“Jane,” Cade whispered. “You gonna let her stop us, let her keep us from each other?”

She was looking at his mouth. So dangerous. So exactly what she longed for. She realized she was biting the inside of her lower lip. She made herself stop. “It’s not only my mother.”

“What else?”

“You know what,” Jane answered. “We don’t want the same things.”

“That’s right.” The very sound of Cade’s voice was like a tender hand, stroking. “We do want different things. I want you. You want me.”

“Very funny.” She wasn’t laughing. “I mean we want different things in life. So this can’t go anywhere.”

“Is it so necessary for a love affair to go somewhere?” Cade asked.

“Not as long as you’re having that love affair with someone who isn’t me.”

“But, Jane,” he answered, “I thought you understood. I don’t want to have a love affair with someone who isn’t you.”

Mercury Rising
Christine Rimmer

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For my nieces, Lily and Tessa and Morgan, with all my love.

CHRISTINE RIMMER

came to her profession the long way around. Before settling down to write about the magic of romance, she’d been an actress, a salesclerk, a janitor, a model, a phone sales representative, a teacher, a waitress, a playwright and an office manager. She insists she never had a problem keeping a job—she was merely gaining “life experience” for her future as a novelist. Christine is grateful not only for the joy she finds in writing, but for what waits when the day’s work is through: a man she loves, who loves her right back, and the privilege of watching their children grow and change day to day. She lives with her family in Oklahoma.

THE BRAVOS: HEROES, HEROINES AND THEIR STORIES

THE NINE-MONTH MARRIAGE (SSE#1148)

—Cash Bravo and Abby Heller

MARRIAGE BY NECESSITY (SSE #1161)

—Nate Bravo and Megan Kane

PRACTICALLY MARRIED (SSE #1174)

—Zach Bravo and Tess DeMarley

MARRIED BY ACCIDENT (SSE #1250)

—Melinda Bravo and Cole Yuma

THE MILLIONAIRE SHE MARRIED (SSE #1322)

—Jenna Bravo and Mack McGarrity

THE M.D. SHE HAD TO MARRY (SSE #1345)

—Lacey Bravo and Logan Severance

THE MARRIAGE AGREEMENT (SSE #1412)

—Marsh Bravo and Tory Winningham

THE BRAVO BILLIONAIRE (single title)

—Jonas Bravo and Emma Hewitt

MARRIAGE: OVERBOARD

—Gwen Bravo McMillan and Rafe McMillan

(Weekly Serial at www.eHarlequin.com)

THE MARRIAGE CONSPIRACY (SSE #1423)

—Dekker (Smith) Bravo and Joleen Tilly

HIS EXECUTIVE SWEETHEART (SSE #1485)

—Aaron Bravo and Celia Tuttle

MERCURY RISING (SSE #1496)

—Cade Bravo and Jane Elliott

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Epilogue

Chapter One

“M om?”

Virginia Elliott turned from the window. “Ah. Thank you, dear.” Jane gave her the fresh-cut blush-pink roses she’d just wrapped in a cone of newspaper. “So lovely…” Virginia brought them close, breathed in their scent. “You do have a way in the garden. Your aunt Sophie would be proud.”

Jane’s beloved Aunt Sophie Elliott had been a single lady all her life. When she’d died, nearly three years ago now, she left Jane her beautiful old house and the gorgeous garden surrounding it.

Her mother turned back to the window. “I notice your new neighbor is at home.”

“Yes.” Jane kept her voice and her expression as bland as a clean white sheet. “He does travel a lot, though.”

Virginia had the roses in her left hand. Her right strayed to the pearls at her throat. She fondled them, ticking them off like the beads of a rosary. “He was out there, on the side porch, just a moment ago.” Each word was heavy with disdain.

Jane resisted the urge to say something sarcastic. Well, Mother. It is his house. I suppose he has the right to be out on the porch.

Word around town was that Cade Bravo owned an ostentatious new house in Las Vegas and a condo in nearby Lake Tahoe. He’d taken the small town of New Venice completely by surprise when he’d bought the Lipcott place next-door to Jane’s. A run-down farmhouse-style Victorian seemed the last place he would ever want to live.

But the house wasn’t run-down anymore. Renovations had gone on for months. Finally the various work crews had picked up and moved on and the new owner had taken up residence.

“At least he had the grace to respect the integrity of the original home,” Virginia said grudgingly, hand still at her pearls.

Jane thought he had done a beautiful job with the old house. It looked much as it must have when it was first built, at the turn of the last century, a house a lot like Jane’s house, one that harkened back to simpler, more graceful times, with an inviting deep wraparound porch and fish scale shingles up under the eaves.

Virginia muttered, “Still. One of those Bravo boys living on Green Street. Who ever could have imagined such a thing?” Green Street was wide and tree-lined. The charming old houses on it had always been owned by respectable and prosperous members of the New Venice community, people from well-established local families—the Elliotts and the Chases, the Moores and the Lipcotts.

True, Cade Bravo had surprised everyone by prospering. In that sense, he fit the profile for a resident of Green Street. Was he respectable? Not by Virginia Chase Elliott’s exacting standards. But then, in Virginia’s thoroughly biased opinion, no Bravo was—or ever could be—considered respectable.

“Does he bother you, honey?” Her mother was looking right at her now.

“Of course not.”

“He was always such a wild one—the worst of the bunch, everyone says so. Takes after that mother of his.” Virginia’s gray eyes narrowed when she mentioned Caitlin Bravo. Her hand worried all the harder at her pearls. “I suppose he’s got the women in and out all the time.”

“No. He’s very quiet, actually, when he’s here—and you should get those roses home. Cut an inch off the stems, at a slant, and—”

Her mother waved the hand that had been so busy with the pearls. “I know, I know. Remove any leaves below the waterline.”

Jane smiled. “That’s right. And use that flower food I gave you.”

Virginia sighed. “I will, I will—and how is Celia?”

Celia Tuttle was one of Jane’s two closest friends. Her name was Celia Bravo now. A little over two months ago, at the end of May, Celia had married Cade’s oldest brother, Aaron.

“Happy,” said Jane. “Celia is very, very happy.”

One of Virginia’s eyebrows inched upward. “Pregnant, or so I heard.”

“Yes. She and Aaron are thrilled about that.”

“I meant, a little too pregnant for how long they’ve been married.”

Jane shook her head. “Mother. Give it up. Celia is happy. Aaron loves her madly. They are absolutely adorable together, totally devoted—and looking forward to having a baby. I’d like to find a man who loves me the way Aaron Bravo loves his wife.”

Her mother made a prim noise in her throat. Jane folded her arms and gave Virginia a long, steady look heavily freighted with rebuke.

Virginia relented. She waved her hand again. “All right, all right. Celia is a sweet girl and if she’s happy, I’m happy for her.”

“So good of you to say so.”

“Don’t get that superior tone, please. I don’t like it when you do that—and I know, I know. Celia is your dearest friend in the world, along with Jillian.” Jane and Celia and Jillian Diamond had been best friends since kindergarten. “I ought to have sense enough never to say a word against either of them.”

“Yes, you should.”

Virginia stepped closer, the look in her eyes softening. She reached out and smoothed Jane’s always-wild hair in a gesture so tender, so purely maternal that Jane couldn’t help but be soothed by it. Jane did love her mother, though Virginia was not always easy to love.

“You haven’t mentioned how your date went Friday.”

Jane gave her mother a noncommittal smile. “I had a nice time.”

Virginia looked pained. “My. Your indifference is nothing short of stunning.”

Indifference. Sadly that pretty much summed up Jane’s feelings about Friday night. It had been her second date with that particular man. He taught Science at the high school and Jane had met him over a year ago now. He’d come into her bookstore looking for a good manual on Sierra birds and a well-illustrated book on weather patterns. He really did seem the kind of man she’d been looking for: steady and trustworthy, kind and wise. A man who had sought to be her friend first. He’d told her he admired her straightforwardness, said he respected her independence and valued her intelligence. Jane believed him when he said those things.

