“Well, then, maybe some other time.”

“No, there won’t be another time,” Reilly said flatly. “You might as well know that now. If you’ve set your sights on me, you’re wasting your time. I’m not interested.”

Stunned, Janey couldn’t believe she’d heard him correctly. He actually thought that she…that she was the kind of woman who would…

Unable to finish the thoughts whirling in her head, Janey almost laughed at the ridiculousness of his accusations. He couldn’t be serious! She’d never come on to a man in her life—she wouldn’t even know where to begin! But she drew herself up proudly. So he wasn’t interested, was he?

Well, neither was she!

Dear Reader,

It’s the beginning of a new year, and Intimate Moments is ready to kick things off with six more fabulously exciting novels. Readers have been clamoring for Linda Turner to create each new installment of her wonderful miniseries THOSE MARRYING MCBRIDES! In Never Been Kissed she honors those wishes with the deeply satisfying tale of virginal nurse Janey McBride and Dr. Reilly Jones, who’s just the man to teach her how wonderful love can be when you share it with the right man.

A YEAR OF LOVING DANGEROUSLY continues to keep readers on the edge of their seats with The Spy Who Loved Him, bestselling author Merline Lovelace’s foray into the dangerous jungles of Central America, where the loving is as steamy as the air. And you won’t want to miss My Secret Valentine, the enthralling conclusion to our in-line 36 HOURS spin-off. As always, Marilyn Pappano delivers a page-turner you won’t be able to resist. Ruth Langan begins a new trilogy, THE SULLIVAN SISTERS, with Awakening Alex, sure to be another bestseller. Lyn Stone’s second book for the line, Live-In Lover, is sure to make you her fan. Finally, welcome brand-new New Zealand sensation Frances Housden. In The Man for Maggie she makes a memorable debut, one that will have you crossing your fingers that her next book will be out soon.

Enjoy! And come back next month, when the excitement continues here in Silhouette Intimate Moments.

Yours,

Leslie J. Wainger

Executive Senior Editor

Never Been Kissed
Linda Turner

www.millsandboon.co.uk

LINDA TURNER

began reading romances in high school and began writing them one night when she had nothing else to read. She’s been writing ever since. Single and living in Texas, she travels every chance she gets, scouting locales for her books.

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

Epilogue

Prologue

Every Labor Day the Jones family gathered for their annual picnic, and this year’s get-together was wilder than ever. By 10:30 a.m., the beer and sodas were flowing, the barbecue was sizzling on the grill and a spirited game of volleyball was in progress on the beach. The object was to win, at all cost, and cheating was not only allowed, but heartily encouraged. Laughter echoed up and down the beach, along with the ribald comments from the cheering section on the sidelines.

In the past Reilly Jones would have been right in the big middle of the game, leading his team to victory and enjoying every second of it. But not this year. He didn’t feel like playing—or mingling with the family. He wouldn’t, in fact, have even showed up if it hadn’t been for his older brother, Tony, who’d nagged and bitched and hounded him to put in an appearance until he’d finally given in just to shut him up.

Standing alone, well apart from the rest of the family, Reilly stared broodingly out to sea and knew he shouldn’t have come. He didn’t belong here. The trouble was he didn’t belong anywhere and he hadn’t for a long time now. Ever since Victoria had died.

Pain lanced his heart just at the thought of her. God, he missed her! Every second of every day. He’d been told that with time, the hurt would lessen and eventually fade, but it had been eight months since a teenager in a stolen car had slammed into her and killed her, and the pain was as fierce today as it had been that fateful day. He couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep, couldn’t work. There was a gaping hole in his heart, in his life, where she had once been, and all he wanted to do was die so he could be with her again.

Behind him he heard a footstep and didn’t have to turn around to know his brother had joined him. Tony had appointed himself his personal guardian angel, and lately he seemed to always know when his thoughts were at their lowest. Not taking his eyes from the shadowy blurred images of Catalina in the distance, Reilly said gruffly, “You don’t have to worry. I’m not going to do anything stupid like drown myself or anything. I was just thinking.”

Tony, to his credit, knew better than to ask him about what. The answer, as usual, was written in the sad, grim lines of his somber expression. Victoria. There’d been a time when Tony had envied his brother the rare love he shared with Victoria, but not anymore. Her death had nearly destroyed Reilly, and Tony didn’t know if he would ever recover from it. He hadn’t laughed since the day she died, and eight months later the grief that tore at him was stronger than ever. He’d turned his medical practice over to his partners and had lost all interest in life. When he wasn’t sitting at home in his study staring at her picture, he was either at the cemetery or in his car, driving the endless freeways of L.A., looking in vain for a peace that was nowhere to be found.

And Tony didn’t mind admitting he was worried about him. He was slowly destroying himself, and if something wasn’t done soon to pull him out of the depression he had slipped into, he was going to be in serious trouble.

“I’ve been thinking, too,” he replied, “and I think you should get out of here.”

Surprised, Reilly dragged his eyes away from the ocean to arch a dark brow at him. “What’s gotten into you? For the last two weeks, you’ve done nothing but preach about how important it was for me to come to this thing, and now you’re telling me to leave?”

“Not the picnic,” Tony corrected him quietly. “L.A.”

That was the last thing Reilly expected him to say. “Are you serious?”

“You’re slowly killing yourself here, grieving yourself to death,” he said bluntly. “With Victoria gone there’s nothing here for you anymore. So sell everything—the house, your practice—and get the hell out of here while you still can.”

It was a logical suggestion—and everything inside Reilly rebelled at the thought. He couldn’t leave L.A. His last memories of Victoria were here. Everywhere he turned he could see her, hear her, smell her. How could he turn his back on their home and the life they had built together and start over as if she had never existed? He couldn’t. He wouldn’t!

But even as he opened his mouth to tell Tony he would never even consider such a suggestion, he knew deep down in his soul that his brother was right. The grief that already consumed his every waking and sleeping moment was on the verge of swallowing him whole. If he didn’t do something soon to save himself, he was going to be lost.

“Where would I go?”

Encouraged, Tony said, “Do you remember Steven Michaels? He was my chemistry lab partner in college.”

The name conjured up images of a tall, gangly kid who had been all arms and legs and six foot five if he was an inch. Frowning, Reilly nodded. “Yeah. He should have played basketball. What about him?”

“I ran into him last month at a convention and he was telling me about an uncle of his who’s looking for someone to join his family medical practice and eventually take it over so he can retire. His name’s Dan Michaels. I think you should consider calling him.”

“I’m a heart surgeon, Tony.”

“You’re a doctor,” he reminded him. “You take care of sick people. Just because you normally spend your days operating on people’s hearts doesn’t mean you can’t treat colds and allergies and high blood pressure instead. Think about it. It might be a really nice change for you.”

Reilly had to admit he had a point. There’d been a time when he’d thrived on the stress and challenge of surgery. But that was before he’d lost Victoria. Now the operating room—like everything else—held little appeal. But a family practitioner? Could he be content with that?

“So where is this uncle’s practice?”

“Colorado,” he replied. “A little town called Liberty Hill. From what I understand, it’s southwest of Colorado Springs. It’s right in the middle of ranching country, but Aspen’s not that far away.”

It sounded like a wide spot in the road, as different from L.A. as day was from night, and Reilly knew that if he had any sense, he’d laugh in his brother’s face and tell him to think again. If he was going to start his life over, it was going to be someplace where he could at least get Brie without people asking him what it was.

But even as he tried to convince himself that he needed to live someplace more sophisticated, he knew it didn’t matter. L.A., New York, Liberty Hill, Colorado. What difference did it make where he lived? Without Victoria, he wouldn’t care if he was in the middle of the Sahara.

“All right, I’ll give this Dr. Michaels a call if it’ll make you happy,” he said with a grimace. “Give me the number.”

