“You can’t marry that guy.”

Jenna couldn’t sit still for this. She shot to her feet. “This is just like you, Mack,” she said. “You appear out of nowhere after all these years and you immediately tell me how to live my life. Well, I want those papers you promised me, Mack. And I want them now.”

Mack answered quietly. “You’ll get those papers. But not right this minute.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“I mean I want a little time with you first.”

Oh, sweet Lord, she did not like the sound of this. She strove mightily for calm. “Time for what?”

Mack studied her before he spoke. “We had something good once. And I admit it was mostly my fault that we lost it. I want some time to try to understand what went wrong.” He paused and looked her in the eyes. “You’ll have your papers. After you spend two weeks alone with me.”

The Millionaire She Married
Christine Rimmer

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For my dear friend Georgia Bockoven.

Thank you for the times you listened, the useful advice and the beautiful books you write.

CHRISTINE RIMMER

came to her profession the long way around. Before settling down to write about the magic of romance, she’d been an actress, a sales clerk, a janitor, a model, a phone sales representative, a teacher, a waitress, a playwright and an office manager. Now that she’s finally found work that suits her perfectly, she insists she never had a problem keeping a job—she was merely gaining “life experience” for her future as a novelist. Those who know her best withhold comment when she makes such claims; they are grateful that she’s at last found steady work. Christine is grateful, too—not only for the joy she finds in writing, but for what waits when the day’s work is through: a man she loves who loves her right back and the privilege of watching their children grow and change day to day. She lives with her family in Oklahoma.

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 Eighteen

Chapter One

The shop, like the steep, rather narrow street it stood on, had a feel of times past about it. The oyster-white sign over the door read Linen and Lace in flowing script. Vines and morning glories twined and trailed in and out of the lettering.

Mack McGarrity stood beneath a striped awning, his hands fisted in his pockets, staring in the window to the left of the shop’s entrance. Beyond the glass was a brass canopy bed. The bed was draped with lacy white curtains, covered in filmy white linens and piled with embroidered white pillows.

Next to the bed, on the left, stood a white dresser bearing a white pitcher and bowl. On the right, a white nightstand, with a vase of white roses and a white-shaded lamp. White lacy nightgowns, each one a little different from the next, had been tossed in an artful tangle across the pillows and the filmy bedcovers, as if the lady who owned them all couldn’t make up her mind which to wear.

Mack smiled to himself. The fists stuck in his pockets relaxed a little.

On their wedding night Jenna had worn a nightgown like one of those thrown across that white bed—an almost transparent gown, with lace at the collar and down the front. And roses, little pink ones, embroidered around the tiny pearly buttons.

Those buttons had given him trouble. They were so damn small. And he had been nervous, though he’d tried not to show it.

But Jenna had known.

And she’d laughed, that soft, teasing laugh of hers. “It’s not as if it’s our first time,” she’d whispered.

“It is the first time. My first time…with my wife.” His voice had been gruff, he remembered, gruff with emotions he’d never allowed anyone but Jenna to see….

Mack turned from the window. He stared across the street, at a store that sold hand-painted furniture. A man and a woman stood at the display window there, admiring a tall bureau decorated with a woodland scene. Mack watched them, not really seeing them, until they disappeared inside.

Then, rather abruptly, he turned back to the shop called Linen and Lace. Two determined steps later, he reached the glass-fronted door. He took the handle and pulled it open.

The scent of the place hit him first—floral, sweet but not too sweet. An undertone of tartness. And something spicy, too. Like cinnamon. It didn’t smell like Jenna, exactly. But it reminded him of her. Sweet and just a little spicy.

He’d barely started to smile at the thought when he realized he’d tripped the buzzer that would warn her she had another customer. She turned and saw him just as he spotted her.

When the buzzer rang, Jenna glanced toward the door out of habit, ready to send her new customer a swift, be-right-with-you smile.

The smile died unborn on her lips.

It was Mack.

Mack.

Her ex-husband. Here. In her shop.

After all these years.

It couldn’t be.

But it was. Definitely.

Mack.

Her throat closed up on itself. She gulped to keep from gasping.

He looked…terrific. Older, yes. And somehow more relaxed. But in a deep and fundamental way, the same.

He was staring straight at her through those eyes she remembered much too well. Not quite blue and not quite gray, like a sky caught between sunshine and cloudiness.

He smiled at her—that beautiful, half ironic, half shy smile, the one that had dropped her in her tracks nine years before.

He’d lived in an apartment down the hall from her. And she had knocked on his door to tell him that she knew very well he’d been feeding her cat.

When he answered, he actually held Byron in his arms. That sleek midnight-black traitor had the nerve to purr as if he belonged there.

“I’ll have you know, that’s my cat,” she’d informed him, doing her best to sound bold.

He had smiled, just the way he was smiling at her now—like the sun coming out on a gray, chilly day. She’d felt the warmth, a warmth that reached down inside her and then started to spread.

“Come on in,” he had suggested as he stroked her cat. “We’ll talk about it.”

It had never even occurred to her to say no.

And now, all these years later, just the sight of him made her feel as if something inside her was melting. Her knees wanted to wobble; her pulse knocked in her ears.

Along with the weakness, the unconscionable excitement, she also knew dread.

Why had he come here?

When she had called him three days before, she’d asked one thing of him—made one simple, very clear request. He had said that he would take care of it.

Did his sudden appearance in her shop mean that he had changed his mind?

“Er…miss? Are you all right?”

Jenna snapped her head around and forced a brilliant smile for her customer. “I am fine. Where were we?” She glanced down at the stack of brightly colored linens she clutched in her arms. “Ah, of course. I remember. And I do understand. Not everyone loves white. That’s why I wanted you to see these. They’re by an English designer I especially like. Summer Garden is the name of this pattern. Beautiful, isn’t it? The colors are so vivid, different intensities of green and blue, with the flowers like splashes of pink and yellow and red.” She held out the neatly folded pile of sheets. “Feel.”

Her customer ran a hand over the fabric. “Soft.”

“And durable, too. Three hundred thread count. The finest quality combed cotton, cool in summer, cozy in winter.” Jenna slid a glance at Mack. He was watching her. Waiting.

And he’ll just have to wait a little longer, she thought. “Come this way.” She indicated a display near the far wall. “I have more from this designer. Tell me what you think….”

A few minutes later, Jenna closed a sale of sheets, pillowcases, shams and a comforter. As soon as she rang that one up, there was someone new to wait on. And someone else after that. Since one of her clerks had the day off and the other had taken a two-hour lunch in order to handle a few personal errands, all the customers were Jenna’s. And Jenna never liked to make a customer wait.

Still, she could have stolen a moment for the civilities, a moment for hello-how-are-you. An opportunity to find out why Mack had come. She didn’t do that. Because she was stalling, foolishly hoping he might just give up and leave.

But no. He wandered the room, examining her merchandise as if he actually intended to buy something. He seemed…very patient, quite willing to wait until she had time to deal with him.

His patience bothered her almost as much as his sudden appearance in her shop. The Mack she had known had been far from a patient man.

But things had changed since then. Back then, Mack McGarrity had been a man on a mission. He’d been determined to carve out his niche in the world and he’d driven himself relentlessly toward that goal. Now he had millions.

Maybe having lots of money meant you could afford even more than a mansion in the Florida Keys and a forty-six-foot fishing boat. Maybe having lots of money meant you could afford to wait.

Or at least, maybe it had done that for Mack McGarrity.

The thought probably should have pleased her. For a man like Mack to learn patience—that was a good thing.

But it didn’t please her. It made her nervous. Mack had always been relentless. To think that he might now be patient as well could cause her considerable difficulty if, for some reason, he decided to use those characteristics against her.

But why would he do that?

She didn’t want to know—which was why she kept stalling, kept letting him wait.

Nearly an hour after Mack entered the shop, Jenna found herself alone with him—save for an elderly woman who came in often to browse. The nice old lady took her time, as usual. Finally she settled on a three-piece set of needlepoint antimacassars. Jenna rang up the sale and counted out change.

“Thank you so much. Come back again,” Jenna said as she walked her customer to the door.

“Oh, you know I will, dear. I love your little shop.” A cagey grin appeared on the woman’s puckered rosebud of a mouth. “And you always do pay such lovely attention to me when I visit.”

Jenna pulled open the door. To the accompaniment of the shop’s buzzer, her customer toddled outside, turning to wave as she made her way up the street. Jenna stepped onto the sidewalk to wave back. Stalling.

