“Mariah?”

She turned at the sound of her name and focused on…? The children. Of course. The children. She looked at them encircling the bed and remembered that they were not her children but the school’s. The kid fix she sought when she couldn’t have her own.

The euphoria of a moment ago collapsed, and with it came the bitter disappointment that always returned to take hold of her when she allowed herself to think about her marriage, her divorce, all the things she wanted that she’d never have.

She gazed into dark-lashed hazel eyes set in a handsome face crowned with short dark brown hair.

She put her fingertips to her mouth, recalling those nicely shaped lips on hers and the renewal she’d believed he’d brought to her life.

But he wasn’t Ben, her former husband. He was a stranger. And she didn’t care what he was doing here, or why she was in bed with the children gathered around her.

The only thing that mattered was that he’d led her to believe the pain was over and life was going to begin again.

It wasn’t, though. And it was all his fault.

She raised a hand and slapped him as hard as she could.

Dear Reader,

Don’t you love a man who knows what to say? “Honey, that tofu-eggplant-pasta casserole was delicious.” “No, harem pants do not make you look fat.” “I know the children are a handful, but you make motherhood look easy.”

Okay, I’m fantasizing. Most men think honesty is more important than hurt feelings. Many seasoned husbands do catch on eventually, but not before their wives learn to deal with bruised egos. And it’s not as though we don’t know the truth; it’s just that we’re hoping our men love us enough to see the capable, slender, clever image we want to project.

In Man with a Message, Cameron Trent is a hero filled with love and compassion for Mariah Mercer, who wants no part of him. Though she continually puts herself at odds with him, he always seems to know what to say to her, how to support and encourage her, and help her make her dreams come true. Maybe we should have him cloned.

Sit back and put your feet up. And you might want to get some chocolate. Cam and Mariah have a rocky road to romance.

All my best!

Muriel Jensen

P.O. Box 1168

Astoria, Oregon 97103

Man with a Message
Muriel Jensen

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Man with a Message

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER ONE

CAMERON TRENT WALKED around the Maple Hill Common in the waning light of a late-May evening. Fred, his seven-month-old black Labrador, investigated bushes and wildflowers at the other end of a retractable leash.

The dog looked back at him, eyes bright, tongue lolling; he was out and about after sleeping in the truck for three hours while Cam installed an old ball-and-claw bathtub in a Georgian mansion near the lake.

Life is good, Fred’s expression said.

Cam had to agree.

Moving from San Francisco to Maple Hill, Massachusetts, situated on the edge of the Berkshires, had been an inspired idea. He and his brother and sister had spent a couple of weeks here as children every summer with their grandparents. It was the only time he could pick out of his childhood when he’d felt happy and safe.

As Cam wandered after Fred, he took in the colonial charm of the scene. A bronze Minuteman, his woman at his side, dominated the square. A colonial flag and a fifty-star flag were just being lowered for the night as Cam walked by. During working hours, the shops and businesses built around the green-lawned square bustled with activity, very much as they had two hundred years ago.

Many of the houses in Maple Hill were Classic Georgian, with its heroic columns, or the simpler salt-box style, with its long, sloping roof in the rear. In Yankee tradition, small boats hung from the ceilings of some porches, and many houses bore historic plaques explaining their history. And Amherst, where he was earning his master’s in business administration was a mere hour away.

He had everything he needed right here. Well almost. He missed his brother, Josh, but he was a chef in a Los Angeles restaurant and raising his wife’s four boys, and it was good to know he was happy.

Whitcomb’s Wonders, the agency of tradesmen Cam worked for as a plumber, had become his family. They were a cheerful, striving group of men who enjoyed working part-time for the company because it allowed them to pursue other endeavors—raise their children, go to school.

Fred came running back to Cam, his head held high so that he could hold on to a giant branch that protruded at least two feet out of each side of his mouth. His tail wagged furiously.

They were in the middle of a serious tug-of-war over the branch when Cam’s cell phone rang. Cam tossed the branch, then answered.

“Mariah Mercer from the Manor says they’re sinking!” Addy Whitcomb told him urgently. “A pipe in the bathroom burst.”

Cam reeled in the dog, who’d just headed off to chase the branch. Repairing the Maple Hill Manor School was a lucrative job for Whitcomb’s Wonders. One of the oldest buildings around, it was a plumbing and wiring disaster. They’d just been contracted to replumb the kitchen in the main building as part of a remodeling project.

“The bathroom in the main building?” he asked.

“No, the dorm. You know, the old carriage house.”

“Okay. I’m in town. I’ll be there in about ten minutes.”

“I’ll call and tell her. And just to reward you, Cam, I’ll find you a really wonderful girl.”

“No favors necessary, Addy.” Addy was Hank Whitcomb’s mother. Whitcomb’s Wonders was Hank’s brainchild, and the men who staffed it provided the source for much of Addy’s Cupid work.

“But I want to!”

“No. Got to go, Addy.”

Fred was disappointed at no more play but enjoyed the sprint across the common toward the truck. Cam let him into the passenger side, then ran around to climb in behind the wheel. The truck’s tires peeled away with a squeal as he headed for the Manor. He’d outfitted his somewhat decrepit old truck to hold his tools and supplies so he was always ready to report to a job.

He tried to imagine what could have caused a pipe to burst. Pipes often froze and broke in the winter, but this was spring. And the Lightfoot sisters, who ran the school, had told him that they’d renewed the carriage house plumbing about ten years ago.

He knew that only a small number of children still boarded at the school, and did so only because of long relationships with the Lightfoot sisters, who’d taken over running the school from their mother in the fifties, after she’d taken it over from her mother, and so on all the way back to pre-Civil War days.

Letitia and Lavinia Lightfoot, who both charmed and intimidated the crew working on the renovation, were in their late seventies and still took pride in the bastion of civility they managed in a world they considered both fascinating and mad.

Cam refocused his attention on a series of curves, then exited onto Manor Road, which led through a thick oak, maple and pine woods to a clearing where the school stood, one of the finest examples of Georgian architecture in western Massachusetts. He turned left toward the carriage house, instead of right toward the main building.

It was dark now and all he could see of the carriage house, a replica of the main building but smaller, were its white columns, caught in the floodlights that illuminated the small parking area in the front. He pulled up beside a van, gave Fred a dog biscuit and spread his blanket on the seat. “Relax, buddy,” he said, patting the dog’s head. “I don’t know how long I’ll be.”

Fred, just happy for the attention, cooperated.

Cam grabbed his basic tool kit and went to knock on the front door. He could hear a great commotion on the other side—children shouting, feet hurrying.

The door opened with a jerk and a little blond girl wearing neon-orange pajamas stood there, pale and breathing heavily. Behind her children ran up and down the stairs with towels and buckets. He heard a boy yelling from upstairs, “Turn the cutoff…it looks like a faucet!”

A younger male voice yelled back, “I don’t see it! I don’t see it!” he said again.

The little blond girl turned to shout up the stairs, “He’s here!”

“Tell him to hurry!” the boy replied.

Cam experienced a weird sense of unreality, as if he’d blundered into a world occupied only by children. Not one adult was in evidence.

“Come on!” The little blonde grabbed his wrist and pulled him inside.

He allowed her to tow him up the stairway, its carpeting soggy. There was water everywhere, inches of it in the narrow upstairs hall.

Water rushed from the bathroom through a large hole in a pipe visible because of the broken tiles in the shower stall.

“Hey!”

The boy’s voice made him look down. He saw a woman lying on her back, apparently unconscious, the boy’s arm keeping her head out of the water. Her face was familiar. Cam had seen her around the school while scoping out the kitchen in the main building.

He dropped his tool kit on a sink and fell to his knees.

“You’re not the ambulance guy?” the boy asked. He was about ten, his dark eyes panicky, his face ashen.

“No, I’m the plumber,” Cam replied, putting two fingers to the pulse at the woman’s throat. He couldn’t detect one, but then, he could never find one in himself, either. “What happened?”

The boy appeared close to tears. “I busted the pipe looking for gold. She came in, slipped on a towel in the water and fell and hit her head. I’m not supposed to move her, right? I mean, she could have broken something.”

Gold? Cam didn’t even take the time to try to figure out what that meant. He did a cursory exploration of arms and legs and detected nothing out of place. She didn’t seem to be bleeding. He decided that getting her out of the water took precedence over maybe causing her further injury.

“Is there a dry bed anywhere?” He slipped his arms under her and lifted her. She was small and fragile. Water streamed from her all over him as he stepped back to let the boy lead the way.

“In here!” The boy beckoned him into a room two doors off the bathroom. Cam noticed absently that the doors had hand-painted signs with kids’ names on them.

A pack of children followed them and gathered around the bed as Cam lay the woman down.

She looked younger up close than he’d thought. Her dark hair, now drenched, was pulled back into a tight knot, and she wore a silky, long-sleeved blouse, through which he could see her lacy bra. A long blue cotton skirt lay clumped around her, also heavy with water. She’d struck him as stiff and matronly when he’d seen her at the school. How different his impression of her now.

He wrapped the coverlet around her.

