SHELLY DUPREE’S

TO-DO LIST

(Formerly, in-debt diner owner, now jackpot winner.)

1) Pay off mortgage on The Brimming Cup

2) Open a savings account

3) Get my hair done

4) Buy some quality makeup

5) Purchase a new wardrobe

6) Find myself a man!

Harlequin American Romance proudly launches MILLIONAIRE, MONTANA, where twelve lucky souls have won a multimillion-dollar jackpot.

Six titles in this captivating series—

JACKPOT BABY by Muriel Jensen

(HAR #953)

BIG-BUCKS BACHELOR by Leah Vale

(HAR #957)

SURPRISE INHERITANCE by Charlotte Douglas

(HAR #961)

FOUR-KARAT FIANCÉE by Sharon Swan

(HAR #966)

PRICELESS MARRIAGE by Bonnie Gardner

(HAR #970)

FORTUNE’S TWINS by Kara Lennox

(HAR #974)

Dear Reader,

Happy New Year! January is an exciting month here at Harlequin American Romance. It marks the beginning of a yearlong celebration of our 20th anniversary. Come indulge with us for twelve months of supersatisfying reads by your favorite authors and exciting newcomers, too!

Throughout 2003, we’ll be bringing you some not-to-miss miniseries. This month, bestselling author Muriel Jensen inaugurates MILLIONAIRE, MONTANA, our newest in-line continuity, with Jackpot Baby. This exciting six-book series is set in a small Montana town whose residents win a forty-million-dollar lottery jackpot. But winning a fortune comes with a price and no one’s life will ever be the same again.

Next, Commander’s Little Surprise, the latest book in Mollie Molay’s GROOMS IN UNIFORM series, is a must-read secret-baby and reunion romance with a strong hero you won’t be able to resist. Victoria Chancellor premieres her new A ROYAL TWIST miniseries in which a runaway prince and his horse-wrangling look-alike switch places. Don’t miss The Prince’s Cowboy Double, the first book in this delightful duo. Finally, when a small Alaskan town desperately needs a doctor, there’s only one man who can do the job, in Under Alaskan Skies by Carol Grace.

So come join in the celebrating and start your year off right—by reading all four Harlequin American Romance books!

Melissa Jeglinski

Associate Senior Editor

Harlequin American Romance

Jackpot Baby

Muriel Jensen

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Muriel Jensen and her husband, Ron, live in Astoria, Oregon, in an old foursquare Victorian at the mouth of the Columbia River. They share their home with a golden retriever/golden Labrador mix named Amber, and five cats who moved in with them without an invitation. (Muriel insists that a plate of Friskies and a bowl of water are not an invitation!)

They also have three children and their families in their lives—a veritable crowd of the most interesting people and children. They also have irreplaceable friends, wonderful neighbors and “a life they know they don’t deserve, but love desperately anyway.”

Books by Muriel Jensen

HARLEQUIN AMERICAN ROMANCE

73—WINTER’S BOUNTY

119—LOVERS NEVER LOSE

176—THE MALLORY TOUCH

200—FANTASIES AND MEMORIES

219—LOVE AND LAVENDER

244—THE DUCK SHACK AGREEMENT

267—STRINGS

283—SIDE BY SIDE

321—A CAROL CHRISTMAS

339—EVERYTHING

392—THE MIRACLE

414—RACING WITH THE MOON

425—VALENTINE HEARTS AND FLOWERS

464—MIDDLE OF THE RAINBOW

478—ONE AND ONE MAKES THREE

507—THE UNEXPECTED GROOM

522—NIGHT PRINCE

534—MAKE-BELIEVE MOM

549—THE WEDDING GAMBLE

569—THE COURTSHIP OF DUSTY’S DADDY

603—MOMMY ON BOARD *

606—MAKE WAY FOR MOMMY *

610—MERRY CHRISTMAS, MOMMY! *

654—THE COMEBACK MOM

669—THE PRINCE, THE LADY & THE TOWER

688—KIDS & CO. *

705—CHRISTMAS IN THE COUNTRY

737—DADDY BY DEFAULT **

742—DADDY BY DESIGN **

746—DADDY BY DESTINY **

756—GIFT-WRAPPED DAD

770—THE HUNK & THE VIRGIN

798—COUNTDOWN TO BABY

813—FOUR REASONS FORFATHERHOOD

850—FATHER FEVER **

858—FATHER FORMULA **

866—FATHER FOUND **

882—DADDY TO BE DETERMINED **

953—JACKPOT BABY

MILLIONAIRE, MONTANA

MEET THE MAIN STREET MILLIONAIRES

Shelly Dupree—Owner of The Brimming Cup Coffee Shop

Sam & Ruby Cade—Army Officer (him), Mercantile Co-owner (her)

William Devlin—Owner of The Heartbreaker Saloon

Henry Faulkner—Retired Hardware Store Owner

Jack Hartman—Veterinarian

Finn Hollis—Retired Librarian

Dean Kenning—Barber

Honor Lassiter—Mercantile Co-owner

Kyle & Olivia Mason—Farmer (him), High School Teacher (her)

Nathan & Vickie Perkins—Doctor (him), Stay-At-Home Mom (her)

Sylvia Rutledge—Owner of The Crowning Glory Hair Salon

Gwendolyn Tanner—Boardinghouse Owner

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Epilogue

Prologue

Shelly Dupree leaned her elbows on the old oak bar that ran the length of the Heartbreaker Saloon and wished she could consume enough alcohol to achieve the rosy glow some of the regular patrons were already sporting at five minutes to seven. But as a chef, she found taste too important to ignore when eating or drinking. And the bite and burn of Scotch or bourbon just didn’t do it for her. She’d been toying with the same glass of gewuürztraminer wine for an hour. Dev Devlin, owner of the saloon, stocked it just for her and served it with a flourish despite the teasing hoots and hollers of their friends.

She stared moodily at her reflection in the mirror hung behind the bar between two paintings of nudes, one reclining on lace, the other playing cards with a gentleman on her bed. Well, Shelly presumed he was a gentleman.

She refocused on her own face and thought she didn’t look like a loser. Serious hazel eyes peered back at her, taking in short dark brown hair parted on the side, and an unexceptional but nicely symmetrical heart-shaped face. A pink turtleneck sweater, all that was visible above the bar, covered breasts that would never earn her a job at Hooters, but didn’t require a push-up bra, either. She looked like an upwardly mobile young woman having a drink with her friends after a successful day at the office.

The truth, however, was that nothing in Jester, Montana, was upwardly mobile, particularly the merchants trying to make a living there. She was almost three months behind on her coffee-shop rent and was now on a cash basis with her suppliers of meat, produce and paper goods.

Several years of drought had decimated Jester, population 1,502, located on the eastern edge of the state near its border with North Dakota. To anyone passing through, the area was just a long expanse of rolling hills and dusty bluffs, and downtown Jester was but a two-block-long collection of charmingly antiquated buildings reminiscent of its pioneer history.

But to Shelly, Jester and its people were everything. She’d spent two years at the Culinary Institute of America in Chicago, and one year working as a sous-chef in the dining room of a Los Angeles hotel. But the other twenty-five years of her life had been spent in or around The Brimming Cup, a coffee shop her parents had owned and operated on Main Street since before she was born. It had become hers four years ago when her mother died of cancer, and her father followed six months later with a broken heart.

The people of Jester, who’d always been her friends, became her family. They continued to eat breakfast and lunch in the coffee shop, brought her the latest news, discussed world events with an enthusiasm unfettered by consideration for politics or political correctness, and simply made her want to stay.

She’d once had dreams of opening a fine-dining establishment in a big city, of imagining that the man of her dreams would walk in one day, fall madly in love with her and provide her with the sense of security and belonging that had died with her parents. She had work and her friends, but they went home to their families at night. She went home to Sean Connery, an old tabby tomcat who’d walked out of a snowbank last winter. When she’d opened the back door to offer him a saucer of milk, he had taken it as an invitation to move in.

