“Café Nirvana, in the town of Little Paradise?”

She looked so horrified he laughed out loud. “Yep.”

Tilting back her head she studied the stark blue sky, then the wide, open landscape. Finally, she shook her head. “It’s some sort of joke. It’s got to be.”

When she leveled those light-blue eyes on him with what could only be described as hope, he slowly shook his head. Nope. No joke.

He figured she’d go running right then, even though he knew nothing of why she was here.

Briefly she closed her eyes. “Cosmic justice,” he heard her mutter. “Fate. Karma. You name it, I seem to court it.”

Then she was walking away from him, but not out of his life. No, she went into the café, her look of determination as strong as her stride.


THE HUMUNGOUS orange cat was following her. “Shoo,” Holly said again, but he dashed between her legs to beat her inside Café Nirvana, and nearly tripped her in the process.

“Gee, let me open the door for you,” she said to his quickly retreating hind end.

But then she promptly forgot about the rude cat as she was assaulted by the scent of food. Bacon, steak, eggs, onions, peppers…mostly things she would never consider putting past her lips.

Not that she was a food snob, though she’d been accused of that before, but because she had the great luck of having a metabolism that worked with the speed of a snail. If she didn’t stick to purely low-fat foods, she blimped up to the size of Miss Piggy. It didn’t stop her mouth from watering helplessly as she considered the price her perfect size eight body cost her.

The audience she’d had a moment ago, the ones who’d had their faces plastered against the window while she’d gotten out of her car, shifted the moment she walked in the door. With unity, at each of their tables, they suddenly became busy with their own business, shoveling food into their mouths, talking, doing everything but look at her.

Small towns, Holly thought. Granted, everything she knew about them came from old reruns of the Andy Griffith Show, but apparently she hadn’t been far off the mark.

The café was exactly as she’d imagined from the outside-tacky and nothing like the posh, elegant restaurants she preferred. Stark white walls, faded red vinyl booths with rips in the seats that would irritate the backs of everyone’s thighs, not to mention destroy her stockings, and old chipped tables with mismatched chairs. The decor was…nonexistent, unless one counted the cheap wood frames on the walls, showcasing pictures of what looked to have been bought at a blue light special.

Lovely. Her worst nightmare. Her heels clicked noisily across the cheap but thankfully clean linoleum floor as she headed for the counter, and the waitress wearing the ridiculous hot pink uniform behind it.

“I’m looking for Mr. and Mrs. Mendoza,” she said, working hard at ignoring all the stares she was getting now that her back was turned to the room. Her spine tingled from all the blatant interest.

What was that about? Did she look like she was from Mars? She felt like it here, surrounded by nothing but dust and heat. She was used to Los Angeles, the land of palm trees, coconuts and friendly faces.

The waitress, an older woman with a huge gray bun piled precariously on top of her head, put her hands on her substantial hips-emphasized by that not quite subtle uniform-and gave Holly a serious once-over.

“Who’s asking? Because if you’re the I.R.S.-”

“No, I’m Holly Stone.”

“And that name should mean something to me?”

“I’m here because Mr. and Mrs. Stone, my parents, sent for me to run this place for them as a favor to their maid, and her parents, the Mendozas, until it’s sold.”

“You’re Mr. and Mrs. Stone’s daughter?”

“Yes.”

The waitress burst out laughing and Holly cast a glance heavenward. She was used to this, at least. All her life people had been amused by the total and complete lack of things in common between her and her parents.

Just another fluke of fate. Her parents were doctors and had spent their entire lives helping others. Their latest charitable act had been to urge their housekeeper’s parents to retire early, before this hole in the wall sold, so the couple could get their first break in nearly thirty years of working.

Holly’s two older sisters had followed in her parents’ footsteps and were currently bringing immunizations to some tribe in Africa, otherwise they would have come here instead. They always helped out. Oh, and then there was her brother. He hadn’t wasted his life doing anything selfish, either. No, as a brain surgeon, he was the pride and joy of her family, one who certainly couldn’t be expected to take the time to serve omelettes in this godforsaken southwestern town.

And what had Holly become?