Chapter 1

The rain was a cold mist that stretched as far as the horizon in every direction. Surrounded by rolling ranchland on all sides, Reilly noted the highway sign that informed him he was ten miles from Liberty Hill and knew just how Dorothy must have felt when she found herself in Oz. He wasn’t in Kansas—or L.A.—anymore, and he couldn’t help wondering if he’d made a mistake by accepting Dr. Michaels’s offer to join his practice. It was, however, too late to back out now. He’d already sold his practice and everything else in L.A. Even if he decided he wanted to go back to California, there was nothing to go back to.

Which meant that, like it or not, he was stuck with a new life in Colorado. A life without Victoria. If it looked less than appealing at the moment, he couldn’t find the strength to care. His blue eyes bleak with despair, he continued toward Liberty Hill with little enthusiasm, the steady beat of the windshield wipers echoing the lonely beat of his heart.

Lost in his misery, he didn’t notice there was a problem with his car until the motor suddenly began to make an odd sound. Surprised, he glanced down at the dash and swore at the sight of the Check Engine light flashing at him angrily. Immediately lifting his foot from the accelerator, he slowed down and carefully eased over to the shoulder.

It wasn’t until he reached for his cell phone and came up empty-handed that he remembered he’d thrown the damn thing away the day before he left L.A. He hadn’t been able to do anything but grieve for Victoria, and he’d taken a long, solitary drive around L.A. He’d been gone for hours. Later he couldn’t have said where he’d gone—he hadn’t cared. He’d just wanted to be left alone. No one, however, had respected that. First his partners had called him one by one to check on him, then his brother. They’d all just wanted to make sure he was okay, which he’d assured each of them he was, then he’d hung up and tossed the phone out the window. In the never-ending stream of cars that raced the city freeways, the phone had been instantly smashed. Relieved, he hadn’t bought another because he hadn’t thought he would need one where he was going.

Which meant he was now stuck in the middle of nowhere, with no way to call for a tow truck. Glancing ahead, then in his rearview mirror, he swore roundly. The road curved among the rolling hills before it disappeared over the hill in the distance, and there wasn’t another car in sight in either direction. Liberty Hill was ten miles away. It was going to be a long, cold walk.

Another man might have lifted the hood and at least given the motor a quick look before facing a ten-mile hike under such miserable conditions, but Reilly knew his strengths and weaknesses. He could perform the most intricate heart surgery with his eyes practically closed, but a mechanic he was not. Muttering curses, he turned on his emergency flashers, grabbed his jacket and keys and pushed open his door.

His thoughts already focused on the long walk ahead of him, he didn’t see the red Jeep that came around the curve behind him until it pulled up beside him. The electric window on the passenger’s side silently lowered, and from across the width of the vehicle, the woman driver shot him a sympathetic smile. “I saw your flashers. Anything I can do to help?”

If Reilly needed further proof that he was a long way from home, she just gave it to him. No one in L.A., especially a woman alone, stopped to help someone who appeared to be in trouble—not if she valued her life. For all she knew, he could be an ax murderer.

But if she was the least bit leery, she certainly didn’t show it. The passenger window was all the way down, and he wouldn’t have doubted that the doors were unlocked. With one quick move, he could have been inside and had her in his clutches before she even knew what he was about. Granted, she could have driven off at the least sign of danger from him, but danger wasn’t always recognizable at first.

Marveling at her bravery—and stupidity—he frowned at her in puzzlement. “I appreciate the offer, but you don’t know me from Adam and this is a lonely stretch of road. Didn’t your mother ever tell you to be wary of strangers?”

Her lips curling into a half smile, she said, “Actually, it was my father who drilled that particular lesson into my head—which is why he bought me a shotgun when I was twelve and taught me how to use it. If you’d like, I can demonstrate.”

“You mean you have it with you?”

“Of course. It wouldn’t do me any good if it was locked away in a gun cabinet at home, would it?”

She appeared to be dead serious, but Reilly would have sworn he caught a glimpse of mischief in her brown eyes before that was quickly blinked away. Intrigued, he arched a brow at her. “Does the sheriff know you drive around with a loaded gun in your car? That’s illegal, you know, if you don’t have a permit.”

Far from worried, Janey McBride only grinned. Nick Kincaid, the local sheriff, was not only a friend, but her brother-in-law. As protective as her brothers, he’d chew her out for not carrying a gun if she even suggested driving the road to town and back without any means of protecting herself.

“I’m not worried about the sheriff,” she said dryly. She had, in fact, called Nick the second she spied the unfamiliar BMW with its California license, sitting on the side of the road with its flashers on. It didn’t hurt to be too careful. “In fact, I think that’s him coming our way now,” she added, and nodded down the road to the patrol car that just came around the curve half a mile away. “If you don’t mind, I’m going to leave you in his hands and be on my way. I hope nothing’s seriously wrong with your car.”

With a wave and a smile she drove off, leaving Reilly staring after her with a frown. She hadn’t even given him time to thank her for stopping—or given him a chance to ask her her name.

The sheriff arrived then, circling around to park on the shoulder behind his car, the whirling lights on his lightbar warning anyone who approached from either direction to do so cautiously. A tall, lean man with an angular face that could have been carved from stone, he didn’t look nearly as friendly as the shotgun-toting, unidentified Good Samaritan who’d just driven off, but Reilly supposed the hard look he gave him was one of the requirements of the job.

“Having trouble?” he asked coolly as he approached and asked for his driver’s license.

Reilly nodded and handed over his identification. “The Check Engine light came on and I didn’t want to chance driving all the way into town.”

Noting his name and address on the license, some of the sheriff’s stiffness melted. “That’s probably a wise move on your part, Doctor. You’re a long ways from Los Angeles. Where’re you headed?”

“Liberty Hill.”

Surprised, Nick lifted a dark brow at him. “No kidding? Would you mind telling me why? Don’t get me wrong—I grew up here, and I can’t imagine living anywhere else, but it’s not the kind of place that normally draws tourists from California. We’re too far from the ski slopes to draw that bunch. And we wouldn’t know a convention if we tripped over it, so I doubt you drove all the way from L.A. for that. I could understand if you took a wrong turn and got lost, but you didn’t. You’re here on purpose. Why?”

There’d been a time when it wouldn’t have taken much more than the other man’s totally bewildered expression to make Reilly smile. But that was before—before Victoria died, before all the joy went out of his life. Appreciation glinted in his eyes, but his lips didn’t so much as twitch with humor. “Trust me, you’re not asking anything I haven’t asked myself,” he said dryly. “Actually, I’m moving here. I’m joining Dan Michaels’s practice.”

Nick couldn’t have been more shocked if he’d told him he planned to grow marijuana once he was settled into his new home. “Dr. Michaels? You’re going to work with Dan?”

He nodded. “Yeah. You know him?”

“He delivered just about every baby in town for the past forty years,” Nick said with a smile. “He’s a good man.”

And if Dan was taking on a partner, it went without saying that he wouldn’t trust his practice to just anyone. He would have made sure Reilly Jones was a good man himself. Relaxing, he held out his hand with a grin. “It looks like I’m the welcoming committee. Welcome to town, Doctor. I’m Nick Kincaid. If I can do anything to help you get settled in, just let me know.”

Just that easily the introductions were made and Reilly was accepted. “Thanks,” he said, returning his handshake. “And the name’s Reilly. I don’t stand much on ceremony.”

“Then you should fit in just fine around here,” Nick replied, his brown eyes twinkling. “We’re a pretty casual group. C’mon, let’s take a look at your car and see what’s wrong with it.”

Standing in the cold mist, Reilly watched the tow truck driver hook up his BMW for the tow into town and wondered what the hell he was going to do now. When Nick had lifted the hood, he’d spotted the problem immediately—a broken fan belt—which Reilly had assumed could be easily fixed. All he had to do was get a new fan belt.

