“Just for the record, Jayne…you are the most inconvenient woman I’ve ever known.”

She made him want things he couldn’t have—made him want to be a man he couldn’t be.

He would try if he had the chance, would spend the rest of his life trying…but that chance could come only with the truth. With her trust and understanding. Even then…

It was too damn big a risk.

She rewarded him with a teasing smile. “Thank you. My goal in life is to be inconvenient.” Rising onto her toes, she kissed his cheek, then pulled away.

The reminder renewed the ache, the longing in his soul.

Dear Reader,

Who hasn’t wished at some time that she could make a fresh start—pull up roots, move to a new place where she doesn’t anyone (and no one knows her!) and become the person she wants to be, in the life she wants to live?

We were lucky enough during my husband’s navy career to move to a number of new places. I still remember the optimism that greeted me with each new town. No matter how good things had been in the last town, they could always be better in the new place. At the least, they would be different, and even that was exciting.

Some of that optimism was with me while writing this book—and nostalgia, because while Sweetwater was brand-new to Jayne, it was a trip down memory lane for me. I created the town in Somebody’s Baby and revisited it in Somebody’s Lady. It was like coming home again.

I hope you enjoy it, too!

Marilyn Pappano
SOMEBODY’S HERO

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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MARILYN PAPPANO

has been a daydreamer and a storyteller all her life. After traveling across the country in the course of her husband’s career, she’s now back home in Oklahoma, living high on a hill overlooking her hometown. With woods, a pond and a small orchard, she keeps busy outside and has learned such skills as operating a chain saw and building flower beds and steps with the rocks that are her most abundant crop. She and her husband have one son, who’s following his own military career through places like Italy, Korea, Iraq and Afghanistan, and a houseful of dogs who are fully convinced they’re children, too. You can visit her Web site at: www.marilyn-pappano.com.

To my own hero, Bob.

I love you.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 1

Fat, wet snow collected on the windshield, obscuring the view ahead. Jayne Miller nudged the intermittent action of the wipers up a notch, and the blades swept across the glass, but the view didn’t improve. She wanted desperately to believe that she was at the wrong house, but the directions she’d gotten from the man at the gas station left little room for doubt. This was not only the last house on the left, it was the only house on the left for the past two miles.

The wooden sign hanging next to the front door, clearly visible with each swipe of the wipers, left even less room for doubt. Miller, it announced in rough letters carved in a half moon around a flower.

It was a great old house, Greg had told her when the news had come that he’d inherited it. Big, with high ceilings, hardwood floors and a banister just made for sliding down. It was too big for their little family of three, with its huge yard, gardens and orchard.

The wipers cleared the window once more and she stared at the house. It looked about the size of a two-bedroom apartment. There was no second story and, therefore, no banister. And the yard, if it had ever existed, had long ago returned to the wild. High ceilings? Hardwood floors? Gardens? She doubted it.

At some point in its existence, the house had been painted white—at least, that was the shade the few chips that remained took on in the headlights’ glare. The shutters at one front window hung askew and were missing completely from the other. The porch appeared crooked from where she sat—or maybe it was straight and the house was tilted. Or, hell, maybe both porch and house were level and she was the one off balance.

She choked back a laugh for fear it would turn into a sob, then twisted in her seat to check her daughter. Five-year-old Lucy was asleep in the backseat, snoring softly, a quilt pulled over her and a teddy bear serving as a pillow. Their adventure, as she’d insisted on calling their move from Chicago to the southeast Tennessee mountains, had worn her out. Jayne was starting to feel pretty worn out, too.

She tucked the quilt closer around her daughter, then pulled on her coat, a hat and gloves. With the house key clenched tightly in one fist, she left the SUV’s warmth for the wet snow that was rapidly accumulating and tramped across uneven ground to the porch. The first step sagged precariously under her weight, and she climbed the others with more caution. The last thing she needed was a broken ankle or neck out here in the middle of nowhere.

It took some effort to work the key into the lock, then a jiggle and a jerk to get it to turn. When she swung open the door, she could see little inside. It was only four in the afternoon, but the late-March snowstorm that had led them here turned the day dark. Groping blindly, she found a light switch and flipped it, but nothing happened. Of course not. She hadn’t called ahead and arranged to have the power turned on…if there even was power. What if Greg’s grandmother had lived by candlelight?

She shuddered, then gave herself a mental shake. The darkness was her own fault, and she could remedy it first thing in the morning.

With a glance back at the truck, she eased into the house. The lumpy shadows were furniture, draped in heavy dust cloths. There was one sofa-size, two chair-size. A fireplace of native stone filled most of one wall, so heat was a possibility—if there happened to be some firewood lying around somewhere—and the oil lamp on the mantel sloshed when she picked it up. Let there be light, she thought gratefully.

She did a quick tour of the house: a kitchen with a tiny corner set aside for the dining room, a decent-size bedroom, a bathroom—thank you, God—and a second bedroom about the size of a closet. There were beds in the bedrooms and mattresses on the beds. She had plenty of linens in the truck, along with enough blankets to warm an igloo for a night or two. Now if she could just find some dry wood, they would be in business.

She was returning to the living room when a shadow appeared in the open doorway. It stretched from the floor all the way to the top of the door frame and pretty much filled it side to side, as well. A startled cry escaped before she could stop it, and her heart leaped into her throat.

The shadow was a snow-dusted man. He wore jeans, a heavy coat and thick-soled boots, and a knitted cap covered his head and much of his face. Likely he lived in the house where the road ended its meandering journey. That didn’t make her feel any safer or any less worried about her daughter.

Before she could find her voice to speak, he did. “What are you doing here?”

He was a neighbor, she counseled herself, and out here a neighbor was A Good Thing. Taking a deep breath, she started across the room toward him. “I’m moving in. I’m Jayne Miller. Edna Miller was my grandmother-in-law. My husband’s grandmother. Actually, my ex-husband now. We’re divorced, but he gave me the house. Well, he didn’t exactly give it to me. He took everything we owned of any value and left me the deed to this place in exchange.” Abruptly she caught her breath. “That’s too much information, isn’t it?” She offered her hand, remembered she still wore her gloves, stripped the right one off, then stuck out her hand again. “I’m Jayne Miller. Your new neighbor. And you are?”

His gaze dropped to her hand—she felt it as much as saw it—but he made no effort to shake it. Instead he looked at her again. “You’re not planning to live here, are you?”

She felt foolish standing there with her hand out. She tugged the glove on again, slid her hands into her coat pockets, then pulled them out and folded her arms across her chest. “Yes. Probably. That was the plan, at least.” And still was, she told herself. She needed a change of scene. Lucy would be better off growing up in Smalltown, Tennessee, than in Chicago. And Jayne’s writing career, barely alive the past few years, desperately needed the boost that time, inspiration and isolation could give it.

“Yes. We’re going to live here.”

“We?”

“My daughter and me—I—we. Lucy and me.” She dragged in a cold, musty breath. “I didn’t get your name.”

He scowled harder and said, “Lewis.”

“Lewis,” she repeated. He didn’t look like a Lewis. Naming characters was important in her work; sometimes it took longer to find just the right name for a character than it had to name Lucy. A Lewis should be older, heavier, less brooding. This Lewis was tall, lean though broad-shouldered, scowling and somewhat handsome. Not knock-your-socks-off gorgeous but attractive in a dark, brooding sort of way.

Dark and brooding always appealed to a romance author.

But at the moment she was in mother/woman mode, not romance author. “Well, Lewis, it’s nice meeting you, but I’ve got to see if Gran left any firewood around here or head back into town and get a motel room for the night. I, uh, forgot to make arrangements to have the power turned on.”

Though she took a step forward, he didn’t move. “The nearest motel is thirty miles back north, not that it matters. You’re not getting off the mountain today. The road’s impassable. My truck’s stuck at the bottom of the last hill.”

That explained the snow that coated his shoulders. She glanced past him and saw that her SUV was shrouded in the stuff. “Well, then, that makes the firewood more important. If you’ll excuse me…”

Still he didn’t move. “Wouldn’t matter if you had called ahead. The power’s off. And there’s not any firewood here. I’ll bring some over.”

Jayne swallowed hard. “You don’t have to do that. I mean, I appreciate the offer, but if you’ll just tell me where it is, I can bring it over myself. You probably want to get out of the cold.” Probably almost as much as she wanted out of it. Lord, this had been a stupid move on her part—Greg-stupid, which was about as irresponsible as it got. But it had been seventy degrees that morning. How could she possibly have known they’d be in a snowstorm by midafternoon?

Lewis looked as if he wanted to take her up on her offer, but his mouth tightened and instead he said, “Go ahead and get what you need out of the truck. You did bring food and blankets, didn’t you?”

I’m not stupid, she wanted to say, but hadn’t she just admitted that sometimes she was? “Yes.” She’d stocked up when they’d stopped for lunch—chips, peanut butter and crackers, cookies, canned soup, bottled water and chocolate. She and Lucy could live for days on that.

Finally he moved out of the doorway, but instead of leaving, he came inside. He took something from the table pushed against one wall, then went to the fireplace and removed the globe from the lamp there. There was a strike, a flare of sulfur, then the odor of burning oil as the flame caught the lamp wick. A moment later the second lamp was also burning. “You might clean those globes before you put them back on,” he said shortly, then left before he could hear her faint “I will.”

Jayne went to the door to watch him. He moved with long strides, paying no attention to the snow that crept halfway up his calves. She hadn’t really given any thought to neighbors when she’d decided to move here; she’d just assumed there would be more than enough. After all, in Chicago, neighbors were in plentiful supply. Lewis had the potential to be a good one—not too friendly, so he wouldn’t interrupt her work the way Greg had, but willing to help when needed. She and Lucy wouldn’t be alone up here on the mountain, but they could feel as if they were. That was a big plus.

Then she turned back and looked at the drab, dusty room that was even more depressing with the lamplight shining on its shortcomings and sighed. She really needed a big plus right about now.

