Just the brush of skin against skin was enough to turn his belly upside down, his chest inside out.

Davis looked down at Violet, her cinnamon-brown eyes soft with an openness he hadn’t seen since she’d returned. Questions, answers.

Could it work if we tried again?

Yes, he thought, in this moment. Yes, it could.

He could hear her breathing, and each inhalation swept through him, too. It seemed right to go a little further—to wind his finger around hers under the cover of all those ribbons, to link to her in such a small yet significant way.

Around them, it was as if everything and everyone had stopped motion, frozen in time while Violet and Davis caught up with each other in the Texas heat.

Kiss her. God, he wanted to kiss her so badly …

Dear Reader,

Welcome to my new miniseries—St. Valentine, Texas!

It’s so exciting to settle in to a fresh town, especially one that has a deeply buried secret that’s about to unravel, thanks to a stranger who sets off a series of events that start in this book.

The two people who go about investigating this secret are our hero and heroine, but digging up the town’s past isn’t all they’re doing—there’s love in the air for them, in spite of a painful, shared past of their own. But this Romeo and Juliet are going to find a happy ending, no matter what obstacles befall them!

Thanks so much for reading my books! In appreciation, I always have a contest running at my website, www.crystal-green.com. You can also check my blog and Twitter (I’m @CrystalGreenMe) for updates about my upcoming projects!

All the best,

Crystal Green

About the Author

CRYSTAL GREEN lives near Las Vegas, where she writes for the Cherish and Blaze® lines. She loves to read, overanalyze movies and TV programs, practice yoga and travel when she can. You can read more about her at www.crystal-green.com, where she has a blog and contests. Also, you can follow her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/people/Chris-Marie-Green/1051327765 and Twitter at www.twitter.com/ChrisMarieGreen.

Courted by
the Texas
Millionaire
Crystal Green

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To all you readers who have allowed me to write for

you. It’s been over ten years now (!), and I hope the

dreams you find in these books are just as

beautiful as the ones you have in life.

Chapter One

Violet Osborne was back.

Davis Jackson watched her slow down as she walked by his newspaper office and peer through the glass window. He lowered his flute of champagne while, around him, the fundraiser he was hosting for the town’s Helping Hand Foundation sparkled with activity, much like the Cristal bubbles in the drink he’d served to his guests.

Violet.

The girl who’d gotten away.

She stopped at his door. His heart thudded, as if it was running backward, fifteen years to the past, to the day she’d left him for college, abandoning little St. Valentine, Texas, in her rearview mirror. Abandoning him.

Their gazes locked as they stood there, and he knew she could feel everything he felt—the sharp edges of all the questions left unanswered between them, the tension of seeing each other again, all grown up, years later, man and woman.

Although Violet smiled at him, there were shadows in her brown eyes as she said hello by pressing her fingers to the glass that separated them.

Something clenched in Davis’s chest, and he forgot that he was in a crowded room, full of the town’s upper crust dressed in their cocktail-hour best.

Violet. Here.

The mayor’s voice brought Davis back. “Dessert’s ready!”

Davis heard everyone migrate toward the back of the high-tech office, toward where they’d pitched white tents outside to accommodate the food. Violet still waited, as if she didn’t know whether to come inside or just walk away from Davis. Again.

The memory of that day, the slam of realizing that he didn’t mean all that much to Violet, the miner’s daughter he’d fallen for, the off-limits girl who’d seemed to know him better than anyone, tore into Davis like a fresh wound. But what pained the most was what she’d said that day, just before she’d left for college.

“Is it true? Are there other girls, Davis?”

Even though she’d said that she hadn’t believed it when she’d heard it, he’d seen a different story in her eyes—a doubt that he hadn’t changed enough to truly love her.

And that doubt had crushed the life out of what they’d had together in one swift moment, even if they’d naively thought nothing could tear them apart….

He opened the door, and Violet took a breath, as if she was readying herself for a reunion, not only with him, but with all the people who were filtering out of the back exit, checking her out and dismissing her because she was hardly important to them.

But Violet wouldn’t have been expecting any fuss from the others—not after she’d spent her time in St. Valentine making it plain that she wanted to leave. The attitude hadn’t gone over well with the townies or most of the miners.

Yet she’d made good on all her youthful confidence, hadn’t she?

Her sophisticated hairstyle made her straight, dark red hair brush her neck. It went well with those big brown eyes that told you there was a quick mind always at work. Womanly curves, too, enhanced by a fashionable yet professional yellow summer blouse and white pants that hugged shapely hips and long legs …

Yeah, all grown up now.

“Violet,” he said, and it sounded as if he’d been nursing her name inside him for years, even if he’d just realized it now. Immediately, he wished it’d come out differently: as if he’d spent all these years never thinking about her.

She had seemed to be deciding whether to hug him or not, but his own posture—stiff-shouldered, his body just now catching up with his bruised pride—must’ve warned her off, because she didn’t make a move toward him.

“Davis,” she said in a low tone that had always belied a prim, innocent facade. He’d always thought that Violet sounded like a Hollywood actress who hadn’t found the limelight yet.

But from what he knew about the career she’d built on the city desk of the L.A. Times, she’d become a rising star in the world of journalism.

She stuffed her hands in her pockets, acknowledging the tension between them. “I was just walking around Old Town, taking everything in.”

She glanced around the now-empty room. The silence of it echoed.

As if wanting to fill it up, she asked, “What’s the occasion?”

Dancing around the past like this shouldn’t bother him as much as it did. Years had gone by. He could be civil, even though he felt the anger, the shame of her leaving him creeping back up on him. “It’s a fundraiser for a local charity. We had the reception in the Recorder’s office because the paper’s been featuring different families who need some extra help these days.”

She’d grown up with a lot of the hard-luck families who benefited from Helping Hand, some of them mining people who’d been struggling ever since the kaolin operation had shut down. That mine had once been the foundation of St. Valentine, producing china clay that could be used to make paper, plastic, paints and the like.

He put his champagne down on a desk. Friendly. He had to be friendly, because time had passed and he’d matured. None of it mattered now.

“So you’re paying the town a visit,” he said.

“I guess you could call it that.” Her skin flushed as she glanced away. “It won’t be for very long, though. I can’t even stay here right now—I’m starting a shift at the Queen of Hearts.”

“Helping your parents for the weekend?” God, this small talk was killing him.

Violet wandered a few steps away, robbing him of the high he felt just standing close to her. “You’re going to hear this sooner or later,” she said, “so I’ll just tell you. I’m here temporarily because I lost my job at the Times. Layoffs. The economy. You know.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

He’d spent a lot of time that long-ago summer thinking bitter thoughts about her, as well as about his mother, who’d been the driving force in making Violet leave. Mom had found out that the rich kid and the miner’s daughter were having a secret relationship.

