“What did you see?”

Cathy blushed, coming across a tad too indignant for a woman who was half out of her bra.

“I saw everything.” Zack’s lips grazed her tilted chin, followed the line of her neck to her delicate collarbone. “I saw these.” He closed both hands over her breasts, kneading until an arousal nearly as hot as his own was radiating from her in shimmering waves. “I saw you.”

She gave a deep sigh and leaned against him, her body lax. “Kiss me again,” she said, parting her lips and cutting the last string of his control.

With a groan, he covered her mouth with his and ground his body against hers.

“I can’t take this,” he said, wrenching away. “Either we go home now or wind up flat on the dirt floor.”

She glanced down, then lifted her gaze to his. “I guess I’m too practical not to prefer a bed.”

He pressed his fingertips to her swollen lips. “Then hold that thought,” he said, silently thankful that he still had the Jaguar parked outside.

Zero to ninety in a matter of seconds sounded almost fast enough….

Dear Reader,

Remember your first crush? Maybe it was on Davy Jones or Kevin Bacon or Brad Pitt. And maybe it was on the cutest, most popular boy in the fifth grade….

Cathy Timmerman remembers her first crush, Zack Brody. And when she returns to the town where they first met, she learns that he’s grown up even better than she’d imagined—in fact, the man is a legendary Romeo! It turns out that a group of Zack’s old girlfriends are looking for a woman to give the “Smooth Operator” a taste of his own medicine. Cathy—no longer the chubby social outcast—finds herself volunteered. But can she really seduce Zack…and then leave him? Especially when he’s even better in person than in her dreams?

Happy reading!

Carrie Alexander

P.S. Please let me know if you liked Zack and Cathy. You can write to me in care of Harlequin or by e-mail at www.tempationauthors.com.

Books by Carrie Alexander

HARLEQUIN TEMPTATION

536—FANCY-FREE

598—ALL SHOOK UP

689—BLACK VELVET

704—A TOUCH OF BLACK VELVET

720—BLACK VELVET VALENTINES

HARLEQUIN DUETS

25—CUSTOM-BUILT COWBOY

32—COUNTERFEIT COWBOY

38—KEEPSAKE COWBOY

Smooth Moves
Carrie Alexander

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Prologue

FOR SUCH AN ordinary middle-American town, Quimby had its share of legends. There was the ghost who haunted the clock tower of the old stone courthouse. There was Eunice LaSalle, the 1962 prom queen who’d gone to Hollywood and costarred in an Elvis beach flick. Reputedly, a monster muskie lived in Mirror Lake and nibbled on the toes—or various other bobbing appendages—of unwary skinny-dippers. And on one unforgettable night in 1985, the Quimby Kingpins had beaten the Buxton Bluejackets with a half-court lob at the buzzer, 53 to 52.

Then there was Heartbreak.

Zachary “Heartbreak” Brody, aka The Smooth Operator.

A man who was a legend in his own time, according to the female half of Quimby’s populace.

And they would know.

As it happened, the five women who’d been most seriously “Heartbroken” gathered every Wednesday evening at Cathy Timmerman’s arts and crafts shop. Scarborough Faire—formerly known as Kay’s Krafts—was at 1208 Central Street, Quimby’s version of Main Street, U.S.A. An innocent setting for the chicanery to come. Although, as it would turn out, appearances were decidedly deceiving.

The weekly meeting of the five women in question was purported to be an informal craft class. Local ladies signed up left and right for Cathy’s other classes, even woodburning and china painting, but the Wednesday-night calligraphers had closed their ranks to the uninitiated. Group therapy hadn’t been their initial intention, yet nearly every week the talk turned to Zack Brody: What he’d done to them, how they still hadn’t recovered, where he was now, whose heart he was currently breaking with his deceptively charming and oh, so smooth and seductive ways.

Which was not to say that the five women hated the man. Goodness, no.

It was Zack’s particular skill that he’d left even his jilted bride harboring certain feelings—definitely more than fond—for him. In fact, if the truth be known, several of the women maintained a secret fantasy that someday she would be the one to capture the legendary Lothario’s heart for good. The likelihood that the rest of his perfect male specimen body would be included in the deal was…not unpleasant.

Be that as it may, there were also times, when the hour grew late and strong ink fumes had gone to their heads, that the five women bandied about a suitable revenge. ’Twas only fair, they said. Heartbreak should have a taste of his own medicine.

Thus, upon the fateful evening of Heartbreak Brody’s prodigal return to Quimby, a scheme was afoot. A nefarious plot that would turn out to be neither as easy nor as simple as intended. But far more effective.

And it all began at Cathy Bell Timmerman’s arts and crafts shop….

1

“YOU’LL NEVER GUESS,” Gwendolyn Case boomed as she sailed through Scarborough Faire’s aisles toward the long farmhouse table where the rest of the Wednesday-night calligraphers had already taken out their pens and papers. “Guess who’s coming back to Quimby!”

Cathy Timmerman, the shopkeeper and head calligrapher, stifled her sigh of frustration. Calligraphy required concentration, hard to come by with this group.

Faith Fagan, a wan blonde, looked confused. “But you said we’d never—”

“Guess!” With one forceful word, buxom brunette Gwendolyn easily silenced meek Faith. Suffused with the power of her knowledge, Gwen put her hands on her hips and smiled broadly at the group. As self-appointed doyenne of the post office, she had her ear to the grapevine…and her mouth perpetually set to gossip mode.

Looking as peaked as Faith, Laurel Barnard slumped against the spindle back of one of the wooden chairs Cathy had picked up at rummage sales and then painted with colorful, whimsical patterns of swirls, dots, stripes and stars. Laurel, the pretty owner of the dress shop next door, opened her mouth, then couldn’t seem to summon words. Only one man was legend enough to evince such an announcement.

“Heartbreak,” said a calm voice.

Gwendolyn’s head spun around. Air huffed through her open mouth.

Carefully Julia Knox lifted the point of her pen off the paper. She shook her head so that a misplaced strand of honey-brown hair fell neatly into place in her precision-cut bob. “Yes, ladies, it’s shocking but true. Zack Brody is returning to Quimby.”

Somewhat deflated now that she’d been beaten to the punch, Gwen plopped into a peppermint-striped chair. “Yeah. You’re right.”

Allie Spangler said, “Boy-oh-boy-oh-boy,” and then suddenly all five of the Heartbroken were talking at once, even Faith.

Only Cathy Timmerman, whose position with the Wednesday nighters was often less that of a crafts teacher than a therapist, was silent. And it wasn’t because she didn’t know Zack “Heartbreak” Brody, although as far as these women and the rest of the town were concerned, she didn’t. Never met him at all.

Presumably.

Cathy had moved to Quimby only seven months ago, and Zack Brody had been gone for approximately a year. All she knew of him as an adult were the praises sung by the townsfolk and the frequent yet affectionate complaints lodged by the Wednesday nighters.

A year should have been enough time to heal a broken heart—even five of them—but of course Heartbreak was a legend unto himself. Ordinarily, Cathy might have believed that in Zack’s case time and distance had served to heighten, even exaggerate, his reputed lady-killer charms. She would have taken the women’s words with not just a grain but an entire shaker of salt.

Ordinarily, she might have.

If not for her secret.

“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” Allie Spangler shouted above the fray. The women quieted. “Personally, I can’t believe it. Only last week—” Allie scrambled for her purse to a quartet of groans. “Okay, only a month ago, I had a postcard from Zack. He didn’t mention—aha, here it is!” She pulled the item from her disorganized saddlebag of a purse, blissfully unaware that the worn card’s continuing presence in her happily-married life was telling in its own way. Waving a red-rock canyon river scene at the other women, she said, “Zack’s still in Idaho with his brother.”

“A month ago, Allie.” Julia checked the postmark. April 6th. “Make that nearly two months ago.”

“So there,” Gwen said. “Kelly Thompson heard from the Rickeys in Florida who are neighbors to Eve Brody’s sister. Heartbreak’s coming home. Soon.”

“Julia?” Laurel’s voice was reedy. “Is this true? What do you know?”

With the excuse that she didn’t want anyone fainting in her store, Cathy was watching Laurel Barnard closely. The fellow shopkeeper’s face had gone from stark white to a mottled rosy pink. There was a fine trembling about her mouth. Though Cathy’s own emotions were in turmoil, she girded herself to minister first to Laurel.

Poor, poor Laurel. Heartbreak’s jilted bride.