He leaned close to tell if she was breathing. He felt no air against his cheek, heard no sound. Where was the ambulance? He’d taken a CPR course a few years ago, but he couldn’t remember it now. So many pumps, so many breaths.

“She’s gonna die!” one of the little girls said tearfully.

“No, she won’t!” the boy said.

“She won’t!” another boy repeated.

“She won’t!”

Cam glanced up, wondering why he kept hearing double, then realized he was seeing double, too. Twins.

The woman made a scary, choking sound and the children cried out in unison.

Knowing he had to do something, he shooed the children aside, leaned over the woman, pinched her nose and placed his mouth over hers.

She was cold and still in his arms, like a marble statue.

He blew air into her mouth, raised his head to see if it was having an effect. When he couldn’t detect one, he covered her mouth again and breathed into it. After several more breaths, a curious thing happened. He felt the first infinitesimal sign of life as a small, almost sinuous exhalation swelled the breasts under his chest.

Disbelieving, he breathed into her again, and that same subtle ripple occurred in the lips under his.

He put a hand to her ribs, feeling for an intake of breath, even as he gave her another one of his.

When he felt the probing tip of a tongue in his mouth, he thought he was hallucinating—giving her too much of his air, not keeping enough for himself.

Then her lips moved under his, and before he could raise his head in surprise, one of her hands went into his hair in a caress that paralyzed him momentarily into helplessness.

As he hovered above her in shock, her body arched up to his and she expelled a little moan. “Ben,” she murmured against his lips.

For an instant, everything in him rose to the challenge. Yes! This was what life was supposed to be about! Man and woman entangled, seeking solace and pleasure in each other, their bodies a mutual haven. He’d have given a lot at that instant to be the Ben she sighed for.

Then reality reclaimed him and he sat up abruptly, the children all staring, not sure what they’d seen.

His heart was beating hard, then his brain snapped to attention. This kind of thing won’t work for you, it told him. You have a past. Allison had thought it wouldn’t matter, but eventually it did. You’re starting over, but you’ll only get half the dream….

The woman opened deep brown eyes, and after a moment of searching the room, a puzzled line between her brows, she focused on him. A small smile of what appeared to be—he wasn’t sure…surprise? delight?—curved her pale lips.

No one had ever looked at him that way—as if he represented home at the end of a long journey. He still leaned over her, a hand on the mattress on either side of her, unable to move or speak.

MARIAH SURFACED FROM her chilled dream to find that the last year had all been some kind of terrible misunderstanding. Ben was back the way she remembered him at their wedding—the loving, solid partner around whom she’d centered her hopes, rather than the angry and confused man he’d become after she’d lost four babies and refused to try again to get pregnant.

Then his mouth had been hard and condemning. Now it was pliant and…life giving.

But why were they surrounded by children? They’d never be able to have their own. And he hadn’t wanted to consider adoption—

“Mariah?”

She turned at the sound of her name and focused on…on Ashley? Of course. Ashley. She looked at the children circling the bed and remembered that they were not her children, but the Manor’s. The kid fix she’d sought when she couldn’t have her own.

The euphoria of a moment ago collapsed, and with it came the bitter disappointment that always returned to take hold of her when she allowed herself to think about her marriage, her divorce, all the things she wanted that she’d never have.

She gazed into dark-lashed hazel eyes set in a handsome face crowned with very short dark brown hair.

She put her fingertips to her mouth, recalling those nicely shaped lips on hers and the renewal she’d thought he’d brought to her life.

But he wasn’t Ben. He was a stranger. And she didn’t care what he was doing here or why she was in bed with the children gathered around her.

The only thing that mattered was that he’d led her to believe the pain was over and life was going to begin again.

It wasn’t, though. And it was all his fault.

She raised a hand and slapped him as hard as she could.

CHAPTER TWO

“NO, MARIAH!” BRIAN, standing beside the stranger, caught her wrist. “He saved your life! I broke the water pipe—remember?—and you slipped on the towel and fell and hit your head. He carried you in here. He didn’t kiss you. He gave you artificial…you know.”

“Resuscitation,” Ashley said knowledgeably. “But I think you kissed him.”

“Yeah,” Jessica said. “I saw it.”

“Me, too,” Peter confirmed.

“Me, too,” Philip chimed in.

Mariah groaned and put her hands to her face. If she didn’t get herself together soon, she had no hope for her future. Once the school found out she was French-kissing strange men in front of the children, she’d have to take the job her sister, Parker, had offered her—working in her massage studio in the basement of city hall. Then she’d never get to Europe.

Mariah felt movement on the bed, and when she lowered her hands, she saw that the stranger was gone.

Brian took off after him, calling over his shoulder, “We’re going to cut off the water!”

The screeching of a siren could be heard outside.

“I’ll let the ambulance men in,” Ashley shouted as she left the room.

The children stood back and Mariah sat up. She was horrified that an ambulance had been called.

“I don’t think you’re supposed to get up,” Jessica said worriedly, sitting beside her.

Mariah’s intention was to tell her that she was fine, but she realized suddenly that she wasn’t. Her head ached abominably, and suddenly everything around her was wobbling.

Two men in white shirts with some kind of insignia on them burst into the room. One cupped her head gently with his hand and leaned her back into the pillows. “What’s your name, ma’am?” he asked.

“Mariah,” she replied weakly.

“I understand you’ve had a fall.”

That’s an understatement, she thought as she battled nausea. The Fall of Mariah Mercer could be a play in three acts.

WITH THE LITTLE BOY NAMED Brian shining a flashlight into the dark corners of the basement, Cam found the cutoff and turned it off. When he raced back upstairs, Brian at his heels, the paramedics were putting a protesting Mariah on a gurney.

“I cannot leave the children!” she insisted. “There are eight children under ten years of age…”

“We’re here, dear. We’re here.” The Lightfoot sisters appeared in the hallway, looking as though they’d just stepped out of a family portrait, circa 1930-something. They wore their usual long black dresses with lace collars. Letitia, the elder sister, had a small gold watch attached to her generous bosom. Lavinia, younger and smaller, had a sprig of silk violets pinned at the waist of her dress. Cam had had several meetings with them to discuss the kitchen renovation, and he’d found them surprisingly sharp in business, considering their vintage clothing and their charmingly old-fashioned approach to education.

“Ashley called us.” Letitia put an arm around the girl’s shoulders. “You gentlemen take good care of Mariah!” she admonished the paramedics, who were heading for the stairs. “I know your mother, Matthew Collingwood. I’ll have a word with her if Mariah isn’t returned to us in perfect health.”

The paramedic pushing the gurney cast a smile over his shoulder. “Don’t worry, Miss Letty. She’ll be fine. Watch the stairs, Charlie.”

“Well, now!” The sisters shooed the children toward the back of the house. “While Miss Lavinia calls the janitorial service to clean up the water, we’re going to camp here. Where are the sleeping bags from our hiking trip during spring break?”

Jessica and her sisters pulled down the attic stairs and fought over who would climb up to get them.

Letty tried to enlist Brian’s help, but he turned to Cam. “I could help you,” he whispered pleadingly.

“Ah…I’m sort of using him as my assistant,” Cam said. “Is it all right if I keep him for another hour or so?”

Letitia appeared concerned. “If you keep a close eye on him. He’s eager to help and sometimes…” She was obviously searching for a diplomatic explanation.

Cam understood. “He’ll be right beside me at all times.”

Brian gave him a grateful look.

“All right, then,” Letitia replied. “Brian, I’m counting on you to do exactly as you’re told.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he promised.

“Good.” Cam put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “For safety’s sake, I’m going to turn off the power. With water everywhere, I don’t want anyone touching light switches, even where it’s dry.”

“Right.”

He was about to ask Miss Letty if she had a flashlight to lead the children in the dark house, when she shouted up the attic stairs, “Jessie, bring the camp lanterns down with you, too!”

Cam grabbed the flashlight from his tool kit and, with Brian glued to his side, hurried back downstairs to shut down the power. He handed Brian the flashlight.

“This is so cool!” Brian said. “Nothing exciting ever happens around here.” Then apparently he realized what he’d said and looked sheepish. “I mean, I know it’s all my fault and it’s caused everybody a lot of trouble. And you probably charge a whole lot.”

“Yeah, I do.” With all the circuit breakers flipped, Cam and Brian stood in darkness except for the glow from the flashlight. “And the guys who have to clean up the water cost a bundle, too.”

Brian sighed. “I was going to take everybody to Disneyland for summer vacation if I found the gold.”

Cam turned him toward the stairs and let him lead the way with the light. “You mentioned that before. What gold are you talking about?”

The boy told him a story about a Confederate spy trying to escape to the South with a satchel full of gold. “He was in this building when he was shot, and the Yankees and the Lightfoots who owned the Manor then found the satchel, but not the gold. Everybody knows the story.”

“I’ve never heard it.”

“Mr. Groman told me. He teaches here, you know. Some rebel soldier stole it off a train and hid out with it in the carriage house. When they tiled the bathroom floor, they covered up the blood!”

The kid had a flair for theatrics, Cam thought, and was probably destined for a career in front of a camera.

