www.millsandboon.co.uk

      This book is dedicated to my sister Linda for always

      having my back. I love you, Linda.

      One

      “Go ahead and look, Macy, you are even more beautiful than before,” Dr. Justin Webb said.

      Macy Reynolds held the mirror loosely in her left hand and slowly lifted it so she could see her face, but she closed her eyes at the last second before she could catch a glimpse. Three years ago she’d been beautiful. She’d even been crowned the Rose Queen of Royal, Texas, as an eighteen-year-old girl. But all that had changed in one fateful car accident. She’d lost her looks, her man and her confidence.

      This had supposedly been the last surgery she’d need, but her looks, which she’d once taken for granted, were now the bane of her existence. She was never going to be that beautiful girl again.

      Dr. Webb put his hand on her shoulder. “Trust me, Macy.”

      She wasn’t sure she trusted any man but her daddy. He’d stood by her through everything.

      Macy and Harrison were all each other had, but she knew she couldn’t spend the rest of her life sitting in Dr. Webb’s office with her eyes closed.

      She thought of the courageous kids in the Burn Unit at this hospital where she volunteered. They weren’t afraid to look in the mirror and she shouldn’t be either.

      She opened one eye and then, surprised by her reflection, she opened the other. Her skin was pale and flawless, the way it used to be. No scars marred the surface. Her pixie nose had been restored to its former shape; she reached up and touched it. Her eyes hadn’t been injured in the car accident and her clear green gaze remained the same.

      Her lips were the only thing that were really different. A piece of glass had cut her upper lip and now she had a tiny indentation where there used to be none.

      “Thank you, Dr. Webb,” she said. Still not perfect, but at least she was done with surgeries.

      “See. I was right, you are more beautiful than before,” he said.

      She just smiled and nodded. She put the mirror facedown on the bed next to her. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Doc, but I’ll be glad not to have to see you again.”

      Dr. Webb laughed. “Me too, Macy. I’ll send the nurse in with some paperwork and then you will be free to go.”

      He started to leave, but she called him back. “Thank you, Dr. Webb. All your hard work has really made a difference to me.”

      “You are very welcome,” he said and then left.

      Her cell phone vibrated as she received a text message and she glanced down at it. The message was from her dad.

      How did everything go at the doctor’s?

      Macy thought about her looks, but she knew she was so much more than just a pretty face now. And Dr. Webb had been a miracle worker to get her face this close to how she’d looked before the accident. She was never going to be exactly the same, but Dr. Webb had done a really good job.

      Just fine, Daddy.

      I bet you look better than fine. I’ll see you when you get home tonight.

      Yes. See you then.

      Love you, baby girl.

      Love you, Daddy.

      She and her father were closer now than ever. After her fiancé, Benjamin, left her while she was in the hospital, she’d had no choice but to lean—and lean hard—on her father. The accident had taken everything from her.

      But now she was back to her old self. Or at least she really hoped she was. She was ready to stand on her own and she knew she had to get out of her daddy’s safe little world and back to her own.

      She finished up with the nurse and left the office. And for the first time since then she didn’t immediately put on the large sunglasses that covered half her face.

      She opened the lobby door and walked right into a man. He caught her shoulders as she tottered on her heels and almost fell over.

      “Thank you,” she said, looking up into the bluest eyes she’d ever seen. Christopher Richardson … her high school sweetheart and the man she’d broken up with when her daddy had demanded it.

      It had been almost fourteen years since they’d last seen each other and she … well, she felt as if no time had passed. Chris looked just as handsome as he had in high school and just as tempting.

      “Macy. Some things never change and you get more beautiful each time I see you,” he said. There was more than a hint of irony in his voice.

      She flushed, remembering how she’d dumped him all those years ago. “You haven’t seen me since high school.”

      “True enough. When a woman tells me to hit the road I tend to do that and not look back,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

      Should she apologize for what she’d done years earlier? She knew that she owed him way more than a casual “I’m sorry” though. “Um … I had an accident a few years ago,” she said. Dang it, why hadn’t she lied and said she was here for her charitable work with the Burn Unit.

      “I heard about that. Are you okay now?”

      She nodded. “Better every day.”

      “And you, Mr. Big City, what brings you back to Royal?”

      “My mom is in the hospital. But I’m back in Royal to bid on rebuilding the Texas Cattleman’s Club headquarters.”

      “Oh.