he plastic doggie scooper bags in the pocket of Delaney’s shorts seemed like some pathetic metaphor of her life. Shit, that’s what it was. Ever since she’d sold her soul for money, that’s what her life had become, and she didn’t see that it would get any better for another eleven months. Almost everything she owned resided in a storage shed on the outskirts of town, and her closest companions were the two Weimaraners walking beside her.

It had taken Delaney less than five hours to decide to accept the terms of Henry’s will. An appallingly short amount of time, but she wanted the money. She’d been given a one-week reprieve to travel to Phoenix, quit her job, and close her apartment. Saying good-bye to her friends at Valentina had been hard. Saying good-bye to her freedom was even harder. It had been only a month, but it felt like she’d been a prisoner for a year.

She had no job and wore boring clothes she didn’t particularly like because she lived with her mother.

The hot sun baked the top of her head as she made her way down Grey Squirrel Lane toward the center of town. When she’d lived in Truly ten years ago, most of the streets hadn’t had names. There had been no need, but with the recent influx of summer residents, and the boom in real estate, the city council had knocked itself out to come up with really inventive street names like Gopher, Chipmunk, and Grey Squirrel. Delaney, it seemed, lived in the rodent section of town, while Lisa fared somewhat better over on Milkweed, which of course was next to Ragweed and Tumbleweed.

Since she’d been back, she’d noticed a lot of other changes, too. The business district had quadrupled, and the old part of town had been given a facelift. There were two public boat ramps to accommodate the heavy invasion of boats and Jet Skis, and the city had added three new parks. But beyond those changes, there were two other very visible and telling signs that the town had finally been pulled into the 1990s. First, there was the Mountain Java Espresso Shop located between Sterling Realty and the Grits and Grub Diner. And second, the old lumber mill had been converted into a microbrewery. When Delaney had lived in Truly before, the people drank Folgers and Coors. They would have declared a double-shot skinny latte “sissy coffee” and would have beat the crap out of anyone who dared to utter the words “raspberry beer.”

It was the Fourth of July and the town was smothered in patriotism. Red, white, and blue flags and ribbons decorated everything from the “Welcome to Truly” banner to the wooden Indian standing outside Howdy’s Trading Post. There would be a parade later, of course. In Truly, there were parades for just about every occasion. Maybe she’d stick around downtown and watch the parade. It wasn’t like she had anything else to do.

At the corner of Beaver and Main, Delaney stopped and waited for an RV to lumber by. For walking so nicely beside her, she reached into her pocket and rewarded Duke and Dolores with Milk-bones. It had taken several frustrating weeks to assert her role as the alpha dog and teach them who was boss. She’d had the time. For the past month she’d spent some of her time catching up with a few old school friends. But they were all married and had families and looked at her as if she were abnormal because she didn’t.

She would have loved to spend more time with Lisa, but unlike Delaney, Lisa had a job and a fiancé. She would have loved to sit down with her old friend and talk about Henry’s will and the real reason she was back in Truly. But she didn’t dare. If its stipulation became public, Delaney’s life would turn into a burning hell. She would become the subject of endless speculation and the topic of never-ending gossip. And if the part of the will concerning Nick was revealed, she’d probably have to kill herself.

As it was, she was just likely to die of boredom before it was all over. She spent her days watching talk shows, or she walked Duke and Dolores as a means to get out of the house and escape the life her mother had planned for her. Gwen had decided that since Delaney would be living in Truly for a year, they should be involved in the same projects, belong to the same social organizations, and attend the same civic meetings. She’d even gone so far as submitting Delaney’s name to spearhead a committee concerned with the drug problem in Truly. Delaney had politely turned down the offer. First of all, Truly’s drug problem was laughable. Second, Delaney would rather drink bong water than get involved in the community.

She and the dogs moved down Main, passing a deli and T-shirt shop. Both were recent additions to the downtown area, and judging by the foot traffic, seemed to do a fair amount of business. With the souls of. her Lycra sling-backs slapping her bare heels, she walked past a tiny bookstore with a poster stuck on the door advertising an up coming R&B festival. The poster surprised Delaney, and she wondered when the town had abandoned Conway Twitty for James Brown.

