Annie gaped

What else could she do faced with the handsomest man she’d ever seen—hugging not one baby, not two babies, but three? Each red faced and screaming. Triplets?

“I’m your new neighbor, Annie Harnesberry. I don’t mean to be nosy, but it sounded like you might need some help.” She reached for the most miserable-looking baby and cradled the poor thing against her left shoulder.

The guy sort of laughed. “Yeah. My little sis left me with these guys over twenty-six hours ago. She was supposed to be back at two yesterday afternoon, but—” The babies launched a whole new set of screams.

“I’m Jed Hale. I’m a fireman. What do you do?” He awkwardly held out his hand for her to shake.

“I’m a preschool teacher now, but used to work with infants in a day care. I ran a pretty tight nursery.” She winked. “No crying on my watch.” Annie’s triplet had calmed, so she brushed past her neighbor to place the child in a pink bunny-covered car seat. Then she took another of the screaming babies, and like magic, after a few jiggles he fell into a deep sleep.

“Wow,” Jed said with a look of awe. “How’d you do that?”

Dear Reader,

My parents were both teachers when I was a kid, and every year, just as soon as school let out for the summer, we’d leave Michigan and head for the Colorado Rockies. My dad was an amateur gold miner, Mom was an avid reader and I liked both gold panning and reading, so usually a good time was had by all.

One not-so-happy part of our trips, though, was that my father claimed to be allergic to tourist traps. Back in the late seventies there seemed to be a lot of quirky Americana-type places. The World’s Biggest Ball of Twine and The World’s Deepest Well—can you believe it? Dad actually stopped at that one! Anyway, this book is a realization of all my childhood tourist dreams—especially when Jed and Annie get to stay in a real cabin. To save money, we always stayed in a tent. Brrr!

Back when I was a kid, Colorado was gloriously empty. We’d spend whole weeks seeing hardly anyone. As a kid, I grumbled quite a bit about these family camping trips, but now I look back on them as a truly magical time. Thanks, Mom and Dad!

Would you like to share your vacation adventures with me? Please write me at BaliPalm@aol.com or P.O. Box 2074, Tulsa, OK 74101. Like your vacations tropical? Hit my beach at lauramariealtom.com!

I hope all of you enjoy Jed and Annie’s story.

Laura Marie Altom

Temporary Dad

Laura Marie Altom

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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This book is dedicated to the wonderful game of Scrabble, and to all the lovely folks with whom I’ve had the privilege to play.

John Chew, webmaster extraordinaire for the National Scrabble Association—thanks so much for your generosity in sharing the particulars of the National Scrabble Championship. Any errors in official protocol are mine.

Books by Laura Marie Altom

HARLEQUIN AMERICAN ROMANCE

940—BLIND LUCK BRIDE

976—INHERITED: ONE BABY!

1028—BABIES AND BADGES

1043—SANTA BABY

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Epilogue

Chapter One

Waaaaaaaaaaaa! Waa huh waaaaaaaaahh!

Sitting in a cozy rattan chair on the patio of her new condo, Annie Harnesberry looked up from the August issue of Budget Decorating and frowned.

Waaaaaaa!

Granted, she wasn’t a mother herself, but she’d been a preschool teacher for the past seven years, so that did lend her a certain credibility where children were concerned. Not to mention the fact that she’d spent the past two years falling for Conner and his five cuties. Considering how badly he’d hurt her, the man must have a PhD in breaking hearts.

Baby Sarah had only been nine months old when Conner brought his second-youngest, three-year-old Clara, to the school where Annie used to teach.

Their initial attraction had been undeniable—Annie’s affinity for Clara and Baby Sarah, that is.

The two blue-eyed blondes were heart-stealers.

Kind of like their father, who’d gradually made Annie believe he’d loved her and not her knack for taking care of his children.

The man had emotionally devastated her when, instead of offering her a ring on Valentine’s Day, he’d offered her a position as his live-in nanny—right before showing off the diamond solitaire he was giving the next female on his night’s agenda.

Jade.

His future bride.

Trouble was, Jade didn’t much care for the patter of little feet—hence Conner’s sudden need for a nanny. But beyond that, he explained that the exotic brunette was one hot ticket. Us all living together’ll be like a big, happy family, don’tcha think?

Waaaaa ha waaaah!

Annie sighed.

Whoever was in charge of that poor, pitiful wailer in the condo across the breezeway from hers ought to do something to calm the infant. Never had she heard so much commotion. Was the poor thing sick?

She plucked a dead leaf from the pot of red impatiens gracing the center of her patio table, then returned to her article on glazing. She’d love to try this new technique in the guest bath that was tucked under the stairs.

Maybe in burgundy?

Or gold?

Something rich and decadent—like the decorating equivalent of a spoonful of hot fudge.

The house she’d grown up in had been painted top to bottom, inside and out, in vibrant jewel tones. She’d lived with her grandparents, since her mom and dad were engineers who traveled abroad so often that once she’d become school-age, it had been impractical for her to go with them. Her second place of residence—never could she call it a home—had been painted mashed-potato beige. This was the house she’d shared with her ex-husband, Troy, a man so abusive he made Conner look like a saint. Lodging number three, the apartment she’d run to after leaving her ex, had been a step up from mashed potatoes, seeing how it’d been painted creamed-corn yellow.

This condo was her fourth abode, and this time, she was determined to get not only the décor right, but her life. As much as she loved spending five days a week around primary colors and Sesame Street wallpaper, in her free time, she craved more grown-up surroundings.

Waaaaa waaaa waaaaa!

Waa huh waaaa!

Waaaaaaaaa!

Annie slapped the magazine back onto her knees.

Something about the sound of that baby’s crying wasn’t right.

Was there more than one?

Definitely two.

Maybe even three.

But she’d moved in a couple of weeks earlier and hadn’t heard a peep or seen signs of any infant in the complex—let alone three. That was partially why she’d chosen this unit over the one beside the river, which had much better views of the town of Pecan, Oklahoma’s renowned pecan groves.

The problem with the other place, the one with the view, was that it catered to families, and after saying tearful goodbyes to Baby Sarah and Clara and their two older brothers and sister, not to mention their father, the last thing Annie wanted in a new home was children.

