Griff sighed, longing for the good old days when life had been simple.

He flew, he ate, he slept, and when he had an itch, he scratched it with whatever woman was WA. Willing and Available—a term coined back in flight school, one he hadn’t thought of in a while.

Now he did. Was Rose willing and available?

Hell, his life before the crash might not have been perfect, but at least where women were concerned, it had come damn close.

This thing with Rose Davenport was different. She had a way of making him feel…something like hunger pangs—only, more intense, more focused…

More dangerous.

Some survival instinct encoded on the macho-male chromosome triggered in him, warning him that if he wasn’t careful, things with Rose could get way out of hand….

Damn!

Dear Reader,

Silhouette Books publishes many stars in romance fiction, but now we want to make you a star! Tell us in 500 words or less how Silhouette makes love come alive for you. Look inside for details of our “Silhouette Makes You A Star” contest—you could win a luxurious weekend in New York!

Reader favorite Gina Wilkins’s love comes alive year after year with over sixty Harlequin and Silhouette romances to her credit. Though her first two manuscripts were rejected, she pursued her goal of becoming a writer. And she has this advice to offer to aspiring authors: “First, read everything you can, not just from the romance genre. Study pacing and characterization,” Gina says. “Then, forget everything you’ve read and create something that is your own. Never imitate.” Gina’s Bachelor Cop Finally Caught? is available this month. When a small-town reporter is guilty of loving the police chief from afar and then tries to make a quick getaway, will the busy chief be too busy with the law to notice love?

And don’t miss these great romances from Special Edition. In Sherryl Woods’s Courting the Enemy, a widow who refused to sell her ranch to a longtime archrival has a different plan when it comes to her heart. Tall, Dark and Difficult is the only way to describe the handsome former test pilot hero of Patricia Coughlin’s latest novel. When Marsh Bravo is reunited with his love and discovers the child he never knew, The Marriage Agreement by Christine Rimmer is the only solution! Her Hand-Picked Family by Jennifer Mikels is what the heroine discovers when her search for her long-lost sister leads to a few lessons in love. And sparks fly when her mysterious new lover turns out to be her new boss in Jean Brashear’s Millionaire in Disguise!

Enjoy this month’s lineup. And don’t forget to look inside for exciting details of the “Silhouette Makes You A Star” contest.

Best,

Karen Taylor Richman,

Senior Editor

Tall, Dark and Difficult
Patricia Coughlin

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For my parents, Tom and Eileen Madden.

Thanks for always being there.

PATRICIA COUGHLIN

is a troubling combination of hopeless romantic and dedicated dreamer. Troubling, that is, for anyone hoping to drag her back to the “real world” when she is in the midst of writing a book. Close family and friends have learned to coexist peacefully with the latest cast of characters in her head. The author of more than twenty-five novels, she has received special recognition from Publishers Weekly and Romantic Times magazines. Her work also earned her numerous awards, including the prestigious RITA Award from Romance Writers of America. Ms. Coughlin lives in Rhode Island, a place very conducive to day dreaming.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter One

Summer brought out the best in Wickford, Rhode Island. To be sure, other seasons held their own charms in the pretty little village. But even those die-hard locals who favored winter, when an icy wind blowing off the Atlantic kept tourists at bay, couldn’t deny that summer was somehow special.

It was more than simply a season; it was a mood, a scent, an attitude. Wild roses bloomed in the cracks in the sidewalks, time unraveled, and the heat made everything, and everyone, just a little bit looser. It began in late May, around the time the take-out window at Hanley’s Ice Cream Parlor opened for the season, and built, steadily and lazily, until peaking just before Labor Day. Then, sometime in mid-September, the inevitable combination of chilly nights and yellow school buses would snap everyone back to their senses.

Well, nearly everyone. There were rumors, legends really, passed down from one generation to the next in the beauty salon and hardware store—and if not everyone who heard believed, almost everyone wanted to.

That’s not to say that summer cast a spell over Wickford. Exactly. But facts were facts, and village history held that if an otherwise sensible person was going to swap a thriving medical practice for a fishing boat, or run off with a mysterious and much younger saxophone player, or blow the retirement account on a six-speed, dual-exhaust motorcycle, it would happen on a long, hot day in July.

Watching over all this sun-drenched madness for more years than anyone in the village had been alive, was the grand dame of Wickford, Fairfield House. She was a turn-of-the-century beauty, graceful and charming from her widow’s walk to her wraparound porch. From a distance, her pale yellow clapboards seemed to glow against the summer sky and full-leaded windows sparkled like diamonds in the sun.

Sadly, things were not quite so pretty up close. The old lady was showing her age. For two years she had stood empty, and she did not take well to neglect. That was evident in a show of peeling paint and loose balusters, and in the weeds that had taken over the once prizewinning perennial beds.

Inside wasn’t much better. A broom, a dust cloth and some elbow grease would help matters, and a decent handyman could restore the oak parquet floor, mottled with dark stains from the time the pipes froze and a radiator valve let go. But it would take something more to bring this particular house back to life.

Outside, it was eighty-five degrees in the shade, but even with the windows open the rooms held a subtle chill that had nothing to do with high ceilings or ocean breezes. It defied logic. As did the feeling of utter and absolute emptiness that clung to the house in spite of a fresh scattering of empty beer bottles and fast-food wrappers, and a trail of dirty clothes. Not even the persistent drone of a television dispelled the air of isolation. It was as if the old house refused to acknowledge the presence of the man who had arrived three days earlier, cleared himself some room in the front parlor, and hardly moved since.

He did occasionally rouse himself to use the bathroom or accept deliveries from Pizza Hut and the liquor store. And once, he made the trip from his chair all the way across the room to the old upright piano to turn a framed photograph so it faced the wall. It was a formal portrait of a handsome young Air Force officer in full dress uniform. His chest was ablaze with medals and his deep blue gaze reflected the unwavering, some might say reckless, brand of self-assurance that was a definite asset in his chosen line of work. Not every man is willing to risk his life in the cockpit of an experimental fighter jet.

It might be his clothes, or the look in his eyes, but a casual observer would never discern that the man in the picture and the man in the parlor were one and the same.

The kindest way to put it would be to say that Major Hollis “Griff” Griffin was out of uniform. Way out. Instead of starched linen and polished brass, he was wearing old jeans and an even older T-shirt with faded traces of a tequila logo. He was barefoot and unshaven, and unless someone were handing out medals for bad attitude, he wouldn’t be adding to his collection anytime soon. All in all, he looked pretty much like what he was; a man who’d been to hell and back and didn’t give a damn about anything. Or anyone.

Least of all himself.

If any of his old friends had happened to walk in and see him at that moment, they would have wasted no time informing the major that what he needed more than the beer in his hand was a haircut and a kick in the butt. However, Griff wasn’t expecting company, and if any did show up, he wouldn’t let them in. His old friends, like his old life, were thousands of miles away.

From his slouched position in the rocking chair he aimed the remote control, and through a miracle of modern ingenuity froze the image of his late great-aunt Devora on the screen of the massive, state-of-the-art projection television that was the only visible remnant of his home in California. Former home, Griff reminded himself, for much the same reason some people can’t resist poking at a sore tooth. The hillside condo, located precisely far enough from the airfield for him to drink a medium coffee on his way to work each morning, was gone now, along with everything else that meant anything to him.

Everything but the TV, that is. A man—even a useless, washed-up, broken-down man—had to draw the line somewhere. And so the television—a sleek monument to technology, surrounded by a century’s worth of…stuff. And as hopelessly out of place in this godforsaken mausoleum Devora had called home as he was.

“Don’t let it get to you, pal,” he advised the television, swigging beer as he gazed around the room full of ornate furniture, cluttered tabletops, and overflowing curio cabinets. “Just as soon as we unload all this crap, we’ll be moving on.”

He’d loved his aunt as much as he’d ever loved anyone, but ever since he’d set foot in this place he’d felt trapped. Which made sense, he reflected without a flicker of amusement. He was trapped, and he had sly old Devora to thank.

His gaze wandered from the shelves displaying her collection of egg cups to the tall mahogany breakfront fairly bulging with her wedding china, and her mother’s, and her mother’s mother’s. He’d never bothered to look, but he’d bet there was a set of stone-age bowls with the Fairfield crest tucked away in there somewhere.

His aunt Devora, he had long since concluded, had been certifiable. Sweet, in her own fussy way, but a first-class nutcase nonetheless. What else could account for the fact that she had obviously never, in all her eighty-six years on earth, thrown away so much as a piece of thread or scrap of aluminum foil?

He knew that for a fact, because all of it, nearly a century’s worth of string and foil, was crammed into kitchen drawers and wicker baskets and every other nook and cranny in the place. And, just for the record, this three-story, fourteen-room dinosaur had a lot of nooks and crannies.