And then the time had come. Jenna went inside again and shut the door.

Mack had moved into the central aisle, only a few feet away from her. She felt cornered, so near the door that she kept triggering the buzzer, but distressingly reluctant to move closer to him.

He had the courtesy to back up a few paces. She moved warily toward him and the buzzing ceased.

There was silence.

She had to force herself to say his name. “Hello, Mack.”

“Hello, Jenna.”

She stared into his face, a tanned face now, with the creases around the eyes a little deeper than before. His light brown hair was still cut no-nonsense short, but more time in the sun had given it gold highlights. His eyebrows, too, had gone gold at the tips.

He looked good. He really did.

And she had been staring too long. She cut her eyes away, not sure what to say next.

She wanted to demand, What are you doing here? To order, Go away, and don’t come back. To insist, I have my own life now. I run my own life. It’s a good life, and it doesn’t include you.

But she knew that if she said those things, she would only sound defensive, would only put herself at a disadvantage right from the start. So the uncomfortable silence continued for several more agonizing seconds.

At last he spoke. “Struck speechless at the sight of me, huh?”

She met his eyes directly, sucked in a breath and forced out a brisk reply. “Well, I have to admit, I don’t understand why you’re here. Key West is a long way from Meadow Valley, California.”

Key West. She never would have believed it. Mack, the ultimate workaholic lawyer, living in the tropics, drifting around the Gulf of Mexico in that boat of his. The idea of her driven, success-obsessed husband—correction, ex-husband—drifting anywhere seemed a complete contradiction in terms.

And she wished he’d quit looking at her with that amused and embarrassingly knowing expression, quit making her feel so…young and awkward. As if she were twenty-one again, a lonely college girl far from home, instead of the mature, settled, self-possessed thirty she was now.

What was it about him? How did he do it? It had been seven years since she’d seen him face-to-face, and five since their divorce should have been final. Still, right now, staring at him, with him staring back at her, she felt exposed. Raw. As if the mere sight of him had ripped open old and still-festering wounds—wounds she’d been certain had healed long ago.

It had been hard enough to pick up the phone and call him, after tracking him down through one of his colleagues at his old law firm. Hard enough to talk to him again, to hear his voice, to ask him to send her the papers she needed.

When she’d hung up, she’d told herself, Well, at least that’s done.

But now here she was. Face-to-face with him, feeling raw and wounded. Breathless and confused.

It shouldn’t be like this, and she knew it. All the hurt and recriminations were long past, not to mention the yearning, the tenderness, the love.

By now she should be able to smile at him, to feel reasonably at ease, to ask calmly if he’d brought her the papers.

The papers. Yes. That was the question.

She cleared her throat. “Did you…decide to bring the papers in person, is that it? It really wasn’t necessary, Mack. Not necessary at all.”

He didn’t reply immediately, only kept looking at her. Looking at her so intently, causing that weakness in her knees and a certain disturbing fluttering in her solar plexus.

Now she wanted to shout at him, Answer me! Where are those papers?

But then the buzzer sounded again. Jenna glanced over her shoulder, pasted on a smile. “I’ll be right with you.”

“No hurry.” The new customer, a well-dressed, fortyish woman, detoured toward a display of afghans and furniture scarves hung from quilt stands along the side wall.

Jenna looked back at Mack. He glanced toward the woman over by the afghans, then spoke in a low voice. “I want to talk to you. Alone.”

“No!” The word came out all wrong. It sounded frantic and desperate.

“Yes.” Lower still and very soft. Gentle. Yet utterly unyielding.

“Miss?” The customer was fingering the fringe of a piano shawl. “There’s no price tag on this one.”

Jenna realized she was scowling. As she glanced toward her customer, she rearranged her face into a bright smile. “I’ll be right there. Just one moment.” She turned to Mack again, the cheerful smile mutating instantly back to a scowl. “We have nothing to say to each other.”

“I think we do.”

“You can’t just—” Her voice had risen. She cut herself off, got herself back under control, then went on in an intense whisper. “You can’t just wander in here after all these years and expect me to—”

“Jenna.” He reached out and snared her right hand.

Before she could think to jerk away, he tugged her behind a wrought-iron shelving unit stacked with Egyptian-cotton towels and accessories for the bath. Vaguely stunned that he had actually touched her, she looked down at their joined hands.

“Let go,” she instructed in a furious whisper.

He did, which stunned her all over again, somehow. One moment his big warm hand surrounded hers—and the next, it was gone.

He said, “I’m not expecting anything. I only want to talk to you. In private.”

She could see it in his eyes, in the set of his jaw. He was not going to just go away. She would have to deal with him, to listen to whatever he’d decided he had to say to her.

Right then, guiltily, she thought of Logan, her high school sweetheart, her dear friend—and now, her fiancé. Logan had waited a long time to make her his bride. And when this little problem with her divorce from Mack had cropped up, Logan, as usual, had been the soul of understanding. He hadn’t reproached her, hadn’t asked her how she’d managed, over five whole years, to let it slip her mind that she’d never received her copy of the final divorce decree.

He’d just gently suggested that she get the situation cleared up.

So she’d called Mack.

And Mack had said that he did have the papers and he would sign them, have them notarized and send them to her right away. So she’d reported to Logan that everything had been worked out. When the papers came, in the next few days, she would file them. Within six months she and Logan would be free to marry.

Logan hadn’t been thrilled about the waiting period required by California law. But he had accepted it gracefully.

She wasn’t so certain how he’d accept the news that Mack had appeared in person and demanded to speak with her in private.

But then again, maybe he wouldn’t even have to know about this little problem until after it had been resolved.

Logan, who was an M.D. in family practice, had left two days ago for a medical convention in Seattle. He wouldn’t return until Sunday night—two more days from now.

By then, Jenna told herself, she’d have everything under control. By then, she would have listened to whatever Mack had to say, taken the papers from him and sent him on his way. The whole situation would be much easier to explain to her fiancé once she had the papers in her hands.

“Miss?” It was the woman over by the afghans, beginning to sound a bit put out.

“Go ahead,” Mack said. “Take care of her.”

The woman bought the piano scarf. Mack waited, standing a little to the side of the register counter, as Jenna rang up the sale.

Once her customer had left, Jenna sighed and conceded, “All right. I close up at seven. After that, we can talk.”

“Good,” Mack said. “There are a couple of promising-looking restaurants down the street. I’ll drop back by when you close and we’ll get something to eat.”

Not on your life, she thought. She would not spend the evening sitting across a table from him, fighting the feeling that they were out on a date.

“No,” she said. “Come to the house at seven-thirty. We can talk there. Lacey’s visiting for a while, but she won’t bother us.”

“Lacey.” He said her younger sister’s name with more interest than he’d ever shown in the past. “Visiting? From where?”

“She lives in Los Angeles now.”

“What does she do there, rob banks?”

Jenna gave him a too-sweet smile. “She’s an artist. And a very talented one, too.”

“Still the rebel, you mean.”

“Lacey makes her own rules.”

“I believe it—and how’s your mom?”

Jenna didn’t answer immediately. Sometimes she still found it hard to believe that Margaret Bravo was gone. “She died two years ago.”

He looked at her for a long moment before muttering, “I’m sorry, Jenna.”

He’d hardly given a thought to Jenna’s mother while she was alive. Mack McGarrity didn’t put much store in family ties. But right now he did sound sincere. Jenna murmured a reluctant “Thank you,” then spoke more briskly. “Seven-thirty, then. My house.”

“I’ll be there.”

“Bring the divorce papers. You do have those papers?”

“I’ve got them.”

He had the papers. Relief washed through her. Maybe this wouldn’t be as bad as she’d feared.

Chapter Two

Jenna walked home from the shop. It was only three blocks to the big Queen Anne Victorian at the top of West Broad Street where she’d grown up. She enjoyed the walk. She waved to her neighbors and breathed the faint scent of pine in the air and thought about how much she loved her hometown. Tucked into a pocket of the Sierra foothills, Meadow Valley was a charming place of steep, tree-lined streets and tidy old wood frame houses.

At home, Jenna found the note Lacey had left on the refrigerator.

“Last-minute hot date. Don’t wait up.”

Jenna grinned to herself at the words scrawled in her sister’s bold hand. When Lacey said, “Don’t wait up,” she meant it. Since about the age of eleven, Jenna’s “baby” sister had never willingly gone to bed before 2:00 a.m. Lacey loved staying up so late that she could watch the sun rise before calling it a night.

