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Fathers And Other Strangers

Harlequin Enterprises, Ltd.

Chapter One

Jenna Stanton cut the engine to her Corolla, then glanced over at the sour-faced thirteen-year-old girl she loved with
all her heart. Usually. Ignoring the flood of terror now threatening to expel the contents of her stomach, Jenna forced
a smile, wincing when her lower lip cracked. From behind her seat, Meringue let out a plaintive mew, protesting her
incarceration in her carrier.

"This is the place I told you about," Jenna said, still gripping the steering wheel. "Where we're going to spend the
month."

Blair shoved a tangled strand of copper-red hair behind one recently-pierced ear and crooked her neck to get a better
look at the Double Arrow Guest Lodge. "It's a motel," she said, her words laced with a disgust usually reserved
for fried liver and Disney movies.

"We're not staying in this part. There are cottages down by the lake."

That got a "yeah, right" look which immediately settled into a scowl. Not that Jenna blamed her; from this angle, the
Double Arrow looked like any other two-bit motel - single story, beige stucco, utilitarian doors and windows. Maybe
twelve units that Jenna could see, only three with cars parked out front. The cottages she'd have to take on faith,
since they weren't visible from here.

Still, the place wasn't quite as puke-worthy as her niece would have the world believe. Quivering shadows from dozens
of ashes and cottonwoods softened the stark, unimaginative architecture, caressed the occasional plot of perfectly
mowed grass and tubs of vibrant annuals. The air was still and hot, yes, but the silence was thick and sweet and
luscious, punctuated only by the occasional brilliant trill of some bird or other. From what little Jenna had seen,
Haven, Oklahoma was already living up to its name. On the surface, at least.

"It's actually very pretty, don't you think?"

"It's boring."

Jenna squelched her sigh, as well as the urge to squirm from the perspiration seeping through her bra. "Oh, Blair ...
you'd say any place with a population of less than a million looked boring."

Resentful blue eyes zinged to Jenna's as Blair hooked her thin arms across a still-flat chest. She'd been a pretty baby
- not to mention a cheerful one - but the onset of adolescence was not being kind, either physically or emotionally.
Her hair was too fine, her legs too long, her teeth held prisoner by several thousand dollars' worth of intricate
engineering. And the poor child had more freckles than there were lobbyists on Capitol Hill.

"I don't get it," Blair said, not quite whining but close enough to set Jenna's teeth on edge. "You always set your
books in D.C. Always. Now you have to set one in Oklahoma?"

This would make ... let's see ... at least the fiftieth time they'd had this conversation since March, when Jenna had
realized exactly how limited her options were. Plucking at her damp T-shirt - the car's air conditioner had given out
around Nashville - she tried another smile. "I told you. I was getting burned out. I needed a change - "

"What am I supposed to do for a whole month while you write for ten hours a day?" Tears glistened in Blair's
eyes, and Jenna's heart cracked. Guilt had practically eaten a hole in Jenna's heart already that she couldn't tell her
niece the truth. Not yet, anyway. "I don't know anybody here! I mean, God, why didn't you send me to camp or
something?"

Jenna swiped a hand through her own wind-tangled mop, still smelling slightly of the hair-coloring chemicals from her
do-it-yourself job the day before. "One, you hate camp. And two, I told you, sweetie - I'm not planning on doing much
actual writing. Just going over the galleys for my December book, maybe some preliminary scribbles for this new one,
but that's about it. This is mostly a research trip. So we'll do lots of sightseeing, maybe some camping. You've always
wanted to do that."

"Like you know anything about camping."

"Do you, smartypants?"

"No."

"Well, then, I suppose we can both learn."

Silence vibrated between them for a second or two until, in a flurry of jabbing elbows, Blair unhooked the seatbelt,
fumbled with the door handle for a moment then shoved open the door. "I gotta pee," she announced, bolting from the
car. The little pink pom-poms on the heels of her tennis socks wobbled frantically as she tromped toward the sign that
said Office.

Jenna finally gave in to the sigh that had been building like a storm cloud for the past ten minutes, then grabbed her
purse from under her seat and followed suit, tugging at the seat of her cargo shorts. It wasn't fair to Blair,
dragging her out here like this. And guilt that she couldn't tell her niece the truth had practically eaten a hole in
Jenna's heart. She couldn't tell her the truth yet, anyway. If things didn't work out, maybe not ever. But all she
could do was take this one step at a time and hope for the best.

Her sandals crunched the sandy dirt as she followed her niece toward the office, willing saliva back into her mouth.
Thank God there'd been at least a barebones Web site for the place. Otherwise, she would have had a devil of a time
explaining how she'd just happened to stumble across the Double Arrow, located on the outskirts of a town too small to
show up on most maps to begin with.

She'd only spoken to Hank Logan once, when she called and asked about renting one of his cottages for the month. His
voice was burned into her memory - low, edgy and heavily seasoned with sarcasm. A voice completely at odds with the
image of a man who'd buy a run-down motel and - according to the information she had - single-handedly restore it,
shingle by shingle.

A voice completely at odds with neatly trimmed grass and tubs of cheerful petunias and marigolds.

"Something I can do for you?"

Yeah. That voice.

Blair whipped around first, her hand poised to knock on the office door. But Jenna froze, watching her niece's face,
even though Blair wouldn't have a clue who she might be looking at. Conversely, while Blair looked nothing like Jenna's
sister Sandy, if she looked anything like Hank - if he could see something in her niece's face that he recognized
- Jenna was screwed. Then again, if he didn't, this whole outrageous scheme of hers might be a total waste of time. A
name in a diary, a few coincidences, was all she had. What she didn't have was proof.

Between the chronic shyness she'd never completely overcome and the particulars of this situation, Jenna's stomach once
again threatened mutiny as she forced herself to turn around.

The good news was, Blair looked nothing like Hank Logan.

The bad news was, Blair looked nothing like Hank Logan.

"Is there a bathroom I can use?" her niece asked, her high-pitched voice knifing through Jenna's pounding heartbeat.

"Right through that door and to your right. Go ahead, it's unlocked."

Then eyes cryptic as midnight focused on Jenna, and her stomach turned inside out.

It took less than a second for Hank to size the woman up as the one who'd called from D.C. a few weeks back. Not that
her pale-green T-shirt and khaki shorts were fancy or anything, but something about her - her stance, the way she'd
shoved her sunglasses on top of her head to hold back her messed-up blond hair, her prissy little sandals - just told
him she was.

He shrugged off the wooden ladder biting into his shoulder to rest it against the trunk of a nearby cottonwood, then
grabbed his black T-shirt from the rung where he'd slung it earlier. He used it to make a half-assed attempt at wiping
the dust and sweat off his face, then yanked it on over his head, trying to remember the last time it'd rained.

Lord, she was staring at him like she'd never seen a man's chest before. Which he might have found amusing, once upon a
time. Now he just found it annoying. But then, he found most things about women annoying these days.

Then he remembered his manners and said, "You Jenna Stanton?" Hank was not a man inclined to use more words than
necessary.

She nodded, pale-blue eyes wary in a face free of any makeup that he could tell, her wide mouth set in a no-nonsense
expression that matched what he remembered about her voice. He pegged her to be about his age, pushing forty, maybe a
little older. The breeze blew her straight, light hair into her face; she shoved it back. She looked hot.

He almost smiled at the words' double meaning.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Fathers And Other Strangers
by Karen Templeton
Copyright © 2003 by Harlequin Enterprises, Ltd..
Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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