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      “It’s Annamarie’s birthday present.”

      He shook his head. “Somebody gave her a trip to Jamestown for a birthday gift?” A change in barometric pressure always did a number on his head. This time it had evidently affected his hearing, as well.

      With a majestic sigh, the woman said, “It’s Annamarie’s gift to Stu. He’s the historian, as you should know if you really are who you say you are. While they’re down here working on her thesis, she’s giving him this side trip for a birthday present.”

      Rafe pressed his cool fingertips above his eyes and rubbed. With a sigh, he said, “Look, Miss—”

      “Dewhurst. And it’s Ms., not Miss. Annamarie is my baby sister.”

      “Ms. Dewhurst,” he repeated. Great. He’d come all this way, planning to check out his new half sister-in-law and make up to Stu for all the missed occasions with a belated birthday feast, and now he was stuck here with Ms. Congeniality.

      “Actually, it’s Molly,” she said in that quiet, husky voice of hers that kept getting between him and his anger.

      Make that frustration. “Well, Molly, whoever you are and whatever you’re doing here, I hope you like turkey. And candied sweet potatoes and spoon bread and whatever green vegetable I can find in Stu’s pantry. It’ll probably be canned peas, but with enough butter and seasoning, they’re not half bad.”

      “Balderdash, balderdash, balderda—!”

      Moving swiftly, Rafe closed the door between the two rooms, making the kitchen seem smaller than ever. The whole cottage would fit nicely into his suite at his latest acquisition, a small resort hotel on Florida’s Gulf Coast.

      “I think we’d better talk,” Ms. Molly Dewhurst said as she shucked off a pair of very wet pink sneakers. “But first I really need a cup of coffee. It might be April, but I’m freezing.” As if to prove her point, she sneezed, begged his pardon and said, “You’re welcome to a cup if you don’t mind reheated.”