Книга - The One And Only

The One And Only
Laurie Paige


SHE WAS A ROCK IN HIS CONTROLLED PONDEverything came easily to Dr. Beau Dalton–until she walked in. Medical assistant Shelby Wheeling had secrets–big secrets. But that didn't ease the attraction that sizzled between them. Still, why was she refusing to open up to him? And why was she so intrigued by old medical records?Shelby couldn't put her past away until she accomplished one mission: find her birth parents. And no matter how much the sexy doctor made her heart race, she couldn't risk being sidetracked. But Beau's wicked loving ways seduced her from her determination to stay alone….









“That’s better,” he said in a lower tone.

“A real smile rather than a polite one.”


Their eyes locked. Time became suspended between one heartbeat and the next. For a moment, caught in those incredibly blue eyes that seemed to open clear to his soul, she relaxed her vigil. Warmth swept through her.



It was such an odd sensation that it took her a moment to recognize what it was and even longer to realize what had caused the acute stir of blood inside her.



An attraction. One that promised to be intense.



Her smile wavered. She wasn’t here for either a fling or something more lasting. Her search for the truth of her past took precedence over everything else. Knowing that, she would leave and start a new life in a new place.



At least, those were her plans….


Dear Reader,



Welcome to more juicy reads from Silhouette Special Edition. I’d like to highlight Silhouette veteran and RITA


Award finalist Teresa Hill, who has written over ten Silhouette books under the pseudonym Sally Tyler Hayes. Her second story for us, Heard It Through the Grapevine, has all the ingredients for a fast-paced read—marriage of convenience, a pregnant preacher’s daughter and a handsome hero to save the day. Teresa Hill writes, “I love this heroine because she takes a tremendous leap of faith. She hopes that her love will break down the hero’s walls, and she never holds back.” Don’t miss this touching story!



USA TODAY bestselling and award-winning author Susan Mallery returns to her popular miniseries HOMETOWN HEARTBREAKERS with One in a Million. Here, a sassy single mom falls for a drop-dead-gorgeous FBI agent, but sets a few ground rules—a little romance, no strings attached. Of course, we know rules are meant to be broken! Victoria Pade delights us with The Baby Surprise, the last in her BABY TIMES THREE miniseries, in which a confirmed bachelor discovers he may be a father. With encouragement from a beautiful heroine, he feels ready to be a parent…and a husband.



The next book in Laurie Paige’s SEVEN DEVILS miniseries, The One and Only features a desirable medical assistant with a secret past who snags the attention of a very charming doctor. Judith Lyons brings us Alaskan Nights, which involves two opposites who find each other irritating, yet totally irresistible! Can these two survive a little engine trouble in the wilderness? In A Mother’s Secret, Pat Warren tells of a mother in search of her secret child and the discovery of the man of her dreams.



This month is all about love against the odds and finding that special someone when you least expect it. As you lounge in your favorite chair, lose yourself in one of these gems!



Sincerely,



Karen Taylor Richman

Senior Editor




The One and Only

Laurie Paige





www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


For Russell, who, while not of the Dalton gang of Seven Devils Mountains, was a true hero when I needed one. Thanks for your help.

Laurie




LAURIE PAIGE


Along with her writing adventures, Laurie has been a NASA engineer, a past president of the Romance Writers of America, a mother and a grandmother. She was twice a Romance Writers of America RITA


Award finalist for Best Traditional Romance and has won awards from Romantic Times for Best Silhouette Special Edition and Best Silhouette. She has resettled in Northern California.










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

Chapter Thirteen




Chapter One


S helby Wheeling smiled with the youngster as the doctor made a funny face at him, told him to say, “Ah,” then checked his throat.

Dr. Dalton tossed the tongue depressor in the trash can. “For an old guy, you look pretty good to me. Don’t forget to pick up a book on your way out,” he said.

“To keep?” the boy asked.

“To keep,” the doctor assured him.

The free checkup for all children entering kindergarten was a new program for the school, sponsored by the state, to see if it could nip problems in the bud and result in fewer absences for the new students.

“Tonsils,” Dr. Dalton said to her after the child left the room. “Make a note to keep an eye out for strep infections and sore throats.”

Shelby quickly wrote the observations on the boy’s chart and filed the chart in the special box provided by the state of Idaho for the Lost Valley School District. As the school nurse, it would be her duty to follow up on the doctor’s orders.

New to the area, Shelby was still enthralled by the “Wild West,” as her parents back in the Low Country of South Carolina called the area. The Seven Devils Mountains arched spiny peaks into the blue bowl of the sky to the west of the valley. The Lost Valley reservoir eventually drained into the Salmon River, which ran into the Hells Canyon of the Snake River dividing Idaho from Oregon.

Rugged, mountainous land.

She glanced at the doctor as he helped a little girl up on the stool. Dr. Nicholas Boudreaux Dalton was handsome as sin, a beguiling devil with nearly black hair and eyes the color of the western sky. He’d asked her to call him by his nickname, Beau.

According to her landlady at the B and B, there were several other Daltons just as deadly gorgeous.

This particular one was very good with children, kind and teasing with the little ones, but all serious business with her. That suited her just fine.

She wasn’t in town for romance. Far from it. She wanted to find her birth parents and to discover if any genetic disorders ran in the family. Her adoptive mom and dad worried about her getting hurt. They urged her to put the past behind her and to make a new life, but she needed to know this one thing for her own peace of mind.

“Say ‘ah,’” the doctor told the girl.

“Ah,” she mimicked, then she stuck her tongue out at him and crossed her eyes.

“Hold it,” Dr. Dalton said, and pretended to take a picture. “We need to run a photo on the front page of the paper. ‘Monster on the loose in Lost Valley. Can’t see well, but may be dangerous. Tickling makes it disappear,’” he said as if quoting headlines.

The five-year-old giggled when he proceeded to give her a gentle tickle under her ear.

The childish laughter caused an instant flash of pain along Shelby’s nerves, and with it, the regret and the terrible sense of loss.

Like now, the memories came at odd moments. She’d be fine, then some little thing—the delighted gurgle of a baby, the happy squeal of a child in a park, the closeness of a family having dinner in a restaurant—would throw her into the tangled web of the past.

The helplessness of watching her own child slip away from life returned like a hammer blow to her chest. Nine months of carrying the baby, a year of watching her slowly fade due to a metabolic disorder until she went into a coma for a day, then…then it was over, and Shelby was left with only the memories. And the regret.

“Okay, Kenisha, I think you’ll be fine in school,” Dr. Dalton said. “Try not to give your teacher a heart attack with the monster face.”

The girl scrambled down from the stool and dashed into the reception room to pick out a book, her mother rushing to keep up with her.

“Her weight is low, off the bottom of the chart for her age and height,” he said. “I want her on a daily vitamin program. Put her down for recall in three months.”

Shelby heard the words, but they didn’t register. She knew she should be writing something, but her hand didn’t move across the page of the girl’s chart.

“Shelby?”

She stared into the blue eyes, the handsome, serious face, but she didn’t respond to the question. Locked someplace between the past and the present, it was as if she didn’t exist in either time.

“Hold the fort,” Beau said, sticking his head around the door frame and speaking to the volunteer who was directing the flow of children into the examining room of the clinic. “Give us ten minutes to catch up.”

He closed the door, then poured two cups of coffee. “Here. Drink this.”

He watched the new school nurse as he held the plastic cup out toward her. She blinked, looked from him to the cup, then accepted it. Her fingers trembled slightly.

“Did you eat breakfast?” he asked.

