Книга - One Night in Weaver…

One Night in Weaver...
Allison Leigh


A Love Worth the Risk? Psychologist Hayley Templeton prides herself on keeping a level head in life and love – but she can’t get Seth Banyon out of her mind! There’s something about the gorgeous security expert that doesn’t add up… and Hayley can’t resist getting close enough to know more.Seth has plenty of secrets that he needs to protect Hayley from – most importantly, what he’s really doing in Weaver, Wyoming. He knows he should get the irresistible woman out of his system for both their sakes… but forgetting Hayley is proving the most difficult thing he’s ever tried to do!







“We don’t have a relationship.”

His eyes sharpened. “You sure about that?” Seth’s expression was tight. “I need to stay away from you. Until this thing with McGregor is done with. For everyone’s sake.”

She swallowed the knot in her throat. She was shaking from her head to her toes. “Then stay away.”

A muscle in his jaw flexed. “Believe me,” he said. “I have tried.” He slowly moved around the island until he stopped in front of her, trapping her in the corner where she stood near the sink.

She couldn’t seem to look away from his blue, blue eyes.

“And I can’t,” he finished in a low voice.

Her lips parted.

His head dipped toward hers, his lips grazing hers, lighter than his whisper. “Don’t trust me, Hayley. Be stronger than I am.”

A sound she didn’t recognize slid from her throat. Her hands curled into fists against the counter on one side of her and the cool edge of the old-fashioned apron sink on the other. “I’m not strong.”

* * *

Return to The Double C Under the big blue Wyoming sky, this family discovers true love


One Night in Weaver…

Allison Leigh




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


A frequent name on bestseller lists, ALLISON LEIGH’s high point as a writer is hearing from readers that they laughed, cried or lost sleep while reading her books. She’s blessed with an immensely patient family who doesn’t mind (much) her time spent at her computer and who gives her the kind of love she wants her readers to share in every page. Stay in touch at www.allisonleigh.com (http://www.allisonleigh.com) and on Twitter, @allisonleighbks (https://twitter.com/allisonleighbks).


For my family.


Contents

Cover (#u0a5b3235-4476-5308-957e-bf82733cbf6b)

Introduction (#ubd18f00e-f416-5e65-856c-c5eba1016a06)

Title Page (#ud65a1f2b-b4fe-5cb9-9ff7-5835a0a62c42)

About the Author (#u9c844541-db29-5f6e-80df-86758c7aa2b4)

Dedication (#u06036b34-4eb7-53c1-be9f-7f0c1989ca66)

Prologue (#ucd881ff8-41fa-5888-af73-c1e13386a820)

Chapter One (#u51fd6dcc-96ab-5577-ae77-89edfa7f7504)

Chapter Two (#u01700dea-17c5-5cd5-8d2c-9390084cbd16)

Chapter Three (#u5af8fefb-bdb2-5ab4-8bab-3bd67b1e2aae)

Chapter Four (#u0e7f6f67-6d0d-5b58-8866-be631cf65de5)

Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)

Extract (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)


Prologue (#ulink_d22c80f4-83cb-5ca7-9d67-2b8436aa436f)

He really was exceptionally good looking.

A good six feet tall. Probably more. Dark brown hair that she suspected he kept cut short because it might have the tendency to curl into girlish prettiness if he didn’t. Bright blue eyes that seemed startling in contrast to the dark hair.

The first time she’d seen him was at least a year ago, in the Weaver Community Park. Running and looking far more natural at it than she did. After that, the chance of catching a glimpse of him provided a major incentive for Hayley to drag herself to the park a few times every week, where she would meet up with Sam Dawson, her running partner and one of her best friends.

Sam ran every day. And trained with weights. She was a fitness fiend; she claimed it was because she needed to keep up with the guys in the sheriff’s department, where she was the only female on the force. Hayley figured that even if Sam worked behind a teller’s window in a bank all day long, she’d still be in the park every morning, snow or shine, doing her thing. Hayley was thirty-five. Too old to kid herself that she ran for the pleasure of it. No. Hayley joined Sam a few times a week because she liked being able to fit into her suits and still indulge in her favorite cinnamon rolls from Ruby’s diner.

And she liked catching glimpses of him.

The man—she knew his name was Seth Banyon because she’d heard it around town—obviously subscribed to Sam’s methodology, though. The man was a walking advertisement for the benefits of physical fitness.

She’d also seen him around town. Often at Shop-World, where his grocery cart tended to be more heavily loaded than hers. He always seemed to buy the same things. A six-pack of beer. Giant loaves of bread. Steak. Bacon. Eggs. Several packaged frozen meals.

Her cart, on the other hand, contained fresh vegetables and fruit. And never a steak, despite Weaver, Wyoming, pretty much being located in the center of the beef universe. The only item their carts ever had in common was coffee. Same brand. Hers, whole bean. His, already ground.

“Bring you another cosmo, Dr. Templeton?”

Hayley gathered her wandering thoughts and blinked once, focusing on the cocktail waitress who’d stopped next to the small high-top that Hayley was hogging all to herself.

She didn’t ordinarily drink cocktails; usually she stuck with a glass of white wine, which suited the expectations the citizens of Weaver had for their local psychologist, Hayley Templeton, PhD. And she certainly never drank alone.

Nor did she ogle men bellied up to the bar of Colbys, no matter how nicely they filled the rears of their faded blue jeans and the shoulders of their long-sleeved T-shirts, or how long it had been since she’d had a man’s arms around her.

One who wasn’t related by blood, at any rate.

She pushed aside the thought of her family. They were the reason she was there in Colbys, alone, trying her hand at the age-old practice of drowning her sorrows in alcohol.

“Yes, please.” She offered up the two glasses that she’d already emptied, surreptitiously steadying her hands by propping her elbows on the tabletop. If she’d had anywhere else to go to wallow in her liquor-glazed misery, she would have.

But tonight, Colbys was going to have to suffice.

All around her, people were knotted together in clusters, still celebrating the passing of the old year and the arrival of the new, even though New Year’s Eve was two evenings past.

She’d expected to still be celebrating, too. At home in Braden, some thirty miles away, with her family.

Celebrating not just the fresh new year. But a fresh, new beginning for the Templeton family.

The entire Templeton family.

She was a good therapist. But obviously not good enough to heal the rift in her own family. A rift that—according to her father—she was actually causing by continuing to harbor the enemy. His words.

She sighed and let her gaze drift back to Seth Banyon. One foot was propped casually on the metal rod that ran the length of the bar near the floor. He was leaning on his forearms, which rested atop the glossy wooden surface.

Unlike ninety percent of the men—and women—in here, who wore cowboy boots on their feet and cowboy hats on their heads, his head was bare and he wore sturdy black work boots. They weren’t exactly shined.

But they weren’t covered in the ranch dust that was typical of the boots around Weaver, either. He was a security guard out at Cee-Vid, the consumer electronics and video gaming company located on the edge of town. She knew that about him only because her other best friend, Jane Cohen, had once mentioned it.

The waitress set Hayley’s fresh cocktail on the table, nearly making her jump. Fortunately, the girl—Hayley knew her name, but she was having the hardest time remembering it—didn’t seem to notice. Instead, she just hovered there for a moment, asking if Hayley was sure she didn’t want to order some food.

Hayley knew Colbys’ menu like the back of her hand because Jane owned the place. And just to keep Olive—that was her name!—from asking this same question for a sixth time, Hayley ordered a grilled chicken sandwich even though the thought of food on top of all the alcohol was vaguely nauseating.

But Olive beamed, obviously satisfied that she’d done her part to keep the good town therapist supplied in food as well as drink, and headed back behind the busy bar, where she punched in Hayley’s order.

Hayley’s gaze drifted back to Seth. He’d turned around so that he was no longer leaning over the bar but leaning back against it and facing her.

And his blue, blue gaze collided with hers.

Flushing a little, she quickly looked down at her drink. She took too hasty a sip and couldn’t stifle the choking cough that resulted.

She recovered quickly enough but felt her cheeks grow even warmer at the sight of the faint smile hovering around Seth’s lips. Obviously, he’d seen.

She was glad when Olive returned with her sandwich and a glass of water, and Hayley had a valid reason to stare down at her table; she felt as if she was still an awkward sixteen-year-old in the Braden High School cafeteria, where she’d always been too shy to do anything else. Such as participate in an actual conversation with those around her.

She cut the thick sandwich in half and took a bite, chewing determinedly even though her stomach rolled dangerously as she swallowed.

She definitely should have stuck to wine.

She set the sandwich back on the thick white plate and reached for her water glass, only to knock her knuckles into it and send it teetering. Stifling an oath, she tried to right the cup but only succeeded in finishing the job of tipping it on its side, sending ten ounces of water and ice right into her lap.