She stopped in front of a thin two-story building flanked on one side by an ice cream shop and on the other by the offices of Allegrezza Construction. Painted across the big plate glass window were the words: “Gloria’s: A Cut Above. Any cut and style $10.” Delaney didn’t think the sign spoke well for Gloria’s abilities.

Duke and Dolores sat at her feet, and she scratched them between the ears. Leaning forward, she peered into the huge plate glass window to see the red Naugahyde salon chairs. Each time she’d driven through town, she’d noticed the salon had been closed.

“Hey there, what’s up?”

Delaney recognized Lisa’s voice and turned to her friend. She wasn’t surprised to see Louie standing by Lisa’s side. His gaze was direct and a bit unnerving. Or maybe she found him unnerving because he was Nick’s brother. “I was just checking out this salon,” she answered.

“I gotta get going, alu gozo,” Louie said, then bent his head and kissed his fiancée. The kiss lingered and Delaney lowered her gaze to a point between Duke’s ears. She hadn’t had a boyfriend in over a year, and that relationship hadn’t lasted more than four months. She couldn’t remember the last time a man had kissed her like he meant to eat her up and didn’t care who watched.

“See you around, Delaney.”

She glanced up. “See ya, Louie.” She watched him walk into the building next to the salon. Maybe she found him unnerving because, like his brother, he was extremely masculine. Nick was taller, more sculpted, like a statue. Louie was built like a bull. You’d never see an Allegrezza in a Versace neckcloth or a tiny Speedo. “What does alu gozo mean?” she asked, having a little difficulty pronouncing the foreign words.

“It’s an endearment, like sweetheart. Louie can be so romantic.”

Unexpected envy tugged at her. “What are you up to?”

Lisa lowered to one knee and scratched Duke and Dolores beneath the chin. “I took Louie to lunch, and I was just dropping him back off.”

“Where’d you go?”

Lisa smiled as the dogs licked her hands. “My house.”

Delaney felt a twinge of jealousy and realized she was lonelier than she’d thought. It was the Fourth of July and a Friday night. The weekend stretched before her—empty. She missed the friends she’d had in Phoenix. She missed her busy life.

“I’m glad I ran into you. What are you doing tonight?” Lisa asked.

Not a damn thing, she thought. “I don’t know yet.”

“Louie and I thought we’d have some friends over. I want you to come, too. His house is on Horseshoe Bay, not far from where they’ll shoot the fireworks out over the lake. The show is pretty awesome from his beach.”

Delaney Shaw at Louie Allegrezza’s? Nick’s brother? Mrs. Allegrezza’s son? She’d seen Benita the other day at the grocery store, and everything she remembered about the woman was still true. No one showed such cold contempt as Benita Allegrezza. No one could convey both superiority and disdain in the same look of her dark eyes. “Oh, I don’t think so, but thanks.”

“Chicken.” Lisa stood and wiped her hands on her jeans.

“I’m not a chicken.” Delaney shifted her weight to one foot and tilted her head to the side. “I just don’t want to go someplace where I know I’m not welcome.”

“You’re welcome. I talked to Louie, and he doesn’t have a problem with you coming.” Lisa took a deep breath, then said, “He said he likes you.”

Delaney laughed. “Liar.”

“Okay, he said he didn’t know you. But if he gets to know you, he’ll like you.”

“Will Nick be there?” One of her main goals for surviving the entire year was to avoid him as much as humanly possible. He was rude and crude and purposely reminded her of things best forgotten. She was stuck in the same city, but that didn’t mean she had to socialize with him.

“Nick will be out on the lake with some of his friends, so he won’t be there.”

“What about Mrs. Allegrezza?”

Lisa looked at her as if she were an idiot. “Of course not. Louie is going to invite some of the guys who work for him, and Sophie will be there with some of her friends. We’re going to get together for hot dogs and burgers about six. You should come. What else are you going to do?”

“Well, I was going to watch the parade.”

“That’s over by six, Delaney. You don’t want to sit home alone do you?”

