Dedicated To Deirdre. Anne Marie Winston

dark brown.” She glanced at her watch. “Well. I’d better get to work or the morning will be gone.”

      “Yeah, me, too.” But he made no move to leave, simply stood there looking at her, an odd expression on his tanned features. “I like your dog,” he said again, then sketched her a mock salute and turned toward the stable.

      

      Chapter One completed Ronan all but patted himself on the back as he got up from his desk and stretched. He lanced at his watch. Four-thirty. Time to knock off for a while. He could put in a few more hours later tonight if he felt like it. But he was well under his deadline, so there was no pressure.

      He’d been here four days and already those two little hellions had given him enough material to cover the first several chapters. He’d learned that superglue, once applied, is stuck forever, that chocolate bars left in little pants’ pockets make a major mess in the washing machine and that when you dig up a dead salamander, its skeleton falls apart.

      It wasn’t as if he needed that much. A carefully worded sentence here, a phrase there, could give his readers the feeling of knowing his characters. It was more a matter of style, he thought. Each character needed to have a well-defined style. The oldest of the two children in his book was a leader, like Lee. Usually the idea man, the schemer, the one who came up with the ornery ideas. His younger sister—he’d decided at the last minute to make the littler one a girl—was a total tomboy, adoring her big brother and willing to do just about anything he wanted.

      And then there was that dog...it would be a real shame not to use that dog in a story sometime. Big Murph, he thought affectionately. He wouldn’t use a malamute, maybe a shepherd or a rottweiler, a breed most people could identify.

      Her face invaded his mind, and his fingers stilled on the keys. Deirdre had about the prettiest eyes he’d ever seen, a true, clear green set inside thick black lashes that were so long they curled up naturally at the ends. Her eyebrows were strong, for a woman, making a definite statement above those eyes, letting the world know she wasn’t as soft as that body suggested, and when she regarded a person with that silky dark brow lifted in cool challenge, it was all a person could do not to respond to it. And speaking of responding...man, what a figure she had! He deplored the anorexic look females seemed to go after these days. Deirdre Patten had big breasts, and her hips, while certainly not wide, were beautifully rounded, just tempting a man to pat them. In between was that teeny-tiny waist, a perfect little shelf for his hands to rest.

      For a man’s hands, he meant. Any man. Not one in particular.

      Hey, there, buddy, he cautioned himself. She might have been your fantasy once, but that’s all she’s going to be. You have work to do. Besides, she clearly wasn’t wealthy and he’d promised himself he’d only chase wealthy women from now on. That way, he’d know they weren’t after him for his money.

      But she doesn’t know you’re wealthy. And it’s going to stay that way, he told himself. As soon as you’ve finished this book, you are outta here. In fact, he probably should start scanning the ads now, talk to a Realtor, see what was out there, hunt for a little house in a secluded location like this one.

      But to do that, he needed to get a newspaper so that would have to wait until tomorrow. Right now, he felt like taking a walk.

      He headed down the stairs and started across the yard toward the house. He’d taken Deirdre up on her offer to let Murphy accompany him on his walk the next day, and he’d brought him along every day since. Circling around the end of the house, he walked along a stone path toward the back.

      Along the side of the house, huge clumps of peony bushes were in full bloom. Along the fence beside the nearest pasture, a rambler rose like those he remembered from his childhood was laden with pale pink blossoms. A hummingbird feeder full of red nectar swung gently from a tree, and as he let himself through the whitewashed gate in the fence surrounding the back yard, he saw that Deirdre’s flowers were starting to unfold their cheery blooms in the raised bed to one side of the yard. She couldn’t plant anything along the ground in the backyard, she had explained, because Murphy “christened” everything so frequently that he killed it. Her solution had been to make a box from old railroad ties and fill it with soil, raising the plants above the level of Murphy’s frequent markings. In another little touch of which he approved, she had suspended pots of trailing annuals from wrought-iron arms on the fence.

      He’d been charmed the first time he saw the backyard, and he felt the same way today. Murphy wasn’t in the yard, but a terrific barking from inside the house gave away his location. Just as he began to mount the steps leading to the porch, Deirdre appeared at the back door. When she saw him, she opened the screen and Murphy came bounding down the steps to greet him, jumping and leaping in ecstasy. Obviously the dog had figured out that Ronan equaled “walk.”

      Deirdre was smiling at his antics as she wiped her hands on a checkered dish towel. Her gaze met his over the dog’s bouncing head, warmth and amusement lighting the green to emerald.

      God, she was beautiful. Her black hair was loose, the first time he’d ever seen it that way, framing her heart-shaped face in a riotous mass of curls, and when she smiled like she meant it, her eyes slanted into appealing half moons above high cheekbones. She had a little dimple in one cheek and her cheeks and lips were pink and soft looking. She was wearing denim overall shorts and beneath them...nothing? For a minute, he had visions of those rounded breasts spilling out the sides of the shoulder straps before he realized she was wearing a skimpy tank top with thin straps beneath.

      He had the notion that he must look like a landed fish, gasping for breath, but he couldn’t do a damned thing about it. Desire streaked through him, and his body began to stir. He was thankful her dog was so big as he maneuvered Murphy in front of him, and he finally tore his gaze away. “I, ah, I thought I’d take him along with me for a walk again,” he said. But as if they had a mind separate from his willpower, his eyes zeroed right back in on her.

      Her hands had stilled on the towel and her eyebrows rose in a questioning look. The atmosphere between them suddenly seemed as intimate as a first kiss; for a minute, she looked as dazed as he felt. Then Tommy appeared behind her, and she turned to slip an arm around her son.

      She cleared her throat, staring at the dog rather than Ronan. “That’s fine.”

      He watched her lips form the words, then realized he needed to respond.

      “I’ll have Murphy back in about an hour,” he said slowly. “In time for his dinner.”

      “Did you eat yet?” Tommy asked him.

      Ronan shook his head, smiling at the child. “Not yet. It’s a little early.”

      “Maybe you can eat wif us. I’m helpin’ cook a cake.” The little boy looked hopefully up at his mother. “Is there enough spaghetti for Mr. Sullivan, Mom?”

      She was looking at him again and he could see the refusal gathering in her eyes.

      Whatever common sense he possessed flew right out through the open space between his ears. If there was any way he was going to get a chance to spend more time in her company, he’d take it. “Spaghetti sounds great. If it’s okay with your mom.” He addressed his words to Tommy, but he was still looking at Tommy’s mother.

      “You’re welcome to join us,” she said, breaking the eye contact and looking away, out over the fence at the fields beyond. “We’ll call it a thank-you for walking my dog.”

      He didn’t care what she called it. As he turned, he could still see her eyes in his mind, luminous with unanswered questions.

      

      She knew he was returning when she heard Murphy’s big feet beat a tattoo on the wooden boards of the porch. She went to open the door for the dog, then held it wide until Ronan had mounted the steps and come inside. As he approached, she saw that he carried a bottle of red wine. “This might go nicely with the pasta,” he said.

      “Thank you.” He was holding out the bottle and she took it, a bit startled as she