“As tempting as it is to take a little detour here with you, I’m not going to.”

“You’re not?”

“Here’s the thing,” Reed declared, using her exact terminology.

It occurred to Ruby that he was not a man of almosts. He wasn’t almost tall or almost handsome or almost proud. He was all those things and more. He’d drawn a line in the sand, and apparently he intended to make certain she knew exactly how far, how deep and how wide the line ran.

“The baby you saw my brother carrying before lunch?” he said. “You assumed Marsh is his father.”

She stood mute, waiting for him to continue.

“Are you telling me Marsh isn’t Joey’s father?”

“It’s possible he is.” Reed’s voice was deep, reverent almost, and extraordinarily serious. “But it’s also possible I am.”

Surely Ruby’s dismay was written all over her face. But she didn’t have it in her to care how she looked.

The baby she’d seen before lunch was possibly Reed’s? Had she heard him correctly?

* * *

Round-the-Clock Brides:

Minute by minute … hour by hour … they’ll find true love.

Dear Reader,

When I was fifteen, my brother said, “There’s a guy I want you to meet.” He was tall and older—sixteen. Three years later I married him, and I’ve loved him, and a good wedding, ever since. It’s not the walk down the aisle or even what happens after that walk is over, because let’s face it, a lot of hard things can happen later. What I love is the moment when two people promise to love one another forever. In that instant forever is possible; all good things are.

When I began writing my first book set in Orchard Hill, I didn’t know it would launch a series called Round-the-Clock Brides. I only knew it would begin with a gift and end with a wedding. Halfway through The Wedding Gift I knew minor character Ruby O’Toole would star in her own book one day.

A Bride by Summer is Ruby’s story. It begins with a chance encounter and ends with a promise: good things are going to happen.

Let’s all believe…

Sandra

A Bride by Summer

Sandra Steffen

www.millsandboon.co.uk

SANDRA STEFFEN has always been a storyteller. She began nurturing this hidden talent by concocting adventures for her brothers and sisters, even though the boys were more interested in her ability to hit a baseball over the barn—an automatic home run. She didn’t begin her pursuit of publication until she was a young wife and mother of four sons. Since her thrilling debut as a published author in 1992, more than thirty-five of her novels have graced bookshelves across the country.

This winner of a RITA® Award, a Wish Award and a National Readers’ Choice Award enjoys traveling with her husband. Usually their destinations are settings for her upcoming books. They are empty nesters these days. Who knew it could be so much fun? Please visit her at www.sandrasteffen.com.

For my beloved brothers, Ron and Dave.

Every girl should have a big brother.

I was lucky enough, and so blessed, to have two.

Contents

Cover

Introduction

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Extract

Copyright

Chapter One

Reed Sullivan wasn’t an easy man to read.

Not that the two women waiting in line behind him at the drugstore in Orchard Hill weren’t trying. In the security camera on the wall he saw one nudge the other before motioning to the small carton he’d pushed across the counter. The pharmacy tech held any outward display of curiosity to a discreet lift of her eyebrows as she dropped his purchase into a white paper bag.

Apparently men didn’t buy paternity test kits here every day.

He didn’t begrudge any of them their curiosity. Most of the time he appreciated that particular trait inherent in most women almost as much as he enjoyed the way they could change the atmosphere in a room just by entering it. He had a deep respect for women, enjoyed spending time with them, was intrigued by them and appreciated them on so many levels. He did not leave birth control to chance. And yet here he was, making a purchase he’d never imagined he would need to make.

He paid with cash, pocketed his change and left the store, by all outward appearances as cool, calm and confident as he’d been when he’d entered. Out in the parking lot, a bead of sweat trickled down his neck and under the collar of his shirt.

Reed understood profit margins and the challenges of zoning issues. Those things always made sense in the end. This was different. Nothing about this situation made sense. Gnawing worry had jolted him awake at 4:00 a.m. It didn’t require great insight to understand the cause. It all centered around the innocent baby he and his brothers had discovered on their doorstep ten days ago.

The very idea that someone would abandon a baby in such a way in this day and age was ludicrous. And yet there the baby had been, unbelievably tiny and undeniably alone. Reed, Marsh and Noah were all confirmed bachelors and hadn’t known the first thing about caring for a baby, but they’d picked the crying infant up and discovered a note.

Our precious son, Joseph Daniel Sullivan. I call him Joey. He’s my life. I beg you take good care of him until I can return for him.

Our precious son? Whose precious son?

The handwritten note hadn’t been addressed. Or signed.

Reed wasn’t prone to self-doubt, but now he wondered if they should have performed a paternity test immediately. He should have insisted. What had he been thinking?

He hadn’t been thinking. None of them had.

They’d spent the first week fumbling with formula and feedings, diaper changes and sleep deprivation while doing everything in their power to determine what the infant in their charge needed and wanted.

Joey had a lusty cry he wasn’t afraid to use, and yet before his first night with them was over, he’d looked with burgeoning trust at the three men suddenly thrust into this new and foreign role. He didn’t seem to mind their ineptitude.

Until that night, Reed and his brothers hadn’t considered the possibility that one of them might have become a father without their knowledge. To make matters worse, they had no way of knowing which of the women from their respective pasts might have been desperate enough to leave Joey in such a manner. The million-dollar question remained.

Which of them was Joey’s father?

Reed placed the small paper bag containing the paternity test kit on the passenger seat and started his car. As he pulled out of his parking space, the impulse to squeal his tires was strong. He quelled it because he was the middle brother, the one who thought before he reacted, who kept his wits about him and his head out of the clouds, the one with nerves of steel and the willpower to match.

Minutes later he was on Old Orchard Highway, a few miles from home. The sunroof was open, the morning breeze already fragrant and warm. The radio was off, the hum of his car’s engine little balm for the uncertainties plaguing him today.

That first night, he, Marsh and Noah had put their heads together and had come up with a schedule for Joey’s care, as well as a plan to try to locate his mother. It hadn’t taken Noah long to find the woman from his past. A daredevil test pilot, he’d realized soon after coming face-to-face with Lacey Bell again that covert moves weren’t her style. Joey wasn’t Lacey’s baby, and therefore Noah had been certain he wasn’t his, either. That hadn’t kept him from pulling out all the stops to rekindle the love affair of his life. Noah and Lacey had eloped two nights ago.

Paternity came down to Marsh or Reed.

They’d hired a private investigator to follow clues and leads regarding the whereabouts of the women who seemed to have disappeared into thin air. Under ordinary circumstances, he and Marsh didn’t talk about their sex lives. If not for Joey’s arrival, Reed wouldn’t have known that Marsh had spent an idyllic week with a woman named Julia Monroe while on vacation last year or that she’d seemed to disappear into thin air as soon as the week was over.

Like his brothers, Reed liked to keep his private life private. There was only one woman, and one night, he couldn’t account for. She was a waitress he’d met on a layover in Dallas during a business trip last year. She’d told him her name was Cookie—now he wished he’d asked a few questions. Could she have left Joey on his doorstep a year later?

He and Marsh had hired a P.I. with an impressive success rate. But so far every lead Sam Lafferty had followed had turned into a dead end. At least, once Reed and Marsh determined which of them was the baby’s father, Sam could focus on finding one woman instead of two.

The test kit slid to the edge of the seat as Reed approached a banked curve in the highway. Behind him a red car that had been a speck in his rearview mirror a few seconds ago was closing in on him fast. The sports car came so close to his bumper he braced for a rear-end collision. All at once, the car swerved across the double yellow line and began to pass.

Up ahead an eighteen-wheeler was barreling around a curve straight toward them. An air horn blasted and tires screeched. The driver of the Corvette cranked the wheel to the right, thrusting his car back into Reed’s lane. With no other place to go, Reed took the shoulder of the highway. He braked, but it was too late. His tires broke loose. And he started to spin.

Around and around he went, on the highway and off, from one shoulder to the other. Gravel churned and dust rose. He somehow missed an oncoming vehicle but clipped a highway sign with one of his mirrors. When he finally came to a complete stop, his engine was racing and so was his heart rate. He gripped the steering wheel, his foot pressed hard on the brake.

The dust was settling when he noticed that another car had stopped a short distance ahead of him on the opposite side of the road. The door opened. The next thing he knew, a slender, sandal-ensconced foot touched the ground.

* * *

Ruby O’Toole hit the pavement running.