Pale, feminine, maidenly slim at twenty-eight, Laurel’s air was delicate—misleadingly so, in Cathy’s opinion. Then again, at hearing the news, Laurel had believably gone from merely delicate to fragile as antique porcelain. The panic in her eyes seemed very real. While Cathy had never been sure if she entirely believed Laurel’s side of the cancelled wedding, she did sympathize with the woman. Being forever known as Quimby’s resident jilted bride couldn’t be easy.

Julia Knox capped her bottle of ink, her strong features drawn together in thought. She had been Heartbreak’s long-term girlfriend—from high school through a few years of college—and yet was still the most philosophical about him. While stingy with details, she claimed their breakup had been amicable. However, she also seemed to take little serious interest in the men she’d dated in the years hence.

“I’m afraid it’s true, Laurel.” Julia placed her manicured hand on the other woman’s sleeve. “Zack told me to take the Brody house off the market months ago.”

“Months?” Gwen was outraged. “And you kept it to yourself?”

Laurel sniffled. Faith handed her a tissue.

Julia was a Realtor. The Realtor, insular Quimby-style. “Zack and I haven’t spoken. He sent me a fax, Gwen. It didn’t provide any information concrete enough to share, except that he was planning to eventually return to town.”

Whatever Julia’s inside information, Cathy was certain that the real estate agent wouldn’t have shared inappropriate details. And definitely not with Gwen, whose heart was in the right place beneath her bluster, but whose restraint was suspect.

Upon her arrival in Quimby, Cathy had purchased her business and leased a house through Julia Knox’s small but exceedingly professional agency. She’d soon seen that in business dealings, Julia was cool, efficient, responsible. Once earned as a friend, she was warm, thoughtful and unquestionably loyal. Cathy valued Julia’s word above all others.

“I heard he’s arriving tomorrow,” Gwen said, dropping the bomb.

Faith squeaked. Laurel gasped. “Tomorrow!”

Allie’s freckles stood out in stark relief; she looked like she’d swallowed a frog. “Urg,” she said thickly, waving her hands.

“There’s no need to get crazy over this,” Julia counseled the agitated women. “Zack has every right to come back to Quimby—”

“Huh!” Gwendolyn crossed her arms over her chest, looking combative.

Laurel spoke. “I’ll say this—the town’s not big enough for both of us.”

Cathy was startled by the seething resentment evident in Laurel’s voice. Admittedly, being jilted by your catch-of-a-lifetime groom at the very altar of your dream-come-true wedding was not something a woman gets over in a week’s time. A year later, though…

Cathy shrugged inwardly. Who was she to question Laurel’s animosity toward Zack Brody? She, herself, had known him for only the one school year. Fifth grade, at that. And his memory had lingered for nearly two decades.

The man’s charms were potent.

It stood to reason that his betrayal would be poisonous.

Evidently Julia thought so, too. When she looked at Laurel, her amber hazel eyes filled with sympathy, and something more. Perhaps a touch of exasperation? Nonetheless, she wound a comforting arm around the woman she’d known for years. “You don’t have to associate with him, Laurel.”

Laurel heaved a watery sigh and laid her head on Julia’s shoulder. Her moment of vindictiveness had dissipated into a kind of childish helplessness that Cathy had seen her employ before. “I don’t see how I can avoid it.”

Gwen’s eyes were avid. “You can bet he’ll be showing up everywhere, shaking hands, making amends. Heck, most of the town’s already forgiven him. They still think he’s the greatest thing since Oxie Shaw made the basket that beat Buxton.”

“It wasn’t for them to judge him in the first place.” Short, auburn-haired Allie Colton Spangler was staunchly proHeartbreak. Not even the circumstances of Laurel’s jilting had shaken her good opinion of the man. The Coltons and the Brodys had been neighbors; Allie had grown up with Zack. Their relationship had never been romantic—which may have been why she was the only currently married woman among them—but they had been extremely close. Even her husband accepted that Heartbreak would always own a special place in Allie’s heart.

“What Zack did was wrong.” Once roused, Julia’s disapproval was fierce. “It may have turned out that he had a good reason, with his brother and all, but to skip town on the day of the wedding without explanation, leaving Laurel to contend with all the mess and questions—” Lips compressed, Julia shook her head in censure. “No wonder she can’t forgive him.”

Laurel swept aside the lustrous wave of rich chestnut hair that had fallen across her face. “Oh, I hate to remember. It was so humiliating….”

Faith cooed with commiseration.

Idly, Cathy drew elaborate swirls and curlicues on her practice paper. No calligraphy tonight. Since Heartbreak’s actions had stuck Laurel with the role of tragic jilted heroine whether she liked it or not, the woman had chosen to play it to the hilt. There would be no quick end to the dramatic embellishments of her legendary trauma.

A temporary escape seemed advisable. Feeling guilty about the short shrift of her sympathy for Laurel, Cathy offered to make a quick run to the Central Street Café for coffee and sweets.

When she returned ten minutes later with a tray of steaming foam cups and a box of assorted baked goods, Laurel was in better shape. Or at least sitting upright, Cathy noted as she distributed coffee, plastic spoons, and packets of sugar and cream. Progress.

“He shouldn’t get away with it,” Laurel said, adding a minuscule sprinkling of sugar to her coffee. Color flamed high in her cheeks; her green eyes were unnaturally bright. “I’ve suffered. So should he.”

Cathy held her tongue. Laurel’s “suffering” included the condolence gift of a fashionable dress shop by her placating parents, considerable leeway from the townsfolk and a steady string of suitors eager to restore her faith in men.

Julia agreed—with caution. “A stern scolding is in order.”

Gwen snorted. “A scolding? How about a tar-and-feathering?”

Wide-eyed, Allie put down a half-eaten doughnut and wiped powdered sugar off the tips of her prominent nose and jutting chin. The unorthodox features were at odds with her bubbly personality and rounded figure. “Are we talking revenge?” Allie’s eyes glinted. She may have been Zack’s champion, but she was also an inveterate prankster. “Hmm. Well. Gee. Maybe one nasty turn does deserve another.”

“Teach him a lesson,” Gwen vowed, spraying cookie crumbs.

“Break his heart,” Faith put in.

The women turned toward Faith as one, clearly struck by the idea.

The quiet secretary’s gaze lowered. Her chin dropped. “Why shouldn’t he know what it feels like?” she murmured into her coffee, giving them a quick glance through her colorless lashes.

As far as Cathy knew, Faith Fagan’s only connection to Zack was the crush she’d been nursing ever since he’d rescued her from drowning in Mirror Lake during his suitably legendary stint as town lifeguard. The women’s description of Heartbreak in swimming trunks—handsome, tanned, sporting sun-bleached highlights, a mile-wide chest and a six-pack of tight, toned abs—was so vivid that Cathy could almost see him herself when she closed her eyes and concentrated. Which she found herself doing all too often.

Gwen gave one sharp clap of her hands. “Exactly.” Twice divorced, it was her contention that a formative junior-high fling with Heartbreak had ruined her for other men. Ordinary men.

Julia frowned. “Let’s not be harsh.”

“You know, I think Faith’s hit on something.” Allie was contemplative. “Now, I’m not saying I want to see Zack hurt. But it does make sense that if he were to have an inkling of how his ex-girlfriends feel, maybe he won’t be quite so cavalier in his treatment of the next woman.” Her long, narrow nose twitched. “And we all know there’s going to be a next woman.”

“With Zack,” Julia said, nodding, “there always is.”

“It’s about time—” Gwen snapped her chocolate-chip cookie in half “—for Heartbreak to experience heartbreak.”

“But how?” Faith asked.

“Hmm.” Laurel’s eyes narrowed. “All we need is a woman. A beautiful woman, obviously. Someone to attract Zack, seduce him to his begging knees, then cut him down cold. Without explanation. Leave him wondering what the hell happened.” She smiled.

“That sounds kind of mean,” Faith murmured.

Laurel’s eyes flashed. “No meaner than what he did to me.”

“I don’t know…” Julia started to say, but Gwen cut her off.

“Where are we gonna find the woman?” she demanded. “Not in Quimby. Heartbreak’s already scorched the playing field.”

“I’m sure there are a number of younger girls who’d be more than willing,” Laurel said through gritted teeth.

Julia shook her head. “A twenty-year-old won’t do. Zack is attracted to more than a pretty face and a nubile body.”

Laurel conceded the point. “I suppose the woman has to have a degree of substance.”

“And intelligence,” added Julia. “Let’s throw out some names.”

“Karen or Kelly?”

Gwen made a face. “Naw, he’s known them forever.”

“Caitlyn Dumbrowski?”

“Bleach job,” Laurel sneered.

“Erica James?”