They climbed the stairs, Brian holding the light to his side for Cam’s benefit. “But if it hasn’t been found in a hundred and fifty years…”

“A hundred and thirty-seven,” Brian corrected him.

“A hundred and thirty-seven,” Cam said obligingly, “why did you suddenly think you’d find it in the bathroom wall?”

They’d reached the main level. Brian waited while Cam closed and locked the basement door. “Because I thought about it. They didn’t find it when they tore up the floor to put down new stuff, so where else could it be?”

“Somewhere in the attic?”

“Looked there.”

“And you probably checked the basement.”

“A couple of times.”

“Maybe this spy had an accomplice and passed it on or something.”

Brian frowned. “I guess that could be. But that’s not in the story.”

They made their way carefully toward the stairway to the second floor. “There’s probably an old newspaper account of the incident,” Cam suggested. “In the library. Old newspapers are scanned into the computer. Or maybe they could help you at the Mirror.”

Brian grinned in the near darkness as they went up the stairs side by side. “Maybe Mariah will take me,” he said hopefully. Then suddenly his expression turned doubtful. “If she can forget that I almost killed her.”

Cam ran a knuckle down his own cheek, remembering her slap, and patted Brian’s shoulder. “I don’t think she was as near death as it seemed. Apologize first, then ask her.”

In the bathroom once again, Cam tore out more tiles to get at the pipe connection while Brian held the flashlight for him.

“About your plans for the gold,” he said. “Aren’t you all going home for the summer?”

“Yeah, but Ashley doesn’t have parents, you know. She just has a guardian and he’s pretty old. She never gets to stay home with him. He sends her on trips with people she doesn’t know and she hates it. They think she doesn’t know, but he’s going to die pretty soon.”

When Cam looked down at him, not sure what to say to that, Brian added with a shrug, “We hear the teachers talking. She’s going to have to go live with somebody else. My mom’s a movie star.”

Cam had difficulty focusing on the plumbing and the conversation. “No kidding?”

“No. She’s very pretty, but she’s always on a movie set somewhere far away and I stay with the housekeeper. Pete and Repeat’s mom and dad are stunt people and they’re working with my mom in a movie right now. In Mongolia.”

“Pete and Repeat?”

“The twins.”

“Ah.”

“They’re really Pete and Philip, but their dad calls ’em ‘Pete and Repeat.’ Now everyone does. Their dad jumps off cliffs and out of airplanes and over waterfalls. Their mom once jumped out of a building on fire! I mean she was on fire. ’Course, the building probably was, too, or she wouldn’t have been. She had a special suit on so she wouldn’t get burned. Cool, huh?”

“I’m not sure I’d want to be on fire, even in a special suit.”

“Jessie and her sisters’ mom wants to take them to New York with her to visit a friend of hers. So they don’t want to go home for the summer, either.”

“Jessie and her sisters are those four dark-haired little girls who all look alike?”

“Yeah, only they get smaller and smaller. Like those toy things that fit into each other. You know?”

Cam had to grin at him. The kid had such an interesting little mind. “Yeah, I know. But what’s wrong with meeting their mom’s friend? New York’s a very exciting place.”

“He’s a guy.”

“Well, so are we. Is that bad?”

Brian seemed to like being considered a guy. Cam had to remind him to hold up the light.

“It’s because their mom likes him and they don’t want another dad.”

“What happened to the first one?”

“He and their mom got divorced.”

“Ah. That’s too bad.”

There was a moment’s silence, then Brian announced, “I don’t have one.”

“What? A father?”

“Yeah. I never had one. And he didn’t die and my mom’s not divorced. I mean, he’s probably somewhere, but he’s not my dad.”

Cam nodded empathetically, catching the significance of that detail from the boy’s tone of voice. Brian wanted to adjust to that fact but still hadn’t.

“I had a father,” Cam said, carefully applying pressure to the wrench. “But he was drunk a lot and most of the time it was like I didn’t have one.”

“Did he beat you up?”

“No. Most of the time he didn’t remember I was there.”

“Did you have a cool mom?”

Cam wasn’t sure how far to carry this empathy. He wanted Brian to know he wasn’t alone in an unfair world, but he wasn’t sure what it would serve to tell Brian it could get worse than he knew.

“No,” he replied simply. “She was gone most of the time.”

His mother had been out of jail only three weeks when she and a male friend had been picked up for armed robbery. Cam and his siblings had had the misfortune of being with her at home at the time, their father passed out on the sofa, beer cans and a bottle of whiskey beside him.

With their mother going to jail and their father deemed unfit to raise them, he and his siblings had been placed in foster care. He’d argued zealously that he’d taken care of himself and his brother and sister most of his life—that all the other times his mother had gone to jail his father had also turned up drunk and Cam was the one who had cooked and done laundry and gotten himself, Josh and Barbara off to school.

No one had cared about that. Their grandfather had died, their grandmother was in a nursing home and the three Trent children were placed together in foster care with a middle-aged couple who lived in the heart of the city.

Deprived of the choice of how to live his life, Cam became bent on destroying it. Fortunately, he’d been caught with a few of his friends holding up a restaurant while the owner was closing. A few months in juvenile hall had turned him around. Foster care seemed like heaven after that.

“My mom’s always in another country ’cause of the acting thing,” Brian said. “What’d yours do?”

“Ah…” He had to think to recollect what had identified her place in his life besides the drugs and the jail time. “She worked in a furniture factory.”

“She drink, too?”

Cam was so surprised by the question that he stopped what he was doing to focus on the boy.

Brian shrugged. “It’s a statistic that a lot of people who drink do it with a husband or wife or boyfriend.”

Cam was sure that was true but he wondered how the boy knew. “Who told you that?”

“My mom’s in rehab a lot.” It seemed to be something he had accepted. “It happened one time in the summer, and the housekeeper took me to visit her. We had to sit in at this meeting about families of substance abusers.”

Cam had never known the politically correct term because there’d been no one to take him to meetings.

“Come on,” he said. “We’re going out to the truck. Remember to keep your hands off the switches.”

“We going to the shop or something?” Brian asked excitedly, taking the lead with the flashlight.

“No. I’ve got pipe in the truck.”

They reached the third stair from the bottom and Brian leaped down, the carpet squishing as he landed. “So, is it cool to be a plumber?”

Cam could feel his soaked shoes and socks and jeans and smiled into the darkness. “Oh, it’s way cool.”

CHAPTER THREE

MARIAH’S SISTER WAS BESIDE herself with worry when she arrived at the emergency room. “Oh, my God!” she exclaimed, swiping a white curtain aside to come to Mariah’s side. “Are you all right?”

Mariah sat up, fine except for pain in the bump at the back of her head. She explained briefly about Brian’s search for gold and the resulting deluge.

Parker shook her head sympathetically. “That kid’s going to blow up the world one day.”

Mariah sighed. “He’s the sweetest boy, but I’m going to have to build a cage around him for the safety of the other children.”

“And you. Do you have a concussion?”

“Just a mild one. The doctor’s worried, though, because I passed out.”

“You passed out? Did you stop breathing?”

“I’m not sure. I dreamed…” She put a hand to her throat as she recalled a drowning sensation, as if she was falling into a well, unable to draw in air. “Someone gave me…mouth-to-mouth,” she explained, remembering with abrupt clarity her grave disappointment when the face bent over her wasn’t Ben’s but that of some stranger’s.

Some stranger she’d just kissed with the desperate need she’d never revealed to anyone.

Someone whose eyes said that he’d felt that need in her.

Bitter disappointment over the loss of her babies, the loss of her marriage, the loss of her mask of stoic courage, had all required that she punch his lights out.

“Oh, God!” She put a hand to her face and groaned.

“Nurse!” Parker shouted.

“Sh!” Mariah lowered her hand and placed it over Parker’s mouth. “I’m fine! I just…just remembered something.”

“What? You looked as though you were going to slide right off onto the floor.”

“I…I was just thinking about the cleanup at the dorm.” Mariah frowned apologetically. “I’m sorry, Parker, but the doctor won’t let me go home tonight if there isn’t someone to watch me. Can you take me home with you, just for tonight?”

“Of course! It’ll be fun. I just made carrot cookies.”

Mariah tried to look pleased at that. As much as she loved her sister, she had very different opinions about what defined a comfortable environment. Parker was a naturalist, earth-mother sort of woman; Mariah’s approach to life was much more traditional.

Parker had a heart of gold, but her sofa was a red vinyl banquette from a Japanese restaurant, and two hammocks suspended from the ceiling constituted her bedroom.

All of a sudden Parker smiled. “Who gave you mouth-to-mouth?”

Mariah closed her eyes again, shuddering as she recalled her poor display of gratitude. His face had been familiar, but she couldn’t quite put a name to him. “I think I’ve seen him at school, or around somewhere….” And then she sat up as it hit her. In the kitchen at the Manor, talking to the man in charge of the renovation.

“He’s part of the construction staff at school,” she said.

Parker’s smile waned. “I was hoping he was young and handsome.”

Mariah was confused. “He was young. And if you like that rough look, he’s handsome.”

Now Parker appeared confused. “But I have regular appointments for all the Ripley Construction guys, and the youngest one’s in his late forties. Three brothers and two brothers-in-law.”