“Sugarnuts,” she hissed under her breath as she grabbed napkins from the dispenser on the table and swabbed futilely at the cascade.

“Here.” A white bar towel appeared in her peripheral vision. She glanced at the long-fingered, square hand holding it and, realizing who’d come to her rescue, reluctantly looked up.

Wanting to sink through the floor, she avoided Seth’s gaze, snatched the towel from him and sopped up the water in her lap. It was dripping off the padded chair onto the scuffed, wooden floor and he smoothly dropped a handful of paper napkins on the puddle before it spread any farther.

“Thanks,” she muttered.

Without invitation, he pulled out the other chair tucked against the small table and sat, placing his beer bottle next to her cosmo. “You going to eat all those?”

He had a drawl that wasn’t from Wyoming. And while she was busy noticing that, he’d already dived in to her French fries.

“Help yourself,” she said in a dry tone.

His lips tilted and his gaze drifted over her face as he reached for another sliver of crispy, fried potato. “Thanks. You’re not usually here by yourself.”

“Ummm...no.” The bite of chicken sandwich sat heavily somewhere in the middle of her chest. Because the contents of her water glass were soaking through her jeans and the pile of napkins on the floor, she reached for the cosmopolitan again, even though her head was already swimming.

She didn’t dare make too much of his observation about her being here tonight. Sooner or later, everyone came through Colbys. It was a mainstay in Weaver. Just because he happened to notice something about her didn’t mean diddly.

He studied her for a moment. Then he swallowed another one of her French fries, wiped his salty fingers on his jeans and reached across the table, his hand extended. “Seth Banyon.”

She automatically shook his hand. “I know.” The admission escaped and her face turned hotter than ever. She pulled her hand quickly away from his and managed not to rub her palm on her own jeans even though the temptation was strong. “Hayley Templeton,” she said abruptly.

Why was it that she only felt truly confident with strangers when they were her patients? If she were her patient, she’d assign herself some homework about that. Small steps designed to increase her comfort in an area always outside her comfort zone.

“I know. Dr. Hayley Templeton.” He wrapped his long fingers around his beer bottle and tilted it to his lips. “The shrink,” he added when he set the bottle down again.

“The psychologist,” she corrected.

If anything, he looked even more amused, a faint dimple appearing in his lean cheek, though he managed not to smile outright. “Heard Jane was off visitin’ someone for the holidays, but where’s your other friend? The blonde without a lick o’ Christmas spirit who gave me a ticket the other day?”

Despite her woozy head, she instantly knew who he was talking about. “Sam has plenty of Christmas spirit,” she countered defensively.

“Well, Sam still wrote me a speeding ticket on Christmas Eve. Probably gonna cost me a couple hundred bucks.”

“Probably because you shouldn’t have been speeding.”

His lips twitched slightly. If he was concerned over the ticket or the ensuing cost, he didn’t particularly look it.

He knew Hayley’s name but not Sam’s? Being the only female deputy sheriff around, she stood out even more than Hayley, the psychologist.

She pushed aside the thought and picked up her sandwich, only to set it back down again. She plucked a French fry from the pile and nibbled on the end instead. They were crispy. Salty. Still hot and exactly the way she liked them. But her stomach still didn’t seem thrilled at the prospect of food. She forced down the rest of the fry anyway and wiped her fingers on a fresh napkin. It was the last one in the dispenser. The rest were on the floor performing sop-up duty.

When a burst of laughter came from one of the nearby tables, she made herself meet Seth’s eyes because she was a grown woman and no longer a socially awkward teen. “What are you doing in here alone?” Unfortunately, the question came out more blunt than flirtatious, and she wished the floor would just swallow her whole.

He didn’t answer. Merely lifted his beer bottle and finished off the contents. Then he set the bottle back down alongside her cosmo, and his knuckles grazed hers. She went hot in spots that didn’t show from the outside and was glad for that. He reached for his wallet, pulled out a few dollars and left them on the table and filched several more French fries, which he ate in one gulp as he stood.

Maybe if she’d spent more time developing a social life instead of her career, she wouldn’t get all hot and bothered by the briefest, most unintentional contact imaginable.

“You have someone to drive you home?” he asked in his deep voice. Drive sounded more like drahve. He was looking at her cocktail glass.

She managed, somehow, to loosen her tight fingers from around the stem and blood reentered her fingertips. “I’m walking.” She lifted the sandwich again, but her roiling stomach kept her from taking the charade of hunger any further.

“It’s snowin’ outside.”

“It often does around here this time of year,” she said with such blitheness she was actually impressed with herself.

“I’ll drive you.” He lifted the sandwich out of her suddenly lax fingers and set it on the plate. Before she could gather her wits, he’d grabbed the towel from her lap and cupped his hand around her elbow. “Come on.”

She stood, because, well, what else could she do considering the way he was tugging her off the barstool? “I don’t want to go home,” she blurted, the fake blitheness beyond her reach again. Her grandmother, Vivian, was staying with her. And facing her would mean admitting what a disaster Hayley’s latest attempt to visit her parents had been. Avoiding that embarrassment was the very reason why Hayley had been warming the barstool in Colbys in the first place.

Seth dropped the towel on the table. “Then we’ll go to my place.”

She stared at him. She couldn’t help it. “And do what?”

His gaze drifted over her face. “I think we can find something to entertain us. Don’t you?”

Her belly lurched. There was no mistaking his meaning.

His lips twitched slightly as he looked pointedly at the table. “You going to pay your check? Or does your friend let you eat and drink for free?”

Truth be told, Jane never wanted Hayley to pay for anything in Colbys, but Hayley always insisted. Flushing darker than ever, she snatched her purse from the back of the barstool and left a wad of cash on the table to cover her tab plus a tip.

“All right, then.” His faint smile widened a bit as he held out her coat for her.

Swallowing hard, Hayley slid her arms into the sleeves. Seth’s hands lingered on her shoulders for a moment. Something was going wrong with her breathing. “My jeans are wet,” she said stupidly.

His smile widened. His teeth were white and very straight, except for the faintest gap between his two front teeth.

“I think we can do something about that, too,” he said leaning forward near her ear.

Then he spread his palm across the small of her back and nudged her gently toward the door.

Head spinning, not knowing what else to do and not wanting to do anything else anyway, Hayley mindlessly put one foot in front of the other and walked out of the bar with him.


Chapter One (#ulink_db1e5b08-11f5-5f5d-9d1c-1e467cbb716b)

Three months later

His jaw going so tight that it actually ached, Seth stared at the other man. “You have got to be kidding me.”

Tristan Clay’s calm expression didn’t change; his light blue eyes looked glacial. “Do I look like I’m joking?”

Seth clenched his teeth to keep from spitting out an oath. There was a time and a place for that, and here in his boss’s home while Tristan and his wife hosted a joint wedding shower for their nephew and his fiancée was definitely not it.

Fortunately, the honorees, Casey Clay and Jane Cohen, were on the far side of the room and were the focus of everyone else’s attention. But Seth still kept his voice down. “I don’t believe you’ve fallen for this—” he hesitated, revising the words he wanted to say “—story that Jason McGregor has amnesia.”

“That’ll be up to Dr. Templeton to determine,” Tristan said smoothly. “She’ll be the one treating him. But the condition does occur. My own brother dealt with it once upon a time.” He smiled suddenly and lifted his beer mug in salute when he overheard Casey say something about him hosting the party. “Thank my wife, Hope,” Tristan announced loudly to the assembled guests. “Everyone knows she’s the brains behind this gig.”

Laughter and smiles followed as Hope Clay, easily as beautiful as women half her age, rolled her eyes and continued nudging wrapped gifts toward Casey and Jane.

Seth’s contribution to the effort had been a case of microbrew from some dinky little startup out in Arizona that Casey had a liking for. The fact that his coworker was marrying the owner of a bar and could get all the beer he wanted had already been laughed about.

“Whatever happened with your brother is one thing. But McGregor should be facing murder charges,” Seth told Tristan, not for the first time. “Not your hired shrink’s couch.”

His boss didn’t blink. On the surface, Tristan Clay was the brilliant mind that had started Cee-Vid as a little video gaming company several decades ago and built it into a hugely successful player in the world of consumer electronics and gaming. But more important, behind the company’s front, he was the number-two guy at Hollins-Winword, a secret organization with an even longer history of black ops and international security.

Cee-Vid, where Seth and Casey ostensibly worked, was pretty much a household name.

Hollins-Winword, though, was a closely guarded secret that not even the real employees of Cee-Vid knew about.

“Dr. Templeton isn’t my shrink,” Tristan said in a low voice. “She’s an impartial professional whose expertise and discretion were good enough to get this whole operation approved in the first place. She knows only what she needs to know about HW in order to do her job well.”