Jenna’s grin became a frown.

Without Lacey, she and Mack would be alone in the house.

She crumpled the note and turned for the trash bin beneath the sink. She saw Byron then. He was sitting on the floor to the right of the sink cabinet door, his long, black tail wrapped neatly around his front paws.

“I don’t want to be alone with him,” Jenna said to the cat. “And do not ask me why.”

The cat didn’t, only regarded her through those wise yellow-green eyes of his. “Don’t look at me like that,” she scolded as she tossed the note into the trash bin and shoved the cabinet door shut.

The cat went on looking, beginning to purr now, the sound quite loud in the quiet kitchen. Byron never had talked much. But he could purr with the best of them.

Jenna scooped him up and put him on her shoulder. “If you fall all over yourself rubbing on him, I’ll never forgive you.” She stroked the sleek raven fur and the cat purred all the louder. “I mean it,” she grumbled, but the cat remained unconcerned.

“All right, all right. Dinner for you.” She scooped food into his bowl, then left him to his meal.

In the downstairs master bedroom she changed from her linen jacket and bias-cut rayon skirt into Dockers and a camp shirt. She purposely did not freshen up her makeup one bit or even run a comb through her straight, shoulder-length blond hair.

And when she returned to the kitchen for a tall glass of iced tea, she pointedly did not rush around whipping up a little something to tempt a man’s palate. She was not dressing up for Mack and he was getting no dinner. She had one order of business to transact with him. She wanted the final divorce papers he was supposed to have signed five and a half years ago. And then she wanted him back in Florida where he belonged.

Ten minutes later she answered the doorbell. It was Mack, grinning that knee-weakening grin of his. A pair of waiters stood behind him.

She blinked. Waiters? Yes. Definitely. Waiters. In crisp white shirts, black slacks and neat black bow ties. One carried a round table with a pedestal base, the other had a chair under each arm.

“What in the—?”

“You didn’t cook, did you? Well, if you did, save it. I’ve brought dinner with me.”

“But I—you—I don’t—”

“You’re stammering,” he said with nerve-flaying fondness. Then he gestured at the waiters. “This way—Jenna, sweetheart, you’ll have to move aside.”

“I am not your—”

“Sorry. Old habits. Now, get out of the way.”

He stepped forward, took her by the shoulders and guided her back from the door. Then he gestured at the waiters again. They followed him into the front parlor, where they proceeded to set up the table on her mother’s hand-hooked Roosevelt Star rug.

In the ensuing seven or eight minutes, Jenna tried to tell Mack a number of times that she wasn’t having dinner with him. He pretended not to hear her as the waiters trekked back and forth from a van out in the front, bringing linens and dishes and flatware and a centerpiece of flower-shaped candles floating in a cut-crystal bowl. They also brought in a side table and set it up under the front window. They put the food there. It looked and smelled sinfully delicious.

When all was in readiness, one waiter lighted the candles as the other pulled out Jenna’s chair for her.

Jenna sent a glare at Mack. “I don’t like this.”

He put on an innocent expression, which she did not buy for a nanosecond. “Come on, Jenna. It’s only dinner.”

The waiter waited, holding the chair.

Jenna gave in and sat down, thinking that Mack McGarrity might have managed to develop a little patience, he even might have learned how to relax. But in this, he hadn’t changed at all. He still insisted on doing things one hundred percent his way.

Mack slid into the chair opposite her. He gestured to the waiters and one of them set a bread basket on the table, along with two plates of tempting appetizers: stuffed miniature Portobello mushrooms and oysters on the half shell, nestled in chipped ice. The other waiter busied himself opening a bottle of Pinot Grigio, which Mack sampled, approved and then poured for Jenna and for himself.

That done, Mack signed the check.

The moment the front door closed behind the waiters, Jenna placed one mushroom and one oyster on her plate. She also buttered a warm slice of sourdough bread. Then she rose from her chair. She dished up more food from the offerings on the side table—a good-sized helping of salade nioise and a modest serving of sautéed veal scallops with marsala sauce.

She sat down and ate. The appetizers were as good as they looked, as were the salad and the veal. She did not touch her wine.

As she methodically chewed and swallowed, Mack kept trying to get her talking. He asked about her shop and complimented her on the changes she’d made in the decor of her mother’s front parlor. He wondered aloud where Lacey was and tried to get her to tell him more about her sister’s life as a struggling artist in Southern California.

Jenna answered in single syllables whenever possible. When the question absolutely required a longer answer, she gave him a whole sentence—and then went back to her meal.

She was finished ten minutes after she’d started. She pushed her plate away. “Thank you, Mack. That was excellent.”

“I’m so glad you enjoyed it,” he muttered, finishing off his glass of wine and reaching for the bottle again.

She granted him a sour smile. “You’ve hardly eaten.” He’d taken one mushroom and a single breadstick.

“For some reason, I feel rushed. It’s ruined my appetite.” He poured more wine, set the bottle down.

Jenna smoothed her napkin in at the side of her plate. “Well, then. If you don’t feel like eating, then maybe we can proceed to the main order of business here.”

He was staring at her engagement diamond. “Nice ring,” he muttered.

“Thank you. I like it, too—and can we talk about what you supposedly came here to talk about?”

He gestured with his wineglass. “By all means.”

She straightened her shoulders and inched her chin up a notch. “As I told you on the phone, I want to get married again.”

“Congratulations.” Mack took a minute to sip from his glass. Then he lowered the glass and looked at her straight on. “But don’t you think you ought to get rid of your first husband before you start talking about taking on another one?”

“I am rid of my first husband,” she replied in a carefully controlled tone. “Or I was supposed to be. Everything was settled.”

“For you, maybe.”

She glared at him. “It was settled, Mack.”

He grunted. “Whatever you say.”

“Well, all right. I say that everything was over—except that, for some reason, you never got around to signing the papers that my lawyer sent your lawyer.”

Mack studied the depths of his wineglass for a moment, then looked at her once more. “It was a busy time for me. I had a lot on my mind.”

She decided to let his lame excuses pass. “The point is, it’s over, Mack. Long over. And you know it. I don’t know why you’re here, after all these years. I don’t care why you’re here.”

He sat up a little straighter. “I don’t believe that.”

“Believe what you want. Just—” Give me those papers and get out of my life! she wanted to shout. But she didn’t. She paused. She gathered her composure, then asked quite civilly, “Do you have the papers?”

He brought his wineglass to his lips again and regarded her broodingly over the rim. “Not with me.”

Jenna could quite easily have picked up the crystal bowl of floating candles from the center of the table and heaved it at his head. To keep herself from doing that, she folded her hands in her lap and spoke with measured care. “You said you had the papers.”

“And I do. I just didn’t bring them with me tonight.”

“You lied.”

“I didn’t lie. You heard what you wanted to hear.”

Another lie, she thought, but held her tongue this time. She’d lived with Mack McGarrity long enough to recognize a verbal trap when he laid one. If she kept insisting that he’d lied, they’d only end up going around and around, her accusing and him denying, getting nowhere.

Let it go, she thought. Move on. She said, “You told me you wanted to talk to me. In private. Well, here we are. Just the way you wanted it. You’d better start talking, Mack. You’d better tell me what is going on.”

He set his glass on the table. “Jenna, I—” He cut himself off. Something across the room had caught his eye. She followed his glance to the black cat peeking around the edge of the arch that led to the formal dining room. “My God. Is that…?”

“Byron,” she provided reluctantly, at the same time as he whispered, “Bub?”

The cat’s lean body slid around the arch. Then, his long tail high, Byron strutted over, jumped lightly onto Mack’s lap, lay down and began to purr in obvious contentment. Mack petted the black fur in long, slow strokes. Jenna looked away, furious with him for this game he was playing—and moved in spite of her fury at the sight of him with Byron again after all these years.

She stared out the front window at the Boston fern hanging from the eaves of the porch as the sound of Byron’s happy purring rumbled in her ears. When she looked back, Mack was watching her. His eyes were soft now, full of memories, of dangerous tenderness. “He has some gray, around his neck.”

Jenna’s throat felt uncomfortably tight. “He’s not a young cat. He was full-grown when we found him.”

She thought of their first meeting again, though she shouldn’t have allowed herself such a foolish indulgence.

Nine years ago. It seemed like forever.