In L.A. that wouldn’t have been a problem. But he wasn’t in L.A., and the tow truck driver—and owner of the only garage in town—had quickly informed him that he didn’t keep spare parts for BMWs in stock since no one in town owned one. The fan belt would have to come from Colorado Springs—on the bus. If he was lucky, Reilly would have his car back in a couple of days!

“Damn!”

Sympathizing with him, Nick made no attempt to hold back a grin. “Don’t look so glum. Things aren’t as bad as they seem. This isn’t L.A.—you don’t really need a car. The town’s so small, you can walk just about anywhere you want to go in ten minutes. C’mon, I’ll show you. Where are you staying?”

Reilly grimaced. “Good question. I don’t know yet.”

“What do you mean, you don’t know?”

“Just what I said. I didn’t want to make arrangements long-distance without getting the lay of the land first. That’ll be hard to do without a car, so if you wouldn’t mind taking me to the nearest hotel, I’ll stay there until I get the car back.”

This time it was Nick’s turn to grimace. “I’ll take you if you want, but you might want to reconsider.”

“Why? Is it a dump or what?”

“No, actually it’s a very nice place,” he replied. “In Gunnison—thirty miles away.”

Reilly swore. “There’s no hotel in Liberty Hill? What the hell kind of town is it?”

“A small one,” Nick said wryly. “Myrtle Henderson rents out spare rooms, but she’s booked the rest of the week with a writers’ group, so you’re out of luck there.” Studying him through narrowed eyes, he said, “What kind of place were you looking for?”

With no conscious effort on his part, Reilly found himself thinking of the Tudor house he’d shared with Victoria in West Hollywood and still thought of as home. Built in the twenties, he and Victoria had fallen in love with it the second they stepped through the front door for the first time. They’d never even considered looking at anything else.

He’d thought he would live the rest of his life there, but he’d sold it and everything else when he’d left L.A. His heart flinching at the thought, he reminded himself the whole purpose of moving to Colorado was to let go of the past and get on with his life. He just hadn’t expected it to be so painful.

“I don’t want anything fancy,” he said gruffly. “There’s just me to consider, and I don’t plan on doing any entertaining, so something small would be nice. And secluded, if I can find it. After living in the city for so long, I really just want to be left alone.”

A man was entitled to his privacy, Nick thought. And his pain. And Reilly Jones’s went soul deep. Oh, his tone was casual enough, and his expression gave away little of what he was feeling. But his eyes spoke volumes. Dark with misery, they were the windows of a tortured soul. Whatever his story was, it was eating him alive.

Feeling for him, Nick knew he should talk to Merry before he offered him his cabin, but the poor guy was obviously hurting and needed a place to hole up and lick his wounds. And it wasn’t as if he and Merry were using the cabin. Since they’d gotten married last year, he’d moved into her place on the ranch, and the cabin had been sitting empty. He’d actually been thinking about renting it, and here was the ideal renter, complete with excellent references. If Dr. Dan was willing to trust him with his patients, Nick thought he could certainly trust him with the cabin.

Making a snap decision, he said, “I’ve got a log cabin north of town you might be interested in renting. You said you didn’t want fancy. Trust me—it’s not. Some friends helped me build it seven years ago, so I’ll warn you up front that it’s not perfect. Some of the doors stick on humid days, and the upstairs floor has a tendency to creak. But it’s airtight, warm in the winter and surrounded by trees. If you want privacy, you ought to take a look at it. The nearest neighbor’s a half a mile away.”

“How far out of town is it?”

Nick winced. That was the kicker. “A mile and a half. But your car’s only going to be out of commission for three days,” he reminded him. “When do you start working with Dr. Dan?”

“Tomorrow,” he replied, “but the distance isn’t a problem. I can walk if I have to. When can I see it?”

“Right now,” Nick said, grinning, and led the way to his patrol car.

There was a time in his life when Reilly wouldn’t have looked twice at a log cabin. He wasn’t an outdoorsman, and the rustic look had never appealed to him. But when Nick drove down the winding drive that led to the cabin, Reilly had to admit there was something about the place that immediately caught his eye.

Just as Nick had promised, the cabin offered all the privacy anyone could possibly want. Nestled among a thick stand of pines and set well back on a two-acre lot, it blended in with the trees and was virtually impossible to see from the road. The nearest neighbor may have been a half mile away, but it might as well have been a hundred. You couldn’t see another living soul for what looked like miles in any direction.

He liked the idea of not being bothered by neighbors as he had been in L.A. He’d known they were concerned about him, and he appreciated that, but all he’d wanted was the silence of his own company. Living out here, so far from anyone, he wouldn’t have to worry about someone dropping by to borrow a cup of sugar, thank God. And for no other reason than that, he was prepared to love the place even if it turned out to be an architectural nightmare.

The cabin that Nick had built with the help of some friends, however, was far from the leaning shack that Reilly had expected. It may have been rough-hewn and a quarter of the size of his old house in L.A., but it had a porch across the front and back, a fieldstone fireplace, and paned windows that gave it an old-fashioned charm that would be nice to come home to after a long day at work. As Nick braked to a stop in the circular drive and cut the engine, Reilly took one long look and didn’t need to see anything else.

“I’ll take it.”

Already in the process of stepping from the car, Nick leaned down to swivel a sharp look at him. “Don’t you want to look inside?”

“Sure, but it’s just a formality,” he retorted. “This is just what I was looking for. Is it furnished?”

Amazed that he could make a decision so easily, Nick nodded. “I didn’t take much when I married Merry and moved into her place—just a chest and a couple of end tables. When do you expect your things from California? You can go ahead and move in today if you like, but it’s going to take me a couple of days to find a place to store everything—”

“Don’t bother. I’ll take it the way it is, if that’s okay with you. I sold all my things in California with the house.”

Surprised, Nick wanted to ask him what could bring a man to sell everything he owned and cut all ties with his past, but Reilly’s expression had turned distant, his eyes shuttered. Wondering what his story was, Nick didn’t push. In his business, he’d learned that people talked when they were ready. And judging from the wall he had built around himself, Reilly was a long way from ready.

Respecting his privacy, Nick said easily, “Sure. No problem.” Naming a fair market price for the rent, he arched a brow at him. “How does that sound to you?”

“More than fair,” Reilly replied, and stuck out his hand. “So we have a deal?”

Pleased, Nick grinned and shook his hand. “Deal!”

“Sorry, Wanda, darling, but a full house beats three of a kind. If my calculations are right you now owe me six million big ones and a handful of M&M candies. I’ll take the candy now, thank you very much.”

“Not so fast, Robin Hood,” Janey drawled before Scott Bradford could grab the colorful candy piled high in the middle of the table. “You may have a full house, but if I remember correctly, that can’t hold a candle to a royal flush.” Smiling hugely, she laid down her cards on the table to the cheers of Scott’s wife, Wanda, who was down to her last piece of candy. Her brown eyes dancing, Janey smiled smugly at Scott. “Now what was that you were saying about candy, pretty boy?”

For an answer he shot her a less-than-polite hand gesture.

Far from offended, Janey only laughed. She’d known Scott all her life—his uncle’s ranch boarded her family’s, and they’d gone through school together. And for the last few years he and Wanda invariably spent two evenings a week with Janey at the local volunteer fire department volunteering as emergency medical technicians. And tonight, as most Thursday nights, they passed the time playing poker while they waited for the radio to crackle to life with the report of an accident or the phone to ring with an emergency call.

They rarely got either.

Oh, they got their fair share of calls, but the calls were usually for something minor—like a twisted ankle or heart pains that turned out to be heartburn, and then there was the time Margaret Hopper got stuck in the bathtub and it took not only the entire EMT team but two firefighters, as well, to get her out. Tonight the phone was thankfully silent. Janey hoped it stayed that way.

