"Yes?"

He wiped the rain from his face with the side of his hand and looked around the crowded bar. He'd been in worse places. But not sober.

"I'm here from the garage."

It hadn't been hard to pick her out of the noisy, colorful group of bikers and truck drivers. He'd only had to see her strained face as she sat in the closest corner to the door. She was the one wearing more than a tank top who didn't look like she was having a good time.

"Thank you," she responded, standing up slowly and holding her brown coat closed with both hands. "I'm so glad you could come."

Her smile couldn't have been more genuine and welcoming if she'd been standing at her own front door.

"No problem," he answered quietly, understanding why she was looking at him as if he were in charge of the last lifeboat on the Titanic. "If you're ready--"

"Oh, yes!" She snatched up her purse and followed him slowly to the door.

He held the pockmarked door for her, noticing that she was limping. The tow truck was parked close to the door, the neon lights from the dirty bar flashing on its broad wet side. The rain was still coming down in cold sheets, pounding the pavement between the open door and the truck.

He waited, watching her in her expensive coat that already looked wet. Wondering when she would demand that he bring the truck to the door for her so she wouldn't have to get wet again.

The words were already forming on his lips to explain that there hadn't been enough room to get any closer when she smiled up at him, ducked her head and started walking towards the truck.

He watched her for a minute longer, surprised by her action. Surprised, too, by the sturdy, ugly shoes on her feet. He'd expected her to be wearing something strappy and high heeled, bitching and whining about the weather and his lack of attention to her comfort.

He knew who she was. Everyone in the town of Ferrier's Mountain knew the Ferrier family. She was a long way from the mountain, just outside of Charlotte. She'd called home for help when her car had broken down on the highway. And her voice had been very clear when he'd asked her name.

He pulled his cap down low and followed her out into the weather, adjusting his strides to her smaller, halting ones, his hands in his pockets.

The wind whipped frigidly through the parking lot and the rain beat down on his companion's bare head. Her hair had been pinned up but by the time they reached the truck, it was falling down, soaked against her head and shoulders.

It was difficult for her to step up into the truck. She clenched the door handle and pushed herself up until her knuckles turned white with the stress.

"Can I help?" he asked finally, wondering curiously what was wrong with her.

The wind blew a strand of dark wet hair across her pale face, her eyes a vivid, unusual shade of green. Suffering was gently etched in the lines around her mouth and eyes.

Maybe that was part of what made her so arresting, he decided, looking down at her as she struggled but refused to acknowledge defeat. She was, without doubt, the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen.

"Yes," she whispered, taking his arm.

The admission cost her. Pride warred with pain in her eyes for a brief moment. Then she looked away, obviously embarrassed by the need for help.

She was a Ferrier, after all, he determined disdainfully, lifting her bodily into the truck. Imagine having some lowly mechanic with dirty hands touch you. Not a pleasant experience.

He closed the door behind her then ran to his side of the cab, climbing in and turning on the heat.

"Where's your car?" he asked, not looking at her.

"About a mile from here," she replied breathlessly, glancing at her watch. "I'm already late for a very important appointment in Charlotte. I don't suppose you could--"

"Sure." He nodded, pulling the truck out of the parking lot between the motorcycles and the tractor-trailers. "I can take you where you're going first. We can pick up the car on the way back."

"Thanks."

He didn't reply, keeping his eyes and his mind on the dangerous road as they exited to the highway.

"It was awful, wasn't it?" she continued on with a delicate shudder. "When I saw the lights, I was wet and freezing and I thought I didn't care what it was as long as it had a phone. Once I got in there, I wasn't so sure."

"It wasn't a nice place," he agreed blandly.

She smiled and shivered in her wet clothes. "I'm sorry to get your truck so wet. That's my car over there." She pointed to the dark Mercedes parked along the edge of the highway.

"Did it run out of gas?" he asked mildly, his tone a trifle patronizing.

"Of course not," she replied, looking at him carefully. "Where's Mr. Hanson today?"

"Mr. Hanson died last year right after I bought the shop and the tow truck from him. Retirement didn't agree with him."

"Oh."

He dared a glance at her, seeing her wet, bedraggled coat hunched around her as she sat in the corner close to the door. She looked like she was about fifteen but he knew better. When Hanson had sold him the shop, he'd emphasized the fact that Emilie Ferrier had been letting him take care of her cars since her father had died ten years before. It was a great honor--and a lucrative account.