And also, like yesterday…

She’d been in her junior year, majoring in business administration at UCLA. And he’d been twenty-five, just finishing law school.

Once he’d led her into his apartment, he’d informed her that the cat had adopted him.

“No,” she had argued, “That cat adopted me, the first day I moved in, three weeks ago.”

They were in his living room, which had a shortage of furniture and an excess of books—they were everywhere, overflowing the board-and-block bookcases, in piles on the floor. He petted Byron and he looked at her, a look that made her feel warm and weak and absolutely wonderful. He introduced himself. And he said that he’d named the cat Bub.

She had demanded, “You named my cat Bub?”

“It’s my cat.”

“No, he’s mine. And Bub. What kind of a name is that?”

“A better name than Byron—which is just the kind of name a woman would give a black cat.”

“Byron fits my cat perfectly.”

“No. This cat is no Byron. This cat is a Bub.”

“No, his name is Byron. And he’s mine.”

“No, he’s mine.”

“I beg your pardon. He is mine.”

And about then, Mack suggested, “We could share….” He said the words quietly, looking deep in her eyes, stroking Byron’s silky fur and smiling a smile that made her want to find something sturdy to lean against.

“Share…?”

He nodded.

Further discussion had followed. She could no longer remember all that had been said. The words hadn’t really mattered anyway. There was his voice asking and her voice answering, his eyes looking into hers, the feeling that she’d knocked on a door—his door—and found a different world waiting beyond the threshold. A magical, shimmering, golden world. A world with Mack McGarrity in it.

In the end, it was agreed. They would share Byron—Bub, as Mack called him. Mack suggested they have dinner together to celebrate. It sounded like a lovely idea to Jenna.

They ate at an inexpensive Italian restaurant not far from their apartment building. And when they returned to his place, he’d asked her in for a last cup of coffee.

She’d stayed, after the coffee. She’d spent the night in his bed—well, actually, on his mattress on the floor. At that time, Mack McGarrity couldn’t afford things like beds.

It had been her first time. And it had been beautiful. And after that night, she had moved in with him. Two months later, on November 10, they were married. Jenna had thought herself the luckiest, happiest woman on earth….

“Jenna.” Mack was looking at her now, over the shimmering flames of those candles afloat in that cut-crystal bowl. The cat went on purring, and the past seemed a living thing, as real as the cat and the glowing candle flames, a presence in her mother’s front parlor with them.

He said, “Since you called, I’ve been thinking….”

No, she thought. Don’t say it. Please don’t.

But he did. “You can’t marry the med student, Jenna. Not yet.”

The med student.

Logan.

Oh, God. What was the matter with her? Taking this dangerous little mental detour down memory lane? Letting herself forget Logan, who loved her and treated her with respect and understanding. Who wanted exactly the same things that she wanted: a partner for life, an equal partner. And a big family. Lots of children. Three or four at the very least.

“Logan is not a med student anymore,” she informed the infuriating man across the table from her. “Years have passed, Mack, just in case you didn’t notice.”

He had stopped petting Byron. Those blue-gray eyes bored into hers. “I have noticed, as a matter of fact.”

“Logan’s finished med school.” Her throat felt so tight, it hurt. She swallowed, made herself go on. “He’s…done his internship and his residency. He’s a full-fledged M.D. in family practice right here in Meadow Valley.”

“I don’t care if he’s Jonas Salk. You can’t marry him right now.”

She couldn’t sit still for that. And she didn’t. She shot to her feet. “This is just like you,” she accused through clenched teeth. “You appear out of nowhere after all these years and you immediately start telling me how I’m going to run my life. Well, I’m not going to do what you tell me to do anymore. I want those papers you promised you’d sign, Mack. And I want them now.”

“I didn’t promise.”

“That is a lie. You told me on the phone that you would—”

“I know what I said.”

“Good. Because what you said was that you’d sign the papers and send them right to me.”

“You caught me off guard.”

“It doesn’t matter how I caught you. You said—”

He waved a hand, then used it to resume stroking her cat. “You’ll get what you want. But not right this minute.”

I will not start yelling, she silently vowed. No matter how tempting the prospect may be, I will not begin screaming at him.

She asked, “What does that mean—not right this minute?”

“It means I want a little time with you first.”

“Time?” It came out as a croak.

“Yes. Time.”

Oh, sweet Lord, she did not like the sound of this. She did not like it in the least. She strove mightily for calm—and did somehow manage to keep her voice even. “Time for what?”

Byron chose that moment to leave Mack’s lap. The tag on his collar jingled as he jumped to the floor. Landing neatly on the balls of his dainty feet, he strutted across the room, then sat down beneath a marble-topped mahogany side table, where he began bathing himself. Mack watched him.

“Mack,” Jenna demanded, to get his attention. He looked at her again. She repeated, “Time for what?”

He studied her before he spoke, his expression arranged into what she always used to think of as his lawyer’s face. Composed. Aloof. All-knowing. His eyes looked out from beneath the golden shelf of his brow, seeing everything, revealing nothing.

He said, “We had something good once. And I admit it was mostly my fault that we lost it. I want some time to try to understand what went wrong.”

Conflicting emotions swirled inside her. Confusion. Rage. A strange and rather frightening giddiness.

She longed to sit down again, to let her knees crumple and drop to her chair. But she remained upright. “Mack. I just want the signed papers. Please.”

And he just sat there, looking out at her through those totally unrevealing lawyer’s eyes. “As I said, you’ll have them. After you spend two weeks with me.”

She gulped. “Two weeks?”

“That’s right. Two weeks. Alone with me.”

She did sit down then. And once seated, she closed her eyes and raked her hair back from her face. “Mack. You cannot do this. I’ll…divorce you all over again.”

His lips curved, just slightly, as if he found that remark amusing, but only vaguely so. “You’re not serious.”

She forced total conviction into her reply. “I certainly am.”

He reached out and picked up his wineglass again. “Divorcing me all over again will take time.” He sipped, settling back in his chair. “It took over a year before, from the date that your lawyer first contacted mine until we reached a settlement. And then we were only fighting over Bub.”

Ridiculous, she thought, remembering. Ridiculous and petty. She’d been back home in Meadow Valley when she’d filed, and he was still in New York with that high-powered law firm. He’d hired one of the lawyers from his own firm and instructed him to demand “custody” of Byron. For months, his lawyer and hers had corresponded. And then, out of nowhere, Mack had decided to be reasonable. He’d let her have Byron. Everything had been settled.

All he’d had to do was sign the blasted papers, and everything would have been fine.

He sipped some more. “This time I could fix it so it takes forever. I hope the good doctor will wait for you. But then, I suppose he will. I remember him, how he hung around that one Christmas we spent here. He was waiting for you even way back then—when there was no doubt at all you were another man’s wife.”

Desperate, Jenna tried another threat—anything, she thought, to make him back down. “I’ll get a big chunk of your money if I divorce you now.”

He grunted in disbelief and sipped more wine. “Oh, come on. I know you, Jenna. Except for Bub, you wouldn’t take anything six years ago. And you won’t take anything now.”

She gave him her best level-eyed stare. “Don’t bet on it. I’m a lot meaner than I used to be. And besides, you weren’t a multimillionaire when I divorced you. You were just a lawyer in a big firm, killing yourself and ignoring your wife, spending every waking minute clawing your way to the top. Now you’re so rich, I might not be able to resist making a bid for half of all you’ve got.”

“So.” He was smiling again. “You know how much money I’ve got.”

The truth was, she had followed the stories about him. “I have a pretty good idea.”

“From whom?”

She shrugged. “I read the newspapers.”

Six years ago, Mack had taken on a class-action suit against a major automobile manufacturer, a suit no one else in his firm had been willing to touch. He’d ended up going out on his own to handle it. And his share of the final settlement had come to ten million dollars.

He advised with some irony, “If you’re after my money, you’ll be happy to hear that I’ve at least doubled the ten million I started out with.”

“I’m sure you’re a very wise investor.”

“No, I take big chances. And they pay off.”

“Well. Good.” She stabbed the air with her index finger. “That means more for me when I take you to the cleaners—which I will, Mack. I swear I will.”

He regarded her for an endless count of five. She glared right back at him, thinking how easy it would be to pick up her dinner knife and hurl it at his heart.

At last he said in a musing tone, “You’ve developed a temper. I don’t remember you having a temper before. You were sweet and shy. And you cried instead of getting mad.”