She raced across the highway toward a silver Mustang sitting at an odd angle along the side of the road. The driver was looking at her through the windshield, his eyes narrowed and his jaw set. She stood back as he got out, and watched as he opened his fists and unclenched his fingers, straightened his arms and rotated his broad shoulders, as if checking to see if everything was still operational.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

He didn’t answer, making her wonder if he was in shock.

“I’m calling 911. I’ve seen a lot of accidents and you could have whiplash.”

“I don’t need an ambulance.” His voice was steady and deep, but the way he put a hand on the back of his neck made her wonder if he was more shaken than he was admitting.

“It’s best to err on the side of caution,” she insisted. “Adrenaline and shock can mask an injury like whiplash or a spinal column misalignment.”

With a grimace, he said, “My back is fine. And I don’t have whiplash.” In his early thirties, he had short, sandy-blond hair and wore a gray dress shirt, the sleeves rolled partway up his forearms.

“You just never know,” she argued. “The stiffness wouldn’t necessarily set in until later.”

He circled his car, his face impassive as he ran his hand over the Mustang’s hood.

“Trust me. I’m fine.”

“If you say so, but if I were you, I’d be stomping my feet and shaking my fist and swearing at that jerk who ran you off the road. You could have been killed! The creep had no right to drive like some bat out of hell. Jerks like him think they own the road and everything in their path.” Catching him looking at her, she said, “Some women cry at emergencies. I get mad. I have a temper. And don’t tell me it goes with my hair.”

“I won’t.”

She thought he might smile. When he didn’t, she heard herself say, “It’s what my boyfriend used to say. My ex-boyfriend. Peter. Cheater Peter.” She had to clamp her mouth shut to keep from continuing. What was wrong with her?

“That explains the ex,” he said in a deep, smooth voice that gave little away. As he examined his loosened mirror, he asked, “Are you an EMT?”

She’d been in the process of smoothing her hands down her shorts and straightening her tank top, and had to stop for a moment to wonder at his question. “Oh,” she said. “You mean because I said I’ve seen a lot of accidents. No, my most recent career jag was driving a tow truck for my dad’s wrecker service near Traverse City.”

She didn’t bother telling him that prior to working for her dad she’d spent three years with a trendsetting marketing firm in L.A. This stranger didn’t need to hear how much trouble she’d had deciding what she wanted to do with her life. Reverting to small talk, she asked, “Do you live in Orchard Hill?”

“A mile from here.” The breeze ruffled his blond hair and toyed with the collar of his shirt.

“I just moved here two days ago,” she said. “In all likelihood, my mother is rearranging the furniture in my new apartment as I speak, while my father adds to his ever-growing list of all the reasons buying a tavern in this college town is a mistake. So, did your life pass before your eyes?”

* * *

Reed did a double take and looked at the talkative woman who’d stopped to make certain he wasn’t hurt. She wore shorts that fit her to perfection and a white tank top that made her arms and shoulders appear golden. A silver charm shaped like a feather hung from a delicate chain around her neck. Her hair, long and red and curly, fluttered freely in the wind. When he found himself looking into her green eyes, he wished he’d have started there.

His gaze locked with hers, and the air went oddly still. In the ensuing silence, he wondered where the birds and the summer breeze and the traffic had gone.

Her throat convulsed slightly, as if she was having trouble breathing, too. “You’re not much of a talker, are you?” she finally asked.

“Normally,” he said, “I’m the one asking the questions.”

She took a backward step and said, “Are you a lawyer?”

“Why, do I look like a lawyer?”

She shrugged one shoulder. “It’s just that lawyers tend to ask a lot of questions.”

“I’m not a lawyer.”

“A journalist, then?”

“No.”

“A Virgo?” she asked with a small smile.

He had to think about that one because astrology was hardly something he put stock in. “My birthday’s November sixth.”

“Ah, a Scorpio. You water signs are deep. And moody. Obviously.” She shook herself slightly and said, “If you’re sure you aren’t hurt, I’ll be going.”

The smile she gave him went straight to places that made a man stop thinking and start imagining. It was intimate and dangerous, not to mention off-limits, given his present situation.

She glanced back at him as she opened her car door, and said, “Two-X-Z-zero-three.”

“Pardon me?”

“The Corvette’s license plate number.” She started her car, and through the open window said, “It’s two-X-Z-zero-three. I happened to notice it when the jerk flew by me at the city limit sign.”

“You happened to notice it.”

“I have a photographic memory for those kinds of details.” With that, she drove away.

Reed got back behind the wheel of his car, too. When the coast was clear, he made a U-turn and continued toward home. He drove more slowly than usual, the entire episode replaying in his mind, from the uncanny near miss, to the chance encounter with the modern-day Florence Nightingale along the side of the highway. He wondered if he’d ever met anyone with a photographic memory.

The woman had asked if his life had passed before his eyes as he’d spun out of control. He hadn’t seen the images of either of his brothers or his sister, or of their parents, killed so tragically years ago, or the first girl he’d kissed, or even the most recent woman. He hadn’t seen his oldest friend or his newest business associate. The image in his mind as he’d spun to what might have been his death had been Joey’s.

Sobered further by the realization, he pulled into his driveway and parked in his usual spot beside Marsh’s SUV. He cut the engine then felt around on the floor until he located the test kit.

For a moment, he sat there looking at the sprawling white house where he’d grown up. Beyond the 120-year-old Victorian sat the original stone cider house his great-great-grandfather had built with his own hands. Ten years ago Reed and his brothers and younger sister had converted the sprawling old barn into a bakery, where they sold donuts and baked goods, and fresh apple cider by the cup or by the gallon. There was a gift shop, too, and sheds, where their signs and equipment were stored. Behind them was the meadow where thousands of customers parked each fall. From here Reed could see the edge of the orchards, the heart and soul of the entire operation.

He hadn’t planned to move back to Orchard Hill after college, but life had a way of altering plans. Reed wasn’t a man who wasted a lot of time or energy wondering what he’d missed. Bringing the family business into the current century was one of his proudest achievements. His brother Marsh knew every tree on the property, every graft and every branch that needed to be pruned. Reed knew all about business plans, spreadsheets, tax laws, health inspections and zoning. He’d been the one to have visions of expansion.

Already he could picture Joey following in his footsteps one day. What was shocking was that he wanted Joey to follow in his footsteps. Until they’d discovered that little kid on their doorstep ten days ago, Reed hadn’t realized how much he wanted to pass on the legacy of Sullivans Orchard and his business acumen to another generation.

He would be proud if Joey was his son.

With that thought front and center in his mind, he went up the sidewalk and through the unlocked screen door.

Chapter Two

Even on days when Reed swore everything was changing, there were a few things that always remained the same. Today it was the scent of strong coffee on the morning air.

He followed the unmistakable aroma into the kitchen and found his older brother at the counter across the room, pouring steaming brew into a large mug. Reed’s gaze settled on Joey, nestled securely on Marsh’s left arm, his eyes wide and his wispy hair sticking up in every direction.

Baby bottles filled the sink, and spilled formula pooled on the counter nearby. A load of clean baby clothes was piled in the middle of the table. It was hard to believe that two weeks ago the only items on the counter had been take-out menus, a cell phone or two and car keys.

“Did you get it?” Marsh asked without turning around.

“In the first pharmacy I tried.” Reed kept his voice gentle because Joey had locked his eyes on him over Marsh’s shoulder.

A toothless smile engaged Joey’s entire face and brought out every fierce protective instinct Reed possessed. Everyone they’d consulted agreed that Joey appeared to be approximately three months old. The sum of the baby’s age and the length of a normal pregnancy corresponded with the timing of the business trip Reed had taken to Texas last year.

“I heard from Noah,” he said, sharing news from their younger brother with Marsh. Noah never had been one for long letters or phone calls, and his text was no different. Two words, hot damn, spoke volumes. “I’d say he and Lacey are pretty happy.”

Joey smiled again, evidently happy, too. Already that little kid always assumed everybody was talking to him.

Reed tossed the discreet paper bag onto the table and continued toward his brother. “I’ll take him. It looks as though you could use two hands for that coffee.”

Joey didn’t seem to mind the transition from one set of strong arms to the other. He was trusting in that way. Reed wondered if that trait came from his mother.

Paternity-wise, they weren’t going to be able to make so much as an educated guess without the test, for Marsh and Reed were too closely related and nearly identical in height, bone structure and build. They were polar opposites in most other ways, however. Dark where Reed was fair, brown-eyed to Reed’s blue-gray, whisker stubble where Reed was clean-shaven, Marsh was two and a half years older. Today he wore his usual faded jeans, scuffed work boots and a holey T-shirt Reed hadn’t seen in years.