Seth’s fists curled, frustration ticking like a bomb inside his gut. “And how’s that supposed to help Jon and Manny?” They’d been McGregor’s partners up until the point when their bodies had been discovered in a Honduran hut six months ago. McGregor had been nowhere to be found until a few months later, and only then because he’d been picked up in Mississippi on some traffic stop. The Hollins-Winword agent had been using one of his known aliases.

It was the one kernel that kept sticking in Seth’s teeth. If McGregor hadn’t been using the alias, he would likely still be in the wind. And the field agent had never been a stupid man, even if Seth did consider him guilty of murdering his partners. “You think that’s going to help their grieving families? Knowing the person responsible is getting counseling?”

Tristan’s lips thinned. He took his responsibilities—both public and private—very seriously. “Their families will never know the entire truth about their deaths, whether or not Jason was responsible,” he said flatly. “And you know it. That’s a price everyone who signs on with us pays. Whether someone dies as a hero or not, the complete truth stays unsung. If it didn’t, we would’ve been out of business before you were a spark in your daddy’s eyes.”

Seth’s jaw went even tighter because he did know that. “When I signed on with the agency, there weren’t any people in my life to worry about me. Any people to lie to.” So that decision had been easy.

Jon, Manny and Jason, though, all had family. Parents. Siblings. And all of them believed the cover story. That their sons and brothers had been ex-pats cranking out a meager living as farmers in a tiny corner of Central America. They didn’t know they’d really been there to feed intel to the authorities about a local drug king who’d branched out into human trafficking. Not even Hollins-Winword’s considerable resources had been able to prove that their covers had been blown, a circumstance that would have laid their murders squarely on the drug king’s doorstep.

Instead, the entire situation was still surrounded with question marks even all these months later. The recent discovery that the drug king had also been funding suspected terrorists had only upped the stakes where McGregor was concerned.

“If your father hadn’t been killed when you were a pup, you wouldn’t have signed on with us?” Tristan’s gaze was steady. “You honestly believe that?”

Seth grimaced. His father’s unavenged death when he was eighteen still haunted him, though after twenty years, he mostly managed not to think about it.

Thankfully, Tristan left the subject of Seth’s dad alone. “We have bullets recovered from their bodies that we haven’t been able to trace back to a specific weapon, much less Jason’s. That’s it. That leaves us with his memories. Locked up in his head or willfully hidden away. When that question is resolved, then we’ll take our next step. In the meantime, we got him back from the Feds only by calling in a boatload of favors. I don’t want anything screwing it up or he’ll get yanked back under government detention for God knows how long while they figure out what to do with him, and we’ll lose any chance we’ve ever had of learning the truth of what really happened in Central America.”

“Maybe that’s where he belongs,” Seth said under his breath. “Whatever he ended up doing down there, he started out with two partners who were killed. And you’re harboring him in a comfy little safe house right here in Weaver.”

“You were friends with Jon and Manny—”

“Were being the operative word.”

Tristan set his mug on the chest-high fireplace mantel behind them, clamped his hand over Seth’s shoulder and guided him out of the room and to the front door. “Go home,” he advised quietly. “Get your head back on straight. The likelihood of there ever being a public court case about this situation is slim to none.” The federal government would never allow some things—such as their off-the-books arrangement with Hollins-Winword to handle some of their dirty work—to see the light of day.

“So he just walks,” Seth said between his teeth.

Tristan’s grip hardened. He was a good twenty-five years older than Seth, but there was little doubt the man could have taken Seth—former US Army Ranger or not—right to the ground if he so chose. At least, he could have done a good job trying. “If he’s innocent, yes.” Tristan lowered his hand. “You’ve got the choice, Seth. You want to leave the organization, say the word.”

“I could take everything I know to the media.”

Tristan snorted, his eyes filling with honest-to-God mirth. “Honor runs thicker in your veins than blood does, kid. Why else do you think I recruited you out of the Rangers?”

“There’s no honor in letting a man get away with murder.”

“He hasn’t gotten away with it yet, has he?” Tristan’s voice was smooth. “Until I got him transferred here to my watch, he was wearing leg irons in a military prison. But that cozy safe house you’re all pissed off about now still doesn’t unlock from the inside.” He pulled open the door.

The soft, feminine gasp that greeted them didn’t stump the older man for even a second as his face creased into a wide, welcoming smile. “Dr. Templeton. My wife was just wondering when you’d be arriving.” He stepped back, his arm wide in invitation. “Come in. Can’t have the maid of honor standing out on the front porch.”

Hayley Templeton stared back at them above the large gift-wrapped box she was holding, her dark brown eyes looking like melted chocolate in the dwindling sunset. But her gaze instantly flicked away from Seth’s like a skittish firefly.

It had been that way ever since that night at Colbys several months ago.

Her soft lips stretched into a smile that wasn’t entirely steady. “Mr. Clay,” she greeted. “I’m so sorry I’m late.” Her gaze flicked to Seth’s again. “I, was, um, was tied up with a new patient.”

“It’s Tristan, Hayley. I’ve told you that before. And patients come first. We all certainly understand that.” He looked over his shoulder for a moment when his wife called his name. He lifted his hand in acknowledgment before turning back to Hayley. His gaze took in Seth, as well. “Seth, before you head out, help the doctor here with that gift of hers and make sure she has a drink, would you?” Then he excused himself, his easy smile still in place.

Hayley’s, though, turned even more ragged at the edges and her eyes still wouldn’t meet Seth’s for more than a nanosecond. “I’m a big girl,” she said quickly. “I don’t need help with the gift.”

“Much less getting a drink.”

Her cheeks turned pink. “A gentleman wouldn’t remind me of that.”

“I never said I was a gentleman.” But his father hadn’t raised him to be a complete cretin, either, despite their male-only household. “Don’t worry so much, Doc. You had a few too many that night,” he said with a shrug. “Plenty of us have done the same at one time or another.” Without waiting for permission, he lifted the box out of her hands and turned to carry it inside.

“Well, I don’t make a habit of it,” she muttered as she closed the door and hurried to keep up with him. “Not drinking too much and certainly not going home with strange men.”

“Never said you did.” He glanced at her. “If you had bothered to return either of the messages I left you after that night, I might have had a chance to reassure you of that.” He entered the crowded living room, set the box on the floor next to the other gifts that overflowed from the low table in front of the couch where Jane and Casey were seated and edged back out of the room.

Hayley was waiting where he’d left her on the perimeter of the room. Nobody else seemed to have noticed her arrival, but he was still more than a little surprised when she turned and trotted after him as he headed back to the foyer and the front door. “Seth, wait.”

He stopped, turned and raised his brows.

She looked pained. “I should have.” Her lips pressed together for a moment. “Returned your message.” She quickly looked over her shoulder. “Could we take this outside, at least?”

“Don’t want the masses to know you socialize with a lowly security guard?”

She gave him a look. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Then what’s your problem, Doc? You hightailed it out of my place before the sun came up the next morning.”

“I was embarrassed!” Her voice had risen a bit and she looked annoyed again. She ran her hand over her head, smoothing back her ponytail even though it already looked perfectly smooth to him.

Irritatingly, his memory filled in just how silky it was.

Then she caught his sleeve and pulled him out the front door and onto the porch. She closed the door behind them and immediately let go to move several feet away, where she crossed her arms.

No point in remembering how silky her hair was when she wanted nothing to do with him.

Even though they were outside, she still lowered her voice. “I was embarrassed,” she said again. “I’ve never found myself in...in that position before, and I handled it poorly. And I, well, I apologize for that. I meant no offense.”

He hadn’t been offended.

Disappointed a little. Maybe more than a little.

But he was thirty-eight years old and he told himself he was too jaded to get upset over a woman. Particularly one as beautiful and out-of-reach as Dr. Hayley Templeton. He shrugged again. “No sweat. The only reason I left those messages in the first place was to make sure you were okay.” That was true enough.

She blinked. Whatever she’d expected him to say, it was obviously not that. “Um...okay, then. So, we can just forget it ever happened?”

“Yup.” He started down the wide, shallow porch steps but looked back at her. She was wearing a pale gray pencil skirt that ended just below her knees and a white long-sleeved blouse that was buttoned to just below the hollow of her slender throat.

Aside from her tall, shocking-pink high heels, she looked prim and proper as if she’d just come from a session with a patient, even though it was eight o’clock on a Saturday evening. All he could think about was how fun it would be to get her all mussed up. To finish what they’d never gotten to start the night she’d gone home with him.

But she’d already made it clear that she wanted nothing to do with him. She was not interested. And now, according to Tristan, her latest patient was one Jason McGregor.

He ruthlessly uprooted the idea germinating in the back of his mind. She had a spotless reputation around town. And she had to be exceptionally good at what she did to earn Tristan Clay’s confidence. She would never betray a patient’s confidentiality to Seth, even if he could get into her confidence. Which, considering everything, was unlikely.