She pushed back her chair again and stood. It felt a lot better, looking down on him. “Right. I used to be a wimp. But now I’m all grown up. I make my own decisions. And I have a life. Do you understand that? There is a man I want to marry and a business I need to run. I can’t leave my store for two weeks. And I certainly can’t leave my fiancé to run off with another man.”

“Not just any other man, Jenna. Your husband.”

“You are not my husband, not in any but a purely technical sense.”

He lifted a brow at her, insolently, as if her assertion didn’t even deserve comment. “I’m sure you can find someone to look after your store.”

“I am not going to find anyone, because I’m not going anywhere.”

He set his half-finished glass of wine on the table and rose slowly to his feet. “Just leave all this right where it is. The restaurant will send someone over tomorrow morning to deal with it.” He pulled a business card from his back pocket and set it on the table. “Call this number. Tell them what time you want them to show up.”

She didn’t even glance at that card. She looked right at the maddening man standing across the table from her. “I am not—repeat, not—spending two weeks with you, Mack.”

The look he gave her then was almost tender. “Think about it, Jenna. Two weeks isn’t that long. We’ll go to my place in Key West. I think you’ll like it there. The house is old, like this one. It needs…a woman’s touch.”

“Hire a decorator.”

He didn’t reply to that, only looked at her indulgently before adding, “Once the two weeks are over, you’ll be rid of me for good—unless we both decide we shouldn’t be divorced after all.”

She couldn’t hold back one sharp, disdainful cry. “I don’t need two weeks to decide that. I decided that a long time ago.”

He actually had the gall to pretend to be wounded. “You’re really hurting my feelings here.”

She gaped at him, wondering how he could joke about this. It was not funny. Not funny in the least. “This is…blackmail. It’s…it’s kidnapping. It has to be illegal.”

He shook his head. “It’s not. Trust me. I know. I’m a lawyer.”

“Mack. Please.” She pulled out all the stops and stooped to pleading. “Please. There is no point in this. Don’t you see? Nothing good can come of it. I don’t want to…to reconcile with you. It’s over for me. And even if it wasn’t, how can you possibly imagine that forcing me to go away with you would somehow make me change my mind?”

“Answer me this. Is there anything that would make you change your mind?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Then this is the only option I’ve got.”

“That’s insane. I just told you it can’t work.”

“Maybe you’re wrong. And since you have no other suggestions…”

“Suggestions? You want suggestions? What about keeping your word? What about giving me those papers and going back where you belong?”

He shook his head. “Uh-uh.”

“Mack. I don’t want to get back together with you. And I do not want to spend two weeks alone with you.”

“But you will spend two weeks with me. If you want those divorce papers.”

“Mack, be reasonable. You have to see that doing this will get you nowhere.”

He smiled, a rueful smile. “I’m staying at the Northern Empire Inn. Give me a call when you’re ready to agree to my terms.”

Chapter Three

The phone rang at nine. It was Logan, calling from his hotel room in Seattle. He said that he was learning more about the advances in the treatment of childhood infections than his practice could afford. There was a certain very pricey piece of state-of-the-art equipment he wanted to buy.

As he talked, Jenna tried to keep her mind on what he was saying, tried not to think about Mack, about how angry she was, how trapped she felt. About what in the world she was going to do now.

“Jenna? You still with me?”

“Of course. I’m right here. How’s the food there—and are you getting enough sleep?”

“The food? I’ve had worse. And yes, I’m getting plenty of sleep. What about you? Miss me?”

“Desperately.”

He chuckled. “Don’t overplay it. I’ll become suspicious.”

Suspicious. Oh, Lord. If he only knew.

And he should know. She would have to tell him.

But not now. Not on the phone from seven hundred miles away.

She’d tell him when she could sit down with him, face-to-face, after he returned home.

He asked, “So what are you and Lacey up to tonight?”

“We’re not. I came home and there was a note on the fridge. A hot date, it said.”

“I didn’t know Lacey was seeing someone in Meadow Valley.”

“I don’t think she is. It’s probably just one of her old high school friends, Mira or Maud—or maybe both.”

“The terrible twins. Scary.” He spoke jokingly. But he wasn’t joking, not really. Logan had never approved of Lacey’s old friends. He didn’t much approve of Lacey, either, though he always treated her kindly, partly for Jenna’s sake and also because he liked to think of himself as Lacey’s “honorary” older brother.

“The twins are all grown up now,” Jenna reminded him. “And they’ve settled down considerably. They haven’t spray-painted obscenities on high school walls or gotten caught breaking and entering for years. Maud’s married and a mother—and a darn good one, from what I hear.”

“That’s reassuring,” Logan muttered dryly. “Seriously. Is Lacey all right? She seemed a little…subdued the other day.” Logan had been at the house when Lacey had first arrived from L.A.

“She’s fine. Just taking a break from the rat race, she said. A few weeks in her hometown. Some rest and relaxation. Oh, and she also mentioned that a certain gallery owner had been talking about showcasing her work. Evidently the deal fell through somehow.”

“A disappointment.” His tone was knowing.

“That’s what it sounded like to me. So if she seems a little down, that’s probably why.”

“She’ll get over it.”

“Of course she will.”

“What she ought to do is get a real job. She’s twenty-five years old, after all. Time to make a few realistic decisions. There’s no reason she couldn’t move back to Meadow Valley permanently. That house of your mother’s is half hers now. As soon as you and I get married, she could have it to herself. Plenty of room to set up a studio and paint in her spare time. She ought to—”

“Logan,” Jenna cut in gently.

He was silent, then he chuckled. “I know, I know. None of my business. But she is your sister. And I worry about her.”

“I know you do. And it’s very sweet of you.”

“Tell me again how much you miss me.” She could picture the loving smile on his handsome face. The image made her feel about two inches tall.

“Jenna? Are you there?”

“I miss you,” she said. “A lot. And I…” Her throat closed up. She had to swallow before she could get the words out. “I love you. Very much.”

“And I love you, Jenna Bravo. Did you get those papers in the mail from Florida yet?”

“Uh. No. No, I’m afraid that I didn’t.”

“Well. It’s only been a few days. We have to exercise a little patience, I suppose.”

“That’s right. Logan, I…” But no, she told herself again. Not now. It’s not right to tell him something like this over the phone.

“What is it?” Concern threaded his voice. “Is something wrong?”

“No. Nothing. Nothing at all. I just…I’ll be glad when you’re home.”

Softly he agreed, “So will I.”

Jenna hung up feeling like a two-timer, a woman of questionable moral character, dishonest and bad. She could have killed Mack McGarrity. She muttered a few choice expletives under her breath.

And then, before reason could reassert itself, she got out the phone book and looked up the number of the Northern Empire Inn.

She dialed it quickly, and when the operator answered, she growled, “Mack McGarrity’s room, please.”

He picked up after the first ring. “McGarrity here.” His voice, so deep and firm and resonant, vibrated along her nerves, sent a shiver moving just beneath the surface of the skin.

She could hear a television in the background, a man talking, then audience laughter. “Hello?” he said, impatient now, sounding like the old Mack, the oh-so-busy Mack, the Mack who’d dragged her to New York City without bothering to get her input on the move—and then hardly had a spare moment for her once he got her there.

She opened her mouth, then shut it without making a sound. What was there to say that she hadn’t already said?

She heard him draw in a breath. And then, in tender reproach, he whispered her name.

“Jenna…”

She lowered the handset and laid it oh so carefully back in its cradle.

Jenna didn’t sleep well that night. She couldn’t get comfortable in her own bed. And then, when she finally did drop off, she had a dream about Mack.

About making love with Mack.

In the dream, their lovemaking was every bit as beautiful, as sensual and sweet and soul shattering, as it had been in real life.

They lay on a white bed—the bed in the window of her shop, as a matter of fact. In the dream, though, the bed drifted in some warm and safe and hazy place. It floated, with Jenna and Mack naked upon it, in a kind of misty void.

Mack touched her, the way he used to touch her—in the beginning, when it was all so new and magical. When what he’d found with her was still enough to make him put aside temporarily the demons of ambition that drove him.

His eyes were the sky, blue turning cloudy. His hands, so warm and strong, moved over her body in a lazy, arousing dance. She moaned, and he kissed her, the deepest, longest, most sensual kiss she had ever known. It went on and on. She pressed herself closer to him and realized that he was already within her. There was that perfect, full sensation of joining.

