Dean stood. He and Alan would never agree on this point. “I’m going to walk to town,” he said. Since “town” was three blocks of redbrick buildings half a mile down the road and the path was shaded sidewalk the entire way, it wasn’t exactly an arduous expedition.

“Bring me something to eat,” Alan said with a yawn.

It was nice to get out of the house. The streets were quiet now that all of Reva’s customers had left. Dean was rarely subjected to such serenity. It was so quiet he could hear the breeze in the trees. His pace was slower than usual, as if to hurry would be wrong in this place.

Even downtown, with its small shops and quaint old buildings, was slow-paced. The everyday necessities were all right here. A small grocery, a dress shop, a barbershop and a beauty parlor. And a hardware store.

An hour and too much money later, Dean headed back to his temporary home. The bags he carried were heavy, but he figured he now had everything he needed to get started. In his shopping bags were a couple of pairs of heavy denim pants, a few cheap T-shirts, work boots, thick white socks, a baseball cap—and a hammer.

He’d looked at the selections and asked himself, What would brother-in-law Nick buy? That had made the process quick and easy. Everyone he’d talked to had wanted to know who he was and why he was in Somerset, and he’d given them all the same explanation he’d given Reva Macklin.

He was Somerset, Tennessee’s newest handyman, and he’d never in his life so much as driven a nail.

One of the bags he carried contained supper for Alan. He had stopped at the Somerset Bakery and Deli, which was situated just past the beauty parlor and was really not much of a deli at all. They offered lots of baked goods and a few sandwiches. The small place closed at three o’clock, so he’d barely gotten there in time. The somewhat plump woman behind the counter, who had introduced herself as Louella Vine, had been delighted to see him. Maybe business wasn’t so good and every customer was a pleasant surprise. Then again, maybe she was just one of those exceptionally outgoing women who never met a stranger.

The sound of pounding feet alerted Dean to the fact that he was about to be run down. He glanced over his shoulder to see two little boys, one white and blond, the other black and half a foot taller, gaining on him fast. Dean stepped to the side of the walkway, giving them room to pass.

They didn’t.

“Hi!” The little blond boy practically skidded to a stop at Dean’s feet. “Who are you?”

The taller child stayed behind his friend, quiet and watchful.

Dean glared at them both. “Don’t you know better than to talk to strangers?”

“Are you strange?” the blond kid asked, wide-eyed and not at all perturbed by Dean’s tough manner.

“No.”

The little boy grinned, shooting Dean a decidedly disarming smile. “My name’s Cooper. I know everyone who lives on this street, but I don’t know you. This is Terrance,” he said, jerking a thumb back at his friend. “He’s my best friend. We’re in the first grade.” Each sentence ran directly into the next in childlike, breathless fashion. “Last year we were in kindergarten, that’s when we got to be very best friends, but I’ve known him all my life. Almost all my life. As long as I can remember, anyway. But we just got to be best friends last year. Last year we were just little kids, but now that we’re older we’re still best friends.”

The kid talked a mile a minute. When he stopped to take a breath, Dean asked, “Do you live on this street?”

“Yeah!” Cooper answered.

Great. “Well, Cooper, my name is Mr. Sinclair. I’m new. Now run along and don’t talk to strangers.” Dean resumed his walk toward home. Cooper and Terrance did not “run along” as instructed.

“Do you have any kids?” Cooper asked.

“No,” Dean answered curtly.

“That’s too bad. We need some more kids in Somerset. We have a T-ball team, but it’s not very good. We could really use a good first baseman. Why don’t you have kids? Don’t you like kids?”

Dean bit back a brutally honest, Not really. “Kids are fine, I guess.” As long as they’re not mine. “I have a niece and three nephews.”

“Will they come visit you sometime?” Cooper asked.

“Probably not. Besides, they’re too young to play T-ball.”

“Oh,” Cooper said, sounding dejected at the news.

Dean thought about his growing family for a moment. Shea’s Justin was two and a holy terror. All two-year-olds were holy terrors, right? Boone’s little girl, Miranda, was not yet a year old, and she was spoiled rotten. Absolutely rotten! She had Boone wrapped around her little finger and had since the moment she’d come into this world.

