A little Southern comfort goes a long way…

To the world she’s Vanessa Valentino, the poison-penned gossip columnist and blogger, but back in Georgia, she’s just Tressie Valentine. After digging up one scandalous secret too many, she’s forced back home to the sleepy town she thought she’d left behind forever. And now she must face Nathaniel Woodberry, who became her sworn enemy when one of her stories hit too close to home. Yet for some reason, Tressie can’t turn off her longing for the irresistible investigative journalist.

Nate can’t believe Tressie’s back to wreak havoc on the close-knit community they both grew up in, and he can’t help holding a grudge against her past deeds. But soon the commitment-wary bachelor discovers that the Southern belle is still a compassionate, loving woman. Nate finds himself drawn to her and he can’t stop thinking about seducing her with a healthy dose of down-home passion. But can he stop Tressie from making a mistake that could destroy their hometown—and their blossoming love?

“There’s just one other thing that we need to be clear on.” Setting his mug on the countertop, he moved closer to her and dipped his head so that they were face-to-face. “Are you listening?”

“Y-yes.” She smelled the coffee on his breath and leaned in even closer, suddenly craving a secondhand jolt of caffeine. Her nipples tightened involuntarily, scraping against the inside of her sundress the way she hoped that his tongue one day would. She hadn’t been kidding when she suggested that they sleep together. She couldn’t speak for him, but unless they jumped each other and got it out of the way, there was no way that she’d be able to fully concentrate on work.

For all his posturing, he wasn’t completely unaffected, either. His Adam’s apple bobbed not once but twice before he spoke and gave him away. The idea that she could turn him on—that she was turning him on—caused the hair on the back of her neck to stand up in anticipation.

“When I take you to bed,” he whispered into her open mouth, “sex between us will be anything but a nonissue. Got it?”

“Got it.”

“Good.”

And then he kissed her.

TERRA LITTLE

has been reading romance novels for decades and falling in and out of love with the heroes within the book covers for just as long. When she’s not in the classroom teaching English Literature, you can most likely find her tucked away somewhere with her laptop, a dog-eared romance novel and romance so heavy on the brain that it somehow manages to weave its way into each and every story that she writes, regardless of the genre.

Terra resides in Missouri, but you can always find her on the World Wide Web to share feedback, the occasional joke and suggestions for good reading at writeterralittle@yahoo.com. Visit her official website at www.terralittle.com.

Beneath Southern Skies

Terra Little

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Dear Reader,

When my first novel, Running from Mercy, was published back in 2008, I never dreamed that readers would become so intrigued by Nathaniel Woodberry. After all, he wasn’t a main character, even if he was a fascinating study in contradiction. But readers did, and before long I was receiving requests to know more about him…on a personal level. What type of woman would it take to finally conquer his heart? readers wanted to know and, after much thought, I hope I’ve managed to answer that question.

A consummate ladies’ man, Nate has no plans of ever settling down and committing himself to one woman.

Until he meets up again with Tressie Valentine….

Who’d have thought that a notorious busybody like Tressie could bring him to his knees—literally and figuratively? Certainly not Nate. But isn’t that how it always happens? He’s after a story when he returns to Mercy, Georgia, but what he discovers is an unlikely partnership that makes him want to investigate matters of the heart instead.

For a man who’s never met a woman that he wanted and couldn’t have, convincing Tressie that he’s ready to put his past behind him is easier said than done. But he’s counting on seduction underneath Southern skies to help him make a believer out of her.

Welcome back to Mercy!

Terra

This one is for my family, which will soon include a new addition—my very first grandchild.

Many thanks to all of the readers who continue to support me and my work. I hope this one does you proud.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Epilogue

Prologue

The longer Tressie Valentine held the stack of official-looking papers and read, the more the hand holding them trembled. They were the answer to all her prayers, or at least they could be if what she was reading was really true.

Suddenly finding herself unemployed and penniless was a predicament that Tressie had never envisioned for herself, and she’d been on the verge of pulling her hair out by the roots ever since that predicament had become her reality.

But now, if there was a God in heaven and she hadn’t managed to completely alienate Him, it looked as though the streak of bad luck that she’d been riding hard and fast for the past two months was about to take a sharp turn for the better. God knew she needed some good luck right about now.

In a matter of weeks, what little savings she’d managed to accumulate over the past five years had quickly dwindled down to little more than enough to keep a roof over her head for the next couple of months. She didn’t even want to think about all the other unpaid bills that were steadily pouring in. When had she applied for so many credit cards? Amassed so many lines of private store credit? Gotten so out of control with her spending? Of course, it hadn’t seemed as if her spending was out of control while she was safely ensconced in the luxury of a six-figure salary and living the high life. But the blinders were off, and she knew that she was in serious trouble.

This summons, or whatever it was, that had landed in her mailbox this morning could be just what she needed to help her get her life back on track.

Snuggled deep in the luxurious recesses of a thick cashmere robe, papers in hand, Tressie plopped down on the leather sofa in the great room of her twentieth-floor loft apartment and reached for the cordless phone on a nearby end table. Her toes curled into the thick pile of the specially ordered Oriental rug underneath her bare feet as she punched in the telephone number listed at the top of the document. Praying that the estimated quote on the page in front of her wasn’t a typo, she listened to the phone ring on the other end and then smiled when a woman’s cheerful voice finally greeted her. Just this morning she had been seriously considering pitching a tent out on the sidewalk, clearing out her designer label–filled walk-in closet and hosting a yard sale to stave off the wolves at her door. But now...now things were looking up and not a moment too soon.

“Could I please speak with Norman Harper?” Tressie asked after the woman had finished rattling off the string of names listed on the company’s letterhead. “Please tell him that Tressie Valentine is calling.”

“Just a moment while I transfer you,” the woman said. Seconds later, Tressie was listening to classical music and humming along as her thoughts wandered.

Soon enough, Saul Worthington and the rest of the schmucks at the New York Inquisitor would realize that they had made a big mistake by cutting her loose. By now, Tressie Valentine, better known as Vanessa Valentino to her loyal and discriminating readers, was a household name. Knowing that, Saul, as the Inquisitor’s editor-in-chief, hadn’t even bothered to print a formal announcement that she had severed ties with the paper. Instead, he had chosen to simply omit her weekly column and replace it with a lackluster new weekly feature on education reform. It was a show, she knew, of blatant disrespect and one that she would never forget. And it was the worst mistake he could’ve ever made. No, scratch that—it was the second-worst mistake he could’ve ever made.

Firing her had definitely been the worst.