Not to mention the fact that Tristan would have his head if he tried. Few people earned Seth’s respect, particularly ones with that much money. But his boss was one of them. He disagreed like hell with the man over McGregor, but that didn’t change that one basic fact.

“Better get inside,” he advised. “Maid of honor and all.”

She put one hand on the door latch. “Are you working at Cee-Vid tonight or something?”

Or something. “No.” He wondered why she bothered with small talk. Why she didn’t go inside.

And he wondered why he wondered. “Not in the mood for a party.” A breeze drifted over them, playing with her silky ponytail and making her blouse flutter against her body. He wasn’t a cretin, but he was a man. And regardless of what had happened three months ago—or had not happened, to be more precise—he’d have to be dead not to appreciate the here-and-gone-again whisper of lace and the gentle curve beneath that thin white fabric.

“Stay away from the cosmopolitans, Dr. Templeton,” he advised, backing down the last of the porch steps. His lips twisted in a smile. “The next guy you’re with might not be as much of a gentleman as I was.”

* * *

Intent on escaping this unsettling man, Hayley was halfway inside the Clays’ house again when Seth’s words penetrated enough to make sense—and annoyance swept through her.

Maybe she hadn’t handled that night with him very well, but he hadn’t exactly turned out to be Mr. Charming, either.

She looked back.

He was already striding across the long driveway crowded with vehicles of every make and model, his dark head lowered slightly like that of a man deep in thought.

Behind her, she could hear the sounds of the wedding shower that she’d have been on time for if not for taking on a new patient at Tristan’s own request.

Moving abruptly, she went back outside, quickly closing the door again. Jane Cohen was her best friend. If anyone would understand, it was Jane.

Then Hayley hurried down the steps, her high-heeled pumps clicking on the paved driveway as she half-jogged after Seth. Because of her tardiness to the party, she was parked at the tail end of the long line of cars. But Seth, who’d parked much closer to the house, had already reached his dusty gray pickup truck, so she quickened her pace.

Running with Sam in the park a few times a week properly equipped with appropriate shoes was a snap compared to jogging down a crowded driveway in four-inch heels and a narrow skirt. “Seth!”

He showed no sign of hearing her as he started up his truck and inched his way out from between the other cars. She cursed when her heel caught on an uneven spot and her ankle twisted painfully.

Feeling wholly undignified—the same way she’d felt waking alone in Seth’s bed months ago with a splitting headache and wearing nothing but her bra and panties—she stopped and leaned against the hood of the SUV next to her. She reached down to tug off her shoe and gingerly rotated her foot, watching Seth’s taillights as he drove away.

“Brilliant, Dr. Templeton. Just...brilliant.”

Sighing, she fit her shoe back in place and, limping only a little, made her way back to the house and the celebration.

Jane and Casey were finished opening the gifts by the time Hayley slipped into the living room. Tristan’s wife had vacated her spot on the floor next to the couch in order to clear away the piles of discarded wrappings, so Hayley made her way to it, sitting down on her knees because that was the only position her skirt allowed. Now that the gifts were dealt with, most of the guests were milling around talking and filling their plates with food from the buffet set up across the room.

“Sorry I’m so late.”

Casey was busy talking with one of his numerous cousins and Jane waved away the apology, her diamond engagement ring sparkling. “No worries,” she said, smiling. “This is the tenth party we’ve had.”

“Second,” Hayley corrected her. “And you’ve got one more party next weekend to live through, remember? Your bachelorette party.”

Jane’s grin was impish as she leaned toward Hayley. “Remind me why I didn’t think running off to Vegas was a good idea.”

Hayley chuckled softly. “Because even in your supposedly modern, independent heart, you want to walk up that church aisle and pledge your troth in front of everyone.”

“Everyone is right.” Casey turned and joined the conversation. “We have more people coming than can fit into the church.”

Casey’s father, Daniel, obviously had overheard. “A common enough problem where Clay family weddings are concerned,” he commented before taking an enormous bite of the chocolate cake on his plate.

“Well, you’re related to half the town,” Jane told Casey. “So I guess it’s not really a surprise.”

“Not half the town.” Casey gestured toward Hayley. “Last I checked, we weren’t on the same family tree. So I know there’s at least one.”

Hayley laughed along with the others. But inside, she felt a pang. The Templeton family wasn’t quite as extensive as the Clays, but there were still a good many of them. She was just persona non grata with her father right now. And after several months of trying, she was beginning to fear she’d never get him to see reason.

She pushed away the depressing thought and gestured at the array of gifts spread across the coffee table and beyond. Some were very traditional, like the set of towels she’d chosen. And some were less so, like the case of beer she could see sitting on the other side of Casey. “You’re going to be writing thank-you notes until next Christmas.”

“Don’t remind me.” Jane’s voice was rueful. “I didn’t work the bar last night and—”

“She spent the entire time writing out thank-you notes from the shower her sister gave her last week in Colorado,” Casey interrupted, “instead of lavishing attention on her fiancé.”

Jane rolled her eyes. “You poor soul, you.”

Casey smiled and kissed Jane’s nose. “You made up for it this morning.”

Jane pushed him away, laughing and blushing at the same time. “What am I going to do with you?”

“Marry him in two weeks, I’d say,” Hayley offered.

“Speaking of... Are you sure you don’t mind staying at our place to watch Moose while we’re on our honeymoon? Every time we’ve tried to leave him with one of Casey’s relatives, Moose is either terrified of the other animals there, or his hosts end up terrified of him eating them out of furniture, doors and shoes.”

“I’m positive.”

“Your grandmother won’t mind?”

“Vivian has already said she’ll be glad to have my place to herself for a few weeks.” After having her grandmother staying with her for the past six months, maybe they would both benefit from some distance. When Hayley had rented the place, she hadn’t done so with a long-term guest in mind.

“She’s still going to come to the wedding?”

Hayley shrugged. “That’s what she says. But I’ve learned not to count on anything until it actually occurs.” Ever since Vivian had come to stay with her, she’d changed her mind about doing something she’d said she would at least a half-dozen times. “Vivian’s a law unto herself.” In that, Hayley’s father’s assessment of his mother was spot-on. “Considering the brick wall my dad and Uncle David have put up to the idea of seeing her, I’m really not sure why she hasn’t gone home to Pittsburgh by now.”

“She likes your company?” Jane’s voice was amused.

“Or else she just likes having someone around to bug about their love life. Yesterday she actually told me I’d be better off finding a real date for your wedding since I wasn’t getting any younger.”

“What’d you tell her?”

Hayley made a face. “That I didn’t think I was in danger of drying up into an old prune just because there’s no man of interest around.”

But even as she said the words, she knew they weren’t true.

There was a man of interest.

Seth Banyon.

A man with whom she’d had a one-night stand three months ago.

A one-night stand she couldn’t even remember.


Chapter Two (#ulink_0a083b65-a8b8-5bb9-a14d-f4e3ca92e5bb)

“You threw a great bachelorette party, Hayley.” J. D. Forrest gave Hayley a hug before throwing her slender arm around Jane, who was standing beside her. “Are you sure you want to marry my little brother? He’s kind of a pain in the patoot.”

Jane’s eyes glinted with humor. “Pretty sure. He has a few good points.”

J.D. grinned. “Yeah, but I’m his sister, and I definitely do not want to know what they are.” She finished wrapping a lightweight scarf around her neck and leaned forward to kiss Jane’s cheek. “Seriously, you’ve made him one happy camper, which makes those of us who love the guy happy, too.” Moving with her typical quickness, she started for the door of Colbys, where the party had been held. “And we’re all hoping you can do something about his wardrobe. He wears the ugliest shirts any of us have ever seen!” Still smiling, she pushed through the door into the evening.

The moment her future sister-in-law was gone, Jane plopped down onto the nearest chair and covered a yawn with her hand. “Getting married is exhausting.”

Hayley started gathering up the glasses scattered around on the tables. “It’s not the getting married part that’s exhausting. It’s the wedding itself and all of the busyness leading up to it.” She shook her head when Jane started to push to her feet. “No, no, no, my friend. The only reason I agreed to have your bachelorette party here was because you promised to pretend you didn’t own the place and agreed to let your employees be guests, not workers. You’re not helping me clean up.”

Jane collapsed back into her chair. “I could overrule you, you know. I am the bride as well as the owner of this establishment.”

“You could.” Hayley stacked the glasses on a tray and carefully carried them behind the bar, rattling them only a little as she went. “But why? This is one time in your life when you can let your friends do things for you. So let us.”

“There is no us,” Jane pointed out. “There’s only you, since you refused all the people who offered to hang around and help clean up.”