“Guys who work construction,” Mariah asked in disbelief, “get massages?”

Parker shifted her weight impatiently. “Well, of course they do. Massage is very sensible. They sling around heavy stuff all day long, reach and bend. It’s very forward-thinking of their boss to see that they have weekly appointments.”

“This man was probably in his early to middle thirties,” Mariah insisted. “And…” Her attention drifted for a moment as she recalled waking up and looking into his eyes—a soft hazel. “His eyes were hazel.”

“Cam Trent?” Parker said, suddenly animated again. “The plumber? I know he’s the plumber on the job because my office is near Whitcomb’s Wonders. I’ve gotten to know all the guys a bit.”

“Whitcomb’s what?”

“Wonders. Guys who can do anything.” Parker hugged her as if to congratulate her. “He’s gorgeous! And smart. He’s getting an MBA from Amherst. Wants to be a developer. Addy told me all about him.”

Parker was so enthusiastic that Mariah had to put a stop to her sister’s considerations of romance immediately. “Well, he’s not going to want anything to do with me. I hit him.”

“You what?” Parker was as horrified as Mariah had hoped.

“I hit him. When I woke up, he was half lying on me, kissing me—or so I thought. By the time I realized he was just…well…I’d already hit him.” She wasn’t being entirely honest, but it was all her sister had to know for now.

The doctor reappeared with a bottle of painkillers on the chance that her headache worsened.

Parker took them from him and introduced herself.

The doctor held up two fingers and asked Mariah how many she saw. When she answered correctly, he asked her name. He listed three items, then asked her to repeat them. She did.

He told Parker to wake her every four hours to test her awareness. “If she seems confused or uncertain, bring her back in.”

Parker drove home to her duplex across the street from the grade school. She held Mariah’s arm solicitously as they walked from the car to the front door.

“How’s the head?” she inquired as she unlocked the door.

“A little woozy,” Mariah admitted, “but not awful.”

The lock gave, and Parker pushed the door open and reached in to flip on a light. Sheer fabric festooned the living room, leading from a ring in the middle of the ceiling and catching in drapery loops in each corner of the room. Large, colorful pillows lay strewn around the Japanese-restaurant banquette—her sister’s creative approach to a “conversation area.” A filigreed cage held a fat aromatic candle, which Parker went to light as Mariah eased herself onto the banquette.

“Lavender and chamomile for serenity,” Parker said as the wick caught flame. “In fact, if we mixed chamomile with oil of basil, it’d probably be better for you than whatever’s in here.” She rattled the bottle of painkillers. “But I’ll get you water for your pill, and I’m sure you’ll feel better before you know it.”

Mariah wanted to believe that. Much as she loved her sister’s company, she always felt as if she was in purdah with the rest of the harem when she came here, waiting for the sultan to make his nightly choice of woman.

“I know you hate the hammocks.” Parker’s voice drifted back to the living room as she disappeared into the kitchen. She returned with a glass of water and the bottle of pills. “So we’ll sleep down here. You can have the couch and I’ll use the beanbag. Want a cookie?”

“No, thanks.” Mariah sat up to take her pill, then handed back the water. “There’s no reason for you to stay downstairs, Parker. I’ll be fine.”

“No, you might need me.” She put the glass and pills on the low table and sat beside Mariah. “This happens so seldom that I hate to miss it. You’re usually the one who rescues me.”

Mariah stretched her legs out in front of her and leaned sideways onto Parker’s shoulder. “A little financial help now and then hardly constitutes rescue.” Mariah had sent her sister money when her first husband had run out on her and left her owing back rent and many overdue bills. Parker’s second husband had supported a mistress on the side with money Parker made waiting tables while she went to school to learn massage. He, too, had abandoned her when the mistress’s former boyfriend came looking for him.

“You have to make better choices in men, though,” Mariah said sleepily. “Stop supporting them and find someone who’ll work with you for a change.”

Parker put an arm around her and sighed. “I know. It’s just that all that sunshine and harmony we got from Mom and Dad really sank in with me. You were more resistant. You’re probably a throw-back to Grandma Prudie, who loved them both but was convinced they were crazy.”

Grandma Prudie had been their father’s mother, an Iowa farmwife who related to the earth, all right, but only because it bestowed the fruits of an individual’s labor. She thought her son and his wife’s belief in the earth’s unqualified bounty, in man’s intrinsic goodness and life’s promised good fortune were poppycock. And she’d said so many times before she died.

Mariah had loved her parents’ generous natures and their obvious delight in everything, but she’d never been able to understand such innocence in functioning adults. Until she’d finally grasped that—whether deliberate or simply naive—it brought them aid from everyone. Neighbors admired their sunny dispositions and gave them things—firewood, a side of beef, help with bills—so that they could maintain a lifestyle everyone else knew better than to expect. This had confused Mariah for a long time, until she concluded that it was still proof of man’s basic goodness—his willingness to support in a friend what he knew he couldn’t have for himself.

“I feel that my life’s been very blessed,” Parker continued, “and that I have a lot of blessings to return. So I try to help those in need.”

Mariah yawned. “Yeah, well, some people are just in want, Parker, not need. It’s noble to help, but not to let yourself be used.”

“I know. I’m off men for a while. How ’bout you?”

“I’m off them forever.”

“That isn’t healthy. You want children.”

Mariah sat up to frown at her. “Park, have you missed the last year of my life? I’m not going to have children.”

Parker took advantage of the moment to place a pillow on the banquette and reach into a bamboo shelf for a folded afghan. She pointed Mariah to the pillow and covered her with the crocheted blanket.

“I know you’re not going to give birth to them, but there are other ways to get them. Just because Ben wouldn’t do it doesn’t mean you can’t do it on your own.”

Mariah was about to shake her head, then decided that would not be a good idea. She simply placed it on the pillow, instead. “I don’t want them anymore. It’s just all too much trouble. Children should have two parents, and men are just too determined to form a dynasty, you know?”

“Well, Ben was. But that doesn’t mean they all are.” Parker’s voice suddenly changed tone from grave to excited. “And a gorgeous plumber has just breathed life back into you! It could be fate has plans for him to give you more than simply oxygen.”

Mariah groaned and leaned deeper into the pillow. “Park,” she said, her sleepy voice muffled. “Don’t even start.”

She drifted off to her sister’s reply: “Sometimes, Mariah, fate moves whether we’re ready or not.”

HANK WHITCOMB HAD ARRIVED to work with the cleanup crew. Cam met him in front of the carriage house while carrying his tools back to his truck. He’d long ago walked Brian to the Lightfoot ladies’ residence on the other side of the campus, where they’d taken all the other children when the water cleanup had proved too noisy and disruptive for them to stay. It was 2:00 a.m.

Talking with him was a small, very pregnant dark-haired woman with a camera around her neck and pad and pen in the hand she held up to stifle a yawn. She was Haley Megrath, Hank’s sister, and publisher of the Maple Hill Mirror.

She and Hank came to his truck as he set his tools down on the drive.

“Hi, Cam,” Haley said with another yawn as she walked past him toward the steps. “You’d think people could have their crises during the day, when plumbers and reporters are awake, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes, you would. Maybe the Mirror could launch a campaign toward that end.”

She waved and kept walking. “I’ll see what I can do. ’Night, guys.”

“I’ll wait for you and follow you home,” Hank called after her.

She turned at the top. “I’m fine. Go home to Jackie.”

“I’ll buy you a mocha at the Breakfast Barn on the way.”

She grinned. “Okay. Who cares about Jackie.” She blew him a kiss and disappeared inside.

Hank opened the lid of the truck’s toolbox for Cam. “One of our more dramatic messes,” he said with a laugh. “Hey, Freddy!” He patted the back window as Fred’s head appeared. The dog was barking excitedly. Hank leaned an elbow on the side of the truck as Cam put away his tools. “I hear you rescued Mariah Mercer from drowning.”

Cam shook his head. “That’s a little overstated. Brian—one of the kids—held her head out of the water. I just carried her to a bed.”

“Where you gave her mouth-to-mouth and she French-kissed you.”

Cam frowned. “No, she didn’t.”

“Yes, she did. Ashley told me.” Hank grinned. “She’s thrilled about it. She adores Mariah and thinks it’d be wonderful if she could find a husband.”

Cam gave Hank a shove out of his way as he dropped pipes into the back. “Yeah, well, I don’t think Mariah Mercer has designs on me. After she kissed me, she slugged me.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Probably a reaction to the bump on the head, or something. No big deal.”

“So I can tell my mother you’re still on the market?”

Cam opened the passenger side of the cab to let Fred out, the gesture half practical, half vengeful. The dog leaped on him elatedly, then went right to Hank, who always had treats in his pockets. Fred backed Hank up to the side of the truck, his paws on his chest, alternately kissing him and barking a demand for treats.

Pinned to the truck, Hank reached into a pants pocket. “How big is this guy going to get?” he asked, quickly putting a biscuit in the dog’s mouth. “He doesn’t beg—he just mugs you for what he wants!”

