Heart and Soul. Jillian Hart

Michelle.

      Common sense didn’t stop the stab of longing that pierced through her chest. It didn’t stop the pain of it.

      She wiped her feet on the welcome mat on the front porch. She locked the door behind her. As she did every night, she hung her denim jacket on one of the hangers inside the entry closet. There was a note tacked to the message board in the kitchen by the phone. Her mom was the queen of organization.

      “Michelle, went to supper and a show with your gramma. Make sure you start the dishwasher when you get in. Don’t stay up too late.”

      There went the hope that her parents were out together. After all this time, she knew better than to hope. But it was one of those wishes that never died, that flickered to life new and fragile every day.

      The message light on the answering machine was blinking and she hit the playback button. The old machine ground and hissed and clicked. There was a message from older sister Karen, calling to remind Michelle about her shift tomorrow at the coffee shop. A message from some old guy looking for Dad.

      Michelle groaned at the third message. It was from Bart Holmes. The farmer who lived down the road. The same Bart who’d been mooning after her sister Kirby, until Kirby had married.

      As if! In disgust, Michelle erased Bart’s nasal voice. She was so not interested in going out to dinner. She’d do her best to avoid him in church. She was not interested in joining his Bible study, either, thank you very much! Couldn’t he get a clue?

      Just her luck. The guys she didn’t want to notice her, pursued her. And the one that she did want to notice her was so far out of her league, she might as well be trying to jump to the moon.

      Give it up, Michelle. She squeezed dishwashing soap into the compartment and turned on the contraption. She left the kitchen to the hissing sound of water filling the dishwasher, and hopped up the stairs.

      Every step she took was like a glimpse at her past. School pictures framed and carefully hung on the wall showed the six McKaslin girls, all blond and blue-eyed, alike as peas in a pod, smiling nearly identical smiles.

      As she climbed toward the second story, the pictures grew older, marching through the years. To high school portraits in the hallway and Karen’s and Kirby’s wedding pictures. Everyone looked so happy and joyful, all the sisters crowded together in colorful bridesmaid dresses in both sets of wedding photos, but one sister was missing. Allison.

      Nothing would ever be the same, she knew, as she stood before the final picture in the photo saga of the McKaslin family. Karen’s newborn daughter, Allie was named in honor of the sister who had died so young.

      What other pictures would follow, Michelle wondered? There would be more babies, more weddings. She had no doubt her two currently unmarried sisters would find love.

      Would there be love for her? Or would she always be like this, running behind, left in the dust. She’d watched as her sisters were old enough to do what she couldn’t: ride horses, ride bikes, go to school, become cheerleaders, go to the prom, go steady, marry a great guy.

      She’d always felt as if she’d never caught up as her sisters grew up and left home. And in the grief of losing Allison, she’d felt like she’d lost her family, as well. The house that was once full now echoed around her as she made her way down the hall.

      She supposed that’s why she wanted to fall in love. To try and finally have what had been so wonderful and then slipped away. The warm tight cohesive love of a family and the happiness that came from it.

      “Patience,” Gramma was always telling her. “The good Lord gives us what we need at just the right time.”

      Well, how long would she have to wait? Her steps echoed through the lonely house that once had been filled with laughter and love.

      She knew better than to hope that a stranger, a man passing through town on his way to a more exciting life, would be the one who could save her from this aloneness.

      She was old enough to have stopped believing in fairy tales. But she wanted a happily-ever-after of her very own. She wanted a white knight on a fast horse with a heart strong and true.

      That it was impossible. There weren’t men like that in the world. Well, maybe the world, but absolutely certainly not in tiny, humble Manhattan, Montana.

      She could see Brody’s window from her bedroom. Just the corner of it, where a small light shone through the dark and the winds and rain. Her heart caught and remained a stark ache in the middle of her chest.

      Brody would be moving on come morning. She knew it. That’s why she was sad as she brushed her teeth, washed her face and changed into her pj’s. The sadness deepened as she said her prayers and turned out the light.

      It wasn’t about Brody. That wasn’t it. It was the promise of what he could be. Of what she wanted a man to be. Protective and disciplined and honest and strong. The kind of man who would never lie, never fail, never betray her and love her forever.

      Were there men out there like that?

      Only in fairy tales.

      She drew her comforter up over her head and closed her eyes.

      “I’m in.” Brody kept the lights off as he sat on the little balcony deck, tucked beneath the awning just off the small apartment bedroom. “I took a spill on the bike, but—”

      “Are you okay?” His partner sounded concerned.

      “When haven’t I been? I’ve crashed and burned before.” He’d learned how to avoid serious injury during his training. He related the sequences of occurrences that had him bunked up in the McKaslins’ spare apartment. “Banged up, but I’ll survive. I don’t have my pack with me, or I could start surveillance tonight.”

      “You’re on the property? Man! Talk about Providence.”

      “No kidding.” Hunter Takoda was a good partner, the best of the best, and they’d worked together for the past five years.

      “Your footwork paid off. I’m going to head out tonight, once the lights are out and everyone’s bedded down for the night—”

      He heard the crunch of tires on gravel, and high beams upon the driveway cast spears of light around to the back of the garage, where he was.

      Because of years of being partnered together, Brody didn’t need to tell Hunter that he had to check something out. Hunter waited patiently on the other end of the secure call while Brody limped through the dark apartment as fast as he could go, stubbed the toe of his injured foot on the leg of the coffee table, bit back the gasp of pain and crouched in front of the windows.

      He heard the garage doors crank open as a big gray car—the one registered to Mrs. Alice McKaslin—drove into the garage beneath him and out of sight. He heard the engine die, and the garage doors eased downward.

      A tidy, well-kept woman in her fifties, wearing a dress and heels, tapped down the walk to the front porch, opened the door and disappeared inside. Lights flashed on in the kitchen windows, but the blinds were drawn.

      “I’m going out tonight. I’ll rough out the property. There’s got to be a few more service roads around here than I could find on the map. McKaslin’s moving the money somehow.”

      “Think it’s a family operation, like the last case we busted over in Idaho?”

      Brody thought of Michelle’s easy goodness. It was hard to see her engaging in criminal activity. “I may just have to spend some time ferreting that out for sure.” Wasn’t that too bad?

      “Oh, I know. All those pretty blond women.” Hunter laughed. “Yeah, I did the original surveillance. I know what you’re thinking. When was the last time we got to work with really pretty women?”

      “Really pretty and really decent women don’t have a tendency to garner the FBI’s interest.” Brody hoped Hunter wouldn’t figure out the truth—that he had a personal interest