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girl. He was a thirty-five-year-old man who had learned the hard way the price a man had to pay to impress a woman. If he had any sense, he'd run like hell. Obviously he didn't have any sense.
    He couldn't stop looking at Emily, couldn't stop wanting to reach out and touch her. The afternoon sun glistened off the locket that hung from a thin gold chain around her neck. She doesn't look real, Mitch thought. Wearing that long skirt and straw hat, she looked like someone from an era when ladies never went out in the sun without their parasols. Hell! He shook his head to dislodge such idiotic nonsense.
    He was acting like a romantic dreamer, and that was the last thing on earth Mitch Hayden was. He was a realist, and often a pessimist, and God knew he was a fool. But there wasn't a sentimental, romantic bone in his body.
    He'd been too long without a woman. That had to be the problem. Otherwise he'd never be attracted to this gentle-looking creature. He preferred his women sexy, earthy and a lot less a lady. Yeah, lady. That was the first word that came to mind, and that's exactly what she was, a lady, and by the looks of her, an old-fashioned one. So, why did he find her so appealing, so intriguing? Ladies had never been his type.
    And if she realized who he was, she wouldn't find him appealing in any way. If he introduced himself, would she run from him screaming?
    Halting directly in front of her, he blocked her line of vision. Glancing down at her just as she tilted her chin and raised her gaze to meet his, Mitch noticed that her eyes were brown—dark, rich, cinnamon brown—and framed by long, thick black eyelashes.
    She was beautiful.
    Somehow he'd known she would be. On that April morning five years ago, he hadn't gotten a good look at her face. But as long as he lived, he would never forget her singed dark hair and tattered pink nightgown.
    The moment their eyes met, she gasped. "Oh, hello." Her voice fit her feminine image perfectly. Soft. Sweet. Slightly sexy.
    "Hello," he replied.
    When she smiled, he felt the warmth of it spread through him. The bottom dropped out of his stomach. Dammit, this wasn't supposed to happen.
    "It's a beautiful day, isn't it?" Stretching out her legs on the quilt, she laid her sketch pad aside. "I was hoping it wouldn't rain this weekend, so I could stay outside and sketch."
    "What are you drawing?" He wasn't a man used to idle chitchat, and for the life of him he couldn't figure out why he was bothering with it now. Because she is Emily Jordan and you want to get to know her. You want to find out if there is some way you can repay her for the life Styles and Hayden Construction Company destroyed.
    Lifting the pad, she turned it so he could see the sketch. "What do you think?"
    "I'm no art critic, but I think it's good." He pointed to the sketch. "There's a child in your drawing."
    "Hannah." She ran her fingertips lightly over the sketch of the little girl. "I'm working on illustrations for a children's book. Hannah is my main character."
    "Is your story a fairy tale with a phony happy ending?" Mitch well remembered his mother reading to him from the ragged book she'd saved from her own childhood. His mother had been a hopeless romantic, his father a lazy dreamer. Together they had almost ruined the lives of their five innocent children.
    Clutching the edge of the pad, Emily sighed heavily. "If you're asking whether or not all my stories will have happy endings, then the answer is yes."
    "Adults shouldn't lie to children. Kids shouldn't be taught that life always ends happily ever after."
    "I disagree." She saw the skepticism on his hard, lean face, and knew it would be useless to argue. Somewhere along the way, this man had lost his ability to wish for the impossible. "Simplistic as it sounds, life is a roller coaster ride filled with ups and downs. Sometimes we'll have our hearts broken and our dreams destroyed, but we have to dry our tears and dream new dreams."
    If Emily Jordan was still