“If I’m here past midnight, does that mean I have to stay for the next hundred years?” he joked.

Kayla was standing so close to him, Alain could feel the heat coming from her body. Could feel the urges being roused in his own.

All he had to do, he thought, was reach up and pull her down on to his lap.

And kiss her.

Kayla took a step back. Or tried to. It felt as if she was trying to walk with a layer of glue spread across the bottom of her shoes.

And then he did it. Hands bracketing her hips, Alain drew her on to his lap.

“You shouldn’t be doing this.”

“It’s a kiss,” he whispered softly. “Just a kiss, nothing more.”

Get off his lap, something inside her cried. Now. Before it’s too late.

But it was already too late.

MARIE FERRARELLA

This USA TODAY bestselling and RITA® Award-winning author has written more than one hundred and fifty novels, some under the name Marie Nicole. Her romances are beloved by fans worldwide.

Dear Reader,

Well, here we are, at the end of the road, reading about the fall of the last of Lily Moreau’s sons. Alain Dulac is the youngest of her offspring and just possibly the most confirmed bachelor. Tall, blond and blue-eyed, Alain can have any girl he wants and his diary is more than filled with lovely women – as deep as the pages in that book. After seeing how little luck his mother had when it came to finding a life-long partner, Alain is determined not to form any serious relationships. Why bother? But fate has something different in mind for him when a driving rainstorm has him swerving into a tree to avoid hitting a dog. The dog belongs to Kayla McKenna, one of several she is caring for. She prises Alain out of his car and takes care of his wounds – both his physical and emotional ones. And soon Alain starts to think that maybe this bachelor life really isn’t for him after all.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this trilogy. As always, I thank you for reading and I wish you love. It makes everything else worthwhile.

Marie Ferrarella

Capturing the Millionaire

MARIE FERRARELLA

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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To

Debby, Amy, Maria

and

all the other wonderful volunteers at

the German Shepherd Rescue of Orange

County. Thank you for Audrey.

Chapter One

It wasn’t supposed to rain in October. Not in Southern California, anyway.

Alain Dulac was pretty sure it was a law written down somewhere, like the requirements for Camelot. As he tried to steer his sports car, a vehicle definitely not meant for this kind of weather, he found that his visibility was next to zero. Because, as the old song from the sixties went, it never rained in California—but it poured.

And that’s what it was doing now. Pouring. Pouring as if the entire Pacific Ocean had gotten absorbed into the black clouds that were hovering overhead and were now dumping their contents all over him. He would have been alert to the possibility of a flash flood—if he could see more than an inch or so in front of him. He wasn’t even sure where he was anymore. For all he knew, he could have gotten turned around and was headed back to Santa Barbara.

By the clock, it was a little after 4:00 p.m. But to all appearances, it looked like the beginning of the Apocalypse. There was even the rumble of thunder, another unheard of event this time of year.

His windshield wipers were fighting the good fight, but it was obvious they were losing. A few seconds of visibility were all their efforts awarded him.

Alain swallowed a curse as the car hit a pocket of some sort and wobbled before continuing on its road to nowhere.

It would have been nice if the weatherman had hinted at this storm yesterday, or even early this morning, he thought darkly. He gripped the steering wheel harder, as if that could afford him better control over his car. If there had been the slightest indication that today was going to turn into something that would have made Noah shudder, Alain would have postponed going up to Santa Barbara to get that deposition until the beginning of next week.

Archie Wallace certainly looked healthy enough to hang around until Monday. At age eighty-four, the former valet—or gentleman’s gentleman, Alain believed the old term was—looked healthier than a good many men half his age. Alain could have waited to get the man’s testimony instead of risking life, limb and BMW the way he was right now.

That’s what he got for going into family law instead of criminal law. Not that, he’d discovered, there weren’t a host of criminal activities going on behind the so-called innocent smiles of the people who came into his firm’s office.

For the first time since he’d left Archie’s quaint cottagelike home, a hint of a smile curved Alain’s lips. Nothing wrong with camera time, he thought. As he turned the notion over in his head, he found that he liked the idea of getting his own spotlight instead of being in one by proxy. Heretofore his main claim to fame was being the youngest of Lily Moreau’s sons. His mother, God bless her, was as famous for her lifestyle as she was for her exotically colorful paintings. At times her lifestyle overshadowed her work.

Alain had no doubt that the reporters who’d come to cover her last show were as interested in the dark, handsome, quarter-of-a-century-younger man at her side as they were in the latest paintings that were on display. Kyle Autumn was Alain’s mother’s protégé and, to hear her talk about him, the love of her life.

At least for this month.

The fact that Alain and his two older brothers each had a different father bore testimony to the fact that Lily loved her men with a passion. But that passion was anything but steadfast.

She was a better mother than she was spouse, and, luckily for the art world, a better artist than she was either of the two.

Alain had no real complaints on that score, though. Long ago he’d realized that Lily was as good a mother as she could be, and he and Georges had always had Philippe. As the oldest, Philippe was more like a father than a brother, and it was from him that Alain had gotten most of his values.

In a way, he supposed that Philippe was responsible for his having gone into family law. Philippe had always maintained that family was everything.

Too bad the Hallidays didn’t feel that way. The latest case he was handling was already on its way to becoming this year’s family drama. All sorts of accusations were being hurtled back and forth with wild abandon. And the tabloids were having a field day.

To be honest, it wasn’t the sort of case Dunstan, Jewison and McGuire ordinarily handled. The venerable hundred-and-two-year-old firm took pride in conducting all matters with decorum and class. This case, however, had all the class of a cable reality program.

But there was an obscenely huge amount of money involved. The firm’s share for winning the case for the bereaved and voluptuous widow was something only a saint would have been able to turn away from. The company had had little to keep it going but its reputation these last few years. Which was why Alain had been brought in. He was the youngest at the firm. The next in line was Morris Greenwood, and he was fifty-two. Clearly an infusion of young blood—and money—was needed.