"So, you haven't changed the name from Hanson's," she said after a few minutes.

"No," he answered shortly. "Where are we going in Charlotte?"

"The big bank building that looks like the space shuttle," she told him. "I can never remember which bank that is."

He nodded. "I know which one you mean."

He felt her looking at him, studying his profile. He was uncomfortably aware of her and wished she'd sit back and be quiet and look at the scenery.

Despite the limp and the wet hair, she was a very attractive woman. When he'd lifted her into the truck, her waist had been no bigger than his two hands around it even through the heavy coat. She smelled like fresh air and clean rain and something expensive that teased his senses.

"So, you've been working on my cars for a year?"

"That's right," he stated flatly. "I hope everything's been satisfactory?"

"Until today," she allowed. "Not that I think that was your fault. I hit something coming down the road. I think it was a tree branch. From the storm, I suppose. The wheel jerked out of my hands and I couldn't control the car. Once I got to the side, it wouldn't move at all."

"Probably some damage to the axle," he conjectured noncommittally. "Too bad. That's a good car."

"I hope it won't be difficult to repair," she worried.

He looked at her as he stopped for a red light. "I'll have to look at it."

She stared at him openly for a few seconds. Even when he returned that interested gaze, she continued to study his features as if she were memorizing them. Then she looked away.

He felt her eyes on him again, though, as soon as he started down the road.

Was this some game with her? he wondered, keeping his eyes steadfastly glued to the windshield even when they stopped for lights. If so, it was annoying and uncomfortable and she needed to be taught a lesson in good manners. Staring at men, especially male strangers, would be included in that lesson. She was asking for trouble.

Traffic was slow. Bad enough on most days, the rain and slightly icy conditions made driving worse. They reached the bank building and he took a ticket from the parking attendant.

"If you're not gonna be a long time, you can park that rig over there," the attendant told him.

They both looked at the woman beside him.

"I don't know," she answered quietly. "It might be an hour."

"You'll have to park then," the attendant told him. "The ground floor has higher clearances. If you can find a place to park."

"Thanks," he said, pulling the truck into the beginning of the parking labyrinth.

"You could let me off here," she said, indicating a door that was marked leading to the elevators that serviced the building. "I'll try not to take too long."

"Yeah."

"Oh," she began, her hand resting on the door handle. "If you had changed the name of the garage when you bought it, what would you have called it?"

His gaze slid across her features insolently, his hands lingering on the steering wheel. "'Ferrier Auto Repair'. To match the rest of the town."

She looked down at the seat between them then back up into his face. "Why not your own name?"

"Not as interesting," he replied, leaning his head back against the seat and pulling his cap down over his eyes. "Take your time, Miz Ferrier. I can wait all day."

Emilie stared at him a little longer, wondering to herself if she'd ever encountered such an ill-natured man. Did he hate everyone? Or was it something personal that he didn't like about her?

Not that it mattered, she reminded herself excitedly. She was there and her lawyer was waiting upstairs. Hopefully with good news. The opinion of the man beside her didn't matter.

She opened the door and swung her legs down out of the truck. A sharp pain shot up through her right leg when it made contact with the concrete but she bit her lip and forced herself to march to the red doors that said 'elevator'.

The doors parted. The elevator was empty. She got inside and pushed the button to go up, glancing at the man in the truck to see if he'd watched her labored progress. His black cap was still pulled down over his eyes.

The doors closed and Emilie rested back gratefully against the cold wall. Her leg had been throbbing all day. The mile long walk hadn't helped but it was all a matter of perspective. There were good days and there were bad. If good news waited for her at the end of this particular journey, it would have all been worthwhile.

She got off at the fifteenth floor and was greeted by a paralegal who filled her in on the details of what had happened so far. The woman asked if she'd like coffee and took her coat, trying not to grimace when she saw the water dripping to the floor from it. Emilie declined the hot drink.

Emilie did what she could with her hair and dried her face, staring at herself in the dreadful bathroom fluorescent lights. Her hands trembled slightly as she touched her cheek.

No matter how many times she promised herself that she wouldn't get her hopes up, somehow they always sailed into the conference room, kite-like behind her.

Another woman, this time a legal assistant, waited for her outside the ladies' room. She asked if Emilie would like coffee and when she shook her head, showed her the way to the conference room that Emilie felt sure she could have found blindfolded.