The last thing Tyler Lewis wanted in his life was a neighbor—no, make that a neighbor with a kid, he grumbled as he stacked a load of logs into a canvas carrier. When he’d built his house, he’d bought the most remote piece of land he could find around Sweetwater. Granted, he’d had old Edna just down the road for three years, but she’d pretty much kept to herself, and he’d done the same. He’d chopped wood for her, picked up her stuff at the grocery store when he did his own shopping and made a few repairs around her place when she needed them, but that hadn’t made them friends. He hadn’t been looking for any intrusions into his life, and neither had she.

Maybe her ex-granddaughter-in-law had that in common with her. A man could hope.

Jayne Miller. A plain name for a far-from-plain woman. Tall, with long legs, long brown hair and a husky voice… If he was a weaker man, he might be in trouble. But he’d had a lifetime of experience at keeping people at a distance. He excelled at it.

Not that he didn’t have his weaknesses. He hated every one of them.

Grimacing, he finished filling a second canvas bag, then picked up one in each hand and trudged around his house and across the snow to Edna’s house. She came out as he dumped his load on the porch. He didn’t speak when he passed her on his way back, and neither did she as she heaved a carton from the cargo area of the truck.

By the time he’d delivered and stacked a good supply of wood, she was finished with her unloading. He took the last load inside, got the fire going, then piled the rest of the logs nearby. When he turned, she was watching him. Her smile was tentative as she huddled in her coat for warmth. He could relate. He’d lost contact with his feet a long time ago.

“Thank you.”

He shrugged it off, then glanced at the little girl asleep on the sofa, bundled in so many blankets that only part of her face was visible—pale skin, pale brown hair. His sister teased that he wasn’t a kid-friendly person, and he didn’t argue the point. He didn’t think he’d ever been a kid himself, and helping raise his brothers and sister had been enough exposure to small people to last a lifetime.

Still, he nodded toward her. “What’s her name?”

“Lucy. She’s five.”

There were worse names for a five-year-old—Edna. Bess. Tiffany. If he had a preference, it would be for nice, common names like Sarah, Beth or Kate.

Or Jayne.

Still hugging herself, she eased a few steps closer to the fireplace. He thought he should say something before leaving but didn’t have a clue what. He settled for gesturing toward the fire. “Try not to let it go out.” The moment he heard the words, he grimaced. His sister would unload on him if he said something so patronizing to her.

But Jayne just smiled tightly. “I won’t. Thanks again for your help. I really appreciate it.”

He nodded, walked outside and pulled the door shut behind him. Stopping on the porch, he tugged on his gloves, adjusted the collar of his coat, then stepped out into the snow. Inside he would have said the house was no warmer than outside, but even those few moments of heat had made a difference that he could feel to his bones.

His own house, though, really was as cold as outside, and much darker. The dogs met him at the door, sparing a few seconds for a sniff and a lick, then darting outside before he could close the door. Out of habit, he flipped the light switch, but nothing happened. He found the matches in the gloom, lit the oil lamps that sat on tables around the room, then crouched in front of the woodstove. It didn’t take long to get a fire burning, though it would be a while before the room warmed to the comfort zone. He removed his coat and hat anyway, hanging them near the door, where the snowmelt could drip on the tile, then kicked off his boots. After fixing a cup of instant cocoa with hot water from the tap, he wrapped up in a quilt and settled on the sofa.

The ring of the phone seemed out of place in the still, dark room. It seemed only fair that if he lost power and heat, the phone should go out, too, but he knew better than most that life wasn’t fair.

“Enjoy your walk home?” his sister, Rebecca, asked in place of a greeting.

“You bet. Sliding uphill in the middle of a snowstorm has always been my idea of a fun time,” he retorted, then asked, “How’d you know I wound up walking?”

“Because you always think you’ll get home before the road gets too bad and you always wind up walking.” Her tone turned sly. “Anything new to report?”

“Like what?” he asked, though he knew exactly what she meant. Sweetwater, with a population not worth counting, had the most effective gossip network around. Jayne Miller had probably stopped in town for supplies or directions, which meant that everyone within a ten-mile radius knew Edna’s long-absent heir had put in an appearance before she’d even reached Sassie Whitlaw’s four-foot-tall metal chicken. Everyone but him.

“Come on. Jayne Miller. From Chicago. Writer of some sort. Has a five-year-old daughter named Lucy. Divorced from Edna’s grandson and got the house in the divorce. What do you think of her?”

“What makes you think I met her?”

She made a pffft sound. “Tell me you didn’t haul firewood for her.”

Tyler shifted uncomfortably. Rebecca knew him too well—all his secrets, all his shortcomings. “Just enough for a couple days.”

“So? Tell me about her.”

“Hell, you already know more than I do.” She hadn’t said anything to him about being a writer, though she had spilled out everything about how she’d come to own her ex’s grandmother’s house. Being a city girl, she probably wouldn’t have much appreciation for country living. Maybe he could persuade her to do what Edna had always refused—sell the property to him. He’d bought the rest of Edna’s land before she’d died. If he could have that small section, his privacy would be complete.

The slyness returned to Rebecca’s voice. “Is she pretty?”

“I didn’t notice.” Just as he tried to not notice the heat in his cheeks that always appeared when he lied. It was better than any lie detector, his mother used to tease.

When she’d recovered enough to learn how to tease again.

There was a moment of silence, then Rebecca heaved a sigh. “You know, what happened with Angela was an aberration. It doesn’t mean you’re like…” The silence that followed was heavy. Final.

When had they agreed that they would never mention their father again? They hadn’t actually discussed it or anything. One day not long after his death they had just stopped talking about him, and the younger kids had followed their lead. Delbert Lewis had stopped existing for them.

Except in their dreams. Their nightmares.

Angela was another subject they didn’t discuss. His old girlfriend was long gone—but never forgotten. Some of the best times in his life had been with her. So had some of the worst.

“What are the streets like in town?” he asked as if Rebecca hadn’t trespassed into memories best left alone.

There was another silence, broken by another sigh. “Probably worse than the roads are out there. At least you were the only fool on the road out there.”

“Gee, thanks for the compliment. Listen, I’ve got to change into dry clothes. I’ll talk to you later.” He moved the phone away from his ear, but not quickly enough to miss her quiet words.

“Yeah. Later.”

Shadows danced on Jayne’s eyelids, applying pressure to her eyes, then easing. She tried to pull the covers over her face, but they wouldn’t budge. Tried to brush the shadows away but found something solid instead. Blindly she groped and realized it was Lucy’s hand, her pudgy little fingers probing. Wrapping her hand around her daughter’s, Jayne moved it away, then opened one eye enough to see a blurry face peering at her.

“I knew you was awake inside there.” Tugging her hand free, Lucy jumped to the floor. “Come look outside, Mama. It snowed and snowed and snowed. It’s pretty.”

Jayne lifted her head from the pillow to watch Lucy dance to the windows, glanced around, then sank down again, resisting the urge to pull the covers over her head. Snow. The house. No power, no heat. The fire. Lewis. That was why she’d spent the night on a less-than-comfortable sofa, why she’d awakened every few hours to stoke the fire, why she wanted to hide her face and go back to sleep.

Of course, that wasn’t an option, so she sat up and pushed back the covers. Though Lucy had no qualms about twirling across the dusty floor in her bare feet, Jayne searched for the house shoes she’d kicked off after her last fire-stoking. Judging by the prints of her little bare feet, Lucy had explored the entire house before waking her mother. Now she was kneeling on a table in front of one window, the curtains held back in one hand, not even noticing the dust motes drifting down on her in a lazy shower.

“Look, Mom. Isn’t it beautiful?”

Jayne detoured to add another log to the fire, then removed the curtains from Lucy’s hand and pushed them back. “Beautiful,” she agreed, then realized that it really was. Everything was covered with pristine snow. Tree branches hung heavy with it, and mundane things like trucks were turned into graceful lumps of white. All signs of her trips between house and SUV had been obliterated in the night, as well as Lewis’s bigger footprints.

It was beautiful, peaceful and exactly what she needed. Just looking made her breathe a little deeper, a little slower, and eased the tightness in her chest. Maybe she hadn’t made a mistake after all. Maybe this really was the change she’d needed.

“Can we go out and play?”

The idea of voluntarily going out into such wet and cold made Jayne cringe. She’d hated going out in the snow every winter of her adult life…but she’d loved it when she was a kid. Cleaning, unpacking, firewood and breakfast could wait.

“Okay. Let’s get dressed.”

Within fifteen minutes they were ready to go. Lucy was bundled in her favorite pink snowsuit. Lacking a snowsuit of her own, Jayne settled on jeans under sweatpants, a long-sleeved T-shirt, a sweatshirt, coat, hat and gloves. Neither of them was particularly mobile.

Lucy didn’t seem to notice that moving through the snow was more hassle than fun. Even when she slipped into drifts that were deeper than she was tall, she came up coated in white and laughing. More of the tension inside Jayne eased. As long as Lucy could laugh, life was good.

Lucy was trying to start a snowman when the sound of a door closing echoed across the clearing. She popped to her feet, gazed at their neighbor’s house as if noticing it for the first time, then broke into a broad grin. “Puppies!”

The dogs who’d just been freed from their house saw her at the same time and immediately detoured toward them, bounding across the snow as if it was no more than a minor nuisance. Easy to do when they were both the size of small ponies.

As Lucy moved to meet them, Jayne followed, struggling to catch up. Neither she nor Lucy had ever had any pet more rambunctious than a hamster, not even a blip on the landscape next to these creatures. The dogs were moving quickly, clearing the board fence that circled their yard in one leap, and they were so big that they could trample her little girl into the snow without even noticing it.

Ten feet out, the dogs leaped. Jayne shrieked Lucy’s name, certain the next sound she would hear was her daughter’s screams. Instead it was a sharp whistle that split the air. The dogs landed a few feet away and stood stock-still except for the excited quivering of their tails.

“Diaz, Cameron,” Lewis called, but Jayne couldn’t take her gaze from the animals to look in his direction. “Sit. Stay.”

Both animals obeyed, though the smaller didn’t actually touch the ground. It hovered there, butt a few inches above the snow, as if it might leap for Lucy’s throat any minute now, Jayne thought hysterically…or as if it knew that snow was too cold to be sitting on, common sense forced her to admit.

