She shivered inside her wet shirt. Okay, I’ll walk.

It couldn’t be helped, even though the Doggie Prince hated to get his paws wet. She groped under the front seat to retrieve her umbrella just as unexpected headlights approached. Hope flared. Maybe Gran had sent someone to search for her. Her stepfather David, perhaps, or her best pal Clayton.

No. The hulking SUV heading her way looked like the same upscale model that had passed her earlier. Too new, too expensive, and too ostentatious to belong to anyone from East Langden.

But if this was her only chance to get help, she’d grab it. Gracie slipped on her jacket, zipped it, and stuck MacDuff inside. Grabbing her keys, she leaped out of her car, hoisted the umbrella, and planted herself at the side of the road. She blinked her flashlight on and off so she wouldn’t be mistaken for a wandering moose. When the vehicle skidded to a stop, she approached the driver.

The window slid part of the way down. Even with the rain-distorted view and indirect light, Gracie recognized the famous face that had constantly made the news in the weeks since his mother’s death. A thatch of thick, dark blond hair fell from a high forehead above slashing eyebrows that accentuated deep-set eyes. One supercilious brow hooked upward.

“Trouble?” The tinted window masked his nose and mouth.

“Yep.” She did all she could to maintain a friendly demeanor while staring into the face of upper-crust condescension. “Do you have a cell phone?”

“It isn’t working.” He held up the palm-sized gadget and shook it.

Right, like that would help.

If she had been in the city, or if the motorist had been a complete unknown, Gracie would have asked him to drive on and call Triple A at the first opportunity. But this wasn’t an unknown motorist and she could guess what had brought him to the area. For Clay’s sake, she shouldn’t pass up the opportunity to interrogate a Bradford—especially if she could get him to agree to give her a lift.

“You lost?” she asked.

“Why would you think that?” His irritatingly precise prep-school diction reminded her of Baxter, her faithless ex-fiancé. Not a happy comparison.

“It’s a good guess that if Dylan Bradford is wandering around on this road for the first time in decades, he’s bound to be looking for something.”

His eyes narrowed. “How do you know who I am?”

At the sharp tone, MacDuff poked his nose out and growled. “Hush.” She gave him an absent pat. “The bona fide Bradfords may not have graced East Langden with their presence in over twenty years, but if one of you belches, it still makes the local news.”

“Hmmph,” he muttered, just this side of a snort. “What’s wrong with your car?”

“I think it’s the transmission. Want to take a look?”

How many jet-set playboys does it take to check a dipstick? There had to be a good punch line in there somewhere.

His gaze moved from her damp curls to the squirmy lump inside her jacket, passed over the threadbare knees of her jeans, and on down to her muddy discount sneakers.

Instinctively, she knew he wasn’t scrutinizing her the way a man sized up an attractive woman. This was the kind of guarded assessment a cop would make before frisking a suspect for weapons. With his history, maybe he suspected she had a hidden microphone or camera.

Understanding his concern didn’t keep her from fidgeting under the visual inspection. She tilted her umbrella back to allow him a clear view of her face. The gesture sent rain dripping down her neck. She shimmied her shoulders to halt the icy trickle dribbling down her spine.

“If you’ll give me a lift to my grandparents’, I can make sure you get to your cabin.” A flash of lightning and boom of thunder accentuated the offer. “It’s not out of your way.”

Maybe he recognized her for the honest person she was. Maybe he took pity on her predicament, or maybe he was blessed with a more helpful disposition than she supposed. For whatever reason, just as she began to think he’d leave her to her fate, he shrugged. “Hop in.”

“I thought you’d never ask.” She grinned to soften the sarcasm, then splashed her way around the upscale car without giving him time to rethink the offer.

In her haste, the umbrella caught on the door. The time it took her to wrestle it closed allowed the cold and damp to invade the vehicle like an invisible wet blanket. Finally, she managed to settle into the seat with even less grace than usual.

The leathery new-car scent and the aroma of expensive cologne reminded Gracie of Baxter again. The reminder made her feel less ashamed than she should about tracking mud all over his spanking clean floor mats.

“Which way?” Dylan asked as she buckled up.

When she told him, he put the car in gear and took off. She nodded toward the dash. “Why didn’t you use your navigational system?”

“It kept telling me to turn at Cleveland, and unless I’m way off the mark, we’re nowhere near there.”

She suppressed a smile. MacDuff chose that moment to wriggle his head free and lick her chin.

“Who’s your friend?” Dylan put out his hand for the Scottie to sniff.

“This is MacDuff, the main reason I didn’t want to walk. I would’ve started out carrying him. But after a while, he would have wriggled to get down. And soggy dog is not my favorite bedtime companion.”

“He sleeps with you?”

“Every chance he gets.”

Dylan’s chuckle created a connection between them, a pleasant moment that she resented and would have believed impossible until it happened.

“Smart dog.”

She glared at him, but he shrugged. That kind of innuendo was probably second nature to him. He couldn’t refrain from flirting with any available female any more than MacDuff could keep from chasing woodchucks.

Ignoring the fact that his comment produced some definite heat somewhere around her mid-section and lower, she shivered inside her damp clothes and tried to think of a way to advance her fact-finding mission for Clay. Unfortunately, she was hopelessly straightforward down to her bones. Nothing devious or clever came to mind.

“I was sorry to hear about your mother.” Her tentative comment managed to evaporate any connection they shared.

“Did you know her?” The chill in his voice frosted the air between them.

“Not really, but she visited the clinic where I work in Hartford a few times. All of the staff admired her commitment to women’s and children’s health issues.” She thought of Baxter’s over-privileged mother and the distance she maintained between herself and anyone less fortunate. Dylan’s mother’s generous actions were the exception, not the norm among the uber-wealthy. “Your mother took a personal interest that we greatly appreciated.”

He slid her a look from the corner of his eye that might have been surprise or gratitude, but it was gone before she could decide. “Thanks.”

The curtness of the single word prevented her from continuing a dialogue that might have revealed her own mother’s death nine years ago. Even after all this time, the searing loss remained clear and sharp in her memory, so his abruptness didn’t offend her. If anything, she was grateful.

Sharing grief about their mothers might have led to further revelations. They had both lost their fathers at an early age to tragic accidents, too. But it didn’t matter how many similarities they shared, they really had very little in common. She was blue-collar, beer, and chowder all the way. He was blue-blood, champagne, and sashimi.

Just like Baxter. Except better looking, of course.

Annoyed by her awareness of his effortless just-rolled-out-of-bed scrumptious good looks—she’d have to be blind not to notice them—it was time to abandon polite conversation in favor of a more direct approach. She turned in her seat and peered at his strong profile in the dim light. “So, why are you gracing us with your presence?”