely good-looking soldier, she noted. If Aunt Elaine were still around, she’d have been drooling, Melanie thought fondly. Aunt Elaine had always had an eye for good-looking men. It never waned, not even when she was in the hospital. Melanie liked remembering her that way. Aunt Elaine had flirted with a young intern moments before permanently closing her eyes. She died with a smile on her lips.

“And who is it that I’d need to help?” Melanie asked, wondering if she was going to have to coax every word out of this man’s mouth.

Her voice was low and melodious, Lance thought. He wondered if that was a put-on. Probably. The next moment she’d be batting her lashes at him. It seemed in keeping with the old-fashioned decor in the shop. When he’d first walked in, he’d had to take a minute to adjust. Not his eyes, but his orientation. Crossing the threshold had been like walking in through a time warp. Outside, in the bright California sun, it was the nineties; in here, it was like being thrown headfirst into the early fifties. Or maybe even earlier than that.

Retro wasn’t his thing. It obviously seemed to be hers. There was an old record player in the corner, its spindle laden with a stack of what looked like long-playing albums, the type that had been made when vinyl records were the only kind available. The music floated along the perimeter of his mind, vaguely familiar, even though he thought that wasn’t possible.

It was the theme from an old movie, he realized, before he shut the sound out. Something he’d probably heard as a kid.

He wasn’t here to play “Name that Tune,” Lance reminded himself, he was here to do his job and move on.

“You’re part owner of this store,” Lance nodded at the shop, “aren’t you?”

Just what was this about? Melanie exchanged glances with Joyce, whose lips seemed to have lost the ability to form words.

“Yes.”

Though she had owned all of the inventory before she’d decided to open up the shop, Melanie had insisted that Joyce become equal partners with her. It seemed only fair, seeing how many hours they both put in. Besides, it felt right, and Melanie always went with what felt right. Like her friendship with Joy. Living on the same street, they’d been friends since before kindergarten. Actually, only Joyce had gone to kindergarten. Melanie had remained home, to learn at her mother’s elbow. Her mother’s and Aunt Elaine’s, as well as several tutors her mother had brought in.

Melanie was firmly convinced that she’d learned far more from the two women, about life and surviving as well as the usual subjects, than she ever would have in a school where knowledge was contained within four walls and within the pages of books. Her classroom had been the world in general and the movie set in particular. Or rather, behind the movie set, where drama and magic, make believe and truth played equal parts.

“Then these citations belong to you.” Removing the sheet from the clipboard, Lance handed it to her. It listed five direct violations of the fire code, and he knew he could have given her more.

Melanie glanced down at the sheet, then back up at the man who had given it to her. She shared a little of Joy’s confusion. “You’re a fire inspector?”

“Yes, and your shop, Ms. McCloud, is a fire waiting to happen.” Disapproval was etched on his chiseled, rigid features. Though some might find a place like this charming, Lance didn’t care for small, cluttered places. He liked wide-open spaces. The less people allowed junk to pile up, the less fuel there was for a fire and the less likely it would be for a fire to break out.

With the tip of his pen, Lance pointed toward the four huge boxes that had been delivered this morning. “Do you even realize that you’re blocking an exit with that stack of crates? If there was a fire, someone could be hurt because of your carelessness.”

The delivery man who’d brought in the shipment had looked and sounded as if he was coming down with a cold. Taking pity on him, Melanie had sent him away after he’d dropped off the crates right inside the rear of the shop rather than in the storeroom. Customers had arrived, and she just hadn’t gotten around to putting the crates into the storeroom.

Melanie eyed the inspector. The complaint seemed minor enough to her. Rules, except for the very basic ones, were meant to be a little flexible. Surely he could cut her a little slack. John Kelly always had. A kind, jovial man in his late fifties, the other fire inspector and she had hit it off the first time he’d walked into her shop. But then, he was an old movie buff, and they’d found a great deal to talk about even before he’d discovered that she’d practically grown up in movie studios.

“Yes, but—”

If she thought she could talk her way out of this, she was in for a surprise. He wasn’t a pushover, the way the recently retired inspector had been. Lance had seen the power of fire, watched it as it licked its way through a lifetime’s worth of possessions in less than ten minutes. There were no second chances with fire, no time to bargain or talk your way out of the havoc it brought.

Lance shook his head. “There is no ‘but,’ Ms. McCloud. Something is either a fire hazard or it isn’t. And that,” he tapped the pile of crates nearest him for emphasis, “is a fire hazard. If you had a fire,” he repeated pointedly, “and the people in your store tried to get out this way, they could be burned to death.” Glancing around, he judged that the whole place could go up like a tinderbox.

There was no reason to feel a fire would start here, Melanie thought. No one was allowed to smoke in the shop, and she’d just had the wiring checked, although, she noticed, according to the stone-faced inspector’s findings, the light switch in the storeroom was suspect.

“They could use the front door,” she suggested, trying her best to remain cheerful.

He knew better. Firsthand. “What if that way was inaccessible?”

