Free At Home in Stone Creek (Silhouette Special Edition) by Linda Lael Miller Page B

if you think I had anything to do with the breakup—well, you ought to know better.”
    Ashley closed her eyes briefly. She did know better. Her twin was an honorable person; nobody knew that better than she did. “I wasn’t implying that you’re a home-wrecker, Melissa. It’s just that you’re not over Daniel yet. You need time.”
    Daniel Guthrie, the last man in Melissa’s life, owned and operated a fashionably rustic dude ranch between Stone Creek and Flagstaff. An attractive widower with two young sons, Dan was looking for a wife, someone to settle down with, and he’d never made a secret of it. Melissa, who freely admitted that she could love Dan and his children if she half tried, wanted a career—after all, she’d worked hard to earn her law degree.
    It was a classic lose-lose situation.
    â€œI didn’t have sex with Alex,” Melissa whispered, though Ashley hadn’t asked. “We were just talking .”
    â€œI believe you,” Ashley said, putting up both hands in a gesture of peace. “But Stone Creek is a small town. If some bozo’s car was parked in your driveway all night, word is bound to get back to Dan.”
    â€œDan has no claim on me,” Melissa snapped. “ He’s the one who said we needed a time-out.” She sucked in a furious breath. “And Alex Ewing is not a bozo. He’s up for the prosecutor’s job in Phoenix, and he wants me to go with him if he gets it.”
    Ashley blinked. “You would move to—to Phoenix?”
    Melissa widened her eyes. “Phoenix isn’t Mars, Ashley,” she pointed out. “It’s less than two hours from here. And just because you’re content to quietly fade away in Stone Creek, quilting and baking cookies for visiting strangers, that doesn’t mean I am.”
    â€œBut—this is home.”
    Melissa looked at her watch again, shook her head. “Yeah,” she said. “That’s the problem.”
    With that, she walked off, leaving Ashley staring after her.
    I am not “content to quietly fade away in Stone Creek,” she thought.
    But wasn’t that exactly what she was doing?
    Making beds, cooking for guests, putting up decorations for various holidays only to take them down again? And, yes, quilting. That was her passion, her artistic outlet. Nothing wrong with that.
    But Melissa’s remarks had brought up the question Ashley usually avoided.
    When was her life supposed to start?
    Â 
    Jack woke with a violent start, expecting darkness and nibbling rats.
    Instead, he found himself in a small, pretty room with pale green walls. An old-fashioned sewing machine, the treadle kind usually seen only in antiques malls and elderly ladies’ houses stood near the door. The quilt covering him smelled faintly of some herb—probably lavender—and memories.
    Ashley.
    He was at her place.
    Relief flooded him—and then he heard the sound. Distant—a heavy step—definitely not Ashley’s.
    Leaning over the side of the bed, which must havebeen built for a child, it was so short and so narrow, Jack found his gear, fumbled to open the bag, extracted his trusty Glock, that marvel of German engineering. Checked to make sure the clip was in—and full.
    The mattress squeaked a little as he got to his feet, listening not just with his ears, but with every cell, with all the dormant senses he’d learned to tap into, if not to name.
    There it was again—that thump. Closer now. Definitely masculine.
    Jack glanced back over one shoulder, saw that the kitten was still on the bed, watching him with curious, mismatched eyes.
    â€œShhh,” he told the animal.
    â€œMeooow,” it responded.
    The sound came a third time, nearer now. Just on the other side of the kitchen doorway, by Jack’s calculations.
    Think , he told himself. He knew he was reacting out of all proportion to the situation, but he