Conner had packed up his kids, along with his gorgeous new wife and Scandinavian nanny, moving them all to Atlanta. The children were just as confused by the sudden appearance of Jade in their father’s life as Annie had been. She sent them birthday cards and letters, but it wasn’t the same. She missed them. Which was why she’d left her hometown of Bartlesville for Pecan. Because she’d resigned herself to mothering only the kids at work.

Conner was her second rotten experience with a man. And with trying to be part of a big, boisterous family. She sure didn’t want any daily reminders of her latest relationship disaster.

No more haunting memories of running errands with the kids at Wal-Mart or QuikTrip or the grocery store. No more lurching heart every time she saw a car that reminded her of Conner’s silver Beemer on Bartlesville’s main drag.

She needed a fresh start in the kind of charming small town that Conner wouldn’t lower himself to step foot in.

Annie looked at her magazine.

Glazing.

All she needed to feel better about her whole situation was time and a can or two of paint.

Waa huh waaaaaaa!

Annie frowned again.

No good parent would just leave an infant crying like this. What was going on? Could the baby’s mom or dad be hurt?

Wrinkling her nose, nibbling the tip of her pinkie finger, Annie put her magazine on the table and peered over the wrought-iron rail encircling her patio.

A cool breeze ruffled her short, blond curls, carrying with it the homey scent of fresh bread baking at the town’s largest factory, a mile or so away. She had yet to taste Finnegan’s Pecan Wheatberry bread, but it was supposedly to die for.

Normally at this time of year in Oklahoma, she’d be inside cozied up to a blasting central AC vent. Due to last night’s rain, the day wasn’t typical August fare, but tinged with an enticing fall preview.

Waaaaaaaa!

Annie popped the latch on her patio gate, creeping across grass not quite green or brown, but a weary shade somewhere in between.

The birdbath left behind by the condo’s last owner had gone dry. She’d have to remember to fill it the next time she dowsed her impatiens and marigolds.

Waaaaaa!

She crept farther across the shared lawn, stepping onto the weathered brick breezeway she shared with the as-yet-unseen owner of the unit across from hers.

The condo complex’s clubhouse manager—Veronica, a bubbly redhead with a penchant for eighties rock and yogurt—said a bachelor fireman lived there.

Judging by the dead azalea bushes on either side of his front door, Annie hoped the guy was better at watering burning buildings than poor, thirsty plants.

Waaa huhhh waaa!

She took another nibble on her pinkie.

Looked at the fireman’s door, then her own.

Whatever was going on in there probably wasn’t any of her business.

Her friends said she spent too much time worrying about other folks’ problems and not enough on her own. But really, besides her broken heart, what problems did she have?

Okay, sure, she got lonely now that she lived an hour south of her grandmother. And her parents’ current gig in a remote province of China meant she rarely got to talk to them. But other than that, she had it pretty good, and—

Waaaaaaa!

Call her a busybody, but enough was enough.

She couldn’t bear standing around listening to a helpless baby cry—maybe even more than one helpless baby.

Her first knock on the bachelor fireman’s door was gentle. Ladylike. That of a concerned neighbor.

When it didn’t work, she gave the door a few hard thuds.

She was just about to investigate the patio when the door flew open. “Patti? Where the—oh. Sorry. Thought you were my sister.”

Annie gaped.

What else could she do faced with the handsomest man she’d ever seen—hugging not one baby, not two babies, but three? Each red faced and screaming. Triplets?

On teacher autopilot, she reached for the most miserable-looking one, automatically cradling the poor, trembling thing against her left shoulder.

“Hi,” she said, lightly jiggling the baby while at the same time smoothing her fingers down the back of her head—her judging by the pink terry-cloth pjs. “I’m your new neighbor, Annie Harnesberry. I don’t mean to be nosy, but it sounded like you might need help.”

The guy sort-of laughed, showing lots of white teeth. “Yeah. My, um, little sis left me with these guys over twenty-six hours ago. She was supposed to be back at two yesterday afternoon, but—”

Annie’s triplet had calmed, so she brushed past her neighbor to place the child gingerly in a pink bunny-covered car seat. Then she took another of his screaming babies for herself.

“Don’t mean to be pushy,” she said, “and please, go on with your story about your sister, but occupational hazard—I just can’t stand hearing a child cry.”

“Me, too,” he said, wincing when the baby he held launched a whole new set of screams. “I’m a fireman. Jed Hale. What do you do?” He awkwardly held out his hand for her to shake.

“I’m a preschool teacher now, but used to work with infants in a day care. I ran a pretty tight nursery.” She winked. “No crying allowed on my watch.”

“Admirable.” He grinned, and his boyish-yet-all-man charm warmed Annie to her toes.

She soon calmed the second baby, then put him—judging by his blue terry-cloth pjs—alongside his sister in a blue giraffe-upholstered carrier.

She took the remaining infant in her arms, and, like magic, after a few jiggles he fell into a deep sleep.

“Wow,” the boy’s uncle said with a look of awe. “How’d you do that?”

Annie shrugged, easing the last snoozing triplet into his seat. “Practice. My major was premed with a minor in child development. Seems like I spent half my college career in the campus nursery studying infants. They’re fascinating.”

He leaned against the open door. “Sounds pretty bookish for a preschool teacher. I didn’t even know you had to go to college for that—I mean, not that you shouldn’t have to, but—”

“I know what you mean. I always wanted to be a child psychiatrist. Not sure why. Just one of those things.” She didn’t have a clue why she was standing here in this stranger’s home, spilling her guts about stuff she hadn’t thought of in years. Reddening, she said, “Sorry. Didn’t mean to ramble—or barge in. Now that you’ve got everything under control, I’ll just mosey off to my magazine.” She backed out of his condo and hooked her thumb toward her patio. Whew.

The man’s eyes were gorgeous. Brown shot with the same flecks of gold she’d like on her bathroom walls. Opulent and rich and definitely all grown-up. As yummy as that spoonful of hot fudge swirled with caramel! The decorating version of course…

Although she wasn’t in the market for a man herself, should she try fixing him up with one of the other teachers at her school?

