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THE TEXAN’S TENNESSEE ROMANCE
“I’m not looking for any commitments right now, either,” said Casey. “Just not the right time.

“For a pet,” he added.

Natalie looked at him through her lashes. “So you think we’ll be able to find a home for him?”

“I’m sure we will.” He brushed a strand of hair away from her face. “Don’t worry so much about it. He’s pretty good at taking care of himself.”

“I know.” She glanced up at him.

He toyed with the ends of her hair around her face, then touched her mouth with one finger, teasing her lips apart.

A faint flush tinged her cheeks. He felt his own pulse beating as his body reacted to the nearness of hers. He wanted to tell her how beautiful she was, but he couldn’t think of a way to do so without sounding trite or clichéd. He hoped she could see the sentiment in his eyes as he lowered his mouth to hers…

THE RANCHER & THE RELUCTANT PRINCESS
“You don’t get what you want very often, do you, Princess?” Carter asked softly.

Sophie gave a small, almost imperceptible shake of her head.

“That’s what I thought,” he murmured, and cupped her face with both hands.

It’s just a kiss, he told himself, lowering his head to hers. Just a kiss to take away that lonely look from her eyes. But that was before he felt the softness of her mouth beneath his and breathed in her small sigh.

The quick heat darting through him demanded that he kiss her more deeply, pull her taut little body into his arms, know the feel of her small breasts against his chest. She would fit perfectly there. She would fit perfectly everywhere.

With his body demanding more, but his mind telling him he’d already done more than he should, his hands drifted from her face. “That wasn’t because you’re a princess…”

The Texan’s Tennessee Romance

By

Gina Wilkins
The Rancher & The Reluctant Princess

By

Christine Flynn

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Available in September 2010
from Mills & Boon®
Special Moments™

The Texas Billionaire’s Bride by Crystal Green & The Texas Bodyguard’s Proposal by Karen Rose Smith

Kids on the Doorstep by Kimberly Van Meter & Cop on Loan by Jeannie Watt

The Texan’s Tennessee Romance by Gina Wilkins & The Rancher & the Reluctant Princess by Christine Flynn

Loving the Right Brother by Marie Ferrarella

A Weaver Baby by Allison Leigh

A Small-Town Temptation by Terry McLaughlin

A Not-So-Perfect Past by Beth Andrews

The Texan’s Tennessee Romance

By

Gina Wilkins

GINA WILKINS is a bestselling and award-winning author who has written more than seventy novels for Mills & Boon. She credits her successful career in romance to her long, happy marriage and her three “extraordinary” children.

A lifelong resident of central Arkansas, Ms Wilkins sold her first story to Mills & Boon in 1987 and has been writing full-time since. She has appeared on the Waldenbooks, B Dalton and USA TODAY bestseller lists. She is a three-time recipient of the Maggie Award for Excellence, sponsored by Georgia Romance Writers, and has won several awards from the reviewers of Romantic Times BOOKreviews.

As always, for my family:

John, Courtney, Kerry, Justin and David.

Chapter One

He was quite possibly one of the worst maintenance men Natalie Lofton had ever seen. Pretty, but incompetent. Watching as he fumbled with a leaky pipe under her kitchen sink, she wondered where on earth her aunt and uncle had found this twenty-something guy, who had introduced himself only as Casey. She couldn’t imagine what had made them think he was qualified to be a handyman for the vacation cabins they owned in the Smoky Mountains around Gatlinburg, Tennessee.

“Is there anything I can do to help you?” she asked the third time she heard an ominous clang followed by a muttered curse.

Her voice from the doorway must have startled him. She saw his nice backside jerk, heard what sounded like a painful thump from beneath the sink and then yet another colorful expletive, bitten off midway.

He emerged ruefully rubbing a spot on the top of his head, and she couldn’t help noticing again that he was certainly good-looking. His appearance, she decided, defied simple, one-word adjectives. His hair was just a shade more brown than blond, and his almost-crystalline-bright eyes looked blue one moment, green the next. His jawline was sharply carved, but flashing dimples softened his cheeks. She suspected his personality was just as multifaceted.

“What did you say?” he asked.

She moved closer, bending over to see what he’d been doing under there. How much time did it take to replace a leaky trap, anyway? “I asked if there’s anything I can do to help.”

“Thanks, but I’ve got it. It won’t be much longer.”

“Uh-huh.” She hoped she didn’t sound as skeptical as she felt.

His polite smile fading, he ducked back under the sink, flipping over to lie on his back this time. She couldn’t help noticing that he looked just as good from waist down as he did above. Long legs, flat stomach, nice…

“Could you hand me that wrench, please? The big one?”

She picked up the biggest wrench she saw in his box and leaned over to hand it to him. “This one?”

“Yeah, thanks.”

She watched as he fitted it to the pipe. “Um, don’t you think you should—”

“What?” he asked loudly, unable to hear from beneath the sink. Even as he spoke, he gave the wrench a big twist. She saw the wrench slip, smashing through the thin copper water pipe next to him.

Cold water sprayed in a geyser from the broken pipe, hitting her squarely in the face. Gasping, she heard Casey sputter as he lay at the bottom of a veritable waterfall. While she stumbled backward, he scrambled frantically clanging and muttering until he reduced the gushing to a dribble by turning off the water valve.

“—shut off the water supply?” she finished her question in a grumble.

“I am so sorry,” he said, awkwardly climbing from beneath the sink. He was even wetter than Natalie, if that was possible. His light brown hair dripped around his face, and his blue polo shirt was plastered to his well-defined chest.

Which reminded her…

Glancing downward, she noted that her thin, yellow cotton shirt had molded itself to her, going almost transparent when wet. She grabbed hold of the front, pulling the fabric away from her body. “I’ll go find some towels.”

He raised his gaze quickly to her face. “Yeah, okay. I’m really sorry.”

