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Forget the sexy, wind-tossed blond hair, stubble of sandy beard and well-muscled arms. What really had her mouth watering was what he held in his hand.
“Is that coffee?”
He drank deeply before replying, apparently having noted the reverence in her tone. “Yes, it is.”
“You wouldn’t happen to have more of it?”
“An entire pot. Just made it before I came out for my morning walk.” He sipped it again. “Ground the beans myself.”
She couldn’t help it. A soft moan escaped her lips. He raised his eyebrows when he heard it, but he made no comment.
“I don’t suppose you’re feeling neighborly?”
He smiled, and Marnie told herself it was only the promise of caffeine that had her pulse shooting off like a bottle rocket.
Certainly, it wasn’t the more than six feet of gorgeous man standing five yards in front of her.
Jackie Braun began making up stories even before she could write them down, but she followed her dad’s advice and earned a college degree so she could get a “day job.” She worked as a journalist for seventeen years, eleven of those years as an editorial writer at a daily newspaper, before finally quitting to make fiction her full-time career. She is a former RITA® Award and National Readers’ Choice finalist, and past winner of the Rising Star Award in traditional romance. She lives with her husband, Mark, and their son, Daniel, in Flushing, Michigan.
Recent titles by the same author
HARLEQUIN ROMANCE®
3804—HER STAND-IN GROOM
3825—THE GAME SHOW BRIDE
3840—IN THE SHELTER OF HIS ARMS
www.millsandboon.co.uk
For my sisters Donna, Patty and Loraine
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
PROLOGUE
MARNIE STRIKER LARUE covered the mouthpiece of the telephone with one hand and hollered, “Do not put Dorothy in the fridge again, Noah.”
She couldn’t see into the kitchen, but she’d developed a sixth sense where her four-year-old son was concerned and he’d been awfully preoccupied with that goldfish lately.
Sure enough, he hollered back, “Aw, Mom.”
When Marnie saw him dash in the direction of his bedroom, she settled back onto the couch beside the mountain of unfolded laundry and, securing the receiver between her ear and shoulder, said, “So, what were you about to say, Mother?”
“I just wanted to mention that Dad saw an interesting article in the Phoenix Sun the other day about how the number of female-owned businesses is on the rise.”
Apparently her parents, who had retired to Arizona several years before, still had a sixth sense when it came to their youngest child.
This was another not so subtle reminder that Marnie’s plan to start her own business had languished for three years now. With her late husband’s enthusiastic backing, she’d plotted out a strategy for a mail-order business, a frillier version of Land’s End and L.L. Bean. At first, she’d planned to offer clothing and accessories for women like her who lived far from shopping centers and strip malls, but who still wanted to be fashionable. Later, she’d hoped to branch out into men’s and children’s clothing and then finally to include home decor.
It was to be called Marnie’s Closet, a name that had come courtesy of her sister-in-law, Rose, who still borrowed things to wear on occasion, although not as often now since Marnie hadn’t added so much as a new belt to her wardrobe in a few seasons.
The entire typed-out plan was still somewhere in Marnie’s house, gathering dust. It had been hatched PHD—Pre-Hal’s Death. That’s how Marnie thought of everything now, as if her world had been bisected neatly in two by the events of one horrific afternoon three years earlier.
“Your husband is dead.”
Those were the only words she’d heard that day. The remainder of what the kind-faced Michigan State Police officer had said had been lost to the roaring in her ears as she’d sat on the couch in her tidy little home holding tightly to her infant son while the rest of her world had slipped beyond her grasp and shattered into unsalvageable pieces.
Even now it seemed inconceivable. Dead? Not Hal. Not her careful, methodical, safety-conscious husband. It was a mistake. Had to be. Someone else’s husband had died trying to save two inebriated downstate snowmobilers who had ignored thin ice warnings and tumbled sled and all into the unforgiving waters of Lake Superior.
But then as now the truth could not be ignored. Hal was dead. The boy she had loved, the young man she had married, had become the spouse she mourned.