She shook her head. A ghost of an apologetic smile appeared and disappeared, flashing over her mouth so rapidly he wasn’t sure he’d seen it. “I was running late. The alarm didn’t go off. Fortunately, Amelia woke me.”

Amelia was the owner of the local B and B. A thoughtful person, she’d sent some muffins to the clinic that morning for the staff. From Shelby’s remarks, he assumed she was staying at the grand old Victorian.

“Low blood sugar,” he diagnosed, although he was sure it was more than that. He made a point of not prying into other people’s problems. Unless the person was a patient, of course, which she wasn’t. “We’ll take a break. Sit down for a few minutes.”

“Yes, thank you,” she said. She took a seat and sipped the steaming coffee.

Beau went into the staff room, snagged two muffins and two cartons of nonfat milk and returned. His assistant was sitting where he’d left her, her gaze on the peaks visible from the window.

She glanced his way. Her eyes were as blue as his own, but her hair was a flaming auburn, as straight and fine as silk thread. Caught with a blue band at the nape, it cascaded down her back like a flow of hot lava.

He’d wanted to touch it since meeting her last week for the preschool consultation with the state and county officials about the new program. Interest of a physical nature hummed through him. He mentally took a step back to observe his own reaction.

Yeah, he was interested. But he wouldn’t act on it.

Inhaling deeply as he put the treat on the counter behind her, he caught the subtle scent of shampoo and soap and talc, but no added cologne or perfume.

Her face, with its hint of golden freckles, was free of makeup. Its shape was a classic oval, like those in pictures depicting saints and such. He wanted to run his fingers along her cheek to see if her skin was as soft and smooth as it looked. Normally flushed a healthy pink, she looked pale now. “Peaked,” his uncle Nick would say.

“Eat,” he said.

She did as told. He let the silence linger between them while they finished the snack. Slowly the color returned to her face. Serenity seemed to enclose her in a protective aura, a thing he’d noticed at their first meeting, as if she existed in a clear shell that the world couldn’t penetrate.

Again, he felt the tug of interest, only this time it was centered on her character. Was she reserved by nature, or had life shaped her that way?

None of his business, he reminded the curious part of him. Theirs was a business relationship.

“Thank you. That was delicious.” She wiped the corners of her mouth, smiled and stood. “Sorry, but what was I supposed to put on Kenisha’s chart?”

“Her weight is rather low. That in itself isn’t necessarily a problem, but I want to keep an eye on her. She’s to get a daily vitamin. Let’s see her again in three months.”

“Right.” She wrote the information and flagged the chart, all business again now that she’d eaten.

Beau decided his original diagnosis had been correct—she’d needed a break and something to eat. After tossing the plastic cup into the trash, he told the receptionist to continue sending the kids in.

Normally on a Wednesday he’d be helping Zack over at the resort they were building at the lake. Instead he’d spent the time in the office. He and several local citizens were donating their services through the clinic he’d opened in July, a month ago today, to the cause of children’s health before they started school in a couple of weeks.

Restlessness assailed him. Another two hours and they would be finished for the day. Then he’d head for the lake.

Shelby, the new part-time school nurse, stored the file in the box and selected the next one. Her smile was all gentle welcome as the next child came through the door.

His heart kicked into gear with a hard, steady th-thump that added to the hum of sexual energy running through him.

Cool it, he advised his libido. He didn’t mix business and pleasure, never had, never would. However he did have a proposition to put to her. He’d already decided to invite her out to lunch when they finished.

It was after twelve before the last of the youngsters in the new program were checked and pronounced fit. The kids were also going through a battery of tests to determine their readiness for school. Welcome to the exciting world of learning!

“How about some lunch?” he said to Shelby.

She shook her head and closed the file box provided by the state. “I, uh—”

It was obvious she couldn’t come up with a reasonable lie fast enough to account for a refusal. Her reluctance was a challenge. It wasn’t often a Dalton was refused by a woman. However this wasn’t the two-step of courtship.

“It’s business,” he assured her.

“Business?” she repeated, looking dubious.

Beau wondered if she was so used to mowing men down with a glance from those blue eyes and a toss of that flaming hair that she couldn’t comprehend a straightforward business offer. “Yes. If you’re available, I thought we could discuss it over lunch.”

She looked so relieved, he was almost insulted. He concluded he must be losing his touch. True, it had been a coon’s age since he’d dated. Opening the clinic here and turning over his office in Boise to another doctor had taken up a lot of time and energy. It was a move he’d been saving and planning for, for five years.

Thinking over the past week, he didn’t think he’d given the new nurse any reason to distrust him. He hadn’t made a single untoward move during the four meetings they’d had to set up the screening program for the schoolkids.

With rueful amusement, he wondered if that was the problem—she’d expected a pass and he hadn’t delivered. The town gossips tended to paint the Daltons with the broad brush of conjecture and innuendo, recounting every escapade from their youth with delighted indignation to newcomers.

“I suppose that would be all right,” she finally agreed after taking her own sweet time to think it over.

“Good. Let’s go. I’m starving.”

He escorted her to his old pickup. She glanced at the vehicle, then at him. He couldn’t help but grin at her surprise. “The royal chariot,” he intoned, opening the door for her with a grand sweep.

The August heat, trapped in the interior of the truck, rolled over them like a blast from a furnace.

“Whew, let’s let it cool out a bit first,” he suggested. He slid into the driver’s seat and started the engine, then flipped the air conditioner on to maximum air.

She got in, fastened the seat belt and looked at him without a hint of expression on her Madonna-perfect face.

For the first time since first or second grade, he felt rattled by a female’s stare. That she expected nothing and wanted nothing from him was obvious. Puzzling, too. He’d never had such a nonreaction from a member of the opposite sex. Well, so much for the famed Dalton charm.

Laughing silently at his somewhat dented ego, he slammed the pickup door and headed for the lake. He wondered if she’d accept his proposition.



“How quaint,” Shelby murmured, entering the restaurant with its rustic wooden interior when Beau held the screen door open for her.

“Sit anyplace you like,” a young woman advised, smiling at them from the cash register. “I’ll be with you in a jiffy.”

“There’s a place by the window,” her handsome companion said, gesturing across the plank floor to the opposite side of the room. Since it was after the main lunch hour, there were only three other occupied tables at present.

Beau took her arm and guided her to a table commanding a view of the Lost Valley reservoir and the mountains beyond. When they were settled, the hostess brought menus over. “The special is barbecued beans on cornbread with salad or coleslaw. It’s delicious,” she told them. “Your waitress is Emma. She’ll be with you shortly. May I bring you something to drink?”

“Iced tea, please,” Shelby said.

While he echoed her order, she observed the scene beyond the large window. The sun emblazoned diamond dust over every leaf, every blade of grass, every ruffle of water in the lake, so that the whole world seemed to sparkle.

She sighed, filled with a sort of nostalgia now instead of the intense grief. Like the endless sweep of the waves at the seashore where she grew up, the mountains had a therapeutic effect on her soul, easing the pain of loss and the hopes that had once filled her eighteen-year-old heart.

If there was one thing she had learned since that youthful time, it was that life was relentless. She’d only to live one day at a time, then the next, and the next, and then somehow, a year went by, and another, and another.

The heart does go on.

Her companion dug some change out of his pocket. He lined up a penny, nickel, dime and quarter on the table between them. When she raised her eyebrows in question, he flicked a finger toward the coins.

“However much your thoughts are worth,” he said. “Take your pick. Or all of them.”

After the waitress delivered tall glasses of iced tea, Shelby looked over the change and selected the quarter. “It’s the Kentucky commemorative quarter,” she told him, holding it up so he could see. “My mother came from there. Her parents had a farm and boarded horses. She loves to ride and still does to this day. We always had horses when I was growing up.”