He made Melanie think of someone who’d had what he believed to be an epiphany and now knew the “right” way when everyone else around him was still groping around in the dark. Rather than become irritated, she felt rather sorry for him. Inflexibility was a cross.

“Then I’d push the crates aside,” she responded easily to his question, still hoping to coax him into a smile.

Lance’s eyes narrowed until they were two gleaming points of a very sharp sword. “Fire isn’t a joke, Ms. McCloud.”

“I never said it was.” Melanie glanced at his name written in small, precise letters on his badge and cocked her head. “Do you have a hearing problem, Lance?”

Annoyance deepened the tiny furrow between his brows. He didn’t care for the way she made the leap from being a stranger to someone who was on a firstname basis with him. “No, why?”

“Well, you didn’t hear me when I asked you to call me Melanie, and you obviously thought you heard me say that fire was a joke when I didn’t.” She raised and lowered one slim shoulder. “I just thought that perhaps you had trouble hearing things.”

Melanie glanced over her shoulder. The woman she’d left standing before the wall of photographs was still there. Reading her body language, Melanie knew she was ready to make her purchase. Momentarily ignoring Lance, Melanie placed her hand on Joy’s arm.

“I think that lady’s about to buy something, Joy.” She nodded toward the customer. “Why don’t you go over there and wait on her?”

There was nothing Joyce wanted to do more than to get as far away from the man with the dark, accusing eyes as possible. He made her feel guilty even when she hadn’t done anything. But she didn’t want to leave Melanie to cope with him by herself, either. Though she was younger than Melanie by several months, Joy felt very protective of her. Walking away right now would be tantamount to tossing a babe to the wolves.

Chewing her lower lip, Joy weighed obligation against self-preservation. “I don’t know, Mel—”

Melanie placed both hands on Joyce’s shoulders and turned her around toward the woman. “Never keep a customer waiting, remember?” She gave Joyce a little push in the right direction. “It’s okay,” Melanie assured her with confidence. “Everything’s going to be just fine.”

Melanie turned toward Lance as Joyce made her escape. “Isn’t it?”

He shrugged noncommittally. “After you pay your fine, that’s up to you.”

Stubborn, that was the word for him, she thought. Still, she was nothing if not optimistic. Melanie approached the offending stack. “Why don’t you just let me move these crates, and then you can erase the check marks on that line? I was planning to put them in the storeroom, anyway, after I close up tonight.”

Yeah, right, Lance thought. He’d heard that excuse before.

There was a dolly standing against the wall. Melanie began to scoot it under the bottom of the stack, but Lance laid a hand on her arm to stop her.

Fool woman was going to get a hernia, or have her head cracked open with a flying crate Lance thought in disgust. Not his problem, he reminded himself, releasing her. His job was to cite fire code violations, not poor judgment.

When she raised eyes the color of crystal spring water in January and looked up at him, it took Lance a moment to remember what he was saying.

He cleared his throat. “That’s not how I operate, Ms. McCloud.”

Melanie moved the dolly back into place and sighed. He was going to be a tough nut to crack, to use one of Aunt Elaine’s favorite sayings. He seemed determined to keep this on a cold, impersonal level. Okay. For now.

Melanie tried her best to be cooperative. “Just how do you operate, Lance?”

When she called him by his first name, she mysteriously seemed to take away some of his leverage. He meant to get it back.

“That’s Inspector Reed.” An efficient movement of his hand drew her eyes to his badge.

He could almost feel her eyes scanning his name and absorbing only the part she wanted to. The woman clearly had selective vision. You’d think that with eyes like that, he mused, she could see everything. Not only were they the lightest shade of blue he’d ever seen, they were also the most intense.

So intense that they looked capable of seeing straight into a man’s mind.

Now there was a stupid thought, Lance upbraided himself. Where the hell had that come from? He wasn’t here to scrutinize eyes; he was here to judge whether or not her premises were safe for the public that entered them. If they weren’t, he had the power to shut her down. If they were, he was to move on. Simple.

“And the way I operate,” he continued, rousing himself, “is by the book.”

A “by-the-book” man. She’d already guessed that part herself. Melanie wondered just how long he’d been on the job and what it would take to make him smile. She bet he had a really nice smile if he made the effort.

Her mouth curved, as if to coax a mimicking response from him. Maybe he just needed some encouragement and an example to follow. “And the book says you can’t erase a check mark after you made it?”

His eyes narrowed again. “Only if I made it in error.”

She placed her hands on the dolly’s red handles, her indication clear. All it would take was a few minutes, the time to juggle a little space. “Well?”

Lance knew if he bent the rules for her, he’d have to bend them for everyone. He wasn’t about to do that. Besides, in the long run, he was doing her a favor. She couldn’t afford to be haphazard when it came to the possibilities of a fire. No one could.

He shook his head. “No error. The check stays. As do these.” Moving closer to her, he pointed out several other lines he’d marked off. The scent of something light and airy wafted around him. Was that her, or something in the store, he wondered. There was something very old-fashioned about the scent. It nudged at a memory that was too far removed to catch.

