by Linda Turner
By nine-thirty, the crowd had thinned significantly. The bartender told her that the second wave came in after eleven, when there was a shift change at the six hospitals in the area, but she couldn’t wait that long. She’d done nothing but sit at the bar and visit with the men who’d approached her, but she couldn’t remember the last time she’d been so stressed. She was exhausted. And if tonight was any indication of things to come, finding a man to father her baby was going to be far more difficult than she’d originally anticipated. And she readily admitted she was worried.
Concerned, her stomach tied in knots, she kicked off her strappy high heels the second she got in her car and headed home barefoot. When the lights and the traffic of the city faded in her rearview mirror, she sighed in relief as she reached the deserted streets of Hunter’s Ridge. She really did love living in a small town. There was no fancy mall, no movie theater, and the sidewalks were rolled up at seven every night, but every time she drove down the familiar tree-lined streets, she felt as if she was driving back in time.
Tonight was no different. As she headed down Main Street, there wasn’t another soul in sight…except John Quinn, the deputy sheriff, who was making his rounds through the four-block downtown area. He grinned and nodded a greeting as she passed, then continued on his way. John was on patrol, she thought with a smile as she turned down her street. All was right with the world.
She’d left her porch light on, as well as a floor lamp in the living room, and in the darkness, her house looked warm and welcoming as she drove down the street. When she’d first moved to Hunter’s Ridge after she and Jason divorced, she’d almost bought a house in one of the new subdivisions on the outskirts of town. She was starting her life over and she’d thought she wanted something fresh and new she could make completely hers. Then a house right around the corner from her grandmother’s bakery came up for sale, and she’d stopped by to look at it. It was well over a hundred years old, had twelve-foot ceilings and aged plank flooring that bore the heel marks of countless generations that had come before. The kitchen was too small, the wiring needed to be updated, and there was no such thing as insulation in its walls, but the second she stepped inside, she’d fallen in love. She’d bought it on the spot.
The kitchen was still too small and keeping the place warm in the winter was no easy task, but given the chance, she would have bought it again in a heartbeat. Her only complaint was that the house next door was a rental that had not only fallen into disrepair but had been empty for more than a year. The owner had put it up for sale months ago, but as far as she knew, no one had even looked at the place.
As she pulled into her driveway, her headlights swept across the face of the house next door, and she hit her brakes in surprise at the sight of the lights blazing in the naked windows. Someone had moved in? When? She hadn’t even realized it had been sold.
Curious, she grabbed her high-heeled sandals and stepped out of the car, her eyes trained on the long windows of the Victorian house next door. There wasn’t a curtain or blind in sight, and standing in the darkness, she could easily see a man working in the living room. He was tall, but his back was to her as he tore Sheetrock off the walls. Covered in dust, his head covered with a ball cap, he could have been anywhere from thirty to a hundred and five.
If it hadn’t been nearly ten o’clock at night, she would have knocked on his door and welcomed him to the neighborhood. But he was busy and it was late—her grandmother would be calling any second.
The thought had hardly registered when her cell phone rang. The new neighbor forgotten, she reached for her phone as she unlocked her front door. “Hi, Gran,” she said in amusement. “I’m safe at home. You can stop worrying.”
“No, I can’t!” Evelyn Martin retorted. “I’ve been a nervous wreck all evening. So tell me everything. Are you okay? Tell me you didn’t do anything!”
“I’m fine,” she assured her. “Really.”
“Fine, my eye,” her grandmother retorted. “If you were fine, you never would have come up with this harebrained idea. I should have called your mother.”
Alarmed, she warned, “Gran, you promised!”
“I know, but I’m worried, darn it! I’m afraid some creep is going to hurt you or kill you and give you some awful disease. And then what? How am I going to explain that to your mother? She never liked me, you know. She’ll blame me, and then Ted will have to side with her and I’ll never see him again.”
Sinking down into her favorite easy chair, Rachel fought a smile. “Mom would never try to come between you and Dad. You know that. And I don’t know why you think she doesn’t like you. She really respects you a great deal. You started your own business when most women didn’t even know how to balance a checkbook.”