It reminded Reed that practically every item of clothing they owned was dirty. They needed help around here with laundry and dishes and especially with Joey’s care, which was why they were interviewing someone later this morning. Luckily, Joey seemed oblivious to the havoc his arrival had brought. Tipping the scales at eleven and a half pounds, he was a handsome, sturdy baby with hair as dark as Marsh’s and eyes that were gray-blue like Reed’s.

“Hi, buddy,” Reed said with more emotion than he’d known he was capable of feeling for a child so small. He carried the baby to the table and took a seat. “Is this formula still good?” he asked his brother.

Marsh looked at his watch, nodded, and Reed offered the baby the last ounce in the bottle. As Joey drank, he looked up at him and wrapped his entire hand around Reed’s little finger. Reed was growing accustomed to the way his heart swelled, crowding his chest.

He’d read a tome’s worth of information and suggestions about how to care for infants these past ten days. Maybe the way Joey grasped the finger of whoever was feeding him was reflexive. Reed was of the opinion that it had more to do with being a Sullivan, which among other things meant he wanted what he wanted when he wanted it.

Marsh was leaning against the counter across the room, ankles crossed as he somberly sipped his coffee. “How many times do you think we waited out the night sitting around that table?”

“During Noah’s rebellious years—which was most of them—and last year with Madeline? Too many to count,” Reed said.

It reminded them both that they weren’t novices when it came to handling tough situations. After their parents were killed in an icy pileup on the interstate thirteen years ago, twenty-three-year-old Marsh had suddenly become the head of the family. Reed had nearly doubled his class load at Purdue, and as soon as he graduated a year later, he’d come home to help. Noah had been a hell-raising seventeen-year-old then. Their sister, Madeline, had been fourteen and was struggling to adjust to a world that had changed overnight. It was hard to believe Noah and Madeline were both married now.

“This feels different, doesn’t it?” Reed said, looking into Joey’s sleepy little face.

“Different in every way,” Marsh agreed.

Marsh tore the paternity test kit package open, read the directions and then handed them to Reed, who carefully moved Joey to the crook of his left arm, then read them, too. They filled out the forms with their pertinent information and followed the instructions to the letter before sealing everything in the accompanying airtight sleeves.

“What do you think Dad would say if he were here?” Reed asked as he closed the mailing carton.

“After the shock wore off, he probably wouldn’t say much,” Marsh answered quietly. “Mom would be the one we’d have to worry about.”

Reed and Marsh shared a smile that took them back to when they were teenagers. Reed said, “She’d expect us to do the right thing. They both would.”

“We are doing the right thing, or at least as close to the right thing as we can under the circumstances,” Marsh said. “Have you decided what you’re going to do if Joey is yours?”

Reed eyed the baby now sleeping in his arms. If Joey was his son, it meant Joey’s mother was the curvy blonde waitress named Cookie who’d accidentally spilled chili in his lap during a layover in Dallas last year. She’d blushed and apologized and somehow, when her shift was over, they’d wound up back at her place.

“If it turns out Joey’s mine, and Sam locates Cookie and she has a legitimate reason for leaving him, I’d like to get to know her better.” He wished he’d asked more questions that night. She’d mentioned an ex-husband, somewhere, and a local play she’d been auditioning for. He didn’t recall ever hearing her last name. Now he wished he had asked. After all, if she was the mother of his son, she deserved better. She deserved the chance to explain. “What about you? What will you do if the test proves Joey is yours?”

Marsh took his time considering his reply. “The week I spent with Julia on the Outer Banks last year was pretty damn idyllic. I thought I knew her as well as a man could know a woman. I thought we had something. If Joey is our son, she would have had to have a very good reason for all of this. The Julia I knew wouldn’t have left Joey unless she had no other choice. I have a hundred questions, but it does no good to imagine what might have happened to her or what might be happening to her now. I only know that if Julia is Joey’s mother and I am his father, she will return for him, and when that happens I’d like to try to work things out, as a family.”

It wasn’t surprising that they wanted the same thing, for Reed and Marsh were both family men at heart. They grew silent, each lost in his own thoughts. The only sound in the room was Joey’s hum as he slept in Reed’s arms and the tick of the clock on the old stove.

“Why don’t you put Joey in his crib for his morning nap,” Marsh suggested. “The agency is sending another woman out for an interview later. You should have plenty of time to overnight the paternity kit and be back before then. Unless you want me to mail it.”

“You had the late shift with Joey,” Reed said. “I’ll take the kit to the post office.”

After laying Joey in his crib in the home office they’d converted into a nursery last week, he returned to the kitchen, where Marsh was still somberly sipping coffee. Keys in one hand and the sealed test kit in the other, Reed headed for the door.

“Hey, Reed?” Marsh stood across the room, his jeans riding low, his stance wide, his brown eyes hooded. “May the best man win.”

Again, that grin took Reed back to when they were kids and everything was a competition. He shook his head, but he couldn’t help grinning a little, too.

Getting in his car with its loosened side mirror, he wondered if Marsh was picturing Julia right now. Reed could only wonder what might have prompted Joey’s mother—whoever she was—to leave him with only a vague note and a loose promise to return for him.

He was at the end of the driveway when it occurred to him that he couldn’t seem to bring Cookie into sharp focus in his memory. Her bleached-blond hair kept switching to red.

* * *

“How was your drive?” Ruby’s closest friend, Amanda Moore, asked the minute Ruby got back. “Tell me you got completely lost.”

Ruby shook her head. “Sorry to disappoint you, but no.”

“Not even slightly turned around?” Because Amanda had been lost when she’d met her fiancé, Todd, she was convinced that the key to finding happiness was that sensation she’d experienced when she’d made a wrong turn but somehow wound up in the right place.

But as Ruby had told her a hundred times, she didn’t get lost. Ever. Her innate sense of direction was intricately linked to her keen memory for all things visual. Both had gotten her out of countless scrapes over the years.

“The reunion is in just over two weeks.” Amanda was tapping away on her notebook at the end of the bar in Ruby’s new tavern. “That doesn’t leave us very much time to find you a date.”

“You’re my best friend, and I would give you a kidney or the shirt off my back,” Ruby declared from behind the bar. “But I told you. I’m not taking a date. From now on I’m flying solo. I mean it, Amanda.” Her laptop was open, too. Next to it was the box she’d started filling with cameras from the former owner’s collection. “I don’t even want to attend the class reunion.”

“You have to, Ruby.”

“Peter’s going to be there.”

“I know,” Amanda said gently. “That’s why I think you should bring a date. As former class officers, we’re not only the planning committee, but we’re the welcoming committee, too. Don’t even think about trying to get out of it. You promised, and you never break your promises.”

With a sigh, Ruby returned to compiling the menu of drinks that would be indigenous to her saloon. So far her list included alcoholic beverages with names such as Howl at the Moon and Fountain of Youth and Dynamite. Since she thought best when she was moving, she wandered to the pool tables in the back of the room.

Amanda tucked her chin-length brown hair behind one ear and followed. “Number one,” she said, fine-tuning a line on the small screen. “This goes without saying because it’s always number one with you. Nonetheless, number one.” She cleared her throat for emphasis. “He must be tall. T-a-l-l. Tall, with a capital T. Number two. It would be nice if he spoke in complete sentences.”

Ruby rolled her eyes. While she was looking up at the ceiling, a loud scrape sounded from above. Evidently her mother was still rearranging her furniture, even though Ruby had told her that the layout was fine the way it was.

Nobody listened to her, she thought as she shook out the plush sleeping bag she’d found near the pool tables and refolded it. It was a strange place to leave a sleeping bag, but at the closing yesterday, the previous owner, Lacey Bell Sullivan, had asked Ruby to keep the bedroll here for safekeeping for a few days while Lacey’s brand-new husband whisked her away on their honeymoon. Lacey had vaguely mentioned that someone might come by to pick it up. Ruby believed there was something Lacey wasn’t telling her, but Amanda was right. To Ruby, a promise was a promise.

Amanda was rattling off number five, apparently unconcerned that Ruby had missed numbers three and four entirely. “No bodybuilding Mr. America wannabes. And your date should be sensitive but not too sensitive. You don’t want to be apologizing all the time.”

