﻿He was being inexorably drawn into Anna’s life …

It only reminded him of his mission here and how he wasn’t any closer to the truth than he’d been when he arrived.

They headed out of the garage. The sky had darkened. He could see distant lightning over the ocean.

“I should warn you we sometimes lose power in the middle of a big storm. You can find emergency candles and matches in the top drawer in the kitchen.”

“Thanks.” Max headed up the stairs, trying not to favour his stiff ankle, but his efforts were in vain.

“Your ankle! I completely forgot about it! I’m an idiot to make you stand out there for hours just to hold my ladder. I’m so sorry!”

“It wasn’t hours, and you’re not an idiot. I’m fine. The ankle doesn’t even hurt any more.”

It wasn’t quite the truth but he wasn’t about to tell her that.

He didn’t want her sympathy.

He wanted something else entirely from Anna Galvez, something he damn well knew he had no business craving.

RAEANNE THAYNE

finds inspiration in the beautiful northern Utah mountains, where she lives with her husband and three children. Her books have won numerous honours, including a RITA® Award nomination from Romance Writers of America and a Career Achievement Award from Romantic Times BOOKreviews magazine. RaeAnne loves to hear from readers and can be reached through her website at http://www.raeannethayne.com.

A Soldier’s Secret

RaeAnne Thayne

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To my brothers, Maj. Brad Robinson,

US Air Force, and high-school teacher

and coach Mike Robinson.

Both of you are heroes!

Chapter One

Lights were on in her attic—lights that definitely hadn’t been gleaming when she left that morning.

A cold early March breeze blew off the ocean, sending dead leaves skittering across the road in front of her headlights and twisting and yanking the boughs of the Sitka spruce around Brambleberry House as Anna Galvez pulled into the driveway, behind an unfamiliar vehicle.

The lights and the vehicle could only mean one thing.

Her new tenant had arrived.

She sighed. She so didn’t need this right now. Exhaustion pressed on her shoulders with heavy, punishing hands and she wanted nothing but to slip into a warm bath with a mind-numbing glass of wine.

The day had been beyond ghastly. She could imagine few activities more miserable than spending an entire humiliating day sitting in a Lincoln City courtroom being confronted with the unavoidable evidence of her own stupidity.

And now, despite her battered ego and fragile psyche, she had to go inside and make nice with a stranger who wouldn’t even be renting the top floor of Brambleberry House if not for the tangled financial mess that stupidity had caused.

In the backseat, Conan gave one sharp bark, though she didn’t know if he was anxious at the unfamiliar vehicle parked in front of them or just needed to answer the call of nature.

Since they had been driving for an hour, she opted for the latter and hurried out into the wet cold to open the sliding door of her minivan. The big shaggy beast she inherited nearly a year earlier, along with the rambling Victorian in front of her, leaped out in one powerful lunge.

Tail wagging, he rushed immediately to sniff around the SUV that dared to enter his territory without his permission. He lifted his leg before she could kick-start her brain and Anna winced.

“Conan, get away from there,” she called sternly. He sent her a quizzical look, then gave a disgruntled snort before lowering his leg and heading to one of his favorite trees instead.

She really hoped her new tenant didn’t mind dogs.

She hated the idea of a stranger in Sage’s apartment. If she had her way, she would keep it empty, even though Sage and her husband and stepdaughter had their own beach house now a half mile down the shore for their frequent visits to Cannon Beach from their San Francisco home.

But after Anna vehemently refused to accept financial help from Sage and Eben, Sage had insisted she at least rent out her apartment to help defray costs.

The two of them were co-owners of the house and Sage’s opinion certainly had weight. Besides, Anna was nothing if not practical. The apartment was empty, she had a fierce, unavoidable need for income and she knew many people were willing to pay a premium for furnished beach-front living space.

Army Lieutenant Harry Maxwell among them.

She gazed up at the lights cutting through the twilight from the third-story window. She was going to have to go up there and welcome him to Brambleberry House. No question. It was the right thing to do, even if the long, exhausting day in that courtroom had left her as bedraggled and wrung-out as one of Conan’s tennis balls after a good hard game of fetch on the beach.

She might want to do nothing but climb into her bed, yank the covers over her head and weep for her shattered dreams and her own stupidity, but she had to put all that aside for now and do the polite thing.

She grabbed her laptop case from the passenger seat just as her cell phone rang. Anna swallowed a groan when she saw the name and phone number.

She wasn’t sure what was worse—making nice with a stranger now living in her home or being forced to carry on a conversation with the bubbly real estate agent who had facilitated the whole deal.

With grim resignation, she opened her phone and connected the call. “Anna Galvez speaking.”

“Anna! It’s Tracy Harder!”

Even if she hadn’t already noted Tracy’s information on the caller ID, she would have recognized the other woman’s perky enthusiasm in an instant.

“So have you seen him yet?” Tracy asked.

Anna screwed her eyes shut as if she could just make those upstairs lights—and Tracy—disappear. “I just pulled up to the house, Tracy. I’ve been in Lincoln City all day. I haven’t had a chance to even walk into the house yet. So, no, I haven’t seen him. I’m planning to go up to say hello in a moment.”

“You are the luckiest woman in town right now. I mean it! You have absolutely no idea.”

“You’re right,” she said, unable to keep the dry note out of her voice. “But I’m willing to bet you’re about to enlighten me.”

Tracy gave a low, sultry laugh. “I know we didn’t mention a finder’s fee on top of my usual property management commission, but you just might want to kick a bonus over my way after you meet him. The man is gorgeous. Yum, that’s all I have to say. Yum!”

Just what she needed. A player who would probably be entertaining a long string of model types at all hours of the day and night. “As long as he pays his rent on time and only needs a two-month lease, I don’t care what he looks like.”

“That’s because you haven’t met him yet. How much longer will Julia Blair and her kids be renting the second floor? I might be interested when she moves out—I’d love to be beneath that man.”

Anna couldn’t help her groan, both at Tracy’s not so subtle sexual innuendo and at the idea of the real estate agent’s wild boys living in the second-floor apartment.

“Julia and Will aren’t getting married until June,” she answered. With any luck, Lieutenant Maxwell would be long gone by then, leaving behind only his nice fat rental check.

“When she moves out, let me know. That might be a good time for us to talk about a more long-term solution to Brambleberry House. You can’t keep taking in temporary renters to pay for the repairs on it. The place is a black hole that will suck away every penny you have.”

Didn’t she just know it? Anna let herself in the front door, noting that the paint on the porch was starting to crack and peel.

Replacing the furnace the month before had taken just about her last dime of discretionary income—not that she had much of that, as she tried to shore up her faltering business amid scandal and chicanery. The house needed a new roof, which was going to cost more than buying a brand-new car.

“Now listen,” Tracy went on in her ear as Anna opened the door to her apartment to set down her laptop, Conan on her heels. “I told you I’ve got several fabulous potential buyers on the hook with both the cash and the interest in a great old Victorian on the coast. You need to think about it, Anna. I mean it.”

“I guess I didn’t realize there was such a market for big black holes these day.”

Tracy laughed. “When you have enough money, no hole is too big or too black.”

And when you had none, even a pothole could feel like an insurmountable obstacle. Anna swallowed another sigh. “I appreciate the offer and your help finding a tenant for the attic apartment.”

“But you’re not interested in selling.” Tracy’s voice was resigned.

“Not right now.”

“You’re as stubborn as Abigail was. I’m telling you, Anna, you’re sitting on a gold mine.”

“I know.” She sat down in Abigail’s favorite armchair. “But for now it’s my gold mine. Mine and Sage’s.”

“All right, but when you change your mind, you know where to find me. And I want you to call me after you meet our Lieutenant Maxwell.”

As far as Anna was concerned, the man wasn’t our anything. Tracy was welcome to him. “Thanks again for dealing with the details of the rental agreement,” she answered. “I’ll let you know how things are going in a week or two.’ Bye, Tracy.”

She ended the call and set down her phone, then leaned her head back against the floral upholstery. Conan sat beside her and, like the master manipulator he was, nudged one of her hands off the armrest and onto his head.