Sure, he’d been the one who’d suggested keeping the meetings under the radar, “just for the summer,” until college started and they could leave for L.A. together to start a new life. But, really, he had wanted secrecy because he’d been just as bad as his mom when it came to being fully aware that Violet was a miner’s girl.

He bit back the memory, but echoes of the past gnawed at him.

You can do better than one of them, his mom had always said, urging him to date the cheerleaders and socialites he usually saw—all the girls who didn’t do much for him except allow him to steal kisses and more.

None of them had held a candle to Violet, who was watching him now, running a slow gaze down him—from his Prada suit to the tips of his polished Justins.

His entire body beat right along with his pulse.

“Look at you. Look at all this.” She laughed quietly, glancing around the small front office, with its army of computers warring with old-time pictures of the first buildings, dusty streets from the late 1920s, antique Fords and burros. The town founder, Tony Amati, sitting on the front porch of the lone hotel in what was now called Old Town, smoking a cigar down to ash.

“What’s so surprising?” he asked.

“Everything. I never thought that you would take over the Recorder. I mean, you were in journalism class because it was the only elective open on the schedule senior year.”

“I only wanted enough academic credits to graduate.”

“But you got good at reporting, Davis.”

He fought the urge to close his eyes, to let himself be that high school kid who would’ve allowed the sound of her speaking his name wash through him.

But he’d learned to keep his eyes wide open. Senior year, when he’d joined Violet’s paper—she’d been the territorial editor—he’d only meant to slide through just another class with some smooth talk to the teacher and a minimum amount of work. But he’d found out that he was pretty good at investigating—and he’d found Violet, too.

They’d butted heads over everything—the opinionated kid from the east side of town versus the feisty girl from the west side. But he hadn’t argued with her just because of his stances on the issues—he’d enjoyed seeing the fire in her eyes. It had made him feel more alive than he had ever felt before with anyone.

Then, one night, they’d stayed late, getting an edition of the Rebel Rouser to press.

And it’d happened.

Davis hadn’t planned to kiss her. But she’d been so close to him, smelling like cherries, the warmth from her bare arms heating his skin, and he’d leaned over, feeling the hitch of her breath below his lips just before he’d pressed his mouth to hers.

Something had exploded between them that night, and up until graduation, they had met without anyone knowing about their relationship.

No one knew that they’d fallen in love.

At least, he’d thought no one had known—until his mother had confronted Violet.

He watched Violet walk toward that framed photo of Tony Amati on the wall.

“I thought for sure,” she said, “that you were going to take over that mine one day.”

She didn’t mention it with the spite other people used in St. Valentine—the accusation reminding him of what part he’d had in the mine’s shutdown. No, Davis noticed an appreciation in her expression.

Something wistful.

“Dad said you restored and reclaimed it,” she added.

“That was the least I could do for the town …” He didn’t finish, but it hung there in the air.

After I brought down the mine and the economy with a few newspaper stories.

He sat on the corner of his desk, watching Violet as she ran a hand over an antique Remington typewriter he’d bought on a whim, just because he could afford to.

Funny, how he was dying to let her know that he had enough to make a thousand men happy, thanks to the trust fund he’d padded with sound investments. Funny, how he wanted her to see that he’d done just fine without her after she’d left him that summer.

But that was the past speaking. Couldn’t he let bygones be bygones? The damage hadn’t lasted for very long. He’d forgotten her with other girls. Other women.

“Staying long?” he asked.

“Just enough time to beef up my bank account.” She shrugged. “And here I thought I’d have a Pulitzer by the time I was thirty-three.”

She blew out a breath, as if thinking of the dream job she’d had. Maybe she’d even lived in a condo like the sleek chrome and high-windowed place he’d had in Chicago, during his first real-life job. He’d traveled across the U.S. for a while after graduating, just to get away from his mom. Then, at the urging of Wiley Scott, who had owned the town paper, he’d gotten into Northwestern. Soon after college, he’d landed the St. Valentine kaolin mine story and returned home permanently to make up for the devastation. And he’d been doing that ever since, as if he had something to prove to the town.

Or maybe to a girl who’d seemed to believe, even for a moment, that Davis Jackson could never be more than a rich, careless playboy.

He crossed his arms over his chest. “The newspaper industry is a mess right now, so you can’t take being laid off personally.”

“Right,” she said, obviously putting on a happy face for both of their benefits. “I know you’re right.”

When she looked at him again, she’d somehow managed to retrieve that confidence that had always defined Violet Osborne, a girl whose dreams had been too big for a town like St. Valentine. And to have to come back to a place she’d worked so hard to get out of …?

From the rear of the office, Davis heard the door opening, letting in the sound of laughter from the guests he was supposed to be hosting. Then it closed.

Violet heard it, too. “I should let you go.”

But he didn’t want that. Dammit, just seeing her again …

It brought back so much. It made him want to know if she saw the changes in him.

She offered one last, tentative smile, then moved toward the door. The sway of her hips under her pants caught Davis’s eye before he forced his gaze away.

She spoke over her shoulder, hand on the doorknob. “I just wanted to congratulate you—all the things you’re doing and have done for St. Valentine. All the things you’ve accomplished. Even my dad’s been saying good things about that.”

“Your dad complimented me?”

“I wouldn’t call it complimenting, exactly. More like he was sticking up for you. He got into it with a few ex-miners once, and he pointed out that you didn’t bring on that safety investigation—it was him and a few others who opened their mouths when your mother ignored their concerns after the accident.”

Davis only wished that everyone in town felt the way her dad had, even if he knew the man had never liked him much, with Davis being the privileged Jackson whose family owned the mine.

And when his exposé forced a closure … Well, that left every miner but the whistleblowing ones against him. Especially the younger guys who’d been hired away by his mother to work the family’s natural gas operation near Houston. It was as if they didn’t realize that Davis’s mom had primarily hired them on merely as an apology for what had gone down at the mine.

How anyone could’ve forgiven her was a mystery to Davis. After all, back when his father had owned the mine, safety had been the highest concern. His mom hadn’t agreed. After his death, she’d become a big fan of money—or what she saw as security—first and foremost.

Back then, Davis had just purchased the Recorder, and he’d published articles about the mine based on his interviews with the whistleblowers, even though that hadn’t kept one worker from nearly dying after he’d been buried in a trench while installing a drainpipe.

Then Davis had stepped up his investigation, and many folks had blamed him for the Mine Safety and Health Administration coming in. The federal organization cited inadequate procedures throughout the mine, and his mom had decided to shut down under the pressure, offering natural gas jobs out by Houston instead.

After that, the west side of St. Valentine had felt like a ghost town. And, to Davis, it’d felt doubly so with his mom. She’d accused him of writing that exposé because of a rebelliousness that had started when he’d blamed her for getting Violet to leave.

Maybe he had been driven by a need to show his mom that she couldn’t control him, as well as a true sense of doing right for the town he’d loved enough to come back to in the end.