Her eyes drooped closed. His kiss deepened even more. Impossible, that a kiss already so deep could continue to intensify. But it did. And they were moving together, sighing together, on the wide white bed in the middle of a warm and lovely nowhere.

Then all at once she was standing in the waiting room of a doctor’s office, looking through the receptionist’s window.

And it was Logan, not a receptionist, who stared back at her. “There’s no cure for you, Jenna.” His voice was icy cold. “I’m afraid your case is terminal.”

She woke with a cry, sitting straight up in bed.

The next day Jenna looked in the phone book for the number of the attorney who had handled her divorce from Mack. It wasn’t there. She remembered the address, so she drove by the attorney’s office that evening, on the way home from Linen and Lace. But her lawyer had moved. The building was now occupied by a florist’s shop.

Logan didn’t call that night. Jenna felt guiltily grateful for that. As long as she didn’t talk to him, she didn’t have to keep asking herself if it was better to tell him the truth right now—or to wait until she could tell him to his face.

Sunday, Linen and Lace opened at one in the afternoon. Jenna went out at a little after ten o’clock and bought bagels and cream cheese. Then she woke Lacey and the two of them sat in the breakfast nook, warm September sunlight pouring in the windows, drinking coffee and sharing an impromptu brunch.

Lacey talked a little about her stalled career dreams. She’d been living in L.A. for five years now. She shared a downtown loft—in a rather rough neighborhood that made Jenna nervous—with a friend, a fellow artist. Lacey painted every chance she got, and she was making connections, building a network of people who knew and liked her work. Every now and then she’d sell a painting. But as yet, her long string of jobs waiting tables and serving at private catered events were what paid the rent.

Jenna really did believe her sister had talent. And Lacey had come a long way from the troubled, rebellious teenager who’d once been known by her teachers as the Scourge of Meadow Valley High. Now Lacey really cared about something.

“You work hard,” Jenna told her. “And you love what you do. You just keep working. Someday you’ll get the recognition you deserve.”

Lacey had what Jenna always thought of as a naughty angel’s face—wide blue eyes, a lush, full mouth, a delicate nose and beautiful pale skin. She liked to wear tight-fitting tops and flowing, semitransparent skirts. To Jenna, she always seemed a cross between a rock star and a fairy princess.

Now the full mouth was stretched to a grin. “It’s obvious why I come home—to hear you tell me that I’m bound to succeed.”

“And you are. I know you are. Do you need money?”

“No, I do not. I’m managing just fine.”

They shared a second bagel and Jenna poured them each more coffee.

Then Lacey asked, “So what’s gone wrong in your life lately?”

Jenna tensed, but tried her best not to let Lacey see it. “What do you mean?” She hoped she sounded breezy. “Everything’s fine.”

Lacey leaned closer. “Come on. It’s me. Your bad baby sister. I grew up spying on you, remember? I saw you get your first kiss.”

This was news to Jenna. “You did not.”

“I did. You kissed that redheaded boy, the one with all the freckles, whose ears stuck out. Chuckie…”

Jenna felt her cheeks coloring. “Oh, God. Chuckie Blevins.”

“You were thirteen. And that Chuckie. He was some kisser. He slobbered all over you—and you wiped your mouth after. But in a very Jenna-like way, so considerately, waiting until Chuckie wasn’t looking.”

“I can’t believe you were watching that.”

“You bet I was. It was probably the most exciting thing I ever saw you do.” Lacey shoved a thick hank of curly blond hair back over her shoulder and sipped from her coffee cup. “And I still want an answer to my question. What’s going on?”

“I don’t—”

“Oh, stop it. Something is going on. You try to hide it, but you’ve got that worried, nervous look in those eyes of yours. It’s the way you looked when you ran away from Mack McGarrity.”

Jenna stiffened. “I beg your pardon. I did not—”

Lacey didn’t even let her finish. “You did, too. Okay, okay. You called it a visit home. But you brought your cat with you, for heaven’s sake. And you never did go back to New York. You bustled around here, inventing little cleaning and decorating projects to spiff up the house, acting busy but looking worried and sad, putting on fake smiles and trying to stay upbeat. But I could see. Anyone who cared about you could see. Something was very wrong.”

“Well, my marriage was ending. Of course I was worried. And I didn’t go back to New York because there was no point in going back. It was over between Mack and me.”

“Jenna. I’m saying that you’ve seemed the same way for the last couple of days—not sad this time so much, but worried and really preoccupied. And I want to know what’s bothering you.”

Jenna looked at her sister for a long time, torn between the probable wisdom of keeping her own counsel and the real need to share her problem with someone she could trust.

Need won out. “Mack’s in town.”

Lacey set down her bagel without taking a bite of it. “You’re joking. It’s a joke, right?”

“No. It’s no joke.”

“In town? Where in town?”

“He’s staying at the Northern Empire Inn.”

“And he came to town to see you?”

“Yes.”

“Does Dr. Do-Right know?”

“Lacey, I really wish you’d stop calling Logan Dr. Do-Right.”

Lacey wrinkled her nose. “Sorry.” Then she put on a contrite look. “Let me try again. Does Logan know?”

“I’m telling him as soon as he gets back from Seattle.”

“Translation. You haven’t told him yet.” Lacey picked up her bagel again, looked at it, then dropped it for the second time. “I can’t stand it. Talk. Tell me everything.”

“It’s awful,” Jenna warned. “It’s embarrassing and unfair and just plain wrong. And if I thought I could get away with it, I’d do something life-threatening to Mack McGarrity.”

“Just tell me what’s going on.”

So Jenna explained the whole mess to her sister.

At the end, Lacey asked, “Have you called your lawyer about it?”

Jenna sighed. “I don’t have a lawyer, not as of this moment. The lawyer I did have has apparently closed up shop and moved away. He’s not in the phone book anymore. And yesterday I drove by the address where he used to have his office. There’s a florist shop there now.”

“Great,” Lacey remarked, in a tone that said it was anything but. “So you need a new lawyer.”

“That’s right. And I’ll need a good one, I think. If I do end up having to divorce that man for the second time, he’s promised me he’ll think of a thousand ways to drag things out all over again.”

“You know, he’s always been kind of an S.O.B.”

“You said it, I didn’t.”

“Maybe if you just hang tough, he’ll give up.”

“I keep hoping the same thing. But…” Jenna let a weary shrug finish the thought.

Lacey nodded. “Mack McGarrity is not the type who gives up.”

“Exactly.”

Lacey picked up her coffee mug and sipped. Then she set the mug down. “Can I ask you something?”

“Go ahead.”

“Didn’t you notice that you never got the final papers for your divorce?”

Jenna braced her elbows on the table and rubbed at her eyes. “It crossed my mind now and then. But you have to understand, it was over. We’d made an agreement. The rest felt like formalities. And I wasn’t thinking about marrying anyone else then, so…”

Lacey was watching her way too closely. “Don’t hate me, but are you really sure it’s over between you and Mack?”

Jenna’s answer was immediate. “Of course I am. Why?”

“Well, there was just something so…powerful, between the two of you. It’s not the same with Dr. Do—er, Logan.”

Jenna knew she shouldn’t ask, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself. “What do you mean, not the same?”

“Well, you and Logan are just perfect for each other, on the surface. A couple of straight arrows who want to raise a bunch of cute, happy kids. But there’s something a little bit…” Lacey let the sentence trail off unfinished.

Jenna shifted in her chair impatiently. “What? A little bit what?”

“I don’t know. Lukewarm, I guess. Something kind of tepid about the whole thing.”

Jenna felt defensive—and tried not to let it show. “Logan and I are both mature adults now. We know what we want. If that seems lukewarm to you—”

Lacey put up a hand, palm out. “Look. Sorry. I’m talking out of turn. Logan adores you. He always has.”

Jenna easily read between the lines of what Lacey had just said. When Lacey used words like tepid and lukewarm, it wasn’t Logan she was talking about.

Jenna shifted in her chair again. “There is a lot more to making a marriage work than how much heat is generated.”

“I realize that,” Lacey said gently. “Honestly I do.” She reached across the table and wiggled her fingers. “Come on. Put ’er there.”

Jenna slid her hand into her sister’s.

“So,” Lacey said. “What do you plan to do now?”

Jenna groaned. “Leave the country?”

Lacey gave Jenna’s hand a squeeze. “Come on. Seriously. What next?”

“Well, I’ll see a lawyer on Monday, just to make certain of my options.”

“And then?”