And he was nice-looking, too, with thick brown hair and a muscular build. There was nothing not to like about him. Jane did like him. She also knew in her heart that liking was all she felt for him.

Was she asking too much in daring to want it all—decency and steadiness and a kiss that turned her inside out?

Probably.

“Gary Nevis is a great guy, Mom. I just don’t think he’s the guy for me.”

“Now. Give it time. You might discover there’s more there than you realized.”

“Good advice,” Jane agreed without much enthusiasm.

“And on that note, I’ll take my roses and go home.”

Jane walked her mother out the door and down the front steps.

“A beautiful summer we’re having,” her mother said as they proceeded down the walk toward the car at the curb.

“Oh, yes.” Jane turned her face up to the warm ball of the August sun. “A splendid summer.” Northern Nevada’s Comstock Valley was, in Jane’s admittedly biased opinion, the best place in the entire world to live. A place where the pace of life was not too hectic, where you knew your neighbors, where people were always forgetting to lock their doors and it never mattered because nothing bad every happened. Here, folks enjoyed reasonably mild winters and summers where daytime temperatures tended to max out in the low eighties.

At the curb, about twenty feet from the low, celadon-green sports car parked in front of Cade’s house, Jane took the roses and held the door open while her mother got settled into her Town Car, sliding onto the soft leather seat and taking the sunscreen out of the windshield, folding it neatly and stowing it in back.

“Here. Give me those.” Virginia took the bundle of fragrant pink blooms, turned to lay it carefully on the passenger seat to her right, then smiled up at her daughter once more. “Thank you for coming to church with me.”

“I enjoyed it.”

“And for the lunch.”

“My pleasure.”

Virginia lifted her cheek for a kiss.

Jane fondly obliged. Then she stepped back and swung the door shut. Her mother fumbled in the console for a moment, came up with the key and stuck it in the ignition. A moment later, the big car sailed off down the street, turning at the corner onto Smith Way and rolling on out of sight.

Jane turned back toward her house. She got about two steps and paused to admire the scene before her.

Her house was Queen Anne-style. It had a turret with a spire on top, touches of gingerbread trim in the eaves and a multitude of cozy nooks and crannies.

Her garden stole her breath. It was late-summer glorious now, a little overblown, like a beautiful woman just past her prime. The Jack clematis that climbed the side fence was in full flower. Black-eyed Susans thrust their gold-petaled faces up to meet the sun. The big patch of lacy-leaved cosmos to the right of her walk was a riot of purple, white, lavender and pink.

Among the cosmos, on pedestals of varying heights, Jane had mounted a series of gazing balls, one blue, one pink, one green, one that looked like a huge soap bubble, crystal clear with just the faintest sheen of mother-of-pearl. The cosmos partially masked them. They peeked out, smooth reflective spheres, giving back the gleam of sunlight.

Oh, it was all so very lovely. If she didn’t have her dear aunt Sophie anymore, at least she had a house and a garden that filled her heart to bursting every time she took a minute to stop and really look at it.

Jane let out a small laugh of pure pleasure. Enough with basking in delight at the beauty that surrounded her. She needed to put on her old clothes and her wide straw hat and get after it. With the bookstore closed, Sunday was prime time for working in the yard. She had the rest of the day completely to herself—and the tomatoes and carrots out back cried out for harvesting.

She started up the walk again—and spotted Cade Bravo, just emerging from the shadows of his porch.

She hadn’t meant to look toward his house, she truly hadn’t.

But somehow, she’d done it anyway. And as her glance found him, he emerged into the sunlight, those long, strong legs of his moving fast, down the steps, along the walk.

The sunlight caught in his hair. Oh, he did have beautiful hair—not brown and not gold, but some intriguing color in between, hair that made a woman want to get her fingers in it. He kept it short, but it had a seductive tendency to curl. Jane secretly thought it was the kind of hair a Greek god might have, hair suitable for crowning with a laurel wreath.

He waved, just a casual salute of a motion, long fingers to his forehead, so briefly, then dropping away as he moved on by.

“Hi, Cade.” She gave him a quick cool smile, ignoring the shiver that slid beneath the surface of her skin, pretending she didn’t feel the heat that pooled in her belly, that she didn’t notice the sudden acceleration of her pulse rate.

Turning away in relief and despair, Jane made for the haven of her house.

Chapter Two

C ade got past Jane and went on down the walk. He had hardly glanced at her, just given her that quick wave and moved on by.

He knew that was how she wanted it. So fine. Let her have what she wanted.

It wouldn’t have been such a bright idea to try to get her talking right then, anyway. He was on edge. Who could say what dangerous things might slip out of his mouth? The sight of Virginia Elliott, staring at him through Jane’s dining-room window, fingering her pearls and scowling, had pretty much ruined his day.

Cade got in his car, slammed the door and started the engine. He wanted a drink. But he didn’t want to sit by himself in the house he probably never should have bought, pouring shots and knocking them back.

Drinking alone was just too depressing. So he was headed for the Highgrade, a combination saloon/café/gift shop/gaming establishment on Main Street. Headed for home—or at least, the closest thing to home he’d every known. He’d grown up there, in the rambling apartment above the action, on the second floor.

Flat-roofed and sided in clapboard, the Highgrade was paneled inside in never-ending knotty pine. Slots lined the walls and the air smelled of greasy burgers, stale beer and too many cigarettes.

Okay, there had to be better places for a man in need of cheering up to go. But even on Sunday, he knew he’d find a few die-hard regulars in the bar. They wouldn’t be big talkers. He’d be lucky to get a few grunts and a “Hiya, Cade.” But technically at least, he wouldn’t be drinking alone.

It was a very short drive to Main Street. Cade swung into the alley between the Highgrade and Jane’s store, Silver Unicorn Books.

Jane. The name echoed like a taunt in his brain.

Seemed he couldn’t turn around lately without being reminded of her. Ubiquitous. That was the word for her.

And don’t laugh. Yeah, maybe he hadn’t been to college—like Jane. And like both of his brothers. But he could read. And set goals. He tried to learn a new word for every weekday. Five new words a week. Times fifty-two. Do the math. Two hundred sixty new words a year. Including ubiquitous, which was another word for Jane.

Because she was everywhere. She had the store next to his mother’s place. One of her two closest friends had married his brother. And she lived in the house beside his.

Yeah, yeah. If living next to her bothered him, he shouldn’t have bought the damn house in the first place.

But he’d had that itch to move back home. And he’d scratched it by buying the old Lipcott place. How the hell was he supposed to know what was going to happen to him as a result of buying a damn house? How was he going to know ahead of time that proximity would breed awareness? And that awareness would develop into a yen.

It just wasn’t the kind of thing that he’d ever imagined could happen to him. Uh-uh. Cade Bravo didn’t brood over lovers—or over women he wished would become his lovers.

Why should he? In spite of his lack of formal education, women liked him just fine. He’d never had to put up with a whole lot of rejection. Most women were willing to look at him twice. And besides, he’d always been a guy who took life as it came. If a woman didn’t respond to him, well, hey, guess what? There’d be someone new on the horizon real soon.

He’d never been the type to pine and yearn.

Or at least, he hadn’t until now.

Cade parked his car in one of the spaces reserved for family at the rear of the building and went in through the back door.

Caitlin Bravo had owned the Highgrade for over thirty years, since before Cade was born. The way Cade understood it, his bad dad, Blake Bravo, had set her up with it. The old man had given her three sons and the Highgrade and then vanished from their lives, never to be seen by any of them again.

In fact, Cade had never seen his father, period—not in the flesh anyway, only in pictures. It was no source of pride to him that he was the only one of Caitlin’s three sons who had his daddy’s eyes. Silvery eyes. Scary eyes, a lot of folks thought.