She nodded and darted out of the kitchen, heading straight for the cabin’s only bedroom. She wasn’t bringing towels to him until she had changed her shirt.

Catching a glimpse of herself in the antique oval mirror over the rustic dresser, she groaned. Water trickled from the ends of her chin-length, honey-blond, angled bob. The bare minimum of makeup she’d applied that morning was water-splotched. And her now-transparent shirt made it very clear that she’d donned a comfy—and very thin—nude-toned bra that morning.

She changed quickly into a dry, slightly thicker bra and a dark blue, scoop-neck T-shirt. Deciding her jeans weren’t damp enough to change, she ran a brush through her wet hair. After dusting a little powder over her now-shiny face, she grabbed an armload of towels and headed back toward the kitchen where surely the world’s worst handyman waited for her.

Way to go, Casey. Drench one of the tenants. The owner’s niece, to make it even worse. Some handyman you are.

Of course, that was the problem. He wasn’t a handyman at all. Just a twenty-six-year-old man in the middle of an identity crisis.

“Here.” Reentering the room, Natalie tossed a fluffy white towel to him. “Dry yourself. I’ll start on the floor.”

He draped the towel over his head and rubbed his soaked hair, then dragged it over his neck and the front of his shirt. While he did so, he watched Natalie kneel to swab up the water pooled on the oak floor. She’d changed clothes, he noted. He tried to push away a lingering image of her wet, yellow shirt plastered to very nice curves.

“I’ll have to install a new pipe. And the flooring of the cabinet needs to be replaced,” he said. “The slow leak you found has pretty much rotted it out.”

“The fast leak you created didn’t help any, either,” she muttered, gathering wet towels to carry into the small laundry room attached to the kitchen.

He supposed he deserved that. But it rather annoyed him, anyway. Especially since he’d broken the damn pipe because she’d distracted him and made him self-conscious by watching him and talking to him while he was trying to work. Serious control issues, this one.

As if she’d read a hint of his thoughts in his eyes, she grimaced slightly. “Sorry,” she said, pushing a damp strand of hair off her cheek. “I know it was an accident.”

“Yeah. But you’re right. I didn’t help matters much,” he conceded, softened by her apology. No matter how grudgingly she’d offered it.

“How long have you worked for Uncle Mack?” she asked, glancing at the tool box beside his feet.

“Just over a week now.”

“And how long have you been a handyman?”

“Maintenance facilitator,” he corrected her with a grin. When she only looked at him, he shrugged and said, “Just over a week now.”

“Oh.” She looked as though she’d like to ask a few more questions, but either manners or lack of sufficient interest kept her from doing so. Whatever the reason, he was relieved that she kept her questions to herself.

There were a few things he would like to know about her, too. But this wasn’t the time. He reached down for his tools. “I’m going to have to get a new copper pipe to replace the one I broke. Might have to get some help changing it out. I’m afraid you’re going to be without water in here for a few hours, but you still have water in the bathroom.”

She nodded. “Aunt Jewel told me the cabin is undergoing renovations and repair work. That’s why she’s letting me use it while I—for now,” she corrected herself. “I can get by without the kitchen sink for a while.”

“Okay. Well then, I’ll be back later,” he said, moving toward the door. “Sorry again about—you know.” He motioned toward her still damp hair, then let himself out of the cabin before he made a bigger fool of himself.

Which wouldn’t be easy to do, he thought as he climbed into the black SUV parked in the gravel driveway. He hadn’t exactly wowed Natalie with his maintenance skills. No wonder she had wanted to know how long he’d been doing this.

Because it was the first week in November, the fall colors had begun to fade, and the leaves were already beginning to drop. It wasn’t cold yet, but a nip in the air promised that it would be soon. Driving down the winding mountain road that ran alongside one of the many rushing creeks in the area, Casey noted the signs of approaching winter, even as he wondered what Natalie would have said if he’d told her the whole truth about himself.

He’d been doing a few maintenance chores for the past week, but he was actually an associate attorney in a high-powered, Dallas law firm. One of the youngest ever hired by the firm, starting right after earning his law degree when he was only twenty-four.

The six-week leave of absence he’d taken almost two weeks ago hadn’t exactly cemented his future with the firm. No one but his cousin Molly Reeves understood or approved of his need to take that time now to reevaluate his life and the future that had been laid out for him almost from birth. Molly and her husband, Kyle, partners in Mack and Jewel McDooley’s vacation property management business, had given him a place to stay during the hiatus, and the space he needed to deal with his issues.

As payment for their hospitality, he’d volunteered to fill in for the regular full-time handyman, who’d been in a car accident recently and wouldn’t be able to work for at least another month. Molly had been understandably skeptical about his offer. She knew he hadn’t spent a lot of time working with his hands while he’d concentrated on school for most of his life. But he’d convinced her and the others that he could handle some simple repair work.

And darned if he hadn’t messed up for the first time right in front of the owner’s niece, he thought with a scowl. Not only that—the owner’s very hot niece.

He didn’t know what he’d been expecting when Mack mentioned that his wife’s niece was staying in one of the cabins for a few weeks, but the woman he’d met that morning had taken him by surprise. Tall and classy, she was a cool blond with warm chocolate eyes. Her age was hard to guess, but he’d estimated a little older than himself. The extra couple of years looked good on her.

She’d even held on to her dignity for the most part when he’d doused her with cold water from beneath the sink. He could still see her standing there, dripping, her wet shirt clinging to her like a second skin, her expression more exasperated than angry. He doubted that she would have appreciated knowing the thoughts that had gone through his mind at that moment, though he’d tried very hard to rein them in.

He wondered what her story was. All he’d been told was that she was taking a quiet, solitary vacation while she was between jobs. He hadn’t been informed, nor had he asked, what she did for a living or what she might be hiding from in her isolated mountain retreat.