Violet dared to wander nearer to him, to lay a hand on his arm. The heat of her touch seared his skin.

Did she feel it?

He pulled away, cursing himself for caring.

She didn’t move, and for an instant, he thought this might be the prelude to them finally saying something meaningful.

But he could see the thoughts turning in her mind. She already had everything planned out: get back on her feet with the waitressing gig, leave the town that had always looked down on her for being uppity the minute she could afford to.

The back door opened again, footsteps on the wooden planked floor …

Davis stood from the desk as Mayor Neeson and his daughter, Jennifer—a dark-haired flirt in a red dress who grinned at Davis—came into the room. She was delicately holding the stem of a champagne glass in one hand while eyeing Violet, who eyed her right back.

“Coming out for dessert anytime soon?” the mayor asked Davis, ignoring Violet altogether.

His hackles rose, just as they’d always done when he’d seen the rich kids at school dismiss Violet and her ambitions so carelessly.

Why now, though?

“Ray,” Davis said, “you remember Violet Osborne?”

The mayor merely nodded to her. Jennifer instead focused on Davis as if Violet didn’t even exist.

He’d had a few good times with Jennifer, and that must’ve given her the idea that he would be on her side. But he wouldn’t let himself be that petty.

When Jennifer saw that she was alone in this, she shot a bored glance to Violet. “This is the last place I ever expected to see you again.”

Violet didn’t say a word. Instead, her shoulders stiffened.

“What brought you back?” Jennifer asked. “Did the bright, shiny world eat you up then spit you back out here?”

Davis was too busy feeling the punch of those words to notice Violet’s immediate reaction.

“Jennifer…,” he said.

He heard Violet mutter an “It was good to see you, Davis,” just before she turned and walked out of his office, dignified, seemingly in no hurry, although he could bet she only wanted to run.

Violet felt as if she were burning up under the waning July sun as she walked as quickly as she could down the wood-planked sidewalk of Amati Street.

Mortified. Leave it to Jennifer Neeson to be the first to take a shot at her. If there was a better example of how a miner’s kid with ambition didn’t have a chance at breaching this town’s social divides, Violet would be hard-pressed to find one.

She knew that she deserved some comeuppance for her attitude back before she’d left town. She’d been prepared for it. That didn’t mean it stung any less, though.

The dusky, heavy warmth of the afternoon took her over as she continued walking. But the prickly discomfort wasn’t only coming from the weather—it had a lot to do with seeing Davis again, too.

Her body swarmed with a need she hadn’t felt in such a long time—hot, rushed, breathless.

The boy who’d brought out the fun part of her … The guy who’d thought her ambitions were admirable … Davis had been everything to her at one time, and it had taken eons to push the hurt away.

Maybe it had never even left …

When she’d strolled by the newspaper office tonight, she hadn’t intended to go inside. She’d been going in that direction, anyway, and the curious part of her had only wanted a peek inside the Recorder. Little had she known that he would be standing right there, as if waiting for her the entire time.

And when she’d seen him …

It was as if every bone in her body had turned to liquid, flowing downward, inward, swirling with so many emotions that she hadn’t been able to identify them until now—disappointment at what had happened all those years ago. Surprise that Davis might just remember every bit of it. Exhilaration at seeing him again.

Back then, when Davis had first invaded her newspaper staff, she’d dismissed him. He’d worn expensive leather jackets, nice shirts—a wardrobe that probably cost what her father made in a week at the Jacksons’ mine.

But Davis had intrigued her, too. And, somehow, while they’d spent all those hours after school working on the paper, the sparring between them had turned into a few deep conversations. She’d seen beyond a rich boy into a guy who shared her intellectual curiosity about the world she longed to be a part of outside St. Valentine. She’d told him about her great-aunt Jeanne and all the stories she’d given to Violet while growing up—travels to Paris, London, cities that never slept and offered so much more opportunity than this speck of a town.

And then, when he’d first kissed her … their relationship had taken a serious turn. Until the day his mom had come to her and told her that Davis would never take any relationship seriously—especially not with a girl like Violet. That he was even seeing girls on the side right now and she shouldn’t bank her future on him.

But the man Violet had seen today seemed serious enough. His shoulders were wider, his chest broader, his legs even longer than she remembered. And there was something in his gaze that was harder than it’d been before.

She reminded herself that he’d let her go, just as much as she’d gone. He had told her that his mom was lying about the other girls and she’d genuinely believed him, but she’d already done the damage by even asking if the words were true. It had taken merely a split second to destroy what they’d found that summer—so quickly that she’d wondered for a long time just how real their love had even been, and if they’d been much too young to know what love was.

Had all those questions only been a way of distancing herself from the anguish, though?

Right now, as her chest constricted, she wasn’t sure.

The Queen of Hearts Saloon was up ahead, surrounded by the dirt road and weathered buildings. A few burros—descendants of the original silver-mining beasts of burden—lingered by the whitewashed church with its stained-glass windows. The folks up in Old Town had grown so used to them over the years that they took it upon themselves to feed them, and the tourists loved them.

She was just coming to the jewelry store when she heard hard boot steps on the boardwalk, felt a hand on her arm.

Her breath hammering from her lungs, she could only spin around and gape at Davis as he loomed over her—the jet-setting cowboy with the carefree dark blond hair and ice-blue eyes and fancy suit.

“What are you doing?” she asked, as he led her into a nearby alley, where no passersby could see them.

“I’m doing what I should’ve done the second you came into my office.”

Here it was—the moment she had known was coming. Why had she thought she could get away with seeing him again without any consequences? All she’d wanted to do was get the awkwardness over with, knowing she was bound to run into him sometime.

“I’m here,” he said, his hands planted on his hips, making him more imposing than she’d ever remembered, “to clear the air, because it sure didn’t happen back there in the office.”

She thought of how Mrs. Jackson, with her crisp red suit and her coiffed, bleached hair, had been waiting for Violet in the library parking lot that day, after one of her trysts with Davis in the woods out back, where it was private. They’d been so intent on keeping their relationship from their families in particular, because her dad, a miner, would’ve flipped, grumbling about selfish, greedy rich people and how Davis would only drop Violet when he was done with her. And Davis’s mom? She was as biased as they came against “the less fortunate.”

Sometimes Vi had even wondered if Davis himself liked to maintain their secret because he was afraid of public opinion, but then she’d tell herself she was crazy, that he was nothing like his mother.

Violet rested against the beaten wood wall, resigned. If he wanted to clear things up, they could do that. It was better than having to tiptoe around him for the next couple of months.

“If you want to rehash everything,” she said, “we can do that.”

“I never got a good answer about why you left.”

All right, then. “When your mom said that this ‘thing’ between you and me wasn’t going to last, she sounded so reasonable about it. She said that it’d be foolish to throw away my scholarship on a summer fling.” Violet took a second, waiting for her runaway heartbeat to catch up, then said, “And when she said you were seeing—”

“Other girls. You know that wasn’t true.” Davis said it with an edge that he tamped down by gritting his jaw, looking away, as if his old anger had been rekindled, undying.