She scratched him between the ears for a moment, trying to let the peace she usually found at Brambleberry House seep through her. After a few moments—just when her eyelids were drifting closed—Conan slid away from her and moved to the door. He planted his haunches there and watched her expectantly.

“Yeah, I know, already,” she grumbled. “I plan to go upstairs and say hello. I don’t need you nagging me about it. I just need a minute to work up to it.”

Still, she climbed out of the chair. After a check in the mirror above the hall tree, she did a quick repair of her French twist, grabbed Conan’s leash off the hook by the door and put it on him, then headed up the stairs to meet her new neighbor.

As she trailed her fingers on the railing worn smooth by a hundred years of Dandridge hands, she reviewed what she knew about the man. Though Tracy had handled the details, Anna knew Lieutenant Maxwell had impeccable references.

He was an army helicopter pilot who had just served two tours of duty in the Middle East. He was currently on medical leave, recovering from injuries sustained in a hard landing in the midst of enemy fire.

He was single, thirty-five years old and willing to pay a great deal of money to rent her attic for only a few months.

When Tracy told her his background, Anna wanted to reduce the rent. She was squeamish about charging full price to an injured war veteran, but he refused to accept any concession.

Fine, she thought now as she paused on the third-floor landing. But she could still be gracious and welcoming to the man and hope that he would find the healing and peace at Brambleberry House that she usually did.

Outside his door, the scent of freesia curled around her and she closed her eyes for a moment, missing Abigail with a fierce ache. Conan didn’t let her wallow in it. He gave a sharp bark and started wagging his tail furiously.

With a sigh, Anna knocked on the door. A moment later, it swung open and she forgot all about being kind and welcoming.

Tracy had told the God’s-honest truth.

Yum.

Lieutenant Maxwell was tall—perhaps six-two—with hair the color of aged whiskey and chiseled, lean features. He wore a burgundy cotton shirt and faded jeans with a small, fraying hole below the knee.

He had a small scar on the outside of his right eye that only made him look vaguely piratelike and his right arm was encased in a dark blue sling.

The man was definitely gorgeous, but there was something more to it. If she had passed him on the street, she would have called him compelling, especially his eyes. She gazed into their hazel depths and felt an odd tug of recognition. For a brief, flickering moment, he seemed so familiar she wondered if they had met before.

The question registered for all of maybe two seconds before Conan suddenly began barking an enthusiastic welcome and lunged for Lieutenant Maxwell as if they were lifelong friends.

“Conan, sit,” she ordered, disconcerted by her dog’s reaction. He wasn’t one for jumping all over strangers. Despite his moods and his uncanny intelligence, Conan was usually well-mannered, but just now he strained against the leash as if he wanted to knock her new tenant to the ground and lick his face off.

“Sit!” she ordered, more sternly this time. Conan gave her a disgruntled look, then plopped his butt to the floor.

“Good dog. I’m sorry,” she said, feeling flustered. “Hi. You must be Harry Maxwell, right?”

Something flashed in his eyes, too quickly for her to identify it, but she thought he looked uncomfortable.

After a moment, he nodded. “Yeah.”

With that single syllable, he sounded as cold and remote as Tillamook Rock. She blinked, not quite sure how to respond. He obviously didn’t want to be best friends here, he was only renting her empty apartment, she reminded herself.

Despite Conan’s sudden ardor, it was probably better all the way around if they all maintained a careful distance during the duration of Harry Maxwell’s rental agreement. He was only here for a short time and then he would probably head back to active duty. No need for unnecessarily messy entanglements.

Taking her cue from his own reaction, she forced her voice to be brisk, professional. “I’m Anna Galvez, one of the owners of Brambleberry House. This is my dog, Conan. I don’t know what’s come over him. I’m sorry. He’s not usually so…ardent…with strangers. Every once in a while he greets somebody like an old friend. I can’t explain it but I’m very sorry if his exuberance makes you uncomfortable.”

He unbent enough to reach down and scratch the dog’s chin, which had the beast’s tail thumping against the floor in ecstasy.

“Conan? Like the barbarian?” he asked.

“Actually, like the talk-show host. It’s a long story.”

One he obviously wasn’t interested in hearing about, if the remote expression on his handsome features was any indication.

She tugged Conan’s leash when he tried to wrap himself around the soldier’s legs and after another disgruntled moment, the dog condescended enough to sit beside her. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you arrived so I could show you around. I wasn’t expecting you for a day or two.”

“My plans changed. I was released from the military hospital a few days earlier than I expected. Since I didn’t have anywhere else to go right now, I decided to head out here.”

How sad, she thought. Didn’t he have any family eager to give him a hero’s welcome?

“Since I was early, I planned to get a hotel room for a couple days,” he added, “but the property management company said the apartment was ready and available.”

“It is. Everything’s fine. I’m just sorry I wasn’t here.”

“The real estate agent handled everything.”

Not everything Tracy probably wanted to handle, Anna mused, then was slightly ashamed of herself for the base thought.

This whole situation felt so awkward, so out of her comfort zone.

“You were able to find everything you needed?” she asked. “Towels, sheets, whatever?”

He shrugged. “So far.”

“The kitchen is fully stocked with cookware and so forth but if you can’t find something, let me know.”

“I’ll do that.”

Despite his terse responses, Anna was disconcerted by her awareness of him. He was so big, so overwhelmingly male. She would be glad when the few months were up, though apparently Conan was infatuated with the man.

She had a sudden fierce wish that Tracy had found a nice older lady to rent the attic apartment to, but somehow she doubted too many older ladies were interested in climbing forty steps to get to their apartment.

Thinking of the steps reminded her of his injury and she nodded toward the sling on his shoulder. “I’m really sorry I wasn’t here to help you carry up boxes. I guess you managed all right.”

“I don’t have much. A duffel and a suitcase. I’m only here for a short time.”

“I know, but it’s still two long flights of stairs.”

She thought annoyance flickered in his eyes, as if he didn’t like being reminded of his injury, but he quickly hid it.

“I handled things,” he said.

“Well, if you ever need help carrying groceries up or anything or if you would just like the name of a good doctor around here, just let me know.”

“I’m fine. I don’t need anything. Just a quiet place to hang for a while until I’m fit to return to my unit.”

She had the impression Lieutenant Harry Maxwell wasn’t a man who liked being in any kind of position to need help. She supposed she probably shouldn’t be holding her breath waiting for him to ask for it.

“I’m afraid I can’t promise you complete quiet. Conan is mostly well-behaved but he does bark once in a while. I should also warn you if Tracy didn’t mention it that there are children living in the second-floor apartment. Seven-year-old twins.”

“They bark, too?”

She searched his face for any sign of a sense of humor but his expression revealed nothing. Still, she couldn’t help smiling. “No, but they can be a little…energetic…at times. Mostly in the afternoons. They’re gone most of the day at school and then they’re usually pretty quiet in the evenings.”

“That’s something, then.”

“In any case, they won’t be here at all for several days. Their mother, Julia, is a teacher. Since they’re all out of school right now for spring break, they’ve gone back to visit her family.”

Before Lieutenant Maxwell could respond, Conan broke free of both the sit command and her hold on the leash and lunged for him again, dancing around his legs with excitement.

Anna reached for him again. “Conan, stop it right now. That’s enough! I’m so sorry,” she said to her new tenant, flustered at the negative impression they must be making.

“No worries. I’m not completely helpless. I think I can still manage to handle one high-strung mutt.”

“Conan is not like most dogs,” she muttered. “Most of the time we forget he even is a canine.”

“The dog breath doesn’t give him away?”

She smiled at his dry tone. So some sense of humor did lurk under that tough shell. That was a good sign. Brambleberry House and all its quirks demanded a strong constitution of its occupants.

“There is that,” she answered. “We’ll get out of your way and let you settle in. Again, if you need anything, don’t hesitate to call. My phone number is right next to the phone or you can just call down the stairs and I’ll usually hear you.”