The whole scene had been unbelievable, like something out of badly scripted sitcom rerun. Even now as she thought back on it, she felt the humiliation and ridiculousness of it all over again, as if it were happening right now. It was true that hindsight was your best sight, but even in hindsight she couldn’t quite figure out where she’d gone wrong. One minute she’d had the upper hand and the next, everything had spiraled out of her control. One minute she was gainfully employed and the next she was spending her days catching up on all the soap operas that she’d missed over the years and worrying about what her future held. How, she wondered for the millionth time, had she lost the upper hand?

“Fired? I’m fired?” Tressie had been in a state of shock, looking around the handsomely appointed executive office of the New York Inquisitor as if she’d never seen it before, except, of course, she had, many times. It’d only been a month ago that everyone had been crowded into the office, pouring champagne and toasting her Delilah Award nomination. Ultimately, she hadn’t actually won the coveted journalism award, but just the fact that she’d been counted among the handful of female journalists who were worthy of recognition had been a feather in Saul’s cap. Now she was fired?

“Saul?” Tressie had prompted when Saul had only stared at her. Uncharacteristically silent, his forehead was crinkled into a million deep-set worry lines, and his bright red power tie was crooked, as if he had been yanking on it nonstop. Under her steady gaze, his face reddened guiltily. “Please tell me I heard you incorrectly, because I think you just said that I was fired. But that can’t possibly be right. I’m the best damn columnist you have around here and if it weren’t for me—”

“Tressie...” Saul sighed, his eyes looking everywhere but at her. “I received a call from Gary Price’s people this afternoon.”

Finally, something that made sense. All this talk about firing her was just his way of decompressing after what had to have been a nerve-racking phone conversation. He was upset, probably a little out of sorts, too, but that was to be expected. Stories like the one she’d written tended to shake up the usual order of things, which as far as she was concerned was exactly as it should be. Saul didn’t always agree with her investigative methods, but they had always managed to see eye to eye where the bottom line was concerned. Her story, just like all the others before it, had dollar signs stamped all over it, and frantic phone calls from guilty parties was the confirmation that she’d hit the jackpot, yet again.

She perked up, scooting to the edge of her chair and slapping her hands down on her side of Saul’s desk. “Good. What did they have to say for their golden boy?”

His ocean-blue eyes narrowed until they were slits in his face. “They’re pissed.”

“Well, they should be,” Tressie decided, flopping back in her chair and rearranging her Calvin Klein suit jacket around her. “He’s been out of control for a while now. They should’ve known that I’d get around to calling him out sooner or later. It had to be done, Saul, and I hope you told them that.” A derisive laugh slipped past her lips before she could stop it. “His people. Please. Who has people anymore? No one is beyond my reach, people or no people.”

“I warned you about going after Gary Price, and if you had listened—”

“If I had listened, the world wouldn’t know that Gary Price tried to bribe his way into a vacant senatorial seat while he was carrying on an affair with the current governor’s wife, and right after he managed to weasel his way out of being charged with embezzling charitable funds from the state.” She threw up her hands and let them fall back to her lap wearily. “Who does that?”

Saul snatched off his glasses, dropped them on his desk and scrubbed at his eyelids with stiff fingers. He looked so distraught that she almost felt sorry for him. It was on the tip of her tongue to offer a halfhearted apology for her part in his misery, but the next words out of his mouth dashed any warm and fuzzy feelings that might’ve been brewing inside her.

“According to Gary Price’s attorney, he doesn’t. They’re suing the paper, Tressie, which brings me back to the reason I asked to meet with you.”

“So you could fire me for being a damn good columnist? Come on, Saul, that makes about as much sense as you bowing to nonexistent pressure from Gary Price’s mysterious people. Since when do you care about ruffling a few feathers? It’s the nature of the business. You used to know that.”

“We can’t afford a lawsuit right now,” Saul bit out in a shrill tone that Tressie had never heard before. A few more wrinkles appeared in his forehead and an accusing finger pointed in her direction. “You should know that. I don’t need to remind you about who was partly to blame for the paper having to file bankruptcy last year, do I?”

Already knowing where the conversation was going and not wanting to touch the subject with a ten-foot pole, she waved a dismissive hand to cut him off. “So promise him a retraction in tomorrow’s paper or a front-page apology. Just don’t make me write it, because I won’t. He won’t know the difference anyway, and we’ve done it plenty of times before.”

Confident that she had pushed all the right buttons, sufficiently made her point and put the conversation back on track, Tressie straightened her tailored black skirt around her thighs and crossed her legs. Her right foot swung back and forth in the air purposefully while her thoughts focused in on her latest target. Gary Price was quickly becoming a heavy hitter in the local political arena, that much was true, but he was no different from the hundreds, maybe even thousands, of other schmucks that she’d written about over the years. It’d taken her a decade to accomplish it, but by now everyone who was anyone knew who she was and what she did, even though she did it pretty much anonymously. She was the Vanessa Valentino, the gossip columnist who wasn’t afraid to go where even the infamous Rona Barrett had never gone, and she had pissed off much more important people than the likes of Gary Price—a washed-up politician who, for a laughably brief period, had tried his hand at acting and failed dismally.

Why was Saul so bent out of shape over this story? There was always an instant uproar when the Saturday edition of the Inquisitor hit the newsstands and her weekly column made its rounds, but it always died down in anticipation of her next column. It was a cycle, and Saul had never bothered to interfere with it before. So, why now?

Sure, he’d threatened to suspend her once or twice over the years, and she vaguely recalled narrowly avoiding being demoted not so long ago—but fired? It was inconceivable. He needed her too much. If ever there was a cash cow, she was it.

“A retraction is the least of my worries right now, Tressie.” Saul gestured to a stack of legal-looking papers on his desktop and blew out a strong breath. “We were served with notice of the lawsuit this morning, which means that we don’t have very much time to clean up this mess. Price is suing the Inquisitor for upward of ten million dollars, and we simply don’t have the firepower to strike back. To put it bluntly, we’re broke.” Her mouth dropped open as Saul went on. “The legal department is on it, but they’ve suggested that I make a few preemptive moves to pacify Price and his attorneys in the meantime.”

“Such as?”

His tone, when he spoke, was final. “Such as suspending you indefinitely.”

“You can’t do that. You need me,” Tressie said before she could think better of it.

“You’re impulsive,” he snapped. “You act without thinking. You go right for the throat, consequences be damned, and you never seem to think about how your actions affect everyone else.”

