.

too busy to seek out a virtual stranger from the past.”

      Too busy sleeping and avoiding life.

      Susan gave her a look that said she didn’t believe a word, but she returned to her package without argument. “So how does he look to you?”

      Kat wasn’t about to mention Seth’s stunning green eyes rimmed in spiky black lashes or how the little creases beside his mouth, deeper now, still made her stomach flutter.

      “Medically, he seems healthy enough.”

      Danny made a choking sound as he settled back into his recliner. “Talk about taking the wind out of a man’s sails. I hope Seth never hears that summation.”

      Kat started to make some smart remark about men all being the same as long they had health insurance, but she figured her cynical outlook wouldn’t be appreciated.

      “I asked him to move out of my house.”

      Susan zipped off a strip of Scotch tape. “Don’t you think that’s a little selfish? Come on, Kat, if you don’t want to stay here, there are other places to live until Seth moves into the ranger’s house.”

      “I have a couple of vacant cottages that aren’t booked if you’re interested,” Danny offered. “You’ve always liked that secluded little cabin near Dock Nine. We’ve been doing some renovations, but the place is livable.”

      He didn’t bother to mention what Kat already knew. The cabin was a stone’s throw from her own A-frame, the one occupied by her former beau. If she moved there—something she’d have to think about—seeing Seth occasionally would be inevitable.

      Oh, what was she thinking? If she stayed in Wilson’s Cove for any length of time, she was bound to run into him now and then.

      Fine. She could handle seeing Seth Washington. What happened all those years ago shouldn’t matter now. Don’t talk about it. Don’t think about it and everything will be fine.

      Susan came around the table to where Kat had plopped onto the fluffy faux-suede couch to think. She set the pretty wrapped package between them.

      “We could sew new curtains and maybe slipcovers for the furniture. Fixing the place up could be fun. What do you say, sis? The Thatcher sisters together again, like old times.”

      Like old times. She and Susan had once been joined at the hip, but in the past ten years, Kat’s work had stolen their time together. She’d thought she was the only one affected, but Susan had missed her, too. A powerful homesickness welled inside along with the bald truth that she was wrong to expect Seth to move out of the cabin just because she had come back to Wilson’s Cove.

      Maybe Seth had been more right than she realized. Maybe she was a snooty girl.

      And she’d tell him so the next time they crossed paths.

      Three days later, Kat, dressed in blue shorts and white T-shirt, knelt on the back deck of her slightly dilapidated new rental potting scarlet geraniums and contemplating what to do with the rest of her life. If she’d thought time spent here in Wilson’s Cove would take away the emptiness inside, she’d been sorely mistaken. She felt as adrift and lost in this place of her upbringing as she had in Oklahoma City.

      So often she wished her parents had lived longer, though Susan had always been her confidant. Still, a mother’s shoulder and wise counsel, even to someone as old as she, sounded good right now.

      Yet she hadn’t leaned on her mother when she’d needed her most. She hadn’t leaned on anyone but herself. She’d made the mess and she’d been determined to deal with it on her own. She’d hidden her secret well, too. No one had ever even suspected that the quiet, church-going Thatcher girl had gotten pregnant.

      She sighed and shook her head. Why had all these memories started to torment her again?

      Maybe she was clinically depressed. The question was why?

      She was a successful, well-respected physician. She had friends. She had things. She had money. Why did life feel like one big disappointment?

      Holding a single geranium upright in a small pot, she dug the fingers of one hand into the cool, moist potting soil. Susan insisted that flowers around the cabin would add character to the place.

      If she knew her sister, planting flowers was intended as therapy for her as well.

      The rental was smaller and older than her A-frame but neatly furnished with all the necessities. The property also boasted an old fishing dock right on the lake, though Kat didn’t feel too confident about the dock’s stability.

      At some recent time Susan had added her touch to the bedroom, dappling on wall paint to create the look of faux leather. The pale tan was more suitable to a weekend fisherman, but the decor would do until Seth moved into the ranger’s house. Whenever that happened.

      The best thing about finding a new place to live was that the activity took her mind off her real problems. She’d finally turned her cell phone on this morning and discovered twenty-three messages from the medical director. He wasn’t the least bit worried, or so he said, about the frivolous lawsuit, and he’d cover her shifts for a few weeks until she was ready to come back. The leave of absence was just that, he insisted, a leave. He refused to believe she’d even consider resigning. He was wrong.

      “Take a break. Get some rest,” Dr. Beckham said when she had dialed him up. “Then get your tail back to work. We need you.”

      They’d haggled for twenty minutes, but he’d been adamant, and in the end she’d agreed. In all honesty, she didn’t want to consider going back, though she hadn’t told the director as much. She shuddered in dread at the thought of facing another ambulance filled with broken bodies while some ambulance-chasing lawyer stood in the waiting area ready to file suit because she wasn’t God.

      Whether here or there, life stunk.

      “You look serious.”

      At the sound of that familiar gravelly voice, Kat jerked around and nearly lost her balance. At the sight of Seth Washington, she nearly lost her breath.

      Lean and fit in his blue-gray ranger’s uniform, dark hair glistening in the sunlight, Seth sauntered across the lush green grass. Susan was right. He looked good in that uniform.

      Kathryn patted dirt around the droopy little flower before rising to her feet. “You have a habit of sneaking up on people.”

      “Haven’t you heard? Good cops walk softly and carry big guns.” Seth propped an elbow on the wobbly wooden porch railing, his eyes hidden behind dark sunglasses, his grin doing funny things to her concentration. Not that she was concentrating on anything too earth shattering.

      “Still mad?” he asked.

      For effect and to stop the crazy thoughts running through her head, she glared at him. “Yes.”

      After a beat of silence she laughed. “Not really. I just wanted to see your reaction. In fact, I want to apologize.”

      He arched a very dark eyebrow. “For?”

      “Breaking and entering. Conduct unbecoming. Rude behavior.”

      “You were surprised. No big deal.”

      “You were surprised, too, but you didn’t get angry.”

      “No, but I pointed a loaded gun at you. That would make me a bit testy.”

      “Stop being easy on me. I was a brat and I’m sorry.”

      “You’ve always been a brat, but I like you, anyway.”

      He’d said like as in the present tense. Could he really not hate her?

      “I came to apologize to you,” he said. “I was rude.”

      He made himself at home on her steps, crossing his ankles and leaning an elbow on the rough planks. A cell phone dangled at his hip instead