Her obvious lack of a life embarrassed Delaney, and she glanced across the street toward Sterling Realty. She thought of the night ahead of her. After Wheel of Fortune, what was there to do? “Well, I guess I could drop by. If you’re sure Louie won’t mind my being there.”

Lisa waved aside Delaney’s concern and took a few steps backward to leave. “I told you, we talked it over, and he doesn’t care. Once he gets to know you, he’ll like you.”

Delaney watched her friend walk away. She wasn’t as optimistic as Lisa. Louie was Nick’s brother, and the tension and animosity between herself and Nick was a tangible thing. She hadn’t spoken to Nick since the reading of Henry’s will, but she’d seen him several times. She’d seen him bombing down Wagon Wheel Road on his Harley, then a few days later walking into Mort’s with a redhead pressed up against his side. The last time she’d laid eyes on him was at the intersection of Main and First. She’d been stopped at the traffic light, and he’d crossed the street in front of her. I don’t know, Frank. She’s pretty hot. What if I just can’t control myself?

Her grip had tightened on the steering wheel, and she’d felt her cheeks burn. His attention had been focused on the folder in his right hand, and she’d wondered what he would do if she accidentally bumped into him? If her foot accidentally slipped from the brake and hit the gas. If she accidentally mowed him down, then backed up just to make sure?

She’d revved the Miata’s engine like she was Cha-Cha Muldowney waiting for the flag to drop, then she’d eased the clutch just enough so the car lunged into the crosswalk. Nick’s head had jerked up, and he’d jumped out of the way. His brows lowered and his cool gray eyes bored into her. In another split second the bumper would have clipped his right leg.

She’d smiled at him. For that moment, life had been good.

Delaney vacillated for hours over whether she should show up at Lisa’s party. She hadn’t fully decided until she caught herself thinking about curling up with a stack of magazines and a box of wine. She was twenty-nine, and if she didn’t do something quick, she was afraid she’d become one of those women who wore hats instead of brushing their hair and traded in their red platforms for Easy Spirit walking shoes. Before she could change her mind, she pulled on a black turtleneck and a quilted leather vest the color of limes. Her jeans were black also, but her ankle boots matched her vest. She scrunched mousse in her soft curls and hung little gold hoops in the four piercings she had in each ear.

By the time Delaney arrived at the party, it was a little after eight. Three giggling thirteen-year-old girls answered the door and led her toward the rear of a spacious home constructed of river rock and cedar.

“They’re all back here,” one of the girls with dark eyes informed her. “Do you wanna put your purse in my dad’s room?”

She’d shoved her wallet and a tube of burgundy lipstick into a little patent leather bag that looked like a hatbox. The wallet she could live without, but she wouldn’t be able to replace her Estee Lauder lipstick for a year. “No thanks. Are you Sophie?”

The girl barely glanced over her shoulder at Delaney as they moved through the kitchen. “Yep. Who are you?”

Sophie had braces and pimples and wonderfully thick hair with horrible dried and split ends. Split ends drove Delaney nuts. They were like a crooked picture that drove a person mad until it was straightened. “I’m Lisa’s friend, Delaney.”

Sophie’s head whipped around and her eyes widened. “Oh my gosh! I heard Grandma talk about you.”

By the look on Sophie’s face, Benita hadn’t been dispensing compliments. “Great,” Delaney muttered as she stepped around the three girls. She walked through a set of double glass doors onto a deck. The white sandy beach below was shaded by two enormous Ponderosas, and several boats were tied to the dock riding the gentle waves of Lake Mary.

“Hey there,” Lisa greeted and excused herself from the semicircle of people around her. “I was worried you wouldn’t make it. Did you have to go to something fancy first?”

Delaney glanced down at her clothes, then lifted her gaze to the other guests who wore T-shirts and shorts. “No. I still get cold,” she answered. “Are you sure it’s okay that I’m here?”

“Sure. How was the parade?”

