Linda Turner - Mission - M.d.

Caught up in the fantasy, Rachel couldn’t have lost track of time even if she’d wanted to. It was barely six, and her first customers of the day were waiting out on the bakery’s old-fashioned porch for her to open for business. Promptly at six, she unlocked the front door and welcomed them in. Then the madness began.

She loved waiting on her customers, loved greeting them by name and sharing part of the morning with them. She knew their likes and dislikes, who was on a diet and who wasn’t, who liked soda instead of coffee, who had to rush to work, and who could sit at one of the sidewalk tables on the front porch and watch Main Street slowly come awake.

“Good morning, John. A dozen chocolate-covered doughnuts this morning?” she asked the deputy sheriff, who came in every morning to buy doughnuts for the sheriff’s department. “How about a cup of coffee to go?”

His weathered face folded into a broad grin. “You know me too well, Rachel. Better add a dozen glazed, too. It’s a two-doughnut day.”

“You got it,” she chuckled, and boxed up his order for him.

Thirty minutes after she opened the bakery for business, all the tables were full, and there was a line of customers out the door. Delighted, Rachel laughed and joked and completely forgot about the new man her grandmother had arranged for her to meet. Then suddenly, a stranger stepped up to counter and she knew this had to be Robert.

Surprised, she couldn’t have said what she’d been expecting, but it wasn’t the man standing in front of her. He was tall and lean, with a rugged face and the bluest eyes she’d ever seen. After Jason’s betrayal, she’d been convinced that there wasn’t a man on earth who would ever get her attention again. But one look at Robert, and her heart lurched in her breast.

Shocked, irritated, she almost asked Sissy to wait on him, but her pride wouldn’t let her do that. Thankful he couldn’t hear the pounding of her heart, she forced a smile. “Hi. Gran said you’d be coming in this morning. You’re a sweetheart to humor her, but I’m not really interested. It’s nothing personal,” she added quickly when he lifted a dark brow in surprise. “I’m just not looking for a man right now. How about a pastry instead? Take your pick. It’s my treat. Okay?”

Turk Garrison liked to think he was a man who could think fast on his feet. And it didn’t take an Einstein to know that the counter woman who had just dismissed him so pleasantly obviously had mistaken him for someone else. He should have told her he wasn’t who she thought he was, buy the doughnut and coffee he’d come in for, then be on his way. But there were some situations a man just couldn’t walk away from, and this was one of them.

Pressing his hand to his heart, he gave her a wounded look. “I don’t understand. How can you not be interested? I’m not bad-looking, everyone tells me I’m a lot of fun, and I don’t pick my teeth. C’mon. Give me a chance.”

Every customer in the place was listening, and more than a few were having a hard time holding back smiles. That only encouraged him more. “Ask anybody here,” he told her. “They’ll tell you the same thing. We could be perfect for each other, but you’re not even giving me the time of day. Are you sure you want to do that? You could be turning down Mr. Wonderful.”

“That’s right, Rachel,” an older, bald gentleman seated at a nearby table said with twinkling eyes. “At least talk to the man.”

So her name was Rachel. And she blushed beautifully. She was starting to look more than a little trapped, and Turk knew he’d taken the joke far enough. “It’s okay,” he said, grinning. “I’m not him.”

Confused, she frowned. “What?”

“You’ve got me confused with someone else. I don’t even know your grandmother.”

For a moment, she just stood there. Then he watched mortification flare in her pretty blue eyes. “Oh, God! You’re not Robert? I’m so sorry! I thought—”

“No problem,” he said easily. “I don’t know who Robert is, but I’m glad I’m not him. So when are we going out? I’ve got tickets to the Stones concert Saturday night. Say the word and I’ll pick you up at six…I just need your address.”

He gave her a boyish grin that he had, no doubt, been flashing at females since the first one cooed at him in his mother’s arms. And Rachel had to admit that it was damned effective. Dazed, she couldn’t take her eyes from the crooked, enticing curve of his sensuous mouth.

Hello? Anybody home? Have you lost your mind? You’re staring at the man like he just hung the moon!

The irritating little voice that whispered in her head got through to her as nothing else could. Swallowing a curse, she stiffened. What the heck was wrong with her? She didn’t do this, didn’t drool over a man as if she’d never seen one before…especially after the way Jason had betrayed her. The only man she wanted was a stranger she could walk away from after a one-night stand. If this man lived in Hunter’s Ridge, he wouldn’t be a stranger long, and she only had to see the mischief dancing in his eyes to know he wasn’t the kind a woman walked away from easily. The charmers never were.

“Sorry,” she retorted coolly. “I’m busy Saturday night. I have to do my laundry.”

She could have done her laundry any time and the glint in his eye told her he knew it. But he accepted the excuse with a shrug and a grin. “Shot down again. Damn, I hate it when that happens. But that’s okay. I’ll just have to ask again when you’re not so busy. See you around, sweetcakes.”

Flashing his dimples at her, he stuffed a tip in the tip jar, grabbed his coffee and the doughnut she’d sacked for him, and walked out with an easy animal grace that Rachel couldn’t help but appreciate. She wasn’t the only one. When she finally blinked back to attention, every other woman in the bakery was watching the long, tall drink of water saunter out of the bakery.

“I’ll have some of that,” Dixie Hicks sighed dreamily from a nearby table. “He’s cute.”

Next in line at the counter, Hilda Stevens cackled, “He certainly is. Reminds me of my third husband. I never should have let him go—he was a fantastic lover.”

Three years past eighty and showing no signs of slowing down, Hilda loved nothing more than talking about her ex-husbands…and shocking people. Amused, Rachel just rolled her eyes. “Now, Hilda, you know I can’t let you talk about the exes. We’ve got schoolkids here….”

“Oh, they’re trying to decide what doughnuts they want,” she scoffed. “They’re not paying any attention to an old woman.”

“Kids hear everything, Hilda. You know that.”

“They’re not going to hear the good stuff. Anyway, this is about you, not me. Why didn’t you take that boy up on his invitation? I’m not interested,” she mimicked, scowling. “Of course you’re interested! He was cute as a button. Maybe you’re working too hard. I think I need to talk to your grandmother.”

“No!” She was already getting enough grief from her grandmother—she didn’t need more! “I appreciate your concern, Hilda, but I don’t need help from Gran or anyone else. I can get my own dates.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” the older woman retorted. “Look what you just let walk out the door!”

It had been a long time since a woman had turned him down for a date, Turk Garrison thought with a grin as he headed back to his house. His timing must have been off. That was okay—he’d ask her again. He knew where she worked. Even if he hadn’t, he could walk the length and breadth of Hunter’s Ridge in less than an hour. Finding her again wouldn’t be a problem.