“I’ll do that,” he murmured, his mouth lifting slightly from its austere lines into what almost passed for a smile.

Just that minimal smile sent her pulse racing. With effort, she wrenched her gaze away from the dangerously masculine appeal of his features and tugged a reluctant Conan behind her as she headed back down the stairs.

Nerves zinging through her, Anna cursed to herself as she let herself back in to her apartment. She did not need this right now, she reminded herself sternly.

Her life was already a snarl of complications. She certainly didn’t need to add into the mix a wounded war hero with gorgeous eyes, lean features and a mouth that looked made for trouble.

* * *

He forgot about the damn dog.

Max shut the door behind the two of them—Anna Galvez and Conan. His last glimpse of the dog was of him quivering with a mix of excitement and friendly welcome and a bit of why-aren’t-you-happier-to-see-me? confusion as she yanked his leash to tug him behind her down the stairs.

It had been shortsighted of him not to think of Abigail’s mutt and his possible reaction to seeing Max again. He hadn’t even given Conan a single thought—just more evidence of how completely the news of Abigail’s death had knocked him off his pins.

The dog had only been a pup the last time he’d seen him before he shipped to the Middle East for his first tour of duty. During those last few days he had spent at Brambleberry House, Max had played hard with Conan. They’d run for miles on the beach, hiked up and down the coast range and played hours of fetch in the yard.

Had it really been four years? That was the last time he had had a chance to spend any length of time here, a realization that caused him no small amount of guilt.

Conan should have been one of the first things on his mind after he found out about Abigail’s death—several months after the fact. He could only blame his injuries and the long months of recovery for sending any thoughts of the dog scattering. It looked as if he was well-fed and taken care of. He supposed he had to give points to the woman—Anna Galvez—for that, at least.

He wasn’t willing to concede victory to her, simply because she seemed affectionate to Abigail’s mutt.

Anna Galvez. Now there was a strange woman, at least on first impressions. He couldn’t quite get a handle on her. She was starchy and stiff, with her hair scraped back in a knot and the almost-masculine business suit and skirt she wore.

He would have considered her completely unappealing, except when she smiled, her entire face lit up as if somebody had just turned on a thousand-watt spotlight and aimed it right at her.

Only then did he notice her glossy dark hair, the huge, thick-lashed eyes, the high, elegant cheekbones. Underneath the layers of starch, she was a beautiful woman, he had realized with surprise, one that in other circumstances he might be interested in pursuing.

Didn’t matter. She could be a supermodel and it wouldn’t make a damn bit of difference to him. He had to focus on the two important things in his life right now—healing his shattered arm and digging for information.

He wasn’t looking to make friends, he wasn’t here to win any popularity contests, and he certainly wasn’t interested in a quick fling with one of the women of Brambleberry House.

Chapter Two

She could never get enough of the coast.

Anna walked along the shore early the next morning while Conan jumped around in the sand, chasing grebes and dancing through the baby breakers.

The cool March wind whipped the waves into a froth and tangled her hair, making her grateful for the gloves and hat Abigail had knitted her last year. Offshore, the seastacks stood sturdy and resolute against the sea and overhead gulls wheeled and dived in the pale, early morning sky.

It all seemed worlds away from growing up in the high desert valleys of Utah but she loved it here. After four years of living in Oregon, she still felt incredibly blessed to be able to wake up to the soft music of the sea every single day.

Abigail had loved beachcombing in the mornings. She knew every inlet, every cliff, every tide table. She could spot a California gray whale’s spout from a mile away during the migration season and could identify every bird and most of the sea life nearly as well as Sage, who was a biologist and naturalist by profession.

Oh, Anna missed Abigail. She could hardly believe it had been nearly a year since her friend’s death. She still sometimes found herself in By-the-Wind—the book and gift store in town she first managed for Abigail and then purchased from her—looking out the window and expecting Abigail to stop by on one of her regular visits.

I know the store is yours now but you can’t blame an old woman for wanting to check on things now and again, Abigail would say with that mischievous smile of hers.

Anna’s circumstances had taken a dramatic shift since Abigail’s death. She had been living in a small two-room apartment in Seaside and driving down every day to work in the store. Now she lived in the most gorgeous house on the north coast and had made two dear friends in the process.

She smiled, thinking of Sage and Julia and the changes in all their lives the past year. When she first met Sage, right after the two of them inherited Brambleberry House, she had thought she would never have anything in common with the other woman. Sage was a vegetarian, a save-the-planet sort, and Anna was, well, focused on her business.

But they had developed an unlikely friendship. Then when Julia moved into the second-floor apartment the next fall with her darling twins, Anna and Sage had both been immediately drawn to her. Many late-night gabfests later, both women felt like the sisters she had always wanted.

Now Sage was married to Eben Spencer and had a new stepdaughter, and Julia was engaged to Will Garrett and would be marrying him as soon as school was out in June, then moving out to live in his house only a few doors down from Brambleberry House.

Both of them were deliriously happy, and Anna was thrilled for them. They were wonderful women who deserved happiness and had found it with two men she was enormously fond of.

If their happy endings only served to emphasize the mess she had made of her own life, she supposed she only had herself to blame.

She sighed, thinking of Grayson Fletcher and her own stupidity and the tangled mess he had left behind.

She supposed one bright spot from the latest fiasco in her love life was that Julia and Sage seemed to have put any matchmaking efforts on hiatus. They must have accepted the grim truth that had become painfully obvious to her—she had absolutely no judgment when it came to men.

She trusted the wrong ones. She had been making the same mistake since the time she fell hard for Todd Ashman in second grade, who gave her underdog pushes on the playground as well as her first kiss, a sloppy affair on the cheek. Todd told her he loved her then conned her out of her milk money for a week. She would probably still be paying him if her brothers hadn’t found out and made the little weasel leave her alone.

She sighed as Conan sniffed a coiled ball of seaweed and twigs and grasses formed by the rolling action of the sea. That milk money had been the first of several things she had let men take from her.

Her pride. Her self-respect. Her reputation.

If she needed further proof, she only had to think about her schedule for the rest of the day. In a few hours, she was in for the dubious joy of spending another delightful day sitting in that Lincoln City courtroom while Grayson Fletcher provided unavoidable evidence of her overwhelming stupidity in business and in men.

She jerked her mind away from that painful route. She wasn’t allowed to think about her mistakes on these morning walks with Conan. They were supposed to be therapy, her way to soothe her soul, to recharge her energy for the day ahead. She would defeat the entire purpose by spending the entire time looking back and cataloguing all her faults.

She forced herself to breathe deeply, inhaling the mingled scents of the sea and sand and early spring. Since Sage had married and moved out and she’d taken over sole responsibility of Conan’s morning walks, she had come to truly savor and appreciate the diversity of coastal mornings. From rainy and cold to unseasonably warm to so brilliantly clear she could swear she could see the curve of the earth offshore.

Each reminded her of how blessed she was to live here. Cannon Beach had become her home. She had never intended it to happen, had only escaped here after her first major romantic debacle, looking for a place far away from her rural Utah home to lick her wounds and hide away from all her friends and family.

She had another mess on her hands now, complete with all the public humiliation she could endure. This time she wasn’t about to run. Cannon Beach was her home, no matter what, and she couldn’t imagine living anywhere else.

They had walked only a mile south from Brambleberry House when Conan suddenly barked with excitement. Anna shifted her gaze from the fascination of the ocean to see a runner approaching them, heading in the direction they had come.

Conan became increasingly animated the closer the runner approached, until it was all Anna could do to hang on to his leash.

She guessed his identity even before he was close enough for her to see clearly. The curious one-handed gait was a clear giveaway but his long, lean strength and brown hair was distinctive enough she was quite certain she would have figured out it was Harry Maxwell long before she could spy the sling on his arm.

To her annoyance, her stomach did an uncomfortable little twirl as he drew closer. The man was just too darn good-looking, with those lean, masculine features and the intense hazel eyes. It didn’t help that he somehow looked rakishly gorgeous with his arm in a sling. An injured warrior still soldiering on.