Clint’s twin boys were still at that wriggly, wrinkled, useless age. Infants. Why on earth did people insist that they were so cute when, in fact, they resembled big, pale, squalling bugs?

Dean had taken one look at the tiny babies, who had arrived almost a month early, and had told Clint to give him a call when the kids turned into humans. So he wasn’t a warm and fuzzy uncle. The world had plenty of warm and fuzzy without him. Especially now that his siblings were all married and making families.

Somehow the kids had bracketed him, Terrance on one side, Cooper on the other. Terrance was trying, very diligently and not quite secretively, to see what was in Dean’s bags.

Fortunately he was almost home. “What about you?” he asked Terrance.

The kid jumped back from the bags as if he’d been caught snooping. In fact, he had been. “What?”

“Are you anxious for more kids to come to town?”

The boy gave the question a moment of serious thought. “Not really. I have my best friend Cooper and my second-best friend Johnny, and two brothers and my mama and my daddy. That’s enough,” he said, sounding satisfied with his young life.

“Smart boy,” Dean said in a lowered voice.

“But we could use a first baseman,” Terrance added thoughtfully.

Dean came to a halt. “This is where I live,” he said, wisely withholding the Shoo that wanted to leap from his mouth.

“This is Miss Evelyn’s place.” Cooper looked at the old house and nodded his head. “Don’t eat the sugar cookies,” he said in a quiet voice tinged with horror as he delivered the dire warning.

Dean was about to ask why not? when he was distracted.

Reva Macklin had stepped outside. She walked in the shade of the trees that lined the sidewalk. So why did she look as if she carried the light with her? She was sunshine and cinnamon, strawberries and…heaven help him, this was the kind of woman who could work her way under a man’s skin and make him crazy. She walked toward him, and for a moment, just a moment, Dean didn’t see anything else. Dangerous. Very, very dangerous. She didn’t dress provocatively. In fact, she was clothed to suit this town. Quaint. Old-fashioned.

He couldn’t take his eyes off her as she crossed the street. She walked straight toward him, hair released from the thick ponytail she had worn earlier to fall past her shoulders. It wasn’t curly, but it wasn’t completely straight. It waved. It caught the little slivers of sunlight that found their way through the thick foliage of the trees.

A lesser man would have dropped the bags and drooled, but not Dean.

She gave him a brief, sweet smile, and he wondered what would happen next. Why was she here? Maybe something in her house needed his immediate attention. Faulty plumbing. A rotting board or two. Maybe a loose stair. So he wasn’t any good at repairing anything—he was willing to try.

It crossed his mind briefly that maybe Reva was approaching him for a much more personal reason. He barely knew her; there was nothing personal between them. And yet—

“Cooper Macklin,” she said sharply, turning her attention to the child. “You’re late.”

“I had to stay after school.”

Reva reached their side of the street and crossed her arms as she stared down at Cooper. “What was it this time?”

“I was just trying to help Mrs. Berry,” he explained. “She was reading us a story, but she had it all wrong. I have that book and I know she wasn’t telling it right.”

“Cooper!” Reva said, sounding properly horrified.

“I was trying to help,” he explained passionately. “But she just didn’t want me to help. She wanted to tell the whole story wrong.”

“I stayed, too,” Terrance said in a soft voice that managed to cut through the tension. “So Cooper wouldn’t have to walk home alone.”

Dean was taken aback. That was putting it mildly. His reaction was physical, as well as emotional. His heart pounded too hard, his mouth went dry. He looked from Reva to her son, from Cooper to Terrance and then back to Cooper again.

First grade—that meant the kid was six years old. Blond hair, blue eyes, dimples. Fearless.

Cooper Macklin, Reva’s child, was Eddie Pinchon’s son.

Chapter 3

Reva closed her eyes and shook her head. “Cooper, how many times have I told you—”

“This is my new friend, Mr. Sinclair,” Cooper interrupted in an overly bright voice. Her son was a master at changing the subject, and had been since the age of three. “He doesn’t have any kids, so he’s probably lonely. We should ask him to have dinner with us. Tonight!”

Reva avoided looking directly at Dean Sinclair. There was nothing quite like being put on the spot, and she hadn’t yet decided how to respond to Cooper’s unfortunate suggestion.

