“How about this one?” he asked, right before he leaned in and kissed her.

The contact was light enough—barely a brush of lip against lip. Hardly worth mentioning.

Except every cell in her body froze from the shock. The fingers holding her bag tightened into a death grip on the handle. Before she could figure out what she was supposed to do, he straightened.

“Thanks for lunch,” he said, then turned and walked away.

Leaving her gasping and alone. And very, very confused.

RAOUL ANGLED AWAY FROM the mirror as he slowly raised and lowered the weight in his hand. He’d been working out long enough that he rarely needed to check his form or speed. The movements were automatic. Unlike some guys, he didn’t get a kick out of staring at himself.

Next to him, Josh Golden worked his triceps. Both men were dripping sweat and breathing hard. It had been a hell of a workout.

“In case you were wondering,” Josh said as he lowered the weight to the bench in front of him, “I’m the only hero in this town.”

Raoul grinned. “Worried, old man? Or should I say, threatened?”

“I’ve been here a whole lot longer than you. The town adores me. You’re some newcomer. The question is, can you last through the long term?”

“I can outlast you.”

Josh grinned. “In your dreams.” He grabbed a towel and wiped the sweat from his face. “Everyone appreciates that you offered the camp. Without that place, there wouldn’t have been a school.”

“I’m happy to help.”

“Good. That’s what we do around here. Those who have more, give more. Life in a small town.”

More rules, Raoul thought, remembering the ones Pia had listed. Something about where he was supposed to get his hair cut. Or not. He hadn’t really been listening. He enjoyed listening to her speak, watching the emotions chase across her face. Her eyes were expressive. Her mouth…tempting.

“Earth to Raoul.” Josh waved his hand. “Who are you thinking about?”

“A friend.”

Josh picked up the weight again. Raoul set his down.

“You had lunch with Pia the other day,” Josh said flatly.

Raoul raised his left eyebrow. “You’re married.”

“I’m not interested in keeping her to myself,” Josh said firmly. “I’ve known Pia for years. She’s like a sister. I’m watching out for her.”

Raoul was glad someone was. From what he could see, Pia was pretty much on her own. “We’re working together. Some of the festivals tie in with the work we’re doing up at the camp.”

Josh bent forward, keeping his upper arm still, moving the weight up and down to work his triceps. “You’re getting tied in here. Sure you’re ready for what small-town life really is?”

“I’ll figure it out as I go. What’s your concern?”

“Pia talks tough. She’s smart, she’s funny, she pretends nothing gets to her. But that’s not true. Crystal’s death hit her really hard. Before that…” He set down the weight again and straightened. “She’s had some tough breaks. Her dad died, her mom left. There were a few bad boyfriends. Nobody wants to see her get hurt. You mess with her, you won’t just answer to me. You’ll answer to everyone.”

Raoul had been a football star since he was sixteen. He was used to being the person everyone wanted to be with. The one who was liked.

“You’re saying I’ll be run out of town?”

“That’ll be the least of it.”

“I like Pia,” he said at last. “I’m not going to hurt her.”

Josh didn’t look convinced. “You can’t be sure.”

“I don’t want to hurt her,” Raoul amended. “I care about her, too.”

“I guess that will have to do for now. But if that changes, you’ll answer to me.”

“Think you can take me?” Raoul asked, not bothering to hide his amusement.

“Absolutely.”

Josh was in good shape and they were about the same height, but Raoul had a good twenty pounds of muscle on him. Not to mention years of playing football. Cycling wasn’t exactly a contact sport.

“I’m glad you’re looking out for her,” he said, because it was true. “Pia needs more people on her side.”

Josh studied him. “Nearly everyone would tell you she has the whole town on her side.”

Raoul had his doubts. “She’s a local girl and they like her. But who does Pia have that she can really depend on? One-on-one? She’s all alone in the world.”

A reality that was going to complicate her life when she decided to have Crystal’s babies. Babies no one else seemed to know about.