“Don’t leave,” Jed said, hating the needy whine in his tone. He’d always prided himself on never needing anyone, but this woman he didn’t just need, he had to have. He had no idea what magic she’d used to zonk out his niece and nephews. However, if his sister didn’t arrive to claim her offspring in the next thirty seconds, it’d be a pretty safe bet he’d need Annie’s special brand of baby tranquilizer all over again. “Really, stay,” he said, urging her inside. “I’ve been meaning to bring over a frozen pizza or something. You know, do the whole Welcome Wagon neighbor thing. But we’ve had some guys out sick and on vacation, so I’ve been pulling double shifts.” He glanced at his watch. “In fact, I’m due back in a few hours, but my sis should be here way before then.”

Now who was the one rambling?

Jed could’ve kicked himself for going on and on. Not only did he have a desperate need for this woman, but now that he’d been standing next to her for a good fifteen minutes, he was starting to admire more than her babysitting skills.

She was cute.

Hot in a G-rated sort of way.

Loopy blond curls kissed her shoulders and neck. A curve-hugging white T-shirt gave tantalizing peeks at cleavage and a great, all-over tan. And seeing how she was now up to a PG-13, how about those great legs in the jean shorts?

Damn.

Not too long, not too short. Just right for—

Waaaaaaaaa!

Triple damn.

He sure loved Patti’s little critters, but they were in serious need of a few lessons on how not to screw up Uncle Jed’s chances with his hot new neighbor.

“He’s probably hungry,” she said, marching over to the carrier and picking up his squalling nephew. “Got any bottles?”

Her lips. Man. When she talked they did this funny little curvy thing at the corners. Made him want to hear her talk about something other than babies. Where she’d moved from and where she one day wanted to go. Why she’d wanted to be a child psychiatrist but ended up teaching preschool.

“Jed?” Annie grinned. “You okay? If you’d just point the way to the bottles, I’ll go ahead and feed this guy while you take a breather.”

“I’m good,” he said with a shake of his head. “The bottles are in here.”

He led her to the kitchen. A tight, beige-walled cell of a room he usually avoided by eating at the station or feasting on takeout in front of the TV.

He took a bottle from the fridge, then turned to the woman behind him. “Want me to nuke it?”

She grimaced, kissing his nephew on top of his head. “It’s probably best to put the bottle in a bowl of hot water, otherwise it gets too hot.”

“Oh.”

She headed toward the sink.

Speaking of hot…

Nudging on the faucet, she asked, “Got any big bowls?”

Jed retrieved the only bowl he owned—a promotional Budweiser Super Bowl VIII popcorn dish he’d won playing sports trivia down at his friend’s bar. “This work?”

She eyed it for a second, then said, “Um, sure.”

OVER AN HOUR LATER, Annie had fed and diapered the infant trio. Jed had confirmed her earlier assumption of their being triplets. The five-month-old girl was named Pia, and the boys, Richard and Ronnie. Jed explained earlier that morning, he’d lost the ribbon bracelets his sister kept on the boys to help tell them apart, so now he wasn’t sure who was who.

“Man,” he said, arching back his head with a yawn. “I don’t know how I’ll ever repay you. When Patti finally shows up, she’s going to catch heat the likes of which she hasn’t felt since I caught her smoking in church.”

“Bit of a wild child, was she?” Annie asked, as she fastened the last snap on Pia’s pink jammies. She found a tiny pink Velcro bow stuck to the terry cloth, pulled it off, and attached it to the baby girl’s thin tufts of hair.

He laughed. “That’s an understatement. The happiest day of my life was when she said her I Dos to Howie. Finally, I thought, she’s someone else’s responsibility.”

“You been looking after her for a while?”

“Yeah. Our folks died my freshman year of college. Patti was okay as a kid, but once she hit her teens, she was nothing but trouble. She started pulling all this rebellion crap. Smoking. Drinking. Exclusively dating guys whose gene pools were only half-full. Most times, I knew she must have still been upset about Mom and Dad. But then there were other times I swear she did every bit of it just to piss me—” He winced. “Sorry.”

“That’s okay,” Annie said, hugging the sleeping beauty to her chest.

“So lately,” he said, “she’s been kind of depressed. Howie—her husband, my savior—got laid off from his job here in Pecan, so he took a new one that has him traveling out east a lot. The company won’t pay for the whole family to relocate, so until he can find something closer to home, this is what he’s doing to pay the bills. Patti hasn’t handled it all that well. Before this happened with Howie, she’d been a bit shaky on the whole motherhood thing—not that she hasn’t done a great job. It’s just that she gets pretty frazzled.”

“Who wouldn’t?” Annie said, starting to share Jed’s concern for his sister, this precious infant’s mother. She stroked Pia’s downy-soft hair and breathed in her innocence and lotion.

“Anyway, that’s why I offered to watch these guys for her. I figured she could use a little break, but her being gone overnight…” He shook his head. “I never agreed to that. I’ve checked her house, called her neighbors and friends. Mrs. Clancy on the end of her block saw her tear out of her driveway yesterday about twelve-thirty in my truck. Since I can only fit one baby seat in my truck, she probably thought it best to leave me with the Baby Mobile. No one’s seen her since.” He raked his fingers through his hair.

The muted sound of a running vacuum came from next door.

“When she was younger,” he said, “she ran away a few times. I’m scared she’s choosing that way out again. But it could be something else. Something bad…”

The vacuum went off.

Annie leaned forward, her stomach queasy. “Have you called the police or tried getting in touch with Howie?”

He shrugged, then pushed himself up from the sofa and began to pace. “I’ve got a couple friends down at the police station, so I’ve been calling them like every hour. They’ve entered my plates and Patti’s vitals into the national missing persons base. Anyway, the cavalry’s been called, but they keep telling me the same thing. Wait. She’ll come home. There’s been no sign of trouble. Odds are, with Patti’s history of running, the stress of the babies probably got to be too much for her and she just took off.”

“And her husband? Did you ever get hold of him?”