“It was almost exactly the same as it was the last time I saw it, except the group of World War veterans has dwindled to two old guys in the back of a school bus.” She smiled, more relaxed than she’d been in over a month. “And the biggest thrill is still the anticipation over which unsuspecting tuba player will step in the horse crap.”

“How was the junior high school band? Sophie told me they were pretty good this year.”

Delaney struggled for a compliment. “Well, the uniforms are better than when we were in school.”

“That’s what I thought.” Lisa laughed. “Are you hungry?”

“I’ve eaten already.”

“Come on, and I’ll introduce you around. There are some people here you might remember.”

Delaney followed Lisa to a knot of people gathered around two barbecues. The fifteen or so guests were a combination of friends Lisa and Louie had known most of their lives and people who worked for Allegrezza Construction.

Delaney chatted with Andrea Huff, the best baseball pitcher in elementary school. Andrea was married to John French, the boy who’d taken one of Andrea’s knuckleballs in the stomach and had hurled macaroni and cheese on the playground. The two seemed happy together, and Delaney wondered if there was a connection.

“I have two sons.” She pointed to the beach below, then paused to lean over the rail and bellow at a cluster of children wading in the lake, “Eric! Eric French, I told you not to get into that water so soon after you’ve eaten.”

A tow-headed boy turned and raised a hand to shade his eyes. “I’m only up to my knees.”

“Fine, but if you drown don’t come crying to me.” Andrea sighed as she straightened. “Do you have children?”

“No. I’ve never been married.”

Andrea looked at her as if she were an alien, and in Truly, Delaney supposed a twenty-nine-year-old, never-been-married woman was an oddity.

“Now, tell me what you’ve been up to since high school.”

Delaney told her about the places she’d lived, and then the conversation turned to the memories each had of growing up in a small town at the same moment in time. They chatted about sledding at the base of Shaw Mountain, and laughed about the time Andrea had lost her bikini top waterskiing across the lake.

Something warm and unexpected settled near Delaney’s soul. Talking to Andrea felt like finding something she hadn’t even known she’d missed, like old worn slippers long ago discarded for a newer flashier pair.

After Andrea, Lisa introduced Delaney to several single men who worked for Louie, and Delaney found herself on the receiving end of some very flattering male attention. Most of the single construction workers were younger than Delaney. Several were deeply tanned, had buns of steel, and looked like they’d jumped out of a Diet Coke commercial. Delaney was glad she hadn’t settled for that box of Franzia. Especially when a backhoe operator named Steve handed her a bottle of Bud and looked at her through clear baby blues. His hair was like sun-bleached butterscotch, and there was a scruffiness about him Delaney might have found enormously appealing if it hadn’t been so contrived. His hair was strategically tousled and too gelled to be natural. Steve knew he was gorgeous.

“I’m going to check on Louie.” Lisa grinned, then gave Delaney a cheesy thumbs-up sign behind Steve’s back as if they were still back in high school and had to approve each other’s dates.

“I’ve seen you around,” Steve said as soon as it was just the two of them.

“Really?” She raised the beer to her lips and took a drink. “Where?”

“In your little yellow car.” His smile showed his very white, slightly crooked teeth. “You’re hard to miss.”

“I guess my car draws attention.”

“Not your car. You. You’re hard to miss.”

She’d felt so invisible in the plain T-shirts and shorts she’d worn lately that she pointed to herself and asked, “Me?”

“Don’t tell me you’re one of those girls who likes to pretend they don’t know they’re beautiful?”

Beautiful? No, Delaney knew she wasn’t beautiful. She was attractive and could make herself look damn good when she tried. But if Steve wanted to tell her she was beautiful, she would let him. Because, contrived or not, he wasn’t a dog— figuratively or literally. She spent so much time with Duke and Dolores that if she let herself, she could melt beneath such attention.

“How old are you?” she asked him.

“Twenty-two.”

Seven years. At twenty-two Delaney had been experimenting with life. She’d been like a convict on a prison break—a five-year prison break. Between the ages of nineteen and twenty-four, she’d lived a life of reckless abandon and absolute freedom. She’d had a great time, but was glad she was older and wiser.