He shook his head impatiently, bringing the speculation to an abrupt end. Just because he had issues that had sent him running to the mountains to brood and reevaluate his life didn’t mean everyone else was in the same boat. Maybe Natalie just wanted to take advantage of a free vacation in her relatives’ under-renovation cabin.

And maybe he was going to sprout wings and fly. He didn’t know Natalie Lofton or the details of her current situation, but the studied calm of her demeanor hadn’t completely hidden the storm in her deep brown eyes. That was one of his talents—reading other people’s emotions, no matter how hard they tried to keep them hidden. The skill had served him well in his law career, giving him an edge that he had never hesitated to exploit.

So while he might not know what was eating at Natalie, he knew something was. And he suspected that she wouldn’t be averse to taking her frustration out on the less-than-proficient handyman.

Casey returned just after lunch. Natalie let him back in, noting that he’d brought help this time. “Hello, Kyle,” she greeted the second man.

A hard-carved ex-soldier in his mid-thirties, Kyle Reeves had been the McDooleys’ business partner for almost five years. Their late son, Tommy—Natalie’s favorite cousin in her childhood—had been Kyle’s best friend. They had served in the military together for several years, until a roadside bomb in the Middle East had ended Tommy’s life and almost killed Kyle at the same time.

It had taken Kyle a long time to recover, both physically and emotionally. He still walked with a slight limp and had a few faintly visible scars, which only added to his rough appeal.

Because Kyle had no family of his own, Mack and Jewel had taken him in. They had given him encouragement and support and had found in him a reason to put aside their grief and focus on someone else who needed them. He had become a surrogate son to them, and Natalie had no question that they loved him like one. Nor did she doubt that Kyle would willingly die for either of the couple who had given him a reason to keep living when, from what she had surmised, he’d been all too close to giving up.

Kyle returned her greeting with a nod. “How’s it going, Natalie? You comfortable here?”

“Very much so, thank you. It’s a lovely cabin.”

“It will be when we’ve finished the renovations.” He glanced at Casey with a wry half smile. “And if I can keep my cousin-in-law, here, from flooding the place.”

“Cousin-in-law?” she repeated, glancing at Casey, who stood quietly behind the man who was probably his senior by a decade. “You’re Molly’s cousin?”

He nodded. “On my father’s side. My last name is Walker, which was Molly’s maiden name.”

“I didn’t realize.” But it explained a lot, she decided. She knew now how he’d gotten the job.

He grinned as though he had somehow read her thoughts. “Gotta love nepotism, right?”

Her lips twitched with a smile she had a hard time containing. At least he admitted he hadn’t been hired for his maintenance skills.

“Molly told me to ask you to dinner,” Kyle said, shifting a heavy toolbox in his left hand. “Maybe Friday night?”

Though she still wasn’t feeling very social, it seemed ungracious to decline. “I’d like that. Tell her I said thank you.”

He nodded again. “She’ll be pleased. Since Micah was born, she hasn’t been able to get out much. She spends a lot of time with the kids and with Jewel, but she’ll enjoy having someone new to talk with for a change.”

Because she’d been so busy with her career the past few years, Natalie hadn’t been able to visit her aunt and uncle much. She had met Molly only a few times, but she liked Kyle’s bubbly, redheaded wife quite a bit. The young mother of three-year-old Olivia and two-month-old Micah had an infectious smile and an inviting Texas drawl. She seemed to have a knack for putting people at ease within minutes of meeting her. She had certainly done so with Natalie.

Leaving the men to work in the big, eat-in kitchen, Natalie returned to the bedroom she’d been sleeping in since she’d arrived four nights ago. This was the only real bedroom, though the couch in the large living room was a sleeper that pulled out into a queen-sized bed. The cabin had two bathrooms, a smaller one with a shower off the living room, and the master bathroom with a shower-tub combo. The master bath was also being renovated during this off-season remodel. A new toilet, sink and countertop had already been installed. There was no mirror in the bathroom now, though she could see that one had hung above the sink.

She’d been told that a new mirror would be installed within the next few days. In the meantime, she was able to use the mirror over the bedroom dresser for applying her makeup and doing her hair.

Like the rest of the small, older vacation cabin, the bedroom decor was country casual. A big iron bed was covered with a hand-pieced quilt for a bedspread and lots of comfy pillows. Matching oak nightstands topped with a pair of antique lamps sat on either side of the bed. Country prints hung on the log walls. What appeared to be homemade lace curtains framed the window that looked out over the mountaintops. Too bad she hadn’t been able to really appreciate the stunning view while she’d been here.

Her laptop sat on the tiny writing desk in one corner of the room. The screen saver had activated, and colorful animated fish swam across the screen. She’d always wanted a real aquarium, but her demanding career had taken so much of her time that she wouldn’t have been able to maintain or enjoy one.

She had time for an aquarium now, she thought glumly. Not that she would be able to afford one once her savings were depleted, as they would be rather quickly if the private investigator she had hired recently didn’t come up with some answers soon.

A flick of the wireless mouse made the screen saver disappear, replaced by a list of her former associates in the large Nashville law firm where she had worked for the past four-and-a-half years. It was a lengthy list—thirty-five members, seventy-five associates, and fifteen staff attorneys, which didn’t even count all the clerical staff. A big firm. A lot of suspects. And she could rule out only about half of them. She wondered if Rand Beecham, the rather eccentric P.I., had had any more success in the week that had passed since her last update from him.

She heard a clang from the kitchen, and a curse that sounded like Casey’s voice, followed by a quick laugh that might have come from Kyle. She glanced that way, then looked back at the names on her screen, her slight smile fading. Someone on this list had set her up, framed her for leaking confidential client information to the media in return for under-the-table payments. Because of that untrue accusation, she had lost a position she’d spent several long, hard years working to achieve. Until she proved her innocence, her career—her very life—was on hold.

“So, when are you coming home?”