“Do you like riding?”

She nodded, then added truthfully, “Not that I’ve done much for the past ten—no, eleven—years.”

“We’ll have to see if we can’t change that. My family has a ranch near here with plenty of horses just lazing around and getting fat.”

The low, sexy cadence of his words rippled with easy affection as he mentioned the ranch. She knew he’d grown up there, raised by his uncle Nick along with five other Dalton orphans, his mother having died in childbirth and his father in an avalanche that also claimed his cousin’s parents more than twenty-two years ago. Amelia at the B and B had told her this much.

The soft aura of regret enlarged to include him. He, too, had suffered loss. He, too, had gone on and made a life for himself.

Heavens, but she was sentimental today. She laid the quarter back in the line and turned her attention to a couple who strolled along the lake path.

Her companion pushed the quarter toward her and pocketed the rest of the change. “That was for sharing your thoughts. You’ve been pensive today. Do you miss your folks?”

She nodded, letting him think she might be homesick. Baring her soul to anyone wasn’t her way.

“So why did you leave the civilized east and come out here to the wilderness?”

“I’m looking for a cowboy, of course. Isn’t that the American icon of manly courage?” Her grin wasn’t exactly sincere, but she managed to hang on to it.

“Ready?” the waitress, who looked as if she might be sweet sixteen, inquired.

Shelby ordered the special. The doctor did, too, but added barbecued beef on the side. When the girl was gone, he eyed her for a minute.

There was something about his serious manner that was appealing. He had depth to him. And a solid presence that a person could depend on.

A slight shudder rippled through her. Her husband, as youthful as she, had deserted her and their child after the first month of sleepless nights and worry. He’d been the boy next door and she’d had a crush on him for as long as she could remember. He’d promised he would always be there.

Always had been exactly ten months after the marriage.

Closing her eyes for a second, she willed the memories to fade back into the hazy mist of the past. What was done, was done. She opened her eyes to find Beau studying her with a somewhat quizzical expression.

He was probably wondering what made her tick, seeing that she tended to go off into a daze every little bit today. She’d better pay attention if she wanted to keep her job and do her research.

“Sorry,” she murmured, “I was daydreaming. The mountains are so beautiful I find it hard not to simply stare at them. What did you want to talk to me about?”

“A job.”

That surprised her. “Well, I already have one.”

His smile was quick and somewhat wry. “It’s part-time. I wondered if you might be interested in working at the clinic as my assistant in the mornings.”

“I’m teaching health classes at the high school three mornings a week. It’s also part of the new program funded by the state.”

“Yeah, the weight problems of the average American family has hit the national conscience, it seems. Education is part of the solution. Exercise is the other side of the equation, in my opinion. Not that anyone has asked me.”

His laughter reminded her of soft mornings and quiet walks, of birdsong and the whispers of the wind through the pines, of the peace she’d experienced since arriving in this enchanted valley. She could almost forget she had a mission.

“A daily activity program will be part of my class,” she told him, glad of an innocuous topic to discuss. “Diets don’t work for most people. Less than ten percent of those who diet keep the weight off a year later while those who stick to a regular exercise program do.”

“Right. Say, maybe we can incorporate some kind of program for our patients,” he said.

She realized where her enthusiasm for healthy lifestyles was leading. “I can’t take on anything else at present. But thank you for thinking of me.”

He shrugged, irritation or disappointment flicking through the thoughtful blue eyes. Well, she couldn’t live her life to please him. She had her own problems.

Her mom’s worried gaze appeared in her mental vision, her eyes the same deep blue as hers so that most people thought they were truly mother and daughter by blood. Maybe she was wrong to come here, to want to find out what she could about her birth parents.

Putting the past behind her sounded simple, but if she ever married again, she had to know…before she could chance having other children.

The heart-hurting love and regret hit her again, as always when she thought of the precious life that she’d once held in her arms—

“You okay?”

She blinked and came back to the present. “Sorry. I keep going off the deep end today, don’t I?” She laughed softly to indicate it was nothing serious, only spring fever or something like that.

Realizing she sounded nervous instead of amused, she took a sip of tea and fought for composure, building the wall around her emotions one stone at a time until she was safe behind it again. Their meal arrived, relieving her of the need for small talk until they were alone again.

“You’re very good with the children,” she told him. “Putting them on the stool while you sit on a chair puts them on the same eye level. That way you don’t loom over them like some colossus.”

His face lit up in pleasure. Her heart gave an odd hitch that disturbed her equanimity a bit.

“I hated getting shots when I was a kid,” he said. “One doctor had my mom sit on a stool and hold me while he sat on another one to do the examination. He told me he had to give me a shot, but it wouldn’t hurt as much as it had before. He was right. It didn’t seem nearly so bad. Since then, I’ve tried to remember what it’s like being a kid.”

She realized Beau would make a good father. A sigh forced its way past her lips. She hadn’t picked well when it came to a father for her child. Her nineteen-year-old husband had panicked and run when he realized there were serious problems to be faced.

Her parents had taken her and their grandchild in. Because of them, she’d weathered the storm of anger and grief and regret. Due to their loving support, she’d come through the ordeal a stronger person. With their help, she’d gone on to nursing school so she, too, could assist others in times of need.

Glancing up, she met the fathomless gaze of her companion. A feeling that all would come right, that here in this rugged country she would find the answers she sought, spread over her like a golden light. She smiled.

His lips curved in response.

Her smile grew.

He chuckled. “That’s better,” he said in a lower tone. “A real smile rather than a polite one.”

Their eyes locked. Time became suspended between one heartbeat and the next. She hadn’t trusted anyone outside her family since she was nineteen. Ten years. For a moment, caught in those incredibly blue eyes that seemed open clear to his soul, she relaxed her vigil. Warmth swept through her.

It was such an odd sensation that it took her a moment to recognize what it was and even longer to realize what had caused the acute stir of blood inside her.

An attraction. One that promised to be intense.

Her smile wavered. She wasn’t here for either a fling or even something more lasting. Her search for the truth of her past took precedence over everything else. Knowing that, she would then leave and start a new life in a new place.

Those were her plans.




Chapter Two


S helby was tired upon returning to the Lost Valley B and B that evening. After changing to a knit slacks outfit, she went to the large lobby and reception area. Several couples and a family with two children enjoyed the ambience of the common room.

The owner, Amelia Miller, called out a greeting upon seeing Shelby. “How did your day go with the kids?”

“Fine but tiring,” Shelby admitted. She chose a glass of iced wine cooler and a plate of fruit, cheese and veggies, then sat at a table for two overlooking the back garden. “You must have a green thumb,” she told her landlady when she stopped by the table.

“Nope, a dedicated gardener. I can do okay with African violets, but that’s my limit.”

“Join me if you have a moment,” Shelby invited.

Amelia nodded. “Let me refill the fruit tray, then I will.” She dashed off to the nether regions of the large Victorian that had been converted to a bed-and-breakfast.

Shelby watched the shadows lengthen over the lovely landscape. In the carriage house or barn or whatever it was behind the main house, she could see several people moving around. They appeared to be couples. Were they dancing?

Amelia returned with a glass of red wine. “Whew, I must be getting old or people are eating more. It’s harder to keep up nowadays.”

Since Amelia looked no more than a couple of years older than she was, Shelby ignored the age remark. She grimaced ruefully. “According to all reports, Americans are eating more.”

“So how was your first day, really?” Amelia asked. “Did Beau Dalton give you a hard time? Did you get heart palpitations as all the local gals do around the Daltons?”