“But that’s what makes me a good columnist, Saul,” Tressie sputtered helplessly. She sensed that she was losing ground, and the feeling was as unsettling as the determined set of Saul’s mouth. “Before I became Vanessa Valentino, the Inquisitor was the laughingstock of New York. You were printing stories about snakes with two heads, secret underground cities in third-world countries, and sending out interns to track Bigfoot through Central Park. No respectable newspaper, here or anywhere else, would even take your calls. I’m the reason you have that impressive trophy case over there.” She threw out a hand and pointed at the case in question. It was a glass-and-chrome monstrosity that took up most of the wall to the right of his equally monstrous desk, and, currently, it was nearly overflowing with awards and plaques that Vanessa Valentino had received over the years. “I’m the reason there’s even anything in it. My impulsiveness put those awards there. My go-for-the-throat philosophy put this paper on the map, and you know it. You fire me and you’ll lose it all.”

“What I need,” Saul cut in tersely, “is a columnist who isn’t single-handedly the biggest threat to the very existence of this newspaper, Tressie. In the last five years alone you’ve managed to cost us hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees, bribes, payoffs and hush money.” He blew out a long, strong breath and gritted his teeth. “Hell, the cost of keeping your true identity secret is expensive enough as it is. The nonstop threat of being sued penniless has had me wondering for a while now if you’re more trouble than you’re worth and—” he ruffled the papers in front of him so roughly that they spread out like a fan across the desktop “—now I guess I don’t have to wonder anymore. I can’t let you cause the paper any more problems, Tressie. The lawsuits and bad publicity stop right here. Right now. Enough is enough.”

It was impossible not to follow what he was saying. She understood him clearly and, as hurtful as his words were, she thought that he needed to understand something, too. “My readers are loyal. They’ll go where I go.”

That, Tressie decided on a long sigh, was where she’d gone wrong. She’d never actually seen the top of a man’s head blow off, but Saul had come very close to making that impossible feat a reality. He was already tall and stocky, but when he’d shot up out of his chair and towered over his desk, she could’ve sworn that rage had caused him to grow another six inches in height and expand at least another foot in width. The bravado that she’d been holding on to by a thread had quickly vanished, along with any hope that she’d had of holding on to her job. Saul’s parting shot—“I’ll call you if anything changes”—had rung in her ears as she was escorted out of the building like some common criminal.

Ten years, she couldn’t help thinking with every step she’d taken out the doors. Ten years of her life had gone up in smoke just like that. She’d scratched and scraped, begged and pleaded her way to the top of the Inquisitor’s food chain until she was comfortably settled in an office with a decent view, enjoying perks that she’d never dreamed of, and now she had nothing. Or next to nothing, anyway. Without a job, it wouldn’t be long before the life that she had carefully and painstakingly built for herself would come tumbling down. Along with Saul’s ominous voice, the sound of failure had rung so loudly in her ears that she’d almost broken down and cried like a baby.

Now, thank God, something else was ringing in her ears—the sound of a blazing comeback and the financial backing that she needed to make it happen. Then, as if on cue, Norman Harper’s voice was in her ear.

“Miss Valentine, I’ve been looking forward to your call....”

* * *

Hours later, Tressie’s mind was whirling, trying to mentally prioritize the thousand and one details she had to deal with. With an open and half-packed suitcase on her bed, a confirmed travel itinerary in her hand and a big smile on her face, she raced around her apartment, checking to make sure that she wasn’t forgetting anything important. By this time tomorrow she’d be a thousand miles away and, as far as she was concerned, in a whole other world. Nothing about where she was going was convenient or, for that matter, modern, so she wanted to make sure that she’d be able to exist with a modicum of comfort for the precious few days that she had to be there. She threw her makeup case into the suitcase and followed it up with as many pairs of Christian Louboutin pumps as it would take to see her through a week’s visit, her laptop, a compact portable printer and a global Wi-Fi modem the size of a lipstick tube.

The essentials out of the way, she went in search of clothing.

It’d been five years since she’d stepped foot in Mercy, Georgia, and just thinking about going back almost wiped the smile right off her face. Only the possibility of finally acquiring something worthwhile from the dreary little town that she’d come from kept her feet moving and her mind clicking. If she felt the least bit guilty about selling her grandmother’s house—the house that she had grown up in—well...she figured she’d get over it soon enough.

Hopefully.

Chapter 1

Not even the throwback R & B blaring from the earbuds in Tressie Valentine’s ears could keep her energized long enough to get through the exhausting task of airing out and packing up Juanita Valentine’s entire house in one afternoon. Her grandmother, who’d affectionately been called Ma’Dear by everyone who knew her, had collected all sorts of decorative knickknacks during her lifetime, and now there had to be hundreds of the little things scattered around the house. Each and every one of them was a dust magnet, and, unfortunately, Tressie had inherited all of them along with the house itself. If she’d had the energy to lift her leg, she would’ve kicked herself for letting the house sit unattended for the past five years. Even with the preliminary packing and tidying that she and some of Ma’Dear’s lifelong friends had done after Ma’Dear’s funeral, there was still a month’s worth of work that had to be done in a fraction of that time.

The plan had been to get the second floor done, break for lunch and order a pizza for delivery, sit down and recuperate long enough to devour it, and then tackle the first floor. But when the muscles in her arms and legs threatened to revolt, she knew it was time to give it a rest. With the kitchen, dining room and living room still left to get through, she switched off her iPod, fixed herself a tall glass of ice water and took it with her out onto the back sunporch.

“God, even the porch furniture is dusty,” she whined as she dropped into an ancient rocking chair and drank deeply. Her mental list of things to do was getting longer and longer. She hadn’t dusted and cleaned so much since she was a teenager and now she remembered why. Ma’Dear had been the most loving grandmother that anyone could ask for, but she had also run a tight ship. As a teenager, most of Tressie’s daily, weekly and monthly chores had revolved around housekeeping, which she had always detested, and Ma’Dear had stopped just short of following her around the house wearing a white glove to test for residue just to make sure that she was doing the cleaning correctly. When Tressie was first starting out on her own, far, far away from Mercy, housework had been a necessary evil, but as soon as she’d been able to afford it she had hired a housekeeper and never looked back.

A moan slipped out of her mouth as she put her aching feet up on a nearby stool, let her head fall back against the chair and closed her eyes. It didn’t help matters any that the temperature outside was at least ninety degrees. Inside the house it felt as if it was twice that, even with the windows wide-open and the electric fans that she’d found in the attic going full speed. After less than forty-eight hours in Mercy, Georgia, she suspected that she’d already lost at least five pounds just by virtue of sweating alone.

And she still had the downstairs to finish up.

Consolidated Investments, the firm that Norman Harper represented, wanted to take immediate possession of the house and the five acres of land that it sat on. She was scheduled to meet with him tomorrow afternoon to discuss terms and sign over the deed, and by then she was hoping to have everything in the house completely packed up and cleared out.