She searched for words, finally finding them. “What do you want me to do now, Davis? What would make you feel better?”

His jaw tightened. “Nothing.”

His gaze was tortured, as if there were a thousand things he wanted to say but wouldn’t.

A vibration—a warmth that whirled and just about took her under—consumed her. She’d tried for so long to never be affected by what anyone in this town thought or said, but here she was, thwarted by that very thing—and it was from the man who’d affected her so acutely all those years ago.

She couldn’t let down her defenses in front of him, especially now, when she needed the protection from what everyone thought or said the most.

Besides, who were they to each other anymore? She knew that he’d moved on—she’d heard stories from her mom, gossip. She’d seen the way Jennifer Neeson had glanced at him, as if they knew quite a bit about each other. He obviously hadn’t shut himself away, heartbroken, because of her.

But he wanted to clear the air.

He exhaled roughly, then started to walk away, even though the air was still as thick as steam.

“You were just as confused as I was that day,” she said on a choked note, stopping him. “I saw it in you. You were hurt that I was questioning you, but all I needed to hear was that you hadn’t looked at another girl since we’d started seeing each other.”

“I thought you already knew that.”

She swallowed, her throat one big ache. “I was a kid, and your mom knew I’d be rattled by what she told me.”

“You should’ve known that you changed everything about me, Vi.”

When she glanced up, she saw more yearning in his eyes.

But then it disappeared.

He adjusted his burgundy silk tie, then started to leave again, as if they had finally knotted up their loose ends.

“I only wanted you to know that,” he said.

She could barely nod.

Then after a pause in which she thought he was going to tell her—what? What could he say now?—he moved out of the alley, turning the corner, out of sight.

But not out of her heart or mind.

Chapter Two

Down the street, Violet heard laughter through the swinging doors of the Queen of Hearts, and she headed for the saloon before she made a fool of herself and went running after Davis.

They’d supposedly cleared the air, so why muddle it again?

She kept telling herself this as she walked inside the building, looking straight ahead, feeling the heavy stares of the group of elderly ladies—the knitting club—who met at the table under the rustic wagon wheel light fixture; the collection of old men at the bar who nursed mugs of beer under the whirring ceiling fans; the just-turned-twenty-one crowd who considered drinking at the Queen of Hearts in Old Town a tradition until they moved on to the newer bars in the more modern part of town.

Violet knew that she should risk a smile at them—after all, she’d be waiting on them for the first time tonight—so she tried it.

They all looked away.

Her face heated as she went to the back room, donning her old-fashioned red-and-white-striped half-apron.

“There she is!” Mom rushed up to Violet, standing on her tiptoes to give her a kiss on the cheek.

She smelled like rose perfume. Violet had always remembered that scent, even when she’d been away. It reminded her of when her mom’s hair had been red, not a premature gray.

“Ready for some Friday night action?” Mom asked.

“I’m hoping for it.” And so was the bank account that had dwindled during the months when she’d relied on it during a job hunt that had never borne fruit. It’d also suffered from the money she’d invested in the saloon after her parents had bought it with the last of their savings, plus all the times she’d put in more money to keep the bar and grill afloat during off-season months.

When her father came in, resplendent in the type of outfit a bartender might’ve worn in the late ‘20s, back when old Tony Amati had settled in what would become St. Valentine, she gave him a great big hug.

“Together again,” he said, patting her on the back.

“I’m glad to be with you,” she said.

He grinned right before he retreated to the main room’s bar and her mom took over in the kitchen.

Smoothing out her apron and inhaling deeply, then exhaling, Violet followed her dad.

People were just starting to trickle in for early-bird dinners, and as Violet took orders, everyone was civil, if not a little cool, to her.

She wished they could see just how much her time away had helped her grow out of the dreamer who’d announced her big aspirations to anyone within range—that she wasn’t merely an arrogant girl who’d thought the town was beneath her.

She was several orders in when Wiley Scott, the former owner and editor of the Recorder, called after her.

“Why, if it isn’t my favorite story chaser!” he said.

“Boisterous as ever,” she said, going over to where he sat at the bar.

They hugged, and if she didn’t know better, she would’ve thought that Wiley was putting out an extra effort to welcome her amid the other cold shoulders.

He held her away from him, giving her a paternal once-over. He was a man who looked far more likely to be at home at a chuck wagon than anywhere else. His silver hair stood up on one side, as if he’d had his hand against that part of his head as he leaned his elbow on the bar.

It was obvious that there was true pride in him as he squeezed her arm. Besides her family, he’d been one of the first people she’d told about the journalism scholarship for the University of California. Such an earned honor didn’t happen to very many miner’s kids in St. Valentine.

“How’re you doing?” she asked.

“I hate retirement. I should’ve never sold the paper to Davis. That’s how I’m doing.”

At the sound of Davis’s name, a tap-tap-tap went off in Violet’s chest. She blushed and hoped Wiley didn’t notice.

“Speaking of which,” he said kiddingly, “I saw you going into the Recorder while I was walking here. You looking for a new job?”

Obviously, her parents hadn’t told him about the layoff yet.

“No.” She fiddled with her ordering pad. “The Times had to cut staff, but something’s bound to come down the pike any time now.” She didn’t add that she hopefully would be back on her feet and in the city long before she even had time to settle at a desk here.

“That’s a real shame, but if anyone can land on all fours, it’s you.” He drained his beer mug. A line of foam clung to his bristled upper lip before he wiped it away with his flannel shirtsleeve. “Too bad you won’t stick around for a place on the Recorder, though. You and Davis made a good team back in the day. I remember how well you two worked together whenever you’d come in to get the school paper printed in the office.”

She thought of standing next to Davis just under a half hour ago, thought of how good he still smelled, like cedar chips, fresh and manly.

Manly. He was a man, no longer a boy, and her body was reacting to that.

She realized it’d been like that, too, back in high school, every time he’d stood close by, leaning over her shoulder while she’d typed up a story.

And she would’ve pretended to ignore him before he’d broken open her emotional dam with one kiss. But, deep down, she would’ve gone weak, her pulse warbling as she wished he would tease her some more. That he would adore her just as much as she did him, even though she would’ve died before admitting it first.

Not that any of it mattered now, even as Wiley gave her a mischievous glance, as if he could tell just what she was thinking.

Obviously, when he’d retired from reporting, he hadn’t left everything behind.

Violet signaled to her dad behind the bar so he’d get Wiley another beer. “Anything else you need?”

He rested a hand on her arm. “Yeah. I need for you to keep that chin up, even as you’re eating humble pie.”

He didn’t have to explain—not when he was sending a loaded look to the rest of the people in the room.

