CHAPTER ONE

     Noah Sullivan understood airplanes the way physicists understood atoms and bakers understood bread.  He pulled back on the yoke, pushed the throttle forward and sliced through the clouds.  He dove, leveled off and climbed, listening intently to the engine all the while, the control held loosely in his hands.  This old Piper Cherokee was soaring like a kite at eighteen hundred feet.  She had a lot of years left in her. 

The same couldn’t be said for all the planes he flew.  The first time he’d executed an emergency landing he’d used a closed freeway outside of Detroit.  Last month he’d had to set a Cessna down on a godforsaken strip of dirt in the Texas hill country.  He’d never lost a plane, though, and was considered one of the best independent test pilots in his field. 

He wasn’t fearless.  He was relentless.  He couldn’t take all the credit for that, though.  He never forgot that.

When he was finished putting the Piper through her paces, he headed down, out of the clouds.  He followed the Chestnut River west then banked south above the tallest church spire in Orchard Hill.  Halfway between the city limit sign and the country airstrip was Sully’s Orchard.  It was where Noah grew up, and where he collected his mail every month or so when he flew through.

He buzzed the orchard on his way by, the way he always did when he came home, and tipped his wing when his oldest brother, Marsh came running out the back door of the old cider house, his ball cap waving.  Their mother used to say Marsh and Noah had been born looking up, Marsh to their apple trees and Noah to the sky above them.  The second oldest, Reed stepped out of the office, shading his eyes with his right hand.  Tall, blond and shamelessly confident, he waved, too. 

Those two deserved the credit for Noah’s success, for they’d given up their futures after their parents died in an icy pileup when Noah was fifteen and their baby sister Madeline was twelve.  Noah hadn’t made it easy for them, either.  Truancy when he was fifteen, speeding and curfew violations when he was sixteen, drinking long before it was legal.  They never gave up on him, and helped him find a way to make his dream of flying come true.  Maybe some day he would find a way to repay them. 

He still enjoyed getting a rise out of them from time to time, but today he didn’t subject them to any grandstanding or showing off.  He simply flashed his landing lights hello and started toward the airstrip a few miles away.  He’d barely gotten turned around when a movement on the ground caught his eye. 

A woman was hurrying across the wide front lawn.  She was wearing a jacket and had a cumbersome looking bag slung over each shoulder.  He tipped his wing hello, but instead of looking up, she ducked. 

That was odd, Noah thought.  Not the snub.  That, he took in stride.  But it was the middle of June, and too warm for a jacket of any kind.

And not even company used the Sullivan’s front door.

                                 *    *    *

Thirty years ago Tom Bender looked out across his ramshackle rural airstrip five miles east of Orchard Hill, Michigan and saw his future.  Today the pasture that had once been a bumpy runway where he’d landed his first airplane was a diamond-in-the-rough airfield operation with tarmac runways and hangars for commuter planes, helicopters, charters and hobbyists. 

The stub of a cold cigar clamped between his teeth and all that was left of a sparse comb-over swirling in the June breeze, he was waiting when Noah rolled to a stop along the edge of the runway.  “How’d she do?” Tom asked as soon as Noah climbed down.

Running his hand reverently along the underside of the Piper’s right wing, Noah said, “She handled like the prima Donna she was destined to become.”

“I’m glad to hear it.  The paperwork’s on the clipboard where it always is,” Tom said, his attention already turning to the bi-plane coming in for a landing on the other runway.  “As soon as you fill it out, Em will cut you a check.”

With that check, Noah would make the final payment on the loan for his Airfield Operations Specialist training, a loan he’d been whittling away at for nine years.  Anticipating the satisfaction he would feel when he read Paid In Full on his tattered IOU, he headed toward the small block building that comprised the customer waiting area and Tom’s office. 

All eight chairs were empty and Tom’s wife Emma was verifying a reservation over the phone on the other side of the counter.  She waved as Noah took the clipboard from the peg behind Tom’s desk and lowered into a cracked leather chair beside it. 

He’d barely started on the checklist when the airstrip’s best mechanic moseyed inside.  “You aren’t going to believe what I heard today, Noah,” Digger Brown said before the door even closed.  As tall as Noah, Digger had a good start on a hardy paunch he was in the habit of patting.  “You care to guess?”