Alain had been the one to bring the Halliday case to the older partners’ attention. When they won the case—when, not if—it would also lure a great deal of business their way. Nothing wrong with that.

Like his mother, Alain was a wheeler-dealer when he had to be. He felt fairly confident that winning wouldn’t present a problem. Ethan Halliday had become so smitten with his young bride that two months into the marriage, he’d had the prenup agreement torn up, and rewritten his will. The young and nubile lingerie model was to inherit more than ninety-eight percent of Halliday’s considerable fortune. The will literally snatched away what the four Halliday children considered their birthright. Two men and two women, all older than their father’s widow, found themselves in agreement for the first time in years, and had banded together against a common enemy: their wicked stepmother.

It had all the makings of a low-grade movie of the week. Or, in another era, a sad Grimms’ fairy tale. And it looked as if the happy ending was going to be awarded to his client, if he had anything to say about it.

If he lived to deliver the deposition he’d gotten.

Another sharp skid had Alain jerking to awareness again, his mind on the immediate situation rather than the courtroom. He could all but feel the tires going out from under him.

The winds weren’t helping, either. Strong gusts sporadically rose out of nowhere, fighting for possession of his vehicle. Fighting and very nearly winning. Once again he gripped the steering wheel as hard as he could just to keep the car from being shoved off the road.

It felt as if the wind had split in half, and each side was taking a turn at pushing him first in one direction, then the other, like a battered hockey puck.

Alain thought about the way the day was supposed to have gone before this sudden, spur-of-the-moment disaster had unfolded. He’d made arrangements to go antique browsing with Rachel, then grab an early, intimate dinner, after which whatever came up, came up.

Alain grinned despite the immediate trying situation. Rachel Reed was a wildcat in bed and pleasantly straightforward and uncomplicated when she was upright and dealing with life. Just the way he liked them. All fun, no seriousness, no strings. In that respect, he was very much like his mother.

He found himself struggling with the wheel again, trying to keep his car on course. Whatever that was at this point.

Where the hell was he, anyway?

Though he knew it was futile, Alain looked expectantly at the GPS system mounted on his dashboard. It continued doing what it had been doing for the last fifteen minutes: winking like a flirtatious teenager with something in her eye. One of the arrival-time readings that had flashed at him earlier had him back at his house already.

He only wished.

“What good are you if you don’t work?” he demanded irritably. As if in response, the GPS system suddenly went dark. “Hey, don’t be that way. I’m sorry, okay? Turn back on.”

But it remained dark, as did the rest of his dashboard. He no longer had lights to guide him, and all that was coming from his high-definition radio was an endless supply of static.

Alain blew out a breath. He felt like the last man on earth, fighting the elements.

And lost, really lost.

Even his cell phone wasn’t working. He’d already tried it more than once. The signal simply wasn’t getting through. Mother Nature had declared war on him and all his electronic gadgets. It was as if she knew that without them, he had no sense of direction and was pretty much adrift, like a leaf in a gale.

There was a map tucked into a pocket of the front passenger door, but it was completely useless since it only encompassed Los Angeles and Orange County, and he was somewhere below Santa Barbara, on his way to Oz—or hell, whichever was closer.

He was crawling now, searching desperately for some sign of civilization. He’d left the city behind some time ago, and he knew there were homes out here somewhere because he’d passed them on his way up. But they were sparse and far apart and he’d be damned if he could see so much as a glimmer of a light coming from any building or business establishment.

He couldn’t even make out the outline of any structure.

Squinting, Alain leaned forward, hunching over his steering wheel and trying to make out something—anything—in front of him.

Just as he gave up hope, he saw something dart into his path.

An animal?

His heart leaping into his throat, his instincts taking over, Alain swerved to the left in order not to hit whatever it was he’d seen. Tires squealed, brakes screamed, mud flew and he could have sworn the car took on a life of its own.

Where that tree on his left came from he had absolutely no idea. All Alain knew was that he couldn’t slam into it, not if he wanted to walk away alive.

But the car that he had babied as if it were a living, breathing thing had a different plan. And right now, it wanted to become one with the tree.

A moment after it started, Alain realized that he was spinning out.

From somewhere in the back of his head, he remembered that you were supposed to steer into a spin. But everything else within him screamed that he not make contact with the tree if he could avoid it. So he yanked hard on the wheel, turning it as far as he could to the right.

Horrible noises assaulted his ears as the screech of the car’s tires, the whine of metal and the howl of the wind became one. His usual composure melted as genuine panic gripped him. Alain heard something go pop.

And then there was nothing.

It seemed as if Winchester had been giving her problems since the day she’d found him and brought him home from the animal shelter. But she had a soft spot in her heart for the dog and cut him more than his share of slack. Of all the canines Kayla McKenna had taken in, his was one of the saddest stories.

Before she’d rescued the small German shepherd, someone had used him for target practice. When the dog had come to her attention, Winchester had a bullet in his front right leg and was running a low-grade fever because an infection had set in. Rather than go through the expense of removing the object, the local animal shelter, where she’d found the wounded dog on her bimonthly rounds, had only placed a splint on the leg.

The dog she’d whimsically named Winchester, after a rifle made popular during the winning of the West, was down to only a few hours before termination when she’d come across him. The instant she’d insisted that the attendant open up his cage, Winchester had come hobbling out and laid his head on her lap. Kayla was a goner from that moment on.

It was her habit to frequent the shelters every few weeks or so, looking for German shepherds that had, for one reason or another, been abandoned or turned out. If she could she would have taken all the dogs home with her, to treat, nurse and groom for adoption into good, loving homes. But even she, with her huge heart, knew she had to draw the line somewhere.

