“We didn’t get off to a very good start this morning. Let’s start over.

“I’m Turk Garrison. I’m new in town and looking for someone to show me around. Wanna volunteer? I promise I don’t bite, scratch or drool in public. So whaddya say? Are you game?”

Unable to take her eyes off his engaging smile, Rachel tried hard not to be charmed. She wanted to say yes so badly she could taste it. Instead she said, “No.”

If he hadn’t been so damn sure of himself—not to mention boyishly attractive—she might have said yes. But a woman only had to glance over at him to know that he was trouble any way you looked at it.

“Hey,” Turk said, grinning, “that’s okay. I’m a patient man. And it’s not like I don’t know where to find you.

“After all…you’re right next door.”

Dear Reader,

People always ask me where I get my stories, and my answer is always the same: They float around in the air. People tell me that I hear or see something that triggers an idea, and suddenly, the story is there. This particular book was told to me by different people at different times. Years ago, I heard about a woman who wasn’t looking for love, just a doctor to father her baby. She really did go to a bar near the medical center and had a one-night stand with a doctor. When she got pregnant and had the baby, she never told the father of her child.

That woman, whose name I never knew, became my heroine, Rachel Martin. The rest of her story is based on another true story. Somewhere in south Texas, there is a woman who married a man who had a vasectomy without telling her. She, too, desperately wanted a baby and didn’t know for years that that was never going to happen.

I wanted more for Rachel Martin. Determined to get the baby she wanted at all cost, she thought she had everything worked out. Then Fate moved in next door. Don’t you just love that?

Enjoy!

Linda Turner

Mission: M.D.
Linda Turner

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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LINDA TURNER

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

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Epilogue

Prologue

The phone rang promptly at eight o’clock, just as Rachel Martin had expected. Grinning, she snatched it up without bothering to check the caller ID. “Hi, Lily. You’re right on time as usual.”

“Hi, Rachel.”

Surprised, she almost dropped the phone. “Natalie? Is that you? I was expecting Lily.”

“I’m here,” Lily said with a chuckle.

“Me, too,” Abby chimed in cheerfully. “We wanted to surprise you with a conference call.”

“Well, you certainly did that,” she retorted, smiling. “What’s going on? I know a conspiracy when I smell one. What’s up?”

“I want you to be in my wedding,” Natalie said.

“Me, too.”

“Ditto.”

Stunned, Rachel felt as if the three of them had just reached through the phone and knocked her off her feet. “All three of you are getting married?”

Lily laughed at her shocked gasp. “It’s crazy, isn’t it? I didn’t think I’d ever be happy again, and then almost overnight, everything changed.”

“I took one look into Logan’s eyes and it was all over,” Abby added. “Of course, I didn’t tell him that. I didn’t even tell myself.”

“But then you realize that even though you’re scared of making another mistake, you don’t even want to think about living without him,” Natalie said huskily. “I think Max was just as stunned as I was when he asked me to marry him.”

“But you didn’t give him a chance to take it back, did you?” Lily teased. “I didn’t with Tony, either.”

“So will you do it?” Abby asked Rachel. “Will you be in our weddings? We need you. This all started last summer. Remember? When we all sat around at our class reunion, talking about how miserable we were?”

“So we changed our lives and found the happiness we’d always been looking for,” Lily said. “You have to be a part of our weddings, Rachel. We all encouraged one another that day. The four of us have to stick together.”

“But nothing’s changed in my life,” she replied. “I still want a baby. Just a baby. No husband. No one to lie to me and pretend he wants the same thing I do.”

“Not everyone is like Jason,” Abby pointed out quietly. “There are good, honest men out there. I know. We know. We all found one.”

“They’re out there,” Lily told her. “You just have to give yourself a chance to meet one.”

“No,” she said flatly. “I can’t. I’ll never trust a man again.”

“Oh, sweetie, don’t say that!”

“It’s the truth,” she retorted. “You know how much I wanted a baby. I spent years trying to get pregnant. And all the time, Jason knew it was never going to happen. Do you have any idea how devastated I was when I found out he’d had a vasectomy before we got married? I cried in his arms every time I had a period! How could I have been such a fool?”

“Don’t you dare beat yourself up for what that man did,” Natalie said. “He was the fool, Rachel. Not you.”

“That’s right,” Abby said, “You’ll make a wonderful mother. Go have a baby if you want one. You don’t need a man for that—just his sperm.”

“Go to a sperm bank in Austin,” Lily suggested. “You can pick out the height, coloring and intelligence of your baby’s father and never have to even meet him. Of course, you won’t get any financial support and you’ll have to go through the pregnancy alone, but we’ll be there for you. And you make good money with the bakery, don’t you? You can do this, Rachel.”

“At least you won’t have to worry about someone you want no part of having an influence on your child,” Natalie said. “If you’re sure you just want a baby and no father to go with it, then a sperm bank would be the way to go.”

They weren’t saying anything she hadn’t thought of herself, but something squeezed her heart at the idea of lying on an examining table and being impregnated so impersonally. “I don’t know if I could do that,” she admitted honestly. “It just sounds so…”

“Clinical?” Lily supplied for her. “You’re right. It does. But if you don’t want a man…”

“Just because I can’t trust a man enough to have one in my life doesn’t mean I can’t get pregnant by one…then walk away.”

Silence fell like a stone. “I’ve surprised you,” she said quietly.

“Could you do that?” Natalie asked, curious. “Could you meet a man, have sex with him and get pregnant, then just walk away?”

For the last few months, Rachel had asked herself that same question more times than she could count. And the answer was always the same. “I don’t know,” she said honestly. “I guess we’ll find out.”