“Nope. His cell keeps forwarding to voice messaging—same as his office phone. Apparently, not a single real live person answers the phone at that high-tech fortress where he works. I’d go to see him, but he’s out in Virginia somewhere.”

“Sorry,” Annie said. “Wish there was something I could do.”

“You’ve already helped,” he said. He shot a glance at his nephews. “Sometimes when these guys—and girl—start on a crying jag, I get panicky. Maybe my sister felt the same and split.”

Annie’s eyes widened. “She just left her babies?”

“I don’t want to think that of her, but what other explanation is there? I mean, if there was an emergency or something, wouldn’t she have called?”

“I’d think so, but what if she can’t?”

“Oh, come on.” He stopped pacing and thumped the heel of his hand against a pasta-colored wall. A snow-capped mountain landscape rattled in its chrome frame. “In this day and age, I’ll bet you can’t give me one good reason why a person couldn’t call.”

Annie wanted to blurt dozens of comforting reasons, but how could she when Jed was right?

Chapter Two

Patricia Hale-Norwood glared at the ICU nurse manning the desk phone. “Please. I’ll call collect. I just need to let my brother know where I am. I left in a hurry, and he’d taken my triplets to the Tulsa Zoo, and so I couldn’t—”

“I’m sorry,” said the steely-eyed, middle-aged dragon disguised as a nurse. “Hospital policy. This phone is for emergency use only.”

“This is an emergency.” Heart pounding at double the rate of the beeping monitor in Room 110, Patricia clenched her fists. From the call that’d interrupted her bubble bath telling her Howie had been in an accident and was barely alive, to the hasty trek down the front porch stairs that had badly sprained her right ankle, then the endless flight and rental car drive that led her to this North Carolina hospital where her husband now drifted in and out of consciousness, this whole trip had been a horror show that just kept getting worse.

The nurse sighed. “I’m sorry, but unless you’re in need of a blood transfusion or have an organ you’d like to donate, I can’t let you use this phone. There are pay phones and courtesy phones located throughout the hospital for your convenience.”

“Look.” Patricia slapped her palms on the counter. “I don’t know if you’re aware of this or not, but over in that fancy new wing y’all are building, some yo-yo sliced the phone cables with a backhoe. So now there isn’t a single phone on this whole freakin’ square mile that works—except for yours—which, I’ve heard through the hospital grapevine, has its own separate emergency line.”

“Please, Mrs. Norwood, lower your voice. We have critically ill patients here.”

“You’re damned right!” Patricia said shrilly. “My husband happens to be one of them. He’s hanging on by a thread, and you’re acting like he’s here for a bikini wax. Now, we’ve been through this already. My cell batteries are dead. My charger is back home two thousand miles away. My ankle’s swollen to the size of a football, making it kind of excruciating for me to get around. Please let me use this phone.”

The nurse cast Patricia a sticky-sweet smile. “Perhaps a family member of one of our other patients has a cell they’d allow you to use in the special cellular phone area on the sixth floor?”

JED SLAMMED his cordless phone on the kitchen counter.

What was the matter with those guys down at the police station? They were supposed to be his friends.

Hell, Jed had been the one who’d thrown Ferris his police academy graduation party. And now the guy was claiming there wasn’t a thing more he could do to find Patti?

He glanced at his niece and nephews, thankfully all still sleeping.

What would he have done without the help of his new neighbor? What was he going to do when all three babies woke at the same time, demanding bottles and burping and diaper changing?

Jed had earned many medals for bravery as a fireman. Yet those snoozing pink and blue bundles made him feel like a coward.

The phone rang and he lunged for it before the next ring. “Patti?”

“She’s still not back?” said Craig, one of his firehouse buddies.

“Nope.”

“What’re you gonna do? We need you down here, man. There’s a brushfire on a field by the country club, and we just got back from a house-fire call over on Hinton.”

“Anyone hurt?”

“Nah, but their kitchen’s toast.”

“Bummer.” Jed had been on hundreds of scenes like this. Witnessed lots of why me’s and crying. Crying. Occupational hazard.

Annie said the same about her job. How she hated hearing babies cry. Jed hated hearing anyone cry. It was great that he saved lives, but the emotional toll taken by fires was every bit as horrible as the physical destruction.

Fire didn’t just ruin lives and houses, it also stole memories.

Snapshots of Florida vacations.

Golf and baseball trophies.

Those goofy little clay ashtrays kids make in kindergarten.

Little brothers.

He sighed into the phone.

“Jed, the chief’s real sorry about your sister, but we need you down here. Want me to call Marcie and ask her to watch the triplets for you?”

Marcie was Craig’s wife.

And yeah, she could come sit with the babies, but that would be about the extent of it. Those two didn’t even own a dog or a guppy. What did she know about taking care of three newborns?

But Annie…

She’d know what to do.

The way she’d calmed his niece and nephews earlier that day—it’d been a bonafied miracle.

“Jed? Want me to tell Chief when you’ll be in?”

“I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“Will do,” Craig said. “Catch you later.”

Jed pressed the phone’s off button.

He hated asking for help.

After his parents had died, he’d looked after not only himself but his sister, who’d been ten. He was nineteen then, and he’d done a good job. Their folks’ life insurance hadn’t lasted long, and when it’d run dry, he’d finished college at the University of Tulsa, taking night classes. Worked his tail off during the day making sure Patti had everything a kid could want.

The bank took the house they’d lived in with their parents since after the fire, but he’d found them an apartment over the old town theater. The whole building had long since been condemned, but back then, they’d played dollar movies there on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights.

When Patti was still a sweet kid, he’d taken her to most of the shows. No R-rated ones, though—his mom wouldn’t have approved.

He’d come close a few times to having to sell the cabin in Colorado that’d been in their family for generations. Money had been crazy tight, but somehow, he’d made things work. That cabin was the only tangible reminder of their parents. A part of Jed felt that he owed it not just to Patti, but to his own future children to keep it in the family. No matter what the personal cost.

He’d single-handedly raised his sister. He’d gone over her homework, helped her study for tests. Gone looking for her when he suspected she was hanging with the wrong crowd. Grounded her when, sure enough, he’d caught her guzzling beer down by the river.

