ANNE MARIE WINSTON

      RITA Award finalist and bestselling author Anne Marie Winston loves babies she can give back when they cry, animals in all shapes and sizes and just about anything that blooms. When she’s not writing, she’s chauffeuring children to various activities, trying not to eat chocolate or reading anything she can find. She will dance at the slightest provocation and weeds her gardens when she can’t see the sun for the weeds anymore. You can learn more about Anne Marie’s novels by visiting her Web site at www.annemariewinston.com.

      For Mary Anne Trent

      “Truly great friends are hard to find, difficult to leave, and impossible to forget.”

      —G. Randolf

      Contents

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

      Chapter Three

      Chapter Four

      Chapter Five

      Chapter Six

      Chapter Seven

      Chapter Eight

      Chapter Nine

      Epilogue

      One

      “Boston financial wizard Ryan Shaughnessy comes in sixth on our list of the Northeast’s most desirable bachelors. Shaughnessy, 32, a self-made multimillionaire with diverse business interests, holds the patent on Securi-Lock, a decade-old technological innovation that has taken the world of home security in a new and vital direction. Widowed two years ago and childless, Shaughnessy makes his home in the exclusive Brookline community of Boston’s Back Bay. He stands six-foot-three and weighs in at 205 pounds. If you want to capture the interest of this eminently available hunk, you should take up swimming, rowing and jogging.”

      Ryan Shaughnessy glared at his lunch date with ill-concealed poor humor. “Put that thing away.”

      Jessie Reilly was still chortling as she dropped the magazine back into her bag. “I’m impressed,” she said, and the sparkle dancing in her eyes made him narrow his own. They’d grown up together and he knew that look. It usually meant trouble for him. “I mean, who’d ever have thought that skinny kid next door would grow up to be an ‘eminently available hunk’?”

      Ryan forgot to be annoyed as her amused gaze met his. Jessie looked as good as she always did to him, in a slim-fitting charcoal suit and high black boots to protect her feet from January’s icy weather, and he felt the familiar little shock of attraction in his solar plexus when her wide smile lit her face. “If I’d known you were bringing that rag,” he told her, “I might have skipped lunch.” Right. Like you’d ever miss an opportunity to spend time with Jessie.

      Jessie had been his neighbor during his childhood, his first hopeless adolescent love and his good friend forever. She joined him here on the third Wednesday of every month for lunch. As she shook her dark hair back from her face, it gleamed with coppery highlights. He was aware that more than one man in the room watched her as she relaxed at the table he’d reserved by the fireplace in the Ritz-Carlton Hotel’s bar.

      “I’m glad you didn’t skip out on me,” she told him. “I’ve been thinking about you, wondering how you’re doing.” Her eyes were a smoky green-gray in the winter light streaming through the windows that overlooked the Public Garden, a dark ring around the irises giving them a striking intensity. He knew she didn’t just want to know generally how life was. She meant, “How are you getting along since Wendy’s death?” She’d asked him the same question, casually sandwiched into their conversations, once a month for the past two years. But he didn’t want to go there today, so he answered it in the general sense.

      “Life’s good. Business is good. How about you?”

      Her eyes reproached him but she let it slide. “I’m all right. Business is…business.”

      Something in her tone made him glance sharply at her, and to his critical eye her expression looked troubled. “Something wrong at the gallery?”

      “Not wrong, exactly.” She hesitated. “I just learned this morning that my biggest rival in the area is expanding. Until now they haven’t affected my business at all, but with a larger place and more inventory…” She shrugged. “It’s a little worrisome.”

      Jessie owned a fine arts gallery a block away on Newbury Street that catered to the idle rich and those who aspired to the lifestyle. Ryan had bought gifts there in the past and he’d been impressed by both the quality and the unique selection of items she stocked. The prices…she clearly had targeted the well-to-do doctors and lawyers that blanketed the Boston population like the snow outside the windows covered the landscape. “So what are you going to do about it?”

      “I don’t know.” Their drinks arrived, and she curled long, delicate fingers around the stem of her wineglass. “I’ve barely had time to think at all this morning. It was busy from the moment the doors opened until I sneaked out at lunch time.” Then she shrugged her shoulders, deliberately shaking off her cares. “I’ll figure something out, I’m sure.”

      “I’m sure you will.” He toasted her with his drink. “You’re one of the most resourceful