So she made her choice based on her childhood. Hailey had been her very first dog when she was a little girl—a big, lovable, atypical shepherd. As a guard dog, she was a complete failure, but she was so affectionate she’d stolen Kayla’s heart from the start. Her parents had had the dog spayed, so she never had any puppies. But in a way, Kayla thought of Hailey as the mother of all the dogs she’d rescued since moving back here after getting her degree.

Kayla had all but lost count of the number of dogs she’d taken into her home, acting as foster guardian until such time as someone came along to adopt them. It didn’t hurt matters that she was also a vet, so that the cost of caring for the neglected, often battered animals was nominal.

“You’ll never get rich this way,” Brett had sneered condescendingly. “And if you want me to marry you, you’re going to have to get rid of these dogs. You know that, don’t you?”

Yes, she thought now, lifting the lantern she’d brought out with her, to afford some sort of visibility in the driving rain. She’d known that, and hadn’t wanted to acknowledge it. She’d met Brett in school. He was gorgeous, and she had fallen wildly in love. But it turned out she had completely misjudged him. He was not the man she could spend the rest of her life with.

So she’d kept the dogs and gotten rid of her fiancé and in her heart, she knew that she had made the better deal.

The wind shifted, lashing at her from the front now instead of the back. She tried to pull her hood down with her other hand, but the gusts had other ideas, ripping it from her fingers. Her hair was soaked in a matter of seconds.

“Winchester!”

The wind stole her breath before Kayla could finish calling for the German shepherd.

Damn it, dog, why did you have to run off today of all days? This wasn’t the first time he’d disappeared on her. Winchester was exceedingly nervous—the result of mistreatment, no doubt—and any loud noise could send him into hiding.

“Winchester, please, come back!” The futility of her plea seemed to mock her as the wind brought her words back to her. “Taylor, we need to find him,” she said to the dog on her left.

Taylor was one of the dogs she’d decided to keep for herself. He was at least seven, and no one wanted an old dog. They represented mounting bills because of health problems, and heartache because their time was short. But Kayla felt that every one of God’s creatures deserved love—with the possible exception of Brett.

Suddenly, both Taylor and Ariel, the dog at her other side, began to bark.

“What? You see something?” she asked the animals.

Shading her eyes with her free hand, she raised the lantern higher with the other. As she squinted against the all but blinding rain, Kayla thought she saw what it was that Taylor and Ariel were barking at.

What all three of her dogs were barking at, because she could suddenly make out Winchester’s shape. He was there, too, not more than five feet away from the cherry-red vehicle that, from this vantage point, seemed to be doing the impossible: it looked as if it were climbing up the oak tree. Its nose and front tires were more than a foot off the ground, urgently pressed up against the hundred-year-old trunk.

Despite the rain, Kayla could swear that she smelled the odor of smoke even from where she was standing.

One second her legs were frozen, the next she was pumping them, running toward the car as fast as she could. The rain lashed against her skin like a thousand tiny needles.

She almost slid into a rear wheel as she reached the vehicle. Rain had somehow gotten into the lantern and almost put the flame out. There was just enough light for her to see into the interior of the disabled sports car.

Dimly, Kayla could make out the back of a man’s head. His face appeared to be all but swallowed up by the air bag that had deployed.

She heard a groan and realized it was coming from her, not him.

Her runaway, Winchester, was hopping on his hind legs, as if to tell her that he had discovered the man first. This had to be the canine variation on “He followed me home, can I keep him?”

The man wasn’t moving.

Kayla held her breath. Was the driver just unconscious, or—?

“This is the part where I tell you to go for help,” she murmured to the dogs, trying to think. “If there was someone to go get.”

Which there wasn’t. She lived alone and the closest neighbor was more than three miles away. Even if she could send the dogs there, no one would understand why they were barking. More than likely they’d call the sheriff, or just ignore the animals.

In either case, it did her no good. She was on her own here.

Setting the lantern down, Kayla tried the driver’s door. At first it didn’t budge, but she put her whole weight into pulling it. After several mighty tugs, miraculously, the door gave way. Kayla stumbled backward and would have fallen into the mud had the tree not been at her back. She slammed into it, felt the vibration up and down her spine, jarring her teeth.

She hung on to the door handle for a moment, trying to get her breath. As she drew in moist air, she stared into the car. The driver’s face was still buried in the air bag, and the seat belt had a tight grip on the rest of him, holding him in place. Admitted to the party, the rain was now leaving its mark, hungrily anointing every exposed part of the stranger and soaking him to the skin.

And he still wasn’t moving.

Chapter Two

“Mister. Hey, mister.” Kayla raised her voice to be heard above the howl of the wind. “Can you hear me?”

When there was no response, she shook the man by the shoulder. Again, nothing happened. The stranger didn’t lift his head, didn’t try to move or make a sound. He was as still as death.

The uneasiness she felt began to grow. What if he was seriously injured, or—?

“Oh, God,” Kayla murmured under her breath.

Moving back a foot, she nearly stepped on Winchester. The dog was hobbling about as if he had every intention of leaping into the car and reviving the stranger. At this rate, she was going to wind up stomping on one of his good legs.

“Stay out of the way, boy,” Kayla ordered, and he reluctantly obeyed.

She frowned. The air bag was not deflating, but still took up all the available space on the driver’s side. After having possibly saved his life, it was, in effect, smothering the man.

Kayla pushed against the bag, but it didn’t give. She tried hitting it with the side of her hand, hoping to make the huge tan, marshmallow-like pillow deflate.

It didn’t.

Desperate, Kayla put the lantern down on the wet ground and felt around in her pockets. In the morning, when she got dressed, she automatically put her cell phone in her pocket, along with the old Swiss army knife that had once been her father’s prized possession.

A smile of relief crossed her lips as her fingers came in contact with a small, familiar shape. Quickly taking it out, she unfolded the largest blade and jabbed the air bag with it. Air whooshed out as the bag deflated.

