In his chest, his heart fist-bumped his rib cage.

Nope, his imagination hadn’t exaggerated one bit. She was as perfect as he remembered. Wholesome, beautiful, sweet. Everything he wasn’t. Her dark hair was pulled back into a long ponytail away from a face that was as deceptively delicate as her slight frame. He’d seen her wrestle her fears and help save her boyfriend’s life. Mandy was far tougher than she appeared.

But how would she react to seeing him again?

Only one way to find out. Danny opened the door, and Huntsville greeted him with a damp cold that suggested winter wasn’t quite finished with him yet.

A lifetime of doing the right thing could be completely obliterated by one lapse in judgment. One mistake.

Granted, it had been a doozy.

Mandy added flour to the stainless steel bowl. Inside the heavy-duty mixer, a dough hook spun the mixture into a soft ball. She shut off the machine, and the kitchen fell quiet. Listening to the sound of rain tapping on the back porch roof, she turned the lump out onto her marble board. Practiced hands kneaded the dough until it was soft and elastic. She set it aside to rise.

On to the muffins. She preheated the oven then pulled a stainless steel bowl from the cabinet and measured ingredients without any need to consult a recipe. Heat from the oven banished the dreary chill. The kitchen was her favorite room in the rattling old bed-and-breakfast, which had been owned by her family for three generations. With commercial appliances and plenty of space, the dated country oak and gold Formica could be overlooked. It would never be the swank urban restaurant she’d dreamed of running, but it would have to do.

Mandy wasn’t going anywhere. She was barely twenty-seven, and her dreams were dead.

Gently stirring the batter, she glanced out the window. Raindrops plunked into puddles in the lot behind the inn. The entire area needed grading and a fresh layer of stone. Winter had been tough on the Black Bear Inn and the Brown family, but things were looking up. Jed was recovering from his terrible stab wound. Her mother was recuperating from a triple bypass operation. And Mandy had almost stopped jumping at every noise, in the daylight anyway.

Nighttime was a whole different story.

Her hand strayed to the .38 nestled behind her right hip. A baggy sweater made the handgun invisible, but its size and weight were a comforting reassurance.