www.millsandboon.co.uk

      This one’s for

       April, who always makes me smile

      Contents

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

      Chapter Three

      Chapter Four

      Chapter Five

      Chapter Six

      Chapter Seven

      Chapter Eight

      Chapter Nine

      Chapter Ten

      Chapter Eleven

      Chapter Twelve

      Chapter Thirteen

      Chapter Fourteen

      Chapter Fifteen

      Chapter One

      “Ow.”

      Brooke Carmichael pressed her lips together, sealing in any further sounds. The tips of her fingers where the hot espresso had sloshed over the side of the coffee container pulsed with pain. That’s what she got for not waiting for a cover, she thought.

      Still hurrying, her eyes now riveted to the guilty container, she switched hands and shook the excess moisture off her fingers. The barely-out-of-puberty boy who was single-handedly manning Coffee Heaven’s counter had told her he was all out of lids, but there were some in the back.

      Since he moved with the speed of a snail, his finding one didn’t sound like a feat that was going to be accomplished any time within the next half hour. Brooke didn’t have a half hour. She didn’t even have five extra minutes to spare. Since Heather had called saying she’d be late, there was no one to watch Tell Me a Story, the bookstore Brooke had owned for the past two years.

      Ordinarily when Isaac, the regular clerk, was behind the trendy coffee-shop counter, the whole transaction took less than two minutes. But Isaac had been nowhere in sight and there was no way Brooke could begin the day without molten sludge oozing through her veins, waking her up. The coffee she’d had at home only got her as far as the store and no farther. She needed something guaranteed to jump-start narcoleptics before she could begin her work-day.

      Her sister would pick today to be late. “When it rains, it pours,” Brooke muttered to herself.

      Next time she’d bring a thermos, the way she used to when she’d been the only one tending to the bookstore. Having help had made her lax. She blew on fingers that still stung.

      “Tiffany, where are you?” a male voice called.

      Intent on not spilling her espresso again, Brooke didn’t see the tall, somber-looking man until it was almost too late. Coming to an abrupt halt, she barely avoided launching the contents of her container at him.

      Her heart hammering, the fingers of her left hand christened in the exact same manner as the ones on her right and now smarting, Brooke narrowly avoided what could have been a very nasty accident.

      Stepping back and to the side, Brooke realized that the man was not alone. He was flanked by matching bookends in the form of two identical little girls, no more than about five or six. Their dresses were similar, if not exactly the same, but one face was as close to a mirror image of the other as anything Brooke had ever seen. The man was holding their hands tightly and seemed to look through Brooke as if she wasn’t there.

      Brooke’s gaze dropped to the twins again. What must it be like, she wondered, to know there was someone else walking around with a face exactly like yours? It might make an interesting children’s-book series. Something her father would have deftly written about, she thought with a bittersweet pang.

      “Sorry,” she apologized when she caught her breath.

      Oblivious to the near collision, the man hardly spared her a look. He seemed far more intent on finding this Tiffany person. Then, nodding vaguely in Brooke’s direction, as if the apology had replayed itself in his head, he hurried past her, the two little girls held fast in tow.

      “Tiffany,” he called.

      “No harm done, I guess,” Brooke murmured to herself, heading out into the mall.

      The man no doubt had misplaced his wife, Brooke mused. He had that father-on-an-outing harried look. Turning back, she squinted, looking intently at the hand that held on to the little girl on his left. There it was, a wedding ring.

      Had to be the wife, she decided.

      Why were all the gorgeous ones taken? she wondered.

      Not that she would be interested in the man one way or the other, she amended, entering her store. She was doing just fine the way she was, carving out her own business and her own niche in the world. At twenty-seven, she figured she was way overdue in both departments. She’d put in her time on the marriage-go-round and all it had done was make her dizzy—and incredibly cynical.

      There was a time, she thought as she paused to straighten a display of books dealing with the adventures of a timid ladybug, when she would have said that there wasn’t a cynical bone in her body. But that was before Marc. Her ex-husband had done that to her, siphoned off her optimistic view of life and made her cynical.

      Marc, with his dark good looks and his secret roving eye. Brooke sighed and shook her head, then took a long sip of her coffee.

      Nope, she wasn’t going to spoil a perfectly lovely morning by thinking about the one dark spot in her life. The two-year-old divorce decree had physically removed Marc from her life; now it was up to her to eradicate all traces of him from her mind.

      Taking another long sip of coffee, Brooke closed her eyes and waited for the double espresso’s effect to kick in. It didn’t take long. She blew out a breath. “Well, that’ll sure get you going in the morning,” she murmured.

      As a rule, mornings in the mall were slow. Customers didn’t begin coming into Tell Me a Story until around noon or later. That was okay with her. Right now, Brooke decided, she could use a little alone time. She was comfortable with her own company. Always had been.

      After a third sip, Brooke looked at the dwindling contents of her cup thoughtfully. There was a new trend taking hold amid the chain bookstores. She supposed she could go that route and start selling beverages. At least it would cut down on her making quick dashes to Coffee Heaven.

      The next moment, the idea faded. Most of her customers were under four feet in height and tended to have sticky hands to begin with. Given her clientele, to provide only coffee was ridiculous. To