The moment it was flat, the stranger’s head fell forward, hitting the steering wheel. He was obviously still unconscious, or at least she hoped so. The alternative was gruesome.

Kayla felt the side of his neck with her fingertips and found a pulse. “Lucky,” she muttered under her breath.

The next step was to free him from the car. She’d seen accidents where the vehicle was so badly mangled, the fire department had to be summoned, with its jaws of life. Fortunately, this wasn’t one of those cases. Considering the conditions, the driver had been incredibly lucky. She wondered if he’d been drinking. But a quick sniff of the air near his face told her he hadn’t been.

Just another Southern Californian who didn’t know how to drive in the rain, she thought. Leaning over him, she struggled to find the release button for the seat belt.

Was it her imagination, or was he stirring? God knew she hadn’t been this close to a man in a very long time.

“Have…we…met?”

Sucking in her breath, Kayla jerked back, hitting her head against the car roof as she heard the hoarsely whispered question.

She swallowed. “You’re awake,” she declared in stunned relief.

“Or…you’re…a dream,” Alain mumbled weakly. Was that his voice? It sounded so high, so distant. And his eyelids, oh God, his eyelids felt heavier than a ton of coal. They kept trying to close.

Was he hallucinating? He heard barking. The hounds of hell? Was he in hell?

Alain tried to focus on the woman in front of him. He was delirious, he concluded. There was no other explanation for his seeing a redheaded angel in a rain slicker.

Kayla looked at the stranger closely. There was blood oozing from a wide gash on his forehead just above his right eyebrow and his eyes kept rolling upward. He looked as if he was going to pass out again at any moment. She slipped her arm around his waist, still trying to find the seat belt’s release button.

“Definitely…a dream,” Alain breathed as he felt her fingers feathering along his thigh. Damn, if he’d known hell was populated by creatures like this, he would have volunteered to go a long time ago.

Finding the button, she pressed it and tugged away his seat belt. Kayla looked up at his face. His eyes were shut.

“No, no, don’t fade on me now,” she begged. Getting the stranger to her house was going to be next to impossible if he was unconscious. She was strong, but not that strong. “Stay with me. Please,” she urged.

To her relief, the stranger opened his eyes again. “Best…offer…I’ve had…all day,” he said, wincing with every word that left his lips.

“Terrific,” she murmured. “Of all the men to crash into my tree, I have to get a playboy.”

Moving her fingers along his ribs gingerly, she was rewarded with another series of winces. He must have cracked or bruised them, she thought in dismay.

“Okay, hang in there,” she told him as she slowly moved his torso and legs, so that he was facing out of the vehicle. With effort, she placed her arm beneath his shoulder and grasped his wrist with her hand.

The man’s eyes remained closed, but he mumbled against her ear, “You shouldn’t…put your trees…where…people can…hit them.”

Kayla did her best to block the shiver that his breath created. Gritting her teeth against the effort she was about to make, she promised, “I’ll keep that in mind.” Spreading her feet, she braced herself, then attempted to rise while holding him. She felt him sagging. “Work with me here, mister.”

She thought she heard a chuckle. “What…did you have…in…mind?”

“Definitely not what you have in mind,” she assured him. Taking a deep breath, she straightened. The man she was trying to rescue was all but a dead weight.

Curling her arm around his waist as best she could, she focused on making the long journey across her lawn to her front door.

“Sorry…” His single word was carried away in the howling wind. The next moment, its meaning became clear: the man had passed out.

“No, no, wait,” Kayla pleaded frantically, but it was too late.

He went down like a ton of bricks. She almost pitched forward with him, but let go at the last moment. Frustrated, she looked at the blond, striking stranger. Unconscious, he was just too much for her to carry.

She glanced back toward the house. So near and yet so far.

Catching her lower lip between her teeth, Kayla thought for a moment as all three of the dogs closed ranks around the fallen stranger. And then a rather desperate idea occurred to her. “There’s more than one way to skin a cat.”

Taylor barked enthusiastically, as if to add a coda to her words. Kayla couldn’t help grinning at the large animal.

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Okay, gang.” She addressed the others as if they were her assistants. “Watch over him. I’ll be right back.”

The dogs appeared to take in every word. Kayla was a firm believer that animals understood what you said, as long as you were patient enough to train them from the time you brought them into your house. Just like babies.

“Oilcloth, oilcloth,” she chanted under her breath as she hurried into her house, “what did I do with that oilcloth?” She remembered buying more then ten yards of the fabric—bright red—last year. There’d been a healthy-size chunk left over. She could swear she’d seen the remainder recently.

Crossing the kitchen, she went into the garage, still searching. The oilcloth was neatly folded and tucked away in a corner. Kayla grabbed it and quickly retraced her steps.

She was back at the wrecked vehicle and her still unconscious guest almost immediately. Spying her approach, Winchester hobbled to meet her halfway, then pivoted on his hind legs to lead her back.

“Think I forgot the way?” she asked him.

Winchester took the Fifth.

As the rain continued to lash at her, Kayla spread the oilcloth, shiny side down, on the muddy ground beside the stranger. Working as quickly as she could, rain still lashing unrelentingly at her face, she rolled the man onto the cloth. His clothes had been muddied in the process, but it couldn’t be helped. Leaving him out here, bleeding and in God only knew what kind of condition, was definitely not a viable option.

“Okay,” she said to her dogs, “now comes the hard part. Times like this, a sled would really come in handy.” Winchester yipped, looking up at her with adoring eyes. She was, after all, his savior. “Easy for you to say,” she told him.

Gripping the ends of the oilcloth, one corner in each hand, she faced the house. “Here goes nothing,” she muttered under her breath, and began the long, painfully slow journey of pulling him, hoping that the stranger, with his upturned face, didn’t drown on the way.

The first thing Alain became aware of as he slowly pried his eyes opened, was the weight of the anvil currently residing on his forehead. It felt as if it weighed a thousand pounds, and a gaggle of devils danced along its surface, each taking a swing with his hammer as he passed.