She told herself she would have preferred things if he just kept on running but Conan made that impossible, barking and straining at his leash with such eager enthusiasm that Lieutenant Maxwell couldn’t help but stop to greet him.

Maybe he wasn’t quite the dour, humorless man he had appeared the day before, she thought as he scratched Conan’s favorite spot, just above his shoulders. Nobody could be all bad if they were so intuitive with animals, she decided.

Only after he had sufficiently given the love to Conan did he turn in her direction.

“Morning,” he said, a weird flash of what almost looked like unease in his eyes. Why would he possibly seem uncomfortable with her? She wasn’t the one who practically oozed sex appeal this early in the morning.

“Hi,” she answered. “Should you be doing that?”

He raised one dark eyebrow. “Petting your dog?”

“No. Running. I just wondered if all the jostling bothers your arm.”

His mouth tightened a little and she had the impression again that he didn’t like discussing his injury. “I hate the sling but it does a good job of keeping it from being shaken around when I’m doing anything remotely strenuous.”

“It must still be uncomfortable, though.”

“I’m fine.”

Back off, in other words. His curtness was a clear signal she had overstepped.

“I’m sorry. Not my business, is it?”

He sighed. “I’m the one who’s sorry. I’m a little frustrated at the whole thing. I’m not a very good patient and I’m afraid I don’t handle limitations on my activities very well.”

She sensed that was information he didn’t share easily and though she knew he was only being polite she was still touched that he would confide in her. “I’m not a good patient, either. If I were in your shoes, I would be more than just a little frustrated.”

Some of the stiffness seemed to ease from his posture. “Well, it’s a whole lot more fun flying a helicopter than riding a hospital bed, I can tell you that much.”

They lapsed into silence and she would have expected him to resume his jog but he seemed content to pet Conan and gaze out at the seething, churning waves.

It hardly seemed fair that, even injured as he was and just out of rehab, he didn’t seem at all winded from the run. She would have been gasping for breath and ready for a little oxygen infusion.

“It looks like it’s shaping up to be a gorgeous day, doesn’t it?” she said. “Forecasters are saying we should have clear and sunny weather for the next few days. You picked a great time of year to visit Cannon Beach.”

“That’s good.”

“I don’t know if you’ve had a chance to notice this yet but on one of the bookshelves in the living room, I left you a welcome packet. I forgot to mention it when I stopped to say hello last night.”

“I didn’t see it. What kind of welcome packet?”

“Not much. Just a loose-leaf notebook, really, with some local sightseeing information. Maps of the area, trail guides, tide tables. I’ve also included several menus from my favorite restaurants if you want to try some of the local cuisine, as well as a couple of guidebooks from my store.”

She had spent an entire evening gathering and collating the information, printing out pages from the Internet and marking some of her favorite spots in the guide books. All right, it was a nerdy, overachiever thing to do, she realized now as she stood next to this man who simmered with such blatant male energy.

She really needed to get a life.

Still, he didn’t look displeased by the effort. If she didn’t know better, she would suspect him of being perilously close to a surprised smile. “Thank you. That was…nice.”

She made a face. “A little over-the-top, I know. Sorry. I tend to be a bit obsessive about those kinds of things.”

“No, it sounds perfect. I’ll be sure to look through it as soon as I get a chance. Maybe you can tell me the best place for breakfast around here. I haven’t had much chance to go shopping.”

“The Lazy Susan is always great or any of the B and Bs, really.”

Or you could invite him to breakfast.

The thought whispered through her mind and she blinked, wondering where in the world it came from. That just wasn’t the sort of thing she did. Now, Abigail would have done it in a heartbeat, and Sage probably would have as well, but Anna wasn’t nearly as audacious.

But the thought persisted, growing stronger and stronger. Finally the words seemed to just blurt from her mouth. “Look, I’d be happy to fix something for you. I was in the mood for French toast anyway and it’s silly to make it just for me.”

He stared at her for a long moment, his eyes wide with surprise. The silence dragged on a painfully long time, until heat soaked her cheeks and she wanted to dive into the cold waves to escape.

“Sorry. Forget it. Stupid suggestion.”

“No. No, it wasn’t. I was just surprised, that’s all. Breakfast would be great, if you’re sure it’s not too much trouble.”

“Not at all. Can you give me about forty-five minutes to finish with Conan’s morning walk?”

“No problem. That will give me a chance to finish my run and take a shower.”

Now there was a visual she didn’t need etched into her brain like acid on glass. She let out a breath. “Great. I’ll see you then.”

With a wave of his arm, sling and all, he headed back up the beach toward Brambleberry House.

With strict discipline, she forced herself not to watch after him. Instead, she gripped Conan’s leash tightly so he wouldn’t follow his new best friend and forced him to come with her by walking with firm determination in the other direction.

What just happened there? She had to be completely insane. Temporarily possessed by the spirit of Abigail that Sage and Julia seemed convinced still lingered at Brambleberry House.

She faced what was undoubtedly shaping up to be another miserable day sitting in the courtroom listening to more evidence of her own foolishness. And because she felt compelled to attend every moment of the trial, she had tons of work awaiting her at both the Cannon Beach and Lincoln City stores.

So what was she thinking? She had absolutely no business inviting a sexy injured war veteran to breakfast.

Remember your abysmal judgment when it comes to men, she reminded herself sternly.

It was just breakfast, though. He was her tenant and it was her duty to get to know the man living upstairs in her home. She was just being a responsible landlady.

Still, she couldn’t control the excited little bump of anticipation. Nor could she ignore the realization that she was looking forward to the day more than she had anything else since before Christmas, when everything safe and secure she thought she had built for herself crashed apart like a house built on the shifting, unstable sands of Cannon Beach.

This might be easier than he thought.

Fresh from the shower, Max pulled a shirt out of his duffel, grateful it was at least moderately unwrinkled. It wouldn’t hurt to make a good impression on his new landlady. So far she didn’t seem suspicious of him—he doubted she would have invited him to breakfast otherwise.

Now there was an odd turn of events. He had to admit, he was puzzled as all hell by the invitation. Why had she issued it? And so reluctantly, too. She had looked as shocked by it as he had been.

The woman baffled him. She seemed a contradiction. Yesterday she had been all prim and proper in her business suit, today she had appeared fresh and lovely as a spring morning and far too young to own a seaside mansion and two businesses.

He didn’t understand her yet. But he would, he vowed.

Not so difficult to puzzle out had been his own reaction to her. When he had seen her walking and had recognized Conan, he had been stunned and more than a little disconcerted by the instant heat pooling in his gut.

Rather inconvenient, that surge of lust. His unwilling attraction to Anna Galvez. He would no doubt have a much easier time focusing on his goal without that particular complication.

How, exactly, was he supposed to figure out if Ms. Galvez had conned a sweet old lady when he couldn’t seem to wrap his feeble male brain around anything but pulling all that thick, glossy hair out of its constraints, burying his fingers in it and devouring her mouth with his?

He yanked off the pain-in-the-ass waterproof covering he had to use to protect his most recent cast from yet another reconstructive surgery and carefully eased his arm through the sleeve of the shirt. He was almost—but not quite—accustomed to the pain that still buzzed across his nerve endings whenever he moved the arm.

It wasn’t as bad as it used to be. After more than a dozen surgeries in six months, he could have a little mobility now without scorching agony.

He had to admit, he couldn’t say he was completely sorry about his unexpected attraction to Anna Galvez. In some ways it was even a relief. He hadn’t been able to summon even a speck of interest in a woman since the crash, not even to flirt with the pretty army nurses at the hospital in Germany and then later at Walter Reed.

He had worried that something internal might have been permanently damaged in the crash, since what he had always considered a relatively healthy libido seemed to have dried up like a wadi in a sandstorm.

He had even swallowed his pride and asked one of the doctors about it just before his discharge and had been told not to worry about it. He’d been assured that his body had only been a little busy trying to heal, just as his mind had been struggling with his guilt over the deaths of two members of his flight crew.

When the time was right, he’d been told, all the plumbing would probably work just as it had before.