Noah shook his head without looking up.  “I’m in a hurry, Dig.”

“Lacey’s back in town.”

Noah’s ears perked up and the tip of his pen came off the page.  Lacey was in Orchard Hill?

Digger was wearing a know-it-all grin when Noah looked up.  “I figured that’d get your attention.”

A few grades behind Noah, Lacey Bell used to walk to school with a camera around her neck and a chip on her shoulder.  Back then she’d worn her dark hair short and her jeans tight.  Noah had been doing his best to get kicked out of the eleventh grade, so other than the fact that the boys her age used to taunt her, he hadn’t paid her a lot of attention.  He’d heard a lot about her, though.  Whether in bars, at air shows or loitering around water coolers, men liked to talk.  They’d said she was easy, bragging about their conquests the way they bragged about golf scores and fishing trips and cars.  Noah’s relationship with Lacey had taught him what liars men could be.   

One night after he’d come home after finishing his airfield operations training in Florida, he’d noticed her sitting on the steps that led to the apartment over the bar where she’d lived with her father.  They’d talked, him at the bottom of those rickety stairs, her at the top.  He’d been twenty and by the end of the night he’d been completely enamored by an eighteen year-old girl with dark hair, a sharp mind, a smart mouth and a smile she didn’t overuse.  When he returned the next night, she moved down a few steps and he moved up.  By the third night, they sat side-by-side. 

She was the only girl he’d ever known who’d understood his affinity with the sky.  She’d left Orchard Hill two and a half years ago after the worst argument they’d ever had.  Coming home hadn’t been the same for Noah since.

“Did you hear Lacey’s back, too?” Digger asked.

“Where would I have heard that?  Air-traffic control?” Noah asked, for he’d spent the past month crop dusting in Texas, and Digger knew it.

“There’s no need to get huffy,” Digger groused.  “Maybe you ought to pay Lacey a visit.  I bet she could put a smile on your face.  Wait, I forgot.  You’re just a notch on her bedpost nowadays, aren’t ya?”

Ten years ago Digger would have been wearing the wrench he was carrying.  Luckily for everybody, Noah had developed a little willpower over the years. 

Eventually Digger grew bored with being ignored and sauntered back outside where the guys on the grounds’ crew were moving two airplanes around on the tarmac outside the office’s only window.  Noah’s mind wandered to the last time he’d seen Lacey. 

He’d been home to attend the air show in Battle Creek.  That same weekend Lacey had been summoned from Chicago to her father’s bedside after he’d suffered a massive heart attack.  Noah had gone to the burial a few days later to pay his respects.  Late that night, she’d answered his knock on her door, and like so many times before, they’d wound up in her bed.  She’d been spitting mad in the morning, more angry with herself than at him, but mad was mad, and she’d told him the previous night had been a mistake she had no intention of repeating.  She’d lit out of Orchard Hill again with little more than her camera the same day. 

If Digger was right, she was back in town. 

Thoughts of her stayed with Noah as he finished the paperwork and pocketed the check Em Bender handed him.  For a second or two he considered knocking on Lacey’s door and inviting her out to celebrate with him.  Then he remembered the way she’d stuck her hands on her hips and lifted her chin in defiance that morning after her father’s funeral. 

As tempting as seeing her again was, Noah had his pride.  He didn’t go where he wasn’t wanted.  So instead, he pointed his truck toward the family orchard that to this day felt like home. 

The great lakes were said to be the breath of Michigan.  As Noah crested the hill and saw row upon row of neatly pruned apple trees with their crooked branches, gnarled bark and sturdy trunks, he was reminded of all the generations of orchard growers who’d believed their trees were its soul. 

He parked his dusty blue Chevy in his old spot between Marsh’s shiny SUV and Reed’s Mustang, and entered the large white house through the back door the way he always did.  Other than the take-out menus scattered across the countertops, the kitchen was tidy.  He could hear the weather report droning from the den—Marsh’s domain.  Reed was most likely in his home office off the living room.    

Since the den was closer, Noah stopped there first.  Marsh glanced at him and held up a hand, in case Noah hadn’t learned to keep quiet when the weather report was on. 