Leaning back in a patio chair on the deck of the tiny, A-frame cabin in which he was staying—one of the two cabins currently under renovation and not rented during this off-peak season, the other being Natalie’s—Casey gazed at the wooded path stretched in front of him, and tried to come up with a satisfactory answer to his cousin’s question. “I don’t know, exactly,” he said into the cell phone he held to his ear. “A couple more weeks, maybe.”

“You’ve been there almost two weeks already,” Aaron Walker complained. “What are you doing there all this time?”

“Kyle and Mack are renovating two of their vacation cabins during the off season, and I volunteered to give them a hand.”

“You’re doing carpentry work?” Aaron made no effort to hide his skepticism.

“Yeah. And a little plumbing. Some painting. Cleaning gutters. That sort of thing.”

“You. Plumbing. That can’t be good.”

Casey was glad Aaron couldn’t see him wince as he remembered the way he’d soaked Natalie with a spray of cold water. Wouldn’t Aaron and his twin, Andrew, have gotten unholy delight out of that scene? Not to mention their slightly older cousin, Jason, who was always commenting on the younger trio’s proclivity for trouble.

Maybe he’d tell them about his first real attempt at plumbing sometime. But not now. “I’m doing okay. Kyle said I’ve been a lot of help.”

“Yeah, well, you’ve had your vacation and you’ve gotten to play with tools. So, don’t you think it’s time to come home now? Everybody’s asking about you. And this hiatus can’t look good to the powers that be at your firm. If it weren’t for the family connections, there’s no way they’d have let a junior associate take off this long without repercussions.”

Casey scowled in response to the reminder of those “family connections.” It was true that his paternal aunt Michelle D’Alessandro was one of the firm’s wealthiest and most prestigious clients. And that his maternal grandfather was a nationally known and admired prosecutor in Chicago, who’d roomed with the senior partner in Casey’s Dallas firm years ago back in their college days and had maintained that friendship ever since. And that Casey’s father was a partner in the largest and most respected private investigation and security company in Dallas and his mother the CEO of an acclaimed accounting firm. All of which might have gotten him hired in the first place, but he’d worked damned hard to justify that decision. He’d earned every dollar of his generous paychecks.

At least, he’d thought so until he’d lost the first truly high-profile case he’d been assigned. Not only had it been a defeat, it had been a particularly painful, public and humiliating one. His friends and family had rallied around him, assuring him that every attorney suffered losses, but there had been more than a few in the Dallas legal community who had taken great pleasure in seeing “the wonderboy,” as they had dubbed him, taken down a few pegs.

A week after that loss, he had suffered a second career blow. Only that time, at the hands of an arrogant young man Casey had successfully defended in a previous charge, an innocent person had died. And Casey still wondered if he was at least partially to blame for that tragedy.

“I just needed some time off,” he insisted to his cousin. “I haven’t had a break in—well, ever. Working every summer during high school and college, straight into law school, and from there directly into the job at the firm. I always meant to take a vacation, but the time never seemed to be right.”

“And you think it’s right now?” Aaron asked skeptically. “After—well, you know?”

“After I lost the Parmenter case, you mean? Yeah. I think I need this vacation now more than I’ve ever needed it before.”

There was a long pause, and then Aaron spoke again, an uncharacteristic note of caution in his voice. “Um, I suppose you’ve heard that Tamara and Fred have been getting a lot of face time around town lately?”

“Yeah, I heard they’ve been seen together at every highbrow event in Dallas for the past few weeks. And that they have an uncanny talent for being in exactly the right place every time a flashbulb goes off so their picture makes the society pages the next day.”

“Carly said she and Richard attended a charity thing this past weekend and Tamara was there flashing a doorknob-sized diamond ring. No official engagement has been announced, but…well, Carly said Tamara was looking very much like a canary-eating cat.”

“That I can believe.”

“So, uh, if they are engaged—how do you feel about that?”

“Honestly, I don’t care. If Tamara wants to marry Fred, more power to her. I hope they’ll have a great life with a couple of McMansions, two perfect kids, and a permanent spot on the social registry. That’s what she always dreamed of.”

“And she thought she was going to get there with you.”

“I guess. Until she decided that Fred will get her there faster, already being a partner in a rival firm and all.”

She had made that decision, at least openly, right after Casey’s big courtroom loss. Apparently, she’d been debating it for some time before that. And she had explored her options by seeing Fred behind Casey’s back, a juicy tidbit that had been discussed in the break rooms and around the water coolers for several weeks before Tamara had bothered to bring him into the loop. She had done so with a blunt announcement that their long-standing, though unofficial, engagement was at an end.

It took a great deal of effort, sacrifice and ruthless calculation to make it to the very peak of the social heap, she had informed him entirely without irony. She had at first thought he was willing to invest himself fully in that mission, but lately she’d been having doubts. She had no such reservations about Fred, who cared every bit as much about status and image as she did.

“You really should come home,” Aaron urged again, breaking into Casey’s grim memories. “Be seen around town with a couple of hot women. Andy and I just happen to know a few to introduce you to. Show Tamara, and everyone else, that you’re not sitting around pining for her. Get back to work, win a couple of big cases, prove you’ve still got the stuff, which we all know you do. Have some fun, raise some hell on the weekends. Just like the old days, you know?”

Casey knew what “old days” his cousin referred to. In their teens, he and the twins had been known in the family as “the terrible trio” because of the lengths they had gone to in pursuit of a good time. Practical jokes, daredevil escapades, impulsive road trips. Weekends had been their time to raise some hell. And they had excelled at that as much as they had in their separate educational pursuits.

“I’ll be home soon,” he said, unwilling to commit any more than that. “Besides, Molly and Kyle really do need my assistance for a little while longer. Their regular maintenance guy won’t be back for several more weeks. Kyle and Mack stay busy all the time trying to keep up and it helps that I can do some of the easier stuff. Gives Kyle a little more time to spend with Molly and the kids.”