It might be inconvenient that he was attracted to Anna Galvez, inconvenient and more than a little odd, since he had never been attracted to the prim, focused sort of woman before, but he couldn’t truly say he was sorry about it.

And if he needed a reminder of why he couldn’t pursue the attraction, he only needed to look around him at the familiar walls of Brambleberry House.

For all he knew, Anna Galvez was the sneaky, conniving swindler his mother believed her to be, working her wiles to gull his elderly aunt out of this house and its contents, all the valuable antiques and keepsakes that had been in his father’s family for generations.

He wouldn’t know until he had run a little reconnaissance here to see where things stood.

His father had been the only child of Abigail’s solitary sibling, her sister Suzanna, which made Max Abigail’s only living relative.

Though he hadn’t really given it much thought—mostly because he didn’t like thinking about his beloved greataunt’s inevitable passing—he supposed he had always expected to inherit Brambleberry House someday.

Finding out she had left the house to two strangers had been more than a little bit surprising.

She must not have loved you enough.

The thought slithered through his mind, cold and mean, but he pushed it away. Abigail had loved him. He could never doubt that. For some inexplicable reason, she had decided to give the house to two strangers and he was determined to find out why.

And this morning provided a perfect opportunity to give Anna Galvez a little closer scrutiny, so he’d better get on with things.

Buttoning a shirt with one good hand genuinely sucked, he had discovered over the last six months, but it wasn’t nearly as tough as trying to maneuver an arm that didn’t want to cooperate through the unwieldy holes in a T-shirt or, heaven forbid, a long-sleeved sweater, so he persevered.

When he finished, he put the blasted sling on again, ran a comb through his hair awkwardly with his left hand, then headed for the stairs, his hand on the banister he remembered Abigail waxing to a lustrous sheen just so he could slide down it when he was a boy.

Delicious smells greeted him the moment he headed downstairs—coffee, bacon, hash browns and something sweet and yeasty. His stomach rumbled but he reminded himself he was a soldier, trained to withstand temptation.

No matter how seemingly irresistible.

He paused outside Abigail’s door, a little astounded at the sudden nerves zinging through him.

It was one thing to inhabit the top floor of Brambleberry House. It was quite another, he discovered, to return to Abigail’s private sanctuary, the place he had loved so dearly.

The rooms beyond this door had been his haven when he was a kid. The one safe anchor in a tumultuous, unstable childhood—not the house, he supposed, as much as the woman who had been so much a part of it.

No matter what might be happening in his regular life—whether his mother was between husbands or flushed with the glow of new love that made her forget his existence or at the bitter, ugly end of another marriage—Abigail had always represented safety and security to him.

She had been fun and kind and loving and he had craved his visits here like a drunk needed rotgut. He had looked forward to the two weeks his mother allowed him with fierce anticipation the other fifty weeks of the year. Whenever he walked through this door, he had felt instantly wrapped in warm, loving arms.

And now a stranger lived here. A woman who had somehow managed to convince an old woman to leave her this house.

No matter how lovely Anna Galvez might be, he couldn’t forget that she had usurped Abigail’s place in this house.

It was hers now and he damn well intended to find out why.

He drew in a deep breath, adjusted his sling one more time, then reached out to knock on Abigail’s door.

Chapter Three

She opened the door wearing one of his aunt’s old ruffled bib aprons.

He recognized it instantly, pink flowers and all, and had a sudden image of Abigail in the kitchen, bedecked with jewels as always, grinning and telling jokes as she cooked up a batch of her famous French toast that dripped with caramel and brown sugar and pralines.

He had to admit he found the dichotomy a little disconcerting. Whether Anna was a con artist or simply a modern businesswoman, he wouldn’t have expected her to be wearing something so softly worn and old-fashioned.

He doubted Abigail had ever looked quite as appealing in that apron. Anna Galvez’s skin had a rosy glow to it and the friendly pink flowers made her look exotically beautiful in contrast.

“Good morning again,” she said, her smile polite, perhaps even a little distant.

Maybe he ought to forget this whole thing, he thought. Just head back out the door and up the stairs. He could always grab a granola bar and a cola for breakfast.

He wasn’t sure he was ready to face Abigail’s apartment just yet, and especially not with this woman looking on.

“Something smells delicious in here, like you’ve gone to a whole lot of work. I hope this isn’t a big inconvenience for you.”

Her smile seemed a little warmer. “Not at all. I enjoy cooking, I just don’t get the chance very often. Come in.”

She held the door open for him and he couldn’t figure out a gracious way to back out. Doing his best to hide his sudden reluctance, he stepped through the threshold.

He shouldn’t have worried.

Nothing was as he remembered. When Abigail was alive, these rooms had been funky and cluttered, much like his aunt, with shelves piled high with everything from pieces of driftwood to beautifully crafted art pottery to cheap plastic garage-sale trinkets.

Abigail had possessed her own sense of style. If she liked something, she had no compunction about displaying it. And she had liked a wide variety of things.

The fussy wallpaper he remembered was gone and the room had been painted a crisp, clean white. Even more significant, a few of the major walls had been removed to open up the space. The thick, dramatic trim around the windows and ceiling was still there and nothing jarred with the historic tone of the house but he had to admit the space looked much brighter. Cleaner.

Elegant, even.

He had only a moment to absorb the changes before a plaintive whine echoed through the space. He followed the sound and discovered Conan just on the other side of the long sofa that was canted across the living room.

The dog gazed at him with longing in his eyes and though he practically knocked the sofa cushions off with his quivering, he made no move to lunge at him.

Max blinked at the canine. “All right. What’s with the dog? Did somebody glue his haunches to the sofa?”

She made a face. “No. We’re working on obedience. I gave him a strict sit-stay command before I opened the door. I’m afraid it’s not going to last, as much as he wants to be good. I’m sorry.”

“I don’t mind. I like dogs.”

He particularly liked this one and had since Conan was a pup Abigail had rescued from the pound, though he certainly couldn’t tell her that.

She took pity on the dog and released him from the position with a simple “Okay.”

Conan immediately rushed for Max, nudging at him with that big furry red-gold head, just as a timer sounded through the room.

“Perfect. That’s everything. Do you mind eating in the kitchen? I have a great view of the ocean from there.”

“Not at all.”

He didn’t add that Abigail’s small kitchen, busy and cluttered as it was, had always been his favorite room of the house, the very essence of what made Brambleberry House so very appealing.

He found the small round table set with Abigail’s rose-covered china and sunny yellow napkins. A vase of fresh flowers sent sweet smells to mingle with the delicious culinary scents.

“Can I do anything?”

“No, everything’s all finished. I just need to pull it from the oven. You can go ahead and sit down.”

He sat at one of the place settings where he had a beautiful view of the sand and the sea and the haystacks offshore. He poured coffee for both of them while Conan perched at his feet and he could swear the dog was grinning at him with male camaraderie, as if they shared some secret.

Which, of course, they did.

In a moment, Anna returned to the table with a casserole dish. She set it down then removed covers from the other plates on the table and his mouth watered again at the crispy strips of bacon and mound of scrambled eggs.

“This is enough to feed my entire platoon, ma’am.”

She grimaced. “I haven’t cooked for anyone else in a while. I’m afraid I got a little carried away. I hope you’re hungry.”

“Starving, actually.”

He was astonished to find it was true. The sea air must be agreeing with him. He’d lost twenty pounds in the hospital and though the doctors had been strictly urging him to do something about putting it back on, he hadn’t been able to work up much enthusiasm to eat anything.

Nice to know all his appetites seemed to be returning.

He took several slices of bacon and a hefty mound of scrambled eggs then scooped some of the sweet-smelling concoction from the glass casserole dish.

The moment he lifted the fork to his mouth, a hundred memories came flooding back of other mornings spent in this kitchen, eating this very thing for breakfast. It had been his favorite as long as he could remember and he had always asked for it.

“This is—” Aunt Abigail’s famous French toast, he almost said, but caught himself just in time. “Delicious. Really delicious.”

