"Sixteen...ow...seventeen...damn it...eighteen...hell."

The weights clattered against the concrete floor when Kyle Reeves dropped his legs and let the bar fall. He had increased the resistance today and the pain was too intense to go any further. The result was that he was now in a very bad mood — not that there was anything new about that. This particular bad mood had lasted eight months, three weeks and four days — give or take a couple of hours.

A clap of thunder rattled the windows, followed by another ominous rumbling that seemed to echo his disposition. Rain had started to fall, not very heavily yet, but steadily. It was supposed to storm this evening, and storms were always dramatic in the mountains. He rather enjoyed them.

Pushing himself off the weight bench, he limped across the stark, white-walled room and stepped into a short hallway with oak plank floors and unadorned walls, also painted white. His cabin in the Tennessee Smoky Mountains wasn't large — two bedrooms, one of which served as his exercise room, one bath, a small living room and an eat-in kitchen. The furnishings were minimal, the decor Spartan, luxuries nonexistent.

The place needed some work — a few boards on the front porch had rotted, and cold air poured through numerous cracks around doors and windows — but the roof didn't leak, and the view from the redwood deck attached to the back of the house was spectacular. And best of all, as far as Kyle was concerned, there were no neighbors within sight.

Reaching the kitchen, he picked up a bottle of prescription pain pills, glanced at it, then tossed it back onto the butcher-block countertop. He shook two ibuprofen into his palm instead, popped them into his mouth and washed them down with a few swallows of bottled water.

He pushed a hand through his sweaty brown hair, leaving it standing in spikes. He caught a glimpse of his reflection in the shiny door of the refrigerator when he put away the water. In addition to his messy hair, he had a four-day beard growth, which didn't quite conceal the scar that ran down his left jawline. His sweat-stained gray T-shirt was paired with black knit shorts that bagged on his too-thin frame. No socks, but he wore a good pair of athletic shoes because he needed the support. He looked like hell — but since there was no one around to see him, he didn't really care.

As if in response to that thought, someone knocked on his front door.

His eyebrows shot up in surprise. He was hardly expecting company, and he doubted that his only real friend in the area, Mack McDooley, would have ventured up the mountain in an approaching storm on this Thursday afternoon. He was even more surprised that he hadn't heard a car engine, but he blamed that on the noise of the worsening weather.

The knocking came again. Sighing heavily, he limped into the living room and jerked open the door without bothering to see who was on the other side. "What?"

He'd have been hard-pressed to guess who looked more surprised at that moment. His visitor, in response to his curt greeting, or himself, at his first sight of the woman on his doorstep.

Even in the deepening darkness of the rainy afternoon, he could tell that she was stunning. Masses of red hair, dotted with moisture, tumbled past her shoulders to the middle of her back. Dark lashes surrounded large green eyes emphasized by smudgy eyeliner. Her perfect nose was decorated with a smattering of golden freckles, and her mouth was full and glossy. She was of average height, with a slender figure packaged in a snug green pullover and dark jeans that made her legs look a mile long.

He couldn't imagine what a woman like this was doing on his doorstep. "Are you lost?"

She eyed him speculatively before responding, and he had the uncomfortable suspicion that she didn't miss one detail of his grubby appearance. Not that he cared, of course. She would be on her way as soon as he gave her directions to wherever she was supposed to be.

But she shook her head, causing gold highlights to glimmer in her hair. "I'm not lost — at least, I don't think I am. I mean...are you Kyle Reeves?"

Hearing his name spoken in a distinctly Texan accent drew his frown even deeper. "Look, I've tried to be polite with you people, but you're carrying it too far. Tell Shane and Molly that it was nice of them to think of me, but I won't be attending their reunion thing. Make it clear this time that I won't be changing my mind — and I don't want to have to repeat the message again."

Though he'd spoken tersely, he could have been a lot less polite about it — and he was fully prepared to be, if she started getting pushy, regardless of her killer eyes and delectable mouth. It was only his lingering fondness for the Walker family and his reluctance to hurt little Molly's feelings that kept his temper in check — though he couldn't guarantee he could control it much longer.

Enough was enough.

Planting her hands on her hips, the woman cocked her head to study him more closely. Something about that gesture looked vaguely familiar to him, but before he could pin it down, she spoke again. "Do you mind if I come in for a few minutes? I didn't expect it to be so chilly here, and to be honest, I'm sort of cold."

Her three-quarter-sleeve shirt and jeans would probably have been plenty warm enough back in Dallas in early October, but on a rainy day at this altitude, a light jacket would have been appropriate. Still... "You don't need to come in. Go back to Texas where it's warm, and give Shane and Molly my regrets. It's that simple."

Lightning lit the purple sky behind her, flashing behind the distant mountains and making her damp hair seem to come alive for just a moment. And then the sky dimmed, leaving her in shadows again. "All I want is five minutes of your time. Surely you can spare that much, Mr. Reeves."

If he were really as hard-hearted as he was trying to be, he wouldn't be in the least affected by the slight tremor in her voice. He didn't know whether it was caused by cold or nerves, but it got to him. He wavered a few moments more, then mentally cursed himself for being a fool and stepped out of the doorway.