He’d even been there to rub her back when she’d thrown up those beers a few hours later in the apartment’s rust-stained toilet.

He’d covered college applications and tuition. Book and dorm costs.

Through all of that, he’d never asked for any help himself.

Never wanted it.

But now…

Somehow this was different.

Helping Patti study for a test? That he could do. Dragging her home from a party? Paying her student loans? He could do that, too. But figure out how to care for three babies while launching a full-fledged investigation into Patti’s whereabouts?

He groaned.

If this afternoon was any indication of the fun still ahead, his sister’s latest stunt just might do him in.

Jed sighed, resting his elbows on the kitchen counter. “Patti, where are you?”

Ten minutes later, propping his front door open with a bag of rock salt he’d found in the coat closet, Jed did the unthinkable—knocked on Annie Harnesberry’s door to ask for help.

“JED. HI.” Annie ran her fingers through the mess on her head. Ever since leaving her neighbor’s, she’d been hard at work on her guest bath, scraping the shoddily applied popcorn ceiling, making way for something grander. A nice, restful Scrabble game would’ve been more fun, but difficult with only one player. Hmm…Someday she’d have to see if her new neighbor liked to play.

“Looks like you’ve been busy.” He brushed a large chunk of ceiling from her hair.

Not sure whether to feel flustered or flattered by his unexpected touch, Annie fidgeted with the brass door-knob. “One of the reasons I chose this condo was its great bone structure. Redecorating is a hobby of mine.”

“Great. Maybe you could tackle my place when you’re finished. We could talk tile over pizza.”

“Maybe.” Though his tone had been teasing, something about the warmth in Jed’s eyes led Annie to wonder if he might be at least a little serious about wanting to see her again. Was that why he was there?

To ask her out?

Wow. She’d just made this big move designed to steer her clear of all men, yet here she was, faced with another one. Even worse, the old optimist in her, the one who so badly wanted to find that elusive pot of gold at the end of the dating rainbow, had almost said yes. After all, the guy was movie-star gorgeous.

Not that appearance mattered in the scheme of things. Look what had happened during her first go-around with a good-looking guy. Her ex-husband, Troy, had been gorgeous. He’d also turned out to be her worst nightmare.

“Do you like Scrabble?” she blurted, not sure why. Both Troy and Conner had hated the game that was her family’s passion.

“Love it,” Jed said. “Sometime, when my life calms down, we’ll have to play. I warn you, though, I’m pretty good.” He winked.

Her stomach fell three stories.

No. No matter how handsome her new neighbor happened to be, she wasn’t—couldn’t be—interested. Yes, she’d date again because she couldn’t bear the thought of ending up alone. But not yet. Her head and heart just weren’t ready.

“Well—” He shuffled his feet.

From across the breezeway, Annie noticed his propped-open front door, and beyond that, the corner of a blue bassinet. “Your sister’s still not back?”

“No. I’m really starting to freak out.”

“I don’t blame you,” she said, squelching the urge to comfort him with a hug. At work, she hugged parents and students and co-workers, but in this situation, a hug might imply a certain affection she shouldn’t want to share.

“The reason I’m here,” he said, shooting her a beautiful smile that did the funniest things to her breathing, “is that all hell’s breaking loose down at the station and they need me ASAP. So, anyway, I was wondering if you could hang out at my place for the next twenty-four hours? That’s the length of my shift—but I’m sure Patti’ll be back way before then.”

“You mean you want me to babysit?” Handsome Jed Hale wasn’t here to ask her on a date but to care for his sister’s triplets.

She should’ve been relieved, so why did Annie’s heart sink? Why didn’t men see her for her, but only for her knack with kids?

Worse yet, why did she care?

Hadn’t she just established the fact that she had no current interest in any man?

“Yeah. Babysit. Oh—and of course I’ll pay. What’s the going rate?”

Bam. Annie’s ego took another nosedive.

Now the guy was even bringing money into it?

Why couldn’t he just offer to take her out for a nice friendly steak dinner once his sister finally showed up?

“Annie? What do you say? Can you help me out?”

Noooo, she wanted to scream.

Hanging out with kids was her day job.

At night, she did grown-up things like scraping ceilings and glazing walls and sipping wine and playing Scrabble.

And if she was honest…

Dreaming of what her life might’ve been like had she met a guy who didn’t hit or take advantage of her ability to move an infant from screaming to sleeping in twenty seconds.

What were the odds of a woman being so cursed in love?

“I know it’s short notice and stuff,” he said, those intriguing brown-gold eyes of his eloquently pleading his case. “But I really could use your help.”

“Okay,” Annie finally said, hating herself for being so easily drawn in by Jed’s puppy-dog sadness. She had to remind herself she wasn’t doing this for him, but for the babies.

If she’d learned anything during her years with Conner, it was that guys with ready-made families were only after one thing. And it had way more to do with heating up formula than anything that went on in the bedroom. “What time do you want me over?”

He winced. “Would now be too soon?”

ANNIE LOOKED UP from her seat at the end of Jed’s black leather sofa and came uncomfortably close to keeling over in an old-fashioned swoon.

Wow.

He stood at the base of the stairs, dressed in plain uniform navy cotton pants and a bicep-hugging navy T-shirt with a yellow Pecan Fire Department logo on the chest pocket. His choppy, short dark hair was damp from the shower.

He’d shaved, and the scent of his citrus aftershave drifted the short distance to where she sat. The mere sight of him, let alone his smell, implied clean, simple, soul-deep goodness. He was a fireman, charged with keeping helpless grandmas and grandpas and babies and kittens safe from smoke and flames.

It probably would’ve sounded crazy had she tried to explain her sudden reaction to the man. But in that moment, she knew he would never hurt her—at least not physically, the way Troy had.

“I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you doing this for me,” he said.

“Sure. It’s no big deal.”

“Yes, it is.” He walked the rest of the way down the stairs. “You hardly know me, yet you’re giving up your time to help me out. In my book, that makes you good people.”

His words returned the warm tingle to her belly. She stood, not sure what to do with her flighty hands or dry mouth. “I already told you,” she said. “It’s no biggie.”

