had good neighbors. She’d had a good life.
Until a month ago, she’d even had a good job.
Armed with her associate’s degree and the same dogged determination that had gotten her out of Maple Mountain, she’d worked her way up from the general secretarial pool of a major brokerage house to administrative assistant to a senior vice president. The man had depended on her for everything from keeping him supplied with antacids to handling the confidential correspondence, paperwork and computer accounts of clients with more money than some small third-world countries. Her job had been exciting, interesting and filled with all the opportunities Maple Mountain had lacked.
She had also been dating an up-and-coming broker with a brilliant future who had started hinting heavily at marriage and babies.
She reached into the box, her stomach knotting as she unwrapped a bowl.
She had honestly believed that Brent Collier cared about her. She had wanted to marry him, to have his children, to do his laundry—or, at least, send it out—and to live the rest of her life growing old with him.
But Brent had turned out to be the world’s biggest louse. And she, the biggest fool. He’d used her, used her feelings for him and ruined every ounce of credibility she’d had. Because she’d believed in him, because she’d trusted him, she’d been arrested, fired from the brokerage, questioned, her home searched, her possessions confiscated and her reputation ruined. Now her only prospect for employment was at the diner where, years ago, she’d worked her way through community college.
Taking a deep breath, she set the bowl in place, reached for another. It was still tourist season in the section of Vermont known as the Northern Kingdom, and the little town and surrounding villages would only get busier when the leaves changed. Because of that, there was at least a chance that the local diner could use another waitress. She was in debt up to the scrape on her forehead to the attorney who’d kept her out of jail. She still had a year’s worth of car payments to make. She had a roof to repair.
She was trying to imagine how she could possibly afford the latter when a sharp bang on the door sent her heart to her throat and the bowl in her hand to floor.
Chips of red ceramic flew in an arc across scarred beige linoleum.
“I know someone’s in there. I can see light. Open up, will you?” The deep, distinctly male voice faltered. “I need some help.”
Jenny didn’t budge. She’d already had one unpleasant encounter with a strange male today and she wasn’t at all interested in pushing her lousy luck with another. Her nearest neighbor was half a mile away.
The door rattled with another heavy bang. “Come on. Please? I’m hurt.”
Short of telling her the house was on fire and seeing sparks herself, she couldn’t have imagined anything he could have said that would change her mind about moving. Saying he was hurt did it, though. Even then, it wasn’t the claim that had her hand sliding slowly from her throat. It was the plea in his voice and the strain behind it.
Her heart pounding, she slipped through the dim and empty living room and peeked through the oval of etched glass on the front door.
The window needed cleaning. Between its film of dust and frosted etching, she could only see a blur of the dark-haired man on the other side. What she could see looked tall, broad-shouldered and built. From the way he held his left arm, she also suspected that he hadn’t knocked on the door. He’d kicked it. He looked as if he was about to do it again, when he saw her and took a step back.
Apparently sensing the door wouldn’t open until he was farther from it, he took another step and backed up as far as the sagging porch railing.
She’d used the lug-nut wrench for her tire jack to pry the boards from the kitchen windows. It still lay where she’d left it three feet away.
With her fingers wrapped around the long piece of metal, she cautiously eased open the door.
Thunder rumbled, rattling the panes of the old house as she peeked around the door frame. It was barely seven o’clock, but the rain robbed the evening of much of its light. Still, she could see easily enough as her glance skimmed his broad brow and lean, even features.
Her first impression was that he would be quite attractive—if not for his grimace. Her second was that he was drenched. The rain had plastered his dark hair to his head. Wet chambray molded his broad shoulders. Wet khaki clung to powerful thighs.
Her glance jerked to the arm he held close to his body.
Because of the distance he’d put between them, but mostly because he looked hurt, she eased the door farther open. The groan of arthritic hinges joined the savage beat of the rain.
He eyed what she held. “My car skidded off the road. About a quarter of a mile that way.” Pulling his glance from her weapon, he started to nod behind him. Wincing instead, he tightened his grip on his arm. “I’ve dislocated my shoulder. Any chance you can help me with it?”
Jenny watched the stranger’s forehead pinch. There had been a time when she would have aided him without question. But four years of living in the city and the events of the past month, had done a number on the naiveté she’d once possessed. For all she knew now, the guy was totally faking and once inside would do her all manner of bodily harm.
“Is there anyone else in the car?”
He shook his head. “I’m alone.”
“Where did you say you wrecked it?”
“By Widow Maker curve. That’s why they call it that. Look—”
“Which side?”
Swallowing hard, he sagged against the post. “West.”
His lips went pale. Having only recently become a cynic, Jenny felt her caution slip along with the wrench. Metal clattered against the hardwood floor. She doubted that even the most talented con could change color on command.
Praying he wouldn’t pass out, she stepped onto the porch, reaching toward him. “Hang on. Just lean there a minute. Okay?” He was big. Far bigger than she could handle alone. “Just let me get my purse and my keys.”
“You don’t need your keys. I just need you to help me.”
“That’s what I’m doing,” she explained, wondering if he’d hit his head on something and his logic was impaired. She couldn’t drive without keys. “I’m going to take you to the doctor.”
“I am the doctor.”
Jenny had already spun on her heel. She spun right back, eyes narrowed. “I happen to know the doctor here,” she informed him, her doubts surfacing all over again. “Doc Wilson is barely taller than I am and happens to be as old as dirt.”
“I know he’s old. That’s why he retired. I took over his practice two years ago.”
“Then I’ll take you to his assistant.”
“Bess is at a potluck in West Pond.”
Jenny’s doubt slipped again. He knew Bess.
“Look,”