“Are they your dogs?” Lucy asked as Lewis approached.

“More or less.” He shifted his gaze, no friendlier than last night, to Jayne. “They’re just excited to see someone smaller than them. They won’t hurt her.”

Maybe not on purpose, Jayne thought doubtfully.

“Cameron Diaz is Princess Fiona in Shrek,” Lucy pointed out. “Are they named after her?”

Looking as if he had no clue what Shrek was, Lewis shrugged. “Maybe. I didn’t name them.”

“Are they boy dogs or girl dogs?”

“Boys.”

Lucy splayed one mittened hand on her hip. “But Cameron Diaz is a girl, or she couldn’t be Princess Fiona. You can’t name boy dogs after a girl.”

He shrugged again. “Like I said, I didn’t name them.”

“Can I pet ’em?”

“Yeah,” he replied at the same time Jayne said, “I don’t think—” She clamped her mouth shut at Lucy’s chastising look. Greg had often accused her of being overly protective, a judgment she’d had difficulty accepting from a man who was the very personification of reckless. There was nothing overprotective about not letting her delicate little girl within snapping distance of animals who could take her whole head in their mouths.

Well-behaved animals. Whose owner was standing between them. Who hadn’t yet disobeyed his command to stay despite the obvious temptation to do so.

Gritting her teeth to keep in her objections, Jayne shrugged and Lucy bounded forward. Lewis crouched, pulled off his glove and curled his fingers under. “Hold your hand like this and let them sniff you first.”

Lucy yanked off her mitten and did as he directed. Both dogs eagerly sniffed her hand from all angles, then worked their way up her arm, over her body and to her face, making her giggle. “Their noses is cold! You’re good puppies, aren’t you?”

Jayne reluctantly agreed that they did seem to be good. Despite their excitement, they both remained seated—though the smaller one did scoot forward a few inches—and they didn’t lick, show their teeth or make any threatening gestures. Though being twice Lucy’s size was threatening enough, in her opinion.

“I’m Lucy,” her daughter announced, gently scratching each animal behind its ear. “And that’s my mom. Mom, come meet Cameron and Diaz.”

“I can see them just fine from here.”

“She’s afraid of dogs,” Lucy confided in a confidential tone. “She doesn’t like pets. She didn’t even like my hamster just ’cause it got scared and bit her finger. A little blood, and she squealed.”

Jayne’s cheeks heated as Lewis looked at her. “It was more than a little blood,” she said defensively. “And I didn’t squeal. I shrieked.”

“An important distinction.” Was that sarcasm or amusement in his voice? It was hard to tell, so finely veiled was the tone, and his expression was totally blank.

After scratching both dogs for a moment, Lucy looked up at their owner. “My name’s Lucy,” she announced again. Of course, her first introduction had been made to the dogs. “I live here now. What’s yours?”

“Tyler Lewis.”

Tyler fitted him every bit as much as Lewis hadn’t, Jayne thought. A Tyler would be handsome, brooding and rugged—a loner…until he found the right woman to share his solitude. A Tyler was hero material—strong, with an equally strong code of honor. Champion of the downtrodden, protector of the weak, guardian of—

Jayne gave herself a mental shake. This wasn’t some character she was creating for her next book but a real, live individual with strengths and weaknesses, failings and flaws. Rule one—no romanticizing him. It would just lead to disappointment, and Greg had given her enough of that for a lifetime.

He eased to his feet, his six-foot-plus frame towering over Lucy. A sharp crease ran the length of his jeans legs, and his shirt, visible through the open parka, was pressed, as well. When was the last time she’d seen a man in a pair of starched, creased jeans? Probably never. Whose wife had the time to do that for him?

“Is there a Mrs. Lewis?” she asked without thinking.

His dark eyes turned a shade darker. “No.”

She waited for more—I’ve never married or There used to be—but that was all. No with a scowl. “Any kids?”

“God, no.” That was said with another scowl that made her want to draw Lucy safely behind her, out of his sight. A neighbor who didn’t like kids—wonderful.

“Can me and the puppies play?” Lucy asked.

Jayne was about to answer when she realized that the question was directed to Tyler instead. He might not like kids, but Lucy hadn’t noticed yet.

He touched the bigger of the dogs and said, “Go on.” Both animals immediately sprang to their feet, and they ran after Lucy, leaving Jayne alone with Tyler.

Unable to think of a thing to say, she turned for her first good look at the house. The snow did much to soften its dilapidated facade, even lending it an air of old-fashioned charm, but that wouldn’t last long. Already she could see the drips of melt coming off the eaves. By the next day the snow would be gone, and so would the charm, but the dilapidation would remain.

“A great old house,” she murmured disgustedly, still able to see the pleasure of fond memories in Greg’s face as he’d talked about his grandmother’s home. Great old lies was more like it.

“Not quite what you were expecting?”

She glanced hastily at Tyler. She hadn’t meant for him to hear the words, hadn’t even really meant to say them out loud. She shrugged. “Not quite. Was there ever an orchard around here?”

He gestured across the road, to the neat rows of trees on the far side of his fence. “Apple trees. Edna used to own the whole mountaintop. I bought everything except the house and the acre it sits on.”

Score one for Greg. And the house did have hardwood floors—scarred, neglected, in dire need of refinishing, but wood all the same. Presumably there had been a garden twenty-five years ago, as well. So he hadn’t made it all up.

Tyler shifted uncomfortably, packing down the snow under size-twelve boots. “I made an offer on the rest of it before she died, but she turned me down. She wanted some part of the family land to leave to the family.” His features quirked into a grimace that made clear what he thought of such sentimental nonsense. “I’ll make you the same offer.”

Jayne looked back at the house. It was old, plain and needed money and a large dose of sweat equity. It made their house back in Chicago look luxurious in comparison. It was too cramped even for just the two of them, with no room for her office. Whatever money he offered could be a down payment on a more suitable place.

Unfortunately for Tyler—and maybe for herself—she was a sucker for sentimental nonsense and she liked a challenge. Why else would she have stayed married to Greg for so long? Why else would she be trying to support herself and Lucy on a solidly midlist author’s income? She wasn’t a Miller by blood, but Lucy was, and if her great-grandmother had wanted the house to pass to someone in the family, it should. God knew, Greg hadn’t given her anything else…besides those big brown eyes, that charming smile and that fearless approach to life.

But, sentimentality aside, Jayne was also practical. It was one of the things Greg had liked the least about her. “Right now I have no plans to sell the place, but if I change my mind—” she looked again at the dangling shutters, the crooked porch, the paint flakes barely clinging to the wood “—you’ll be the first to know.”

Her answer seemed to satisfy him, judging from the silent nod he gave. He probably thought she was naive and inexperienced—a city girl who didn’t know what she’d gotten herself into, who wouldn’t last into summer and most certainly not through winter. And he might be right. She had been naive. Even knowing Greg’s penchant for exaggeration, she’d believed everything he’d told her about the house. But the place had potential, and she was a big believer in potential.

“Well…” She stamped her feet to get her blood circulating. “I’m freezing here and I need to see about breakfast. Lucy, let’s go in and warm up.”

“Aw, Mom—” Lucy broke off when her stomach gave a growl that would have done either of the dogs proud, then grinned. “Wanna have breakfast with us, Tyler?”

Say no, say no, say no, Jayne silently chanted, and she swallowed a sigh of relief when he did.

“No, thanks. I’ve got things to do.”

Lucy grinned again. “Can Cameron Diaz have breakfast with us?”

“They’ve already eaten.”

“Yeah, but they look like they could eat again.”

“They look like they could eat you.” Jayne swung her up into her arms, then brushed away some of the snow that covered her from hood to boots. In unison with her daughter she said, “Oh, Mom…” As Lucy rolled her eyes, Jayne took a few backward steps toward the house. “Thanks again for the firewood. We really appreciated it.”

As he’d done the night before, he simply nodded, then walked away. She watched him for a moment before turning and trudging toward the house.

Her house. Her daughter’s ancestral home.

Their future.

Chapter 2

By noon the snow was dripping so heavily that at times it sounded like rain, plopping off the roof and puddling on the ground underneath. Tyler stood at the front window, eating lunch—a sandwich in one hand, a Coke in the other—and gazing across the yard. Supposedly he was watching the dogs run. Instead, he was seeing another snowy scene, this one a hundred and fifty miles and eighteen years away.

An unexpected snowstorm had crippled Nashville, blanketing everything in white and closing the schools early. The buses had been waiting at lunchtime, and the kids who walked to school had been lined up at the office to call for rides. Since they’d had neither a home phone nor a car for Carrie to come and get him, Tyler had hidden in the boys’ room and waited until the school was quiet—the buses gone, the luckier kids picked up by a parent. Then he’d sneaked out of the building and had run all the way home, his jacket too thin and his shoes too worn to provide any protection from the snow.

Despite the frigid temperatures, he’d removed his shoes and socks outside—Del didn’t like the kids tracking in dirt or snow—then let himself into the house. His first clue that something was wrong was his mother. She’d sat at the kitchen table, Aaron in her lap and Rebecca clinging to her side. Carrie hadn’t laughed at his hair, frozen in spikes, or offered him a towel or fussed over him at all. She hadn’t done anything but give him a sorrowful look.

Then Del had walked into the room.

“Stupid little bastard, sneaking off from school,” he’d muttered as he’d advanced. “You think they don’t keep track of kids down at that school? You think they don’t notice when some whiny-ass little bastard sneaks out like a damn thief? You’re gonna be sorry, boy, damn sor—”

Pain in Tyler’s hand jerked his attention back to the present. He stared blankly at the pop can he held, crumpled almost flat, and the blood welling where a sharp corner had pierced his palm. Coke dripped from his fingers and puddled on the floor, each plop a reminder of the punishment such a spill had always brought.

An instant of panic spurted through him—Got to get a rag, got to clean it and dry it so no one will notice. He pushed it back with a deep breath and forced his fingers to relax around the battered aluminum. He’d taken only a few steps from the window when the doorbell echoed through the house, accompanied by Diaz’s excited barks and Cameron’s howl from the porch.

