Stories of family and romance beneath the Big Sky!

When had touching Summer, holding her, begun to feel so right?

Scowling at the thought, Gavin tried to convince himself he was imagining things. Their marriage was a business arrangement, nothing more or less, and even if it hadn’t been, he wasn’t looking for a relationship.

But knowing that and remaining indifferent to Summer were two different things.

Continuing to scowl, he vowed to keep his hands to himself from that moment on, and just that easily, he set himself an impossible task. Because now that he’d decided not to touch her, she only had to shift slightly in her seat beside him for him to want her.

It was, he decided grimly, going to be a long year.

Nighthawk’S Child
Linda Turner

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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LINDA TURNER

started 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 One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Epilogue

Prologue

The previous August

G avin stared down at the message that he was wanted in his boss’s office as soon as possible and swore under his breath. He didn’t have to know what this was about to know that it wasn’t good. Whatever else Michael Preston was—and as Chief of Surgery at Whitehorn Memorial Hospital, he’d been called more than a few choice names over the years—he wasn’t insensitive to the pressure of the work his surgeons performed. He wanted them calm, cool, and collected when they walked into the operating room, so he made sure any discussions he had with his residents was restricted until after surgery. Or at least, he always had before.

But then again, he’d never had one of his surgeons accused of murder before, either.

His square-cut face set in harsh lines, Gavin was tempted to ignore Michael’s missive and to meet with him later, after surgery. Whatever beef Preston had could wait. Gavin’s patients came first with him. Since his arrest, work was the only thing that kept him sane. With the rest of his life in turmoil, he couldn’t take a chance on screwing up his residency. Scowling, he strode down the hall to Michael’s office.

Seated at his desk, the older man was waiting for him, his expression grim. Gavin greeted him with a curt nod. The nerves in his stomach clenched in a fist, but he had no intention of letting Preston or anyone else see him sweat. He’d learned the hard way to protect his thoughts. His own face impassive, he shut the door behind him and stood stiffly in front of Preston’s desk. “You wanted to see me?”

To his credit, Michael didn’t try to lighten the moment with frivolous chitchat, but instead got right to the point. “Sit down, Gavin. A situation has arisen that I think you need to be made aware of.”

He preferred to stand, but this wasn’t the time to draw lines in the sand. Dropping into the chair positioned across from Michael’s desk, he stretched his long legs out in front of him and mentally braced for whatever was about to come. “You might as well give it to me straight. This has something to do with the trial, doesn’t it?”

He didn’t bother to deny it. “You know the hospital’s policy regarding the charges against you. You’re innocent until proven guilty.”

“If you called me in here to tell me the hospital knows it’s only a matter of time before that happens, you wasted your time,” he said flatly, irritation flashing in his dark eyes. “I know the evidence looks damning, but I didn’t kill Christina Montgomery. And somehow I’m going to prove it.”

“I hope you do,” the other man said honestly. “You’re a damn fine surgeon. We need you around here. The problem, though, isn’t the administration. It’s your coworkers. More than a few of them have doubts about your innocence.”

He wasn’t telling Gavin anything he didn’t already know. He was aware of how a majority of the staff felt about him. As had most of the people in town, they’d rushed to judgment the second they’d heard he’d been charged with Christina’s murder. Trying and convicting him, they hadn’t stopped to consider the fact that all the evidence against him was circumstantial or that he wasn’t a violent man. He was a doctor, for God’s sake, and in the business of saving lives, not taking them.

And if he was going to kill someone, it certainly wouldn’t be the mother of his baby girl. He’d never loved Christina—their relationship had been little more than a one-night stand—but he certainly hadn’t hated her or wanted her dead. If anything, he’d felt sorry for her and had only tried to help her once he’d found out she was pregnant. And because of that, people now thought he was a murderer.

“I can’t control what people think,” he said curtly. “If they want to believe I’m a murderer, that’s their problem.”

Leaning back in his chair, Michael sighed heavily. “I wish it was that simple, Gavin, but it’s not. They’re refusing to work with you.”

Surprised, his dark brows snapped together in a scowl. “Who is?”

The older man gave him a speaking look. “I won’t name names, but suffice it to say, it’s enough people to create a problem with scheduling. That’s why I wanted to speak to you before you went into surgery. You can’t operate this morning. I couldn’t put together a surgical team that was willing to work with you.”

Gavin couldn’t have been more stunned if Michael had reached across the desk and backhanded him. No one wanted to work with him? How could such a thing have happened? He was a good surgeon. A damn good one! He’d worked hard to get where he was, and he was proud of that. Unlike his white colleagues, he’d come from the wrong side of the tracks—the reservation—and had to fight every step of the way to make something of himself. It hadn’t been easy. Not that he was looking for accolades, damn it, he assured himself with a scowl. He wasn’t. He just wanted some respect from his peers. And now Michael was telling him that no one wanted to work with him. So much for respect.

It was over, he thought numbly. The career he’d spent years building, all the hard work, the life he’d mapped out for himself as a leading surgeon…it was all over. Unless he could find a way to clear his name, the dreams that had gotten him through college and medical school were dead.

Disheartened, disillusioned, so frustrated he wanted to rage at the world, he could think of nothing to do but accept the inevitable. As long as he had a murder charge hanging over his head, he couldn’t work.

“I won’t quit,” he told his boss coldly. “I know there are some people in this hospital who would like to see the last of me, but I’m not quitting. I’ll take a leave of absence instead and return to work the day after I’m acquitted.”

If Michael thought there wasn’t a chance in hell of that happening, he wisely kept that to himself. Instead he nodded in agreement and rose to hold out his hand. “That’s fair enough. I wish you luck, Gavin.”

It went without saying that they both knew he was going to need it.

One

Two months later

T he Hip Hop Café was the place to be when gossip was running high, so Summer Kincaid wasn’t surprised to find the place packed to the rafters when she stopped in for lunch. Ever since Gavin Nighthawk’s arrest that was all anyone was talking about. The second Summer stepped inside, the gossip, rife with speculation, hit her right in the face.

“I always knew there was something not quite right about that boy. He always seemed so full of anger. It’s because he’s Indian, you know. He wants to be white. Everyone says so.”

“And he’s so big. I bet he killed that poor girl without even breaking a sweat.”

Across the diner, Judge Kate Randall Walker sniffed in irritation and said loudly, “That’s what’s wrong with this country. People rush to judgment without waiting to hear the facts of a case, and I think it stinks.”

Not surprisingly, that didn’t sit well with a majority of the diners, especially Lily Mae Wheeler, the queen of the town gossips and a general busybody who was, as usual, holding court from the first booth inside the door, which she considered “hers.” She’d been known to make up news on a slow day just to have something to talk about, but that wasn’t necessary today. There was nothing she enjoyed more than putting a negative spin on things and destroying someone’s reputation.

Arching a plucked brow at the judge, she narrowed beady little eyes at her. “Are you saying he’s not guilty?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Kate replied coolly. “That’s for a jury to decide. In the meantime, the man has a right to live in peace.”

Tossing her head to draw attention to her permed curls, which she’d died the outrageous color of cotton-candy pink to match what she claimed was her sweet personality, Lily Mae waved her hand and just that easily dismissed the old-fashioned notion that a man was actually innocent until proven guilty. “Well, of course you would think that. Everyone knows you’re a liberal. Personally, I don’t think Doctor Gavin Nighthawk should be allowed to walk around free, let alone with a scalpel in his hand. I certainly wouldn’t let him operate on me or someone I loved!”