“Where’s John Kelly?” Melanie asked suddenly.

“Not here,” was the only answer Lance felt she needed to know. “But I am, and you’re going to have to deal with the consequences of your flagrant disregard for your customers’ safety—and make amends.”

He made it sound like an ultimatum. She almost expected him to add, “Or get out of Dodge.”

Something egged her on to ask, “Or else what?”

She was challenging him, he thought. Not a smart move. “People who don’t follow fire ordinances find themselves shut down.”

Melanie stared at him in disbelief. Was he actually saying what she thought he was saying? “You’d shut me down?”

“Not personally, but that would be the upshot.”

It wouldn’t go that far. Confident that she could handle this to everyone’s satisfaction, Melanie indulged the burst of curiosity she was experiencing. It wasn’t often she encountered someone so solemn and self-righteous. What was his story? Everyone had a story, and she found herself wanting to know his. He wouldn’t give it up easily. He was the type to guard his privacy zealously. She’d always been a sucker for the forbidden.

“Tell me, Lance,” Melanie began, and saw a wary look entering the fire inspector’s eyes, “what does it take for you to do something personally?”

Chapter Two

The question took him aback.

Was she making him an offer she thought he couldn’t refuse in exchange for eliminating the violations? His first answer to himself would have been yes, but there was something in her eyes that made him unsure. Lance didn’t know exactly what to make of the woman in front of him, then decided it didn’t matter one way or the other. His job description was clear.

In one smooth movement he signed his name to the bottom of the report. Finished, he spared her a glance.

“A lot more than anything I find here,” he said tersely, in response to her question. Pulling the sheet from his clipboard, he handed it to her. “I’d see to this fine if I were you.”

She was still looking at him as if the fine and the violations that generated them were secondary to her. As if there was something else on her mind, something that, for whatever unfathomable reason, had to do with him. Maybe it was childish of him, but he’d be damned if he was going to look away first.

“That is, if you don’t want to be closed down,” Lance emphasized again.

Two women in separate parts of the store turned around immediately. Lance had no idea that he’d raised his voice until one of them asked, “Closing?” Her eyes were almost glowing as she looked around the cozy setting. “Does that mean you’re going to be having a closing sale?”

“No, and we’re not closing, either.” Melanie offered the woman an easy smile. Turning, she shared the smile with Lance. The look he returned was grim. “The gentleman was talking about closing time. We plan to stay right here for a very long time.” She gave that assurance to Lance as well as to the customers in the store.

Lance used the interruption to look away from her. He had the oddest, queasiest feeling when she’d been looking at him, almost as if she were offering him sympathy. It was a completely ridiculous idea, but he couldn’t seem to shake it.

Lance handed her the citation form. “Then I’d see about those violations if I were you. You have thirty days to get to them.” He tucked the clipboard under his arm and turned to leave.

“Does that mean you’ll be back?” she asked as he walked away.

“I’ll be back,” he assured her, though he wasn’t looking forward to it, he added silently as he got to the door. Behind him he heard the scraping sound as she pushed the dolly under the stack of boxes.

“I’ll be waiting.”

She sounded almost cheerful about it, he thought. This visit obviously hadn’t gone well. Why would she welcome another one?

More scraping noise. Somehow, he managed to hear it above the soft music and the low hum of voices in the shop. Lance had an uneasy feeling that he knew what the McCloud woman was up to. Not his business if the slip of a woman wanted to get a hernia or worse, he thought again. The tiny bell overhead tinkled softly as he opened the front door, announcing his exit. The sound seemed to mock him. But he was here to do an inspection, not help her clear away one of her violations. That was the job of whatever poor unfortunate slob she corralled.

Lance liked to think he would have made it out the door if the beveled glass hadn’t caught her reflection and flashed it up at him in an almost blinding light. But it did, and his mistake, he realized too late, was to stop and look.

As he’d thought, she was trying to get the dolly under the first pile of crates by herself. Straw had more sense than she did.

For a second he debated leaving her to it, but he couldn’t, in good conscience, just keep walking. Aunt Bess had trained him all too well. With a sigh, Lance let the door go and marched back to the annoyingly cheerful woman in the rear of the store.

Melanie could feel a bead of perspiration beneath her bangs as she fought to angle the dolly into position beneath the crates. Another woman would have given up, but another woman wouldn’t have wanted to run this sort of shop, either. A place where people came to talk, as much as to buy.

She should have let the delivery man do at least this part of it, Melanie thought, brushing back her bangs before they pasted themselves to her forehead. That’s what she got for being softhearted. Not that she really could be any other way. She’d accepted that as part of her nature a long time ago. Some people moved the earth with muscle, others did it with a smile. She chose to take the second path, although she prided herself on being no slouch when it came to strength. She just never muscled in on people, that’s all.

Straining, she finally managed to get the platform solidly beneath the bottom crate. Melanie was just beginning to brace herself before attempting to hoist the load when she felt the elbow in her side. It wasn’t a gentle nudge, more like an out-and-out takeover.