“Already hooked up with Heartbreak, like, ten years ago.”

“Suzy Maki?”

“With those teeth? She should be seducing a dentist.”

“Then who?”

“Sara Carlisle will be vacationing at her family’s cabin next month,” Julia suggested. “She’s absolutely gorgeous and smart enough to have made it through law school. And a feminist, too. I bet she’d be game, for the good of the cause.”

Allie waved a hand. “Nope, not Sara. Zack already went out with her—somewhere in between you and Laurel. But she was too smart to fall for his smooth moves.”

“Unlike us,” Gwen said, dourly eyeing a fudge bar.

“We need someone new.” With a sigh, Laurel scanned the women at the table for further suggestions. Her gaze skidded to a halt when it reached Cathy’s face, temporarily filled with cherry streusel. Brows arched, she glanced back at Julia. “Someone like Cathy.”

Julia nodded immediately. “Yes. Zack would go for Cathy.”

“Ohh—” Flushing hotly, Cathy put down the streusel and licked her sticky fingers. “Oh, no. Not me.” She threw up her hands, fingertips glistening. “Don’t even consider it. I’m not the type.”

“You could be.” Laurel studied Cathy’s stark ponytail, horn-rimmed glasses and loose, shapeless clothing. “Take off your glasses. And that awful apron.”

Defensively Cathy wrapped her arms around the denim apron that bore evidence of her close working association with paint, glue, papier-mâché and clay. “No.”

Laurel snatched off the glasses. “Uh-huh. See that, girls? Those are good bones. The brows desperately need tweezing, and makeup will make a world of difference, but I see definite possibilities.” She rose gracefully, walked around Cathy and with a tug loosened the ponytail. Cathy’s long wavy hair fell across her shoulders, such a rich shade of sable it was nearly black.

“Ahhh,” the women chorused.

“Why, Cath, you’re beautiful,” Allie said. “I never realized.”

“I’m not—” Cathy swallowed the denial, though it went down like a sticky lump of clay. Objectively, she knew that she was…attractive. Or could be, if she cared to make the effort. After a bit of trial and error in her younger days—a time that had included a brief audacious-babe stage and a mistaken marriage of equally short duration—she had reached the conclusion that she wasn’t comfortable with the attention and perks that came with being a beautiful woman.

“I’m not the type,” she insisted, shrugging Laurel’s hands away from smoothing out her hair. “Please don’t ask me to do this.”

“You won’t have to actually sleep with Heartbreak,” Julia assured her. “In fact, the plan would be more effective if you don’t. Getting him all worked up and then leaving him frustrated would be quite a shock to the guy’s ego.”

Allie chuckled. “No one’s ever done that before.”

“We’ll coach you,” coaxed Laurel. “For one thing—” she grasped a bunch of gauzy fabric at Cathy’s midriff, pulling taut her batik Balinese blouse “—new clothes from my store would make a world of difference. Something sleek and stylish. There’s a waist and hips under here… I think.” She stepped back, considering.

Cathy shifted on her chair, uneasy with the assessment.

“What’s your bra size? I’ve got a new line of lingerie that’s just…” Laurel kissed her fingertips. “Heartbreak will never recover.”

Cathy tightened her crossed arms. “Forget it. Nobody, least of all Zack Brody, is getting a look at my lingerie.” Or lack of it, she thought. Jockey for Her underwear was good enough for this woman. Satin and lace, corsets and garter belts weren’t her style. Or at least she was pretty sure they weren’t.

“I can give you the right look,” Laurel said as if Cathy hadn’t spoken. “Julia and Allie can give you insight into Heartbreak’s mind. We’ll put the whole thing together. All you have to do is follow directions.”

“I can’t,” Cathy said plaintively. Good thing they had no idea how much she wanted to. “Honestly.” She gestured at herself. “There’s no use. I could never pull it off.”

“Not even for womankind?” Allie asked.

“Or for plain old-fashioned revenge?” Gwen chimed in.

Cathy’s heart clenched. “No.”

“Yes,” Laurel said. There was iron in her voice, which belied the hurt expression she’d assumed in begging Cathy’s favor. “C’mon, Cath. You’re my only hope for retribution. Imagine for one minute how terrible I felt when that—that—smooth operator jilted me.” Laurel’s eyes shifted. “Think of how delicious an appropriate payback would be.”

The women murmured in agreement.

Cathy closed her eyes. “I couldn’t. No…” Her denials were losing strength. But not because of Laurel’s devastation or the future of womankind.

Because of Zack.

Twenty-odd years ago, she’d taken him to her tender, wounded heart. The thought of seeing him again, attracting him, seducing him, maybe even loving him—

And making him fall in love with her in return.

Cathy’s eyes opened wide. Of course. That was it. She was being handed the chance of a lifetime!

The women watched her expectantly.

Cathy made a snap decision.

Disregarding both the legend behind Zack’s nickname and the genesis of her own insecurities, she took a deep breath and said with all the courage and conviction she could muster: “All right, then. I’ll do it.”

The women cheered.

For my own reasons, Cathy added silently, smiling weakly as Laurel hugged her around the shoulders.

2

ZACK BRODY hung off the side of the Eighth Street Bridge, staring down at the scalloped river. The water looked as black and hard as polished obsidian, each facet glistening coldly in the light from a crescent moon.

The drop was harrowing.

He hesitated, considering, where once he’d have leapt without fear.

This early in the summer, the water would be cold. Shockingly cold.

Deep. Dark. An oblivion.

His fingertips scraped over rough stone. Bare feet shifted on a narrow ledge of rock, sending a pebble toward the water. Too small for him to hear its splash.

Adam, he thought, his gaze rising to the glowing slice of moon. Laurel.

Suddenly Zack propelled himself off the old stone bridge, his body arching as it sailed through the dark night. For one frozen-snapshot instant, he saw only the blue evening sky, dotted with stars. Then dense treetops, the blur of house lights. A slab of black water seemed to rush up to meet him.

He sliced into it like a blade, his form lacking from his swim team days, but adequate nonetheless. Darkness swirled all around, silvered with tiny bubbles. The harsh cold bit into him, reaching the marrow of his bones, the shock of it driving every thought from his head.

He hung suspended in the depths for one instant, then shot upward, lungs bursting, blood pumping. Home, he thought, breaking the surface, gulping air through an open mouth. Home at last.

And this time he was glad of it.

He began to swim, leaving the keys in his unlocked Jag without a second thought. He’d been gone not quite a year; Quimby wouldn’t have changed. It never had before. This was something he liked about his hometown. Excitement and challenge he’d found elsewhere, with his job as an architect at a cutting-edge Chicago firm. Quimby was for friends, family, bedrock values and lazy Sunday afternoons. Now that he was back, he and Laurel would establish a mutually workable truce. The town, though small, was still big enough for both of them. Even if he decided to stay for good.

He swam briskly, his muscles loosening even though the river was colder than he’d expected. Vastly unlike the heated pool at Adam’s gym in Twin Falls where they’d swum five days out of seven for many months. That had been like being dunked in a bucket of warm soup. This was better.

It had jolted him back to life.

Zack put his head down and plowed through the water, leaving only a narrow furrow of wake.

The memories churning inside him were more disruptive. On the eve of his wedding to Laurel Barnard, a serious car accident had put his estranged brother in the hospital and then in a wheelchair, fighting to regain the ability to walk. Despite the complications of the situation, perhaps because of them, Zack’s first obligation had been to Adam. Each day, each month of therapy had strengthened his younger brother’s body and eased Zack’s guilt, until, finally, both of them were healed. Both of them forgiven.

Now to mend other broken fences. Zack lifted his head from the water, checking his progress. He’d swum past the bend. The Brody house was another seventy yards away, though only the peak of the roof and an expanse of dark shingles were visible amongst the lacy, draped foliage of the weeping willows lining the riverbank.

Already the homey, comforting tranquility of Quimby was sinking into Zack’s pores. The still of the night was broken only by a smattering of porch lights, the blare of a television set near an open window, the shush-swish of the water as he cut through it. A lone bird called from one of the trees. Loop-loop-de-loop.

One foot touched bottom. The other. Cold mud sucked at his ankles. He crashed through the reeds, rising from the water with the heavy denim of his jeans plastered to his thighs.

He splashed noisily as he charged out of the river, expelling the cold from his lungs with a bullish snort followed by an exuberant shout. After climbing the slippery bank, he stopped near the white iron lawn furniture to press water out of his jeans in a gush, and realized his mistake. His wallet and all of his keys were in the car, parked at the bridge. He’d have to walk back there, shirtless, barefoot, dripping wet.