He thought about the soldier he’d known—the soldier who had died in his arms. What would Keith think about all this? Raoul had a feeling he would be pleased that his children were being given a chance but suspected he, too, would worry about Pia being on her own.

“You looking to change her situation?” Josh asked.

“I don’t do long term.”

“You were married. That the reason?”

Raoul shrugged and set the weight back in the rack.

Josh did the same, then hesitated. “I was married before Charity. It didn’t go well. Sometimes it’s not supposed to.”

Raoul nodded because he wasn’t going to have the conversation and agreeing moved things along. If he mentioned a bad first marriage, people assumed he’d been cheated on. Or had discovered Caro had married him for his money. Either would have been a whole lot easier than the truth. Hell, he would have preferred if she’d left him for a woman. But the real reason their marriage had ended gnawed at him. It woke him at night and left him wanting to scream at the heavens.

There were things that couldn’t be fixed, he reminded himself. Actions that couldn’t be undone. Like throwing a rock in a pond. There was nothing to be done but to wait out the ripples and hope no one got hurt.

He and Josh walked to the locker room. After showering and dressing, they agreed to work out together the following week. One of the things Raoul missed most about playing football was working out with his teammates. Josh could be counted on to push him. Sometimes Ethan Hendrix, a friend of Josh’s, joined them.

Raoul knew it took time to fit in a place, but he was willing to take things slow. He liked Fool’s Gold, so he was being careful not to make any missteps.

He left the gym, intending to go back to the office, but instead found himself walking home. He couldn’t get Pia off his mind. Kissing her had probably been a mistake but was worth it, he thought with a grin. Not only because he’d enjoyed the feel of her mouth against his, but because of the look on her face when he’d done it. Surprised didn’t come close.

He reached the small two-bedroom he’d rented and went into the study and booted his computer. When it was ready, he sat down and logged on to the Internet, then typed IVF into the search engine.

An hour later he had a clearer understanding of what Pia was going to go through. Two hours later, he knew there was no way he would ever agree to something like that. Not that it was physically possible, but still. Not only was Pia going to have to chemically prepare her body for pregnancy, she would be carrying triplets. Assuming all the embryos took. If they didn’t, she would have to deal with the loss and, he assumed, the guilt that went along with it.

Hard enough to be pregnant, but how much worse was it to be pregnant and alone, with no one to depend on? It wasn’t like there was a dad she could go after for help or financial support.

Crystal had asked a lot from her friend. He was still convinced Pia would go through with having the babies, even if she hadn’t figured that out yet. But he wondered if she really knew what she was getting into.

THE FUNDRAISER FOR THE SCHOOL might have technically lasted only a day, but it had put Pia behind by an entire week. An amount that probably didn’t sound like much, she thought as she stared at her scheduling board. But Fool’s Gold had a festival every single month. Some were smaller than others, but work was always involved. With success came hours of behind-the-scenes planning.

Summer was the busiest time, but fall was a close second. The city Halloween Party was barely six weeks away, and before that was the Fall Festival. The Thanksgiving Parade was after the Halloween Party but before the Christmas Gift Bazaar. The Saturday Day of Giving led into the Live Nativity outdoor service, which was the Sunday before Christmas. Then there was New Year’s and so on.

One project at a time, she reminded herself, making notes on her dry-erase calendar. That’s how she got through. It’s not as if any of the events were new. The plans pretty much stayed the same. She had master lists that were cross-referenced, decorations stored all over town. If this ever got old, she could probably apply to run the world. There were—

She paused and stared at the calendar square. Instead of noting when she needed to arrange to have chairs and booths pulled out of storage, she’d drawn a string of little hearts. Although sweet, it wasn’t exactly helpful. Worse—she knew the cause.

Raoul’s kiss.

