LITMIR.BIZ

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refilling coffee cups before she had to return for another pot.

      After almost ten months on the job, she was feeling more confident with her duties as one of the waitresses at Marge’s Diner in Tyler. Everything here was a far cry from her life in Santa Barbara, California.

      In Tyler, she didn’t play tennis, laze by the pool or head for the beach with her friends. She wasn’t “Caroline Bennedict” any longer. Now she was Caroline Benning—a stranger who’d driven into town, liked its looks and, since the diner was advertising for a waitress, applied for the job. Luckily, her lack of experience didn’t seem to matter. Marge, the owner, warmly assured her she’d pick it up in no time.

      Caroline had lost track of the number of broken dishes and incorrect orders she was responsible for—though she hadn’t forgotten that time she gave Ray Hickman crab cakes instead of the fish sticks he’d ordered. She’d had no idea he was allergic to shellfish.

      Caroline knew that in any other restaurant she would be history by now. Luckily, Marge was a great deal more patient with her fledgling waitress than most bosses would be. It didn’t hurt that a majority of the men in town had asked that she be given a second chance. And a third. And a fourth. Caroline was learning that small towns were very much a world unto themselves.

      When Caroline had decided to seek out her mother’s other family, she’d had no idea the trail would lead to Wisconsin.

      She hadn’t found anything in her father’s papers about the Spencer family’s involvement with her mother. It was pure luck there was a small note with the words Tyler Quilting Circle, Tyler, Wisconsin on the bottom of the box holding the quilt. Caroline hadn’t stopped to think whether it was a good idea to just throw clothes in a few suitcases and take off for Tyler. She’d just done it. So far, she hadn’t regretted her decision.

      While she was eager to know her half brothers, she knew she couldn’t just walk up to the Spencer front door and announce she was their half sister. It wasn’t long after her arrival that she learned the Spencer family was well regarded in Tyler. The father and three sons were known as men not to be toyed with. They were wealthy, and she guessed they would naturally be suspicious of anyone suddenly appearing with the claim of being related.

      Having grown up in a moneyed community, Caroline understood the caution they would undoubtedly display. She didn’t need to watch the daytime dramas to which Alice was addicted to know she would have to get to know the Spencers first. Especially since she wasn’t sure if Elias Spencer, head of the family, would accept her as his sons’ half sister.

      Her first thoughts were to stay in town for a while and see what she could find out about the Spencers. Then perhaps get to know them on a casual basis. She began by renting a room at the Kelsey Boarding House and looking around town for a job. In no time, she had a job where she was guaranteed to meet just about the entire population of Tyler at one time or another.

      At first, she’d pretty much kept to herself. Then she’d stupidly tried to see into Elias Spencer’s house and had ended up in the rose bushes, much to her embarrassment. Not something that would happen to the quiet, almost mousy Caroline Benning she’d been portraying. No wonder, since as Caroline Bennedict she’d devoured mystery novels and convinced herself she could do anything those heroines could do. After picking the thorns out of her skin, she’d decided it was time to act more like herself. She’d even dug out her own clothing, and now wore it instead of the drab, nondescript things she’d been wearing.

      It wasn’t long before people started to talk to her more. Marge took Caroline’s sudden transformation in stride and told her she was glad to see she was settling in.

      “Caroline.” Marge’s voice interrupted her daydreaming, and the owner flashed her eyes in the direction of the booths that were Caroline’s responsibility.

      Caroline felt the skin on her face turn warm. Not because of embarrassment that her boss had caught her daydreaming, but because a pair of dark brown eyes watched her with an intensity that unnerved her.

      Deputy Cooper Night Hawk.

      She was positive he’d looked at her and deemed her an imposter. She feared the time would come when he would reveal her lies to the town. And they would promptly run her out of town on a rail.

      Until then, she would suffer while, every morning, he settled in one of her booths and ordered his usual blueberry pancakes, sausage and hash browns, coffee and orange juice.

      She snagged a cup on her way over to him.

      “Deputy.” She greeted him with a warm smile as she set the cup on the table and filled it with hot coffee.

      She was a coward, but she wasn’t going to drop to her knees and beg him to understand the reasons for her lies about her name and why she was here. After all, what if she was wrong and he didn’t know who she was?

      Caroline vowed to stop reading mysteries. They had her believing she could get away with anything the heroines in the books could. They were getting her into a lot of trouble.

      “Good morning, Caroline.”

      The way he said her name in his low, husky voice was enough to send shivers down her spine. Not to mention the way he looked at her, as if she was the blue plate special of the day. She managed an impersonal smile as she held her order pad in one hand and pencil in the other.

      “Let me guess,” she said. “The usual?”

      He nodded without returning her smile. “I’d say that sounds like a plan.”

      “I’ll be back with your juice.” She whirled away and headed for the counter to drop off the order slip, although she knew Marge would have already started Cooper’s breakfast.

      SHE WILL STEAL YOUR HEART and give you her own.

      Cooper hated the thoughts provoked by his grandfather’s words that swirled inside his head. Especially when he was looking at a lovely young woman who was about as off-limits as a woman could get.

      Caroline Benning was new in a town that boasted few newcomers. No one knew all that much about her other than she was twenty-two, had lost her father not long ago and had been traveling because she felt the need to get away. Cooper wondered if that need to get out of town had anything to do with a boyfriend.

      His cop’s eye gauged her to be about five foot eight and too thin, at around one hundred twenty pounds. He was certain the blond highlights in her light brown hair weren’t real, but the dazzling green eyes were, since he didn’t see any hint of contact lenses. For work, she kept her just-past-chin-length hair back in a barrette. The pink-and-white-striped, short-sleeved shirt she wore with a short denim skirt made her look younger than her twenty-two years.

      She seemed a little shy, uncertain about people, but around him she actually appeared wary. He couldn’t think of a reason why he’d cause that reaction in a young woman he barely knew.

      Unless she had something to hide.

      He didn’t want to think that was the case. He liked looking at her too much.

      “Hey, Cooper, heard Margaret Ingalls stole more of Nora Gates Forrester’s underwear,” Henry Farris called out from his usual perch at the counter. His cronies, not one of them under the age of seventy, surrounded him. Leathery fingers, gnarled by time and arthritis, wrapped themselves around coffee mugs or held on to a rich breakfast pastry. “When ya goin’ to bring her in for questioning?”

      “It hasn’t been easy to find Margaret. I thought I’d call on Psychics R Us for help,” Cooper called back.

      The elderly men cackled their appreciation of his joke.

      “Maybe Nora needs to put those special tags on them. You know the ones I’m talking about,” Barney Metzger interjected. “Like the ones she puts on clothes in the store.”

      “I’ll let you make that suggestion, Barney.” Cooper lifted his coffee cup in a silent salute.

      When Caroline set his glass of orange juice on the table,

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