Like her great-aunt Jeanne, Wiley had pumped up all her aspirations. It was just that he hadn’t died and left her with the final advice of Follow your dreams for me, okay? That push had persuaded Violet that she needed to leave this little town and go for it outside someday.

She half smiled at his suggestion. Humble pie. Sounded appropriate for a person who’d returned here temporarily to lick her wounds. But how could she take that first step with everyone, show them that she didn’t hold St. Valentine in contempt as much as they probably thought she did?

Before she could ask Wiley, his gaze widened as he looked at something behind her.

When she turned around, she almost smacked into the wall of a man’s chest.

She looked up into Davis Jackson’s face, his blue eyes unreadable, and her blood began to churn in her veins.

She couldn’t do much more than stare up at Davis, who had loosened the tie from around his neck, giving him a devil-may-care appearance. He’d shocked her with his unexpected presence, and now desire was flaring over her, sending the fine hairs on her arms to standing straight.

She didn’t have to guess what he was seeing in her—her eyes were probably like a fawn in the headlights. And the heat on her cheeks …

Probably couldn’t be more obvious.

As they locked gazes, someone turned on the jukebox, and a Carrie Underwood song brought Violet back to earth.

“Your party’s over?” she asked over the tune as Davis stood by a bar stool next to Wiley.

“I skipped dessert but said my good-nights and closed up the office. The mayor is kindly handling the stragglers in the tents out back.” He glanced around, and a redhead Violet didn’t know gave Davis a look that just about shouted out that he knew her. As in maybe even biblically.

“The night’s still young enough here,” he said, loosening his tie even more as he nodded to the woman. She raised an eyebrow at him then went back to the man she’d been talking to.

Violet was confused. Why had Davis even come to the saloon when he should’ve been avoiding her?

Maybe he was just bent on making some kind of point to her—that he could move on with a social life, and certainly already had.

That had always been his reputation with the girls. But Vi had discovered there was much more to him—a soul filled with longings about the world outside, a boy who missed the father who’d died when he was only four years old.

He was a person who was capable of finding someone to love, even if he seemed to be the last guy who’d ever fall into it….

Wiley got up from his seat, saying something about a trip to the john. Davis hovered, staring down at Vi, even as she tried to avoid his gaze.

She felt it, though, as if he were the only other person in the room. The weight of that stare thrilled her through and through.

“Davis,” she whispered. A warning, slightly panicked because of what he was doing to her—what she couldn’t afford during this temporary detour in her life.

When she finally risked a glance at him, he had that look again—the same fervent one he’d worn after he’d first kissed her all those years ago.

Then it disappeared, as if it’d never happened.

“Whiskey,” Davis said to her, sitting on the stool next to Wiley’s.

He doffed his jacket, leaving her with a view of muscle underneath linen, the hint of tanned skin at his neck.

She tried not to look, even though it was hard not to.

She left him so she could place his order and take care of her other tables, but the entire time she knew he was there, at the bar, watching.

Just as she was about to scream from the tension, her sixth sense tickled her, and she turned around to see a man walking through the swinging doors of the entrance and toward the other end of the bar, near a corner where liquor bottles caught the light.

Another customer in her section, thank God. More reason to keep busy.

To keep away from Davis.

The new guy was wearing a black cowboy hat low over his brow, and he didn’t take it off, even as he slouched onto the stool. He used one hand to pick up a laminated menu and laid the other flat on the wood in front of him, almost as if they’d all gone back in time and he was ready to draw for a gunfight.

But it was only when he tipped back his hat that the room went silent.

“The spitting image,” a customer muttered to his dining partner.

Violet didn’t have to ask what he was talking about—not when she had such clear sight of the thick dark hair over the man’s brow, the coal-black eyes, the rough-and-tumble hardness of a face that she and all the other town folk had seen in many an old picture.

She turned her gaze to the nearby wall, where a grainy photograph of their town founder, Tony Amati, hung.

Thick dark hair, coal-black eyes. Same jaw. Same toughness.

The spitting image, all right. It was downright eerie.

From the way everyone was staring, she could tell that nobody had ever seen this guy before. Who was he?

Her curiosity sharpened, she nonetheless stopped by table three to deliver beverages first, then detoured to table four for their order, running it to her mom, who was cooking at the grill. Then she returned to the stranger’s corner, trying to act as if the entire room wasn’t fascinated by him.

“Hi,” she said, putting on the smiles. “Welcome to the Queen of Hearts.”

“Thanks.” When the man looked up at her, his gaze was dark. Uneasy.

It struck Violet that he knew very well that he was the center of attention. That maybe he had even come in here to accomplish just that.

“Do you need some time to look at the menu?” she asked, pen poised over paper.

“I’ll start with a beer. Bottled.” His voice was raspy, reminding her of a scratched record that someone had unearthed from storage. “Then we’ll go with a buffalo burger, rare.”

“Great.”

He glanced around the room, slowly. Deliberately. “Do all tourists get this much interest from the locals?”

“Not really.” She glanced toward the back of the room, taking care to avoid focusing on Davis, who had his back to her, although she was sure that he was just as aware of her as she was of him.

She fixed her gaze on a photo of Tony Amati hanging near the jukebox. “It’s just that you look like …”

“Who?” he asked casually.

“Tony Amati, our town founder. He goes way back in the history books here.” She cocked her head. “You could be his twin.”

The stranger glanced toward the photo.

“Want to see it up close?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Why not?”

Before she fetched it, she went to the kitchen, handing off her ticket. When she walked out to the bar, Wiley had returned to his seat, hunched over his beer, not saying a word.

Davis caught her by the apron. She stifled a gasp; his hand was near her hip, and the patch of skin under her pants burned with his imprint.

“Who’s that guy?” he asked.

“Don’t know.” She tugged away from him, making it her point to show him that touching her wasn’t allowed, even if they had “cleared the air.”

Her skin was still humming when she left. And to make matters worse, the sensation was spreading along her hip, getting to places that Davis Jackson had no right getting to.

After she fetched the photo from the wall, she got back to the stranger’s table. He seemed to drink in the picture, but she couldn’t get any more than that out of him.

“Tony Amati never had kids, so you couldn’t be a direct descendant,” she said. “Then again, don’t they say everyone in the world has a doppelgänger?”

The stranger narrowed his eyes at the photo. “I suppose we bear a resemblance to each other.”

In spite of all the reading she loved to do, as well as the Founder’s Weekend celebrations, which seemed to honor the town and not the man, Tony had always remained somewhat of a mystery, no matter how much digging she’d done. Evidently, he’d been a private sort who’d never talked about where he’d come from, one who’d reinvented himself out west, as so many others had done. He’d been rumored to be a Texas Ranger and had been wealthy, helping out families in the area. And then there was the matter of his death … the biggest mystery about Tony Amati.

The stranger kept his gaze on the photograph a little longer before handing it back to her. She tried to read him again, but he was like stone, his face etched into a hard-bitten expression that revealed nothing.