There wasn’t much that she wanted to keep—just a few odds and ends. The rest she was going to donate to charity. As for the house itself...well, giving it up would be bittersweet, but she had to face facts. She never intended to live in Mercy again and she desperately needed the money. It didn’t make sense for the house to continue sitting there like an unwanted and abandoned museum, or the land to go on being an unused burden on the town. As it was, she was itching to get back to New York and start reviving her career, and nothing here could help her do that.

Traffic to her online weblog had drastically fallen off in the months since her column had disappeared from the Inquisitor. Her website had once attracted nearly a million unique visitors daily, mostly because she had always reposted her print articles there, but there were also other tidbits and points of interest that drew attention. Fashion tips, popular high-end cosmetic and fragrance ad placements, updates on some of her favorite scandalous reality TV shows, exclusive celebrity interviews, and on and on. The kinds of stuff that interested women, which was her target audience, and kept them coming back for more. Just as she’d hoped, it hadn’t taken the public long to notice her absence and sound off about it both on her blog and in the Letters to the Editor section of the Inquisitor.

But the loyalty that she’d counted on had turned out to be a joke, and Saul was probably laughing his head off about it now. She could just see him, mumbling I told you so’s to anyone who’d listen, and comforting himself with the knowledge that he’d been right all along about her impulsiveness ultimately being her downfall.

Apparently, Vanessa Valentino was just another disposable commodity. After a few weeks’ worth of inquiring comments, her audience had dropped her like a hot potato and moved on without a second thought. The blog was silent as a tomb now, which had initially struck like a blow straight to her heart, but the more she thought about it, the more she was beginning to feel that maybe it was for the best. When she did make her comeback—and she would make a comeback—she’d make that much more of a splash. Saul wouldn’t be laughing then.

Ma’Dear had never completely understood what she did for a living, because Tressie had never really been completely forthcoming about her occupation. If there had ever been a Bible-thumping, God-fearing woman, it was Ma’Dear. She would’ve seen Tressie’s occupation as a celebrity gossip columnist as a complete and utter waste of God-given time. So Tressie had led Ma’Dear to believe that she was simply a staff reporter, a lowly one at that, who spent her workdays doing research and writing copy for the big-name reporters. If Ma’Dear had ever suspected that there was more to the story, thank God she’d never said so, because Tressie would’ve hated lying to the woman who had raised her after her mother had died in childbirth.

But she would’ve, in a heartbeat.

Fortunately, that was all behind her now. Ma’Dear was the only family that she’d had left in the world and she missed her every day, but without her to act as Tressie’s long-distance conscience, Vanessa Valentino was free to take her game to the next level. And without Saul breathing down her neck and constantly trying to rein her in, she could expand her reach in ways that she’d been wanting to for years. Vanessa Valentino could finally become a brand name.

No, Vanessa Valentino would finally become a brand name. She had the contacts, the ideas and the guts to make it happen for herself. All she had to do now was get her hands on the money from the sale of the two things still tying her to Mercy, Georgia, by a thin thread—the house and land that Ma’Dear had left her.

Determined to meet the deadline that she had set for herself, Tressie forced herself to rise from the rocking chair and stretch her tired muscles. Suddenly starving, she deposited her empty glass in the kitchen sink and went in search of her cell phone. First she’d take a quick shower and then order lunch. Then she’d finish dealing with the house today if it was the last thing she did.

* * *

After an inexplicably delayed clearance from the airport in Darfur and then an excruciatingly long red-eye flight that was riddled with nonstop turbulence, all Nathaniel Woodberry wanted to do was make his way to the nearest bed and hibernate for at least the next twenty-four hours. But there was still an hour-long drive to look forward to once his flight landed in Atlanta and he finally made it through airport security. Fortunately, his bag was the first to appear on the luggage ramp and, thanks to his publicist, who also doubled as his personal assistant, a rented SUV was waiting for him at the valet station outside.

Already missing the love of his life—a vintage Jeep Wrangler that had seen just as much combat as he had—he tossed his gigantic duffel bag into the backseat of an idling Lincoln Navigator, peeled off his leather blazer and slid into the driver’s seat. With the air-conditioning set to high, the radio tuned in to an all-jazz station and his cell phone switched off, he drove away from the airport and headed for the interstate and home.

For the past two decades he had called Seattle, Washington, home, but there was home and then there was home. Seattle was where he had settled right after graduating from college and accepting an entry-level staff reporter position with the Seattle Times. It was where he had gotten his start as a local news reporter and honed his craft—where he had fully indulged his photography hobby and invested in his first Nikon. Even back then his camera had pointed him toward chaos and controversy, which was how he’d found his twentysomething self wandering into the midst of an infamous Seattle riot and snapping a series of pictures that had ultimately catapulted him from staff reporter to frontline investigative journalist.

From there, his camera had taken him into the kinds of volatile and unpredictable situations that many journalists wouldn’t even dream of going into, let alone getting up close and personal with—wars in the Middle East and Africa, the jungles of South America, guerrilla soldier camps... By now the list was endless.

Somewhere along the way he had earned a reputation for being a daredevil. Probably right around the time he had decided to strike out on his own and become a freelance journalist, Nate thought as he picked up speed on the interstate, activated the cruise control and relaxed back into the plush leather seat. Some had thought him a fool for wanting to make his own rules and choose his own path, and others had predicted quick and brutal career suicide for him. But he’d been just hungry enough, just stubborn and fearless enough, to put both himself and his camera in imminent danger again and again for the sake of a story.

His pictures, the words he paired them with and occasionally the sound bites that he sometimes risked his life recording on location—all had graced the covers of magazines and newspapers around the world and been featured on countless online and television news outlets. Now his services were so in demand that his publicist was overworked and in need of a raise, and Nate was lucky if he was able to carve out time for a quick vacation here and there between assignments.

It’d been months since he had actually met with his publicist in person and even longer than that since he’d stepped foot inside his apartment in Seattle, and covering the aftermath of the conflict in Darfur was only partly to blame. Trips like these, trips back home to Mercy, Georgia, were the other half of the equation.

At the Mercy exit, Nate left the interstate and cruised along the two-lane service road that led into town. Traffic on the usually quiet and scenic road was heavier than usual, inching along in some spots and coming to a complete standstill in others. He passed a long stretch of farmland before the scenery opened up to clusters of residential communities and then a small industrial park. It was the same scenery that had always been there, except that now there was a new addition. Just past the industrial parks, new construction was going on, ground being broken and buildings leveled.

Seeing it caused a wrinkle of irritation to appear in the center of Nate’s forehead. He knew without having to track its progress that it was heading straight toward Mercy, Georgia. Short of a miracle suddenly happening, in a matter of months those demolition crews would be destroying the entire town and leaving hundreds of displaced people in their wake. People who wouldn’t be able to afford to live in the resort-style, luxury gated community that was slated to be built in its place. In political terms, it was called eminent domain, but as far as the people of Mercy were concerned it was theft, plain and simple.