And let’s lay it on the table here, the old man had been a pretty scary guy.

Blake Bravo had faked his own death in an apartment fire not all that long after he’d planted the seed that would one day be Cade. And later, once everyone thought he was dead, he had kidnapped his own brother’s second son, claimed a huge ransom—and never returned the child.

The way everyone figured it now, in hindsight, Blake must have put some poor loser’s body in his place when he burned that apartment building down. And somehow, he must have managed to falsify dental records. He’d been out on bail at the time, up on a manslaughter charge after killing some other luckless fool in a barroom brawl.

Getting dead had made it possible for him to beat the manslaughter rap without even going to trial. One clever guy, that Blake Bravo.

The good news was, Blake was really and truly dead now. He’d died in an Oklahoma hospital a little over a year ago. Embarrassed the hell out of Caitlin, to learn that the dead guy she’d always considered the love of her life had lived an extra thirty years and then some beyond what she’d known about.

Inside the Highgrade, things were hopping on the café side. It was usually that way on Sundays after church. Caitlin, in skintight jeans and a spangled Western shirt, was playing hostess, leading people to the booths, ringing them up at the register when they were ready to go. She saw him and gave him a wink.

He went the other way, into the comforting morose silence of the bar.

Bertha was bartending. Big and solid with carrot-colored braids anchored in a crown around her head, Bertha didn’t talk much. She had a good heart and a ready smile. Cade had never known a Highgrade without Bertha Slider working there.

“Hey, honeybunch.” One look in his face and Bertha knew what to do. She put the bottle of Cuervo on the bar with a shot glass beside it, set out the lime wedges and the salt, poured the beer chaser.

There were two other guys down the bar a ways. Cade saluted them and got the expected pair of grunts in response. He fisted his hand, licked the side of it and poured on the salt. Then he knocked back the first shot.

It was no good, he realized about an hour later. He’d only had a couple of shots, after all, hadn’t even gotten himself to the stage where his lips started feeling numb.

And he didn’t want any more. Didn’t want to get drunk.

Things had gotten pretty bad when a man didn’t even have the heart to pour a river of tequila over his sorrows. He tossed a twenty on the bar, said goodbye to Bertha and got the hell out.

He knew he shouldn’t have, but he went back to his house. Somehow, while those two shots and that one beer to chase them hadn’t made him even close to drunk, they had broken through his determination to put the book-peddling temptress next door out of his mind. He stopped in front of his house and turned off the engine and just sat there behind the wheel, staring at her front yard where flowers of every kind and color twined the fences and lined the walk.

He didn’t see her. She must be in back. He knew she was out in that yard of hers somewhere. It was her gardening day.

Sundays, as a rule, she went to church with her mother. And after that, she would go out and work in the yard. Sometimes she wore a huge, ugly straw hat. But sometimes she didn’t. Sometimes, she’d go bare-headed, anchoring that wildly curling coffee-colored hair in a tumbling knot on her head. Always, for working in the yard, she wore baggy old clothes that somehow, to him, seemed all the more provocative for what they didn’t reveal.

Yeah, all right. He knew her habits. He knew her ways.

He’d observed her going in and out of her house morning, afternoon and evening, headed to and from that bookstore of hers, all that hair loose on her shoulders, snaky tendrils of it lifted and teased by the wind.

She often left her windows open. He could hear her in there sometimes, talking on the phone in that soft alto voice of hers. Her laughter was low, musical…warm.

The sound of her had the same effect on him as the sight of her. It made him think of getting her naked and burying his face in all that hair—of listening to that gorgeous voice of hers pitched to a whisper, saying wicked things meant for his ears alone.

He knew damn well she had a wild side. He also knew she kept it under strictest control. Ask anyone. They’d tell you. Since Rusty Jenkins died seven or eight years back in a botched convenience store robbery, Jane Elliott had strictly walked the straight and narrow. She’d gone to Stanford after Rusty died, got herself a nice liberal arts degree. She had her garden and her auntie’s house and her cute little bookstore on Main Street. She dated only upwardly mobile guys with steady jobs. She was thoroughly practical, completely down-to-earth and obstinately sensible.

Cade, on the other hand, had made his money in poker parlors up and down the state and later, in the big tournaments in Las Vegas and L.A. And yeah, he’d been in a few tight scrapes with the law—most of them while he was in his teens and early twenties, back when Jane’s uncle, J. T. Elliott, who was now the mayor, had been the sheriff. He also had that rep as a lady-killing charmer. And yeah, all right. He’d admit it. The rep was mostly earned.

Jane Elliott, unfortunately, was the one sort of woman a guy like Cade didn’t really have a prayer with—and he knew it. She was the kind who’d been there and done that and learned from her mistakes. If he had any sense at all, he’d forget her.

But hey. Who said sense had a damn thing to do with it?

He was suffering, and it was bad. And since his brother had married Jane’s friend Celia, it had only gotten worse. Now, he and Jane sometimes ended up at the same social events.

And don’t think he hadn’t tried to make use of the opportunity those events provided. He’d been no slouch. He’d tried all the preliminary moves a man will use on a woman who attracts him. He’d stood a little too close—and she had backed away. He’d struck up achingly casual conversations—which she concluded quickly and politely before they even really got started. When there was food available, he’d offered to bring her a plateful. What he got for that was a cool smile and a “Thanks, Cade. I’m not hungry right now.”

Once, there was dancing. He asked her to dance. She surprised the hell out of him by following him out onto the floor. He held her in his arms—for one dance, and one dance only. Her spectacular breasts rubbed against his chest. The scent of her hair almost drove him insane.

The minute the music stopped she thanked him and pulled free.

Before she could escape, he’d suggested, “Hey. How about one more?”

For that, he got a wry twisting of her wide mouth and a maddeningly arousing low chuckle. “I’m not really a big one for dancing, Cade.”

He knew she wasn’t interested—or if maybe she was interested, she would never give her interest a chance to become anything more.

He’d had enough women come on to him over the years to realize when one was not coming on, when she wasn’t even willing to sit back and relax and let him come on to her.

It was probably nothing short of hopeless, the yearning inside him that tied him in knots.

So why the hell did it keep getting stronger?

He knew where this had to lead. That the moment was fast approaching when he would come right out and ask her. Give it to her point-blank: Jane. Will you go out with me?

He’d just been putting it off for as long as he could stand it. After all, he knew what would happen when he asked her. She would turn him down flat.

The day was really heating up. Cade shrugged out of his leather jacket, tossed it on the passenger seat.

Then he got out of the car. This craziness had to end.

He would ask the question now, today. She’d give him her answer.

And then, just maybe, he could get over Jane Elliott and get on with his life.

Chapter Three

J ane had picked the ripest tomatoes. They waited in a basket on the porch steps. She’d pulled up a bucketful of carrots, shaking the fragrant black soil off of them and sticking them just inside the back door, ready to clean up later, when she was done outside for the day.

For about thirty-five minutes, she’d been squatting among the rows, digging up persistent dandelions and other irritating weeds. Her back was feeling the strain.

With a small groan, she stood, pulling off her grimy gardening gloves, dropping them at her feet. Sweat had collected under her straw hat, so she skimmed it off and raked her hand back through her unruly hair, letting the slight afternoon breeze cool her off a little. She grabbed the boat neckline of her old shirt and fanned it. It felt wonderful, that cool air flowing down her shirt. Then she put her hand at the base of her spine and rubbed a little.

Oh, yes. Much better….

“Jane.”

She froze. She didn’t have to turn and look to know who it was. She knew his voice, would have known it anywhere. Deep and soft and rough, all at the same time, the voice she sometimes heard calling her in her dreams.

In her dreams, she always called back, Yes, oh yes! And sometimes, in her dreams, he found her and took her in his arms. Just before he kissed her, the dream would fade. And then, usually, she would wake. She would stare at the ceiling and fight the urge to go to the window, to see if the lights were on at his house.