A grin twitching at his lips, Scott watched her rake in her winnings and groaned in pretended pain. When Janey arched an inquiring brow at him, he pressed a hand to his stomach and moaned again. “I think I must be going through withdrawals. Help me, Janey. You wouldn’t deny your old friend a few M&Ms, would you? I’m dying here.”

“Then we’ve got to do something!” Jumping to her feet, she grabbed her stethoscope. “Quick, Wanda, help me get him into the ambulance. We’ve got to get him to the hospital.”

“Do you want me to call your mama, honey?” his wife crooned, laughing when he scowled at her. “I’m sure she would want to know about this—”

Enjoying themselves, she and Janey would have continued to tease him unmercifully, but before they got the chance, the radio suddenly started to crackle and Nick’s voice, rough with static, filled the room. “This is County One calling County 911. Janey? Are you there?”

Her smile fading, Janey stepped quickly over to the radio and grabbed the mike. “Yes, go ahead, Nick. What’s the problem?”

“We’ve got a one-vehicle accident out on Eagle Ridge Highway ten miles north of town. The driver took a curve too fast and rolled his SUV. He and his girlfriend weren’t wearing their seat belts, and were both thrown from the vehicle. You’d better get out here as quick as you can.”

He didn’t have to tell her twice. Already reaching for her bag, Janey said, “We’re on our way.”

They may have been volunteers, but they, like the rest of the local residents who worked the station on a regular basis, prided themselves on always being ready for whatever emergency cropped up. And this time was no exception. The ambulance was stocked with everything they needed, and by the time Janey ended the call a few seconds later, the rest of the team was already in the cab of the vehicle and waiting for her. She quickly jumped in next to Wanda, who sat in the middle, and was still reaching for her seat belt when Scott pulled out of the garage of the volunteer fire department with sirens blazing. Seconds later they turned north on the Eagle Ridge Highway and left town far behind.

If it hadn’t been for the flares Nick had set out marking the spot of the accident, they might have driven right past without even noticing it. In the dark it was impossible to see the wrecked car at the bottom of the ravine that ran parallel with the highway.

Nick had, however, managed to get his patrol car down there, and Scott carefully followed his path in the ambulance. “Ouch,” he said when the vehicle’s headlights landed on the smashed SUV. A foreign make that obviously didn’t stand up well to crash tests, it was banged in on all sides and nearly as flat as a pancake.

“It looks like a tin can that’s been run over by a semi,” Wanda said.

Janey had to agree. “I don’t know how anyone made it out alive.”

As it was, the two survivors weren’t in the best of shape. The driver was bleeding and unconscious, while his girlfriend was suffering from a broken leg and arm and going into shock. Janey and her team took one look at them and went right to work. They knew the routine, and although Janey was the only one who actually worked in the medical field, both Scott and Wanda had had extensive training in emergency medical care. They didn’t need instructions to know what to do.

Within minutes the girlfriend’s broken bones were immobilized, and she was given fluids to help counteract the shock. Her boyfriend wasn’t so lucky. He’d regained consciousness, but his pulse was thready, his blood pressure falling, and Janey was sure he was bleeding internally. They didn’t have a lot of time to waste. Hurriedly easing both victims onto stretchers, they quickly loaded them into the ambulance, then raced back to town.

Scott radioed the hospital with a report of the victims’ condition and their estimated time of arrival, but Janey hardly noticed. With all her attention focused on her patient and his rapidly falling blood pressure, she never even noticed that they made it back to the hospital in record time. Suddenly the back doors of the ambulance flew open, and there were hands to unload both patients and rush them inside.

In the organized chaos that was the emergency room, the driver and his girlfriend were taken to separate cubicles and quickly examined. Vital signs were hurriedly taken and called out, and in the madness, Janey heard a nurse working on the girlfriend tell someone to call for X rays and Dr. Easton, the only orthopedic surgeon in town. But it was the driver that Janey was worried about. He’d slipped back into unconsciousness again. If he didn’t get into surgery soon, they were going to lose him.

Hurriedly she helped cut away his clothes and hook him up to a heart monitor. During the entire procedure she never took her eyes off his still figure. “Where’s Dr. Michaels? Has anybody paged him? Somebody send an orderly for him—”

“There’s no need to send an orderly,” a cool, husky voice cut in smoothly. “I’m taking over for Dr. Michaels tonight.”

Startled, Janey looked up from the patient, directly into the deep-blue eyes of the stranded California motorist she’d stopped to help the day before yesterday when his BMW broke down on the side of the road. She’d only seen him that once, and then only for a few minutes, but she would have known those eyes of his in the far reaches of Mongolia. As dark as the sky before a winter storm, they were tinged with a sadness that touched her heart.

She’d never been able to stand to see anyone in pain and wanted to ask who or what had put that look in his eyes, but he had a reserve about him that didn’t encourage questions. Then, with a blink, recognition flared and his only expression was surprise.

It was her—the woman who’d stopped to help him his first day in town. He’d thought she was some rancher’s wife—she’d had the look of one, driving a Jeep and wearing jeans and cowboy boots that were scarred from use—but here she was in an EMT’s uniform and right at home in the emergency. Who the hell was she?

If a patient hadn’t lay there bleeding to death right in front of him, he would have asked. As it was, all he could do was growl, “Let’s get this man to surgery,” and quickly help push the stretcher down the hall to the surgical wing of the small two-story hospital.

She didn’t accompany him and the other nurses, but stayed behind in the E.R. Watching him disappear behind the double doors that led to surgery, she frowned, questions swirling like a swarm of bees in her head. Who was he? There was no question that he was a doctor—she only had to see him in action in the E.R. to know that—but what was a doctor from California doing in Liberty Hill, for heaven’s sake? She’d just thought he was a traveler passing through town who’d made a wrong turn.

“Isn’t he the best-looking man you’ve ever seen in your life?” a dreamy voice sighed beside her. “It’s the eyes, you know. So sad and lonely. I’ll bet he needs a good woman.”

Turning to face the head nurse of the E.R., Janey tried not to flinch. Tanya had never been one of her favorite people—she was too bold and wild, and since her recent divorce, she’d become even more so. She’d already come on to every eligible man in town, not to mention a few married ones, since she’d walked out on her husband. Considering that, Janey wouldn’t have been the least bit surprised if she’d set her sights on the new doctor without bothering to ask—or care—if he was married or not.

“I wouldn’t know,” Janey said quietly. “Who is he?”

“Dr. Reilly Jones,” Tanya replied, savoring the name as if it was some new tasty treat. “He just joined Dr. Michaels’s practice today.”

Shocked, Janey couldn’t believe she’d heard correctly. “Dan never said anything about taking on a partner. What’s going on?”

“I wish I knew,” Tanya said with one last longing look at the doors Reilly disappeared behind. “The word going around the hospital is Dr. Michaels is retiring and Reilly Jones is taking over his practice for him. Nobody knows who he is, though, or what his story is. I almost asked, but then I thought it’d be better not to push my luck. He seems to be a very private man, so I figured I’d give him some time to get comfortable here, then make my move.”

Janey didn’t care about Reilly Jones—if he was stupid enough to be taken in by Tanya, than he was dumber than she thought he was. No, it was Dan she was concerned about. He and his wife, Peggy, had been her parents’ best friends, then when Peggy and Janey’s father had both died, Dan and her mother had continued their friendship over the years. He was like a member of the family, and if he was retiring without telling anyone, something had to be horribly wrong.

Afraid he might be sick or something, Janey almost woke her mother to find out what was going on, later that evening when her shift was over and she went home, but she didn’t want to scare her. So she spent what was left of the night worrying about Dan and barely slept. Up by five-thirty and scheduled to report to work at her regular job at the nursing home by seven, she hurried downstairs just as soon as she was dressed.