New England’s answer to the catacombs, he thought, mystified that he, who felt as free as the wind in the smallest airplane cockpit, felt so caged in this house. It hadn’t always been that way, he mused, recalling a string of long-ago summers, summers he used to wish would never end. Once it had sunk into his eight-year-old head that Devora wasn’t nearly as forbidding as she first appeared, they had gotten along just fine. She had taught him to dig for clams and catch fireflies and make ice cream. And on rainy afternoons she turned him loose in her trunk-filled attic, where he would try on several wars’ worth of old military uniforms that Devora had saved along with everything else, and pretend he was—

Griff abruptly halted the thought. It, like so many others, led to that large chunk of memory he had shut down and marked permanently off-limits.

Frowning, he returned his attention to the present and his aunt’s larger-than-life smile on the screen before him. He still considered it the height of irony that a woman so firmly ensconced in a bygone era that she insisted upon hand-embroidered linen napkins and hand-cranked ice cream, had seen fit to videotape her last will and testament.

He had first viewed the tape in her attorney’s office nearly two years ago and had promptly dismissed it with an amused laugh. Good old Aunt Devora, he’d thought, eccentric right to the end. He’d been riding high two years ago and had neither the time nor the inclination to think about his inheritance and the bizarre strings attached.

He wasn’t laughing now.

Jaw rigid, eyes narrowed, he jabbed the play button to hear it one more time.

“And so, my dear Hollis,” said Aunt Devora, “there you have it. My final request. I am certain you will not fail me, dear boy.”

“Perish the thought,” he muttered as the tape faded to black. God forbid he fail at the senseless, totally absurd, utterly Devora task that she had set for him. It was still hard for him to believe it was even legal, but all five attorneys he’d consulted had assured him it was.

With the exception of modest bequests to her church and several friends, Devora had left her entire estate to him, with a single caveat. Among the many useless things she’d collected during her lifetime, she most prized the glass birds displayed in a locked curio cabinet in the parlor. Her will explained that it had been her intent to complete the collection and donate it to the state Audubon Society. And now her wish was for him to do it on her behalf.

Strike that. Wish was not exactly accurate. It was more like a command, quite literally from on high. And until he accomplished the mission, he was not permitted to sell the house or anything in it.

For a long time after he’d been informed of the conditions, he’d simply put the matter from his mind and hoped that a hurricane swept the place out to sea before he was forced to deal with it. He might have felt differently if he had needed the money, but he hadn’t. One thing you could say was that Uncle Sam took care of his own. As long as Griff didn’t develop a taste for high-stakes gambling or designer suits, he’d get by just fine. Not that it could hurt to have a nice chunk set aside for security, he thought, his mood turning grimly philosophical. After all, you never knew when life might decide to drop yet another grenade in your lap.

Twists of fate aside, in the end his decision to sell was practical rather than mercenary. As the attorney for Devora’s estate had repeatedly pointed out, any vacant property was a liability. An older house of this size, on the waterfront, in an area swarming with kids and tourists, was a lawsuit waiting to happen. And that was a hassle he didn’t need.

Selling was the only logical option, he told himself, doing his best to ignore the hot, guilty feeling that kicked up whenever he thought of Devora’s reaction to strangers living in her beloved “cottage.” Fairfield House had been built by her grandfather, and she had been batty about the place, referring to it as if it were a member of the family. A living, breathing member.

If ignoring the guilt didn’t work, he would remind himself just how wily and determined his aunt could be, and how in all likelihood this whole final request business was nothing but a clever posthumous scam to trap him here forever. That thought never failed to snap him back to his senses.

His decision was made. The house had to go. It was just a question of how quickly he could unload it.

Griff reached for his beer, realized he’d finished it, and pondered whether it was worth the effort of hauling himself to the kitchen for another.

Damn Devora, he thought. As if his life wasn’t complicated enough these days without this stupid wild-goose chase of hers hanging over his head. He didn’t even know where to begin, and she sure hadn’t left any clues. At least, not any clues worth a damn. What she’d left was a name: Rose Davenport. Apparently some old friend of hers who might be able to help him. That’s assuming the woman was still alive, he thought irritably.

He was fully prepared to loathe Miss Rose Davenport on sight. Her name said it all. Rose. What kind of person was named Rose? Griff pictured prissy white gloves and a high lace collar cinched with a hideous brooch like the ones arranged in velvet-lined boxes on Devora’s dressing table. It had been one thing to humor Devora. She was blood. And she had given him something solid to hold on to when he needed it badly. However, just the thought of having to sip tea and make conversation with some other eccentric old lady threatened to send him into an even blacker mood than he was already in.

Nonetheless, first thing in the morning, that was what he was going to do. He had no choice. He would visit the old biddy and find out what she knew. And he would be polite. But he’d be damned if he would shave for the occasion. Or dress up. And he definitely would not sip tea out of some stupid cup with a handle too small for his fingers. Not unless it was absolutely the only way to get her to talk.

Suddenly another beer seemed well worth the trouble of maneuvering to his feet. Griff muttered under his breath as he did so. “Brace yourself, Miss Rose Davenport. I’ve got a hunch you aren’t going to like me any better than I’m going to like you.”

Rose secured the last of the dried flowers in place and stepped back to view her creation from a better perspective.

She stood with hands on slim hips, head tilted so that her hair tumbled over one bare shoulder. It was hair the color of honey and old gold, thick, and just wavy enough to be a challenge. To gain an edge, and save some time on humid summer mornings, she opted for long layers in back and slightly shorter ones in front and then hoped for the best. It was not the sleek, retro look of the moment, but it had been a while since Rose worried about fashion trends. The casual cut suited both her heart-shaped face and her approach to beauty rituals, which amounted to doing as little as possible.

She would rather fuss with flowers than her hair any day, and as she ran a discerning eye over the nine-foot length of garland on her worktable, she was pleased to see she had achieved exactly what her artist’s soul had envisioned; a delicate watercolor blend of the hydrangeas’ faded blue and lavender tones, enhanced, but never overpowered, by the deeper violet of the imported, twelve-dollars-and-fifty-cents-a-yard French silk ribbon.

“Magnificent,” she pronounced, kissing her fingertips to the air.

But then, she had known it would be from the moment she dived into the Dumpster behind the Wickford Country Club to retrieve the discarded hydrangeas. Her life was nothing if not proof positive of one of the most elemental laws of nature. Human nature, anyway. Namely, that one man’s, or woman’s, trash is another’s treasure. The jettisoned floral arrangements were simply the latest in the long line of rescued castoffs from which she made her living. And a comfortable living at that, she thought, gazing with satisfaction around the five-year-old shop that had been a thirtieth birthday present to herself, and which she had appropriately christened Second Hand Rose.

She loved her work, and even as she’d climbed from the Dumpster and loaded the hydrangeas into the back of her pickup she had been tingling with anticipation, her thoughts spinning with possibilities. Of course, nothing, especially art, is ever really free. After hauling the flowers home, she spent hours cleaning globs of gravy off the petals with Q-Tips and trimming them with manicure scissors. Then for weeks she’d sidestepped through her small cottage, weaving a path around the bunches of fragile blooms hanging everywhere to dry. It was all worth it however, for this one blissful moment of creative triumph.

Perhaps, she mused, the swag itself was not quite worth the astronomical price tag she was affixing to it, but then, that was the point. She regularly overpriced items she couldn’t bear to part with right away. Eventually, when she was ready to let go, the piece would be given a steep mark-down and find a new home with some lucky customer who appreciated both beauty and a great bargain. Everyone came out a winner, and in Rose’s mulishly optimistic view of things, that’s the way the whole world ought to work.

All that remained now was to hang the garland in a carelessly romantic swoop above the wide arch separating the two rooms of her shop. No easy feat, considering her aversion to heights.

Luckily, she had one thing going for her that other altophobics might not; an uncompromising case of LETCS. That was her own acronym for Little Engine That Could Syndrome. Given the right motivation, there was nothing she could not accomplish if she put her mind to it, or so she told herself on a daily basis. So far, it was working pretty well, and as she went to fetch the stepladder, a determined refrain of “I think I can, I think I can” was already organizing itself inside her head.

The sound of the bell over the entrance put her plan on hold, drawing her to the front of the shop, as a tall man dressed in jeans and a black T-shirt entered. Rose didn’t recognize him, but she sure recognized the breed, and for no better reason than gut instinct, her stomach muscles knotted.

Bright August sunlight pouring through the shop’s lace-clad front windows illuminated the man’s many defects, and Rose wasted no time taking a complete inventory. His posture was too straight, his shoulders too broad, and his jaw too square. His entire facial structure had the sort of raw, chiseled quality that, when combined with leather and horse-flesh, had been selling cigarettes for generations. Every sharp angle and crease made it plain that the man was a force to be reckoned with, and he damn well knew it. Even the dark stubble on his chin was too blatantly, alarmingly masculine for her liking.

As a rule, Rose wasn’t given to snap judgments, or forming impressions based on appearance alone. But there were always exceptions. One look was enough to convince her that the man before her was historically and irreparably flawed, descended from generations of those similarly afflicted, born of a renegade breed. A modern link in a long and all-too-resilient chain of men who conquered nations and broke hearts with equal aplomb.

A winner. A taker. A user.

Chapter Two

All right. So maybe she was a wee bit sensitive—perhaps one might even say a tad irrational—when it came to a certain type of male. The assertive, self-assured, gorgeous-enough-to-arouse-mud type. Which this man definitely was. Even the back of his neck was sexy, she noted when he briefly turned his head. She hated that in a man.