She also felt that familiar thrill of a mystery—answers to be chased and caught. She almost even felt just as she used to when she’d gone to her real job every day.

“As interesting as all this is,” he said, “I’m really just passing through this place.”

“Well, it’s good to have you around for however long you’re here …”

“Jared,” he said, offering no more than that.

“I’m Violet, and I’ll be right back with your beer.”

But after she fetched it from the bar, Jared proved very untalkative, settling into his seat, pulling his hat back down over his brow, ignoring the remainder of the stares from the rest of the patrons.

Davis had left the Queen of Hearts long before last call, but that didn’t mean he’d gone home to his ranch on the outskirts of town. He was restless. His mind, his body … neither of them could shut down.

Not with Violet here again.

He’d gone back to the newspaper office, firing up his computer, intending to get some work done. But he kept seeing Violet with her apron around the hips he’d once stroked with his hands, kept seeing her making her way around the bar and grill tonight, chancing smiles at anyone who wasn’t him.

Hell, she’d even seemed more comfortable with that stranger who’d wandered into the saloon.

Davis forced his mind to focus on the Tony Amati look-alike. An idea had sparked in him, in spite of his ridiculous fascination with Violet, and he tried to put all his energies into the distraction now.

Anything to take his mind off her. Anything.

A story about a look-alike such as this stranger would be a hell of an angle for Founder’s Weekend, he thought. The past arises in St. Valentine …

He tried to forget just how personally relevant that thought was as he did a computer search that turned up next to nothing about Tony Amati. Afterward, Davis accessed the digitized archives and skimmed through old editions of the Recorder, just to see if there was anything to keep him even busier.

He didn’t know a whole lot of personal stuff about the town founder, and, from the looks of it, there was a whole lot less than Davis had expected to discover about a man who’d been so key to this town’s development.

But, after about an hour of frustration, he finally did uncover something. A tidbit that would require much more research.

An article with the headline: Amati Dies of Unknown Causes.

The text was extremely vague, just an extended obituary about Amati’s love of privacy and his leadership qualities. It was as if Tony’s death hadn’t rocked St. Valentine much at all. Then again, common knowledge had always maintained that he’d died alone, out of the public eye.

When Davis saw another article, planted deep in the back of the same edition, he looked even closer.

Sheriff Kills Burglars in Home.

Davis went over that story, too, yet it offered about as much as Amati’s obituary had.

He didn’t know what it was exactly, but something was poking at him—the “other” sense all reporters relied on.

That nudge-nudge that kept them up at nights.

There wasn’t much else to go on, but it was a mystery Davis decided to pursue in his spare time, between overseeing the next biweekly edition and reporting on preparations for Founder’s Weekend so the story could go out to bigger outlets, hopefully attracting some visitors to St. Valentine in a week.

It’d be just what this town needed … and what he needed for them.

He locked up the office at midnight, spying Mr. and Mrs. Osborne and Violet coming out of the bar and grill down the street.

Was it his imagination when he saw Violet hesitate as they secured the big doors in front of the saloon’s entrance? Was she looking toward the newspaper office because her reporter radar was up and running, too, after meeting the stranger?

Or was she looking down here for a different reason altogether, one that made Davis’s reluctant heartbeat race? Was she just as eager to see him once again as he was her?

As Davis caught Violet’s gaze under the moonlight, he couldn’t move. He was frozen by the hunger for her that had only grown hour by hour, sending him to the Queen of Hearts after his party, even after he’d made it crystal clear that he’d found closure with her.

But had he?

Violet seemed to be under the same spell, unmoving, as her parents headed toward their truck, which was parked in an alley beside the building.

Davis couldn’t stay away, and he moved toward Violet. Standing near their vehicle, her father watched Davis from beneath the brim of his cowboy hat.

“Gary,” Davis said, nodding to him, then greeted his wife, as well.

Andrea Osborne smiled at Davis but her husband merely grunted out Davis’s name. Despite their having worked together to shut down the mine, there was still an avalanche of disappointment there—a father’s hard feelings for the kid who’d broken his daughter’s heart once upon a time.

Davis came to a stand in front of Violet, who was still near the bar’s doorway. His blood sang through him—all he wanted to do was touch her, just as free and easy as they had been in high school.

“Saw you talking to that stranger,” Davis said, straight to the point. “Did you find out who he is?”

“His name is Jared.”

“And?”

“And what? He wanted something to eat and he’s probably miles out of town by now.”

Davis had the feeling that she meant to end the conversation right there with him, but he wouldn’t let that happen. And, truthfully, it wasn’t just because he wanted this story.

What the hell did he want, though?

“I already did a little research,” he said.

“You did?” she asked.

There was a spark in her—the reporter’s excitement that had turned him on back when they’d worked on the school paper.

“You do know,” he said, “that I do a lot of the reporting around here.” His trust fund investments gave him that luxury in sleepy St. Valentine.

Before she could respond, her dad said, “Violet?”

He apparently wanted to scoot back to their ranch, where Violet was no doubt staying.

“They’re my ride,” she said. “I came home to find my old car dead in the barn. It’s being fixed.”

“If you want a look at the archives to see what you can find out about Amati,” Davis said, “you could stick around. I could drive you home, since your family’s place is on the way to my own.”

Had he really just said that?

Even under the gas lamps that lined the street, he could see how Violet’s gaze had gone wide. Her eyes were like brandy—something he could get drunk on.

But then she looked toward her waiting parents, and Davis could just about guess what was going through her mind.

She hadn’t come back to St. Valentine to mess around with an old flame—she was here to recover and regroup. And the minute she got the chance to skedaddle out of town again, she wouldn’t have time for Podunk stories like this one.

“I’m opening the saloon with Mom in the morning,” she said, an excuse if he’d ever heard one.

But he could still detect the temptation in her tone. The story had intrigued her.

As he heard her parents’ truck doors slam shut, temptation swarmed him. An opportunity—a lure for Violet to come around his office, for him to see her again.

Bad idea, said a little voice inside him. Real bad.

Nonetheless, he heard himself saying, “Did you know that the paper didn’t report on Amati’s cause of death? He’s a presence in those saloon photographs and in town history, so why was he practically a nobody in his obituary?”

“You’ll get to the bottom of it.”

The same anger that had haunted him for years reared up again. He wasn’t going to let her get away that easily this time. “Something’s going on here. And if it’s big enough, it might even serve to bring in some much-needed tourists to St. Valentine. It could pump up the economy, and that includes the saloon, Vi.”

She blew out a breath, as if he’d hit a mark.

It wasn’t fair, but he said it anyway. “This story could really give this town some profile. And working on it might also go a long way in making your stay here easier.”

“Why would you say that?”

“I’ve seen what you’re going through—the looks, the snide remarks.”

“Jennifer was the only one offering up the sarcasm.”

