“I’ll be there.”

She looked both surprised and relieved. “I’m glad to hear that. Having you here is an incredible gift, but you don’t come cheap.”

He smiled. “I’m confident the cost is worth it.”

“It is.” She leaned toward him. “You could have charged us more. Your fee is the least of it.”

“I get more than enough out of what you pay me.”

What he did had made him relatively well-off. He didn’t need to gouge local hospitals for sport. Most of the costs of having him came from the fact that he required the hospital to allow uninsured patients free of charge. If someone needed his help, they got it, regardless of their ability to pay.

This forced the hospitals to raise money both before and after his visit. But it meant children like Kalinda had a chance.

She rose. “I look forward to seeing you at the fundraiser. Will you be bringing anyone?”

There was Montana. While a part of him wanted to see her dressed up, wanted to spend the evening with her, maybe even dance with her, he had his doubts about this kind of event.

“I haven’t decided.”

Dr. Duval’s gaze was steady. “Let me know either way, so we can accommodate your guest at the table.”

She left.

Simon drew in a breath. What he should do for Montana was at odds with what he wanted to do for himself. He didn’t usually indulge in moral dilemmas. But then he didn’t usually indulge himself with women like Montana.


DENISE WAS GETTING a little concerned that the people at the winery tasting room were going to start charging her rent. She supposed she should find a second place for her string of hideous first dates, but the tasting room was so convenient. They served “small bites” of food, the wine was excellent and she doubted there was a better view in a fifty-mile radius. All of which were very helpful when one was meeting strange men.

Her latest first date was with a man named Art. They’d met online, something she didn’t usually do, but…desperate times and all that. He’d been in the “over fifty” section. No more younger men for her.

As she walked into the tasting room, she searched for a man who looked like the picture she’d seen on her computer. He’d had nice eyes and slightly graying hair that was a little curly.

“Denise? I’m Art. Nice to meet you.”

It was all she could do to keep her mouth from falling open. The man standing in front of her was barely her height, nearly as wide as he was tall, with a few wisps of white hair. She saw some resemblance to the man in the picture she’d been sent, but the man in front of her was more his father than anything else. She’d been looking for a guy in his fifties. Her date had to be pushing seventy.

“Art?”

“Yep. Nice to meet you. I’m a little surprised.”

He was surprised? If they had a contest about that, she was pretty sure she would be the winner.

“You look just like your picture,” he told her. “That almost never happens. Lucky me.”

“Yes, lucky you,” she murmured.

They got a table on the patio. It was barely four in the afternoon, but an awning protected them from the sun. The server came around and they each ordered a glass of wine. Red for her, white for him. Art asked for a couple of cubes of ice in his. When the server flinched, Denise did her best not to cringe.

“So tell me about yourself,” Denise said, knowing she was stuck for at least half an hour. Then she told herself she shouldn’t be so quick to judge Art. He was probably a very nice man. If she gave him a chance, maybe they would hit it off.

“I’m retired,” he began. “I live east of Sacramento, in a nice little mobile-home park. Got me a double-wide. But I’m thinking of moving to Florida. Love Florida. There’s lots of fishing. You fish?”

“Not so much.”

“You should try it. It’s great fun. I’ve been looking at some real estate online. I can’t decide between a condo or a patio home. I don’t want to worry about a yard.” He grinned. “At my age, you always got to be concerned about a heart attack.”

The server returned with their wine and a mini quesadilla.

Art swirled his glass, clinking the ice cubes together, then took a sip. He smacked his lips together. “That’s a fine wine.” He looked over the quesadilla. “I’m really not supposed to have a lot of cheese,” he said, then grinned. “What the hey. You only live once, right?”

He picked up the whole quesadilla and swallowed it in two bites. Then he looked at Denise. “Did you want some of that?”

“I guess not.”

Art seemed unfazed by her response. “We can order another one.”

“That’s okay. I’m not hungry.”

They spent the next ten or fifteen minutes discussing the ins and outs of retirement financial planning. Art was very proud of his 401(k). He also told her in great detail what she should look for when she had to pick a Medicare supplement.

“I’m a few years from Medicare,” she said faintly.

“It’s never too early to start getting prepared.”

“I suppose.”

So far she hadn’t touched her wine. As a rule, she didn’t like to have a glass without having something to eat, but she wasn’t going to order more food. That would not only be awkward, it would mean she would have to stay longer.

She checked her watch. It had only been twenty minutes. Was there something wrong with the earth’s rotation? It felt like an hour had passed. She sighed.

“What else do you like to do?” she asked. So far they had only talked about Art, but she was okay with that. It wasn’t as if they were going to have a relationship.

He set down his glass and leaned toward her. If she didn’t know better, she would swear he was leering at her.

“I still enjoy those bedroom games,” he said with a wink. “I wouldn’t mind doing a round or two of the escaped prisoner and the warden’s wife, if you’re interested.”

Denise opened her mouth, then closed it. She felt herself blushing and hoped no one had heard him.

She stood. “I don’t think so. It was very nice to meet you, Art, but it’s time for me to go.”

He grabbed her hand. “You’ve been widowed ten years now. You’ve got to be hurting. I’m willing to help, offer what I can.” He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.

