“Autumn Pulaski Only Has Her Cockamamy Four-Week Rule Because She Knows It Will Make Guys That Much More Determined To Go Out With Her.”

Sean Monahan waited for his pronouncement to sink in.

His brother Finn studied him. “So what makes you think that you could avoid being so bamboozled yourself?”

“Like I said, I know women,” Sean reiterated. “I’m hip to her game before we even play it. I will come out the winner. In more ways than one.”

“You really think so?” Finn asked.

Sean nodded. “Hey, if there’s anybody out there who can last longer than four weeks with Autumn Pulaski,” he said with a smile, “I’m the man.”

Finn eyed Sean with much consideration. Then, right when it occurred to Sean, at the very back of his brain, that he might have just steered himself toward a deadly cliff, Finn uttered the words that, for thirty-four years, had tolled the death knell for Sean’s good sense.

“Prove it, little brother,” Finn said knowingly. “Prove it.”

Dear Reader,

The year 2000 has been a special time for Silhouette, as we’ve celebrated our 20th anniversary. Readers from all over the world have written to tell us what they love about our books, and we’d like to share with you part of a letter from Carolyn Dann of Grand Bend, Ontario, who’s a fan of Silhouette Desire. Carolyn wrote, “I like the storylines…the characters…the front covers… All the characters in the books are the kind of people you like to read about. They’re all down-to-earth, everyday people.” And as a grand finale to our anniversary year, Silhouette Desire offers six of your favorite authors for an especially memorable month’s worth of passionate, powerful, provocative reading!

We begin the lineup with the always wonderful Barbara Boswell’s MAN OF THE MONTH, Irresistible You, in which a single woman nine months pregnant meets her perfect hero while on jury duty. The incomparable Cait London continues her exciting miniseries FREEDOM VALLEY with Slow Fever. Against a beautiful Montana backdrop, the oldest Bennett sister is courted by a man who spurned her in their teenage years. And A Season for Love, in which Sheriff Jericho Rivers regains his lost love, continues the new miniseries MEN OF BELLE TERRE by beloved author BJ James.

Don’t miss the thrilling conclusion to the Desire miniseries FORTUNE’S CHILDREN: THE GROOMS in Peggy Moreland’s Groom of Fortune. Elizabeth Bevarly will delight you with Monahan’s Gamble. And Expecting the Boss’s Baby is the launch title of Leanne Banks’s new miniseries, MILLION DOLLAR MEN, which offers wealthy, philanthropic bachelors guaranteed to seduce you.

We hope all readers of Silhouette Desire will treasure the gift of this special month.

Happy holidays!

Joan Marlow Golan

Senior Editor, Silhouette Desire

Monahan’s Gamble
Elizabeth Bevarly

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For Eathel and Rex Bellaver,

two of the funnest people I know.

ELIZABETH BEVARLY

is an honors graduate of the University of Louisville and achieved her dream of writing full-time before she even turned thirty! At heart, she is also an avid voyager who once helped navigate a friend’s thirty-five-foot sailboat across the Bermuda Triangle. Her dream is to one day have her own sailboat, a beautifully renovated older model forty-two-footer, and to enjoy the freedom and tranquillity seafaring can bring. Elizabeth likes to think she has a lot in common with the characters she creates, people who know love and life go hand in hand. And she’s getting some firsthand experience with motherhood, as well—she and her husband have a six-year-old son, Eli.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Epilogue

One

There was nothing Sean Monahan enjoyed more than a game of cutthroat poker—unless it was a game of cutthroat poker played with a couple of his brothers. Sean was a gambler by nature, and a winner by birth. When he took chances, they invariably played out. And there wasn’t much that gave him a bigger charge than fleecing his own flesh and blood.

Hey, that was just the kind of guy he was.

He and two of his brothers and two of their friends had only been playing poker for an hour, and already Sean’s take was substantial. Best of all, he’d won most of his loot from his big brother, Finn. At this rate he’d have the down payment for that new roadster he’d been lusting after for months, in no time at all.

As he sat in the kitchen of Finn’s expansive—and, Sean knew, expensive—condo, he gazed over a pretty decent hand at Cullen, one of his three younger brothers, and tried to gauge his sibling’s hand by the expression on Cullen’s face. As he did so, Sean puffed diligently on a very nice cigar, inhaled the spicy aroma of Finn’s famous five-alarm chili and pondered whether or not he should get up for another beer or simply wait until someone else did—preferably Finn—and have him get Sean one, too.

Life just didn’t get any better than this.

“Where’s Will tonight?” he asked, having noted the glaring absence of Will Darrow, Finn’s best friend since childhood and a staple at the group’s twice-monthly poker/chili/beerfest.

His big brother chuckled low in a way that Sean found very interesting. “Will’s got some things to work out,” Finn said cryptically. “Issues. The boy’s got a lot on his mind these days.”

Charlie Hofstetter, another member of the all-male poker quintet, glanced up from his own hand. “Is that why he’s been so cranky for the past week? What’s up with that? Will’s never cranky.”

Finn’s cryptic chuckles eased into a mysterious grin. He puffed once on his own cigar and dragged a hand through his black hair. “Like I said. Issues.”

“But what does that mean?” Sean insisted, shoving back a fistful of his own dark locks, thinking he and Finn both needed a cut.

“You’ll all find out soon enough,” Finn told him. But he said nothing more to elaborate.

Sean muttered an impatient sound. “You always think you know everything, Finn.”

“That’s ’cause I do know everything,” his big brother stated with all certainty.

Sean wanted very badly to argue with that statement, but he knew better. Somehow Finn always did seem to know everything. It was a damned annoying trait for an older brother to have.

“Gordon’s missing tonight, too. Where’s he?” Sean asked further, wondering why none of the other four men had offered an explanation for it already.

Cullen sighed dramatically. “Gordon’s nursing a broken heart,” he said in a girlie, wistful voice as he puffed on his cigar.

Sean chuckled. “That’s some feat. I didn’t realize Gordon had a heart to break. Who’s the lucky girl?”

Cullen shifted his cigar from one side of his mouth to the other. “Autumn Pulaski,” he mumbled around the obstruction.

“Autumn Pulaski?” Ted Embry, the fifth member of the group cried incredulously. “What was he doing going out with her in the first place? Everybody knows Autumn never dates anyone for longer than a month.”

“A lunar month, at that,” Charlie pointed out.

“She is such an oddball,” Ted remarked.

“Free spirit,” Finn corrected him. “I believe the correct label for a woman like her is ‘free spirit.”’

“‘One hot tomata’ seems like a more appropriate label for her to me,” Cullen added.

None of the other men disagreed with the evaluation, including Sean. In fact, he noted, all of the other men observed a moment of worshipful silence in honor of the occasion. So what could Sean do but respect that by observing a moment of reverential meditation himself.

Then Ted broke the spell. “Okay, so I guess I can see why Gordon was going out with her. But he should have realized there’d be a time limit on the thing. He shouldn’t have involved his heart. Hell, he never should’ve involved any other body part than his—”

“Oh, man, did you see her at Josh and Louisa’s wedding last month?” Charlie—delicately—interrupted.

Oh, man, indeed, Sean echoed to himself. Had he ever seen her. She’d looked good enough to— Well. A number of ideas erupted in his brain at the recollection, all of them vivid, none of them decent. She’d worn a paper-thin dress of some flowery, gauzy fabric, and every time she’d crossed in front of the reception hall windows that bright, sunny afternoon, every male breath in the place had gone still.

She might as well have been wearing nothing at all, so clearly outlined had her body been under that dress. It had more than made up for the wide, ridiculous-looking straw hat she’d worn on her head, the one whose brim had been big enough to obscure the beautiful face beneath. Then again, Sean thought, few people had been looking at Autumn’s face that day.