Since his death, she’d forgotten all about the business venture that had so excited her. She’d forgotten about everything but maintaining her tenuous financial footing and seeing to her son’s needs. Every morning for the past three years she’d gotten up tired and every night she had gone to bed bone weary, the monotony of her predictable schedule broken only by the bittersweet joy of watching her son learn to walk and talk and then run and reason.
“You know, they have a lot of programs to help women entrepreneurs succeed,” her mother said.
Marnie closed her eyes and counted to ten before replying blandly, “Really. That’s interesting.”
She was determined not to rise to the bait. But her mother was a master angler and not about to let her daughter off the hook so easily.
“It’s a shame you haven’t given it any more thought. You do a wonderful job running the Lighthouse Tavern for Mason while he’s out of town.”
Marnie’s older brother was a state legislator now. She had taken over his managerial duties at their family-owned pub when he was elected to the state House a few years back. What her mother wasn’t saying in this carefully choreographed conversation was what they all knew: Marnie found running the tavern safe and familiar.
The woman who previously had craved adventure and excitement had not strayed from the beaten path since she’d opened the door that chilly March afternoon to two grim-looking state troopers and become a single mother grappling to make ends meet.
“Why don’t you bring Noah down to see us over Easter break?” her mother suggested. “The change of scenery would do you both good.”
“It’s not a good time, Mom.”
Marnie switched the telephone receiver to her other shoulder and continued to fold laundry. It seemed like one endless, thankless chore to her. From the corner of her eye, she watched the source of much of that laundry streak by, peanut butter and jelly smeared on his shirt as well as his face. Noah was on his second outfit of the day and it wasn’t quite one o’clock.
“Nonsense. It’s the perfect time for you to come. Mason will be back in town over the holidays. The Legislature is out of session.”
“I’m sorry, Mom. But I really can’t afford a vacation right now.”
But her mother persisted. “Dad and I want to see our grandson. And you, too, dear. Come out to Arizona. It’s our treat.”
“I can’t let you pay our airfare.”
Indignation turned her voice crisp. She earned a living, enough to pay her bills on time if she was frugal. She had yet to touch a penny of Hal’s life insurance policy, which she’d invested for Noah, to be used to finance his college education. And she would be damned if she’d accept a handout now simply because her mother thought she needed to put her feet up.
But her indignation was short lived.
“We’re your parents, Marnie Elizabeth, so don’t you dare think of it as charity,” her mother said sternly.
The tone she used had Marnie cringing. She was thousands of miles away and yet her mother could always make Marnie feel just as she had when she was a twelve and had been caught smoking dried corn silk out behind the woodshed. She’d been grounded for two weeks—the fact that she’d turned green and thrown up apparently not punishment enough in Edith Striker’s estimation.
“We either pay your airfare to come here or we pay our airfare to come there. Same amount either way, so which will it be?”
Before she could respond, her mother threw down the trump card.
“Of course, with Dad’s arthritis, Michigan’s cold weather will be hell on his joints, but I’ll leave the choice up to you.”
Some choice.
But after hanging up, Marnie resigned herself to the visit, deciding there were worse things than having to spend time in a warm climate during the last leg of northern Michigan’s harsh winter. Besides, it would be good for Noah. He deserved a little fun and adventure now and then.
She began mentally making plans for a two-week stay at her parents’ home just outside Yuma. She’d have to get someone to pick up her mail, water the houseplants and feed Noah’s goldfish—assuming the poor thing survived until then. Glancing at the piles of folded laundry, she realized she’d also have to sort through her son’s summer clothes to see what still fit.
Maybe she could pick up a few things for him down in Arizona. Maybe she could pick up a few things for herself. Getting more in the spirit of things, she decided the trip might be good for her, an unexpected detour of sorts before she returned to her life’s monotony.
CHAPTER ONE
“HOLA! UM…UH…HMM.