The second thing he became aware of was the feel of the sheets against his skin. Against almost all of his skin. He was naked beneath the blue-and-white down comforter. Or close to it. He definitely felt linen beneath his shoulders.

Blinking, he tried very hard to focus his eyes.

Where the hell was he?

He had absolutely no idea how he had gotten here—or what he was doing here to begin with.

Or, for that matter, who that woman with the shapely hips was.

Alain blinked again. He wasn’t imagining it.

There was a woman with her back to him, a woman with sumptuous hips, bending over a fireplace. The glow from the hearth, and a handful of candles scattered throughout the large, rustic-looking room provided the only light to be had.

Why? Where was the electricity? Had he crossed some time warp?

Nothing was making any sense. Alain tried to raise his head, and instantly regretted it. The pounding intensified twofold.

His hand automatically flew to his forehead and came in contact with a sea of gauze. He slowly moved his fingertips along it.

What had happened?

Curious, he raised the comforter and sheet and saw he still had on his briefs. There were more bandages, these wrapped tightly around his chest. He was beginning to feel like some sort of cartoon character.

Alain opened his mouth to get the woman’s attention, but nothing came out. He cleared his throat before making another attempt, and she heard him.

She turned around—as did the pack of dogs that were gathered around her. Alain realized that she’d been putting food into their bowls.

Good, at least they weren’t going to eat him.

Yet, he amended warily.

“You’re awake,” she said, looking pleased as she crossed over to him. The light from the fireplace caught in the swirls of red hair that framed her face. She moved fluidly, with grace. Like someone who was comfortable within her own skin. And why not? The woman was beautiful.

Again, he wondered if he was dreaming.

“And naked,” he added.

A rueful smile slipped across her lips. He couldn’t tell if it was light from the fire or if a pink hue had just crept up her cheeks. In any event, it was alluring.

“Sorry about that.”

“Why, did you have your way with me?” he asked, a hint of amusement winning out over his confusion.

“You’re not naked,” she pointed out. “And I prefer my men to be conscious.” Then she became serious.“Your clothes were all muddy and wet. I managed to wash them before the power went out completely.”She gestured about the room, toward the many candles set on half the flat surfaces. “They’re hanging in my garage right now, but they’re not going to be dry until morning,” she said apologetically. “If then.”

He was familiar with power outages; they usually lasted only a few minutes. “Unless the power comes back on.”

The redhead shook her head, her hair moving about her face like an airy cloud. “Highly doubtful.When we lose power around here, it’s hardly ever a short-term thing. If we’re lucky, we’ll get power back by midafternoon tomorrow.”

Alain glanced down at the coverlet spread over his body. Even that slight movement hurt his neck.“Well, as intriguing as the whole idea might be, I really can’t stay naked all that time. Can I borrow some clothes from your husband until mine are ready?”

Was that amusement in her eyes, or something else? “That might not be so easy,” she told him.

“Why?”

“Because I don’t have one.”

He’d thought he’d seen someone in a hooded rain slicker earlier. “Significant other?” he suggested. When she made no response, he continued, “Brother? Father?”

She shook her head at each suggestion. “None of the above.”

“You’re alone?” he questioned incredulously.

“I currently have seven dogs,” she told him, amusement playing along her lips. “Never, at any time of the night or day, am I alone.”

He didn’t understand. If there was no other person in the house—

“Then how did you get me in here? You sure as hell don’t look strong enough to have carried me all the way by yourself.”

She pointed toward the oilcloth she’d left spread out and drying before the fireplace. “I put you in that and dragged you in.”

He had to admit he was impressed. None of the women he’d ever met would have even attempted to do anything like that. They would likely have left him out in the rain until he was capable of moving on his own power. Or drowned.

“Resourceful.”

“I like to think so.” And, being resourceful, her mind was never still. It now attacked the problem of the all-but-naked man in her living room. “You know, I think there might be a pair of my dad’s old coveralls in the attic.” As she talked, Kayla started to make her way toward the stairs, and then stopped.A skeptical expression entered her bright-green eyes as they swept over the man on the sofa.

Alain saw the look and couldn’t help wondering what she was thinking. Why was there a doubtful frown on her face? “What?”

“Well…” Kayla hesitated, searching for a delicate way to phrase this, even though her father had been gone for some five years now. “My dad was a pretty big man.”

Alain still didn’t see what the problem was. “I’m six-two.”

She smiled, and despite the situation, he found himself being drawn in as surely as if someone had thrown a rope over him and begun to pull him closer.

“No, not big—” Kayla held her hand up to indicate height “—big.” This time, she moved her hand in front of her, about chest level, to denote a man whose build had been once compared to that of an overgrown grizzly bear.

“I’ll take my chances,” Alain assured her. “It’s either that or wear something of yours, and I don’t think either one of us wants to go that route.”

It suddenly occurred to him that he was having a conversation with a woman whose name he didn’t know and who didn’t know his. While that was not an entirely unusual situation for him, an introduction was definitely due.

“By the way, I’m Alain Dulac.”

Her smile, he thought, seemed to light up the room far better than the candles did.

“Kayla,” she told him. “Kayla McKenna.” She saw him wince as he tried to sit up to shake her hand. Rather than a handshake, she gently pressed her palms against his shoulders and pushed him back down on the sofa. “I think you should stay there for a while. You gashed your head and cracked a couple of ribs. I sewed your forehead and taped you up,” she added. “Nothing else appears to be damaged. I ran my portable scanner over you.”

Other than running into someone from Star Trek, there was only one conclusion to be drawn. “I take it you’re a doctor?”

Kayla shook her head. “Vet,” she corrected.

“Oh.” Gingerly, Alain touched the bandage around his head again, as if he wasn’t quite sure what to expect. “Does that mean I’m suddenly going to start barking, or have an overwhelming urge to drink out of the toilet anytime soon?”

