MILLS & BOON

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      For my wonderful editor, Susan Litman, with thanks for her insights—and for asking me to be part of the crowd on Danbury Way

      Special thanks and acknowledgment are given to Christine Flynn for her contribution to the TALK OF THE NEIGHBORHOOD miniseries.

      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

      Coming Next Month

      Prologue

      Every black skirt Rebecca Peters owned lay spread out on her bed as she stood in the closet trying to decide between a sexy little camisole and a more conservative sweater. She was seriously leaning toward conservative when the phone rang.

      Still clutching the tops, she glanced at the caller ID on the phone on the nightstand a second before she snatched up the handset.

      “Jack. Hi,” she said, holding the phone with her shoulder while she held up her two choices for her date with him. “I was just thinking about you. Did you decide where you want to go for dinner?

      “Jack?” she asked after five seconds of dead silence.

      “I’m here,” Jack Lever finally replied, hesitation heavy in his tone. “I came by to see you a while ago, but you weren’t home.”

      “I was at the printer’s. They didn’t have my copies ready, so I had to wait.”

      “Yeah, well, it’s probably better this way, anyhow.”

      It was her turn to hesitate. “What’s better?

      The faint rushing sound on the other end of the line sounded suspiciously like an uneasy expulsion of breath.

      “Jack. You’re a lawyer.” He was also the stepson of the man she thought was her father, which was why she’d wanted to get to know him in the first place. Jack didn’t know that, though. No one did. But her reason for having come to Rosewood was beside the point at the moment. “Words are your business.” Now uneasy herself, she sank to the edge of the bed. “What are you trying to say?”

      “That I don’t think it’s fair of me to waste your time,” he finally admitted. “You’re a great girl, Rebecca. But I’ve got a lot going on with work and my kids—”

      “—and you don’t have time for a relationship,” she concluded for him. At least, not a relationship with her.

      She heard him draw a breath. “Yeah,” came his relieved reply.

      She couldn’t believe this was happening. She had only asked the other women on Danbury Way about the widowed father of two because she’d wanted to confirm his background. Never had she intended for Jack to misconstrue her interest and ask her out. Not on a date date, anyway. But one dinner had led to another and now here he was breaking up with her when she hadn’t planned on being attracted to him that way to begin with. All she’d wanted was to get to know him to seek his help meeting Russell Lever, his stepfather. Russell was the reason she’d come to Rosewood. He was her father. At least, she thought he was. Yet, not only had she not met Russell, she was being dumped. Again.

      She was back on her feet. “Not a problem.” She absolutely refused to let him know that what he was doing mattered to her in any way. If she possessed any talent at all, it was her ability to appear unfazed by what wounded her. “You take care. Okay?”

      “Yeah. Sure. You, too.”

      “’Bye, Jack.”

      Punching End Call before he could say goodbye himself, she stuck the handset back in its base and turned to gather her clothes.

      She didn’t head for her closet, though. Once she’d snatched up everything, she simply stood there, hugging her skirts while hurt slowly spread through her.

      For all her bravado, she didn’t feel unfazed at all.

      Chapter One

      In the front yard of her leased house on Danbury Way, Rebecca took another swipe at the leaves with her rake. She had no idea how many leaves an oak tree could produce, but the one gracing this particular patch of lawn was shedding them by the ton.

      She was so not into yard work, but the job had to be done. It also gave her something to do while she forced herself to accept that she, Rebecca Anne Peters, a still-single, twenty-eight-year-old freelance fashion writer who possessed excellent taste in clothes and hideous taste in men, was never going to find the security and happiness all of her friends had found. Most of them, anyway. Angela Schumacher’s life was a bit of a struggle. But her best friends in New York were all now married, engaged or seriously involved and none of those options was ever going to be available to her. What had happened with Jack a few days ago had proved that in spades.

      It wasn’t as if she’d fallen in love with the guy, she reminded herself as she attacked the leaves. She’d only liked him. So at least she’d been spared having her heart ripped out and handed back to her. Still, she’d been left feeling totally embarrassed and rejected.

      The awful sensation seemed all too familiar. It also brought back the numb, hurt and sick feeling she’d been left to cope with after Jason Cargill had broken up with her six months ago. She’d spent two years dreaming of a future with that man only to have him inform her on their way home from a movie that they were over. Two months to the day he’d said he had never really loved her, he had married someone else.

      She hated that she could still feel the painful sting of their ugly split. She hated even more that the awful sense of rejection she’d been living with was once again so acute.

      Golden leaves scattered and crunched as she waded through them in her Ralph Lauren riding boots—the only boots she owned with a heel that wouldn’t sink into the grass—to start another pile. Rake in hand, she loosened the pumpkin cashmere scarf that matched her V-necked sweater and the warp thread in the brown plaid Burberry jacket she wore with her designer jeans and attacked the dead vegetation with renewed vigor.

      The breakup with Jason had been like the starting bell of a downhill race into a single woman’s worst nightmare. Right on the heels of his betrayal had come the gorgeous weddings of two of her best friends and the birth of another friend’s beautiful baby girl. She’d been thrilled for them all. At least, she’d wanted to be, but