Nate tended to agree.

When the Welcome to Mercy, Georgia, sign finally appeared on the side of the road up ahead, Nate picked up his cell phone from the passenger seat, turned it on and pressed a button to connect to his publicist. The phone on the other end had barely rung once before it was answered.

“It’s about time you called,” Julia Gustav said by way of greeting. “I was beginning to wonder if I should call the police and have an APB put out on you. Oh, but wait, I wouldn’t be able to give them an accurate description of you, now, would I? God knows I haven’t seen you in forever. Do you even care that I miss you?”

Nate chuckled, glad that Julia couldn’t see him just then. He was blushing like a schoolboy, which was exactly what she made him feel like sometimes. “I know, sugar, and I’m sorry. It can’t be helped right now, but I’ll tell you what. How about I take you out for a night on the town when I get back to Seattle?” he said. “We’ll take in a show, have a lavish dinner and drink bubbly all night. Maybe take a walk by the lakefront and catch up. Sound good?”

“Better than good,” Julia purred. “Promise?”

“Of course. It’ll be just like old times.”

Julia had been his publicist and personal assistant for more than a decade, which meant that she knew him better than he knew himself most of the time. At sixty years old, she was the closest thing to a favorite aunt he’d ever had, and he was crazy about her. Ever since his mother had passed away six months ago, Julia had taken it upon herself to become his keeper, insisting that he call her at least once every other day, regardless of where he was in the world or what he was doing, just as he had called his mother. Normally, he was able to deliver, but being damn near undercover in Darfur, with limited or no cell access for hundreds of miles and very little human contact that hadn’t required a translator, had kept him out of touch for longer than usual this time. It went without saying that he had some making up to do.

“No, it won’t,” Julia told him. “The last time we went out for a night on the town, your mother was with us.” Her voice turned wistful. “You flew us both to New York on a private jet, like we were queens, and took us to a Broadway show. We sat next to that famous actress and her husband, and your mother couldn’t believe that you were actually friends with them.” Julia laughed throatily. “She had the best time.”

“Yes, she did,” Nate said quietly, remembering. Merlene Woodberry had been like a kid in a candy store whenever she visited New York, and her last trip there was no different. When she hadn’t been dragging him around to every tourist attraction that the city had to offer, she’d spent hours on end walking him around Time Square, watching people and marveling at their antics. At the time, Nate had chalked up her hyperenthusiasm to the fact that she had decided that the trip would be her last for the next little while. She had more clients than normal back home, she’d said, and there were some things that she wanted to have done around the house that she needed to be home to oversee.

He’d had no idea that she was dying.

“So we’ll dedicate the night to her memory,” he suggested with a cheerfulness that he was nowhere near feeling. “She’d like that.”

“Hmm, I think she would also approve of what you’re trying to do for your hometown. It’s a special little place.”

“It was to her.”

His ancestors had lived in Mercy since the slaves were emancipated, and Merlene had lived and breathed the town. As for him—well, it had always been a nice place to live as long as he’d actually had to. But the minute he was old enough to start dreaming about places far, far away, he had started planning his escape route. Still, Mercy was special—Julia was right about that. His mother would never forgive him if he didn’t at least try to save it.

Julia’s voice broke into his thoughts. “So I’ll see you in, what? A couple of days? A week?”

“Maybe a little longer. There’s a town-hall meeting scheduled for tomorrow that I want to sit in on, and then I have a meeting the day after that. So we’ll see how it goes.”

After hanging up, Nate tossed his cell phone back into the passenger seat, only to have it ring again. He snatched it up again. “Woodberry.”

“When you said you were coming home today, did you mean today or did you mean next month today?” a deep, gravelly voice asked.

He rolled his eyes to the roof of the car and took a breath for patience. “I’m driving into town as we speak, Jasper,” he drawled. He rolled to a halt at the stoplight in front of the funeral home that Jasper Holmes owned and tooted his horn loud enough to be heard inside the three-story building. Jasper lived in the bachelor’s apartment on the top floor. “Did you hear that, old man?”

“That you?”

“Yep. You need anything while I’m in the area?” If he’d ever had an uncle, which he hadn’t, he probably would’ve been just like Jasper Holmes, Nate thought as he idled at the red light. Growing up, he had never quite cleaved to Jasper the way most of the town’s kids had, seeing him as a surrogate father figure, but the two of them had always had a grudging respect for one another. “Dinner? Your medicine? An ass-kicking in dominoes?”

Jasper cackled heartily at the thinly veiled but good-natured threat. “You wish, boy. You wish. I might take you up on that tomorrow sometime, though. Right now I’m thinking about putting some ribs in the smoker out back. Hallie Norris called me this morning and said that Elaine Gordon told her that Jessie down at Hayden’s Diner told her that Juanita Valentine’s granddaughter popped up in town the other day. Jessie says she’s been ordering takeout from the diner morning, noon and night, and we both know how Willie Burnett’s cooking can burn a hole in your gut. So I figured I might smoke a few pieces of meat, whip up some potato salad and see if I could talk Lilly Davis into throwing some stuff into a pot and ending up with her version of spaghetti. Figured the least we could do is feed the girl. Juanita was good people. She—”

Nate hadn’t listened to a word Jasper had said past hearing that Juanita Valentine’s granddaughter was in town. “Wait a minute. Did you just say that Tressie Valentine is in town?”

“Yeah,” Jasper confirmed. “Been here since the day before yesterday, the way I hear it. She’s staying in Juanita’s house. Well, I guess it’s her house now, but—”

“Do me a favor and hold up on setting out a buffet, okay? Let me look into some things and I’ll call you back.”

Nate disconnected the call and made a U-turn on two wheels in the middle of Main Street. Ignoring the blaring horns of drivers who had been suddenly and illegally cut off, he drove back the way he had come. Less than a hundred feet from the Welcome to Mercy, Georgia, sign at the entrance to town and directly across the street from the Greyhound bus station was a one-way road that circled around to the east side of town and opened up to a small cluster of residential streets. The area ran alongside a dense, wooded thatch and, years ago, it had been separated from the rest of the town by wrought-iron gates at each end. The houses inside the gates were the largest in Mercy, rambling three- and four-story structures that only the handful of wealthy residents in Mercy could afford to own. Beyond it, up on the hill, was the house that he and all of the other kids in Mercy had fondly referred to as the White House. Before the gates had been taken down, the farthest that he had ventured inside the gates had been to occasionally visit Moira Tobias, the owner of the White House. Now he made a beeline for another house, the one that Tressie Valentine had grown up in with her grandmother.

