his niece and the puppy, where those furrows on his forehead were coming from.
He had lost his brother and his sister-in-law and had become an instant parent to a teenager. Life extracted revenge, but somehow she found no comfort in the fact that he had suffered.
Jessica cleared a space at her table and made a nest for the puppy in an old towel. Michelle crowded close to her. “The vet told me he didn’t want to live,” she whispered, and Jessica glanced at her to see her shoulders hunching. Her voice cracked as she continued, “How could he not want to live when I love him so?”
If only love had the power to make things as a person wished, Jessica thought, and despite herself sent a sideways look at Brian.
Years ago, as a lonely high school senior who had fit in nowhere, she had fallen in love with popular, gorgeous Brian Kemp. But all the force of that love could not persuade him to do the thing he had promised. One small phone call.
A chance. She had been sure that, if given a chance to show him who she really was, he would love her. Instead, he had loved Lucinda Potter, or so it had seemed from the hungry kisses Jessica had witnessed them exchanging behind the Coke machine in the main foyer.
Instead, she reminded herself briskly, he had given her the best of opportunities. She had learned very young that she would have to love herself. No prince riding in on a white charger could make her life wonderful, she would have to do it. And she had done just that.
And now, she had to share some of that wonder with this troubled young girl and never mind the man who had brought her.
“The vet was wrong,” Jessica said firmly. “Every creature wants to live. Even a bug.”
“That’s what I thought,” Michelle said, her voice stronger.
Jessica closed her eyes and tried to clear her mind. It was a more difficult task than normal. Her kitchen seemed far too tiny with Brian’s bulk in it. Over the powerful scents of mint and sage, she could feel his restlessness and detect his presence.
Powerful. Masculine.
She opened her eyes to see him prowling restlessly, looking at her plants and jars with a scowl on his face.
“Brian, why don’t you wait outside for a minute?”
Rather than looking insulted, he looked relieved. She felt his energy leave the room with him.
She composed herself after he left by taking a deep steadying breath. She held her hands above the small, dangerously-close-to-death dog. Slowly, her mind emptied of all thought and filled with pure and brilliant light, a spectrum of colors, dancing. Her fingertips began to tingle. All else faded, except the energy moving between her and the puppy.
Finally, she opened her eyes and gazed down at the little dog. She touched him with great and reverent affection.
“Is he going to live?” Michelle asked.
“I don’t know,” she said, unwilling to give the girl false hope. “But there are a few things I’d like to try. I’ll give him some of this.” She chose a small jar from a case of them and squeezed a few drops into his mouth.
“Is that like medicine?” Michelle asked.
“Something like that. We’ll pick some fresh herbs from the garden and make him his own concoction.”
Brian was outside, sitting on her favorite bench. Someday, there would be a small pond there. The rocks and mortar waited there for her to find the time and the energy to undertake such a big project.
Meanwhile, Jessica could only hope the memory of his sitting there—his handsome face lifted to the sun, his hair touched by the wind, his posture so relaxed—was not going to spoil that spot for her.
He didn’t appear to notice them, and so she took Michelle to her herb garden and began to pick, explaining each plant carefully to the surprisingly eager young student.
“Well?” he said, coming up behind them, quiet and graceful for such a large man.
“It’s too soon to say,” Jessica said, with a shrug. “I’d like to keep him for a day or two.”
“What’s wrong with him? What can you do for him that the vet couldn’t?”
“There are many possibilities,” she said stiffly. Why had he come here if he planned to scoff and be cynical? “You are, of course, free to take him back to the vet if you want.”
“No!” Michelle said, and gave Brian a look that could have stripped paint. “The vet wanted to put him to sleep.”
He looked between the two of them, and Jessica had the feeling he was deciding she and Michelle made a dangerous combination. Her suspicion was confirmed by his next words.
“Michelle, how about if we leave O’Henry with Jessica? We’ll come back in a day or two and see how he’s doing.” He correctly interpreted the black look he was being given by his niece. “Of course, we’ll phone.”
It was written on his face that he was sorry he had ever come here, a regret that Jessica mirrored exactly. Her life was so nice, now. Predictable. Stable.
A man like Brian Kemp could turn that upside down without half-trying.
She waited for him to take his niece and go, but to her be-musement Michelle folded her arms over her chest and planted her legs in a fashion that gave her a surprising amount of presence.
“I’m not leaving.”
He ran a hand through his hair, looking at his watch. “Look, Michelle, I have to be at work in an hour, okay?”
“I’m not going anywhere,” the child announced, her resemblance to her uncle pronounced with her face set in those stubborn lines. “I’m staying right here with O’Henry. And Jessica.”
Chapter Two
“Get in the truck.” Brian’s voice was low and dangerous. Jessica had heard he was a policeman in Victoria; his voice held deep and unquestionable authority.
His niece, however, looked unimpressed. “No.” Jessica knew now would be a good time to insert herself in the argument and tell Michelle she had to leave with her uncle. But she was no saint and to see the man who had humiliated her suffer at the hands of his headstrong niece was just a little bit satisfying.
In fact, Jessica had to stifle a laugh after seeing the look on Brian’s face. He obviously wanted nothing more than to pick up his ninety-pound niece and toss her in the truck. The lines of his face were chiseled with irritation. On any other man it might have marred his good looks, but not on Brian. With his brows lowered like that, and the line of his mouth grim, he had the look of a warrior.
Still, under the fierce mask, Jessica sensed something rather astonishing. Brian was purely, helplessly baffled. Despite the fact that he looked like the most self-composed man ever born—one who could handle anything life threw at him—he was at a total loss when it came to dealing with his five-foot-one-inch niece.
Tell Michelle to go with her uncle, Jessica ordered
