Pete was not just her childhood hero; he’d been an extra zesty spice to her blood because the four year age difference made him forbidden. Further, he was ultracool, with his biker shoulders and thick dark hair and smoky eyes. He was the oldest of three brothers, where she was the youngest of three sisters, which she’d always felt gave them a key connection. What that connection was, she’d never pinned down exactly. She’d just wanted to have something in common with Pete MacDougal. Coming from three-children families and living in Vermont had seemed enough to be critical bonding factors when she was a kid.

Those memories were all sweet and a little embarrassing and definitely fun-but not now. Right now, she didn’t want to see anyone she’d once cared about, and Pete’s voice, specifically, hurt like a sting. He had one of those full-of-life, uniquely male voices-full of sex and testosterone and energy and virility.

It wasn’t Robert’s voice. In fact, it was nothing at all like Robert’s sweet voice. But that bolt of vibrant masculine tenor reminded her of everything she’d lost. And because she felt stung, she stung back.

“Go the hell away.”

He knocked again, as if he hadn’t heard her. “Could you just open the door for a minute?”

“NO.”

He knocked again.

What did it take? A sledgehammer? “Damn it, Pete. I don’t want visitors. I don’t need sympathy. I don’t want help. I don’t want to talk to anyone. I just want to be left alone. GO AWAY.”

When he knocked the fourth time, she yanked open the door from sheer exasperation. If the only way to get rid of him was to punch him in the nose, then she was about to slug him good-and never mind that he was almost a foot taller than her.

Instantly she noticed that foot-taller. Noticed his black-and-white wool shirt, his oak height, the hint of wet mahogany in his damp hair, that his good-looking sharp-boned face still had smoky, sexy eyes. She also noticed that he wedged a size-thirteen boot in the door before she could slam it on him again.