DIXIE BROWNING

      is an award-winning painter and writer, mother and grandmother. Her father was a big-league baseball player, her grandfather a sea captain. In addition to her nearly 80 contemporary romances, Dixie and her sister, Mary Williams, have written more than a dozen historical romances under the name Bronwyn Williams. Contact Dixie at www.dixiebrowning.com or at P.O. Box 1389, Buxton, NC 27920.

      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

      Epilogue

      One

      The suite was small, the acoustics brutal. The guests were a mixture of media types, politicians, wives and significant others. All were talking at once; few, if any, were listening. At least there was no band to overcome. The noise level had hit him when he’d first stepped off the elevator. Considering that until recently, as an accredited journalist, Rocky had covered nearly every noisy, crowded hotspot on the globe, it shouldn’t have been a problem.

      It was. He wanted out.

      From across the room he watched as the honoree edged past two network anchors, who appeared to be comparing pinky rings, and absently handed his glass to a well-known syndicated sportswriter.

      Rocky waited. He had come to help honor his old bureau chief. So far he hadn’t managed to get close enough to pay his respects.

      “Not leaving yet, are you?”

      Dan Sturdivant, retiring bureau chief at Graves Worldwide, had trained a surprising number of the reporters in the business today, including Rocky. Now pushing seventy-five, he had a heart condition, ulcers and essential tremors. Which was the sole reason Rocky, even though he hadn’t worked with the man in years, had given up his quiet Sunday evening for this bash at the Shoreham. He’d been a hungry young idealist fresh out of college when Dan had taken him in, sifted through his headful of useless garbage, refilling his brain with a few basic tenets, and set him to work covering court news.

      Welcome to the real world. Everything he had gone on to achieve, Rocky owed to this man.

      “Heard you’d quit the business,” the old man said by way of greeting.

      “News travels fast.” It was a standing joke between them. “Call it a sabbatical.”

      “Skip the euphemisms. You’re too young to quit.”

      “I’m tired, Dan.”

      “You and me both, son, but tired won’t cut it. You gotta have a better excuse than that.”

      He had one. And, yeah, tired would do it when a man had been carrying a load of heartbreak for eight years. Dan knew the story, but it wasn’t something either man had ever discussed.

      “Stick around, this bash can’t last forever. God, what did I ever do to deserve this kind of punishment?” He shook his shiny bald head and tried to look as if he weren’t loving every minute of it.

      “Braves game. If I leave now I can probably make it home by the third.”

      “Mets’ll take ’em, you don’t want to watch the slaughter.”

      “In your dreams.”

      “You know where I live if you want to talk.”

      Rocky nodded. Dan nodded. Message sent and received.

      He wasn’t ready to talk about what he was going to do with the rest of his life. Financially he had to do something, but he didn’t have to decide yet—not for a few more weeks. Or months. Maybe if he got hungry enough, he could find the motivation to try a weekly column. Two different syndicates had put out feelers.

      But first he had to get over Julie. His marriage had ended in the summer of ninety-four, when a drunk driver had rammed head-on into the car his wife had been driving home from the library, breaking her back and causing irreparable damage to her head. He had buried her six months ago. He hadn’t cried then. More than seven years of watching her lying there, alive and yet not alive—Julie and yet not Julie—had used up his lifetime quota of tears.

      For seven years he’d taken her bouquets of her favorite flower. Flowers she couldn’t see, couldn’t smell, but he told himself that deep down, she sensed they were there. And that he loved her—would always love her, no matter what. Finally in early February, on a cold, rainy morning, he had buried