LITMIR.BIZ

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      ROBIN WELLS

      Before becoming a full-time writer, Robin Wells was an advertising and public relations executive, but she always dreamed of writing novels—a dream inspired by a grandmother who told “hot tales” and parents who were both librarians.

      When she sold her first novel, her family celebrated at a Chinese restaurant. Robin’s fortune cookie read “Romance moves you in a new direction”—and it has. Robin has won an RWA Golden Heart Award, two National Readers’ Choice Awards, a Holt Medallion and a Colorado Romance Writers’ Award of Excellence.

      Robin lives just outside New Orleans with her husband, two daughters and an exceedingly spoiled dog named Winnie the Pooh-dle. She loves to hear from readers, so drop her a note online at her website, www.robinwells.com, or by writing her at P.O. Box 303, Mandeville, LA 70470-0303.

      To Ken—the winner of my heart

      Contents

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

      Chapter Three

      Chapter Four

      Chapter Five

      Chapter Six

      Chapter Seven

      Chapter Eight

      Chapter Nine

      Chapter Ten

      Chapter Eleven

      Chapter Twelve

      Chapter Thirteen

      Chapter Fourteen

      Chapter Fifteen

      One

      “What do you think of Summer’s hair?”

      Frannie Hannon pulled her eyes away from the computer screen and swiveled around in the wooden office chair to see her two gorgeous cousins, Jasmine and Summer, standing in front of the front desk of the Big Sky Bed & Breakfast. Summer’s long, dark hair fell in a tousled cascade of curls to her shoulders, where it lay in dramatic contrast against the red silk of her short chic dress.

      “Give me your honest opinion, Frannie.” Summer ran a hand through the loose waves in her normally straight hair. “Do you think Gavin will think curls look good on me?”

      Frannie pushed her tortoiseshell glasses higher up on her nose, a dry smile curving the corners of her lips. “Your husband would think you looked gorgeous if you shaved your head and painted your skull green. And the annoying thing about it is, he’d be right.”

      It was the absolute truth. With her beautiful Native American features, deep chocolate eyes and wide, expressive mouth, Summer Nighthawk was breathtaking. But then, so was Jasmine Monroe, with her close-cropped dark hair, delicate features and creamy pale skin. Either woman’s face or figure could stop traffic and a man’s heart at fifty paces.

      All mine could stop is a clock, Frannie thought ruefully. A familiar twinge of inferiority tweaked at her heart. She’d grown up here in Whitehorn, Montana, with Summer, Jasmine and Jasmine’s equally gorgeous sister, Cleo, and she viewed them more as sisters than as cousins. Their mothers, in fact, were sisters. Frannie’s mom, Yvette, and Jasmine’s and Cleo’s mom, Celeste, ran a bed-and-breakfast in the rambling arts and crafts-style manor house. Summer’s mother, Blanche, had died shortly after Summer’s birth, so Celeste and Yvette had raised their sister’s daughter as one of their own.

      The four cousins had all grown up together. They’d spent summers splashing in the waters of Blue Mirror Lake and winters toboganning down the foothills of the Crazy Mountains. They’d shared their dreams and their secrets, their toys and their clothes. They were family in every sense of the word, and yet sometimes, when Frannie looked at her cousins, she found it hard to believe she’d come from the same gene pool.

      Times like now. Summer was so dark and exotic, Jasmine so fair and fragile. Next to them, Frannie always felt like a little brown mouse.

      Well, not little, exactly, she thought ruefully. Tall and gawky was more like it. At five-foot, nine-inches, Frannie’s height was the only exceptional thing about her. There was nothing special about her light brown hair except its unruly nature, which was why Frannie kept it clamped back in a tight ponytail. Her skin was clear and fair, but her features were unremarkable. Her eyes were an okay shade of hazel, but she kept them hidden behind her large, tortoiseshell-framed glasses. Oh, she had her own unique characteristics, of course—her nose was faintly freckled, her figure was on the scrawny side, and she grew in credibly clumsy whenever she was nervous—but overall, she was drab, colorless and nondescript.

      Which suited her just fine, Frannie reminded herself. It was better to fade into the background than to stick out and be ridiculed. In fact, she deliberately cultivated an inconspicuous look. She dressed to blend in, wearing brown or beige suits for her job at the Whitehorn Savings and Loan, and jeans and shapeless sweaters, like the baggy gray one she was wearing now, on evenings and weekends.

      When it came to her appearance, Frannie didn’t kid herself. She was plain, and she knew it. She’d made peace with that fact years ago, and now, at twenty-six, she knew there was no point in pretending to be some thing she wasn’t.

      “So what do you think?” Jasmine prompted. She waved her hand toward Summer’s hair as if she were Vanna White pointing to a grand prize. “Am I a maestro with a curling iron, or what?”

      “You are the Queen of Coif.” Frannie leaned back in the rolling chair and gazed approvingly at Summer. “You look great. But what’s the special occasion? You and Gavin haven’t been married long enough to be celebrating an anniversary.”

      Summer lifted a shoulder. “No occasion. Just a Saturday night date with my husband.”

      “Who’s baby-sitting?” Frannie asked. “Isn’t it the nanny’s night off?”

      “She switched to accommodate our schedules. It isn’t often Gavin and I are off on the same Saturday night.” The nanny took wonderful care of their toddler Alyssa.

      “So where are you going?”

      “To dinner at the country club—if he ever finishes up at the hospital. I told him I’d change here instead of driving all the way home.” Summer sighed. “I love living in the country, but as many hours as we spend at work, sometimes I think we just ought to live in a room at the hospital.”

      Frannie nodded sympathetically. Gavin was a

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