“You’re running scared. Again. Things got too close this time, in this place. People got too close. You opened your heart and let it all in, let us all in, and now, because it terrifies you, you’re going to use the excuse of the sale to bail out.” Disgusted, hurt, he stood up and looked down at her. “I’ve got news for you, Holly. You can run from here to hell and back, but you’ll never be happy.”

“My life is fine.”

“Sure. As long as you’re alone.” His eyes were dark and intense. Unreadable. “You’re going to find it’s not as easy to be alone this time, not after all you experienced here.”

Buster stopped playing and licked her hand. She was going to have to leave him, too. Her throat tightened. How had this happened, dammit? How had she tied so many strings on her poor heart in such a short time? “I’ll be fine,” she repeated.

Riley stared at her for a long moment. “Can you really forget last night?”

Unbidden, the images came to her. Riley holding her, touching her, kissing her as she’d never been kissed before, so that she’d lost herself in passion and joy, in a way she’d never expected to experience.

“Can you?”

“I can try.”

Riley closed his eyes. “You can try. Great. Good luck with that.” With one last look, his expression filled with haunting sorrow, he turned on his heel and walked away.

Buster sat and looked at her.

“Not my fault,” she told the dog. “I warned him I was a bad bet.”

The dog whined.

“Well, I did.” So why then were her eyes wet again, her chest so tight she could hardly breathe?

Buster shook again, spraying her from head to toe, mingling her tears with garden water.

11

AFTER A BRIEF pity stint, Holly came to her senses. First of all, dammit, she was in charge of her own life. Since when did she let anyone dictate it, especially her parents?

So she’d wanted a little acknowledgement from them. She wasn’t going to get it, no surprise, but there was no way she was going to just roll over and play dead.

Not when getting even was so much more fun.

She wanted the café. It seemed so ridiculous, but it was the truth. She wanted to stay here forever and work at a café, of all places. She wanted the rangy, laid-back sheriff to love her. She wanted to spend the rest of her life here. It was her heart’s choice, and for once, she would go with it.

And Riley.

She couldn’t say why the sexiest, most gorgeous man on the planet wanted to be with her. It was the eighth greatest wonder as far as she was concerned.

But she would go with that, too.

She had no idea what she was going to do with a man like that, a man who could see right through her and still, still, want to be with her.

Keep him, that’s what.

With newfound determination, she stalked across the street, but Riley wasn’t in his office. Jud told her he wasn’t at the ranch either, but he could be reached by radio.

Great. Radio would have to do.

Jud handed it to her, then sat on the edge of his desk instead of leaving her alone.

“I know how to work it,” she said, hoping he’d take the hint and go.

He smiled and crossed his arms, settling in.

“You can…go do whatever it is that you do.”

“This is about it,” he said.

She sighed and called Riley.

When she heard his deep, husky voice, she had to sit down, she was so nervous. “Hey,” she said into the radio. “When are you coming back?”

“Later.”

Later. Okaaay. “I…um, have an emergency at the café. I was hoping you could come check it out.”

“Break a nail, Princess? Call your beautician.”

So distant. So hurt. She bit her lip and thought. Connived. “No, it’s…another gas leak,” she said brilliantly.

Jud snickered.

“Call the gas company,” Riley said.

Call the gas company. She wanted to stomp up and down and force him to take her seriously. She wanted him to talk to her in that sweet, sexy tone that made her melt. She wanted…to take back all the things she’d said and done to cause his hurt.

But Jud was watching.

“Thanks,” she said quietly, and she went back to the café.

Jud swore.


LATER, Holly came up with a new plan, a better plan.

Riley was there now, in his office. She could see his truck.

Perfect.

She entered his office as coolly and calmly as she could with her heart racing as if she’d just run a marathon. “I have something I thought would interest you,” she said in a purposely sexy voice.

He pushed up his hat, leaned back in his desk and studied her quietly. “I doubt it.”

His distant tone was almost more than she could handle. She thought about the chocolate cake she’d asked Dora to bake, topped with extra, extra frosting. “I’ll give you a hint,” she said. “It’s yummy and covered in chocolate frosting, just waiting for you to-”

“Not hungry, thanks.” He picked up his phone and started dialing.

“But-”

“I’m really busy right now.”

Her own words, echoed back, thrown in her face.

Heart in her shoes, she left him alone.

