Forever Jake. Barbara Dunlop

beautiful stranger. Following on the heels of Derek’s embarrassing ad, Jake could just imagine the townsfolk’s reaction to that.

      He shuddered. Nope. For now he’d just head right on back to the ranch and finish off the new stallion pen, exactly as he’d planned.

      THE SOUND OF HAMMERING reached Robin on her mother’s back porch. She’d made herself scarce while her brother-in-law read a story to her nephews and Grandma settled down for a nap.

      She was amazed by how much her three nephews had grown since last Christmas. She normally saw them twice a year when family gathered at her sister’s cottage near Prince George for an old-fashioned Christmas then a lazy summer vacation. But this year they seemed to be on some kind of accelerated growth plan.

      She smiled as she lowered herself into a wood slat chair. Grandma, however, hadn’t aged a bit. Hugging her earlier in the familiar living room, Robin had felt eighteen years old again.

      The house was the same. The yard was the same. Her gaze drifted across the acreage that was dominated by her mother’s market garden, pausing on the shiny new barn on the property next door. The barn was a very big change.

      She wondered how long it had been since the Bronsons had left town. When Old Man Bronson owned the property it had been an eyesore of tilting, rotting clapboard, rusted cars and weed-choked lawns. By contrast, the new owners had bulldozed the old junk, built a magnificent two-story log house, and planted oats and hay to feed the dozens of horses grazing in white-fenced paddocks.

      Whoever bought the place certainly seemed to have money. Which made Robin wonder why they’d chosen a town like Forever.

      As she mulled the question, a shirtless man strode around the corner of the barn. He wore a leather tool belt low on his faded jeans and held a hammer in his right hand. Sweat glistened on his chest and upper arms, emphasizing bulging muscles. A cowboy hat shaded his face.

      “Magnificent” was the word that popped immediately into Robin’s mind. If she ever decided on recreational sex, instead of serious procreation, this was exactly the kind of guy she’d go for.

      She watched unblinking as he bent over one of the fence rails at the property line and drove a nail into it with three sure strokes. Then he straightened, holstered the hammer and stepped back to survey the section of fence. The sun caught his face as he tipped his chin up.

      Jacob Bronson.

      Robin froze.

      It felt as if her heart had splatted against her backbone then ricocheted against her ribs before taking up a jerky rhythm that left her gasping for breath. She’d never expected to see him again.

      He suddenly stilled, as if he’d caught her scent. Eyes narrowing, he looked straight at the covered porch.

      He couldn’t see her. Surely to goodness he couldn’t see her in the shadow of the awning. And even if he could, he wouldn’t recognize her, not from a hundred yards away after fifteen years.

      So why did his blue-eyed stare seem to penetrate to her very soul? Her eyes fluttered closed against the unnerving sensation.

      She wouldn’t remember.

      She refused to allow the humiliating memories to crowd her mind.

      She’d successfully kept them at bay since the day she boarded the floatplane out of town fifteen years ago, and there was no reason for them to surface now. No reason at all—unless you counted a mere glimpse of the man who had witnessed her greatest folly. She groaned as recollections burst forth in crisp color and vivid detail.

      It had happened more than fifteen years ago. The night before graduation when the twenty-one seniors of Forever Public School carried on the town tradition of skinny-dipping at Make-Out Beach. It was a rite of passage on the summer solstice when the midnight sun dipped briefly below the horizon and the water darkened just enough to preserve modesty.

      Make-Out Beach was private and secluded. Ten miles out of town, it was accessible only by a dirt road that wound along the riverbank, giving swimmers and anyone else ample notice of approaching visitors.

      Robin had banished her fears that night and trooped down to the girls’ beach with her friends to enter the water in privacy.

      Modest and hesitant compared to many of her classmates, she’d deliberated for long minutes before she’d decided the voracious mosquitoes on shore were a greater evil than stripping naked and slipping into the icy water.

      One by one the other girls had drifted over to join the boys. She could still hear shrieks and laughter above the crackling fire. It reflected orange off the slow-moving water just beyond the shrub-covered point that separated the two beaches. Even her friend, Annie, had inched her way around to the main beach.

      Robin waded along the soft, sandy bottom and hugged her cool shoulders. She was being ridiculous. She couldn’t just cower here all night long.

      Everyone else seemed to be having fun. It didn’t sound as though the boys were taking advantage. The shrieks and screams mostly coincided with a huge, brightly colored beach ball soaring high above the treetops.

      She took a couple of strokes toward the point. She was all alone, and the chilled water rushed over her sensitive skin as she glided across the surface. She intended to peek around the corner, just to see what they were all doing. Maybe she could unobtrusively join in at the edge of the group.

      Leafy wild cranberry bushes clung to the point of land that separated the two coves. She drifted toward the voices. As she neared the end of the point, she could see Rose out in the deep water. Seth and Alex were treading water in attendance, playfully splashing her from several feet away. Annie and three other girls clustered together, crouched in the shallows.

      A mosquito bit Robin’s neck. She slapped at it. Another stung her ear and she shook her head so her hair flung out in all directions. As if a signal had passed from bug to bug, she was suddenly surrounded by the whining insects. In danger of inhaling the pests, she ducked her head under the water and pushed away from the shore.

      When she surfaced, the swarm quickly zeroed in on her again. Another deep breath and she was back under, swimming further away from the point, away from the voices and laughter, through the silent dark water. She didn’t surface again until her lungs insisted.

      Then she burst up out of the water, gasping. The bugs were gone, but the current had caught her and pulled her to the far side of the girls’ beach. Robin sighed in exasperation, wishing she had just stayed home.

      She stretched into a front crawl. She was a strong swimmer, but she made frustratingly slow progress through the cold water. It would be easier close to shore where the current was weak, but the memory of the hungry mosquitoes kept her twenty feet away from the bushes that harbored the swarms.

      Her foot brushed a tree branch hidden under the water. It scraped and stung, and she gasped out loud. She put her feet down. Her toes squished through soft, sucking mud. She shuddered and jerked her feet back up, trying to not wonder about leeches.

      She began rhythmically stroking through the water, thinking longingly of her big beach towel and Annie’s truck with the rolled-up windows. She kicked out a little further from shore. Her foot hit another deadfall tree. As she jerked away, her ankle was suddenly wedged tight in a tangle of branches, pulling her briefly under the water.

      Great. She quickly surfaced and maneuvered around to pull her foot out from the opposite direction. Her ankle wrenched with the movement and she gasped.

      A mosquito buzzed next to her ear. She batted at it, then gingerly felt along the slimy log with her other foot. She found a solid purchase and sighed in relief, balancing herself with small arm movements.

      Her trapped foot throbbed a bit, but she was pretty sure it wasn’t seriously hurt. In any event, it was as good as packed in ice down there in the river water. She twisted it to the left. Nothing. Then she tried twisting it to the right. Still nothing.

      She reached down along her bare leg until her hand found the branches. It was impossible to get a