Deranged. That was the word her best friend, Maryann McShane, used to describe Rose’s attitude. As the happily married mother of a beautiful six-month-old daughter, Maryann considered it her duty to maneuver Rose into the same blissful state. She was forever finding another “perfectly nice man” for Rose, and Rose was forever refusing to cooperate. Having been married to one driven and demanding man for five years, she figured she had earned the right to be a little deranged on the subject.

She might not have the whole Mars-Venus thing figured out, but she had learned to steer clear of a certain sort of man. The sort who didn’t know enough to take off his silly sunglasses when he stepped indoors. Not that it was a chronic problem—men who wore mirrored aviator shades usually only ventured into her shop when led on the invisible leash that some silicone-laden blonde had attached to his libido. Since there was nary a breast implant in sight, she couldn’t help wondering what Mr. Mirrors wanted.

As if reading her mind, or her disapproving smirk, he removed the sunglasses and hooked them into the neck of his T-shirt. Rose quickly underscored too damn handsome on his growing list of faults, and cursed herself for responding to the genetically programmed urge to suck in her stomach and wonder if she had remembered to put on lipstick.

Not that it mattered. He slid his gaze over her too quickly to notice she had lips. Clearly, he found her about as fascinating as the rack of vintage beaded purses by her side. Maybe less so.

For Rose, his utter lack of interest came not as an insult—nor as a surprise, for that matter—but as a relief. She’d have liked to save time by informing him straight off that even though the word antiques appeared on the sign out front, she did not deal in rusty bayonets, Civil War memorabilia or vintage auto parts.

She settled for “Good morning,” causing his gaze to settle on her directly for the first time.

“Morning,” he replied.

“May I help you with something, or are you just browsing?”

The standard query caused one corner of his mouth to quirk. It was a very nice mouth, she noted, adding it to the list.

“Browsing?” His cool gaze took in the shelves of sparkling Depression-era glass, baskets overflowing with freshly laundered vintage linens and, occupying center stage, her current pièce de résistance, an old white iron bed, dressed in a faded quilt and generations of loving wear and tear.

“Hardly,” he muttered, with a blend of smug superiority and barely concealed disdain.

Obviously, in spite of his attire, this was no common, garden-variety Neanderthal she was dealing with. This was the King of the Heap, Leader of the Pack, the infamous Number One Combo. She knew the type well. Arrogant and tactless, and, unless she missed her guess, served with a side order of cynicism. There was only one way to deal with a Number One. Ignore him.

“I’m here to see the proprietor,” he announced, before she had the chance. “Miss Rose Davenport.”

The way her name rolled off his tongue was the verbal equivalent of the look he’d just given her shop. Rose folded her arms and her chin came up.

“I’m Rose Davenport.”

That earned her a closer look—and a frown, something that seemed to come to him quite naturally. And fairly regularly, judging from the pattern of lines around his mouth. The man definitely needed to lighten up.

“Do you have a mother, or maybe a grandmother, by that name?”

“Afraid not. It’s me or nothing.”

His eyes, a deep and distracting shade of blue, narrowed with impatience.

“I’m looking for the Rose Davenport who was friends with Devora Fairfield,” he told her emphatically, as if he could get her to produce another Rose Davenport through sheer force of will. She’d wager the technique worked for him more often than not.

“I heard you the first time, and the answer is the same. If you’re looking for Rose Davenport, I’m it.”

He eyed her suspiciously. “You were friends with Devora?”

“I sure was. Did you know Devora?”

“She was my aunt,” he replied. “Great-aunt, actually.”

It was her turn to take a closer look at him. The height…the jaw… Of course. “You’re Hollis.”

“Griffin,” he countered with obvious irritation. “Just ‘Griff’ will do. Devora was the only one I allowed to call me Hollis.”

“Allowed?” Rose couldn’t help arching her tawny brows as she struggled to reconcile the man before her with the spit-and-polished military officer she had encountered only once before, briefly and nearly two years ago.

He shrugged. “Figuratively speaking, that is.”

It was a rather terse acknowledgment of the fact that no one had ever “allowed” Devora Fairfield to do anything. The spirited spinster, whom Rose had been honored to call her friend, had invariably done and said precisely as she deemed right and proper and damn well pleased. Rose couldn’t decide if it was annoyance or grudging affection that hovered in Hollis Griffin’s voice when he spoke of his aunt, and it really didn’t matter.

It had been no secret that Devora loved her nephew as if he were a child of her body and not simply her heart, and that was good enough for Rose. She immediately erased the mental list she’d been compiling. For Devora’s sake alone, she was prepared to befriend Hollis Griffin in the manner that came most naturally to her—utterly and enthusiastically.

“Okay, ‘Griff’ it is.” Smiling warmly, she stepped closer to offer her right hand, and for the first time noticed the cane in his.

“You probably don’t remember me,” she went on, concealing her surprise. “We met at Devora’s funeral service.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t remember.” He slipped the cane under his arm with an ease that suggested he’d had it a while, and shook her hand.

“That’s all right, I didn’t recognize you, either, without your uniform.”

That seemed to irk him as much as being called Hollis had.

“I’m retired from the Air Force,” he explained curtly.

“I see,” said Rose, though she didn’t.

Devora always sent her nephew a “care package” of goodies on his birthday, and Rose recalled that he was almost exactly five years older than she was, which would make him a few months shy of forty. A bit young for retirement. Especially since, according to his aunt, the man lived to fly; the more high risk the mission, the better. Devora worried about the danger inherent in his work, but she had also sung his praises at every opportunity. Rose’s understanding was that Griffin wasn’t merely a pilot, but an aviation junkie, as skilled working on a jet’s engine as he was at its controls. She added his early retirement to the cane and came up with a half-dozen questions she was smart enough not to ask.

“It would be a wonder if you remember anyone you met that day,” she continued in an instinctive attempt to put him at ease. “All of Wickford was there, plus Devora’s old friends from as far away as Florida. I hope you know how beloved your aunt was around here, and how very much she is missed.”

Especially by me, thought Rose with the same twinge of wistfulness that always accompanied thoughts of the woman who had understood her better than her own family ever had.

“Devora certainly had her good points,” he agreed. This time there was no mistaking the affection in his tone, or the look of impatience that quickly followed as he added, “And her quirks.”

“Ah, but the quirks were the best thing about Devora,” she countered with a chuckle. “Who else do you know who kept a working butter churn in the kitchen?”

“Who, indeed?”

“I’ll never forget the first time she invited me for tea. I walked into that beautiful house and felt…” Swept up in the memory, she searched for words to fully capture and share it. “Like…oh, like Alice stepping through the looking glass.”

“I can understand that,” he countered. “The Mad Hatter would feel right at home there.”

“So did I. No, that’s wrong. Home is too ordinary a word. It was more like wonderland, each room more full of treasure than the last.”

“And you like all that ju—treasure?” he enquired in a cautious tone.

“Like it?” She sighed. “I love it. And the furniture…don’t get me started.”

“Didn’t plan to.”

“That yellow brocade settee in the hall,” she continued, her expression dreamy.

“The low one with the spiky arms? Have you ever tried actually sitting on that thing?”

“Once,” she told him, grinning. “I felt like a princess. But my absolute favorite piece is the hand-carved cherry-wood cabinet in the sitting room…the one with all the Bavarian china and the ivory figurines. The first time I saw it, I just stared in absolute, dumbstruck wonder.”

He nodded. “I’ve stared that way at a lot of Devora’s stuff.”

“She had an amazing eye. Did you know the glass sides of that cabinet are a J-curve?”

“I had no idea. Is that good?”

“Good and bad. Good because it’s so rare and because it’s refractive quality is so much greater than a standard curve. Bad because it’s so rare and costs a fortune to replace should it be broken.”

“Sort of like ‘damned if you do, damned if you don’t.’ Which is something I definitely understand.”

“I’m glad.”

“You are?”

“Very. When we found out that Devora had left the house to her ‘hotshot nephew from California,’ as you were sometimes referred to, some folks around here, including me,” she confessed with a rueful smile, “were worried you would sell to an outside developer. Do you have any idea how much a house that size, with that much water frontage and a view that would make a sailor weep, is worth on today’s market?”

“Some,” he murmured.

“What am I saying? Of course you know what it’s worth. But much more important, you obviously understand that the true value of a person’s home cannot be measured in dollars and cents. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have kept it in the family, and Wickford would have one more commercial enterprise to contend with.”

“Pardon me for saying so, but isn’t this a commercial enterprise?” He indicated the shop.

“I suppose it is, if you want to get technical. I prefer to think of it as a labor of love.” She grinned unabashedly. “Besides, as a New Englander born and bred, I have a geographical obligation to be cantankerous and irrational when it comes to outsiders.”

“Let me guess,” he said dryly. “Outsiders would be anyone whose local roots don’t stretch back for at least three generations?”

“Exactly. But since your roots are impeccable, things couldn’t have worked out better.” A sudden thought caused her mouth to pucker. “You are planning to live in the house, aren’t you? I mean, that is why you’re here?”