As usual her mother, Sara, was already up and in the kitchen making breakfast. Seeing her at the old O’Keefe and Merrit stove that her mother wouldn’t have traded for anything, Janey had to smile. For as long as she could remember, her mother had been right there every morning of her life when she came down to breakfast. And today, as always, it amazed Janey how time had hardly touched her at all.

Sara Dawson McBride was sixty-four and didn’t look a day past fifty. She’d always claimed she was lucky to have good bone structure, but Janey knew better. Her mother had a good heart, the kind that would keep her forever young. Janey only hoped she was as lucky.

Glancing up from the stove, Sara sent her a smile that was as bright as the copper teakettle whistling happily on the stove. “Good morning, sweetie. Did you sleep well?”

She’d meant to wait until after breakfast to ask about Dan and Reilly Jones, but she found that she couldn’t. “Not really. I met a new doctor at the hospital last night. His name’s Reilly Jones. Apparently, he’s Dan’s new partner. I was shocked. Is Dan sick or something? The word going around the hospital is he’s going to retire.”

“But not because he’s sick,” her mother assured her quickly. “He’s been thinking about retiring for some time now, but he didn’t want me to say anything until he had someone lined up he felt comfortable turning his practice over to.”

“And Reilly Jones is that man?”

Unable to speculate on that, Sara poured them both a cup of tea. “It’s too early to tell. Right now they just have a temporary partnership—after three months they’ll decide if they want to make it permanent. Dan’s keeping his fingers crossed that it’ll work out. A doctor of Reilly’s caliber doesn’t come along every day. He’s an excellent heart surgeon.”

In the process of setting the table for breakfast, Janey frowned. “But Dan has a family practice. I wouldn’t think a cardiologist would be interested in that at all, especially in a small town like Liberty Hill. Most of the local surgeries are pretty routine.”

“He apparently wanted a break from L.A.,” Sara said simply. “His wife died recently, and he decided he needed a complete change of scene.”

That explained the sadness in his eyes. “That must have been very difficult for him. What happened?”

Sara shrugged. “He didn’t want to talk about it to Dan, so all I know is that he showed up in town the day before yesterday with only a fancy foreign car and two suitcases to his name. He didn’t even have a place to stay until Nick rented him the cabin.”

That stunned Janey almost as much as the news that Dan had taken on a partner. “Why am I just now finding out about this?”

But even as she asked, she knew. She’d worked double shifts at the nursing home all week because they were shorthanded due to an early flu bug that was going around. Then last night she’d spent half the night working with the volunteer fire department. She hadn’t seen any of the family except in passing all week.

“I guess I haven’t been around much,” she admitted with a grimace. “Obviously the good doctor impressed Nick—that cabin’s his baby. He wouldn’t rent to just anybody.”

“Dan says he’s a good man,” her mother replied. “Nick thinks so, too.”

And that said a lot. Besides her brothers, Janey couldn’t think of two men she respected more. If Reilly Jones made a good impression on them, that should have been enough to silence any questions she had about the man. It didn’t. As far as she could see, it just didn’t make sense. A man didn’t leave a million-dollar practice in L.A. for a significantly smaller one in the wilds of Colorado without a darn good reason. So what was Reilly Jones’s story? It would be interesting to find out.

Chapter 2

Reilly wasn’t surprised that he was the latest topic of conversation everywhere he went. Gossip was the grease that made most small towns run, and he was the new man in town. He’d expected questions, and there were plenty of them. But he had no intention of answering any of them. Not now, not ever. He’d come to Colorado to start fresh and put his past behind him, and he couldn’t do that if he was continually talking about it. So when people asked everything from how much money he’d made in L.A. to why he wasn’t married, he coolly replied that that was private information and he preferred not to talk about it.

It didn’t win him many friends.

Another man might have been bothered by that, but Reilly told himself he didn’t care. He wasn’t there to make friends. Friends took an emotional toll, and that was more than he could give at the moment. Which was one of the reasons he’d moved to Liberty Hill in the first place. He didn’t know anyone there and didn’t want to know anyone. He just wanted to work, then escape to the cabin in the woods he’d rented from the sheriff and just be left alone. After everything he’d been through, he didn’t think that was too much to ask.

Dan Michaels, his new partner, had other ideas.

Inviting him to lunch at the local diner to discuss the matter after he’d observed Reilly with the patients that morning, Dan took a chair across the table from him and ordered a grilled chicken sandwich without bothering to look at the menu. A tall, trim man with snow-white hair and the kindest eyes Reilly had ever seen, he waited until Reilly had given his order and the waitress had moved on before he met his gaze with a frown.

“We’ve got a problem,” he said quietly. “And if this partnership between us is going to work, I feel it’s important that we start it off right by discussing problems that crop up as soon as possible. Agreed?”

“Of course,” Reilly replied, surprised. Frowning, he thought back to some of the patients he’d seen that morning. He’d treated colds, allergies, a sprained wrist, even a minor burn, nothing that a first-year medical student couldn’t have handled with one hand tied behind his back. So what was the problem? “I thought everything went fairly smoothly. Did I miss something?”

“The patients,” the older man retorted, not unkindly. “Don’t get me wrong. I was watching you, and you were right on the money when it came to your diagnoses. There isn’t a doubt in my mind that when it comes to medicine, you’re a gifted doctor.”

“But you just said I missed something with the patients,” he said, confused. “I don’t understand.”

Careful to keep his voice down so it wouldn’t carry to the other diners, Dan said quietly, “I don’t have to tell you that there’s more to practicing medicine than handing out prescriptions and doing everything right procedurally. In L.A., your patients might accept—and even expect—a cool business relationship with their doctors, but that won’t work here. This is a small town, Reilly. Your patients will expect you to not only be their doctor, but a friend, confidant, priest and therapist. They’ll treat you like family and ask you private questions they’ve got no business asking. And they won’t understand if you don’t tell them anything about yourself.”

Not liking the sound of that, Reilly scowled. “I have a right to my privacy.”

“Yes, you do,” he agreed. “And I know you’re still grieving. After my wife died, I just wanted to crawl in a hole and be left alone. But I couldn’t, and neither can you. Because you have patients who need you. And to them you’re a stranger. They want to accept you, to like you, but they don’t know anything about you. If you don’t open up a little and let them know who you are, there won’t be much trust between you. And without trust, you won’t be much good to them as a doctor.”

He wasn’t saying anything Reilly didn’t already know. A good doctor did a lot more than just treat physical ailments. But wasn’t he allowed to keep his private life separate from work? Couldn’t he earn patients’ trust without telling them about the house he’d owned in Beverly Hills and if he’d ever dated a movie star? Wasn’t he at least entitled to that?

“What’s important here is that the patients trust my judgment as a doctor,” he replied. “They don’t need to know anything about my private life to do that.”

Not a pushy man, Dan had said his piece. There was no point in beating the subject like a dead horse. “You know what’s best for you,” he said simply. “So how were things at the hospital last night? After the fancy operating rooms you practiced in in L.A., our little hospital must have been quite a shock to you. You probably felt like you’d stepped back in time.”

Reilly had to grin at that. “Well, maybe just a little, but I didn’t encounter anything I couldn’t handle. By the end of the evening, I felt right at home.”

“Good.” Pleased, Dan sat back as the waitress delivered their food. “I can’t remember the last time I had a night off. It was great, thanks to you.”

“That’s what I’m here for,” Reilly said with a wry shrug. And Dan was no more grateful than he was. After sitting at home and brooding for months in L.A., he hadn’t realized how much he’d missed work. Last night he’d been so busy that he hadn’t had much time to think about Victoria.

His brother had been right—he had needed a change of scene and he hadn’t even realized it. He’d needed to work again, to find himself in medicine, and Liberty Hill, at least so far, seemed like a good place to do that. Dan was an excellent doctor—intelligent, thorough, kind—and Reilly hoped that their temporary three-month partnership worked out for both of them. He liked Dan and felt sure he was someone he could work with.