He looked at her for a long moment, then peered down at his black uniform shoes. “To me, it’s a very big deal. Don’t discount the value of what you do.”

The urge to hug him came back. In those opulent eyes of his she’d caught a glimpse of sadness. Fear for his sister? Or something more?

Before she had time to ponder the question, he was hugging her, wrapping her in his all-masculine scent and strength.

And his touch wasn’t awkward or inappropriate, but comforting and warm. And then, just as unexpectedly as the sensations had come, they were gone, and Jed was waving and walking out the door. Thanking her again. Smiling again. Alerting Annie to the undeniable fact that she was very much in trouble with a man and his adorable children—all over again.

HOURS LATER, Annie woke to a ringing phone.

It took a few minutes of fumbling in the dark to realize she’d fallen asleep on Jed’s sofa instead of her own. Another few minutes to actually find the phone—or not.

Somewhere, an answering machine clicked on.

Hey—congratulations! You’ve reached Jed. Leave a message and I’ll call you back.

Annie grinned.

During the time they’d spent together, Jed hadn’t shown any signs of having a sense of humor. The notion that he did made him that much more appealing.

“Jed,” a woman’s voice said. “Good grief, it’s after midnight out there. Where are you? Are my babies okay?”

Patti.

Hoping she’d find a phone attached to the machine recording the woman’s voice, Annie hustled up the stairs.

“You wouldn’t believe the trouble I’ve had finding a phone. Anyway, I’m all right, but—”

By the time Annie got to the top of the stairs, dashed across the short hall and into a master bedroom that was the mirror image of hers, it sounded as if the woman had been cut off.

Annie found the phone on a nightstand beside a badly rumpled king-size bed.

She answered but was too late. The dial tone buzzed in her ear.

She turned on a lamp and checked the phone for caller ID, but the cordless model didn’t have an ID window. She tried *69, but got an error message.

Great.

If the woman on the phone had been Patti, it seemed that she either didn’t want to be found or was having technical difficulties.

Annie sat on the edge of the bed.

From talking to Jed, she got the impression that he thought his sister had suffered some kind of emotional breakdown, then taken off on a joyride. But the woman on the phone sounded weary—not at all like she was off having fun. Her voice was full of concern—quite the opposite of a woman who’d abandoned three newborns with her bachelor brother. A brother who obviously didn’t know the first thing about caring for infants.

Waaaaaaa huh waaaaaaa!

Maybe it was time to quit playing detective and start playing temporary mom.

She smoothed the down-filled pillow on the bed and breathed in the room’s heady male scent.

Oh, boy.

Annie had the feeling she’d entered a definite danger zone.

Bedrooms were highly personal places.

They told a lot about people.

But since she was wasn’t interested in dating just yet, Annie didn’t want to know how sumptuous Jed’s navy-blue sheets felt against her skin. Or how they smelled of fabric softener and just a touch of his aftershave that had already made her heart race.

She especially didn’t want to see the really great framed print over his bed. Gauguin’s And the Gold of Their Bodies.

She’d always loved that painting.

Interesting that Jed did, too.

The full-figured island women evoked paradise and pleasure.

Waaa huh!

On her way out of the room, Annie trailed her fingertips along the cool, dust-free surface of an ornate antique dresser.

She loved antiques.

The stories behind them.

Where had this piece come from? Was it a family heirloom? Or something Jed picked up at auction? Did he like auctions? Annie did. Maybe they could go together some time? Share a Frito-Lay chili pie during—

Waaaaaaaaahh!

Casting one last curious look around the room, Annie hustled downstairs.

She’d scooped Pia out of her carrier and was feeling her diaper for thickness when the phone rang.

If it was Patti, she wasn’t missing her.

Running up the steps, Annie cursed herself for not bringing the cordless phone downstairs.

“Hello?” she said, out of breath. By the glow of the lamp she’d forgotten to turn off, she stared into the blue eyes of a grinning, wide-awake baby.

“Hey, Annie. Good—you found the phone.” There went that curious flip-flopping in her stomach. Could it be because Jed sounded as hot over the phone as he did in person? No. And to prove it, she changed her focus to plucking Pia’s pink Velcro bow off her pajama sleeve where it was once again stuck to return it to her hair.

“Were you hiding it?” she asked.

“What?”

“The phone.”

“Nah, I keep forgetting to move it. Lightning fried the one downstairs.”

“Did you serve it with ketchup or tartar sauce?”

He groaned. “That stank.”

“Sorry. Couldn’t resist.”

“You’re forgiven. So? Everything going okay?”

“Sure. Pia’s up, but the boys are still sleeping. Oh—and your sister called.”

“You didn’t get to talk to her?”

“It took me forever to find the phone, and by the time I did, she’d been cut off.”

A long sigh came over the line.

Annie asked, “Want me to play the message for you?”

“Sure.”

She pressed the red button beside a blinking light, then held the phone to the speaker. When the woman’s voice abruptly ended, she said, “Well? That tell you anything?”

“Yep. Tells me to call off the cops and move on to Plan B.”

“What’s that?”

“Going to get her.”

“But you don’t know where she is.”

“Oh, yes, I do.”

Annie shifted the cooing baby to her other arm. “Care to let me in on the secret?”

Chapter Three

In the specially designated cell phone waiting area, Patti held an ancient-model cell phone over her head, waving it back and forth in the hope of finding a signal. The man she’d borrowed it from, Clive Bentwiggins of Omaha, was visiting his mother. Clive was at least ninety-eight and on oxygen. The hissing from his portable tank sounded like wind shushing through the Grand Canyon.

“Get one yet?” Clive asked, cradling a cup of black coffee.

Edging toward the Coke machine, holding up her phone arm, Patricia shook her head. “I had one over by that fake ficus, but I—oh, here. Right here.” Yes. Between the Coke machine and a corral of IV poles, the light indicating a signal glowed an intense green.

“Dial fast,” Clive said. “Don’t want you getting cut off again.”

She cast her phone benefactor a smile and dialed Jed’s number. It rang three times before the answering machine picked up. After the beep, she said, “Jed? Jed, honey, are you there? Jed!” She heard static on the line. Crap. She inched closer to the IV poles, but the green light disappeared.