“Are you out of your mind, trying to do this by yourself?”

The inspector was back, coming to her rescue despite his annoyed question. Melanie tried to suppress the smile that rose to her lips and only partially succeeded. Whoever had named him Lance knew what they were doing.

Lance had taken off his jacket as he’d made his way to the rear of the store and slung it now over the back of a forest green wing chair. With two neat moves, he’d folded up his sleeves.

All her life Melanie had been taught that while people were kinder than they liked you to believe, the best person to rely on in any given situation was herself. She took this approach even with Joy, who was the first to admit that though she was the taller of the two, she was a weakling. This wasn’t the first shipment that Melanie had wrestled with on her own.

She shrugged in reply to his reprimand. The man’s heart was in the right place, but his attitude needed some fine tuning before it could claim the same thing.

“I’m stronger than I look,” Melanie told him.

She was still holding on to the handles. Was he going to have to pry them out of her hands?

Lance looked at her expectantly as his hand covered hers. After a beat, Melanie withdrew hers, that same funny little smile he didn’t know what to make of on her lips.

“Harder-headed at any rate,” he allowed. “Move out of the way,” Lance ordered when she remained standing where she was. “This isn’t a two-man job, and even if it were, you wouldn’t be one of them.”

Obliging him, Melanie raised both hands in a sign of surrender as she stepped to the side. But she was grinning as she did it. “Is that your way of telling me I’m petite and delicate?”

Where had she gotten that interpretation from? Lance wondered. She’d twisted his words into a compliment, when he’d meant nothing of the sort. Although he had to admit, looking at her, that she was both petite looking and delicate. But noting that hadn’t been his intent.

He scowled at her. She was making him late for his next appointment. Lance sincerely missed the routine solitude of his work and hoped they’d find a replacement for Kelly soon.

“That’s my way of telling you to get out of the way.” He could feel his muscles straining as he kept the dolly level and at an angle. What the hell was she thinking of, trying to work this? “You probably hear a lot of that,” he couldn’t help adding. How had she even managed to wedge the platform under the pile of crate? Glancing at her, he decided that maybe she was stronger than she looked. “Where do you want this to go?”

“In the storeroom.” Melanie pointed to the back, then realized that he had to know where it was. “But I imagine that you’re already acquainted with where that is.”

Yeah, he was “acquainted” with her storeroom. “Violations three and four,” he muttered, struggling to turn the dolly around. What did she have in this boxes, anyway, anvils? They were a lot heavier and more unwieldy than they looked. If he wasn’t careful, the whole stack was going to collapse. Lance didn’t particularly like the prospect of getting egg on his face.

Melanie saw the way his muscles were straining as he pushed the dolly. “I really appreciate you stopping to do this for me.”

He only grunted in reply, his expression telling her that he didn’t think much of her gratitude. Melanie moved in front of him, hurrying to open the door. Holding it with her back, she watched as he pushed the first stack of crates into the room. He accomplished that a lot faster than she would have, she thought.

He looked around for a likely spot. “Where do you want this?”

Melanie left the door open, letting more air in. When he’d passed her, the room temperature had suddenly felt a great deal hotter to her. He was radiating heat, and it left her just the tiniest bit unsettled.

“Wherever I won’t get violations five and six,” she answered cheerfully, gesturing around the room.

With a dark look Lance angled the dolly out from beneath the bottom box, leaving the pile stacked in the middle of the floor.

“Isn’t this violating some code of yours?” she asked, watching him.

“There’s nothing wrong with leaving them in the middle of the storeroom,” Lance said tersely.

“I mean helping me.” Her question went unanswered as Lance returned to the showroom to get the remaining stack of crates. Rather than follow him, she waited until he returned.

He wasn’t very talkative, Melanie thought. Not like John Kelly, who enjoyed having an audience and reminiscing about his early days with the fire department.

Melanie watched, with a deep appreciation of the male body, as Lance worked the second and last stack of boxes free of the dolly. He had biceps as hard as rocks, she noted. He also had a deep, long scar running along one of them that became an angry red as he strained. It was too fresh looking to be very old.

She waited until he finished. “Now why wouldn’t you let me do that in the first place?”

He had a question of his own. Why couldn’t she just accept what he’d done without subjecting it to scrutiny? Annoyed with himself for bothering to help, Lance shoved the dolly away. Unsteady, the dolly tottered like a drunk, then finally clattered to the floor.

“Because that would be favoritism.” His eyes narrowed as he looked at her. “I don’t believe in favoritism.”

She could accept that, she thought as she picked up the dolly and righted it. “But you do believe in being helpful.”

“Not particularly.” Without bothering to look at her, Lance took down the highest crate and set it on the floor. One at a time, they weren’t so bad. For him, he thought. She would have had a hard time of it. It didn’t occur to him to wonder what she normally did when a shipment came in. That wasn’t his concern.

Neither was this, he upbraided himself, taking down another crate and setting it beside the first.

