LITMIR.BIZ

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business owners and staff.

       But as she continued walking along the line of shops and historical buildings, the creepy feeling crawled up her shoulder blades. She whirled around suddenly, but didn’t catch anyone in the act of staring at her, or ducking into a shop doorway to escape her notice.

       It had been a silly thought, anyway. She wasn’t a spy. She was probably imagining things.

       She turned to enter Lorianne’s Café, a popular new restaurant owned by one of her high school classmates, which served California fusion cuisine made exclusively with local produce. She thought the feeling of being watched would go away as soon as she entered the building, but an uncomfortable shaft of prickling shot down her spine. She turned to look out the restaurant’s glass front doors, toward the green park area around Sonoma City Hall, but couldn’t see anyone except a few tourists walking by.

       “Monica Grant, are you stalking me?”

       The voice, still betraying the slight Irish lilt of his homeland, made her turn. “Mr. O’Neill! I should say, you’re stalking me.”

       Patrick O’Neill’s light blue eyes creased deeply at the corners. “Seeing you at the Zoe International charity banquet last week wasn’t enough. I had to get in more of your lovely company.” He enfolded her in a hug that made her cheek rasp against his usual Hawaiian-print, button-down shirt. Quite a contrast to the tuxedo he’d worn at the annual dinner that Zoe International, an anti-human-slavery organization, had hosted to thank its donors.

       “Are you here in Sonoma just for the day?” Monica asked. “Or are you staying overnight before you head back down to Marin?”

       “I’m here for a few days, spending time with my new grandson.”

       “That’s right, I heard about the new baby yesterday from Aunt Becca.” At first Monica had been shocked because she’d thought the new baby was Shaun’s son, but quickly realized her mistake—it was Brady’s son, Shaun’s nephew. She hoped Aunt Becca hadn’t noticed her initial stunned reaction.

       “What have you been up to in the seven whole days since I’ve seen you?” He tugged at a silver lock of hair on his wide forehead. It brought back an image of Shaun doing the same gesture.

       She forced her mind away from his eldest son. “I’m still taking care of Dad since he had his stroke.”

       “He’s doing better? Last week, we were interrupted before I could ask you about him.”

       “He still needs a live-in nurse, but I’m also taking him to physical therapy several times a week, and he’s gaining mobility back. He doesn’t need me quite as much, which is good, because my sister Naomi announced her engagement six weeks ago. She’s planning her wedding, so sometimes when she has to take off work at the spa, I fill in as manager for her.”

       “Will she still be manager when she marries?”

       “No, she’s going to start her own private massage therapy business in the city, closer to her future husband’s office. We’re trying to hire someone to take over when she leaves, but until then…” She had to stifle a small sigh. Because she still took care of her dad, filling in for Naomi stole precious free time that she didn’t have. The spa needed to hire someone soon.

       “From nurse to manager.” His blue eyes were more piercing than his son’s. “It doesn’t sit with you well?”

       His insight startled her. “I loved being an Emergency Room nurse,” she said, “but I have to admit I don’t regret quitting my job at Good Samaritan Hospital when Dad needed me. What I’d really like to do is run a free children’s clinic for Sonoma and Napa counties.”

       Unlike Monica’s father, Mr. O’Neill didn’t roll his eyes at her. Instead, he nodded gravely. “Then you should do it, my girl. You only have one life to love.”

       His phrasing touched her on a deeper level, stirred up things she had left collecting on the bottom. She shifted uncomfortably, then changed gears, giving him a teasing look. “So who are you meeting for lunch? Yet another struggling hotel owner whose hotel you’re going to buy and then turn into a raging success?”

       “No, I’m just here having lunch with my son.” He gestured behind him.

       Brady, his second eldest son, lived only a few miles from Sonoma in Geyserville. Monica’s gaze flickered over Mr. O’Neill’s shoulder, past the hostess waiting patiently behind the desk, toward the restaurant’s bar…and she froze.

       Shaun O’Neill stared right back at her. Her breath stopped in her throat and seemed to hum there. She recognized the strange sensation, something she had only felt twice before in her life—at her first sight of a cherry red Lamborghini, and the very first time she’d met Shaun O’Neill, ten years ago at a Zoe International banquet.

       Her heart started racing as he rose from his seat at the bar and walked toward them. His expression was unfathomable. Was he happy to see her? Indifferent? Something about the way he held his eyes made her think he felt the same rush of intensity she did.

       No, she had to find a way to smother the electricity zinging through her veins. Shaun was a cop, and she would never, ever date anyone in law enforcement. In the E.R., she had seen what that profession did to the families left behind, had tried to heal the unhealable pain of losing a fine man to a criminal’s gunshot. She knew her heart wouldn’t be able to handle it.

       She also knew she wouldn’t be able to handle him.

       As he approached, his scent wrapped around her—a thread of well-tooled leather, a hint of pine, a deep note of musk—a combination uniquely Shaun’s. “Hi, Shaun.” She gave a polite smile that hopefully masked the way he made her feel so…alive.

       “Hi, Monica.” The deep voice had a slight gravelly edge to it, promising danger and excitement. “It’s been a long time.”

       “I didn’t know you were back in Sonoma.”

       “I quit the border patrol,” he said softly.

       “What?” Surprised, she looked up at him and immediately drowned in the cerulean blue sea of his straightforward gaze. Shaun had always been aggressive with his stance, with his looks—and he was that way now, standing a little too close to her, staring a little too intently. “I…” She cleared her throat. “I thought you loved the border patrol. The last time we met, you were so enthusiastic about it.”

       “I’m back to spend time with my family. I’m thinking of applying for the Sonoma Police Department.”

       “Not as exciting as the border patrol,” she remarked, looking for his reaction.

       He shrugged.

       How strange. He still had that bad-boy air about him, but there was something that reminded her of a wounded dog. No, a wolf. A wounded wolf. She wanted to reach out to him, to help him if she could.

      Wounded wolves still bite. She had to remind herself that he wasn’t her type. She had to stop now so she wouldn’t go any deeper. She wouldn’t submit herself to the kind of pain she’d seen in the Emergency Room. She shook off the memory of a cop’s widow’s shaking shoulders and forced her mind back to the present.

       Then something invisible raking along her spine made her jerk. She turned to look out again through the glass of the restaurant doors but only saw the same view of Sonoma City Hall, made of local quarried stone that looked more flint-gray today under the overcast skies. Different tourists from the last time she’d looked walked around the grounds now.

       She was being paranoid. She had to get a hold of herself.

       She turned back to Mr. O’Neill. “The last time we talked, you mentioned how you were going to sell the Fontana Hotel in Marin and do consulting work rather than buy another hotel. Do you know when that’s going to happen?”

       Mr. O’Neill smiled at her. “Does your question have anything to do with the rumors I heard that your father’s

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