Wheeling his hissing tank behind him, Clive walked toward her. “Losing it again?”

Patti nodded, tears welling in her eyes.

Where could they be?

Something had to be wrong. It was too late for Jed not to answer his phone.

He didn’t have a woman over, did he?

She should’ve known better than to leave her babies with him.

The green light came back on, but all she could hear was the hissing from Clive’s tank.

Covering the phone’s mouthpiece, she said, “Would you mind scooting your tank just a little bit that way? I’m having a hard time—” Too late. The signal was gone.

Patricia sighed.

Clive patted her back. “I raised six kids and twenty-three grandbabies. Trust me, your flock is fine. It’s that busted-up husband of yours you need to worry about.”

“HELLO?” Annie said, hands on her hips. “Care to finally let me in on your big secret?”

Jed had been home from his twenty-four-hour shift for five minutes. In those five minutes, he’d replayed Patti’s latest message ten times. Now he definitely knew where his sister had gone.

He shot into action, barreling into the kitchen. He’d take everything Patti left with him. There were only a few cans of formula and three or four diapers, but that should at least get him over the Colorado state line. In Denver, he’d grab whatever else he needed.

“Jed?” Annie’s sweet voice jolted him from his todo list.

Arms laden with his few requisite supplies, Jed looked up on his way back to the living room. “Yeah?”

“What are you doing?”

“Packing.”

Annie’s eyes narrowed as she kissed the top of Pia’s head. “Please tell me you’re not planning to load up these sweet, sleepy babies and trek them wherever you think your sister may be.”

“Hey,” he said from the living room, dumping the baby grub into the diaper bag, “I can see why you might think I’m crazy to go traipsing blindly across the country. But for your information, I happen to know exactly where Patti is.”

“Oh, you do?” She followed him into the living room and gently set Pia on a fuzzy pink blanket on the floor. “Mind telling me how you worked it out, Sherlock?”

“Love to, Watson.” He grinned. “You like those old movies, too?”

Frowning, she said, “I prefer the books.”

“La-di-da.”

She stuck out her tongue. “Just get to the part where you unravel the mystery.”

“Simple deduction.” He snatched the diaper wipes from the coffee table. “Remember all that hissing and shushing on the answering machine message?”

“Yeah…” she said, arms crossed, eyebrows raised. “Can’t wait to hear where this leads.”

“She’s at our family cabin just outside Fairplay, Colorado.”

“You’ve got to be kidding. Patti hardly said two words on that message, and from that you’ve deduced she’s holed up in some cabin?”

Snatching a few teething toys—plastic key rings and a clear plastic thingamajig with fish floating around inside—Jed said, “You know babies, right? Well, I know my sister. Ever since having the triplets, she’s had a rough time of it.”

“Duh.”

He shot his smart-mouthed neighbor a look.

She shot him one back.

Try as he might to stay on topic, Jed couldn’t help thinking that he liked this feisty side of her. As soon as he got things settled, he just might tackle a whole new case—figuring out how to take Annie’s PG-13 rating to a wicked-fun R!

He shook his head to clear it of the sweet sin threatening to muck up the next task on his road-trip agenda.

“Well?” she asked. “You’re zero-and-one. Gonna go for zero-and-two?”

Jed glanced up as he stuffed a blue blanket into his now-bulging duffel bag. “Anyone ever tell you that for having such a fine package, you sure have a sassy mouth?”

Annie’s face reddened and she looked away.

Hmm…Apparently he’d just pulled off his first TKO. “For your information, Little Miss Sassy Pants, all that hissing on the answering machine wasn’t hissing, but wind. Wind whistling through the pines and firs outside our family cabin to be specific. Cell-phone service is touchy up there, which explains why she constantly gets cut off.”

As much as Annie hated to admit it, Jed’s warped logic made perfect sense.

“Patti loves the place. When our folks were alive, we spent every summer up there for as long as I can remember. After they died, Patti and I went there as often as we could. Here in town, she was all about keeping up appearances. I guess she felt she had to put on this cool act. But up at the cabin, she was herself. A sweet kid who allowed herself to have fun.”

“But Jed—” Annie crossed the small space cluttered with stuffed animals to touch his arm “—she’s not a kid anymore. She’s a grown woman with a family of her own. If your assumptions are true—that she ran off to figure out her life—maybe what she doesn’t need is her big brother charging in for a needless rescue. Maybe she needs time to get her head on straight. I mean, that’s essentially why I moved here. I miss my grandmother something fierce, but it was time for me to grow up. To face a few issues on my own. I’m betting Patti feels the same.”

Annie looked down to see that she was still touching him, and she marveled not only at his physical strength—tightly corded and radiating heat beneath her fingers—but at his sheer mental will.

“Look,” he said, “I realize that I probably seem a little psycho right about now.”

“A little,” Annie said with a smile.

He didn’t return her smile.

Instead, he dropped the baby bag and sat hard on the bottom step. He cupped his forehead. “There are some things about me. My past. Patti’s. There’s no time to rehash it all now. You just need to know that I have to get up there. See for myself that she’s all right.”

“Okay.” Her tone softer, Annie nudged him aside to sit next to him.

Big mistake.

The entire right half of her body hummed. All the way from her shoulder to her thigh to her bare ankle that almost touched Jed’s bare calf. The ankle felt a twitchy, electrical buzz of attraction that she—and her ankle—had never come close to feeling before.

This was wrong.

Here she was, trying to comfort her distraught neighbor and all she could think of was what it might feel like to graze her smooth-shaven legs against the coarse hairs on his.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

“Um—” She swallowed hard. “Where was I?”

“How should I know?”

“Right. That’s it.” Before plopping down beside him, she’d been about to explain how he could find out his sister was safe without driving hundreds of miles. “There’s a very simple way you can not only reassure yourself that Patti’s okay, but skip a lo-o-ong road trip with three babies. All you need to do is—”

“I know—call. But the cabin doesn’t have a phone, and I already tried her cell. Big surprise, it’s not working. Which leaves me calling my friend Ditch, who’s the local sheriff.”

“Ditch?” She raised her eyebrows.