Ruby smiled in spite of herself.

While Amanda recited the remaining must-have qualities from her list, Ruby took another look around. It was hard to believe this building was hers. The main room of the saloon was large and L-shaped, stretching from Division Street all the way to the alley out back. The tables and chairs were mismatched and the lighting questionable. There was a jukebox on one wall and two pool tables in need of a little restoration in the back. The ornately carved bar, where drinks would be served and stories swapped, was the crowning jewel of the entire room.

The ceilings were low and two of the walls were exposed brick. The hardwood floors were worn and the restrooms needed a little updating, but the building was structurally sound and included an apartment with a separate entrance.

Lacey Bell Sullivan had moved to Orchard Hill with her father when she was twelve. She’d inherited the building when he died. Business had fallen off, but she believed with all her heart that what the tavern really needed was a breath of fresh air. A new life.

Ruby thrilled at the thought.

“Rainbow of Optimism,” she said under her breath as she hurried back to her laptop and added another drink title to her menu.

Amanda hopped back onto her barstool, the pert bounce of her hairstyle matching her personality. “What are you working on?”

“I’m giving Bell’s a new identity so it will appeal to a lively, energetic, fun-loving crowd. Right now I’m compiling a menu featuring one-of-a-kind drinks.”

Amanda turned the screen around in order to read the menu. “These are fun, Ruby. Fountain of Youth and Dynamite are self-explanatory. What’s this two-X-Z-zero-three?”

“Oh, that doesn’t belong on the list. It’s just the license plate number of a Corvette I saw run a sweet Mustang off the road earlier. I stopped to make sure the driver of the Mustang was okay. What do you think of Happy Hops?”

“Was this driver a guy?”

“We’re talking about the title of a drink,” Ruby insisted. “Is Happy Hops too trite?”

“Was this handsome stranger under, say, thirty-five?” Amanda asked.

“I didn’t say he was handsome.”

“I knew it,” Amanda quipped.

Another scrape sounded overhead. Holding up one hand, Ruby said, “You and my parents are making me sincerely wish I had hired a moving company.”

Just then Ruby’s father came bounding into the room waving a sheet of yellow lined paper. A brute of a man with a shock of red hair and a booming voice, he said, “The smoke alarm doesn’t work. The bathroom faucet drips. Only one burner works on the stove, and that refrigerator is as old as I am. Did you count the steps leading to the apartment? Do you really want to have to climb twenty steps at the end of a long day?”

“Walter, would you stop?” The only person who called Red O’Toole Walter was his wife. Ruby’s mother now joined them downstairs. The freckles scattered across Scarlet O’Toole’s nose gave her a perpetually young appearance, which was at odds with the streaks of gray in her short red hair.

“It isn’t too late for her to get out of this,” Red said to his wife.

Scarlet wasn’t paying attention. She was listening to Amanda, who was telling her about the near accident Ruby had witnessed and the driver she’d stopped to help earlier.

“Was he tall?” Scarlet quizzed her daughter’s best friend.

“I asked her that, too,” Amanda replied. “That particular detail has not been forthcoming. Yet.”

Ruby dropped her face into her hands.

“She needs to come home with us,” her father insisted, as if that was that.

“She signed the papers,” her mother said dismissively.

“I don’t like the idea of our little girl serving up hard liquor to a bunch of rowdy m-e-n.”

Ruby didn’t bother reminding them that she was standing right here.

“Driving a tow truck you were okay with.” Ruby’s mother had a way of wrinkling up her nose when she was making a rhetorical statement. She demonstrated the tactic, and then said, “She’s only a three-and-a-half-hour drive away.”

Ruby backed away from the trio—not that any of them noticed—and traipsed to her laptop, where she added another one-of-a-kind drink title to the top of her menu. Kerfuffle. If her life thus far was any indication, this one was going to be a big seller.

“It’s time for you to go,” she said loudly enough to be heard over the din.

All three turned to face her.

“What?” her mother asked.

“But I’m not finished—” her father grumbled.

“You’re kicking us out?” Amanda groused.

Ruby stood her ground. “Thanks for all your help these past two days. I mean that from the bottom of my heart.”

“You’re asking us to leave?” her six-foot-three-inch father asked incredulously.

“I’m begging you,” she said.

“See what you’ve done?” Scarlet said to Red.

“So I’m worried that my little girl is a barkeeper.”

Red O’Toole’s little girl was twenty-eight years old and stood almost five foot eleven. But she smiled at him as she rounded the bar to give him a daughterly kiss on the cheek and a heartfelt hug. “The smoke alarm probably just needs a new battery. One burner and a microwave is all I need. I can deal with the leaky faucet, and those steps will be a good workout.”

Heaving a sigh that seemed to originate from the vicinity of his knees, her father said, “Isn’t there some legal provision that allows you three days to change your mind?”

“Even if there was a provision like that, I wouldn’t back out of this,” she said gently but firmly. “I like this town and I especially like this bar. I feel a connection to this place. I can’t explain it, but I want to make it a success. It’s going to be a challenge, but I can do this. I know I can.”

“Don’t worry, dear, you still have me,” Scarlet said to Red. “And Rusty. If you want to worry about one of your children, worry about him. Our daughter’s right. We should be getting back to Gale. She’s going to have plenty to do putting her furniture back the way she had it. Isn’t that right, honey?”

Ruby pulled a face, for her mother knew her well.

“Are you coming, Amanda?” Scarlet asked.

“I rode with Ruby, remember?” Amanda said. “I either have to catch a ride home with you two or take a bus. But nobody’s going anywhere until she answers my question.” She spun around again and faced Ruby. “Details would be good.”

“Details about what?” Ruby’s innocent expression didn’t fool anybody.

“What was the guy driving that sweet Mustang like?” Amanda asked, sounding like the kindergarten teacher she was.

Even Ruby’s father waited for Ruby’s reply.

“What was he like?” Ruby echoed, seriously considering the question. “Let’s see. He didn’t slam his car door or kick the no-passing sign even though it took out one of his mirrors.”

She saw the looks passing between her mother and her best friend. There was nothing she could do about what they were thinking.

“Patient isn’t on my list,” Amanda said, “but it should be. What else?”

With a sigh of surrender, Ruby said, “He was blond and well dressed and understandably irritated but polite.”

“And?” Amanda stood up straight, as if doing so would make her less dwarfed by the three tall redheads.

“And that’s all,” Ruby stated.

“That’s all?” Amanda echoed.

“Isn’t that what she said?” her father asked gruffly.

“But, honey,” Ruby’s mother implored.

“Was he tall?” Amanda and Scarlet asked in unison.

Ruby opened her mouth, closed it, skewed her mouth to one side and finally shrugged. “I didn’t notice.”

“You didn’t notice?” her mother asked gently.

“But height is always what you notice first,” Amanda insisted.

“I told you. I’m not interested in finding a man. Maybe I’ll get a dog. Perhaps a rescue with a heartbreaking past and soulful eyes.”

“You’re bound to run into him again, you know,” Scarlet said, and very nearly smiled.

“Since you didn’t hear me, I’ll say it again. I’m finished with men. All men. For good.”

There were hugs all around and a few tears, but those were mostly from her father. Ruby promised her mother she would call. She promised her father she would keep her doors locked. When Amanda reminded her that the reunion was in two weeks’ time, Ruby reluctantly reconfirmed her promise that she would be there, too.

Finally, she stood in the hot sun in the back alley, waving as her parents and best friend drove away. Alone at last, she returned to the tavern and looked around the dimly lighted room. She had a lot to do, from remodeling to advertising to hiring waitstaff. Already she could see the new Bell’s in her imagination. There would be soft lighting and lively music and laminated menus featuring one-of-a-kind drinks and people talking and laughing and maybe even falling in love. Not her, of course. But friends would gather here, and some of them would become her friends, and all of them would be part of her new life.

Happiness bubbled out of her. No matter what her father claimed, buying a boarded-up tavern in Orchard Hill wasn’t a mistake.

She happened to catch her reflection in the beveled mirror behind the bar. Chestnut-red wouldn’t have been her first choice in hair color and she’d never particularly liked her natural curls. Her face was too narrow and her lips too full, in her opinion, but her eyes were wide and green, and for the first time in a long time, there was a spark of excitement in them.

She hadn’t made a mistake, not this time. Buying this tavern on a whim was the first thing she’d done in too long that was brave and a little wild, like the girl she used to be. She hugged herself, thinking how much she’d missed that.