She hadn’t heard him come through the back gate. How long had he watched her?

Her legs felt kind of shaky. And a flush crept up her cheeks. But she couldn’t stand there, looking off toward the back fence forever.

He had to be faced.

She turned. He was waiting maybe fifteen feet away, not far from her back porch. In those wonderful, deliciously frightening silver eyes of his, she could see what he planned to say to her.

She supposed she had known it was coming. She opened her mouth, to get it over with, to tell him no before he even got a chance to ask the question. But she shut it without speaking.

Something had happened in his face. Something tender and vulnerable, something that yearned as she yearned.

All right, whatever he felt for her deep in his secret heart, he was going to have to get over it. Just as she fully intended to get over him. Cade Bravo was not Rusty Jenkins—thank God. But he was close enough. A wild-hearted Bravo man, a lady-killer who lived the gambler’s life, dangerous to love for any woman.

But especially for a woman like Jane who’d let love—or desire, or lust or whatever you wanted to call it—almost annihilate her once and had sworn never to let anything like that happen again, a woman who had a nice, stable life now and was not in the market for anything even remotely resembling a tumultuous affair.

What Jane sought in a man, Cade Bravo didn’t have.

And yet, to be fair to him, she had to admit he’d handled himself with courtesy and tact. For months, he had kept his distance. Yes, she’d known he watched her. But how could she blame him for that, when she was doing the same thing herself? Watching him right back, wishing it might be different…

He’d done all the right things whenever they ended up at the same party or get-together. He’d let her know he was interested. But he hadn’t pushed her. The minute she’d made her reluctance clear, he had backed off.

And now, when he was finally making a real move, he had a right to a little courtesy from her. He deserved to be treated with respect.

Nervously she fingered the brim of her straw hat, aware of the moisture between her breasts and beneath her arms, of the way her hair clung to the back of her neck, of the bead of sweat that was sliding down her temple, almost to her cheekbone now. “Listen.” She lifted one hand, carefully, and wiped away that bead of sweat. “Would you like to go inside? I’ve got some iced tea in the fridge. I could maybe even dig up a beer, if you’d prefer that.”

Those silver eyes regarded her. They saw down into the depths of her. They saw things she wished they didn’t.

“Inside?” he asked softly. The one word meant a hundred things, most of them sexual, all of them dangerous.

Too late to back out now. She bent, picked up her dirty gloves. “Yes. What do you say?”

He took a moment to answer. She found herself watching his mouth—the mouth she never quite got to kiss in her dreams. The mouth, she reminded herself sternly, that she had better start forgetting about. And soon.

“Yeah,” he said at last. “Iced tea sounds great.”

Another silence, between them. A silence that felt like a standoff. She wanted him to just turn and go up the three steps to her back porch, go on in ahead of her. She didn’t want to have to approach him, to move past him, to lead the way, with him at her back, watching.

But of course, he wouldn’t go ahead of her. It was her house, her responsibility to show a first-time guest inside.

“Well,” she said, and forced her feet to move.

Neither of them seemed capable of looking away. She advanced and he just stood there. And then, when she came even with him, she closed her eyes, briefly, breaking the hold of his gaze. She moved by, went up the steps. He followed. His tread was light, but she felt every footfall, pressing on her, in some deep, private place. She paused to pick up her basket of tomatoes, to drop her gloves at the edge of the step. Then she went on, pulling open the door and standing back.

He went in, and she followed, onto the service porch where her washer and dryer and laundry supplies lined one wall and her bucket of dirty carrots waited on the edge of the doormat to be cleaned.

The porch half bath was through the door to her right. She wanted to go in there, rinse off her sweating face, run a comb through her hair. But no. Not right now, not with him standing here, waiting. Better to show him on in first.

She had dirt on her shoes. “Hold on a second…”

He said nothing, just stood to the side a little and watched as she set down the tomatoes, shucked off her gardening clogs, got rid of her slightly grimy socks, tossing them in the wicker laundry basket on top of the dryer. Her pale feet seemed very bare—defenseless, without her socks. A few evenings ago, she’d given herself a long, lovely pedicure, buffing and pumicing and stroking clear polish on her toenails at the end.

She despised herself right now because she was glad that she had.

Swiftly she slipped on a pair of sandals and picked up the basket again. “Okay.” Her voice was absurdly breathy and urgent. “This way.” She moved ahead again, opened the inner door and went through. He followed.

They entered what she thought of as the family room. Bookshelves lined the walls, the blind eye of a television stared from a corner and the furniture was a little bit worn and very comfortable. She took him through the open doorway to the kitchen and gestured at the bay window and the round oak table in front of it. “Make yourself comfortable.” She set the tomatoes on the counter. “And if you’d give me one minute?”

“Sure.”

She retraced her steps, through the family room and out to the service porch, then on into the half bath at last. She shut the door, rested her head against the wood, closed her eyes and let out a long, shaky sigh. Then she drew herself up and turned to face the mirror above the sink.

Her eyes were wide, haunted-looking. Twin spots of hectic color stained her cheeks.

This was awful, impossible, wrong. Had she learned nothing from the mess she’d made of her life once? It certainly didn’t feel like it, not with the way her heart was pounding, the way she burned with hungry heat.

She might as well have been seventeen again, that first time she snuck Rusty into her parents’ house. Seventeen, with her parents gone—off somewhere. She couldn’t remember where, but it would have been two separate places. Her mom and dad didn’t go out together much. But wherever they were, neither of them had a clue what their bright, perfect, well-behaved daughter was up to. That she had Rusty in the house.

Yes. She had Rusty in the house and she knew that he was going to kiss her. And she knew that he wouldn’t stop with just kisses.

And she was glad.

“Oh, God,” she whispered low.

She flipped on the cold tap and splashed water on her face, grabbing the hand towel, scrubbing at her cheeks as if she could wipe away not only the water, but the heat in them, the evidence of her own insistent, self-destructive attraction to the wrong kind of man. She got a brush from the drawer and tugged it angrily through her hair, trying to tame it. Failing that, she found a scrunchy in the other drawer and anchored the mess in a ponytail, low on her neck.

“There,” she whispered to her reflection, “Better. Really. It’s really okay.” Swiftly she tucked her raggedy shirt more securely into the waistband of her baggy old jeans.

And then there was nothing else to do but get out there and deal with him.

He was sitting at the table when she reentered the kitchen, but he’d turned his chair out a little, so he could comfortably face the doorway to the family room. He wore faded denim and worn tan boots and his skin looked golden in contrast to his white T-shirt. He was Brad Pitt in Fight Club, Ben Affleck out of rehab. He was a young Paul Newman in that old Faulkner movie, The Long Hot Summer, the barn burner’s son looking for more than any woman ought to give him. He was sin just waiting to happen.

And why, she found herself wondering? Why me?

What did he see in her? Not that there was anything wrong with her, just that she simply was not his type. Not gorgeous, not glamorous, not a party animal.

And look at her wardrobe. Eddie Bauer and L.L. Bean—and, times like right now, when she’d been gardening, various little numbers one step away from the ragbag. Cade Bravo’s women wore DKNY and Versace. They probably all bought their underwear at Victoria’s Secret.

It made no sense. No sense at all.

But then, it had been the same with Rusty. Attraction of opposites. A good girl and a bad boy, tasting the forbidden, doing what they shouldn’t do.

And loving every minute of it.

At least, for a while.

“Iced tea, you said?”

“Great.”

“Sugar? Lemon?”

“Plain.”

Her refrigerator had an ice maker in the freezer door. She got a pair of glasses from the cupboard and stuck them under the ice dispenser, one and then the other. The cubes dropping into place sounded like gunshots in the too-quiet room.

She got out the tea, poured it over the ice, filling both glasses. Normally she liked sugar and lemon. But no way she was fooling with any of that right now.

She put the tea away, picked up the two glasses and carried them to the table, setting his in front of him, then sliding into a chair.