Her parents had been loving but practical people, and they’d taught her that pipe dreams amounted to nothing and only hard work yielded positive results. So she stayed in Jester, knowing she’d miss home too much if she left. And there was no man out there for her, anyway. They were all married or looking for supermodels.

Unwilling to completely compromise her artistic approach to cooking, she’d added fine dining to The Brimming Cup’s menu. But that had meant eliminating a few of the menu’s standards and she’d gotten too many good-natured but serious complaints.

So she continued with the same fare her parents had served for decades—burgers and fries, chili, stew, meat loaf, mac and cheese, sirloin steak, fried chicken, pie. Her life would go on as it always had.

But even pie hadn’t been moving much lately. Skipping dessert had become an economy measure for many of her patrons. And while her lunch trade held steady, most of her regulars were eating breakfast at home to save money.

Still, business, though hardly brisk, had sustained the coffee shop until this winter. The snow had started in October and had hardly let up since. Now at the end of January, it had been a long four months without visitors, the Christmas trade had been disappointing thanks to the cautious national economy, and the town that had just gotten by was now in danger of slipping away altogether.

The Town Hall and the school were in disrepair, the church that all denominations shared needed a new roof, and the bronze statue of Catherine Peterson and her horse, Jester, for whom the town was named, was turning green. Everyone was mortified, but no one, particularly the town government, had the financial wherewithal to have it cleaned.

Now, in one hand, Shelly held the letter from the Billings attorney who managed her building, threatening her with eviction if she didn’t pay the full two months she was behind in rent along with the current amount owing. She didn’t have it, of course, and she was out of ideas on where to get it.

In her other hand was her list of lottery numbers. Once a week she and eleven friends and members of the Jester Merchants’ Association contributed a dollar and a list of numbers to a collective pot, and Dean Kenning, Jester’s one and only barber and himself a contributor, drove to Pine Run to buy their ticket.

They’d done this every year for three years, and once they’d won forty-two dollars. They’d bought pizza, had a party and laughed about their big win.

She came to the Heartbreaker every Tuesday to watch the drawing on television. Her set at home was diseased and the picture unreliable.

She told herself philosophically as the time neared for the drawing, that no one could have everything in life. One was greedy to expect financial wealth when they were already rich in friends. But the fantasy of winning kept her going on particularly dark days. And this had been one of them.

Speaking of which, she’d hoped to pour out her troubles to Dev. They’d been friends since she’d taken over the coffee shop, and they served on the Downtown Christmas for Kids Committee of the Merchants’ Association for the past three years. He had a reputation as a wild man, but he’d been a good friend and always had insightful and practical suggestions for dealing with her problems. He, however, was out.

Roy Gibson, who tended bar for Dev and was the spitting image of Willie Nelson, down to his gray braids, reached up to the television in a corner over the bar and turned up the volume.

“…lottery numbers of the Big Sky Country state of Montana,” the announcer was saying, “and her fourteen sister states in our Big Draw Lottery. This week’s winning ticket is worth forty million dollars! Everybody ready?”

Shelly took another sip of her wine and studied the numbers she always played. Three, because there’d been three people in her family; eleven because that was the age she’d been when she discovered she really loved to cook; thirteen, because that was the sum of five and eight, her mother’s birth month and day; seventeen, because ten and seven, was her father’s October birth date; twenty-eight, because that was her age; and thirty-three, because that was her address on Main Street. Only the number that represented her age ever changed.

Dev always teased her that she’d be the kind of person whose computer codes or safe combination would be easy to crack because she used family dates.

“Ten,” the announcer read as the camera closed in on a woman’s well-groomed hand. It held a numbered ball that had been air-driven into a cup from a basket below. “Twelve! Twenty! Twenty-…”

Shelly lost interest at the absence of any of her numbers. There were eleven more sets of numbers besides her own on their communal ticket, but she knew these people. Their luck ran about as well as hers.

She may as well finish her wine and go home to Sean and a hot bath. She’d done all the prep work for tomorrow—tables were set, sugar containers and napkin holders filled, soup, stew and chili prepared. Five in the morning would be here before she knew it.

She paid Roy and was turning on the stool to step down to the hardwood floor when she heard the commotion outside. At first she thought it was just noisy teenagers driving by.

Then she heard the words “We won!” coming from beyond the saloon’s swinging doors.

She stopped still on the stool to listen.

“We won! Dev, we won!” It was Dean Kenning’s voice.

She smiled to herself. Dev was part of the lottery pool. It sounded as though someone’s numbers had earned them another pizza night.

Then she heard a woman’s squeal, a man’s uninhibited shout of excitement, then Dean’s screaming laugh. “We won! We won! We won!”

A little frisson of sensation ran under Shelly’s breastbone as she leaped off the stool.

Patrons in the bar began to stream outside. Excitement was palpable and the little frisson under her breastbone was now beating like the wings of a hummingbird. Or maybe a condor.

The night was cold, snow drifting gently in the light of old turn-of-the-century streetlamps. Dean, in front of his barbershop at the end of the block, read a set of numbers to Dev, who stood under a light, unaware of the falling snow, checking them against the ticket.

He looked up, pale and clearly shaken. “We did win,” he whispered.

Ever a realist, Shelly pushed through the crowd to take the ticket from him. “Let me see that. Read them again, Dean. Slowly.”

Dean, a big, ruddy-faced man who knew everyone and everything in Jester, read them again. People were pressing around her, looking over her shoulder, blocking her light. It had to be a trick of the shadows cast on the ticket.

She followed every number with her finger, heard Dean read every number on the sixth line of the ticket—the winning line. They were Gwen Tanner’s numbers because she, like Shelly, had played her age—twenty-nine.

Shelly looked up at Dean, unable to speak. She parted her lips, but her throat refused to make a sound.

“How much did you win?” someone in the crowd asked.

“Forty—million—dollars!” Dean shouted, hands raised to heaven.

“That’s…” Dev was calculating. “Three million, three hundred and thirty-three thousand, three hundred and…well, you know. One of those numbers with threes that go on forever!”

“There’ll be taxes.” That brutal dose of reality was provided by Wyla Thorne, a pig farmer twice divorced, who usually invested with their group but had grown tired of the disappointment. Her life, Shelly guessed, judging by the woman’s attitude, had been full of it. Jack Hartman, the veterinarian, had bet in her place.

“We’ll still be millionaires!” Dev said, grinning from ear to ear. Then he wrapped his arms around Amanda Bradley, Shelly’s friend and Dev’s nemesis. Amanda owned Ex Libris, a bookstore that shared the building that housed the Heartbreaker. She and Dev were at odds about everything. But he’d apparently forgotten that in the joy of the moment as he waltzed her out of earshot.

“Do you know what this means?” Dean asked, hugging Shelly, bringing her thoughts back to her own good fortune.

She nodded, afraid to speak the word aloud. “Solvency. Maybe even…” It was a word most merchants in Jester never even considered. “Wealth!” she whispered reverently.

He laughed and, putting an arm around her shoulders, raised the other in a roundup gesture. “Come on, everybody. I’m buying drinks!”

They partied at the Heartbreaker for hours and it was three in the morning before everyone finally went their separate ways with promises to meet at The Brimming Cup the following morning. They’d commissioned Dean to hire an attorney for their group, who would call the lottery commission in the morning and find out the procedure for claiming their winnings.

Shelly sat alone in her dark living room—thinking she’d never be able to sleep and she had to be up at five anyway—and dealt with a weird and out-of-place trepidation.

Things were going to change, she’d realized in alarm about an hour ago.

Twelve people whose businesses had been hanging by a thread had just won enough money, even after taxes, to support themselves through old age if they were careful and invested wisely.

She made a note to herself to find out what in the heck a Roth IRA was. Everyone was saying it was the thing to do with their money.

That was already a small suggestion of change. People who never thought beyond paying the rent or the mortgage were now throwing around financial terms she’d never heard before.