Normally, though, that wasn’t the case at all. Because in addition to being a ‘free spirit,’ as Finn had tagged her, she was also, most definitely, what Cullen had called her, too. One. Hot. Tomata. True to her name, Autumn’s hair was a tumble of auburn curls that spilled in a rich, riotous cascade down to the middle of her back. Her eyes were the color and clarity of good Irish whisky—and every bit as intoxicating. Finely sculpted cheekbones and one of those faintly turned-up noses gave the impression that she had posed for any number of classical paintings. And her mouth…

Oh, her mouth.

Sean could write rhapsodies about that full, luscious, decadent mouth. Her complexion seemed to be perpetually golden, regardless of the season, and somehow Sean knew—he just knew—that there were none of those irritating bathing suit lines to mar the color. Autumn Pulaski, free spirit, oddball and one hot tomata, just seemed like the type who would go for nude sunbathing.

“Gordon will get over it,” Charlie said confidently as he went back to arranging his hand. “Every man Autumn’s ever dated has gotten over it. Eventually.”

“I still don’t see why Gordon got involved in the first place,” Ted said. “I mean, he’s actually been looking for a long-term relationship, and everybody in town knows that Autumn’s hard-and-fast rule has always been that no man—no man—will ever last longer than four weeks when it comes to dating her.”

“Why does she have that rule, anyway?” Cullen asked. “I never could understand the reasoning behind it.”

Sean glanced up just in time to see Ted shrug. “No idea,” Ted said. “But ever since she moved to Marigold—what?…two years ago?—she’s always made that clear. I get the feeling it’s a rule she’s had in place for a lo-o-o-ong time. I’ll open,” he added carelessly, tossing two chips into the middle of the table. Just as carelessly he continued, “Hey, Gordon was lucky. At least he got in the full four weeks with her before she dumped him. A lot of guys never even make it to the half-moon.

“She is such an oddball,” Ted said again.

“Free spirit,” Finn corrected once more.

“Well, whatever she is, I’m not asking her out,” Cullen announced. “I have enough trouble with women, thank you very much. I don’t need one starting a timer on me the minute she opens the door.”

“You and me both,” Charlie agreed. “I don’t think there’s a man in Marigold—hell, in the entire state of Indiana—who could last longer than four weeks with Autumn Pulaski.”

Sean shook his head slowly and tossed two chips into the pot to see Ted’s opening bid. “I could date Autumn Pulaski for more than four weeks,” he stated quite seriously—and not a little proudly.

“You?” a chorus of incredulous echoes erupted from around the table.

Sean gaped his indignation at the disbelief that was so evident in each of his compatriots. “Yeah, me. What’s so unbelievable about that?”

Each of the men gazed at him in silence for a moment, as if they couldn’t imagine why he would even ask such a thing. But it was Finn who challenged, “What makes you think Autumn would go out with you for any length of time, let alone more than her very standard, very adamant, lunar month?”

Sean shrugged. “I’ve got a way about me.”

Now each of his compatriots laughed. Quite raucously, in fact, something Sean decided he probably shouldn’t dwell on.

But he did. “Well, what the hell is so funny?” he demanded.

“You’ve got a way about you all right, boyo,” Finn said through his chuckles. “But it’s not necessarily the one you think.”

“Hey!” Sean cried even more indignantly. “Women love me.”

“Autumn’s different,” Cullen said.

Sean took some heart in the fact that at least Cullen didn’t deny that women loved him. After all, there was so much evidence to the contrary. Women really did love Sean. Often for weeks on end.

Sean threw his little brother an indulgent look. “Autumn’s not different,” he said. “Women are all alike. Deep down they all want one thing.”

Four male faces gazed back at him, this time in very expectant silence. But it was Finn who said—and he was clearly battling a giggle when he did so—“Oh?”

Sean nodded.

His big brother grinned tolerantly. “And what, oh omniscient knower of women, would that one thing be that they all want?”

“Equal pay for equal work,” Cullen offered with a smile before Sean had a chance to answer.

“No, men who do their own laundry,” Ted piped up with a chuckle.

“No, men who not only do their own laundry but sort by light and dark, too,” Charlie threw in for good measure.

“Oh, hardy-har-har-har,” Sean replied. “Very funny, wise guys.”

Eventually the men stopped laughing—again. And when they did, Finn turned a more serious—sort of—gaze on his brother. “Truly, Sean,” he said. “What is this one thing that all women want? We’re on the edge of our seats.”

Sean lifted his chin a bit defensively. “A wedding ring,” he said.

Cullen narrowed his eyes at his brother. “Gee, they can get one of those down at Huck’s Pawnshop for twenty bucks. Thirty if they want one that’s not hot.”

“A wedding ring with a husband attached,” Sean clarified—not that any clarification would be necessary if it weren’t for the fact that he was sitting at a table with his four moronic friends and relatives.

“Oh, hey, I’m sorry, but Huck doesn’t include that kind of service with his pawn,” Cullen said. “A man has to draw the line somewhere.”

Sean sighed impatiently. “You know what I mean,” he said evenly. “Women—all women—want to get married. They want to find that one special someone and settle down forever, then milk the poor sap for everything he’s got—socially, financially, emotionally, spiritually, you name it. Women want to be wives. That’s all there is to it.”

There wasn’t a single comment from anyone present at the table for a moment, then, “Stand back, everybody,” Finn said mildly, “I think his brain is about to blow.”

Sean growled under his breath. “Look, all I’m saying is that if Autumn Pulaski has this ridiculous rule about not dating anybody for more than a month—”

“A lunar month,” Cullen reminded him.

“A lunar month,” Sean said through gritted teeth, “then she’s only doing it to rouse more interest.”

Finn eyed him levelly. “You know, Sean, I think I speak for everyone here when I say, ‘Huh?”’

The other three men nodded their agreement.

Sean rolled his eyes. “Autumn wants to make herself seem more appealing, in order to snag a man,” he said. “She thinks that if she has this no-dating-after-a-month—”

“A lunar month,” Cullen corrected him again.

“—rule,” Sean continued, ignoring his younger brother, “then it’ll just make guys that much more determined to date her for more than a lunar,” he said before Cullen could interrupt him, “month.”

“So you don’t think she’s serious when she says she’ll never date a man for longer than four weeks?” Ted asked.

“Of course she’s not serious,” Sean said with much conviction.

Ted eyed him curiously. “Then…why hasn’t she ever dated any man in Marigold for more than four weeks?”

Sean shrugged. “She hasn’t met the right guy, that’s all,” he said. “That’s another reason she’s got this alleged rule. So she can let the less-desirable guys go without a messy confrontation.”

“And you think you’re the right guy,” Charlie assumed.

“I’m certainly a damn sight better than any of you mooks,” he said smugly. “And Gordon.”

“Yes, well, you always were a legend in your own mind,” Finn remarked mildly.

“I’m serious,” Sean insisted. “Autumn Pulaski only has her cockamamie lunar-month rule because she knows it will just make guys that much more determined to go out with her. Then, when she finally reels in the one she wants, she’ll have the guy so bamboozled, she’ll be able to wrap him up in silver wedding paper with a big, white bow.”

Cullen studied him with much speculation. “So what makes you think that you could, in addition to dating her for more than four weeks, avoid being so bamboozled and wrapped up like a wedding gift yourself?”

“Like I said, I know women,” Sean reiterated matter-of-factly. “I’m hip to her game before we even start to play it. I will come out the winner. In more ways than one.”

“You really think so?” Finn asked.

Sean nodded. “Hey, if there’s anybody out there who can last longer than a lunar month with Autumn Pulaski,” he said with a smile, “I’m the man.”