“I had to. We would have lost everything after Clarence died if I hadn’t gone to work. And Ted would have had to go live with Clarence’s aunt Myrtle, and he would have hated that. The woman starched her underwear, for heaven’s sake, and smoked cigars!”
Rachel grinned. “I hate that I never met her. She sounds like a real character. A lot like you, Gran.”
“I don’t starch my underwear.”
She chuckled at her grandmother’s indignant tone, then sobered. “No, but you do your own thing. And that’s what I’m doing. If I’d thought you were going to go tattling to Mom, I never would have told you my plans. You promised, Gran.”
Evelyn Martin was big on promises, and they both knew it. “Okay,” she huffed, “I won’t tell her. It’s your story to tell, not mine. But I still think you shouldn’t rush into this. There are a lot of nice men out there. In fact, there’s someone I want you to meet….”
“Oh, no, you don’t,” Rachel said quickly. “You’re not setting me up again. Remember what happened the last time you tried that? He was a kid, Gran. Barely twenty-two! I felt like his mother!”
Far from apologetic, Evelyn laughed gaily. “There’s nothing wrong with younger men, sweetie. Your grandfather was three years younger than me.”
“Three I could handle. We’re talking thirteen, Gran! He still lived with his parents.”
“Get them young, you can raise them up the way you want,” she retorted, only to laugh when Rachel just huffed in frustration. “Okay, okay, so he was a little young. This one’s not. I think he’s around your age. You’ll like him. He’s cute and clever. If he was a little older, I’d go after him myself.”
“Gran!”
“Well, it’s true. Always appreciate a good man, Rachel, regardless of their age.”
“I do,” she replied. “They’re just few and far between.”
“Actually, they’re more common than you think,” her grandmother told her. “You just can’t see them because of Jason. And who can blame you? What that man did to you was criminal! He lied to you for seven years. No one in their right mind would blame you for hating his guts. Just don’t paint all men with the same brush, sweetheart. Give them a chance.”
“I do give them a chance.”
“Yeah, right,” Evelyn laughed. “Sweetie, I’ve seen you whenever a customer gets a little friendly. You’ve got No Trespassing signs posted all over you.”
“I do not!”
“Remember that in the morning when Robert shows up at the bakery.”
“What? In the morning? C’mon, Gran, give me a little time to at least prepare myself.”
“You’ll do fine,” her grandmother assured her. “Just be nice. He’s a lovely boy. You’ll like him. Now, go to bed, sweetheart. You’ve got to look your best in the morning. Call me after you meet him.”
“But—”
The line went dead, leaving her sputtering. With a groan of frustration, she shut her cell phone with a click and didn’t know if she wanted to laugh or cry. Dammit, she should have seen this coming. When she’d told her grandmother her plan to find a nice medical student to father a baby for her, Evelyn had been nothing but supportive. That only should have been enough to set off Rachel’s alarm bel
ls. Her grandmother might be eccentric and outrageous at times, but when it came to family, she was a strict traditionalist. She believed in love and marriage, then babies.
Which was why Rachel had been so surprised when her grandmother hadn’t given her much grief over her plan to have a baby. She should have known better, she thought wryly. The only reason Evelyn had gone along with her was because, no doubt, she planned to introduce her to every known bachelor within a hundred miles of Hunter’s Ridge before she had a chance to get pregnant. And all Rachel could do was grin and bear it. Her grandmother loved her—she just wanted the best for her. How could Rachel fault her for that?
She would, she promised herself, be nice tomorrow morning when Robert, the lovely boy Evelyn wanted her to meet, put in an appearance. Then she would make it very clear to him that as much as she appreciated him humoring her grandmother, she was currently taking a break from the dating scene. If he was as nice as Evelyn claimed, he would wish her luck, have coffee and a Danish on her, then be on his way with her grandmother being none the wiser.
