Who could blame him?

“Emma.”

She started from her thoughts and turned in her chair, surprised to be interrupted. Margie was already gone for the day. She and Cristina were usually alone on this floor of the house at night, and her patient was fast asleep. Mrs. Shaw stood just inside the threshold to the bedroom, perhaps rightfully aware she wouldn’t be welcome by Cristina.

“I’ve come with a message,” Mrs. Shaw said. “Mr. Montand says you forgot to leave your keys in your car, and so he can’t service it. He asked if I could collect them from you now.”

Emma stared, heat rushing into her cheeks. The decision of whether or not to leave her keys in her car this afternoon had taken on gargantuan significance in her head. She’d been a coward not to leave them. Wasn’t she a coward, period? Now it felt as if her vulnerability and confusion had been put on display for Mrs. Shaw, a very undesirable audience.

“I’ll get them,” Emma said breathlessly, hurrying to her purse. She handed her keys to the housekeeper a moment later. “Thank you for doing this.”

“He asked me to give you the entry code to the garage.” Mrs. Shaw said the five numbers like she was uttering a malediction at Emma, before she turned and glided out of the suite.

It’s not a big deal, Emma reminded herself later that night as she looked at her reflection in the bathroom mirror. Debbie was there for her shift and had been briefed. Emma was free to go. She was just going to the garage to pick up her car. There was absolutely no reason to be nervous.

If you’re just going to claim your car and it’s not a big deal, how come you put on perfume and eyeliner? she asked herself snidely. She’d tried to put on some powder, too, to conceal the hated, light sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of her nose, but eventually washed it off. Amanda could make them disappear when she applied Emma’s makeup, but Emma herself always botched it.

Thinking of the familiar little makeup ritual with her sister made hurt and anger slice through her. She stifled it with effort.

Her brown eyes looked especially huge, whether from anxiety or the eyeliner or the contrast of her pale face and blond hair, she wasn’t sure.

You look like a deer in headlights.

That’s what she felt like, too.

Annoyed by her uncalled-for nervousness, she left the bathroom and said good night to Debbie. Cristina was still sleeping.

Unlike last night, she could see thousands of stars in the sky when she walked out the rear entrance. Her memory served her correctly. She easily found the hidden garage door behind the grove of trees and shrubs and used the passcode. Her footsteps sounded abnormally loud on the concrete floor of the mudroom. When she entered the huge space, she saw her car parked first in line on the row of vehicles on the right, along with a pair of long, coverall-covered legs and brown work boots sticking out from beneath it. Rock music was playing. Emma looked around for the source of the music but saw no radio. There must be built-in speakers somewhere.

“Hello?” she called out uncertainly.

Montand rolled out from beneath her car on a creeper, catching himself with practiced ease on the bumper with a gloved hand. Emma held her breath as she watched him sit up. He gripped a wrench in one hand. Unlike last night, he was clean-shaven. The goatee had disappeared, but he looked no less piratical. His hair was a mess of finger-combed, rich brown waves. There was a streak of oil on his jaw. His aquamarine-colored eyes lowered over her slowly.

“Hi,” she repeated stupidly. She’d been wrong again.

He was clearly a very big deal.

He sprung up from the creeper and set down the wrench on a trolley filled with tools.

“She’s all ready for you,” he said, walking toward her. Emma unfastened her gaze from the vision of him removing the work gloves from large, well-shaped, very . . . capable-looking hands.

“How bad was it?” she asked.

“Not bad at all. Just needed someone to give it a little attention.”

She grimaced. “That hasn’t been me, unfortunately. So many things have been breaking down recently. I haven’t had the energy to deal with something that wasn’t broken. Yet,” she added sheepishly.

“What else is broken?” he asked, studying her from beneath a lowered brow.

“What isn’t?” she asked with a laugh. “I’ve put in about a hundred requests with my apartment owner for maintenance to come fix my backed-up kitchen sink, the hot-water heater, the icemaker . . . the list goes on, but there doesn’t appear to be a lot of consequences for a landlord who just ignores a tenant’s requests.” She noticed his slanted brows and slight scowl and realized how whiny she probably sounded. “It’s not a big deal. I have a friend who has a dad that’s a cop in Cedar Bluff. He used to work for the Chicago Police Department. He said he’ll walk me through how to file a formal complaint with the housing commission against our apartment owner. Apparently, the owner isn’t the most upstanding citizen. Anyway, I can’t thank you enough for fixing the one thing I really couldn’t afford to have broken,” she said, waving at her car. “A hospice nurse spends a lot of time driving.”

“It’s a nice little car.”

Emma laughed. “Seriously? You were working way below your normal standards,” she said, nodding toward the other superexpensive, rare, and luxurious vehicles lined up in the garage. “Like having to eat cornflakes when you’re used to caviar.”

“I hate caviar.”

“Me, too.” She realized she was grinning at him idiotically and looked away. “Even though I only had it once.”

“You’re not missing much,” he said, flicking his gloves against the palm of his hand. Was he impatient to be gone?

“Well I can’t thank you enough, both for this and last night.” There didn’t seem to be a good place anywhere to rest her gaze.

“Do you want to see some of my cars?”

“Okay,” she said. Had he realized she was uncomfortable and tried to distract her from her embarrassment? That was nice, but somehow even more embarrassing. She fell into step beside him as he began to walk between the two rows of cars.

“You look pale,” he said bluntly. “Is everything okay?” He sounded stiff asking. With a flash of insight, she realized he wasn’t cold. Not really. He just wasn’t used to being solicitous.

He’d slowed down next to a gorgeous, shining ivory-colored vintage car.

“I . . . kind of had a rough night, that’s all,” she said shrugging, stopping because he’d stopped.

His blue-green eyes raked over her face. “Fight with your boyfriend?”

She exhaled in disgusted disbelief. She was either the most transparent person in the world, or those eyes of his really were X rays. “As it turns out, I don’t have a boyfriend anymore.”

“What?”

To her horror, she felt emotion tighten her throat. Had it lain in wait this whole time, ready to spring up on her at the moment she least wanted to feel it? She laughed to hide her sudden discomposure and looked away from his intent expression.

“I walked in on my boyfriend with . . . someone else last night.” She hadn’t breathed a word of the truth to anyone, why Michael Montand, of all people? “We’ve been together for two years,” she added lamely.

He muttered a muted, yet blistering curse.

“It’s okay,” she said, avoiding his stare. She feared she’d see pity on his bold features—or worse, impatience or bemusement at her personal admission to a near stranger. “I probably should have called things off between us a long time ago.”

“Why didn’t you?” Montand asked.

“Because he was a safety net? Because I’m a coward?” she asked, a bark of hysterical laughter popping out of her throat.

She couldn’t stop herself from meeting his stare.

“You are not a coward,” he said quietly. As in many things he said, it was a proclamation. He stepped toward her, and her heart leapt.