He knew that was one argument Aaron would have a hard time contesting. All the cousins had a soft spot for Molly. Not to mention that family always came first for the entire Walker clan, so giving a father more time with his wife, toddler daughter and infant son would be something they’d all consider worth the effort.

Sure enough, Aaron didn’t seem to know quite what to say, except “Well, try not to destroy anything there, okay? You’re a lawyer, not a carpenter. And don’t stay too long. Frankly, I seem to be more worried about your career than you are.”

“Says the guy who is thinking of making a big job change.”

“That’s because I don’t like what I’m doing now. That isn’t true for you.”

“Yeah. Um. Right.”

They disconnected a few minutes later on a pleasant enough note, though Aaron’s warnings about Casey’s possible career jeopardy had left Casey feeling tense and irritable. To distract himself, he settled more comfortably in his chair and focused on the beauty of the wooded hillsides around him. And then he realized that an even more appealing picture had taken shape in his mind—Natalie Lofton, standing wet and startled in front of him, her thin, almost-transparent shirt revealing just enough to make his pulse race.

He was a bit surprised by the clarity of the mental image. His life was in enough turmoil right now, he told himself. He didn’t need an inconvenient attraction to a woman who seemed to be in as much of a quandary as he was.

Or maybe that was exactly what he needed, he mused, tugging thoughtfully at his lower lip. Hadn’t Aaron just said that he should start seeing other women, forget about Tamara, put his troubles out of his mind? Which meant he should be open to possibilities as he worked on the cabin in which Natalie was staying.

He would be seeing her again, he thought with a buzz of anticipation. Soon.

Chapter Two

Casey Walker was in Natalie’s cabin again, this time in her bedroom.

Sitting at the round oak table in the kitchen with her computer in front of her, Natalie could hear him banging around as he removed the wobbly old ceiling fan and prepared to install another. She hadn’t been able to resist expressing her concern about his ability to handle that task, but he’d scowled and assured her that he knew what he was doing. He and Kyle had installed a new fan in one of the other cabins only the day before, he’d informed her.

When he finished replacing the fan, he was going to hang the new mirror in the bathroom. He planned to accomplish both those tasks before he left today.

Listening to the unnerving noises coming from the back of the cabin, Natalie wondered if Kyle was investing too much confidence in his wife’s cousin.

She had offered to help, but Casey had politely declined. She suspected that he hadn’t wanted her watching him. At least he’d had the foresight to turn off the electricity to the back part of the cabin, so he was working in the sunlight streaming through the big bedroom window.

She’d just happened to observe, of course, that he looked very good standing in that sunlight, which brought out the gold strands in his blondish-brown hair.

Frowning, she turned her attention back to the monitor in front of her. It showed how frustrating this research was that she was so easily distracted by the sight of a young stud in a tool belt. Hadn’t she learned her lesson when Thad had been so eager to distance himself from her after the humiliating debacle at her law firm? Great-looking young guys were always on the prowl, hunting for a good time, but quick to disappear whenever any sign of trouble cropped up.

So maybe she’d noticed Casey looking at her when he thought she wouldn’t see, and maybe she was aware of a muted sizzle between them. Maybe she would have been intrigued by the possibility of a careful holiday flirtation if it hadn’t been for the cloud hanging over her head. As it was, she had neither the time nor the energy to give in to impulse now. Or at least she tried to convince herself of that, even as she savored another mental image of the way Casey looked in his soft work shirt and weathered jeans.

Maybe she had a little extra time…

A particularly loud thump from the back room made her start. After a momentary internal debate, she rose and moved that way, half expecting to find pieces of ceiling scattered across the floor of the bedroom.

Casey glanced around when she stopped in the doorway. The old ceiling fan sat on the floor at his feet, entirely in one piece as far as she could tell. Wires dangled from the fixture in the ceiling, but it seemed that everything was under control.

“Sorry,” he said. “I set it down a bit more heavily than I intended. I hope I didn’t distract you from anything important.”

Oh, he distracted her, all right. She just didn’t think it was a good idea to let him know that. “No, I was just checking to see if you need any assistance. Maybe I could help you hold the new fan while you install it?”

“Actually, Kyle showed me how to balance it while I connect everything. It’s just a small, fairly lightweight fan. But thanks for the offer.”

She nodded. “I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me for anything.”

“Okay, thanks.”

Back at the kitchen table, she stared again at the long list of names on her computer monitor. During the past thirty-six hours, she had shortened the list of suspects. By two names. Both of whom were dead. And she’d gotten to the point that she wasn’t even entirely sure of their innocence. She hoped Beecham would call her today. If not, she was going to try to reach him and ask if he’d made any further progress with his investigation. She was certainly making no headway with her own.

Disgusted with herself, with the entire situation, she pushed the computer away with a low growl. A beeping sound made her pull it back again.

Hey, Nat. U there?

The instant message had popped up on her screen from a sender whose screen name was “GlitRChik” and whose avatar was a slightly crazed-looking fairy.

I’m here, Natalie typed back. What’s up?

Been doing some snooping.

Natalie replied quickly, Call me on my cell, Amber. Don’t put anything in writing.

Sorry

A moment later, Natalie’s cell phone chimed. She lifted it to her ear with only a perfunctory glance at the ID screen. “Hello.”

“Hi, Nat.”

“Don’t write anything down,” Natalie repeated firmly. “Especially on your computer. Maybe I’m being paranoid, but I think I have some reason to be concerned.”

“I know you do,” Amber Keller, Natalie’s former assistant, sympathized. “I didn’t think about IMs leaving a paper trail.”

“They do. As I said, I’m probably being overly cautious, but still…what have you learned?”

“Not a lot,” her friend and former subordinate confessed. “Just one sort of interesting tidbit.”

“Which is?” Natalie prodded, even as a series of thumps sounded from the bedroom, making it hard to concentrate.