“You came back to help me,” she pointed out. Melanie caught her breath as he swung down a crate from the second stack. “Careful, that one’s fragile.”

So was she, he thought absently. As fragile looking as the china dolls his aunt kept on display. Setting the box down gently, he realized that was what had teased his mind before. Her store. It was along the same lines of his aunt’s dining room. The same kind of furniture. The same subdued scent of vanilla and polish. Maybe that was what had prompted him to help, he thought. That sense of familiarity.

But she didn’t need to know any of that. Lance shrugged. “I saw your reflection in the glass door. You looked as if you thought you could tackle this on your own.”

It was obvious he thought she was crazy for thinking that. “I could.” She waited a beat, then added, “Given time.” For his benefit, she flexed a muscle the way weight lifters did and almost succeeded in getting the smile she was after. “I have strong peasant blood running through my veins.”

“More like running over your floor if you’re not careful. If you get these deliveries in regularly, you should hire yourself a stockboy.” He put the last box down on the floor. “Preferably a strong one.” He dusted off his hands. “There.” Now his conscience was clear, though why it shouldn’t have been in the first place still wasn’t entirely apparent to him. Lance rolled down his sleeves as he walked out of the storeroom. “See about getting the other violations corrected. And don’t be late paying the fine,” he warned her.

“Yes, sir.”

Lance was certain McCloud was mocking him as she saluted. The dimple in her cheek didn’t help his concentration any, either.

On impulse, Melanie looked around before she spied what she was after. “Perfect,” she declared, hurrying away.

Lance had no idea what she was talking about, nor did he care. All he wanted to do was leave before she found something else for him to move, push or carry. But she caught up to him before he could make it halfway across the shop. For a small thing, she moved fast.

“Here.” She held out what looked like a tiny figurine of a dalmatian wearing a fireman’s hat at a jaunty angle, offering it to him.

Lance just stared at it. Now what was she up to? “What’s that?”

“It’s a dalmatian.” How could he not recognize it? Melanie held it up so he could get a better look. “You’re part of the fire department, right? I thought it was appropriate.”

The smile on her lips seemed to seep into him, like an ink stain, he thought grudgingly. He made no move to accept the gift, not because it could be construed as a bribe, but because he didn’t want anything from her.

“I just wanted to say thank you for helping.” It was one of her favorite pieces. Impulse had her wanting to give it to him. “It’s for luck.”

Lance’s eyes frosted. Luck. The most highly overrated thing in the world. Where had the old woman’s luck been, when he hadn’t been able to reach her in time? When she’d died hearing him try to save her?

“I don’t believe in luck.”

Melanie blinked as he turned from her. She felt as if she’d physically been pushed away. For a second she didn’t know what to say. Then she saw his jacket was still on the armchair. She snatched it up and hurried after him.

“Wait.”

When he turned around, he found that she’d caught up to him again. She was holding out his jacket. Annoyed at forgetting it, he took the jacket from her and shrugged into it. She was still clutching the ridiculous dog.

Melanie tugged at his sleeve, brushing it off with her other hand. “Lint,” she explained, when he looked at her quizzically, pulling away his arm. “Wouldn’t want you getting dusty on my account.”

Why did her eyes look as if she was enjoying some sort of secret amusement? Lance wondered. And why should he care what she was enjoying, or what she was even thinking, for that matter?

He didn’t, he reminded himself. “Just pay the fine,” was all he said as he walked out.

In the middle of ringing up a sale, Joy excused herself for a moment and went to Melanie.

“Why did you slip that dalmatian into his pocket?” she wanted to know. Melanie had told her more than once that the piece was not for sale, merely for display. “He said he didn’t want it.”

Melanie looked at her innocently, though a smile played on her lips. “What makes you think I slipped anything into his pocket?”

“Open your hand,” Joy instructed. When Melanie did, it was empty. Joy just shook her head. “I don’t think he’s the kind of guy who’d enjoy having you practice your sleight of hand on him. He doesn’t strike me as the type who likes magic.”

“He might not like it,” Melanie agreed, looking toward the doorway. “But he’s the type who definitely looks as if he needs a little magic in his life.”

“Oh, miss...”

Joy flashed an apologetic smile at her customer and hurried back to the register. “You’d think that just being here, selling these things would be enough magic,” she said to Melanie. She knew what Melanie was about. There were times when her best friend’s heart was just too big for her own good.

One of the other customers beckoned to her. Melanie nodded and went to the woman. “There’s never enough magic in the world,” Melanie told Joy softly in reply.

Joy merely sighed. There was no arguing with Melanie when she was like this.

His first reaction, when he put his hand into his pocket feeling for his keys and found the figurine, was to turn around and give the damn dog back to her. But that would mean returning to the shop—and to her. And he was reluctant to do that. Lance didn’t like facing things he didn’t understand unless he was in some way prepared to tackle them. He didn’t understand Melanie McCloud or the abject friendliness she seemed so willing to tender. Everyone had a motive, a secret agenda they tried to adhere to. What was hers?

