A Canyon Springs Courtship. Glynna Kaye

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      “I’m only asking,” he continued, “that you remember these are real people with real lives. They aren’t celebrities striving to catch the world’s eye.”

      “But isn’t that why the town competed to have me come here? So the community can catch the world’s eye?” Her lips twitched in an amusement that belied the tightness in her throat. “Don’t think for a moment I’m unaware my blog has become a significant promotional tool for small towns across the country. Everywhere I go puts forgotten little places in the limelight, increasing tourism and drawing business. You think I’m using people to promote my blog, but maybe I’m the one being used.”

      Jake chuckled, but she sensed he didn’t share her perspective. “All I’m asking is that you not exploit anyone for your own purposes. I think you owe me that.”

      Her breath caught. “Patrick never would have come forward, Jake, and you know it. Not if I hadn’t put the story out there.”

      “You didn’t know him like I did. He needed time.”

      “Time for what? For his colleagues to further misappropriate funds? I waited and waited to see what he’d do. But when he sat on it for weeks...”

      “It took Patrick over a year to find another job. Did you know that? No one would trust him enough to hire him after you wrecked his reputation. He could have gone to jail.”

      A shaft of cold pierced through her, more chilling than the snow she’d stepped through with sandaled feet. “But he didn’t.”

      “No thanks to you.”

      “I did the right thing.”

      “Keep telling yourself that, Macy.”

      She strengthened her grip on the purse in her lap. “I’m a journalist. What we’re called to share with the public doesn’t always make us feel great.”

      “Called to share? Or share because it grabs the headlines? Gets picked up by a news wire service and blasted across the country with your byline? Your blog may not be a front-page newspaper story, but it’s still read all over the country. All I’m asking, Macy, is out of respect for me and a town I’ve come to care for that you’ll give me your word not to cross any lines.”

      She didn’t expect to unearth any shattering news in this tiny, off-the-beaten-path burg. But in principle, she couldn’t promise to willingly suppress anything the public had a legitimate right to know. “Our definitions of what constitutes line-crossing conflict, so please don’t ask me to do that.”

      His firm jaw clenched. “I see.”

      But he didn’t. He never had. If she could go back in time, maybe she’d handle the situation differently. Or maybe she wouldn’t. Shady dealings deserved to be exposed. She still believed in the freedom of the press. Still had an instinctive hunger for searching out “the rest of the story” even though she now covered human interest ones rather than the investigative sort. And she still knew that a man who couldn’t wholeheartedly support her career choice wasn’t the man for her. Hadn’t that been what her mother drilled in to her time and time again? Mom should know, if anyone did.

      “You’re not to tell anyone we knew each other previously,” he continued. “Understand?”

      Not a request, a demand, reinforcing what he’d already made clear—he didn’t want to be associated with her. She could only nod her response, also preferring no one knew she shared a past with this hard-hearted, mulish man.

      Jake abruptly slowed the vehicle and swung wide onto the snow-covered, graveled shoulder. For a moment she feared he intended to stop and press his point. But instead, brows lowered, he made a tight U-turn and drove back to town in silence.

      Chapter Two

      He’d hoped their paths would never cross again.

      But gazing down from his Main Street office window to where Macy hurried through the lightly falling snow—coatless, hatless and feet still wedged into those ridiculously citified sandals—he’d clearly hoped in vain.

      He stepped slightly back from the window as she glanced up at the two-story, natural stone buildings and then looked around her, almost as if aware of being watched. His chest tightened when she tossed back her hair in a still-familiar gesture, revealing a face every bit as beautiful—and determined—as he remembered.

      Heaven help him.

      “Look, Jake,” a gruff voice interrupted his reverie, “are you listening to anything I’ve said?”

      Jake composed a smile and turned to the balding man who’d barged into his office only minutes ago, Western felt hat in hand. It wouldn’t do for the town’s mayor to pick up on how the sight of Macy had shaken him. As always when dealing with the perceptive Macon T. “Gus” Gustoffsen, he’d be on his best behavior. You never knew but an endorsement for the vice mayorship—and on down the road one by an outgoing mayor for an incoming one—might be worth biding your time and curtailing your temper.

      “I haven’t missed a single word.”

      The sixty-year-old huffed his disbelief. “As I was saying, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Macy Colston is due to arrive later today, and I’m depending on you to make sure she gets whatever she needs to put Canyon Springs on the map.”

      Jake reseated himself behind his grandfather’s beloved old desk, disinclined to mention Macy had already arrived a few hours ago, well in advance of the evening’s official welcome reception. It was an event Jake wouldn’t be attending due to a prior commitment. He nodded to a topographical image of the state of Arizona gracing the wall. “Last time I looked, we’ve been on the map for eighty-five years, even if not legally incorporated the entire time.”

      The mayor grimaced as he pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his brow. “You know what I mean. The town’s counting on the publicity she generates to lure in fresh faces and cold hard cash. We need to play extra nice and not do anything to get ourselves on her wrong side.”

      It was a little too late to be concerned with that....

      Jake cleared his throat. “As you know, I’ve got my hands full with more pressing matters. I’m sure Don and Larry can be trusted to handle it. Maybe Hector or Bernie.”

      Gus stuffed the handkerchief back in his pocket and lowered his towering frame into one of the upholstered leather chairs. Loosening the bolo tie that accented his Western-cut shirt, he shot a cautious look at Jake. “Don’t misunderstand me. It’s not that I don’t trust Don and Larry or either of the others.”

      “Well, then?”

      “It’s just that you have a winning way about you, Jake.” Gus squinted one eye. “A polish. A gift with words that the others can’t hold a candle to. And none of the guys are anything near fancy enough to catch the eye of a pretty city lady.”

      Jake reached for a ballpoint pen, his thumb rhythmically clicking the retraction mechanism as the striking features of the “pretty city lady” flashed vividly through his memory. But pretty is as pretty does, as his grandmother was known to say.

      “It’s СКАЧАТЬ