Her laughter was so merry that Shelby had to laugh, too. “He is good-looking, but he was also professional.”

“Ah, yes. All the Daltons are dedicated to their jobs.”

Shelby, not knowing the family, didn’t comment. Instead she said, “He offered me a job in his office.”

“Did he? I suppose he could use more help. He has a nurse practitioner who’s also a midwife—she sees her own patients—and a receptionist who keeps the books, but he probably needs someone to assist him. It’s difficult to get help in a small town.”

“Hmm,” Shelby said noncommittally. “Has he been in business here long?”

“Before July he kept office hours in town, going from once to twice a week during the past year, but his main office was in the city. Last month he made the shift to here full time.”

Shelby had learned “the city” referred to Boise, which was over an hour’s drive south of the valley. “I see. Did he buy out another doctor’s practice?”

“No. Doc Barony died about ten years ago.”

Shelby knew Beau was too young to have had a practice there very long, but she’d hoped he had taken over another’s patients. That way, there might have been records going back several years, maybe to her birth.

“The house had been empty until Beau started up an office and brought in the midwife,” Amelia continued.

“The house?” Shelby asked, not sure what her landlady was talking about.

“Beau’s office. It belonged to the old doctor. The attic is still full of records, the receptionist said. She’s afraid the ceiling is going to fall in on her head.”

A jolt of excitement shot straight through Shelby. Records! Just what she wanted to get her hands on. But how?

Amelia finished her wine and stood. “Well, back to work. I see a new family arriving. How do you like your room? It’s rather small, so I worry about claustrophobia.”

“I love it,” Shelby assured the other woman, who had lovely auburn hair with golden highlights and a charming amount of natural curl, unlike her own flaming-red, string-straight locks that had been the scourge of her life.

With a satisfied nod, Amelia left. Shelby at once reverted to her own mission. If only she could accept Beau’s offer of a job. No, she already had too much to do. Maybe she could volunteer to sort through the old records, keeping the ones for current patients.

Why would anyone in her right mind volunteer for such a job? She couldn’t come up with a good reason.

A tall, masculine figure with dark hair and a smooth stride crossed a flagstone path, heading for the door near her table. Her heart gave an unexpected skip-thump-skip-thump before settling down when she realized the man was a stranger, one who looked awfully like Beau Dalton.

He paused as if hearing something, then turned, waiting for a lovely woman to catch up with him. She came from the carriage house, where, Shelby assumed, the man had also been. The door opened, admitting the couple and a wave of August air, hot and dusty to the senses.

Meeting the man’s eyes, she saw they were as blue as the early evening sky. He had to be one of the infamous Daltons that Amelia had mentioned. He gave her a smile and nod. The blonde on his arm glanced her way.

“Are you the new school nurse?” she asked.

“Why, yes,” Shelby said, unable to hide her surprise.

The young woman, about Shelby’s age, held out a hand. “I’m Honey Dalton. This is Zack. Beau has mentioned working with you. Zack and Beau are cousins.”

“I’m Shelby Wheeling.” Shelby shook hands with both of them, giving Zack a wry smile. “You and your cousin look enough alike to be twins.”

That brought a ripple of laughter from the couple. “We have those in the family, too,” he explained. “My younger brothers are twins.”

“Do they look like you and Dr. Dalton, too?”

“They do,” Honey told her. “Get the four of them together and even I get confused.”

“Yeah? Just don’t let me catch you making out with one of the others,” Zack threatened.

Noting their wedding rings and the easy air between them, Shelby concluded they were husband and wife. “Is something going on in the carriage house?” she asked, curious about the couples she saw leaving.

Honey nodded. “I’m holding dance classes there. That was the Wednesday afternoon couples class. Ballroom and modern dance. We would love to have you join us.”

Shelby didn’t know what to say.

“I need a partner,” Zack assured her. “My wife dances with all the other men on the pretext of showing them what to do and how to hold their partners. I end up standing by the wall most of the time.”

“Uh, thanks, but I think I’d better get settled in a bit more first. You wouldn’t happen to know of any apartments for rent, would you?”

Honey was sympathetic. “It’s hard to find a rental in a small place like this. However, there’s a cottage by the lake next to the resort property,” she said with a tentative glance at her husband.

“It’s for sale, not rent,” he reminded her.

“I was wondering if they might rent it while waiting for a buyer. You know the owner. Think you could ask him?”

Shelby perked up at this news. The only available apartment in town had been over a gas station and totally unacceptable in terms of cleanliness, repairs and general livability. The extremely low rent had been its only redeeming feature.

“No problem. I’ll let you know,” he told Shelby.

“Thanks. Would you leave word with Amelia if I’m not in? I’ll be teaching at the high school three mornings each week when school starts, then doing nurse duty at the elementary school in the afternoons.”

“Isn’t this the loveliest place?” Honey gestured around the B and B common room. “Amelia serves the best breakfast rolls and pastries in town. Zack is a deputy with the sheriff’s department. Sometimes he claims he has to stay over in town, but I know he does it only so he can get a room here and have one of Amelia’s breakfasts.”

He laid a hand over his heart. “A man has to do his sworn duty.” In an aside, he mock-whispered to Shelby, “Honey always manages to stay over, too, and join me for breakfast and the evening snacks. She says it’s my company she misses. A likely story.”

Laughing, they bid her goodbye and went to speak to the landlady before heading out the front door.

A funny pang, part nostalgia, part yearning, filled Shelby’s chest so that it was difficult to breathe. Once she’d been like that couple—happy and confident and so very much in love, so sure of the future.

Now she could only shake her head at how naive she’d been at eighteen, fresh out of school and determined to marry her sweetheart. She hadn’t been able to imagine anything bad happening to them.

Looking out at the golden grasslands beyond the lush garden, she realized she no longer imagined anything very wonderful happening in her future.

My, how pessimistic she had grown, she chided. Expect the worst so as not to be surprised when it happened. That was her motto. She had to smile.



“I’m sorry, Miss Wheeling, the funds didn’t come through. We thought they had been promised, but someone misunderstood,” the assistant superintendent of schools explained.

It was Monday morning and Shelby had reported in for the teachers’ planning sessions at the high school, but had been referred to the superintendent’s office instead.

“So there’re no funds for a health teacher?” she repeated to make sure she understood. “What about the school nurse position in the afternoons?”

“We’re okay on that,” he assured her with a big smile. “Those funds come from a different pot.”

“I see.”

“I’m terribly sorry about all this,” he continued. “We always need substitutes. Perhaps I could put you on the list?”

“Uh, let me think about it. I’ll get back to you.” She rose when he did, obviously dismissed.

Her ears ringing with his apologies, she left the building and drove from the county seat, where the high school and administrative offices were located, to Lost Valley. Considering her savings, she had enough money to make it here for a year without working at all, but work gave her a ready cover for her covert activities.

Arriving in town, she parked in front of the Victorian that housed the doctor’s offices. She actually felt lighter as she walked up the steps and into the building. Now if the job with Beau was still open, all would be perfect.

He was at lunch, the receptionist told her. The office would be open at two. Disgruntled, Shelby retraced her steps and stood on the broad porch with its sweeping view of the three nearest peaks from which Seven Devils Mountains got its name.

He-Devil Mountain. She-Devil Mountain. The Devil’s Tooth. Odd names that came from a Native American legend of seven monsters who had terrorized the land until Coyote turned them into mountains.

The monsters must have been made from copper for that was the most common ore in the area. Gold had been discovered near there in 1860.