Finn chewed his lower lip thoughtfully for a moment, eyeing Sean with much consideration. Then, right when it occurred to Sean, at the very back of his brain, that he might have just steered himself toward a deadly cliff—but much too late for him to backpedal out of the fatal fall— Finn uttered the words that, for thirty-four years, had tolled the death knell for Sean’s good sense:

“Prove it, little brother,” Finn said knowingly. “Prove it.”

Autumn Pulaski was wrestling with a large mass of dough, one that would eventually be a nice loaf of seven-grain onion dill, when she heard the tinkle of the bell over the front door in the shop area of the Autumn’s Harvest Bakery. Normally that door would still be locked this early in the morning, but she’d brought some things in through the front earlier and had neglected to lock up behind herself. It had hardly seemed necessary, because few people in Marigold, Indiana, were even awake this time of morning—particularly on a Saturday. And those who were awake were almost certainly not out and about. And those who were out and about were either working themselves, or were on their way to go fishing.

“We’re not open yet!” she called out toward the shop. “Come back at seven!”

But instead of hearing the tinkle of the bell as her 6 a.m. customer left, Autumn heard silence instead, indicating the visitor was still out in the shop. She was more curious about that development than she was concerned for her safety. This was, after all, Marigold, Indiana. In other words, Small Town, U.S.A. The only crimes that occurred here were crimes of fashion.

Plus, she wasn’t alone in the bakery. She was working with two of the teenage girls she’d hired for the summer, not to mention Louis, who always came in to help her in the mornings. And Louis was six foot seven, had shoulders the size of the Hoover Dam and forearms as big as a Bekins truck. His long, gray beard was braided down to nearly his very ample waist, and a tattoo on his right bicep read, quite simply, Raise Hell. Nobody, but nobody messed with Louis.

And nobody made better cream puffs, either.

Autumn sighed heavily and jerked her head to the side, pitching her long, fat, auburn braid over one shoulder. She wiped her hands on her white apron, tugged the sleeves of her white peasant blouse down over her elbows, and did her best to straighten the white kerchief she had tied around her head, pirate-style. And she abandoned, for now, the heap of seven-grain onion dill that taunted her, and went out to the shop to assess the situation.

Immediately she wished she had stayed in the kitchen and sent Louis instead. Not because of any threat to her personal safety—well, not any criminal threat at any rate. But because Sean Monahan stood front and center in the middle of her shop, looking adorably sleep rumpled and half dozing, his slumberous blue eyes even sexier than usual. And all Autumn could think was, Oh, no.

Of course, she thought further, finding one of the Monahan brothers in her immediate sphere of existence was bound to have happened sooner or later. This was, after all, Marigold, Indiana, where everybody knew everybody, and everybody met everybody just about every day. She only wished this episode could have happened a lot later than it had.

Then again, she thought further still, she supposed she should be grateful this encounter had taken two years to occur, even if she had made every effort to ensure that such a meeting never took place. Because the last thing Autumn wanted or needed was to have a handsome, charming, eligible man in her immediate sphere of existence. Her entire move from Chicago to Marigold had been driven by just that need. Or, rather, that lack of need. Or something like that.

Two times—two times—Autumn had found herself involved in relationships with handsome, charming, eligible men, men who had promised to love her and honor her and cherish her, in sickness and in health, till death did them part. Unfortunately, the men in question had just never made those promises at the altar. They’d said they would make those promises at the altar, but neither of them— neither of them—had shown up at the respective altars where they had been scheduled to appear.

Fool her once, shame on them, Autumn reasoned. Fool her twice, shame on her. Fool her three times, and it was going to be necessary for her to enter a convent. Which would pose problems on a variety of levels, not the least of which was the fact that Autumn wasn’t Catholic. She was an Emersonian Transcendentalist. So the nun thing wasn’t really going to be doable. Therefore, she was just going to have to make sure there wasn’t a third time. She’d entertained a lot of possibilities about how to ensure that, and had decided on the one plan that had sounded best—moving to a small town where there were no handsome, charming, eligible men to sidetrack her, and doing what she’d always dreamed about doing: opening her own bread bakery.

So that was why Autumn had fled to Marigold—to follow a dream, and to get away from men like Sean Monahan. She had reasoned that small-town life would be a hugely welcome change from the big-city lifestyle she had embraced for so long. She had also thought that a small town like Marigold would be infinitely safer than big-city living. Not because of the crime factor—though, granted, Marigold’s nonexistent crime rate was a nice by-product of her change of venue. But more because small towns were supposed to be utterly bereft of handsome, charming eligible men—unlike Chicago, which had seemed to be overflowing with them.

Autumn needed a respite—a nice, lo-o-o-ong respite, like maybe for the rest of her life—from handsome, charming, eligible men. Marigold, Indiana, had seemed like the kind of place that would have almost none. Small towns were supposed to drive young singles away in, well, droves. Instead, no sooner had she unpacked her belongings and opened her bakery than she had wandered out into the town itself to make friends…only to discover that Marigold, Indiana, was overflowing with handsome, charming, eligible men, from the head of the Chamber of Commerce—who, thankfully, was happily married—right down to the local mechanic—who, wouldn’t you know it, was not.

And right at the top of that pile were the Monahan brothers—all five of them. Five of them, she marveled now as she gazed anxiously at Sean. As if one wouldn’t have been overwhelming enough for the universe—or, at the very least, for Autumn Pulaski. Each one of them had piercing blue eyes and dark, silky hair and finely chiseled features. Each one was a piece of Greek-god artwork just waiting to be worshipped. Each one was handsome. Each one was charming. Each one was eligible.

Damn. Just her luck.

“Hello,” she said to Sean now, trying not to notice his piercing blue eyes or his dark, silky hair or his finely chiseled features.

But doing that left her nothing to focus on except for his Greek-god-artwork physique, and that was no help at all. Clad in lovingly faded, form-fitting Levi’s and an equally faded and form-fitting black T-shirt, his entire body fairly rippled with muscle and sinew and, oh, my stars, it was just too much for Autumn this early in the day, before she’d even had her second cup of coffee. Looking at Sean Monahan was making her feel sluggish and indolent and warm, and very much in the mood to return to her bed. Except…not alone. And…not for sleeping.

“Can I help you?” she asked, hoping her voice didn’t sound as sluggish and indolent and warm as it—and the rest of her—felt.

Belatedly she realized she probably shouldn’t have asked the question at all. Not only did it offer him an opportunity to say something flirtatious—and everyone in Marigold knew that flirtatious was Sean Monahan’s natural state—but there was nothing for her to help him with. The store wasn’t open yet. There was no bread to sell. Then again, knowing what she did of Sean Monahan, which was surprisingly a lot, considering the fact that she’d never met him formally—or even casually—he probably wasn’t interested in her bread, anyway.

But before she could make clear the fact that she had nothing to offer him—nothing of the bread persuasion, at any rate—Sean smiled at her, and her entire body went zing. Truly. Zing. She’d had no idea that the human body could, in fact, go zing, until now. But that was exactly what Sean’s smile did to her. Because it was the kind of smile a man really shouldn’t smile at a woman unless they were extremely well—nay, intimately—acquainted.

“I just wanted to get a big, strapping cup of coffee,” he said, cranking up the wattage on his smile to a near-blinding setting.

Oh, Autumn really wished he hadn’t said the words big and strapping, because, inevitably, they drove her thoughts—and her gaze, dammit—right back to that Greek-god-artwork body of his.

“My coffeemaker went belly-up on me this morning,” he continued.

Oh, she really wished he hadn’t said the word belly.

“And I have to make a long drive today—”

Oh, she really wished he hadn’t said the word long.

“—and no place else is open this early.”

Oh, she really wished he hadn’t said the word open.