“I’m not sure. I guess some Labs get to a hundred pounds or more. Jimmy didn’t tell me that when he sold him to me.” Jimmy Elliott was a fireman and another of Whitcomb’s Wonders.

Treat in his mouth, Fred ran off around the side of the carriage house.

“You must be beat,” Hank said. “You have a class in the morning?”

“In the afternoon. I’ll be fine. I’m a little wired, actually. Letty brought us coffee and I don’t think she bothered to grind the beans.”

Hank took a key out of his jacket pocket and offered it to Hank. “Why don’t you go take a look at the lake house,” he suggested. “You and Fred can even sleep there if you don’t want to go back home tonight.”

Cam tried to push the key away. “Hank, I appreciate the offer to buy your house. There’s not a place in town I’d like better. But I keep telling you—I don’t have the cash.”

Hank nodded. They’d argued this before. “We’ll find a way to keep the payments way down.”

Hank had married Jackie Fortin, the mayor of Maple Hill, a brief two months ago. In doing so, he’d acquired two little girls, ages seven and eleven, and infant twin boys. He’d bought the big house on the lake as a bachelor, but now found that the old family home Jackie occupied was closer to school for the girls, and closer to city hall for Jackie and for Hank, since the office of Whitcomb’s Wonders was located in its basement.

Cam had mentioned once at a party Hank had held how ideal he thought the house was, how warm and welcoming after his cramped apartment behind the fire station.

“We’ll put a balloon payment at the end,” Hank said, “and by then you’ll be a well-known developer. Since you have plans to save our colonial charm rather than replace it with malls and movie-plexes, you’ll be popular and make big bucks.”

“That’s a little optimistic.”

“It never hurts to think positive.” Hank took his hand and slapped the key into it. “Even though that hasn’t been your experience in the past. You have control now. You’re not dependent upon neglectful parents, and you don’t have to worry about a selfish wife. Do what you want to do.”

Cam was touched by his concern and grateful for his support. “You’re pretty philosophical for a NASA engineer-turned-electrician. You didn’t get zapped tonight while standing in all that water, did you?”

“No.” Hank grinned and braced his stance as Fred came running back to them. “I’m charged on life, pal…charged on life. Oof! Go look at the house. Fred needs room to run. And someday you’ll want to think about getting married again and having children.”

Well, he was right about Fred needing room to run, anyway. Cam closed the dog in the car, said good-night to Hank and the cleaning crew still working, waved at Haley, who photographed them, then headed for home. But somewhere along the way he took a turn toward Maple Hill Lake and Hank’s house on the less-populated far side of it.

He pulled off the road onto a private drive that led through a high hedge, and into the driveway of the two-story split-level. He would look through it as Hank suggested, get the notion of buying it out of his system. Then he could just settle down, keep working and going to school so that he could finally achieve the goal for which he’d come here. He wanted an MBA behind him before he bought the old Chandler Mill outside of town and turned it into office space and apartments.

He’d talked to Evan Braga about it, and he thought the idea was sound. Braga was another of Hank’s men who did painting and wallpapering, and sold real estate on the side. He’d been a cop in Boston and had come to Maple Hill for the same reason Cam had—to start over. He hadn’t said why and Cam hadn’t asked.

Anyway…if he was going to buy a house in Maple Hill, it should be one of the classic salt boxes or Georgians that were such a part of the area’s history.

But he loved this house. From the moment he’d arrived at Hank’s party all those months ago, he’d felt as if the house had a heartbeat.

He let himself in and flipped on the light in the front room. Fred stayed right beside him intimidated by the new surroundings. As Cam walked from room to room, he became aware of details he hadn’t noticed before. The master bedroom had a fireplace that was also open to the bathroom, which had two sinks and vanities, a sunken tub and greenery growing all around it. It was probably what a Roman bath would have looked like. He could imagine lying in the tub after a particularly grueling and dirty day in the pipes, and being warmed by a real fire. Here was a tendency toward hedonism he didn’t even realize he had. Each of the three bedrooms upstairs had a private bath.

He walked back downstairs to look around outside and Fred went wild, running through the tall grass that rimmed the lake, chasing imaginary quarry in the dark. He stopped to sniff the air and bark his delight to the woods across the road.

The property spread for five acres in both directions, and except for Fred’s footsteps, there was nothing but the sound of insects. The natural perfume of the dark quiet night took his breath away.

A broad deck ran all around the house, and Cam remembered Hank saying that when he’d bought the place, he’d anticipated having barbecues and inviting his friends. But Whitcomb’s Wonders had been more successful than even he’d imagined, and family life had kept him too busy.

Cam looked at the covered gas grill in a corner of the porch, and the wide picnic table beside it. “I could have the guys over for a barbecue,” he thought aloud. He could get a small boat and go fishing.

As a child, he’d never been able to bring anyone home because of the unpredictable condition of his parents. He’d dreamed of inviting friends over, hosting parties, having a Christmas open house the way his friends’ parents did.

A curious hopefulness stirred in the middle of his chest. He could do that here. He could…maybe…someday…give some thought to getting married again, having a family.

“Oh, whoa!” he said to himself.

Fred, hearing the command and thinking it applied to him, came racing back. Cam caught him as he jumped against his chest.

“I’m getting carried away here, Fred,” he said, going back to the front door to make sure he’d locked it. “That’s the trouble with having a cold, grim childhood and a selfish wife. You get a glimpse of warmth and happiness and you become this greedy monster, wanting more and more.”

Fred raced around his legs, apparently seeing nothing wrong with that.

Cam tested the doorknob and, finding it secure, led the way back to the truck and the little apartment behind the fire station. So he had cardiac arrest every time the alarm went off. He was learning to live with it.

He didn’t need the house. And so far his life had taught him that you didn’t always get what you needed, much less what you wanted.

CHAPTER FOUR

THE ALARM SHRIEKED in Cam’s ear. Without moving his head from the pillow, he reached out to slam it off.

Blessed quiet.

He’d finally gone to bed at 4:00 a.m. and set the alarm for seven. There was too much to do at the school today to allow for eight hours’ sleep. But certainly he could steal another fifteen minutes.

Fred, however, had other plans. The Lab, awake at the foot of the bed and waiting for the smallest sign that Cam was awake, leaped onto his chest and bathed his face with dog kisses.

Cam tried to push him away, but he was weak after the all-night session and the measly three hours’ sleep. The dog plopped down on top of him and chewed on his chin.

Cam knew if he didn’t get up he’d be eaten. It would be done with affection, but he’d be eaten.

“Okay, Fred, that’s enough,” he said calmly but firmly, pushing the dog off.

He sat up to swing his legs over the side of the bed just as Fred decided he’d cooperated long enough and it was time for some serious extreme wrestling. Growling, large mouth open in what Cam thought of as his alligator mode, Fred attacked.

Cam’s body, unfortunately aimed toward the edge of the bed, went over the side, dog atop him and gleefully pretending to kill him.

MARIAH HEADED FROM THE CAR where Parker waited, along the little walkway to the stairs that led up to Cameron Trent’s apartment. She’d awakened this morning determined to apologize to the man who’d given her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and been slapped for his efforts.

Provided the man was Cameron Trent. And provided he would even want to listen to her. She intended to reassure him quickly that she would take only a moment of his time, then she would never darken his doorway again.

She climbed the stairs, rehearsing her little speech. “Mr. Trent, I apologize for slapping you. I thought you were my…” No. That was too much information.

“Mr. Trent, I apologize for slapping you. I was in a sort of dream state and your lips were…” No, no! Too revealing of feelings she didn’t understand and he was bound to misinterpret.

“Mr. Trent, I’m sorry I hit you. I awoke to see a stranger leaning over me and I…I…”

Okay, get it straight! She told herself firmly. Don’t stammer like an idiot. Maybe a simple “I’m sorry.” He’d know what she was sorry about, so there was little point in belaboring why it had happened.

She checked the note in her hand. Apartment E. Parker had called Addy at the Breakfast Barn, where she always had breakfast with her cronies, and learned Trent’s address.

She stopped in front of the end apartment upstairs, pulled aside the screen door and, bracing herself, knocked lightly twice. The door squeaked open.

She heard a commotion beyond the door and concluded he must have the television on. She knocked a little louder. The door opened farther, making the commotion inside more audible.

But it wasn’t the television. Someone was being attacked! By…dogs? In Maple Hill? The man’s cries sounded desperate. She looked around for help, but Parker couldn’t see her from the car.

She couldn’t just walk away. This man had possibly saved her life; the least she could do was make an effort for him.

She looked around for a weapon and, finding none, simply took a firm hold of the handle of her purse, burst through the door and ran toward the sound.

In a bedroom at the back of the house, she found a sight that chilled her. The man whose face she’d awakened to yesterday now lay half on and half off the bed, his legs trapped in the blankets while a huge black beast, fangs bared, attacked him unmercifully, sounding like one of the dogs of hell unleashed.

She fought a trembling in her limbs and advanced, swinging at the glossy hindquarters with her purse. “Stop it!” she shrieked at the animal. “Get out! Get out!” The dog yelped and withdrew onto the bed, eyes wide. Encouraged that she’d made it retreat, she followed it, purse in full swing.