“We both know she won’t be the last.”

As she took that in, he waited. Say yes, Vi …

“Do you really think this look-alike will amount to anything?” she asked.

“Yeah. Just call it a gut feeling.”

Another hesitation. She was going to tell him to stick this story where the sun didn’t shine, wasn’t she? The worst thing about it was that he knew another no from her would chew at him for the rest of the night, the rest of …

He wasn’t sure just how long it’d be.

“Davis,” she said softly, “I can guess how much it would mean for you if you could do something wonderful for this place.”

“Earlier, I swear I saw the girl who never turned her back on a story. Where did she go?”

“You know where she went.”

A short burst from her parents’ pickup horn made her walk away. But he still felt her on his flesh, singeing away at him.

“Violet?” he asked.

She stopped in her tracks.

His pulse was flying. “The newspaper office will be open tomorrow before you get to the saloon.”

She bit her bottom lip, glancing at the bar and grill.

He pushed the subject, his heartbeat racing. “I’ll be passing your ranch on the way in.” Damned if he wasn’t going to give up. Damned if he was going out on a limb here, against all his common sense.

Her parents’ truck purred as she gave him that wide-eyed look that told him the promise of making a gesture of goodwill to the town mattered to her just as much as it did to him.

“Okay,” she said. “I can look at the archives for about an hour, just to see if there’s anything to this.”

“And to do a freelance write-up for the Recorder?”

“If the research pans out. Maybe.”

Was she about to say something more?

He never found out, because she’d already jumped into her parents’ truck, leaving Davis with a tight grin.

He’d lost her once, but he had her for a morning now.

Chapter Three

After a night of searching the internet on her laptop without much success, Violet was up just after dawn, the birds chirping outside the window of the little cabin she was staying in on her parents’ ranch.

Back in the days before her mother and father had purchased the saloon, when Dad was a full-timer at the mine, Mom and the Osbornes’ employees had run this spread that had been in the family for generations. They’d bred American Quarter horses until, after several bad years of business, they’d had to sell off most of the land and stop the operation altogether. That was when her parents had decided to invest everything they had left in the bar and grill, and this decision had left the employee cabins empty, except for this one. Mom had fixed it up just before Violet had arrived, trimming it with gingham curtains and polishing the pine furniture. It was a stark contrast to her old apartment, with its view of Wilshire Boulevard’s skyscrapers in the near distance and the elevator just down the hall, where every doorway seemed to hide an actor or a budding director behind it.

She left the cabin, knowing Mom would’ve cooked an amazing breakfast—chocolate chip pancakes. It’d been a while since Violet had eaten such a thing; not since her last short trip here months ago. Her job had kept her too busy to be in the kitchen very much, and she’d become accustomed to grabbing hot coffee and limp sandwiches on the fly.

She opened the main house’s front door, the aroma of those pancakes making her mouth water. From the entryway, she could see the hall leading to the bedrooms—the one she’d grown up in would still be untouched, with its posters of all the places Great-Aunt Jeanne had experienced while writing her upscale magazine travel articles—Monaco, Madrid, Berlin. Whenever Great-Aunt Jeanne had visited, she’d always told Violet about salon talks with poets, riding in speedboats with princes.

She would’ve been proud that Violet had spread her wings and explored everything outside this “hick town” that she had escaped, too.

Violet just tried not to dwell on what her aunt would’ve done if she knew her great-niece had landed back in St. Valentine.

She made her way into the kitchen, the whoosh from an overhead fan chasing away some of the heat already settling in for the day.

Mom was wielding a spatula at the stove, her curly gray hair in a ponytail. “Just a few more minutes and I’ll be done.”

“Can’t wait.”

“We can have a family breakfast, just like we used to. Your dad’s going to be out of the shower anytime now.”

Oops. On the way home last night, Violet had neglected to tell her parents that Davis would be picking her up this morning. Mom would be okay with it, but Dad?

He emerged earlier than expected from the hallway, his graying head wet from the shower. “It’ll be a scorching one today.” He bent down to kiss the top of Violet’s head and sat for their family meal.

Might as well get this over with. “I wish I could stick around for a long breakfast this morning,” she said, “but I’m off to town soon.”

Mom looked over her shoulder, balancing a pancake on the spatula. “How are you going to get there?”

“It’s covered.” Violet nonchalantly poured herself a glass of orange juice from the pitcher on the table. “Davis is picking me up.”

Dad sat up straighter in his chair, so Violet spoke before he could.

“I’m working on a small story that could bring some positive attention to St. Valentine in time for Founder’s Weekend.”

“Hmph,” Dad said.

“Gary,” Mom said. “Don’t start.”

Violet said, “There’s really nothing to start about. It’s work, and I can add it to my résumé so future bosses can see that I’m still sharpening my craft.”

She neglected to add that she’d been happy when Davis hadn’t brought up anything personal again last night, after he’d caught her post-closing time at the bar and grill. When he’d started talking about the stranger instead, she’d just about wilted with relief. Yeah, that’s what it had to be—relief. Because surely it hadn’t been some kind of disappointment that they were veering around everything else in favor of talking about the Tony Amati look-alike.

Mom brought the platter of pancakes to the table, but Dad didn’t dig in just yet.

“That’s all it is?” Dad asked. “A story?”

“Yes. I figure it might … I don’t know, it might go a long way in showing everyone that I want to contribute while I’m around. Coming back here made me realize that I have some things to clean up in this town.”

Mom sat down, too. “And a news story’s going to do that?”

“It could. It’s a gesture, a way of saying that I’m not any better than anyone here. That I do care about this place.” Violet picked up her orange juice glass.

“So,” Mom said, “does that mean you’re going to stay longer than we first thought?”

Violet laughed. “Adventure’s in my blood, Mom, just like it was with Great-Aunt Jeanne. I miss running around the city, writing about the different trials at court or about what’s being smuggled in through LAX. I miss meeting my friends for cocktails and going to movies at the Chinese Theatre—”

Mom held up a hand. “I don’t want to hear about smugglers and criminals.” She liked to pretend that Violet had a nice, cushy desk job.

Dad stabbed at a pancake on the platter. “I’m about as excited about you working with Davis as I was when you were kids.”

“Gary …” Mom said again, this time with more warning.

Dad knitted his bushy brows as Mom continued.

“Violet’s an adult. Just because she’s living here doesn’t mean we get to poke our nose into her business.” She spread a checkered napkin over her lap. “Besides, you’d think we’ve grown out of all this—who’s rich, who’s poor, especially after Davis went to bat for the miners.”

“Too bad it backfired,” Violet said.

Dad stuffed a bite of pancake into his mouth.

Violet didn’t let him off the hook. “He deserves points for what he’s doing for St. Valentine now, too, Dad. He’s determined to get this place on its feet again.”

Mom shot Dad a “You hear that?” look.

