Peyton stood and shook his offered hand. “Sure. I think this meeting was unexpected for both of us.”

“It certainly was. By the way, how are you with children?”

She stiffened as if offended. “I’m the oldest of eight and consider myself to be good with kids, though I’m in no way interested in taking on child-care duties. How is that relevant to the position?”

He laughed softly and put his hands in his pockets. “It’s a small town, and the people who seem to get hurt or sick the most often are the children and the elderly.”

Her face relaxed. “Oh. Right. Of course. I knew that.”

Scott followed Peyton to the reception area and stood by while Peyton chatted briefly with Devon. They acted like girlfriends, thanking each other for the time, saying they’d see each other again. Scott wondered what was going through Peyton’s mind. Maybe she was attracted to Devon? No...he wasn’t getting that vibe. It was just that Peyton was more comfortable with Devon than she had been with him. He watched as Peyton left and climbed into the luxury car that sat right in front of the clinic.

“Wow, that’s some car,” Devon said.

“Uh-huh. I hope she’s not making payments on it.”

“Why?”

“Because on the salary I offered her, she’d have trouble. That’s an LS 600. Starts at over a hundred grand.”

Devon shot him a startled look. “Do you think she’ll take the job?”

“Not a chance in hell,” he said. Then he turned and went back to his office.

Two

Peyton went to look at the town’s beach. She knew it would be unique and interesting—she’d grown up in this state, and all the beaches were so magical, so different from each other. She parked in the marina lot and walked from there. It was late June, school was out, it was warm and sunny, and people were enjoying the beach. A couple of women sat in low beach chairs on the sand under an umbrella; between them a baby played with a bucket and a few toys, and two children, about four years old, were at the water’s edge. The Pacific was cold, and the children chased the waves, trying not to get too wet. There were a couple of teenage boys on paddleboards out on the bay, a couple more tossing a Frisbee around the beach. The Great Dane she’d seen in front of the diner now sat out at the edge of the dock watching the boys on the water.

It was a very clean beach, and she took off her sandals to walk. At the far end there was a flight of wooden stairs leading up to a small restaurant—Ben & Cooper’s, according to the sign over the door. A few people sat out on the deck, and under the deck there were kayaks and paddleboards, obviously available to rent.

Peyton figured this beach was probably much busier on weekends. There weren’t many people now—a dozen maybe. But it was two o’clock on a Wednesday afternoon, and while school might be out for the summer, most people were at work. She spotted a weathered log. It had been used as a bench before; the remnants of a fire pit, carefully surrounded by large rocks that wouldn’t wash out with the tide, sat in front of it. She sat down to consider her options. Could I hear myself think in a place like this?

Peyton was thirty-five and single. She had a prestigious degree and a lot of experience, had a great big loving family with healthy parents, four brothers and three sisters. All of the Lacoumette siblings got along but were not all best friends. Matt got on her last nerve because he liked being the prankster of the family, Ginny annoyed the hell out of her the way she was always playing cruise director and taking control of everyone and everything, Ellie was trying to copy their parents and reproduce the nation with her five kids and counting, but Adele was her best friend, and big silent George, second oldest, still ranched on their family land and was her rock. George didn’t usually have much to say, and yet when Peyton needed to talk, they had wonderful conversations. The rest of the time everyone else was talking too much.

In a family of eight children you could have sibling issues and rivalries and alliances—it was a very interesting balance, loving all of them, but definitely some better than others. She was the only one with no romantic partner, no family of her own. Well, except Matt, who was recently divorced, but that would surely be temporary—he was funny and handsome, and women loved him. But Peyton was alone. That was once by design. She couldn’t wait to move away from the farm and have a life that didn’t make her at least partly responsible for seven siblings. And then while the other young women her age were looking for husbands, she’d been looking for a career, travel, adventure and perhaps some great dates, but not to be tied down. She was in no hurry to have kids, if ever! Lord, she’d had enough of kids. Her first niece had arrived before she graduated from college, and the numbers were still growing. There were ten so far, and Adele, thirty now, was expecting her first. Peyton’s mother, Corinne, was in heaven; her parents loved being grandparents. Her father, Paco Lacoumette, loved nothing so much as sitting at the head of a huge clan.

All Peyton had wanted was to live in a place not crowded by people, have her own bedroom, closet and bathroom. She wanted to do fun things, the kind of things her siblings with kids didn’t have the time or money for—skiing, scuba diving, river rafting. She wanted to be able to spend money on clothes that wouldn’t go missing from her drawers when some younger sister absconded with them; she wanted to drive a car no one had driven before her. She liked being able to watch anything she wanted on TV and reading until four in the morning if she felt like it. And she had done all that. For ten years following college, she’d lived the life she’d always dreamed of and hadn’t taken it for granted for one second. She was not lonely one day of her life. And then, at just over thirty, she was finally ready to share her space again.

That’s when she met The Man. Ted Ramsdale. He was so handsome he stopped her heart and took her breath away. Six-two, built like a god, dark hair, piercing blue eyes, straight white teeth. That was the first thing she’d noticed, but it was not what caused her to fall in love with him. He was a brilliant and powerful cardiologist, one of the best known and most admired in the state. He was charismatic; his success with patients had everything to do with his bedside manner. He could charm even the crankiest old man into doing everything exactly as asked. Ten minutes with a patient and Ted had them eating out of his hand. He could give courses on being a loving, giving physician. His staff would follow him anywhere; his colleagues went to him for advice. Ted always got his way, and at the same time everyone who dealt with him believed they had gotten theirs.