When she smiled, she looked almost as delectable as the thick, caramel-covered toast, and just as edible. “Thank you. It was a specialty of a dear friend of mine. Every time I make it, it reminds me of her.”

He slanted her a searching look across the table. She sounded sincere—maybe too sincere. He wanted to take her apparent affection for Abigail at face value but he couldn’t help wondering if his cover had been blown. For all he knew, she had seen a picture of him in Abigail’s things and guessed why he was here.

If she truly were a con artist and knew he was Abigail’s nephew come to check things out, wouldn’t she lay it on thick about how much she adored his aunt to allay his suspicions?

“That’s nice,” he finally said. “It sounds like you cared about her a lot.”

She didn’t answer for several seconds, long enough that he wondered if she were being deliberately evasive. He felt as if he were tap-dancing through a damn minefield.

“I did,” she finally answered.

Conan whined a little and settled his chin on his forepaws, just as if he somehow understood exactly whom they were talking about and still missed Abigail.

Impossible, Max thought. The dog was smart but not that smart.

“I’ve heard horror stories about army food,” Anna said, changing the subject. “Is it as awful as they say?”

Even as he applied himself to the delicious breakfast, his mind couldn’t seem to stop shifting through the nuances and implications of every word she said and he wondered why she suddenly seemed reluctant to discuss Abigail after she had been the one to bring her into the conversation. Still, he decided not to push her. He would let her play things her way for now while he tried to figure out the angles.

“Army food’s not bad,” he said, focusing on her question. “Army hospital food, that’s another story. This is gourmet dining to me after the last few months.”

“How long were you in the hospital?”

Just as she didn’t want to talk about Abigail, he sure as hell didn’t want to discuss his time in the hospital.

“Too damn long,” he answered, then because his voice sounded so harsh, he tried to amend his tone. “Six months, on and off, with rehab and surgeries and everything.”

Her eyes widened and she set down her own fork. “Oh, my word! Tracy—the real estate agent with the property management company—told me you had been hurt in Iraq but I had no idea your injuries were so severe!”

He fidgeted a little, wishing they hadn’t landed on this topic. He hated thinking about the crash or his injuries—or the future that stretched out ahead of him, darkly uncertain.

“I wasn’t in the hospital the entire time. A month the first time, mostly in the burn unit, but I needed several surgeries after that to repair my shoulder and arm then skin grafts and so on. All of it took time. And then I picked up a staph infection in the meantime and that meant another few weeks in the hospital. Throw in a month or so of rehab before they’d release me and here we are.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry. It sounds truly awful.”

He chewed a mouthful of fluffy scrambled eggs that suddenly tasted like foam peanuts. He knew he was lucky to make it out alive after the fiery hard landing. That inescapable fact had been drilled into his head constantly since the crash, by himself and by those around him.

For several tense moments after they had been hit by a rocket-fired grenade as they were picking up an injured soldier that October day to medevac, he had been quite certain this was the end for him and for the four others on his Black Hawk.

He thought he was going to be a grim statistic, another one of those poor bastards who bit it just a week before their tour ended and they were due to head home.

But somehow he had survived. Two of his crew hadn’t been so lucky, despite his frantic efforts and those of the other surviving crew member. They had saved the injured Humvee driver, so that was something.

That first month had been a blur, especially the first few days after the crash. The medical transport to Kuwait and then to Germany, the excruciating pain from his shattered arm and shoulder and from the second-and third-degree burns on the right side of his body…and the even more excruciating anguish that still cramped in his gut when he thought about his lost crew members.

He was aware, suddenly, that Conan had risen from the floor to sit beside him, resting his chin on Max’s thigh.

He found enormous comfort from the soft, furry weight and from the surprising compassion in the dog’s eyes.

“How are you now?” Anna asked. “Have the doctors given you an estimate of what kind of recovery you’re looking at?”

“It’s all a waiting game right now to see how things heal after the last surgery.” He raised his arm with the cast. “I’ve got to wear this for another month.”

“I can’t imagine how frustrating that must be for you. I don’t know about you, but I’m not the most patient person in the world. I’m afraid I would want results immediately.”

They definitely had that much in common. Though his instincts warned him to filter every word through his suspicions about her, he had to admit he found her concern rather sweet and unexpected.

“I do,” he admitted. “But I was in the hospital long enough to see exactly what happened to those who tried to rush the healing process. Several of them pushed too hard and ended up right back where they started, in much worse shape. I won’t let that happen. It will take as long as it takes.”

“Smart words,” she said with an odd look and only then did he realize that it had been one of his aunt’s favorite phrases, whether she was talking about the time it took for cookies to bake or for the berries to pop out on her raspberry canes out back.

He quickly tried to turn the conversation back to her. “What about you? For a woman who claims she’s impatient for results, you’ve picked a major project here, renovating this big house on your own.”

“Brambleberry House belonged to a dear friend of mine. Actually, the one whose French toast recipe you’re eating.” She smiled a little. “When she died last year, she left it to me and to another of her lost sheep, Sage Benedetto. Sage Benedetto-Spencer, actually. She’s married now and lives in San Francisco with her husband and stepdaughter. In fact, you’re living in what used to be her apartment.”

He knew all about Sage. He’d been hearing about her for years from Abigail. When his aunt told him she had taken on a new tenant for the empty third floor several years ago, he had instantly been suspicious and had run a full background check on the woman, though he hadn’t revealed that information to Abigail.

Nothing untoward had showed up. She worked at the nature center in town and had seemed to be exactly as she appeared, a hardworking biologist in need of a clean place to live.

But five years later, she was now one of the owners of that clean abode—and she had recently married into money.

That in itself had raised his suspicions. Maybe she and Anna had a whole racket going on. First they conned Abigail, then Sage set her sights on Eben Spencer and tricked him into marrying her. What other explanation could there be? Why would a hotel magnate like Spencer marry a hippie nature girl like Sage Benedetto?

“So you live down here and rent out the top two floors?”

She sipped her coffee. “For now. It’s a lot of space for one woman and the upkeep on the place isn’t cheap. I had to replace the heating system this year, which took a huge chunk out of the remodeling budget.”

There was one element of this whole thing that didn’t jibe with his mother’s speculation that they were gold-digging scam artists, Max admitted. If they were only in this for the money, wouldn’t they have flipped the house, taken their equity and split Cannon Beach?

It didn’t make sense and made him more inclined to believe she and Sage Benedetto truly had cared for Abigail, though he wasn’t ready to concede anything at this point.

“The real estate agent who arranged the rental agreement with me mentioned you own a couple of shops on the coast but she didn’t go into detail.”

If he hadn’t been watching her so carefully, he might have missed the sudden glumness in her eyes or the subtle tightening of her lovely, exotic features.

He had obviously touched on a sore subject, and from his preliminary Internet search of her and Sage, he was quite certain he knew why.

“Yes,” she finally said, stirring her scrambled eggs around on her plate. “My store here in town is near the post office. It’s called By-the-Wind Books and Gifts.”

“By-the-Wind? Like the jellyfish?” he asked.

“Right. By-the-wind sailors. My friend Abigail loved them. The store was hers and she named it after a crosswind one year sent hundreds of thousands of them washing up on the shore of Cannon Beach. I started out managing the store for her when I first came to town. A few years ago when she hit seventy-eight she decided she was ready to slow down a little, so I made an offer for the store and she sold it to me.”

Abigail had adored her store as much as she loved this house. She wasn’t the most savvy of businesswomen but she loved any excuse to engage a stranger in conversation.

“So you’ve opened a second store now,” he asked.

She shifted in her seat, her hands clenching and un-clenching around the napkin in her lap. “Yes. Last summer I opened one in Lincoln City. By-the-Wind Two.”

She didn’t seem nearly as eager to talk about her second store and he found her reaction interesting and filed it away to add to his growing impressions about Anna Galvez.

He had limited information about the situation but his Internet search had turned up several hits from the Lincoln City newspaper about her store manager being arrested some months ago and charged with embezzlement and credit card fraud.

