Dr. Rafael Holden-Deane followed the directions listed on his phone to the address that had been on the letter he’d received. The neighborhood was nice, but he hadn’t expected to have to show his ID and state his purpose for entering a public street. The guardhouse just beyond the intersection had been surprising, to say the least.

The hassle pricked his already frayed temper and made him even unhappier about his current situation. He’d expected a business office; something sleeker, more professional than what appeared to be a garage. It was attached to a decently large house that had been well-maintained, but it was still a garage.

The rest of the neighborhood was a little more upscale, but appeared deserted. And if he wasn’t mistaken, there were security guards driving around. Watching him.

Rafe rang the doorbell to the house impatiently. No one answered, which just increased his impatience. He had a full schedule of appointments that morning and this was one distraction that he did not need.

He crumpled the letter in his hand and cursed his own antecedents for a moment. As he waited, and waited. As he rang the doorbell again, and again.

The garage beckoned and he headed that way before he heard the singing.

Feminine, and very beautiful.

He turned toward the sound. He walked in the direction of the back of the house and kept going. The singing got louder. He found the siren bent over a bed of flowers, with earbuds in her ears.

Rich red hair was pulled back into a bun, and a sweet little rear end was wiggling along to the music in her head.

Rafe took a moment to appreciate the sight.

The woman turned, and screamed.

He grabbed her just before she tripped over the potted plants behind her. Or brought those damned security guards running. “I apologize, miss. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

She pulled the earbuds from her ears and jerked out of his arms. “Who are you? What are you doing back here? Where are the security guards?”

Rafe stepped back. He recognized real fear. He’d lived with it as a constant visual for the last four years. “They allowed me in.”

“You had to be on a list to get in here.”

“I heard the singing. Are you Ms. Beck?”

“Yes—”

Some of his annoyance returned. He waved the letter between them. “Then you can take this and know that whatever these leeches are wanting, I want nothing to do with them.”

He thrust the letter into her hands. Light brown eyes widened and her hands came up defensively. As if she expected him to strike her. To hurt her. Rafe stepped back again.

She looked down and read the letter quickly, eyes widening slightly. “This...you’re...”

Rafe still had ahold of her with one hand. The skin he touched was incredibly soft. Pale and beautiful, with a light smattering of golden freckles. He dropped his hand quickly. She only came up to his mid-chest—he was a tall man at almost six-seven—and he could probably just scoop her right up. Did she realize how vulnerable of a position she was in? A woman wasn’t always safe even when at home. “And you should really lock your damned gate. Even with those security guards. I could have been anyone coming back here. Don’t you have some sense of self-preservation?”

---

Jillian Beck stared at the huge man glowering at her for a moment. Was he actually lecturing her, in her own backyard? “Mr. Holden-Deane, I’m afraid you’ve made a mistake. I’m not—”

“I rarely make mistakes, Ms. Beck. I’ve seen gold-diggers before. All types. Though you don’t look like you’d be the type to get involved in that.” He shot a look at the old shorts she wore and the light flannel shirt she’d removed the sleeves from years ago. The derision wasn’t hard to miss.

Oh. One of those kinds of men, then. She’d met her fair share of them over the last few years—the medical profession was full of arrogant men. “There is more than one Ms. Beck, you moron. In fact, counting cousins, there are thirteen of us. I think. I’d need to recount after recent marriages. Something I think you should consider. This is my sister Melody. She uses her maiden name professionally, as a safety precaution. I’m Jillian. Her younger sister.”

He scowled at her. “Then you can deliver the message to your sister. I don’t want anything to do with the people she mentioned in that letter. They’ll need to find their meal-ticket some other way.”

Jillian thought of the people in that letter needing a meal ticket and she almost doubled over laughing. If there hadn’t been a giant right in front of her, she would have. But men didn’t like to be laughed at—even when they deserved it—and she hadn’t missed the fact that she was alone with this…creature. “Believe me, they don’t need someone like you as a meal-ticket. They do just fine on their own.”

One of the names on that list was the wealthiest man in St. Louis. The others were his younger sisters and brother. All friends of Jillian’s. And other than the teenaged boy being raised by the eldest sister, fully capable of taking care of themselves.

“I don’t appreciate being laughed at.”

Something about his words triggered an immediate hostility in Jillian that she didn’t expect. He reminded her of someone; someone who still gave her cold chills deep in the middle of the night when she was alone and vulnerable. When the nightmares came and the wounds reopened.

Her hand rose to her neck, where the three-inch scar would always serve as a permanent reminder. That monster had said something similar before he had nearly slit Jillian’s throat ago. Jillian sobered as just how alone with this man she didn’t know she actually was.

He might look like the friends she knew on that letter, but that didn’t mean he was good at heart like they were. “Mister—I’m sorry. I’m afraid I’ve forgotten your name. My sister works for an organization that helps locate missing loved ones. The people in that letter are friends of mine. I doubt they want anything more from you than to meet. I can assure you they are all more than capable of paying their own way through life. They are kind, generous, loving people who won’t want a damned thing from you. Now, if that’s all you need, I need to get back to my flowers. I’d really like to finish this.”

“It’s doctor. Dr. Holden-Deane. So where can I find this sister? I’d like to discuss this with her personally.”

A doctor, figured. She’d met more than her fair share of those. Arrogant, better-than-everyone-else doctors who thought they were God’s gift to the world—and to women. Not all, of course, but there were enough just like that. Jillian had learned to pick and choose her work friends carefully. The hospital where she worked could be a bit stressful. “Mel is off with her husband, in Mexico, right now. He had some sort of technological summit that he was hosting. You may have heard of him—Houghton Barratt? She won’t be back until next week. I’ll gladly tell her that you stopped by.” And tell Mel to keep a distance from this creep. Warn Ariella, her best friend and apparently this creature’s younger sister—if the letter was correct—that Dr. Rafael Holden-Deane was just another mean jerk.