He laughed out loud, his skin already shuddering into goose bumps. A fine welcome home.

But first the house.

Thank God it hadn’t sold during the months when he’d thought he’d never care to return to Quimby. The old place was comfortably the same. A two-story white frame structure, simple and pleasing in proportion, encircled by an open porch whose roof was supported by gracefully turned columns.

He left a wet trail through the freshly mown grass as he strode up the lawn to the low brick patio that extended the outdoor living space. Though there were none of his mother’s usual pots of flowers and herbs, the lilacs were still in bloom, drooping with purple cones of flowers that had begun to turn brown. The massive rhododendron bush that had consumed the narrow span of land between the Brody house and the Colton’s modest two-story cottage next door was bursting with pink buds.

He surveyed the lawn. No evidence of debris, weeds, scattered leaves or twigs. Julia had been as efficient as ever with the maintenance; no doubt she’d hired Reggie Lee Marvin, the town’s resident jack-of-all-trades, to do the yard work.

Zack crossed the patio, leaving more wet footprints on the redbrick. While his heart was warmed by his return home, the rest of him was slowly turning to ice. Shivering, he mounted the porch steps to check the back door. Locked, of course. Even in Quimby, Julia would not leave a house in her care unlocked.

As he walked around the porch, his gaze rose to the roof. The second-story bedroom windows might be open. Adam had been an expert at shinnying up the columns after a curfew-breaking night of escapades. Zack, the good son, had rarely found the need.

An echo of Adam’s boyish taunt seemed to float on the night air. Anything you can do, I can do better….

Zack’s features tightened. He deliberately tamped down the memory. The brothers’ good-natured rivalry had grown serious upon Laurel Barnard’s involvement. Tragically, as it had turned out.

If only he’d known. If only their confrontation had been straight and cool instead of a clash of mistaken pride and misleading accusations.

As for Laurel…

Her intentions remained indecipherable.

A breeze fingered through the foliage, carrying a faint whiff of the lilac’s sweet perfume. The smell brought up a sickening memory—the night he’d proposed to Laurel. Zack leaned against the smooth white column, his stomach lurching.

What the hell? he asked himself, swallowing the dry coppery taste in his mouth. His return to Quimby wasn’t supposed to go like this. Granted, he hadn’t expected the usual favorite-son-arriving-in-a-blaze-of-glory welcome. But a year had passed. By now, the misunderstandings—and outright lies—that had led to the ditched wedding were all water under the bridge, for lack of a better phrase. The brothers had forgiven each other, and Zack held no grudge against Laurel. Whatever her motive, she’d been desperate. And pregnant.

Perhaps.

He raked his hands through his wet hair, glancing up when a light went on next door. Were the Coltons home? They might still have his spare key. Allie, who lived outside of town with her own family now, had said her parents were loving California so much they’d instructed her to pack up their parkas and snow boots and take them to Goodwill. But that had been a while back.

Zack angled his head. A light was on in the master bedroom, painting the windowpanes a buttery gold through a pair of sheer curtains. Tenants, maybe.

A woman in a towel and nothing else walked past the lit window. An instantaneous heat blowtorched his groin.

Because the towel was on her head.

Leaving the rest of her…

Naked.

“Sweet Mary,” said Zack’s lips, all on their own.

The rest of him was pleading. Please come back.

He stared, no longer feeling the dampness or the cold. Oxygen was short in his lungs. He stood tall, crossing his arms on top of his head, sucking in the night air without noticing the lilac’s lingering scent.

His chest expanded.

His gaze fixed on the partly raised window.

Imagine that. The Coltons’ new tenant was either completely uninhibited or had lived in the house long enough to take the lack of neighbors for granted. Possibly she didn’t realize how clearly one could see through the flimsy curtains she’d drawn across the window. Particularly with the light on.

If that were the case, he should look away.

He meant to. Until she came back. And sat, presumably at the foot of the bed, although he couldn’t quite tell from his ground-level position.

After a moment of fiddling, she held out one arm and luxuriously stroked the opposite palm across it. Lotion, he thought, catching the glisten of pearly moisture on pale skin. Her palms rubbed together. Eyes closed, she threw back her turbanned head. Arched her throat. Slick fingers slithered across her exposed neck and delicate collarbone in a languid caress.

One palm slid to her nape. Her head lolled, turning her face toward the window. The curtains fluttered, giving Zack a glimpse of starkly lit detail. She was beautiful. Creamy skin, cheeks tinged with a pink warmth from the bath. Full, pursed lips. Thick lashes, dark brows, drawn like black ink against the cameo of her face.

Zack blinked. What was he doing—concentrating on her face? Sheesh. If he was going to be crude, might as well do it right.

His gaze lowered incrementally, in sync with her hands. She rubbed lotion over her upper chest, then slid both hands lower, cupping her left breast, lifting it slightly. His mouth watered, imagining the weight of it in his own palm, the flavor of it on his tongue. The breast was small, but full and round, centered by a pale brown areola.

The curtains billowed, giving him a clearer look. Hands clenching, eyes narrowing, he concentrated his vision down to a laser point as the woman’s nipple drew into a small tight bead.

Desire raced his pulse. She was incredible. A fantasy sprung to life.

The breeze died, dropping the sheer veil of fabric into place. Still, he couldn’t have looked away even if he’d wanted to. The woman was massaging a sheen of lotion into her breast, carelessly grazing her nails over the knotted nipple. He ached to give it more attention. Only when she reached again for the lotion, blocking his intimate view, did he remember where he was and what he was doing.

Ogling. Leering.

And in Quimby, too. Favored son or not, the chief of police would slam Zack into a jail cell for committing such a crime against common decency. Regardless of the rest of the world, the law-abiding local citizenry still claimed to believe in modesty and morality.

Zack backed toward the deep shadows beneath the porch. Slowly. Even though the woman was rubbing lotion into her other breast with a circular motion that made his blood run hot from his scalp all the way down to the numbed soles of his bare feet.

She reached forward, folding a leg up to her chest. The motion made the coiled towel tumble from her head, releasing a thick skein of wet dark hair. With a sound of dismay, she tossed back her head—and froze. Her eyes widened, their stricken gaze glued to the fluttering curtain.

Zack eased toward the shadows.

With the towel bunched against her bare breasts, the woman flew to the window and peered out. Her mouth was open. She seemed to be breathing hard, her face aflame beneath the sheaf of dark hair. He took another big step backward, trusting the overhang of the porch roof that now blocked his view would deny hers as well.

After a long tense moment and one last breathy exclamation, he heard the sash slam and the clatter of blinds descending with unseemly speed. Had she spotted him?

The probability made him smile.

Mmm. Turned out his early, unexpected homecoming had its pluses after all.

CATHY’S VOICE shook as she spoke into the cordless phone. “What does Zack Brody look like?”

“You’ve seen photos,” said Julia Knox, off-handedly. Confused that her embarrassment was sprinkled with what seemed a lot like titillation, Cathy hadn’t explained why she was asking.

“I’ve seen Laurel’s engagement photo. The one she uses as a pincushion.” Cathy squinted as she parted the slatted blinds. The Brody house next door was dark and silent; perhaps she’d been mistaken. Which could be worse. If the peeper wasn’t Zack Brody, then who…? Did she want the frying pan or the fire?

No choice. “What does he look like without a gazillion pins sticking out of his face?”

Julia chuckled. “Oh, he’s a handsome sonovagun.”

Cathy gritted her teeth. “Well, gosh, I know that.”

Zack Brody’s looks were as legendary as the rest of him. There were those who said he should have followed Eunice LaSalle to Hollywood; the younger generation was more likely to suggest a male modeling career in New York. His photographs were prominent in several locations throughout Quimby, including athletic team pictures in the trophy cases at the high school and an award-winning senior photo on permanent display at the local photography studio. Good old Heartbreak was even in evidence at city hall. When Cathy had gone to get her business license, there was a black-and-white Zack smiling out at her, snapped in the act of receiving a commendation from the mayor for his lifesaving rescue of Faith Fagan at Mirror Lake. Naturally, she’d studied the shot. Zack’s charisma had shone even in a still photograph. He was handsome, clean-cut, very Kennedyesque in the best of ways. But, at twenty, still a boy.

Cathy said as much to Julia, wanting to know what he might look like now…when he was stripped to the waist, every bared muscle wet and glistening. Without her glasses, she hadn’t gotten a clear look at his face. But the body had left a lasting impression.

“Ah, there you go.” Julia sounded far too cheerful. “Zack only gets better looking as he ages. He’s an adult now, you see, not just an exceptionally handsome young man. His masculine pulchritude’s at full power.”

