www.millsandboon.co.uk

      LAURIE PAIGE

      “One of the nicest things about writing romances is researching locales, careers and ideas. In the interest of authenticity, most writers will try anything…once.” Along with her writing adventures, Laurie has been a NASA engineer, a past president of the Romance Writers of America, a mother and a grandmother. She was twice a RITA® Award finalist for Best Traditional Romance and has won awards from RT Book Reviews for Best Silhouette Special Edition and Best Silhouette, in addition to appearing on the USA TODAY bestseller list. Recently resettled in Northern California, Laurie is looking forward to whatever experiences her next novel brings.

      To Bobby and Melba,

       for all the adventures in Montana.

      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 One

      Chelsea Kearns stripped the surgical gloves from her hands and tossed them in the Contaminated Waste Disposal bin. In the locker room she showered, then dressed in street clothing of khaki slacks and a cotton shirt of cool, mint green.

      Once outside the hospital, which housed the county morgue, she breathed deeply several times before unlocking her car from the passenger side, opening both doors and letting the accumulated heat escape.

      Here in the Beartooth Mountains of Montana just north of Yellowstone National Park, summers were usually pleasant—low eighties during the day, forties at night. The temperature on the digital display at the bank proclaimed the temperature to be ninety-three.

      “This heat is terrible. It must be global warming,” a passerby said to her companion as they strolled past Chelsea. “The government should do something.”

      “Maybe we’ll have a thundershower later this afternoon,” the companion said in a soothing voice.

      The first woman grimaced. “Those only bring lightning and forest fires at this time of the year.”

      Chelsea sympathized with the ill-humored woman. She felt out of sorts herself. The bank clock indicated it was well past the noon hour on Wednesday, July third.

      She’d eaten a quick breakfast at five-thirty, but she wasn’t hungry. She never was after a morning spent in the morgue, doing her job as a medical examiner. The autopsy had disclosed information that was going to shock most people in the town of Rumor, located twenty miles from here.

      Tossing her purse onto the passenger seat, she reluctantly followed it inside the hot car and started the engine. She turned the air conditioner on full blast and aimed the vents directly at her face.

      Leaving Whitehorn, she followed the highway to the turnoff that would take her to Rumor, Montana, and the lakeside cottage where she would be staying for the next three weeks. This first week she had to work, but after that she had two solid weeks of vacation.

      Ah, bliss.

      However, before the fun began she had bad news to report to the deputy sheriff in charge of the investigation. The autopsy she’d performed indicated murder, not suicide; although, the perpetrator had tried to make it look that way.

      The absence of powder burns precluded a self-inflicted shot, or else the victim would have had to have held the weapon with her toes in order to inflict a wound in her left temple at a sufficient distance. Besides all that, the angle of entry of the projectile was all wrong for suicide.

      Chelsea sighed. This was going to be a tough case. She could feel it in her bones. The trial, assuming they caught the guy who did it, would be time consuming. She’d have to come down from Billings, an hour’s drive each way, and testify about her findings. The defense attorney would try to prove she didn’t know what she was talking about.

      She sighed again. There was also the complication of Pierce Dalton—successful businessman, mayor of Rumor where the murder had been committed, brother to her best friend, Kelly, and…former lover.

      Her life, which had seemed calm and sensible when she’d accepted the position as medical examiner in Billings, suddenly seemed complicated.

      Maybe she should have stayed in Chicago. She’d been busy but lonely in the city, she admitted. And she’d missed the mountains. Had she also wanted to see Pierce again? She didn’t have an answer for that.

      Arriving in town, she slowed to the requisite thirty-five miles per hour for the short drive down Main Street, then turned right onto Blue Spruce Road and right again onto the lane that took her to a modern cottage set among towering evergreen trees next to a jewel of a lake.

      With a deck built out at the edge of a tiny cove, the place was as enchanting as a scene in a fairy tale.

      Grabbing her purse, which held her recorder and the notes dictated that morning, she went in and changed to shorts, a comfortable T-shirt and flip-flops. On the deck, with a tall glass of iced tea and her handy laptop computer, she began her formal report.

      Sometime later, the sound of tires on the gravel lane interrupted her concentration. She heard a car door slam, then silence. She waited until a knock sounded on the cabin door before calling out, “I’m on the deck.”

      A male figure appeared at the corner of the cabin. Dressed in jeans and a polo shirt, his stride long and assured, the visitor exuded power and authority.

      She instantly recognized the sandy-blond hair and six-two frame of her long-ago lover. Pierce was a man with a commanding presence. She hadn’t been surprised