“Down four rows, Ms. Penoyer…” The stewardess directed her with a smile, handing back her ticket.

Gratefully, Bree stepped forward. All she wanted was her assigned seat, a pillow and silence. Obviously, freedom was getting to her, she thought wryly. She was now without a fiancé, without a job-heck, without a future. It had proved a little tiring to tear up her entire life in a matter of days. Actually, it was going to take every last bit of energy she could dredge up to get to Gram’s cabin, but that goal beckoned like sunlight after days of rain, if she could only be done with this night flight and just be there…

She paused in the aisle next to her assigned window seat. To get to it, she was going to have to maneuver herself past an incredibly long pair of stretched-out legs. The man was dead-to-the-world asleep, precisely the activity Bree had in mind for herself, but in the meantime he was one more roadblock in an incredibly long week of them.

She bent over him and tried to whisper, “Excuse me.” Unfortunately, no sound escaped her lips. When was she going to get used to that? Exasperated with herself, she sighed, and pitched her shoulder bag over the man to her seat. He didn’t budge.

She wasn’t surprised. One glance told her she wasn’t going to like him. Normally, she took her time about judging people, but this man was such an easy read. He was all the things that got a woman in trouble. His thick sweep of sun-bleached hair was disheveled, Robert Redford style. He had classic, good-looking features and barely a character line, though he must have been more than thirty. His skin was suntanned, out of season. The body was long; the shoulders would have made a linebacker jealous; and Bree had always had a low tolerance for Adonises. In the meantime, his macho Italian tailoring was still blocking her path.

She touched his shoulder, which accomplished nothing. An explosion clearly wouldn’t wake him. Frustrated, she tried to climb over him modestly, but her straight linen skirt would only spread so far. Muttering under her breath, she hiked up her skirt and lifted her leg to take the classic Mother-May-I giant step.