You bet. Cathy tried to transfer the pinpricked face of Laurel’s fiancé onto the virile body she’d glimpsed in the shadows beneath the Brody’s porch.

She sank onto the bed, her joints soft as pudding. “I don’t think I can do this.”

Julia understood at once. “Nonsense. It’s going to be such fun. We won’t let it go too far.”

Cathy thought of her unwitting exposure at the open window and gave a dry laugh that turned into a cough. By all appearances, she was way past too far.

“Er, Julia…when exactly is Zack due to return?”

“Sometime tomorrow.”

“You’re sure?”

“He’s pretty reliable.”

“Except when it comes to weddings.”

“Mmm, there is that.”

Cathy sighed. “Julia? Do you believe Laurel’s side of the story?”

“There’s been no evidence to the contrary.”

“But from what you’ve said, it sounds like Zack hasn’t been in contact since he left. Other than to ask you to look after the house.”

“His silence is awfully suspicious.”

Cathy tugged up her towel, her own silence skeptical.

“Shoot,” said Julia, “we wouldn’t even have learned about his brother’s accident if it weren’t for Gwen’s persistent nosiness. Zack knows how much we all care for Adam. We’d’ve liked to have known how he was doing.”

“Well, see—that’s what I mean.” Cathy wondered why she was defending a man called Heartbreak. Especially when the odds were that she’d end up his next victim. “I don’t blame Laurel for being put out, but considering that he cancelled because of a family emergency…”

“If he’d stopped to explain, sure, we’d all have understood.” Julia’s tone grew mulish. “But he didn’t. He left poor Laurel stranded at the church in a five-thousand-dollar designer wedding gown. There were six bridesmaids. Seventy-five guests. Seventy-five plates of salmon in mint sauce. It was a frigging fiasco.”

“I suppose so.”

“All part of Heartbreak’s pattern.”

Cathy hesitated. “He’s that bad?”

“How shall I put it?” Julia’s laugh was contemplative. Maybe even nostalgic. “Aw, Cath. You won’t fully understand until you meet him, but the best I can explain is that Zack is so darn good he’s bad.”

“So good?”

“The best. The ultimate smooth operator. Every woman he dates thinks she’s died and gone to heaven. Next to the usual mouth-breathing social cretins that pass for eligible bachelors in Quimby, Zack’s a sweet-talking miracle. No girl can resist. And, wow, believe me, it’s great while it lasts.”

“But?”

“But then the dream ends,” Julia said evenly. “One day, one way or another, you wake up and realize Zack’s moved on to the next woman just when you were getting ready to order the monogrammed towels. And then you don’t even get the pleasure of hating him because he’s so incredibly charming even when he’s dumping you.”

Cathy blinked at the phone. “I’d be devastated.”

“Yup.” Julia sounded anything but. “And that’s why we call him Heartbreak.”

“Yet you still like him,” Cathy said. “I can tell. All of you adore him.”

“That’s Heartbreak’s greatest skill. He’s the only man on earth who’s on friendly terms with all of his former girlfriends. As good as he is at romance—and he’s excellent—he’s the world’s best breaker-upper.”

It was some comfort, Cathy decided. If she did get with the plan and play up to Zack, the worst that could happen would be that he’d let her down easy. Which wouldn’t be so bad. Really. She’d have plenty of company, and the consolation that at least she’d made the attempt. Maybe she’d be spoiled for other men, as Gwen said, but that would be nothing new.

There had to be a loophole she was missing. “You’re saying Laurel doesn’t count?”

“Oh, Laurel,” Julia scoffed. “Sure, she’s out for revenge. Her pride was hurt pretty spectacularly. But if Zack so much as crooked a finger at her, she’d go running into his arms, I guarantee it. Even if it was just for the thrill of planning another fancy wedding. Wouldn’t surprise me a bit if she’s saved the dress for a second go-round.”

Cathy returned to the window and peeked out again. “You think?”

This time, Julia’s laugh was faintly bittersweet. “Laurel’s been after Zack for as long as I can remember. And she’s determined to make a ‘good’ marriage. Not just anyone will do.”

Still no sign of occupancy next door. “I’ve never understood why it wasn’t you he was marrying,” Cathy ventured. Julia was intelligent, personable, polished; she seemed like Zack Brody’s perfect mate. More than any of the other women.

Including myself, Cathy admitted.

“Oh, well, what can I say?” There was a shrug in the Realtor’s voice. “Zack and I had split way before Laurel finally got her shot.”

“Sounds as though you took it well.”

Julia’s pause was short. “We’d run our course.”

“No hard feelings, huh?” But not a little regret, Cathy surmised.

“Having your heart broken by Zack Brody is a singular experience.”

Cathy made herself laugh. “One you want me to share?”

“Ah, but we’re not sending you in unprepared. This time will be different, I promise. It’s not your heart at risk.”

“Gosh, I sure hope so.” Cathy’s attempt at levity rang hollow. She shivered instead, her arms clamping the towel around her torso.

“Just remember,” Julia said, “Heartbreak’s comeuppance is long overdue.”

Which was not what Cathy intended, but Julia wouldn’t welcome the confession. Besides, Cathy was doubtful about whether she’d be capable of the duplicity necessary when it came to the crunch, let alone the too-farfetched-to-contemplate seduction aspect of the whole business.

Unless it really had been Zack watching her from the porch next door. If so, she’d mistakenly gotten off to the best—make that breast—start imaginable.

Hah. Maybe he hadn’t gotten a very good look through the curtains, at such an angle.

Then again, maybe he had.

She leaned against the wall, weighing her reaction to the possibility that he’d seen everything. Both her instant embarrassment and the subsequent attack of nerves were what she’d expected. More surprising was the exquisite seeping warmth caused by the thought of continuing the game. Imagine seducing Zack, she thought, and her lips parted in anticipation. She expelled a soft breath. With her new friends’ help, she might even be able to do it successfully.

“Now, Cath,” Julia said, bringing her back to the conversation. “Please stop worrying. You’ll do splendidly.”

“But I can’t—I’m not—I have no…va-va-voom,” she said, having unexpectedly caught sight of herself in between the scarves she’d draped around the cheval mirror. “It’s plain to see.” Disregarding the limpid look in her eyes, she dragged her fingers through her tangled hair, adjusted the drooping towel. “What you want is someone with more, uh, obvious enticements.”

Julia tsk-tsked. “Not for Zack.”

“He’s a guy, isn’t he?”

“But a guy with discerning tastes.”

He almost married Laurel, Cathy realized. How discerning could he be?

Oh, that wasn’t fair. Laurel Barnard was certainly lovely. And often friendly, if slightly reserved. She managed her dress shop with skill and pride. Her personality was, at times, pleasant. She was just…a tad weak in the character department.

And Cathy set great store by character.

She made a face at her reflection. Pot calling the kettle black. For goodness sake, she was about to embark on a superficial seduction ploy of epic proportions! She, the woman who ranked appearance below “showers daily” and “knows how to read” among the qualities she looked for in the opposite sex.

It won’t be superficial if it’s about love, whispered the hopeless romantic part of her that had yearned after Zack since fifth grade.

And, woo, girl, you sure could use the help, countered the self-doubting voice that she’d never quite been able to vanquish. The cruelty she’d once endured as a homely, chubby, social outcast had blighted her confidence. Even to this day, though rationally she understood that she’d always been a worthy person. School yard taunts shouldn’t—didn’t—matter.

Way back when, the friendship of a spirited, confident ten-year-old boy named Zack Brody had been the only kindness she’d known. He was the one new schoolmate who’d seen the girl she was inside, not out. Long after she’d moved away and grown up and become “beautiful,” she’d remembered Zack for that.

And she’d remembered the little town of Quimby.

Cathy turned away from the mirror. Toward the window. Toward Zack.

“We’ll coach you every step of the way,” Julia was saying reassuringly into her ear when a light blinked on next door.

The bottom dropped out of Cathy’s stomach. Oh, my.

There was a racy black sports car parked in the driveway of the Brody house. Inside, another light came on.

Cathy’s fingers clenched, putting creases into the miniblinds. She closed her eyes. Zack. Zack Brody.

Heartbreak was home.

And—

Oh. My. Stars.

He’d seen her.

3

THE NEXT DAY, Cathy worked at Scarborough Faire alone all morning. Its herbal-scented atmosphere soothed her fitfulness. Amongst the shop’s cornucopia of gnarled branches and vines, sheaves of dried flowers, weathered barn-board shelving, old jelly cupboards and pie safes stocked with ribbons and wrapping papers, stationery, pen nibs and bottles of ink, she was as at home and confident as never before in her life. Peace had its price in this instance; few customers stopped in. Distracted from issues of commerce, she did not particularly care.

