She bit her lip and, drumming her fingers on the edge of the window, she stared into the night until they crested a small rise. Her car, looking abandoned and lonely, was parked just where she’d left it.

Luke pulled onto the shoulder on the opposite side of the road. “Let’s try it one more time,” he suggested as he helped her out of the cab. His fingers as he grabbed her hand were warm.

“And what if it starts?” She hopped lithely to the ground.

“We pay the tow-truck driver and send him on his way.” “Just my luck—having to pay for service I don’t need.” She let go of his hand.

“It hasn’t happened yet.”

“It’s not going to.” Crossing her fingers, she unlocked the car and climbed into the dark interior. “Here goes nothing,” she said under her breath and discovered as she turned the ignition that she was right. The engine didn’t so much as spark. “Satisfied?” she asked Luke.

“I guess I have to be.” He leaned one hip against the fender and tried not to notice the shape of her leg as she climbed out of her beater. She slammed the door shut with a quick movement of her hip and his crotch tightened. A million questions about her pricked at his mind, but he ignored most of them. He wasn’t interested in her. Just as he wasn’t interested in any woman.

He caught the scent of her perfume on the breeze and wondered what it would be like to kiss her. She was different from the kind of woman who usually attracted him—small and compact rather than tall and slim. He’d convinced himself that he liked a woman who was as quiet as he, thoughtful and soft-spoken, but this redheaded dynamo had changed his mind.

Not that he’d do anything about it.

“You’re sure the towing company knows where we are?” she asked, her eyebrows puckering together in concern.

“Yep.”

She checked her watch, glanced up the road and frowned. He imagined a dozen thoughts streaking through her mind all at once. “Your last name’s Kinkaid,” he finally said.

“Uh-huh.”

“But your father’s John Cawthorne, right?”

“Don’t you know the story?” She turned eyes that were as dark as emeralds in his direction. “I thought everyone did.”

“I’m new in town.”

“But you know that Tiffany is my sister—er, half-sister.”

“That much I gathered.”

“I guess I should be embarrassed about all of this,” she confided, as if glad for something to talk about. “The truth is, my family is what you might call ‘different’—well, way beyond conventional. I didn’t even know I had half-sisters until this year.” She explained how her father had sired three different daughters with three different women, Bliss being the only legitimate one.