Chapter One
Kelly Morrison’s tiny apartment almost reverberated with laughter, conversation and music. It was the first Saturday in November, and her group of single friends had gathered, as they did on the first weekend of each month, for an evening of gossip and games. They alternated homes, though not in any particular order, and tonight they had congregated at Kelly’s place.
Carrying a tray of cheese cubes, fruit slices and crackers, she walked out of her kitchen with the slight limp she hardly even noticed anymore. She set the tray on the round oak table that took up one corner of her combination living room and dining room. Three men and two women were gathered around the table, waiting for her to rejoin them. “Whose turn is it?” she asked.
“Yours,” Heather Pearson said, reaching for an apple slice. “Roll the dice.”
Kelly took her seat, rolled the dice and moved her game piece the required number of spaces. She groaned when she saw the category. “Sports...great. My worst category. Okay, what’s the question?”
Heather’s twin brother, Scott, read from a game card. “Who won the NASCAR Winston Cup series in 1995, 1997 and again in 1998, becoming the youngest driver ever to win three Winston Cup titles?”
Kelly mentally debated between the few race car drivers she could actually name. “Jeff Gordon?” she hazarded.
Scott nodded. “Correct.”
From across the table, Michael Chang sighed gustily. “Man, she gets all the easy ones,” he complained. “Who didn’t know that one? My last question was about some obscure European playwright no one could have named except maybe his mother.”
Kelly laughed and reached for her diet soda. “Just lucky, I guess.”
She smiled at the friends gathered in mismatched chairs around her table: Scott Pearson, Michael Chang, Cameron North, Heather Pearson and Amber Wallace, all in their mid- to late-twenties. At twenty-four, Kelly was the youngest by a year or two, but she fit in very well.
It had always been very important to Kelly to fit in.
She looked automatically toward the empty folding chair next to her. Someone was absent from the gathering tonight, and she missed him—just as she would miss any of her friends who hadn’t been able to attend the monthly event, she assured herself.
Following her glance, Heather mused, “Where do you suppose Shane is tonight? It’s not like him to miss without calling.”
“He didn’t even call you, Cam?” Amber asked.
Brushing his heavy blond hair away from decidedly wicked blue eyes, Cameron lounged in his chair and shook his head. “Haven’t heard from him today. I guess he got a, uh, better offer this evening.”
Kelly frowned, reluctantly picturing Shane with the leggy, busty redhead he’d introduced her to at a party a couple of weeks earlier. Kelly hadn’t liked her. At all. Of course it wasn’t any of her business who Shane Walker dated, she thought hastily. She and Shane were buddies. Pals. Practically family. They made it a point not to get in
volved in each other’s love lives.
Not that Kelly actually had a love life.
Scott was frowning at an empty plate. “Aren’t there any more of those chocolate things?”
“You ate them all,” his twin sister pointed out. “You pig. Some of the rest of us might’ve liked to have a few.”
Kelly chuckled and pushed herself out of the chair again. “As it happens, there are more in the kitchen. Since I know how Scott is about chocolate, I bought extra.”
Scott’s green eyes lit with greed. “There are more?”
“Keep your paws off them, pal,” Michael grumbled. “I haven’t had any yet.”
“Whose turn is it anyway?” Amber complained. “Isn’t anyone paying attention to the game?”
Grinning, Kelly was halfway to the kitchen when her doorbell rang. She immediately altered her course. “I’ll get it.”
She threw open the door without bothering to check the peephole. And then she felt herself relax. Now the evening was complete.
A lanky cowboy stood on the walkway outside her ground-level apartment. He wore a denim jacket, jeans and an oatmeal-colored denim shirt with dusty boots and a worn leather belt. In deference to a light, misty rain that had been falling most of the day, a battered black Stetson was gripped in his left hand, which hung loosely at his side. His coffee-brown hair hung in a shaggy forelock over blue eyes that usually gleamed with amusement. Kelly saw no amusement there now.
“You look like you’ve had a rough day,” she blurted impulsively.
Shane Walker grimaced and stepped across the threshold. “A guy always likes to be greeted with compliments.”
She smiled apologetically. “It wasn’t a criticism. Just a comment.”
He smiled then, sexy dimples flashing. “Forget it. You’re probably right. I’ve had a hell of a day. By the way, I know I promised I’d have your VCR back by tonight, but it’s not ready yet. I haven’t had time to take it apart and find out what’s wrong with it.”
“I’m in no hurry for it,” she assured him. “Whenever you have time to look at it is fine with me. It was nice of you to volunteer to fix it, since I didn’t really want to pay a repair bill for something I don’t use that often anyway.”
“I still think it’ll be something minor, once I get a chance to work on it.”
“Take your time. Go on over to the table and sit down. I’ll get you something cold to drink.”
He slung an arm around her shoulders and gave her a casual hug. “Thanks. I’d appreciate it.”
As often as Shane had hugged her during the year and a half or so they’d known each other—and, since he was an affectionate and demonstrative person, there had been many friendly hugs—Kelly had never quite become accustomed to it. She always reacted with a quick jump of pulse that she hid with a breezy smile and a brusque, sisterly manner. She did so again now.
“Sit,” she said, giving him a teasing push that served to break the contact between them. “I’ll be right back.”
Shane sauntered toward the table, where he was greeted warmly and noisily. By the time Kelly returned with a cold soda for Shane and another plate of chocolate cookies, he was already settled comfortably in his chair and engaged in conversation with his friends. He brushed off questions about his tardiness, saying only that he’d been detained at the cattle ranch he owned and operated with his father.
Amber pushed the game board away in exasperation when no one showed any interest in reaching for the dice. “I take it the game’s over. Oh, well, I was losing anyway.”
“You always lose,” Cameron drawled. “You just always seem to think it will be different next time.”
Amber punched his arm, then giggled and sat on his knee. She and Cameron had been dating for the past three months—which, Kelly thought wryly, was pretty much a record for Cameron. The whole gang had predicted disaster when the two long-time friends had become lovers—especially since everyone believed Amber was more intensely involved than Cameron—but so far, so good.
Kelly took her seat next to Shane. “How’s the family?”
“Everyone’s fine. Molly won a school poster contest today. The prize was a fifty-dollar gift certificate. When I left, she was poring over a catalog, trying to decide what to buy.”
Kelly smiled as she pictured Shane’s twelve-year-old half sister, a red-haired bundle of energy who brought a great deal of joy to her family. and whom Shane simply adored. “Good for her. What sort of poster did she make?”
“It was a contest sponsored by MADD—Mothers Against Drunk Driving. Molly’s poster had an antialcohol slogan, and a picture she drew to illustrate it. I’m sure she’ll want to show it to you next time you visit the ranch.”