Pleased that she would be ready for the charm of the unknown Robert, she stripped off her dating finery, took a quick shower to wash off the smell of cigarette smoke that clung to her from the bar, then fell into bed with a tired sigh. It was going on eleven—she should have been in bed two hours ago. She was exhausted, and her eyes drifted shut before her head ever hit the pillow.
Next door, the lights from her new neighbor glowed in the darkness, and the sound of someone hammering floated on the night air. Already dreaming, Rachel never noticed.
The alarm went off at the ungodly hour of four in the morning. Already awake, Rachel hit the off button and rolled out of bed. She’d always been a morning person, but adjusting to the early hours of a baker had been difficult, even for her. When she’d first moved to Hunter’s Ridge to take over the bakery for her grandmother, she’d fallen asleep over dinner every night for the first three months. She was better now—she could occasionally stay up as late as eleven, but she’d learned early on that she had to hit the ground running when the alarm went off in the morning, or she’d sleep right through the breakfast rush.
In the kitchen, her coffeemaker clicked on. By the time the smell of brewing coffee drifted through the house, she was dressed and fighting with her hair. Wild and untamed, it had to be pulled back into a loose ponytail, then braided. After that, all she needed was mascara and a little lip gloss and she was ready. Taking time only to fill her travel mug with coffee, she headed for work.
She loved the morning, loved walking to work, regardless of the weather. She wouldn’t have risked being out on the streets at that hour of the morning in Austin or any other major city in the country, but Hunter’s Ridge was different. The last major crime wave to hit the town was three years ago, when a group of high school boys soaped the car windows of the high school principal and a dozen or so unpopular teachers. And yes, there was an occasional burglary, though those were few and far between. Most people didn’t feel the need to lock their cars at night, and some didn’t even lock their front doors. Rachel couldn’t think of a safer place in the country to live…or raise children.
That thought brought her back to her quest for a sperm donor—and her grandmother’s determination to find her a good man to marry instead. Did the unknown Robert know what her grandmother was planning for him? It didn’t matter. She wasn’t looking for a husband, or even someone to fall in love with. Robert, regardless of how nice he was, would have to be sent packing.
She wouldn’t be rude, she assured herself as she reached the bakery and unlocked the front door. She’d just be…reserved. And busy, of course, she silently added as she flipped on lights, then hurried to the back to get started on the day’s baking. After all, the mornings were the busiest time of the day for her. She was a baker, for heaven’s sake! Surely the man would realize that she didn’t have time to sit around and visit.
The rest of the morning crew arrived then— Sissy, Mick and Jenny—and for the next hour and a half, she had no time to even think about the unknown Robert and her grandmother’s plans to find her a man. There were fresh doughnuts to make and glaze, not to mention the pastries, bread and muffins the bakery was famous for. Up to her elbows in flour, Rachel was in her element.
As a child, she’d loved visiting her grandmother, standing on a chair at her side in the bakery kitchen, learning the ins and outs of how to make a piecrust that was flaky and tender and melted in your mouth. She’d made her first pie when she was six, using a recipe that had been handed down from mother to daughter to granddaughter for generations in her grandmother’s family.
If things turned out the way she hoped, she thought with a wistful smile, one day she’d have the opportunity to continue that same tradition with her own daughter.
She could just see her now, her dark curls tumbling down her back, an apron that was too big for her tied around her tiny waist as she stood next to her, rolling out the dough with fierce concentration. She’d have dimples…and blue eyes that danced with mischief and merriment….
Caught up in the fantasy, Rachel couldn’t have lost track of time even if she’d wanted to. It was barely six, and her first customers of the day were waiting out on the bakery’s old-fashioned porch for her to open for business. Promptly at six, she unlocked the front door and welcomed them in. Then the madness began.
She loved waiting on her customers, loved greeting them by name and sharing part of the morning with them. She knew their likes and dislikes, who was on a diet and who wasn’t, who liked soda instead of coffee, who had to rush to work, and who could sit at one of the sidewalk tables on the front porch and watch Main Street slowly come awake.