“Whoa!” the man shouted.

His directive didn’t register, however, as she climbed onto the bed in pursuit of her quarry. “Get out of here you—”

Her threat was abruptly silenced as something strong manacled her ankle, effectively dropping her facedown into the bedclothes.

Momentarily blinded and unable to move, she felt a cold chill as she heard a menacing growl just above her.

“Fred!” Trent shouted. “Down! Now!”

She heard the dog’s claws connect with the hardwood floor.

Fred? Cameron Trent had been viciously attacked by a dog named…Fred?

CAM WAS SURE HE WAS hallucinating. First of all, there was a woman in his bedroom, and that hadn’t happened in a long time. Second, she appeared to be an avenging angel determined to rescue him from Fred’s morning wake-up ritual. An angel he’d rescued himself just last night. Only, she hadn’t reacted like much of an angel.

It took a moment before he realized her determination to save him included hitting his dog with a leather purse that resembled something Evander Holyfield would hang from the ceiling and beat with boxing gloves. And then he reached up and caught her foot.

She plopped down in the middle of his mattress, skirt halfway up her legs, one shoe off, the other dangling from her toe. He experienced a sudden visceral need to put his hand to the back of her thigh and explore upward.

Fortunately—or unfortunately—his foster parents’ civilizing influence had taken root in him and he simply freed her ankle and got to his feet. Then, remembering he was wearing only white cotton briefs, he wrapped an old brown blanket around his waist as she rolled over.

She wasn’t happy.

He wasn’t surprised.

For an instant he simply absorbed the steamy look of her in his bed. She wore another long-sleeved silky blouse, pale blue this time, and another long skirt—black. Her hair was in a tight knot at the back of her head; her cheeks were flushed from exertion.

Nothing about her should have been seductive, but there she was amid his rumpled bedclothes, knees bared, one tendril of dark hair falling from her right temple. Her eyes smoldered.

He concluded that expression was probably fueled by anger or embarrassment, but what it contributed to the picture she made was powerful. He wanted her. Badly.

But what was she doing here?

Fred, standing near the edge of the bed, leaned a long neck and tongue forward and slurped her bare knee.

She shrank back with a little cry.

“Fred!” Cam caught the dog’s collar and made him sit. Fred complied, apparently totally affronted.

“I’m sorry,” Cam said quickly as Mariah looked around herself, her cheeks growing rosy. So it was embarrassment. “I know that appeared brutal, but it’s a game we play. Fred’s just seven months old and very frisky. The snarling and teeth flashing are phony. He’s just trying to get me up for breakfast.”

She drew a deep breath and something inside her seemed to collapse. He wasn’t sure what that meant, but he didn’t like the look of it. Her eyes lost their smolder and filled with the sadness he’d seen in them last night.

Instinctively, he reached for her waist to pluck her off the bed and stand her on the floor. In her stocking feet, she barely skimmed his shoulder. “I appreciate the rescue, though,” he said, his hands still on her. “I’ll bet that purse packs a wallop.”

She put her hands on his and removed them from her waist. “Where is my purse?” she asked stiffly.

It had gone over the side of the bed when she’d fallen. He went to retrieve it for her. It weighed a ton.

When he came back with it, she was hunting for her second shoe. Then she looked beyond him and gasped. Fred, whom he’d lost track of when he’d scooped her off the bed, had it in his teeth.

“Fred, give me that shoe!” she demanded, going toward the dog with a hand outstretched.

“Mariah…” Cam began to caution, but he was too late. The dog had darted off toward the living room, tail wagging, and Mariah went in pursuit.

Cam followed, catching up with them in the kitchen. Mariah had one end of the shoe and Fred the other. This could not end well.

“Mariah, don’t pull!” he ordered. Then to the dog, he said in the authoritative tone he’d learned in obedience class, “Fred, give!”

It never worked in class, either. Fred was an independent thinker.

Cam finally grabbed the dog around the jaw and pried the shoe from his teeth. There was a small tooth hole in the side of the black leather flat, and slobber on the toe. He wiped it off with the tail of the blanket wrapped around him and handed the shoe to her.

She snatched it from him and slipped it on, the smolder back in her eyes. “Thank you!” she snapped. “I came here in an attempt to be a thoughtful human being, and thanks to you and Mr. Astaire here—” she pointed in the direction of the dog “—or is it Flintstone? Regardless, I’ve been harassed and embarrassed!”

“I’m sorry you were embarrassed,” he said reasonably, “but I didn’t expect visitors this morning.”

“Then you should have locked your door.” She marched back to the bedroom, where she’d left her purse. “I thought you were being killed!”

He tried to placate her with “You were very heroic.”

“No, I was mistaken.” She made that correction grimly as she shouldered her purse.

“Is that such a terrible thing?” he asked quietly. “Or is it just that making mistakes is new to you?”

She blew air scornfully. “I’ve made a lot of mistakes. But I’m trying to change the pattern.”

Fred had followed them back to the bedroom and she leaned down to stroke the dog’s head. He reacted with his customary enthusiasm and was about to lick her face.

Cam caught him before he could connect, but Mariah surprised him by leaning down to take one of Fred’s kisses, then laughing as she nuzzled his face with her own.

“It’s okay, Fred,” she said. “I know you didn’t mean any harm. I’m sorry I yelled at you.”

Cam, now completely confused about her—and just as captivated—asked innocently, “Aren’t you sorry you yelled at me?”

HE WAS GORGEOUS NOW THAT she observed him with all her faculties at work. She hadn’t appreciated the width of his shoulders last night, the odd gold color of his eyes. His good looks weren’t a feature-by-feature thing but rather a whole impression made by confidence and humor playing in the rough angles.

She frowned and folded her arms. “Did I yell at you?”

He pretended hurt feelings in a theatrically dramatic sniff. “Yes, you yelled at me. You blamed me for what you called your ‘embarrassment,’ and here I was the one wearing nothing but my skivvies when you burst in. And in danger of being puppy chow, if you’ll recall.”

She wanted to laugh. Nothing made her laugh these days—except children and dogs. “You assured me you were in no danger.”

He folded his arms over that formidable chest and looked away in a gesture of emotional delicacy. “Because I didn’t want you to risk yourself further on my behalf.”

She still managed to keep a straight face. “Well, I appreciate that. I have to go.”

She headed for the door again, but he caught her halfway across the living room and turned her around. His hand was warm and strong and stopped her cold though he applied no pressure.

“What was the thoughtful reason you came?” he asked. There was something urgent in his eyes.

“Oh.” She sighed, realizing she’d never offered her apology. “I forgot.” She angled her chin, hoping to put him off by appearing haughty. Men usually hated that. And she did not want to be attracted to this one. “I came to apologize for slapping you last night. I was…” What was it she had rehearsed? He was gazing into her eyes and she couldn’t remember. “I was sort of dreaming and you…and I…” She stopped, hating that she was stammering like a twit. She squared her shoulders and tried to go on. “When I woke up, I thought you were…” She did everything humanly possible to avoid completing that sentence, avoid uttering the word that dangled unspoken.

“You thought I was kissing you?” he prompted, apparently having no such compunction.

He didn’t really appear self-satisfied, but there was an artlessness to him she didn’t trust at all.

“Yes,” she admitted, making herself look into his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

She tried to leave again, but he still had her arm. She felt a sudden and desperate need to get out of there.

“What?” she demanded impatiently.

“I haven’t accepted your apology,” he reminded her.

She cocked an eyebrow at him. “What?”

“Well, how I react to this,” he explained in an amiable tone, “will be determined by why you hit me.”

“I just told you! I was dreaming and I…”

“I know, but if you were angry at me because you were disappointed that I wasn’t kissing you, that requires a different response altogether.”

She knew where this was going and she didn’t want any part of it. Well, she did, but only for purely selfish reasons. She missed the intimacy of marriage. Not the sex, necessarily, but the touches, the pats, the…the kisses. And though she’d sworn there would never be another man in her life, she was still allowed to miss what a man brought to a relationship. Wasn’t she?

“I thought you were…” She even hated to say his name aloud. It brought back memories of those last awful few months of her marriage when she’d shouted it pleadingly, begging Ben to understand how she felt.

Cam waited.

“My…husband,” she said finally.

His eyes closed a moment. “You have a husband?”

That was her out. She had simply to say yes, and he’d lose interest in this unsettling morning exercise. Freedom was one small word away.

She opened her mouth to speak it but heard herself say, instead, “My ex-husband.”

He looked cautious. “You want him back?” he asked gently.

For the first time in a year she faced that question directly. Did she want him back?

“No,” she whispered. “But I miss…” It was hard to say.

“You can tell me,” he encouraged her softly.

The words clogged her throat. What had begun in amusement and sexual challenge was all of a sudden filled with real emotion.

“I miss trust,” she finally admitted, her voice barely audible, even to herself. He tipped her face up as if to help himself hear. “I miss holding hands, telling stories, and I miss…” She had to say it. “Kisses.”

And that seemed to be all he had to know. This was no longer about what she’d felt last night when she slapped him, but what was suddenly between them now as she admitted need and he responded.