She whimsically wished she could have lived then. To be a pioneer and brave the elements and the rugged wilderness, to find copper and gold, to found a homestead the way the Dalton ancestors had…

She sighed and shook her head at the romantic musing. Life had never been that idealistic.



“Get lost, cousin,” Beau said.

Zack, startled, glanced toward the door of the restaurant. The Crow’s Nest was a log-and-plank structure with a view of the reservoir that provided water for the small town of Lost Valley. The restaurant was deliberately rustic, but the scenery saved it from coyness. The food made it a draw for locals as well as visiting fishermen.

“Ah, the nurse,” Zack said, spotting the lone female entering through the heavy plank door with its antler door handles. “Something going there, cuz?”

Beau grinned mysteriously. “I offered her a job last week. I think she may accept. The teaching job didn’t get funded, so she might need extra income.”

“Well, then, good luck. Time for me to return to the harrowing life of a lawman, running down stray dogs, saving cats from trees and all that excitement.”

Zack rose, gestured for Shelby to join them and held out a chair. “Hey, pretty lady,” he called. “You’re just in time. I’m Zack. We met at Amelia’s last week.”

“I remember. You and Honey,” she said.

When she was seated, he winked over her head at Beau, then ambled out to the sheriff’s department cruiser assigned to him as a deputy.

“Oh, did I interrupt?” she asked.

“Not at all,” Beau said, enjoying the flash of fire in her hair as she watched his cousin depart. She turned back to him.

Man, but she was beautiful. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen a woman with so much natural beauty. Heavenly eyes. Gorgeous hair. Skin like the peaches and cream of song and poem.

His fingers actually tingled with the urge to reach out and touch…and get his face slapped in the process. That clear shell, like an enchanted glass bubble, surrounded her as fully as a suit of armor.

“Have you had lunch?” he asked.

She shook her head.

He signaled for a menu to the teenager who was waiting tables today. “Grilled chicken was the special. I can recommend it.”

For some reason it pleased him that she followed his suggestion. “The raspberry iced tea,” she finished.

“So, how was your morning?” he asked.

She visibly hesitated, then said, “Well, that depends on how you look at it.”

Her smile was unexpected, a gift that sent warmth scurrying around inside him. Another surprise. He didn’t know why she had such an effect on him. But there it was.

“Tell me how you look at it,” he invited.

When she explained about the teaching job, he nodded. “You knew?” she asked.

“I saw the high school principal over the weekend. He was angry at the budget cut and the loss of the classes. He thought the school administration had been unfair to you. Is that the way you feel?”

Impish dimples appeared at the corners of her mouth. “Not if the position in your office is still open.”

His gaze fastened on the dimples. He thought of kissing her there, then continuing on to the soft, pink mouth. A buzz of sexual interest hummed through his blood.

Her smile faltered.

He forced himself to lighten up. “Uh, yes, the position is still open. Does this mean you’ll take it?”

The dimples returned. “Tell me the hours and the pay first.”

“Hmm, going to drive a hard bargain, are you?” He raised one eyebrow in mock challenge. “You won’t get a better offer in town. Most women would snap it up.”

She laughed out loud. “How much?” she demanded. “How long?”

“From eight until noon on days you have to report to the elementary school. Eight to five on days you don’t. We’re closed on Wednesdays, open a half day on Saturday if it’s busy, which it probably won’t be in winter.”

She shook her head. “I’ll be at school every afternoon.”

“But only until three. You could come over for a couple of hours after that.”

“Let me get settled into the school routine first, then I’ll think about the afternoons. Only mornings now.”

He went through the same two-step with her over salary. She opted for hourly pay with time-and-a-half if she worked on Saturdays. He agreed, thinking he got a bargain. It was impossible to find professional help in the area. He’d lucked out.

“So how did you happen to come to town?” he asked after her lunch was served and his cup refilled with fresh coffee.

“I wanted to live someplace different. When I saw a notice for a school nurse here and looked the town up on the map, I thought this was the place.”

“Where did you see the notice?”

“On the Internet.”

“I see. Then?”

“Then I responded to the ad, found out it involved teaching and, since I had teaching credentials for first aid, health and beginning nursing care, I was accepted.”

“Some of the cowboys who came to town Friday night were real glad when they saw you walking on the path by the lake. We don’t get many redheaded beauty queens here.”

Again she laughed, and again the heat flowed like sweet, warm honey through him.

“I think I’m glad, too,” he murmured.

Her eyes met his, widened, then looked away. “I don’t date the boss,” she said with prim modesty.

“Neither do I. But dinner with a colleague is okay.” Glancing at the wall clock—a picture of the mountains painted on a polished pine slab with the dial mounted at the corner—he found it was time to be getting back. “Duty calls,” he said. “Can you start in the morning?”

“Yes. I’ll be there. At eight.”

“Good.” He paid the bill for both of them over her protests. “Consider it a welcome luncheon,” he told her, feeling jaunty and pleased about their deal, before heading to the office for afternoon hours.

There was something intriguing about the new school nurse, something he couldn’t quite put a finger on. A mystery. Perhaps she’d come here because she was running from something. A painful past? A possessive boyfriend? A scandal? There were lots of possibilities.

Washing up before seeing his afternoon patients, he considered the careful distance she maintained from others. He’d always been a sucker for a challenge.



Returning to the B and B upon finishing her lunch, Shelby stepped over the threshold and paused. There seemed to be a meeting going on.

“Come on in,” Amelia called. “We’re having a committee meeting, part of the Historical Society.”

“We can use all the help we can get,” one very elderly lady told her, the lines in her face all crinkling at once into a charming, ageless smile.

“Grab a glass of tea and some cookies,” Amelia advised. “This is going to be a long session.”

Shelby was pulled into the group of four women and found herself seated, sipping tea and earnestly considering the committee’s project—compile a brief historical listing of all the old families who had settled the area, where they’d come from, who their descendants were, and how many generations were represented.

“A sort of genealogy of the valley,” Amelia concluded two hours later. “I think it will have to be tied to the land as land titles are usually the most common records.”

“Exactly,” the elderly lady said, beaming.

Shelby learned Miss Pickford, president of the Historical Society, was also descended from a First Family of Idaho, as were the Daltons. The woman was almost eighty, had taught in a two-room school in the county, had retired fifteen years ago, was kin to the Daltons and nearly everyone else in the area, and was universally loved. She had blue eyes and lovely silver hair and a soft, thoughtful way of speaking that made one instinctively trust her.

After the meeting broke up, Shelby and Amelia lingered over fresh glasses of tea and chatted about the task ahead.

Amelia laughed softly. “Welcome to the newest member of the Historical Society.” She toasted Shelby with her glass.

“I don’t know how that happened,” Shelby admitted with more than a hint of wry humor.

“I do,” her landlady said confidently. “Miss Pickford could get money and a pledge to participate in a Christmas toy fund-raiser from the Grinch.”

“I think you’re right. We need to find out about her early teaching days here,” Shelby said thoughtfully. “She must know tons of interesting stories and anecdotes.”

“Hmm, she could probably blackmail ninety percent of the population over the age of thirty since she taught most of them. My parents had her when the school board opened the elementary school here for one through eighth grades and closed all the county schools.”

A bolt of excitement shot through Shelby. The teacher might have known her parents, too. Her mother could have been a student who got pregnant and went away to have the baby, perhaps living with relatives in South Carolina and giving the baby up for adoption there.

She took a calming breath, aware that she was letting her imagination run wild. One thing at a time.

Amelia snapped her fingers. “Old Doc Barony’s records!”

“In the attic,” Shelby added, following the line of thought perfectly.