Stop it, Autumn, she berated herself. Not one word the man had uttered had been in any way suggestive, but as he’d spoken, somehow Sean Monahan made her feel as if he’d just dragged a slow, sensuous finger along the inside of her thigh. How did he do it?

“We, uh…” Autumn began eloquently. She swallowed with some difficulty, and tried not to notice just how incredibly handsome, charming and eligible he was. “We, ah…we’re not ope— Um, I mean…we’re, ah…we’re closed, too,” she managed to say—eventually—still struggling over the word open, because that was exactly what she wanted to do at the moment. Open herself. To Sean Monahan. Mentally, emotionally, spiritually, physically, sexually. That was always her immediate response to handsome, charming, eligible men. Which was why it was so important that she avoid them at all costs.

He met her gaze levelly as he jacked up the power on his smile a bit more—Autumn had to bite back a wince at just how dazzling he was—then jutted a thumb over his shoulder, toward the front door. She squeezed her eyes shut tight, trying not to notice how the muscles in his abdomen fairly danced as he completed the gesture.

“Your front door’s open,” he pointed out.

It certainly is, Autumn thought before she could stop herself. And why don’t you just come on right inside?

Immediately she snapped her eyes open and pushed the thought away. This was, without question, the very last thing she needed, today or any day. She swallowed with some difficulty, her mouth going dry when the chorus line that was his torso synchronized as he dropped his hand back to his side.

“Yes, well, the door may be open, but the shop isn’t,” she told him, proud of herself for not stumbling once over the proclamation.

“I smell coffee brewing,” he said.

“That’s not for sale, it’s for the workers,” she replied. “We’re a bakery, Mr. Monahan, not a beanery.”

His blue eyes, so clear and limitless, reflected laughter and good humor, and something else upon which she told herself she absolutely should not speculate. “You know my name,” he said softly.

Oops. “Well, I know you’re a Monahan. It is a small town. And you Monahan boys all look alike,” she lied. “I just don’t know which Monahan boy you are.”

Oh, my. Two falsehoods before dawn. Autumn was definitely going to create some bad karma with that. And why on earth was she referring to him as a “boy”? Sean Monahan was quite undeniably a man, and probably five or six years her senior, to boot.

He took a few steps forward, his shoes scuffing softly over the terra-cotta tiles as he came, his mouth quirked into that sleepy, sexy smile—the one that made him look as if he’d just made sweet, sensational love to its recipient, successfully and repeatedly. He only stopped moving because the counter hindered his progress, but he still leaned forward and folded his arms over the glass top, right in front of where Autumn was standing. He was so close she could see the dark shadow of his freshly shaved beard, could smell the clean, soapy scent of him, could fairly feel the warmth of his body creeping over the counter to mingle with her own.

Instinct told her to take a giant step backward…and then run like the wind as far as she could. Instead she stood firm, waiting to see what he would do next. And as was always the case when it came to handsome, charming, eligible men, that was Autumn’s fatal mistake.

Because Sean Monahan’s piercing blue eyes pierced her right down to her soul, warming a place inside her she had forgotten could feel warmth. And then, “I really was hoping for a cup of coffee,” he said softly. “But you know, Autumn, now that you mention it, there is something else you can do for me, too.”

Two

Surprisingly, Sean had never actually stood this close to Autumn Pulaski before now, and he couldn’t help but wonder why not. Normally he gravitated toward attractive, single women faster than the planets spun through space, yet this one had somehow eluded him until he’d made this very assertive, very specific, foray into her life. It was especially odd considering the fact that she’d lived in Marigold for more than two years now—he could vaguely recall the grand opening of her bakery three springtimes ago. And his apartment was, quite literally, just around the corner, something else that made astonishing the fact that he had never before been in such close quarters with the elusive Ms. Pulaski. Either his timing had really suffered over the last couple of years—which was laughably unlikely—or Ms. Pulaski went out of her way to make sure their paths had never crossed.

In a word, Hmm.

At any rate, Sean had never realized until now just how strikingly beautiful she really was. And he hadn’t realized she smelled so good, either, like apple tarts and cinnamon buns, and something strangely exotic and spicy that blended perfectly with the homey aroma of freshly baked bread. It threw him for a momentary loop, and for the first time in his life he had no idea what to say.

Which was odd, because when he’d entered the bakery only moments ago, he’d known exactly what he wanted to say. In fact, he’d practiced his speech last night until the words had flowed fluidly and confidently and not a little seductively, if he did say so himself, even though he had pretty much decided to avoid the seduction thing—for now. At the moment, though, for the life of him Sean could remember none of what he had rehearsed. All he could do was gaze into Autumn’s whisky-gold eyes, inhale deeply her cinnamon scent, absorb the way her peasant blouse dipped pleasantly above the swells of her very generous breasts and battle the urge to go much, much faster in his seduction than he had initially planned.

Wait a minute. Back up. Think again, Monahan.

It wasn’t seduction he was planning, he reminded himself again. Not necessarily, at any rate. Not specifically. Not yet. He just wanted to last more than four weeks with the enigmatic Ms. Pulaski, right? In fact, he had to make it through not one, but two, lunar months, if Sean was going to win the dare that Finn had challenged him to complete last weekend.

He was still ticked off at himself for having set himself up for, not to mention having succumbed so easily to, that dare. He should have known better than to boast about anything in front of Finn, even something at which he was more than confident he could succeed. Finn jumped on a dare faster than you could say “Prove it, little brother,” especially when Sean was on the receiving end of it. They’d competed in such a way since they were boys. And invariably, dammit, Finn always came out the victor.

Well, not this time, Sean promised himself. If Finn had challenged him to make it through two lunar months with Autumn Pulaski, then by God, Sean would do it. Of course, that did give him ample time for seduction, he told himself, should such a thing come up—to put it crassly. Then again, he didn’t necessarily want to seduce Autumn, did he? Then again, he was Sean Monahan, the downfall of many a woman both here and abroad. Well, maybe not abroad. But as far away as Bloomington, which was more than a lot of guys in Marigold could say. So if seduction just sort of happened, that would be okay. Sean wouldn’t go looking for it, but he would certainly leave himself open to the possibility.

His current avenue of thoughts, although certainly pleasant, gave Sean no fuel whatsoever in the What-do-I-say-next? department, so he did what he always did whenever he was at a loss for words—which, granted, hadn’t really happened before. But doing what he did next seemed a logical reaction. He smiled his most seductive, suggestive smile and cocked a dark brow in just such a way as to make women the world over—or at least as far away as Bloomington—swoon with delight. Autumn Pulaski, however, he noted right away, was very good at hiding her feelings. Because, amazingly enough, not only did she not swoon with delight, she didn’t even seem to notice the change in his expression.

Damn, she was good.

“And what is it I might do for you, Mr. Monahan?” she asked in as businesslike a voice as Sean had ever heard, jarring him back to the matter at hand.

“Well, first off,” he said, “you can stop addressing me as Mr. Monahan and start calling me Sean.”

She offered no outward indication that she had even heard him, but inquired again, “And what is it I might do for you, Mr. Monahan?”

He blew out a faintly impatient breath, cocked his eyebrow yet again and tried that seductive-suggestive-smile thing one more time. “Well, for one thing,” he began smoothly, “I noticed there’s a new moon next week.”

She didn’t seem to think that significant at all, though, because she only continued to stare at him with a vaguely curious expression. When he said nothing further, she replied, with just the slightest hint of impatience, “I believe you’re right. There is indeed a new moon next week. On Wednesday, if memory serves.”

He nodded slowly. “As a matter of fact, it is on Wednesday. And I think that’s very…interesting. Don’t you?”