She laughed, and he caught himself thinking that it was a very sexy sound.

“Only if you want to. The basics of medicine, whether for an animal or a human being, are surprisingly similar,” she assured him. “They don’t even automatically shoot horses anymore when they break their legs these days.” He began to stir, then stopped when she looked at him a tad sternly. “Why don’t you rest while I go see if I can find my dad’s clothes in the attic?”

Without his realizing it, the pack of dogs in the room had closed in on him. They appeared to be eyeing him suspiciously. At least, that was the way it seemed to him. There were seven in all, seven German shepherds of varying heights and coloration: two white, one black and the rest black-and-tan. And none of them, except for the little guy with the cast, looked to be overly friendly.

Alain raised his eyes toward Kayla. “Are you sure it’s safe to leave me with these dogs?”

She smiled and nodded. “You won’t hurt them. I trust you.”

“No offense, but I wasn’t thinking of me hurting them. I was worried about them deciding they haven’t had enough to eat tonight.” He was only half kidding. “Survival of the fittest and all that.”

“Don’t worry.” She patted his shoulder, and realized it was the same gesture she used with the dogs to reassure them. “They haven’t mistaken you for an invading alpha male.” She looked around at them and realized, to an outsider, they might seem a bit intimidating. “If it makes you feel any better, I’ll take some of them with me.”

That was a start, he allowed. “How about all of them?”

“You don’t like dogs.” It wasn’t a question, it was a statement. She felt a bit disappointed in the man, although she wasn’t entirely certain why.

“I like dogs fine,” he countered. “But I prefer to be standing in their company, not lying down like the last item on their menu.”

She supposed, given his present condition, she could understand his frame of mind. “Okay, they’ll come with me. I’ll just leave you Winchester.” She nodded toward the smallest dog.

The shepherd looked friendly enough. But Alain was curious as to her reasoning. “Why? Because he broke his leg?”

“He didn’t break his leg,” she corrected. “Someone shot him. But I thought the two of you might form some sort of bond, because Winchester was the one who found you.” She left the room with the menagerie following her, closer than a shadow.

It came to him about a minute after Kayla walked out of the room with her four-legged entourage that she was wrong. Winchester hadn’t found him; the dog had been responsible for his sudden and unexpected merging with the oak tree.

But it was too late to point that out.

Chapter Three

The door to the attic creaked as she opened it. For a moment, Kayla just stood in the doorway, looking at the shadows her lantern created within the room.

Ariel bumped her head against her thigh, as if to nudge her in.

Taking a deep breath, Kayla raised the lantern higher to illuminate the space, and walked in.

She hadn’t been up here in a very long time. Not because the gathering place for spiders, crickets and all manner of other bugs held any special terror for her. She had no problem with any of God’s creatures, no matter how creepy-crawly the rest of the world might find them. No, what kept her from coming up here was the bittersweet pain of memories.

The attic was filled with furniture, boxes of clothing, knickknacks and assorted personal treasures belonging to people long gone. Yet she couldn’t make herself throw them out or even donate them to charity. To do so, to sweep the place clean and get rid of all the clutter, felt to her like nothing short of a violation of trust. But as much as she couldn’t bring herself to part with her parents’ and grandparents’ possessions, coming up here, remembering people who were no longer part of her everyday life, was still extremely difficult.

Kayla treasured the paths they had walked through her life, and at the same time hated being reminded that they were gone. That the people who had made her childhood and teen years so rich were no longer there to share in her life now.

Maybe if they had been around, she wouldn’t have had that low period in San Francisco….

As if sensing her feelings, the six dogs that had come racing up here now stood quietly in the shadows, waiting for her to do whatever it was she had to do.

Kayla took another long, deep breath, trying not to notice how the dust tickled her nose.

An ancient, dust-laden, black Singer sewing machine that had belonged to her great-grandmother stood like a grande dame in the corner, regally presiding over all the other possessions that had found their way up here. Her grandfather’s fishing rod and lures stood in a corner, near her father’s golf clubs, still brand-new beneath the covers her mother had knit for them.

Next to the clubs was a body-building machine that had belonged not to her father but her mother. Kayla’s mom had been so proud of maintaining her all-but-perfect body. She’d used the machine faithfully, never missing a day. Kayla pressed her lips together to keep back the tears that suddenly filled her eyes. The cancer hadn’t cared what her mother looked like on the outside, it had ravaged her within, leaving Kayla motherless by the time she was sixteen.

By twenty-two, she’d become a veritable orphan.

Now the dogs were her family.

You’re getting maudlin. Snap out of it, Kayla upbraided herself.

Taking another deep breath, she blew it out slowly and then approached a large, battered steamer trunk in the corner opposite the sewing machine. The trunk had its own history. Her grandfather had come from Ireland with all his worldly possessions in that trunk.When he landed in New York, he’d discovered that someone had jimmied it open and taken everything inside. Seamus McKenna had kept the trunk, vowing to one day fill it with the finest silks and satins.

These days, her parents’ things resided inside the battered container, mingling just the way they had when they’d had been alive. The contents were worth far more to Kayla than the silks and satins her grandfather had dreamed of.

The attic fairly shouted of memories. Kayla could have sworn she could see her parents standing just beyond the lantern’s light.

She felt her heart ache.

“I miss you guys,” she said quietly, blinking several times as she felt moisture gathering along her lashes.

All of them, especially her father, had been her inspiration. She couldn’t remember a time when she hadn’t wanted to be just like him, hadn’t planned on going into medicine because he had. He was the kindest, gentlest man ever created….

But her passionate love for animals took her in a slightly different direction, and instead of a doctor, she’d become a veterinarian. She never once regretted her decision. Being a vet, along with the volunteer work she was presently doing for the German Shepherd Rescue Organization, had given her a sense of purpose she badly needed.