Until he figured it out, he didn’t see himself going back there to face that supposedly guileless smile and those blue eyes that looked as if they were fathoms deep.

So he’d kept the tiny symbol of a life that wasn’t really a part of him any longer. Kept it until he came into his office and tossed it on his desk where it promptly disappeared into the piles of reports that he had temporarily inherited from Kelly.

He found the figurine again the next day, not that he was looking for it. What he was looking for was the report on the Logan warehouse, a place that had burned down to the ground after being inspected thoroughly only the month before. Supposedly, the fire had been an accident. He still had his doubts about that.

Just as he’d had his doubts about the woman who’d somehow managed to sneak this into his pocket when he’d specifically refused it.

Muttering under his breath, Lance studied the small, foolishly grinning dog. Waste of china, he thought, turning it around in his hand.

The scent of vanilla nudged its way into the cluttered room that usually smelled of sweat and stale air, teasing his senses. Reminding him of her and those improbable dimples that beguiled him.

She was here, he realized. In the station. In his office.

He turned his chair around slowly, as if unwilling to find her there, eating into his space. But find her there he did, standing in the doorway, looking fresher than anyone had a right to be.

He frowned. What was she doing here, anyway? Maybe she’d come about the dog. He wouldn’t put it past her to use it as an excuse.

“Something I can do for you?”

He was holding the figurine she’d given him in his hand. She was right, there was a softer side to him. Melanie’s mouth curved. “You kept it.”

Why did such a simple smile have the effect of a knockout punch on him? The whole thing was beyond ridiculous. Annoyed at his reaction and at her finding him this way, he shrugged.

“I was just about to throw it out.” But he continued to hold it.

Melanie merely smiled at the gruff protest. “If you were going to do that, you would have done it when you found it in your pocket.” She’d watched him a second before coming in. He’d picked up the dalmatian and looked at it, a sad expression on his face before turning his chair toward the window. What could he have been thinking of that made him look so sad?

No one should feel that sad, or that alone.

Instead of tossing it into the trash, he just dropped the dog carelessly onto his desk. There was enough paper spread all over to pad the fall.

“How did you get it into my pocket?” he wanted to know. He distinctly remembered seeing it in her hand after he’d taken his jacket from her.

It came so naturally to her, she had to stop to remember. “Sleight of hand.” The frown on his face deepened. “One of my mother’s friends was a magician. My Aunt Elaine put him up at the house for a while when he was down on his luck. He paid her back by teaching me a few tricks.”

Sounded like she’d grown up in the middle of a circus. That could go a long way in accounting for her attitude.

“Like coming into a firehouse and trying to get your fines taken care of?” He assumed that she thought she would have another go at him to try to make him change his mind about filing the violations. If so, she was out of luck and too late. He’d filed them as soon as he’d returned, dalmatian in his pocket notwithstanding.

“Already done.” She realized he probably thought she’d asked someone to rescind them for her. She could tell by his expression. What had made him so cynical? “I paid them,” she added to clear up any lingering doubt.

He didn’t understand. Fines were paid at city hall. “Then what are you doing here?”

“Seeing if someone has John Kelly’s new address.” That had been her original intent, although when she’d walked into the firehouse, she’d asked to be directed to Lance’s office instead.

He rocked back in his chair, studying her. He had patience and an eye for detail, which made him a good investigator and the likely choice to fill in for Kelly until they could find someone. But right now, none of that was within his grasp.

“Why?”

Why did he make everything sound like it had to be defended in order to exist? “Because I wanted to send him a gift.” She saw the question forming, and answered before it rose to his lips. “He was always nice to me.”

In his experience, women who looked like Melanie McCloud were nice to men for one reason and one reason only. “Yeah.”

“Like a father,” Melanie clarified, wondering whether or not to take offense at what he was clearly implying. She decided not to. He looked as if he was suffering enough as it was. He didn’t need someone snapping at him. What he needed, she thought, was someone to listen. And maybe even to care a little. “How dark is the world you’re in, Lance?”

He wasn’t prepared to have the tables turned on him. With the worn heel of his boot braced against the metal leg of his desk, he shoved his chair back, away from it. It hit against the wall as he rose. He didn’t like being analyzed. Served him right for doing a good deed.

No good deed went unpunished, he thought. “It’s not dark, it’s realistic.”

“Then you should understand that a man like John Kelly might just be friendly without compromising his job—or compromising the person he’s being nice to,” she added significantly.

He’d met Kelly just before the older man had left. A singularly unimpressive, talkative man with premature wrinkles and yellowing skin from years of being addicted to smoking. They each played with fire their own way, he supposed.

Lance’s eyes washed over her slowly, still trying to decide whether or not she was for real. So far, with the exception of his aunt and possibly the mother he just barely remembered, no woman had been. “Did he teach you any tricks?”

There was a point where easy-going just ceased going. Melanie had reached that point. Not for herself, but for the regard, or lack of it, that Lance had for John Kelly, a man she’d truly liked.