"Ms. Ferrier, sir," she said peeking around the door then opening it widely and allowed Emilie to enter.

"Emilie." Alain gestured to the end of the table. "We're just getting started."

She sat alone at the long table. The highly polished surface reflected her face and the delicate pink of her blouse as though it were a mirror. The blinds had been pulled over the large windows that overlooked the city but she wished they had been left open even if the day was stormy. It made the room seem less confining.

Across from her, the two lawyers argued softly in the quiet room.

Her lawyer, Alain Jackson of Jackson, Parsons and Levitt, sharp, expensive, and well dressed, leaned towards his counterpart, Jonathon Stewart from Stewart and McPhail, as though he could impress his considerable will on the other man.

"Where's the problem, Jon? Your client doesn't want the little girl. My client does. At least let them meet and see what happens."

Mr. Stewart stood up abruptly, adjusting his cheap brown suit and touching a barely white handkerchief to his brow. "I would like to help you. I would like to help your client. And I'm sure Ms. Ferrier would make an excellent mother." He looked her way with an apologetic eye. "But my client is adamant. There has to be two parents for this adoption to take place."

Emilie nodded slowly, acknowledging the man's regret with her eyes.

Alain fixed the shorter man with a shark's gaze. "There'd be more than the usual adoption fee in it for you, Jon. What's the harm in them meeting?"

Mr. Stewart drew himself up to his full height and tried to stare down the other man. "My client will not be moved on this. I am sorry, Ms. Ferrier. And I do wish you well with another adoption. Good day."

Mr. Stewart walked quickly from the room. The door closed softly behind him.

Alain sighed heavily. He adjusted his silk tie, took a quick glance at his own reflection in the mirrorlike surface of the table then turned to his client.

"I'm sorry, too. Emilie. I thought that this was the one for you."

Emilie closed her eyes for a brief instant, then smiled as she forced herself to take a deep breath.

She had been trying to adopt a child for three years. The outcome wasn't unexpected. Still she felt that familiar let down as the excitement washed away from her in the gray tide of reality.

"You did your best, Alain. I appreciate it."

She pushed her chair back across the pale blue carpet and reached for her sodden coat.

"Let me help you with that," Alain offered quickly.

Emilie stood up, slowly, painfully, and accepted his help. He held the long wool coat while she slid her arms into the sleeves then settled it across her slender shoulders.

"Stay in town tonight," he said quietly from the general direction of her right ear. His hands lingered on her arms. "Let me take you out for dinner. There's a great musical at the performing arts center."

"I have to get back," she declined gracefully. "Elspeth isn't herself during the full moon."

Alain, whose father had represented her family before he was born, snorted disdainfully. "Your aunt needs help, Emilie."

She turned slightly and stared at him, green eyes flashing in quick anger. "Help?"

He smiled and moved his hands from her coat. "Help," he explained, swallowing the words he'd been about to say as quickly as bad wine. "Someone who could watch over her so that you could have a life too, Emilie. You want a baby, darlin', but you've never even had a life of your own. Always takin' care of everyone. Maybe you should just live a little."

He searched the perfect oval of Emilie's face for some sign that his words had reached her but there was no emotion that stirred on the surface or in the depths of her strange green eyes.

Ferrier eyes, he recalled. Her father had looked at him with those same eyes.

"I've lived as much as I've wanted to live, Alain," she assured him, picking up her scarf and gloves. "Elspeth isn't a burden for me. I love her. Call me when you hear anything else, please."

"You know I will," he answered easily. "You won't reconsider about spending the night?"

Emilie looked up into his handsome face, knowing that the invitation was for more than a dinner and a show. She'd known Alain Jackson most of her life. She'd seen his teasing, boyish good looks slide into the carefully manicured, tanned and sculpted man before her.

"I have to go home, Alain," she repeated in a gentle voice. "Thank you anyway."

She touched his hand then removed her fingers quickly before he could return the caress.

He didn't fool himself. It was only a gesture of friendship. He'd known Emilie too long to think it was anything more.

Not that he didn't wish it. He had always found Emilie attractive, had always thought there might be fire behind those emerald green eyes.

He watched her walk from the conference room slowly, the limp pronounced in her right leg as it always was on cold rainy days. His father had told him that it was a curse from God on the wealthy, proud Emile Ferrier that his only child had been stricken by polio.

Yet, what Emilie lacked in physical prowess, she made up in beauty. Her skin was like velvet and her face was like an angel.