She sighed heavily, as if resigned to some great task. “I suppose one might find it interesting,” she agreed, “were one studying astronomy or astrology or astrophysics or Zoroastrianism or one of those other astro-sciences.”

“Actually,” Sean said, “I don’t think Zoroastrianism is an astro-science, per se, but rather a philosophical outlook that’s really quite fascina—”

“In any case,” she interjected smoothly, folding her elbow on the counter. She cupped her chin in one hand and studied Sean with some intent. “I was under the impression, Mr. Monahan, that you designed computer software for a living. Some of those fantasy-driven games with monsters and caves and large-breasted women, the kind that might be created by someone who was reluctant to leave his childhood behind.”

Oh, now this was getting interesting, Sean thought. He folded his arm to cup his chin in his hand, mimicking her posture…and bringing their faces within inches of each other. The mingling scents of cinnamon and apples and bread that surrounded her suddenly enveloped him, too, very nearly overwhelming him. And much to Sean’s surprise, he realized he wanted nothing more in life than to lean forward a bit more so that he could…nibble her. He was suddenly anxious to know if she tasted as sweet as she smelled.

He bit back a sigh of his own, one that, had he released it, would have no doubt been filled with much satisfaction. “I thought you said you didn’t know which Monahan I was,” he murmured in as smooth a voice as he could manage. “But it sounds like you know me pretty well. Autumn.”

She gazed back at him in silence for a moment, with an expression he could only define as…inscrutable. Then, very suddenly, very quickly, “It was a cup of coffee you said you wanted, wasn’t it, Mr. Monahan?” she piped up brightly.

Before he had a chance to respond—not that she seemed to want him to respond—she straightened and spun around on her heel. She marched straight through a door Sean deduced must lead to the kitchen, her russet-colored, waist-length braid swaying rhythmically—and not a little seductively, he thought—above luscious-looking hips. Within seconds she returned with a cardboard cup—a really big cardboard cup, like the kind for which no sane person would ever ask a refill—and thrust it toward him. Fortunately, there was a lid on the cup, so none of it sloshed out to make a mess on the counter…or burn off a layer of her skin. Unfortunately, however, at least for Autumn, that wasn’t the main thing Sean had come in to ask for.

“What are you doing Wednesday night?” he asked, ignoring the cup she extended toward him.

Her expression went from inscrutable to…well, quite scrutable…in a nanosecond. Mostly, Sean thought, she looked really confused and not a little panicky. “I—I’m working,” she said, thrusting the cup toward him again, more insistently this time.

And again Sean ignored it. “How late?” he asked.

She gaped faintly for a moment, gazing at him as if he had just asked her to come with him to the Casbah, where they could make beautiful music together. Then she shook her head quickly, once, as if to clear it of a muzzying fog…and extended the cup of coffee forward, very insistently, again. But her conviction seemed to be wavering some as she told him, “I, um, till nine.”

He nodded his approval…and continued to ignore the cup of coffee. “Nine,” he repeated with interest. “Right about when the sun will be almost down and the new moon will be visible.”

She eyed him now with something akin to intrigue and absently licked her lips. Sean considered the simple gesture to be highly erotic. “Actually, Mr. Monahan, new moons aren’t visible,” she said. “Hence the term ‘new.”’

Yeah, yeah, yeah, Sean thought. Whatever. “A minor technicality,” he assured her aloud. “It’ll be a nice night for…” He paused meaningfully. At least, he hoped she considered it a meaningful pause. God knew he sure intended for it to be meaningful. “A lot of things,” he finally concluded, likewise meaningfully. “How about we make a night of it, just the two of us?”

Autumn gazed back at Sean Monahan in frank disbelief, trying to tamp down the heat that swirled unhampered in her midsection, trying to assure herself he was not doing what he seemed to be doing. He was not coming on to her. He was not asking her out. He was not trying to tell her, with all his discussion of the new moon, that he wanted to be the next man in line to…to…to…

To date her.

Was he?

Oh, surely not. Not Sean Monahan. He, of all men in Marigold, was to be steadfastly avoided. That was why she had so steadfastly avoided him ever since coming to town. Of all the Monahans—and certainly all of them were to be steadfastly avoided—Sean posed the greatest threat. Because although each of the Monahan brothers was handsome and charming and eligible, Sean Monahan was the most handsome, the most charming and, indeed, the most eligible. Where one or two of his brothers did show potential for being the marrying kind—it was widely known that Finn, for example, carried a massive torch for one Violet Demarest, whom Autumn had never met, because Violet no longer lived in Marigold, even if her rather bad reputation did—Sean had never made any secret of his confirmed bachelorhood. On the contrary, Sean seemed to go out of his way to drive home his very absolute intention of remaining single for the rest of his life.

Which, now that Autumn thought a bit more about it, might actually be just the thing she needed in a…date. Someone who wouldn’t have expectations of anything lasting. Someone with whom she could just have a casual, easy, fun time of it for a few—or four—weeks. Someone who wouldn’t drop to his knees at the end of that four weeks and beg for just one more lunar month, please, for God’s sake, just one. Someone who didn’t crave permanence, so would never propose marriage and, consequently, would never leave her waiting at the altar, filled with humiliation and horror and self-doubt for the third time in a row.

No, no, no, no, no, a little voice piped up inside her. It wasn’t just Sean whom Autumn had to worry about. She had to think about herself, too. Because as troubling as it was to have men falling for her—even though she knew whatever those men felt was only temporary and would soon go away—there was always that chance that Autumn might fall for one of them. Just because that hadn’t happened since she’d come to Marigold didn’t mean there wouldn’t be a first time. Yes, her lunar-month deadline did pretty much prevent any potentially long-lasting feelings. But she did believe that love could happen much more quickly than that. It wasn’t likely, of course, but it was possible.

Not that she thought Sean would fall in love with her, because, clearly, he wasn’t capable of such a deep, abiding emotion. Otherwise the man would have been married a long time ago, because there was no shortage of women in town who would like to have reeled him in. Women did talk, after all, especially when they were waiting in line to buy something. Something like, oh, say…bread, for instance. Over the past two years, Autumn had heard more than her fair share of gossip about the local citizenry. And Marigold’s gossip was unusual in that A, it was seldom malicious and B, it was seldom inaccurate.

Yes, Autumn knew a lot about Sean Monahan. She knew a lot about all of the Monahans, in fact. For instance, she knew that Sean’s little sister, Tess, who taught first grade over at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic School, was, at this very moment, pregnant by a man who’d been forced to go into the Witness Protection Program. Such talk had been rampant in the bakery over the last month or so. And in addition to Finn Monahan’s torch bearing on behalf of Violet Demarest, Autumn also knew that Miriam Thornbury, the local librarian, had a major thing for Rory Monahan, even though Rory didn’t know she existed. But then, Rory didn’t really know anyone existed outside of history books, so that wasn’t exactly surprising.

So Autumn had learned much over the past two years through the snippets of information she’d picked up at work. And the one thing that was most evident, above all else, was the fact that Sean Monahan was Marigold’s confirmed bachelor, a man who would still be single and womanizing upon his centennial.

Which would make him the perfect candidate for dating, provided Autumn could be assured that she would be embracing the same kind of lifestyle herself at that age. But she’d learned a long time ago that she wasn’t the kind of person who thrived on solitude and independence. No, what she craved was a partnership of the most traditional kind, and a dependence on someone who depended on her in return. She wanted a loving, lasting union with another human being, because she just didn’t like being alone. She wanted a wedding. She wanted a husband. She knew that wasn’t exactly fashionable for women her age, but there it was all the same. She was naturally gregarious and socially outgoing. She didn’t want to spend the rest of her life alone.