So her financial woes were over, but she couldn’t help wonder just what had begun tonight. Life in Jester had been difficult, but predictable. Hot in the summer, cold in the winter, friends were family and family was everything.

The Merchants’ Association of Pine Run, the county seat, had always laughed at Jester because nine businesses comprised the entire economic base of the town. Still, they’d managed to do their part in community and charitable events. Imagine, she thought, what they would be able to do now.

But would money affect the cohesive quality of their group? Would they build bigger houses and bow out of business life downtown, preferring lives of leisure? Or would some leave Jester altogether, finally able to chase their dreams?

She’d accepted that her life was here, but she’d come to depend upon these people to give it its warmth and texture. They were what stood between her and loneliness. She didn’t think of herself as a business or career woman; she thought of herself as a nurturer. She provided food that kept her friends going, she listened to their problems, told them hers, exchanged advice and affection.

She needed them!

“Okay, calm down,” she told herself. “You tend to grasp and cling when you’re frightened. Relax. Forty million dollars is a good thing.”

Maybe it would bring her a man, she speculated, that little frisson of excitement tickling between her breasts again. She wouldn’t want a man who was attracted to her money, of course, but wouldn’t it be wonderful if her winnings made her more attractive?

What would it be like to have an unlimited wardrobe allowance? To have her hair done every week rather than every other month when she had it cut? To buy quality makeup instead of whatever was on sale at Cozy’s Drugstore, and a fragrance that was advertised in Vogue?

Her excitement flared until she realized this was just another indication of the changes Jester was in for. Practical, hardworking Shelly Dupree was thinking about makeup…and men!

Chapter One

Shelly stood on the corner of Main Street, waiting for the light midafternoon traffic to pass, and stared at the check in her hand. One million, one hundred thousand dollars! The group had chosen the option of getting their money all at once rather than the annuitized $84,000 a year, and that had dropped the full figure by half. Still a fortune, as far as she was concerned.

She knew it was unsophisticated to revel in her good fortune, probably even reckless to hold the check in her hand for all the world to see, but she couldn’t help it. She studied the neat, stick-straight ones printed on the check, then counted the zeroes. Five. Five zeroes! Seven figures! She was a millionaire!

“Hey, Shelly! You buying us lunch today?” Chet Brower waved from ten feet above her in the bucket of the city works department truck. He and his brother Chuck, who stood below in a hard hat, were changing the street signs in downtown Jester—a change insisted upon by Mayor Bobby Larson. Few of the merchants were in agreement—the old names went back to Jester history—but the whole town was terminal with lottery fever and the influx of new life it had brought to Jester, even before any of the Main Street Millionaires had deposited their checks.

Main Street was still Main Street, but the names of three major cross streets were being changed today. Her corner was now Big Draw Drive, a block east was Megabucks Boulevard and Lottery Lane was a block west. She’d expected things to change, but she hadn’t been prepared for just how much.

News vans stood on every corner and seemed to spew an enormous number of people into downtown. They represented Billings, Helena, Missoula, even television stations from neighboring states. Reporters were scattered all over town, interviewing shop owners and people on the street, determined to make what they were calling the Main Street Millionaires national news.

Gawkers had arrived from Pine Run, from Baker, Billings, and even Helena. Everyone wanted a glimpse of the Lucky Dozen, another name their group had acquired.

Chuck came to Shelly and swept off his hard hat. The Brower twins were tall and big, the backbone of the city works department. They looked like linebackers, but thanks to their minister mother, they had hearts of gold.

“Marry me, Shelly,” Chuck said, getting down on one knee on the sidewalk. “Then, buy me a Harley.”

Shelly laughed and swatted his shoulder. Half a block away, a photographer drew a bead on them.

“Oh, let’s see,” she said, pretending to give it some thought. “That would make me the Bride of Chuckie, wouldn’t it? Thanks, but I don’t think so.”

“No!” Still on his knee, he caught her hands. “Think of me as Charles! Prince Charles! You’d be a princess if you married me.”

Shelly patted his thinning brown hair. “Then you’d have two princesses, Chuck. Because you’re already married. You have three little redheaded children who look just like their mother. They’d be definite cogs in the works of a permanent relationship.”

He held his hat to his chest and said with sober sincerity, “I could put up with it if you’ll buy me a Harley.”

“How about a burger?” Chet called from the bucket. “And you don’t have to marry me.”

Shelly looked up to see that Chet had taken down the old Peterson Drive sign with the bullet hole in it and put up the shiny new Big Draw Drive—white lettering on a forest-green background.

“Free lunch for all my regulars tomorrow,” she said, a little stab of trepidation settling in her chest beside the tremors of excitement. “See you both?”

Chuck got to his feet. “You’re a woman of style, Shelly,” he said, sweeping his hat with a flourish as he bowed.

“Yeah, yeah,” she teased, starting across the street. “See you tomorrow.” She blew Chet a kiss over her shoulder.

Harvey Brinkman’s photographer shot her walking across the street while Harvey stood by, dressed as always in jeans and a flack jacket—a foreign correspondent wanna-be stuck at the Pine Run Plain Talker, circulation just over 6,000, because he had a reputation for erroneous reporting. And at just twenty-five, with a slight build, a pale complexion and curly blond hair, he talked like a gangster from the forties.

“Hi, doll!” he said as Shelly stepped onto the sidewalk. “Want to share with your fans what you’re doing with the dough?”

“Nothing exciting,” she replied politely. “Just taking it to the bank.” What she really wanted to do was push him into the old trough in front of the Heartbreaker to clear his head and remind him that he was in Jester, Montana, not Afghanistan, and that this was the twenty-first century.

But the trough that once held water was now a planter, and if he hadn’t figured out what time he was living in, there was little she could do to help him.

“There’s got to be something you can tell us, Shelly,” he pleaded, hurrying along with her as she passed the barbershop and headed for Jester Savings and Loan. “You selling the coffee shop and going to Europe? Staying home, but spending all your moola on new duds?” His cursory glance at her blue corduroy slacks and the wool-lined red parka that covered a blue turtleneck suggested that she really ought to consider that. “Nobody ever gets to see what you look like under that big apron you always wear.”

She kept walking, determined to suggest at the next city council meeting that they put water back in the old trough.

Cameras flashed and microphones were pushed in front of her face as she walked through the savings and loan’s leaded-glass double doors.

“Shelly! Are you finally going to live your dreams?”

“Can you tell us what they are?”

“What does the man in your life think of all this money!”

“Does it make up for not having children?”

She imagined her mother looking down on her and saying, “Patience, Shelly. Courtesy at all times. When you run a restaurant, your business is hospitality.”

This wasn’t her restaurant, but she’d been so conditioned to that creed that she tried to be kind to everyone and seldom lost her temper. Though this invasion of Jester was threatening to undermine her good humor. Still, she reminded herself, all these reporters, photographers and gawkers were eating regularly at The Brimming Cup.

She knew them by name now. When they were eating with her, they were friendly and fun and never asked questions, though they did make her feel as though she was being watched all the time. And when they were doing their jobs, they were unrelenting.

She answered their questions in order and smiled at each of them in turn. “I love Jester, but I might travel a little, the only man in my life is Sean Connery, and I doubt that anything would ever make up for not having children.”

“Sean Connery!” Gloria Russo from the Helena Herald gasped. She was short and plump and around Harvey’s age.

Harvey leaned toward her as Shelly walked past them toward a teller. “Relax,” he said. “It’s a cat.”

“Oh.”

“Ladies and gentlemen!” Sidney Brown, manager of the bank, was tall, slender and gray-haired in a three-piece gray suit. He pushed the reporters back as they tried to follow Shelly. “How many times do I have to remind you that the business transacted in a bank is private? Please! You’ve been harassing my depositors all day. I’d call the sheriff on you if he wasn’t already busy!”

Only slightly chastened, the reporters moved back to a refreshment table set up across the room with cookies and punch.

Shelly spent the next hour talking to Sidney about various savings plans, and opening a savings account until she could finally decide just what to do with her million. Her million! She loved thinking that word.