“Donde esta…? Donde esta…? What’s the word?” she muttered. Glancing up at the clearly baffled cafe owner, she asked hopefully, “Bathroom? Um. Toileto? El johno?”
Okay, so it wasn’t actual Spanish, but Marnie really had to use the facilities and it couldn’t wait until after she’d rewound the Berlitz tape she’d listened to in the car on the trip south from Arizona and figured out the word for rest room.
Some detour, Marnie thought, as she thumbed through her Spanish/English dictionary in desperation. She hadn’t planned this side trip to Mexico, but she’d felt so crowded at her parents’ Yuma, Arizona, home. She was a grown woman of thirty-two, a mother herself to a precocious preschooler. But for four days they had hovered over her as if she were a wounded chick in need of nurturing. Finally she ‘d decided to leave Noah in their care—he would appreciate the doting, after all. She’d borrowed their car and driven south with no destination in mind.
Now, here she was a couple of hours or so beyond the United States border on Mexico’s Baja Peninsula. And she really needed to relieve herself.
From behind her, she heard the deep rumble of masculine laughter. When she turned, Marnie wondered how she could have missed the man. He sat at one of the small round tables near the door, his hulking frame in silhouette thanks to the light streaming in from the window behind him. And yet she knew without clearly seeing his features that his expression was one of amusement.
At her expense.
“Do you speak English?” she demanded, squelching the urge to cross her legs and hop in place.
“Si, yo hablo ingles, muchacha,” he replied smoothly.
His pronunciation was so flawless it took her a moment to realize that while he’d said so in Spanish, he could indeed communicate with her.
She pasted on a smile—one that would have had her brother Mason wisely moving well out of her range. This man merely crossed his arms over his broad chest and leaned back until the front legs of his chair left the ground.
“Clever, Mr.—?”
Where her lethal glare hadn’t fazed him, her simple question apparently did. The chair bounced back to the ground with a thud. He hesitated a moment, as if he was reluctant to identify himself.
“Friends call me J.T,” he said at last.
“J.T. Wow, that’s funny.”
He angled his head to one side, again seeming suspicious of her. “What’s funny?”
“Just that we’re barely acquaintances and I already have a pet name for you, too.”
But she bit her tongue on the expletive that came to mind and asked sweetly, “So, J.T., could you tell me where the rest room is?” Her smile was really more a baring of teeth when she added, “Por favor.”
“Donde esta el baño?”
“Yes, yes.” She waved her hand impatiently. “I think we’ve already established that you’re bilingual. And isn’t that a wonderful trait? I know I now deeply regret taking Home Ec as an elective rather than a foreign language while I was in high school. Be that as it may, I’d really appreciate it right now if you could just answer the question. In English. Or maybe French. I did take two semesters of French in middle school.”
He rattled off something that had her exhaling slowly. The man would have to be multilingual.
“Okay, not French. English. Eng-lish!”
“Well, then, by all means.”
He stood and took a few steps toward her, bringing him close enough that she could now fully make out his features. Where she and Hal had been on eye level, this man had several inches on her, despite the thick wedge of her heel. He was blond to her dark hair, with eyes the same shade of blue as the flower of the wild chicory that grew alongside the highway back home. Every inch of him was tanned and toned, and impressively coated with some serious muscle.
Not her type at all, she thought, even as her pulse rate spiked and almost made her forget the fact that her bladder felt as if it were being stretched by the entire contents of the Great Lakes.
It had been a long time since she’d felt this way around a member of the opposite sex. The sensation was unwanted now, and, to Marnie’s way of thinking, its presence was just another reason to dislike the handsome stranger.
“Down that hallway and to the right.”
“Thank you.”
“De nada.”
She smiled and had just taken a step in the direction he’d indicated when he added, “For future reference, Donde esta el baño? is handy phrase should you find yourself in your, uh, current predicament again.”
“Gracias,” she replied with a roll of her eyes and hurriedly took her leave.