Taking a seat at the counter, Summer could only privately shake her head at the asinine remark. Lily Mae had a well-known reputation for saying whatever came into her head. The more educated people in town didn’t take her seriously, but there were, unfortunately, others just like her who believed that Gavin was a dangerous man who needed to be locked away from decent society.

And that frustrated Summer no end. As a child of mixed heritage, she had, thanks to the insistence of her white aunts, spent her summers on the Laughing Horse Reservation getting to know the Native American side of her family, and there she’d had a chance to watch Gavin from afar. They’d never been close enough to even be called friends, but there’d always been something about the tall, gangly boy that she’d admired. He’d had a kindness to him that some of the other rougher boys hadn’t had, an inherent gentleness that came out whenever he came in contact with those who were weaker or slower or older and in need of help.

He had, however, never made any secret of the fact that he couldn’t wait to leave the reservation and its poverty behind. He’d had dreams, and he hadn’t let anyone or anything stand in his way. Through hard work and determination, he’d earned a full scholarship to college and left the day after he graduated from high school.

Summer had lost touch with him then and had no idea that he’d gone on to medical school, just as she had, until he’d returned to Whitehorn for his residency at the same hospital where she worked. Thrilled, she’d thought at first that fate had had a hand in bringing them back together, but it didn’t take her long to discover that there was little resemblance between the kind, gangly boy she had known on the Laughing Horse Reservation and the bitter, brooding man he had become. She didn’t know this new Gavin, and honesty forced her to admit that she wasn’t sure she wanted to. While she was comfortable with who she was and her Native American heritage, he had turned his back on his people to make a name for himself in the white man’s world, and that angered her. Still, she only had to remember the boy he had been to know that he would have never been able to take a life.

Anyone who doubted that only had to look at his work. If ever a man was born to be a surgeon, it was Gavin Nighthawk. As an immunology resident at Whitehorn Memorial Hospital, she’d observed him in the operating room numerous times and had nothing but admiration for his skill. Unlike other gifted doctors she knew, however, he wasn’t one of those arrogant, holier-than-thou surgeons who forgot about his patients once he worked his magic on them on the operating table. He truly cared about his patients and was a gifted healer.

No one seemed to remember that, however, when it came to Christina Montgomery’s murder. Before she’d died, everyone had known that she was sad and lonely and pregnant, in spite of her best efforts to hide her condition. The whole town had speculated on who the father of her baby was, but she’d taken that information with her to her grave. It wasn’t until months after her body was discovered in the woods that law enforcement officials discovered that the man who impregnated her was also the same one who’d delivered her baby and was the last one to see her alive—Gavin Nighthawk.

For months he’d kept his silence about the whereabouts of the baby and his own involvement, and that was enough to condemn him in most people’s eyes. The fact that everyone knew that he’d never cared about Christina but had turned to her on the rebound after his affair with Patricia Winthrop went sour had only made things worse.

“He’s going to prison, anyway. He might as well resign now.”

“Do you think the state will revoke his license? Do they let murderers practice medicine after they get out of jail?”

“Who said he’ll get out? He killed the mother of his baby. No jury in their right mind is going to let him off with anything less than life for that.”

All around her, people speculated on Gavin’s fate as if he was just some character on a soap opera and not a real man at all. And Summer hated it. She longed to stand up and shout at his detractors, to make them see him as he really was, but she was a quiet, unobtrusive woman, and that wasn’t her way. It wouldn’t do any good, anyway. She couldn’t control what people thought, couldn’t make them see him for the boy he had once been. To them, he was a hard, angry Indian with a chip on his shoulder who didn’t make friends easily, and they had little sympathy for his fate.

And that, more than anything, was what scared her. She’d done everything she could to help him by convincing her uncle Garrett to hire Elizabeth Gardener, one of the best lawyers in the state, to defend him, but now Summer wasn’t sure that even Elizabeth could save him. The tide of public opinion had definitely turned against him, and unless something drastic happened, he appeared to be a doomed man.

The bell on the door rang merrily then, signaling a new arrival, and everyone instinctively turned to check out the newcomer. When Gavin Nighthawk himself stepped into the café, silence fell like a rock.

“Speak of the devil.”

In the crowd that packed the restaurant, Summer couldn’t have said who made the comment, but whoever it was obviously meant for Gavin to hear it. Standing tall and proud at the entrance, his expression stony, he surveyed the throng of diners through cold, black eyes. Holding her breath, Summer wouldn’t have blamed him if he’d turned and walked out, but he was made of sterner stuff than that. Silently daring anyone to stop him, he strode down the long length of the café to the only empty table in the place.

The silence engulfing the place like a shroud broke the second he turned his back on the rest of the room and pulled out a chair. Hushed whispers flew about the café like angry bees. There was no doubt that he was the main topic of conversation, but he didn’t acknowledge the gossip by so much as a twitch of an eyebrow.

Still, Summer couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. Everywhere he went, people no doubt treated him the same, as if he was some sort of social outcast with a horrible disease, and that had to hurt. Her heart breaking for him, she glanced over at him, noted the rigid set of his shoulders, and thought she had never seen such a lonely man in her life.

A wise woman would have left him alone, but Summer had never been particularly smart when it came to Gavin. There was just something about him that always drew her to him, and she couldn’t fight it now any more than she could at the hospital, where she wandered into the operating room observation area so she could watch him work. Without a thought to the consequences, she impulsively grabbed her iced tea and flatware and joined him at his table.

She couldn’t have shocked him—or herself—more if she’d appeared in front of him naked. Glancing up from the menu Janie Austin, the manager of the café, had handed him, he scowled at her as if she’d just lost her mind. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

At his low, angry growl, Summer asked herself the same thing. He obviously wanted to stew in his aloneness, and she’d invaded his space without bothering to ask his permission. He had every right to be irritated, but she didn’t intend to let him scare her off. “Joining you for lunch,” she said quietly. “You look like you could use a friend.”

If she expected gratitude, she didn’t get it. “I’m not the kind of man you want as a friend,” he said flatly, returning his attention to the menu. “If you don’t want to be tarred and feathered for associating with a murderer, I suggest you get your cute little butt up from this table and get away from me.”

Shocked—no man had ever mentioned her butt, cute or otherwise—she felt a blush climb into her cheeks and seriously considered leaving him in peace, just as he’d suggested. But when she looked around and saw the hostile looks she was receiving from the other diners just because she’d dared to befriend him, she knew she was doing the right thing.

Stubbornly staying right where she was, she settled back in her chair and watched him try to ignore her. “So,” she asked quietly, “how is Alyssa doing?”

That brought his head up, just as she’d known it would. The citizens of Whitehorn might not think much of Gavin as a man, but none of them could dispute the fact that he was crazy about his little girl. At the mere mention of her name, his face lit up with a love that couldn’t be denied.

“Rachel and Jack are taking good care of her,” he said gruffly. “I owe them for that.”

Rachel Montgomery Henderson, Alyssa’s aunt, was, in fact, devoted to the baby. After Rachel had launched an exhaustive search for Christina’s baby last winter, Gavin had removed the child from the home of Cheyenne elder Lettie Brownbear and left her anonymously on Rachel’s doorstep with a note to take care of Alyssa until he could come for her. When he was charged with Christina’s murder and the truth came out that he was Alyssa’s father, he’d arranged for the baby to continue to stay with Rachel and her husband, Jack. The decision had been a wise one. They loved her as if she was their own and saw that she had a loving, stable home.

