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He pulled back, his mouth reluctantly parting from hers. Her green eyes appeared huge as they stared back at his. He cleared his throat. “Well, I’ll say we fooled him.”
She nodded, appearing dazed. “Yeah.”
He disengaged from her, struggling to get his body under control, although she couldn’t miss the effect she’d had on him. He tried to make his voice sound natural. “Let me walk you to your car.”
“That’s not necessary.” Her voice sounded low and shaky. “I only live a few blocks away.”
“Then I’ll walk you home.”
She seemed about to protest further, then closed her mouth and nodded. They walked the next few blocks in silence, not touching, a half body length separating them. The street got quieter as businesses gradually gave way to a quaint row of town houses with stone facades.
“It’s this one.” She stopped in front of one of the more classy residences. A wrought-iron railing led to a redbrick door. A pot of colorful flowers adorned the ledge protruding from the front window. The entire home emanated grace and beauty, like its owner. She tucked a strand of her long hair behind her ear, which struck him as sensual. Then again, at this point just about every move she made was sexy. “Thank you for what you did back there at the bar.”
He nearly laughed aloud. “Believe me, it was my pleasure.”
Her cheeks colored, charming him all over again. He lightly rubbed the back of his knuckles against the stain, then pulled his hand back. He knew better than to reach for her again.
“You know what I wish?” he asked softly.
She stared up at him with her big eyes, her head shaking back and forth so that silken hair of hers swayed.
“I wish you were the kind of woman who indulged in one-night stands,” he said.
She anchored her hands on his shoulders, stood on tiptoe and kissed him, so briefly it was just an electric brushing of lips.
“Me, too.” She spoke so close to his mouth he felt her warm breath and smelled the faintest trace of whiskey. “Goodbye, Ben Nash.”
She disappeared inside, leaving him staring at the closed door. Only then did he realize that neither of them had thought to check her ex-boyfriend’s reaction to their kiss.
Resigned to an early night, he headed in the direction of his downtown hotel. If he meant to preserve the fiction he and Sierra had just created, returning to the Blue Haven wasn’t an option.
The real world would intrude soon enough, because the two wishes he’d kept to himself had no better chance of coming true than the first.
That Sierra’s last name wasn’t Whitmore.
And that tomorrow morning he wouldn’t have to break the news to her that he was an investigative reporter.
CHAPTER THREE
THE SPINACH AND CHEESE omelet at Jimmy’s Diner was every bit as delicious as Sierra had always heard. So was the coffee: thick, rich and not bitter in the slightest.
“Can I get anything else for you, Doc?” Ellie Marson, the waitress who was as much a mainstay at Jimmy’s as the red vinyl booths, bustled over to Sierra on Saturday morning. If Sierra hadn’t noticed her birth date when Ellie was in the office a few months ago complaining of foot pain, she’d never have guessed the other woman was sixty-two.
“Just the check, please,” Sierra said.
“Coming right up.” Ellie quickly shuffled through the orders on her pad and ripped off a sheet. “I never did thank you for referring me to that podiatrist.”
“Did he take care of the problem?” Sierra asked.
The waitress pointed to the pair of white thick-soled shoes on her feet. “These did the trick. Would have told you sooner if you’d come in here for breakfast before today.”
“I usually eat at home,” Sierra said.
Who was she kidding? She always started the day with a glass of orange juice and a low-fat, high-fiber cereal consumed at her own kitchen table. She’d complained about Chad Armstrong slavishly following his routines, yet the only thing she varied was whether she filled her bowl with Frosted Mini-Wheats or Special K.
Until today, when she’d awakened remembering the way Ben Nash had looked at her last night.
If she could attract the attention of a dynamic man like Ben simply by being a little more daring, it was time to act a lot less predictably.
So she’d gone for a brisk early-morning walk instead of popping in her customary exercise DVD and skipped her cereal for the specialty omelet at Jimmy’s Diner. She’d even dug through a closet containing mostly pastels and neutral colors and pulled out her lone red top, which she’d paired with a flirty navy skirt a few inches shorter than the ones she usually wore.
“Well, I sure am glad you decided to stop in this morning,” the waitress said. “I’d love to see you here more often.”
“Thanks, Ms. Mar…” Sierra stopped herself, remembering her vow to loosen up. This was someone she’d known for years. “I mean, Ellie.”
“No need to thank me for speaking the truth,” Ellie said. “It does a body good to work less and the soul to eat out more, ’cept next time you should eat at the counter.”
She’d make a note of that, Sierra thought as Ellie went off to wait on another customer. The other solo diners had opted to sit where they could interact. Sierra knew a fair number of the customers, although none of them well, including the tall brunette who reached the exit at the same time she did. Sierra held the door open.