Chapter 1

Standing before the large round mirror of her antique dresser, Rachel studied herself with a critical eye. She never had been what she would call a girlie-girl. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d painted her fingernails, and she wasn’t one of those women who spent hours in front of the mirror, messing with her hair. Half the time, she twisted it up on top of her head, clipped it out of the way, and walked out the door without even looking at it twice. Lipstick was an afterthought, perfume was the smell of sugar and yeast that clung to her from the bakery. She wore jeans and a baker’s smock to work, and given the chance, tennis shoes.

So how was she supposed to dress to attract a man? she wondered wildly. It had been so long since she’d had a date that she didn’t even know where to begin.

More blush, she decided, frowning at her pale, reflected image. She needed more color in her face…and jewelry. Her neck looked bare, her earlobes naked. What did the kids call it now days? Bling-bling. That was what she needed. All she had, however, was a simple gold locket that her grandmother had given her. Would that date her? Or make her look like some kind of innocent who’d been living in a convent?

Undecided, she slipped it on, then added blush to her cheeks and painted on red lipstick. Stepping back, she frowned at her reflection. The woman who stared back at her in the mirror was a stranger. Dressed in red, her dark hair tumbling around her shoulders, she looked hot, sultry, sexy.

It was the dress, she decided. There was no question that it was designed to appeal to a man. It hugged her slender figure and ever so slightly dipped between her breasts, revealing just a hint of cleavage. Paired with strappy, spiked sandals, the dress gave her the look of a woman on the prowl.

Suddenly having second thoughts, Rachel seriously considered chickening out right there and then. Maybe Abby and Lily and Natalie were right. There was another way to have a baby. What difference did it make if she actually met her baby’s father? It wasn’t as if she would have a chance to learn that much about his character. She was never going to see the man again.

She wanted a baby, not a relationship, she reminded herself. And with a sperm bank, she wouldn’t have to worry about some man calling all the time, wanting to get to know her—and his baby—better. All she wanted was his sperm. So what if it was clinical? What could be more clinical than picking a stranger out of a bar to be the father of her baby?

Don’t second guess yourself now, a voice in her head warned. You don’t have a lot of choices here, you know. Unless you want to get pregnant the old-fashioned way—by a man you fall in love with—you’ve only got two options. The sperm bank or seducing a stranger. If you want to know for sure that the father of your baby is not only intelligent, but a kind and caring man, then don’t you think you’d better meet him face-to-face?

Her heart stopped dead at the thought. Could she really pull this off? What if he guessed what she was up to? Any man in his right mind would be furious, and she couldn’t say she’d blame him. She intended to use him in the worst way a woman could use a man, but she truly had no other choice. She’d already tried the fairy tale, love and marriage, but there’d been no baby to make three.

And during the years of their marriage, Jason had made sure that she’d known who was to blame for that. She was the one whose hormones were out of whack. She was the one who was somehow deficient and didn’t have what it took to have a baby. And she’d believed the lying jackass.

The day she’d discovered the truth, she’d walked out. How could she have loved a man like that and never realized what a monster he was? How could she have been so blind? She’d promised herself then that she was done with men, with lies, with trust. Never again would she place her hopes and dreams in anyone else’s hands but her own.

She wanted a baby, and she didn’t have a clue how long it would take to get pregnant. Months? Years? The constant tick of her biological clock echoed in her ears at the thought. The women in her family had all gone into menopause by the time they reached forty. If she ran out of time…

Pain squeezing her heart at the thought, she grabbed her purse and turned her back on the woman in the mirror. When she locked her front door and slipped behind the wheel of her VW Bug a few minutes later, she tried to convince herself she was doing the right thing. All she had to do was shut her brain and conscience off and go after what she wanted. Other women did it all the time. So could she.

Of course, she’d been telling herself that for months, long before Lily and Natalie and Abby had called last week and asked her to be in their weddings, and she’d yet to do anything. And who could blame her? She was going to have sex with a stranger in order to get pregnant! And that wasn’t something she did lightly. On top of that, the father of her child had to be someone special. Someone who was caring and kind and smart, someone any child would love to claim as his father. And she’d decided there was only one place where she could find such a paragon…in a hospital. The father of her child needed to be a doctor.

Still, even after she’d come to that conclusion, she’d done nothing. Then she’d turned thirty-five on Monday, and she’d felt time slipping through her fingers, time she would never get back. And she’d known she couldn’t wait any longer. She had to do something. Now.

The man she was looking for wasn’t in Hunter’s Ridge, Texas. The town was too small, barely eight thousand people, and ever since she’d moved there five years ago and started running her grandmother’s bakery, she’d met just about every inhabitant of the place. The only doctors in town were pushing retirement and happily married to little white-haired old ladies. If she wanted to find someone, she would have to go into Austin.

The city was forty miles and a world away. No one knew her there, but her pounding heart took little comfort in that as she drove toward the city lights. She was about to make one of the most important moves of her life, and she was a nervous wreck. Her palms were sweating, her mouth dry, and every instinct she had urged her to turn the car around and race back to Hunter’s Ridge. In her head, however, she could hear her biological clock ticking. Her chin set at a determined angle, she headed for the medical center.

The bar she chose was trendy and popular, and a friend who was a nurse had told her that if she wanted to meet a doctor, this was the place to go. It was one of the favorite watering holes of residents and medical students alike. As Rachel pulled into the parking lot, she could well believe it. She couldn’t find a single parking space and had to park on the street.

Cutting the motor, she stepped from her car, her heart skipping every other beat. It was game time, she thought grimly. No more excuses, no more procrastinating. If she really wanted a baby, this was her chance. All she had to do was walk inside the bar and find a man who met her requirements for a father, then seduce him.