Violet polished off one pancake, knowing she could take some with her, plus her juice, then rose from the table just before her dad did. Dad said he needed to do some saloon paperwork before going in for the day.

She rushed to brush her teeth in her cabin. When she got back into the main house, the sound of a deep, low male voice came from the kitchen. That zinging sensation flew through Violet again.

Davis.

She took a big breath. Steady. You’re just helping him with some research.

But when she saw him standing in the kitchen near the stove—talking with her mom, dressed in a tailored Western shirt, jeans and expensive handworked leather boots—her heart just about leaped out of her chest.

Her mind scrambled, right along with all the crazy electricity flying through her body, and she wasn’t so sure today was about being professional at all.

They’d taken some pancakes with them, driving the country road in Davis’s shiny, vintage Aston Martin.

Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Violet nibble on a pancake. He’d never been so interested in the way a woman ate. He’d never even dwelled so much on a mouth and what it might feel like against his own. And this was a very adult craving, too—far from the hormonal interest he’d had in Violet way back when.

He rested one arm on the open window, welcoming the morning air as it hit his face. It didn’t do much to cool him off, though.

Davis had just finished telling Violet more of the details he’d culled from his research last night when she brushed a few pancake crumbs from her blouse.

“I think that a break-in at the sheriff’s home the same week that Tony died under mysterious circumstances is worth looking into,” she said, all business. “I don’t know, it could be my imagination getting spooked, but—”

“We could have some kind of a lead about how Tony Amati really might’ve died?”

“Could be.”

“I even wonder if our stranger, Jared, has come here to find out about Tony, too. If he’s his descendent or something and he’s on a fact-finding trip.”

Violet turned toward him, and Davis glanced at her. A few dark red hairs had escaped from her ponytail. Her brown eyes had a gleam—that unmistakable sign of the thrill of the chase that used to light her gaze in their high school days.

Outside the window, white fences and green pastures rushed by. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” she asked.

“What—this story, or having you in my car, riding along with me?”

She blushed, and it stirred him right back up again. It also warned him that he needed to back off, because it probably wouldn’t take much for her to shy away from him.

“It has nothing to do with your four-wheeled toys.” Now Violet had that lost expression on her face he’d seen so many times before. “I meant to say that you seem to like the possibility of chasing a real story. More than the usual ‘Fireman Rescues Cat from Tree’ sort of thing.”

“We get a little more action than that in St. Valentine these days. Last month, we actually covered a knockdown-drag-out fight between Maura Stosser and our own Wiley Scott. She’d bopped him on the head in the general store with an umbrella from the sale rack when he’d given her the wrong look.”

“What look was that?”

“Cross-eyed. I don’t know. Wiley and Maura fight like a dog and cat. He’s always straddled the line between the miners and the townies, but Maura’s a …”

He wasn’t sure how to put it without offending Violet.

“Devoted east-side girl who doesn’t think anyone should straddle?” she supplied, laughing, letting him know that she didn’t live by all the labels. She never had.

“Really,” she said, getting back to the previous topic, “you don’t mind the slow pace of this town?”

He steered onto Ranger Street, which bypassed the newer part of town and led to the old section. “Believe it or not, I’m perfectly content here. Even when I took a break from St. Valentine after high school, I never did get comfortable with skyscrapers and concrete. I like the open blue. I like the sound of silence in the morning just after the sun rises. I’m merely simple at heart, I guess.”

“You’re not simple at all.”

She said it as if he’d never been that way.

Would he have been enough to keep her interested? He didn’t know what the hell he’d do with an answer, but not knowing was eating away at him. He’d spent a lot of time finding himself after she’d left.

Why did it seem so damned important for her to acknowledge that he would’ve never disappointed her?

He pulled the car into a spot behind the newspaper office in a plume of dust. As the cloud hovered, they closed up the windows, then alighted, going inside through the back entrance, past the printing equipment and into the main room.

After he snapped on the light, Violet put her hands on her hips and glanced around. She was wearing a crisp white blouse, creased dark blue shorts and Keds, and Davis took a moment to appreciate how her legs seemed to go on forever.

Finally, she said, “Every modern convenience known to man, even air-conditioning. This doesn’t feel like the same place Wiley owned.”

He pulled out a padded leather chair so she could commandeer a computer. She sat right down as he turned on the unit.

He brought her some bottled water from the office fridge and sat at a neighboring computer station to search the digitized archives for other relevant past editions. Every once in a while, though, he couldn’t help glancing at her. He liked how she bit her bottom lip when she was concentrating, liked how she tilted her head, as if that helped her thought process, too.

Something in his chest got all warm. She was serious; he wasn’t all that much. She was a mining kid; he was a Jackson.

But would that matter so much anymore?

“Look at this,” Violet said.

She was pointing to her screen, and he leaned in to her, looking over her shoulder.

His cheek was only an inch away from her hair, and he could feel the light brush of it, plus the warmth from her skin. He could smell more subtleties in the lotion or shampoo she used—cherry laced with … almond. Something that burrowed deep into him.

It took him a second to gather his wits, but he eventually forced himself to read the article she’d indicated.

It was dated a day after those other articles he’d found about the break-in at the sheriff’s house and Tony’s death.

“Sheriff Hadenfield’s daughter, Tessa …” he said, skimming. “… Hospital … resting comfortably …”

He backed away before he could do something foolish, like bend down and press his mouth to Violet’s. “This is about as vague as the rest of what we have.”

“Isn’t that weird? I’ve been reading other articles from this era and they’re not as haphazardly researched and reported.”

“I hate to say the word conspiracy, but it’s flashing in my mind like neon.”

They kept looking at each other for a second, then broke into tentative smiles that disappeared all too soon.

“Right,” he said. “Some kind of conspiracy here in little St. Valentine. Now that would be something to capitalize on. A great legend that outside news stations could report on, making us a countrywide vacation destination, just like Tombstone or Dodge City.”

But Violet was already tilting her head. “Davis, what if the sheriff had enough power to keep whatever happened under wraps?”

“Why would he want to do that?”

“I’m not sure. And there are no Hadenfields left in St. Valentine to enlighten us.”

But she was already out of her chair, the wheels turning, and he couldn’t help feeling the same excitement that was setting her in motion.

“Do you think the new hospital would have Tessa’s records either in hard copy or online?” Violet asked. “Unless some kind of privacy laws stopped us, could we find out what sort of injuries she had?”

“When the old hospital burned down in ‘63, all the paper went with it. They wouldn’t have had the chance to digitize their files.” In spite of this setback, he grinned at her. Whether she’d admit it or not, she was working with him again.

She rolled her eyes. “So I’m a little invested already.”

Then, with a soft smile, she went back to her computer, printing out the article. He didn’t ask her when she’d like to show up to work with him next. He wished he could just offer her a salary, put her on staff full-time, but he expected that would only make her bristle. Getting her to consider doing something freelance had been tough enough.

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