Her eyes darkened. “As a matter of fact, he did. He taught me that it was possible to be a fire inspector and not to be a rude, suspicious know-it-all. Otherwise, I would have thought that was what the breed was all about.” There was no use talking to him. At least, not until she cooled down a little. “Good day, Inspector Reed. Enjoy your work.”

She was almost out the door when he spoke. Part of him was willing to see her walk out. But part of him, some tiny part that sought to justify, to find logic in a world that continued not to have any, pressed him to ask, “You ever see a fire?”

His voice was so low, she almost thought she imagined it. But she turned around, anyway. The expression on his face told her she hadn’t imagined the question.

Melanie nodded. “Sure.”

He knew exactly what she meant. Lance shook his head darkly. “I’m not talking about something contained within a circle of rocks you roast marshmallows over,” he said contemptuously. “I’m talking about afire mething that roasts flesh. That has no respect for who you are or how old you are, it just destroys everything in its path, getting stronger, bigger, defying you to stop it.”

The problem with growing up the way she had, the merest suggestion brought vivid images to her mind. She could see exactly what he was talking about. See it and feel it. Melanie licked her lips before answering. They’d gone completely dry.

“No.”

“I didn’t think so.” Lance kept his distance from her, because he wasn’t sure what he would do, just now, if he were close. Shake her or hold her. The latter worried him more than the former did. “I don’t enjoy my work, Ms. McCloud. What I enjoy is knowing that if I do my work right, that destructive son of a bitch called fire isn’t going to get a chance to get a toehold on the property I inspected.” His eyes held hers. “And then no one needs to die.”

Melanie blew out a shaky breath as the pain he felt became evident to her.

“How bad was it?” she whispered.

He shook himself free of the memory that haunted him, mentally cursing his lack of control. “What?”

She knew, or thought she knew. “The fire you were in. How bad was it?”

Lance stared at her. Did she profess to gaze into crystal balls, too? “Who said I was in a fire?”

Why did he bother denying it? “You did. Not in so many words, but you did.”

The sympathy in her eyes unmanned him, sending him to a place he had no desire to be. He didn’t have time to waste talking to her. He had work to do.

“Thompson can give you Kelly’s address if you’re interested in sending him something. He’s the guy looking in and staring at you.”

Then, before she could say anything else to him, he brushed past her and walked out.

Chapter Three

“Who’s the lady on your desk?”

Her question stopped him cold. This woman seemed to derive pleasure in preventing him from making it through doorways.

Lance turned slowly around. In her hand she held the small, silver-framed photograph of Bess he kept on his desk. The one touch of himself he’d added to an otherwise depersonalized office.

He glared at her. “Does the word privacy mean anything to you?”

She’d already begun to put the photograph back, moving aside the pile of folders that had taken the opportunity to spill all over the newly vacated space and obliterate it. His question had her looking at him quizzically.

With a sigh Lance strode back into the office and took the photograph from her. One sweep of the back of his hand and there was room on the desk. He planted the photograph back where it belonged, his eyes warning her to leave it alone.

Melanie looked at the woman with the soft mouth and kind eyes. There was a quiet, serene beauty there that didn’t immediately leap out at a person. She raised her eyes to Lance’s face. That couldn’t be his mother, or else he wouldn’t be so touchy about his privacy.

“Why, are you having an affair with her?”

The question stunned him. What kind of mind did this woman have? Were there only photographs of men she’d had affairs with on her desk?

“No, that’s my aunt Bess,” he snapped.

So, he had filial feelings. There was hope for him yet. Melanie grinned, thinking of her own aunt. “My aunt Elaine never married. Instead she had affairs with younger men. She used to say that was what kept her young, and going strong.”

Lance couldn’t picture Bess having an affair with any man, younger or older. From his earliest recollection, she had been entirely devoted to the memory of her husband, who’d died on a hotly contested piece of dirt half a world away, six months into their marriage. That had been thirty-three years ago. Bess had never shown the slightest inclination of wanting to go out with other men. One heart, one love, that was the way she liked to put it. From the sound of it, that wasn’t something McCloud’s aunt would understand.

“Your aunt sounds like a character.” Apparently, it was a family trait.

Striving for patience, Lance waited for Melanie to leave. She didn’t show the slightest inclination that she was going to.

The grin deepened into a smile. “I suppose she was.” Melanie saw the mute question in his eyes when she said was, though she doubted he’d ask. Not because any sense of politeness prevented him, but because he seemed unwilling to accumulate any extraneous information about people. It was almost as if he was afraid that knowing things would force him to be friendly. She told him, anyway. “Aunt Elaine died a little over two years ago. I made the shop look like her parlor.”

With all those photographs hanging on the wall? “Big movie buff?”

He’d asked without thinking. His aunt Bess loved old movies. They made her sentimental. As a boy, Lance had watched them with her. Believing in sentiment was what had set him up for the fall he’d taken, he remembered. His eyes darkened.

Melanie noticed the slight shift and wondered what brought it on.