Nate skidded to a stop behind the small sedan that was parked in the driveway and hopped out of the Navigator before the machine had fully registered the shift from Drive to Park. It was still shuddering when he took the steps leading to the wraparound front porch two at a time and rang the doorbell.

Thirty seconds later and no response, he rang the doorbell again. Then again. Still no response. Cursing under his breath, he tried the doorknob. His eyebrows shot up in surprise when it turned easily and the door swung open.

The first floor was clear, he discovered after checking out each room. Other than stacks of already packed boxes and flattened boxes waiting to be packed scattered everywhere, there was no sign of Tressie. He was wondering if she had gone out somewhere when he heard sounds of movement above his head. Exactly what the source of those sounds was didn’t register with him until he was already on the second floor and approaching the first door to his left—the door to the hall bathroom.

The shower.

It was going full blast and she was singing along with the water’s spray. No, that wasn’t quite right. Actually she was singing—horribly—over and above the water’s spray. The sound of her voice scraped across his nerves like fingernails on a chalkboard, spiking his irritation level into orbit. Without stopping to think about what he was doing, he barged into the steamy bathroom and snatched the shower curtain back.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he bellowed.

Chapter 2

She turned just as a blast of cool air slammed into her skin, and then visions of warriors rushing in for battle flashed before her eyes—big, strapping men with bulging muscles, bloodthirsty expressions on their faces, and mighty swords slicing through the air. She saw herself being impaled to death and then buried in a shallow grave deep in the woods, where no one would ever find her. She saw, as plain as day, the likelihood that no one would even bother to look for her because the sad fact was that she wasn’t the most popular person in the world and she had no real friends to speak of. Every questionable deed that she’d ever done played before her eyes like a movie. Her killer would go unpunished and her death would be in vain. The public would probably celebrate once her true identity was revealed. They would—

Oh, God. She was going to die.

Partially blinded by soap bubbles and completely on the verge of hysteria, Tressie opened her mouth and did the only thing she could think to do under the circumstances. She screamed at the top of her lungs.

It seemed like an eternity, but it really took only a few seconds to wipe the soap bubbles from her eyes and focus. When she did, the first thing she saw through the steam was a pair of gorgeous hazel eyes staring into hers. Expanding her gaze to a wide-screen view, she took in a pair of perfectly shaped lips and a dimpled chin, thick eyebrows and smooth pecan-brown skin. Something in her brain eventually clicked and she recognized Nate Woodberry, but that didn’t stop her from continuing to scream like a banshee. The only difference was that this time the sounds she made were intelligible. “What the hell,” she shrieked frantically as she snatched the shower curtain from his grasp and wrapped it around her body, “are you doing in here?”

“I rang the bell. You didn’t answer.” He was the epitome of calm.

“So you just walk right on in and make yourself at home?” She slung her wet hair back and out of her face and shut off the water. “Idiot! Hand me a towel from over there, would you?” She snatched the towel he handed her and only released her death grip on the shower curtain long enough to make the trade. The fact that he had undoubtedly seen more of her naked body in the past thirty seconds than her doctor had in years burned her skin to a cherry-red crisp, especially since he hadn’t so much as given it a second glance in all that time. So much for cutting back on sweets and working out like a demon.

“Well?” they said in unison.

“Well, what?” they said in harmony again.

And then again in unison, “What are you doing here?”

“You first,” Tressie said, securing the knot in her towel and stepping out of the old-fashioned claw-foot tub.

“No, sugar, you first.” Nate folded his arms across his chest and stared her down. “You were told to stay the hell away from Mercy, Georgia, but yet here you are. Why is that, Vanessa Valentino?”

She resisted the urge to wince at the menacing way he said her trade name. Of the handful of people who knew that she was the pen behind the persona, unfortunately he had always been the least complimentary about it. “I’m sorry. Did I miss the memo that named you the king of my comings and goings?” She folded her arms underneath her breasts and looked at him from head to toe, then rolled her eyes. “Just because you had a bug up your ass about a story I was writing five years ago doesn’t mean you can order me around for the rest of my life. News flash, Nate. It was a long time ago. The rest of the world has moved on. You should, too.”

“What, you think I’ve spent the last five years checking for you?”

“Well, you are standing in my bathroom right now, aren’t you?” She looked up at him thoughtfully. “Tell me something, Nate. How did you even know that I was here? Which one of your little minions do you have keeping track of my every movement?”

He caught his mouth before it could drop open. “You’re out of your mind.”

“Says the man who’s hunted me down like a fugitive for the second time in less than a decade.”

“You are a fugitive.”

Now it was her turn to catch her mouth before it could drop open. “Excuse me?”

“That’s what you do, right? Hide behind a fake name and a fake persona so you don’t have to face the consequences of destroying people’s lives with the stroke of a pen? That’s you, right? A hack, so-called journalist, with nothing better to do than dig around in people’s private lives, because you have no life of your own? A coward who throws stones and then hides her hands? If the public knew who you really were, you’d never get another night’s sleep.”

Almost word for word, he was spouting the same speech now that he had given her five years ago, except that he wasn’t shouting the roof off this time. She didn’t know which was worse—enraged and volatile Nate, or the calm, almost reasonable-sounding Nate standing in front of her now. Either way, she wasn’t in the mood for a replay of five years ago, especially since she hadn’t exactly come out on top in the aftermath. Every time she thought about the way she had allowed him to bully her into dropping the story of a lifetime—and she had thought about it a lot over the years—she wanted to kick herself. If she had held her ground back then she would’ve been a wealthy woman right now. More than wealthy, she thought sourly. Probably rich. And none of the chaos that was currently going on in her life would be happening.

Was she pissed at the way things had turned out? Hell, yes.

Had she stood there five years ago like a deer caught in headlights and allowed Nate to insult her nonstop? Yes, she had.

That was then and this was now. He had won back then, and there was nothing she could do about that now. She wasn’t about to let him terrorize her again. She had too much riding on this visit to Mercy and, thankfully, it had nothing to do with him.

But just to be on the safe side, she took a full step back from him before throwing one of the stones he’d mentioned. “You know, it’s funny that you mention me not having a life, when you’re the one who’s dedicated his entire life to chasing after another man’s woman. Where’s the dignity in that, Nate, huh?”

He went stone still and his eyes narrowed. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said quietly.

Shut up, Tressie. Shut up now. “Oh, of course you do. I was here back then, too, remember? You were so in love with Pamela Mayes that you couldn’t see straight. Always trailing behind her and her boyfriend, hoping she would throw you a scrap of attention whenever she happened to look around and notice you there. But she never did, did she? What was his name? The boy she chose over you? Oh, that’s right. Chad Greene. Your best friend. Some friend you are.”

“Watch yourself, Tressie.”

