Maguire was quite a piece of work, Carolina mused. She needed to understand him, but figuring the man out was no easy task. Some of the puzzle pieces were definitely jagged fits. He was tough. He took charge and wanted everything his own way, and wasn’t big on democracy in a household. He spelled “high-maintenance guy” in any language.

On the surface, he wasn’t a man she’d normally like, much less be attracted to.

Carolina turned the page on her book. The office/library-no surprise-had whole shelves of books on birth defects related to brain function. Tommy had been one of those. And the room, like everything else in the lodge, was fabulous…three walls of fruit-wood bookshelves, a semicircular desk, little ladders to get to the top of the bookshelves, a couch and chair to sit in-and an old-fashioned fainting couch. The fainting couch was in a thick, suedey kind of fabric, and Carolina had taken one look and claimed it the minute she walked in here.

Nobody was getting her off that couch. Not Maguire. Not the army. No one or nothing. She was in love, and that was that.

In the meantime, dusk had already fallen. The day had passed amazingly fast-Maguire did some kind of work, but he’d left her upstairs with a pile of packages to sort through. Clothes. Not hers, but her size, nothing formal or fancy, just jeans and sweatshirts and socks, that kind of thing. And she’d napped. How on earth she could need more rest was beyond her, but apparently her body wanted to zone out every few hours, and there was nothing she could do about it.

Late afternoon, Maguire had pawed through the freezer, and come through with a gourmet French stew that just needed unthawing and heating to be savored. While he’d done that, she’d made her lists, but after dinner, she’d taken great pleasure in doing the dishes-primarily to give Maguire another fit. Apparently she wasn’t supposed to do a thing for herself.