“Thanks.” Sara Brenneman held a foam cup of take-out coffee in each hand. A lawyer who lived and worked in the block adjacent to Sierra’s town house, Sara was dressed in jeans and a windbreaker instead of the smart, stylish business clothes she favored. Her windbreaker, however, was hot-pink. “I was just talking about you this morning.”
Sierra felt her cheeks grow warm despite a temperature that probably hadn’t yet hit sixty. Had Sara been at the Blue Haven last night? Had she seen Sierra leave the bar with Ben Nash? Had she witnessed the kiss?
“I called Annie this morning about festival business and she said you might take her place on the committee,” Sara explained.
Sierra relaxed. “I’m thinking about it.”
“Think fast because we need the help, not to mention Annie says you’d be great at it.” Sara walked quickly and purposefully down the sidewalk even though they were heading more than slightly uphill, past shops and restaurants not yet open for business. On a Saturday morning, the town was slow to wake up. “If you decide to fill in, the meeting’s tomorrow at Quincy Coleman’s house.”
“Really? Quincy Coleman?” Sierra wondered if Annie had purposely neglected to mention who was hosting the meeting. Surely she was aware that the retired banker’s one-sided feud with her late father hadn’t endeared him to the rest of the Whitmore family.
“I was surprised when I found out he was on the committee, too,” Sara said. “He’s been unexpectedly easy to deal with. He seems to be trying to make amends for the past.”
Coleman’s most egregious offense was unfairly holding Michael Donahue, Sara’s fiancé, responsible for the death of his daughter. Taking potshots at Sierra’s father whenever the opportunity presented itself paled in comparison.
“Anyway, I hope to see you at the meeting,” she said. “Oh. And I almost forgot. Annie says you have a friend in Harrisburg who owns a bridal shop. I’d love her business card, if you have one.”
“Does that mean you and Michael have set a date?”
Sara beamed, her entire face lighting up even though the sun was rising at her back. “The last Saturday in June.”
“And you don’t have your dress yet?”
“Now you sound just like Annie,” Sara said in a long-suffering voice. “Two months is plenty of time.”
Not if the dress needed alterations, it wasn’t.
“I’ll be sure to get you that card,” Sierra said.
“Great.” The lawyer left Sierra with a smile, then immediately picked up her pace, no doubt eager to rejoin her fiancé. Sierra wondered if Sara served Michael Donahue coffee in bed and had a pang that she’d passed up the chance to do the same for Ben Nash.
Ben Nash, who was passing through town and who she’d probably never see again.
Before regret could take hold, she focused on the morning ahead. Unlike many other family physicians, she and Ryan didn’t start the morning with hospital rounds. Because of time and distance constraints, it made more sense to use hospitalists—specialists who provided care to patients while they were in the hospital. She let herself into the medical practice through the back entrance and was shrugging into her lab coat when Missy Cromartie rushed down the hall.
“Dr. Sierra, am I glad you’re here!” Missy was short and slight with large eyes that nearly overwhelmed her pretty, elfin face. Her dramatic coloring, black hair and blue eyes set in pale skin, suited her personality. “When I got to work ten minutes ago, a man was waiting outside to see Dr. Ryan. I told him to come back at nine when we opened, but he wanted to come in and wait.”
“You did fine, Missy.” Sierra gentled her voice to calm the excitable receptionist. “It’s okay if he waits inside.”
“You don’t understand.” If possible, Missy’s light-colored eyes grew larger and rounder. Her shoulder-length hair shook along with her head. “He doesn’t have an appointment.”
“I’m sure you can squeeze him in.”
“But he’s not sick! I tried telling him how busy it gets on Saturdays, but he said he’ll wait as long as it takes. I don’t know what to do with him.”
Sierra started to tell Missy to handle the problem the best she could, then thought better of it. That’s what the old Sierra would say. The new Sierra met challenges head-on…if she didn’t count her reluctance to join the festival committee.
“Would you like me to talk to him?” Sierra asked.
“That’d be great!” Missy’s relief was out of proportion to the offer. “Just great!”
Sierra plastered on a professional smile, walked purposefully toward the waiting room and froze. Her heart did a leap worthy of the basketball players she liked to watch on television. The man sitting in the middle of a bank of chairs against the serene backdrop of a blue wall wasn’t just any man.
It was Ben Nash.
“Ben!” she cried.
His eyes lifted from the pages of Newsweek, his face reflecting none of the surprise she felt certain was on her own. Her mind darted in a dozen directions while her heart pounded. She shouldn’t be happy to see him, not when he was nothing more than a passing distraction. Yet she was.
