LITMIR.BIZ

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will be spending the night here.” The screen door screeched when Cara pushed it open and stepped out. “They’re going to need some heat.”

      And? Gabe looked at his sister, waited for the tiniest morsel of information about Melanie and her son. Based on the expression on Cara’s face, he obviously wasn’t going to even get a tidbit.

      He sighed, reached for the flashlight he’d set on the porch steps. “The pilot was shut off on the basement furnace. I’ll go fire it up.”

      “That’s not necessary.” Melanie followed Cara out onto the porch. “We’ll be fine. I have a blanket in my car.”

      Gabe’s hand tightened around the flashlight. Had she and her son been sleeping in her car? And if so, why? Dammit, why wouldn’t anyone tell him anything?

      “It’s no trouble,” he said more tightly than he’d intended.

      Cara placed her hand on Melanie’s arm. “You’ll be fine with Gabe,” she said quietly. “I’d stay, but I have to be at the airport in an hour to pick up my husband, Ian, from a ten o’clock flight due in from New Jersey. We’ll be coming back over here tomorrow morning after the board meeting. I’d like you to meet him.”

      Melanie shook her head. “I’ll be leaving early.”

      Cara sighed. “You have my card. Call me anytime. And my offer still stands. You and Kevin can stay here as long as you need to.”

      Melanie smiled weakly. “Thank you, but my friend is expecting us tomorrow. We’ll be fine there.”

      Cara squeezed the woman’s arm. “You promise to call and let me know you’re both all right?”

      “I will,” Melanie said softly. “You’ve been so kind. Thank you again.”

      Cara hesitated, then slipped an arm around Melanie’s slender shoulders and hugged her. The woman’s eyes widened in surprise, then closed tightly as she hugged her back.

      Gabe shifted uncomfortably, praying that neither woman would start with the waterworks. Damn, but he hated that. He’d rather walk barefoot through broken glass than deal with crying women.

      He let out the breath he’d been holding when Cara and Melanie parted with dry eyes. Cara turned to him. “You have that report for me?”

      “It’s on your front seat.” He gestured toward her silver van. “Do you want me to wait until after the board meeting, or get started right away?”

      “Right away.” She glanced up at the old house. “The meeting is just a formality. We have to do whatever needs to be done for resale.”

      He nodded, and she leaned toward him and gave him a hug. “Go easy with her,” Cara whispered, and brushed his cheek with her lips. “And stop frowning.”

      What did his sister think he was going to do? he thought in annoyance as he watched her walk to her van. Lock the woman in the basement? Yell at her?

      And just because he wasn’t walking around with a stupid grin on his face didn’t mean he was frowning, either.

      Waving, Cara pulled away with a crunch of tires on the gravel. He watched until the van’s taillights disappeared and then he turned to Melanie, waited for her to speak. Folding her arms tightly in front of her, her gaze dropped to the worn wooden planks under her boots.

      “Your sister is a wonderful person,” she said quietly.

      “She’s a little bossy, but my brothers and I like her well enough.”

      Her gaze lifted to his. “Thank you for calling her.”

      Who are you, dammit? What kind of trouble are you in? All this politeness was killing him.

      He nodded, but said nothing. The cold night air closed around them. Close by, in a grove of maples, a mockingbird began to sing.

      Furrowing her brow, she took a step closer to him, her gaze leveled at his face. “Your cheek,” she said, her eyes narrowed with concern. “I’m so sorry.”

      He touched the ragged scratch under his left eye. It stung a little, but wasn’t all that deep. “You didn’t do that. I caught the edge of a screen upstairs when I was climbing into the window.”

      She shook her head, frowned. “You wouldn’t have had to climb in a window if I hadn’t locked the doors. I—I’m sorry for the trouble I’ve caused you.”

      I don’t want an apology. Just tell me why you’re hiding in an empty house. What it is, or who, that you’re afraid of.

      He shrugged. “No trouble. It’s just a scratch. Trust me, I’ve had worse.”

      “I…I didn’t know if—” she paused, and her voice dropped to a whisper “—if I could trust you.”

      She still didn’t trust him, he thought with more than a touch of annoyance. He felt the tension radiate from her, and could all but see the wall she’d erected around herself.

      Why, dammit, why?

      Oh, hell. What did it matter to him? They’d crossed paths, but she’d be gone in the morning, she and her son. Whatever her problem was, it was no concern of his. She didn’t want his help, so why should he give it more than a passing thought? After tonight, he’d never see her again.

      But did she have money? Gas in her car?

      Hell.

      Forget about it, Sinclair. Not your problem.

      With her dark clothes and hair, she nearly blended in with the night. He watched her shiver, saw her breaths come out in little puffs of white and realized she was cold.

      “I’ll fire up the furnace now.” He kept his voice even, controlled. “The house should warm up quickly. Is there anything else you need?”

      As he’d known she would, she shook her head, but then surprised him by extending her hand. “Thank you for everything.”

      He hesitated, then took her hand.

      And wished he hadn’t.

      Her hand was smooth against his, her fingers long and slender. Soft. In spite of the cold, her skin was warm, and the heat radiated up his arm, spread through his chest, then his body. She looked up at him, a mixture of confusion and amazement, then pulled her hand away and once again folded her arms tightly to her.

      “I’ve got to go check on Kevin,” she said, her voice a bit breathless. “Thank you again.”

      She turned and hurried back into the house. His eyes narrowed, then his fingers tightened around the flashlight in his hand until he heard the crack of plastic. He stood there for a long moment, waited until the overwhelming urge to follow her subsided.

      Dammit, dammit, dammit.

      He didn’t even know her last name.

      Cold fingers of pale dawn reached through the towering oak tree beside Mildred Witherspoon’s weather-beaten detached garage. Frost covered the ankle-deep, weed-infested back lawn, sparkling like a crystal blanket in the early-morning light. Behind the garage, row after neat row of ceiling-high corn stretched acre after acre to a neighboring farm, where the steep black roof of a red barn peeked out from the tips of the silky stalks. Somewhere in the distance, Melanie heard the mournful moo of a cow.

      Bucolic was the word that came to her mind as she stood at the back door and scanned the land. Like something she’d seen on a postcard or coffee table book of Midwest farms. She was a city girl, born and raised in Los Angeles, and what little traveling she had done, had never been to rural America. Phillip had always insisted on the exotic, the most elegant: Monte Carlo, New York, London, Washington D.C. Five-star hotels and expensive restaurants. Cows and cornstalks had not fit into her husband’s fast-paced, sophisticated life-style.

      And after that first, exciting year of their marriage, Melanie thought wistfully, she hadn’t fit very well, either.

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