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      About the Author

      CHRISTINE RIMMER came to her profession the long way around. Before settling down to write about the magic of romance, she’d been everything from an actress to a salesclerk to a waitress. NOW that she’s finally found work that suits her perfectly, she insists she never had a problem keeping a job—she was merely gaining “life experience” for her future as a novelist. Christine is grateful not only for the joy she finds in writing, but for what waits when the day’s work is through: a man she loves, who loves her right back, and the privilege of watching their children grow and change day to day. She lives with her family in Oklahoma. Visit Christine at www.christinerimmer.com.

      Dear Reader,

      After a seriously rocky start, Jericho Bravo has turned his life around. He’s healed the rift with his family and found honest work that suits him perfectly.

      Marnie Jones was once a wild child. Not anymore. She flees to Texas in her battered old car with five hundred dollars to her name. Her goal: to heal her broken heart and to find the true self she somehow lost along the way.

      Neither Marnie nor Jericho is looking for love. Especially not with each other. He’s a loner and the one thing she doesn’t need is a new man in her life.

      But love has a funny way of popping up in the most unlikely places. And sometimes the last person a woman could ever see herself falling for turns out to be just the man for her.

      Happy reading, everyone.

      Yours always,

      Christine Rimmer

      For MSR, always.

       Chapter One

      It was a very bad day in a very bad week in what would no doubt turn into a really rotten month. Otherwise, Marnie Jones would never have stolen that chopper. Plus, there was Jericho Bravo. First, he scared her to death. And then he made her mad.

      Really mad. And he did it at the end of her very bad day. His making her mad was the final straw, or so she told herself when she hot-wired that beautiful motorcycle.

      If she hadn’t been feeling so crazy, so desperate and miserable, she might have been able to be more objective about the whole thing. She might have reminded herself that it wasn’t his fault that he had scared her silly. And when he made her mad, well, he was only telling the truth as he saw it.

      But she was feeling crazy and desperate and miserable. That day, she was in no mood to be objective about anything.

      The very bad day in question? It was April 1. So appropriate. On the day for fools, Marnie knew herself to be the biggest fool of all.

      The day before, Wednesday, March 31, her life had imploded when Mark Drury broke up with her. Mark was not only her live-in lover of five years, but he was also her best friend in the world since childhood, her blood brother since the age of nine.

      The house they shared in Santa Barbara belonged to him. So when he dumped her, she had nowhere to go and no best friend to talk to. She threw all her things in the back of her old black Camry and got out of there.

      She started to go home—home being the tiny town of North Magdalene northeast of Sacramento, in the Sierras. But after about ten minutes behind the wheel, she realized that she simply couldn’t do it, couldn’t go back there. Couldn’t face the worry in her dad’s eyes, the tender sympathy her stepmother would offer, the endless advice of her crazy Grandpa Oggie. Couldn’t stand to be the one the whole town was talking about.

      Yeah, she knew they would only be talking about her because they cared for her. But still. She couldn’t take the humiliation.

      So instead of heading north, she went east. She had no idea why, no clue where she was going. Just somewhere that wasn’t Santa Barbara or North Magdalene.

      Seven hours later, as she rolled into Phoenix, her destination became clear. She was going to San Antonio, going to her big sister, Tessa.

      She kept driving. After thirteen hours on the road, she reached El Paso. It was getting dark. She got a burger and fries from a drive-through, found a cheap motel and checked in for the night.

      She tried to sleep. Not happening. And her cell kept ringing. It was Mark. She didn’t answer, just let his calls go to voicemail and then deleted them without listening to them. She didn’t need to hear him say he only wanted to be sure that she was all right. She wasn’t all right. She didn’t think she would ever be all right again. And he, of all people, ought to know that.

      At dawn, she dragged herself out of the motel bed and started driving.

      She made it to San Antonio at ten past noon. Fifteen minutes later, she was pulling up in front of her sister’s new place, a gorgeous Spanish-style house in a very pricey neighborhood called Olmos Park.

      Marnie’s big sister, notorious in North Magdalene for her bad luck with men, had finally found the guy for her. His name was Ash Bravo. Ash was killer-hot and he had lots of money. But what really mattered was that he was long-gone, over-the-moon in love with Tessa—as she was, with him. They’d been married for two years now and had recently moved from his house, in another high-priced area of San Antonio, to this one, which they’d chosen as a couple.

      Marnie sat in the car for a while, thinking of how she probably should have called her sister first, given Tessa a little warning, at least. Somehow, she just hadn’t been able to bring herself to dial her sister’s number. There was too much to explain. Marnie hardly knew where to start.

      Eventually, she shoved open her door, shouldered her purse and got out of the car. Her legs felt kind of rubbery and her head swam. She’d had nothing to eat since that greasy burger the night before. She shut the door and braced both hands on the dusty black roof of the Camry. Head drooping, she took a few slow, deep breaths as she waited for the light-headedness to pass.

      When she looked up again, a skinny, fortyish, deeply tanned woman in cross-trainers, bike shorts and an exercise bra jogged past across the street. The woman frowned in Marnie’s direction. Marnie couldn’t really blame her. She knew she looked like hell and her car was old and dusty, the backseat packed with just about everything she owned. The skinny woman probably thought she was some homeless person.

      Which, come to think of it, she was.

      The realization brought a laugh to Marnie’s lips, a brittle, angry sound. The woman in the cross-trainers ran faster, quickly disappearing around the corner.

      Marnie pulled herself up straight, turned and started up the long,

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