She deposited everything except four months’ mortgage payments so that she could be one month ahead, a bonus for Dan Bertram, her cook, and several thousand dollars to “play with.” The very thought gave her goose bumps. Money to play with. After the hardworking, frugal life her parents led, the words sounded like sacrilege.

When Shelly left the bank, the mayor and his assistant and self-appointed shadow, Paula Pratt, were on the sidewalk, being interviewed by the press. Bobby was wearing the earnest face he used in public.

He was in his late forties, a big, broad-shouldered man with light brown hair graying at the temples. He might have had a look of sophistication, except that he seemed always to be trying to project that and the effort seemed to negate the impression. Many of the townspeople considered him an opportunistic good old boy, but Shelly thought he was more complicated than that.

Randolph Larson, Bobby’s father, had also been mayor twenty years earlier. He’d been a wildcatter with a nose for oil. Though the family had been wealthy, he’d been a humble man with a sense of family and civic duty. And he’d given Bobby everything he wanted.

Now Bobby, who’d played away his years at college and married a beautiful young girl who’d become a sour, childless, middle-aged woman always longing for Seattle society, was trying to fit into his father’s shoes. But he was prideful rather than humble, and it was obvious to everyone, certainly even to him, that the shoes were just too big.

Consequently, hungry for the love and respect his father enjoyed, he took every opportunity for publicity, and fooled around on his wife, Regina.

Shelly suspected that, at the moment, he was doing it with Paula Pratt.

Paula was blond and shapely with a bra size higher than her IQ. She wore sheer blouses and lycra skirts and followed Bobby everywhere, calling him “Robert.” She carried a clipboard with her, and everyone speculated at Jester Merchants’ Association meetings about what was on it. Some thought it was the cartoon section from the morning’s Plain Talker. Other less trustful souls were sure she was taking down information to use against them later.

“…town’s always been a wonderful place to live,” Bobby was saying to Marina Andrews from the television station in Great Falls. “And someday all the excitement will die down and it’ll just be us again, but until then—” he smiled with boyish charm for the camera “—please come to Jester and spend your money.” He laughed at his own clever patter.

As Shelly tried to sneak by them unnoticed, Bobby reached an arm out for her and drew her in front of the camera. “And when you come, be sure to have pie at The Brimming Cup coffee shop owned by Shelly Dupree, here, one of our Main Street Millionaires. It’s an experience you won’t forget.”

“Okay.” Marina made a throat-cutting gesture to her photographer. “Got it. Thanks, Mr. Mayor.”

As Bobby and Paula moved on in search of another camera, Marina rolled her eyes at Shelly. “Someone who won’t stop talking on camera is almost as bad and someone who answers your questions with yes and no.” She offered Shelly her hand. “I’m Marina Andrews with…”

Shelly nodded. “I recognized you. Isn’t there something more important going on somewhere else in the world?”

Marina shrugged. “Well, there probably is, but this is the most interesting thing happening in Montana at the moment. I don’t suppose you’d like to round out my interview by telling me what you think of Jester and how you think it’ll be affected by twelve millionaires?”

“I think Jester’s a wonderful place to live,” Shelly replied, backing away. “And I think once all of you leave, it’ll just be the same old Jester, and we’ll be the same old people.”

Marina looked her in the eye. “Now, you don’t really believe that. You look different already.”

Surprised, Shelly stopped where she stood. “But…we haven’t met.”

Marina nodded. “Yes, we have. I was here when that windstorm two years ago ripped the roof off your place and the movie theater and we could see right inside from our helicopter.”

Shelly frowned. “I don’t remember talking to you.” Though she remembered that her photo had appeared in the paper. A friend in Great Falls had sent it to her.

“Well, you didn’t. I got the story from the barber. You were busy trying to get tarps pulled over everything to protect it until the roofer could come from Billings. It was a tough time for you, I know. And you didn’t look defeated, but you looked resigned, as if your life would never be any different and you knew it.” Marina shrugged her shoulders and smiled. “But, you don’t look that way today. You look…eager. Like maybe you could handle some things changing.”

“Some things,” she agreed. “Just not everything.”

“The right things.”

“Yes.”

Marina laughed with a journalist’s cynicism. “When you figure out a way to guarantee that, let me know.”

Marina’s photographer pointed out Dean Kenning, closing up the barbershop, and they both hurried to waylay him.

Shelly went back to The Brimming Cup. She pushed her way inside and caught a whiff of the beef barley soup she’d made after the lunch rush was over and left on to simmer. It smelled wonderful. She’d read somewhere that many people associated the days of the week with a color—Monday was red, tough and trying. Tuesday was yellow, quieter but still a challenge. And so on.

But to her the days of the week were an aroma. Monday, garden vegetable; Tuesday, chicken noodle; Wednesday, beef barley; Thursday, ham and split pea; Friday, clam chowder.

She’d wiped off tables before she left, and apparently they hadn’t been disturbed since. The chrome and blue vinyl of the tables and chairs in the middle of the room sparkled in the glaring winter sunlight. The blue vinyl booths up against the large plate-glass window with its blue-and-white-check valance were a slightly richer shade than the blue of the chairs. She’d been able to move the tables and chairs out of harm’s way during the storm, but had had to replace the upholstery on the booths after tree branches and other debris ripped holes in the vinyl when the roof blew off.

She’d changed so few things in the shop since her parents had died that she sometimes walked in expecting to hear her father in the kitchen or her mother behind the counter, filling napkin holders or setting up. She looked around now, sensing something different, some disturbance of the familiar space.

She could hear Dan on the other side of the shelves that separated the counter from the kitchen. He’d put a Garth Brooks song on the jukebox as he always did when the place emptied and she walked toward the counter, humming.

That was when she caught sight of the baby carrier on the corner of the counter. It had been behind her line of vision when she walked in the door.

Something else for the lost-and-found closet, she thought, wondering how someone could have walked out without their carrier and not noticed.

“Dan!” she shouted, as she walked toward it. “Who left the baby carrier?”

There was a moment’s silence, then his gruff voice came from the kitchen. “What carrier?” He came through the break in the shelving between the pie case and the coffee setup. He was tall and rough looking with a beaky nose and an attitude to match. He wore a paper hat, an apron over his kitchen whites and a scowl. He was a grump, but, like the Brower brothers, he was pure gold wrapped in a deceptive package. His wife had died ten years before, he’d raised a boy and a girl by himself, and now that they were in college in Texas, he worked as many hours as Shelly did. “There hasn’t been a soul in here since you left.”

“Maybe someone came in,” she speculated, “took the baby out of the carrier, and when no one appeared to wait on them…”

Dan had turned toward the counter and interrupted her with a gasping, “Oh, God!”

“What?” she demanded, hurrying toward the carrier. She suspected what his widened eyes and horrified expression might mean but couldn’t believe it.

“Maybe someone came in,” he said, stopping in front of the carrier and staring, “and maybe they left when I didn’t come out, but…but…”

“But, what?” Shelly leaned an elbow on the counter and looked into the front of the carrier. A fat-cheeked baby with bright blue eyes smiled gummily at her.

“But they didn’t take the baby out,” Dan said unnecessarily.

Chapter Two

“Oh, Dan!” Shelly exclaimed in a whisper. “Forgetting your baby carrier seems strange enough, but forgetting your baby?”

At her expression of indignation, the baby’s smile crumpled and he began to cry. Both little arms went up in agitation and Dan reached for a piece of paper tied to the blue-and-white crocheted blanket with a diaper pin.

“Oh, no. No, baby. Don’t cry.” Shelly took a tiny hand in hers and shook it playfully as Dan opened the note. “It’s okay. Don’t get upset. I’m sure your mom will be right back.”

Dan shifted his weight as he read. “Well, you’re wrong about that,” he said with a sigh. “Somebody left you this baby.”

“What?”

The baby shrieked at her loud exclamation and Shelly pulled him out of the carrier, blanket and all, and held him to her chest where he screamed in her ear.