Still, Summer knew that it had to be difficult for Gavin, knowing that someone else was raising his child. “Do you get to see her very often?”

“As much as my schedule allows,” he began. His mouth twisted into a grimace of a smile. “Of course, that was before the hospital staff decided they couldn’t work with an accused murderer.”

“You didn’t murder Christina,” she replied with quiet confidence. “Even if you didn’t love her, she was the mother of your little girl. You would have never hurt her, let alone killed her.”

No, he wouldn’t have, but he was surprised that she realized that about him. No one else seemed to. “Tell that to a jury of my peers,” he said bitterly. “If they’re anything like the clowns in here, I’m fried.”

He tried not to think about it because it tore him in two, but the closer the trial drew, the harder it was to ignore the fact that the evidence piling up against him was damning. Thanks to the generosity of Summer’s uncle, Garrett Kincaid, he had a good attorney in Elizabeth Gardener, but he had a grim feeling that not even Elizabeth was going to be able to pull his feet out of the fire on this one. Too many people wanted to see him burn.

“I can take whatever they dish out,” Gavin continued, his face carved in harsh lines, “but Alyssa’s the one I’m worried about. If I’m convicted, I’ll either spend the rest of my life in prison or face the death penalty. Either way, Alyssa’s going to grow up without a father, and that’s not fair to her, damn it! She’s just a baby—she didn’t ask for any of this. But she’s the one paying the price for whoever killed Christina, and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it.”

He looked sick at heart, and Summer couldn’t say she blamed him. His daughter’s fate hung in the balance as much as his did, and that was the real tragedy here. Summer knew from firsthand experience what it was like to grow up without a father, and she wouldn’t wish that on anyone. Her own father, Raven, had disappeared before she was born, leaving a hole in her life that had never been filled. To this day, whenever she looked in a mirror, she searched for him in her own features. Had his eyes been almond-shaped like hers? Had his hair been the same shiny black? Was he the one she had to thank for her wide, expressive mouth and quiet personality?

Because her mother, Blanche Kincaid, had died a week after she was born and no one knew Raven the way she had, Summer had been left with a legacy of questions about her father that she would never have the answers to. Her mother’s sisters, Yvette and Celeste, had raised her in a loving home and while they had never said a bad word against Raven, they had never been able to tell her why her father had left town when he’d known her mother was pregnant with her. Had he really been paid off by her uncle Jeremiah? Was Raven Hunter the type of man who would do such a thing to the woman he claimed to love and the baby they had created together?

Her aunts didn’t think so, and Summer wanted to believe them, but deep down inside, doubts lingered that she couldn’t banish. And her heart twisted at the idea of Alyssa growing up with those same kinds of doubts. She was an innocent child. She had a right to grow up knowing that her father was an honorable man who loved her—and the right to really know him. That wasn’t going to happen if he was convicted.

Her heart breaking for both Gavin and the baby, Summer wanted to tell him to have faith that the real killer would be caught soon, but he wouldn’t thank her for what would be little more than trite words to him. In the eyes of the police and D.A.’s office, they were satisfied that they had charged the right man with the crime. If the reaction of the other diners in the café was anything to go by, just about everyone else felt the same way. Which meant Gavin’s fate was doomed.

Seated three tables over from Gavin and Summer, Audra Westwood picked at the salad she’d ordered, pretending to eat, her green eyes sparkling with glee as she avidly listened to the heated comments flying around the café. All around her, people shot Gavin Nighthawk dirty looks and grumbled about the man’s audacity. He was nothing but a cold-blooded killer, and he had no business forcing himself on decent, law-abiding citizens. If he had any kind of conscience at all, he would confess to killing the Montgomery girl and save the county the expense of an extended trial.

Hardly able to contain the smile that kept tugging at her collagen-enhanced lips, it was all Audra could do to just sit still. Everything was working out just as Lexine had predicted. In the eyes of the majority of the townspeople, Gavin was guilty as sin. Now all she had to do was keep her mouth shut and wait for the trial to start. With all the circumstantial evidence against him, not to mention public opinion, Gavin wouldn’t stand a chance. He’d be convicted and lucky if he didn’t get the death sentence.

Poor baby, she thought wickedly. That was the breaks. He’d appeal, of course, but that didn’t concern her. Once he was found guilty in a court of law, the case would be closed as far as the local police were concerned. Gavin would be shipped off to prison, gossip would die down, and with time, the murder of Christina Montgomery would be forgotten. And no one would know that the real killer still walked the streets.

Holding that knowledge deep inside like a treasure, she fairly purred with satisfaction as she leaned across the table to Micky Culver, her live-in boyfriend. “Did you hear what that man behind you just said?” she whispered. Her smile sultry, she mimicked softly, “’I’m not paying six-fifty to eat with a murdering Indian.’ Can you believe it, Mick? Everything’s going to work out just the way we want it to!”

His brown eyes hard and his mouth compressed into a flat, angry line, Micky arched a scraggly brow at her. “What do you mean ‘we’?”

Far from offended, she only laughed. “C’mon, baby, you know you don’t mean that. You don’t want anything to happen to me. You love me.”

Grudgingly, he had to admit that was true. When Audra had come to him in despair, penniless after she’d been swindled out of her inheritance by her mother’s lover, he’d thought he’d died and gone to heaven. Finally, he had a chance to prove his love for her! He’d taken her in, given her a home, and thought they would spend the rest of their lives together.

But lately he’d begun to have doubts. He’d known she was no angel—neither was he—but she was enjoying Gavin Nighthawk’s predicament more than she ought to. The man had a little girl, for God’s sake, and she needed him. But Audra didn’t seem to care about that. All she was interested in was getting her own butt out of a sling, and if that meant an innocent man would go to prison for a crime she’d committed, she didn’t seem to have a problem with that. But he did. In fact, it bothered him more and more each day.

Micky wanted to blame Audra’s cold-blooded attitude on Lexine. Ever since Audra had gotten involved with her birth mother and started visiting her in prison, she hadn’t been the same. She’d become harder and self-centered. But as much as he hated Lexine Baxter’s influence, he knew she couldn’t make Audra do anything she didn’t want to do. Audra was a grown woman, responsible for her own actions. Because of her, Gavin Nighthawk was in a tight spot, and she was delighted.

“Who are you?” he asked, truly puzzled. “I don’t know you anymore. I’m beginning to wonder if I ever did.”

“Don’t be silly.” Audra laughed, not taking him seriously. “Of course you know me, honey. I’m just like you. That’s why we get along so well.”

There’d been a time when he would have agreed with her. Neither of them had much use for the law when it got in the way of what they wanted. He’d done some time in jail and didn’t fool himself into thinking that before it was all said and done, he wouldn’t repeat the experience. But unlike Audra, he wasn’t proud of what he’d done. He was just weak sometimes, and when life closed in on him and he didn’t know where the rent money was coming from or how he was going to eat, he did stupid things. But he’d never physically hurt or killed anyone. He’d robbed from folks who could afford the loss and had insurance to replace what he’d taken. Still, he wasn’t pleased with himself.

But nothing seemed to bother Audra at all. Was she really that cold? That mean? He didn’t want to think so, but he couldn’t be sure. And that was what worried him.

“Are you really going to do this?” he rasped in a low whisper that didn’t carry beyond her ears. “Are you just going to sit there and let that man go to prison for something you know he didn’t do? Would you really do that?”