“You’re always telling me to have good manners, Mom, and inviting Mr. Sinclair for dinner is good manners, right?” Cooper’s innocent blue eyes remained wide and hopeful.

“I’m sure Mr. Sinclair has plans for dinner,” Reva responded calmly.

“I bet he doesn’t,” Cooper said, turning his eyes up to their new neighbor. “Do you have plans?”

“Well…” Sinclair began.

“Pleeeze!” Cooper whined. “I want you to tell me about your niece and all those nephews, even if they’re not old enough to play T-ball.”

“Thank you for the invitation, but I don’t think I can eat another bite today.” Sinclair glanced at Reva. “I ate too much at lunch.”

“Dessert, then,” Cooper insisted. “You could come over and have dessert with us.”

“Don’t annoy Mr. Sinclair,” Reva said.

“I’m not annoyed,” Sinclair replied.

She made herself look at Dean Sinclair. He still wore the shirt and pants to his conservative suit, but the tie and jacket had been discarded. The top button of his shirt was undone, the sleeves of his shirt had been turned up and rolled away from his wrists. There was something about a man’s well-shaped neck that could be fascinating in the right circumstances. It was so different from a woman’s neck, so solid and strong. And a man’s nicely muscled forearms could be just as interesting. Just as tempting.

Reva mentally shook off her unexpected fascination. She’d spent seven years steering clear of men; why did this one stir something long-untouched in her? It was just chemistry, she supposed. That sort of thing did happen, or so she heard. What else could it be? She didn’t know Dean Sinclair, not at all. He was handsome, but he certainly wasn’t the only good-looking man she’d seen in the past seven years. Their eyes met, and for a moment it seemed that he was just as disconcerted as she was.

“The fudge pie was very good,” he said.

“Oh, we’re not having pie for dessert tonight,” she said. “Do you like strawberries?”

Was it her imagination or did the innocent question catch him off guard? Something in his eyes changed. Sparkled a little, perhaps, as if he was surprised.

“Strawberries,” he said softly. “Love ’em.”

“I’m making strawberry shortcake tonight.”

He nodded.

Reva glanced down at Cooper and his more tranquil friend. “Y’all run on home. Terrance, your mother is going to be worried about you. She made y’all an after-school snack half an hour ago.”

“We better go before she starts to get mad,” Terrance said, and then he and Cooper both ran for the restaurant, after a quick glance both ways on the quiet street.

“Terrance’s mother works for you?” Sinclair asked.

Reva nodded, turning her attention to him as soon as the children entered the house and slammed the door behind them. “Tewanda Hardy. I couldn’t run the place without her.” She took a deep breath. “Look, about dessert—”

“Don’t feel obligated,” Sinclair interrupted. “Kids seem to have a way of putting their folks between a rock and a hard place,” he added with a half smile.

It was her chance to walk away, to play it safe. To turn her back on the only man who had made her feel this way in years. Just as well. Nothing could come of her attraction to him. She didn’t need the complication of Dean Sinclair in her life. All she had to do was smile and walk across the street, and the danger, the awkwardness, would be over.

The chance came and went. “You’re welcome to come,” she said. “If you’d like.”

“Strawberry shortcake,” he said. “What red-blooded man could turn down an offer like that?”

“I really would like to talk to you about your plans,” Reva said. Why did the way this man said strawberry send a chill up her spine? “Goodness knows I could use a handyman around the house. If you do decide to locate your business here, I can throw a lot of work your way.”

“So, it’s actually a business meeting you’re suggesting.”

Sounded good to her. Safe. Distant. “Seven o’clock. You can bring your business partner along if you like.”

He shook his head. “He’s not very sociable.”

She turned on him and headed for home. In the middle of the street, she spun around to face him again. He hadn’t made a move toward his own home. He still watched her. “And Mr. Sinclair—”

“Dean,” he said quickly. “Call me Dean.”

“When you come to my house for dessert, Dean, please don’t wear a suit.”

Once again he was without his weapon. As Dean walked past the antebellum home that had been transformed into Miss Reva’s, he tried not to worry about the fact that he’d been disarmed. Reva had asked—no she’d ordered—that he not wear a suit tonight. And there was no way he could conceal his pistol while wearing jeans and a John Deere T-shirt that fit snugly across the chest. Even the ankle holster added a too-obvious bulge with every step. That, too, had been left behind.