“‘Please take care of Max,’” Dan read loudly over the baby’s screams. “‘I know you can give him all the love and money any little boy could need. Tell him I love him and I’m sorry.’”

“Sorry?” Shelly said in agitation. “Sorry? She leaves a helpless little baby in an empty coffee shop and she’s sorry? You poor baby!” She held the screeching baby tightly to her and paced back and forth behind the counter, Dan staring at her in concern.

“Call the sheriff,” he said. “He’ll get a caseworker from Pine Run to come get him.”

Shelly paced and shushed and talked nonsense, something she was surprised she knew how to do. Working with her parents in the coffee shop had left little time for the baby-sitting experience most other girls had acquired. But she found herself pressing her cheek to the baby’s hot cheek and patting his back. She noted that the scent of roses clung to him.

“He’s so small,” she said as the sobs quieted somewhat.

Dan nodded. “Most babies are.”

“How old do you think he is?”

He shrugged. “It’s been so long since mine were that size. I’d say maybe six, seven months.”

Even in her concern, Shelly was aware that there was something comfortable, comforting about the weight of the baby in her arms, about the little heart beating against her own.

She looked down into the unhappy little face, feeling a connection being made. Bright blue eyes looked back at her, a big tear perched on a bottom lid, stuck there. Max looked her over gravely then took a fistful of her hair. He studied it, then opened his mouth like a little bird and tried to bring the hair to it.

“Ouch. Ow.” Shelly offered him her index finger instead. “Here, take this. It’s used to being scraped and burned and otherwise abused.”

Max took it, put sharp little gums to it, then leaned sideways against her with a little piglet sound of contentment.

An urgent, protective feeling raged through her, taking every nurturing inclination she’d ever had and squaring it to make her feel—oh, God—maternal.

For a moment she felt as though a pair of giant hands had shaken her, disturbed her whole being and her world, then set her down again. Absently she saw through the window that snow had begun to fall.

Great, she thought. Shelly Rose Dupree, millionairess, caught in a snow globe.

No! she thought fiercely. No, no, no! This was probably just some passing sensation every girl or woman experienced when she held a baby. But this baby wasn’t hers. Someone had left it to her, but she was sure she’d change her mind in a heartbeat and be right back—probably before they even closed the coffee shop.

And she was not a candidate for motherhood. She loved children, sure, but she worked six long days a week, and she finally had some money to go places and do things. She couldn’t take care of a baby.

Dan was right. She had to go see Luke McNeil, the sheriff.

There. The maternal feeling left as quickly as it had come. The past two weeks had been such an emotional roller coaster. She was just stressed. Not to mention shocked by having a baby left on the counter of her coffee shop.

“Okay.” She tried to put Max back in the carrier, but he began to scream again, so she held him in her arms instead. “I’m going to see Luke. I hope he’s in his office, and not out on a call. Can you close up for me? Put the soup in the fridge? I’ll come in early and prep in the morning.”

“Sure.” Dan helped her into her coat, then took the gray sweater she kept in the back and wrapped it also around the baby. “Are you going to be okay? You need me to come?”

“I’ll be fine,” she said. “You take care of things here. Oh.” She pointed to the purse she’d left on the table in the first booth when she came in. “Take that envelope sticking out with your name on it, and put the purse on my shoulder.”

He did as she asked, then studied the envelope as he walked her to the door. “What’s this?”

“Open it when you get home,” she directed, then walked out into the snow, wrapping her coat around the baby. The sheriff’s office was kitty-corner from The Brimming Cup.

As she waited to cross the street, Shelly became aware that Luke was not out on a call, but he did seem to be having some kind of problem. She could see his tall, strong, uniformed body in the middle of a throng of people holding placards. They were marching around him and shouting.

No News Is Good News! she noticed one of the signs read as the sudden disappearance of traffic allowed her to cross diagonally. Other signs read, Clear Out Of Jester! Go Bother Somebody Else! Money Talks. It Says, Get Out Of Jester! Dean Kenning was carrying that one, but he was smiling. She had a feeling he’d joined the crowd out of amusement rather than any serious disapproval of the presence of the news media.

Shelly pushed her way through the crowd to approach Luke. He was tall and dark and had Native American ancestors. “Can I talk to you for a minute?” she asked.

“If you’re going to complain about the press,” he said with a long-suffering sigh, “it’s been taken care of. And then some.”

“I wasn’t,” she assured him.

He looked surprised. “But you hate them.”

“Yes, but I also realize we’re news and that pretty soon we won’t be and they’ll all go away. Luke, can we talk?”

“Sure.” He caught her arm and, opening his office door, pushed her gently inside. Then he turned to the protestors and said firmly, “You keep your voices down and stay out of the street.”

Several nodded and everyone kept marching.

Luke closed the door behind him. He had a small, cluttered office, but in the past six years that he’d occupied it, he’d solved Jester’s problem of nighttime vandalism, and two years ago he had caught a pair of prisoners who’d escaped from Folsom and were considered armed and dangerous. He had a toughness appropriate to his position, but he was a very nice man. At the moment, however, he was understandably preoccupied with the marchers and she needed him to focus on finding a solution to this baby.

He stopped in the middle of the office and turned to her. “What is it?”

She shifted her weight impatiently. “Luke!” She pointed to Max. “Have you completely failed to notice that I have a baby in my arms?”

He frowned at that, apparently unsure of her point. “I noticed. Whose is it?”

“I don’t know!” she snapped at him. “Someone left him in the coffee shop. Can you check if someone’s reported a baby missing?”

“No babies missing. What do you mean someone left it? How do you leave a baby?”

“They just did. I went to the bank to deposit my check and when I came back…” She handed him the note. “I can’t have a baby. You have to call whoever in Pine Run takes care of abandoned children.”

Max squirmed and fussed and she moved him into her left arm, hoping to placate him.

“You’re not making sense,” he said. “If you knew someone left this note with him, why did you ask if there were babies missing?”

“I don’t know. Just desperate. I thought maybe someone stole him, then decided they didn’t want him after all.”

He considered that, then nodded as though that might be possible. “I’ll check again. Meanwhile—” he put his fingertips to the baby’s cheek “—he feels hot.”

“Oh, no.” She’d noticed that earlier, but it hadn’t registered as a problem. “Do you think he’s sick?”

He shook his head. “I don’t have much firsthand experience with babies, except for having delivered a few. Why don’t you take him to the medical center and have the doc check him out, and I’ll see if I can round up somebody from Child and Family Services.”

“Good idea.” As Luke picked up the phone, Shelly went outside again, sheltering the now-screaming baby against her body. The protestors parted ranks to let her through and she hurried across the street, down the block and around the corner.

Nathan Perkins was the quintessential family doctor. He was a loving husband, devoted father of three, and a friend as well as physician to most patients he saw. He deserved the respect everyone in Jester gave him.

But Nathan wasn’t there, according to the young redheaded receptionist, who led her to a small examining room. Standing in for him was a tall, slender man with rich brown hair and a pair of gold-green cat’s eyes that put her on the edge the moment she looked into them. They looked her over, went to the screaming baby in her arms, then back to her eyes with a disapproval that confused her.

But she didn’t have time to think about it. She held Max out to the doctor. “Please,” she said. “Is something wrong with him?”

He took the baby, his large hands covering the baby’s torso. He walked around with him, putting a hand to his forehead and his cheek.

“Has he had his DPT shots?” he asked.

“Ah…?”

“Diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis vaccine,” he explained.

“I don’t know,” she replied.

“His HI?”

“Um…?”

“Hemophilus influenzae B.”

“I don’t know. I run The Brimming Cup and he was…”

“When did this start?” he interrupted.

“I just noticed it in the sheriff’s office when…”

Those eyes looked into hers again and stopped her cold. “Did you try baby aspirin?”

“No, I…”

“Cool bath?” He’d taken out a stethoscope and was listening to Max’s heart while the baby latched on to the instrument.

