www.millsandboon.co.uk

      JACKIE MERRITT

      is still writing, just not with the speed and constancy of years past. She and her husband are living in southern Nevada again, falling back on old habits of loving the long, warm or slightly cool winters and trying almost desperately to head north for the months of July and August, when the fiery sun bakes people and cacti alike.

      Contents

      Prologue

      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 Seventeen

      Chapter Eighteen

      Prologue

      The Party, late May

      She didn’t normally go to parties, and she wondered what she was doing in Joe’s Bar on a Saturday night with at least forty other people, the smell of booze and cigarette smoke assaulting her every breath and music she despised making her ears ring. She thought of her home, of her bed, of herself clad in soft pajamas and propped up with pillows against the headboard with the television on—sound turned down low—and a book on her lap. That was how she spent her evenings, not like this. It would be a cold day in hell before she let anyone—even her sister—talk her into attending another “birthday bash” at the local pub.

      Val’s gaze moved past the crowd at the bar to the jukebox in the corner. No one was listening to the teeth-jarring rhythms of the unidentifiable noise the machine produced, she thought resentfully, so why did they keep punching the same damn buttons?

      “Enough,” she muttered, and dug into her pocket for some coins. She might have to hang around this place a little longer, but she could at least do something about the awful music jangling her nerves. Armed with quarters, she left her table and wended her way through the crowd to the jukebox, where she studied the list of song titles for several minutes before finally spotting one she actually liked. She had just extended her hand to drop her quarters into the slot when someone jostled her from behind, causing her to drop the coins. She turned to give the person who had so rudely run into her a dirty look, but he or she had melted into the crowd.

      Shaking her head in disgust, Val stooped down to look for the change. The floor was dark, she realized, much darker than the rest of the place. Hoping it wasn’t too dirty, she got on her knees and began feeling around for the coins.

      In mere moments she realized that a long, jeans-clad leg was very close to her head. She took in the costly cowboy boot below the hem of the jeans and let her eyes travel up the length of the leg, and then farther still, to an attractive white-on-white western shirt that was nicely filled out by an extremely good-looking man.

      She knew who he was—Reed Kingsley—only because everyone in Rumor, Montana, recognized the town’s fire chief, even if they weren’t aware of his impressive family ties. There was nothing ordinary about Reed, especially his Romeo reputation. Val had heard that this guy went from woman to woman as most men changed shirts, which totally destroyed any interest she might have had in him—if she had been in the market for a man, which she wasn’t, with very good reason. She no longer played silly games, thanks to that one awful day when her entire world had been torn apart. Reed was handsome and rich and involved in almost everything that went on in Rumor, but Val didn’t care who the devil he was; he had usurped her place at the jukebox!

      “Excuse me,” she said coolly, and when he didn’t immediately respond, added a highly sarcastic, “Hello?”

      He looked around, saw her and grinned. “What’re you doing on the floor?”

      To hell with the quarters, Val thought, and got to her feet. “I dropped my coins. I was going to play H-32, but you took my turn, anyway, so to heck with the whole thing.” She began walking away and was startled to feel his hand on her arm. She gave him a look that made him yank it back so fast it seemed to blur.

      “Sorry,” he said.

      “Yes, you are,” she retorted, and left him standing there with his mouth open. At her table again, she tossed out lies to the others seated there. She wasn’t entirely sure of how she got out of Joe’s so fast, but she was inside lying through her teeth one second and outside breathing fresh air the next.

      Immensely relieved, she got in her vehicle and drove home.

      Reed had rarely met a party he didn’t like. Some were better than others, of course, depending on the people in attendance. But he enjoyed drinking a beer or two with friends, and there were very few people in Rumor that he didn’t think of as a friend. Tonight’s crowd at Joe’s was a good bunch, he decided. Good friends, old friends, people he’d grown up with, for the most part.

      But there were a few folks there he didn’t know very well. One woman, in particular, Dr. Valerie Fairchild, Rumor’s veterinarian, had been piquing his interest for some time now. They’d been introduced during a meeting of Rumor’s business owners a while back, but she still acted as though she didn’t know him when they ran into each other in a store or on the street. He was surprised to see her at Joe’s tonight, and he watched for an opportunity to speak to her. Her trip to the jukebox seemed heaven sent. He ambled over slowly and got there just about the time she sank to her knees to pick up a dropped coin.

      He pretended he didn’t see her and began looking at the selections. When she said, “Excuse me,” and then an extremely sarcastic, “Hello,” he knew he’d irritated her in some way.

      He put on his best grin and asked, “What are you doing on the floor?” He thought he had succeeded in sounding amicably amused but not patronizing, and looked for a smile on her strikingly beautiful face. He was sorely disappointed, for her parting remarks weren’t friendly or even kind.