As for the patients Reilly was confident they would come around. He’d never lived in a small town before, but people were pretty much the same everywhere. All he had to do was give them time. If they were nosy, they’d learn soon enough that he had no intention of discussing his personal life with them. Once they accepted that, they’d all get along fine.

Satisfied that he had everything well in hand, he and Dan finished their lunch, then walked back to the office, which was conveniently located two blocks from the town square in an old craftsman cottage Dan had converted into office space ten years ago. Not surprisingly, the waiting room was full. Dan had warned him that once word got out that he’d joined the practice, they’d be flooded with patients wanting to get a look at him, and he’d been exactly right. Patients had come in and out of the office in a steady stream all morning, and only a handful of them had really been sick enough to require the attention of a doctor. The rest had used everything from a hangnail to a fake cough as an excuse to see Reilly, and they’d made no apologies for it.

Amused, he took the chart from the door of the first examining room and read the name on it. Myrtle Henderson. Stepping inside, he found an older woman pacing the small confines of the examining room impatiently. Tall and spare, with a lively step, she appeared to be in her early seventies and in excellent shape for her age. Reilly didn’t doubt for a second that she, like so many of the others, had come to check him out. According to her chart, she’d come in complaining of dizziness, but the second she heard him step through the door, she whirled to face him without the slightest sign of unsteadiness. If she was dizzy, she hid it well.

“You must be Dr. Jones,” she said with a delighted smile, holding out her hand for a firm shake. “Welcome to our neck of the woods, Doctor. It’s good to have you here.”

Amused, Reilly couldn’t help but like her. She looked as if she could be as tough as nails when the occasion called for it, but there was a twinkle in her direct blue eyes that was hard to resist. “Thank you, ma’am. It’s nice to be here. I understand you’re having a problem with dizziness. Why don’t you sit down and I’ll take your blood pressure?”

Reluctantly she took the chair he motioned to, all the while assuring him that she was sure it was nothing. “I didn’t eat breakfast, and that always makes me a little light-headed. And it was just for a second, anyway. In fact, now that I think about it, I’m sure I just imagined it.”

Biting back a smile, Reilly didn’t doubt that, but he took her blood pressure, anyway. Just as he’d suspected, it checked out fine. Removing his stethoscope from his ears, he sat back and arched a dark brow at her. “Well, it’s not your blood pressure. Have you had this problem before? Maybe I should schedule some tests—”

“Oh, no,” she laughed, dismissing the suggestion with a wave of her hand. “We don’t need to do that. I’m healthy as a horse—always have been. You look like you are, too,” she added, neatly changing the subject. “I bet you spent a lot of time playing golf and tennis at a fancy country club in L.A., didn’t you? You’ve got that healthy, outdoor California look to you.”

“Thank you,” he said dryly, and neatly sidetracked her question by not answering it at all.

Undaunted, Myrtle examined him with bright, curious eyes. “So what brought you to Liberty Hill? I’d think a good-looking young man like yourself would go stir crazy here by the end of the week. It’s pretty quiet. There’s not much nightlife. Though I could introduce you around, if you like. I know a couple of nice girls you might like to meet.”

Reilly cringed at the idea, but all he said was, “I appreciate the offer, Mrs. Henderson—”

“Myrtle,” she corrected him with a broad grin and a motherly pat on the hand. “Everyone calls me Myrtle.”

“But right now I don’t have time for a social life. Maybe some other time.”

She surprised him by accepting that with a rueful shrug. “It never hurts to try. If you change your mind, you let me know. I was born and raised here and know everybody in town.”

Her mission accomplished and curiosity satisfied, she sailed out without mentioning her dizziness at all, and Reilly could only smile and shake his head. Unfortunately, the patients he saw after her weren’t nearly as polite. By the time the office closed early at three so he and Dan could go on rounds at the local nursing home, he’d been grilled about everything from his credit history to the number of children he one day hoped to have. And then, there were the women who’d come on to him. He didn’t even want to think about that.

Dan took one look at him as they headed for the nursing home and arched a brow. “Rough afternoon?”

“No, thanks,” he said dryly. “I’ve already had one. Are the women around here always so aggressive?”

To his credit, Dan didn’t laugh. But his lips twitched with wry humor. “So the feeding frenzy’s starting already, has it? I was afraid of that. I went through the same thing after Peggy died.”

“There were some women in L.A. who made it clear they’d be happy to help me through my grief,” Reilly said with a grimace of distaste, “but they were friends. These women don’t even know me!”

“Unfortunately, they know everything important they think they need to know about you,” the older man said as they walked the three blocks to the nursing home. Normally not a cynical man, he ticked off Reilly’s attributes. “You’re single, young, reasonably attractive. And you’ve got M.D. after your name. Every mama wants her daughter to marry a doctor—you know that. It’s not any different here than in L.A. Except that in a town the size of Liberty Hill, doctors are harder to come by. As long as you’re walking around free, you’ll be considered fair game.”

He spoke nothing less than the truth, and they both knew it. Reilly had married Victoria the summer before he started medical school, so he hadn’t been chased by marriage-minded women looking to land a rich doctor who could support them in the manner to which they wanted to become accustomed. But he’d been to more than his share of weddings where thrilled mamas of the bride paraded the groom around the reception hall as if he was a prize, introducing him to everyone as “my new son-in-law, the doctor.” Just thinking about it made him cringe.

That was not going to happen to him!

“They’re wasting their time,” he told Dan grimly as they reached the nursing home and the older man held the door open for him. “Victoria might be gone, but I still love her. I’ll always love her. If I can’t have her, I don’t want anyone.”

Sympathizing with him, Dan knew exactly how he felt. When Peggy had died, he’d thought his world had ended and he could never look at another woman as anything but a friend. He’d been wrong. Reilly would love again, too, but that was something he wasn’t ready to hear yet.

“You’re still new here,” he said diplomatically. “Once the women get to know you and realize you’re really not interested, they’ll back off. Just give them time.”

That sounded good, but Reilly wasn’t holding his breath. Women were the same all over, and as long as they thought he was free, they’d think they had a chance with him. He would have no peace. Resigned, he stepped inside the nursing home, where he would be making rounds twice a week, and braced for more questions as Dr. Michaels began to introduce him to the staff and patients.

He didn’t have to wait long.

“Oh, Dr. Reilly, it’s so good to finally meet you. I heard you were living out at Sheriff Kincaid’s cabin all by yourself. Don’t you have a wife and family?”

“We’ve heard so much about you, Dr. Reilly. Is it true that you had a house on the beach in Malibu and used to date Meg Ryan? Is she as sweet as she looks?”

“Are you married, Doctor? I was just telling my granddaughter she needed to meet you. Why don’t I give you her phone number and you can call her?”

Gritting his teeth as one patient after another quizzed him about his personal life, Reilly admitted that he wasn’t married and had never had the good fortune to meet Meg Ryan. The staff, thankfully, was more restrained, but he didn’t fool himself into thinking that the nurses weren’t listening to every word. More than a few of them had a gleam in their eye that he found all too familiar.

And he wasn’t the only one who noticed. Disapproval glinting in his eyes, Dan sent several of the younger girls back to work with just a frown. “C’mon,” he told Reilly. “There’s someone else I want you to meet. This time of day, she’s usually in the solarium with the Lester sisters.”

Leading the way through the east wing, Dan stepped into the solarium and grinned at the sight of the nurse overseeing a lively game of Parcheesi between two old women in wheelchairs who sat at a wrought-iron table that overlooked an outdoor patio. “Janey! I thought I’d find you here. Come and meet my new partner.”

