Chapter One

      The headlights sliced through the darkness ahead, glittering off the torrents of rain pounding the windshield of the small car. The wind blew so hard that it took some effort to keep the car on the road. Fingers white-knuckled on the wheel, Jenny Baer leaned forward slightly against her seat belt in an attempt to better see the winding road. The weather had turned nasty earlier than she’d expected when she’d started this almost-three-hour drive.

      She’d intended to leave work just after lunch on this Friday, which would have put her here midafternoon, before the rain set in. Instead, she’d been held up with one crisis after another, until it had been after six when she’d finally gotten away. She hadn’t even had a chance to change out of her work clothes. She’d thought of waiting until morning to head out, but she’d been afraid she’d only be detained again, maybe until too late to even consider the rare, three-day vacation she was allowing herself.

      Her grandmother would say “I told you so” in that sanctimonious tone she often slipped into. Gran had insisted it was foolish for Jenny to take off on her own and stay alone for a long weekend in a secluded mountain cabin. But then, Gran was always trying to tell her only grandchild how to live her life. Though Jenny believed the advice was generally well-intended, she had to remind her grandmother repeatedly that she was thirty-one years old, held a master’s degree and was the sole owner of a successful clothing-and-accessories boutique.

      Gran would be even less supportive of this private retreat if she knew the reason Jenny had decided impulsively to take it. If she’d told her grandmother that prominent attorney Thad Simonson had proposed marriage, Gran would already be arranging an engagement party, maybe interviewing wedding planners. She wouldn’t understand why Jenny had asked for time to think about her answer, though Thad had seemed to consider the request entirely reasonable. After all, he’d said, Jenny’s practicality and judiciousness were two of the many qualities he most admired about her. She had accepted the comment as a compliment, as she knew he’d intended—though maybe he’d been just a bit too prosaic about it?

      Thad was out of state for a couple weeks on one of his frequent business trips, so Jenny had taken the opportunity to get away for a few days herself. She needed time to think about the ramifications of accepting his proposal without the distractions of constantly ringing phones and never-ending meetings with employees, customers, contractors and sales reps.

      Lightning flashed in the distance through the curtains of rain, silhouetting the surrounding hills against the angry sky. The full force of the early-June storm was still a few miles away, but getting closer. What had she been thinking heading into the backwoods with this looming? She was the least impulsive person she knew—at least, that was the way she’d lived for the past decade or so—and yet, here she was, inching through a downpour in the middle of nowhere, heading for a cabin in the Arkansas Ozarks with no housekeeping staff, no room service, none of the amenities she preferred for her infrequent escapes. All with less than forty-eight hours of planning, another anomaly for her.

      Considering everything, it was a wonder the cabin had even been available on such short notice, but the too-cheery rental agent had assured her it was ready to rent. Jenny had assumed the weather forecasts had scared off other prospective vacationers, but she’d planned to stay inside to think and work in blessed isolation, so the prospect of a rainy weekend hadn’t deterred her. This storm, on the other hand,