Six and a half years older than Noah, Marsh had been fresh out of college when their parents were killed so tragically.  It couldn’t have been easy taking on the family business and a little sister who desperately needed her mother and two younger brothers, one of whom was hell-bent on ruining his own life.  Despite everything Noah had put him through, Marsh looked closer to thirty than thirty-five.   

When the weatherman finally broke for a commercial, Noah pushed away from the doorway where he’d been leaning and said, “What’s a guy got to do to get a hello around here?”

Marsh made no apologies as he muted the TV and found his feet.  He was on his way across the room to clasp Noah in a bear hug when a strange noise stopped him in his tracks. 

Noah heard it, too.  What the hell was it? 

He spun out of the den, Marsh right behind him, and almost collided with Reed.  “Do you hear that?” Reed asked. 

As tall as the other two, but blond, Reed was always the first to ask questions and the first to reach his own conclusions.  He’d been at Notre Dame when their parents died.  He’d come home to Orchard Hill, too, as soon as he’d finished college.  Noah owed him as much as he owed Marsh.      

“It sounds like it’s coming from right outside the front door,” Reed said.

     Marsh cranked the lock and threw open the door.  He barreled through first, the other two on his heels.  All three stopped short and stared at the baby screaming at the top of his lungs on the porch. 

A baby.  Was on their porch. 

Dressed all in blue, he had wisps of dark hair and an angry red face.  He was strapped into some sort of seat with a handle, and was wailing shrilly.  He kicked his feet.  On one he wore a tiny blue sock.  The other foot was bare.  The strangest thing about him, though, was that he was alone.

Marsh, Reed and Noah had been told they were three fine specimens of the male species.  Two dark-haired and one fair, all were throw backs to past generations of rugged Sullivan men.  The infant continued to cry pitifully, obviously unimpressed. 

Noah was a magician in the cockpit of an airplane.  Marsh had an almost ethereal affinity with his apple trees.  Reed was a wizard with business plans and checks and balances.  All three of them were struck dumb while the baby cried in earnest. 

He was getting worked up, his little fisted hands flailing, his legs jerking, his mouth wide open.  In his vehemence, he punched himself in the nose. 

Just like that he quieted. 

But not for long.  Skewing his little face, he gave the twilight hell.

Reed was the first to recover enough to bend down and pick the baby up, seat and all.  The crying abated with the jiggling motion.  Suddenly the June evening was eerily still.  In the ensuing silence, all three shared a look of absolute bewilderment.

“Where’d he come from?” Marsh asked quietly, as if afraid any loud noises or sudden moves might set off another round of crying.

Remembering the woman he’d seen from the air, Noah looked out across the big lawn, past the parking area that would be teeming with cars in the fall but was empty now.  He peered at the stand of pine trees and a huge willow near the lane where the property dropped away.  Nothing moved as far as the eye could see.

Every day about this time the orchard became more shadow than light.  The apple trees were lush and green, the two-track path through the orchard neatly mowed.  The shed where the parking signs were stored along with the four-wheelers, wagons and tractors they used for hayrides every autumn was closed up tight.  Noah could see the padlock on the door from here.  Everything looked exactly as it always had.   

“I don’t see anybody, do you?” Marsh asked quietly.

     Reed and Noah shook their heads. 

     “Did either of you hear a car?” Reed asked.

Noah and Marsh hadn’t, and neither had Reed. 

“That baby sure didn’t come by way of the stork,” Marsh insisted.

     A stray current of air stirred the grass and the new leaves in the nearby trees.  The weathervane on the cider house creaked the way it always did when the wind came out of the east.  Nothing looked out of place, Noah thought.  The only thing out of the ordinary was the sight of the tiny baby held stiffly in Reed’s big hands. 

     “We’d better get him inside,” Noah said as he reached for two bags that hadn’t been on the porch an hour ago.  A sheet of paper fluttered to the floor.  He picked it up and read the handwritten note. 

     Our precious son.  Joseph Daniel Sullivan.

     I call him Joey.  He’s my life.  I beg you,

take good care of him until I can return for him.

     He turned the paper over then showed it to his brothers.