“Thanks,” he said.

She gave him a tight smile and a nod in response. Then, not knowing what else to do, she sipped from her tea—too bitter, not tart enough.

She set it down in front of her and looked at it. She was afraid to look anywhere else, and that was a plain fact.

“Jane.”

He was waiting, she knew. For her to look at him.

Better get it over with. She dragged her gaze upward, and she met those silver eyes again.

And he said it. “I want to go out with you. Dinner. A show. It doesn’t matter to me. Whatever you want, that’s what we’ll do.”

She looked at him, into those eyes. “Thank you. For asking me.” The words came out flat, without intonation. “I’m sorry. But no. I can’t go out with you.”

He didn’t look surprised. “Can’t?” He was mocking her.

She couldn’t blame him for his scorn. Can’t, in this case, was a coward’s word. And a lie. “I won’t. I won’t go out with you.”

“Why not?”

She shut her eyes, dragged in a long breath, then looked at him again. “Won’t you just take what I said? Take no thank you, and let it be?”

He smiled then, more or less. At least the corners of his mouth hitched upward. “I will, if that’s all I can get. It’s not like I really have a choice. But you’re honest, or you try to be, and—”

“How do you know that?”

“Does it matter?”

It did matter, a lot, for some reason. “I’d like to know how you know that about me, that’s all.”

“Jane. How could I not know?”

“You mean you’ve been watching me.”

“What? That’s news? It offends you, that I like to look at you, that I listen when people talk about you?”

“Who? Who talks about me?”

“Oh, come on. Your buddy Celia’s married to Aaron. It’s a story she likes to tell, how she fell in love with my brother and you told her to be honest, to let him know how she felt, that honesty was always the best policy. Is that right? Did that happen?”

She nodded, feeling vaguely foolish for making a big deal out of not very much. “Yes. All right. It happened.”

“And your other friend, Jillian, she said Celia should wear sexier clothes and brighter colors, make him notice her as a woman first before she told him she was gone on him.”

Jane couldn’t help smiling at the memory. “And Celia did both—told the truth and bought a few new clothes.”

“Yeah. And look at them now.”

“Yes,” she said carefully. “They’re very happy.” They lived in Las Vegas. Aaron was part owner and CEO of High Sierra Resort and Casino, on the Strip. Celia was his secretary and personal assistant—and now, his wife as well.

Cade said, “And I haven’t forgotten what I asked in the first place. Did you think I would?”

Yes. All right. Maybe she had. She regarded him warily, her mouth firmly shut.

He asked again, “Why won’t you go out with me?”

Jane looked through the bay window at her backyard, wishing she was out there, deadheading mums and geraniums, digging up more dandelions, working that long, tenacious central root up out of the soil. Anything but this, having to tell this man no when her body and her wayward heart wouldn’t stop crying yes.

“Well?” he prompted.

She looked at him again and she spoke with defiance. “You know why. You’re from town. You know about me. I had a bad marriage. A really bad marriage.”

“I didn’t mention marriage, Jane.”

“Well, of course you didn’t.”

“Did you want me to?”

“Did you plan to?”

He grunted. “No. As a matter of fact, marriage wasn’t what I had in mind.”

“Exactly. And that’s another reason for me not to go out with you. We want completely different things from a relationship.”

“Do we?” His eyes said things she shouldn’t let herself hear.

“Nothing is going to happen between us,” she said, slowly. Firmly. With much more conviction than she actually felt. “What I want from a relationship, you’re not willing to give.”

He lifted an eyebrow at her. “You’re saying you want to get married again?”

“Yes, I do. And I want a good marriage this time. When it comes to a man, I’m looking for an equal—an equal and a best friend.”

That fine mouth curved, ever so slightly, in another one of those almost-smiles. “Well, all right. Let’s be friends.”

She did not smile back, not even marginally. “You’re not taking me seriously.”

“Yes, I am. You want a man to be your friend. Fine. Let’s be friends.”

It was a trap. She knew it. They’d play at being friends. And eventually, they’d make each other crazy enough that they’d give in to what was really driving this. And she should be insulted, that he would sit here in her kitchen and pretend to offer friendship when they both knew what he really wanted from her.

But she wasn’t insulted. She was too excited to be insulted. She just wanted to say yes—Yes, yes, yes. Whatever he wanted, however he wanted it.

“No.” She had to push the word out of her mouth. “I won’t be your friend.”

His long hand cupped his glass of tea. He stroked, wiping the moisture clinging to the side of the glass, so it slid down and pooled on the table. “Why not?”

She looked away from that stroking hand, made a low, tight sound of disbelief. “Because I really don’t think that my friendship is what you’re after.”

She was looking at his hand again. Slowly he turned the glass in a circle, smearing the puddle of moisture at the base of it. “You don’t, huh?”

She yanked her gaze upward and glared at him. “No, I don’t. Are you going to tell me I’ve got it all wrong?”

There it was again, the smile that didn’t quite happen. “Let me put it this way. I’ll try anything once, friendship included.”

She felt vaguely ridiculous, to keep on with this, to make all this effort to be truthful when she didn’t feel truthful, when she knew he was teasing her, making fun of what she said. But she did keep on. Because however pointless it felt to tell him these things, she believed they were things that had to be said. “I want marriage, a good marriage. I want a steady man, a man who’ll stick by me, a man who’ll be true.”

He had that golden head tipped to the side, as if he were considering whether or not to say what was in his mind.

“What?” she demanded. “Just say it. Say it now.”

He lifted one hard shoulder in a shrug. “Okay. How long’s it been, since Rusty died? You were, what, twenty?”

She had to clear her throat before she could answer. “Twenty-one. It’s been six years.”

“You run into any steady men, since then? Any true, good men?”

“Yes. Yes, of course, I have.”

“You dated a few of them, of those good guys, those solid guys?”

“That’s right. I did.”

“So what happened? How come you’re not with one of them now?”

Silently she cursed him. For knowing her secret truth, for hitting it right on the mark. “It didn’t work out, that’s all.”

“You’re looking away again. Let’s have some truth, Jane. Let’s have it out straight.”

She snapped her gaze back to collide with his and she muttered between clenched teeth, “You’re being purposely cruel. I’ve had enough of that, in my life. Cruelty. From a man.”

He leaned her way, just a little, enough that she felt him, encroaching, not quite enough to make her move back. “Listen,” he said in a low voice. “I’m not him. Not Rusty. Yeah, all right, I’ve had my run-ins with the law. I’ve made trouble. I’m not exactly a solid citizen. And I’ve got no interest in getting married. But I’ve never held up a damn convenience store. I earn my way. I pay for what’s mine. And the kind of cruel I’m guessing Rusty Jenkins was to you, I’m not and would never be. Get out your stack of bibles. I can swear to that.”

Her lips felt dry and hot. She licked them.

His gaze flicked down, watched her do that. “God,” he whispered.

And she forgot everything, but the sound of his voice and the shape of his mouth. All at once, they were leaning in, both of them. She smelled him, smelled the heat and the maleness, the clean cotton scent of his T-shirt. She felt his breath across her cheek.

Just before their lips could meet, she shoved her chair back and jumped to her feet. “No.” It came out every bit as desperate-sounding as she felt. “No, please…”

He sat back, draping a hard arm over the back of the chair, looking up at her through lazy, knowing eyes. “I wasn’t sure. About you, about how you felt. Sometimes, when a man wants a woman, it’s easy to imagine reactions that aren’t really there. But it’s there, isn’t it? It’s as bad for you as it is for me.”

She clenched her fists at her sides. What could she say to that? What could she tell him? The truth was unacceptable. And she was not a woman who told lies. “Nothing is going to happen between us. It’s…not what I want. Please understand.”

“Not what you want?”

“You know what I mean.”

“Oh, yeah. I think I do.” The gleam in those pale eyes told it all. He knew what she meant, all right. All the wrong things she meant. Her good intentions were nothing to him.