His mouth came down on hers with tender authority. The sureness in the hands that framed her face told her to leave it to him; he knew what he was doing. And he did.

The touch of his lips was familiar from last night, and she experienced none of the awkward newness of first kisses. He was confident, she was willing, and the chemistry was its own catalyst.

His mouth was dry and warm and clever, his hands sure as they moved over her back, down her spine, stopping at the hollow just below her waist, then moving up again.

She met his lips avidly, basking in the almost-forgotten comfort of the shelter of a man’s arms.

HER RESPONSE WAS FAR MORE enthusiastic than Cam had expected. He wasn’t entirely sure what was happening here, except that it wasn’t what he’d originally intended. He’d been teasing her, playing with their previous connection, trying to taunt the stiffness out of her because…he wasn’t sure why. Stiff, tight women weren’t his type. And neither were small ones. They made him feel huge and inept and afraid to move.

But she wrapped her arms around him gamely, dipped the tip of her tongue into his mouth with tantalizing eagerness, combed her fingers into the hair at the back of his neck and somehow touched something inside him that seemed to rip in two everything he thought he’d decided about women since his first wife, Allison.

Then without warning she sagged against him, dropping her forehead to his chest and remaining absolutely still for several seconds. When she raised her head, her eyes were stormy with something he couldn’t quite define.

She punched his shoulder as if to release some pent-up emotion. But it didn’t seem to be anger.

“Now you’re going to have to come back tomorrow,” he said, trying to lighten the abrupt sadness in the room, “and apologize for hitting me again.”

“So this is what’s taking so long,” a female voice said from the doorway.

Cam looked up and Mariah started guiltily out of his arms.

“Parker!” she said, her voice sounding strangled. “I’m sorry I kept you waiting. I thought the dog was devouring him and came in to…”

Parker glanced at Cam, still partially wrapped in a blanket, then listened interestedly as Mariah tried to explain, then gave up. It did sound ridiculous.

“Oh, never mind.” Mariah looked up at Cam, opened her mouth to speak, then apparently decided against it. “Goodbye,” she said, instead. She walked past Parker and out the door. Fred whined.

“Good morning, Parker,” Cam said politely, feigning a normalcy the situation denied.

Parker, who’d always been warm and kind to him the few times they’d met in city hall, now studied him with a measure of doubt. “Mariah’s my sister,” she said.

He nodded. “Hank told me.” He explained briefly about Fred and his growling game. “It was 4:00 a.m. when I got home. I pulled my shoes and socks off on the porch because I was drenched, came in with an armload of stuff and kicked the door closed—or thought I had. When Mariah heard Fred playing, she assumed I was in trouble and came in to rescue me.”

“That kiss was a thank-you?” she queried.

“No,” he replied. “You should probably ask her what it was.”

She nodded and prepared to leave. He walked her to the door, where she stopped and smiled. “She’s a very nice girl who’s had a very bad time recently.”

He leaned a shoulder in the doorway. “The ex-husband?”

Parker looked surprised. “She told you?”

“Only that she had one.”

“He was a good guy,” Parker explained, “who turned out to be a bastard. I’d hate to have that happen to her again.”

“Don’t worry, she’s learned to defend herself,” he said with a wry smile. “She keeps hitting me.”

Parker frowned. “She came to apologize for that.”

He laughed lightly. “She did. Then she hit me again.” He straightened and assured her seriously, “I’m not a bastard. My background isn’t pretty and I wouldn’t claim to be a good guy, but I’m not a threat to anybody’s safety, either.”

She studied him, as if deciding whether or not to believe him. Then she finally nodded. “Okay. I’ll take your word on that. Otherwise, I know how to massage your shoulder into your eye socket.”

“Rough women in your family,” he noted with a grin.

She smiled pleasantly and hurried down the stairs.

Cam closed and locked the door, fed Fred, then decided against cereal in favor of stopping at Perk Avenue coffee shop on his way to work. He deserved a little sugar after what he’d been through this morning.

In the bedroom, he yanked off the blanket, delved into the closet for fresh jeans and a sweatshirt and started toward the bathroom, but something sparkling in the middle of the bed caught his attention. He reached for it and found that it was a little gold hoop with three tiny beads—an earring. Mariah’s earring.

He tossed it in his hand, remembering her leaping to his rescue, sprawled in the middle of his bed, leaning into him as he kissed her.

He had to draw a breath to clear the images. He didn’t need this. If he did intend to get involved with a woman, he wanted some buxom, uncomplicated ray of sunshine who’d want to make a home, raise children and help him forget all he’d lost or never had.

He didn’t need a tiny brunette with troubled eyes who’d had “a hard time.”

He tossed the earring again as he headed for the bathroom, caught it, then stopped with a growl of complaint when it bit into his hand. He opened his palm to find that his overzealous grab had caused the sharp post to jab his ring finger.

A metaphor for his involvement with her? he wondered.

CHAPTER FIVE

THE SECOND MORNING AFTER the deluge, Mariah encouraged her little troupe to finish breakfast so that they could get to school on time. They were rushed this morning. Mariah had overslept—something she never did—and it had taken Ashley’s violent shaking to wake her up.

“I’m sorry I have to hurry you,” she explained, shooing the girls upstairs to brush their teeth. “I know it’s all my fault, but we can still be on time if we put some effort into it.

“We were late yesterday,” Philip said, “and nobody cared.”

“That was because of the excitement the night before. But today it’s our responsibility to be punctual.”

“There’s still no carpet,” Amy complained as she and the other girls started up the stairs.

Mariah nodded. “We have to wait for the wood to dry. It’ll be replaced at the end of the week.”

“So, where do you think the gold is?” Peter asked Brian as the three boys, teeth already brushed, shouldered their backpacks.

Brian considered. “Cam says I have to do more research.”

“Well, where else could it be?” Philip asked.

“I’m thinking maybe in…”

Mariah missed whatever it was he thought as he lowered his voice to a whisper.

Brian had dropped Cam’s name at every opportunity since the flood. The boy had acquired status among the other children because the man who’d rescued Mariah had asked him to help. He was clearly enjoying his popularity.

Mariah tried not to think about that night—or yesterday morning. Her behavior in Cam’s apartment had to have been a result of her embarrassment at discovering that he hadn’t been in danger at all, simply playing with Fred. Added to that was the fact that she hadn’t seen a partially naked man in a long time, and the fact that the hormones she’d been sure had died with her marriage were still very lively. She had to have lost her mind just a bit.

Otherwise, why would she have practically asked him to kiss her?

Why would she have enjoyed it?

Why could she still feel his lips on hers twenty-five hours later?

It didn’t matter, she told herself briskly, pushing chairs up to the kitchen table. Unless there was another plumbing emergency, she wouldn’t have to see him again. And if there was, she could ask one of the Lightfoot sisters to attend to it. They were full of praise for his work—and his charm.

Even Parker had nice things to say about him, though she’d found them in each other’s arms.

“He seems to be a gentleman,” she’d insisted, when Mariah had grumbled in response to her question about what had been going on when she’d walked in on them.

Mariah hadn’t denied it, but wondered why, if he was such a gentleman, he made her feel such un-ladylike things.

The girls bustled down the stairs, dragging backpacks.

Mariah rounded up her little group and led them outside, locking the carriage house door behind her. They went down through a lane of swamp maple to the school playground, where all the day children were gathered, waiting for classes to begin. A lively basketball game was under way, several girls were jumping rope and a coed group competed for daredevil notoriety on the monkey bars.

Janie Florio, a third-grade teacher, waved at Mariah from the basketball hoop, fulfilling her role as playground monitor.

Mariah returned the wave and was about to wish the children a good day, when she realized they’d already dispersed into their playgroups without giving her a second thought.

Little ingrates, she thought good-naturedly as she climbed the stairs to attend a meeting with Letitia Lightfoot.

Letty hadn’t specified the reason for the meeting, but Mariah could only assume it had to do with the flood. A lot of damage had been done in the carriage house, though mercifully it was mostly superficial and covered by insurance. She would probably suggest Mariah be more vigilant, more of an authority figure with the children than the friend she strove to be.

Letitia’s office was clearly not dedicated to the needs of the children. Everywhere else in the building the rooms were cheerfully academic—black-boards, maps all over, alphabets and musical notes running above the picture rails. Here, there were big cozy chairs, frilly lamps, a mantel covered with family photos, lace curtains at the window.

The other Lightfoot sister sat behind a smallish rosewood desk and pointed Mariah to a chair patterned in cabbage roses.

Mariah sat, sinking into the old springs. Letty, she thought, looked severe. She couldn’t have heard about the kiss, could she? Of course not. The only other person who knew, aside from herself and Cam, was Parker, and she wouldn’t have told.

Such behavior had been irresponsible, very inappropriate in a woman hired to guard the safety of young…

“Mariah,” Letitia said without preamble, “we’ve finally decided to close the dormitory at the end of this school year.” She sighed after she spoke, as if making herself say the words had taken a lot of energy. “I’ll be contacting the parents and Ashley’s guardian today to let them know. I’d like you to tell the children.”

Mariah wasn’t shocked; the rumor had circulated for some time. But she was upset at the realization that she’d lose her charges, not just for the summer but forever.