“Good morning, John. A dozen chocolate-covered doughnuts this morning?” she asked the deputy sheriff, who came in every morning to buy doughnuts for the sheriff’s department. “How about a cup of coffee to go?”
His weathered face folded into a broad grin. “You know me too well, Rachel. Better add a dozen glazed, too. It’s a two-doughnut day.”
“You got it,” she chuckled, and boxed up his order for him.
Thirty minutes after she opened the bakery for business, all the tables were full, and there was a line of customers out the door. Delighted, Rachel laughed and joked and completely forgot about the new man her grandmother had arranged for her to meet. Then suddenly, a stranger stepped up to counter and she knew this had to be Robert.
Surprised, she couldn’t have said what she’d been expecting, but it wasn’t the man standing in front of her. He was tall and lean, with a rugged face and the bluest eyes she’d ever seen. After Jason’s betrayal, she’d been convinced that there wasn’t a man on earth who would ever get her attention again. But one look at Robert, and her heart lurched in her breast.
Shocked, irritated, she almost asked Sissy to wait on him, but her pride wouldn’t let her do that. Thankful he couldn’t hear the pounding of her heart, she forced a smile. “Hi. Gran said you’d be coming in this morning. You’re a sweetheart to humor her, but I’m not really interested. It’s nothing personal,” she added quickly when he lifted a dark brow in surprise. “I’m just not looking for a man right now. How about a pastry instead? Take your pick. It’s my treat. Okay?”
Chapter 2
Turk Garrison liked to think he was a man who could think fast on his feet. And it didn’t take an Einstein to know that the counter woman who had just dismissed him so pleasantly obviously had mistaken him for someone else. He should have told her he wasn’t who she thought he was, buy the doughnut and coffee he’d come in for, then be on his way. But there were some situations a man just couldn’t walk away from, and this was one of them.
Pressing his hand to his heart, he gave her a wounded look. “I don’t understand. How can you not be interested? I’m not bad-looking, everyone tells me I’m a lot of fun, and I don’t pick my teeth. C’mon. Give me a chance.”
Every customer in the place was listening, and more
than a few were having a hard time holding back smiles. That only encouraged him more. “Ask anybody here,” he told her. “They’ll tell you the same thing. We could be perfect for each other, but you’re not even giving me the time of day. Are you sure you want to do that? You could be turning down Mr. Wonderful.”
“That’s right, Rachel,” an older, bald gentleman seated at a nearby table said with twinkling eyes. “At least talk to the man.”
So her name was Rachel. And she blushed beautifully. She was starting to look more than a little trapped, and Turk knew he’d taken the joke far enough. “It’s okay,” he said, grinning. “I’m not him.”
Confused, she frowned. “What?”
“You’ve got me confused with someone else. I don’t even know your grandmother.”
For a moment, she just stood there. Then he watched mortification flare in her pretty blue eyes. “Oh, God! You’re not Robert? I’m so sorry! I thought—”
“No problem,” he said easily. “I don’t know who Robert is, but I’m glad I’m not him. So when are we going out? I’ve got tickets to the Stones concert Saturday night. Say the word and I’ll pick you up at six…I just need your address.”
He gave her a boyish grin that he had, no doubt, been flashing at females since the first one cooed at him in his mother’s arms. And Rachel had to admit that it was damned effective. Dazed, she couldn’t take her eyes from the crooked, enticing curve of his sensuous mouth.
Hello? Anybody home? Have you lost your mind? You’re staring at the man like he just hung the moon!
The irritating little voice that whispered in her head got through to her as nothing else could. Swallowing a curse, she stiffened. What the heck was wrong with her? She didn’t do this, didn’t drool over a man as if she’d never seen one before…especially after the way Jason had betrayed her. The only man she wanted was a stranger she could walk away from after a one-night stand. If this man lived in Hunter’s Ridge, he wouldn’t be a stranger long, and she only had to see the mischief dancing in his eyes to know he wasn’t the kind a woman walked away from easily. The charmers never were.