In the process of rolling the dice for Margaret, who had lost partial use of her right hand due to a stroke four months ago, Janey turned at Dan’s call, a smile already starting to spread across her face. Then she spied the man at his side. He was scowling at her, just as he had when she’d stopped to help him the other day when his BMW broke down on the side of the road.

“Actually, we’ve already met,” she told Dan as she excused herself from the Lester sisters and stepped forward with a smile. “Well, sort of,” she amended wryly, offering Reilly her hand. “We ran into each other at the E.R. last night, but there wasn’t time for an introduction. It’s nice to finally meet you, Doctor. I’m Janey McBride.”

“Reilly Jones,” he said, giving her hand a matter-of-fact shake. “You’re Nick Kincaid’s sister-in-law.”

“Guilty as charged,” she replied, amusement glinting in her brown eyes. “Just for the record, he knows all about my shotgun.”

Chuckling, Dan grinned. “Everybody knows about that shotgun. As far as I know,” he told Reilly, “she’s never had to use it, but that doesn’t mean she can’t. She’s a crackerjack shot. And one of the most caring nurses you’ll ever have the good fortune to work with. You can always depend on her to see that your patients get the finest care.”

It was a glowing recommendation, one that brought a blush to Janey’s cheeks. “I just do what anyone else would do,” she said modestly, and immediately changed the subject. “Liberty Hill’s quite a change from L.A.,” she told Reilly with a smile. “But I guess you know that already. What do you miss the most so far?”

Privacy, Reilly wanted to answer, and just barely held his tongue. Dammit, what was wrong with everyone around here? Every time he turned around, someone was asking him a damn personal question. He wanted to give people the benefit of the doubt—they were just being friendly and trying to find something to talk about—but he felt as if he’d been prodded and poked all day for information that was none of their business, and he was heartily sick of it. Didn’t they understand? He just wanted to be left alone!

“Nothing,” he said coolly. “That’s why I left. Now if you’ll excuse me, Dr. Michaels introduced me to some patients who need my attention. It was nice meeting you.”

With a curt nod he turned and strode out of the solarium, leaving behind a stunned silence. Taken aback, Janey turned to Dan in confusion. “What was that all about? What did I say? I didn’t mean to offend him.”

“Of course you didn’t,” he assured her with a comforting pat on the shoulder. “It wasn’t you, dear. Reilly’s just had a difficult afternoon.” Making a snap decision, he motioned to her to take a seat at one of the nearby tables. “Sit down, Janey. I need to tell you a few things about Dr. Jones.”

The Lester sisters had turned their attention from their game to Oprah, who’d just come on the television in the corner, so Janey had time to talk. “If this is about his wife dying, I already know,” she said as she settled into a chair across the table from him. “Mom told me. Obviously he’s going through a rough time.”

Dan nodded grimly. “That isn’t something a man gets over in a hurry. Trust me—I know. Peggy’s been dead eighteen years, and there are still times when I go home at the end of the day and expect to find her in the kitchen. It’s the loneliest feeling in the world when you realize she’s not there.”

“Is that why he left L.A.?” she asked quietly. “He couldn’t stand to live there without her?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “He’s a private person and never really said. And I didn’t push. I do know, though, that he was looking for a change. But change isn’t always easy, especially when you’re in a strange town where you don’t know anyone. That’s why I wanted to talk to you. He could use a friend, Janey. I know the two of you didn’t get off to a good start, but I was hoping you would do what you can to make him feel welcome. I imagine he’s pretty lonely.”

An astute woman, Janey knew when she was being manipulated. But she was also a soft touch, and she could not only forgive Dan for tugging on her emotions, but Reilly, too, for his hostile attitude. If their situations had been reversed, and she’d not only lost a husband she’d loved with all her heart, but moved to L.A., where she knew no one, she would have been miserable, too.

Smiling fondly at Dan, she gave in gracefully. “Okay, you can stop twisting my arm. I’ll be nice to the guy. If he hands my head to me on a platter, I guess you can stitch it back on for me.”

Pleased, he rose to his feet with her and hugged her. “I knew I could count on you. You’re just like your mother.”

Janey couldn’t think of anyone she’d rather be like, but Dan had it wrong. Her mother was strikingly beautiful, and Merry was her spitting image. She, on the other hand, was more like her father and Joe. Quiet and plain as apple pie, she’d accepted long ago that she would never have her mother’s or Merry’s striking beauty or outgoing personality. That just wasn’t who she was. And that was okay. She would have never been comfortable being beautiful. Happily married to Nick and eight months pregnant, Merry still drew constant male looks wherever she went. Janey couldn’t imagine that. She would have hated it.

Convincing Dan of that, however, would have been impossible. An old family friend, he’d known her all her life and made no secret of the fact that he thought she was every bit as beautiful as the rest of the family. Returning his hug fondly, she promised, “I’ll do what I can.”

She told herself it would be easy. She would make a point of seeking him out when he came by the nursing home for rounds, and she was bound to run into him at the hospital when she was working rescue with the volunteer fire department. There wouldn’t, however, be much time to talk during work, so she had to find another way to make him feel welcome.

“I’ll make him a cake and take it over to the cabin,” she decided as she drove home after her shift. It was the neighborly thing to do, and her mother had an excellent chocolate cake recipe. She’d never made it before, personally, but how hard could it be? All she had to do was follow directions.

Wednesday night was the regular meeting of her mother’s bridge club at Myrtle’s, so Janey wasn’t surprised to find the house deserted when she got home. Her mother loved bridge and seldom missed a night out with the girls. Thankfully, Janey knew where she kept her recipes. Taking time only to change out of her nurse’s uniform into jeans and a T-shirt, she hurried back downstairs and tied on an apron.

She should have known she was in trouble when she finally found the recipe in her mother’s recipe box and discovered that it was nothing more than a list of ingredients written down in Sara’s neat hand. There were no directions, no indication of what order the ingredients were mixed or even what temperature the cake should be baked at. Frowning, Janey considered calling Sara at Myrtle’s, but she really hated to disturb the game, especially for something so minor. She’d watched her mother make the cake dozens of times over the years. Surely she could figure it out by herself. Quickly gathering all the ingredients and setting them out on the counter, she began.

Her memory wasn’t the best, but if she remembered correctly, the sugar, chocolate, butter and vanilla were in the icing, so by process of elimination, she deduced the contents of the cake. Pleased with herself, she tossed everything into the mixing bowl and turned the mixture on high. Now all she had to do was grease and flour the sheet cake pan and she could start baking. Grinning, she could just see her mother’s face when she came in and discovered she’d actually baked a cake. She’d be shocked!

The scent of burning chocolate hit Sara in the face the second she stepped through the front door. Surprised, she frowned. What was going on? She was sure she hadn’t left anything in the oven, and Janey didn’t usually venture into the kitchen on her own unless it was to heat up something in the microwave. Scrambled eggs was about the extent of her culinary repertoire, and with good reason. The last time she’d tried to bake something, she’d been twelve, and she’d nearly set the house on fire.

Alarmed by the memory, Sara rushed into the kitchen to find Janey peering doubtfully into the oven. “Janey!” she sighed in relief when she saw there was no smoke filling the room as she’d half feared. “What’s going on? I smelled something burning and thought the house was on fire!”

“I was making a cake,” she replied in disgust as she looked around in vain for the pot holders, “but I think I burned it. Don’t you put the oven on five hundred when you bake a cake?”

“Good Lord, no, honey! Not if you want it to be edible.” Quickly grabbing the pot holders she kept on a hook next to the stove, Sara jerked open the oven door and rescued what was left of the cake. Not surprisingly, it was a pitiful sight. Shrunk to half the size of the sheet pan, it was nothing but a hard, charred glob.

When Janey groaned at the sight of it, it was all Sara could do not to laugh. Pressing her lips tightly together, it was several long moments before she could manage to turn to her with a straight face. Even then her voice had a tendency to wobble with laughter. “Is that my chocolate cake recipe?”