“You’re purposely misconstruing what I’m saying.”

“You’re not saying what you really mean.”

“I am. Yes. I’m not going to go out with you. Nothing is going to happen between us. You’d better forget me. And I’ll forget you.”

He shook his head. That smile that wasn’t quite a smile was back on his sinfully beautiful face. “How long’s it been, since this started, this thing between us, this thing that you keep telling yourself is going to just fade away? Months, anyway, right?”

“What does it matter? I want you to go now.”

He didn’t budge from that chair. “It matters because you’ve been fighting it, right? And don’t think I haven’t been fighting it, too. I have. I mean, come on, I got your messages. Loud and clear. You know the ones. Get back. Keep away. Don’t come near.”

“But here you are, anyway.” She was sneering. She couldn’t seem to stop herself. “Sitting in my kitchen.”

“You invited me in.”

“And I also asked you to leave, not two minutes ago.”

He chuckled then. “Jane, Jane, Jane…”

“Stop that!” She realized she’d shouted, brought the volume down to a whisper of rage. “Don’t you laugh at me.”

His face had gone dead serious. “I’m not. You know I’m not. I’m just telling you the truth. Being honest, the way you say you want it. I don’t think this is funny at all. The truth is, I want you. You want me. You deny it. I deny it. But it keeps on. It’s kept on for months. Ignoring it is not going to make it go away.”

She had no reply for that. He was right. They both knew it. “Look. I mean it. I’d like you to leave now.”

“Fine.” He gathered those long legs up and stood.

She stepped back, clear of him. His body could not be allowed to touch hers—even accidentally, in passing.

He gave her a look that burned and chilled at the same time. “I suppose you want me to go out like I came in. Through the back. That way, there’s less chance someone might see that I was in here, less chance your mother might hear about it.”

She drew herself up. “The implication being that my mother somehow runs my life?”

“Admit it.” His voice was way too soft. “You don’t want her to know I was here.”

It was Jane’s turn to shrug. “Okay. It would make it easier on me if she didn’t know—which is a very good reason for you to go out the front.”

He frowned. “I don’t get it.”

“I invited you in here. I’m not ashamed that I did. If my mother finds out, well, okay. She finds out.”

“She hates me—hates all us bad Bravos. You know that, don’t you?”

She did. “My mother is difficult. Her life didn’t work out the way she would have liked it to. She has a tendency to take out her disappointments on others. It’s sad, really. She needs love so much, yet she’s always pushing people away.”

He wore a musing look. “You surprise me.”

“Because I know my own mother?”

“I guess. I had you pegged differently, when it came to her.”

“Maybe you had me pegged wrong.”

“Maybe so.”

“The point is, I’m a grown woman. I’ve done nothing wrong here. Neither of us has. And I won’t live like a guilty child.”

He studied her for a moment, then he let out a hard breath. “Whatever. But I still think it’s best if I just leave through the back.” He started to move past her.

“Wait.” She reached out. He froze, his eyes daring her. She continued the movement, lifting her reaching hand to smooth her hair. The gesture didn’t fool either of them. She had almost touched him, had stopped herself just in time.

She dropped her hand. “This way.”

“Hey. Relax.”

“You’ll go out the front.”

He seemed amused. “Is that an order?”

“Just a statement of fact.”

“Okay, no problem. I can find the door myself.”

“No. I will see you out.”

He looked her up and down, his gaze sparking heat everywhere it touched. “So damn well brought up, aren’t you, Jane?”

Was that supposed to be an insult? “Yes, I am.”

She turned for the open doorway, but instead of going straight, into the family room, she went left, entering the central hall. He came along behind. It seemed to take a very long time to reach the front door.

But at last, they were there. She grabbed the door handle and pulled the door wide, unlatching the screen, pushing it open. He went through, out onto her porch, down the steps, into the sun that found the gold in his silky hair and reflected off his white T-shirt, so that she blinked against the sudden blinding brightness of just looking at him.

At the bottom of the steps, he paused and turned to her. “Thanks. For the iced tea.”

He hadn’t taken so much as a sip. “You’re welcome.”

“I’ll have to think about this. What you said. What you meant.”

“Don’t. Please. Just let it go.”

He looked her up and down again, as he had done back in the kitchen, slowly, assessingly, causing heat to flare and flash and pop along the surface of her skin, making that heaviness down in the center of her, that willingness in spite of her wiser self.

“You probably shouldn’t have invited me in.”

It had seemed the decent thing to do. “Maybe not,” she confessed.

He turned, took a few more steps, then turned again, so he was walking backward away from her, not quite smiling, in that way of his. Her heart lifted. For a fraction of a second, he was only a man she found attractive, walking away from her, but reluctant to go.

“Pretty,” he said, reaching out his left hand, brushing the surface of one of the gleaming glass spheres tucked among the cosmos. The gold bracelet he always wore caught the sunlight and winked at her.

She smiled at him.

He saluted her, the way he had that morning, two fingers briefly touching his forehead. Then he turned toward the street again and continued down the walk.

She closed the screen and shut the door and told herself that whatever he hinted at, nothing would happen. She’d ended it before it had a chance to begin.

Chapter Four

C ade left town sometime the next day.

When Jane got home from the bookstore Monday night, his house was dark. The green Porsche was nowhere in sight. At a little after noon, on Tuesday, Jane spotted Caitlin on Cade’s porch, picking up the mail and papers as she always did whenever he went away.

Wednesday, at a little before five, Gary Nevis dropped in at her store. He bought a book on western wildflowers and asked her to have dinner with him Saturday night.

She looked into his handsome, friendly face and felt like crying. He was just what she was looking for. Except for one little problem. He didn’t fill her fan tasies.

And he never would. That thing, that spark, that whatever-it-was. With Gary, well, it just wasn’t there.

In the back of her mind, Cade’s taunts echoed, You run into any steady men, any true, good men? You dated a few of them, those good guys, those solid guys? So what happened? How come you’re not with one of them now?

She turned Gary down, softly and firmly. She could see in his eyes that he understood the extent of her refusal. He wouldn’t be asking again.

She’d already been feeling low. After that, she felt lower still.

She arrived home at a little after nine that night. The house next door remained dark. No green Porsche crouched at the curb.

Jane went to bed around ten, drifted off to sleep and then woke at a little after three. She lay there, staring into the darkness, until she couldn’t bear it for another second. Finally she gave in. She got up and looked out the window.

Big surprise. His house was dark. She went back to her bed and turned her pillow over to the cool side. She punched it to fluff it a little. Then she resolutely closed her eyes.

Sleep was a long time coming. Sometimes her mind could be every bit as unruly as her hair.

Thursday at four Jane held her biweekly Children’s Story Hour. She had a presentation area in the rear of the store, with a mishmash of chairs and benches—and also with a lot of plump pillows in the corners for folks who preferred to sit on the floor. She held the story hour there, as she did the various readers’ groups she hosted, the occasional musical evening and any speaker or workshop events.

As it turned out, the story hour was just what she needed. She read some Dr. Seuss and a little Shel Silverstein and then a few chapters from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Her heart lifted as she looked out over the small, wide-eyed faces, and she felt a smile breaking through the gloom that had been dogging her since she told two men no—one she wanted and one she didn’t, one who was all wrong and one who was just right. Reading to the kids always raised her spirits, brought hope to life again.

Someday, she would find the right guy. She would marry again, this time well and wisely, marry a man who not only turned her bones to water, but who also loved and respected her, a man who would never hurt her, a man who wanted children as much as she did.

Jillian Diamond came bouncing into the bookstore at a little after six on Friday.

Jillian had her own business, Image by Jillian. She taught her clients how to dress for success. She also wrote a column, “Ask Jillian,” for the Sacramento Press-Telegram. She’d already spoken at Jane’s store once, back in March. Lots of folks showed up and Jillian had really wowed them. She was funny and she had some quirky and fascinating ideas. Jane had prevailed on her to do it again.