He would like to think the dogs were smart enough to ring the bell themselves, but a soft little-girl giggle told him he couldn’t be so lucky. Grimly setting his jaw, he opened the door. The dogs shot in around him, racing through the living room and circling the kitchen island before leaping onto the couch and battling for space. Lucy would have followed them if her mother hadn’t grabbed the hood to rein her in.

Her cheeks pink, Jayne smiled uncertainly. “Hi. I’m sorry to bother you, but I saw your electricity was on, and it reminded me to call and see about getting mine turned on, too.” She gestured toward the porch light that he always left on when he knew he would be home after dark. With no power, he’d forgotten to turn it off this morning, and now it glowed dimly in the bright day.

More than anything he wanted to send her away. He didn’t need her in his house, looking at his things, disturbing his day. But instead he flipped the switch to off, then stepped back to allow her entrance. “The phone’s on the desk,” he said gruffly. “The book’s under it.”

Still holding on to Lucy’s hood, Jayne came inside, steering her daughter toward the desk against one living room wall. She gave the wrestling dogs a wary look, and he spoke sharply. “Diaz. Cameron. Stop.”

Immediately the dogs separated, each taking one end of the couch and watching the three humans curiously.

“Could you teach me how to do that with Lucy?” Jayne asked, wearing that uneasy smile again.

Lucy seemed well enough behaved to him. Though her expression said she was itching to go exploring, she didn’t try to slip out of her mother’s hold. Instead she was satisfied to look at everything, her brown eyes wide with curiosity. When she looked at him, a broad grin spread across her face and she raised one hand and wiggled her index finger in greeting.

With a brusque nod, he went to the kitchen, tossed the can in the trash, then held his hand under cold water, washing away the pop and fresh blood. The puncture wasn’t deep, so instead of a bandage, he balled a napkin in his fist, then went to stare out the back windows. Immediately Diaz joined him, rubbing against his legs for attention. A moment later Lucy came over, as well. Glancing back, Tyler saw her coat hanging by its hood from her mother’s hand.

“I like your house,” she announced.

He grunted. It wasn’t fancy—maybe fourteen hundred square feet, one big living room/dining room/kitchen, two bedrooms and one and a half baths, with a wide front porch and a deck across the back. He’d built it himself, with help from his brothers and sister and his boss, and he’d done everything exactly the way he wanted it. It was his and his alone.

Lucy touched her reflection in the window, then giggled. “Look. I’m having a bad hair day. That’s ’cause I’ve been helping Mom clean. See?” Her fine hair stood on end, and what looked like the remains of a cobweb spread across the wild strands. It was a good look with the smudges of dirt that marked one cheek and her chin before spreading down the front of her shirt.

He couldn’t think of anything to say to her comment, but she didn’t seem to notice.

“You have any kids?” When he shook his head, she frowned, then wistfully asked, “Are there any kids around here?”

He knew everyone who lived along the road by sight, if not personally. He rarely had anything to do with them. He rarely had anything to do with anyone. He saw the Ryans—his boss Daniel, Sarah and their kids—every workday. He saw his own family on Sunday afternoons, and Zachary and Beth Adams and their kids maybe twice a month.

He wasn’t a real sociable person.

“The Trumbulls have some kids, but I don’t know how old they are,” he said at last. “They live about halfway back to town. And Sassie Whitlaw’s grandkids live with her part of the time. There’s a girl about your size.”

The wistfulness disappeared as she giggled again. “What kind of name is Sassie?”

Not much different from Lucy. It was an old name for a young girl.

A strand of hair fell forward to rest on her cheek, and she brushed it back with delicate fingers. “Do you have any animals besides puppies? Like maybe horses?”

“No.” There were cats in the barn, but they were no more sociable than he was. He kept their water dish full and supplemented their field-mouse diet with dry food, but that was the extent of their interaction.

“My dad said I could have a horse when we moved here. He said we’d have a barn and everything. He said we’d have trees filled with apples to give ’em for treats, and I could ride my horse to the store and to school.” Suspicion settled over her features, making her look years beyond five. “There’s no barn at our house. Daddy was little when he came here to see his grandma. I think he didn’t remember very well.”

Was there ever an orchard around here? her mother had asked that morning with the same sort of look, and just before that she’d all but snorted, A great old house. Clearly the Miller home had fallen far short of her expectations. Because her ex had a faulty memory—or a problem with the truth?

Lucy edged closer to the glass. “You have a barn,” she announced. “What’s in it?”

“The tractor. Some tools. A workshop.”

She tilted her head to look at him. “What kind of workshop?”

“You’re awfully nosy today.” Jayne came up to stand on the other side of the kid, combed the spiderwebs from her hair, then tried without success to remove them from her fingers. Her cheeks turned pink as she surreptitiously scrubbed them off on her sweatshirt.

“I’m bein’ neighborly,” Lucy disagreed. “That’s what Grandpa says people do in the country. Isn’t it, Tyler?”

Not me, he almost blurted out, but he just shrugged instead.

“They said we should have power by five,” Jayne said. With her gaze locked on something outside, it was hard to tell whether she was addressing the words to her daughter or him. “Do you think the roads are clear enough to go into town and pick up a few things?”

The snow had been melting steadily all day, leaving great patches of ground showing everywhere that wasn’t in the shade, and the temperature was warm enough for a lightweight jacket. How could the city girl not realize the roads would be clear? “Sure.”

“We’d be happy to give you a ride to your truck on the way.”

He’d be happy to say no. It wasn’t much of a walk, and he could use the exercise to clear his head. He couldn’t begin to guess at what made him say, “I’d appreciate it.” Maybe because then they would be even. She wouldn’t feel as if she was in his debt for the firewood and there wouldn’t be any reason for further contact between them.

Her smile was uneasy but relieved, too. “Okay. Let’s go.”

Tyler Lewis had less to say than any man Jayne had ever known.

Maybe she was just accustomed to talkative sorts. Her father could chat up anyone about anything, and Greg had never let a little thing like having nothing to say stop him from saying it. Tyler, it seemed, was just the opposite. While taking care of the electric, water and gas accounts, she’d listened to his conversation with Lucy with half an ear. Surely he had more than those brief little answers to offer.

But he wasn’t offering them to her. Without a word, she and Lucy had waited while he’d locked up, then the three of them had walked back to Edna’s house, where he and Lucy, still silent, waited while she locked up—laughable when practically every stick of furniture sat on the front porch—before loading into the Tahoe. Peripherally she watched him fasten his seat belt, then rub his long fingers over the leather armrest as if testing its texture. They stilled as his attention turned to the outside mirrors, automatically adjusting and lowering when she shifted into reverse, then returning to their preset position when she shifted into drive.

His mouth quirked slightly. Remembering that she’d told him Greg had taken everything of value? This truck was worth two, maybe three times the sorry little house and its one-acre setting. Knowing divorce was on the horizon, she’d had the sense to put it in her name only when she’d bought it.

Unable to bear the silence one moment longer, she asked, “Do you work in town?”

“No.”

She’d forgotten one of the rules she’d learned early in her career—no yes or no questions when conducting an interview. “Where do you work?”

He pressed the button that turned on the heater in the seat, then turned it off again before offering a halfhearted gesture to the west. “A few miles over that way.”

“Are you a farmer? A rancher? A housekeeper? A nanny?”

His mouth quirked again. With impatience? “A carpenter.”

“Do you frame houses, make cabinets, build decks?”

Finally he glanced at her and said in the softest of voices, “I see where your daughter gets her nosiness.”

Her face warming, Jayne slowed to a stop. They were at the bottom of the first hill, where a pickup old enough that its faded color could be one of any number was parked sideways across the road.

“Here you go.”

“Thanks.” He opened the door, ignored the running board and slid to the ground. Then he looked back. “Furniture. Tables, chairs, entertainment centers, desks…if it’s wood, I build it.”

Not a carpenter but a craftsman—and a modest one at that. She didn’t meet many modest people in her business. Authors had to believe their work was good or they would never open themselves up to crushing rejection by trying to sell it.

With a nod that passed for goodbye, he closed the door, crossed to his truck with long strides and climbed inside. It might be ten years older than her Tahoe, but the engine started on the first try and revved powerfully, and it had no problem with the mud as he straightened it out, then drove past.

“I like him,” Lucy remarked from the backseat. “He doesn’t treat me like a kid.”

Jayne wasn’t sure he knew how to treat kids. As far as that went, she wasn’t sure he knew how to treat adults either. But maybe it wasn’t all people he had a problem with—just those who invaded his privacy.

Lucy amused herself with a movie on her portable DVD player for the drive into town, while Jayne amused herself with comparing Greg’s stories with reality. Virtually everything about the house was a lie, and based on what she was seeing today, so was everything about the town. A quaint little town, like Mayberry from The Andy Griffith Show? Ha!

Sweetwater was a few blocks of shabby little buildings surrounded by a few more blocks of old houses and, on the outskirts of town, even shabbier businesses. There was a town square, and the downtown buildings were mostly old, mostly built of stone, but that was the extent of the quaintness. The welcome-to-town sign didn’t include a population, probably because people were leaving a lot quicker than they were coming. It looked sleepy and dreary and depressing.

How had she let herself believe that, for once, Greg wasn’t exaggerating?

Because she’d needed to believe. She’d needed a change, and after he’d cleaned out their joint bank accounts, this had seemed the best choice left her.

“Mom, I’m hungry,” Lucy piped up from the back.

So was she, and it appeared they had a grand total of two places to choose from—a diner near the courthouse and a convenience store on the edge of town that sold gas, hunting licenses, hot dogs and sandwiches. She opted for the diner.

Deprived of her DVD player for the walk from their parking space to the diner, Lucy looked around wide-eyed but didn’t comment on the town. Neither did Jayne. She might find it disappointing, but she certainly didn’t want to pass that on to her daughter.

The diner was warm and filled with good smells. Jayne helped Lucy out of her jacket, then slipped off her own before sliding into a booth that fronted the plate-glass window. A twenty-something waitress brought menus and offered a cheery greeting and coffee before leaving again.