Surprised that he even had to ask, she all but laughed in his face. “Are you kidding? You’re damn straight, I would! It’s a tough world out there, baby, and a girl’s got to do what a girl’s got to do. Anyway,” she said with a toss of her short, bleached-blond hair, “he’s only getting what he deserves. She was the mother of his baby—he should have married her and taken care of her instead of leaving her out in the woods by herself to get in trouble.”

“So it’s his fault that you came along and killed her?” he whispered incredulously. “Is that what you’re saying?”

Pushed into a corner, she shrugged. “Well…yeah. If she’d been where she was supposed to be, none of this would have happened.”

Unable to believe she could justify murder so easily, Micky actually felt nauseated. Pushing away the steak sandwich he’d barely touched, he threw down his napkin and abruptly rose to his feet. “Something in here’s making me sick to my stomach,” he said coldly. “I need some fresh air.”

And for the first time in their relationship, he walked out on her, leaving Audra staring after him in stunned surprise.

Laughing Horse Reservation was north of town and home to the Northern Cheyenne tribe. It was here that Summer had spent the summers of her childhood, getting to know her father’s people and their traditions. And it was here that she had first been introduced to medicine when she was taught the ways of tribal medicine. She’d loved it, loved caring for her people, and when she’d returned to Whitehorn after college and medical school for her residency in immunology at Whitehorn Memorial Hospital, one of the first things she’d done was open a clinic on the reservation.

It was hard, working two jobs, but she was doing the right thing and had no regrets. Life on the reservation had improved some since she was a child, but poverty was still rampant and medical care practically nonexistent. It was the very young and the very old who suffered the most, and she did what she could to help them. She even took her services on the road, making rounds on the reservation once a week, driving from one home to the next long into the evening, visiting with patients, examining them, caring.

Usually she loved making house calls because they gave her a chance to reconnect with her heritage and memories of long-ago summers. But as she left the Hip Hop Café behind and headed for Janet Crow’s house on the far east side of the reservation, all she could think about was Gavin Nighthawk. There had to be something she could do to help him.

Troubled, she thought she hid it well. Taking Janet’s blood pressure as the older woman chattered about her new granddaughter, Summer smiled and nodded and made the appropriate responses. But Janet was shrewder than she’d given her credit for. The older woman waited until Summer had listened to her heart and pulled the stethoscope from her ears before she arched a brow at her and said, “All right, missy, what’s wrong?”

“Well, your blood pressure’s higher than I’d like, but—”

“No, not with me,” she cut in with an impatient wave of her hand. “I’m an old woman—it’s my time in life to fall apart. I’m talking about you, girl. What’s wrong with you? What are you brooding about?”

“I’m not brooding,” Summer began, only to swallow the rest of her words when Janet gave her a hard look with brown eyes that were as sharp as a hawk’s. She might be seventy-five and not as healthy as she could be, but she had earned her place as a tribal elder. She didn’t miss much.

“All right,” Summer sighed, knowing when she was beaten. “It’s the trial, okay?”

Janet didn’t have to ask which one. “His days of freedom are numbered,” she said flatly. “I hope he’s wise enough to enjoy them while he can.”

“So you think he’ll be convicted?”

Janet’s shrug was uncaring. “It makes no difference to me.”

“But he was born and raised here on the reservation!” Summer protested, stunned by her attitude. “He’s Cheyenne. Don’t you think the tribe owes him some kind of loyalty?”

“Why? Where was his loyalty when he moved into the white man’s world?” she countered swiftly, resentment glittering in her eyes. “He grew up on the land of his ancestors, spent his boyhood running free among his people. But we were never good enough for him. Even as a boy, he made it clear that he wanted nothing to do with his Native American heritage.”

Summer winced. “It was the poverty he hated, Janet. The lack of hope.”

She disagreed. “It was the white man’s way he admired, the white man’s world of money and success and fair skin that he wanted, and as soon as he was old enough, that’s what he went after. He doesn’t care about us. Why should we care about him?”

She had a point, one that Summer couldn’t, regrettably, argue with. It was common knowledge that Gavin’s parents had raised him to want a life different from the one found on the reservation. And while there was nothing wrong with encouraging him to be ambitious, they’d gone too far. He’d never been content with who and what he was, and the end result was that he was a man who fit neither in the white man’s world he sought nor the Native American heritage to which he was born.

And Summer found that incredibly sad. She walked with ease in both worlds and was accepted everywhere she went. She couldn’t imagine what life must be like for Gavin, and her heart ached for him. He’d rejected his own people and didn’t have a clue what he’d given up.

“He made some mistakes,” she acknowledged. “Some big ones. But I can’t say that I wouldn’t have made the same ones if I’d been raised the way he was.”

“You would have never turned your back on us the way he has,” Janet said indignantly, her dark eyes flashing. “You’re not that way.”

“I might have been if Aunt Celeste and Aunt Yvette had only cared about money. So don’t judge Gavin too harshly,” she cautioned. “None of us know how we would have turned out given the same circumstances. And think about this. If we turn our back on him when he’s in the worst trouble of his life, what does that say about us?”

Put that way, there was little the old woman could say. “You are wise beyond your years,” she replied with a grimace of a smile. “I will try to remember the disservice his parents did him and not judge him too harshly, but I doubt that the rest of our people will do the same. It galls many of them that he hasn’t even offered to help you at your clinic. The work you do there is just as important as what he does at the hospital, and you could use his help.”

“He’s got enough on his plate right now without worrying about whether I could use an extra pair of hands at the clinic,” she said dryly. “Anyway, I’m handling things just fine. Opening the clinic was one of the best things I ever did.”

“You’re working too hard.”

Summer grinned. “It’s not work when you love what you’re doing.”

“It is when that’s all you do,” she argued sagely. “There’s more to life than taking care of sick people. You’re a pretty young woman. When was the last time you went out to dinner with a nice, good-looking man? Every girl needs some romance to make her heart sing.”

Summer couldn’t help but smile fondly. Janet was just like all the other tribal elders—they all felt, because they cared about her, that they had a right to dabble in her love life. Or her lack of one, she ruefully added. Not that she was looking for a man. Her work was all that she needed, the only thing she wanted, but no one could seem to understand that.

“I appreciate the concern, Janet, but I don’t have time for romance.”

“You would if you didn’t work so much. Or take on other people’s problems—like Gavin Nighthawk’s. You are going to help him, aren’t you?”

Put on the spot, she couldn’t deny it. “If the opportunity presents itself. My conscience won’t let me do anything else.”

Not surprised, Janet sighed heavily as Summer began to repack her medical bag. “I knew you would. You always did worry about other people more than you worried about yourself. Your mother would be proud of you.”

The unexpected words of praise brought the sudden sharp sting of tears to Summer’s eyes. “Thank you,” she said huskily. “I like to think she would be.”

“Just watch yourself, okay? You’re such a tender-hearted soul and I don’t want to see you get hurt.”

“By Gavin?” she said, surprised. “For heaven’s sake, Janet, we’re barely friends. The only reason I’m going to help him is because I can’t stand by and let an innocent man go to prison for a crime he didn’t commit.”

“Just remember that that ‘innocent’ man likes blond white women. Don’t let him break your heart.”

Summer promised her she had no intention of letting him or any other man do any such thing, but on the way back to her clinic, she almost laughed at the very idea of Gavin looking at her as anything but another doctor. Granted, there was a connection between them that she couldn’t explain, but there wasn’t anything the least bit romantic about it. They just came from the same background.

That was all it was, she assured herself. He looked at her and saw the girl from a past he wanted to forget, a girl who’d eagerly absorbed all the ancient knowledge the reservation had to offer. And every time her eyes fell on his chiseled features, she was reminded of the silent, brooding boy who’d walked alone across land that she loved.