Quite naturally, Cathy was occupied with thoughts of Zack Brody. Worriedly, at first, but after a few hours in the shop, she began to see things from a different perspective. A buoyant, emboldened one.

And why not? She was attractive enough. She was intelligent. She was capable.

Upon realizing how dissatisfied she’d become with her humdrum life as an accounts supervisor for a small advertising firm in Virginia Beach, she’d single-handedly researched, plotted and executed a successful escape. She’d ditched the job, cashed out her savings and moved cross-country to turn Kay’s Krafts into the storybook arts and gift shop she’d long dreamed of.

Such drastic change took courage. Ergo, she’d already proved that she could handle anything.

Even, perhaps, the legendary Heartbreak.

Humming beneath her breath, Cathy rummaged through an old sea chest of fabric remnants. Zack had nearly caught her that morning when she’d scurried from the house to her car, wearing dark glasses and a scarf knotted over her hair like a celebrity dodging the paparazzi.

He’d stepped onto his porch and shouted a neighborly hello; she’d been reversing out of the driveway and had pretended not to notice. All she’d seen was a quick glimpse of him in her rearview mirror. Upraised hand, fading smile. Thick brown hair. Lots of shoulder.

Imminent Heartbreak.

Cathy pulled out a piece of gingham, then discarded it. Whether or not anything developed between her and Zack, she was willing to be a martyr for the cause.

Unfolding a length of dotted swiss, she thought of his engaging smile, the light in his eyes. Her stomach did a slow roll of sensuous proportions. Yum. There were worse fates.

At one o’clock, Kay Estress arrived for the shift she put in four days a week. As the store’s previous proprietor, Kay had agreed to stay on part-time during the changeover of ownership. Seven months later, though appreciative of the practical advice Kay freely—and frequently—offered, Cathy was ready for the arrangement to end. She hadn’t yet figured out how to ease Kay out the door in a properly respectful manner.

The tall, raw-boned woman gave the new baby-bootie-and-receiving-blanket display a once-over. Cathy had gone a little wild with the dotted swiss and trailing yellow ribbons.

Kay, whose style was relentlessly straightforward, even militant, sniffed. “Cute,” she conceded, her dark brows rising to meet the fluff of silvery-white bangs that were the only soft thing about her. “But it doesn’t pay to overstock on these type of knitting patterns. The profit margin is minimal.”

Cathy took off her apron, wadded it up and stowed it on one of the shelves beneath the checkout counter. “A person who buys the patterns will need needles, ribbon and two kinds of yarn,” she pointed out. “We—I’ll see a decent return.”

Kay shrugged her wide, bony shoulders. “It’s your funeral.” She slipped a pristine apron over the neat silver cap of her hair, straightening her starched collar with a tug. Her displays had been practical, not imaginative. Her shelves had been stocked on schedule, not on whim.

Cathy smiled at Kay. Nicely. She understood that it was difficult for the older woman to adjust to a more creative way of doing things. Having grown up under the watch of Admiral Wallace Winston Bell, Cathy had plenty of experience dealing with rigidity. Her father was career Navy—he’d run the proverbial tight ship. His awkward, bookish, imaginative daughter had baffled him to no end. He’d never completely succeeded in shaping her up, which was perhaps the one failure in his illustrious career.

“I’ll be gone for at least an hour,” Cathy said, tightening at the thought of her impending makeover. “Maybe two.”

Kay took out a bottle of Zap, her favorite spray cleaner. “No problem.”

Cathy waved from the door. “There haven’t been many customers, so you should do fine alone. I’ll be next door at Laurel’s if you need me.”

Kay doffed the bottle as Cathy departed. Looking back, she saw that her employee had yanked the apron out from beneath the counter and was whipping it into a tidy package like a color guard folding a flag. A woman after her father’s heart. Banish the thought.

Outside, the June sunshine was glorious; it made the pavement shine and the parking meters sparkle. Quimby was as quaint as Cathy had remembered from her yearlong stay as a child. Beneath mature sugar maples and grand old elms, the residential streets were cozy with modest Queen Anne cottages, Craftsman bungalows and wood-frame houses with wide front porches. The downtown business district thrived on what passed for bustle in the small town. Cathy did not regret her move, even though it had meant leaving several good friends and her one dominant family member behind.

Luckily, her second sojourn in Quimby had thus far not been as socially inept as the first, when she’d been sent to stay with her grandparents while the Admiral was at sea. She’d made plenty of friends this time around, and even gone out on a few pleasant dates. In fact, the residents were so friendly she rarely stepped outside of her little shop without being greeted by several of them.

“Hallo, Mrs. Timmerman,” said Reggie Lee Marvin, his face completely guileless beneath the bill of a grimy, faded gimme cap. The handyman parked his three-wheeled bike at the curb. A toolbox, spade, rake and other assorted supplies were strapped to the basket in the back.

“Hey, Reggie Lee. Isn’t it a beautiful day?”

“Sure is, Mrs. Timmerman.”

“Going to lunch?” Cathy had given up trying to get Reggie Lee to call her Cathy, or even Ms. or Miss. She’d never felt much like a Mrs. Her marriage to Chad Timmerman, handsome hunk but faithless husband, had lasted all of two years, including the divorce process.

Reggie Lee nodded, his full cheeks turning ruddy. Cathy suspected he had a bit of a crush on her, as was also the case with Laurel, Julia and perhaps even Faith. She’d seen Reggie Lee watching Faith with an absorbed expression.

The handyman was far too shy to be overt toward the opposite sex. He ducked his head when addressing her, avoiding eye contact. “You coming to the café, Mrs. Timmerman?”

Cathy stepped under a white canvas awning and opened the door to Laurel’s store, Couturier, which was as high style as Quimby got. “Not today, Reggie Lee. But I’ll see you around.”

“Okey-dokey.”

Allie was tugging on Cathy’s arm before she’d even made it over the threshold into the elegant store. “Come on, chickie. We’ve been waiting for you. There’s lots and lots to do.”

“Well, gee, thanks,” Cathy said with dry amusement.

Allie chuckled. “Cripes, Cath. You know what I mean.”

“Sure. I know.” She pressed a hand to her tie-dyed head scarf, feeling at odds with Couturier’s many mirrored surfaces and its refined decor of monochromatic pewter accented by touches of glossy black. “I’m…ready.” The makeover was dreaded, but necessary. Part of her even wanted it. For Zack.

“Ewww.” Laurel came out of the back room with puckered lips and an armful of garments. “You must take that rag off your head, Cathy. It’s so very sixties. And the blouse…how ethnic.” She shuddered. “That won’t do.”

Cathy dragged off the scarf and shook out her hair. “What’s wrong with ethnic?” Her closet was filled with imported clothing. The pieces she’d collected were inexpensive, colorful, unique and easy to wear. No binding straps, formfitting skirts or low-cut necklines to worry about.

“Since this is a makeover, I’ll be straight with you.” Laurel’s smile made a token apology. “First of all, you couldn’t seduce a marine fresh off the ship in that gunnysack.”

Cathy tucked her hands into the roomy pockets of the plain dress and turned to examine it in a triple mirror. The ticking pinafore was both comfortable and suitable for her work; she’d paired it with a red cotton embroidered blouse from Mexico. It looked okay to her. But Laurel knew fashion, and she certainly knew what attracted men.

“This one will bring out the blue in your eyes.” Laurel held up a periwinkle slip dress. It dangled from a hanger on skinny straps, shimmering in the artfully arranged lights that beamed from brushed steel fixtures overhead, spilling in subtle pools here and there on the plush gray carpeting.

Cathy gulped. “But there’s nothing to that dress.”

Laurel’s lips curved. “Exactly.”

Allie was looking at Cathy’s chunky sandals. “You’ll need heels.”

“I can’t walk in heels.”

“Oh, great.” Laurel rolled her eyes an instant before she turned her face aside.

“I know.” Ignoring her scraped pride, Cathy took off her glasses and squinted. The details of her reflection were becomingly blurred. “I’m a major project.” As much as the prospect of lipstick and heels and daring hemlines dismayed her, she didn’t ask the women to quit. A psychologically interesting development. Perhaps now that she’d accomplished a career switch, she was ready to change her appearance as well…?

“Add contacts to the to-do list,” Laurel said.

“I have contacts. They make my eyes itch and water.”