Max knew from his research that the man was currently on trial. He didn’t, however, have any idea at all if Anna was the innocent victim the newspapers had portrayed or if she perhaps had deeper involvement in the fraud.

Before coming back to Brambleberry House, he had been all too willing to believe she might have been involved, that she had managed to find a convenient way to turn her manager into the scapegoat.

It was a little harder to believe that when he was sitting across the table from her and could smell the delicate scent of her drifting across the table, when he could feel the warmth of her just a few feet away, when he could reach out and touch the softness of her skin…

He jerked his mind from that dangerous road. “You must be doing well if you’ve got two stores. Any plans to expand to a third? Maybe up north in Astoria or farther south in Newport?”

“No. Not anytime in the near future. Or even in the no-tso-near future.” She forced a smile that stopped just short of genuine. “Would you like more French toast?”

He decided to allow her to sidetrack him for now, though he wasn’t at all finished with this line of questioning. Instead, he served up another slice of the French pastry.

Being here in this kitchen like this was oddly surreal and he almost expected Abigail to bustle in from another part of the house with her smile gleaming even above the mounds of jewelry she always wore.

She wouldn’t be bustling in from anywhere, he reminded himself. Grief clawed at him again, the overwhelming sense of loss that seemed so much more acute here in this house.

Oh, he missed her.

He suddenly felt a weird brush of something against his cheek and he had a sudden hideous fear he might be crying. He did a quick finger-sweep but didn’t feel any wetness. But he was quite certain he smelled something flowery and sweet.

Out of nowhere, the dog suddenly wagged his tail and gave one happy bark. Max thought he saw something out of the corner of his gaze but when he turned around he saw only a curtain fluttering in the other room from one of the house’s famous drafts.

He turned back to find Anna Galvez watching him, her eyes wary and concerned at the same time.

“Is everything okay, Lieutenant Maxwell,” she asked.

He shook off the weird sensation, certain he must just be tired and a little overwhelmed about being back here.

Lieutenant Maxwell, she had called him. Discomfort burned under his skin at the fake name. This whole thing just felt wrong somehow, especially sitting here in Abigail’s kitchen. He wanted to just tell her the truth but some instinct held him back. Not yet. He would let the situation play out a little longer, see what she did.

But he couldn’t have her calling him another man’s name, he decided. “You don’t have to call me Lieutenant Maxwell. You can call me Max. That’s what most people do.”

A puzzled frown played around that luscious mouth. “They call you Max and not Harry?”

“Um, yeah. It’s a military thing. Nicknames, you know?”

The explanation sounded lame, even to him, but she appeared to buy it without blinking. In fact, she gifted him with a particular sweet smile. “All right. Max it is. You may, of course, call me Anna.”

He absolutely was not going to let himself get lost in that smile, no matter his inclination, so he forced himself to continue with his subtle interrogation. “Are you from around here?”

She shook her head. “I grew up in a small town in the mountains of Utah.”

He raised an eyebrow, certain he hadn’t unearthed that little tidbit of information in his research. “Utah seems like a long way from here. What brought you to the Oregon coast?”

Her eyes took on that evasive film again. “Oh, you know. I was ready for a change. Wanted to stretch my wings a little. That sort of thing.”

He had become pretty good over the years at picking up when someone wasn’t being completely honest with him and his lie radar was suddenly blinking like crazy.

She was hiding something and he wanted to know what.

“Do you have family back in Utah still?”

The tension in her shoulders eased a little. “Two of my older brothers are still close to Moose Springs. That’s where we grew up. One’s the sheriff, actually. The other is a contractor, then I have one other brother who’s a research scientist in Costa Rica.”

“No sisters?”

“Just brothers. I’m the baby.”

“You were probably spoiled rotten, right?”

Her laugh was so infectious that even Conan looked up and grinned. “More like endlessly tormented. I was always excluded from their cool boy stuff like campouts and fishing trips. Being the only girl and the youngest Galvez was a double curse, one I’m still trying to figure out how to break.”

This, at least, was genuine. She glowed when she talked about her family—her eyes seemed brighter, her features more animated. She looked so delicious, it was all he could do not to reach across the table and kiss her right here over his aunt’s French toast.

Her next words quickly quashed the bloom of desire better than a cold Oregon downpour.

“What about you?” she asked. “Do you have family somewhere?”

How could he answer that without giving away his identity? He decided to stick to the bare facts and hope Abigail hadn’t talked about his particular twisted branch of the family tree.

“My father died when I was too young to remember him. My mother remarried several times so I’ve got a few stepbrothers and stepsisters scattered here and there but that’s it.”

He didn’t add that he didn’t even know some of their names since none of the marriages had lasted long.

“So where’s home?” she asked.

“Right now it’s two flights of stairs above you.”

She made a face. “What about before you moved upstairs?”

Brambleberry House was the place he had always considered home, even though he only spent a week or two here each year. Life with his mother had never been exactly stable as she moved from boyfriend to boyfriend, husband to husband. Before he had been sent to military school when he was thirteen, he had attended a dozen different schools.

Abigail had been the rock in his insecure existence. But he certainly couldn’t tell that to Anna Galvez. Instead, he shrugged.

“I’m career army, ma’am. I’m based out of Virginia but I’ve been in the Middle East for two tours of duty. I’ve been there the last four years. That feels as much home as anywhere else, I guess.”

Chapter Four

Oh, the poor man.

Imagine considering some military base a home. She couldn’t quite fathom it and she felt enormously blessed suddenly for her safe, happy childhood.

Her family might have been what most people would consider dirt-poor. Her parents were illegal immigrants who had tried to live below the radar. As a result, her father had never been paid his full worth and when he had been killed in a construction accident, the company he worked for had used his illegal immigrant status as an excuse not to pay any compensation to his widow or children.

Yes, her family might not have had much when she was a kid but she had never lived a single moment of her childhood when she didn’t feel her home was a sanctuary where she could always be certain she would find love and acceptance.

Later, maybe, she had come to doubt her worth, but none of that stemmed from her girlhood.

And now she had Brambleberry House to return to at the end of the day. No matter how stressful her life might seem sometimes, this house welcomed her back every night, solid and strong and immovable.

It saddened her to think of Harry Maxwell moving from place to place with the military, never having anything to anchor him in place.

“I suppose if you had a wife and children, you would probably be recovering with them instead of at some drafty rented house on the Oregon shore.”

“No wife, no kids. Never married.” He paused, giving her a careful look. “What about you?”

She had always wanted a big, rambunctious family just like the one she’d known as a girl but those childhood dreams spun in the tiny bedroom of that Moose Springs house seemed far away now.

Her life hadn’t worked out at all the way she planned. And though there were a few things in her life she wouldn’t mind a do-over on—especially more recent events—she couldn’t regret all the paths she had followed that had led her to this place.

“Same goes. I was engaged once but…it didn’t work out.”

Before he could respond, Conan lumbered to his feet and headed for the door.

“That’s a signal,” she said with a smile. “Time for him to go out and if I don’t move on it, we’ll all be sorry. Excuse me, won’t you?”

Though he had a doggie door to use when she wasn’t home, Conan much preferred to be waited on and to go out through the regular door like the rest of the higher beings. She opened her apartment door and then the main door into the house for him and watched him bound eagerly to his favorite corner of the yard.

When she returned to the kitchen, she found Lieutenant Maxwell clearing dishes from the table.

“That was delicious. It was very kind of you to invite me. A little unexpected, but kind nonetheless.”

“You’re welcome. I’ll be honest, it’s not the sort of thing I usually do but…well, it is the sort of thing Abigail would have done. She was always striking up conversations with people and taking them to lunch or whatever. I had the strangest feeling this morning on the beach that she would want me to invite you to breakfast.”

She heard the absurdity of her own words and made a face. “That probably sounds completely insane to you.”

“Not completely,” he murmured.

“No, it is. But I’m not sorry. I enjoyed making breakfast and I suppose it’s only fitting that I know at least a little about the person living upstairs. At least now you don’t feel like a stranger.”

“Well, I appreciate the effort and the French toast. It’s been…a long time since I’ve had anything as good.”