It should have been easy. The second she walked through the front door, she drew every male eye in the place. All she had to do was smile, find a seat at the bar and wait for someone to join her.

She didn’t have to wait long. “Hey, sweetheart,” a tall, dark-haired man greeted her with a leering grin as he sauntered up to the bar. “I bet you could use a drink. Bartender, the lady would like a beer.”

Taking a position just inches away from her, he never touched her, but he didn’t have to. He stroked her with his eyes, letting his gaze dip to her breasts, the curve of her waist and hips, then focusing on her mouth in a way that made Rachel’s skin crawl.

Just barely suppressing a shiver of distaste, she said, “Thanks, anyway, but I don’t like beer.”

“No problem,” he said smoothly, his eyes once again dropping to her breasts. “I appreciate a lady with class. How about a glass of wine? Champagne? You name it, it’s yours.”

She could have him if she wanted him—the offer was right there in his beady little eyes. Okay, here’s your chance, the irritating voice of reason drawled mockingly in her head. Just how desperate are you to have a baby?

Not as desperate as she’d thought, she realized. Not tonight, anyway. “Actually, I’m waiting for someone,” she said stiffly. “Thanks, anyway.”

His eyes narrowed with irritation, and for a moment, she thought he was going to refuse to accept no for an answer. Then a tall redhead walked in wearing a skirt that could only generously be called a mini. Just that easily, he lost interest in Rachel and moved to intercept the other woman.

Shaken, Rachel gave serious consideration to walking out then and there. But she’d known this wasn’t going to be easy. One of the disadvantages of looking for a father for her baby in a bar was that she would have to deal with bar flies who thought they were modern-day Casanovas. Okay, she’d dealt with her first one. She could do this.

Drawing in a calming breath, she ordered a Coke from the bartender, then waited to see which man in the crowded bar would step forward next. The place was packed with people in the medical field—she caught bits and snippets of conversation all around her about patients and surgeries and long hours of work and study. She tried to take comfort in the fact that she was in the right place. Surely somewhere in the happy-hour crowd had to be a decent man. The trick was finding him.

Later, she couldn’t have said how many men approached her over the course of the next hour. It seemed like dozens, though in reality it couldn’t have been more than seven or eight. And although most of them weren’t nearly as obnoxious as the first man who’d approached her, they either drank more than she liked, weren’t particularly attractive or didn’t seem to be as kind and caring as she’d hoped for. Discouraged, she sent them packing one by one.

By nine-thirty, the crowd had thinned significantly. The bartender told her that the second wave came in after eleven, when there was a shift change at the six hospitals in the area, but she couldn’t wait that long. She’d done nothing but sit at the bar and visit with the men who’d approached her, but she couldn’t remember the last time she’d been so stressed. She was exhausted. And if tonight was any indication of things to come, finding a man to father her baby was going to be far more difficult than she’d originally anticipated. And she readily admitted she was worried.

Concerned, her stomach tied in knots, she kicked off her strappy high heels the second she got in her car and headed home barefoot. When the lights and the traffic of the city faded in her rearview mirror, she sighed in relief as she reached the deserted streets of Hunter’s Ridge. She really did love living in a small town. There was no fancy mall, no movie theater, and the sidewalks were rolled up at seven every night, but every time she drove down the familiar tree-lined streets, she felt as if she was driving back in time.

Tonight was no different. As she headed down Main Street, there wasn’t another soul in sight…except John Quinn, the deputy sheriff, who was making his rounds through the four-block downtown area. He grinned and nodded a greeting as she passed, then continued on his way. John was on patrol, she thought with a smile as she turned down her street. All was right with the world.

She’d left her porch light on, as well as a floor lamp in the living room, and in the darkness, her house looked warm and welcoming as she drove down the street. When she’d first moved to Hunter’s Ridge after she and Jason divorced, she’d almost bought a house in one of the new subdivisions on the outskirts of town. She was starting her life over and she’d thought she wanted something fresh and new she could make completely hers. Then a house right around the corner from her grandmother’s bakery came up for sale, and she’d stopped by to look at it. It was well over a hundred years old, had twelve-foot ceilings and aged plank flooring that bore the heel marks of countless generations that had come before. The kitchen was too small, the wiring needed to be updated, and there was no such thing as insulation in its walls, but the second she stepped inside, she’d fallen in love. She’d bought it on the spot.

The kitchen was still too small and keeping the place warm in the winter was no easy task, but given the chance, she would have bought it again in a heartbeat. Her only complaint was that the house next door was a rental that had not only fallen into disrepair but had been empty for more than a year. The owner had put it up for sale months ago, but as far as she knew, no one had even looked at the place.

As she pulled into her driveway, her headlights swept across the face of the house next door, and she hit her brakes in surprise at the sight of the lights blazing in the naked windows. Someone had moved in? When? She hadn’t even realized it had been sold.

Curious, she grabbed her high-heeled sandals and stepped out of the car, her eyes trained on the long windows of the Victorian house next door. There wasn’t a curtain or blind in sight, and standing in the darkness, she could easily see a man working in the living room. He was tall, but his back was to her as he tore Sheetrock off the walls. Covered in dust, his head covered with a ball cap, he could have been anywhere from thirty to a hundred and five.

If it hadn’t been nearly ten o’clock at night, she would have knocked on his door and welcomed him to the neighborhood. But he was busy and it was late—her grandmother would be calling any second.

The thought had hardly registered when her cell phone rang. The new neighbor forgotten, she reached for her phone as she unlocked her front door. “Hi, Gran,” she said in amusement. “I’m safe at home. You can stop worrying.”

