Blue intended to hitchhike into town and look for a job, but April needed help, so she spent the rest of the day trying to earn her keep by cleaning out kitchen cupboards, arranging dishes, and setting up a linen closet. Dean e-mailed April that the contractor had disappeared. A “family emergency,” according to a neighbor.

Late in the afternoon, April made her take a break, and Blue went outside to explore. She wandered through the woods and followed the creek that led to the pond, staying out longer than she’d planned. When she returned, she found a note from Dean waiting for her on the kitchen counter.

Sweetheart,

I’ll be back Sunday night. Keep the bed warm for me.

Your Loving Fiancé

P.S. Why did you let Jack take my dog?

She threw the note in the trash. One more person she’d grown to care about had taken off without warning. But so what? She didn’t care that much.

It was only Friday afternoon. Where had he gone? An ominous foreboding claimed her. She raced upstairs, grabbed her purse, and pulled out her wallet. Sure enough, the hundred dollars he’d given her the night before had disappeared.

Her loving fiancé wanted to make sure she stayed put.

Annabelle Granger Champion gazed at Dean across the living room of the spacious contemporary home in Chicago’s Lincoln Park that she shared with her husband and two children. Dean was still sprawled on the floor from an earlier bout of roughhousing with Trevor, her three-year-old son, who was now napping.

“There’s something you’re not telling me,” Annabelle said from her perch on the roomy sofa.

“There’s a lot I’m not telling you,” he retorted, “and I intend to keep it that way.”

“I’m a professional matchmaker. I’ve heard it all.”

“Good. Then you don’t need to hear any more.” He got up and walked toward the wedge of windows that looked out over the street. He had an evening flight back to Nashville, and he damned well intended to be on it. He wasn’t going to be driven away from his own home, and as long as he kept Blue in place as his buffer, he could make it work.

But Blue was more than his buffer. She was his—

He didn’t know what she was. Not exactly a friend, although she understood him better than people he’d known for years, and she entertained him as much as any of them, maybe more. Also, he didn’t want to fuck his friends, and he definitely wanted to fuck her.