He gave her a hesitant smile and at the sight of it on those solemnly handsome features, her stomach seemed to do a long, slow roll.

Oh, bad idea. She had no business at all being attracted to the man. He was her tenant, and a temporary one at that. Beyond that, the timing was abysmal. She had far too much on her plate right now trying to save By-the-Wind Two and see that Grayson Fletcher received well-deserved justice. She couldn’t afford any distractions, especially not one as tempting as Lieutenant Harry Maxwell.

“I’m glad you enjoyed it,” she said, forcing her voice to be brisk and businesslike.

Conan came back inside before he could answer. He headed straight for the lieutenant, who reached down to pet him. The absent gesture reminded her of another detail she meant to discuss with him.

“I’m afraid I’m going to be tied up in Lincoln City most of today. Some days I can take Conan with me since I have arrangements with a kennel in town but they were full today so he has to stay home. I hope he doesn’t make a pest of himself.”

“I doubt he’ll bother me.”

“With the dog door, he can come as he likes. I should probably tell you, he thinks he owns the house. He’s used to going up the stairs to visit either Sage when she lived here or Julia and the twins. If he whines outside your door, just send him back downstairs.”

“He won’t bother me. If he whines, I’ll invite him inside. He’s welcome to hang out upstairs. I don’t mind the company.”

He petted the dog with an unfeigned affection that warmed her, though she knew it shouldn’t. Most people liked Conan, though Grayson Fletcher never had. That in itself should have been all the red flags she needed that the man was trouble.

“Well, don’t feel obligated to entertain him. I would just ask that you close the gate behind you if you leave so he can’t leave the yard. He tends to take off if there’s a stray cat in the neighborhood.”

“I’ll do that.” He paused. “Would you have any objection if I take Conan along if I go anywhere? He kind of reminds me of a…dog I once knew.”

At the sound of his name, the dog barked eagerly, his tail wagging a mile a minute.

Conan would adore any outing, she knew, but she couldn’t contain a few misgivings.

“Conan can be a little energetic when he wants to be. Are you certain you can restrain him on the leash if he decides to take off after a squirrel or something?”

“Because of this, you mean?” he asked stiffly, gesturing to the sling. “My other arm still works fine.”

She nodded, feeling foolish. “Of course. In that case, I’m sure Conan would love to go along with you anywhere. He loves riding in the car and he’s crazy about any excuse to get some exercise. I’m afraid my schedule doesn’t allow me to give him as much as he would like. Here, let me grab his leash for you just in case.”

She headed for the hook by the door but Conan had heard the magic word—leash—and he bounded in front of her, nearly dancing out of his fur with excitement.

Caught off balance by seventy-five pounds of dog suddenly in her way, she stumbled a little and would have fallen into an ignominious heap if Lieutenant Maxwell hadn’t reached out with his uninjured arm to help steady her.

Instant heat leaped through her, wild and shocking. She was painfully cognizant of the hard male strength of him, of his mouth just inches away, of those hazel eyes watching her with a glittery expression.

She didn’t think she had ever, in her entire existence, been so physically aware of a man. Of his scent, fresh-washed and clean, of the muscles that held her so securely, of the strong curve of his jawline.

She might have stayed there half the morning, caught in the odd lassitude seeping through her, except she suddenly was quite certain she smelled freesia as she had earlier during breakfast.

The scent eddied around them, subtle and sweet, but it was enough to break the spell.

She jerked away from him before she could do something abysmally stupid like kiss the man.

“I’m sorry,” she exclaimed. “I’m so clumsy sometimes. Are you all right? Did I hurt you?”

A muscle worked in his jaw, though that strange light lingered in his eyes. “I’m not breakable, Anna. Don’t worry about it.”

Despite his words, she was quite certain she saw lines of pain bracketing his mouth. With three older brothers, though, she had learned enough about the male psyche to sense he wouldn’t appreciate her concern.

She let out a long breath. This had to be the strangest morning of her life.

“Here’s the leash,” she said. “If you decide to take Conan with you, just call his name and rattle this outside my door and he should come running in an instant.”

He nodded. For a moment, she thought he might say something about the surge of heat between them just now, but then he seemed to change his mind.

“Thanks again for breakfast,” he said. “I would offer to return the favor but I’m afraid you’d end up with cold cereal.”

She managed a smile, though she was certain it wasn’t much of one. He gazed at her for a long moment, his features unreadable, then he headed for the door.

Conan danced around behind him, his attention glued to the leash, but she managed to close the door before the dog could escape to follow him up the stairs.

He whined and slumped against the door and she leaned against it, absently rubbing the dog’s ears as that freesia scent drifted through the apartment again.

“Cut it out, Abigail,” she spoke aloud. Lieutenant Maxwell would surely think she was crazy if he heard her talking to a woman who had been dead nearly a year.

Still, there had been that strange moment at breakfast when she had been almost positive he sensed something in the kitchen. His eyes had widened and he had seemed almost disconcerted.

Ridiculous. There had been nothing there for him to sense. Abigail was gone, as much as she might wish otherwise. She was just too prosaic to believe Sage and Julia’s theory that their friend still lingered here at Brambleberry House.

And even if she did buy the theory, why would Abigail possibly make herself known to Harry Maxwell? It made no sense.

Sage believed Abigail had played a hand in her relationship with Eben, that she had carefully orchestrated events so they would both finally be forced to admit they belonged together.

Though Julia didn’t take things quite that far, she also seemed to believe Abigail had helped her and Will find their happily-ever-after.

But Abigail had never even met Harry Maxwell. Why on earth would she want to hook him up with Anna?

She heard the ludicrous direction of her thoughts and shook her head. She had far too much to do today to spend any more time speculating on the motives of an imaginary matchmaking ghost.

She wasn’t about to let herself fall prey to any beyond-the-grave romantic maneuvering between her and a certain wounded soldier with tired, suspicious eyes.

Max returned to his third-floor aerie to be greeted by his cell phone belting out his mother’s ringtone.

He winced and made a mental note to change it before she caught wind of the song one of his bunkmates at Walter Reed had programmed as a joke after Meredith’s single visit to see him in the six months after the crash.

His mother wouldn’t be thrilled to know he heard Heart singing “Barracuda” every time she called.

When he was on painkillers, he had found it mildly amusing—mostly because it was right on the money. Now he just found it rather sad. For much the same reason.

He thought about ignoring her but he knew Meredith well enough to be sure she would simply keep calling him until he grew tired of putting her off, so he finally picked it up.

With a sigh, he opened his phone. “Hi, Mom,” he greeted, feeling slightly childish in the knowledge that he only used the word because he knew it annoyed her.

She had been insisting since several years before he hit adolescence that he must call her Meredith but he still stubbornly refused.

“Where were you, Maxwell? I’ve been calling you for an hour.” Her voice had that prim, tight tone he hated.

“I was at breakfast. I must have left my phone here.”

He decided to keep to himself the information that he was downstairs eating Abigail’s French toast with Anna Galvez.

“You said you would call me when you arrived.”

“You’re right. That’s what I said.”

He left his sentence hanging between them, yet another strategy he had learned early in his dealings with her mother. She wouldn’t listen to explanations anyway so he might as well save them both the time and energy of offering.

The silence dragged on but he held his ground. Finally she heaved a long-suffering sigh and surrendered.

“What have you found?” she asked. “Have those women gutted the house and sold everything in it?”

He gazed around at the apartment with its new coat of paint and kitchen cabinets and he thought of the downstairs apartment, with its spacious new floor plan.

“I wouldn’t exactly say that.”

“Brambleberry House was filled with priceless antiques. Some of them were family heirlooms that should have gone to you. I can’t believe Abigail didn’t do a better job of preserving them for you. You’re her only living relative and those family items should be yours.”

Since she had backed down first, he let her ramble on about the injustice of it all—as if Meredith cared about anyone’s history beyond her own.

“I was apparently mistaken to let you visit her all those summers. When I think of the expense and time involved in sending you there, I just get furious all over again.”

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