Hayley set down the tray and flipped off the country music that had been playing over the sound system all night. The sudden quiet was welcome. “Sam would have stayed to help if she hadn’t gotten called in for duty.” Hayley had seen Jane operate the dishwasher behind the bar often enough that she figured she could manage it herself. She began loading glasses onto one of the racks. “Casey’s going to be here to pick you up in a few minutes anyway.”

“But if you need help, you can check—”

“—with Jerry,” Hayley finished, glancing across to the open doorway that led to the restaurant side of the bar and grill, where Jane’s cook was still at it. Even though it was past closing time for the grill, the lights were still on over there and with the music turned off in the bar, she could hear the rattle of dishes and murmur of voices from his late-night customers.

“Okay, so maybe I am a bit of a control freak,” Jane admitted. At the sound of the door opening, she turned and looked over her shoulder.

“Did I actually hear the words ‘control freak’ come out of your lips?” Casey asked as he entered.

Hayley didn’t bother trying to hide her smile as she bent over to slide the rack into the dishwasher.

“You heard nothing of the sort,” Jane countered blithely. “The brightness of your neon orange shirt has affected your hearing. Speaking of... Your sister wants me to do something about your shirts.”

“Admit it.” Casey leaned over his fiancée and kissed her before pulling her to her feet. “The only thing you want to do about my shirts is get me out of them.”

“Save it for the honeymoon,” Hayley told them. “My innocent ears can’t take any more.”

“Please.” Jane rolled her eyes and ducked under Casey’s arm to come around the bar. “Are you sure you don’t want—?”

“Get out of here.” Hayley gave her a hug and a push. “The party is over, so go home. I’ll make sure everything’s locked up.”

“I know. I just—” Jane closed her mouth when Hayley pointedly looked at Casey for help. “Fine. Fine!” Her friend tossed up her hands and went back around the bar. She took the costume tiara that Sam had mockingly insisted she wear during the party and fit it back on her head before joining Casey.

“Think it suits me?”

“Well, you’re already the queen of my heart,” he drawled, nearly frog-stepping her to the door.

“Oh, brother.” Jane sent Hayley a look as they left, but Hayley knew just how deeply in love the two were and once the door finally closed behind them, she couldn’t help but sigh a little.

Not with envy. She wasn’t envious of her friend’s happiness.

But she couldn’t help being even more acutely aware of her own solitary life in the face of all of that happiness.

Blowing out a breath, she peeled off her high-heeled boots and wiggled her stocking-clad toes as she went around to each of the tables, picking up paper plates and crumpled napkins and dumping them in a trash bag.

“Looks like you got left holding the bag.”

She startled, jerking around at the sound of the deep voice, and somehow managed to spill the trash she’d just collected. She spotted Seth standing in the doorway to the grill. “What are you doing here?”

He held up his plate and fork as if it should have been obvious. “Jerry’s got good pecan pie. And I was hungry after working a double.”

She hadn’t seen him since she’d tried to chase after him at the wedding shower the week before, and she felt as foolish now as she always seemed to feel around him. “Well, the restaurant might have stayed open to serve you, but the bar’s closed.”

“I gathered that from the girly-looking Closed for Private Function sign taped on the wall.” He took a few steps closer anyway. “Didn’t know that Colbys was fancy enough for privatefunctions.”

She crouched to scoop the plates and napkins back into the bag again. “I threw Jane’s bachelorette party here.” She grimaced when her fingers sank into an unfinished piece of cake but scooped as much as she could into the bag. She wasn’t about to tell him that she was the one who’d fashioned the pretty signs. “There’s more room for a party here than at my place.” Particularly with her grandmother still in residence. And Jane had insisted that if she had to have another party in her honor, she wanted it held someplace where she was extremely comfortable.

Hayley rose and wiped her sticky fingers on another paper napkin that she added to the bag. “What did you mean last week—” she pushed the words out before she lost her nerve “—about being a gentleman?”

He forked another bite of pie into his mouth, not seeming surprised by her abruptness. “I said I wasn’t.”

She finally looked right at him and felt the usual lurch inside her when she did. He was wearing blue jeans and a snug black T-shirt with SECURITY printed in white block letters across the front. “What you said before you left the Clays’ party last week. I had the sense you were implying something. I just don’t know what.”

His vivid blue eyes narrowed slightly. “Afraid you’ll have to clue me in, Dr. Templeton.”

She frowned at him. “Don’t call me that.”

“It’s what you are.” As if he were perfectly at home doing so, he went behind the bar and grabbed a towel and a bottle of spray cleaner. Then he came back around to where she’d dropped the trash and smoothly knelt to wipe up the bits of cake that had landed on the floor.

Feeling stymied, she stared down at the back of his head as he worked. His hair was starting to curl around his nape and the T-shirt tightened across his muscular shoulders every time he moved his arm.

“It’s ridiculous to call me that after we’ve slept together,” she said, wishing she didn’t feel as uptight about that fact as she did. She was a therapist, for heaven’s sake. She was supposed to understand human nature.

“Ah. I get it now.”

She wished she did.

He gave the now-clean floor a last buff with the towel and stood. “We didn’t. Sleep together. Have sex. Whatever you’re thinking that’s got your panties in a twist.” He left the bottle and towel on the table, tugged the trash bag out of her hand and headed for the uncleared tables. “Not that I didn’t have that in mind when we left here that night.”

Her face was hot. She knew she ought to tell him to stop cleaning up. She’d hosted the party and cleaning up afterward was her responsibility. “I woke up in your bed!”

“Yep.” He glanced at her over his shoulder. “That’s where I put you after you passed out. I spent a very uncomfortable night on a couch that’s too damn short.”

She pulled out a chair and sat. There was no real reason for her knees to feel weak, but they did. “But I thought we—”

“Nope.” He gave her a longer look. “Believe me, sweetheart. I’d remember if we had. Call me conceited, but I’d like to think you would, too.”

A shiver slid down her spine. “But when I woke up that morning, I wasn’t dressed.”

He came back to her and placed the half-full bag on the center of the table in front of her. “Unless you managed to strip yourself off while you were dead to the world, you still had on your undies when I put you to bed. I’m sure you weren’t naked when you decided to bolt at 4 a.m. either.”

Considering how hot her cheeks felt, she probably resembled a summer tomato. And she had been wearing her bra and panties when she’d crawled out of his bed. “I didn’t bolt.”

He deftly twisted the ends of the bag into a knot. “That’s what it looked like to me.”

“I didn’t even know you were there.”

His lips twisted. “Yeah, I got that loud and clear when you nearly face-planted on my living room rug in the middle of me kissing you.”

“I meant when I left.”

“Bolted.”

She ignored that. “You weren’t in bed with me. You weren’t anywhere in your apartment at all.” She lifted her shoulder as if it was of no consequence. As if his absence that morning hadn’t heavily factored into her many reasons for regretting her behavior that night. “I figured you’d left.”

“I was sitting on the patio.”

She studied him for a moment. “My recall of that night is admittedly limited. But I certainly haven’t forgotten that it was the beginning of January. There was at least a foot of snow on the ground. The average high that time of year is below 30 degrees. And you want me to believe you were out on your patio. At four in the morning.”

“It happens to be the truth. But if you don’t want to believe me, you can always talk to my neighbor, Mrs. Carson. Old woman’s always looking out her windows watching what’s going on.” He shrugged. “I was awake. I wanted a cigarette. I was outside. Sitting in a chair, freezing my ass off, smoking said cigarette, when what to my wondering eyes did appear but one doctor skidding her sweet way across the icy parking lot below me like the hounds of hell were on her heels.”

He tilted his head slightly. “Convenient to have a friend in the sheriff’s department. After I saw you make a call on your cell phone, it took less than three minutes for that cruiser to arrive.” His lips kicked up in a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “You stood under the streetlight, stomping your feet to keep warm, but you kept stealing looks back at the apartment building and shaking your head. Face it, Dr. Templeton. You bolted. And ever since then, you’ve avoided me. I haven’t even seen you running in the park lately.”

She flinched. His description of that night—that morning—was too detailed. Too accurate. “I told you already. I was embarrassed.” She lifted her hand quickly when he began to smile again. “Not because you’re a security guard at Cee-Vid.”

His expression didn’t change. “Say whatever it is that helps you sleep at night.”

Irritation was building inside her. “I’d make a pretty poor therapist if I judged people by their career choices.”

“I didn’t take you home that night because I wanted to have my head examined. And that’s not why you went with me, either.” He planted his hands on the top of the table and leaned closer. His blue eyes were laser-sharp and uncomfortably shrewd. “You were drunk. We both wanted to get laid. Whether it worked out or not is beside the point. I would still be the guy you want to pretend you never went home with.”

“I think you’re the one with issues about a person’s career.” Sitting while he stood was unnerving, so she rose, lifting the trash bag by the knot and carrying it over to the door. She would drop it in the bin out back when she locked up and left. “Have you considered talking to someone about that?”

