Unfortunately, they seemed to be few and far between.

There wasn’t another car in sight on the shimmering horizon.

The air felt thick with heat, despite the fact it was two days after New Year’s. And her silk skirt was wrinkled, dammit. Time to get a move on.

A very large lizard zipped across the ground, far too close to her toes. She might have screamed and jumped back a little, but since there was no one around for what looked like a gazillion miles, Holly would have denied it to her dying day.

Just because she was out in the middle of the Arizona desert, with nothing other than lizards and cacti and rolling tumbleweeds for company-oh, and no one under the sun to call if she needed to-didn’t mean she had to lose her cool.

She’d just do as she always did and take care of herself. She was good at that. She’d consult her map and finish her trek. It shouldn’t be far now.

Inside the car was much more livable than outside, and she cranked the air-conditioning again, spending a moment to lift some of the hair off her neck to cool herself down.

She’d always heard Arizona was hot, hot, hot, but this was a different kind of heat than she’d ever experienced in California. This was a weighted, dry sort that seeped right into her bones. It would destroy her skin in a week.

But she’d made a vow, and one thing Holly never did was back out on a promise, even if it was only to herself. She’d told her parents she’d be there, and though she knew they probably didn’t really expect her to come through, she intended to do just that. This was a turn in the crossroads for her, a new leaf. All her life she’d been blond, decent enough looking that she wouldn’t be cracking any mirrors…and seriously underestimated. She had to work hard to gain people’s trust and respect, something she’d never been willing to do.

Until now.

Putting the car in Drive, she put her hands on the wheel, doubly determined to see this thing through.

And that was when she saw it, the small green sign that read: Little Paradise, population 856.

Seems she wasn’t lost at all, but right where she was supposed to be. Little Paradise. The name must have been someone’s idea of a joke.

Because Little Paradise looked just like her vision of hell.

1

WHEN SHERIFF Riley McMann’s stomach rumbled for the third time in as many minutes, he finally gave in and looked at his watch.

Two o’clock. No wonder. He hadn’t eaten since dawn, when he’d been called out of bed to help rescue a cow from a ravine.

Just one example of his fine, exemplary duties.

Actually, he preferred climbing down a sharp, rocky cliff, eating dust, and nearly being kicked in the head by a panicked cow that was going to end up as the Tuesday special than doing paperwork, as he was now. Maybe being sheriff in a ranching community like Little Paradise wasn’t exactly challenging law enforcement, but he got to be outside most of his day, which he loved.

The slow-paced country life also gave him plenty of opportunity to work his own small ranch, which he also loved.

His stomach went off again.

With a sigh, he shoved away the mountain of paperwork surrounding him, stretched his long legs and wished he’d remembered to pack a lunch that morning.

He could have asked Maria to do it. After all, it wasn’t unreasonable to expect lunch to be a regular housekeeper’s chore.

But Maria was no regular housekeeper.

So he was hungry. Very hungry. With longing, he glanced through his small office window across the street at Café Nirvana, the one and only restaurant in town.

It had been there since the beginning of time. At least since the beginning of Little Paradise. But after fifty years of feeding the town, Marge and Edward Mendoza were calling it quits. They’d put the place on the market for their retirement money so they could move to Montana and be with family.

It was rumored that their daughter, who cleaned house for some rich doctors out in California, had arranged for someone to run the café until the place sold. No one had shown up yet, but supposedly they were due to arrive any day now. Riley, who liked a change as much as any other guy, had to admit he wished this was one thing that didn’t have to change.

Café Nirvana was the heart and soul of Little Paradise.

“Oh, stop staring at it and go on over there.” This from Jud, his sixty-five-year-old deputy, who came into the office. He hitched up his continuously falling pants. “I can hear your stomach growling from the front room.”

“I don’t have time for lunch.”

“Yeah, you never know when another cow emergency is going to come up.”

“I have paperwork,” Riley said with dignity.

Jud stepped around the potted cactus that currently sported a string of popcorn, making it the office Christmas tree. He shook his head. “You’ve had paperwork since the day you set your butt in that chair two years ago when your dad retired. He spent twenty-five years fighting that paperwork. It’s never going to change.”

