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

      Amelia Miller glanced up when the wind rattled the windowpanes of the Victorian house. The old mansion had withstood fiercer storms than this one in its hundred and twenty years. Although, she admitted, this first rain of October was not a gentle one.

      She stuck her toes closer to the glowing gas-log fireplace. The temperature was thirty-eight degrees outside, the rooms of the bed-and-breakfast were filled for the weekend and the guests were snug inside, the last one arriving little more than an hour ago.

      All was well in her little corner of the world.

      Most of her clients were couples who’d come up from Boise for a weekend of hiking. The colors of autumn covered the hills, and the aspens and cottonwoods were especially beautiful this year. She hoped the rain didn’t spoil the outing for the nature lovers.

      Glancing at the clock, she saw it was nearly eleven o’clock. She yawned, finished off the herbal tea and closed the novel she’d been reading. The historical romance story was about knights and ladies and honor, which the hero had in abundance, perhaps to the point of obstinacy.

      There were worse faults, she mused. For a moment, she remembered being twenty and swept off her feet by a handsome cowboy in town for the rodeo trials. After knowing him all of two weeks, she’d married him and taken off on an exciting adventure.

      The excitement had lasted about two months, the marriage nearly two years, mostly due to her own stubbornness in refusing to give up. Her dashing cowboy had a temper and a mean streak. When she’d urged him to go to anger management counseling, he’d hit her. She’d packed and left, finally admitting she’d made a serious mistake.

      At thirty-three, she had few illusions about life. Now, happiness was a full house and a roof that didn’t leak. So much for young love and the dreams that went with it.

      She smiled at her long-ago idealism, somewhat saddened by the loss, then yawned again. Time for bed. Five-thirty came early—

      The br-r-ring of the doorbell startled her. Slipping on fuzzy scuffs, she went silently down the hall into the main room, making sure her robe was securely closed as she did.

      Then she peered out through one of the etched glass panels of the door.

      The carriage lamps on each side illuminated a lone man standing there, his head tilted down as if he was deep in thought, his hands in the pockets of a trench coat that glistened with rain across the broad shoulders.

      “Yes?” she said without opening the door.

      “Amelia? It’s Seth Dalton.”

      At sixteen, her heart had nearly leaped out of her body each time she’d encountered the oldest of the six Dalton orphans. At present, she was only mildly surprised. One or another of the Dalton clan was often at her place. She unlocked the door and stood aside.

      “What a terrible night to be out,” she said when he entered the lobby, after carefully removing the raincoat and shaking off the water droplets on the porch.

      He closed the door, dropped a duffel bag at his feet and hung the coat on a hook. “Yeah, terrible,” he agreed, with a smile that was definitely weary.

      “Uh, was I expecting you?”

      “No. I was heading for the ranch but got out of the city later than I’d planned. With the rain and the Friday night