She turned her gaze to the teenage girls on the beach below waving their arms and running to the edge of the water. She wasn’t that much older than Steve, and it wasn’t like she was looking for a commitment. Delaney raised the bottle to her lips again and took a drink. Maybe she could just use him for the summer. Use him, then dump him. Men had certainly used and dumped her. Why couldn’t she treat men the same way men treated her? What was the difference?

“Uncle Nick’s back,” Sophie called up to Louie, who stood in a knot of people.

Everything inside Delaney stilled. Her gaze flew to the boat slowly cruising toward the end of the dock, to the man standing behind the wheel of the Bayliner, his feet wide apart, his dark hair blowing about his shoulders. Shade from the towering pine fell across the surface of the water and bathed him and his three female passengers in shadows. Sophie shot down the dock with her friends trailing behind her, their excited chatter rising above the noise of the outboard engine. Nick’s responding laughter reached Delaney on the breeze. She set her beer on the rail and turned to find Lisa several feet away, looking very guilty.

“Excuse me, Steve,” she said and moved to her friend.

“Don’t kill me,” Lisa whispered.

“You should have told me.”

“Would you have come?”

“No.”

“Then I’m glad I lied.”

“Why, so I could get here then leave again?”

“Don’t be such a wimp. You need to get past your hostile feelings for Nick.”

Delaney looked into her childhood friend’s eyes and tried not to feel hurt by her remark. She reminded herself that Lisa didn’t know about Henry’s will or the night Nick had used her ten years ago. “I know he’s going to be your brother-in-law, but there are some very good reasons why I feel ‘hostile’ toward him.”

“Louie told me.”

A myriad of horrible questions ran through Delaney’s head. She wondered who knew what. What they knew, and who had said what to whom. “What did he tell you?”

“He told me about the will.”

Delaney glanced over her shoulder at Louie, who was staring out at the lake. She would have preferred that no one know about the will, but it wasn’t her biggest concern. Hopefully, her greatest fear was still buried in the past. “How long have you known?”

“About a month, and I wish you would have told me. I wanted to ask you to be in my wedding, but I was waiting for you to tell me you were going to be here. Pretending I don’t know has been really hard, but now I can ask you to be one of my bridesmaids. I wanted you to be my maid of honor, but I couldn’t, so I had to ask my sister. But I—”

“Exactly what did Louie tell you?” Delaney interrupted as she reached for Lisa’s arm and pulled her to a deserted part of the deck.

“That if you leave Truly, Nick inherits your share of Henry’s estate, and if the two of you have sex, you inherit his.”

“Who else knows?”

“Benita, I think.”

Of course. “And maybe Sophie. She said something about overhearing her grandmother.” Dread settled in the pit of her stomach, and she let go of Lisa’s arm. “This is so humiliating. Now everyone in town will know, and I won’t be able to go anywhere without people watching me to make sure I don’t leave town or have sex with Nick.” She felt her skull tighten at the very thought. “As if that would ever happen anyway.”

“No one else will find out. If you’re worried about Sophie, I’ll talk to her.”

“And she’ll listen to you?”

“If I tell her the gossip could hurt Nick, she’ll listen. She worships him. In Sophie’s eyes, Nick is a saint and can do no wrong.”

Delaney looked over her shoulder and watched Saint Nick with his harem of females make their way up the dock. He handed a large paper sack to Sophie, and she and her friends took off toward a picnic table on the beach. In his loose green tank top, battered Levi’s with the large three-corner tear above the right knee, and rubber flip-flops, he looked like he’d just gotten out of bed. Delaney’s gaze moved to the three women. Maybe he had.

“I wonder where he picked them up,” Lisa said, referring to the blond by his side and the two brunettes following close behind. “He was just going to his house to get some fireworks for Sophie.”

“Apparently he picked up more than a few smoke bombs. Who are those women?”

“The blond is Gail something, I don’t know her married name, but her dad was Judge Tanner. The two behind him look like the Howell twins, Lonna and Lanna.”

Delaney remembered Gail Tanner. She’d been several years older than Delaney, and their families had occasionally socialized. She also recognized her as the woman Nick had pick up at Henry’s funeral. The Howell twins she didn’t know. “Gail’s married?”