“Hang on a sec.” She stood and moved toward the kitchen doorway, thinking she would hear better if she went outside to the big wooden deck attached to the back of the vacation cabin. Closing the door behind her, she let a brisk, late-autumn breeze toss her hair as she sank into a green-painted Adirondack chair. “Okay. Now. What interesting tidbit?”

“Cathy Linski just bought a new car. A pretty fancy one. Convertible.”

Frowning, Natalie asked, “I’m sorry, I don’t understand. What does that have to do with me?”

“Well, a month ago, Cathy was whining about not having any money and being on the brink of bankruptcy. Now all of a sudden she’s spending money like crazy. When someone asked her what’s going on, she just laughed and said she came into a windfall and she’s going to enjoy it while it lasts.”

“Oh. That is interesting,” Natalie murmured, following Amber’s line of thought. She wondered if Beecham knew about this development.

“Yeah. It’s not much to report—might have nothing at all to do with your situation—but I thought you’d want to know.”

“That’s all you have?”

“I’m afraid so. Everyone’s been pretty closemouthed around here for the past couple of weeks. Nobody mentions you at all.”

Natalie bit her lower lip, then released it with a slight sigh. “Okay. Thanks, Amber. Let me know if you hear anything else, okay?”

“You got it. I’d better get back to work. Steve’s not nearly as tolerant as you were about personal time during the workday.”

“Don’t risk your job because of me. You can always call me when you get home. It’s not like I’m doing anything else in the evenings.”

“You want my advice? Try to have a little fun while you’re there in the mountains. You’ve been working too hard for a couple of years. This is your first time off work in, like, forever. Surely there’s some interesting guy there who can help you work off some frustration, if you know what I mean.”

Natalie didn’t have to ask for clarification. Amber thought there were few problems that couldn’t be alleviated by a night of partying. A hard worker during the week, she was an equally zealous fun-seeker during the weekends. She’d nagged Natalie for months to join her at some of the wilder Nashville clubs on a Friday or Saturday night, promising a “hot time” that would make all the tension knots in her neck and shoulders mysteriously disappear. Amber couldn’t understand why Natalie had been at all hesitant to accept.

At the time, Natalie had been worried about damaging her image as a serious, hardworking, ambitious attorney. Little had she known then that her reputation would soon take a much harder hit than if she’d merely been seen partying in a few clubs.

As for “some interesting guy”…she glanced toward the back door of the cabin, thinking of Casey, and knowing exactly how Amber would react if she could see him. She’d be all over the sexy maintenance man like “white on rice,” as Aunt Jewel would say, and she’d think Natalie was crazy for not at least trying to flirt with the guy. But then, Amber wasn’t in the process of fighting for her professional life, either.

“You’d better get back to work,” she said, deciding not to address her friend’s advice. “Thanks for calling.”

“You bet. We’re going to figure out who set you up this way, Nat,” Amber said loyally. “And when we do, everybody’s going to know about it. I’ll make sure of that.”

As she disconnected the call, Natalie wished there was some way she could let Amber know how much that support meant to her. So many of the people she had considered friends had dropped her like a hot potato after she was summarily fired from her position with the firm. They had been all too willing to believe she’d let greed trump ethics and had engaged in behavior that they should have realized was utterly foreign to her.

Unable to appreciate the nice weather or the beautiful scenery surrounding her, she closed her cell phone. Her lips felt dry and she realized she was thirsty. She’d stocked the fridge with her favorite bottled water. Rising, she moved toward the door, wondering idly if Casey had finished installing the fan yet.

He was standing at the sink when she entered the kitchen. Though his back was turned to her, he seemed to be fumbling with the roll of paper towels on the counter.

“Can I help you with something?” she asked.

He started and turned toward her, his left hand cupped in front of him. Something about the way he held it made her study him more closely. Only then did she notice the blood that dripped from his palm.

Sighing lightly, she moved toward him. “What have you done now? Let me see.”

If Casey’d had access to a teleporter, he would have beamed out of there right that minute. But since his sci-fi fandom was of no use to him just then, he squared his shoulders and tried to look nonchalant even though he was bleeding all over her kitchen.

“It’s just a scratch,” he assured her, closing his fist before she could see the wound. “I’ll wash it off and wrap a paper towel around it until it scabs over and it’ll be fine.”

“You don’t get that much blood from ‘just a scratch,’” she argued, reaching for his wrist. “I think you should let me look at it.”

“What are you, a doctor?” he asked, reluctantly opening his fingers.

“No, but I played one on TV,” she answered absently, wincing as she looked at the ragged gash across his palm.

“Kidding,” she added with a glance up at his face. “I’m not an actor. Casey, this is more than a scratch. How did you do it?”

Amused by her automatic quip—so he wasn’t the only popculture fan in the room—he shrugged, having no intention of telling her exactly how he’d sliced himself. “Just carelessness. I really don’t think it’s all that bad.”

She studied his palm again and the sight of her bent over his hand, peering so closely he could feel her warm breath on his skin, made an odd feeling go down his spine. At least, he assumed it was her closeness and not blood loss causing that sensation. He was a healthy, red-blooded—hah—young man, after all.

She glanced up at him again. “You’re dripping blood all over my floor and you find it funny?” she asked a bit too politely.

He stifled his inappropriate grin, suspecting she wouldn’t share his humor in the situation. “Sorry. I’ll clean up the mess, of course.”

“First, we’re going to have to stop the bleeding.” She tugged him toward the table. “Sit down. There’s a first aid kit in the bathroom.”

“I don’t—”

She gave him a look that reminded him oddly of his mother’s famous don’t-argue-with-me expression. His libido effectively quashed, he sank into a chair.

She returned a few minutes later carrying a small, white plastic box which she set on the table and opened purposefully. He grimaced when he saw that the first item she removed was an alcohol pad. That was going to sting.

“When’s the last time you had a tetanus shot?” she asked, ripping open the packet containing the pad.

“Last year. I cut myself on some rusty barbed wire at my cousin’s ranch. Thought it was a good idea to have a tetanus shot after that.”