“No, I told you I was in the sheriff’s…”

He held a finger up for quiet as he listened. Then he removed the stethoscope, put it out of the baby’s reach, and asked with another direct glance into her eyes that had an angry quality to it she didn’t understand, “Do you know what he weighs?”

“No, I don’t. I…”

He leaned a hip on the examining table and held the baby to him, stroking his back and shushing him. He pointed her to the room’s only chair.

She sat, her mind a whirl of the afternoon’s shocking events and the doctor’s inexplicably aggressive behavior.

“This baby is supposed to be your first priority,” he said in a voice that had gentled only slightly and sounded as though it intended to preach. She suddenly realized what he must be thinking.

“Doctor, I’m…”

“How can you not know whether or not your baby’s been immunized?” he interrupted again. “How can you not know what he weighs? How can you have a baby and pursue a lifestyle that lands you in the sheriff’s office?”

She sprang to her feet again, tired of his accusations, whatever he thought.

“Because I’m not his mother!” she shouted at him. “He was abandoned in my restaurant by someone who left a note, saying she knew I could take care of him because I’m one of the winners of the lottery!”

He had the grace to look surprised, though not particularly apologetic. So she went on.

“And I was in the sheriff’s office because going to the authorities seemed to be the thing to do when you find an abandoned baby. What would you have done? Simply shouted at the baby like you shout at your patients?”

EVEN CONNOR COULD AGREE that he had that coming. He should have asked before he took on an accusatory approach to her parenting. But he’d seen so much child neglect and abuse in Los Angeles, where he came from, that he’d become a warrior in defense of children. And sometimes that meant getting mean with parents.

“No,” he replied with a half smile. “I never yell at babies. I’m sorry. I mistook you for one of those women for whom the fuzzy glow of motherhood had worn off. When you couldn’t answer any of my questions, I thought you’d lost interest in your baby.”

That honest admission seemed to defuse her anger, but only a little. She blinked wide, darkly lashed hazel eyes at him. “Well, maybe you should have asked.”

He nodded. “Maybe I should have.”

That might have defused her anger a little more, but he could see in her eyes that she resisted forgiving him. He’d hurt her feelings after all. She was another touchy hybrid like Lisa had been. She angled her chin, short, straight, glossy brown hair catching the light.

“Can you tell me what’s wrong with him?” the woman asked, folding her arms, apparently determined to keep him at a cool distance.

That was fine with him.

“Actually, I think he’s just teething,” he said, putting his index finger into the baby’s mouth. The baby sucked on it like a little vacuum. “You can feel the two central incisors just about to pop through. Here. Feel.”

She gave him a disdainful look, then came closer and put her finger in the baby’s mouth. “Oh.” She smiled at the baby. “You’re getting teeth, Max.”

The baby laughed at her.

In all his years of internship, residency and practice, Connor had yet to see an ugly baby, but this little guy had a winning way as well as pink cheeks and bright blue eyes.

“I can’t imagine anyone being able to just leave him and walk away,” she said, her disapproval finally aimed away from him and toward the baby’s mother.

“I know.” He handed the baby back to her. “But I worked at an inner-city hospital in L.A. and I saw it all the time. And as incredible as it is, it’s a better choice for the child than those who keep their babies then can’t deal with them. You might give him a cold, wet washcloth to chew on, or freeze a bagel he can gnaw on. Just make sure he doesn’t get a piece off and choke on it. Over-the-counter teething solutions help a little, too.”

She held the baby to her and wrapped him up. “I can’t have a baby,” she said a little defensively. “I’d love to have one, but I work all the time.” She looked at him as though she expected censure.

Instead, he nodded. “Some lifestyles just don’t allow it.”

“It’s not a lifestyle choice,” she said, her defensive tone a little edgier. “I mean, I’m going to have money now. I wouldn’t have to keep the coffee shop, but it was my parents’, you know, and I grew up in it. I watched them pour their hearts into it. I can’t just sell it and move on.”

He didn’t know why she seemed to need his agreement, but she did.

“I understand,” he said.

Apparently she didn’t think he could. “I’ve never heard of you,” she said, rocking the baby as he began to fuss. The words suggested that was his problem rather than hers. “Do you live here, or are you just helping out?”

“I went to medical school with Nathan,” he replied, opening the examining-room door for her. “I visited last summer, and he told me if I wanted to come back, he’d give me a job. I liked it here, so I took him up on it. This is my third day as a resident of Jester.”

“Well…learn to soft-pedal that aggression,” she said, stepping out into the hallway. “Most of the people here are kind and neighborly and good to their children.”

She offered the advice seriously. He took it humbly, eager to send her on her way so that he could put in his last hour here, get something to eat and go to his bed—such as it was. He’d been sleeping on a cot in the storage room upstairs until he found a place to live.

“Hey, Doc. How’re you liking Jester?” Luke McNeil stood in the waiting room, hat in hand, chatting with Carlie Goodwin, the receptionist. She went back to work when Connor claimed Luke’s attention.

Connor had been on call the night before, and the sheriff had brought him a teenager he’d picked up for drunk driving. The kid had cut himself on broken glass in a fall while trying to escape. Connor had liked McNeil and his caring but no-nonsense approach to law enforcement.

Connor went forward to shake hands with him. “I’m doing fine, Sheriff. Too bad about this little guy.”

McNeil looked alarmed. “Is he sick?”

“No,” Connor assured him. “I meant, it’s too bad somebody abandoned him and left him to the mercies of the system.”

“Yeah, well, the system’s not working too well at the moment.” He frowned in concern. “Every time the wind picks up around here, the phone lines go down. We have virtually no cell phone reception. I can’t get through to Pine Run to get a caseworker here.” He turned a subtly pleading look on Shelly.

She began to fidget. “I can’t, Luke. I’ve never taken care of a baby. I wouldn’t know what to do. A couple of hours would be one thing, but through the night? I…I…”

As though on cue, the baby grabbed a fistful of her hair, yawned mightily, blinked deeply several times, then fell asleep on her shoulder.

Connor had never seen a woman look so terrified at the prospect of caring for a baby. What he’d taken for lack of enthusiasm about her baby when he’d thought she was his mother was apparently just inexperience. Or possibly simple unwillingness to deal with babies.

He couldn’t help the animosity that stirred inside him. He knew it was indicative of his own personal dichotomy where babies were concerned. While he truly felt that people who didn’t want children shouldn’t have them, he wanted them. Yet the only women who seemed to cross his path were those who didn’t. One of the many irreconcilable differences that had ended his marriage to Lisa a year ago was their divergent opinions on whether or not to have children.

This woman was certainly entitled to do what she wanted with her own life, but he wanted her to come to the rescue of this baby—at least for tonight. He couldn’t keep it. He was sleeping on a cot in an upstairs room that had nothing else in it but supplies. And as long as Nathan was gone, he could be called out at any time of the night.

McNeil sighed. “Then, I guess we’ll have to leave the baby with Connor, Shelly.”

“With who?” she asked.

McNeil looked from her to him. “You mean you haven’t even introduced yourselves?”

“No,” she said. “He was too busy accusing me of child neglect.”

Connor kept quiet. It didn’t look as though there was any way he was going to be able to defend himself in this.

McNeil pointed to Connor. “Shelly, this is Connor O’Rourke, Jester’s new pediatrician. Doc, this is Shelly Dupree, owner of The Brimming Cup and usually a very nice lady.” He fixed Shelly with a serious expression. “Now, come on. You got to help me find a solution here.”

Shelly rocked the baby from side to side, her mouth set in a pugnacious line. “We can’t leave Max with him. He has a bad disposition.”

McNeil studied her in puzzlement. “Now, I know that isn’t true, Shelly, because I woke him up in the middle of the night last night with an injured kid and he was very kind to the boy. And he didn’t yell at me, either.”

“You wear a gun, Luke,” she pointed out. “Nobody yells at you.”

McNeil took each of them by an arm and led them to the old brown vinyl sofa and chairs. “I have a thought,” he said. “Let’s talk this through.” He sat them side by side on the sofa, then pulled up a chair facing them.