True enough. Riley’s stomach growled loudly. Pork chops sounded good. So did meat loaf. So did…anything. “What’s the special over there today?”

Jud looked out the window and let out a long, soft whistle. “Looks like leggy blonde. Curves on the side.”

“What?” Riley moved next to Jud, and saw the older man was right. That was definitely a leggy blonde pulling herself out of a red Jeep. Tossing back her perfectly coiffed hair. Smoothing down the blouse and skirt that screamed sophistication. Grabbing the small, elegant handbag that matched her ridiculously high heels.

She might have stepped right off the glossy pages of a magazine. Not that Riley had a problem with looking at a woman like that, no sirree. After all he was a very healthy, red-blooded, thirty-two-year-old American male, but she seemed as out of place here as a white, snowy, icy Christmas would have been.

“Well ain’t she a fancy one.” Jud hitched up his sagging pants again.

Fancy was hitting the nail right on the head. The woman walked like she owned the planet, with her bodacious hips swaying gently, her long, toned legs striding with unfaltering confidence.

Riley disliked her on sight. Not very gentlemanly of him, and it wasn’t personal, but this woman had big city, big trouble written all over her, and he’d learned a woman like that and a place like Little Paradise didn’t mix. He had his mother as a fine example. She’d lasted in this small town until he’d been a whole week old.

“What do you suppose she wants here?” Jud asked.

God only knew. “Maybe she heard about the good food at Café Nirvana.”

Jud laughed. “That girl don’t look like she eats much. But there’s gotta be a reason someone like that would come to a place like this. She wants something.”

Definitely. But Riley couldn’t imagine what. “I’d better go see who she is.”

“Yeah.” Jud lifted an eyebrow. “She could be armed and dangerous.”

Riley shook his head and moved toward the door.

“Well, she could! Hey, better frisk her. You know, just in case.” Jud laughed at that, laughed so hard he had to bend over and wheeze for a bit.

That’s how Riley left him, bent at the knees, pants sagging, breath wheezing in and out as he cackled to himself.


BY THE TIME Riley got outside, blondie had walked around the Jeep and was staring at the front of the café. She was taller than he’d figured, and as Jud had pointed out, definitely leggy and curvy. Her body was hard to miss in that form-fitting skirt and blouse she wore, both in notice-me red.

At her feet sat Harry. Harry was at least ten pounds overweight, ugly as sin and the town beggar, but everyone in Little Paradise loved him.

“Shoo,” the woman said to the huge orange tabby cat.

Harry just blinked at her and slowly lowered himself to the ground. With a grunt, he sprawled on the sidewalk, belly up. This was his demand to be stroked, but the woman just waved red manicured nails at him.

“Shoo!”

Harry yawned, and Riley grinned. “Can I help you?” he asked, coming up behind her. “Sheriff Riley McMann, at your service.”

She turned her head, allowing him to see for himself that she looked even more beautiful up close and personal. Her hair fell to her chin, accenting a stunning face and the most icy light-blue eyes he’d ever seen.

She gave him the once-over, too. Slowly, she looked all the way down his body, then back up again, her gaze lingering on his badge. “Is this town actually big enough for a sheriff?” she asked.

Her voice was smooth as honey. And cultured. Everything about her screamed city, and though he should have been deferential and majorly polite to the newcomer, he was far too hungry for that. Besides, he knew the type. Polite would only get him walked all over. “We’re big enough to court trouble,” he said lightly. “Can I help you find something?” Like the highway?

“Is this really the only café in town?”

Riley glanced at the big, picture window. As far as places in town went, the café was Social Central. Proving the point were faces pressed up against the glass from the inside, staring at both him and blondie with avid curiosity. He could see Mindy, the librarian. Dan, the one-and-only mechanic for two hundred miles, maybe more. Lou, post office clerk and resident computer expert. Mike, the local contractor and wanna-be artist. All watching their exchange with great interest.

“Tell me there’s another café,” she said, watching them watch her.

“Not for at least fifty miles,” he told her. “Café Nirvana is it.”

She let out a small choked sound that might have been a laugh or genuine distress. “Café…Nirvana?”

He didn’t try to hold back his amusement at her shock. “That’s right.”