Decades later, he was still walking alone, and it was that, more than anything, that tore at her heart. Everyone needed someone to talk to, to forget their troubles with, to vent to, and Gavin seemed to have no one, not even family. Long ago, he’d walked away from the people who could have at least offered him emotional support now, and there was no way to turn back the clock. He was in the worst trouble of his life, and he had no one.

Except her.

That caught her by surprise, and she immediately tried to reject the idea. She hadn’t been kidding when she’d told Janet that they were barely friends. He hadn’t asked for her help and didn’t want it. She would do well to remember that.

But all the way back to the clinic, all she could think of was Gavin and the look on his face at the Hip Hop when he’d heard the things being said about him. With every snide remark, his expression had grown colder and more remote, and all Summer could think of was that he must have suffered the same verbal abuse everywhere he went from the day he was charged with Christina’s murder.

Dear God, how had he stood it?

Haunted by the image of his loneliness, she slept little that night. He was innocent. Deep down in her heart, she knew that as surely as she knew that he wouldn’t thank her for interfering in his life. Still, she couldn’t worry about that. She didn’t care if he ended up hating her guts, she had to find a way to help him. The question was…how?

The answer came to her with the rising of the morning sun. Already hard at work at the hospital, her eyes sandy from lack of sleep, she was examining a newborn in Pedi ICU when an idea popped full-blown into her head. Stunned by the very outrageousness of it, she stopped in her tracks and told herself it would never work. He would think she’d lost her mind, and she couldn’t say she’d blame him. So would everybody else.

Sure she was suffering from sleep deprivation, she tried to dismiss the idea and concentrate on her work instead, but she was fighting a losing battle. The idea stuck like a burr to her imagination, and with no effort whatsoever, she could see it working. She could help him. All she had to do was explain the idea to him and persuade him to give her a chance.

Yeah, right, she thought derisively. When pigs could fly. Don’t even think about going there, she warned herself. Even if he didn’t laugh in her face, he would never go for it. If she wanted to save them both some grief, she’d forget the whole thing.

She should have. It would have been the wisest course of action. But she didn’t, unfortunately, always do the wise thing. Instead she followed her heart and dared to take a chance. The decision made with no conscious effort on her part, she found herself heading for his house at the end of her shift and knew she had no other choice.

His house wasn’t in one of the more affluent subdivisions of Whitehorn—as a resident at the hospital, he could afford little more than a tract house at this point in his career. But it was still obvious to Summer as she pulled up before the brick and glass contemporary structure that he’d left his past—and the reservation—far behind. Wincing at the coldness of the place, Summer almost turned around right then and there to head for her clinic. This was never going to work.

But she couldn’t bring herself to drive away, not when this might be her only chance to save him from a life in prison. Her heart in her throat, she stepped from her car and slowly started up the walkway to his front door. With every step, the knots in her stomach tightened with trepidation. There wasn’t a doubt in her mind that she was doing the right thing, but that didn’t make her task any easier. Because she knew that if Gavin accepted her offer, her life would never be the same and neither would his.

Two

H e wasn’t thrilled to see her. In fact, he was downright rude. Scowling at the sight of Summer Kincaid on his doorstep, Gavin made no move to invite her inside but stood blocking the threshold as if he was going to slam the door in her face at any second. “What do you want?” he growled.

That wasn’t the greeting she’d hoped for, but Summer supposed she couldn’t blame him for being less than hospitable.

“I need to talk to you,” she said quietly. “May I come in?”

He didn’t budge an inch. “No. I’m not in the mood for company.”

That much, at least, was obvious. His chiseled jaw as hard as granite and his brown eyes nearly black with hostility, he was primed for a fight and ready to take on the world. If she’d been smart, Summer would have apologized for disturbing him and waited until another time to approach him with her proposal. But she’d had to psyche herself up just to get this far, and if she didn’t speak her mind now, she was afraid she never would.

So she stubbornly held her ground and looked him right in the eye, silently daring him to throw her off his property. “I’m sorry about that, but I’m not leaving until I’ve had a chance to talk to you. We can do it right here on the doorstep in front of God and everyone or you can invite me inside. The choice is yours.”

Irritated, Gavin arched a dark brow at her. He’d talked to her more in the past two days than he had in the past two years, and he had to admit he was surprised by her obstinacy. She was a quiet little thing and usually didn’t say much. But something had lit a fire under her, and if the glint in her eye was anything to go by, she’d shout whatever she had to say to him to the rooftops if he didn’t give her a chance to speak to him in private.

He shouldn’t have cared. The whole world already knew just about everything there was to know about him—she couldn’t possibly have anything to say that couldn’t be posted across the front page of the Whitehorn Journal. Or at least, he didn’t think she did.

Frowning down at her, he hesitated, then with a muttered curse, he jerked the door open wider. “All right,” he said harshly. “Come in and say what you have to say. But make it quick.”

Then get out.

He didn’t say the words, but Summer heard them nonetheless. Another woman might have been offended, but she refused to take his hostility personally. She’d wanted an opportunity to speak to him and he was giving it to her. Nothing else mattered.

Slipping past him through the door, she stepped into the living room, only to stop short. She supposed she had to give him credit. With inexpensive glass and chrome tables and what appeared to be a few good pieces of secondhand modern furniture, he’d created a surprising sophistication without spending a lot of money. If there were no plants, no warm colors, none of the softness needed to turn a house into a home, she doubted that he cared. After all, he wanted acceptance in the white man’s world, not warmth.

Following her into the room, Gavin said roughly, “Well? What is it you barged in here to say? Spit it out and let’s get it over with.”

Jerked back to her reason for being there, she hesitated, not sure how to begin. Too late, she realized she probably should have given more thought to her proposal, but at the time she’d come up with it, it had seemed like the perfect plan to exonerate him. Now she wasn’t so sure.

Heat singeing her cheeks, she tried not to squirm as he pinned her with a gaze that was as hard as nails. “I’ve been thinking about the trial—”

“You and everyone else in town,” he drawled. “What about it?”

“I think I can help you.”

His eyes narrowed sharply. “How? Have you heard something? What do you know about Christina’s murder?”

“Nothing!”

“Then how the hell do you think you’re going to help me?” he demanded impatiently. “By being my friend and standing up with me in court the way you did at the Hip Hop?” He made “friend” sound like a dirty word. “Thanks for the offer, but I don’t think the jury’s going to give a damn about how many so-called friends I have when the prosecution has evidence placing me at the murder scene. So if that’s all you came for—”

He turned away, dismissing her without even hearing what she’d come there to say, and something in Summer just snapped. She’d meant to lay the groundwork for her offer before she actually made it so she wouldn’t completely shock him, but he’d taken that opportunity away from her.

Left with no choice, she blurted, “The jury might not care about your friends but I bet they’d be impressed by a wife who believed you and stood by you through all this.

“Especially,” she continued when he jerked back around to face her with a scowl, “if that wife was from one of Whitehorn’s leading families and was a well-respected member of the medical community.”

“I don’t have a wife,” he said flatly.

“No, you don’t,” she said simply. “But you could. Think about what that would say to a jury. After you were accused of a horrible murder, a woman with an impeccable reputation pronounced her love for you and married you. No woman in her right mind would do that unless she thought you were truly innocent.”

If he was impressed with her reasoning, he didn’t show it. His brown eyes suspicious, he said, “Just what exactly are you suggesting?”