And what about Ashley, whose guardian was ill, and Brian, whose mother was in and out of rehab? What would they do without the stabilizing influence of the Maple Hill Manor School? Public schools were wonderful, of course, but the Manor’s program was set up to take special care of children in their unique situations.

“I don’t want you to worry about your position here,” Letty continued. “We’ve all grown very fond of you. It’s clear you’re destined to work with children and we’ll find another spot for you by September. Lavinia thinks we need an office secretary, but I think your special talents would be wasted behind a desk. We’ll come up with something suitable, if you’d like to stay on as much as we’d like you to.”

Mariah smiled gratefully. “I so appreciate that, Letty. But, you know that I’ve been planning an extended European trip. Maybe this is the time for me to go.”

Letty frowned with maternal displeasure. “Well, I’d hoped you’d gotten over that notion. When you hired on, you told me it would be just for a year, that you had this trip planned to tour Europe and learn about art, but I’d put it down to the dreams of a woman who’d lost so much and wanted to escape. I thought you might feel loved and wanted here and decide that escape wasn’t the answer.”

“I don’t want to escape, Letty,” Mariah denied gently. “I just know now that marriage and family aren’t for me, so I may as well get out there and find out what it is I do want—and try to learn something in the process.”

Letitia leaned her elbows on the desk and smiled benevolently at Mariah. “Marriage with that man wasn’t for you, and neither is having babies in the traditional way. But there’s so much more to marriage and family than what you’ve known.”

Mariah shook her head firmly. “I don’t want that anymore, Letty. I have other plans. And while I appreciate your concern and affection for me, I have to do what I have to do.”

“So you are bent on escape.”

“It’s not escape. It’s exploration.”

Letitia stared at her a moment, then smiled. “Well. When you return from your exploration, we’ll find a place for you if you’d like to work with us again. But until then, we have a lot to do here until the school year’s over. Is your heart still in it?”

“Absolutely,” Mariah replied firmly.

“Good. Then please explain to the children, and we’ll try to spoil them to help cheer them up.”

Mariah nodded. “I’m worried about Ashley. Do you have any idea what Walter Kerwin’s intentions are for her if he should…”

Letitia shook her head. “That isn’t really our business, Mariah. But I’ll be speaking with him today, and if he shares any information about that, I’ll let you know.”

“Thank you, Letty.”

“Are you going shopping today?”

Mariah nodded. Every Tuesday morning she replenished the dorm’s groceries and picked up special requests for the children.

Letitia delved into a bottom drawer of her desk and surfaced waving a ten-dollar bill. Mariah stood to take it from her. “Would you buy me a quarter pound of raisin clusters? Dark chocolate.”

Chocolate was Letitia’s one indulgence. Mariah had trouble finding fault with that.

“Of course.” Mariah started for the door.

“And about the flood…”

Mariah stopped in her tracks, prepared to take the heat for Brian’s gold-digging fiasco. She turned, shoulders square, “Yes?”

Letitia shook her head. “We had Brian’s grandfather here in the old days and he set the lawn on fire with a magnifying glass. Unfortunately, we’d just mowed, and it caught a bank of raked grass and burned several acres. We had his mother, too, and she had the same problems when she was in high school that she has now. We had to expel her.”

“Mercy.”

“Yes. I know there’s nothing you could have done to prevent what happened, but it was costly, and we must try to make Brian understand that even if he finds the gold, he’ll owe it all to us should he destroy the house.”

Relieved, Mariah nodded. “I’ve already explained that.”

“Good. Then enjoy your day.”

Mariah left Letitia’s office and headed for the cafeteria, hoping to get a quick cup of coffee before she went into town. Because she’d been rushed this morning, she hadn’t put up her hair or taken care with her clothes and she felt sort of unguarded, and therefore unprepared. She felt sure caffeine would help.

The cafeteria was filled with workmen, a circumstance the Manor staff had grown used to and mostly ignored. As she stepped over lumber in the dining area, she could hear saws whine, the staccato beat of hammering and the sound of male laughter. She went behind a long counter where lunch was usually served and into the kitchen.

Though the Manor had made arrangements for the public school to cater lunch at tables now set up in the gym until the renovation was complete, a coffeepot was always going in the kitchen for the staff and the workmen.

She took a thick pottery cup from a tray on the stainless-steel counter and filled it with the steaming brew. She turned to find a quiet corner in which to drink it—and ran right into Cam Trent, who was coming up behind her.

She uttered a little cry of dismay as the coffee sloshed; he danced back a step, and she put a hand to her cup as if to hold the coffee in. The hot brew sloshed all over it and she cried out again.

“Mariah!” Cam took the cup from her, caught her wrist and led her to the sink, where he slapped on the cold water tap and dunked her hand under it. “I’m sorry. I thought you saw me.”

“I had my back to you,” she pointed out, though her brain seemed focused on the touch of his fingertips at her wrist. “How could I have seen you?”

He turned her hand over under the water, his glance at her friendly but unsettlingly sharp. “I sensed you before I saw you,” he said. “I thought it might have been the same for you.”

She ignored that, determined just to get out of there. Her pulse was fluttering.

He shut off the water, dried her hand with the tail of his shirt, then inspected it. The pad of her thumb was red where the hot coffee had burned her.

“Come on. I can take care of that.” Still holding her hand, he drew her with him out the kitchen’s back door.

She pulled against him. “But my coffee…”

He wasn’t listening. In another moment they were in a parking area filled with tradesmen’s trucks. He led her to a green pickup that had seen better days.

He opened the passenger-side door and was immediately assailed by Fred, who kissed Cam’s face and whopped him with a dexterous paw.

“Hey, Fred.” Cam patted the dog’s flank, then reached around him and into the glove compartment. He extracted a first aid kit.

Fred licked Cam’s ear while Cam delved inside. He finally held up a small tube of something. “Hydrocortisone cream,” he said as he placed the kit on the roof of the cab. Holding her injured hand palm up, he squirted a small amount of white cream into it.

He rubbed it in gently.

She tried to think of something else. She’d felt flustered and befuddled this morning, and had put it down to oversleeping and then hurrying to prepare for school. His gentle, circling touch didn’t help. That is, it soothed the burn but did nothing for her flustered feelings.

“Better?” he asked.

“Yes, thank you,” she replied. She looked at her thumb and not at him. Then she focused on the dog, who was overwhelmed by her attention. He kissed her cheek, her forehead, her hair.

“Fred, show some manners!” Cam commanded, pushing him back onto the seat he was about to fall off of.

“That’s all right.” Mariah patted the dog and nuzzled him. “My husband got our retriever in the divorce and I miss her a lot.”

CAM, STANDING SLIGHTLY behind Mariah, put the tube back into the first aid kit, studying her, thinking there was something different about her this morning. She seemed a little less controlled. Then he realized that her hair wasn’t scraped back and tied in a knot. It fell to the middle of her back, thick and glossy and the color of walnut. It softened the line of her face, darkened her eyes to midnight. Light rippled in it as she nuzzled Fred. Her hair made Cam feel lustful. He hated being such a cliché, but he couldn’t deny his reaction.

“Have you had breakfast?” he asked.

She stepped aside, giving him more room than he needed.

“No, I overslept. But I don’t really have time. I have to go shopping and then there’s—” A wild rumbling in her stomach interrupted her.

“Sounds like you’d better make time,” he said, pushing Fred to the middle of the bench seat. “Besides, I have something of yours.”

She looked puzzled. “What?”

“I’ll tell you over breakfast,” he said, bargaining, “then I’ll take you wherever you want to go shopping. I have to pick up a few things, too.”

She eyed him doubtfully. “Aren’t you supposed to be working?”

“I came in to see if they were ready for me, but they’re ironing out some kind of problem with the plan, and I can’t start until tomorrow. Climb in.” He held the door, waiting for her to comply.

She finally did, giving him a brief but stimulating glimpse of a jeans-clad derriere as she swung into the seat. He pretended detachment, locked her in and closed the door.

He was not only a cliché, he decided as he walked around to his side, but a pubescent cliché.

The Breakfast Barn was everyone’s favorite place to begin the day. When things were starting slowly everywhere else, it was alive with activity—businessmen and -women, morning walkers, gossip groups who’d been getting together for years and solved their own and the world’s problems over scrambled eggs and coffee.

The Barn was a huge room lined with booths and filled with tables in the middle. The walls were covered with photos of the city teams the restaurant had sponsored, of parties held there, of patrons celebrating one success or another. It was home away from home for much of the population of Maple Hill.

Cam spotted an empty booth near a window and pointed Mariah to it. He followed her across the room, weaving in and out of tables, noting the speculating glances of friends and neighbors.

Rita Robidoux, a fixture at the Barn, was upon them immediately with menus and glasses of water. “Coffee?” she asked.

“Please,” Mariah said.

“Regular?”

“Yes, please.”

“Coming right up.” As she turned away from Mariah, she waggled her eyebrows at Cam, a silent comment on the worthiness of his breakfast companion.

He gave her a teasing frown of disapproval. “Do you know Mariah Mercer?” he asked politely for Mariah’s benefit.

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