Still, if Eddie arrived in the middle of strawberry shortcake, he’d be in a heap of trouble.

Somehow Dean didn’t believe that Eddie would arrive while he had dessert with Reva and Cooper Macklin and discussed his bogus business plans. Tonight’s dangers did not call for a weapon.

But there were dangers all the same.

Alan had laughingly told Dean, as he’d dressed for the evening, that he needed to get laid—but not here and not while he was on the job. That was a recipe for disaster. If Dean really and truly wanted to quit being a deputy marshal and become a handyman, sleeping with Reva Macklin would be a good way to start.

So she was pretty, and sexy in an old-fashioned way, and she smelled great. Just because he was attracted to her, that didn’t mean he had to make a move.

Like she would let him make a move. The only reason she’d repeated Cooper’s invitation for tonight was that she was in desperate need of a hired man for odd jobs around her old house.

As he knocked on the door of her cottage, he asked himself, How desperate?

Dean shook off the inappropriate thoughts as the door flew open. He steeled his resolve for nothing; it was Cooper who answered the door.

“Come in!” the kid said, throwing the door open wide.

Dean stepped inside. The cottage was of the same era as the main house, but was smaller. Cozier. The furnishings were more modern, though Reva had managed to retain some of the old Southern charm. Filmy, white curtains, an old, well-cared-for rug with a pattern of cabbage roses, fat furniture with afghans tossed across the backs, all of which made the place inviting, comfortable.

Reva swept into the room from a short hallway. “Hi,” she said, smiling. She’d changed clothes, too, and now wore faded blue jeans and a pink cotton shirt. Her hair was pulled up and back again, so that nothing, not a single curling strand, interfered with the perfect lines of her face.

“We’ll eat in the kitchen,” she said, motioning for Dean and Cooper to follow her.

Cooper skipped along and Dean followed, pursuing Reva and the kid and the aroma of strawberries and coffee. His landlady made terrible coffee, but if Reva was as talented at brewing coffee as she was at everything else, he was in for a treat.

The kitchen was bright, more modern than the main room of the guest house, and decorated in a fresh-looking white and pale green. The appliances were all fairly new, the tile floor spotless. Overall, the atmosphere was cluttered but clean. It was the kind of room a person could live in, warm and friendly in an indefinable way. It reminded Dean of Shea’s kitchen, though goodness knows his sister had never been able to cook.

A small round oak table was situated to one side, an area much cozier than the dining room he glimpsed through the doorway beyond that table. Places were set, along with three huge pieces of strawberry shortcake, two cups of coffee and one glass of milk.

Cooper quickly jumped into his seat—his usual, Dean surmised—leaving Dean and Reva seats that faced each other. Good. Sitting next to her at lunch today had been more than enough strain for one day. Here, with a table between them, he wasn’t likely to accidentally brush her leg or her arm, or see much too clearly and closely the rise and fall of her chest as she breathed. Across the table was good.

Before Dean had a chance to lift his coffee cup, Cooper began, “Mama says you fix things. What kinds of things? I have a remote-control car that’s broken. Can you fix it? And last year, when I didn’t know any better, I accidentally ripped the head off one of my favorite action figures. Can you fix that, too? Terrance has a dinosaur that used to talk, but now it just makes funny noises. Can you fix that?” He never paused long enough for Dean to answer.

“Cooper,” Reva said sternly, but with a touch of a smile that softened her interruption. “Eat.” She cast Dean a quick, apologetic glance. “So,” she said to him as she forked up a small piece of strawberry shortcake. “What do you think of Somerset so far?”

“It’s very nice,” Dean said honestly. “And very different from Atlanta.”

Reva laughed lightly. “It is that. You should know, before you get yourself in too deep, that there are definite drawbacks to living in a small town.”

“Such as?”

“You can’t get away with anything here.”

Dean wondered just for a second if his ruse had already been discovered. “Like trespassing after dark?”

She didn’t respond to his reminder of last night, but she did blush. “It’s tough to hide anything in a small town. If you sneeze, three offerings of chicken soup, homemade of course, arrive within the hour. Anything and everything you say will get around town before sunset, if it’s at all interesting. There are no secrets here.”