No matter how many times she told herself he hadn’t meant anything by it, she couldn’t get her gut, or her heart, to believe it. That one little second of contact had changed everything. Suddenly he wasn’t just Raoul, someone she knew, he was a guy. And because he was a guy, she had to be careful around him, which she didn’t like.

Awareness was everything, she thought grimly. Two days ago, he’d been everyone’s definition of tall, dark and handsome, but she hadn’t really cared. He’d witnessed her at her hysterical best, had dealt with it winningly and she’d thought of him as a friend.

Now she found herself thinking about that stupid kiss two or three hundred times a day. She’d wondered why he’d done it, wished he would do it again, imagined him doing more than kissing her. It was pathetic, not to mention a waste of time.

She didn’t have a type, but if she did, it wasn’t him. He was too perfect. In all her “happily ever after” fantasies, the guy in question had been normal. Maybe even boring. Boring was dependable. With boring, a girl had a shot at the guy not leaving. But Raoul? He was heartbreaker material even when he wasn’t trying.

“It was just a kiss,” she whispered to herself. “Let it go.”

Good advice. And someone, somewhere, would probably take it. Just not her. Not when she could feel the light brush of skin on skin, feel the heat of him and wish…

She lightly bumped her head against the wall, hoping to gently pound some sense into herself. Maybe the problem wasn’t that Raoul was not her type, maybe the problem was more generic than that. Maybe if she’d had more kissing in her life, she wouldn’t feel like she had to read too much into what had happened. Maybe she should date.

Pia rolled her eyes. “Oh, please. Like that’s going to happen.”

If she went ahead with the embryos implantation, her dating days were long over. Besides, she’d never exactly excelled in the man department. They always left, and for the life of her she couldn’t figure out what she was doing to drive them away.

The door to her office pushed open. Pia glanced up and was surprised when Raoul strolled in.

He looked good, she thought, telling herself to make sure she looked cool and sophisticated. Barring that, she should try to avoid appearing desperate or needy.

“Hi,” she said, going for cheerful. “I haven’t had an emotional crisis today so we can’t possibly have an appointment.”

Instead of seeming impressed by her sparkling wit, he stared at her with an intensity that made her wonder if she’d dropped a bit of breakfast on the front of her shirt. As casually as she could, she glanced down. All seemed well.

“Pia,” he said, moving toward her. “We have to talk.”

Not exactly words one expected to hear from a macho guy. “Okay,” she said slowly. “What about?”

Maybe he’d been as rocked by the kiss as she had been. Maybe he wanted to kiss her again and make her his love monkey. A week or two of intense male attention would probably cure her allergies.

“I’ve been doing research on in vitro fertilization,” he said.

She plopped down on her chair and held in a sigh. So much for the love monkey invitation. “That’s more than I’ve done,” she admitted. “Is that what we’re going to talk about? Because if it’s anything gross, I don’t want to know. I have a weak stomach.”

He moved toward her desk. “It won’t be bad. You take some basic tests, then your body is prepared to receive the embryos.”

She hadn’t liked the sound of that when she’d read the brochures the lab guy had given her, and she didn’t like it now. “Prepared, how?” She quickly raised a hand. “Never mind. Are you going to sit?”

He placed his hands on her desk and leaned toward her. Apparently sitting wasn’t on the schedule, either.

“Pia,” he said, his dark gaze intense. “You can’t go through this alone. You need someone to take care of you, and I want to be that person.”

CHAPTER SIX

THE WORDS SWIRLED AROUND in Pia’s head. This was even crazier than the kiss.

“I haven’t decided I’m going to have the babies,” she whispered.

“Sure you have. Are you going to walk away from them?”

“No, but…”

If she hadn’t been sitting, she would have collapsed. Was Raoul right? Had she already made her choice?

She closed her eyes. There was no way she couldn’t have them, she thought with some finality. Whether or not she was the best person, she was the one Crystal had picked. It was crazy and scary and life-changing, but it had to be done. Her friend was depending on her.