“Yes. In your spare time…” Amelia said, giving her a big grin, “maybe you could record the names of patients—oh, and the dates any of them died and any children born—then we could compare those to the county title records to make sure we got everyone.”

Shelby’s heart went into a series of rapid beats. Birth. Death. Names. Dates. Diseases and disorders. Those records might tell her everything she needed to know.

“That’s a possibility,” she said, careful to keep her voice blandly interested.

“You’d have to ask Beau, but I don’t see any reason he’d refuse. I mean, you’re a nurse, so you’d keep everything confidential.”

“Right,” Shelby said. “In fact, I’m going to be working for Dr. Dalton. In the mornings.” She explained all that had happened that day—the canceling of the health classes and her acceptance of Beau’s offer.

“Perfect,” Amelia declared, rising. She glanced at her watch. “Time to start preparing the evening snacks. I have a new recipe for crab-apple dip, as in seafood mixed with fresh chopped apples, that I want to try tonight. Come to the kitchen and we can talk while I cook.”

Shelby followed her new friend into the spacious kitchen. The cook who did the breakfast menu was gone for the day, and the two younger women had it to themselves.

“Here, taste this and see if it has too much chili powder.” Amelia handed her a cracker with a generous dollop of the dip.

“I think it’s delicious. Shall I start on a vegetable tray or something?”

“Sure. In that big refrigerator, bottom drawer.”

After a few minutes of peeling and arranging, Shelby murmured, “This is nice. It makes me sort of miss my mom, though. She and I always cooked together.”

“My mother and I were a disaster together,” Amelia admitted. “She never thought I did anything right.”

“That’s too bad,” Shelby said sympathetically.

Amelia sighed. “She was right about some things. I married a handsome rodeo cowboy I’d known for all of two weeks, suffered two miserable years of marriage, then left him when he actually hit me once. In the meantime, my grandparents died within a few years of each other and I inherited this place. I was glad to tuck my tail between my legs and come here to live.”

“You’ve created a wonderful B and B,” Shelby said sincerely. “You make all your guests feel welcome.”

“It’s because I’m happy. I learned home is truly where the heart is, and this is mine.”

For a minute Shelby wanted desperately to bare her soul to Amelia and to tell her of her own past mistakes and her present quest. She hesitated, the phone rang and the moment was lost.

That was probably better anyway. She didn’t want the information about her search leaking. If her birth mother still lived here, she didn’t want to expose her to the embarrassment of her neighbors knowing about the child she’d given up twenty-nine years ago.

After having her own child and losing it, albeit to death, she didn’t want to cause pain to anyone else. Setting the finished tray in the fridge, Shelby waved to the other woman and went to her room.

She considered the old records in the attic at Beau’s office. They might tell her everything she needed to know without her having to search for a living person.

Tomorrow she would start work for Beau Dalton. She would ask him about going through the records for the Historical Society and volunteer to dispose of them. She considered this plan from all angles and decided it had no problems that she could see.

A picture of intense blue eyes flashed into her mind, eyes that seemed to see right inside her at times. She would have to compose her request beforehand so that she didn’t stumble over the words and arouse his suspicions.

She wondered if he believed her story of finding out about the position here over the Internet.

It was true…as far as it went.

But, of course, it wasn’t the whole story. She’d known exactly where she was going to look for a job.

The town was the only thing she knew about her birth mother. A copper bracelet had been forgotten and left at the birthing clinic. It had been made by a Nez Perce family and sold through a gift shop here in Lost Valley. The nurse had put it with her belongings when her adoptive parents had come to pick her up.

Shelby removed the bracelet from her small jewelry carrier, a velvet roll-up bag with several pockets her aunt, one of her father’s sisters, had given her at graduation years ago. The copper gleamed brightly in the afternoon light from the window. Its polished stones were engraved with intricate symbols, similar to Egyptian scarabs but using birds and plants for models.

She didn’t think her parents had been Native American, but that was a possibility. After considering wearing the bracelet, she reluctantly put it away. She had no idea whether anyone might recognize it, but she wasn’t ready to take that chance. Not yet.

With a rueful smile, she admitted she’d learned caution in her old age. Her birth mother must have learned it, too.

The lines from a poem studied long ago came to her.

I was young, as was my heart;

And I followed where it led—

Followed my heart and not my head,

Those days

When I was young, as was my heart.

Some wistful part of her longed to be that young, confident girl again, excited about life and all that it could hold.

A more cynical part of her scoffed at the idea.

She knew which part to believe.




Chapter Three


S helby didn’t like the way her insides got all in a knot when she parked at the far end of the paved area beside the Lost Valley Medical Clinic. The first day on a new job was always nerve-racking, but she’d worked with many doctors in many situations at the hospital in her hometown. Today was no different from any other.

Except that she would be working with Beau Dalton and her reasons weren’t purely medical.

Well, she couldn’t sit in the car all day. Still, she hesitated for another few seconds. Scolding herself for being a coward, she climbed out of her subcompact station wagon and went inside.

“Hi,” Beau greeted from the door to his office. “I was wondering if you were going to come inside or if you’d changed your mind already.”

The receptionist wasn’t in sight, so Shelby assumed they were alone. Perhaps this was an opportunity to mention the old files. She took a calming breath, then started. “I haven’t changed my mind. In fact, I’ve been sent on a mission here.”

He gestured toward his office. “We have a few minutes. Come in and tell me about it.”

She glanced over his bookcases and briefly studied the diplomas and plaques that doctors acquired during their years of training. He’d taken courses in both diagnostics and surgery procedures, making him well qualified for a general practice in a small town.

“Do you approve?” he asked in some amusement.

“Very much. Are you planning on doing surgery here?”

“Only for emergencies. I have arrangements with a surgeon in Boise to perform scheduled operations. You were going to tell me about your mission?”

“Oh, yes.” She explained about the Historical Society and its needs.

“The old records,” he murmured, his eyes on her. “The attic is full of ’em. You know, that’s a good idea. I’ll help you go through them so we don’t miss any of the founding fathers and mothers, then we’ll shred the files.”

She was sure he didn’t realize he was staring at her while he considered, but she was very aware of that deep blue gaze burning holes in her skin. Electricity zinged along every nerve, so much so that she hardly registered his decision to help her. Then it hit her.

“Oh,” she said. “Uh, you don’t have to help. I mean, all that dust to be stirred up. And it’ll probably take a lot of time.”

He merely nodded. “It’ll be interesting, checking the old records. I’m familiar with most of the original families, so that should speed things along.”

She realized to protest further would arouse suspicion. He was too quick on the uptake to deceive. Not that she was doing anything wrong. At least she didn’t think she was. So why did she feel sneaky and underhanded?

Answer—the clear blue gaze that stared right into her soul. She looked away with an effort.

He reached over and stroked gently along her cheek. She whipped around, startled.

“I just had to see if your skin was as soft as it looked. It is,” he told her.

His smile wasn’t bold or teasing or sardonic. Instead he seemed pensive and lost in his own thoughts as questions flickered through his eyes. Some part of her also questioned the awareness between them and what it meant.

“I think,” he said in a husky tone, “that together we may be flint and steel.”

He touched the hair at her temple, then, without losing contact, moved his hand until he curled a finger under her chin and lifted her face so he could study her more closely.

Alarm whipped through her. “No,” she whispered.

He raised his eyebrows slightly, as if amused by the odd play between them. “No?”

Their eyes met and held. A door opened and footsteps sounded in the hall. The moment shattered like dropped crystal. “Hello?” a feminine voice called.

“In here,” he called. “It’s Ruth Stein. Have you met her?” he asked Shelby.