“Our precious son?” Reed repeated after reading it for himself.

“Whose precious son?” Marsh implored, for the note wasn’t signed.

The entire situation grew stranger with every passing second.  What the hell

was going on here? The last one to the door, Noah looked back again, slowly

scanning the familiar landscape. Was someone watching? The hair on his arms

     Who left a baby on a doorstep in this day and age?  But someone had.  If whoever had done it was still out there, he didn’t know where.

                                               *    *    *

He was looking right at her.  She was almost sure of it. 

Her lips quivered and her throat convulsed as she fought a rising panic.  She couldn’t panic.  And he couldn’t possibly see her.  He was too far away and she was well hidden.  She was wearing dark clothing, purposefully blending with the shadows beneath the trees. 

A dusty pickup truck had rattled past her hiding place ten minutes ago.  The driver hadn’t even slowed down.  He hadn’t seen her and neither could the last Sullivan on the porch.  Surely he wouldn’t have let the others go inside if he had.

     From here she couldn’t even tell which brother was still outside.  It was difficult to see anything in this light.  A sob lodged sideways in her throat, but she pushed it down.  She’d cried enough.  Out of options and nearly out of time, she was doing the right thing.

     She had to go, and yet she couldn’t seem to move.  On the verge of hyperventilating, she wished she’d have thought to bring a paper sack to breathe into so she wouldn’t pass out.  She couldn’t pass out.  She couldn’t allow herself the luxury of oblivion.  Instead, she waited, her muscles aching from the strain of holding so still.  Her empty arms ached most of all. 

When the last of the men who’d gathered on the porch finally went inside, she took several deep calming breaths.  She’d done it.  She’d waited as long as she could, and she’d done what she had to do. 

Their baby was safe.  Now, she had to leave. 

“Take care of him for me for now,” she whispered into the vast void of deepening twilight. 

Reminding herself that this arrangement wasn’t permanent, and that she would return for her baby the moment she was able, she crept out from beneath the weeping willow tree near the road and started back toward the car parked behind a stand of pine trees half a mile away. 

She’d only taken a few steps when Joey’s high-pitched wails carried through the early evening air.  She paused, for she recognized that cry.  It had been three hours since his last bottle.  She’d tried to feed him an hour ago, but he’d been too sleepy to eat.  Evidently he was ready now.  Surely it wouldn’t take his father long to find his bottles and formula and feed him. 

Rather than cause her to run to the house and snatch him back into her arms, Joey’s cries filled her with conviction.  He had a mind of his own and would put his father through the wringer tonight, but Joey would be all right.  He was a survivor, her precious son.

     And so was she.

Sheet lightning flirted with the treetops on the horizon as Innkeeper Summer Matthews started up the sidewalk of her inn.  For a few seconds she could see the bridge over the river and the steeple of the tallest church in Orchard Hill.  An instant later the starless sky was black again.

Directly ahead of her The Orchard Inn beckoned.  Nestled on a hill overlooking the river, the inn was just inside the Orchard Hill city limit.  Built of sandstone and river rock, it was tall and angular and had a roof that looked like a top hat from here.  It had large windows, a wide front walkway and an ornate portico.  A single antique lamp glowed in the bay window on the first floor.  Upstairs the flicker of laptops and televisions cast a blue haze on the wavy windowpanes, modern technology in a hundred-twenty-year-old inn.

Only one window remained dark. 

She went in through the front door, the purling of the bell blending with the lively voices of her friends who were watching the front desk in her absence.  She listened at the stairs for guests and checked the registration book on her way by.  K. Miller, the last member of the restoration crew scheduled to begin work on the train depot first thing in the morning still hadn’t checked in.  Wondering what was keeping him, she followed her friends’ voices to her private quarters. 

Madeline Sullivan, whose surprise engagement to Riley Merrick was the reason for tonight’s emergency wedding planning session was the first to notice Summer.  “You’re home early,” she said, her blue eyes shining with newfound joy.

Chelsea Reynolds looked up from her laptop and Abby Fitzpatrick turned in her chair.  Giving Summer a quick once over from head to toe, Abby said, “I saw the new veterinarian getting into his truck with roses and a bottle of wine.  And you wore a dress, which means you shaved your legs.  What are you doing home already?”