Once again, the near accident she’d witnessed replayed through her mind.

Had the driver of the Mustang been tall?

Normally she had only to blink to bring the particulars into focus. In this instance her snapshot memory didn’t include that detail.

Thinking about her history and her recent decision regarding singlehood, she decided to take that as a good sign, and left it at that.

Chapter Three

Two hours after her parents and Amanda left, Ruby stood tapping her foot on the sidewalk at the corner of Jefferson and Division Streets. She wasn’t thinking about the quote she’d requested from the electrician or the baffling little mystery regarding the sleeping bag folded neatly on one of the pool tables in her tavern. She wasn’t even thinking about the broodingly attractive man she’d encountered on Orchard Highway earlier. Well, she wasn’t thinking about him very much.

She was thinking that if the walk sign didn’t light soon, she was going to take her chances with the oncoming traffic, because she was starving.

At long last, the light changed and the window-shoppers ahead of her started across, Ruby close behind them. There was a spring in her step as she completed the last little jaunt to the restaurant at the top of the hill.

Inside, it was standing room only. People huddled together in small groups while they waited for a table.

Ruby made her way toward a handwritten chalk menu on the adjacent wall and began pondering her options. The door opened and closed several times as more people crowded into the foyer. Ruby was contemplating the lunch specials when someone jostled her from behind.

“Sorry about that,” a tall man with a very small baby said, visibly trying to give her a little room.

Ruby rarely got caught staring, but there was something oddly familiar about the man. He had dark hair and an angular jaw and brown eyes. Upon closer inspection, she was certain she’d never seen him before.

He eased sideways to make room for someone trying to leave, and Ruby found herself smiling at the baby.

With a wave of his little arms, the little boy smiled back at her. “He likes you,” the father said.

“It’s this hair.” She twirled a long lock and watched the baby’s smile grow.

“You aren’t by any chance looking for a job, are you?” the man asked.

Voices rose and silverware clattered and someone’s cell phone rang. Through the din she wondered if she’d heard correctly.

“Provided you have never been arrested, don’t lie, steal, cheat on your taxes or have a library book overdue, that is,” he added.

She took a step back. “Um, that is, I mean—”

“Forgive me.” Unlike the baby, this man didn’t appear to be someone who smiled easily. In his mid-thirties, he looked tired and earnest and completely sincere. “It’s just that Joey didn’t take one look at you and start screaming.”

She took a deep breath of warm, fragrant air and noticed that someone else was entering through the heavy front door. The crowd parted, making room for the newcomer. Suddenly she was standing face-to-face with the man she’d encountered along Old Orchard Highway earlier.

He looked surprised, too, but he recovered quickly and said, “Hello, again.” He gave her one of those swift, thorough glances men have perfected over the ages. His eyes looked gray in this light, his face lean and chiseled. “I see you’ve met my brother Marsh.”

Did he say brother?

She glanced from one to the other. But of course. No wonder the man holding the baby looked familiar. These two were brothers.

“I’m Reed Sullivan, by the way.”

Upon hearing the name Sullivan, she said, “Ruby O’Toole. Do you by any chance know Lacey Bell Sullivan?”

“We’ve known Lacey forever,” Marsh said. “Two days ago she married our younger brother, Noah.”

“How do you know our new sister-in-law?” This time it was Reed who spoke.

And she found her gaze locked with his. “I bought Bell’s Tavern from Lacey. I’m a little surprised to run into you again so soon,” she said. “I mean, one chance encounter is one thing.”

“Is that what this is?” Reed asked. “A chance encounter?”

His hair was five shades of blond in this light, his skin tan. There were lines beside his eyes, and something intriguing in them.

Something came over her, settling deeper, slowly tugging at her insides. She couldn’t think of anything to say, and that was unusual for her. Reed’s gaze remained steady on hers, and it occurred to her that he wasn’t talking anymore, either.

He was looking at her with eyes that saw God only knew what. It made these chance encounters feel heaven-sent, and that made her heart speed up and her thoughts warm.

In some far corner of her mind, she knew she had to say something, do something. She could have mentioned that she’d met their sister, Madeline, a few months ago, but that made this feel even more like destiny, and that simply wouldn’t do. Someone mentioned the weather, and she was pretty sure Reed said something about the Tigers.

Normally, the weather and baseball were safe topics. They would have been safe today, but Reed smiled, and Ruby lost all sensation in her toes. Moments ago, the noise in the room had been almost deafening. Suddenly, voices faded and the clatter of silverware ceased.

Ruby’s breath caught just below the little hollow at the base of her throat and a sound only she could hear echoed deep inside her chest. Part sigh, part low croon, it slowly swept across her senses.

In some far corner of her mind, she was aware that Marsh said something. He spoke again. After the third time, Reed looked dazedly at his brother.

“Our table’s ready,” Marsh explained.

It took Ruby a moment to gather her wits, but she finally found her voice. “It was nice meeting you,” she said to Marsh.

Her gaze locked with Reed’s again. She wasn’t sure what had just happened between them, but something had. She’d heard about moments like this; she’d even read about them, but she’d never experienced one quite like it herself. Until today.

After giving him a brief nod, she wended her way through the crowded room toward the counter to order her lunch to go. Initially she’d planned to wait for a table. Instead, she fixed her eyes straight ahead while her take-out order was being filled. All the while, her heart seemed intent upon fluttering up into her throat.

It was a relief when she walked out into the bright sunshine, the white paper bag that contained her lunch in her hand, her oversize purse hanging from her shoulder. Dazedly donning a pair of sunglasses, she hurried down the sidewalk. She’d reached the corner before the haze began to clear in her mind. Up ahead, two young girls were having their picture taken in front of the fountain on the courthouse square and several veterans were gathered around the flagpole.

Ruby skidded to a stop and looked around. Where was she?

She glanced to the right and to the left, behind her at the distance she’d come, then ahead where the sun glinted off the bronze sculpture on the courthouse lawn. With rising dismay, she shook her head.

She was going the wrong way.

* * *

“Care to tell me what you’re doing?” Marsh asked Reed after the waitress cleared their places.

Decorated in classic Americana diner style, the Hill had its original black-and-white tile floors, booths with chrome legs and benches covered in red vinyl. Other than the menu, which had been adapted to modern tastes and trends, very little had changed. The Sullivans had been coming here for years. This was the first time they’d brought a baby with them, however.

Reed double-checked the buckles on Joey’s car seat. The baby’s head was up, his feet were down and the straps weren’t twisted. Ten days ago he hadn’t known the correct way to fasten an infant safely into a car seat. That first week had been one helluva crash course for all three of them, but now Reed could buckle Joey into this contraption with his eyes closed. He could prepare a bottle when he was half asleep, too. Even diaper changing was getting easier.

Sliding to the end of his side of the booth, he said, “I’m buckling Joey into this car seat. What does it look like I’m doing?”

“You noticed nothing unusual here today?” Marsh countered in a quiet voice strong enough to penetrate steel.

“If you have a point, make it. I don’t have time to play Twenty Questions,” Reed declared.

“You don’t seem concerned that the judge joined us for lunch,” Marsh said, digging into his pocket for the tip.

Ivan Sullivan was one of those men few people liked but most couldn’t help respecting.

After discovering Joey on their doorstep ten days ago, Marsh, Reed and Noah had paid their great-uncle a visit at the courthouse. An abandoned minor child was no laughing matter, and no one had been laughing as the brothers fell into rank in the judge’s chambers. The note clearly stated that Joey was a Sullivan, and they’d had every intention of caring for him themselves while they unraveled this puzzle. In order for Joey to remain under their care, they were to keep the judge apprised of Joey’s progress in detailed, weekly in-person reports.

Reed glanced over the heads of other diners and watched his great-uncle cut a path to the door. The way the aging judge tapped his cane on the floor with his every step only added to his haughtiness. Today’s interrogation had been impromptu, but it was completely in keeping with his character. Surely, Marsh agreed.

His older brother left the tip on the table and Reed picked up the car seat with Joey strapped securely inside. Showing up in public with the baby had been the private investigator’s suggestion. Arguably the most successful P.I. in the state, Sam Lafferty was banking on the possibility that seeing Marsh and Reed with Joey would stir up a little gossip and perhaps jar someone’s memory of having seen an unknown woman with a small baby in the area.

“We’re doing our best to care for Joey,” Reed insisted. “The judge knows that. We leveled with him today.”