And there was another, added bonus. She didn’t feel alone anymore, not with all these four-footed companions eager to display their gratitude to her at the drop of a dog treat.

Crossing to the trunk, Kayla started to open it, then stopped and glanced back at the dogs.

German shepherds, despite their tough public image as police dogs, had very delicate skins and often had a multitude of allergies. The ones she had taken into her home and was presently caring for certainly did. Three of them were on daily allergy medication.

“Maybe I should have left you downstairs,” she said, thinking out loud. Well, it was too late now. “Okay, stay.”

She said the last word as a command. She knew that training animals was a constant, ongoing thing, and she never missed an opportunity to reinforce any headway made. The dogs instantly turned into breathing statues. Kayla smiled to herself as she flipped the lock on the trunk and lifted the lid.

A very faint hint of the perfume her mother always wore floated up to her.

Or maybe that was just her imagination, creating the scent.

Kayla didn’t care. It was real to her, and that was all that mattered. A vivid image of her mother laughing flashed through her mind’s eye. Her mom had remained healthy-looking until almost the very end.

Leaving the lantern beside the trunk, Kayla carefully went through the clothes and memorabilia inside. Some of her father’s old medical school text-books lined the bottom of the trunk—he’d never liked throwing anything away. Finally, she found the overalls. They were tucked into a corner near the pile of books.

Daniel McKenna had never favored suits or ties. He tended to like wearing comfortable clothes beneath his white lab coat. Ironically, the week before he’d suddenly died, he’d told her that when he was gone, she should give away his clothes to the local charity—just as he’d always given away his time and services so generously in his off-hours.

But Kayla couldn’t force herself to give away every article of clothing. For sentimental reasons, she had kept one of his outfits—his old coveralls.

Taking them out now, she held up the faded denim and shook her head. The man on her sofa was going to be lost in them. But it would do in a pinch. And, after all, it was only temporary. Just until his own clothes were dry again.

She had to admit, Kayla thought as she folded the large garment, that if she had her druthers, she would vote to have Alain Dulac remain just the way he was right now. There was no denying that beneath that blanket, he was one magnificent specimen of manhood.

Her mother would have approved of the sculpted definition in his arms, and the washboard abs. Most likely, Kayla thought with a smile, her mom would have wound up comparing workout routines with him, and giving Alain advice on how to get twice the results out of his efforts.

Not that there was really any room for improvement, she mused, her mouth curving.

Closing the lid of the trunk, Kayla stooped down and picked up the lantern again.

She hadn’t seen a wedding ring on the man’s hand, but that didn’t really mean anything. A lot of married men didn’t wear rings—and those that did could easily take them off. Although, now that she thought of it, there hadn’t been a tan line on Alain’s finger to indicate he played those kinds of games.

Still, she couldn’t help absently wondering if there was someone waiting for Alain Dulac back home, wherever home was.

The next moment she laughed at herself. What was she thinking? Of course there was someone waiting for him. Men who looked like Alain Dulac always had someone waiting for them. They didn’t go around creating bodies like that just because they had nothing better to do. That kind of body was bait, pure and simple. Had he reeled in his catch?

Probably more than his share.

Makes no difference one way or another, she insisted silently, leaving the attic.

She waited until her entourage had gathered around her out in the hall, then closed the door.

“Okay, gang,” she announced cheerfully, “We got what we came for. Let’s go.”

Winchester had remained at his side, staring at him, the entire time Kayla was gone. He’d tried to pet the dog, but the very movement had sent pains shooting up and down his side.

Alain strained now, trying to hear if the woman he was indebted to was coming back. Boards squeaked overhead. She was leaving the attic, he guessed, relieved.

“Your mistress is coming,” he told the dog. “You can go stare at her now.”

Alain heard the sound of thirteen pairs of feet hitting the stairs, hers muffled by the clatter of the dogs’.

Damn, he wanted to sit up to greet her like a normal person, but even shifting slightly on the sofa brought the anvil devils back, swinging their hammers in double-time. Not only that, but there was an excruciating pain shooting up from his ribs.

He’d never been one to make a fuss, and he’d always thought he had a high pain threshold. When he fell out of a tree and broke his arm at the age of eight, he’d been so stoic Philippe had been certain he’d gone into shock. But this was bad. Really bad.He couldn’t take in a deep breath, only shallow, small ones—which somehow fed the claustrophobia he felt. He kept trying to inhale a deep breath to hold the sensation at bay, but each failure only drew it closer.

“Why can’t I take a deep breath?” he wanted to know the second Kayla walked into the living room. He was vaguely aware how the light from the lantern preceded her like a heavenly beam, illuminating her every movement. Directly behind her, her animals came pouring in.

“Because you cracked two ribs and I’ve taped you up tighter than a CIA secret,” she answered matter-of-factly. Patient feedback—and complaints—were two things she didn’t get as a vet. Being a veterinarian did have its perks, she thought. “It’s only temporary.”

Placing the lantern on the coffee table, she held up the coveralls.

It took him a second to realize that she wasn’t unfurling a bolt of material, but an article of clothing. The man who had sired this petite woman had been huge. It was obvious that she must have taken after her mother.

“Wow, you really weren’t kidding about your father being big, were you?” The coveralls looked as if they could accommodate two of him. “How much did your dad weigh?”

“Too much,” she answered shortly. “Given his profession, he should have known better.”

Trying to ignore the throbbing shaft of pain that kept skewering him, he tried to focus on the conversation. “What was his profession?”

“My father was a doctor. A general practitioner,” she explained.

“Could have been worse,” Alain allowed. When she looked at him quizzically, he said, “Your father could have been a nutritionist or a diet doctor.” Forcing a resigned smile to his lips, he reached out for the coveralls she was holding, then suddenly dropped his hand as he sucked in what little breath he had to spare.