Summer went to the refrigerator for a diet Coke before joining the others at her table.  “Did you know that goats, when born, land on only three feet?”

There was a moment of silence while the others searched for the relevance in that little pearl of wisdom.  “Goats,” Abby repeated as Chelsea deftly plucked a blade of straw from Summer’s light brown hair. 

“Do you have experience birthing goats?” Madeline asked.

“I do now.”  She popped the top of her soda can and poured the cold beverage into a glass.  “Nathan’s service called during dinner.  One of the Jenkins’ goats was struggling to deliver.  I went along on the emergency house call.  The twins are fine and the mother is resting, but I definitely shaved my legs for nothing.”

Madeline was a nurse whose blond hair and blue eyes gave her an angelic appearance.  Blond, too, Abby wore her hair in a short, wispy style that suited her petite frame but camouflaged an IQ that rivaled Einstein’s.  Chelsea had dark brown hair, a curvy build and a no-nonsense attitude.  All three burst out laughing. 

Summer couldn’t help joining in. 

Looking at these women sitting around her table on this quiet Tuesday night, it occurred to her that when she’d arrived in Orchard Hill six years ago at the tender age of twenty-three, she’d been as fragile and wobbly as one of the Jenkins’ newborn goats.  Madeline, Chelsea and Abby had befriended her, and in doing so, they’d held her up until she’d gotten both feet firmly underneath her.  A year and a half ago they’d all done the same for Madeline when her fiancé was tragically killed in a motorcycle accident.  Now Madeline was standing on her own again, about to be married to the man who’d received Aaron’s heart.  

“How are the wedding plans coming?” Summer asked.

“Amazing,” Abby said.  “In ten days the most miraculous wedding of the century will go down

in history right here in Orchard Hill.”

Summer wished Abby hadn’t worded it exactly that way.  She wanted Madeline’s wedding to be a dream come true—nobody deserved this happiness more, but a wedding that went down in history would undoubtedly be high-profile.  The thought of that sent dread to the pit of her stomach. 

She reminded herself that most people harbored a profound desire to be remembered for

something, to leave a mark on someone or something.  At the very least they wanted their

elusive five minutes of fame. 

Not Summer.

She’d already made her splash, and a messy one at that.  Not that anyone in Orchard Hill knew the melodramatic details of her former life.  As much as she loved this town and the life she’d found here, she preferred her little secret to remain just that.  Hers. 

“I think we’ve done all we can do until morning,” Chelsea said.  The official wedding planner, she closed her laptop. 

The others gathered up their things, too.  Leading the little entourage out the door, Chelsea said, “We have the church, the reception hall, the caterers, the gown and the guest list.  We still have to talk about music, flowers, table favors and Madeline’s vows, but we’re in good shape.  Don’t you agree, Madeline?”   

Summer wondered when Chelsea would notice that Madeline wasn’t listening.  She wasn’t even following anymore.  She’d stopped in the center of the courtyard, and as she often did, lifted her face to the dark sky. 

“I want apple blossoms on the altar and no gifts,” she said.  “I want a simple wedding.”

From across the courtyard, Chelsea said, “Apple blossoms on the altar will be lovely, and we can request no gifts.  But a simple wedding with three hundred guests?”

“Two-hundred-ninety-eight,” Madeline said, blinking up at the starless sky.  “Riley spoke with his brothers.  They don’t see how they can possibly get out of their commitments on such short notice.  They’ll both be out of the country for the wedding.”

“Two of the most eligible bachelors on the guest list aren’t coming?” Abby asked. 

“Shoot,” Chelsea said at the same time. 

It was all Summer could do to keep the relief from bubbling out of her.  Kyle Merrick was Riley’s older brother and had grown up in Bay City on Michigan’s gold coast.  He’d caused quite a stir when he’d gotten kicked out of his Ivy League college, but it was his exposé of a professor’s wrongdoing that gained him real notoriety.  He’d accepted the formal apology from the university but turned his nose up at their invitation to return.  With an attitude like his, it wasn’t surprising he’d become a nationally acclaimed journalist.  As a newspaperman, he’d likely caught her exclusive the day she’d made the front page of the society section of every major newspaper on the eastern seaboard. 