“We?” Marsh countered. “He asked what steps we’re taking to locate Joey’s mother and why we haven’t hired a permanent nanny and how much Joey weighs and where he sleeps. You, who can outtalk most politicians, barely said boo.”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Reed argued.

“That a fact?”

Reed narrowed his eyes at his brother’s tone. And waited.

“You ordered the salmon,” Marsh said offhandedly.

“That was salmon?” Reed asked.

Marsh slanted him a look not unlike the judge’s. “You had meat loaf. It arrived with a loaded baked potato just the way I ordered it. Shelly mixed up our plates. You dug into my lunch the moment she set it in front of you.”

With his sinking feeling growing stronger, Reed raked his fingers through his hair, for surely the shrewdest judge in the county had noticed Reed’s faux pas. If he and Marsh were going to keep Joey out of the system, neither of them had better display so much as a hint of poor behavior.

They walked outside together and stood shoulder to shoulder beneath the red-and-white awning shading the restaurant’s facade.

Grasping the handle of the car seat firmly in his right hand, Reed let the seat dangle close to the ground, simulating a rocking motion that was lulling Joey to sleep. “I owe you,” he said. “You don’t even like salmon.”

“It’s nothing you wouldn’t have done for me, but that was some reaction you had to the redhead who bought Lacey’s place.”

A city crew was working on a burst water main at the bottom of the hill on Division Street, and traffic was being rerouted. Unbidden, Reed’s thoughts took a little detour, too, over long legs and creamy skin and amazing hair and green eyes that had locked with his.

“Holy hell,” he muttered under his breath.

He didn’t get any argument from Marsh.

A horn honked at a delivery truck parked in the left-turn lane and three boys with shaggy hair and black T-shirts raced by on skateboards. A meter reader was marking tires and three old men were talking in front of the post office. It was just another ordinary summer day in Orchard Hill, and yet nothing had felt ordinary to Reed and Marsh in the past ten days. Joey’s arrival had changed their lives, and neither of them could shake the feeling that something monumental was coming.

Their phones rang moments apart, startling them both.

Reed fished his phone out of his pocket, and over the booming bass of a passing car’s radio, he said, “Yes, Sam, I’m here. Slow down.”

When it came to investigative work, Sam Lafferty didn’t mince words. Reed listened carefully to the latest report while keeping his end of the conversation to simple yes-and-no answers.

Marsh’s call ended first. After a few minutes, Reed slipped his phone back into his pocket, too. Waiting until two dog walkers were out of hearing range, he said, “Sam located another woman named Julia Monroe.”

He had Marsh’s undivided attention.

“According to Sam, she’s five feet tall, has curly blond hair, a doting husband and a six-month-old baby daughter who looks just like her.”

Joey’s eyelashes fluttered as he slept. Reed wondered if he was dreaming of his mother. He didn’t know if that was possible, but lately a great deal had happened that he’d never imagined was possible.

“The Julia I know is five-six and has dark hair.”

Marsh’s voice sounded strained and his disappointment over yet another dead end was almost palpable. He wanted a resolution to this as much as Reed did.

“Sam is following every lead he has on both Cookie and Julia,” Reed said. “He’ll locate Joey’s mother. Or she’ll return for him, as she said in her note. We need to be prepared either way, to do what’s best for Joey either way, and we’re working on that. We are. You know it and I know it. Who was your call from?”

“It was Lacey,” Marsh answered. “She and Noah stopped in Vegas and decided to spend the rest of their honeymoon there. She wants one of us to pick up those old cameras her dad used to display on the shelves behind the bar at Bell’s.”

“Why don’t you take Joey home,” Reed said. “I’ll get the cameras and be right behind you.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

Obviously Marsh was thinking of Reed’s reaction to Bell’s new owner. But Reed was determined to stay levelheaded as he awaited the eventual outcome of the paternity test they’d performed that very morning. If the results of that test indicated that Joey was Reed’s son, Reed’s life would include Joey’s mother in one capacity or another. Until they knew for sure, he had no intention of getting involved with anyone.

“Maybe I should collect those cameras,” Marsh said.

“I’ll go,” Reed said. “Don’t worry, I have this under control.”

* * *

The last time Reed had been summoned to the alley behind Bell’s Tavern, he’d had every intention of calmly talking Noah out of a fight. He’d wound up with a sore fist and a bruised jaw. When it was over, he and Noah had brushed the alley dust off their shoes and walked away, leaving the three troublemakers sitting in the dirt.

The alley was paved now, the steps leading to the second-story apartment freshly painted. Determined to maintain a far greater degree of restraint this afternoon, he parked beside Ruby O’Toole’s sky-blue Chevy. He would knock on her door, politely ask for Lacey’s cameras and then leave. If he felt so much as a stirring of red-hot anything, he would douse it before it spread.

Cool, calm and collected, he started up the stairs. At the top, he knocked briskly. In a matter of seconds the lock scraped and the door was thrown open, and Ruby O’Toole was squinting against the bright sunlight, hard-rock music blasting behind her.

“Isn’t that Metallica?” he asked.

“Are you taking a survey?”

Reed had the strongest inclination to laugh out loud, and it was the last thing he’d expected. Ruby wasn’t laughing, however, so he curbed his good humor, as well.

She’d put her hair up since lunch. Several curls had already pulled free. The hem of her white tank had crept up at her waist and a strap had slipped off one shoulder, revealing a faint trail of freckles that drew his gaze. The ridges of her collarbones looked delicate, her skin golden. He couldn’t help noticing the little hollow at the base of her neck, where a vein was pulsing.

“I’m in the middle of something here,” she said huffily as a curl fluttered freely to the side of her neck. “So, if you don’t mind—”

Subtle she wasn’t.

“You’re busy,” he said. “I’ll come back at a better time.”

She was shaking her head before he’d uttered the last word. “Oh no you don’t. Uh-uh.” Gritting her teeth, she said, “That isn’t what I meant.”

Two motorcycles chugged into the alley, the riders conversing over their revving engines. Stifling irritation that seemed to be directed toward him, she opened the door a little farther and said, “You might as well come in.”

She didn’t add Enter at your own risk, but she might as well have. Again, he had the strongest inclination to smile. His curiosity piqued, he followed her inside.

He closed the door but remained near it as he looked around. The living room had dark paneled walls and high ceilings and worn oak floors. A doorway on the left led to the kitchen. On the right was a shadowy hallway.

Ruby veered around half of a large sectional sitting at an odd angle in the center of the room and didn’t stop until she reached a low table on the far wall. Her back to him, she quickly reached down for the volume button on an old stereo. No seeing man could have kept his eyes off the seat of those tight little shorts.

She spun around and caught him looking. While she narrowed her eyes, he reminded himself he had a legitimate reason for being here.

He’d come to—

It had to do with—

Discretion. Yes, that was it. And valor, and honor and responsibility and, huh, other important things, he was sure.

Apparently experiencing a little technical difficulty with the neurons in his brain, he took a moment to reacclimatize. It wasn’t easy, but he forced his gaze away and once again looked around the room. An old trunk had been pushed against the wall, a carpet rolled up in front of it. There was an overstuffed chair and a floor lamp, too, and a few dozen boxes stacked two and three high. The fact that she’d been unpacking and arranging heavy furniture explained the sheen of perspiration on her face. He wasn’t sure what to make of her irritation.

“Is something wrong, Ruby?” he asked.

* * *

Wrong? What could possibly be wrong?

Ruby didn’t know whether to huff or, gosh darn it, swoon. She’d never really cared for her name, and yet Reed Sullivan made it sound like a treasure. He had one of those clear, deep voices perfectly suited for late-night radio shows and the dark. She almost wished he would keep talking.

He couldn’t seem to keep his eyes off her. Unfortunately, she couldn’t keep hers off him, either.

He wore dark pants and a dove-gray shirt, and it must have been hours since he’d shaved. He’d politely kept his distance, and yet the shadow of beard stubble on his jaw suggested a vein of the uncivilized. Her imagination took a little stroll that made the possibilities seem endless. The fact was, she liked the way he looked in that shirt and she was fairly certain she would like the way he looked with the buttons undone, too.

Whoa. She had to put a stop to this.

She’d made a promise to herself. She’d listed her goals when Amanda and her parents had been here hours ago. They had to do with pride and determination and succeeding and nothing to do with the way the air heated and her senses heightened every time she came within ten feet of Reed Sullivan.