A cool, distant angel, he considered. At least she had always been so to him. Blessed with the abiding legacy of the Ferrier fortune, she went her own way. She smiled at him but her eyes were far away. He knew she wasn't really looking at him.

Emilie wrapped her scarf around her neck and pulled on her gloves as she rode the elevator down to the parking deck. She wasn't disappointed anymore, she told herself. She'd gone through it too many times.

She was too old. Or too young. Her skin was the wrong color. Or she wasn't the right religion. The child had to be adopted by two parents. Or the child could only be adopted by a man.

Tears welled in her eyes. She looked up at the white elevator ceiling, willing them away, and refusing to let even one slide down her cheek.

She'd known since she was sixteen that the same polio virus that had crippled her had left her sterile. She'd cried the day the doctor had told her that she would never have children. She'd promised herself that she wouldn't cry as long as there was hope that she could adopt. Somewhere in the world was a child that needed her. That was God's plan for her. That was why she had been left barren and crippled but alive on the earth.

But she'd cried so many times since that promise. Every time the adoption that had seemed so promising, went wrong. Late in her bed at night when the long hours until morning seemed interminable.

The elevator doors parted at the parking deck and two men in dark suits stepped aside to let her out of the conveyance. Self consciously, she walked between them, every footstep painfully aware that her uneven stride made her ungainly.

How many boys in school had been attracted by her family name and her pretty face, only to turn away in revulsion when she got up to walk with them?

At least, she recalled, adult men weren't as cruel as their younger counterparts. In school, they had openly teased her, nicknames catching on that made her shun her classmates. As adults, they merely turned away and whispered quietly that it was a pity.

Except for Alain Jackson, of course. She smiled. He had always made his regard for her, and her family's money, well known to her.

But she was getting cynical in her old age.

Alain had been married twice, twice divorced. Each time that he was free, he tried again to establish a relationship with her. He simply didn't feel that she was the only woman in the world.

And if she was waiting for that to happen, she told herself, looking for the bright red tow truck, she might as well consign herself to being alone forever. She'd made that mistake once. She would never be that innocent again.

She found the big tow truck, not parked in a space but between two spaces and part of an exit ramp. Determined not to need his help again, Emilie ground her teeth against the pain from her leg, jerked open the door and climbed up into the cab.

It was more of an effort than she'd thought but she finally half pulled, half pushed herself on the seat. She looked up, breathlessly, into the man's face as he calmly watched her.

"Ready?" he asked.

"Ready," she assured him, straightening herself against the door. "I'm sorry you had to wait so long."

"No problem," he replied, a smile on his lean face. He'd spent the last hour and a half kicking his own ass for letting Emilie Ferrier see anything but the most polite, easy going, well-mannered garage owner in the world.

What was he thinking? The Ferrier account was important to his business. His personal opinion didn't matter. He didn't know what it was about her that irritated him but he did know he wasn't going to let it bother him again. At least not while she was with him.

The heavy layers of concrete that made up the circular parking deck had sheltered the sound of the heavy sheets of rain that were swamping the city streets. The temperature had fallen again and as he pulled out of the shelter, a car slid sideways into traffic, striking two other cars stopped at the light.

Emilie held her breath and the door handle as her escort did a quick circle around the accident then stopped abruptly at the light, the tires screeching a little on the wet pavement.

He looked at her and smiled then pulled back out into traffic when the light changed.

"You must have been a stunt driver before you owned your garage," she remarked, terrified, as he swerved from one lane to another.

Charlotte was a city of demon drivers. If they could make it to the interstate ramp, she would feel safer driving at seventy miles an hour than she would on the crowded city streets. Especially since her driver seemed intent on coming as close as he could to the other cars around them.

"Just intent on getting you home, ma'am," he intoned, narrowly missing another car that slid off to the side of the road in front of them.

"In one piece, I hope," she added.

"In one piece," he agreed with a quick glance and another smile.

She looked at him as they joined the other traffic on the interstate. He was tall and lean. Not an ounce of surplus body weight hung on his frame. Yet she'd felt the strength of his hands and arms as he'd tossed her effortlessly into the truck.

His face was dark and angular with the shadow of black beard haunting his chin and cheeks. Quick and assessing, his black eyes roamed her face but it wasn't an easy perusal. His mouth didn't seem to find pleasure in the motion when he did smile at her.