“If it turns out there’s nothing I can do but give Mack his two weeks or divorce him all over again, I’m going to wait a while. Hang tough, as you put it. See if, just maybe, I can outlast him. I mean, eventually he has to get tired of hanging around here…doesn’t he?”

“Hey, don’t ask me. I’m only the little sister—and if he won’t give up and give you the papers, then what?”

“What choice do I have? I’ll start divorce proceedings. Again.”

Lacey looked down at their joined hands. “What will you tell Logan?”

“The truth.”

“When?”

Now Jenna was squeezing Lacey’s hand. She teased, “For someone who has never liked Logan, you seem awfully worried about him all of a sudden.”

Lacey pulled away. “What do you mean, I never liked Logan? Of course I like Logan. Just because he drives me insane with his endless and irritating advice on how I should run my life doesn’t mean I don’t care about him—and you haven’t answered my question. When will you tell him?”

“As soon as he gets back from Seattle.”

Jenna went to see a new lawyer on Monday and heard what she already knew. She could turn in the old papers, signed by both parties, and be eligible to remarry in about six months. Or she could start the whole process all over again.

After she talked to the lawyer, she did nothing. After all, she told herself, that was what she had planned to do, see if she could wait Mack out.

Logan had arrived home too late on Sunday for them to get together. But Monday night they went out to dinner. Jenna planned to tell him about Mack then. But she didn’t. She said nothing. She spent the meal asking him a thousand unnecessary questions about his trip and trying her best not to let him see how on edge she was.

Logan stopped in at the house for a while when he took her home. Lacey was there. Logan mentioned that he’d noticed an ad in the Meadow Valley Sun. The local art supply store needed a sales representative.

“Thanks, Doc,” Lacey replied. “But I think I’d rather enter a convent. Or maybe hire myself out to a medical research lab somewhere. You know, as a human guinea pig for important experiments that could mean the end of cancer in our lifetime.”

Logan let out a weary sigh. “Lacey, I’m not joking. It might turn out to be a good thing for you.”

Lacey opened her mouth to utter more wisecracks, but Jenna caught her eye. Lacey smiled sweetly. “No, thanks, Doc. Really.” A moment later she slipped from the room.

She reappeared as soon as Logan left.

“You didn’t tell him, did you?” She was shaking her head.

“I just couldn’t bear to.”

“You’ll have to. Eventually.”

“I know. And I will. Eventually.”

But not right now.

For right now, Jenna waited. Though she couldn’t sleep at night and she was distracted in the daytime, she waited. And felt frustration and misery and a kind of righteous fury that Mack had put her in this untenable position in the first place.

She waited, hoping against hope that Mack would see how unreasonable and outlandish his ultimatum was. That she’d check the mailbox one evening and find the signed papers there—along with a short note of apology from Mack saying he regretted any pain he’d caused her and he was headed back to Key West.

She waited.

And she thought too much about Mack—so much that she found herself wishing more than anything that she could make herself stop thinking about him. She wished she could stop thinking about the ways he was the same as he used to be—and the ways he was different. Wished she could stop wondering about what he might be doing with himself, hanging out at the Northern Empire Inn with nothing to do but wait for her to call. She wished she could stop thinking about how she shouldn’t be thinking about him and she was going to stop thinking about him—which only led her to think about him some more.

On Wednesday she and Logan met for lunch. He frowned at her across the table and said she seemed distracted lately. He wanted to know what was wrong.

She evaded. She thought, this will all blow over. Mack will come to his senses and send me the papers and then Logan and I can laugh about how silly the whole thing was.

Logan said, “Those papers haven’t come from Florida yet, have they? Is that what’s been on your mind?”

She gulped and admitted that the divorce papers had been on her mind, and that no, she didn’t have them yet.

“Maybe you should call Mack McGarrity again.”

Before she was forced to come up with a reply to that suggestion, the waiter miraculously appeared with their food. Once the waiter left, she exercised great care to move the conversation onto safer ground.

On Wednesday evening, as she was closing up the shop, Jenna thought she saw Mack across the street, just going into a store called Furniture By Hand. She stood at her own shop window for several minutes, waiting to see him come out of the other shop’s door. He never emerged, at least not while she watched for him.

She wondered, was it really Mack? Or just someone who looked like him? Or worse, could it be her imagination working scarily overtime? It occurred to her that she couldn’t even be sure that he was still in town.

That night she called the Northern Empire Inn for the second time. She asked for Mack McGarrity’s room. And the clerk put her through.

He answered on the second ring that time. “McGarrity here.”

She said, “I was hoping you might have come to your senses and gone home.”

“No. I’m still here.”

“This isn’t right, Mack. It isn’t fair.”

She heard him draw in a breath. “It’s only two weeks, Jenna.”

“Give me those papers and go back to Florida where you belong.”

“Not until you come with me.”

She knew that the next thing she said would be shouted. So she hung up the phone, her nerves disgustingly aflutter.

She thought of those words her sister had used. Lukewarm. And tepid.

There was certainly nothing tepid about her response to Mack McGarrity.

But what about Logan? Was she lukewarm and tepid when it came to him?

Well, what if she was—just a little?

Maybe she liked it that way. Maybe she was mature enough now to appreciate a kinder, gentler sort of love.

Except…

Well, it had been beautiful with Mack. In bed. Beautiful and astonishing and utterly right.

And the truth was, she and Logan had never actually made love. Not in the complete sense of the word. Not in the consummated sense.

They’d agreed to wait until after the wedding.

And waiting had seemed good and right, up till now.

Up till Mack McGarrity had appeared in town.

Up until those dreams Jenna kept having now about the way it used to be with Mack. How Mack couldn’t keep his hands off her and how she couldn’t stay away from him.

How they didn’t wait.

Maybe, she thought Wednesday night, after she hung up on Mack for the second time that week, she and Logan needed not to wait. Maybe she and Logan needed a night in each other’s arms. A night to seal their bond in the most elemental of ways.

Yes. That might just be it. She needed to make love with Logan in order to wipe out the memory of Mack’s touch.

She shared her insight with Lacey on Thursday night.

Lacey blinked those big blue eyes. “Wait a minute. You’re saying you and Dr. Do-Right have never…?”

“We were waiting.” Jenna hated how prim she sounded. “Until the wedding. And stop calling him Dr. Do-Right.”

Lacey nodded, a very unconvinced sort of nod. “Waiting. Right.”

“People do wait, you know.”

“I know.”

“You’re not acting as if you know.”

“Well, I mean, it just took me by surprise, that’s all. The thought of it, of you and—”

“Do not call him—”

“I won’t. The thought of you and Logan…” Lacey’s face was red.

“The thought of Logan and me what?”

“Well, you know. In bed. Making love. I never thought about that. But I guess that makes sense—that it would be hard for me to picture.” Lacey laughed, a thoroughly irritating little titter of a laugh. “Because you’ve never done it, right?”

Jenna felt vaguely insulted. “You are not helping me out one bit here.”

“I’m trying.”

“Try harder.”

“I will.”

“Good. So?”

“So, in my humble opinion, if you really want to seal your bond with Logan, the first thing you ought to do is to tell him the truth. That Mack’s taken a room at the Northern Empire Inn and he intends to stay there until you agree to go away with him.”

“I am not going to go away with Mack.”

“Don’t tell me that, tell Logan.”

“I will.”

“When?”

“Tomorrow night, all right? Is that good enough for you?”

“Now is better. And don’t look at me like that. You asked.”

“Well, fine. All right. I’ll call him right now, tell him I need to talk with him.”

Lacey turned around and snared the phone off the breakfast nook wall. “Here you go.”

Jenna took it—and then just sat there, holding it.

“What?” Lacey groaned. “All of a sudden you’ve forgotten his number?”

“Of course I haven’t forgotten his number. I know his number.”

“Hey. Look here. You’ve got him on autodial.”

“Lacey—”

But it was too late. Lacey had punched the button and Logan’s phone was ringing.

“This is Dr. Severance.”

“Uh. Hello.”

“Jenna. Hello.” As always, he sounded so happy to hear her voice. “What’s up?”

“I wonder…” She hesitated.

Lacey mouthed the words, “Do it!”

Jenna made a face at her sister and then forced herself to go on. “Do you think you could come over here? There are a few things I need to talk to you about.” Lacey gave her the high sign and a big, congratulatory grin.

Logan said, “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. I just…really need to talk to you.”

“I’ll be over right away.”