She didn’t know whether to laugh or scream. Frankly, the best idea seemed to be throwing his ice cubes with white wine in his lap. But that would cause a scene and she wasn’t that kind of woman. More’s the pity.

“Goodbye,” she said firmly, as she put her handbag over her shoulder.

She turned and marched purposefully toward the exit. The stone path was a little uneven and as she rounded the corner she nearly lost her balance. Before she began to fall, she felt someone take hold of her arm and steady her. For one horrifying moment, she thought that Art had followed her. That he was the kind of man who didn’t understand the word no.

She straightened and looked at the man who had rescued her.

Frying pan, meet fire, she thought, staring into a familiar pair of dark blue eyes.

She might not have seen Max Thurman in nearly forty years, having spent the past year avoiding running into him, but she sure recognized him. He had the same broad shoulders, the same muscled build. And, dammit all to hell, the man still looked like a god in jeans.

“Denise?”

Max stared at her. She thought he looked more pleased than surprised, but she wasn’t sure. Just as unsettling, her stomach went all fluttery, and she felt nervous, as she had when she’d first met him. She’d been seventeen and he’d been twenty. A man, while she’d still been on that cusp between girl and woman. The night of her eighteenth birthday he’d helped her cross over.

He grinned. “It is you. I’ve been hoping we would run—”

Into each other? Not likely. She’d done her best to make sure that never happened. She’d wanted to avoid any moment like this one.

“I have to go,” she said desperately, interrupting him.

She couldn’t talk to him now, not like this. Not after all this time. What if he saw Art and thought they were together? What if he said she looked old or…

Her mind was close to exploding with hideous scenarios. So much for the years adding serenity and grace.

Then she did the only thing she could think of. She ran.


SIMON STOOD IN FRONT of Montana’s door. He’d done his best to avoid her and instead had found himself missing everything about her. Being intelligent didn’t seem to play into his decision-making process. The need to see her overwhelmed everything else.

He raised his hand to knock, then heard a strange sound from inside. It was almost a cry, but one he couldn’t place. Was he interrupting something?

The thought of her with another man enraged him and he pounded his fist against the door. Who could she be with?

He waited while she called, “Just a minute.” Then the door opened.

Montana stood in front of him, wearing shorts, a cropped T-shirt and little else. Desire joined fury as he pushed past her and entered her living room.

“Where is he?”

He glanced around, expecting to see wine and candles. Instead the drapes were open, along with the windows. There was no evidence of a romantic evening. Where he thought he would find a man, he saw three black-and-white puppies fighting over a sock. One of them yipped, replicating the sound he’d heard before.

He turned back to her and saw she held another puppy in her arms.

“Where is who?” she asked, tilting her head as she stared at him.

“I… No one.” Feeling stupid, he shoved his hands into his jeans pockets. “Hi.”

“Hi, yourself. Is everything okay?”

He nodded. “Should I have called first?”

“Probably, but it’s okay that you didn’t.”

“You have puppies.”

“Four of them. Both their parents are great service dogs, and part of a breeding program. I’m keeping the puppies with me at night for a couple of weeks to help assess them. Max has them during the day.”

“He’s giving you the rough duty.”

“I’m the junior staff member. It’s part of my job.”

He tried to figure out what she was thinking. Feeling. When he’d last seen her, they’d argued. No, that wasn’t the right word. Whatever it had been, they hadn’t been getting along. Although he’d planned to spend the night with her, he’d ended up leaving.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“Yes. Are you?”

Very few people asked him that. He was the one in charge—the one who made the decisions, changed the lives.

“I thought you were mad at me,” he said.

“I was never mad.”

She set down the puppy. It raced off to join the others fighting with the sock. Sounds of their happy yips and growls provided surprisingly pleasant background noise.

“I missed you,” he admitted.

“So you decided I was seeing someone else?”

“Not until I got here and heard strange sounds.”

“You don’t date much, do you?” she asked.

“I don’t date at all.”

“I know there are women. You’re too hunky for them to ignore you. So what do you do with them?”

Hunky? No one had every described him that way. The thought was distracting. He was a freak. A monster. How could she see him so differently?

“I sometimes meet women. But it’s usually…light.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Let me guess. Dinner and small talk followed by mutually satisfying sex.”

“Something like that.”

She stared at him.

“Fine,” he ground out. “Exactly that.”

“Then, you leave them.”

“Then I leave.”

“Are you ever sorry? Do you ever miss these interchangeable women?”

“No.”

“Are you going to miss me?”

Now it was his turn to stare, to take in her wide eyes, her long blond hair, the shape of her mouth. He would know her taste or scent anywhere. There could be a thousand women in a dark room and he would have no trouble finding her.

He crossed the room and kissed her, doing his best to memorize her touch. She leaned into him, her arms wrapping around him, holding him close.

Her body tempted him and he used his hands to rediscover her curves. It was only an incessant tugging on the bottom of his jeans that caused him to draw back.

He glanced down and saw one of the puppies chewing on the fabric.

“Who are you?” he asked, bending over and scooping up the dog.

The puppy was more white than black, with a happy face and floppy ears. He relaxed as Simon rolled him onto his back and held him against his chest.