“No, I can’t!” Evelyn Martin retorted. “I’ve been a nervous wreck all evening. So tell me everything. Are you okay? Tell me you didn’t do anything!”

“I’m fine,” she assured her. “Really.”

“Fine, my eye,” her grandmother retorted. “If you were fine, you never would have come up with this harebrained idea. I should have called your mother.”

Alarmed, she warned, “Gran, you promised!”

“I know, but I’m worried, darn it! I’m afraid some creep is going to hurt you or kill you and give you some awful disease. And then what? How am I going to explain that to your mother? She never liked me, you know. She’ll blame me, and then Ted will have to side with her and I’ll never see him again.”

Sinking down into her favorite easy chair, Rachel fought a smile. “Mom would never try to come between you and Dad. You know that. And I don’t know why you think she doesn’t like you. She really respects you a great deal. You started your own business when most women didn’t even know how to balance a checkbook.”

“I had to. We would have lost everything after Clarence died if I hadn’t gone to work. And Ted would have had to go live with Clarence’s aunt Myrtle, and he would have hated that. The woman starched her underwear, for heaven’s sake, and smoked cigars!”

Rachel grinned. “I hate that I never met her. She sounds like a real character. A lot like you, Gran.”

“I don’t starch my underwear.”

She chuckled at her grandmother’s indignant tone, then sobered. “No, but you do your own thing. And that’s what I’m doing. If I’d thought you were going to go tattling to Mom, I never would have told you my plans. You promised, Gran.”

Evelyn Martin was big on promises, and they both knew it. “Okay,” she huffed, “I won’t tell her. It’s your story to tell, not mine. But I still think you shouldn’t rush into this. There are a lot of nice men out there. In fact, there’s someone I want you to meet….”

“Oh, no, you don’t,” Rachel said quickly. “You’re not setting me up again. Remember what happened the last time you tried that? He was a kid, Gran. Barely twenty-two! I felt like his mother!”

Far from apologetic, Evelyn laughed gaily. “There’s nothing wrong with younger men, sweetie. Your grandfather was three years younger than me.”

“Three I could handle. We’re talking thirteen, Gran! He still lived with his parents.”

“Get them young, you can raise them up the way you want,” she retorted, only to laugh when Rachel just huffed in frustration. “Okay, okay, so he was a little young. This one’s not. I think he’s around your age. You’ll like him. He’s cute and clever. If he was a little older, I’d go after him myself.”

“Gran!”

“Well, it’s true. Always appreciate a good man, Rachel, regardless of their age.”

“I do,” she replied. “They’re just few and far between.”

“Actually, they’re more common than you think,” her grandmother told her. “You just can’t see them because of Jason. And who can blame you? What that man did to you was criminal! He lied to you for seven years. No one in their right mind would blame you for hating his guts. Just don’t paint all men with the same brush, sweetheart. Give them a chance.”

“I do give them a chance.”

“Yeah, right,” Evelyn laughed. “Sweetie, I’ve seen you whenever a customer gets a little friendly. You’ve got No Trespassing signs posted all over you.”

“I do not!”

“Remember that in the morning when Robert shows up at the bakery.”

“What? In the morning? C’mon, Gran, give me a little time to at least prepare myself.”

“You’ll do fine,” her grandmother assured her. “Just be nice. He’s a lovely boy. You’ll like him. Now, go to bed, sweetheart. You’ve got to look your best in the morning. Call me after you meet him.”

“But—”

The line went dead, leaving her sputtering. With a groan of frustration, she shut her cell phone with a click and didn’t know if she wanted to laugh or cry. Dammit, she should have seen this coming. When she’d told her grandmother her plan to find a nice medical student to father a baby for her, Evelyn had been nothing but supportive. That only should have been enough to set off Rachel’s alarm bells. Her grandmother might be eccentric and outrageous at times, but when it came to family, she was a strict traditionalist. She believed in love and marriage, then babies.

Which was why Rachel had been so surprised when her grandmother hadn’t given her much grief over her plan to have a baby. She should have known better, she thought wryly. The only reason Evelyn had gone along with her was because, no doubt, she planned to introduce her to every known bachelor within a hundred miles of Hunter’s Ridge before she had a chance to get pregnant. And all Rachel could do was grin and bear it. Her grandmother loved her—she just wanted the best for her. How could Rachel fault her for that?

She would, she promised herself, be nice tomorrow morning when Robert, the lovely boy Evelyn wanted her to meet, put in an appearance. Then she would make it very clear to him that as much as she appreciated him humoring her grandmother, she was currently taking a break from the dating scene. If he was as nice as Evelyn claimed, he would wish her luck, have coffee and a Danish on her, then be on his way with her grandmother being none the wiser.

Pleased that she would be ready for the charm of the unknown Robert, she stripped off her dating finery, took a quick shower to wash off the smell of cigarette smoke that clung to her from the bar, then fell into bed with a tired sigh. It was going on eleven—she should have been in bed two hours ago. She was exhausted, and her eyes drifted shut before her head ever hit the pillow.

Next door, the lights from her new neighbor glowed in the darkness, and the sound of someone hammering floated on the night air. Already dreaming, Rachel never noticed.

The alarm went off at the ungodly hour of four in the morning. Already awake, Rachel hit the off button and rolled out of bed. She’d always been a morning person, but adjusting to the early hours of a baker had been difficult, even for her. When she’d first moved to Hunter’s Ridge to take over the bakery for her grandmother, she’d fallen asleep over dinner every night for the first three months. She was better now—she could occasionally stay up as late as eleven, but she’d learned early on that she had to hit the ground running when the alarm went off in the morning, or she’d sleep right through the breakfast rush.