Concerned, Kayla set the coveralls on the coffee table. “Maybe you should just lie back. You can always get dressed later. God knows you’re not going anywhere tonight.”

As if to underline her assessment, the wind chose that moment to pick up again, rattling the windows like a prisoner trying to break out—or, in this case, in.

Kayla lightly placed her hand on Alain’s forehead and then frowned.

He didn’t like her reaction, Alain thought. “What’s wrong?”

She drew her hand back, looking at him thoughtfully. “You feel warm.”

He didn’t like the way she said that, either. He really didn’t have time for this. His schedule was full and he should have been on his way home. “Isn’t that a good sign? Doesn’t cold usually mean dead?”

“Stiff means dead,” she corrected, with just a hint of amusement reaching her lips. “Wait here, I’m going to get you something to make you feel better.”

“Wait here,” he echoed when she’d gone. Winchester looked at him with what appeared to Alain’s slightly fevered brain to be sympathy. “As if I had a choice.”

The shepherd barked in response, apparently agreeing that, at the moment, he didn’t.

Alain stared at the animal. He had to be hallucinating. What other explanation was there for his having a conversation, albeit mostly one-sided, with a dog in a cast?

This time Kayla returned more quickly. When she came back, she was holding a glass of water in one hand and an oval blue pill in the other.

“Here, take this,” she instructed in a voice that left no chance for argument. She held the blue pill to his lips.

Alain raised his eyes warily. For the most part, he was as laid-back as they came. But he also wasn’t a trusting fool. “What is it?”

“Just take it,” she told him. “It’ll make you feel better, I promise.” When he still made no move to swallow the pill, she sighed. “It’s a painkiller,” she told him, a note of exasperation in her voice. “Do you always question everything?”

“Pretty much.” Well, if she’d wanted to get rid of him, she could have done it while he was unconscious, he reasoned. So, with some reluctance, he took the pill from her, preferring to put it in his own mouth. “It’s in the blood.”

“What?” She raised one eyebrow quizzically. “Being annoying?”

“Being a lawyer.” He placed the pill into his mouth.

Kayla shrugged at the reply. “Same thing,” she quipped. Placing her hand behind his head, she raised it slightly so that he could drink the water she’d brought. As she did so, she could feel him tensing. He was obviously struggling not to show her that he was in pain. “This will help,” she promised again.

He had nothing against painkillers, but the pain actually wasn’t his main problem. “What’ll help is if I can get back on the road,” he told her. “I’m supposed to be in L.A. tonight.” Rachel wasn’t going to take it kindly if he rescheduled their date, and he was having too good a time with her to put a stop to it just yet.

And there was that impromptu get-together that the firm was holding. Dunstan had said there was no pressure to attend, but everyone knew there was.

The vibrant redhead was shaking her head in response to his statement. “Sorry, not going to happen. Your car is immobilized.” She tucked the coverlet closer around him. “And so are you.”

“My car.” Flashes of the accident came back to him. Had he really driven the car up a tree, or was that some kind of nightmare? He tried to sit up, and felt not so much pain as an odd sort of murkiness pouring through his limbs. And the cloudiness was descending over his brain again. What the hell was going on? “How bad is it?”

Kayla pretended to consider the question. “That depends.”

The town probably came equipped with a crooked mechanic who made his money preying on people who were passing through and had the misfortune of breaking down here, Alain thought. Everyone knew someone who had a horror story about being taken because there was no other alternative.

“On what?” he asked warily.

That, she assumed, was his lawyer look. But she could already see it fading away as the painkiller kicked in. “On whether you want a functioning vehicle or a very large paperweight.”

He’d only had the car for a year. It was barely broken in. He should have gone with his first instincts and rented a vehicle to drive up to Santa Barbara. “It’s totaled?”

This time she did consider his question. She really hadn’t paid that much attention to the condition of his car; she’d been more concerned with getting him out of the vehicle and out of the rain.

“Maybe not totaled,” she allowed, “but it’s certainly not going anywhere anytime soon.”

Suddenly the room seemed to be getting darker. Was the fire going out?

Or was he?

His ribs didn’t hurt anymore. Maybe he could pay her for the use of her own car, he thought. His head began to do strange things. Alain tried to focus. “I can’t stay here.”

“Why not?” she asked innocently. “It doesn’t look as if you have much choice.” And then she added with a smile, “Don’t worry, I’m not going to charge you rent.”

Thinking was rapidly becoming difficult for him. He needed to stay on point. “I’ve got places to go, people to see.”

“The places’ll still be there tomorrow. And the day after that,” she added for good measure. “And if the people are worth anything, so will they.”

Kayla had no doubt that the pill was taking effect. She should have given it to him in the first place, she thought, but she’d needed his input to see how bad he was. He was going to be asleep in a few more minutes, she judged.

She sat down on the coffee table facing him. Taylor lowered his haunches and sat down beside her like a silent consort.

“Right now,” she continued in a soft, soothing voice, “you need to rest. The roads are probably flooded, so you wouldn’t be going anywhere, anyway. Every time it rains like this, Shelby becomes an island.”

“Shelby?” he asked groggily.

“The town you’re passing through.” It was hardly a dot on the map. Most people didn’t even know they’d been through it. Leaning forward, Kayla placed her hand on his arm to make him feel secure. “I gave you something to make you sleep, Alain. Stop fighting it and just let it do its thing.”

He liked the way his name sounded on her lips.

The thought floated through his head without preamble. He was drifting, he realized. And his limbs were growing heavier, as if they didn’t belong to him anymore.

“If…I…fall asleep…” He was really struggling to get the words out now.

She leaned in closer to hear him. “Yes?”

“Will…you…have your way with me now?”

She laughed and shook her head. This one was something else.

“No,” she assured him, not quite able to erase the smile from her lips. “I won’t have my way with you.”

“Too…bad.”

And then there was no more conversation. His eyelids had won the battle and closed down.

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