During the next few minutes Shelby met Ruth, the nurse-midwife, a woman in her late forties who was married to one of the two brothers who owned the hardware store. The receptionist was Alberta Stein, married to the other brother and also in her mid to late forties.

That’s where the similarity ended, Shelby noted. Ruth was close to six feet tall and pleasingly plump. Bertie, as the other was called, topped the chart at maybe five-two and a hundred pounds. Shelby, in the middle at five-five and average weight, was amused to see they formed a perfect set of stair steps as they shook hands and exchanged greetings.

“Why do I suddenly feel outnumbered?” Beau demanded, managing to appear worried about his safety.

“Because you are,” Ruth assured him. “You’d better behave yourself in this office.”

“I promise to curb my wilder tendencies.” He cut a glance at Shelby. “Although I make no such claims for when we’re outside office hours.”

A sizzle of undefined emotion rushed along her nerves as the two older women followed his gaze, then smiled at her with speculation as well as kindness in their eyes.

“She’s pretty, isn’t she?” Beau said conversationally.

“Very much so,” Bertie agreed.

“Watch him,” Ruth advised. “If he gives you any trouble, let us know.”

“I will,” Shelby promised as the other three laughed with the easy camaraderie of those long known to each other. “You know, I think I’m going to like it here.” She couldn’t resist giving her boss a challenging sideways glance.

“You women,” he scoffed, then ducked into his office as the phone rang. “I’ll get it.”

“Time to start work,” Bertie said cheerfully, going to her desk at the front of the office.

Shelby realized it was exactly eight o’clock. The day had truly begun. She wondered when she could get at the files in the attic.



At five that afternoon Shelby hung up the phone on her last call. She’d completed all the follow-up calls to the parents of those students who needed additional care per Beau’s instructions, so all was in order for school to start in two weeks. Since she didn’t have classes, she technically had no other duties until that time.

Returning to the B and B, she changed to shorts, tank top and jogging shoes, then headed for the path on the other side of town. There, she noticed all the new building going on around the lake formed by the reservoir dam as she jogged along the trail.

Most of the houses were impressive, and she wondered how so many people had the money to build such large homes. She gazed wistfully at the cottage that was for sale next to a large building that looked as if it would be a resort. Her heart dipped when she saw a Sold sign on the tiny house.

“Hey, hello!”

She stopped in surprise when Beau Dalton yelled and waved her over. Going to where he and a couple of other men worked on the foundation of the resort, she couldn’t help but gasp when the trio smiled at her.

She couldn’t recall ever being in the presence of three more dynamic men, all of them similar in their blue-eyed, dark-haired good looks, two of them as alike as the proverbial peas. They all wore old cargo shorts or cutoffs with sneakers and no shirts.

Bronzed, broad-shouldered and slim-hipped, they exuded masculine power and confidence. She found herself wary, on guard against the overwhelming aura of force they unconsciously represented.

Beau gestured to the other two. “My cousins, Travis and Trevor. And yes, they’re twins.”

“Glad to meet you,” one of the twins said.

“Ditto,” the other said with decidedly more enthusiasm, unbridled interest leaping into his eyes.

Shelby felt a bit flustered.

“Down, boy,” Beau said to his cousin. “Trev is a nuisance, but harmless,” he then assured her.

“Pay no attention,” Trevor advised. “He’s just jealous of my charm and wit.”

“Ha,” Beau scoffed. “I once heard a teacher tell him that each time he opened his mouth, general knowledge decreased proportionally.”

Smiling and nodding, she listened to their easy teasing and wished she’d had cousins like these. Trevor took her arm and urged her toward the structure they worked on.

“Lies, all lies,” he said. “Would you like a tour of the lodge?”

“Well, uh, yes. I think,” she amended with exaggerated uncertainty.

Beau swept her away from his cousin. “I need to discuss business with her,” he said loftily.

Trevor sighed in disgust, grinned at her, then returned to work with his twin, setting a foundation sill in place.

Beau, still holding her wrist, led her toward the cottage. “Zack said you were interested in the cottage.”

“I was hoping I could rent it. But it’s sold.”

Dropping her arm, he stepped onto the small brick porch with its charming white columns and rails and unlocked the door. “Enter,” he invited with a grand sweep of his hand.

She did so. “Oh,” she murmured in delight. “It’s as lovely as I thought it would be.”

A half wall divided the living room from the kitchen. White wainscoting in beadboard lined the bottom third of the rooms. Stenciled vines on pale golden walls framed windows and doors. White curtains, looking as freshly washed and starched as her grandmother’s, wafted in the breeze from the mountains. The furniture was mismatched, well-used and simply wonderful.

“You like?” he asked.

“Yes. It reminds me of home. My mother and I stayed with my grandmother a couple of weeks each summer. Her house was like this.”

Her throat closed and she had to stop. Her grandmother had died last summer and the house had been sold.

“You miss them,” he said, his voice deep, rich with understanding that added to her sudden emotion.

She managed a smile. “Yes.”

“Going off on an adventure seems exciting, but then you realize how far you are from home. I went to medical school back east. It was hell.”

Nodding, she continued the tour, needing to escape his kindness and the yearning that bloomed in her like a weed in an orderly garden. She wasn’t here for this.

The kitchen was pale green with white woodwork and yellow accents in a wall clock and the cushions on ladder-back chairs. It was the windows she liked best. Covering most of the back wall, they showed off the view to perfection—lake and mountains and blue, blue sky. A bit of heaven tucked into this high valley.

The bedroom was the only other room. It and a rather large bathroom occupied the other side of the house. The bed, rocking chair, table and armoire were oak. A dustcover protected the queen-size bed that was so high it needed two oak steps to get to it.

The ceiling was vaulted and covered with whitewashed beadboard. A fan was mounted high in the center of it. The walls were creamy beige, again with attractive stencils, but of climbing roses in yellow and pink shades this time.

“Lovely,” she murmured. Her voice was a husky whisper, sounding loud in the silent house. She swallowed, suddenly nervous about being here with this alluring man.

“Yes.”

His voice was unexpectedly close. She glanced over her shoulder and found him only inches away. Slowly she turned.

Her eyes were on a level with his chest. The curly hair there was coal-black, scattered sparsely over his bronzed skin. The defined pectoral muscles flexed once, then went still as she stared at this monument to human male perfection. She lifted a hand, then stopped.

He caught her hand and pressed it flat against him.

The air became heavy, expectant. She had to open her mouth to get it into her lungs. She raised her eyes from the well-developed pecs to his throat, then upward, until she gazed at his mouth. Longing, sharp and poignant, filled her.

“Do it,” he said in a low, strained tone.

“What?” She hardly knew what she said.

“What your eyes are saying you want.”

“I don’t…want…” She didn’t continue because she didn’t know what she wanted…no, because she knew what she shouldn’t want, but did.

“I do,” he murmured. “I want to touch you.”

His lips touched hers, soft, dry, a fleeting brush of mouth over mouth. She licked her lips. His eyes, when she looked up, were dark and mysterious deep blue pools to drown in. She yearned to dive in, to never leave.

No. It was a mistake to give in to desire and let passion lead her into temptation. Once she’d mistaken a romantic dream for a lasting love. She wasn’t so foolish now. She reminded herself of all she’d learned from the past. Hearts were fragile things. They could break again, and again, and yet again.

He moved his hand, slowly caressing her face with fingers that trembled ever so slightly. The passion dazzled, beckoned from his dark, heated gaze.

Fear stirred through her, warning her of the danger. “Dr. Dalton,” she said, the beginning of a protest.

