www.millsandboon.co.uk

      Deepest thanks to my mom and dad

       for showing me laughter through all things.

      For my husband, Brent, for saying I could,

       and for my children, Sarah, Daniel, Donovan and Devin, for making it all worthwhile.

      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

      Chapter One

      I charged through Seattle’s Memorial Cemetery with my arms pumping and heart pounding. My mouth wheezed in great mouthfuls of dreary afternoon drizzle while I ruined a perfectly good pair of black leather sling-backs. To top that off, the purse snatcher, who was at least double my twenty-six years and probably a heroin addict as well, had easily outrun me.

      I had a choice, I could either A) continue to run with the hope that I’d eventually wear the thief down with my persistence or B) give up on ever seeing my shoulder bag, a suede Prada knockoff, ever again.

      Exhaustion won. I gave up and staggered to a stop. I apologized to Samuel Harvey, 1910-1973, whose tombstone I leaned against while recovering from the impromptu workout.

      “He got away?” Stumbling in my direction, with high heels sinking in the sodden grass and with ample bosom rising and falling in deep gasps, was my good friend Jenny. She propped herself up at the opposite corner of Samuel Harvey’s resting place. “Damn! I thought you had him.”

      “This is what happens when you can no longer afford to go to the gym.” I panted. “A senior citizen junky makes off with your bag and leaves you whimpering in a graveyard.”

      “This is what happens when your car dies and you’re forced to stand around on Baldwin Street,” corrected Jenny. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, the red hair color, Claret Classic, was courtesy of this week’s sale at Neuman Drugs. Next, Jenny dug in her purse and pulled out a cigarette. She lit up then nodded her head in the direction the thief had taken. “Let’s go after him.”

      “I’d rather—” stick a pen in my eye, have a pap test, visit my mother… “—not.”

      “Well, we should check. Maybe he ditched your bag somewhere?”

      “What’s the point?” I asked, sulkily digging up sod with the toe of one of my wrecked shoes.

      “Maybe he just snatched the cash and dumped the rest.” Jenny took a deep drag on the cigarette and blew the smoke out in a long stream. “Of course I’d be able to catch him myself, if I wasn’t retaining all this water.”

      I knew Jenny was retaining twenty-five years of fried food, not water, but she was my best friend so I supported her delusions of water retention, just like she supported my fantasy that being able to type seventy words a minute meant I was physically fit.

      “Replacing your ID and credit card is going to be a real pain,” Jenny added.

      I hit my forehead with the heel of my hand. “Damn! My Visa!”

      My credit card was the only thing preventing me from having to beg dinners off my mother until next payday. I had a sudden and nauseating vision of endless meals sitting across from Mom explaining why I haven’t married and have no prospects, why I haven’t a better job and no prospects and why I haven’t cut my hair, lowered my hemlines, taken a class….

      I hurled myself down the stone pathway.

      “Wait up, Tab! I’ll come with ya!” Jenny flicked her smoke into a nearby puddle and followed in my wake up a narrow walkway.

      The path led us between tombstones and grave markers. When we began to climb a slight incline nearing a clump of tall blue spruce, I suddenly stopped walking and Jenny slammed right into me.

      “What is it? Do you see your bag?” Jenny flicked her gaze left and right then sidestepped around me to look at me full in the face. Her eyes widened. “Oh, no.”

      “What?”

      “You’re doing that thing.”

      “What thing?”

      “That thing you do with your eyes when you blink a lot.”

      “I do not blink a lot.”

      “Uh-huh.” Jenny planted thick fingers on wide hips. “Yeah, well, tell your eyelids that ’cause right now they’re doing the mambo.”

      I pinched the bridge of my nose with my fingers and squeezed my eyes shut.

      “What is it?” she demanded impatiently.

      “Nothing.” I nibbled my lower lip and glanced nervously at a nearby tree. “Let’s go.” I whirled on my heel to beat a fast retreat.

      “Whoa!” Jenny clamped her fingers on my elbow. “You had one of those premonitions, right?”

      I sighed, “I don’t have premonitions. It’s more like a deep feeling of foreboding.” With the occasional bleary snapshot thrown in for good measure.

      Jenny nodded vigorously. “Yeah, like the time you knew something was wrong at home and you found out your dad had just had a heart attack, or that time you knew Martha was preggers even before she did.”

      I pulled my elbow from her grasp and crossed my arms over my chest. “Actually, it’s more like that feeling I got when you fixed me up with your cousin Ted and his leg-humping dog, or the time you told me the shrimp in your fridge were fresh.”

      “Well, maybe this time your bad feeling is telling you that your purse is over there behind that tree and the bad part is that only the cash is missing.”

      The feeling in my gut wasn’t exactly saying purse, it was saying something darker. Evil. I shuddered and wished I hadn’t quit smoking last month.

      Then again, I reasoned, I’d had the same feeling when I was sixteen and Mom found me out behind the garden shed with Todd Verbicki’s hands down my pants. I relented and Jenny and I made our way across the mossy grass to the spruce that had garnered my attention. We walked around it.

      “Huh.