She gave herself a firm mental shake and reminded herself that she really needed to focus. “Here’s the thing,” she said sternly.

There was a slight narrowing of his eyes, but he remained near the door, watching her, waiting for her to continue. His brows were straight and slightly darker than his hair, his face all angles and planes, his lips parted just enough to reveal the even edges of his teeth. She wondered what his mouth would feel like against her lips, her throat, her—

Grinding her molars together, she straightened her spine. She supposed she couldn’t legitimately fault him for the color of his eyes or the way his pants rode low at his waist.

She blinked and refocused.

While the fan whirred behind her, she said, “I’ve been known to make bad choices, but I’ve never gotten thoroughly lost and I’m not about to start now. Do you understand?”

“This has something to do with getting lost?” he asked.

“I went the wrong way today, but I was not lost.”

“I see.”

He was being polite again, and patient, which only increased her frustration. Holding out her hand in a halting gesture, she said, “Yes, you’re tall, with a capital T. And you have a slightly sinful smile you don’t overuse. All that aside, you’re just another good-looking guy in a fine broadcloth shirt. No offense.”

“None taken.” There went that sinful smile he didn’t overuse. And there went the feeling in her toes.

She sighed. “It’s true that I have fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants tendencies. My father expects my new business venture to fail, and my cheating ex-boyfriend believes I’ll come crawling back, and maybe I have made rash decisions in the past, but I never get lost. It has to do with my photographic memory. Technically it’s called eidetic imagery.”

He assumed a thoughtful pose, his left arm folded across his ribs, his chin resting on his fist.

Ruby’s clothes were beginning to feel constricting, her bottom lip the slightest bit pouty and her pulse fluttery. And her toes, well, blast her toes.

While twenty-year-old heavy-metal music played in the background far more softly than Aerosmith ever intended, Reed rested his hands confidently on his hips and said, “In essence, you’re saying you got lost today and it had something to do with me.”

“Not lost,” she countered. “Slightly turned around. I don’t want— I just don’t think— I shouldn’t.” She shook her head, straightened her spine. “I won’t.”

The old stereo shut off. Without music, the whir of the fan was a lonesome hum in the too-warm room.

“I’m spontaneous,” she said, trying to explain. “Unfortunately, I bore easily. Believe me, it’s a curse. I had a dream job in L.A. that I hated, and now I’m here, and I don’t want to go back to my dad’s towing service. I bought this tavern and I need to focus on getting it open and running and keeping it that way, not on some guy who, it turns out, is tall.”

“With a capital T.” He met her steadfast gaze. “Isn’t that how you put it?”

The air heated and her thoughts slowed. It was all she could do not to smile.

Time passed slowly. Or perhaps it stopped altogether. She found herself staring into his blue-gray eyes, and doing so changed everything, until there was only this moment in time.

She swallowed. Breathed.

Yes, he was tall, she thought, and he didn’t scream expletives after he’d been run off the road, and the color of his eyes was as dense and changeable as storm clouds. It was unfortunate that staring into them had wiped out the feeling in her toes, but it wasn’t his fault.

“Ruby?” Reed said.

“Yes?”

“I stopped by to pick up Lacey’s cameras.”

She blinked. For a second there she thought he said he’d stopped by to pick up Lacey’s cameras.

Ohmygod. That’s what he said.

She hadn’t blushed since she was thirteen years old and she really hoped she didn’t start again now. Since the floor failed to open up and swallow her whole, she whirled around, stuck her stupid tingly toes into the nearest pair of flip-flops, grabbed the key ring off the peg in the kitchen and started for the door.

She darted past him, down the stairs and around the barrel of purple-and-yellow petunias blooming at the bottom. Every concise little thud the heels of his Italian loafers made on the stairs let her know he was following her.

She unlocked the tavern’s back door, and as the heavy steel monstrosity swung in on creaking hinges, she said, “You could have stopped me.”

Surprisingly, his voice came from little more than two feet behind her. “Only a fool would stop a beautiful woman when she’s insinuating she’s profoundly attracted to him, too.”

Ruby must have turned around, because she and Reed stood face-to-face, nearly toe to toe, his head tilted down slightly, hers tilted up. Holding her breath, she found herself wondering why it seemed that the smallest words in the English language were always the most poignant and powerful.

Too, Reed had said.

She was profoundly attracted to him, too.

That meant he was profoundly attracted to her, also.

They were profoundly attracted to each other.

Lord help her, she was reacting to this profound attraction again, to his nearness and the implications and nearly every wild and wonderful possibility that came with it. His gaze roamed over her entire face as if he liked what he saw. As the clock on the courthouse chimed the quarter hour and a horn honked in the distance, Ruby’s heart fluttered into her throat, her toes tingling crazily and her thoughts spinning like moons around a newly discovered planet.

She and Reed seemed to realize in unison how close they were and how easy it would be to lean in those last few inches until their lips touched. If that happened, it would undoubtedly be incredible and there was no telling where it would lead. Fine. There was a very good chance it would lead to sex, wild, fast, ready, middle-of-the-day sex that spiraled into a crescendo of adrenaline and exploding electricity not unlike the music she’d been listening to before she was so rudely—okay, not that rudely—interrupted.

They stilled. Taking a shaky breath, she drew back, and so did he, one centimeter at a time.

He was the first to find his voice. “As tempting as it is to take a little detour here, I’m not going to.”

“You’re not?”

He shook his head. “You have my word.”

“Oh. Um. Good.” Since his word was something she doubted he gave lightly, she led the way through a narrow hallway, past the storage room and restrooms, and into the cavernous tavern in need of paint and a good scrubbing and a brand-new image. Flipping on light switches as she went, she continued until she reached the ornately carved bar where she’d left the box she’d started filling with Lacey’s cameras.

“Here’s the thing,” Reed declared, using her exact terminology.

It occurred to Ruby that he was not a man of almosts. He wasn’t almost tall or almost handsome or almost proud. He was all those things and more. He’d drawn a line in the sand and apparently he intended to make certain she knew exactly how far, how deep and how wide the line ran.

“The baby you saw my brother carrying before lunch?” he said.

“Joey?” she asked, standing on tiptoe to reach the last three cameras on the top shelf.

“Joey, yes. You assumed Marsh is his father.”

She stood mute, waiting for him to continue.

“Unless I’m mistaken, you alluded to that at the restaurant,” he said.

Half the lights in the room were burned out and the bulbs in the other half were so dim and the fixtures so grimy, light didn’t begin to reach into the corners. Murky shadows pooled beneath the small tables and mismatched chairs. The billiards tables in the back were idle, the shape of the neatly folded bedroll barely discernible from here.

Carefully tucking Bubble Wrap around another camera, Ruby finally said, “Are you telling me Marsh isn’t Joey’s father?”

“It’s possible he is.” Reed’s voice was deep, reverent almost, and extraordinarily serious. “But it’s also possible I am.”

Surely Ruby’s dismay was written all over her face all over again. But she didn’t have it in her to care how she looked.

The baby she’d seen before lunch was possibly Reed’s? Had she heard him correctly?

“Oh, my God.”

He nodded as if he couldn’t have said it better himself.

She slid the cumbersome box of cameras aside. Resting one elbow comfortably on the bar’s worn surface, she gestured fluidly with her other hand and said, “Have a seat, cowboy. This is one story I’ve got to hear.”

Chapter Four

For years, Bell’s Tavern had been considered the black sheep of drinking establishments in Orchard Hill. It was where someone just passing through town went to drink too much and whine to strangers, where regulars and first-timers alike drowned their sorrows and cheated at cards, among other things. Its saving grace had also been its most redeeming quality.

What happened at Bell’s Tavern stayed at Bell’s Tavern.

It seemed oddly fitting that Reed was about to reveal details of a nearly unbelievable situation to the new owner right here at Bell’s, where countless others had undoubtedly done the same thing. Choosing a stool, he sidled up to the bar and made himself comfortable.

The carton containing his sister-in-law’s cameras sat on the counter near Ruby’s right elbow. As she tucked an old movie projector from the fifties into the box, another curl pulled free of the clip high on the back of her head and softly fluttered to the side of her face. Her skin looked smooth, her lips full and lush, her eyes green and keenly observant.

A warm breeze wafted through the open back door, but other than the muffled sounds of midafternoon meandering in with it, Bell’s was quiet and still. And Reed’s voice was quiet as he began.