“I like Sweetwater,” Lucy announced. “It’s pretty.”

Pretty? Jayne’s gaze darted to the view outside the window. Pretty old. Pretty shabby. It was the sort of place where one of her heroines would end up when everything else in her life had gone to hell and she found herself at rock bottom.

But her life hadn’t gone to hell. It wasn’t as if she had no place else to go. She could have stayed in Chicago. She could have settled anywhere.

But Sweetwater had one advantage over those options—Edna’s house. With no rent or mortgage payments, she’d figured that the savings she’d secreted away would last about eighteen months, barring emergencies, in southeastern Tennessee. That meant no outside job, no trying to work full-time and be a mother full-time and write full-time. She was a fast writer when Greg wasn’t scaring her muse into hiding. In eighteen months she could finish her current book and write two, maybe even three books on a new contract. In eighteen months she could be on her way to getting her career back on track.

That same money wouldn’t carry her through the end of the year in Chicago.

Just that thought gave the town a little brighter gleam.

They ordered hamburgers, and Jayne was all but drooling over the crispy thick-cut fries that came with them when the bell over the door dinged with a new arrival. She looked up to see another young woman, in her early to midtwenties, wearing jeans, a turtleneck under a heavy flannel shirt and boots with thick ridged soles. Despite the lumberjack clothes, there was something amazingly feminine about her, and it had nothing to do with the stylish blond hair or the three pairs of hoops that graced her earlobes.

Sorting through the stack of mail she carried, she called, “I’m back, Carla.”

The waitress appeared in the pass-through window. “How’s your mom?”

“She’s fine.”

“How’s Tyler?”

“Not answering his phone, as usual.”

One of Jayne’s heroines might jump to the conclusion that this lovely woman and Tyler were involved. Truth was, Jayne didn’t care beyond the fact that it would answer her question whether Tyler was antisocial with everyone or just her. Curiosity—that was all it was.

“His new neighbor’s here,” the waitress said with a gesture, and the woman turned to give them a speculative look. After a moment, she started their way.

Jayne dropped her gaze back to her burger. Her sweatshirt was dusty and cobwebby, and she hadn’t bothered with makeup this morning, not when she was still wearing the remnants of yesterday’s application. The last thing she needed was to meet someone who would make her feel dowdy even all dressed up—especially someone who might or might not be romantically involved with her neighbor.

But the woman didn’t detour away. She didn’t stumble and fall flat on her face or disappear into thin air but glided to a stop at the end of their table. “You must be Jayne.”

Jayne smiled politely. “Yes, I am. This is my daughter, Lucy.”

“Hi, Lucy. I’m Rebecca Lewis. I understand you’ve met my brother Tyler.”

That made Jayne feel marginally better. Sisters were less intimidating than girlfriends—no matter that she had zero interest in the man in question.

“What do you think of Sweetwater?”

Jayne glanced out the window, then back at Rebecca. “It’s…different.”

Rebecca showed no offense. “It’s small but boring, which is not always a bad thing. We grew up in Nashville—at least, until Tyler was fourteen and I was nine, when we came here to live with my grandparents. I liked the change.” She pulled a chair from the nearest table and sat down. “I take it you’re…” With a glance at Lucy, she hesitated. “Do you use the D word?”

Lucy seemed preoccupied with driving the ketchup bottle around the table with one hand while eating fries with the other, but she was never really tuned out. She often repeated something overheard during her most oblivious act. For that reason, Jayne had been as honest with her as a five-year-old deserved.

“Yeah. Lucy’s dad and I are divorced.”

“Too bad,” Rebecca said, then shrugged. “Or maybe not. I’ve got a few ex-boyfriends that I was more than happy to see the last of. The rumor mill says you’re a writer.”

“Historical romances.” Jayne was never sure what response that news would bring. There were the inevitable snickers and insults about trashy sex books and bodice rippers—not that one of her characters had ripped a bodice ever in his life—along with polite disinterest. Some people wondered why she didn’t write real books, and some, bless their hearts, were fans of the genre who were tickled to meet a real-life author.

“Really. That’s cool. How many books have you sold?”

“Eight.” Four in the eighteen months before she’d married Greg, and only four more in the following six years. There was a depressing statistic.

“Do you write under your own name?”

“No, I write as…Rochelle Starr.” Jayne hated admitting to her pseudonym. It was so overblown, so fake.

But Rebecca didn’t even blink. Instead she teasingly asked, “So, after selling eight romance novels, do you have any special insight into men?”

She laughed. “Yeah. They’re alien life-forms.”

“Isn’t that truth? So you already know everything you need to get along just fine with my brother.”

Jayne didn’t want to get along with Tyler, other than in a neighborly fashion—and she meant big-city neighborly, where you smiled and waved when you passed, helped each other out in an emergency but otherwise lived separate lives. She wasn’t looking for a man to share her life. She wrote fantasy love stories, and fantasy was one thing she already knew a lot about. She didn’t need living, breathing inspiration.

“Speaking of Tyler, could you save me a trip and give him something for me when you go home?” Rebecca asked.

Jayne’s smile was fixed in place as she gave the only answer she could. “Sure.”

“I’ll get it now.” Rebecca left her seat and disappeared through the swinging door into the kitchen.

By the time she returned, Jayne and Lucy were finished with their meals and Jayne had pulled out a twenty to pay the check Carla had delivered. Rebecca brushed it away. “It’s on the house. Consider it our welcome to Sweetwater.”

“Thank you.”

Rebecca set a large brown bag on the table. The top was folded over, and an envelope with Tyler’s name on it was binder-clipped to the fold. A chill emanated from it, suggesting its contents were frozen. Food? Did Rebecca make it her duty to make sure her big brother had a good meal from time to time?

“Thanks for delivering this and, like I said, welcome to Sweetwater. I hope I see a lot of you.”

“I’m sure you will,” Jayne said as she left a tip for the waitress, then helped Lucy into her coat.

After all, the diner’s only competition in town was a hot dog at the gas station.

Country music played on the stereo, nothing but a distant hum until Tyler shut off the sander. While running his hand over the surface, he hummed a few bars, but humming was as far as it went. The last time he had sung a song, his mother had remarked that he sounded just like his father, then burst into tears. That had been the end of singing for him.

This piece was the final door to the entertainment armoire he’d been working on for the past few weeks. It was his own design, built of walnut and carved with a rising-sun pattern on the upper two doors. It had turned out better than he’d expected—good enough to offer to the same pricey shops that sold Daniel’s work. But it was going into his living room, where few people besides him would ever see it.

He’d begun working with Daniel when he was fifteen. Life had been tough then—his mother away, adjusting to Sweetwater after Nashville, trying to fit in when kids talked about his family both behind his back and to his face. All the adults had agreed that he needed something constructive to occupy his time. Since Zachary couldn’t train him in the legal trade, his good friend Daniel had offered to teach him carpentry. They’d meant to keep him busy and out of fights, but instead he’d found a career.

He might never get rich at it, but his house was paid for, he had money in the bank, and he liked going to work every day. That counted for a lot.

A shadow fell across the open door, catching his attention an instant before Lucy Miller stepped into sight. She was carrying a grocery bag, clutching it to her body with both arms, and her eyes were wide as she looked all around. Disappointment curved the corners of her mouth. “You can’t even tell it’s s’posed to be a barn. Where’s the hay? Where do the horses go? Where do the cows go?”

His muscles tightened as he picked up a tack cloth and began wiping down the door, removing the bits of dust that inevitably escaped the sander’s vacuum bag. He didn’t like interruptions, especially from a talkative neighbor whose mother was pretty and needful. “Where’s your—”

Before he could finish, Jayne appeared behind her daughter, her cheeks flushed. “Lucy, I told you—wow.” Stepping around Lucy, she came farther into the room, to the table where the finished door was lying. She reached out, almost touched the carving, then drew back. “Did you do this?”

“Yeah.”

“Wow,” she murmured again, then turned to look around. He didn’t have to look to know what she saw—neatness that bordered on compulsion. A place for everything and everything in its place. He’d learned at an early age that there was hell to pay for disorder—and usually someone else paid it. Now that he lived alone, there was no one to care whether he put something in the wrong place, but it was a hard habit to break.

Jayne walked around the room. A stranger in his workshop was even more disruptive than in his house. He wanted her to leave—even if some small part of him appreciated the way she trailed her hand along the counter. The way she sniffed the fresh lumber stacked against one wall. The pleasure she took in studying the few finished pieces.

“This is gorgeous,” she said, ending up back at the armoire door. “Are you going to sell it?”

He shook his head.

“But you could.”

The comment made his cheeks warm and made him feel…flattered. But hell, hadn’t he just acknowledged that to himself before Lucy had come in? And he had the expertise to make that determination. So what did it matter that she agreed with him?

It didn’t.

“How long have you been doing this?” she asked, stopping on the opposite side of the table where he worked.

“Thirteen years.”

“Since you were a kid.” She sounded impressed.

He didn’t argue that thirteen years ago he’d lived through more than most people did in their entire lives but merely shrugged.

“Mom, this is cold,” Lucy complained, shuffling forward as if the weight of the paper bag was almost more than she could bear.

“I told you to let me carry it.” Jayne took it from her, then set it on the table next to the newly sanded door. “We met your sister while we were in town. She asked us to bring you this.”

Tyler gave the bag a suspicious look. It wasn’t the contents that made him wary—Rebecca gave him food from the diner once or twice a week, as if he would starve if left on his own—but the fact that she had already managed to meet Jayne and roped her into playing errand girl. He would have seen Rebecca the next day or definitely the day after that. The handout could have waited until then, except that she hadn’t wanted to wait. She’d wanted to send Jayne Miller knocking on his door.

She wanted him to have a life.

“There’s a letter on it,” Lucy pointed out, stretching onto her toes to see over the top of the workbench. “Don’t’cha wanna read it?”

Not particularly, and not with an audience. If her mother had asked, he could have pointed out that letters were private. But she wasn’t her mother. She was a nosy little kid.