The annoying, albeit gorgeous American was nowhere to be found when Marnie returned, a fact for which she was grateful. The exchange made her feel foolish now. And she didn’t care for that instant jolt of attraction. She didn’t like his type, good-looking though he was. She preferred men with brains to men with mere brawn.
The woman wiping up the tables in the cafe smiled broadly when Marnie approached. After a long consultation with the dictionary, she was able to ask about accommodations. The woman pointed to the map Marnie held, her slim finger stopping just north of the small fishermen’s village where they were. Marnie had passed through the resort town the woman indicated. She’d wanted no part of it. Too loud. Too crowded. She wanted peace and quiet and a bit of isolation. This small village place was perfect.
“No, no. No…turista.”
She flipped through the book again. She’d bought it less than twenty-four hours earlier and it was already dog-eared and showing other signs of wear. Well, she was definitely getting her money’s worth.
“I need to get away, be alone,” Marnie said in English, knowing full well the woman’s polite smile meant she didn’t have a clue what she was rattling on about.
“Viuda,” Marnie said finally, pressing a hand to her heart as she uttered the Spanish word for widow.
“Ah,” the woman replied, brown eyes melting with sympathy. It was the last thing Marnie wanted right now. She had enough of that in Chance Harbor. After Hal’s death, it was as if her name had changed from Marnie LaRue to Marnie Poor Thing.
“I need…” She flipped through pages. “Tranquilidad.”
“Si, si,” the woman bobbed her head.
Half an hour later, Marnie was back in her car and trying to follow the crude map the woman’s husband had drawn for her. His English had been only slightly better than Marnie’s Spanish, which obviously wasn’t saying much. But he’d assured her that the small house of his abuela, which Marnie thought meant grandmother, was quiet and secluded and overlooked the Pacific.
It sounded perfect. The homeowner had moved in with family. She was too old to live alone any longer, the man had told Marnie. As the road opened up and her beachfront accommodations for the extended weekend came into view, Marnie thought she understood why.
She no longer felt guilty about the ridiculously low sum she’d paid to rent the place. It was little more than a shack built just back from the large boulders that dotted the beach, with rooms haphazardly tacked on at various angles to the original structure. A hundred yards down the beach, she spied another home. This one was a little more reputable-looking, but any hope she’d held out that it might be the place was dashed when she spied the black Jeep Wrangler parked outside.
It was only four days, she reminded herself. Then she took in the incredible view and decided the panoramic of the Pacific more than made up for any shortcomings in her accommodations. What did it matter where she slept or took her meals as long as she got to wake up to that?
Marnie had always loved the water. Even after Hal’s drowning death in Lake Superior, she’d continued to find being near it peaceful, restorative—essential even. Something about its vast size and rhythm soothed her, even on days when the lake’s surface was puckered with waves.
The ocean, so much bigger than even the greatest of the Great Lakes, had that soothing rhythm as well. She parked the car and walked to where the water churned white at shore. Seabirds swooped and called overhead, and even though it was only about seventy degrees, the air was heavy and seemed warmer thanks to a salty humidity that had her licking her lips to see if she could taste it. She could.
A storm was coming. Farther out, dark clouds were gathering, roiling in hues of purple and gray on the horizon. She should unpack her belongings. At the very least, she should unload the groceries she’d purchased at the market in town. But she tucked the keys in the front pocket of her shorts, tugged off her sandals and walked to where her feet flirted with the surf.
Now, here she was.
La Playa de la Pisada. Footprint Beach. That was the name of the small village she’d stumbled across. As Marnie added her own footprints to the sand, she knew coming here had been a good idea.
An hour later, as the first fat drops of rain turned into a torrent, she revised her opinion. The roof leaked, big time. The electricity was iffy, shutting off with a threatening sizzle with every gust of wind. So far it kept sputtering back on a few moments later, but she wasn’t sure how long her luck would hold. All of this was small potatoes compared to the roommate she’d discovered living in the primitive bathroom. Marnie had shrieked with unholy abandon when she’d spied the small scaly critter and then slammed the door closed. It could stay there. She didn’t need a bathroom.