Unfortunately, alone was exactly how she would be spending her life. Because as much as Autumn wished she could find the perfect partner, she simply could not trust her instincts when it came to judging men. Twice, now, she had been certain she’d found Mr. Right. Twice she had put her lifelong trust in a man she had been sure would love her forever. Twice she had been fully prepared to promise herself to a man for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, till death did them part. And twice she had been egregiously mistaken.

It was so unfair, she thought. The fact that she wanted to be married had caused her to get much too involved with men she shouldn’t have, so she couldn’t get too involved with men, which meant she would never marry. As much as Autumn yearned for a permanent relationship with someone of the opposite sex, on each of the occasions that she’d attempted one, everything had blown up in her face. She didn’t want to suffer the pain of humiliation and loss again. So she suffered the pain of solitude and loneliness instead.

In the past she’d thought about advertising for a roommate, nurturing a friendship with another woman who had the same likes and dislikes she had herself. But deep down, Autumn knew that wasn’t the kind of company she really wanted or needed. What she wanted, what she needed, was romance. Not the temporary kind. The permanent kind. The kind that started off breathless and lawless and tumultuous and concluded with two arthritic hands and bifocaled gazes locked in easy, comfortable companionship.

Unfortunately, life experience had taught her that there simply was no such thing. Oh, certainly some people did still find that kind of love, but, clearly, she was not destined for it herself. Two times she had thought she’d found it. Two times she had made the leap. Two times she had enjoyed the breathless and lawless and tumultuous, only to watch it fade to nothing at all. She wasn’t likely to make the leap again. Certainly not with a man like Sean Monahan, who was so clearly determined not to make a commitment.

“I’m sorry, but I’m busy Wednesday night after work,” she said, injecting more conviction into her voice than she felt in her heart.

Sean Monahan’s smile fell some, and the light in his eyes dimmed. “Busy?” he echoed, as if he was unfamiliar with the word. Then, to further the image, he added, “I don’t understand.”

Autumn nibbled her lip thoughtfully and wondered how to verbalize all the troubling, unstructured thoughts that had been tumbling through her brain since she’d found Sean Monahan standing in her shop. Then she noticed how very focused he was on the fact that she was nibbling her lip in thought, so she stopped. When she did, his gaze lifted from her mouth to her eyes, and the look he gave her could have made a glacier spontaneously combust.

Oh. Dear.

“Mr. Monahan—”

“I should go.”

They started speaking at the same time and ended at the same time, and something about that—both that and the incandescent sizzle in the air that seemed to arc between them then—made Autumn feel as if their destinies, which until today had never crossed, had suddenly gotten tangled up in a way that would be very difficult to unravel.

“What do I owe you for the coffee?” he asked, reaching deep into his pocket to retrieve some change.

She held up both hands, palm out, as if in surrender, though what she might possibly be surrendering to, she dared not consider. “It’s on the house,” she told him. “I haven’t opened the cash registers yet, so… Consider it a promotional giveaway.”

He nodded quickly and muttered his thanks but offered no indication that he intended to leave. Instead he only continued to stare at Autumn’s face or, more specifically, her mouth, as if he had some serious plans for it in the not-too-distant future. Then, as if he suddenly realized where his gaze was lingering, he snatched it away, dipping his head to focus instead on the coffee cup that sat on the counter. Very gingerly he reached forward and claimed it, never once so much as glancing at Autumn as he did.

“I gotta go,” he said hastily. And without further ado, he made good on the announcement.

For long moments after he left, Autumn stood alone in the shop part of her bakery, gazing out the door he had exited, watching the impending sunrise change the color of the sky above the buildings across the way from heavy black to midnight blue. For some reason she felt breathless and lawless and tumultuous and, at the same time, easy and comfortable and companionable. And there was one other thing she felt, too, she realized. When she remembered the heat in Sean Monahan’s gaze and the brightness in his smile, when she recalled how handsome, how charming, how eligible he was…

Doomed. Autumn felt doomed.

Sean didn’t get very far before he had to pull his truck to the side of the road and thrust the gearshift into park. Not because he needed to let the coffee cool a bit before sampling it. And not because he was still too drowsy to be driving. And not because he wanted to admire the way the sunrise was smudging the purple sky with fingers of orange and pink, either.

No, much to his amazement, it was because he had to try and get a grip on himself and his feelings.

It was the strangest thing. Not only had he never had to get a grip on himself for anything, but he’d never had feelings like the ones that were spiraling through him now. Strangest of all was that he soon came to realize he wasn’t likely to get a grip on either his feelings or himself anytime soon. How could he, when he couldn’t even identify what he was feeling to begin with?

Well, other than this weird sense of doom, anyway…

Just what the hell had happened back there at Autumn’s bakery? he wondered, not for the first time since fleeing it in fear for his life—well, his social life, at any rate—less than half an hour ago. He’d entered thinking to do no more than ask her out on a date and had exited feeling as if he’d been struck by lightning.

He took a moment to replay every word the two of them had exchanged and to reconsider every suggestive comment he’d made. He recalled every look they’d shared, every sidelong glance they’d sneaked. But he couldn’t figure out where, exactly, things between them had gotten so…hot. Somewhere along the line, though, the two of them had ceased to indulge in harmless banter and had become over-charged with…what? He still couldn’t quite figure it out. And even weirder than all that…

He sighed his disbelief when he remembered. Even weirder than all that, Autumn Pulaski had refused to go out with him. Had refused to go out with him. Him! Sean Monahan! It was inconceivable. Impossible. Unthinkable.

Unacceptable.

Because Sean decided then and there that he would not accept her refusal. And not just because he had a point to prove to his brother Finn, either. But because there was something immediate and intense—not to mention hot and heavy—burning up the air between him and Autumn. And Sean just wasn’t the kind of guy to let something like that go unexplored. Especially when there was a beautiful, desirable, sexy, cinnamon-scented, luscious, mouthwatering…uh…where was he? Oh, yeah. Especially when there was a woman like Autumn at the heart of it. And especially when that woman’s eyes told him she was every bit as aware as he was of the strange fire burning between them.

So she’d said she wouldn’t go out with him on Wednesday, had she? Well, then. Sean would just have to go back and ask her what she was doing on Tuesday instead. Then he remembered what he would be doing Tuesday. What the whole town of Marigold, Indiana, would be doing on Tuesday. What Autumn Pulaski would no doubt be doing on Tuesday, too. Because Tuesday was the Fourth of July. And everybody who was anybody in Marigold would be at the Annual Independence Day Picnic in Gardencourt Park. It was practically a requirement of citizenship.

Throwing his truck back into gear, Sean smiled. Yep, Tuesday would be a very good day for seeing Autumn again. Somehow he could just feel it in his bones. Their destinies were about to collide, for sure. And he couldn’t help but thank his lucky stars for that.

Three

Sean found Autumn precisely where he’d known she would be on Tuesday, right smack in the middle of Gardencourt Park, at the Autumn’s Harvest bread booth, hawking her wares. The Fourth of July was a very big deal in Marigold, Indiana, and pretty much the entire town closed down and showed up to celebrate it. Many of the local retailers, however, opened booths at the picnic, alongside the local craftspeople and artisans, selling specialty items or products that commemorated the day. Autumn, for example, he noticed as he approached the booth, was offering cranberry scones, white chocolate and macadamia nut cookies, and blueberry muffins—presumably in honor of Old Glory.

And he was glad he’d dressed up for the occasion in unripped, only marginally faded blue jeans and navy polo shirt, because Autumn, looking quite fetching, was dressed in what he, with his very limited knowledge of history—Rory was, after all, the historian in the family—assumed must be Betsy Ross attire. Except that ol’ Betsy probably hadn’t filled out her Colonial garb quite the same way Autumn did. The full skirt of her multicolored, vertically striped gown flared nicely over her hips, and the top part hugged her generous breasts with much affection.