Those dangerously blue eyes met hers, and Rose got the distinct impression that Hollis Griffin didn’t like being asked personal questions. Not that the question struck her as overly personal—but then, she warmed up to strangers quickly enough to turn a chance encounter in a dentist’s waiting room into a lifelong friendship. She had a hunch that Griff took a while longer to thaw.

“My long-range plans aren’t firm yet,” he said finally, “but I sold my condo in California and last week I moved everything I own into Devora’s place.”

“Last week?” she echoed, surprised. “I never even noticed.”

“No reason you should have. It wasn’t much of a move. Just a couple of suitcases and a TV.” He shrugged. “I got rid of everything else.”

“That’s great,” she told him.

He gave her a puzzled look. “It is?”

“Sure. There’s nothing as exciting as a completely fresh start—new town, new neighbors… Speaking of which, I live in that little cottage just beyond your yard. Weathered gray shingles, white shutters.”

“Pink door?”

“Actually, the color is Sun-Kissed Rose—but yes, that’s me. At this time of year the trees and shrubbery provide a buffer, but come fall we’ll have a clear view of each other.”

He said nothing.

“Apparently no one else noticed your arrival, either, or the news would have spread like wildfire. You know what they say about small towns.”

“Yes, unfortunately. I tend to keep to myself.”

“You can try, but be warned, Fairfield House is as much a local treasure as Devora was. Folks are bound to be curious about its new owner.” Her smile was meant to be reassuring. “Look on the bright side—we’re nosy but friendly. If there’s anything I can do to help you get settled, just give a shout. I know nearly everyone in Wickford, along with their hidden talents and who has what available to rent or borrow. Whatever you might need—butcher, baker, candlesticks and caviar for twelve,” she said, ticking the items off on her fingers, “or just someone to haul away trash—I can hook you up.”

He gave a faint, undecipherable smile. “Why doesn’t that surprise me?”

“Probably because you’ve seen me in action,” she countered with the ease of a woman who has taken a good hard look at herself and decided to play the hand she was dealt rather than waste time trying to turn three of a kind into a royal flush. “After all, I’ve been standing here talking your ear off without giving you a chance to tell me why you were looking for me in the first place.”

Her expectant silence was met with another of those cool, shuttered stares.

“I…” He hesitated. “My aunt mentioned you once, and I thought that as long as I was back in town, it would be…uh, interesting to look up some of her old friends and say hello.”

He was lonely, she realized. Lonely and looking for some way to connect through the only person he had known in town, Devora. Rose’s heart went out to him as if he were a stray kitten, huddled on her doorstep in the middle of a storm. If she could have picked him up in her arms and cuddled him, she would have. However, since practically speaking he resembled a tomcat more than a kitten, she quelled the impulse and instead offered him her brightest, most encouraging smile.

“How sweet of you.”

He blushed, which struck her as sweeter still.

“I’m very glad you dropped in,” she told him. Then, with laughter in her voice, she added, “Though from your initial reaction, I suspect I wasn’t quite the sort of ‘old’ friend of Devora’s you expected to find.”

“No,” he agreed. “You’ve been just one surprise after another, Miss Davenport.”

“Rose.”

“Rose.”

“I know what I’m going to do,” she said suddenly.

“What?” He looked vaguely uneasy.

“I’m going to throw a party in honor of your arrival.”

Now he really looked uneasy. Shy, thought Rose, surprised a second time. Shyness didn’t fit with his outward appearance. Or with her first impression of him, she realized, ashamed of herself. Maryann was right. She was so gun-shy around certain men that she never gave them a chance. She would work on it, she decided, and she would begin by making up for her rush to judgment by heralding Hollis Griffin’s move to town in style.

“A party is…out of the question,” he said.

“Nonsense, it’s the least I can do for Devora’s favorite nephew.”

“I was her only nephew.”

“All the more reason to make you feel welcome.”

“I don’t want you to go to any trouble on my account.”

“It’s no trouble,” she assured him. “You’re actually doing me a favor by providing me with an excuse to throw a party between the Fourth of July and Labor Day, a period with a notable dearth of occasions to celebrate.”

“I am not an occasion.”

“Of course not, but your arrival in Wickford is. It’s also all the excuse I need. Ask anyone—I am a party planner extraordinaire.”

“I’m sure you are. But as luck would have it, I am a lousy guest of honor.”

“Let me worry about that,” she ordered, thinking he was probably right. For all his professional skills and accomplishments, he was not very good at making friends. Not if his guarded, taciturn demeanor with her was any indication. No wonder he tended to “keep to himself,” as he put it. Well, Devora wouldn’t have let that happen, and neither would Rose.

She folded her arms and grinned at him. “It’s settled. We’ll work out the details later,” she added as she caught sight of the delivery truck pulling up outside. “Right now, you’ll have to excuse me.”

She moved toward the door.

“No.”

The adamancy in his tone caused Rose to glance over her shoulder as she opened the door.

He smiled stiffly. “That is, if you don’t mind, I think I’ll hang around and—” He cleared his throat. “Browse a little, after all.”

“Fine. Good morning, Charlie,” she said to the deliveryman, whose uniform of brown shirt and shorts revealed a pair of great masculine legs. Charlie was young and adorable. Too young and adorable to be seriously interesting to a grown woman, but he had great legs just the same. Rose shipped and received packages daily, and the mild flirtation that enlivened her dealings with Charlie had more to do with keeping skills sharp than real attraction on either side.

“Am I ever glad to see you,” she said, eyeing his push cart loaded with boxes.

“Me? Or my boxes of chintz?”

“My boxes of chintz,” she corrected, trailing along like an overeager puppy in her attempt to read the return address labels as he moved past her. “Is it really? Are you sure?”

“Yep.” He parked the cart and began lifting the boxes onto the counter for her. “Unless you’re expecting another delivery from…” He squinted at the return address. “Biddley-on-Kenn. Hell, no wonder they call it Merry Olde England—they all live in circus towns.”

She gave a small whoop of excitement. “It is my chintz. Charlie, you’re wonderful.”

“You don’t know how wonderful. The schedule had me coming by here late this afternoon, but I switched my entire route around for you.”

“Can I help it if I’m irresistible?”

“Actually, I figured since you’ve been harassing me about this stuff daily—”

“I have not harassed you,” she admonished, her fingers itching to tear open the boxes and get at the fine bone china that a British dealer had sworn on the Magna Carta would be there three weeks ago. Some pieces were earmarked for specific customers; others were for the shop; a precious two were destined for her personal collection.

“You don’t call chasing my truck down the street ‘harassment’?”

“Charlie, you wish I’d chase you,” she retorted absently.

The deliveryman grinned. “You bet I do. I wouldn’t be hard to catch, I promise you that, Rosie.”

Jerk, thought Griff, surreptitiously monitoring the interplay.

Rose Davenport had thrown him a curve at first, but the longer he spent in her presence, the easier it was to understand why, in spite of the vast difference in age, she and Devora had hit it off. As Devora might have put it, “Water seeks its own level.” Beneath those smoldering green eyes and that just-begging-to-be-kissed mouth of hers, Rose Davenport definitely harbored the same streak of insanity that had afflicted his great-aunt.

A flaky, clutter-collecting, overly friendly junk addict if he’d ever seen one. Her shop might not be quite as over-stuffed and smothering as Devora’s place, but she hadn’t been at it as long. Give her time, and she’d give Devora some real competition.

Peering at the shopkeeper over a vase the color of moldy roses, he tried to imagine her thirty years older, wearing white gloves and a blouse buttoned high at the neck, instead of that pale yellow dress that hung nearly to her ankles. By all rights the dress should have made her appear dowdy, and concealed the fact that she had a slim waist, perfectly rounded hips and very nice, very long legs. It didn’t. Taking advantage of her preoccupation with the delivery guy, Griff gave the dress his complete attention and decided it was because of the way the material molded itself to her body. Every distracting inch of it.

A sundress. He was no expert on women’s clothing, but he’d removed enough of it over the years to learn the basics, and he was pretty sure that was the name for what she was wearing. Whatever it was called, it was screwing up his attempt to picture Rose Davenport with a brooch at her throat.

The woman had a sexy throat. He’d give her that much. Her shoulders weren’t bad, either. Smooth and suntanned, and the crisscrossed straps of her dress presented a clear-cut invitation for a man to slide his fingers underneath and slowly, slowly peel them down. An invitation he’d bet wasn’t lost on the deliveryman with the salivating grin any more than it was lost on Griff.

His head ached, his leg was throbbing, and being trapped with so much old stuff was making him feel weird. Light-headed, he thought furiously. It was the dust, he told himself, refusing to be dizzy. The fact that he didn’t actually see any dust was inconsequential. Everyone knew antiques attracted dust. Salt and pepper, pretzels and beer, antiques and dust. Just one more reason he didn’t want to be here, looking at shelf after shelf of useless junk when he didn’t even know what the hell he was looking for.

Liar. He knew exactly what he had come looking for, exactly what it was he wanted from Rose Davenport. He wanted her help. The problem was asking for it. He was no good at asking for help. In fact, he flat out hated it. Almost as much as he hated needing it in the first place. Being needy was even worse.