“Divorced.”

Delaney turned around for a better look. The women wore tight tank tops tucked into jeans. Delaney would have loved to dismiss them as tramps, but she couldn’t. They looked more like centerfolds than hookers. “Did Gail get a boob job? I don’t remember her being that big.”

“A boob job and a little fat sucked out of her butt, too.”

“Hmm.” Delaney’s gaze returned to Nick and the triangle of thigh visible through the tear in his jeans. “Have you seen them do liposuction on TV? Damn, it hurt my buns just thinking about it.”

“It’s disgusting. Looks just like chicken fat.”

“Would you ever have it done?”

“In a second. Would you?”

Delaney looked at her friend as she thought about it. “I don’t think so, but I’ll probably have my breasts lifted when they start to sag past my belly button. Hopefully, that won’t be for twenty more years.” Delaney’s statement drew Lisa’s attention to her chest.

“You always did have pretty good boobs. I never had great boobs, but I have a really nice butt.”

The two women switched their attention to Lisa’s behind.

“Better than mine,” Delaney admitted, then returned her gaze to Nick and the three women making their way across the beach toward the bottom of the stairs leading to the deck. “So, which one is his girlfriend?”

“I don’t know.”

“Probably all three.”

“Probably,” Lisa agreed.

“None of them,” spoke Louie from behind.

Delaney did a mental groan and closed her eyes.

She’d been caught gossiping about Nick. Worse, she’d been caught by Louie. She wondered how long he’d been standing there. She wondered if he’d heard her talking about getting her breasts lifted, but she didn’t dare ask. Slowly she turned to face him, racking her brain for something to say.

Thankfully, Lisa didn’t have the same problem. “Are you sure he isn’t dating the twins?”

“No,” he answered, then announced with a completely serious look on his face, “Nick is a one-woman man.”

Delaney glanced at Lisa and the two of them burst into laughter.

“What’s so funny?” Louie wanted to know. He crossed his arms over his chest, and his dark brows formed one prominent line across his forehead.

“You,” Lisa answered and kissed his firm mouth. “You’re crazy, but that’s what I love about you.”

Louie put an arm around Lisa’s waist and pulled her tight. “I love you, too, alu gozo.”

No one had ever whispered exotic endearments to Delaney—unless she counted “Do me, baby.” No man had ever loved her the way Louie obviously loved Lisa. And no man was likely to, either, as long as she was stuck in Truly with nothing to do but walk dogs. There had to be something better than picking up dog poop. “Do you know who owns the building next to you?”

“You do now.” Louie shrugged. “Maybe your mother. I guess it depends on how everything shakes out in your father’s will.”

“I do?” As she absorbed the news a big smile parted her lips.

“Yep. Henry owned that whole block.”

“Your offices, too?”

“Yep.”

She had a lot to think about and took a step backward. “Well, thanks for having me,” she said, fully intending to beat a retreat before she got within spitting distance of Nick.

“You just got here,” Lisa pointed out. “Stay until after the fireworks. Louie, tell her we want her to stay.”

“Why don’t you stay?” Louie said and took the bota he had hanging from his shoulder and held it toward her.

Great, now she’d look like a baby if she left. She took the pigskin bag from him and asked, “What’s in this?”

“Txakoli.” When she didn’t drink, he added, “Red wine. It’s for special occasions and holidays.”

Delaney lifted the bag and hit her chin with a thin stream of wine before raising it to her mouth. The wine was sweet and very potent, and when she lowered it again, she got wine on her throat. “I guess I should stick to a glass,” she joked and wiped her chin and neck.

From behind, the bota was plucked from her hand. She turned and stared at a wide chest and faded green cotton. Her stomach twisted like a pretzel as she slowly raised her gaze past Nick’s lips to his gray eyes. The Allegrezza boys had a habit of sneaking up on her from behind.

“Open up,” he said.

She tilted her head to one side and stared at him.

“Open up,” he repeated and raised the bota to within several inches of her face.