“Beau,” he corrected, and removed the band from her hair. He pushed it into his pocket, then spiked his fingers into the freed tresses, cupping his broad, gentle hands around her skull and holding her still when she would have turned away from those eyes, that mouth.

“Beau,” she said, and wondered why she did and how it could feel so right on her tongue. “Beau.”

So old-fashioned, Beau, with an innocent ring of days long ago. When she’d been young, she would have believed in that innocence.

“Yes,” he said. “Yes.”

The kiss wasn’t a simple brushing of lips over lips this time. It was man to woman, all heat and demand and whimsical yearning.

The impact went all the way down to her toes, something she couldn’t recall ever experiencing before, not with this intensity, these flashes of fire that burned and ached within until she wanted to cry out.

With a gasp she opened to him, letting the kiss go deeper, until she was filled with it. Wonder washed through her and took all traces of fear with it. Breathing became difficult, then unnecessary.

When he at last released her mouth, he laid a trail of flame along her cheek. “You have the smoothest skin. I’ve wanted to touch you since that first meeting, to see if the fire in your hair was in your blood.”

“Is it?”

“Yes. Heaven help me, yes,” he said.

But she knew who needed help here. Sanity returned through the foggy haze of hunger. She laid her hands flat against his chest, then lingered to caress the hair-roughened skin. “We shouldn’t do this.”

“Why not?”

She forced herself to search for a reason even as she continued to touch him. “You’re my boss.”

“We’re colleagues.”

“We work in the same—”

“Shh,” he ordered, but softly, his voice a caress, too.

“I know this isn’t wise.” She wished she didn’t sound so desperate.

“I agree.”

Running his hand under her tank top, he rubbed across her back, trailing his fingers into the indentation of her spine and sliding them up and down. He explored farther.

“Where’s the catch?” he asked.

“It’s a sports bra. There isn’t one.”

“Oh.”

He explored the cotton material with his sure, skillful touch that sent cascades of sensation down, down, down into her. Excitement grew as she experienced the enticing movement of his hard body against hers.

The rainbow hues of mutual need slowly overtook her as they kissed again, then again, each time more deeply, more intimately. He skimmed her breasts, then cupped them in his palms and rubbed his thumbs along the hard points that formed under his touch.

The sounds of a hammer next door disappeared. The lazy drone of a fly against the window became but an odd counter-beat to the drumming in her heart.

“Never thought I’d feel this,” he said, pushing her top up and staring at the outline of her nipples against the gray cotton of her sports bra. He looked into her eyes. “I never knew hunger could be this strong.”

She couldn’t look away from the blazing need. “It’s too strong,” she protested softly. “Too much, too soon.”

“But it’s there.”

His gaze dared her to deny it. She couldn’t. “I don’t want to feel this.”

“Then stop it,” he said, mocking her. He nibbled at her breasts through the cloth. “I can’t.” He pressed his face into the valley between her breasts and inhaled deeply. “But then, I don’t want to.”

Before she quite realized what was happening, he took a step, then another. She stepped back with him, following as if they engaged in some strange dance, accompanied by the mad music in her blood, that took them wherever it would.

When she felt the bed behind her knees, she realized, with a stricken jolt, exactly where they were going.

“Beau…” she said raggedly, pushing against him.

Her voice sounded reedy and uncertain. She shook her head when he bent to her mouth once more. He clasped her hands, moved them behind her, pulling her close, and took her mouth in a kiss that demanded total participation.

Panic eddied through her blood even as electricity arced between them. This had to stop. She had to…to breathe, but she couldn’t…she couldn’t think…

Her thoughts were like a flock of wild birds, whirling and swirling through her mind too swiftly and too frightened to come to the perch of reason. She struggled to free her hand, got one loose and, twisting, raked down his chest with her fingernails—an instinctive act of self-preservation.

His head jerked up. They stared at one another.

Slowly he released her and backed up a step. The breath rushed into her lungs, making her dizzy.

Glancing down, he observed the four red lines standing in ridges on his skin. He turned his gaze from them to her. “No woman has ever marked me before,” he said, not in anger or accusation, but as if in deep thought, as if wondering about the marks—how they’d happened and why.

Pressing her shaky hands against her breast, she confessed, “I’ve never done anything like that. I don’t know why I did. It…it was like I couldn’t breathe. Everything was going dark.” She stopped because she didn’t know how to explain the unexplainable.

He smiled and it was full of gentle irony. The ache inside her returned. “I don’t think I’ve ever frightened a woman before, certainly not like this.” He touched her cheek with exquisite tenderness. “It’s strong, isn’t it?”

She clasped her arms over her middle and nodded.

“This hunger,” he continued as if thinking out loud. “It’s different, more than I’ve ever experienced, so much so that I didn’t get your signals at first.”

“Signals?”

“The panic,” he reminded her softly, and rubbed across her lips with one finger, then dropped his hand and stepped back another foot, giving her room. “I was too lost…” He hesitated, then shook his head. “That’s never happened to me before—to get so lost in passion that everything else disappeared. It’ll be different next time,” he promised.

She moved sideways until she was on a line for the door. She hurried toward it. She managed to laugh and pretend it was all a joke. “I don’t think we should attempt a next time.”

“I do.”

The words were barely audible as she rushed across the charming living room and out the front door. The hammering at the resort stopped. She stared distractedly at the twin brothers, who stared back with frank interest.

The door closed behind her.

“Do you want the place?” Beau asked. “I’ll keep the rent reasonable.”

“You?” she questioned, turning from the stares next door.

“I bought the cottage. It seemed a good idea since it was next to the lodge. The new homeowners might have given us trouble over parking or noisy guests.”

She tried to think clearly. “Perhaps it would be best if—” She faltered on the brink of refusing the offer. She glanced at the cottage and knew she still wanted it.

“Good. Do you need help moving in?”

“No.”

“Okay. I have to get back to work. See you in the morning. I’ll give you a key then.”

She blinked and realized he thought she had accepted. But why shouldn’t she rent it? It was charming. It fit her needs. She would have it to herself. She followed him down the flagstone path to the road. “Wait, the rent,” she reminded him. “How much?”

“Two hundred a month.”

She stopped. “That’s a steal.”

He grinned over his shoulder. “So maybe you’ll feel guilty enough to invite me over for a home-cooked meal once in a while.”

With that, he strode across the grass and got back to work. His cousins looked at her, then him. Feeling that they knew every intimate touch that had occurred between her and Beau, she swung toward town and jogged back to the B and B as calmly as possible.



“Will you look at that?” Trevor said in awe.

Beau gave him a warning glare. He looked around, spotted his T-shirt and put it on.

“What happened while you were showing a prospective renter the house?” Trev demanded.

“Nothing,” Beau muttered, tightening a bolt against the mud sill.

Trevor looked at his watch. “Less than fifteen minutes,” he remarked. “Man, I wish I could make a woman so mad with passion in that length of time that she was clawing my body.”

“Yeah,” Beau agreed. “You should be so lucky.”

Travis, the quiet twin, grinned.

“Not going to tell us about it, huh?” Trevor, the irrepressible cousin, demanded.

“Not a bit.”

“Well, at least you got a trophy during the battle.”

Beau glanced down and spotted the blue headband dangling from his pocket. He shoved it out of sight.

Trevor continued his lament. “I was hoping for a few pointers. My love life sure isn’t anything to write home about. Have you noticed how few women our age live around here? You two have grabbed the prettiest ones to show up in a coon’s age.”

Beau glanced at Travis. The twin had recently gotten engaged to Alison, who’d come to town looking for her long-lost sister, who was pregnant and living with the owner of the ranch next to the Dalton homestead sans marriage.





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