He wasn’t coming to his brother’s wedding.  Summer couldn’t contain her happiness about that.  It was all she could do to keep from doing cartwheels across the courtyard.    

“Before you go,” Madeline called.  “I want all three of you to close your eyes.”

Abby was the first to do as Madeline asked.  Although Chelsea complained, she closed her eyes, too.  Summer was still smiling when she finally acquiesced. 

“Take a deep breath,” Madeline continued in her quiet lilting voice that for a moment seemed almost otherworldly.  “Now slowly release it and draw in another.  Relax.  Breathe.  With your eyes closed, picture the man of your dreams.  Do you see him?  Maybe he’s rugged and moody, or shirtless and sexy, or brainy and pensive.”

An image sauntered unbidden across Summer’s mind.  No matter how many dates she accepted or how much she enjoyed the attention of the rugged earthy men of Orchard Hill, her fantasy man wasn’t clad in faded jeans or chinos.  He was loosening the button on a fine European suit.

Champagne taste on a beer budget.

“Believe your paths will cross and they will,” Madeline said.  “I’m living proof.  Now open your eyes.”

All four of them opened their eyes at the same time.  They were still blinking when lightning flashed across the horizon.  As if in answer, the lights in the inn flickered. 

“The universe just sent us a sign,” Madeline whispered in awe.  “Your lover is on his way.” 

Summer didn’t know if Chelsea and Abby believed in Madeline’s prediction, but they got in Chelsea’s car without disputing it.  Madeline had always been intuitive and romantic.  Since she’d discovered wealthy architect Riley Merrick and had proceeded to fall in love with him, she’d become even more wise and serene.  She believed in destiny and positive thoughts manifesting into positive results.  And she believed the flickering lights were a sign. 

     Summer believed in the cantankerous electrical system in her inn.  If that storm came any closer, a fuse would blow and her lights would go out.  There was nothing magical about it, she thought after Madeline left, too.  And the balmy breeze fluttering the loose gathers in her dress’s bodice wasn’t a prelude to a lover’s touch. 

Tall and muscular, the man crossing Summer’s threshold watched her watching him.  Although she couldn’t see his eyes clearly, she saw his bold smile. 

Bold with a capital B.

There were times when a woman didn’t appreciate such over-confidence.  This wasn’t one of them.

His chest was bare.  Why, she didn’t know.  He didn’t seem to care that he was dripping on an impeccably tailored white shirt lying on the floor.  He kicked it aside with the toe of one worn boot.  Summer knew there was something incongruous about his attire, but this was her dream, and she was enjoying it too much to rouse herself enough to analyze the inconsistencies. 

Thunder rolled, ever closer, the sound moving through the darkness, approaching as rhythmically and steadily as the man, and what a man, a long, lean paradigm of natural elegance, honed muscle and masculine intent.  Apparently unaffected by the fury of the storm, he smiled as he leaned over her.  She held her breath as she waited to be awakened with his kiss. 

Thunder cracked right outside the window.  Summer jerked awake.  She blinked.  Floundered.

Where was she?

Rain pelted the windowpanes and thunder rumbled again.  As she ran her hand over the cushion beside her, her memory gradually returned.  She’d curled her feet underneath her at one corner of the settee in the central foyer to wait for the last guest to arrive.  She must have fallen asleep.  Had she been dreaming?  The details of the fantasy escaped her, but there was a yearning in her belly that reminded her how long it had been since she’d known a lover’s touch. 

Darn Madeline and her silly predictions. 

Summer squinted into the darkness.  Darkness? 

The lights had been on when she’d curled up with her magazine.  The power must have gone out.  Luckily she’d anticipated the likelihood of that and had put her candle lighter and hurricane lamp on the registration counter soon after Madeline, Chelsea and Abby left. 

Now that she had her bearings she padded barefoot to the desk where she easily located the lighter and removed the glass chimney from the hurricane lamp.  She was in the process of lighting the wick when a fist pounded the door behind her. 

She spun around, the lighter still flaming.  Lightning blazed across the sky just then, outlining the dark figure of a man on her portico. 

She reeled backwards.