He stood up. “Hello, Sierra.”
He was even better-looking this morning, the cream color of his long-sleeve shirt contrasting with his olive skin, his eyes clear. She’d found out last night they were brown, to match his hair. It still appeared as though he hadn’t shaved in three days, which must be his usual look. She’d never been partial to facial hair on men, but his stubble added to his rugged good looks.
She advanced, trying to slow down her steps. Missy must have heard him wrong. Ben Nash wasn’t waiting to see Sierra’s brother: he was here to see her. She felt her smile break free.
“This is a surprise.” She stemmed the desire to walk into his arms and stopped a few feet shy of him. “I didn’t think I’d see you again.”
“I’m sorry I gave you that impression.”
That was a strange thing to say. Did he honestly believe she’d hold it against him that he’d been secretly planning to seek her out? But how had he found her? “I know I didn’t tell you I was a doctor.”
“You didn’t have to,” he said. “In a town this small, people talk.”
For one of the first times in her life, she was glad gossip was a favorite pastime among the locals in Indigo Springs. Otherwise, she might not have had the pleasure of seeing Ben again. Or the chance to find out where what they’d started last night would lead.
“I won’t get off work until about one o’clock.” She couldn’t ask Ryan to take her patient load. They were far too busy on Saturday mornings for one doctor. “Then I’m completely free for the rest of the day.”
“I might not be. I’m here on business,” he said, something else that didn’t make sense.
“Business?” She cocked her head, regarding him quizzically. “What kind of business?”
“I’m a reporter for the Pittsburgh Tribune.” He cleared his throat, the strong column contracting. “I have reason to believe Dr. Ryan Whitmore can help me with a story.”
Missy hadn’t misunderstood why Ben had showed up in the office this morning.
Sierra had.
The knowledge slammed into her at the same time the front door swung open to admit her brother, who almost never used the back entrance. He stopped his tuneless whistling, ran a hand through his fair head of wind-tousled hair and gave them an eye-crinkling smile. Since Ryan had married Annie in February, he did a lot of smiling.
“Good morning, sis.” A born extrovert, he strode across the room, stretching out a hand to Ben. “Ryan Whitmore. I don’t believe we’ve met.”
Sierra heard Ben’s quick intake of breath before he stood and shook her brother’s hand. “Ben Nash from the Pittsburgh Tribune.”
Sierra choked back her disappointment. “Ben’s here to talk to you.”
“I’m not so sure about that.” Ben was gazing at Ryan with open skepticism. “I was expecting Ryan Whitmore to be a much older man.”
“I was named after our father,” Ryan said. “He died two years ago.”
Ben rubbed the back of his neck as Sierra tried to figure out what was going on. Why had a Pittsburgh reporter come to Indigo Springs to talk to a dead man? And why hadn’t he told her who he was last night?
“What is this about?” Ryan asked before she could form the question.
“I’m following up on a lead that your father might have information about a woman who died in Indigo Springs,” he said.
Yet Ben had failed to tell her any of this the night before. Their “chance” meeting and his invitation to get together suddenly didn’t seem accidental. She crossed her arms over her heaving stomach.
The door swung open again. Art Czerbiak, who always insisted on the first appointment of the morning, shuffled through. What was left of the elderly man’s gray hair was in disarray from the April wind. He muttered a gruff good-morning and took a seat at the far end of the room, then regarded them with interest. Missy was also watching them closely, not even trying to disguise her stares.
“The waiting room isn’t the best place to have this conversation,” Ben said quietly.
“No.” Sierra directed her comment to Ben in an equally soft voice. “The best time would have been last night when you were trying to pull one over on me.”
“That’s not what I did,” Ben protested.
Ryan looked from Sierra to Ben, a puzzled expression on his face, then placed a hand at the small of Sierra’s back. She wondered if he could feel her shaking.
“Ben’s right,” Ryan said. “We should take this to my office.”
Sierra pivoted and led the way, determinedly keeping her head high and her chin up, the pleasure leaking out of a morning that had started with such promise.
This was exactly why she took so few chances.
The ones she did take tended to backfire.
THE WHITMORE SIBLINGS regarded Ben with widely different expressions after the three of them retreated to a generic room at the end of a long hall. Curiosity emanated from Ryan while Sierra’s lips had flatlined and her eyes had gone steely. Her brother leaned against the edge of a sleek, black desk, his legs crossed at the ankles. Sierra remained standing.
“Now tell us what this is all about,” she demanded. The hair she’d worn long and loose the night before was tied back from her face. A shapeless white lab coat covered her clothes. It was as though the soft, vulnerable woman he’d kissed had never existed.