The screwup.

At that moment, and just to brighten her already oh-so-bright day, the sheriff strolled in the front door. He was the picture of the American cowboy; jeans faded and soft from constant use, scuffed boots, hat shoved back on his head to show a face tanned and rugged from long days in the sun. She doubted he’d shaved that morning, doubted even more that his wayward, thick, light-brown hair had seen a comb.

He had a calmness about him, and seemed very different from the men she was used to, men who spoke just to be heard, men who were into how they looked, how they sounded.

And yet despite his easy air, there was a wildness, a toughness to him, a sense that he was always poised for action.

Oh, and he was gorgeous. Seriously gorgeous, with all that out-of-control sun-kissed brown hair, even browner sinful eyes and a smile meant to make a woman’s knees weak-if a woman was so inclined. Which Holly wasn’t.

It wasn’t that she didn’t like men, but more that she didn’t trust them, not with anything important anyway. The sheriff’s easy, long-legged stride might exude charm and a laid-back sex appeal, not to mention he had to be the sexiest, most physical male she’d ever seen, but she was completely immune to it.

For the most part.

When he saw her, he didn’t so much as falter, which might have been a direct hit to her ego. After all, men had been noticing her since puberty, but not this man. Still, something told her he’d come inside because of her. When she narrowed her eyes at him, wondering, he simply grinned and winked.

Winked!

She attributed her increased pulse rate to annoyance and firmly reminded herself cowboys, no matter how big and magnificent, did nothing for her. Nothing.

“Are they here? The Mendozas?” she asked the waitress dressed in obnoxious pink, ignoring Cowboy Sheriff with the same ease she ignored her growing audience.

The woman waved at the sheriff as if they were long lost buddies.

He cheerfully waved back.

Finally, the woman returned her attention to Holly, whose patience had worn thin. “My daughter said her lovely, lovely bosses were sending me help so that my husband and I could move to Montana where my sister lives. Is that you, then? You’re the help?”

At that, everyone in the café stopped pretending to eat and listened with unabashed interest. Even the cat lifted his head and looked at her.

The sheriff, now leaning negligently against the counter, sipping at a mug the waitress had handed him, waited as well.

Holly’s composure faltered briefly. The help? Is that what her parents had blithely told everyone? She’d given up her life and job in California to come to the depths of the desert of all places, without a Chinese takeout or dry-cleaning place for hundreds of miles, hoping for once and all to finally gain her family’s respect, and they’d called her the help?

“They left a message for you, by the way,” the woman told her.

Okay, good. A message was good. Holly hadn’t seen her parents all year, partly because they were so busy saving lives, but mostly because she’d been avoiding them. It wasn’t something she was entirely comfortable thinking about, but she knew they never took her seriously and even though she pretended it didn’t matter, it did.

She was hoping things would change now. She was hoping other things would change, too. That maybe she would someday find her niche, her home, her place in life. And though she’d deny this, she secretly wished for things like love and a soul mate. Someone who would understand her through and through.

But there’d never been anyone like that in her life, and there probably never would be.

She needed to remember that.

She waited for her message, but Mrs. Mendoza seemed to relish hanging on to it. Luckily Holly was the most stubborn, determined woman on the face of the planet, well used to getting her way. Pinky here didn’t have a shot.

Sure enough, after a full moment of strained eye contact, the woman relented. She took off her apron and hung it on a hook on the wall with great ceremony. “They said, and I quote, ‘Tell her if she shows, thank you for handling everything, it should only be a month or so.’ You can stay upstairs until the place sells.”

So many questions flew through Holly’s head she got dizzy. “What do you mean thank you for handling everything?”

“Everything as in…everything.”

Holly tried to not panic. “There’s no one else…but me?”

“Nope.”

“For a month?” This was bad, very bad.

“Or so.”

And then the woman walked away! She went to the entrance of what Holly assumed was the kitchen and yelled, “Eddie! We’re done here. Let’s hit it! Montana here we come!”

A man came out of the kitchen and removed his white chef’s hat. He was grinning from ear to ear. Together they headed toward the door, stopping to give every customer a big hug and kiss.