“You can do this, Cathy.” Allie was encouraging while she searched her purse for the list they’d started at the calligraphy class. “We can do this.”

Julia and Faith arrived, both on their lunch hour. Gwen was peeved that she couldn’t get free from her job at the post office and was missing all the makeover fun.

Faith seated herself on an unobtrusive brushed aluminum chair and opened her neat little brown-bag lunch. Julia flipped through the garments, munching on a juicy apple, ignoring Laurel’s murmurs and fluttering hands.

“Whew. Hot tamale.” Broodingly, Julia admired a slinky, strapless dress in a deep shade of brick-red. When her gaze turned toward Cathy, she frowned. “You know, it occurs to me…” She glanced at the other women. “Sure, we can glam Cathy up like a living doll, but how will that make her different from every other girl Zack has already had?”

Julia pitched the apple core and wiped her hands on the piece of silver wrapping tissue Laurel hastily provided. “I’m thinking this seduction has to be as emotional as it is physical.”

Laurel narrowed her eyes. “And how does one accomplish that?”

“With a provocative brain tease, not slam-bang, bam-between-the-eyes lust.”

Apprehension nibbled at Cathy’s composure. Each glimpse of Zack, in photographs or in person, had been like a kick in the gut. Was that lust or was that more?

“Nothing too obvious,” Julia continued. “Heartbreak shouldn’t know he’s being played.”

Cathy winced over the previous evening. Prancing around naked definitely fit under the “obvious” category.

“These clothes are subtle,” Laurel said, miffed. “I’m not offering peekaboo bras and crotchless panties.”

“Yes, of course. But clothes are beside the point.” Julia advanced on Cathy, watching as her face colored with discomfiture. “Oh, Cath. You’re so innocent. We need to play up that sexy, who-me? quality of yours.”

Cathy caught at her lower lip. “I didn’t know I had one.”

“Exactly.” Julia took her by the shoulders and turned her toward the mirror. “You’ve been hiding your light under the proverbial bushel up to now. Let yourself shine. Use your smarts, your smile. The genuine you will get Zack’s attention, not the fancy frills. All we need to do is set the proper stage.”

Julia’s words worked a transformation on Cathy. She drew a deep breath, lifted her chin. She was strong, she reminded herself. She was smart. As for sexy…well, she could always fake that.

Because she was woman. Incomparable, undeniable, phenomenal woman.

You can do this, she told her reflection, momentarily entranced by the lift of her amused smile, the slant of her chin. The gleam in her squinting eyes. Zack’s worth the effort. And the potential humiliation.

“Yes.” Julia gave her a squeeze. “Go for it.”

Faith goggled, a bitten tuna sandwich suspended halfway to her mouth.

Allie said, “Wow,” and dove her head into her purse.

“But remember, this is only a make-believe seduction,” warned Laurel, her airy tone edged in ice. She held up a pair of tweezers like forceps. “The purpose is to give Heartbreak a taste of his own medicine.”

“Of course,” Cathy murmured, scarcely listening.

Though Julia lifted a discerning brow, she didn’t say a word.

“SO WHAT’S WITH my new neighbor?” Zack said, applying his elbow to Fred Spangler’s gut when the man attempted a rush toward the basketball. Zack dribbled around his old college friend, made a feint that put Fred further off balance, then pulled up and sent the ball arching toward the basket.

Swish.

Fred staggered off the court, red-faced and dripping with sweat. “You win. Again. Man, Zack.” He collapsed onto a bench. “Thought you said you’d gone soft in Idaho.”

“Not soft enough.” Zack grabbed the spinning ball off the cement court and beamed it toward Fred’s bulging midsection. “Allie’s turned into a good cook?”

Fred caught the ball and shot it back as hard as he could. “She’s terrible.”

The ball slammed into Zack’s waiting hands. He laughed, glad to be home, among friends with a shared history. “Yeah. I remember her Home Ec experiments. Chicken-fried salmon. Salsa-flavored taffy. Snow pea flambé.”

“Since the kids came, Allie’s given up on cooking. The munchkins get PB&Js. The adults get Chinese take-out three times a week. She even lets me order in pizza at midnight.” Fred yanked off his sweatband, releasing a floppy halo of golden curls. “It’s great. Just like our fraternity days. Except with a woman at hand there’s also regular sex.”

“Married sex.”

“Way better than college sex, bud.”

“Maybe for you.”

“Yeah, well, we can’t all be the campus heartthrob.”

Zack shrugged. “I never applied for the job.”

“I know, man, I know. The coeds just handed it to ya.” Fred cackled. “It’s a nasty job…”

“But someone’s got to do it,” Zack finished, somewhat sheepishly. He’d never intended to become known as a ladies’ man. He’d just always done what he’d been brought up to do. Which was the right thing. The polite thing. The considerate, generous, honorable thing.

Women seemed to appreciate it.

He palmed the basketball and held it threateningly over Fred’s blond head. “Say, Shirley T, you’re never gonna rev up enough to beat me subsisting on take-out food. Try tofu instead.”

Fred sneered at the old nickname, braced himself for a ball bouncing off his skull, and asked mildly, “You eat health food?”

Zack set the ball on the bench. He swiped his damp forehead with the ragged hem of his T-shirt. The light breeze cooled the hot skin of his abdomen. “It’s not so bad.”

“Yeah, sure. You just go for the nature girls. Long hair. No bras. Equal opportunity Kama Sutra.” Fred squinted into the sunshine. “Got a recipe?”

“For Allie?” In Allie’s hands, tofu would take on terrifying configurations. Maybe Fred was referring to one of the more complicated positions from the dog-eared copy of the Kama Sutra they’d studied in college, some of which ought to come with a recipe. And scorecard.

“Naw,” Fred said. “For me. One of us has got to learn how to cook healthy pretty damn soon. The sex won’t be much good if I can’t see past my gut.”

“Exercise,” said Zack. “Swimming. Low-impact aerobics.” He slanted a smile at Fred. “Good for the stamina. I’m sure Allie’d appreciate it.”

“Don’t you worry. Allie’s a tiger in the sack. Got enough stamina for both of us.”

“Hey, that’s my childhood pal you’re talking sleaze about.” Zack scooped up the ball, bounced it a few times, went up on the balls of his feet and lined up another perfect shot.

Swish.

Fred groaned. “Show-off.”

Zack let the ball roll away along the cracked cement. They’d chosen to play one-on-one at the old Riverpark courts instead of the busy set of courts at the youth center. Zack was still unsure of his reception. The Barnards had a lot of friends around town and he hadn’t felt like running into their public disapproval quite yet.

He walked to the bench and sat, then flexed his hands and laid them on his thighs. “So.”

Fred lifted an arm and took a sniff. “Man. I stink like a goat. Gotta go home and take a shower before I head back to the car lot.”

“What about the neighbor?” Zack prodded.

“Eh. Allie knows her. But she’s not your type.” Fred rested his head against the chain-link fence. He made quotation marks in the air, his tenor rising and falling like a graph. “She’s creative. Which translates to sensitive and temperamental in my book. High maintenance. She presides over a coven of crafty women at her store on Central Street.”

“And her name?” Zack thought of the woman, splendidly nude, bathed in golden light, a visual poem of languid female grace. She’d been natural, yet seductive. Enchanting. Even today, he was feeling kind of strung out, empty and restless, hungry for another sight of her.

“Cathy Timmerman,” Fred said with a grunt. “New in town.”

“Boyfriend?”

“How would I know?”

“Allie.”

Fred scratched his head. “Yeah, like I listen when she talks.”

In college, he’d fallen hard and fast for Allie the first time she’d visited Zack. Within a day, Fred had shaved off his incipient goatee, torn down his Cindy Crawford posters and started dogging Allie like a Springer Spaniel. At the moment, Zack was too lazily distracted to point that out.

“Man, your radar must be off,” Fred complained. “Trust me, Zack. You don’t want this one—she wears baggy clothes, Birkenstocks and Mr. Magoo glasses. She’s not in your league.” Absently, he stroked his belly. “Hell, I don’t think her type even has a league.”

“Outside of softball, neither do I.” Were they talking about the same woman? They had to be. Instead of being put off, Zack felt…privileged. As if Cathy Timmerman’s beauty was his alone.

“Yeah, sure,” scoffed Fred. “Like Laurel Barnard isn’t in a class by herself. Talk about high maintenance!”

Laurel. Zack gritted his teeth until his jaw bulged.

“Yup.” Fred nudged his pal in the ribs. “Laurel. She’s still mad at you.”

“I assumed as much.”