When she turned back to face him, he was sitting on the table, his arms folded across his wide chest. He looked amused. “You offering up your professional services?”

“Not mine,” she assured with a lightness she was far from feeling. She crossed back to the table and grabbed the towel and bottle. “It would be unethical.”

“Given our...personal connection.”

“Yes.”

“Pretty unsatisfying, if you ask me.” He pushed off the table.

She squeezed the towel in her fist. He suddenly seemed to tower over her. And every time she pulled in a breath, it carried his enticing scent. “Why is that?”

“I don’t get to avail myself of the services of the town shrink.”

She had to forcibly restrain a shiver when he reached out and slowly tucked some loose strands of hair behind her ear. His hand fell away just as slowly, fingertips grazing her earlobe along the way.

“And I am stuck thinking about the way you felt in my arms, still wishing we’d have had a chance to finish what we started.” His gaze dropped to her lips.

She swallowed. Hard. “Seth—” But she stopped, unsure of what she wanted to say. Or do. All she knew was that a huge part of her wanted him to just take the matter into his own hands so that she wouldn’t have to.

And how much of a coward did that make her?

His expression suggested that he knew exactly what she was thinking. “See you around, Doc.” He turned to go.

Annoyed with herself and her own paralyzing inhibition, she took a step after him. “Wait.”

He stopped and looked back.

She reached out, only to forget she was still holding the squirt bottle, and knocked him with it, accidentally spraying the front of his shirt.

Dismayed, all she could do was stare as the droplets immediately began leaching the fabric of its black color. “Oh, sugarnuts! I’m so sorry.”

“Sugarnuts?” He let out a bark of laughter. “What the hell kind of curse is that?”

“The kind I didn’t get sent to my room for when I was a girl. I’ll pay for a new shirt.”

He plucked the squirt bottle out of her hand. “I’m glad it wasn’t a loaded gun.”

She made a face and followed him to the bar as he replaced the bottle where he’d gotten it. “I don’t own a gun.”

He pointedly looked at his spattered shirt. “Good thing. Being shot in the gut has never been a goal of mine, even when I was in the army.”

She blinked a little. Her father had been in the military once upon a time and Seth, with his unshaven jaw and his tumbled hair, didn’t exactly smack of the discipline that still ruled her father even all these years later. “I didn’t know you were in the army.”

“Not something we ever got around to talking about.” He rounded the bar again and picked up the plate with his unfinished pie. “Always an adventure with you, Doc. Try not to hurt yourself before you get home.”

“What about your shirt?”

“Think I’ll live.” He was heading for the breezeway leading back to the restaurant. “I have a closet full of ’em.”

“If I can’t replace your shirt, maybe I can buy you dinner.” The words came out in a rush, surprising them both if the silence that followed was any indication.

He glanced back at her, one eyebrow lifted. “What was that?”

She swallowed, stiffening her spine a little. “You heard me.”

His eyes narrowed slightly, which only served to emphasize how dark and thick his eyelashes were. “A bleach-stained T-shirt isn’t worth dinner.”

“I know,” she managed, albeit a shade breathlessly. “But a, um, a gentleman might be worth it.”

He let out another short snort of laughter. “Just because I like my women conscious doesn’t make me a gentleman.” He spread his hand. “But I’m not gonna turn down a meal that doesn’t involve my own microwave.”

“Great.” She rubbed her damp palms down the sides of her jeans. “Uh...great. Any place you’d like to go?”

A faint smile was playing around his lips. “You don’t ask guys out very often, do you.” It wasn’t a question but an observation.

“Never,” she admitted. “Clearly, it’s just another thing at which I excel, like ruining a man’s work shirt.”

His long fingers splayed against the bleach spots across his abdomen. “Why don’t we start with lunch? Tomorrow. In the new park out past your office. Willow Park, I think it’s called.”

She wasn’t sure whether to feel elated or deflated. “I haven’t been there. I usually go to the community park right here downtown even though it’s farther from my office.” The park was just across the road from Colbys, in fact. It’s where she ran every weekend with Sam. It’s where he ran, though admittedly, she’d done her level best the past few months to avoid him, just as he’d accused her of doing.

He shrugged. “Just a suggestion. Thought you might relax more if you weren’t worried about encountering a lot of people you know.”

Now she definitely felt deflated. And indignant. “Because you’re a security guard?” Her voice was tart. “You’d be less worried about that if you knew how many student loans I am still paying off. And as it happens, I’m not free tomorrow during lunch. But I am for dinner. I’ll pick you up. Seven o’clock if that works for you.”

His voice, however, was smooth. And amused. “Seven’s fine.”

Still buoyed by indignation, she nodded sharply. “Good.”

But after he disappeared back through the doorway to the restaurant side of Colbys Bar & Grill, she couldn’t shake the vague sense that, while she’d finally found the nerve to ask out a man she was admittedly interested in, he’d been the one who’d gotten exactly what he wanted.

She shook her head sharply. Because it was already late and only getting later the longer she dawdled there, she quickly went about upending the chairs on top of the wiped-down tables. Then she swept up the bits of confetti on the floor, unloaded the dishwasher and steeled herself to go through the doorway to the restaurant to let Jerry know she was ready to leave.

Fortunately, only the cook was left. He was sitting at the counter nursing a cup of coffee.

Even better, there was no sign of Seth.

Which left her a solid twenty hours to get used to the idea that everything she’d believed for the past three months where he was concerned had been wrong.

And to get accustomed to the idea that she had done something she’d never done before in her life.

Asked a man out on a date.


Chapter Three (#ulink_30a38c17-449b-558d-ac45-a62b4235c987)

“So you didn’t sleep with pretty boy Seth Banyon.” Samantha Dawson sat on the bed in Hayley’s room, watching her paw through her closet for something to wear that would be appropriate for her dinner with Seth that evening.

“No. Thank God.” She pushed through a few more hangers. “I need to go shopping. The only things I own are suits and blue jeans.”

Sam laughed and made a point of looking at her watch. “And more sexy shoes than anyone I know. But I don’t think you’re going to have time for a shopping spree, Hay. You’re supposed to be picking up the guy in a half hour.”

“A half hour!” Aghast that she’d spent so much time dithering over what to wear, she grabbed the next hanger and pulled off her dove gray suit. “Why didn’t you say so?”

Sam propped her head in her hand, watching her with amused eyes. As usual, because she wasn’t working out, she was wearing her uniform. “Strangely enough, I figured you were still in possession of your typical perception of time. You going to finally sleep with him?”

“Sam!”

Her friend shrugged. “What? It’s a valid question.”

“I don’t intend to sleep with him.”

“Ever?”

Busy slipping her pencil skirt up her thighs, Hayley choked on a laugh. “You don’t really expect me to answer that, do you?”

“Well, yeah,” Sam retorted as if it were obvious. “Gotta live vicariously through someone, don’t I?”

“Jane’s getting married. You want to envy someone’s love life, she’s a better bet.”

“Hell, no. Married sex? Marriage, period? No thank you.” Shuddering comically, Sam pushed off the bed and pulled on the suit jacket, turning this way and that as she stood in front of the mirror. To say it clashed with her dark green uniform was an understatement. But Sam filled out the bust of the jacket better than Hayley did.

Resigned to the fact that she’d never possess the figure with which Sam had been blessed, Hayley returned to the closet to select a blouse. “I know it’s a wild theory, but there are some who believe that being married to a person you love actually enhances sex.” She started to slide the blouse over her head.

“Married people just say that so they’ll feel better about what they’ve sacrificed since the vows.” Sam removed the jacket and held it out. “Ditch the blouse,” she advised.

“What?”

Sam wagged the jacket. “Bad enough you’re wearing a suit. You don’t need to button up in a blouse, too.”

“I figured we could go to China Palace in Braden. It’s the only place around that uses linen tablecloths. But I’ll probably know half the people there, so I’m not going without a blouse.”

Sam shrugged. “Suit yourself. No pun intended. I’m sure pretty boy will be impressed to go out with a woman dressed for the office.” Her wicked smile took away any sting and she pulled open Hayley’s bedroom door. “I’ve gotta get back to the station.” She’d only dropped by for a few minutes during her break. “Let me know how it goes.”

After she’d shut the door behind her, Hayley looked at herself in the mirror. She did look as if she was heading in for a day of work. The suit and blouse were nearly identical to the ones she’d shed shortly before Sam had showed up. Even adding a pair of multi-strapped black pumps wasn’t going to change that fact.

“Sugarnuts,” she muttered and whipped the blouse back over her head. She’d twisted her usual ponytail into a low chignon and the pins were already starting to come loose thanks to her hurrying. She didn’t want Seth thinking of her as a therapist.

She wanted him thinking of her as a woman.