In the kitchen, her coffeemaker clicked on. By the time the smell of brewing coffee drifted through the house, she was dressed and fighting with her hair. Wild and untamed, it had to be pulled back into a loose ponytail, then braided. After that, all she needed was mascara and a little lip gloss and she was ready. Taking time only to fill her travel mug with coffee, she headed for work.

She loved the morning, loved walking to work, regardless of the weather. She wouldn’t have risked being out on the streets at that hour of the morning in Austin or any other major city in the country, but Hunter’s Ridge was different. The last major crime wave to hit the town was three years ago, when a group of high school boys soaped the car windows of the high school principal and a dozen or so unpopular teachers. And yes, there was an occasional burglary, though those were few and far between. Most people didn’t feel the need to lock their cars at night, and some didn’t even lock their front doors. Rachel couldn’t think of a safer place in the country to live…or raise children.

That thought brought her back to her quest for a sperm donor—and her grandmother’s determination to find her a good man to marry instead. Did the unknown Robert know what her grandmother was planning for him? It didn’t matter. She wasn’t looking for a husband, or even someone to fall in love with. Robert, regardless of how nice he was, would have to be sent packing.

She wouldn’t be rude, she assured herself as she reached the bakery and unlocked the front door. She’d just be…reserved. And busy, of course, she silently added as she flipped on lights, then hurried to the back to get started on the day’s baking. After all, the mornings were the busiest time of the day for her. She was a baker, for heaven’s sake! Surely the man would realize that she didn’t have time to sit around and visit.

The rest of the morning crew arrived then— Sissy, Mick and Jenny—and for the next hour and a half, she had no time to even think about the unknown Robert and her grandmother’s plans to find her a man. There were fresh doughnuts to make and glaze, not to mention the pastries, bread and muffins the bakery was famous for. Up to her elbows in flour, Rachel was in her element.

As a child, she’d loved visiting her grandmother, standing on a chair at her side in the bakery kitchen, learning the ins and outs of how to make a piecrust that was flaky and tender and melted in your mouth. She’d made her first pie when she was six, using a recipe that had been handed down from mother to daughter to granddaughter for generations in her grandmother’s family.

If things turned out the way she hoped, she thought with a wistful smile, one day she’d have the opportunity to continue that same tradition with her own daughter.

She could just see her now, her dark curls tumbling down her back, an apron that was too big for her tied around her tiny waist as she stood next to her, rolling out the dough with fierce concentration. She’d have dimples…and blue eyes that danced with mischief and merriment….

Caught up in the fantasy, Rachel couldn’t have lost track of time even if she’d wanted to. It was barely six, and her first customers of the day were waiting out on the bakery’s old-fashioned porch for her to open for business. Promptly at six, she unlocked the front door and welcomed them in. Then the madness began.

She loved waiting on her customers, loved greeting them by name and sharing part of the morning with them. She knew their likes and dislikes, who was on a diet and who wasn’t, who liked soda instead of coffee, who had to rush to work, and who could sit at one of the sidewalk tables on the front porch and watch Main Street slowly come awake.

“Good morning, John. A dozen chocolate-covered doughnuts this morning?” she asked the deputy sheriff, who came in every morning to buy doughnuts for the sheriff’s department. “How about a cup of coffee to go?”

His weathered face folded into a broad grin. “You know me too well, Rachel. Better add a dozen glazed, too. It’s a two-doughnut day.”

“You got it,” she chuckled, and boxed up his order for him.

Thirty minutes after she opened the bakery for business, all the tables were full, and there was a line of customers out the door. Delighted, Rachel laughed and joked and completely forgot about the new man her grandmother had arranged for her to meet. Then suddenly, a stranger stepped up to counter and she knew this had to be Robert.

Surprised, she couldn’t have said what she’d been expecting, but it wasn’t the man standing in front of her. He was tall and lean, with a rugged face and the bluest eyes she’d ever seen. After Jason’s betrayal, she’d been convinced that there wasn’t a man on earth who would ever get her attention again. But one look at Robert, and her heart lurched in her breast.

Shocked, irritated, she almost asked Sissy to wait on him, but her pride wouldn’t let her do that. Thankful he couldn’t hear the pounding of her heart, she forced a smile. “Hi. Gran said you’d be coming in this morning. You’re a sweetheart to humor her, but I’m not really interested. It’s nothing personal,” she added quickly when he lifted a dark brow in surprise. “I’m just not looking for a man right now. How about a pastry instead? Take your pick. It’s my treat. Okay?”

Chapter 2

Turk Garrison liked to think he was a man who could think fast on his feet. And it didn’t take an Einstein to know that the counter woman who had just dismissed him so pleasantly obviously had mistaken him for someone else. He should have told her he wasn’t who she thought he was, buy the doughnut and coffee he’d come in for, then be on his way. But there were some situations a man just couldn’t walk away from, and this was one of them.

Pressing his hand to his heart, he gave her a wounded look. “I don’t understand. How can you not be interested? I’m not bad-looking, everyone tells me I’m a lot of fun, and I don’t pick my teeth. C’mon. Give me a chance.”

Every customer in the place was listening, and more than a few were having a hard time holding back smiles. That only encouraged him more. “Ask anybody here,” he told her. “They’ll tell you the same thing. We could be perfect for each other, but you’re not even giving me the time of day. Are you sure you want to do that? You could be turning down Mr. Wonderful.”

“That’s right, Rachel,” an older, bald gentleman seated at a nearby table said with twinkling eyes. “At least talk to the man.”

So her name was Rachel. And she blushed beautifully. She was starting to look more than a little trapped, and Turk knew he’d taken the joke far enough. “It’s okay,” he said, grinning. “I’m not him.”