He unclipped the envelope, tore one end and slid out the paper inside. It was taken from a notepad advertising the annual fall Harvest Festival in Sweetwater from the previous year, and Rebecca’s loopy writing covered the sheet. She’s pretty, she’s smart and she has a nice laugh. Invite them to dinner. I’ve packed plenty to share.

Great. His sister was trying to fix him up. Just what he needed.

“Well? What does it say?” Lucy prompted, and Jayne hushed her. “But, Mom—”

Jayne began backing toward the door, pulling Lucy with her by the collar. “Sorry to have interrupted you. And sorry she’s so nosy. As you know, she comes by it naturally. Guess we’d better get back home and cleaning again. Thanks again for the firewood and the phone and—and everything.”

Tyler watched them go, then looked down at the note again. She has a nice laugh. Only Rebecca would find that a reason to try to hook someone up with her brother. But she was one up on him. He hadn’t heard Jayne laugh yet. Those few minutes when she’d been looking around the shop were the most relaxed he’d seen her. The rest of the time she seemed nervous and talked too much or not at all.

He tossed the note aside, then looked inside the bag. Usually she sent him servings for one or two, but not this time. There was a large pan of lasagna, ready for the oven, along with a frozen pie made with apples from his own trees, a container of vanilla ice cream and a loaf of Italian bread, no doubt already sliced and spread with garlic butter. She’d definitely packed plenty to share, and had even sent him someone to share it with.

As if it was that easy.

He took a break to carry the bag to the house. After putting away the food, he filled a glass with water from the tap, then stood near the kitchen island and listened. Except for the heavy breathing from the dogs asleep on the sofa, the house was quiet. Always quiet. He told himself he liked the peace. Fourteen years of screaming, angry shouts and sobs had given him a fine appreciation for silence.

But it was a little less fine lately than it used to be.

Invite them to dinner. It might not be the friendliest invitation, but he could do it. And then what? They would expect conversation—at least Jayne would. Lucy would be happy to talk all by herself. He wasn’t very good at making conversation and never had been. Maybe it was just his nature or maybe it came from all those warnings he’d been given as a kid. From his mother, usually whispered while smiling through tears: Promise you won’t tell anybody, Tyler. He didn’t mean nothin’. He never means nothin’. And from his father: You say one word to anyone, boy, and I’ll shut your mouth for good.

Tyler had believed him and kept his mouth shut. Until his father lay dead and his mother was taken away in handcuffs.

Old habits were hard to break, and keeping to himself was his oldest habit of all.

Chapter 3

On Friday morning Jayne went outside, strolling to the edge of the road before turning back to face the house. It was barely seven o’clock, but she’d been up more than an hour and she’d finally done all she could to improve the inside of the house. Today, with its promise of sunshine and warm weather, she would work on the outside.

The grass in front needed mowing—after she’d dragged off those nasty rugs she’d tossed out the day before. Of course, she didn’t have a lawn mower, but she could buy one. She’d noticed some bulbs poking up their heads in what had once been flower beds, so she intended to weed around them to give them a better chance. And she hadn’t needed more than a look out the back windows to see that there was a small jungle there. She wanted to clear it before she lost Lucy in there.

Behind her a sharp whistle sounded. She watched as Cameron and Diaz came flying from the woods, leaped the fence and disappeared inside. She didn’t get even a glimpse of their master.

She returned her attention to the house, thinking about paint and shutters and repairs, and only vaguely noticed the closing of a door, the revving of an engine. As the old pickup drew nearer, though, she couldn’t help but wish she’d done more than drag her fingers through her hair. A little makeup would have been nice, along with a T-shirt that hadn’t seen better days long before Greg had tossed it her way. Not that she was looking to impress anyone.

Listening to the truck, she calculated when to turn and give a neighborly wave. Tyler didn’t return it. But fifty feet past, the truck lurched to a stop, and he backed up until he was beside her. Leaning across, he rolled down the window. “I can take those rugs to the county dump in the morning.” His tone was brusque, and his expression matched.

“Thanks. I was wondering what I’d do about them.” Not true. In her thoughts about the rugs, she’d gotten only so far as getting rid of them—not how.

The truck rolled forward a foot or so before stopping again. Tension rolled off him in waves, from his scowl to his clenched jaw to his fingers on a death grip around the steering wheel. “I can fix that bottom porch step, too.”

She wanted to tell him, thanks, but no thanks. She could hire someone to do that for her or get how-to instructions from the Internet and fix it herself. But fixing it herself was liable to lead to more extensive repairs, and anything she didn’t have to hire out was money that would last just a little bit longer. Without a steady income, that mattered.

“Thanks. I’d really appreciate that.” As long as he was being accommodating—more or less—she went on. “Is there a place in town where I can buy a lawn mower and a weed trimmer?”

For a long moment he was still, then with a rueful shake of his head he removed a key from the ring in the ignition and offered it to her. “This goes to the door around the corner from the workshop. Everything you need’s in there.”

She backed away a step. “I can’t—What if I break something?”

“You know how to use a lawn mower and a weed trimmer?”

“Yes, but—”

Impatiently he held the key a few inches closer.

With reluctance Jayne held out her hand, and he dropped the key in it. “Thanks.” She seemed to be saying that a lot. She wasn’t comfortable with being so beholden to someone, especially someone who was begrudging about his generosity.

“I’ll get the stuff for the step today.”

She nodded, and so did he, then shifted into gear and drove away.

In her line of work, heroes often had tortured pasts. What would Tyler’s be? An unhappy upbringing? If so, it didn’t seem to have had the same effect on his sister. A broken marriage and broken heart? When she’d asked if there was a Mrs. Lewis, his answer had been blunt, to the point, but all his answers were blunt and to the point. Some tragedy that had happened between his teen years and the time he’d isolated himself up here?

She rolled her eyes. If she wanted to fixate on a hero with a tortured past, there was one inside the house on her computer, just waiting for her to resolve the big conflict that was keeping him apart from his heroine. Tyler wasn’t a character and he wasn’t a hero—at least, not hers.

After finishing her coffee, she went inside to check on Lucy, still asleep in the smaller of the two bedrooms. Her daughter gave a soft sigh, then snuggled deeper into her covers as Jayne backed out of the room. She would probably sleep another hour, maybe two. She wouldn’t even know that Jayne had left her to go down the road to Tyler’s.

She found the door the key fit on the north side of the barn. It was wide and opened into a large, clean storage room. The lawn mower was pushed into a space apparently built for it, with a shelf above for the gas can and a few quarts of oil. The trimmer occupied a shelf nearby, with another gas can, more oil, extra line and the owner’s manual. Other shelves and nooks held a chain saw, an edger and a lightweight utility cart, and Peg-Board on the walls was filled with hand tools, work gloves and safety glasses. There was even one small shelf that held bug repellent.

Tyler Lewis was one seriously organized man.

She loaded a variety of tools into the cart, pushed it outside, then locked up again. With the key deep in her jeans pocket, she headed back to her own house. There, she checked on Lucy once more, then pushed the cart around to the edge of the overgrown backyard.

Clearing it was a daunting prospect. Where to begin?

The author in her answered: begin at the beginning. She revved up the trimmer and began clearing the tall weeds in an ever-widening arc, uncovering rocks, logs and a fifty-gallon drum Edna had apparently used for burning trash.

Despite the early-morning chill, sweat coated her skin, along with grass clippings clinging to every exposed surface, when she cut the engine.

“Well, she doesn’t look like a city girl today, does she?”

Jayne spun around to find Lucy, looking like a sleepy doll in her nightgown, and Rebecca standing next to the cart. “Good morning,” she said, shoving damp hair from her forehead, then brushing at the grass flecks that clung to her hand.

“You’re working bright and early,” Rebecca remarked. “I thought I’d bring you a treat from the diner. Our cook makes the best sticky buns in three counties and has the blue ribbons to prove it. Don’t tell me you’ve already eaten.”

Jayne’s stomach answered with a loud growl as she pulled off the safety glasses. “I’ve only had coffee. Sticky buns sound wonderful.”

“What’re you doing, Mom?” Lucy asked. “You woke me up with all that noise.”

“I’m cleaning up this mess.”

Lucy gave the slightly improved yard a doubtful look. “You’re gonna need help.”

“And you are help. Isn’t that lucky?”

“The three of us can have it clean in no time,” Rebecca said as she led the way back around the house.

Jayne was startled. They were talking about a lot of hard, dirty work. “I appreciate the offer, but you have your own work.”

Rebecca waved away her response as she sat on the top porch step, where a large bag waited. “I’m the boss. I can take off whenever I want. Besides, I’ve done this sort of thing before. I helped Tyler clear the land for his barn. When is he coming over to fix that step?”

Slowly taking a seat one step down, Jayne asked, “What makes you think he is?”

“Because I know my brother. He’ll tell you he’s not neighborly, but the only one he’s kidding is himself. If not for him, Edna never could have stayed out here until she died. He took care of everything she needed.”

She opened the bag and started setting out food. She added napkins, plastic forks and salt and pepper shakers, then smiled brightly. “Dig in.”

Jayne ate half a biscuit-egg-and-ham sandwich before finally murmuring, “Tomorrow morning.”

Mouth full, Rebecca raised her brows.

“Your brother’s coming over tomorrow morning to fix the step. And to haul those rugs to the county dump.”

The information didn’t seem to surprise Rebecca in the least.

Jayne watched Lucy sneak the egg from her sandwich, wrap it in a napkin, then slide it behind her on the step. When she looked back at Rebecca, she saw that she was watching, too, and smiling. “Are you married?”

Rebecca’s smile didn’t waver. “No. But I came close. I’ve been engaged four times. It’s just that when it comes time to say ‘I do,’ I don’t.”

What made a woman so skittish of marriage? Jayne wasn’t going to pry as to why. Maybe when she knew Rebecca better. When she was sure she wouldn’t also pry for information about Tyler.

They ate until the only thing Jayne wanted was a nap, but when Rebecca got to her feet, ready to work, Jayne pulled herself up, too. “You get dressed and brush your teeth,” she told Lucy. “Put on old clothes, okay? Then come on around back.”