So affectionately, in fact, that had it not been for the white apron loosely covering her torso, the picnic would no doubt have had to be called on account of mass licentiousness. But the little mobcap perched atop Autumn’s head went a long way toward tempering what Sean had decided was just her naturally sexy state.

Well, to the casual observer, the mobcap tempered her sexuality, anyway. Sean himself found the lacy little ruffled number to be surprisingly arousing. Then again, Autumn could be dressed up as George Washington’s faithful springer spaniel, Buddy, and Sean would still find her attractive. Then again, maybe that wasn’t an admission he should be owning up to. Still, she did look extremely delicious—or, rather, her baked goods looked extremely delicious—so what else could Sean do but step up to the booth and ask to sample her—or, rather, them?

“Excuse me, miss? I’ll have one of those plump, luscious-looking scones, please,” he announced, proud of himself for completing the request without a trace of suggestiveness.

Autumn’s head had been bent when he approached, but she snapped it up quickly at the sound of his voice. Immediately she blushed, something Sean considered to be a very good sign, then her lips parted fractionally in clear surprise. “I…what?” she asked.

He jabbed a finger toward the rich bounty of baked goods before him. “I’d like a scone, please,” he said, reading the hand-lettered sign in front of the selection. Otherwise he would have had to call it “one of those big lumpy things with the red spots,” because he had no idea what a scone actually was. He just hoped the letter c in the word was a hard c and not a soft c, otherwise, he’d just made a fool of himself. Then again, maybe that was why she was looking at him the way she was looking at him—as if she weren’t sure what language he was speaking.

He was about to correct himself—he hoped—and repeat his request, asking for a “sone” this time—or, at the very least, a “big, lumpy thing with red spots”—when Autumn blinked twice, something that seemed to break whatever spell she’d fallen under.

“Right,” she said. “A scone.”

Sean breathed a silent sigh of relief when she pronounced it the same way he had. Then he expelled a soft groan of frustration as he watched her lean forward to collect a particularly fat one from the front of the pile—because when she did so, her apron fell forward a bit, offering him a view he was certain Betsy Ross never would have offered, even for the sake of her country. Then, as quickly as it had been given, that view disappeared, because Autumn straightened to drop the scone into a small paper bag.

When she extended it toward him, Sean was reminded of the last time he’d seen her, three mornings ago, when she’d thrust forward the cup of coffee he’d requested. This was becoming a habit, he thought, her pushing something his way in a silent sort of “Beat it.”

“Here you go,” she said brightly. A little too brightly, Sean thought. Translated, her words almost certainly meant, “Beat it.” Especially since she punctuated the statement with, “That’ll be $1.50, please.”

He held her gaze steadily as he tugged his wallet from the back pocket of his blue jeans and withdrew two faded bills, trading them for the little paper sack. When she turned to make his change, Sean allowed his gaze to rove over the back of her, finding it every bit as enticing as the front. The flair of her hips and the dip of her waist gave new definition to the phrase hourglass figure, because he realized he wanted to take a whole lot of time exploring that part of her anatomy. Unfortunately, she chose that moment to spin back around with his change, and it was only at the last possible moment that Sean managed to drag his gaze back up again.

Oops. Okay, so maybe he hadn’t dragged it back up quite soon enough, he was forced to concede when he saw Autumn scowling at him. But she was blushing again, too, and that made him smile. If she was blushing, it must mean she was uneasy, and if she was uneasy, it must mean she was having a reaction to him. He still wasn’t entirely sure what kind of reaction she might be having, but at this point any reaction—short of throwing things—was welcome. And he was reasonably optimistic that her reaction now was something in the good family. After all, she hadn’t thrown anything, had she?

“Have lunch with me,” he said suddenly, impulsively, even though he had approached the booth with the express purpose of asking her to join him in that very activity. But he’d planned to go about it a bit less impulsively and a bit more smoothly. He hadn’t meant to just blurt it out that way. He’d intended to work up to it gradually, because Autumn seemed like the kind of woman who needed a lot of buttering up.

Immediately Sean wished he’d come up with another way to put that. Because the thought of buttering up Autumn Pulaski—or whip creaming her up or chocolate saucing her up or maple syruping her up or honeying her up—just roused images that were far too graphic for a public, family-oriented place. Much better to entertain ideas like that later, when the two of them were alone together somewhere. Preferably somewhere that was close to a kitchen.

“Thank you, Mr. Monahan,” she said as she handed him his change, sounding a bit breathless for some reason, “but I’m much too busy to be able to break for lunch. As you can see, I’m womaning the booth all by myself.”

As if cued by her announcement, two teenage girls dressed in huge khaki shorts and even larger white T-shirts bearing the Autumn’s Harvest logo approached the table and ducked behind it. Each donned an apron identical to Autumn’s, then each positioned herself at opposite sides of the booth.

“Thanks for the break, Autumn,” said the blondest of the two. “Go ahead and grab some lunch yourself. Brittany and I can handle things here for a while. You deserve a break.”

Autumn’s cheeks pinked even more becomingly, and involuntarily Sean’s smile grew broader. “Gosh, guess you’ll have time, after all, won’t you?” he asked.

“Uh,” she replied eloquently. “I, um… Actually, I… That is, I need to… Ah…”

“Excellent,” he said. “I know just the place.”

Before she could object, he reached across the table to curl his fingers gently around her upper arm, silently urging her body—if not her spirit—toward the space between two tables that obviously served as an entry to the booth. Autumn stammered a few more half-formed—and, he was certain, halfhearted—protests, but Sean easily disregarded and dismissed each one. He kept talking until the two of them were a solid twenty or thirty yards from the booth, then, still not convinced he had her completely in his thrall—go figure—he looped his arm through hers and pulled her closer still. And all the while, Autumn seemed to be too flummoxed to do anything but follow him wherever he might lead her.

Now if he could just keep her flummoxed for two lunar months, Sean thought, he would make Finn eat his dare.

Unfortunately for Sean, though, by the time he’d picked up two box lunches for them at the Rotarians’ booth, snagged a couple of lemonades from the Girl Scouts’ booth, and reached the fountain at the heart of Gardencourt Park—the nauseatingly romantic one that looked like an urn full of flowers spewing water all over a bunch of buck-naked cupids—Autumn was becoming decidedly less flummoxed. And damned if she didn’t dig in her heels and tug her arm free of his, just as he deposited their lunches and lemonades on a two-seater wrought-iron bench that sat near a privacy-providing sweep of wisteria tumbling completely uninhibited—and almost blindingly purple—from a fat hedge behind it.

“Mr. Monahan,” she began a bit breathlessly.

“Sean,” he hastily corrected her, reaching out to wrap his fingers lightly around her wrist once more.

“Mr. Monahan,” she repeatedly adamantly. She deftly maneuvered her arm to her side before he could grasp it, curled both fists ineffectually—and really rather adorably, Sean thought—at her sides and frowned. “I’m afraid I can’t accommodate your request right now. I have other things I should be doing besides eating lunch.”

“Sean,” he corrected her again. “I’m Sean. If you keep calling me ‘Mr. Monahan,’ you’re going to have me and all four of my brothers heeding your beck and call.”

The possibility of such a development seemed to make her feel queasy for some reason. “Oh, dear,” she murmured. But she said nothing more to enlighten him about her state of uneasiness, just looked a little pale and distressed.

Sean found her reaction odd. There were plenty of women in Marigold who would jump at the chance to have the interest—romantic or otherwise—of the Monahan brothers, in just about any number or combination. Autumn Pulaski, however, evidently considered such attention to be a fate worse than death.

“Sean,” he said for a third time, feeling frustrated for no reason he could name. “Call me Sean. Please.”