And he ought to know. In the past year he’d been forced to accept more help from more people than most men do in a lifetime. Doctors. Physical therapists. Even neighbors. And shrinks, don’t forget the shrinks. Without their “help,” he wouldn’t have done such a bang-up job of adapting and adjusting and accepting the fact that life as he knew it was over. Kaput. Finished. And the fact that his old life was the only life he had any interest in living? Why, that was just one of those inconvenient, lingering, post-accident stages that they insisted he would emerge from. One of these days.

But not today.

Today, this moment, it all added up to one thing; a burning urge to toss the chatty deliveryman out on his behind and get on with it. The other guy might be younger and fitter and faster, but Griff could feel a bigger chip on his shoulder and had been spoiling for a fight longer. That gave him the edge. The only thing holding him back from wiping the grin off Charlie’s face was the look on Rose’s. Pure ecstasy.

The way her eyes had lit up the second she saw the truck, you’d have thought it was Ed McMahon walking in with the grand prize check in his hand. Griff might not appreciate the appeal of a package jockey in shorts, but clearly Rose did—and he wasn’t about to risk ticking her off.

On the contrary, he was going to say and do whatever was necessary to stay in her good graces, until he found out what he needed to know. For starters, that meant keeping his thoughts about almost everything, especially his plans for the house, to himself. It also precluded telling her outright that throwing a party for him was a waste of time since he wouldn’t be hanging around long enough to make friends. And above all, it meant not slipping up and referring to her junk as junk.

With that in mind, Griff picked up a battered metal watering can and tried to look fascinated.

The Jerk held out his clipboard. “Care to sign your life away?” he asked Rose in a tone that made it clear it wasn’t only her signature he was after.

“For you, Charlie?” She smiled as she scrawled her name. “Anytime. And thanks. I owe you.”

“Now we’re getting somewhere.” He executed a tight circle with the cart and winked at her. “See you tomorrow, Rose. Enjoy your new chintz teapot.”

“I plan to…and if you’re real good maybe I’ll invite you to tea sometime.”

Griff managed not to snort.

“I’m at your disposal,” said Charlie.

“Don’t you mean ‘mercy’?”

“That, too,” he called over his shoulder, laughing.

“’Bye, Charlie.”

Rose carefully slit the tape on the first box and began unpacking the contents. In her excitement, she almost forgot she wasn’t alone in the shop. Almost. It was impossible for a woman to actually forget the presence of a man like Griffin. As she carefully unwrapped each piece, checked it off on her order sheet and inspected it for damage, she also tracked his movement around the shop, curious as to what he might find of interest.

Not much, judging from his indifferent expression. She, on the other hand, was just bursting with interest. She wasn’t sure how a man using a cane managed to project such an air of invincibility, but somehow Griff succeeded. She had a hunch that it had something to do with world-class shoulders and the way his wash-softened jeans fit his thighs, but she didn’t want to dwell on it. His posture didn’t hurt, either, she decided. She had never realized it until now, but there was a lot to be said for a man with great posture.

He paused to look at some old wooden bookends with woodpecker carvings, and he actually picked up one of a pair of ceramic hummingbirds and glanced at the bottom.

Finally, he came to stand across the counter from her, the purposeful glint in his eye a bit unnerving in spite of his reassuring connection to Devora.

“Look…” he began.

Rose flashed him a smile. “Find anything you can’t live without?”

“Not quite.” The words were hardly out when his forehead creased, intensifying his grim expression. “That is, except for…” His gaze raked across the counter—now covered with plates and teacups named for the brightly flowered fabric that had inspired them—and landed on the hydrangea garland. Looking vaguely relieved, he reached for it. “This—”

Rose was aghast. “That?”

“Right.” He glanced at the price tag without flinching, and reached for his wallet.

“Are you sure?” she asked.

“Very sure.”

“You don’t think it’s a bit…pricey?”

“Not at all. It’s a bargain, in fact, and exactly what I had in mind.”

“For what?”

He looked up from the stack of bills he was thumbing through. “I beg your pardon?”

“I was wondering what you had a nine-foot-long garland of dried hydrangea in mind for? What do you plan to do with it?” she added, when he stared at her in what looked like bewilderment.

“Do?” He looked at the garland with a blank expression.

Please change your mind, Rose pleaded silently.

“I thought I would use it…on the porch.”

“The porch?” she gasped, horrified. “Aren’t you afraid the dampness will ruin it?”

“Good point.”

“I have a wicker plant stand that would be perfect on Devora’s porch,” she told him. “Maybe with a gorgeous Boston fern? Ferns love humidity.”

He shook his head.

“Geraniums?”

“I’m not much for plants. This thing is fine. I’ll figure out what to do with it once I get it home.”

“I see.” She grabbed a stack of pastel tissue and began wrapping it, doing her best not to look perturbed. As he had pointed out, this was a place of business. How was he to know that just because a “thing” had a price tag did not mean it was actually ready to be sold?

With the garland lovingly wrapped and gently arranged in a shopping bag, she wrote out a receipt and calculated the sales tax.

“That will be two hundred and sixty-seven dollars and fifty cents,” she said to him.

The creases suddenly reappeared on his forehead, but if he was having second thoughts, he didn’t say so. With the same ease he’d shown in handling the cane, he tucked the cash away and produced a credit card. “This okay?”

“Sure.”

The transaction complete, Rose handed him the bag, resisting the urge to tell him to take good care of it.

“I’ll be in touch,” she said. “About your party,” she added when he gave her a puzzled look.

“Oh. Well, we’ll talk about that. In the meantime, there is something else I’d like to ask you.”

A date? Rose braced herself, not sure how she felt about that. It was one thing to be neighborly, another thing entirely to risk thinking of him as anything other than Devora’s nephew.

“Shoot,” she invited.

“Devora collected some kind of birds. Glass birds, I think, but I’m not quite—”

He broke off, his expression visibly relieved, when she started to nod.

So he wasn’t going to ask her out, thought Rose, telling herself she wasn’t disappointed.

“Devora collected works by Boris Aureolis, specifically his first nature series. They’re not glass, though I can see how you might think so. They have such a wonderful clarity. They’re actually hard-paste porcelain from the mid-eighteenth century. Aureolis started out as a colorist for Meissen, but ended up a major creative force. He worked with an alchemist to develop the special glaze that distinguishes his work.”

“That’s fascinating,” he said, looking anything but fascinated. “Do you happen to have any in stock?”

He scowled when she laughed and shook her head.

“Heavens, no. Aureolis is too rich for my blood.”

He gave a small grunt. “Really? Just how rich are we talking?”

She nibbled her bottom lip thoughtfully. “I’m no authority, you understand, but they do turn up at auction once in a while, and I was always keeping an eye open for Devora. If I remember correctly, she was missing only four of the series of twenty-five.”

“Three.”

“Three?” She nodded. “That’s right. She snagged the falcon from The Snooty Fox in Burlington.”

“Did she mention what she paid?”

“Probably, but my head is always so full of prices, it’s hard to remember exactly.” She fiddled absently with the sliver of a gold moon that hung on a slender chain around her neck, stopping when she noticed his attention lingering there. Again. “It seems to me it was in the neighborhood of four…maybe high threes.”

“Hundred?”

“Thousand.”

“Figures,” he muttered, then added, “Devora always did have expensive taste.”

“Are you thinking of selling the collection?”

“Actually, I’m looking to complete it.”

Rose’s heart melted a little around the edges. “What a sweet, thoughtful thing to do. Oh, Devora would be so pleased.”

“Trust me, it’s not thoughtful. It’s not even my idea,” he insisted, looking uncomfortable with the approval she was beaming his way. “It’s what Devora wanted. Her last request, you might say. She wants the completed collection donated to the Audubon Society.”

“She always talked about doing that someday. It was her dream. And it’s also something a lot of people wouldn’t understand, or else would simply write off as the crazy whim of an old lady. No wonder she adored you.”

He looked horrified by her praise. “You’ve got it all wrong. I don’t understand anything. I certainly don’t understand why anyone would spend their time and money chasing after some old glass…excuse me, porcelain birds, just to give them away. I think it’s the single wackiest, most senseless thing I ever heard of.”

“Maybe so,” she allowed with an easy smile. “And yet you’re willing to do it, anyway. Sorry, Griffin, that makes you some kind of hero in my book.”

“I am not willing,” he snapped.

“Then why are you here?”

“Because…” He stopped and clenched his teeth. “Because I have no damn choice.”

“I understand…really. And believe me, that kind of devotion is rare.” Her smile gentled as she reached out and patted the hand with which he was gripping the cane. “Sometimes it takes a personal setback to make us more sensitive to the hearts of others.”

“Sensitive?” His tone was edgy, and a flush darkened his lean face. She could feel the tension in his hand and drew hers back.

“Is that what you think I am?” he demanded, growling now. “Sensitive?”

Oh, yes, most definitely a growl. You’d have thought she’d called him a sissy. Of course, in his testosterone-pickled view of reality, she just may have. It was silly, really, when all she had been trying to do was build on the one thing they had in common—a love for Devora. And why? To ease his damn loneliness, that’s why. After all, it wasn’t as if she was the one out hunting for friends. Well, she’d done her part…and after he’d had the gall to refer to her garland as this thing.