“What are you going to do if I don’t? Squirt wine all over me?”

He smiled, slow and sensual. “Yes.”

She didn’t doubt him for a moment. The second her mouth opened, wine shot between her parted lips. She watched helpless as Lisa and Louie walked away. She would have followed if she hadn’t been forced to stand very still. Then the stream of wine was gone without leaving so much as a drop anywhere. She swallowed and licked the corner of her mouth. She didn’t say a word.

“You’re welcome.”

The breeze carried the scent of his skin and tossed strands of his thick dark hair about his bare shoulders. He smelled like clean mountain air and dark sensual man. “I didn’t ask for your help.”

“No, but you need a lot of txakoli to kill that bug up your butt.” He leaned back slightly and raised the bota. A red arc filled his mouth, and his throat worked as he swallowed. Fine black hair shadowed his armpit, and for the first time, Delaney noticed the tattoo circling his right biceps. It was a thin wreath of thorns, and the twists and barbs of black ink looked remarkably real against his smooth tan skin. He lowered the bag and sucked a bead of wine from his lower lip. “Were you going to run me over the other day, wild thing?”

She tried not to react. “Don’t call me that, please.”

“What? Wild thing?”

“Yes.”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t like it.”

Nick didn’t give a damn what she liked. She’d tried to run him over, no doubt about it. He slid his gaze down the curves of her body as he screwed the cap onto the spout of the bota. “I guess that’s too bad.” The second he’d stepped foot on the deck, he’d noticed her, and not just because she wore a turtleneck and green leather vest when everyone else had dressed for summer. It was her hair. The setting sun caught all those different shades of red and set them ablaze.

“Then I guess the next time I see you in a crosswalk, I won’t put on the brake.”

Nick stepped forward until she had to tilt her head back to look up at him. His gaze moved over her flawless porcelain cheeks to her pink lips. The last time he’d been this close to her, she’d been naked. “Give it your best shot.” White and pink. That’s what he remembered about her most. Soft pink mouth and tongue. Firm white breasts and tight pink nipples. Silky white thighs.

She opened her mouth to say something, but whatever she meant to say was silenced by Gail’s approach.

“There you are,” Gail said as she wove her arm through Nick’s. “Let’s hurry and get a place on the beach before the show starts.”

Nick stared into Delaney’s big brown eyes and felt a tightening in his groin that had nothing to do with the willing woman by his side. He stepped back and turned his attention to Gail. “If you’re in a hurry, go ahead without me.”

“No, I’ll wait.” Gail turned her gaze from Nick to Delaney. Her grip on his arm tightened. “Hello, Delaney. I hear you’ve moved back.”

“For a while.”

“The last time I talked to your mother, she told me you were a flight attendant with United.”

A slight frown wrinkled Delaney’s brow and she glanced around as if she were desperately looking for a reason to escape. “That was five years ago, and I was a baggage handler, not a flight attendant,” she said and took a step backward. “Well, it was nice to see you again, Gail. I’ve got to go. I told Lisa I’d help her... ah... do something.” Without a glance in Nick’s direction, she turned and walked away.

“What’s going on between the two of you?” Gail asked.

“Nothing.” He didn’t want to talk about Delaney, especially not with Gail. He didn’t even want to think about her. She was trouble for him. She always had been. Since the first time he’d looked into her big brown eyes.

“When I walked up it certainly looked like something.”

“Drop it.” He shook free of Gail’s grasp and moved into the house. Earlier, when he’d gone to his own house to get the fireworks he’d promised Sophie, Gail and the twins had been knocking on his front door. He didn’t like women dropping by his house. It gave them unrealistic ideas of his involvement with them. But it was a holiday, and he’d decided to overlook the intrusion this one time and had invited them to Louie’s. Now he wished he hadn’t. He recognized that determined look in Gail’s eyes. She wasn’t about to drop anything.

Gail followed close behind Nick, but waited until they were in the deserted kitchen before she continued, “Do you remember when Delaney left ten years ago? A lot of people said she was pregnant. A lot of people said you were the father.”