“That we get married.”

The words just seemed to pop out of their own accord and hang in the air between them like a blinking neon sign. And too late, Summer realized just how forward they sounded. Horrified, she hurriedly said, “Don’t misunderstand—I’m not saying that I’m in love with you! How could I be? We hardly know each other. Any marriage between us would be one strictly of convenience.”

“Of course. I never expected anything else.”

At his dry tone, she blushed to the roots of her hair. “This isn’t about sex,” she said stiffly. “It’s about helping you.”

“Which you seemed determined to do, and I can’t for the life of me understand why.” Frowning, he studied her with puzzled eyes. “What’s in this for you?”

Not surprised that he’d so quickly reduced things to the bottom line, she didn’t insult his intelligence by pretending she was a saint sacrificing herself just for the sake of helping him. “Your help in my clinic on the reservation for one year,” she said bluntly.

“In exchange for marriage?”

She nodded. “Also for one year. You know I’m not the type to flaunt my family connections, but you have to admit that marriage to a Kincaid can’t do anything but bolster your standing in the community. And that just might help clear your name. Once the trial’s over and you’re vindicated, my family connections will help when you go back to court to regain custody of Alyssa.”

She made it all sound so simple. All he had to do was marry a Kincaid, and his life would magically return to normal. His name would be cleared, people would look at him in a different light, and he could go on with his life as if Christina’s death and the subsequent murder charges leveled against him had never happened. And the price of a ticket to this fairy tale was only a one-year marriage of convenience to a woman who didn’t love him any more than he loved her. And his help at her clinic, he reminded himself. After all, it was only fair that she get something out of the arrangement, too.

Stunned, he should have laughed in her face. That was what any sane man would have done. He was already in enough trouble—he didn’t need to take on more by agreeing to a marriage that by its very nature was doomed to failure. And what would it really accomplish, anyway? True, the Kincaids were a powerful family in Whitehorn, but it wasn’t the family that was on trial. It was him, and few people seemed inclined to cut “that Indian boy from the wrong side of the tracks” any slack. He didn’t think marriage to a Kincaid would change that.

But can you be sure of that? a voice in his head wondered. Summer Kincaid is well liked and respected. If she pretended to be in love with you and married you, people just might start to wonder what she saw in you and if they might have misjudged you. Granted, it’s a long shot, but at this point, it’s the only chance you’ve got. You’d be a fool to turn your back on the only person who’s helped you from the very beginning. Thanks to her intervention, her uncle hired Elizabeth Gardener to represent you, and now she wants to help you again. Why are you hesitating?

That was a good question. Aside from himself, he also had to think of Alyssa and how this might benefit her. If, through some miracle, he was able to actually clear his name, he still might have to fight to get his daughter back. He’d have a much better chance of winning that fight if he had a wife the likes of Summer Kincaid by his side to act as Alyssa’s mother. And he wasn’t losing his daughter, damn it!

Considering all that, he should have jumped at her offer like a drowning man being thrown a lifeline. But if the events of the past year had taught him anything, it was to look a gift horse in the mouth. Not everyone who appeared to have his best interests at heart did.

“I’ll think about it,” he said stiffly, “and get back to you.”

She nodded. “Just don’t take too long. For this to work, we’ve got to convince people that we’re really in love, and we can’t do that overnight. With your trial only a few weeks away, we don’t have a lot of time.”

No one was more aware of that than he. Ever since the trial date had been announced, he’d felt as though there was a guillotine over his head, waiting to fall. And it scared the hell out of him. “I should have an answer by morning.”

That was the best he could do, and she had no choice but to accept it. “Then I guess I’ll talk to you tomorrow,” she said stiffly. “You can reach me at the hospital until two, then I’ll be at my clinic.”

She walked out without another word, leaving Gavin staring after her with a frown. He’d thought he’d known who and what Summer Kincaid was, but now he wasn’t so sure. Why was she going out of her way to help him? What did she really want from him? Would she really go to such lengths to get help at her clinic or was that just an excuse to get involved in his life? Until he had some answers, he wasn’t making a decision about anything.

Self-doubt didn’t hit Summer until later that night when she was getting ready for bed and had nothing to distract her from her own thoughts. She’d actually asked Gavin to marry her. Dear God, what had possessed her? He must think she was desperate, or out of her mind, or both, when nothing could have been further from the truth. When she’d made the suggestion, she hadn’t thought of anything beyond helping him out of the awful bind he was in. But now she had to wonder what she was going to do if he actually agreed to marry her. She’d made it clear that there would be no sex, but they would still have to live together, still have to act the happily married couple. She’d never been an actress, never had much use for pretense. How in the world was she going to pull this off if he said yes?

He wouldn’t, she assured herself quickly. His back was already to the wall—if he’d thought marrying her would help him, he would have said yes in a heartbeat. Probably he was trying to find a way to let her down easy and spare her feelings. He’d call in a few days, thank her for the offer, and politely tell her he didn’t think it would work. And that would be the end of that.

She’d done everything she could to help him, she told herself as she pulled on her pajamas and turned back the covers to her bed. If he insisted on going through this all alone, there was nothing she could do.

Resigned to the fact that she would, in all likelihood, watch him be escorted off to prison, she was about to crawl into bed when her doorbell rang. At nine-thirty at night she seldom had visitors. Unless it was someone who didn’t have a phone coming from the reservation with a medical emergency.

Concerned, she hurriedly pulled on a robe and rushed to the front of her small, two-bedroom house, flipping on lights as she went. She hoped it wasn’t Hannah Eagle. Six months’ pregnant, she’d had three other pregnancies that had ended in miscarriages. It would kill Hannah if this one did, too.

But when Summer quickly unlocked her front door and pulled it open, it wasn’t Hannah’s husband John standing on her porch. Instead, she found herself face-to-face with the last man she expected to seek her out at that hour of the night. Gavin Nighthawk.

“Gavin! What are you doing here?”

“I need to talk to you,” he said huskily. “I apologize for showing up without calling, but I was driving around and somehow just ended up here.” His eyes dropped to the thin material of her gown and robe. “I didn’t wake you, did I?”

She was respectably covered—there was no reason for her to be embarrassed—but in the harsh glare of the porch light, she could feel a painful blush climb into her cheeks. Instinctively, before she realized just how telling the gesture was, she started to reach for the overlapping neckline of her robe to check to see how low it was. But his gaze followed the movement and with a silent curse, she dropped her hand and forced herself to not fidget.

“Actually, I was just going to read for a while before I went to bed,” she replied, standing stiffly in front of him. “If you’d like to come in, I’ll change into something more suitable and make some coffee—”

“I’m not staying that long,” he said quickly, stopping her before she could push the door wider. “I just wanted to let you know that I’ve been thinking about your proposal all evening, and I’ve decided to accept it.”

Stunned, Summer blinked, unable to believe she’d heard him correctly. “You have?”

Nodding grimly, Gavin could well understand her surprise. He hadn’t realized he’d made a decision until he’d found himself pulling up in front of her house. “I have to admit, I’ve had my suspicions of you. I don’t know why you offered to do this—or why you believe I’m innocent when no one else does. But I don’t have time to worry about whether you’ve got some kind of hidden agenda or not. My only concerns are clearing my name and getting my daughter back. I have a better chance of doing that with you as my wife than I do standing alone. So if your offer is still good, I’d like to accept.”