Chapter Four

Lacey decided to make herself scarce. As she went out the door, she advised, “Don’t wait up—and don’t you dare chicken out this time.”

“I won’t,” Jenna replied, sounding a lot more confident than she felt.

Logan arrived five minutes later. Jenna led him to the back parlor, the big, comfortable room off the kitchen, where the family had always gathered. He sat on the roomy dark green convertible sofa and looked up at her, a worried frown creasing his brow. “This is about whatever’s been bothering you for the past week, isn’t it?”

She sat down beside him. “Yes.”

He turned toward her, still frowning. In his somber expression she saw his concern for her. And his love. “You know that whatever it is, you can tell me, don’t you?”

“I know. I just…”

“You know that I love you?”

“I do. And I love you.” It was true. She did love him.

But not in the way she had loved Mack McGarrity.

And that did bother her. It bothered her terribly.

“Logan, I wonder…?”

“Yes?”

“Would you…kiss me? Really kiss me?”

He sat back from her a little. “Kiss you? I thought you were going to tell me—”

She put three fingers lightly against his lips, to silence him. “I will. I’ll tell you. I’ll explain everything. Just…would you please kiss me first?”

His dark gaze scanned her face. “Kiss you.”

“Yes. Please.”

His expression softened a little, the worried frown fading. He slid an arm around her shoulder and gently, with the tip of a finger, tipped her mouth up to his.

Light as a breath, his lips met hers. His mouth was warm and soft and his big arms cradled her cherishingly.

She closed her eyes and tried to give herself fully to the act of kissing him, sliding her hands up his broad chest, allowing her lips to part, inviting him to deepen the kiss. His tongue slid into her mouth.

Jenna sighed. But she knew as the small, tender sound escaped her that it was a fake sigh, a forced sigh, an effort to convince herself—and Logan, too—that she was an eager participant in this.

Jenna closed her eyes tighter, kissed him back harder, tried to call up memories of when they’d been teenagers.

Teenagers necking in the front seat of his car.

It had been exciting then, hadn’t it? She was certain it had.

But now wasn’t then.

Between now and then, there had been Mack.

Mack.

That did it. Just the thought of his name.

Jenna shoved at Logan’s chest.

Startled, Logan pulled away enough to look down at her. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

He still had his arms around her. She felt trapped there, all wrong there. “Please. Let go.”

He released her and sat back. “Jenna. What the hell is going on here?”

“I…I don’t think I can marry you, Logan.” She didn’t know she was going to say it until after the words were out. And then, once she had said it, she stared at him, stunned at what she herself had just uttered.

Logan stared back at her, bewildered. And hurt.

“Why not?”

She took his hand and looked into his face, right into his eyes. “You are such a good man. A kind man. A man who wants just what I want. A man I could always count on to be there when I needed him…”

“Then why can’t you marry me?”

“Because this…you and me…it just isn’t right for me.”

His dark eyes were shining, a shine that very well might have come from unshed tears. Jenna watched his Adam’s apple move as he swallowed, forcing down the emotions a man hesitates to reveal.

When he spoke, as always, he strove for calm and reason. “And how did you come to this realization?”

She looked away, and then back. And then, finally, she made herself say it. “Mack’s in town. He’s refused to sign the divorce papers unless I spend two weeks with him first.”

Logan swore under his breath. Then he asked, carefully, “How long has he been here?”

“A week.”

“And you…didn’t feel you could tell me?”

“I kept hoping he’d give up and go away. I’m furious with him, and I can’t believe he’s doing this and…I just wanted it to all be over before I said anything to you.”

“But it’s not over.”

Jenna hitched in a tight breath. “No. It’s not.”

“You’re talking about more than just the divorce papers, aren’t you? You’re talking about you and him.”

Jenna wished with all her heart that she didn’t have to answer that. But she knew that she did.

“I believed it was over, between Mack and me,” she said. “I swear I did, or I never would have said yes when you asked me to marry you.”

“But…?”

“But the minute I saw him again…” She shook her head. “I don’t want to get back together with him. It could never work out. But there is unfinished business between Mack McGarrity and me. And I think I’m going to have to take care of it.”

“Wait a minute. Don’t tell me that you’ll do what he wants you to do, that you’ll actually go away with him!”

Jenna swallowed. “I…it’s possible. I just might.”

Logan held her hand more tightly, squeezing the fingers hard enough that she winced. “Jenna. Look what’s going on here, look at the way he’s maneuvering you. He’s a manipulative S.O.B.”

Gently Jenna pulled her hand free. “Lacey more or less called him the same thing.”

“It looks like this is one situation where Lacey and I actually agree.”

“You don’t understand. You don’t know him. He lost his parents when he was very young. He never had a real family. He grew up in foster homes. He had to scratch and scuffle for everything he ever got. When he wants something, he goes after it, any way he has to.”

“And he’s decided, after all this time, that he wants you?”

“I can’t read his mind. But I do know there was a time when he and I shared something very special. He told me last Friday that he was trying to come to grips with what went wrong.”

“He’s chosen a hell of a way to go about it.”

“As I said, it’s the only way he knows.”

Logan made a low noise in his throat. “Listen to you. Defending him.”

She put her hand against the side of his face, longing to make him understand. “Logan. I have to do this.”

Scowling, he ducked away from her touch. “I think it’s time I had a nice long talk with that—”

“Please. Don’t.”

“Jenna. He’s forced you into this.”

“No. No, he hasn’t. I don’t have to go with him. I could divorce him all over again. It might take time, but it wouldn’t take forever. If I go away with him, it will be because I choose to do it. For myself.”

Logan looked at her piercingly. “You’re sure?”

“I am.” She slid the ring off her finger and held it out.

“Keep it,” Logan said.

“No. That wouldn’t be right.”

Reluctantly he took it. A few minutes later, she walked him to the door.

And ten minutes after that, she was walking out herself. She got into her car and headed straight for the Northern Empire Inn. She knew the way. The inn was a Meadow Valley landmark, built over a century before.

She was lucky. She found a parking space near the front entrance. The fine old wood floors creaked a little under her feet as she strode through the foyer and up to the front desk.

“Mack McGarrity’s room, please.”

The desk clerk, who looked about twenty and had big brown eyes, smiled at her sweetly. “I’ll ring his room and tell him he has a visitor. Your name, please?”

“Just tell me where his room is. I’ll find it myself.”

“Oh, I can’t do that.” The clerk’s brown eyes had gone wider than before.

“And why not?”

“Well, I mean, it’s…” Her smooth brow furrowed as she tried to think why. And then she remembered. She announced, with great pride, probably quoting from a training manual, “Because all of our guests have a reasonable expectation of privacy.”

Mack McGarrity has no expectation of privacy at all, Jenna thought, not right now, not when it comes to me….

But of course, she didn’t say that. The clerk was only following orders. “My name is Jenna Bravo. Tell him I’d like to come to his room.”

“One moment, please.”

The clerk turned to the antique switchboard behind her and rang Mack’s room. When she turned back, she was all smiles again. “Mr. McGarrity is expecting you.”

“I’ll bet he is,” Jenna muttered to herself.

“Excuse me?”

“I said, I’ll be so glad to see him. Which room is he in?”

“He’s taken the East Bungalow. Go out that door there, across the back patio and take the trail that winds to your right.”

The East Bungalow, nestled among the oaks well away from the main building, was a wood frame structure, blue with white trim. It had a cute little white porch, complete with a rocker, a swing and planters under the front windows. The lights were on inside, spilling a golden glow out into the mild September night.

The door was wide open and Mack was standing in the doorway—lounging, really, looking lazy and insolent and quite pleased with himself. As Jenna marched up the porch steps to confront him, he gave her a slow once-over with hooded eyes.

Her body responded to his glance as if he had touched her. A hot little shiver slid over her skin, a shiver of awareness, of sensual recognition.

He straightened from his slouch and folded his arms over his chest. “It’s about time you showed up.”

She paused on the threshold. He was blocking the doorway. “May I come in?”

“By all means.” He stepped aside.

She entered warily, into a front sitting room decorated in Victorian style, with lace curtains at the windows, glass-shaded lamps and a sofa and love seat with carved claw-footed legs. Most of the furniture had been pushed against the wall to make room for two desks, set at right angles to each other. One desk had a laptop, a fax machine and telephone on it, the other a full-size computer, complete with mammoth monitor. At the moment, the monitor was running a screensaver of planets, stars and moons hurtling endlessly through deep space.

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