“I heard she said that if you ever showed your face in town again, she was gonna sic her daddy on you. Planned to sue you big time—public humiliation, alienation of affection, something like that. She’s out to recoup the cost of the, uh, wedding.” Fred glanced sidelong at Zack. “I’d be worried if I was you. Laurel’s got a hidden nasty streak.”

Not entirely hidden. “Hmm. Guess I’ll start rounding up character witnesses.”

Fred leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees. “Steer clear, is all I’m saying.”

“What about Julia? Does she hate me, too?”

“With her, who knows? Jule doesn’t run off at the mouth like the rest of ’em.”

Zack expelled a huge breath.

Fred’s shoulders hunched. “Gotta be strange for you, being the whipping boy instead of the hero.”

“The whipping boy?”

“Women take weddings mighty seriously. And vanishing grooms—” He whistled, slowly wagging his head from side to side.

In Zack’s note to Laurel, he’d offered to pay for half of the cost of the cancelled wedding; he’d even provided Adam’s temporary address. She’d never responded. A matter of hurt pride, he’d assumed, and possibly even remorse for her part in the fiasco.

He shoved the matter to the back of his mind, leaving it for a personal confrontation with Laurel that was coming as surely as the next Quimby garage sale. “Stuff that,” he told Fred. “I’d rather talk about my new neighbor.”

“Why her? You can’t be that hard up.”

“What do you mean? She’s…” Zack waved his hands in the air.

Fred scratched his scalp vigorously, making the yellow mop of hair slide back and forth. “We are talking about Cathy Timmerman, the woman who’s renting Allie’s family’s house?”

“None other.” Zack’s face felt warm, and not because of the sun. There had to be a dopey look on it, too, judging by his friend’s baffled expression.

“This is weird,” said Fred.

“Very.”

“Something’s not right.”

Oh, but it is, Zack thought. Very right.

He’d bet what was left of his good reputation on it.

ZACK TOOK his time reintroducing himself to Quimby. After leaving Fred, he stopped for a cold drink at the Burger Bucket drive-in and flirted very mildly with the waitress, who, despite several tattoos and piercings, looked no more than nineteen. She stood at the counter, smoking, trying to maintain her cool while whispering to the fry girl. Zack looked away, smiling at a squalling toddler in the next car until he recognized the child’s mother, Liz Somebody from high school, who gaped at him with her mouth open. After the first moment of shock, she recovered enough to shoot him an impressively nasty evil eye.

He drove away, remembering that Liz had been one of Laurel’s bridesmaids. And that there were six of them.

Enough for a posse.

Next he went to the lake. In another week the water would be warm enough for pleasant swimming, but even now there were several hardy bathers. Pale, fleshy bodies lined the sand like walruses basking in the sun. Little kids dashed in and out of the shallows, squealing and splashing, the lifeguard poised to take flight from his peeling white throne.

Zack parked and sat on the hood of his car. The water and sky were complementary shades of blue, drenched with so much sunlight his eyes began to water and he had to fish a pair of shades from his pocket. He smelled pine resin, warm tar. Hot sand. The medicinal odor of sunscreen and the indefinable dank, marshy tang of lake water.

Memories came in a flood. He’d been the lifeguard at Mirror Lake for four summers, from ages sixteen to twenty. An uncomplicated time. He remembered the slow roasting hours of midday, the usual teenage horseplay with his swim team buddies, the day Julia Knox had pranced across the sand in braids and a yellow bikini and he’d decided that she was the girl for him.

Zack grimaced. His life would have stayed uncomplicated if only they’d married. For a time, he’d thought that eventually they would…until Julia had come to him at the start of their junior year of college and confessed that she loved someone else. The worst part of it had been that he wasn’t devastated by the news, not really. He and Julia…they’d never truly sparked. Not in the crackling, fiery way that burned hot enough to last a lifetime.

Zack stood up. Enough wallowing. Someone looked over and waved at him from a beach towel as he slammed the car door. He didn’t stop. Gravel spit beneath the back wheels of the Jag as he peeled out of the parking lot like a hot-rodder.

He pulled together a bagful of groceries at the little mom-and-pop convenience store at the crossroads. Mom was too myopic to see beyond her nose. Pop looked at Zack with a vague recognition; Zack was gone before it jelled.

The sun had dropped significantly lower in the sky by the time he returned home, its beams slanting through the green lacy screen of the willows. The grass looked like a velvet carpet. The buds on the rhododendron were on the verge of opening, but for now the pink petals were still tightly furled.

Turning into the drive, he almost clipped the mailbox. Several wan tulips lost their drooping heads beneath the left front wheel as he stepped hard on the brake and the car shuddered to an abrupt halt.

Cathy Timmerman was home.

He climbed from the Jag in a daze.

She was washing her car. In bare feet and denim cutoffs. With a sleeveless white T-shirt knotted below her breasts. Above a triangle of smooth abdomen, her pointed nipples pressed against the damp, clinging fabric. A thick, shiny ponytail bobbed at the back of her head when she stood abruptly with a sponge in one hand and a hose in the other, its spray wetting her cement driveway and the grass and then the tips of his athletic shoes as she slowly turned his way.

No Birkenstocks. No Mr. Magoo glasses. No baggy tent dress to disguise what he already knew to be a perfect figure.

Just a shy flicker of her lashes. A deep, deep breath.

And a welcoming, sweetly seductive smile.

4

“HI,” SHE HEARD herself say almost normally, “I’m your neighbor, Cathy Timmerman.” Breathe. “I’ve leased the Colton’s house from Allie Spangler. And Kay Estress sold me her craft shop.” Keep talking. Be friendly. “The place on Central Street? It’s been renamed Scarborough Faire….”

“So I’ve been told,” Zack said. His smile was kind, but there was something in his eyes, a mischievous glint perhaps, that made her remember every excruciating detail of the previous night’s performance. “The grapevine, you know.”

She blinked. “Oh. Right. The grapevine.”

“You’re wetting my shoes.”

“I’m wetting your…?”

She looked down at herself, both hands clenching reflexively. Water spurted in a hard stream from the nozzle of the hose, blasting Zack’s shoes and jeans. With a sharp exclamation, she threw away the hose and the sponge. The nozzle bounced on the pavement and landed trigger-down in the grass, its angle such that the spray fanned in a wide arc, dampening each of them with a fine mist.

“Yikes.” Holding up her hands to block the spray, Cathy darted toward the hose.

“I’ll get it,” Zack said, reaching for it at the same instant. They grabbed it from opposite sides, making the cold water spurt through their fingers and onto their faces. Cathy let go. Zack redirected the spray, pressing the rusty trigger until finally it sprang back to the off position.

“Oh, gee, I’m sorry.” She backed away a step, wiping at her chin. She’d soaked him. His face was streaming. His faded purple Kingpins T-shirt showed a darker splash pattern around the shoulders and his jeans—

Don’t think about the jeans.

She already knew what he looked like in wet jeans.

“No problem,” he said. “Just like old times. Allie’s family left the garden hose snaked over the lawn all summer long.” He grinned as he swiped the back of a wrist over his face. “I’ve been doused by this hose more times than I can remember.”

The corners of his lips curled tightly when he grinned, carving dents in his cheeks. Not dimples. Just shallow dents. His eyes crinkled, too, and his warm brown irises were glinting at her again, sharing the joke, asking her to laugh. She was utterly charmed, but she couldn’t quite manage a laugh. There was too much of him. Too much tall, handsome, strong, healthy male.

She had to say something. The group had coached her on how to engage him in conversation, but they hadn’t foreseen a renegade water hose. It seemed prudent to jump straight to the invitation. “Umm, since you’re so wet anyway, want to help me wash my car? You look like you’d be good at rubbing bumpers and…” Heavens, this was embarrassing! “…p-polishing headlights.”

Surprise flashed across his face. His gaze dropped to her wet T-shirt, then quickly back up to her face. “Sure,” he said, somewhat quizzically. “I’d be glad to rub your bumper.”

Cathy’s next line was supposed to be even more suggestive, but darned if she’d say it. There was no way on earth she’d seduce him sounding like a bad Mae West imitation. Instead she pointed at the front bumper. “Be my guest.”

He kicked off his shoes and threw them into his own yard with a natural athletic grace, the muscles in his shoulders flexing beneath the clinging shirt. She blinked, realizing that wet T-shirts worked on both sexes.

“They were squidgy,” he explained, intercepting her stare.

He’s not squidgy.

“The shoes?” she blurted. “Sorry.”

“They’ll dry.” He grinned again, making her brain swim, every rational thought slipping out of her grasp like an elusive goldfish. She was not worthy. Heck, she wasn’t even capable.

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