She dabbed the cut with the pad and he had to make an effort not to grunt. He’d anticipated correctly. It stung.

“Are you always so accident-prone?”

He frowned. “Not really.”

“Mmm.” She didn’t sound as if she entirely believed him.

He supposed he couldn’t blame her, really. He’d sprayed her with water fixing a pipe and sliced open his hand installing a fan. She’d probably expect him to break a leg or something if he had to climb a ladder.

“I don’t think you need stitches,” she said, studying the now-clean wound, which was still oozing blood, though the bleeding had slowed.

“Definitely don’t need stitches.”

She pulled out a tube of ointment and an adhesive bandage. “At least let me cover it so it will stay clean.”

He nodded, figuring that was a good idea.

Kneeling in front of him, she cradled his hand in hers as she carefully smoothed the ointment over his injury. She was wearing a thin, long-sleeved green sweater with a scoop neck. He realized that from this angle, he could see the creamy upper curves of her breasts. Any resemblance he’d seen in her to his mother disappeared. He lifted his gaze quickly to the window across the room before he embarrassed himself by visibly reacting to her crouching so close to him, looking like—well, like that, he thought with a fleeting glance back at her.

She looked up and met his eyes. “Am I hurting you?”

“No.” Aware that he’d spoken rather curtly, he looked out the window again. “Almost done?”

“Yes. Just let me—” She spread the bandage across his palm, centered the gauze part over the wound, then pressed down on the adhesive edges to secure it. “There. How does that feel?”

At that moment he didn’t feel a thing in his hand, though he was aware of plenty of sensations in other parts of him. Maybe the blood loss had affected him, he thought grimly, though he knew full well he hadn’t been injured badly enough for that to be an issue. “It feels fine. Thanks. I’d better wipe up in here and then get back to work. I still have to hang that mirror in the bathroom.”

“Are you sure you can work with that sore hand?”

“Oh, sure.” He flexed his fingers a few times in demonstration, managing not to wince with the movement. “It’s fine.”

“Did you finish installing the fan?”

“Yeah.” He had been cleaning up in there when he’d sliced himself with a box cutter while breaking down the fan’s cardboard box. Maybe he’d been a little distracted by the sight of a lacy nightgown peeking out of the top of a drawer. He had no intention of telling her either how—or why—he’d sustained the injury. “I’ll take care of this mess, and then I’ll hang the mirror and get out of your way.”

But she had already grabbed a paper towel and was scrubbing at the drops of blood on the countertop. “I’ve got this. You finish your work.”

It was obvious that she wasn’t one to be deterred once she’d made up her mind. Maybe she just wanted him to finish up and clear out quickly. Because it wasn’t worth an argument, he merely nodded. “All right. Thanks.”

She nodded in return, busily cleaning up the evidence of his latest act of clumsiness.

Shaking his head in self-reproof, he went back to her bedroom, suddenly wanting to be out of that cabin before his ego took an even harder hit. He seemed to feel that way every time he left Natalie, he thought with a rueful grimace.

Even as she drove the ten miles of winding roads down the mountain and into Gatlinburg early Friday evening, Natalie wished she could have found some reason to decline the dinner invitation that had brought her out of her solitude. Other than Casey and the one maintenance visit from Kyle, the only people Natalie had seen in the past week were her aunt and uncle. They’d popped in the day before to check on her and bring her a supply of Aunt Jewel’s home cooking, though she had assured them that wasn’t necessary.

She’d had phone calls, of course. Amber. Her dad. Her mom. All of them were worried about her, though only Amber and her father knew exactly why Natalie was no longer working for the firm in Nashville. She hadn’t even told her aunt Jewel the whole story, not wanting to upset her.

She had assured her callers that she was fine. She needed this time away. She needed the rest. She needed to regroup emotionally and wanted privacy in which to do some research on her own, while the private investigator she’d hired from the yellow pages did some discreet snooping back in Nashville. Her father was the only one who knew she’d hired the P.I.

Had her father lived in Nashville—or even in the same country—he might have gotten a bit more involved in the fight to clear his daughter’s name. But since he was currently working in the publishing industry in London, he’d been able to do little except offer long-distance advice and encouragement. Her mother, now married to a college professor in Oxford, Mississippi, tended to be more of a hand-wringer and worrier than a useful resource.

Natalie was pretty much on her own in this battle—but then, she was accustomed to taking care of herself. She’d done so since her parents had split up in a rather ugly divorce when she was eighteen.

Following the directions she’d been given, she parked in the driveway of Kyle and Molly’s lovely Gatlinburg home. They’d bought the house soon after their marriage just over four years ago. Before that, Molly had lived on a ranch in Texas and Kyle in one of the cabins they now rented out to vacationers.

A brightly colored, plastic, three-wheel riding toy partially blocked the stone walkway. Bypassing it, Natalie stepped onto the long porch that fronted the yellow frame house with pristine white trim and shutters. The inviting porch seemed well utilized. A swing at one end was padded with yellow and green patterned cushions; two rocking chairs with matching cushions sat nearby. Big planters held vibrant autumn chrysanthemums, and a couple more toys peeked from behind one of those pots.

She pressed the doorbell. What sounded like a small dog immediately went into a frenzy of barking inside, and she sighed. She wasn’t particularly fond of hyper, little purse puppies.

The door opened and Kyle greeted her with a slight smile. “Hi, Natalie. Did you have any trouble finding us?”

“Not a bit. Your directions were very good.”

“Come on in. Be quiet, Poppy,” he added with what sounded like weary resignation as he glanced down at the yapping brown-and-white Chihuahua at his feet.

“Sorry,” he said when Natalie walked in. “The stupid dog thinks he’s a Doberman. He doesn’t actually bite, he just wants you to think he will.”

“He? Didn’t you call it Poppy?”

He chuckled wryly. “Olivia named him. She loves the little fleabag.”