But she didn’t have the nerve to go sans blouse entirely. She found a lacy black camisole that had never seen the light of day—because it was meant to be an undergarment—and buttoned her jacket up over that. She yanked the pins out of her hair, raked her fingers through it and checked her reflection again.

“You look manic,” she told herself and reached for the brush to smooth out her messy hair.

“Hayley, dear.” Her grandmother opened the door, an imperious look in her eye. “Your phone is out here ringing. Shall I answer it for you?”

Hayley tossed the brush on the bed. “I’ll get it, Vivian.” Addressing her grandmother by her given name was something that made them both more comfortable. Hayley because she’d never met the woman until six months ago. And Vivian because she wasn’t fond of being reminded that she was old enough to have several grown grandchildren. Which made little sense, because she’d come to Wyoming to end the estrangement with her family.

“Men like women in dresses, dear.” Vivian followed Hayley into the living room. “Once you catch them, then wear a suit.” The older woman patted the nubby silk one that she herself was wearing. “But until then—” she waved her hand expressively “—wear a dress. Allows them to think they’re in charge or something. Men need their delusions.”

“I think I’ll be fine,” Hayley said confidently, despite her own dithering over her clothing, and snatched up her ringing cell phone from the table by the front door. She quickly answered when she saw the number displayed. “This is Dr. Templeton.”

“Sorry to bother you at home, ma’am. But you did say to call if he showed any change.”

She easily recognized the caller’s voice. Which meant the “he” in question was her newest patient, Jason McGregor. “That’s all right, Adam. And I did say to call anytime. What’s happening? Is he asking for me?” It would be a first. Ever since Tristan Clay requested she take on the case, Jason McGregor had steadfastly refused to interact with her in any meaningful way. That hadn’t stopped her from spending several hours each day with him for the past week and a half, however.

“No, ma’am. But he’s tearing up his room, so I figured I’d better call.”

“He hasn’t hurt himself, has he?” Jason’s room at the safe house had more amenities than Tristan Clay had initially wanted to provide. She knew her patient was a prisoner. That his quarters were a cell disguised as a modestly comfortable room being monitored every single minute of every single day. It was no different than the military prison where he’d been before Tristan had him transferred into his custody.

And although she might not know the finer ins and outs of what all Tristan and his highly confidential Hollins-Winword actually did—she preferred not to know, actually—she did know that her patient was suspected of having killed his two partners. Tristan was trusting her to either help the man work through his memory loss surrounding the incident, or debunk his condition altogether.

Everyone around Jason seemed to believe he was dangerous. Hayley was still withholding judgment on that. She simply didn’t know enough about the man yet.

“He’s trying to bang up the place pretty good, but he’s not showing any signs of injury,” Adam answered.

At least that was something. “I’ll be there in ten minutes,” she promised and disconnected the call. “A patient,” she told her grandmother, who was still standing right beside her.

“Oh, Hayley. What about your date?”

To hear Vivian’s tone, canceling was akin to dissing the Queen of England. Hayley scrolled through her cell phone history until she found Seth’s number. “The date’s just going to have to wait,” she said as she headed back into the privacy of her bedroom.

Her call was answered after only a few rings. “It’s Hayley.”

“Chicken out already?” His voice was deep.

“I’m not chickening out.” She tucked the thin phone against her shoulder and yanked her hair back into its customary ponytail. “I have a patient emergency.”

“Yeah. That’s what they all say.”

She caught the reflection of her narrowing eyes in the mirror and hastily smoothed out her face as if he could see through the phone to her severe expression. “I don’t make up things when it comes to my patients.”

“So you make up things when it doesn’t?”

“You’re toying with me.”

“If you unwound a little, you’d be quicker to recognize when a person’s joking.”

Tension that she hadn’t even realized she was feeling released inside her chest. She exhaled and pushed her feet into leather ballet flats. They weren’t on her list of favorites, but they were comfortable and no-nonsense and she’d quickly learned that where her newest patient was concerned, no-nonsense was key. In one of his rare verbal offerings, he’d warned her to save both her coddling and her feminine wiles. The fact that she’d offered neither was immaterial. “I am sorry, Seth.”

“I’ll make sure you make it up to me.”

“Ha ha. Another joke.”

His voice dropped. “No, Doc. That’s a promise. Obviously this is going to take some work.”

She smiled even though a shiver was dancing down her spine. “I guess we’ll see. I’m afraid dinner will probably have to wait until after Casey and Jane’s wedding this weekend.” She had several group sessions that met during the week in the evenings. And Friday would be busy with the wedding rehearsal and the dinner Casey and Jane were having out at their place. “I don’t expect to have any free time until next Sunday at the earliest.”

“Guess it will be back to the microwave for me. When I die from malnourishment, drop a flower on my grave.”

She laughed softly. “I’ll do that. Good night, Seth.”

“Good night, Doc.”

Still smiling, she slid her phone into the side pocket of her briefcase, which usually doubled as her purse, too, and went back out to the living room.

“All work and no play isn’t going to keep you warm at night, dear,” her grandmother cautioned.

Even though Hayley felt certain that Vivian hadn’t left the house all day except for the morning walk she usually took, her grandmother was still dressed in a Chanel suit with jewels sparkling at her ears and throat. In six months, Hayley had never seen her grandmother dress differently. She seemed to have an endless array of designer clothing and priceless jewelry. Undoubtedly the benefit of having been married once upon a time to a steel magnate. “That’s why I have an electric blanket,” Hayley assured her grandmother. “Don’t wait up. I might be late.”

“I wish it were for a different reason.” Vivian’s acerbic voice followed her out the door.

“Me, too,” Hayley murmured as she hurried to her car. “Me, too.”

* * *

Ten minutes away in the observation room that overlooked McGregor’s cell, Seth slid his cell phone into his pocket. Beyond the monitors and the bulletproof glass, the disgraced agent had finally stopped throwing his furniture around and now stood motionless in the middle of the room, staring down at his feet. They were bare below the pale blue medical scrubs that he wore. When it came to acting, the guy was doing a good job of looking as if he was losing his marbles.

Not that his behavior changed Seth’s mind at all about McGregor’s involvement in his partners’ deaths.

He glanced at the young man sitting in front of the monitors. “Thanks for keeping me in the loop, Adam.” Strictly speaking, Seth had no official need-to-know where the safe house’s “guest” was concerned. But Seth had helped Adam get into Hollins-Winword a while back and loyalty stuck. “Does Dr. Templeton ever check the log?”

Adam shook his head. “I tried showing it to her because Mr. Clay said she was in charge of everything with McGregor except security, but she didn’t want to see it. Says her only interest is in her patient. Not the comings and goings of his keepers, since we never interact with the guy.”

The only people who did interact with McGregor, according to Adam, were Hayley and, even less frequently, Tristan. Tristan’s meetings with McGregor were recorded. Audio and video.

Hayley’s, however, were not. She’d evidently dismissed the warnings that being observed during her sessions was for her own safety and insisted that her patient’s privacy be honored. Her only concession had been to carry a panic button whenever she was alone with McGregor.

“Well.” Seth scrawled the exit time in the log next to his equally indecipherable signature. “Enjoy the grub.” He’d brought Adam dinner from one of the diners in town.

“Already am,” Adam said around a bite of his roast beef sandwich.

Seth left the safe house and drove his truck well out of sight before pulling to the side of the road. He’d planned to make his usual quick stop at the place to check on things and be home at his apartment in plenty of time before Hayley came. But witnessing McGregor’s temper tantrum had waylaid him. And even before he’d heard her voice on the phone, he’d known that Hayley would be canceling on him.

His conscience didn’t particularly bother him.

Just because he’d considered the possibility of gaining inside information from her about what McGregor revealed during their private sessions didn’t mean Seth was acting on it. She had limited knowledge of those involved with Hollins-Winword and there was no reason for her to know he was anything other than what she believed him to be: a lowly Cee-Vid security guard.

So he sat there off in the distance on the side of the road and waited until her car arrived. She parked in the driveway of the ordinary-looking ranch-style house situated in the middle of a half-dozen other ordinary-looking houses, got out, walked up the sidewalk and knocked on the front door. A few seconds later, the woman who lived in the house with her real-life husband opened the door as if greeting a friend, and Hayley disappeared inside.

In his mind, Seth followed her movements. Through the living room filled with ordinary furniture. Probably greeting the husband, where he’d be parked on his recliner, watching sports on television after having spent his day in the drugstore where he was the pharmacist. Through the kitchen, which was usually filled with the warm scent of something the pharmacist’s stay-at-home wife was baking, and down the stairs to the basement. Then through a steel security door as thick as Seth’s thigh and down another flight to the very depths below the house where she’d be greeted by a guard just like Adam who didn’t hide the fact that he was armed the way the couple upstairs did.