He pointed to Shelly. “You’re unsure of how to take care of the baby.”

“Yes,” she agreed.

“And you—” he indicated Connor “—are sleeping on a cot in the supply room.”

“Yeah.”

“So what if—” he smiled winningly at Shelly “—the doc stays the night at your place so that if you have a problem with the baby, he’ll be there to help.”

Her eyes widened. She looked at Connor as though he carried the Ebola virus.

“I’ll try to get through to Pine Run tomorrow. I’ll even drive down there, if I have to. But I can’t do that tonight because I still have a crowd of picketers in front of the office and a bunch of reporters who’ve taken offense at their attitude. Come on, Shell. Give me a break. The other day when I was having lunch at your place, you told me you’d thought about taking in a boarder.”

She didn’t want to do this. It had trouble written all over it. In bold caps.

But the weight of the warm baby on her shoulder was scrambling her determination to have nothing more to do with him. She finally had life the way she wanted it. She was solvent. She could do things. She didn’t know what yet, but when the opportunity arose, she wanted to be ready.

She couldn’t afford to be sidetracked.

But this was just for one night. And it involved the grumpy doctor, but she could live with that if it would help Max.

“What do you think, Doc?” Luke asked.

Connor O’Rourke turned to Shelly, a look of clear reluctance on his face. “You promise not to make my life miserable while I’m there?” he asked.

There was amusement in his eyes, but not a hint of a smile on his face. She wasn’t sure if he was teasing her or not.

“If you promise not to make assumptions about me,” she retorted stiffly.

“All right!” Luke said with relief. “Now we’re talking.” He stood, apparently anxious to get away before one of them had a change of heart. “I’ll try to contact Pine Run first thing in the morning, and I’ll see what I can do about tracking down his mother. Thanks, Shelly. Thank you, Doc.”

“Yeah.”

“Sure.”

The door closed with a bang behind Luke, and the baby raised his head with a whimper.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Shelly crooned, patting his back and rocking him. He put his head down immediately and went back to sleep.

“I live on Orchard Street,” Shelly said, putting her purse on her shoulder and moving carefully to her feet with the baby. O’Rourke made a move to help her, but she glared at him and he took a step back. “On the corner of Peterson.” Then remembering the street names had been changed this morning, she corrected herself with a sigh. “I mean Big Draw Drive. It’s a yellow house with white trim and a Beware of Cat sign on the door.”

“Should I be worried?” he asked with a very small smile. “Or is it a joke?”

“It’s never been tested,” she replied, shifting the baby in her arms. It was amazing, she was beginning to realize, how so small a bundle could feel so heavy after a while. Her purse fell off her shoulder with the movement and O’Rourke reached casually out to put it back. It was just a brush of touch through the thickness of her parka, but she felt it. She thought that odd. “I saved the cat from a snowstorm, so he’s very devoted to me. If you were to shout at me, he might very well attack you.”

He lowered his voice as he walked her to the door. “I’m martial arts trained,” he said, and pulled the door open. “Is there anything you want me to pick up on the way home?”

She was surprised by the thoughtfulness of the question, considering the way he’d treated her in the beginning—and the way she’d treated him in return.

“I meant diapers, wipes, powder,” he said.

She hadn’t thought of that. And she couldn’t see herself shopping with the baby in one arm and pushing a cart with her other hand. Experienced mothers had a way of doing that, she was sure, but she couldn’t see herself managing it.

He seemed to be reading her mind. Or he simply considered her completely incompetent.

He pulled her back into the office and closed the door. “Hold on a minute. I’ll get you a few diapers to keep you going until I can pick some up for you.”

He took off at a lope and disappeared into a hallway. He was back in a moment with a black soft-sided briefcase into which he’d placed several disposable diapers, a sample tube of antibacterial ointment and a sample pack of wipes.

“Whose briefcase?” she asked as he put it on the same shoulder as her purse.

“Mine,” he replied, opening the door again. “We don’t have anything as civilized as a paper bag, and you do have your hands full.”

Again his consideration confused her.

His stomach growled and he grinned, putting a hand to it. “Sorry. With Nathan gone, I didn’t have time for lunch today.”

She was going to hate herself for this, but she said politely, “I make a good shepherd’s pie, if you’d like to join me for dinner.”

Surprise registered in his eyes. “I would, thank you.” He pulled up the sweater she had wrapped around the blanketed baby and placed it so that it covered Max’s head.

She hurried down the steps, moving carefully where the snow had made them slick. It was only a block and a half to her home, but she went to the coffee shop first to pick up the baby carrier. She tried to put Max in it to simplify the walk home, but he awoke and began to cry. She put her purse and the briefcase over her shoulder, threaded her arm through the handle of the carrier and headed home with the baby in her free arm, fast asleep again.

She tried to pick up the pace, but the complicated burden she carried forced her to slow down. She noticed the snow drifting over and around them in silent strokes. Snow was so much a part of winter life here that it was just another fixture of downtown, like the lights and the trees they’d planted in better times.

Dusk had fallen and the streetlights were on. Downtown was a little fantasy world, every shop outlined in white outdoor lights. The merchants had gotten together to trim their businesses for Christmas two years ago, and everyone had liked it so much, they’d left them up. The relatively small amount it had upped their power bills was a small price to pay for casting a glow in the middle of a cold, dark winter.

She hurried up the six steps to her cottage, smiling when her new sensor porch light went on. She fitted her key in the lock, reached in to flip on the living room light, then closed the door quietly behind her, the baby still asleep.

The cottage looked very different than it had when her mother had decorated it. She’d loved Victorian-style furnishings and had had the place cluttered with medallion-back sofas, chairs with doilies on the arms and spindly little tables covered with knickknacks. Shelly had sold everything but a little desk she’d put up in her bedroom and decorated in a plainer, more comfortable style. She had a red-and-cream-check sofa, a big beige chair by the brick fireplace, two wicker rockers she’d painted Chinese red with cushions she’d covered in yellow-and-green-flowered fabric.

There’d been a dining room right off the living room, but she’d taken out the table and chairs, since she never got to use them, and extended the living area into one great room.

The kitchen woodwork, which had been the same shade of blue as the restaurant, was now a mossy green color. She’d painted the walls a soft pink and pulled the colors together with a border of potted flowers in yellow and pink. A little square table that could seat four but was really more comfortable for two sat near a window that looked out onto her large backyard and the rolling hills beyond.

She always loved coming home. The restaurant was her life, because it had been her parents’ life, but as a child she’d always been eager to come home after going to the restaurant after school. As an adult, she’d taken even more pleasure in her home. Though she spent precious little time here, it was a haven. A lonely haven, but still a haven.

She put the carrier on the table and placed Max in it while she put the other things down and removed her coat. He woke up instantly and began to cry. The cry turned quickly to a screech of displeasure. She changed him and tried to feed him, but he was too busy screaming.

“Okay, okay,” she placated, picking him up again. “We’ll just have to cook with one arm.”

She learned, over the next hour, that that was not as easy as it sounded.

Chapter Three

Armed with a box of diapers and a bag filled with a few other purchases appropriate to the care of a baby, Connor knocked on Shelly’s front door. He heard the baby screaming somewhere in the back of the house and wondered how Shelly was faring. The sound suggested she wasn’t doing well, but he knew that sometimes there was just no way to stop the screaming. It had to go on until the baby exhausted himself.

And Max probably knew on some level that his mother had abandoned him. He had every right to scream.

Connor rang the doorbell and, when there was still no answer, tried the doorknob. It gave and the door opened, admitting him to a room that was cold and dark. He caught a glimpse of fat, upholstered furniture and a brick fireplace.

“Hello?” he called.

The only answer was “Meow?”

He peered through the shadows and spotted a pair of bright yellow eyes in an indistinguishable form perched on the back of the sofa. That’s right. Shelly had talked about her cat.