They chose a place to start a burn pile, then began cutting the clumps of shrubs Jayne had trimmed around. For a time Rebecca offered advice—how to keep the shrubs under control; who to call for a new trash barrel; where to buy a window air conditioner.

Finally, though, when the pile of cut branches was as tall as they were, Rebecca’s conversation turned personal. “How long have you been divorced?”

Jayne stopped in the act of pulling at a branch from one of the fallen trees. Getting used to thinking of herself as divorced had been tough. But for so much of her marriage she hadn’t felt very married, either. She and Greg had become more like roommates—and not particularly friendly ones. They’d lived as if they were single long before it had become fact.

“Sore subject?” Rebecca asked softly.

Shaken from her thoughts, Jayne smiled. “No, not at all. we were married six years. We’ve been divorced five months.”

“Did he break your heart?”

Jayne glanced at Lucy, who’d given up on dragging smaller pieces of debris to the burn pile and was now crouched in the grass, watching ants march along an unseen trail. “No, no heartbreak. Just a lot of disappointment, in him and myself. I married a charming, irresponsible man and expected him to transform into husband-and father-of-the-year material. I knew better. I knew he was just six months of fun and fond memories. But—” she looked at Lucy again and smiled “—I got pregnant. I was old-fashioned enough to want to be married before the baby was born, and he swore he was ready to settle down. Unfortunately, he was just a kid himself.”

He was all about fun, games and living for the moment. What had appealed to her before Lucy was born had become frustrating after. She called him unreliable. He said she was rigid. He couldn’t act his age. She didn’t know how to have fun. He was careless. She was a bore.

Six years. Was that a testament to their commitment or their foolishness?

In a casual voice Rebecca said, “It’s funny, isn’t it? Your Greg is a kid in an adult’s body, and Tyler’s been grown up since he was about three. He’s the most responsible man you’ll come across.”

Responsible? Jayne wouldn’t argue that. Unfriendly, distant, aloof—those were true, too. But she kept that to herself when she answered just as casually, “How lucky for the women in his life.”

Rebecca snorted. “Right now that’s you, Lucy, my mom and me.”

Bending, Jayne took the clippers to the suckers growing around the trunk of one of the fallen trees. “Too bad I’m not looking for a relationship.”

Rebecca was undaunted. “Hey, sometimes you find the best things when you’re not looking. Like this.” She pulled back a layer of vines she’d cut to reveal a small statue. Cast of concrete, it was two feet tall—a small girl in pigtails carrying a bucket with a puppy sticking its head out.

Jayne admired it, then returned to work. Sometimes you find the best things when you’re not looking. That sounded like something her heroine Arabella’s sister would tell her. In fact, she was pretty sure one of her heroines’ friends had said exactly that.

The thing was, it was true in a romance novel. But life wasn’t a romance novel. Her years with Greg had proven that. She was the only one in control of her happily ever after. And she knew one thing for sure.

It wasn’t going to rely on a man.

Rather than haul his saw over to the Miller house, Tyler walked over early Saturday morning, took the necessary measurements and was on his way back to the shop when a small voice called, “Hey! Wait up!”

He grimaced, then wiped the expression off his face before turning to face Lucy, leaping from the steps to land flat-footed in the recently mowed grass. She wore red boots with a white-and-purple nightgown that left her arms bare, and her hair was standing up in all directions. She ran to meet him, flashing a grin. “What’re you doin’?”

Regretting this offer. “I’m going to fix that step.”

“Can I help?”

He glanced back at the house. The front door was open, but there was no sign of Jayne. “Where’s your mother?”

“Asleep. She was pooped last night.”

He’d seen the pile of branches when he’d come home the night before and been impressed. She’d made good use of his lawn mower, trimmer and chain saw and had a nice stack of firewood against the north side of the house. He wouldn’t have figured she’d even know how to start the chain saw.

“You’d better wait for her to get up.”

“Aw, that could be a while.” Her face fell, then she grinned again. If her pale hair was curly instead of straight, she’d look like a greeting-card angel…at least, until it came to the red boots. “I won’t get into nothin’, I promise.”

She didn’t have much experience with being denied what she wanted—no more than he had in doing the denying. Besides, he would be in the shop only a few minutes, and as long as she stayed away from the tools…

“Okay.” He started walking again, realized she was running to keep up and slowed his steps.

“Where’re Cameron and Diaz?”

“Out running in the woods.”

“Where do they go?”

“I don’t know.”

He would have sworn she’d gotten in another fifteen questions in the few minutes it took them to reach the shop. Once inside, she started again. “What’s that?”

A table saw. A router. A belt sander. A palm sander.

“Why do you have two sanders?”

“Because they do different types of sanding.” He picked up the lumber he’d gotten in town the day before, marked the measurements and took it to the saw. He was about to flip the power switch when her face popped up on the opposite side of the table.

“What’re you doing?”

“Come here.”

She ran around the table, her boots clomping on the cement, and he swung her up onto the workbench behind him. She didn’t weigh as much as an armload of good oak boards. “Sit here.”

“But I wanna help.” Her bottom lip poked out as she pointed to the saw. “I want to do that.”

“Maybe some other time.” When she was twice as old and half as curious. If she and her mother stayed around that long.

He cut the board to size, measured it again, rounded off the sharp edges, then started toward the door. He was almost outside when Lucy spoke again. “Hey. You forgot me.”

She was sitting there, boots swinging way above the floor, arms outstretched. He switched the board to his other arm, caught her around the waist and swung her to the floor. It had been a lot of years since he’d held a kid, but for just a moment the sensation was so familiar. How many times had he picked up Rebecca, Aaron, Josh or Alex? Dozens. Hundreds. When they’d been scared, when they’d been tired, when they’d needed to feel safe… He’d been their safe place, according to the court-ordered psychologist they’d seen.

And this mountaintop was his safe place. Alone.

“Look, there’s a squirrel. If you had a horse, I’d take care of him for you. I’m gonna be a cowboy when I grow up. Our TV doesn’t work up here. Does yours? What’s in those woods? Mama doesn’t have any sisters. Or brothers. Rebecca brought us breakfast yesterday and helped us clean the yard. Is she really your sister?”

That caught his attention. He laid the board next to the tools he’d left earlier and picked up his hammer. Delivering breakfast seven miles from town sounded like Rebecca. So did pitching in on hard work. She would have done it for anyone who needed the help…though he was pretty sure he knew her motive for doing it for Jayne.

“Yeah,” he said at last. “She’s my sister. Don’t you think we look alike?”

Lucy crouched beside him and screwed up her face as she studied him. “No. She’s real pretty. And her hair’s blond and yours is brown, and her eyes are blue and yours are brown.”

He didn’t share even the faintest resemblance with Rebecca and their brothers. They took after their mother’s side of the family, while everyone agreed that he was the spittin’ image of his father.

He’d rather look like dirt.

Using the hammer, he tapped the cracked board loose, then handed it to Lucy. “Why don’t you put that on the rubbish heap around back? Watch out for those nails.”

Holding it with exaggerated care, she headed around back.

The new board was a perfect fit. He made sure the wood underneath was in good shape, then positioned it and had just driven in the first nail when the screen door swung open.

“Lucy, what in heaven’s name—”

Squatting put him at eye level with Jayne’s feet, which were bare, the nails painted pale pink. His gaze naturally moved up over her ankles, calves, knees and thighs before reaching the hem of her T-shirt. It was red, barely long enough to be modest, and across the chest were white letters proclaiming Smart women read romance I write it.

One foot moved to rest on top of the other, and a slender hand tugged at the shirt, pulling it from the curves it naturally wanted to cling to. “Oh. I thought… I didn’t realize…excuse me.” Quickly she backed up and disappeared inside the house.

And his gaze had never made it higher than the words emblazoned across her breasts.

Shaking his head to clear it, he positioned another nail and gave it a sharp rap, missing his thumb by a hair. By the time he refocused and hammered in the next few nails, she was back, this time wearing jeans, unlaced running shoes and another T-shirt. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and her brown eyes were uncommonly alert, as if she’d received a rude awakening.

“I’m sorry. I forgot you were coming by this morning. I overslept.”

“So Lucy said.” Accustomed to solitude, he worked when he wanted without worrying about disturbing anyone. He hadn’t given any thought to the fact that a little hammering on her front porch might wake her. “I can come back later.”

“No, of course not. I’m up. I should have been up hours ago. When I had another job, I always got up around five so I could get a few hours’ writing in before I had to take Lucy to day care, then go to work myself. It’s just that then I worked in an office and never did anything more physical than housework and running after Lucy in the evening. After working in the backyard yesterday, I was…” Apparently running out of air, she drew an audible breath.

“Pooped?”

With a smile that was more grimace, she eased herself onto the top step, carefully rested her ankle on the opposite knee and tied her shoe. “Lucy again, huh?”

He nodded and went back to hammering.

Moving as if it pained her, she lowered that foot, raised the other and tied that lace, then stretched her arms over her head, though not too high. “Your sister was a huge help yesterday.”

She could be. She could be a huge pain, too. She was so determined to fix Tyler’s life—meaning find him a woman—while she kept guys around only long enough to break their hearts. She wasn’t interested in marriage, she told him. He did her the courtesy of believing her, but she refused to return it. All he needed, in her opinion, was a woman—and not of the one-night variety.

When all he really needed was to be left alone to live his life the way he thought best.

“I can’t believe how warm it turned after that snow.”

He glanced at her and saw that her face was tilted to the morning sun, eyes closed, a smile on her lips. Her skin was clear, tinged with the faintest of gold, and her upper lip curved into a cupid’s bow. With her hair pulled back, she seemed youthful, while he felt every one of his twenty-eight years and then some.

She looked as if she didn’t have a care in the world…but no one knew better than he that looks could be deceiving. Her husband had run out on her and taken just about everything. He’d lied to her about the house and left her with a daughter to be both mother and father to. Those were cares. Even the mere mention of divorce had been enough to send his mother into a state of panic. She couldn’t have handled being a single mother without a lot of help. Even then, he’d been the real parent figure.