Nick tossed Louie’s bota on the counter, then reached into a cooler. He grabbed two Miller’s and twisted the caps off each. He remembered the rumors. Depending on who you listened to at the time, gossip had him and Delaney getting it on in a hundred different places and in very imaginative ways. But whichever version you heard, the ending was always the same. Nick Allegrezza had put his dirty hands on Delaney Shaw. He’d impregnated the princess.

Henry hadn’t known what to believe. He’d been enraged at the very possibility that the rumor could be true. He’d demanded Nick deny it. Of course, Nick hadn’t.

“Were you?”

Now it was ironic as hell. Ten years later, Henry wanted him to knock up Delaney. Nick handed Gail one of the cold beers. “I told you to drop it.”

“I think I have a right to know, Nick.”

He looked into her blue eyes and laughed without humor. “You don’t have a right to know squat.”

“I have a right to know if you see other women.”

“You know I do.”

“What if I asked you to stop?”

“Don’t,” he warned.

“Why not? We’ve gotten close since we’ve become lovers. We could have a wonderful life together if you’d let it happen.”

He knew for a fact he wasn’t the only man on Gail’s list of potential husbands. He just happened to be at the top. For a while, being number one on Gail’s sexual hit parade had been amusing. But lately she’d begun to get possessive and that irritated him. “I told you from the start not to expect anything from me. I never confuse sex and love. One has nothing to do with the other.” Nick raised the beer to his lips and said, “I don’t love you, but try not to take it personal.”

She crossed her arms beneath her breasts and leaned her behind against the edge of the counter. “You’re such a shit. I don’t know why I put up with you.”

Nick took a long drink. They both knew why she put up with him.

Delaney felt Steve’s strong masculine arm encircle her waist and pull her against his side. Red, white, and blue exploded in the black night, showering the lake with fiery sparks as Delaney tested the feeling of Steve’s embrace. She decided she liked it. She liked the contact and the warmth. She felt alive again.

She glanced to the left and watched Nick bury the bottom half of a pipe in the sand. A few minutes earlier, she’d gotten a real good look at the fireworks “Uncle Nick” had brought his niece. There wasn’t so much as one legal sparkler in the sack.

A cascade of gold illuminated his profile for a few brief seconds, and she looked away. She wasn’t going to avoid him anymore. She wasn’t going to limit where she went because she didn’t want to run into him. And she wasn’t going to spend the rest of her time in Truly like she had the past month. She had a plan. Her mother wasn’t going to like it, but Delaney didn’t care.

And she had a wedding to look forward to in November, too. Lisa had approached her again about being in her wedding and Delaney had gladly said yes. She remembered the many times she and Lisa had pinned dishtowels in their hair and pretended to walk down the aisle. They’d speculated over who would marry first. They’d hoped for a big double wedding. Neither of them would have believed they would remain single until the ripe old age of twenty-nine.

Twenty-nine. As far as she could tell, she was the only one of her school friends who wasn’t at least engaged. In February she would turn thirty. A thirty-year-old woman with no home of her own and no man in her life. The home she wasn’t worried about. With three million she could buy a home. But the man. It wasn’t that she needed a man in her life. She didn’t, but it would have been nice to have one around sometimes. She hadn’t had a boyfriend for a while and she missed the intimacy.

Her gaze was drawn again to the dark silhouette of the man lighting rockets from a pipe near the water’s edge. He turned at the waist and looked over his shoulder in her direction. A funny little tickle settled in the pit of her stomach, and she quickly glanced up into the night sky.

The town sent up a finale so spectacular it lit the lake like dawn and caught the canopy of Colonel Mansfield’s pontoon boat on fire. The people loved it and showed their appreciation by setting off their own bombs from beaches and balconies. Happy Dragons, Cobras, and Mighty Rebels burst in fiery showers of sparks. Legal fireworks like Whistling Pete’s, modified to screech and take flight, buzzed the night sky.

Delaney had forgotten what pyromaniacs the people of Truly were. A shrieking missile whizzed past her head and exploded in a red shower on Louie’s deck.

Welcome to Idaho. Land of potatoes and pyros.