Standing in the pinpoint of his fierce glare, her initial impression of him returned. Conventional wisdom was wrong, she thought. Sometimes you really could judge a book by its cover. She’d have let loose and told him what she really thought of him—but why go out of her way to cheer him up?

She shrugged. “Look, Griffin, I didn’t mean—”

He cut her off. “Good. Because if there is one thing I am not, and never will be, it’s sensitive. Got it?”

“With a vengeance,” she shot back.

“Good.”

That said, he clamped the bag containing her fragile masterpiece under his arm and stalked out.

Chapter Three

Two hundred and sixty-seven dollars. And fifty cents.

Griff couldn’t decide who was crazier, Rose Davenport for thinking anyone would pay that kind of money for a string of dead flowers, or him for paying it.

Him, he realized with disgust. No doubt about it. She, on the other hand, deserved the P. T. Barnum award for taking him.

He made his way down Main Street, oblivious to the tourists and the historic houses built shoulder to shoulder along brick sidewalks made uneven by time and weather and gnarled tree roots. He was preoccupied with trying to figure out how it had happened. He’d walked into the shop prepared to deal with a sweet and slightly sappy little old lady, and had emerged with his pocket picked. Not to mention his dented pride and the exasperating fact that he was not one damn step closer to doing what he had gone there to do.

Hell, if he’d felt compelled to buy something, why couldn’t he have grabbed that beat-up watering can, which now seemed a downright bargain at fifty bucks? Because he hadn’t been thinking, that’s why. At least, not about what he should have been thinking about. Instead, he’d been checking out the way that gold moon necklace looked against Rose Davenport’s skin—skin that was pink and gold and almost luminescent.

And right smack in the middle of that foolishness, it had suddenly occurred to him that he probably ought to buy something. Anything. Sort of as an act of good faith, and to avoid being under obligation to her. Give and get, that was his philosophy. He’d looked around at what was closest to him, and it had come down to the teapot with the violets or the dead flowers. He hated to think what the teapot would have set him back.

Pausing at the corner for traffic to pass, he opened the bag and peered inside. Maybe there was something special about these particular dead flowers that made them more valuable than they appeared. Something he’d missed at first glance. He poked at the tissue paper and shifted the contents around a little, but as far as he could tell there was nothing about the…what had she called the thing? Garland. Nothing about this particular garland that ought to make it worth more than two hundred and sixty bucks. Plus tax. Hell, he’d thought it was overpriced when he misread the tag as twenty-five dollars.

The only thing preventing him from tossing it in the nearest trash can was the scent that had wafted up and curled around him when he opened the bag. It was the same scent that filled Rose’s shop. The scent of roses. And cinnamon. And wind. All mixed together. At least, that’s what it smelled like to him. And to his surprise, he didn’t half mind it.

Maybe it wasn’t a total loss, after all. He could always hang the damn thing in the can.

He stopped at the library on his way home and wasted several hours at a table strewn with open encyclopedias and books on every aspect of antiques and collectibles. He learned more than anyone should be forced to know about Meissen, and Boris Aureolis’s groundbreaking innovations in porcelain, and birds native to Northern Europe. He finally gave up and went home, tired, grouchy, and still dragging the ball and chain Devora had attached to his life. Not one of the books he’d examined revealed where he could buy the cursed birds.

Worse, at some point it had dawned on him that he wasn’t even certain which three birds he was looking for. Devora had provided a list of those she owned, but until he could compare that with a complete list, he wasn’t even at square one. It was almost as if she’d developed a masochistic streak in her last days and wanted to make the task as difficult for him as possible. Probably because she knew that would only make him more determined to succeed. With or without the help of Rose Davenport, with her smoky green eyes and insider’s understanding of the secret world of antiques.

There was no way he could approach her again. Not, he thought wincing inside, after the way he’d stormed out of there like a total jackass.

Not unless he became utterly desperate.

He dragged his fingers through the dark wavy hair that fell across his forehead. His hair was longer than it had been in twenty years and he was still getting used to it. It didn’t feel like him, and when he looked in the mirror the man who stared back did not look like the man he used to be. Which made sense. That man was gone. He’d had his nose shoved in that nasty little bit of reality dozens of times every day for over a year.

That man, the old Griff, had had everything under control and had never made a mistake when it counted. Well, almost never, he thought bitterly. He certainly would never have overreacted to something as inconsequential as being called “sensitive” by a shopkeeper. Not even a fine-looking one. Especially not by one who was fine-looking.

No, that old Griff would have laughed at the very suggestion and let loose on Rose Davenport a grin that never, ever failed. When she touched the back of his hand, he would have flipped it and caught hers before she knew what hit her, and said something clever and flirtatious, and with just enough of an edge to make her blush a little. Make her think.

Then he would have leaned closer, close enough to find out if she, too, smelled like roses and cinnamon and wind, close enough to touch that mesmerizing spot on her throat where the gold moon nestled. His touch would be light, one fingertip only, and quick, no more than a second, so fleeting she might question later if he had actually made contact or if she had only imagined it.

That would have her wondering, and waiting for the next time, which would not come soon. Oh, no. He almost smiled just thinking about it. His timing, as always, would be perfect. And eventually, if she continued to intrigue him, Rose Davenport would end up in his bed.

And it would be great. For her as well as him. The chase and the sex. He’d always relished both. There would be no rushing, and no coercion. No lies, no strings, no promises. The old Griff had a code of honor that demanded it.

What the old Griff had not had was a bum leg, loss of peripheral vision in one eye, and no future to speak of.

He rubbed his temple, feeling the ache of a loss so big he couldn’t begin to define its dimensions. Some days, it was as if he had his face pressed against the side of a mountain and was struggling to figure out how tall it was, and how the hell he was going to get over it.

Just a few hours ago he’d thought he had the first step figured out, but in what was turning out to be the new story of his life, he had managed to screw that up, too.

Are you calling me sensitive?

He groaned silently. And he’d had the audacity to label the delivery guy a jerk.

No, he decided with grim resolve, there was no possible way he could ask Rose to help him now. That much was definite, as clear to him as the memory of Devora’s voice, ringing in his head.

“Really, Hollis, do you think it wise to cut off your nose to spite your face?”

“Two hundred and sixty-seven dollars?” Maryann Pontrelli McShane’s lively brown eyes reflected amazement and amusement in about equal parts.

“Plus tax,” Rose added.

“Must have been one hell of a garland.”

“It was,” Rose assured her. “Not that Mr. Hollis Who-are-you-calling-sensitive Griffin appreciated it.”

Her friend tossed back long hair the color of expensive mink, glanced at six-month-old Lisa sleeping peacefully in her stroller, and pursed her lips thoughtfully. “Hollis? What kind of name is Hollis?”

“Rare.”

“Besides rare. British maybe?”

Rose shrugged. “British, French, Cro-Magnon.”

“Easy to see why he prefers Griff.”

“I suppose.” She climbed onto the stool behind the counter and took a sip of the iced chai tea Maryann had brought. “Mmm.”

Iced chai was part of their Thursday ritual.

On Thursdays the shop was open until nine, and Maryann’s husband, Ted, worked late at his law office in Providence. Maryann and Lisa stopped by during the early evening lull, and while the baby napped, the two women caught up with whatever was going on in each other’s lives. During the busy summer months, the shop was Rose’s life, and it was Maryann who usually had the more interesting tales to tell. Not so today. Rose had been stewing over her run-in with Griffin for two days and was happy to be able to grouse about it to someone who would understand.

“I’d still like to know what he’s going to do with my beautiful hydrangeas.”

“His beautiful hydrangeas,” Maryann corrected with a characteristically realistic expression.

“I fished them out of the Dumpster. I wiped the gravy off them—one delicate petal at a time, I might add. And I was the one who spent hours searching for exactly the right shade of ribbon to embellish them.”

“But he’s the one who coughed up more than two hundred and sixty bucks. You do the math.”

“I have,” Rose informed her triumphantly. She produced a legal pad on which she’d scrawled column after column of figures. “If you look at all the time I spent—in the Dumpster, cleaning and drying the flowers, and assembling the garland—and then calculate an hourly wage based on average past receipts—” she glanced up “—in season, of course. And add it all up, I didn’t even come close to breaking even.”

Maryann spoke softly. “Rose, sweetie, get a grip. I know you’re riled, but try not to wake Lisa. Also, I’m not sure you can expect to be compensated for the weeks the flowers spent just hanging around drying.”

Rose’s eyes flashed. “I’d like to know why not. Firemen get paid for the time they spend sitting around waiting for a fire. The crew on a fishing boat—”

“All right, all right, I get the idea. So what’s your point?”

“That Griffin stole the garland, that’s my point. I figure he owes me two thousand, one hundred and seven dollars and thirty-six cents. Plus tax. I’m willing to round it to two thousand even.”

“And just how do you plan to collect?”

“I don’t.” She sighed and tossed the pad aside. “I admit that legally I probably don’t have a leg to stand on.”