Confused, she frowned. “What?”

“You’ve got me confused with someone else. I don’t even know your grandmother.”

For a moment, she just stood there. Then he watched mortification flare in her pretty blue eyes. “Oh, God! You’re not Robert? I’m so sorry! I thought—”

“No problem,” he said easily. “I don’t know who Robert is, but I’m glad I’m not him. So when are we going out? I’ve got tickets to the Stones concert Saturday night. Say the word and I’ll pick you up at six…I just need your address.”

He gave her a boyish grin that he had, no doubt, been flashing at females since the first one cooed at him in his mother’s arms. And Rachel had to admit that it was damned effective. Dazed, she couldn’t take her eyes from the crooked, enticing curve of his sensuous mouth.

Hello? Anybody home? Have you lost your mind? You’re staring at the man like he just hung the moon!

The irritating little voice that whispered in her head got through to her as nothing else could. Swallowing a curse, she stiffened. What the heck was wrong with her? She didn’t do this, didn’t drool over a man as if she’d never seen one before…especially after the way Jason had betrayed her. The only man she wanted was a stranger she could walk away from after a one-night stand. If this man lived in Hunter’s Ridge, he wouldn’t be a stranger long, and she only had to see the mischief dancing in his eyes to know he wasn’t the kind a woman walked away from easily. The charmers never were.

“Sorry,” she retorted coolly. “I’m busy Saturday night. I have to do my laundry.”

She could have done her laundry any time and the glint in his eye told her he knew it. But he accepted the excuse with a shrug and a grin. “Shot down again. Damn, I hate it when that happens. But that’s okay. I’ll just have to ask again when you’re not so busy. See you around, sweetcakes.”

Flashing his dimples at her, he stuffed a tip in the tip jar, grabbed his coffee and the doughnut she’d sacked for him, and walked out with an easy animal grace that Rachel couldn’t help but appreciate. She wasn’t the only one. When she finally blinked back to attention, every other woman in the bakery was watching the long, tall drink of water saunter out of the bakery.

“I’ll have some of that,” Dixie Hicks sighed dreamily from a nearby table. “He’s cute.”

Next in line at the counter, Hilda Stevens cackled, “He certainly is. Reminds me of my third husband. I never should have let him go—he was a fantastic lover.”

Three years past eighty and showing no signs of slowing down, Hilda loved nothing more than talking about her ex-husbands…and shocking people. Amused, Rachel just rolled her eyes. “Now, Hilda, you know I can’t let you talk about the exes. We’ve got schoolkids here….”

“Oh, they’re trying to decide what doughnuts they want,” she scoffed. “They’re not paying any attention to an old woman.”

“Kids hear everything, Hilda. You know that.”

“They’re not going to hear the good stuff. Anyway, this is about you, not me. Why didn’t you take that boy up on his invitation? I’m not interested,” she mimicked, scowling. “Of course you’re interested! He was cute as a button. Maybe you’re working too hard. I think I need to talk to your grandmother.”

“No!” She was already getting enough grief from her grandmother—she didn’t need more! “I appreciate your concern, Hilda, but I don’t need help from Gran or anyone else. I can get my own dates.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” the older woman retorted. “Look what you just let walk out the door!”

It had been a long time since a woman had turned him down for a date, Turk Garrison thought with a grin as he headed back to his house. His timing must have been off. That was okay—he’d ask her again. He knew where she worked. Even if he hadn’t, he could walk the length and breadth of Hunter’s Ridge in less than an hour. Finding her again wouldn’t be a problem.

And that’s what he loved about Hunter’s Ridge…its size. He’d grown up in Dallas, in the shadow of his father, who was one of the most well-known heart surgeons in the city, and all he’d ever wanted to be was a small-town doctor like his grandfather. For his father’s sake, however, he’d tried to follow in his footsteps, but he’d hated it. He’d given it two years—that was all he could manage. Now he was going to do what he wanted to do.

Have you lost your mind? What kind of career can you have in a small town? There’s no future there. No money! You’ve got the hands of a heart surgeon. It’s in your blood! You can’t walk away from that to play Marcus Welby in Small Town, America! It’s insane.

His father had never been one to pull his punches, and he certainly hadn’t when he’d informed him last month that he intended to resign from his father’s practice and open his own clinic in Hunter’s Ridge. He’d ranted and raved and tried to reason with him, and when that hadn’t worked, he’d used his most powerful weapon—Janice, Turk’s mother.

To her credit, his mother had sympathized with his dream of having a less-complicated life and practice. But ultimately, she, too, had stressed how much he would be giving up if he chose Hunter’s Ridge over Dallas…wealth, prestige, professional affiliations with some of the top surgeons in the country. How could he give that up? Why would he want to?

Watching a family of ducks walk across River Road to the river, Turk would never understand how his parents understood him so little. There was no question that his father was successful when it came to making money—but he often passed patients on the street and didn’t have a clue who they were. Turk’s grandfather, on the other hand, not only knew his patients, he knew their children, their hopes and fears, their birthdays and anniversaries and where they planned to be buried.

That was what Turk wanted, what he intended to have.

Even though he’d told his parents he was settling in Hunter’s Ridge, they hadn’t really believed he’d leave Dallas and turn his back on the kind of career he could have there. That, however, is exactly what he’d done. He’d found office space in the town’s newest—and only—strip mall, spent the last two weeks hiring staff and advertising the fact that Hunter’s Ridge had a new doctor in town. The clinic opened for business tomorrow, and it was only three blocks from his house. He’d be able to walk to work every day.