He stroked the cat’s thick fur, trying to remember his name. Mel Gibson? John Travolta? Sean Connery!

“Hey, Sean,” he said, scratching between the cat’s ears. “Where’s Moneypenny?”

He saw a light toward the back of the house and followed it. He heard Sean leap down, then felt him race past his ankles into the kitchen.

Connor found Shelly standing over the sink, the baby propped on her shoulder, screaming, while she held his pudgy little legs to her with one arm and tried to peel a potato. It didn’t appear to be going well. The three potatoes on the counter beside her still wore their peels.

Sean went to a food bowl in a corner of the kitchen and settled down to eat.

“Hi!” Connor shouted from the doorway to the kitchen.

She turned, the baby clutched to her with the hand holding the peeler. Her sleek hair was slightly disheveled and she looked frazzled.

“Hi,” she replied with a sigh. “I know you’re starving, but dinner’s not going together very quickly.”

He put the box and bag down on the floor, pulled off his coat and dropped it on top of them.

“Maybe it’ll help if I take the baby,” he said, walking toward her.

She aimed a hip at him to pass Max over and they were eye to eye for the space of a heartbeat. He felt his heart punch against his ribs.

Cool it, Romeo, he told himself. This is the wrong direction for you. So the blue turtleneck makes her hazel eyes an interesting shade of teal. So she looks tousled and vulnerable. This isn’t the real her. She has a sharp tongue and she doesn’t want babies in her life. You just freed yourself from a woman like that.

“I noticed a fireplace,” he said, settling the baby on his hip and pointing toward the living room. Max, surprised by the sudden movement, stopped crying. “Do you want a fire in it?”

“That’d be nice,” she replied, leaning back against the sink as though handing him the baby had been a great relief. “I was so preoccupied with the baby, I just now remembered to turn up the furnace. Max won’t let you put him down to build the fire, though.”

“That’s okay. I can do most of it one-handed.”

“Then you’re more talented than I am.”

“Not necessarily.” She looked like a woman who needed encouragement. “Potato peeling is definitely a two-handed job.”

She accepted that concession with a smile. “Dinner will be about another hour. Do you need something to nibble on in the meantime?”

That sounded hopeful. “Do you have something?”

She went to the refrigerator and pulled out a small plate of hors d’oeuvres—water chestnuts wrapped in bacon, little puffy things he couldn’t identify, and two slices of what looked like pepper jack cheese.

Maybe he’d fallen into something really good here.

“Do you always prepare hors d’oeuvres with dinner?” he asked as he accepted the plate gratefully.

She smiled. She had pretty white teeth and a small dimple in the left corner of her mouth. It snagged his attention.

“No,” she replied. “They’re left over from a party the Main Street Millionaires had last night to celebrate picking up our checks. Eat up. But let me get you crackers to go with the cheese.”

She reached overhead to a cupboard handle and pulled. Nothing happened. Then she smacked the door with the side of her fist just under the handle and it popped open.

“House is settling, or something,” she grumbled while removing several crackers from the box and adding them to his plate. “Want a glass of wine to go with that?”

He was already a little intoxicated with her closeness, but he replied, “Sure.”

“Let me get these potatoes peeled, and I’ll bring it to you.”

He went to the living room, holding the plate out of the interested baby’s reach. He found the light switch by the front door, then put the plate down on a low table. The baby’s eyes followed his movements as he took one of the bacon-wrapped chestnuts to keep himself going.

“This’ll give you heartburn,” he told Max as he reached into a brass wood box and dropped two chunks of wood and a wad of newspaper onto the hearth. He sat down cross-legged beside them, pushed back a simple wire-mesh screen and, while holding Max on his thigh, stacked the wood.

He tore the newspaper into single page widths, then folded and twisted them into a sort of kindling. He pulled a page away from Max as he tried to draw it into his mouth.

“That’s not what they mean by digesting the news,” he said into the baby’s scream of indignation. “I know, I know. You have big plans and someone’s always changing them for you. Well, relax. I brought you some strained squash. Yum.”

Connor spotted fireplace matches in a decorated tin cup on the mantel. He stood with Max, sat him on the beige chair right beside the fireplace, and while the baby screamed a protest at his abandonment, Connor lit the tinder, waited to see how well the draft would take, then added a third piece of wood at an angle atop the other two.

He straightened to see Shelly standing behind him with a glass of wine.

“Perfect fire,” she observed as it caught the top length of wood. She handed him the wine. “Boy Scout or pyromaniac?”

“Thank you. Boy Scout,” he replied. “I can also make a church out of Popsicle sticks, but that’s not as useful so I don’t show it off. You get the potatoes peeled?”

“They’re peeled and mashed and in the oven on top of scrambled hamburger and fresh green beans. In another forty minutes it’ll be shepherd’s pie.”

“Sounds wonderful.” He took a sip of the wine, then put the glass down on the coffee table and went to pick up the baby, but Shelly waved him away and took Max into her arms. He stopped crying instantly.

“I’ll hold him so you can drink your wine.” She moved to the sofa and sat down in a corner, settling Max in a sitting position in her lap. He played with a gold and silver bangle bracelet on her right hand. “It’s amazing,” she observed, “that at just six months old a baby’s figured out that if you scream loud and long enough someone will pick up.”

He sat on the other end of the sofa. “Babies are just like adults. Everyone wants to be held by someone who cares about them.”

No one knew that better than Shelly. She focused her attention on the baby so Connor wouldn’t see that in her eyes.

“Do you think you’re going to like Jester?” she asked to divert the conversation. “It can be pretty quiet here in the winter.”

“That’s okay with me. Medicine gives me all the excitement I need.”

“What do you do with your spare time? There’s good skiing not too far from here.”

He grinned. “In L.A. I often saw the results of skiing accidents sent to us for sophisticated surgery and decided that unless I could ski in a tank, it isn’t for me. I’m more of a putterer.”

“You mean…gardens and home repairs?”

He nodded. “I’m looking for a house with a shed or a garage big enough to hold a workshop.” He sipped at his wine and looked around her living room as though checking for what should be repaired. “It’s embarrassing, but at heart I’m the typical suburban guy who’s happy with a house to work on, a yard to mow and bicycles to fix.”

Shelly was charmed by that revelation. He should fit well into life in Jester, where the biggest dream was to see the community thrive.

“What do you do when it’s time to play?” he asked.

“I have evenings and Sundays off, and I usually spend that time trying to catch up on the personal stuff there isn’t much time for during the week.”

He frowned. “That doesn’t sound restful.”

She shrugged. “I do have a cook at the restaurant who’ll watch things for me if I have to leave. And during busy times, there’s a high school girl I call on to help out. But mostly, I work. It’s what my parents did, and it’s what I’ve done most of my life. By the time I was six I was doing dishes and helping to clean up and prep for the next day. By the time I was ten I could replace a waitress and prepare chili or stew on my own. It was a happy life, but I worked all the time.”

He looked sympathetic. “Not precisely a childhood.”

She’d thought about that a lot and had come to what she considered a sane conclusion. “It wasn’t,” she agreed. “And sometimes when I was an adolescent or a teen I was resentful that other kids could play baseball in the park or go to the movies while I was chopping vegetables and waiting on tables. But I realized early in high school that one of my friends was always free to do what she wanted because her mother didn’t really care where she was, and another one got to do all kinds of things I couldn’t because she had a little brother who had leukemia and her parents were so busy with him, they didn’t worry much about her. So I got over my resentment.”

“Nobody’s life is perfect,” he agreed. “My father was a brilliant researcher in oncology, and my mother a pediatrician. They were warm and loving, but I seldom saw them. I had my own resentments, then I felt guilty because I knew they were out saving the world and finally decided to just appreciate what I had. But I think it’s okay to admit that you wish things had been a little different. It isn’t disloyal, it’s just healthy.”

“I know,” she agreed with a self-deprecating smile. “I just value their memory so much, I don’t want them to guess even now that the life they worked so hard at deprived me of a few things. Are your parents gone?”

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