Lord above, if there was one last wish he could have, it would be to set things right. He’d sell whatever was left of his blackened soul for a way to go back and change what he’d done to her.

But it wasn’t to be.

He knew that.

There was nothing left for him to do except see the money back to the orphans Pete had stolen it from.

After that, he didn’t know where he’d go. He’d have to find another place where the law and Pete couldn’t find him. If such a place existed.

Briefly, he considered trying to find her. After all, she had been his safe harbor. His greatest strength.

But then, she had also been his greatest weakness.

No, it wouldn’t do to seek her out. Too much depended on him staying away from her. Because one thing his brother, Pete, had taught him years ago—there was no such thing as a second chance.

1

“All I want for Christmas is a man as handsome as the Devil himself. One with a charming smile, at least some semblance of intelligence, and a great, big, bulging—”

“Rebecca Baker!” Catherine O’Callahan gasped, shocked at her friend’s words.

“Bank account,” Rebecca said as she dropped her hands down from the graphic illustration she had been providing. She picked up the frying pan near Catherine, then placed it on top of the black iron stove. “I was only going to say bank account.”

Trying not to smile lest she encourage her friend’s libidinous conversation, Catherine looked askance at Rebecca as she continued washing dishes.

Rebecca’s olive cheeks colored ever so slightly as she walked back to the sink. “Well, maybe I wasn’t. But as a married woman yourself, you know what I mean. How long am I supposed to go around mourning Clancy anyway? Good grief, it’s been almost four years since he died. And I barely knew him before we married.”

As was her habit, Rebecca gestured dramatically with her hands to illustrate her next words. “My father practically dragged me to the altar to marry a man almost twice my age. I tell you, snuggling up to a man whose hands and feet are colder than icicles in January isn’t my idea of wedded bliss.”

Catherine could well agree with that point.

Rebecca sighed dreamily as she idly put the plates on the shelf above her head. “What I’d like to have is a gorgeous, warm man I could be cow-tied to forever. A man who could enter the room and make me all hot, and cold, and all jittery.” She looked at Catherine and smiled. “Know what I mean?”