For her talk this time, Jillian wore a short, sleeveless, fitted sheath in a geometric print and a pair of white patent go-go boots. Her gold-streaked brown hair curled loosely around her arresting face. Her gray eyes sparkled beneath those startlingly dark, thick brows.

“Janey, I made it. Have to tell you, though, I had my doubts. What is it with Highway 50, anyway? Is there ever a time when half the lanes aren’t blocked off for repairs?”

“Sure. That would be in the middle of winter, when all the lanes are closed due to ice and snow.” They hugged.

Jillian smelled of her favorite perfume, Ralph Lauren’s Romance, and also of Cheez Doodles. She was carrying an open bag of them. She stepped back from the hug and popped one in her mouth, then held out the bag to Jane.

“No, thanks.”

“I stopped by the house and left my suitcase and stuff.” Jillian gobbled more Cheez Doodles. Jane wondered how she did it. Jillian ate whatever she wanted and she never worked out and she weighed just what she’d weighed the day they graduated from New Venice High—which was about one-fifteen, soaking wet. In go-go boots.

“Oh, I am starving,” said Jillian. “And I’m in a burger kind of mood. Let’s go next door.”

Next door. To Caitlin Bravo’s place.

“To the Highgrade?” It came out sounding grim, though Jane truly hadn’t meant it that way. Really, there was no reason to avoid the place. Cade wouldn’t be there. He wasn’t even in town.

“Janey. Sometimes you are a total food snob.”

“I am not. I love a good burger as much as anybody.”

“Then what is the hang-up here?” Jillian slid a glance at Madelyn, Jane’s clerk, who was busy ringing up a sale at the register. Then she leaned close and whispered, “A Mommy Dearest issue?”

“No, nothing like that.” Until the day Jane turned eighteen and eloped with Rusty, thus declaring her independence from Virginia Elliott in a very big way, she never would have dared to upset her mother by entering Caitlin Bravo’s place of business. But all that was years ago. Now, Jane ran her own life and allowed no one to tell her where she could or couldn’t go. She often headed over to the café next door for a sandwich—or she used to, until recently, when she’d become increasingly worried she might run into Cade there.

Jillian’s thick brows were all scrunched up. “Well if there are no, er, family issues involved and you love burgers, why not?”

“Good question.” Jane tried to sound breezy. “If you want to eat there, it’s fine with me.”

Jillian stepped up to the register and offered the rest of her Cheez Doodles to Madelyn. “Enjoy.” She brushed the orange dust from her hands and turned back to Jane. “Let’s go.”

Caitlin was there to greet them. “Well, look who’s here.” She emerged from behind the cash register counter in the Highgrade’s central game room. “What’s up?”

Jillian told her. “I’m speaking next-door at Jane’s tonight.”

“Speaking of what?”

“Having It All and Loving It. How to Please Both Yourself and Your Man.”

Caitlin chuckled her low, naughty-sounding chuckle. “Well. I’d say that about covers everything.”

“Drop over if you get a chance.”

“Sweetie, I just might take you up on that—and right now, I suppose you two want to eat?”

“You bet.” Jillian’s eyes were shining. “I’m starved. For a bacon and Swiss burger, I think. With onion rings and a chocolate shake—but I’ll have a look at the menu, just in case something else jumps out at me.”

Caitlin’s false eyelashes swept down. When she looked up again, it was straight at Jane. “We’ve missed you around here lately.”

“Oh, well, things have been really busy.”

“I’m still counting on you to do your story lady gig at the picnic Labor Day.” The Labor Day picnic was an annual event in New Venice. The town merchants went all out for it. There were horseshoes and shuffleboard, live bands, beer on tap for the grown-ups, a clown show and face-painting booth for the kids—among other things. Caitlin was heading up the picnic committee this year.

“I’m looking forward to it.”

“Good. And don’t be a damn stranger. You can drop in for a sandwich anytime and be back at your store in twenty minutes flat. I will personally expedite your order.”

“Thank you. I’ll remember that.”

“Don’t thank me. Just come around more often.”

“Yes. I will. Honestly.”

“This way.” Caitlin led them through the open doorway to the café and straight to a corner booth. She gestured at the big laminated menus, which were tucked upright between the sugar dispenser and the napkin holder. “Have a look.” The orange sequins on her tight black shirt glittered aggressively with every breath she took. “I’ll send Roxy right over.” She strutted off.

Jillian picked up her menu and spoke from behind it, out of the corner of her mouth. “God. Best butt I’ve ever seen on a woman over forty-five.”

Jane whispered back. “She is one of a kind.”

“And I swear, she’s a 38-D. Just like you. And not saggy, either.”

“Fascinating,” said Jane dryly. “What are you having?”

“I’m looking, I’m looking….”

“Right.” Jane studied her menu, which had a knotty-pine fence on the cover—no doubt to go along with the Highgrade’s extensively knotty-pine decor. Inside, a cartoon miner with a big hat, baggy old jeans and a pickax slung over his shoulder, grinned and pointed at the various menu selections. “The club sandwich is always good.”

Jillian wasn’t listening—or looking at the menu. “I don’t see the Viking Hunk.” The Viking Hunk was Caitlin’s on-again, off-again lover, Hans. He was about Cade’s age, had long blond hair and looked like he’d walked right off the cover of a steamy romance novel.

Jane shrugged. “You’re right. Hans hasn’t been around lately. I think I heard he’s left town again.”

“Ah, the course of true love never did run all that smooth.”

“Here comes the waitress. Quit mangling Shakespeare and figure out what you want.”

They ordered and the food arrived quickly. Jane concentrated on her sandwich and tried not to remember….

That engagement party Caitlin had thrown here for Aaron and Celia back at the beginning of May. The place had been packed for that. There had even been other Bravos, specifically the famous Bravo billionaire, Jonas, from Los Angeles, and his wife, Emma. Jonas was Cade’s cousin and his presence had surprised every one. For over thirty years, Caitlin and her sons had lived as if no other Bravos existed. But Celia—and Jonas’s wife, Emma—were working to change all that.

“Hey, Jane.” Cade’s voice had come from behind her. It was friendly, slightly teasing, nothing in the least pushy about it. Still, she felt pushed, way down inside herself. Pushed and pulled at the same time.

She’d turned and put on a smile. “Hello, Cade. How are you?”

“Doin’ okay. Did you eat yet? I was just going to go and fill myself a plate.”

“Thanks, but I’m not all that hungry right now.”

Those strange, beautiful eyes went from molten silver to ice. “Right. Not hungry.”

She spotted her excuse to escape him on the other side of the room. “Oh, there’s Jilly. I’ve been looking for her…” She left him, weaving her way quickly through the press of people, a slight shudder moving through her at the thought that might follow her, perhaps become more insistent….

But he didn’t.

And then, a few weeks ago—she’d seen him in here again. He’d been in the game room, kind of lounging against the wall, chatting with Donny Verdun, who ran the convenience store at the corner of State and Main. She’d tried to slide on into the café without him spotting her.

But no such luck.

Two minutes after she sat down, there he was, standing by her booth, asking her how she’d been doing, those eyes of his looking into hers, telling her things his mouth wouldn’t dare say.

She’d come very close to rudeness that time, insisting she was in a hurry. Could he please send the waitress over right away?

“Sure, Jane. I’ll do that.” And he was gone.

She’d felt small and mean then—and strangely bereft. After that, she’d decided maybe it would be better if she stopped eating at the Highgrade for a while.

“Yoo-hoo, Janey. Are you there?”

She blinked and looked down at her hands. At some point, she had picked up the tube of paper that had covered her straw. She was wrapping it absentmindedly around her index finger. “What?” She yanked off the flattened tube of paper and dropped it on her plate beside her half-eaten club sandwich.

“You should see your face. Dreamy.” Jillian set down her milkshake and leaned in close. “There’s someone, isn’t there? At last, after all these years. Come on. Tell Jillian. Who is he?”