"Did you take a friendly pill while I was gone?" she asked, baiting him, not really sure why she'd do such a thing.

The smile faded and she was sure if he'd turned away from the road that his eyes would have become watchful.

"I apologize if I seemed rude before," he began slowly, the words coming haltingly from his throat.

"That's all right. I'm tough enough to take it."

A truck passed them, spraying up slush across the windows, and for an instant, the windshield was covered by the dirty gray water.

Emilie grabbed at her armrest, terrified by the blind feeling of helplessness. When she glanced at her companion as the wipers cleared the window, she saw that he was laughing.

"Not so tough in the clinches, huh?"

She glared at him. "I liked your artificial politeness better."

"Yes, ma'am," he replied shortly, forgetting his earlier pledge to himself. "I wouldn't want to upset your ideas on how you deserve to be treated."

They had reached her car and he pulled the tow truck to a stop in front of it.

"Stay here," he advised. "There's no reason for both of us to get soaked again."

It was a begrudging sort of deferment to Emilie being the one who was paying for the service and it angered her. She pushed open the truck door and slid down to the ground, trudging through the rain and the cold winds whipped by the fast moving traffic to reach his side.

"What the hell are you doing out here?" he yelled above the sound of a passing truck that sprayed water on them both.

"Why do you dislike me so much?" she shouted back. "You don't even know me!"

"You're right," he agreed, setting up the equipment that would tow her car back to his garage. "I don't know you at all. Let's keep it that way. Get back in the damned truck." He bent down close to the road, bringing the hook with him, looking underneath her car at the damage she'd done.

She followed him. "Does it look bad?"

He stared at her, rain dripping from his face. "I can't tell. I'm going to have to take it back and look at it there."

"What about me?" she pressed, coming down almost to the same level with him at the car bumper. "Is it because my family has money? Or is it because I'm crippled?"

He stared at her. He'd been brought up in a family that was plain spoken but even they wouldn't have spoken those words. He'd heard one of the Ferriers was crazy. Was this the crazy one?

"What?"

"You've had something against me from the minute you picked me up today," she explained despite the fact that her teeth were chattering and she was soaked from the top of her head to her feet. "I want to know."

Faced with those astonishing green eyes set in that pale angel's face, her lips turning visibly blue in the cold, he relented. "It's nothing personal," he told her. "I--uh--just thought you should have noticed that Ham Hanson was dead and that someone else was looking after your cars. I thought you were just too rich, too busy."

Her face, amazingly, brightened at his words. "I'm sorry. Really. It's just that I've never been very good with cars and I suppose I don't take the time to notice what happens with them."

"That's okay," he assured her. "If you'll get back into the truck, I can finish up out here."

She stuck out her hand. "I'm Emilie Ferrier. I'm sorry I haven't met you before now, Mr.--"

"Nick." He took her hand, freezing and wet, in his own warmer one. "Nick Garrett."

"Nick," she said with a brilliant smile, wiping a hand that dripped with water across her equally wet hair, trying to keep it out of her face. "I'm glad to meet you."

"Thanks," he responded then glanced at the truck. "If you'll get back in--"

She looked down at the water that was sluicing across her shoes as it ran to the side of the highway. "I don't think I can get back in there again by myself, Nick," she admitted ruefully. "I'm afraid I've reached my limit for the day. So, if you'd like to finish, I can just ride in my car back to town."

"That's not legal," he answered, finishing his hook up on the Mercedes. "I could lose my license for letting you do that."

She frowned. "Oh. I'm sorry. I didn't know. But I--"

He was suddenly there beside her, taller than she'd noticed earlier, and darker, rain dripping from his black hair that was drawn back under his hat and rested on his shoulder.

"I'm finished. Let me help you."

She nodded, not trusting herself to speak when she looked into his eyes. Black eyes. Devil's eyes, as her father used to say. Up to no good. Not to be trusted. Gypsy's eyes.

"I'm sorry to be so much trouble," she apologized, starting to walk back around the side of the truck again. Her limp was more pronounced, painfully so as she was hunched over against the icy wind.

Before she went a dozen steps, he lifted her, coat and all, easily into his arms.

She didn't fight him, wondering instead what to do with her arms, ending up clenching her hands against her chest.

"This is better service than anyone deserves," she said, reaching with one hand to open the truck door.

"Even a Ferrier?" he wondered, dark eyes laughing ironically down into hers.