She went back to the café, where she polished off three huge pieces of the cake all by herself.


THE NEW OWNERS arrived right at the dinner crunch. They wanted an inspection before entering escrow. Holly was a wreck.

“I’m going to mess this up,” she whispered to Dora, hiding out in the kitchen.

“You?” Dora laughed. “You never mess anything up, you’re too sure of yourself.”

“No, you don’t understand. I mean I’m going to mess this up so I can stay.”

Dora went still. Then her smile spread. “You mean, you want to buy the café for yourself?”

“I can’t let it go, it means too much to me. You mean too much to me. Riley-” she swallowed hard “-Riley means too much to me. Oh, Dora, I’ve blown everything, all because of stupid pride, and I want to take it back. I want to stay. I want-”

Dora turned and picked up the phone. She dialed seven numbers then thrust the receiver at Holly.

“Who is it?” Holly asked, staring at the phone because she knew, oh Lord, she knew, and she’d never been so scared in her life.

“You’re telling the wrong person,” Dora said. “Tell him. Tell Riley.” She waved the phone beneath Holly’s nose. “Hurry, before you lose your nerve.”

She’d already lost it!

“Hello?”

It was him, oh God, it was Riley. “Hello,” she said as calmly as she could. “I, um…”

“Yes?”

“There’s a huge garden snake here in the kitchen,” she said quickly. “It’s big and mean and it’s going to get me. Can you come-”

“I’ll call the exterminator for you.”

“But-” Holly looked at Dora helplessly.

“Tell him!” her friend hissed.

“Riley?”

“Yes?”

“There’s not really a snake here.”

“Do tell,” he said wryly.

“I didn’t have a gas leak, earlier either.”

“Big shock.”

“I just wanted to tell you something.”

“Holly, I think you already said everything you wanted to say.” He sounded weary. “You’re leaving. It’s best just to let it go.”

“I can’t,” she whispered. “Riley, I can’t. I was wrong before, so wrong. I thought I could walk away and it’d be no big deal. I thought I could go back, start over and forget about Little Paradise, about you. But I was wrong about that, too!” He was silent and she rushed on. “I’m so sorry I hurt you, I did it because I was too afraid to admit the truth, to tell you how I felt about you, that I love-”

She got a dial tone. She stared at the receiver in shock. He’d hung up on her! And for the first time, a sincere, bone-crunching panic set in.

He wasn’t falling for any of her tricks! How was she going to get him back?

“I failed,” she whispered to Dora, setting her head down on the counter and closing her eyes. “I pushed him away because of my own stupid fears and pride and I never got to tell him I love him.”

“You could tell me now.”

“Riley.” She whirled around to face him. He was at the back door; hair wild, body tense, chest heaving from his run. His eyes were warm and suspiciously damp.

He cleared his throat. “It occurred to me on my mad dash over here that I haven’t been completely fair to you.” He came closer, then closer still, so that they were barely an inch apart. “I never told you how I felt about you, either.”

“You could tell me now.” She was breathless, her heart in her throat.

“Oh yes, tell her now,” Dora breathed.

They both looked at the redhead, but she refused to budge. “Oh, let me stay! Please?”

“Dora-”

She lifted up a hand tipped with purple fingernails. “I’ll be quiet, I promise.”

Riley looked at Holly, who shrugged.

“She has to stay,” Holly said. “Because I can’t wait for the amount of time it would take me to wrestle her out of here.”

“Exactly.” Dora nodded and flexed her muscles. “Besides, I know how to fight. It would take far too long.”

“Dora?”

“Yes?” she said sweetly to Holly.

“Don’t take this wrong, but if you’re going to stay, shut up.”

Dora grinned and mimicked zipping her lip. “I’m shutting up.”

“Okay.” Holly looked at Riley. “Ready.”

He smiled. “Good. But I forgot where I was.”

Holly smacked him lightly on the arm. “You did not! You’re going to tell me about me!”

“Ah, yes.” His smile faded and he looked deep into her eyes. “When you first came, I thought I had you pegged. You put on a good show, princess. You played tough and cool to a tee, but it didn’t take me long to see right through that to the real you beneath, to the woman who hid behind the veneer to protect her heart. I love that woman.” He reached for her hand, entwined their fingers. “You drive me wild, you make me laugh, you make me think, but mostly, you make my heart soar like it’s never done before. For all of that, Holly Stone, I love you.”