Jayne opened her eyes, looked around, then frowned. “Where is Lucy?”

“She went to throw the old step away.”

She stood cautiously and walked to the end of the porch, leaning over the rail. It shifted beneath her weight. “Lucy!”

A solid thudding signaled the kid’s approach a moment before she came into sight. “Hey, Mom. I was watching the ants. They’re cool.”

“Well, leave them outside where they belong. What are you wearing?”

With a grin, Lucy stuck her foot out. “The boots Grandma gave me last Christmas.”

“Those are snow boots, stinker. And I was referring to your nightgown. We don’t go running around outside in our night-clothes.”

Yes, you do, Tyler thought, and at the same time her cheeks flushed pink.

“Go in and get dressed. And brush your teeth. And comb your hair. And put on shoes.”

“Oh, Mom.” Resting one hand on Tyler’s shoulder, Lucy hopped over the bottom step, then stomped to the top. “You are not fun.” An instant later the screen door slammed behind her, then the stomps faded into the distance.

“Of course, her father is always fun,” Jayne muttered, turning to lean back against the rail, arms folded across her middle.

“I wouldn’t do—”

The screech of nails pulling from wood interrupted Tyler’s warning. Her eyes widened and her arms flapped as she tried to regain her balance, but it was a losing battle. The entire section of railing fell to the ground, and an instant later she landed on top of it.

Dropping the hammer, Tyler bolted to the end of the porch. The color was drained from her face, making her eyes appear darker in contrast, and her mouth was moving, but no words were coming out—just short, gasping breaths. He knelt beside her but didn’t touch her. The back of her head had connected with the ground, and the railing had broken her fall across the middle of her back. At best, she was going to have some nasty bruises. At worst…

She took a breath, long and quavering, and tears gathered in her eyes. If she started crying, he was outta there. He would go home, call Rebecca, then disappear into the woods with Diaz and Cameron. He’d comforted all the weepy females any man should have to face by the time he was ten; he was out of the business. He didn’t even remember how. Hell, he’d never even known how to comfort a stranger.

“Are you all right?” he asked, his tone more curt than he’d intended.

She took a steadier breath and slowly sat up. It was awkward lying half on the ground, half on the railing. Touching her was even more awkward, but he did it, lifting her to her feet, holding her until she was steady enough to stand on her own. The instant he let go, she sank down on the porch and scooted back with a wince. There was color in her face again, bright red to match the shirt she’d worn earlier.

“I was thinking I’d rather park at the side of the house than out front,” she remarked in a shaky voice. “Now all I need is some steps here, and I can do that. Easiest bit of demolition I’ve ever done.”

“Yeah. Well, next time, ask and I’ll show you a less painful way to do it.”

She smiled thinly as she moved experimentally, then quickly became still again. “That’s a good idea. But let’s pretend there won’t be a next time. Hell, let’s pretend there wasn’t a this time. Okay?”

Pretend that she hadn’t fallen. That he hadn’t helped her up. Hadn’t held her hand in his.

“Okay,” he agreed.

Yeah. Sure. Like he was going to forget it.

Jayne hurt—from the bump on her head all the way down to her little toes. Small-town living wasn’t supposed to be hazardous to her health. She was going to be black-and-blue tomorrow, to go along with all the muscle aches from yesterday. She’d be lucky if she could sit at the computer long enough to do anything besides check her e-mail.

She shifted position, and a tiny moan escaped her, enough to make Tyler, finishing up with the step, look her way. His expression was mixed—some concern but mostly discomfort. “Do you need to see a doctor?” he asked after hammering in the last nail.

“No, I’m fine. Just a little sore.”

“You hit your head.”

She raised her hand to the lump there and winced. “Yeah, but I didn’t lose consciousness. I’m fine.” It was true, too, except for the headache that was starting to throb. And the tender place right across her middle in back where the rail cap had broken her fall. She was convinced she could feel it swelling and purpling even as she sat there.

“There’s one of those twenty-four-hour clinics about thirty miles from here.”

She smiled and stood up. “Really, I’m all right.” It was nothing a few aspirin tablets and a hot bath wouldn’t cure.

He was watching her, gaze narrowed, as if he didn’t quite believe her. Of course, distrust went with the tortured past of a dark, brooding hero. Fortunately, before he could pursue the subject further, Lucy came bursting out of the house.

Stopping at the top of the steps, she planted her hands on her hips. “You finished without me! I was gonna hold the nails for you!”

Jayne took a few cautious steps away from the porch. When she didn’t trip, sway or feel even the slightest dizziness, she bent to pick up the railing section. Long nails protruded from one end, top and bottom, curving outward in an oddly graceful way. Only one nail remained at the other end, rusted and bent only near the tip, while the wood where the top nail should have been was gone.

“Do you really want steps here?”

She looked up to find Tyler standing a few feet away. Her daughter stood behind him, feet planted as his were, hand on her hip, other hand resting on the porch floor, as his were, even though the porch floor was level with her nose. Jayne smiled faintly at the sight. Lucy liked role models. For two years she’d pounded away on a toy computer while Jayne wrote, and whenever she visited her grandparents, she wore an apron around the house and said things like “Mercy me” and “Goodness gracious.” The one person she’d never mimicked was Greg. But then, she’d always copied adults.

“Well?” Tyler prompted.

With a blink, Jayne refocused on the section of railing in her hands. “Can I just stick this railing back up there?” she asked.

He shook his head. “This is rotted and it’s split here and here. You’d have to replace both these pieces. You can buy a premade section and put that up or…” He gazed away, his jaw tight, before finishing. “Or we can do new steps if it’s what you really want. It’s not a big job.”

She hesitantly said, “I can pay you for your time.”

Something crossed his face, then disappeared. “No, you can’t,” he said shortly. “Do you want the steps or not?”

“Yes, please.” Her voice was small. She took a breath to strengthen it. “I can help you.”

A muscle twitched in his jaw an instant before he said, “Lucy will help. Won’t you, Lucy?”

Her daughter’s head bobbed.

Tyler glanced at his watch. “I’ll get my truck and load those rugs, drop them off, then stop by the feed store—they sell lumber, too. They should be finished by this evening.”

Jayne nodded, but he was already walking back to the front steps to gather his tools. Lucy matched him stride for stride, then stood on the new step and watched as he left. As Jayne climbed the steps, she caught her daughter’s hand and pulled her, backward, into the house with her. “Did you do everything I asked you to?”

“I got dressed. And I put on shoes.” Lucy stuck one foot into the air to show a pink sneaker with elastic laces. “And I brushed my hair.” Grabbing handfuls of it, she lifted it into the air, then let go. Some of it stayed up.

“And did you brush your teeth?”

Clamping her lips together, Lucy garbled an answer.

“Go brush your teeth.” Jayne gave her a push toward the bathroom, then went into the kitchen to take some aspirin. The muscle aches were getting better the more she moved. She hoped the headache would improve, as well. Otherwise, she was in for a fun day with Tyler hammering and Lucy helping. Not that she would complain even if her head exploded.

Tyler was the most responsible man she would come across, according to Rebecca. That was proving to be true, and it was such a novelty that Jayne wasn’t quite sure what to think. Greg had broken plenty of stuff, but he’d never fixed a thing. He’d never offered his time or his help without the expectation of something substantial in return. He’d never put in a full day at work, which explained why he’d been fired from as many jobs as he’d quit. He’d never accepted responsibility for anything.

A responsible man in her life other than her father…quite a novelty indeed.

By the time Tyler returned in his truck, Jayne had pulled on a pair of work gloves and walked out to meet him. He glanced at her as he slid his hands into his own pair of well-worn gloves. “I can handle this.”

“I can help.”

Instead of arguing, he shrugged and picked up one end of the nearest rug. She bent, too, with a quiet intake of breath as the movement pulled the bruised skin on her back, and gathered the other end in her hands. Immediately moisture soaked through her cotton gloves. “Eww, it’s wet.”

The snowmelt had turned the dirt that permeated the fibers into mud, as well as given life to a smell words couldn’t do justice to. It was enough to make her shudder all over.

They heaved the rug into the bed of the truck, then picked up the others. As soon as the last rug left her hands, Jayne stripped off the gloves. She was tempted to toss them into the truck bed, too, but why waste them? They could go into the laundry with all the filthy towels and cloths she’d used in cleaning.

Tyler held his gloves in one hand. “I’ll be back in a few hours—”

“Could we go with you?”

The question surprised her as much as him. There was still plenty for her to do here. Laundry, last night’s dinner dishes, a little research for the next scene she would be writing.

“I’d like to see where the dump is,” she went on when he didn’t speak. “My furniture’s arriving next week, and I’ll be getting rid of some of Edna’s stuff. That way I’ll know where to take it.”

He still didn’t say anything.

“I can pay for the stuff for the steps, too. And I’d like to get some paint samples. I really want to paint the house, both inside and out. I’m guessing they sell paint there, too. I mean, what’s the use of lumber without paint to put on it? Well, that’s a dumb question. We’re living in a pile of lumber with very little paint. But anyway—”

He raised one hand, and she gratefully stopped talking. “Okay.” That was all he said, then he walked around the truck and climbed behind the wheel.

Jayne stood there a moment, surprised by his easy concession, before turning and hurrying into the house. Lucy was still in the bathroom, the water running in the sink, so she washed her hands at the kitchen sink, then went into her bedroom. “Luce! Hurry up in there! We’re going into town with Tyler!”

There was nothing she could do with her hair, but she did a quick makeup job—foundation, eye shadow, eyeliner and lipstick. She met Lucy in the hall outside the bathroom, her hair damp where she’d combed it down. Lucy puckered up for a kiss, and Jayne bent, but instead her daughter blew minty-fresh breath full-force in her face. “Better?”

“Much. Let’s go.”

Lucy raced across the yard while Jayne locked up. By the time she’d reached the truck, Lucy was already buckled into the center section of the bench seat and swinging her feet, chattering about her very first ever pickup ride.

Compulsively neat, responsible and endlessly patient. Jayne was learning more about her neighbor every day.

And appreciating it.

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