Ari would be so much better off never having found this creep.

“Is there some way I can speak with her now? This is a little matter I want to have closed and forgotten about as soon as possible. I don’t want to meet these people.”

And they are better off without you, you big jerk. Jillian kept her thoughts to herself. Like it or not, it wasn’t her place to tell him that. Even if she thought it. And Jillian wasn’t stupid—she wasn’t about to poke the big bear in front of her. Not with her being so alone.

Those security guards of Houghton’s sucked big time. “Fine. Then don’t meet them. There’s nothing in Mel’s letter to say they expect you to. You’re the one who’ll be missing out. Ariella is one of my best friends.”

“Then you can deliver the message to her for me. Stay the hell away from me.”

Asshat. Jillian put her muddied hands on her hips and glared the long way up at him. He glared back. She winced when she realized that he had the same eyes as his sister. How was that for bad karma? “I’m not getting involved any more than you’ve made me, Doctor Holden-Deane. It’s a private family matter. They hired Mel to find you. But it’s up to you how far it goes. Get off your high horse. They’re just looking for their family. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. Now, like I asked before, please close the gate when you leave. Good day.”

She turned around and bent back over. She had some roses she wanted to get in the ground today, before the storms hit. Jillian wasn’t about to let a man like him keep her from it.

The house was her father’s—Jillian had grown up there, along with three of her four sisters—but the gardens were hers.

They had once been her mother’s. After they’d lost her over five years ago to cancer, Jillian had found solace in the garden beds her mother had so painstakingly tended.

She’d needed that solace more often than not in the last few months or so.

Nearly being murdered would do that to a woman, after all.

---

She’d turned her back on him. He couldn’t remember the last time a woman had done that to him. Rafe was used to people deferring to his wishes. He had spent four years in Africa having everyone around him jumping to obey his commands. Lives had depended on it.

He was used to obedience—and people not second-guessing him. That this woman would do it with barely a thought irritated him. It shouldn’t. She wasn’t anyone important to his life. He could barely remember her first name.

It shouldn’t matter that she ignored him. But it did.

He reached out and touched her shoulder, wanting her to look at him again. He hadn’t been finished making his point. She jerked around, pruning shears in her hands.

He backed up quickly.

Not because of the shears, but because of the fear and vulnerability in her pretty golden brown eyes. She might hiss and shoot fire at him, but she was still afraid. Of him.

Some of the anger left him, and he took another step backward. He didn’t need to be looming over her. Rafe hadn’t realized he was.

No wonder she looked like a frightened little rabbit. He held his hands up between them. “Cool down. I’m not going to hurt you.”

For the first time, he took a really good look at her.

He liked what he saw; she was about five-five or five-six. The hair was an unusual shade of darker red, and he suspected it was long. The face had that classic beautiful appeal, but it was the eyes that were so unusual. At first glance they appeared washed out brown, but when he looked closer there was more gold than should have been possible.

A very beautiful woman.

Either she’d hit the jackpot of genetics, or she’d had a hell of a plastic surgeon. From the dirt on her hands, the flowers surrounding her, the worn flannel shirt, and cutoff jeans—that revealed some damned nice legs—he doubted this woman had been augmented at all. No, she was real.

“I think you’d better leave now. I’m sorry Mel and Blessed Reunions bothered you. I’ll pass along the message that you’re not interested to my sister for you. And to yours, though you’re really missing out on knowing her.” She clutched the shears to her chest—which he noticed was a very nice, if not a bit small, one—and nodded toward the gate. “Good day, Dr. Holden-Deane. I’m sure some hospital somewhere is waiting for a man as important as you.”

She was right about that, he had to admit. “I’m sorry to have disturbed you, Ms. Beck.”

He headed back toward the quaint metal gate that separated the front yard from the garden. He opened it just as another redhead appeared around the corner. Waddled around the corner. One look at her and he could confirm the previous Ms. Beck had probably just lucked into some seriously decent genetics. As had this carrot-topped Ms. Beck.

From the bright bauble on her finger, he suspected this one wasn’t a Beck any longer.

She looked at him from eyes the same color and shape as her sister’s and frowned, with suspicion and a touch of fear. “Who are you? You’re not supposed to be back here. Where’s my sister?”

“She’s around back. And I was just leaving.” He held open the gate for her and she waddled by him. He wasn’t an obstetrician, but he estimated her to be approximately thirty-six or thirty-seven weeks pregnant. “Careful on the stepping stones. You can’t afford a fall right now.”

“Ok. I don’t know you.”

He frowned at her. Was this the sister who’d sent the letter? She hadn’t looked away from him. “And I don’t know you.”

“I’m Brynna. Then why are you coming out of my family’s back gate? Are you Jilly’s new boyfriend? You don’t look like her type.”

“And what is her type? I’m Dr. Holden-Deane.”

The woman smiled, her whole face lighting up. Rafe studied her again— young, loved, healthy. Unlike most of the women he’d seen in Africa over the last four years. Did she realize how lucky she was? And did her husband understand the gift he’d been given? Rafe shook off the bad memories and refocused on the Beck in front of him.

“Then you’re definitely not Jilly’s type. She doesn’t date doctors. At least not anymore. She did once. So why are you here?”

He wasn’t used to the direct approach, either, although he did appreciate it. “That’s between me and your sister. Good day.”

“I’m sorry if you think I’m rude. Sometimes communication is difficult for me. Have a nice day.” He felt her staring at him as he finished walking around the house. Rafe headed for his car. This place, these women, were just too difficult for him to understand.

The hospital waited.