And even though Hayley had the trust of Tristan Clay, for security purposes she would still have to surrender that sleek briefcase she carried and be wanded and patted down before she’d be allowed into the heavily locked room with her patient, the panic button tucked into her pocket.

The process would take a minimum of five minutes if she didn’t stop to shoot the breeze with anyone along the way.

Seth sat there slouched in his truck seat watching the house. Porch lights came on up and down the street as darkness fell and his butt turned numb.

And finally, a little more than three hours later, the front door of the safe house opened again and Hayley appeared on the porch. Accompanied by the lady of the house, she stood there for a moment, smiling and holding a foil-wrapped package in her hand, before returning to her car with a casual wave of her hand.

She definitely had the routine down. Anyone taking the time to watch would have seen only one friend stopping to visit another.

Exhaling, and not particularly anxious to examine the reasons why he was relieved she was out of there, Seth straightened in his seat, started up his ancient truck and drove home to the microwave in his apartment.

* * *

“You’ve got a visitor.”

Hayley looked up from her case notes to see her office manager, Gretchen, standing in the doorway. “Who?”

Gretchen grinned and her eyebrows practically wiggled. “A man.”

“Nearly half my practice is made up of men,” Hayley replied. But she closed the file folder, slid it into her desk drawer and stood up. She had an hour before her next appointment, which Gretchen—who did her office scheduling—knew very well. So Hayley walked with her to the outer reception area.

The sight of Seth standing there made her breath catch in her chest. She was vaguely aware of Gretchen retreating to her desk behind the reception counter. “Aren’t you supposed to be at work?” He was dressed in another black work T-shirt and blue jeans. Common clothes, yet the man wearing them didn’t seem common at all.

“Even I get a lunch break.” He held up a large brown paper bag. “Think the doctor does, too.” He smiled faintly. “At least that’s what I heard from a reliable source.”

Hayley looked toward Gretchen. Her office manager was looking down, but she caught the satisfied smile on her face. It seemed Gretchen shared Vivian’s opinion that Hayley needed a man.

She looked back at Seth and nodded toward the brown bag. “And that’s lunch, I’m assuming. You’re obviously well-prepared.”

His smile was lazy. “I try to be. Dinner didn’t work out last night, but today’s a new day. What do you say?” He wagged the bag slightly. “Sandwiches are still warm from Ruby’s. Sun’s shining and that new park is only five minutes away.”

She mockingly narrowed her eyes. “You’re trying to tempt me, aren’t you?”

“Is it working?”

“I feel that if I admit it is, you’ll take advantage of that.”

“Scout’s honor, I do have taking advantage in mind.”

Her breath caught a little all over again. Because he was tempting her. Even more, he was charming her. Yes, she was attracted to him. But she’d never expected the oddly sweet smile lighting his bright blue eyes. And for once, she forgot all about being nervous around him. “Were you ever a Boy Scout?”

“No ma’am. I was an army ranger. Surrender is not a Ranger word.” He wagged the bag again. “Turkey pastrami on rye. Won’t stay warm forever.”

Her mouth watered and she wasn’t entirely certain whether it was because of the promise of one of her favorite sandwiches from Ruby’s, or because of Seth. “I suppose Gretchen told you I like turkey pastrami.”

“I’ve seen you buy it at Shop-World.” He shook his head dolefully. “Don’t figure it can hold a candle to the real deal, but I’ve never seen you buy beef.”

“You’ve noticed what I buy at the grocery store?” Hadn’t she done the same where he was concerned?

“I’m an observant guy.”

“Stop yammering, Dr. Templeton. If you don’t go have lunch with him, I will,” Gretchen warned. “And since my oldest boy is about his age, I’m sure your young man would be thrilled.”

Seth just smiled slightly and unfolded the top of the brown bag so that the scent inside escaped even more.

Hayley tossed up her hands as if she hadn’t decided she would go with him the very moment he suggested it. “I have to be back here by two.”

He folded up the top of the bag again. “That’s a mission I can handle. Promise.”

She chewed back the giddy smile that kept wanting to break free. “Let me just get my purse.” She turned, hurried back to her office and grabbed her briefcase. She glanced at the decorative mirror on her office wall and barely stopped herself from fussing with her appearance.

She’d passed out pretty much at his feet the night she’d gone home with him. It was safe to say he’d seen her at her worst, and she was dressed the same way she always was when she came to the office. Ponytail. Suit.

Still, she pinched the apples of her cheeks to rosy them up before she returned to the reception area. When she got there, he had his elbows propped on the high counter and was talking with Gretchen. Hayley barely had enough time to drag her eyes away from the perfect fit of denim over his perfect rear when he straightened and turned toward her.

And judging by the amusement in his eyes, she wasn’t sure she’d been fast enough.

“Ready?”

She swallowed, trying not to examine too closely the feelings swirling around inside her. Because sometimes a woman had to follow her instincts and just go with the moment.

“I’m ready,” she answered. Was she ever.


Chapter Four (#ulink_2cefd7ba-8c7e-58f0-b697-64623b87c812)

The name of the new park was, indeed, Willow Park. Obviously in honor of the stand of young willow trees planted on one side. There were also a couple stands of cottonwoods and a lot of grass that hadn’t yet filled in.

“You’re right when you said we wouldn’t run into anyone here,” Hayley observed as Seth opened her door after parking in the small parking lot and walking around the car. “There isn’t another vehicle here.”

“Give it time.” He took the bag, which she’d held on her lap during the short drive, and gestured at the buildings under construction across the street. She could hear an occasional whir of power tools and hammers. “When those houses are finished and people start moving in, the place’ll probably be crawling with kids.”

She smiled and followed him to the winding sidewalk that led from the parking lot, past the sandy playground, to one of the picnic tables positioned under the ramada. The weather was still cool and she was glad for her suit jacket against the breeze that was strong enough to make the swing set chains jangle musically. “Judging by your tone, I’m guessing you don’t have any. Kids, that is.”

“No. No kids. No exes down in Texas.” He glanced at her and gestured for her to sit. “Or anywhere else for that matter. I’d pull out the bench for you but it’s attached to the table.”

She couldn’t lift her foot over the bench to sit without hitching her skirt up her thighs, so she sat first and then rotated, swinging both her legs over the bench till she was facing the table. Then she felt like a ninny when she caught his grin as he took the bench across from her. “What?”

“Never appreciated quite this much what a straight skirt did for a pretty girl.” He set the bag on the table between them.

Warmth filled her cheeks, which needed no help from pinching this time. She quickly pulled open the paper sack to extract the contents. Not only were there two wrapped sandwiches that were still slightly warm, but also an insulated container of coleslaw, two bottles of water, two brownies and a ridiculous quantity of paper napkins.

She held them up in her hand. “Emptied the dispenser, did you?”

“I’ve seen how dangerous you are when it comes to water.”

“Don’t remind me.” She unfolded one of the napkins and set the sandwiched marked “TP” on it. “That night at Colbys was definitely not one of my finer moments.” She didn’t particularly want to talk about it, either, but pretending it hadn’t happened was pointless. “Is that where you’re from? Texas?”

He didn’t bother using a napkin as a placemat the way she did. Just unfolded the foil-backed paper from his sandwich and nodded before taking a healthy bite.

“Texas is a big state.” She unwrapped her own sandwich, savoring the scent that greeted her. “Whereabouts?”

He swallowed and opened one of the water bottles. “Little bit outside Dallas.”

“Your parents still there?”

“No.” The answer was short and didn’t invite further queries. “You’re not from Weaver.”

“How do you know that?”

“The night you went home with me, you kept saying you were supposed to be home in Braden.”

Ouch. “I don’t remember that. Did, uh, did I say anything else?” Any other little nuggets that would prove humiliating, right along with the way she’d passed out? She took a bite of her sandwich to make sure she didn’t actually voice that thought out loud.

“Just that you hadn’t had sex in a long time.”

She nearly choked on her food.

He uncapped the second water bottle and held it out to her, his eyes full of laughter. She looked past him at the empty playground equipment, the swings swaying softly, and drank down a third of the bottle before setting it down next to her sandwich. “How long have you been out of the army?”

“Pretty quick change of subject there.”

“I think it’s best,” she managed to say.

“Five years.”

She grimaced. “I told you that, too?”

“Since I left the rangers. But I guess I don’t have to ask you just how long is a long time.”

Mortified, she tried not to squirm. “And now you can understand why that is. I love Ruby’s coleslaw.” She grabbed the container that had been weighing down the spare napkins. Several napkins immediately flew off the table with the breeze.

He chuckled and lifted his hand. “Relax. I’ll get ’em. Don’t want your friend from the sheriff’s department writing us up for littering.”

While he retrieved the fluttering paper squares, she tucked the rest of the napkins safely back inside the bag and silently told herself to get a grip. Then she realized that there was only one plastic fork.





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