“Oh, Jilly. Eat your Swiss and bacon burger. We can’t sit here all night.”

Later, back at the bookstore, Jane kept half expecting Caitlin to walk in. But she never appeared.

Jane closed up at ten. She’d walked to the store that morning. Since Jillian, who never walked anywhere if she could help it, had driven over from the house in the afternoon, Jane rode home with her.

They stayed up till a little before two, drinking wine at first and then switching to herbal tea around midnight.

They talked about the things they always talked about. The bookstore. Jillian’s career. Celia.

“I called her last Saturday,” Jane reported. “She sounded great. I forgot to ask her about the Labor Day picnic, though.”

“Where you are playing story lady, right?”

“Right. I know Aaron’s helping out, hiring the bands for it. But I still don’t know if he and Celia are planning to be here for it—and how about you? Will you come this year?”

“Yeah. I could probably be here. I’ll let you know.”

The next morning, Jillian slept in.

Jane had to open the store at ten, so she was up at eight. She sat at her kitchen table with the morning sun pouring in the bay window and sipped her coffee and told herself that life was good.

And maybe Cade would stay away for weeks this time, the way he used to, back before his house was finished.

She smiled a sad little smile and sipped more coffee. Yes, that would be good for her. It really would. But whether he stayed away or not, she would get over this impossible, unhealthy attraction. No doubt about it. It was only a matter of time.

Jillian left early Sunday morning.

And Jane’s mother called. “Hi, dear. How about church?”

“I’d love it.”

“Why don’t we just meet there?” Virginia suggested. “I’m running a little late.”

When Jane left the house, she saw Cade’s powerful green car parked at the curb next door.

He was back.

Her heart felt like something was squeezing it. Then it started beating way too fast.

Get over it, she told herself as she got in her van and started it up. He lives here and he’s going to be here a lot of the time. Accept it.

And forget him.

“How about a sandwich and some iced tea at my house?” Jane offered, as she and Virginia walked down the church steps toward the cars waiting at the curb.

“Wonderful,” said Virginia.

Her mother followed her home.

The first thing Jane noticed when she turned onto her street was that the green Porsche was gone again. Good. She got out of her van and waited for Virginia to park.

They started up the walk together.

Jane saw the object on the porch—on the mat, right in front of the door—at about the same time her mother did.

“Jane. What is that?”

Jane didn’t answer. She walked a little faster. Soon enough, they both stood on the porch, looking down at it.

Virginia said, “Why, it’s so beautiful. It looks like an antique.”

“It is an antique,” Jane said softly, staring down at the gorgeous thing. “I’m almost certain of it. An antique mercury glass gazing ball and vase, in one.” The silvery-gold ball sat on a central glass platform, with a clever little trough all around it where the flowers would go.

“A gazing ball? Like the ones in your garden?”

“Not quite,” Jane said dryly. “My guess is that this is the real thing.”

“The real thing. How so?”

Jane gestured toward the gazing balls that gleamed among the cosmos along her front walk. “Those you can find in just about any garden shop. They’re made of a single layer of glass treated with some sort of transparent opalescent paint.”

“And this?”

“It’s an old technique. They would flow real mercury between two layers of glass. They don’t make them like that anymore, though. They haven’t in decades.” Jane had read about such treasures in the various books on rare glassware she kept in her store. She couldn’t resist. She had to know for certain. “Here. Hold these a minute, will you?” She handed her mother her keys and her small purse. Then she knelt and oh-so-carefully slipped her fingers beneath the vase.

“Yes.” She grinned.

“Yes, what?” Virginia demanded.

“I can feel the stopper underneath. They would have to use a stopper, to hold in the mercury.” She lifted it. “And it’s heavy. Mercury is heavy. That means it still has its original filling.”

Her mother was frowning at her. “It’s filled with real mercury?”

“That’s right. And that’s very rare. Most of the old pieces like this have been drained, with reflective paint injected in the mercury’s place.”

“Better not drop it,” her mother said warily. “Just what we need. Mercury all over the place.”

“I’m not going to drop it.” So beautiful, Jane thought. She stood again, carefully, cradling the precious vase close to her body.

“Who could have left it here, do you think?” Virginia was intrigued—and suspicious, too.

Jane shrugged and made a noncommittal noise, evading her mother’s question, coming perilously close to telling a lie.

Because she knew very well who had left it there. If she closed her eyes, she could see him now, walking backward down the walk, the sun gleaming golden in his hair, reaching out to brush those long fingers across one of the shining globes tucked among the flowers.

“Jane?” her mother prompted. “I asked who would leave something like this on your front porch.”

Jane considered telling her mother the truth. But it would only be inviting more questions—not to mention an excess of outraged noises at the very idea that Cade Bravo would dare to offer expensive gifts to Virginia Elliott’s only daughter.

She settled for shrugging again. “Open the door, Mom. Let’s go inside and I’ll make our lunch.”

Chapter Five

J ane set the golden vase carefully on the narrow table near the front door.

“It must be valuable,” Virginia said.

“Yes, I’m sure it is.”

They both stood back for a moment, admiring it. It reflected light so beautifully, with the shiny golden surface—veined in places, after years and years—and that layer of quicksilver trapped beneath. It seemed almost magical, managing somehow to be opaque and transparent and reflecting all at once. It was all curves, too, distorting in a fascinating way what it mirrored, so that, staring into it, Jane’s entry hall became a strange and fantastical otherworldly place.

“And you don’t know who left it on the front mat?” Her mother sent her a quizzing, narrow-eyed look.

Jane made another noncommittal sound.

“That means you know, but you’re not telling,” said Virginia, her tone accusing now.

Jane gave her mother a smile. “Lunch will only take a few minutes. Let’s go on in the kitchen.”

They ate at the oak table by the bay window. Twice more, Virginia tried to pry from her daughter the name of the person Jane believed had left the vase. Finally Jane decided she’d had enough.

“Mom, by now you must have gotten the message that I don’t want to go into this. I’d appreciate it if you’d just leave the subject alone.”

“Well, but why wouldn’t you want to talk about it? It makes no sense that you’d be so touchy about something like this.”

“If I’m touchy, it’s because I’ve asked you to let the subject drop—and you haven’t.”

“But—” Virginia began, and then had the grace to cut herself off. She shook her head and conceded in a thoroughly wounded tone, “Well, all right. I won’t say another word about it.”

“Thank you. More iced tea?”

“Yes. I suppose. One more glass.”

Virginia left about a half hour later, with a bouquet of blood-red roses and three grocery bags, one each of tomatoes, string beans and zucchini. Jane felt marginally guilty loading her poor mother up with all those vegetables. There were only the two of them, her mother and her father, at home now, after all. And her father rarely showed up to sit down to dinner with his wife.

Clifford Elliott was district judge and he sat on the boards of various trusts and charities. And then there were all the organizations he belonged to, the Masons and the Knights of Columbus, to name just two. Both he and Virginia liked to say that he “kept very busy.” The fact that he was away so much and didn’t share his wife’s bed when he finally did come home was one of those things that simply wasn’t talked about.

Virginia said, “Belinda’s coming Wednesday.” Belinda was her housekeeper. “I can share some of these beautiful vegetables with her. And I’ll make some zucchini bread. It freezes well.” Jane helped her mother carry it all out to the car.

The Porsche was back again. Cade must be home. Good. She had a thing or two to say to him. She kissed her mother’s cheek and stood waving as Virginia drove off.

Once the Lincoln turned the corner, Jane headed for her house again. She marched up the walk, mounted the steps and went inside. The outer door closed automatically behind her.

Leaving the heavy oak inner door standing open, she went for the vase, which gleamed, breathtakingly beautiful, on her entry hall table to the right of the door. She paused, caught again by the absolute perfection of it as a gift meant specifically for her, for Jane Elizabeth Elliott.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.