For a second, he thought she was going to say she’d changed her mind. She hesitated, and he couldn’t say he blamed her. Their arrangement—if she went through with it—was strictly a business one, but he was the one who stood to gain the most. If things worked out the way he hoped, he’d get not only his life, but his daughter back. All Summer was getting out of the deal was a hired hand at her clinic for a year.

“Summer? If you’ve changed your mind—”

“No,” she said quickly, silently cursing the betraying color in her cheeks. It wasn’t that she’d actually changed her mind—she’d just had her own share of self-doubts. But that wasn’t something she intended to share with him, not now that he’d decided to accept her offer. It would only cause misunderstandings and awkwardness, and there was enough of that already. “I’m just surprised, that’s all. When you said earlier that you needed some time to think about it, I really thought you were going to turn me down.”

“So did I,” he replied. “But to be perfectly honest, you’re the only chance I’ve got. And if we’re going to carry this off and convince people that you trust me enough to fall in love with me, we’ve got to get busy.”

“You mean, we’ve got to start dating.”

“Not just dating,” he corrected her. “If we’re going to get married before the trial starts, this has to be a whirlwind courtship. Fortunately, we’ve known each other all our lives, so there’s a history between us that should make it easier for people to believe we’ve suddenly found each other. Now we just have to give them some public displays of affection and every romantic in town will think we’ve really fallen in love.”

He made it sound so easy. They’d hold hands, gaze into each other’s eyes, and fool the world. For another woman that might have been a piece of cake, but Summer’s experience with men was practically nil. Oh, she’d dated some when she was in college and medical school, but she’d never met a man who made her heart turn over, so there’d been little hand holding, let alone romantic evenings where she gazed into someone’s eyes over a candlelit table for two. She didn’t have a clue how she was going to pull it off.

She didn’t, however, tell Gavin that. She was the one who had come up with this idea in a moment of madness, and she’d find a way to hold up her end of the bargain. After all, how difficult could it be? They had a world of things in common—medicine, their Native American heritage, hospital politics. They could spend hours talking about those things and anyone who saw them together would think they were totally wrapped up in each other.

Telling herself she could do this, she faced him squarely, all business. “Then I guess tomorrow night is as good a time as any to start. I’m usually home from the clinic by six unless I have an emergency. Just to be on the safe side, why don’t you pick me up at seven?”

As pragmatic as she, he nodded. “Wear something nice. We’ll go to the Wild Boar. We should cause quite a splash.”

They would do that just by walking in the door, Summer thought privately. The Wild Boar had just opened and was one of the nicest places in town. She hadn’t been there herself, but she’d heard the decor was rich, the wine list extensive, and the clientele the upper crust of Whitehorn society. The second they stepped foot inside the place, they’d set tongues wagging.

Which was exactly what they wanted, Summer reminded herself. The sooner people noticed they were dating and started talking, the quicker the locals would hopefully change their opinion of Gavin and look at him in a different light. “Then I guess I’ll see you at seven,” she said simply, and prayed she wasn’t getting into something she couldn’t handle.

When Gavin rang her doorbell promptly at seven the following evening, Summer thought she was prepared for their “date.” She’d spent most of the day psyching herself up for the part she had to play, and she was sure she could get through it without making a fool of herself. After all, how difficult could it be? They were just going to share a meal together in public, and they’d already done that at the Hip Hop.

But the man she opened her door to looked nothing like the one she’d approached that day in the diner. Dressed in a navy-blue suit that emphasized his broad shoulders, he was incredibly handsome. Caught off guard, Summer let her gaze slowly travel from his shoes to his freshly shaven square jaw to his neatly trimmed black hair, and felt her breath catch in her lungs. She’d never seen him in a suit before. She had to admit, he was something to see.

Standing in front of him in a dress that was at least three years out of date, she felt decidedly frumpy and old-fashioned. And she had no one to blame but herself. Her aunts had been telling her for months that there was more to life than medicine and she needed to update her wardrobe and get out in the world more. She should have listened.

Smoothing the skirt of her red silk dress, she said self-consciously, “I hope I’m dressed all right. I don’t go out very often, so I didn’t have much to pick from.”

“You look fine,” he replied roughly. “Just fine.”

She did, in fact, look fantastic. He’d always thought that she was an attractive woman, but she did her best to hide it. She usually wore her black hair pulled back in a severe bun that wasn’t the least bit flattering and she wore glasses that were the wrong shape for her face and hid her eyes. Tonight, however, her glasses were nowhere in sight, and she’d left her hair loose so that it fell past her shoulders in a waterfall of black silk that his fingers itched to touch.

For the first time in recent memory she was wearing makeup, and he was amazed at the difference in her. He’d never noticed before how beautiful her brown eyes were or just how sexy her mouth was. Unable to drag his gaze away from her, all he could think of was that red was definitely her color. With the red silk sensuously draping her slender, lithe body, she looked as though she’d just walked out of a dream.

But she wasn’t his dream, he reminded himself grimly. Just the woman he was going to give a year of his life to, hopefully in exchange for a not-guilty verdict at his trial. Their arrangement was strictly a business one, and he’d do well to remember that.

“If you’re ready, we should be leaving,” he said coolly. “Our reservation is for seven-fifteen.”

“Of course,” she replied in a voice as cool as his. “Let me get my purse.”

They walked out of her house like two strangers who didn’t know what to say to each other, and without a word, Gavin opened the door of his Chevy sedan for her and helped her into the passenger seat. Moments later, he buckled in beside her and headed for the Wild Boar. The drive took all of ten minutes, but neither of them spoke the entire way.

Then, before Summer was quite ready to play the role of Gavin’s infatuated girlfriend, he braked to a stop under the restaurant’s portico. A valet was there to park the car for them, but before he could open Summer’s door for her, Gavin was there first. Taking her hand in his, he closed his fingers around hers and gave her a slow, intimate smile as he helped her from the car. Reeling from the kick of that smile, she’d hardly recovered when he linked his fingers with hers.

She’d known that they would hold hands, that he would touch her when the opportunity presented itself, and it was all for show. But it didn’t feel like much of a show when his hand squeezed hers as they stepped inside and the maître d’ showed them to their table. Heat climbing in her cheeks, Summer felt the touch of dozens of pairs of eyes on them and knew Gavin had to feel it, too. But he gave no sign of it. Not sparing a glance for anyone but her, he seated her at their table, then took the chair across from her. In the glow of the candle that burned between them on the table, he gave her a smile that was slow and intimate and should have been outlawed in all fifty states.

Hit with the full impact of his sex appeal, Summer forgot to breathe. All around them, people began to whisper, but she never noticed. Her heart pounding in her breast, all she saw was Gavin.

“Miss?” Standing at her side, the waiter cleared his throat. “Would you like a menu?”

Transfixed, Summer hardly heard him. Then Gavin smiled in amusement, and the spell that had fallen over her broke and she realized she’d been staring at Gavin like a star-struck teenager who’d just stumbled across her favorite rock star. That was, of course, exactly what she was supposed to be doing. The problem was, she’d completely forgotten it was the role she was playing when Gavin smiled at her. And that horrified her.

“Miss?” the waiter said again, this time with exaggerated patience. “Your menu?”

Jerking back to awareness, she blushed. “Yes, of course. Thank you.” Ignoring Gavin, she grabbed the oversize menu and quickly buried her hot cheeks behind it.

Chuckling, Gavin ordered champagne—to celebrate, he informed the waiter. When Summer finally lowered her menu, he was there waiting for her with a heart-stopping smile. “See anything you like?”