¿Donde esta el baño?
The phrase came back to her, as did the memory of the man who’d uttered it. What was his story? she wondered, telling herself it was simple curiosity that had her recalling his Brad Pitt jaw line and impossibly blue eyes. He wasn’t a local, at least not originally. American like her and maybe, like her, he’d come seeking peace and quiet.
The electricity sizzled off again, but at least the rain was letting up some. Marnie decided she could do without the quiet part just now. She hopped over mud puddles on the way to her car and cranked up the volume on the stereo. The humble bungalow didn’t have a radio let alone a compact disk player.
As Marvin Gaye sang of sexual healing, Marnie went back inside to unpack her belongings. The knock on the open door a few minutes later startled her as she stacked a few canned goods in the cupboard. When she turned, the man from the café stood just outside in the drizzle. While his lips had twitched with laughter at their last meeting, this time they were drawn into a tight line.
“Just who in the hell are you?” he asked abruptly, stepping over the threshold.
The electricity came back on then, the overhead light in the kitchen flickering to life as if sparked by his mere presence.
At five-ten, Marnie wasn’t what anyone would classify as petite. She was in good enough shape to have tone to her muscles, but she was no body builder. What she was at this moment, she realized as fear pooled in the pit of her stomach, was a lone female in a foreign country with no telephone service and far enough from civilization that no one would hear her scream. So, she picked up the first object she could find—one of her sandals—and, summoning up some bravado, brandished it in the man’s handsome face.
“I suggest you stay away from me.”
He blinked in surprise, raising a hand to shove damp sandy hair back from his eyes.
“You’re threatening me with a shoe?”
“It’s got a heel and I’m not afraid to use it,” she bluffed in a deadly serious tone even though she knew there was nothing lethal about the sandal’s cork wedge.
“Who are you?” he asked again, this time seeming more baffled than angry.
“A woman who doesn’t want to be messed with, amigo.” Fear took a distant second to irritation as she stepped forward, poked a finger into the brick wall of his chest and challenged, “Who are you?”
“I think you know.”
“J.T.,” Marnie replied, repeating the initials the man gave her during their last encounter.
“Yes, J.T.,” he drawled. “Now, who sent you?”
“Sent me?”
“Whom do you work for?”
“I work for myself,” Marnie replied.
It was true, sort of. She was a waitress and sometimes manager at her family’s tavern, and, as her family could attest, no one told her what to do.
But I could be doing more, a little voice hummed. She lifted her chin and ignored it.
“So, you’re a freelancer.”
Blinking slowly, she regarded the man. She had no clue what he was blathering on about, but she lowered the shoe. If he’d planned to assault her, surely he would have done so by now without playing twenty questions first.
“What in heaven’s name are you talking about?” she asked in exasperation.
Before he could answer, the critter in the bathroom thumped against the door.
“What the devil?”
J.T. stepped around Marnie in the small kitchen and headed toward the equally miniscule adjoining room that probably served as the home’s main gathering place, although at the moment it had no furnishings. He pointed to the closed door at the far end of the room.
“What do you have in there?”
“No idea. I opened the bathroom door and there it was. I wasn’t going to evict it.”
Marnie smiled at J.T., ready to forgive him for his rudeness now that she had determined he was quite harmless: annoying, arrogant and appallingly short on manners, but harmless nonetheless.
She was still smiling when she asked, “Maybe you could, um, convince it to go outside?”
Then she handed him the shoe.
J.T. couldn’t believe this woman. She had the sultry, sexy look of a lingerie model: long, slender limbs, a well-curved bottom and generous bust, all neatly topped off with a short dark mop of hair, deep brown eyes and lips that looked inviting even when she was snarling at him. She was a study in contrasts, much like the Baja peninsula with its deserts, mountains and gorgeous coastline. One minute she was threatening him with a flimsy sandal and the next she was trying to wheedle a favor out of him.