“The world’s biggest.” A fond note crept into her voice. “That’s how she got into her line of work to begin with. She loved movie stars, loved being around them and figured she might as well be paid for it.”

Lance knew he shouldn’t ask. Like leaving food out for a stray cat, it would only encourage her to stay. But the same curiosity that made him so good at the investigations he conducted burrowed forth, obviously not knowing the difference between being curious about something trivial and something of grave importance.

“And your aunt was—”

Melanie warmed to her subject, fully aware that he was leading her out of his office.

“A wardrobe mistress, then a makeup artist for two of the major studios. She did a bit of designing, too,” she told him proudly. “Those were some of her clothes they wore in Next Year, Paris.”

Melanie doubted he was even mildly familiar with the old classic, a tragicomedy that still required at least three hankies to see the viewer through.

How was it, Lance wondered, with all the people in the world, the world could still be such a small place sometimes? He found it completely uncanny that out of almost an endless selection at her disposal, McCloud would hit upon Bess’s all-time favorite movie. Suspicions inched their way forward in his mind, but in all fairness, he had to dismiss them. There was no way the woman could have known something like that on her own. Not unless she knew Bess, and that was highly unlikely. He knew, by sight or at least by name, almost everyone his aunt was acquainted with.

Almost against his will, Lance recalled the first time Bess had made him watch the movie. He was twelve and rebelliously reluctant to sit through what he figured was just a “dumb-old girl movie,” though he would have never voiced his protest in those exact words to Bess. But she had prevailed, and he’d found himself struggling not to alternately laugh, then cry, then laugh again. Years later, he figured out she’d probably heard the gurgling noises he’d made and chose, for the sake of preserving his budding male pride, to ignore them and not comment.

Bess was one in a million.

So was the woman with him, for entirely different reasons.

Melanie cocked her head, studying his face. She’d been right. He did look better devoid of that constricting, severe, expression he wore. As a matter of fact, he was pretty nearly a heart stopper. She wondered if he knew and decided that he wasn’t the type to be aware of things like that.

“You’re smiling,” she observed, pleased that he did it in her company.

Lance collected himself, lifting his chin as if that would wipe everything away. “No, I’m not.”

She wasn’t going to let him deny it. There was nothing wrong in smiling. “I’ll admit it’s not very large, and some might even call it a grimace, but I’ve been around sound stages. I know the beginnings of a smile when I see one.” Her expression teased him, coaxing Lance to deepen the smile. “What?” she urged, wanting to know what had made him forsake that dark, dour expression.

Lance looked at her, debating. Maybe he’d just gotten accustomed to playing his hand too close to his chest, not letting anyone in. Having your teeth kicked in when you most needed someone did that to you.

But McCloud hadn’t been the one to do the kicking. In any case, there was no real reason not to tell her. No harm in it, anyway, and then maybe once he told her she would leave him alone and go about her business. Which apparently in her case meant sticking that very pretty nose of hers into other people’s lives.

As long as it wasn’t his.

He took a chance, shrugging as if it meant absolutely nothing instead of being an incredible coincidence. “It’s just that Next Year, Paris is my aunt’s favorite movie.”

Lance wouldn’t have admitted that if it weren’t true, Melanie thought. Well, well, well. Pleasure poured like rich red wine all through her. “No kidding.”

He saw her eyes light up like a child’s at Christmas. Why? Bess didn’t mean anything to her. She didn’t even know Bess.

“No kidding,” he echoed.

Lance ushered them out of his office and down the short corridor, very aware that he was garnering looks of unabashed admiration and envy because of his traveling companion. If only they knew. The woman brought new meaning to the term Superglue. He’d be more than glad to stick her onto any one of them and get on with his work.

Melanie smiled to herself at his assurance. “No, I don’t suppose you know how to do that...kid,” she elaborated and ignored the black look from him that followed. He was edging away from her. She took pity on him and began to cut him loose. “Well, you’ll have to make a point of stopping by the shop around Christmas. I have a still from the movie autographed by Elliot Anderson. If she’s a fan of the movie, I think she’d like to have that.”

Bess wouldn’t just like it, she’d love it. Lance paused despite himself. Very slowly he blew out a breath, knowing he was going to hate himself for what he was about to say. But this wasn’t about him, it was about Bess.

“She has a birthday coming up.”

He cared enough about his aunt to make an effort to give her a gift that meant something. The thought warmed Melanie. She was right. He wasn’t nearly the bear he wanted her to think he was.

“Even better.” She nodded her head, the ends of her hair swinging to and fro over her shoulder. “A birthday surprise. Stop by the shop,” she invited again. Then her face brightened. “Or, I can bring the photograph by here if you want.”

Lance raised a brow. Just how accommodating was she? He couldn’t help thinking that this was still all leading somewhere, to some ulterior motive. Bribery? But that didn’t make sense. She’d already paid her fines and besides, none of them had been large enough to warrant bribery to look the other way in the first place. Was there more going on here than he was aware of?

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