"You've got five minutes. Say your piece, but you might as well know I won't be changing my mind. At the end of your spiel, I'll expect you to leave and make sure that no one else bothers me about this."

"Thank you."

He noticed her taking in every detail of his living room, which was neat, if a bit dusty, and equipped with only the most basic of furniture, other than his treasured big- screen TV. A big fireplace dominated one wall, but he hadn't started any fires yet this season, so it was dark and empty behind the functional black screen.

The place probably looked stark and primitive to this hothouse flower. Good. Maybe she wouldn't be tempted to stay beyond her allotted time.

Though he didn't invite her to sit, she settled onto the battered, secondhand, brown leather couch, anyway. Much too conscious of her gaze on him, he made an effort to control his limp as he moved to the nearest of two brown- and-tan plaid recliners and sank into it.

"Let me save you a little time. You want to extend an invitation for me to attend a surprise anniversary party for Jared and Cassie Walker next week. All their former foster boys are invited. Shane and Molly are putting the whole thing together and little Molly will be very disappointed if I don't make an appearance. Has that pretty well summed up what you were planning to say?"

She laid one arm across the back of the couch, looking as comfortable as if she were a regular visitor to his home. "You've stated it pretty well."

"I've heard the pitch a couple of times before."

"I know."

"Molly and Shane are persistent, I'll give them that. I've never been so aggressively 'invited'to a party before."

"You were special to the family, and they've missed you. It would mean a great deal to them for you to be there."

"The Walkers have had a whole string of foster boys at the ranch. They won't miss one at their reunion."

"Everyone will have a good time even if you don't come," she conceded. "But it will be even better if you're there."

"I'm sorry, that isn't possible."

She studied his face a moment, then sighed lightly.

"Then you're right. We should leave you alone."

Finally. He nodded curtly. "I appreciate it."

"Is there a message you would like to send to the family — other than to leave you alone?"

He found himself looking at her mouth. If she was particularly chagrined that she hadn't coaxed a commitment out of him, she wasn't letting it show. Her luscious lips curved into a slight smile as she gazed at him through those thick, dark lashes. A jolt of awareness shot through him, reminding him of the first moment when he had seen her and had been body-slammed by unexpected attraction.

He mentally shook his head and tried to concentrate on something other than how much time had passed since he'd been with a woman. "A message? I guess you can tell them happy anniversary for me. And you can tell Molly I'm sorry she went to so much trouble on my behalf."

One slender eyebrow arched in question. Her smile widened. "Why don't you tell her yourself?"

"I don't —" He eyed her expression. "Oh hell. Surely you're not —"

"You never asked my name," she reminded him.

"Have I really changed so much?"

He felt himself sink more deeply into his chair. An uncharacteristic warmth flowed up his neck and onto his face. Kyle wasn't often embarrassed — and he was even more rarely taken completely by surprise — but she had just accomplished both. "You're Molly?"

She ran her fingers through her curtain of hair, never taking her gaze off him. "I believe you called me 'little Molly'earlier. Did you think time had stopped since you left the ranch almost a dozen years ago, Kyle?"

"How old are you?"

She seemed more amused than offended by the question. "I'll be twenty-four in a few weeks."

Twenty-four. He shook his head slowly in disbelief. Maybe he had thought time had stopped. On the rare occasion when he had pictured Molly, he'd remembered a freckle-faced carrottop with gaps in her teeth and dirt on her face. She had been a bundle of energy, chattering a mile a minute, tagging at her father's heels whenever he would let her — which was often, since Jared had been able to deny little to his only daughter.

Having no experience with gregarious little girls, Kyle had been rather intimidated by her then. He willingly admitted that she terrified him now. Talk about trouble in a nicely wrapped package....

"You're twenty-nine," she murmured. "You were almost seventeen when you came to us. You stayed a couple of months after your eighteenth birthday to finish high school, and then you left for boot camp. I was twelve when you went away. I was heartbroken, you know. It always broke my heart when anyone left us."

"I remember you cried your eyes out when the kid before me left not long after I got there. His name was Daniel, wasn't it?"

"Daniel Castillo — though he uses the last name Andreas now." Her smile turned radiant. "He's back in the family now. He recently married my cousin B.J."

"No kidding." He tried to focus on the conversation rather than the way her smile pushed tiny dimples into the corner of her mouth. "I remember her. Her name was Brittany, but she wanted everyone to use her initials, instead."

"Everyone pretty much does now — except her mother, who still insists on calling her Brittany."

"So she married Daniel."

Molly nodded. "It was a whirlwind courtship, and I think it's fantastic. They're perfect together — they always were, even when they were teenagers."

Kyle suddenly scowled, wondering what the hell he was doing sitting here listening to family gossip from Molly Walker — no longer "little" Molly Walker. If they kept this up, he would find himself all duded up for a silver anniversary party he'd had no intention of attending.

He shifted in his chair, and pain shot through his left leg and up into his back. The feeling was so familiar, he was able to hide his reactions from Molly — or at least, he thought he had, though her sharp green eyes had suddenly narrowed speculatively.

"Your five minutes are over," he reminded her, his bad mood returning with a vengeance.