“You’re not in Dallas anymore, Doc,” he told himself with a grin. And that was never more apparent than when he strolled up the front walk to his house.

There was no doubt that it was a fixer-upper. A block off Main Street, it was a hundred years old and looked it. It hadn’t been painted in years, the gutters were drooping, and there was more than one rotting eave that needed to be replaced. The wiring was iffy, the plumbing hadn’t been updated in fifty years, and the pier-and-beam foundation obviously needed some major adjustments—windows and doors throughout the house didn’t shut properly. But the place had good bones. It had ten-foot ceilings, crown molding and stained glass, and it reminded him of his grandparents’ house. He’d taken one look at it and bought it on the spot.

His friends and family thought he was crazy, but he was doing much of the work himself. He enjoyed the physical labor and liked the idea of putting his own stamp on the place. He’d been tearing out Sheetrock almost from the moment he’d moved in two days ago. Once he had it all out, he’d have to bring in an electrician and plumber and a foundation repairman, but in the meantime, he was having a hell of a good time.

Unlocking the front door, he stepped inside and grinned. His mother would have had a stroke if she could see the way he was living. It would be months before the house was no longer a construction zone, so he’d placed all his furniture in storage, then bought a few secondhand pieces to use in the house during the remodeling. He had an old wooden straight chair and a TV tray that he used in the kitchen, a scarred bed and dresser in the huge master bedroom, and an ancient recliner in the living room. And everywhere he looked, there was a fine coating of Sheetrock dust. And he’d just started tearing it out. He could just imagine what the place was going to look like in a few weeks.

From the backyard, Daisy, his yellow Lab, knew the instant he walked into the kitchen. She gave a sharp bark at the back door, but he only laughed. “Oh, no, you don’t,” he called through the door. “I want to work on the Sheetrock, and if I let you in, I won’t get a thing done. Wait a second. I’ve got a treat for you.”

He found a steak bone in the refrigerator from last night’s dinner and opened the back door to offer it to Daisy. She wasn’t a pig when it came to snacks—taking the bone very delicately, she turned and trotted into her doghouse. Turk knew she wouldn’t come out again until the bone was history. Grinning, he grabbed his hammer and nail puller and went to work.

Five hours later, he had a mess on his hands. The floor in the master bedroom was a foot deep with broken pieces of Sheetrock and enough dust to choke a horse. And that was just from the demolition of one wall. Pleased, he attacked the debris on the floor with a commercial broom and dustpan, then spent the next thirty minutes carting it all out to the Dumpster. When he finished, one wall was bare of Sheetrock, and the floor was broom-clean.

Planning to start on the west wall of the bedroom next, he’d just walked into the kitchen to see about making a sandwich for a late lunch when he heard Daisy barking angrily in the backyard. Surprised—she was usually pretty mild-mannered—he glanced out the kitchen window just in time to see her chase a cat across the backyard. A split second later, the cat—and Daisy—sailed over the back fence without ever breaking stride.

“What the hell!” Jerking open the back door, he yelled “Daisy! Get your butt back in this yard right this minute!”

He might as well have told the wind not to blow. Daisy never looked back.

“Damn!” Swearing, he took off after her.

Later, he couldn’t have said how many streets he ran down, how many times he came so close to catching her that he could see the mischief dancing in her eyes. Then she would take off again, barking in excitement at the game. Huffing and puffing, he had no choice but to follow. Hunter’s Ridge had a leash law, but that was the least of his worries. He loved the goofball and it’d break his heart if she darted into the road and got hit.

Ten minutes later, he came around a corner and spied her standing in the front yard of a house that was very much like his, but beautifully restored. At first, he thought Daisy had mistaken the place for home…then, as he drew closer, he realized that she was too busy eating something to notice the house—or the fact that he was quickly bearing down on her.

Relieved, he grabbed her collar. “Gotcha!” Only then did he realize that she hadn’t dug up a bone somewhere. She was eating a cherry pie!

“Daisy! Oh, my God! Where’d you get that?”

Glancing sharply around, he spied a table on the side porch of the house they stood right in front of. There were two other pies cooling there. Swearing, he gave Daisy a reproving look. “Shame on you! This isn’t the way to meet the neighbors! Or potential patients! Now what are we going to do?”

Totally unconcerned, Daisy licked her chops as she finished the rest of her pie.

“C’mon,” Turk growled, tightening his grip on her collar. “It’s time to fess up.”

Bracing for a tongue-lashing—Daisy hadn’t just snatched any pie; it was a homemade one!—he knocked on the door, then waited. Through the frosted oval glass of the front door, Turk could just make out the blurred figure of a woman approaching. “Wipe that smile off your face,” he told Daisy quickly. “At least try to look contrite.”

The words were hardly out of his mouth when the door was pulled open and he found himself facing an older, white-haired woman with rounded cheeks, a quick smile and faded blue eyes that seemed to have a perpetual twinkle.

Her gaze moving from him to Daisy and back again, she lifted a delicately arched brow. “Yes? May I help you?”

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” he said with a rueful smile, “but I seem to owe you an apology.”

Surprised, she blinked. “I don’t think so, young man. I don’t even know you.”

“I just moved to town this week,” he explained, and held out his hand. “I’m Turk Garrison. And this is Daisy,” he added, nodding to the Lab. “She owes you an apology, too. She just ate one of your pies.”

“What?” Startled, she glanced past him to the side porch, where an empty trivet spoke of the missing pie.

Watching the emotions flicker lightning quick across her face, Turk wouldn’t have blamed her if she’d given him a piece of her mind. Daisy had wolfed down in seconds something that had, no doubt, taken her hours to make. She had every right to be furious.

