LITMIR.BIZ

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      MEAGAN MCKINNEY

      is the author of over a dozen novels of hardcover and paperback historical and contemporary women’s fiction. In addition to romance, she likes to inject mystery and thriller elements into her work. Currently she lives in the Garden District of New Orleans with her two young sons, two very self-entitled cats and a crazy red mutt. Her favorite hobbies are traveling to the Arctic and, of course, reading!

      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

      Chapter Sixteen

      Chapter Seventeen

      Chapter Eighteen

      Epilogue

      One

      “Jacquelyn, it’s early Monday morning, and this is Hazel McCallum calling, dear. I have a…slightly unusual request to make of you. The last time you were here, it seems we got a bit sidetracked from your interview about Jake. It might be better if we meet at my home again. Please call at your convenience to arrange a time.”

      Jacquelyn Rousseaux hit the rewind button on the answering machine, feeling heat rise into her face.

      Last time we got a bit sidetracked. My God, was that a polite understatement!

      Jacquelyn still felt mortified for her uncharacteristic lack of restraint. Back in Atlanta, even those who had known her for years often learned little about her private life, yet, once she and Hazel had gotten to talking about life and hopes and dreams, she found she’d opened up like a floodgate to the older woman, who was practically a stranger. Jacquelyn had talked about the most personal and humiliating details of her life as if it were a catharsis.

      She swept that unpleasant memory away, glancing at an old case clock in the back corner. It had kept near-perfect time in the office of the town’s newspaper, the Mystery Gazette, since 1890.

      Almost 10 a.m. She returned Hazel’s call and quickly arranged to meet the Matriarch of Mystery, as Jacquelyn had secretly dubbed the famous cattle baroness, at 1 p.m. When she pressed Hazel for more information about that “slightly unusual request,” the cagey old dame told her only, “You’ll find out soon enough.”

      A pleasant-looking, middle-aged woman in a beige pantsuit stepped out of a Plexiglas cubicle at the front of the office. Managing Editor, Bonnie Lofton, held a pica pole in one hand, an X-Acto blade in the other. The Gazette was one of the last weekly newspapers in the country that was not computer composed. Bonnie laid out each offset-press page by hand for a distinctly “old-time” look, in the spirit of Mystery’s upcoming sesquicentennial.

      “Morning, Jacquelyn,” Bonnie greeted her summer staffer. “Was that Hazel’s voice I just heard?”

      “None other. I already called her back. She wants to see me again. Won’t tell me why, either. Not even a hint.”

      “Uh-huh, that’s Hazel, all right. Sometimes she’s Mystery’s biggest mystery. Her heart’s so generous, that woman won’t let one person in this valley ever go cold or hungry. But she’s the boss, and she expects everybody to know it.”

      “I hope it’s not some problem with the last article I wrote,” Jacquelyn said worriedly. “I verified all the quotes and double-checked the facts.”

      Bonnie gave a Gaelic wave of dismissal. “Oh, pouf! Are you kidding? You’re the best feature writer we ever under-paid. I’ll bet you anything your series on Jake McCallum ends up winning an award. Not even three years out of journalism school, and you already compose copy like a wire-service pro.”

      “Oh, right. I’ll bet you say that to all the boss’s kids.”

      Bonnie wagged the pica pole at her. “Your old man’s not the boss, kiddo, I am. He’s the owner, by a quirk of corporate mergers, of this and a dozen other newspapers he probably doesn’t ever read. I don’t have to suck up to him or his kids. But face it, girl—you didn’t have to come here and work for us, yet you’ve proven you’re a journalist tried and true now. You’re genuinely talented, and talent’s a blessing nobody’s money can buy.”

      Jacquelyn smiled. She was pleased by Bonnie’s firm but kind words. Bonnie, like many of the native Montanans Jacquelyn had met during her summer idylls in Mystery, was more reserved and private than folks back in Atlanta. Compliments were familiar verbal rituals in the South; out West, however, one earned and treasured them.

      But talent, Jacquelyn thought with an inner stab of despair, is only one dimension of personality. For all her looks and education and “correct upbringing,” she

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