“It’s a long story. Anyway, I tried calling Ditch both at home and at work, and got nothing but answering machines. I left messages for him to call me back ASAP. The town has a hardware store, gas station and a grocery, so I called those, too. Nobody’s seen her, but that doesn’t mean she’s not there. I have to talk to her and see for myself that she’s okay.”

“I’ll tell you who’s not gonna be okay after being cooped up with three screaming babies all the way to Colorado.”

Jed shook his head. “Babies supposedly like cars, don’t they? I mean, I took ’em to the zoo yesterday—or was that the day before?” He rubbed his forehead. “See how messed up Patti’s got me? I don’t even know what day it is.”

“All the more reason for you to go upstairs and take a nap. You’re in no condition to make that drive. You’ve been up for days. Now, if you could fly or take a train or if someone else could help you, then—”

“That’s it!” he said, turning around on the steps to face her.

Annie crinkled her nose. “What?”

“Someone to help. And I know just the person.”

Though Jed looked straight at her, Annie glanced over his shoulder at the pasta-colored wall. A nice sage-green would be a vast improvement.

She gasped when he put his fingers beneath her chin, dragging her gaze right back to him. “You know who I’m talking about, don’t you?”

“Um…” She licked her lips. Maybe that wall could be painted celadon. Or pumpkin. Any color that took her mind off Jed’s arresting eyes. “If that special someone is me,” she said, “I have a very full schedule. I start my new job a week from Monday. So, this week, I have tons of painting to do, ceiling scraping and—”

“I’ll pay you,” he interrupted. “Name your price. As long as I have that amount in savings, it’s yours.”

She stared down at her lap where she clutched her knees with a white-knuckled grip. “This isn’t about money, Jed.”

It was about this crazy yearning she had at the thought of sitting beside him in the intimate confines of a car for the next few days. It was about falling for him—from his laugh to his smile to the fact that he honestly believed four diapers and a few cans of formula were going to get him and three babies all the way to Colorado.

He hadn’t even packed a can opener!

He needed her, and what scared her even more was that she might very well need him. But she couldn’t need him, because just as soon as this crazy road trip was over, his need for a babysitter would vanish, and her need for companionship would be that much stronger.

Her head and heart that much more messed up.

“Annie?” he said softly. “Please?”

She used the wall for leverage to push herself up from the stairs. She had to get away from Jed, from his citrusy smell and his strength and, worse yet, his vulnerability.

Friends told her she worried way too much about other folks’ problems and not enough about her own.

Well, this was one time she needed to listen to their advice. Her friends were right. Jed and his adorable crew were trouble with a capital T.

She stood in front of the door staring at the doorknob. “I have to go.” I can’t allow myself to fall for you.

She was still too raw from Conner. And she hadn’t even begun to sort out the mess Troy had made of her soul. She was weary from missing Grams and from being all alone in this town—and practically the whole world.

Jed stood too, and then he was behind Annie, resting his strong hands on her shoulders.

“Ever since our folks died,” he said quietly, “Patti’s been my responsibility. She was a good kid—the best. She was also the worst teen. I’ve been through hell with her. The night she gave up her virginity to the first greasy-haired punk who asked, it was me she came home to. I was the one who held her while she cried. Just like when I found her underneath a highway overpass in a seedy part of downtown Tulsa. She’d run away because she’d gotten mad at me for making her wash the dishes. She was shivering, and I wrapped her in a quilt our mother had made for her fifth birthday. It matched the yellow-and-white daisies on Patti’s bedroom walls. When our house burned down, Mom had wrapped the quilt around Patti as we fled.”

His hands still on her shoulders, Jed turned Annie to face him, which only upped the stakes of the battle raging inside her. Standing behind her, he was dangerous enough. When he stood in front of her, staring at her, she found that just looking at him was emotional suicide.

She’d already been through so much.

She couldn’t open herself up to more pain.

Her move to Pecan was about healing. Making a fresh start. It was about—

Jed took her hands and gave them a gentle squeeze, flooding her with the kind of simple, wondrous, unconditional companionship she hadn’t felt in years. Except that it wasn’t unconditional; it came with strings. Strings that would vanish the instant they reunited Patti with her babies.

“I—I have to go,” Annie said, turning for the door, putting her hand on the cold brass knob.

“Howie’s her husband,” Jed said. “He should be with her right now. But I can’t find him, Annie. Until I do, I’m all she has. I have to help her. She’s all I’ve got.”

Annie swallowed hard.

How had he known?

Of all the words in the English language, those were the ones that spoke the loudest to her heart. It was exactly the way she felt about her grandmother.

“Annie, I’ll be the first to admit I’ve got a mile-long streak of pride running through me. I hate asking for help. Even worse, I hate needing help. But in this case—”

“I’ll do it.”

“You will?”

Lips pressed tight, fighting silly tears of trepidation, maybe even excitement, Annie nodded.

Jed pulled her into a hug, and the sensation was warm and comforting, like slipping into a hot bath. This sure wouldn’t make it any easier to fight her feelings for this man.

Releasing her, he clapped his hands, then rubbed them together. “Great! Let me tackle a few quick errands. I’ll beg, borrow or steal time off from work and we’ll get this show on the road. I’m assuming you’ll need to call your folks? Or your grandmother? Or—” he crossed his fingers for a negative on this one “—your boyfriend?”

Annie shook her head. “The only family I have is my grandmother, and there’s no need to worry her with a short trip like this.”

“You sure?”

She nodded. Why even broach the subject with Grams? The older, wiser woman would think she was nuts—which she probably was.

“All right then. If you wouldn’t mind hanging out here just a little while longer, we’ll be good to go. Oh—before I forget…” He took a cell phone from the coffee table and plugged it into a nearby charger. “Is your cell battery fully charged?”

“I don’t have a cell phone.”

“How come?”

“I’d rather spend the fifty dollars a month on decorating supplies.”

He smiled. “I knew I liked you. Finally, a woman who actually prefers an activity to talking.”

“I didn’t say I don’t like to talk.” She winked. “I just don’t want my conversations to cost more per year than a custom-upholstered sofa and love seat.”

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