Instead, she laughed. “Well, this is a first.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” she assured him. “Or Daisy’s.” Holding out her hand to the dog so she could sniff it, she grinned when Daisy licked her fingers. “I was the one who put the pies outside,” she told Turk, her blue eyes twinkling behind the lenses of her wire-rimmed glasses. “And I’ll tell right now, they smelled darn good. How was a dog supposed to resist?”

“But—”

“It was just a pie. No harm done. I can make another one.” The matter settled, she held out her hand. “I’m Evelyn Martin. Welcome to Hunter’s Ridge. How about a piece of pie for you? I just finished lunch and was about to have some dessert and coffee. We can have it out here on the porch and you can tell me all about yourself. Are you married? I’ve got a granddaughter…”

“Oh, no,” he said quickly, laughing. “Nothing against your granddaughter, but I just moved away from my woman problems. I don’t need any more. Not that your granddaughter would be a problem,” he quickly assured her. “I’m sure she’s very nice, but—”

“It’s okay,” she chuckled. “I’m not offended. You’ll change your mind if you ever meet her. In the meantime, you should know I make a darn good pie—best in the county. If you don’t believe me, ask Daisy.”

Daisy barked at the mention of her name, drawing a laugh from both of them. “I’m sure it was delicious,” Turk said wryly. “I’ve never seen her gulp down anything like she did that pie, but I’ve really got to get home. Thanks again, though, for being so understanding. Daisy and I owe you.”

“No problem,” she replied. “I’m sure I’ll see you around town. And come back when you’ve got some time. We’ll talk.”

Promising to do just that, Turk headed home with Daisy in tow, thankful that the two of them had gotten off so lightly. “You’re just darn lucky that Mrs. Martin didn’t call the dog catcher on you,” he told the Lab as they reached the house. “You could be at the pound right now and I’d be fined for disobeying the leash law.”

Far from chastised, Daisy just wandered over to her bed in the corner of the living room and collapsed with a heartfelt sigh. Within a matter of moments, she was snoring.

Turk rolled his eyes. “Brat. You’ve got your belly full of cherry pie and now it’s time for a nap. You don’t have to worry about anybody wanting to set you up with some cute chick. No, I’m the lucky one who gets to deal with that. Twice in one day. That’s got to be some kind of record. It must be something in the water here.”

It was more than that, however, and he knew it. Women just liked to set people up, and now that he was the new man in town, he’s was probably going to get hit a lot with that. And he could handle it, he assured himself. After dealing with Susan and Laureen, he could deal with just about anything.

He still didn’t know how he’d gotten himself into such a mess. Susan Presley was the daughter of his father’s best friend, and she and Turk had lived together for the past year and a half. He’d thought she was the woman he was going to spend the rest of his life with. Then he’d told her he was going to give up working with his father to move to Hunter’s Ridge, and she’d dropped him like a hot rock.

He was stunned and hurt. Then his friends had convinced him the only way to get over one woman was to go out with another. So he’d asked Laureen Becker out. A nurse at the hospital, she was cute and fun and didn’t appear to be the gold digger that Susan was. Then a week after they’d gone out a couple of times, she’d told everyone at the hospital that they were engaged.

Turk’s gut knotted just at the thought of how Laureen had reacted when he questioned her about the rumor. Not that least bit chagrined that he’d found out about the rumor and that she was the one spreading it, she only smiled and kissed him and told him of course they were getting married. She wasn’t like Susan. She knew a good man when she saw one and she’d fallen in love with him the first time she laid eyes on him. She knew he felt the same way.

He’d thought she was joking. They’d only gone out twice! And he hadn’t done anything more than kiss her, and his heart hadn’t been in that. He couldn’t tell her that, of course—he wasn’t that insensitive. So he’d tried to spare her feelings and explained instead that he was moving, starting a new life, and he was doing that alone. Any woman with an ounce of pride would have assured him she was just teasing and let the subject pass. Not Laureen. Far from discouraged, she’d laughed…then assured him that he would eventually realize they were soul-mates. He just needed time.

She’d been so confident, she’d scared the hell out of him. Left with no choice but to be brutally honest, he’d made it clear that not only were they not soul-mates, he didn’t love her, she wasn’t a part of his future, and she never would be. Then he’d broken things off with her and hadn’t spoken to her since.

That was a month ago. Considering how determined she’d seemed, he hadn’t expected her to let him walk away without a fight. But that’s exactly what she’d done. There’d been no phone calls, no letters, no more rumors that they were engaged. She’d avoided him like the plague, thank God, and he’d left Dallas without contacting her again. It was over.

Then, she’d left a message on his cell phone yesterday morning. And last night. And both messages were virtually the same.

“Turk, sweetheart, how are you? I know you must be incredibly busy, setting up your practice and everything, darling, but I thought you’d call me by now. Do you miss me? I think of you constantly. I know you must do the same. Isn’t it awful? We have to find a way to be together, darling. Have you found us a house yet? When you do, let me know. I can decorate it for us. We’re going to have a wonderful home, sweetheart. Think of that, think of me, in the dark of night, when you’re all alone and missing me. We’ll be together soon, darling. I promise. Then we’ll never have to be apart again. I love you. I don’t need to tell you that—you already know. Call me when you can.”

He should have called her and made it clear once and for all that she was wasting her time—he wanted nothing to do with her. But there was something in her voice that turned his blood to ice. Something that set alarm bells clanging in his head. Something that wasn’t quite right. And for the life of him, he couldn’t put his finger on what it was…confidence, determination, insanity. Whatever it was, he knew he wanted nothing to do with it…or her. Immediately calling his cell phone company, he changed his cell phone number.

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