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       Chapter 1

      It was only when she saw the dancing swirl of cherry-colored lights in her rearview mirror that Edie Burnett glanced down at her speedometer. She was going forty miles an hour. As she eased off the gas pedal and pulled to the side of the street in front of a little dress boutique, she caught sight of a sign that indicated the speed limit was twenty-five.

      Muttering a curse beneath her breath, she came to a stop at the curb. This was just the icing on the cake of crud that had become her life.

      The official car pulled up behind her and she watched in her rearview mirror as the driver got out. Tall and lean, his khaki shirt tugged across broad shoulders as he walked toward her driver window with purposeful strides.

      An errant curl of dark hair flopped onto his broad forehead and it only took that single glance in her mirror to know that the man was a hot piece of hunk.

      Still, at the moment she didn’t much care what he looked like. She needed to figure out the best way to talk him out of giving her a ticket. She wasn’t sure she could afford lunch, much less a fine for speeding.

      Cute or pathetic? She quickly decided to reach for cute and clueless and then resort to crying if necessary. It had worked for her more than once in the past.

      “In a hurry?” His deep, pleasant voice resonated inside her and she looked up to see long-lashed eyes the color of rich, dark chocolate gazing at her.

      “Oh, wow, I’m so sorry. I had the radio on and it was a really good song and I guess my speed just kind of got away from me.” She gave him a bright bewildered smile. “I didn’t notice the speed limit sign until I saw your lights flashing in my rearview mirror.”

      “But surely you noticed you’d entered the heart of town,” he countered.

      “I’m such a dunce,” she agreed, once again giving him her friendliest grin.

      “Driver’s license please,” he said, no returning smile curving his sexy lips.

      Her own smile faltered as she dug into her oversize purse for her wallet. Damn. He was obviously going to give her a ticket. She handed him her license and watched in her mirror as he returned to his car, unable to help but notice that he looked just as good going as he had coming.

      Now was the time she’d usually summon up fake tears and hope she could find a soft spot in his heart. But as she stared blindly out the front window the tears that blurred her vision were achingly real.

      The past seven months of her life had been an utter nightmare, culminating in the call from somebody here in town that her grandfather needed help.

      It had been two years since she’d last seen her grandfather, Walt Tolliver. At that time she’d come back to the small town for her mother’s funeral. That particular trip back had been brief and so filled with grief she now scarcely remembered it. Since that time she’d tried to call the old man every weekend, yet in the past six months with her own life falling to pieces, Edie hadn’t talked to her grandfather.

      A sob escaped her and was quickly followed by another. By the time the deputy returned to her car window, she was blubbering like a baby.

      “Hey, there’s no need for that,” he exclaimed as he held her license out to her. “I’m just going to issue you a warning.”

      “It’s not that,” she replied, the words choking out of her between sobs. She grabbed the license and tossed it into the dark recesses of her purse. “It’s my life. It sucks. A year ago I was too stupid to live. I thought my creep of a boyfriend loved me and I wanted to do something special for him for his birthday so I gave him my credit card and told him to buy himself the stereo system he’d been drooling over. He bought the stereo all right, and half the store. He maxed out my card and disappeared.

      I used most of my savings to pay off the card and then I lost my job.”

      The words tumbled from her lips as if of their own free will as tears continued to cascade down her cheeks. “Then this morning as I was packing up to drive here, my landlord appeared with a thirty-day notice for me to get out. He’s selling the house where I rent an apartment and I have to go.”

      She suddenly looked up at him, appalled by the gush of her personal problems to the handsome stranger. God, how embarrassing was this? She swiped her cheeks with the back of her hands. “I’m sorry, this isn’t your problem. I’m sorry I was speeding and I appreciate you just giving me a warning.”

      “Are you okay to drive the rest of the way to Walt’s house?” he asked.

      She nodded. “I’m fine.”

      He stepped back and motioned for her to pull away from the curb. It was only when she was back on the road that she wondered how he knew she was headed toward her grandfather’s place.

      How embarrassing, to totally break down in front of a stranger and spill the sordid details of her life. She hadn’t cried a tear with each bad thing that had occurred over the past year. It seemed unfathomable that she’d had a mini-breakdown in front of a stranger.

      At least she hadn’t told him everything. She hadn’t told him that the credit card debt Greg had left her with had been the least of the heartache he’d left behind.

      She dismissed both Greg and the hot deputy from her mind as she turned off Main and onto a tree-lined residential street. Black Rock was typical of many small Kansas towns, with the business section taking up two blocks of the main drag surrounded by picturesque side streets lined with mature trees and pleasant, well-kept homes.

      When she’d been young she and her mother had often visited her grandparents for a week or so each summer. Her mother and her grandmother would spend much of that time in the kitchen and Walt would entertain Edie by teaching her to play chess, bird-watching in the backyard and gardening.

      Those had been some of the happiest days of Edie’s life. But when she’d been a teenager, she’d opted for spending time with her friends instead of visiting grandparents. Then the years had slipped away and everything had changed.

      Her grandmother had passed away, her mother was gone and now the only family she had left was her Poppy, and according to the brief phone message she’d gotten from somebody here in town, he needed her. The problem was she wasn’t in a place where