“My brothers and I discovered Joey on our doorstep ten days ago. We heard a noise none of us could identify and rushed out to the front porch. There the baby was, strapped into his car seat, wailing his little head off.”

“He was by himself? But he’s so small,” she said.

Reed released a deep breath. “I know. Who leaves a baby on a doorstep in this day and age? Noah is an airplane test pilot and always buzzes the orchard when he’s returning from out of town. From the cab of his plane an hour before we discovered Joey, he saw a woman walking across our front lawn. Despite the fact that it was eighty degrees out that day, she was wearing a dark hooded sweatshirt. We think she was hiding Joey underneath it.”

“And you believe this woman was Joey’s mother?”

“Who else could she have been?”

When Reed was growing up, his dad always said Marsh and Noah had been born looking up, Marsh to the apple trees and Noah to the sky, while Reed looked at the horizon and the future. That night the three of them had stood dazedly looking down, completely baffled and dumbfounded by the sudden appearance of the baby crying so forlornly at their feet.

“Joey was wearing a blue shirt and only one sock. Days later Noah discovered the other one under the weeping willow tree near the road. We theorize that his mother hid there until we’d taken him safely inside.”

Ruby covered her mouth with one hand as if imagining that. If it was true, Joey’s mother wasn’t someone who’d carelessly and heartlessly dumped her innocent baby off and driven away without a backward glance. Instead, she’d hidden behind a tree where she could see the porch but no one could see her, and had remained there until she was certain Joey was safe.

Reed remembered looking out across their property that evening, past the meadow that would serve as a parking lot that would be teeming with cars in the fall, to the apple trees, gnarled and green, and the neatly mown two-track path between each row. The shed where the parking signs were stored along with the four-wheelers and all the other equipment they used for hayrides and tours every autumn had been closed up tight.

He’d peered at the stand of pines and the huge willow at the edge of the property, but he’d seen nothing out of the ordinary. Certainly no one had moved.

He could only imagine how still she must have held, and he couldn’t even fathom how difficult it must have been to leave Joey in such a way. What he didn’t know was why. Why had she left him? Why hadn’t he or Marsh been told one of them was going to be a father? Why had she waited? Why had it come to this? Why?

“When I picked the baby up, a note fluttered to the porch floor. It said, ‘Our precious son, Joseph Daniel Sullivan. He’s my life. I beg you take good care of him until I can return for him.’”

Ruby seemed to be waiting for him to continue. When he didn’t, she asked, “That’s it? That’s all the note said?”

Reed nodded. “Nearly word for word. It wasn’t addressed or signed. So we don’t know which of us is Joey’s father.” He paused for a moment before clarifying. “It’s not what you’re thinking.”

Tucking another loose curl behind one ear, she said, “You know what I’m thinking?”

“Are you thinking that sounded perverse and oddly twisted?” he asked.

She smiled, and some of the tension that had been building inside him eased. Without explanation, she ducked down behind the bar, disappearing from view. He heard a refrigerator door open below. When she popped back up, she had a bottle of chilled water in each hand.

He accepted the beverage she offered him, and while she opened hers and tipped it up, he thought about that first night with Joey. In five minutes’ time, life as he’d known it had gone from orderly to pandemonium.

“Joey was crying and Noah and Marsh were trying to free him from the car seat and I was desperately digging through the bags he’d arrived with until I found feeding supplies. After a few clumsy attempts we managed to prepare a bottle, and while Noah fed Joey, I did a little research online. Judging by his size, the way he made eye contact, supported his own head and kicked his feet and flailed his arms, he was likely three months old, give or take a week or two. We did the math, and reality sank in like a lead balloon. One of the three women from our respective pasts had some explaining to do.”

“That’s putting it mildly,” she said.

He lifted the plastic bottle partway to his mouth and added, “Why would a woman go through a pregnancy alone, physically, financially and emotionally, only to desert a baby as strong and smart and damn close to perfect in every way three months later?”

Ruby shrugged understandingly, and Reed thought she might have missed her calling until now. “Is Lacey the woman from Noah’s past?” she asked.

“Yes, she is,” Reed said. “She took herself out of the equation almost immediately. Once you’ve gotten to know Lacey better you’ll believe me when I say she wasn’t subtle about it, either.”

“So,” Ruby said gently. “Paternity comes down to you and Marsh.”

Reed nodded before taking a long drink of his water. “When you happened upon my near miss this morning, I was on my way home from the drugstore with a paternity test kit. Marsh and I have been interviewing potential nannies all week, but until we find one we both approve of, we’re taking turns caring for Joey. Marsh needs to work in the orchard this afternoon, so Joey’s going to help me balance the books in the new business system.” With that, he pulled the carton of cameras toward him and stood up.

She stepped out from behind the bar and followed, switching lights off along the way. “You two are looking for a nanny for the baby. That’s why Marsh practically offered me a job earlier.”

“He what?” Reed stopped so abruptly she slammed into him, every lush inch of her front pressing against every solid inch of his back.

Her hands landed on his waist like a pair of fluttery birds, her breath warm and moist on his shoulder. She was svelte and soft and slender, and if his hands hadn’t been busy carrying the cumbersome carton containing Lacey’s cameras, there was no telling where he might have put them.

The contact was over quickly, and yet her imprint remained. Heat surged under his skin and need churned in its wake. Heat and need. Man and woman. Hunger and allure.

This was not good.

It felt good, damn good. That wasn’t good, either.

“Sorry about that,” he said, his voice huskier than it had been moments earlier. “I guess I shouldn’t stop in front of you without warning.”

An awkward silence stretched like evening shadows. Her cheeks were pink and she didn’t seem to know where to look. Reed couldn’t stop looking. A vein was pulsing wildly in the little hollow at the base of her neck. One strap of her tank top had slipped off her shoulder again, baring a faint sprinkling of golden freckles he wanted to touch, with his fingertips, and with his lips.

Not good. Not good at all.

Attempting to move his thoughts out of dangerous territory—again—he cleared his throat and said, “You must have made quite an impression on Marsh in order for him to have offered you the position without consulting me.”

“At the time,” Ruby said on her way once again toward the open door, “I thought it was strange when he asked me if I’ve ever been arrested or cheated on my taxes or had an overdue library book.”

That sounded like his older brother, Reed thought. “Did you accept his offer?”

She made a sound men were hard-pressed to replicate. It was a breathy vibration females learned at a young age. He couldn’t see her expression, but he imagined she was rolling her eyes as she said, “Accepting job offers from complete strangers in crowded restaurants is on my bucket list along with picking up hitchhikers, hiking in the woods with serial killers and amputating my toe for fun.”

Reed walked outside smiling.

At the threshold of the tavern’s back door, she quietly asked, “What about Joey’s mother?”

That, he thought, was the million-dollar question. He hoisted the carton of cameras a little higher in his arms and said, “She’s either someone I met during a layover in Dallas last year or an artist Marsh fell for on vacation earlier in the same month. Unfortunately, it could take up to four weeks for the paternity test results to be processed and mailed back to us.”

“And if she returns in the meantime, as her note implied? What then?” she asked.

“We’d know which of us is his father, wouldn’t we?”

“Why did that sound as if you have a plan?” she asked.

Reed was accustomed to feeling unsettled. Feeling understood was new and far too pleasant.

Not good. Not good at all.

“I couldn’t hand Joey back to his mother and pretend this never happened. I couldn’t forget he exists, and I doubt Marsh could, either.”

“You’d fight for custody?” Ruby asked.

Shifting slightly beneath the blazing afternoon sun, he opened the trunk of the Mustang he was driving until the mirror on his other car was repaired. “If I’m Joey’s father, and if Cookie had a good reason for leaving him with no explanation—and it would have to be a very good reason—it’s highly likely she’ll be in my life. I don’t know how this is going to end or what’s going to happen between now and then.”

Shading her eyes with one hand, she said, “Now isn’t a good time for me to lose my direction and it isn’t a good time for you to change yours.”

“I appreciate the recap.”

She pulled a face, but she couldn’t help smiling at his wry humor. “Good luck, Reed. I hope you find what you’re looking for.”

“I prefer not to rely on luck.” He closed the trunk and strode to his door. “We’ve hired the most successful P.I. in the state. And by the way—” he turned back toward the bar and pointed “—we’re keeping our eyes open for the young woman Lacey and Noah saw climbing out the tavern’s window.”

“What?” Ruby yelped. “What woman? What window?” Her voice rose in pitch and volume with every query.

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