Maggie had to smile at that. Emma had been trying to set her up with a man and marry her off since their third year of college when Emma quit school and married a dentist. A house, a dog and two small children later, Emma never let an opportunity slip to try to bring Maggie into the ranks of wedded women.

“Don’t even start, Em,” Maggie said. “Believe me, this man is not a possibility. For starters, he hates me. And even if he didn’t, I definitely don’t like him. I’m not even attracted to him.” That was a lie, but it felt good to say it. “And when did I say he was good-looking, anyway?”

Strong, firm features and mysterious eyes flashed into her mind. She tried to push the image away, but the vague impression of hurt in his blue depths stayed with her.

“Okay,” she admitted, determined to ignore the troubling sensations her thoughts evoked. She smiled at Emma playfully. “So he was handsome.” Maggie leaned back. “But, so what? I’m telling you, I’m not interested.”

“What else is new?” Emma teased in the same familiar tone she always used when Maggie turned aside her attempts to interest her in romance.

“None of this matters, anyway,” Maggie reminded her. “He was so rude. I just don’t understand it. He doesn’t even know me, and he seemed to be assigning all these rotten characteristics to me.”

Emma drank the last of her coffee and set the cup down on a coaster on the end table. Rising, she said, “Well, I’ve got to go pick up the boys from my mom’s. Don’t brood, Maggie,” she warned, shaking one well-manicured finger Maggie’s way. “It’ll make you wrinkle.”

Maggie followed her friend to the door. Shutting it after Emma, she wandered thoughtfully into the kitchen, picking a tub of low-calorie fruit yogurt out of the refrigerator. Then she returned to the functional blue couch in the living room and plopped down again. The package made a soft pop as she tore off the aluminum cover. A large white cat jumped up beside her and mewed.

“Oh, Romeo,” Maggie whispered to the cat. “Forget it. I’m not sharing my yogurt.” She ruffled the long fur between his ears and pushed him down from the couch.

I can’t believe how everything turned out, she thought, her mind turning back to her meeting with Ryan Conner.

She remembered her excitement a month earlier when she’d seen the article in the newspaper about the community center. The section detailing the women’s outreach program had caught her eye as she’d been picking at a TV dinner late one night after work. As she read the story describing the community center’s program, she was inspired to volunteer. She had Emma—her best friend—and her neighbors and coworkers, but something was missing. She hadn’t known just what until she’d read that article.

Maggie felt an empathy born of experience for children growing up with only one parent. She wanted to share her life with a child, to share the innocence and joy that had been cut short in her own childhood.

Through satisfying a child’s need in this way she hoped to fill the void—past and future—in her own life. At twenty-eight, she’d begun to think it was a very real possibility that she would never marry and have a child of her own.

Now it looked as if her chances of taking part in the life of sweet, bright Brandy Conner were pretty dim, too. And all because of the child’s insufferable father, Maggie thought with irritation.

She swallowed a spoonful of strawberry-banana yogurt. Who was she kidding? she berated herself. She certainly hadn’t done her cause any good by walking out on him. If she could have just gotten past the first meeting, she was sure she wouldn’t have had to have much to do with him after she was paired up with Brandy. After all, she was supposed to befriend the child, not the father.

And what was all that stuff about his wife? she wondered. He obviously had some ridiculous problem with self-sufficient women. He didn’t seem to understand that some women wanted—or needed—to work.

Maggie knew about need, about desperation. The picture of her own mother dragging home late at night after hours of cleaning offices or waiting tables intruded into her thoughts. Later, Maggie, too, learned to wait tables, but only long enough to work her way through college and earn her business degree.

But working and studying had left little time for a social life, and despite Emma’s dubious help, Maggie had rarely dated during college. The dates were even fewer and farther between after she began her career. Her job made up for it, she always told herself. Her work made her feel good, and she was good at it. She depended on herself, and no one else.

And Ryan Conner could go jump in a lake if he thought he had a right to criticize her for it, she thought defensively.

Maggie sat up and put the barely touched carton of yogurt down on the coffee table, leaving the cat to stretch up and sniff at it unhindered. Maggie rose and walked down the hall to her bedroom at the back of the house.

In contrast to the modern functional decor of the living room, Maggie’s bedroom, her private retreat, was traditional and romantic. A four-poster bed dominated the spacious and utterly feminine room decorated with white lace curtains and a white comforter. Maggie lay down across the cool white spread and tried to clear her mind of Ryan and the disappointing episode at the community center. She tried to force herself to concentrate on work, on the next week’s projects.

She closed her eyes and saw Ryan Conner’s soft smile.

“Daddy?”

Ryan hesitated, his fingers curved over the switch to his daughter’s bedside lamp. The book he had read aloud a chapter from—as per their usual evening ritual—lay closed on his lap. Brandy often fell asleep before he finished reading an entire chapter. Tonight she was awake. Wide-awake.

There was something about the way she spoke that caught his attention and made him freeze. She was worried about something.

“What is it, sweetie?” Ryan asked. Softly his fingers swept along her small, rounded cheekbone.

“Why don’t you like Maggie?” Brandy asked, her voice low in the stillness of her bedroom.

Snapping emerald eyes and rich auburn hair flashed into Ryan’s thoughts. And that scent that had surrounded her, like peaches ripe in a summer-hot grove, tempting and sweet.

He knew the answer to Brandy’s question. He knew exactly why he didn’t like Maggie Wells. He was afraid she might turn out to be too much like Delia, Brandy’s mother—who always seemed to have plenty of good intentions, but never the time to carry them out.

He’d approached the community center program with cautious optimism from the start. He knew Brandy could benefit enormously from the opportunity—but he wanted to be very certain that he didn’t set his little daughter up for a disappointing experience.

Still, in spite of all his concerns, he’d been attracted to Maggie at an immediate, undeniable, gut level. So attracted, that the careful wall he’d formed after his divorce had very nearly crumbled during their meeting.

“What gave you the idea that I didn’t like her?” Ryan asked, sidetracking to another question.

Brandy’s blue eyes stared back unwaveringly.

“I don’t know,” she answered simply. “I just didn’t think you did.”

Ryan laughed and ruffled his daughter’s hair with a careless brush of his hand. He leaned forward and kissed her cheek.

“I’m sure she’s a very nice lady,” Ryan told her. “You know what? I bet you’re going to get to meet lots of nice ladies at the community center, and you’ll get to choose one to be your very own special friend.”

“I want Maggie to be my special friend.” Brandy reached out and took her father’s hand. “Please.”

Ryan looked down at the small hand in his, then back up to the pleading expression in Brandy’s eyes. And he remembered the flash in Maggie’s gaze when he’d demanded to know why she wanted to be part of his daughter’s life.