To

      David McCallum

      who, as Illya Kuryakin

      in The Man From U.N.C.L.E., is responsible for my falling in love with secret agents and black turtleneck sweaters

       Chapter 1

      It took her a second to realize that the sigh she heard echoing in the small, converted bedroom that served as her office was her own.

      Lost in thoughts of the past and preoccupied, Dr. Eve Walters had thought that the deep sigh had come from Tessa, the German shepherd she’d rescued from a sadistic owner a little more than two years ago. On occasion Tessa, currently curled up under her desk, was given to sighing just like a human being. Considering the life she’d led both B.R.—before rescue—and A.R.—after rescue—the sighs were more than merited. Before, Eve was certain, the dog’s sighs had been of the fearful, hopeless variety while now, with Tessa’s weight a third more than what it had been when she’d first been rescued, the German shepherd’s sighs sounded as if she was exceedingly content with her new life and just couldn’t believe her good fortune.

      Lately, Eve had become aware of sighing a great deal herself, as if she couldn’t catch her breath. And couldn’t believe the twists and turns that had brought her to this point.

      She supposed she could just shrug her shoulders and attribute her deeps sighs to the fact that she wasn’t accustomed to carrying around this much weight, but if she were being honest, the cause for her sighs went a great deal deeper. Never in her wildest dreams did Eve think she would find herself in this position: approaching thirty in a few months, single, alone and very, very pregnant.

      Tears suddenly gathered in her eyes and she held them back by sheer will. God, but she was emotional lately. Well, she was not going to cry. She wasn’t.

      Another sigh escaped.

      How in heaven’s name had she come to this state?

      Okay, she was gregarious and fun-loving, but never, ever would anyone have called her reckless. She was always known as the stable one, the one everyone else turned to in times of crisis.

      When her mother, Evelyn, had died suddenly on Eve’s second day of middle school, Eve was the one who was there for her veterinarian father, Warren, and her older sister, Angela—not the other way around. This while she secretly yearned for someone to comfort her. But she couldn’t indulge herself, couldn’t sink into self-pity no matter how much she wanted to. Others depended on her. And she always came through.

      Beneath her genial, warm smile