“It was a sordid little story for a while there, and isn’t it a shame that I didn’t get to tell it.”

“You didn’t need to tell it. It was none of your business.”

“Whatever,” Tressie snapped, flapping a dismissive hand at him. “Like I said, it was five years ago. I kept up my end of the deal, so what do you want with me now?” The deal. Just thinking about it put a sour taste in her mouth.

When he had shown up at her office at the Inquisitor, some obviously delusional part of her mind had actually thought that he was there to invite her out to lunch or, even better, dinner. True, they didn’t exactly run in the same journalistic circles, but they had just run into each other in Mercy, when she had gone home for Ma’Dear’s funeral, and the vibe between them had been good. At least she’d thought so. Apparently her radar for gauging a man’s interest was seriously out of order, because not only couldn’t he have been less interested in taking her out to dinner, but he’d been on the verge of shaking her silly.

Accusations had been hurled and the shouting had been almost unbearable, and that was just on his part. For her part, she’d barely been able to get a word in. By the time he had calmed down long enough to issue a parting ultimatum, she’d been in tears. Drop the story, he’d said, or get ready for the world to know who she really was. It would’ve been a career-ending move, and no matter how badly she wanted to write columns that would bring the public to its knees, she couldn’t risk it.

And he’d known that.

Bastard.

“I want you not to make me take you to the mat again,” Nate said ominously. “Because you know I will.”

“For what?” Disbelief had her rearing back and staring up at him as if he was crazy, which very likely could’ve been the case. Studies had shown that some of the most attractive men in history had been quietly, secretly insane, and Nate Woodberry was way beyond attractive. He was tall and wrapped from head to toe in the kind of muscle that couldn’t be earned in a gym, and his smile, whenever he was moved to reveal it, which wasn’t very often it seemed, was just lopsided enough, just devilish enough to conjure up images of all kinds of X-rated deeds. His hair, when it wasn’t secured at the nape of his neck in a roguish ponytail, was an inky black curtain that draped his shoulders and hung down his back in silky waves. And when they weren’t narrowed to slits, his hazel eyes were sleepy-looking, as if he had just rolled out of bed. Any woman with a pulse would be tempted to roll him right back into bed upon first sight of him. Love didn’t immediately come to mind when you set eyes on him, but pure and simple lust damn sure did.

Quite frankly, he was a spectacular-looking man, which meant that the odds of his being completely off his rocker were greater than most. And here she was, naked except for a wash-worn towel and all alone with him in a nearly soundproof house. The way things were going, he could snap any second now, and what could she do? Beat him off with a towel that was probably just as old as she was?

“You know what?” Tressie said, mentally switching gears and frantically shooing him out of her way. “Forget I asked. I can’t deal with you right now, so I think it’s time for you to go.” She was surprised when he actually stepped aside, but she wasn’t about to waste a second of precious time thanking him. As soon as the way was clear, she made a beeline for the open door and the hallway on the other side of it. The bedroom she was using was directly across from the bathroom. Gripping her towel and walking fast, she headed toward it, praying every step of the way.

Walking just as fast behind her, Nate cuffed her arm and brought her skipping back to him two steps shy of her goal. “Just a second, sugar. I want to make sure we’re clear on something before you go back into hiding.” He dipped his head and put his face in her face. “Are you listening?”

Momentarily thrown off balance by the sheer impact of him, Tressie couldn’t find her voice. Good lord, the man was even more gorgeous up close. Some other part of her brain, some irrational, hypersexual part, wondered what he would do if she closed the inch separating his lips from hers and sucked his bottom lip into her mouth. Just curious, she’d say when he asked her what the hell she thought she was doing. Did he taste as good as he looked? Inquiring, sexually deprived minds suddenly wanted to know.

Pamela Mayes would know, she thought as her stricken gaze made its way down to the lips in question. Nate had been romantically linked to hundreds of high-profile women over the years, and somehow none of them had ever managed to drag him down the aisle. Whenever the topic of his lingering bachelorhood had come up in any of the personal interviews that he sometimes came out of seclusion and granted, he’d always rattled off some nonsense about not having found the right woman yet. But Tressie knew better. He had found the right woman years ago and let her slip through his fingers. All the other women that he’d romanced had just been extremely well-endowed, picture-perfect substitutes.

That information alone would’ve guaranteed sales in the hundreds of thousands if she’d been allowed to write even a fraction of the story.

Pamela Mayes was a country girl turned megasuperstar. She had turned her humble beginnings as an orphan here in Mercy, Georgia, into platinum records and multiple Grammy awards, stints on reality TV shows and, just this past year, a series of designer fragrances and a new makeup line. She was a household name, having been compared to legendary songbirds such as Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey when it came to vocal style and ability, and hottie newcomer celebrities like Jennifer Lopez and Kim Kardashian when it came to the scandal factor. As a result, the public loved her and the media dogged her every move.

Nate wasn’t an entertainer in the common sense of the word, but he was just as much a celebrity as Pamela Mayes was. As a reporter at a well-respected news station, he had established what would’ve ended up being a respectable, if not mundane, career for himself. But as a freelance investigative journalist, he had found a way not only to entertain people, but also to make them think. If his stories were informative, sometimes hard to swallow and often gut-wrenching, the photos that he took, the magic that he created from behind the lens, were absolutely awe-inspiring and even more so. He took the pictures that others turned away from and made you look at them. It hadn’t taken the powers that be long to notice that special something that he possessed, and along with notoriety had come wealth and a different kind of fame. On top of that, he was mouthwateringly sexy.

Linking him with Pamela Mayes and being able to substantiate the link with the kind of factual evidence that Tressie could’ve provided would have ignited her career. And then writing a no-holds-barred follow-up exposé about the life and times of the infamous Pamela Mayes, about everything that happened before and after her relationship with Nate Woodberry, would’ve shot Tressie’s career straight into orbit.

But she had missed the boat and now it was too late.

The trauma of burying her twin sister, the only biological family that Pam ever had, had already been written about in a biography that had sold millions of copies while Tressie had been too afraid to defy Nate’s order of silence. Pam had been involved in other scandals since then, and now that she was happily married and fairly domesticated, she was busy trying to build a legacy that she could be proud of. These days she was working hard to downplay her penchant for negative media attention and bring her philanthropic efforts to the forefront.

So Tressie would never get to write about what had to have been an intense connection between Nate and Pam. They had been lovers—she was sure of it, though she didn’t have a scrap of proof. Nate would never admit to it and Pam wasn’t exactly in a position to be completely forthcoming, but there it was just the same.