How was she supposed to answer that? she wondered wildly. When he forgot to brood and turned on the charm, he was a very attractive man—which every woman in the place had already noted, if the feminine glances he was getting were anything to go by. And that was exactly why they were there, she reminded herself. To have people look at him in a new light.

Remembering her role, she forced a smile that didn’t come nearly as easily as his did. “Actually, I do. How about you?”

“Oh, yeah,” he drawled, leering at her teasingly. “But it’s not on the menu.”

“It could be,” she replied, flirting for the first time in her life. “If you’re lucky.”

Chuckling, Gavin reached across the table for her hand, and that set the tone for their evening. They touched and flirted and made no attempt to keep their voices down or to be discreet. And they accomplished just what they set out to do. By the end of the meal, everyone in the restaurant thought they were falling in love.

Exhilarated, exhausted, stunned that she’d actually been able to pull off her role, Summer didn’t know whether to laugh or to sigh in relief as Gavin escorted her outside and they left their audience behind. Grinning as he took her hand, she said in triumph, “We did it! Did you see the way people were looking at us? I can just hear the gossip tomorrow.”

“So can I,” he replied. “Especially after everyone hears about this.” And with no more warning than that, he stopped and tugged her into his arms for a hot, sizzling kiss in full view of the diners sitting by the restaurant’s large picture windows.

Caught off guard, Summer could do nothing but close her eyes and helplessly kiss him back. And all the while, her heart was slamming against her ribs. Dizzy, her knees weak, she tried to cling to the knowledge that this was just another act of the little play they were putting on, but her mind had a tendency to fog over with pleasure and she found it impossible to think straight. Unable to stop herself, she melted against him, boneless in his arms.

Later, she couldn’t have said how long he kissed her. It could have been mere seconds or hours. She just knew that when he finally let her up for air, she could do nothing but stare at him in bemusement. Why hadn’t anyone ever told her that the man could kiss like that?

“Smile,” he said huskily.

Still standing in his arms, her thoughts all jumbled, she frowned up at him in confusion. “What?”

“Smile,” he said again. “Everyone in the restaurant can see your expression.”

Disgruntled, she immediately turned the corners of her mouth up in a slow, sultry smile, but inside she was more than just a little miffed. He’d practically knocked her out of her shoes with that kiss, but he didn’t seem to be affected at all.

“How’s that?” she asked through her teeth, gazing up at him like an infatuated teenager.

“Perfect.” Chuckling, he released her, but only long enough to take her hand. “I think we’ve done enough damage for one night. C’mon, I’ll take you home.”

Any fears she had that he might try to kiss her good-night ended the second they reached her house and he followed her inside. Refusing the coffee she offered, he immediately began analyzing the evening. “Did you see the mayor? His eyes nearly popped out of his head when he saw the two of us together! It was great. By lunchtime tomorrow, everyone in city hall will be talking about that kiss in front of the Wild Boar. But that’s just the start. Tomorrow, I’ll order you flowers and have them delivered to you at the hospital. That’ll really get the gossips going. Then we’ll go out again tomorrow night.”

She’d expected as much. “How about the movies? It’s bargain matinee night, and there’s bound to be a crowd.”

“Good idea,” he agreed. “We’ll grab a burger first, then go see something romantic.”

Not surprised, Summer said dryly, “Of course.”

Lost in his musings, he never noticed. “You know, it was really clever of you to join me for lunch that day at the Hip Hop. It started people wondering about the two of us, and now, less than a week later, we’re going out and kissing in the parking lot.”

Pleased with himself, he impulsively hugged her. “This is great. Just great! I don’t know how to thank you for all your help.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” she cautioned. “We just started, and we still have to get through the trial. We might be able to convince everyone in town, but that doesn’t mean the jury will return with a not-guilty verdict.”

“They will,” he said confidently. “I’m sure of it.”

Satisfied that he had everything worked out, he promised to pick her up the following evening at six, then wished her a quiet good-night and left. And he never knew that the real reason she’d joined him at his table at the Hip Hop that day wasn’t because she was trying to be clever but because she’d thought he needed a friend.

Summer had never dated much. But even if she’d had a wealth of experience with the opposite sex, she didn’t think anything could have prepared her for dating Gavin.

Over the course of the next week, they went out every night, and she had to give him credit. When he set out to show a woman a good time—even if it was all a pretense—he spared no effort. He sent her flowers and brought her gifts that he made a point of giving her in public. Sweet, inexpensive romantic gifts like a book of sonnets, a pair of heart earrings, a ceramic frog for her kitchen windowsill. And even though she knew it was for show, she couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to receive such attention from a man who really cared about her.

For a while, though, she could pretend, and she had to admit, she enjoyed herself. They went dancing and roller skating and had a candle-lit picnic at the town park in full view of anyone who chose to drive by. Anywhere there were people, they showed up, and everywhere they went, whispers followed them.

For a woman who considered herself an introvert, she should have been extremely uncomfortable. She wasn’t used to being on public display, and there were times when it was awkward. But they were causing a stir, which was the whole point of their going out, and she couldn’t help but be pleased. When she overheard people questioning her sanity, she knew they were making progress.

“I think she’s lost her mind.”

“Maybe it’s one of those midlife crisis things. Though come to think of it, she’s not that old, is she? Maybe she’s having a breakdown from working so hard.”

Stopping in at the Hip Hop for a quick sandwich before heading out to the reservation, Summer inadvertently stepped right into the middle of a gossip session in which she was the main topic of conversation. And not surprisingly, Lily Mae Wheeler, holding court in her booth, was leading the discussion. When she saw Summer, she did have the grace to lower her voice, but only to a hoarse whisper that carried the length and breadth of the café.

“The girl obviously needs therapy. Any woman who would voluntarily spend any time alone with that murderer after what he did to that poor Montgomery girl can’t be all there. I think she needs her head examined.”

Taking a seat at the counter instead of in one of the booths, Summer didn’t so much as wince, but Janie Austin shot Lily Mae a reproving frown as she set a glass of water and the menu in front of Summer. “I’m sorry about that, Summer,” she said quietly. “Don’t pay any attention to Lily Mae. You know how she is.”

Summer did, indeed, know how the old battle-ax was, but in this particular instance, she couldn’t take offense—not when Lily Mae’s criticism generated just the response she was hoping for.

“Well, I don’t know about that,” Meg Reilly said with a frown from the booth where she sat with her soon-to-be stepdaughter, Hope Baxter Kincaid. “Maybe the girl’s just got more sense than most of the folks around here who are so quick to judge. Better yet, maybe all this time everyone’s been mistaken about Gavin. Summer’s smart and kind and nobody’s fool. She wouldn’t go near any man she thought was capable of murder.”

Surprisingly, a few more diners nodded in agreement, but Lily Mae only sniffed in disdain. “You always were a dyed-in-the-wool romantic, Meg, seeing hearts and flowers everywhere you looked. And that’s fine when you’re putting together one of your fancy weddings at your flower shop. But you need to take off the rose-colored glasses when you’re out in the real world. The man’s guilty as sin and we all know it. If Summer can’t see that, she’s the one who’ll pay. If I was one of those aunts of hers, I’d take out a big life insurance policy on her because any day now she could turn up as dead as Christina Montgomery.”

Just last week, practically everyone in the café would have agreed with Lily Mae, but there’d been a subtle shift in attitude over the last couple of days. No one other than Meg spoke up in Gavin’s defense, but more than a few people were frowning in silent disagreement with Lily Mae. Pleased, Summer quietly ordered a chicken salad sandwich.

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