Poppy had already turned and ripped into another room, his job as guard dog apparently completed. Kyle gestured in the same direction, inviting Natalie to precede him. “Just follow the dog.”

Smiling, she moved toward an open doorway that led into what she assumed was a family room. The dog was now in the arms of a little girl with bright red curls and a freckled, pixie face. She looked strikingly like her mother, who rose from the couch as Natalie came in.

“Natalie,” Molly said, moving toward her. “We’re so glad you could come tonight.”

“I was delighted to be asked,” Natalie fibbed politely.

Something made her glance behind her. Casey sat quietly in a rocking chair holding an infant and meeting Natalie’s gaze with an openly amused expression that told her he knew she hadn’t expected to see him there. “Hi, Natalie.”

She managed to return the greeting casually enough. “Hello, Casey.”

“Kyle and I haven’t entertained since Micah was born, so we thought we’d turn this into a real dinner party,” Molly explained cheerily. “We invited Jewel and Mack, but Jewel had her Bible study group tonight, and Mack said he was a little tired.”

Natalie was on the verge of replying when something bumped her leg. She looked down to see Molly’s three-year-old daughter tapping with one hand against Natalie’s gray slacks in an obvious bid for attention. “Hi.”

As an only child whose friends were mostly singles, Natalie had been around very few small children. She moistened her lips and said, “Hello, Olivia.”

“This is Poppy,” the child added, holding up the wriggling dog that seemed to be doing its best to lick every inch of Olivia’s cheeks.

“Yes, Poppy and I met already.”

“C’mon, Livvie, let’s get you washed up for dinner,” Kyle said, scooping up both daughter and dog. Natalie noticed his slight limp, but it didn’t seem to impede his progress as he carried the giggling child and yipping dog out of the room.

Molly followed her family toward the door. “Make yourself comfortable, Natalie. I’ll be ready to serve dinner in about five minutes.”

“Let me help you,” Natalie offered quickly.

But Molly shook her head. “Everything’s almost ready. You stay and keep Casey company while he babysits for me.”

Great. Casey and a baby. Both of whom made her unaccountably nervous.

She perched on the edge of an armchair, mentally groping for something to say. “How’s your hand?”

He held his hand up, palm out, to show her a fresh bandage. “Much better. I’m keeping it covered just as a precaution, but I can tell it’s going to heal quickly.”

“That’s good.” That subject exhausted, she nodded toward the baby in the crook of Casey’s arm. “You look pretty comfortable. Do you have a lot of experience with kids?”

Casey glanced down at the sleeping infant and chuckled. “In our family, it’s hard to avoid them. I have fourteen first cousins on my dad’s side—Molly’s side—and several of them have kids. The Walker clan’s pretty tight, always getting together for some occasion or another. It’s not at all unusual for thirty or more of us to be gathered at the ranch that belongs to Molly’s dad, my uncle, Jared.”

Daunted by the mental image of all those relatives in one place, many of them children, she swallowed. “Wow.”

Casey laughed, making the baby start a little, though he didn’t wake up. “Yeah, a lot of people react that way.”

“How many siblings do you have?”

He shook his head. “I’m an only. But I never lacked for playmates with so many cousins. Especially the twins, Andrew and Aaron. There’s just a few months’ difference between our ages and our fathers are identical twins, so we spent a lot of time together, along with our cousin Jason D’Alessandro, who’s a couple years older than I am.”

“Your father’s a twin?”

“Right. And his brother has twin sons of his own. We’re all used to seeing double.”

“I see.” Sounded a bit confusing to her, but then, she didn’t have that much experience with family.

Her mother had a brother, but they hadn’t lived in the same state for decades and didn’t see each other very often, so Natalie hardly knew her cousins on that side. Her father had been one of four brothers. Jewel was the youngest sibling and the only girl. Because her father and Jewel had been the closest of the Lofton siblings, Natalie had seen her aunt Jewel more than the rest of the family. She’d always looked forward to summer vacations in Gatlinburg, back when her family had been intact and at least outwardly happy together.

Though he’d been a few years older than Natalie, Tommy had always been a gracious and patient host, taking his younger cousin hiking in the mountains, teaching her to fish in the numerous area streams and accompanying her to a nearby amusement park. He had even taken her white-water rafting when he was a mature eighteen and she a hero-worshipping fourteen-year-old.

She still missed Tommy with a pang like a knife through her heart whenever she remembered those happy childhood times, before her parents’ divorce and before Tommy had joined the military. That had been one of the hardest things about coming here to lick her wounds and plan her future, knowing that she would be surrounded by memories of the cousin who’d been such a happy part of her past.

The baby in Casey’s lap made a rather surprised sound and opened his eyes. He looked up to see who was holding him, then broke into a toothless grin.

“Well,” Casey said, grinning back, “you wake up happy, don’t you, tiger?”

Little Micah hooted as if in agreement.

Casey was still smiling when he glanced up at Natalie. “I’ve always had that effect on kids. They start laughing as soon as they see my face.”

“You’re very good with him,” she repeated, unable to think of anything else to say.

Casey gave the babbling baby a couple of bounces, eliciting a shrill giggle. And then he glanced at her and startled her by asking, “You want to hold him?”

She quickly held up her hands in a backing-away gesture. “No, thank you. He looks quite happy where he is.”

Casey lifted an eyebrow. “Don’t you like kids?”

“Sure I do. As long as someone else is taking care of them.”

Whatever Casey might have said in response was interrupted when Molly reappeared in the doorway. “Dinner is served, you two. Oh, the baby’s awake. Here, Casey, I’ll take him. You can show our guest of honor into the dining room.”

Passing off the baby, Casey turned with a flourish to offer his arm to Natalie. “Looks like you’re the guest of honor,” he said lightly. “And I’m the designated escort. Madam?”

She hoped no one noticed her slight hesitation before she rested her hand lightly on his arm.