“I’m here for the room,” he said, water sluicing off his rain slicker.     

K. Miller, the missing carpenter, she thought.  Of course. 

With her heart still racing, she took her finger off the lighter’s trigger then turned down the wick of the lamp.  “The power’s out,” she called after replacing the globe.

“It went out with that last streak of lightning as I was pulling in,” he said loudly enough to be heard through her front door.  “I don’t need electricity.  All I need is a dry corner to crash until morning.” 

     She unlocked the door.  Leaving him space to enter, she slipped behind the counter where she normally greeted guests. 

There was something oddly familiar about the way he stepped over the threshold.  It was strange because she was sure she didn’t know him.   

Wet, his hair was the color of her favorite coffee, dark and rich and thick.  His eyebrows were straight and slightly lighter than his hair, his eyes themselves too shadowed for her to discern their color from here.  A drop of water trailed down his cheek before getting caught on the whisker stubble darkening his jaw.  He hung his jacket on the coat tree next to the door then started toward the desk. 

Green.  His eyes were green and so deep they shot a bolt of electricity straight through her.  The atmosphere in the room thickened—desire at first sight.  He must have felt it, too, because he wasn’t moving, either.

“Are you the Innkeeper?” he finally asked, dropping his duffel bag at his feet.

“Summer Matthews, yes.  Welcome to The Orchard Inn.”  Maybe it was the lamplight.  Maybe it was the late hour and the rain, but her voice sounded throatier and somehow sultrier in her own ears.  If one of them didn’t put an end to this soon, clothes were going to start falling off. 

“Everyone else arrived hours ago,” she said, taking a stab at normalcy.

He delved into his back pocket.  It took her a little longer than usual to realize that he was probably fishing for his credit card so he could register. 

She pushed the leather-bound book toward him and said, “As long as the power is out, my computer is, too.  If you’d just sign the registry, we can settle up in the morning.”

He hurriedly wrote his name.  Leaving the book open on the other side of the counter, he turned his attention back to her.  That delicious warmth uncurled deep inside her again.   

Well well well.  Here she was having sexy thoughts about a rugged, earthy man who definitely was not wearing a two-hundred-dollar tie.  There was hope for her yet.

“You’re in Room Seven.”  She handed him a key, the number seven dangling from a metal ring.  “Upstairs, to your right, then all the way to the end of the hall.”

He accepted the key and her venture back to decorum without saying a word.  After picking up his duffel bag, he headed for the stairs.

“Wait,” she called.

He turned around slowly, his gaze steady and bold.  Bold with a capital B.

Outside thunder rumbled.  Inside, lamplight flickered like temptation.

“Yes?” he asked.

“You’ll need this flashlight.” 

He wrapped his fingers around one end of the light.  The logical corner of her brain that was still functioning knew she was supposed to release her end now, but she couldn’t seem to do more than tip her head back and look at him. 

He was handsome but not in a classical way.  His features were too rugged for that, his jaw darkened with beard stubble and damp from the rain.  His face was lean and angular, forehead, cheekbones, chin; his lips were just full enough to cause a woman to look twice.  There was a small scar below his nose, but it was his eyes that caused a ripple to go through her.  Something about him brought out a yearning to hold and be held, to touch and be touched.

He must have felt it, too, because his gaze delved hers before dropping to her mouth.  From there it was a natural progression to her shoulders bared by her sleeveless dress, and finally to the v that skimmed the upper swells of her breasts. 

     He drew a slow breath, and it was as if they were both suspended, on the brink of taking the next step.  If either of them made the slightest movement, be it a gentle sway or the hint of a smile, there would be no turning back. 

She finally garnered the wherewithal to release the flashlight and step away.  Giving herself a mental shake, she said, “I hope you enjoy your stay at the inn.  Goodnight, Mr. Miller.”

She’d surprised him.  No doubt a man with his masculine appeal was accustomed to a different outcome.  But he didn’t press her.  Instead, he turned the flashlight on and followed the beam of light up the stairs. 

“Pardon me?” she asked.

“My name isn’t Miller.  It’s Merrick.  Kyle Merrick.”

The thud of his footsteps had quieted and his door closed before Summer moved.