He couldn’t imagine why, but he really, really wanted to hear her say his name out loud. Maybe it was because she had one of those husky, breathy voices, the kind most men only heard when they were sitting in a dark movie theater listening to Kathleen Turner or Demi Moore or Debra Winger in Dolby stereo. The kind of voice that made even the simplest statement sound like an intimate suggestion, somehow, and turned a man’s name into a sensual promise.

When Autumn opened her mouth to speak, Sean braced himself for the sexual awakening he was sure would follow. But instead of uttering his name in that deep, smooth, languid way, she said, “I really should get back to the booth.”

“Why?” he asked. “Your employees looked more than capable of handling the crowd—which, incidentally, is thinning as we speak, because the lunch hour is drawing to a close—and it doesn’t sound like you’ve had lunch yet yourself.”

“I’ve been snacking all morning,” she assured him. “It’s one of the perks of the job. With all those snacks, I don’t need any lunch.”

He threw her his most salacious smile, dropped his eyelids to half-mast and adopted what he’d been told more than once was a very sexy demeanor. Mostly this involved hooking both hands on his hips, shifting his weight to one foot, flexing his pecs and biceps and tossing his head back with just a touch of arrogance. Okay, so that last part was more because his hair was in his eyes and in need of a trim, but it still went a long way toward completing the sexy demeanor thing—Sean was sure of it.

“Snacking,” he then began coyly, “is not the same thing as lunching, Autumn. When one snacks, one never completely satisfies one’s…hunger, does one, even if one snacks frequently? I mean, a little nibble here, a little nibble there… It’s never quite enough, is it?”

He took a single, leisurely step forward, bringing his body to within inches of hers. But he didn’t touch her, didn’t so much as reach for her, only continued to keep her gaze pinned with his own. And my, what a warm gaze hers was, too, he noted. There was no question that he had her full attention.

“Oh, sure,” he continued softly, growing a little warmer himself as he watched her, “snacks can be more…provocative. More…arousing. You get variety. You get a little taste of something exotic, something you might not normally…have. And there’s just something so tempestuous about the haste and the immediacy and the secrecy of a snack, isn’t there?” he added, dropping his voice to a level only she would be able to hear. “Snacks can be very titillating, Autumn, because they’re somehow more forbidden.

“But lunch,” he continued, wrapping his voice around the word in the same smooth way he curled his fingers loosely around her wrist to pull her body closer still, “is much more fulfilling. It requires greater commitment, greater attention to detail.”

He tugged her gently forward, until her body was flush with his, and waited for her to protest. But instead of protesting, she only opened one hand over his chest, splaying her fingers over his heart. And Sean could see by the way the pulse at the base of her throat leaped at the contact that her own heartbeat was every bit as rapid, as ragged, as his own.

“One takes one’s time with lunch,” he told her even more softly, his voice a scant whisper now. “Lunch is so much more satisfying. There are so many ways to enjoy it, and there’s so much to consume.” He dipped his head to very lightly nuzzle her temple, reveling in the little gasp of shock—and dare he say delight?—that escaped her at the contact. “You have to go slowly with lunch, Autumn,” he continued, his mouth right beside her ear now. “You have to be more thorough, taste everything you have on your plate. And you know, done correctly, lunch is infinitely more…pleasurable…than snacking.”

As much as he wanted to duck his head more and drag his open mouth along the elegant curve of her neck, somehow Sean found the strength to draw himself away. He didn’t go far, however, and he dropped one hand to the graceful curve of her hip. Again he prepared himself to be rebuffed, but Autumn offered no reaction one way or the other. When he’d pulled back far enough to gaze at her face, he saw that she was studying him with great preoccupation, even though he’d finished his dissertation on the different manners of…satisfying oneself.

Strangely enough, though, her attention seemed to be focused almost entirely on his mouth. A tremor of something hot and volatile shook him when he realized it, then nearly exploded when he saw how her pupils had grown larger, her cheeks more rosy, and how her lips had parted softly, as if she wasn’t—quite—getting enough breath.

She wasn’t the only one, he thought. Suddenly Sean felt a bit dizzy himself, as if the oxygen to his brain had been momentarily blocked. Then again, who needed oxygen when you had a woman like Autumn gazing at you like that? Suddenly even lunch didn’t seem like enough to satisfy him. Because over the past couple of moments, he had grown hungry to the point of being ravenous, and he wasn’t sure there was enough food on the planet to sate him.

Of course, food was the last thing on his mind right now. Because Autumn Pulaski was looking at him as if she wanted to tuck a cherry into his mouth and flambé him. And he realized that, at that moment, there was nothing in life that would have brought him greater joy than being, well…cherry flambéed. By Autumn Pulaski. This very second.

Oh, man.

It was happening again, he thought. That same strange electricity that had shuddered between them in the bakery that morning had returned, charging the air between them once more. And what had begun as a well orchestrated, carefully rehearsed flirtation had been jerked completely out of Sean’s hands.

“Um, yeah, okay,” she said softly. “Lunch sounds, uh…pretty good. I, uh…I could go for some, um, lunch. I guess.”

Oh, she was just so cute when she was flummoxed, Sean thought. But he said nothing, just closed his fingers more snugly around her wrist and guided her to the bench, where he had strategically placed their lunches in such a fashion as to require them to sit very close to each other when they took their seats. It was a fact that Autumn duly noted, because before sitting down, she rearranged everything to construct a makeshift wall between their two designated places, perching herself primly on one side of it, nodding in silent invitation for Sean to take his seat on the other side.

Damn.

Squelching a sigh of defeat, he acquiesced with as much good grace as he could and reached for his own lunch. The new moon wasn’t until tomorrow, he reminded himself. That gave him another full day to woo Autumn and convince her that she should give him a chance.

Another day, he remembered, and another night.

How Autumn let herself get talked into things sometimes, she really would never be able to understand. Then again, Sean Monahan hadn’t given her much choice had he? Not only had he practically seduced her earlier that afternoon—right there in front of the Gertrude Hepplewhite Memorial Fountain, no less—just by explaining the differences between snacking and lunching, but he’d followed her around all day like an eager-to-be-accepted puppy.

He had virtually haunted the Autumn’s Harvest booth all afternoon while she worked, had smiled that heart-tugging, heat-seeking smile of his, had twinkled those devastating blue eyes, had been more enchanting than any fairy-tale prince could ever hope to be. She hadn’t been able to resist him. He’d just been so…so handsome. So…charming. So…eligible. And then, before she realized what was happening…

Autumn sighed restlessly. Before she realized what was happening, she found herself stretched out alongside him on a faded, flowered quilt beneath the stars, her entire body humming with anticipation at the prospect of the fireworks that were bound to explode any minute.

Fortunately, those fireworks would be literal, not figurative, because a good foot of faded, flowered quilt lay between her and Sean, and very soon, the first burst of rockets would light the sky above Marigold to open the annual Fourth of July fireworks display. Literal fireworks, Autumn repeated to herself adamantly. Not figurative ones.

At least, she thought further, reconsidering, she hoped there wouldn’t be any figurative fireworks tonight. Sean was, after all, so handsome. So charming. So eligible.

Stop it right there, Autumn, she instructed herself firmly. There would not be any figurative fireworks tonight. Or any night, for that matter. Of that—if nothing else—she was completely certain. Because if there was one thing she had learned since leaving Chicago to come to Marigold, it was how to turn fireworks into fizzle in no time flat. She hadn’t experienced any fireworks since her arrival here, not with anybody. She hadn’t even come close to the merest spark. In fact, there hadn’t been the least little smolder of anything with any man for more than two years. And by golly, Autumn had no intention of setting fire to any wicks tonight. She didn’t care if it was the Fourth of July. Sean Monahan could just keep his sparkler to himself.

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