As if reading her thoughts, Nate’s lips moved closer and hovered less than a breath away from hers. “I can see that you are listening,” he whispered, “so I’ll make this quick. To answer your question, sugar—no, I’m not the king of your comings and goings. No man in his right mind would want that responsibility. But for the next little while, let’s just say that I’m the king of Mercy, Georgia, and as the king, I’m giving you a royal decree. If you came here to stick your pointy little nose into the eminent domain situation here in Mercy and make a mockery of it, forget about it. These people need help, but they don’t need your kind of help. Understood?”

No, but...whatever. “Um, yeah, I guess so.”

“Good. Do you need me to help you pack?”

“N-no.” Especially since she wasn’t planning on going anywhere.

“Then we understand each other.”

“Perfectly.”

“Good. So I’ll see myself out.”

“Please do.”

Silly man, Tressie thought as she watched Nate disappear down the stairs. Now that he had piqued her curiosity, did he really think she was going to just pack up and leave without finding out what was going on?

She breathed a sigh of relief when she heard the door slam and then raced downstairs to the front door to double lock it behind him. Back upstairs, she went into her old bedroom and peeked out the window at him from behind the blinds. The Navigator burned rubber backing out of the driveway and taking off down the street. Once it was out of sight, she dropped her towel and slipped into a pair of shorts and a fresh tank top.

Then she powered up her laptop and went on a searching expedition. An eminent domain situation in Mercy, Georgia? What the hell?

* * *

The Navigator couldn’t carry Nate away from Tressie’s house fast enough. Pushing the bulky machine well beyond posted speed limits, he drove back the way he had come by rote, his thoughts churning at warp speed despite the fact that his body was exhausted. Before he had discovered that Tressie was back in town, all he had wanted to do was get to his mother’s house as quickly as possible, take a long, hot shower and crawl into bed. Now all he could think about was seeing Tressie naked, and suddenly the prospect of getting into an empty bed didn’t seem quite so satisfying.

He hadn’t been intimate with a woman in several months, almost a year by his own self-imposed-celibacy calculations, and he was feeling deprived of it right now more than ever. When he was on assignment, the story always took precedence. Women, as much as he loved them, were a luxury that he couldn’t afford to indulge in. The slightest distraction on location could cost him his life, so he had long since learned to channel all his energy in the only direction that mattered—time and place, and getting in and out alive.

The press liked to paint a picture of him that was far from the reality of his everyday life. For every woman that he’d ever actually established some sort of relationship with, there were at least ten more that they had erroneously linked him to. If he let them tell it, he spent most of his time seducing unsuspecting women and breaking their hearts. But the exact opposite was actually closer to the truth. When he wasn’t on location, he spent most of his time locked away in his darkroom, which was precisely why none of the relationships that he had taken time out of his busy schedule to cultivate had ever actually moved past the dating stage.

He was married to his work.

But he wasn’t working now and, with images of Tressie’s water-streaked breasts etched into his brain, his body was acutely aware of exactly how long it’d been since he had been close enough to a woman to do anything more than breathe in her scent. Not that he was the least bit interested in Tressie Valentine, he reminded himself as he executed a left turn that balanced the Navigator on two wheels, because he wasn’t. Still, he couldn’t help wondering how he’d never noticed that she was so damn sexy.

Of course, the possibility that he was half–out of his mind from lack of sex was a very real one. But he was pretty sure that he’d been thinking with the right head when he noticed that her bottom lip was slightly plumper than her top one and, therefore, begging to be sucked; that she had twin beauty marks—one centered perfectly above her top lip and the other in the center of her chin—and he’d thought about touching the tip of his tongue to them. That her breasts were beautifully tipped with what had looked to his suddenly dry mouth like large, ripe blackberries. Hadn’t he?

Either way it was a moot point because Tressie Valentine had to be the last person on earth that he wanted to get involved with, even if it would’ve been just for the sake of hot, sweaty sex. For one thing, she talked too much and he had never been attracted to chatty women. And for another, he wasn’t inclined to deal with the kind of drama that she would undoubtedly introduce into his life. His hands were full enough as it was with the drama going on in Mercy, without adding another ingredient to the mix. Plus, if there was a God in heaven, the woman would be on the other side of the state line, headed back to New York, before nightfall.

Pushing any and all thoughts of Tressie Valentine to the back of his mind, Nate pulled into his own driveway and shut off the Navigator. As he hauled his duffel into the house and took it with him into the only room in the house that was still furnished, he decided that if she wasn’t gone by the end of the day, he would track her down—again—and strangle the hell out of her.

Chapter 3

If there was one good thing about committing a crime in Mercy, Georgia, Tressie told herself as she raised a window at the back of Nate’s house and hiked up her sundress so she could climb inside, it was that people never locked their windows or doors. The rest of the world had moved on to high-tech alarm systems, vicious guard dogs and megawatt floodlights, but not Mercy. The crime rate here was next to nothing, which made it way too easy for people like her to do exactly what she was doing—breaking and entering.

At the last minute, she remembered that she was wearing stilettos and took them off before she tucked her miniflashlight between her teeth, boosted herself up on the window ledge and dove through the window like a cat. Inside, she landed as quietly as she could on her elbows and knees, and quickly scrambled to her feet. The kitchen was clear, as was the hallway beyond it and what she could see of the living room.

She stood still for a second, listening to the sounds of the house and waiting for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. Somewhere a clock was ticking and the central air-conditioning unit was humming steadily, but otherwise not a creature seemed to be stirring. She knew that Nate was home, because the Navigator that he’d been driving earlier was parked in the driveway. Leaving her shoes on the floor by the window, she inched forward and crept deeper into the house on the tips of her toes.

In the living room, she moved across the hardwood floor stealthily, being careful not to trip the built-in alarm in the center of the room. The slight dip in the wood there was invisible to the naked eye, but anyone who had ever come to Miss Merlene for a press-and-curl back in the day knew exactly where it was. At three o’clock in the afternoon, the loud squeal that it emitted was tolerable, but at three o’clock in the morning, it definitely wasn’t the kind of entrance that Tressie wanted to make. She breathed a silent sigh of relief when she made it to the other side of the room and then to the short hallway that led to the bedrooms without making a sound.

After that, finding Nate was a piece of cake. She killed the flashlight and followed the dim glow of the night-light that he’d left on in the bathroom adjoining his bedroom. He was in bed, sleeping wildly with the bedspread kicked back and off him, a pillow bunched underneath his head and a sheet wound around his waist. One of his legs lay on top of the sheet and an arm hung off the side of the huge bed. Setting her flashlight on the nightstand, Tressie moved closer to the sleeping giant.

“Nate,” she whispered. The steady rise and fall of his chest continued undisturbed. She tried again, a little louder this time. “Nate!” Still nothing. Carefully sidestepping his dangling arm, she leaned over him and slowly reached out. “Nate.”

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