“I’m no expert,” Maryann admitted, “but I do watch my share of Judge Judy, and I am married to a third-generation attorney, and that would be my take on the situation, too. Look at it this way—in spite of the fact that you lost two grand on the deal, it was still nearly one-hundred-percent profit. How many businesses can pull that off?”

“I suppose.” Rose leaned on the counter and propped her chin on her hand. “I’d still like to figure out some way to collect. I also wish I hadn’t offered to throw a party for him.”

Maryann’s eyes widened with fresh interest. “Do tell? What’s this guy like, anyway?”

Rose shrugged. “Tall.”

“Tall? That’s the best you can do? I seem to recall Edie Blanchard saying Devora’s nephew is a dead ringer for Pierce Brosnan.”

“When did Edie Blanchard see him?” she asked, more interested than she cared to be, a fact that would not be lost on Maryann.

“At Devora’s memorial service. That was the week we were in Baltimore for Ted’s old roommate’s wedding,” she reminded Rose. “Edie told me all about it when I got back, and I remember how she went on and on about him being the spitting image of Pierce Brosnan. I would have mentioned it to you at the time, but it seemed…trivial, considering the situation and how hard you took the loss.”

Rose nodded. “Well, trust me, Edie was wrong. He’s no Pierce Brosnan.” She paused and tilted her head to the side, thinking it over before grudgingly adding, “Pierce Brosnan’s bigger, tougher, less charming and not nearly as well-dressed brother…maybe.”

“Hey, that’s still not chopped liver.”

“Stop,” Rose ordered, as a familiar gleam appeared in her friend’s dark eyes.

“Stop what?” Maryann’s lashes fluttered with what might be taken for innocence by someone who didn’t know her so well and hadn’t spent countless evenings on the receiving end of her self-acclaimed gift for matchmaking.

“We had an agreement, remember?”

“Oh, that.” Maryann waved off the reminder. “I agreed not to arrange any blind dates for you during your busy season. I never agreed to pretend men don’t exist, or that I do not find them—individually and as a species—a source of great interest, potential and amusement.”

“Maryann, I don’t want to put a damper on your enthusiasm—”

“Much,” her friend interjected.

“But I feel I should point out that you are married.”

“Married, not dead. And, at the risk of putting some heat on that wet blanket you insist on hiding under, I would like to point out that you are neither…married or dead, that is.”

“And happily so.”

“Ha. You just think you’re happy.” Maryann hoisted herself onto the counter as gracefully as she did everything in life, and zeroed in on Rose with the zeal and determination of a used car salesman on the last day of the month. “You are as textbook a case as the person who insists he does not like calamari when he has never even tasted it.”

“Squid,” Rose corrected. “Call it what it is, Maryann—fried squid.”

“My point exactly,” Maryann crowed. “Why doesn’t this otherwise sensible man taste it before ruling out any possibility of liking it? Because even though the menu says, calamari, he’s thinking, squid. Even though everyone else at the table is chomping away and telling him how great it is, telling him, ‘Try it, you’ll like it,’ he’s got squid on the brain. Squid, squid, squid. And, I might add, these fellow diners are not strangers.

“Oh, no,” she continued, having warmed to the point where her Ivy League education and marriage into a family of hardcore WASPs inevitably gave way to the unbridled animation of her deep Italian roots. She waved her expensively manicured hands, shrugged her shoulders, tossed her head. A one-woman show. “These are the very people he chooses to break bread with, people he knows and trusts. His best friend in the whole, entire world is sitting right next to him, holding out his fork, saying, ‘Just a bite, one little bite. Trust me.’”

“All right, Maryann, you win,” Rose said. “You’ve convinced me.”

Maryann’s beautiful face glowed with amazement. “I have?”

“One hundred percent. The very next time we have dinner together, I swear I will eat the calamari right off your plate.”

“Very funny.” She slid from the counter, straightened her white shorts and replaced the pacifier in Lisa’s mouth, just as the baby began to stir.

“As you are well aware,” she said to Rose, “the calamari was merely an illustration, a device, a metaphor for happy marriage. And just as the man was afraid to try the calamari because he couldn’t stop thinking, squid, squid, squid, you are afraid to give the whole men-love-marriage thing a chance.”

“With one small, but critical difference.” Rose’s tone became emphatic. “I have tried marriage.”

“Right. To a squid,” Maryann retorted, throwing both hands in the air, palms up. “I rest my case.”

“Thank you.”

“With this one final thought.”

Rose groaned.

“If you want to go on living a giant yawning hole of a life, go right ahead.”

“Thanks, I will.” Rose raised her plastic cup as if to toast the prospect.

“But, as my gramma Viola, God rest her soul, always said, ‘God works in mysterious ways.’”

She gave that time to sink into Rose’s resistant skull before continuing. “One of these days, that door will open—” She aimed one glossy crimson fingertip at the front door. “And in will walk the one man who can fill all that emptiness inside you.”

“Let me guess…his name will be Right. Mr. Richard Right.”

“Go ahead and laugh. As my gramma was also fond of saying…” She shifted effortlessly into broken English. “Justa you wait and see, Miss Smarty-Pants.”

“I will. But if you don’t mind, I won’t hold my breath, because the entire concept of Mr. Right—that is, one specific person out of hundreds of millions who is destined to be the soul mate of another specific person—is a myth.”

Maryann planted her fists on hips that Raquel Welch in her prime would have envied, and rolled her eyes. “Like you would know?”

“I’ve read Cosmo, too, Maryann. Not to mention having a degree in sociology.”

“Phooey. What does sociology have to do with true love?”

“Plenty.” It was the best Rose could do on the spur of the moment, especially considering she was a little rusty in both areas. About all she remembered from what she had once thought would be her life’s work with the Department of Social Services was the people. She remembered families without homes, babies without mothers, men and women who’d grown old and given up. She remembered those she had struggled to help, and all the ones she couldn’t, no matter how hard she fought, how many hours she logged, how many rules she bent.

“Such as?”

Her friend’s challenge interrupted her musing. She decided to wing it. “Such as establishing the fact that a given individual’s number of potentially satisfying mates is not limited to one. Studies show there are any number of suitable candidates—a category, in other words—a societal subset of similar Homo sapiens—a particular sort of personality—a character type, if you will.” She paused to breathe. “And I assure you, no matter what delusions Edie Blanchard has about the man, Hollis Griffin is most definitely not my type.”

The bell over the door sounded.

Lisa whimpered and lost her pacifier.

Griff walked in.

Maryann looked at him, then turned to face Rose and mouthed, Pierce Brosnan.

Rose had two silent words of her own. Why me?

She was suddenly sorry she had ever mentioned Griff to Maryann, and seeing the gleam in her friend’s eye as he approached, she had a feeling she was about to be even sorrier.

Stopping beside Maryann, he looked directly at Rose. “I need to talk to you.”

She eyed him reproachfully. “Forgive my lapse into good manners, but Maryann, this is Hollis Griffin. Hollis,” she continued, imbuing the name with just the barest hint of mockery, “this is my friend, Maryann McShane, and her daughter, Lisa.”

He turned his head, nodding at Maryann and flicking his gaze over the baby, who was winding up for a good cry. “Pleased to meet you, Maryann. Beautiful baby.”

“Hello, Hollis,” Maryann replied with a little smile and a nod of her own. “And thank you. I think she’s beautiful, too.”

“The name’s Griff,” he told her.

“Griff,” she repeated.

Rose observed the brief exchange, as she had observed dozens of other men the first time they laid eyes on Maryann—all five feet, eight gorgeous inches of her. But for once, the instant she was watching for never came, the instant when the man’s eyes glazed over and he struggled to keep his jaw from dropping. Instead, Griff turned his attention back to Rose.

“Can we talk now?”

“I’m afraid—” Rose began.

Maryann cut her off. “I’m leaving.”

“That’s really not necessary,” Rose insisted, her look shorthand for Don’t you dare leave me here alone.

“Oh, but it is,” replied Maryann, declining to decipher the code as she wheeled the stroller around to face the door. “I want to get home before Lisa realizes she’s hungry for more than that pacifier.”

“But we haven’t finished our discussion,” Rose persisted.

“Oh, we will. Most definitely. For now,” she said, doggedly ignoring the silent distress signals Rose was sending, “hold this thought. From my mouth to God’s ear, and in record time.” She grinned and glanced upward. “Thank you, Gramma Viola.”

Then she was gone.

Griff glanced around, frowning. “Who’s Gramma Viola?’

Rose shook her head. “It’s…complicated.”

He nodded.

She stood there.

Alone. With Hollis Griffin. Just where she did not want to be. Devora’s nephew or no, the man was insufferable, unfriendly and tasteless. And she hadn’t been able to get him off her mind for the past two days, eight hours and sixteen minutes. Give or take a few hours of sleep here and there.

And not, it pained her to admit, simply because he had stolen her hydrangeas. Some inner sense warned that nothing would ever be simple with Griffin, and simple was how she liked things.

So why couldn’t she stop thinking about the man?

It was ridiculous. And aggravating.