“I’m sure there are advantages to living in a small town,” Dean said.

Reva smiled. Soft and contented, her face was transformed by that smile. “Of course there are. If you sneeze, three offerings of homemade soup arrive within the hour. By sunset, you know anything of importance that happened that day.” Her dark eyes softened. “There are no secrets here.”

It struck Dean like a thunderbolt that if Eddie Pinchon was headed here, Reva had no idea he was coming. She wasn’t the same woman she’d been seven years ago when Eddie had been sent to a Florida prison and out of her life. She was innocent and good… Dammit, this would never do. Should he tell her everything? Now?

“What’s a telecarpenter?” Cooper asked exuberantly.

Dean turned his gaze to the kid. So did Reva. “What?” Dean asked.

“A telecarpenter. That’s what my teacher said I should be when I grow up. But I don’t know what that is. She said I’m…I’m tenacious. I don’t know what that means, either.”

“Telemarketer,” Reva said with a grin.

“Is it good? Mrs. Berry wouldn’t tell me. I don’t know if I want to be a telecarpenter. I mean, a telemarketer. I want to be a baseball player. Or a tax man.”

Dean almost swallowed his coffee the wrong way. He sputtered slightly before asking, “A tax man?”

“Yeah! I can make everyone pay their taxes. Maybe I would rather be a telemarketer, but since I don’t know what that is—”

“Cooper,” Reva interrupted. “For now, let’s just stick with wanting to be a baseball player. That’s a perfectly normal ambition for a six-year-old.”

“Okay.” Cooper, who had almost finished his strawberry shortcake and milk, began again to ask Dean what he could fix. Bicycles, toys, sports equipment. It seemed this town really was in need of a handyman.

And then the kid, who had a charming streak so wide that it took some of the sting out of his constant chatter, asked to hear all about the niece and the nephews that Dean had mentioned that afternoon. Dean relaxed. Finally, something he could talk about that was not a lie.

Reva sent Cooper off to get ready for bed, and she and Dean stepped out onto the porch. They each held a cup of hot coffee and headed for the rocking chairs.

It was almost dark, but a trace of the day hung in the sky, and lamplight from the parlor sliced through the thin curtains and onto the porch. May was such a lovely time of year here. Warm, but not yet hot. Cool in the evenings most days.

Dean sat and stared out at the lush expanse of green lawn between the main house and this one.

With Cooper out of the picture, Reva felt a moment of impulsive bravery. “Why are you really here?” she asked.

Dean started a little, but not so much that he splashed coffee on himself.

“I told you—”

“You told me part of the story. I just wonder why a man who’s more comfortable in a suit than he is in jeans and a T-shirt would come to a small town to become the local Mr. Fixit.” There was definitely more to Dean Sinclair than he was telling. She’d already warned him; there were no secrets in a town like Somerset. She wanted to ask him what, or who, he was running from, but it was much too early for such a deeply personal question. “You bought a hammer at the hardware store this afternoon,” she said. “Screwdrivers, a box of nails, glue, work clothes and a hammer. I can explain away everything else if I try hard enough, but what kind of contractor doesn’t already own a hammer or two?”

He didn’t look at all guilty. “You were right about living in a small town. I buy a hammer, and word is on the streets before the sun goes down.”

Reva found herself smiling. “I warned you.” She really should send Dean Sinclair packing and wash her hands of him once and for all. The only thing she needed in her life less than a man was a man with secrets. “You don’t have to tell me—I’m just curious.”

Dean sat a few feet away, swaying gently. The old rocking chair squeaked faintly. His hands were wrapped around his coffee cup. There should not be anything at all stimulating or arousing about this moment. So why did her heart act this way? Why did a sensation she had forgotten flutter in her stomach?

“I wasn’t always a handyman,” Dean finally said. “I guess I’m just looking for something new. A lifestyle less stressful than my old job.”

“And what was that old job?” She had to know. If anything were to come of this—and it wouldn’t, she told herself, it couldn’t—there could be no secrets about his past. No bombshell waiting to be dropped. Her heart couldn’t survive that kind of shock again.

Good heavens! Reva took a sip of coffee and took her eyes off him. Dean Sinclair, a man she barely knew, already had her worrying about her heart?

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