The woman laughed, a low, husky sound. There was something familiar about her. “I know all about that.” She came down the steps, and Blue’s sense of familiarity grew. “I’m Susan O’Hara.”

This sexy, exotic creature was Dean’s mysterious housekeeper? No way. “I’m Blue.”

“Damn. I hope it’s temporary.”

Right then, Blue knew. Holy shit. That square jaw, those blue-gray eyes, that quick brain…Holy, holy shit.

“Blue Bailey,” she managed. “It was a…uh…bad day in Angola.”

The woman regarded her with interest.

Blue made a vague, meaningless gesture with her hand. “Plus South Africa.”

Boot heels struck the gravel.

As the woman turned, the fading light picked out long strands of blond and fawn in her hair. Her red lips parted, and the delicate fans of strain at the corners of her eyes constricted. The boot heels came to an abrupt stop, and Dean stood silhouetted against the barn, his legs braced, arms tensed at his side. The woman might have been his sister. But she wasn’t. Not his girlfriend, either. The woman with the stricken ocean blue eyes was the mother he’d dismissed so brusquely just that morning when Blue had asked about his family.

He stopped for only a moment, and then his boots ate up the ground. Ignoring the brick path with its uneven edges like broken teeth, he stalked across the overgrown lawn. “Mrs. Fucking O’Hara.”

Blue flinched. She couldn’t imagine blasting her mother with the f-word, no matter how angry she got. But then, her mother was impervious to verbal attacks.

This woman wasn’t. The bangles slipped on her wrist and a trio of delicate silver rings caught the light as she touched her throat. Long seconds ticked by. She turned away and went inside without a word.

The dazzling charm Dean employed so skillfully was gone. He looked stony and remote. She understood his need to withdraw, but now wasn’t the time for it. “If I were a lesbian,” she said to break the tension, “I would totally go for her.”

The shuttered look vanished and outrage took its place. “Thanks for nothing.”

“I’m just being honest. And I thought my mother drew a lot of attention.”

“How do you know she’s my mother? Did she tell you?”

“No, but the resemblance is hard to miss, although she must have been twelve when she had you.”

“A skin-deep resemblance, that’s for damn sure.” He mounted the steps and headed for the front door.

“Dean…”

But he was already gone.

Blue didn’t share her mother’s intolerance for violence—witness her recent contretemps with Monty—but the idea of that exotic creature with the wounded eyes being its victim bothered her, and she followed him into the house.