“So,” she said, folding her arms across her chest for much the same reason medieval warriors raised drawbridges: to protect against invaders. He might be wearing khaki slacks and a white shirt, sleeves rolled and neck open, but Rose saw battle armor. “Talk.”

Yeah, Griff, talk, he ordered himself. That’s why you finally broke down and came here, isn’t it? Isn’t it?

Yes, he assured himself firmly. He was here because he needed the woman’s help. Period. Nothing more or less. He was, well, in a word, desperate.

“Look,” he began, shoving one hand in his pocket, then taking it out again. “About the other day…the way I left…I’m not usually that…”

“Sensitive?” she suggested, green eyes full of enjoyment.

“Exactly.” He presented her with a smile that was both grudging and self-derisive. “I realize I was way out of line, especially after you went out of your way to be friendly and make me feel welcome and all. And I just want to say I’m…”

“Sorry?” she helped out again.

He nodded, relieved. “Right. I’m sorry.”

“No problem.” Her mouth curved into a teasing smile. “Believe it or not, I wasn’t trying to offend you. I just call ’em like I see ’em.”

“Yeah. Right,” Griff muttered, preferring not to explore it any further.

“Of course, even I can be wrong.”

“What does that mean? That now you don’t think I’m sensitive?”

“What I think is that I should keep what I think about you to myself from now on.”

“Fine with me. So…truce?”

“Truce. Is that what you wanted to talk about?”

“More or less,” he hedged. He cleared his throat. “But not exactly. I also came to see you because I…” In spite of the fact that he’d practiced what he had to say all the way there, the word need lodged itself in his throat like a chunk of day-old doughnut, refusing to come up or go down. “I…want to hire you.”

She looked startled and bewildered by the announcement. Which made two of them, thought Griff.

“Hire me?”

“Your services, I mean.”

“I see. And exactly which of my services are you interested in hiring me to perform?” she enquired, her tone chilly and mocking.

“Not that,” he blurted, aghast. Could the woman possibly believe he had to pay women for their company? And that if he did, he’d go about it in such a clumsy fashion?

“That,” she repeated, her lips drawing into a soft rosy bow that did not help his concentration at all. “That being?”

Her brows arched and her lips twitched.

She was laughing, Griff realized. At him. The sheer humiliation of it bounced around like a pinball inside him, slamming his pride hard enough to trigger some abandoned, deeply buried response system. A sort of Freudian kick in the ass.

As their gazes locked, he felt his grip on the cane relax and his lips settle into a comfortable smile. “That being any service requiring negotiations of a personal nature,” he said in a soft, deep voice that was only the slightest bit rusty. “The specific service I have need for at the moment is of a less intriguing, more professional nature.”

There was no mistaking the look of heightened awareness in her pretty eyes. It was laced with wariness, and with excitement. It was a look Griff hadn’t seen on a woman in quite a while. A look he’d thought he didn’t care if he ever saw again. He’d thought wrong, he realized. Suddenly, to his surprise, he felt more at home in his skin than he had in a long time.

“To be specific, I want to hire you to help me complete Devora’s collection,” he told her. “The birds,” he prodded gently, when she continued to stare at him in silence.

“Of course.” She ran her fingers through her hair, dislodging an amber-jeweled butterfly clip so that it seemed to be dancing across the sun-kissed waves near her ear. He liked it.

“I’m sorry. I was…thinking of something else for a moment,” Rose explained, then wanted to kick herself when Griff’s indulgent smile assured her that he knew exactly what that something else had been.

She didn’t like this, not one bit, and there was no way in heaven that she was going to agree to work for the man. Hire her, indeed.

“I’d really like to help you,” she told him, “but as I explained the other day, this really is not my field of expertise.”

“Maybe not, but there’s no denying you know a hell of a lot more about antiques in general than I do.”

She conceded that with a small shrug. “You could learn.”

“You could teach me.”

“Out of the question. I’m in business to sell stuff, not train potential competitors.”

“Understood. You have my word of honor that I will never go into the antiques business for myself. What do you say?”

“I say I really have to get back to work now.”

“Does that mean you accept my offer?”

“No, it means I have a business of my own to run.”

She began rearranging a display of Limoges boxes, while he looked on.

“I get it,” he said, leaning against a mahogany armoire filled with linen. “You want me to beg.”

“No, really, I don’t—”

“I’m begging you, Rose. I’m a desperate man. A victim of my own ignorance. Take pity on me.”

“All right, I’ll do this much—I’ll make a suggestion.” She turned to him holding one of the prized miniature boxes in each hand, one a ripe strawberry, the other a tiny carousel. “If I were you, I would try the Internet.”

“I did. Unfortunately my computer skills are limited to flight simulation and engine design.”

“You didn’t turn up anything?”

He shrugged. “Only that one of the three birds I need is a Piping Plover, name derived from the Latin pluvius, or rain. The feminine form of rain, to be precise.”

“Rain has gender?”

“Evidently the Romans thought so. At any rate, this particular Plover is practically extinct. What does that tell you?”

“That you’re in trouble.”

“That’s what I’ve been saying.” He shifted so he could see her face. “Would it have any influence on your answer if I told you that you have the most amazing eyes?”

“No,” she retorted, wishing that were the truth. Just hearing him talk about her eyes in that voice—the sort of deep, dark caress of a voice that every woman hears in her most secret fantasies—had an eroding effect on her resolve. And her concentration.

“Because it’s true,” he continued. “Just when I’m convinced they couldn’t be any greener, you blink, or I do, and they’re suddenly full of silver lights.”

Rose placed the strawberry Limoges box on the shelf, picked it up and put it back down in the precisely same spot. Maryann was right. God did work in mysterious ways. Right now, he was punishing her for saying that Griff was not charming by making him disarmingly so.

“And you,” she said, putting aside both boxes and turning to face him, “are full of baloney.”

“You want me to say your eyes aren’t green? I will. It goes against my code as an officer and a gentleman, but I’ll do it. I’ll do whatever it takes to get you to say yes.”

“Does this really mean that much to you?”

“Yes. It does.”

“Why?”

Griff hesitated. Damn. He’d wanted to play this straight. He didn’t consider a little flirting, especially when it came so naturally and she did have incredible eyes, to be dishonest. But now she was digging into his actual motives and intentions, and he was going to have to make a choice. Lie, or tell the truth and make her so angry she’d never agree to help him.

“Bottom line,” he said, “it means a lot to me, for no other reason than that it meant so much to Devora. Hell, I’d never be standing here pressing you this way otherwise. She made it clear she wanted the collection completed, and I feel strangely compelled to oblige.”

All true, after a fashion, he assured himself. If he was lucky, he might be able to continue to pick his way along a fine line of omissions and insinuations.

“I guess I can understand that,” said Rose.

“Good. Because I really need your help. And I’m prepared to be generous,” he added, hoping to sway her with the more honest incentive of cold, hard cash.

At first she appeared uninterested in the offer. Then she glanced over her shoulder at the counter behind her and did that distracting, sort of pouty thing with her lips that he’d noticed she did when she was pondering something.

“How generous?” she asked.

Griff considered the price she’d charged for the string of dead flowers and named an hourly rate in keeping with it. He was desperate, he reminded himself as he saw her eyes flash with real interest, and something else—something he couldn’t quite name.

“I’ll do it,” she said. Then, before he could feel triumphant, she added, “But with a few stipulations.”

“Name them.”

“I’ll work for you, but not instead of you. I already have my hands full. I do a lot of business online,” she explained, pointing to the computer sitting on a small desk behind the counter, “so I’ll handle that part of the search. But you’ll have to be available to come along if I decide we should chase down a lead.”

“No problem. What else?”

“I’m the boss,” she declared. She waited for him to bristle the way he had the other day, and was caught off guard when instead, his eyes crinkled at the corners, and a slow, very appealing grin appeared.

“Well now, I’ve never had a lady boss. Maybe you ought to go into a little detail about how that works.”

“It’s not complicated, Griff. Think of me as your commanding officer. I’ll think of you as a raw recruit who doesn’t know his Waterford from his Wedgwood. Or, to put it more simply, I give the orders and you follow them.”

He had a little more difficulty with that one, she could tell, and she relished the moment. Truthfully, if he had asked her nicely, she would have been happy to help and would have refused to accept a penny. But he hadn’t asked; he’d waged a campaign. And she felt no qualms about recouping some of her loss on the garland.

“What sort of orders?” he asked finally.

“That’s hard to say at this point. Hunting for antiques is more art than science. You have to be constantly on the prowl and you have to have good instincts, good timing and good luck. Since we agree you don’t have any instinct for this sort of hunt, we’ll both have to rely on mine.”

“In other words, you’re the brains and I’m the muscle.”

“More or less.”

“I can live with that,” he agreed.

Rose waited. Neither his tone nor his lazy smile suggested resistance. Still, there was a prickle of apprehension at the back of her neck.

“With one little stipulation of my own,” he said.

She folded her arms. “Let’s hear it.”

“Your conditions apply to work time only. When we’re off duty, we’re on our own.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning you can forget that rule about officers not fraternizing with enlisted men.”

“I guess I can live with that,” agreed Rose, wondering what she was getting herself into.

“Good. When do we start?”

“I’ll let you know.”

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