Janey nodded glumly. “Somehow it didn’t turn out like yours does. What’d I do wrong besides cook it to death?”

From the looks of it, everything, but Sara couldn’t bring herself to say that. Not when Janey had gone to so much trouble. Pulling out a chair at the kitchen table that had been in the family longer than anyone could remember, she patted the spot next to her. “We’ll get to that. First, sit down and tell me what brought this all about. The last time you wanted to cook, you still had braces on your teeth.”

Wincing, Janey remembered that occasion all too well. Her brothers still teased her about it. “Please,” she begged, “let’s don’t even go there. I was just trying to be nice to Reilly, like Dan asked me to, and I blew it.”

“Reilly?” her mother repeated, surprised. “All this was for Reilly Jones?”

Janey nodded and told her about her first meeting with Reilly several days ago, then her encounter with him earlier in the day at the nursing home. “He’s a very unhappy man. Dan thinks he needs a friend, so I thought I would make him a cake and take it over to the cabin. You know, sort of a welcome-to-the-neighborhood type thing.” Wrinkling her nose at the miserable excuse for a cake, she had to laugh. “So much for good intentions. I guess I should have just stopped at Ed’s on the way home from work and bought a pie. At least that would have been edible.”

So why hadn’t she? Sara wondered. What was it about Reilly Jones that had inspired her to make a cake for him? Janey had never done such a thing before for any man, let alone one she’d only just met. What in the world was going on?

Questions buzzing around in her head, Sara told herself not to be nosy. Janey was a grown woman and certainly didn’t have to answer to her mother. And Sara didn’t want to say anything that might make her feel self-conscious. Not when she appeared to be showing an interest in a man for the first time in her life. “Don’t give up hope,” she said, dumping the burned cake in the trash. “He’ll be able to eat yours, too. We’ll just make another one.”

Sara could have whipped up her famous hot fudge cake in record time, but this was Janey’s cake, not hers. So after helping her assemble fresh ingredients, she patiently gave her step by step instructions, then watched her every move to make sure she didn’t make any mistakes.

Pleased with herself when she finally pulled the finished product from the oven, Janey had to admit that the cake didn’t look anything like the one her mother usually made, but she couldn’t complain. It might not look pretty, but compared to her first effort, it was a virtual masterpiece.

“Thanks, Mom,” she said, hugging her. “I don’t know what I would have done without you. Do you think it’s too late to take it over to the cabin tonight?”

“No, it’s early yet, and I’m sure Reilly will appreciate the gesture,” she assured her. “While you’re there, why don’t you invite him to join the decorating committee for the Christmas festival? The festival’s just two weeks away, and the first committee meeting is Monday.”

It was a great idea, one Janey knew she should have thought of herself. Every year the town celebrated Christmas by turning the town square into a winter wonderland the second weekend in December. There were food and crafts booths, not to mention a complete village for Santa and his elves, and they were all constructed by the decorating committee, which was comprised of volunteers from all over the county. Because the committee meetings were as much fun as the festival itself, there was never any shortage of volunteers, but no one was ever turned away. The more, the merrier.

“It’ll give him a chance to meet people,” she said, pleased. “Thanks, Mom! I’ll do that.”

Made of logs that had been cut from the property itself, Nick’s cabin sat in the middle of a thick stand of pines and looked as though it had been there forever. With a deep front porch and paned windows that were designed to let in the light and bring the forest inside, it had a charm to it that Janey had always loved. Tonight, only a single lamp burned in the living room, but that was enough to cast an inviting glow across the porch.

Parking in the circular drive, she wasn’t surprised when the porch light came on as she started up the stairs to the porch. The cabin sat at the end of a long private drive, and in the dark of the night, Reilly would have seen her headlights the second she turned down the drive.

Janey didn’t consider herself a shy person. She liked people and enjoyed talking to them, but something happened to her on the way up the steps to his front door. Suddenly her heart was pounding, her knees weren’t quite steady, and the little welcoming speech she had all prepared flew right out of her head the second he opened the door to her. And for the life of her, she didn’t know why. Flustered, she forced a weak smile and couldn’t think of a thing to say except, “Hi.”

His face expressionless, he arched a brow at the sight of the cake pan in her hand. “What’s that?”

“What? Oh!” Suddenly remembering why she was there, she blushed to the roots of her hair and abruptly thrust the pan into his hands like it was a hot rock. “It’s a cake,” she said unnecessarily. “To welcome you to the neighborhood.”

“I see.”

Janey wasn’t too sure of that. From his expression, he’d never seen a cake before, and Janey couldn’t say she blamed him. It was awful looking. Suddenly appreciating the humor of the situation, she grinned. “I know it looks terrible—I’m not much of a cook—but trust me, this is a real prize compared to the first one I made. That one ended up in the trash can.”

“You made two?”

“I didn’t want to poison you,” she said simply. “The whole point of this was to make you feel welcome.”

He should have laughed. She expected him to. When he didn’t, she reminded herself that he was going through a difficult time and probably didn’t mean to be rude. If she was going to be a friend to him, she had to remember that.

Shrugging off her hurt feelings, she forced a smile that didn’t come as easily as she would have liked. “Well, it’s getting late. I just stopped by to give you the cake. Oh, and to invite you to a meeting of the decorating committee for the Christmas festival,” she added. Quickly telling him about the festival and how much fun the committee meetings were, she said, “Our first meeting’s next Monday, and I thought you might like to come. It’ll give you a chance to meet people and have some fun at the same time. If you’re not busy, of course.”

There was nothing the least bit offensive about her little speech, but Reilly knew better than to be taken in by the apparent innocence of it. Did she really think he was so gullible? Ever since Victoria’s death, he had been hit on by just about every woman who crossed his path, and he was heartily sick of it. There were three casseroles in his refrigerator from three other women who’d had the same idea as Janey. And despite their claims to the contrary, he knew they weren’t just being neighborly. He’d played the game too many times with the women in L.A. after Victoria had died. By bringing him a covered dish, they were each ensuring that they could return in a few days with the excuse that they were there to pick up their cookware.

Just thinking about it irritated the hell out of him. From the little he’d seen of Janey McBride, he’d thought she was different. Obviously, he’d been wrong.

“I’m busy Monday night,” he said coldly.

“Oh. Well, then, maybe some other time.”

When she started to turn, her smile now gone, he should have let her go. If she wanted to go on thinking there was a chance they’d get together at a later time, that was her problem, he told himself. He wasn’t responsible for what she thought. But even as he tried to convince himself of that, he knew he had to set the record straight. He wasn’t a man who led women on—he never had been. Honesty wasn’t always appreciated, but it prevented a lot of problems in the long run.

“No, there won’t be another time,” he said flatly. “You might as well know that now. If you’ve set your sights on me, you’re wasting your time. I’m not interested.”

Stunned, Janey couldn’t believe she’d heard him correctly. He actually thought that she…that she was the kind of woman who would…

Unable to finish the thoughts whirling in her head, she almost laughed at the ridiculousness of his accusations. He couldn’t be serious! She’d never come on to a man in her life—she wouldn’t even know where to begin. This had to be some kind of a joke.

But there was nothing the least bit amusing about the hard glint in his blue eyes. He actually thought she was making a play for him, and he wanted nothing to do with her.

Later—years from now—she told herself, she might be able to look back and laugh about this. But for now she’d never been so insulted in her life. Pride coming to her rescue, she drew herself up proudly and stared down her nose at him with all the regalness of a queen. So he wasn’t interested, was he? Well, neither was she!

“Someone here has an overinflated ego,” she said coolly, “and it’s not me. For your information, Doctor, the only reason I brought the cake over was because Dr. Michaels asked me to be nice to you. Since I’ve obviously failed at that, I won’t bother you anymore. Good night.”

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