

### Falling for the Billionaire, Book One: Sweet Desire

By J.M. Cagle

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2015 J.M. Cagle

Smashwords Edition License Notes

Thank you for downloading this

eBook. This book remains the copyrighted property of the author,

and may not be redistributed to others for commercial or

non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage

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authorized retailer. Thank you for your support.

Other Books in the Falling for the Billionaire Series

Book Two: Almost a Happy Ending

Book Three: Against All Odds

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

About J.M. Cagle

Other Books by This Author

Connect with J.M. Cagle

Chapter 1:

Agnes Hunter walked into Tony's Diner with a heavy bag over her shoulder, laughing to herself when the bag caught on the edge of the glass door and refused to let it close.

"If you're going to carry that thing around, you have to learn to corral it."

Agnes tugged the bag, glancing over her shoulder at her friend, Finn. "It's not my bag, it's your door. It reached out and grabbed it."

"I'm sure it did." Finn came up behind her and lifted the strap of the bag, tugging it loose from the top edge of the door handle. "What are you doing here tonight? Thought you had other plans."

"I did, I still do. Some guy I've been talking to through my blog wanted to meet, so I suggested we do it here. You know, public place and all that stuff." She touched his arm lightly before moving around him. "Thanks for the help."

"I don't know what you would do without me."

She shot him a brief smile as she climbed into the booth against the outer wall. "You would have failed that art class, I know that."

He groaned. "You're never going to let me forget that, are you?"

Agnes waved a hand absently behind her, her thoughts already on the meeting she had arranged for this evening. She was a little nervous. She's spoken to dozens of people through the comments section on her blog, _Sweet Leanings_ , but she had never agreed to meet with any of them. She wouldn't have agreed to meet with this guy if he hadn't sounded so desperate.

It was never easy when someone was diagnosed with diabetes, especially when that someone was a child.

She pulled her laptop out of her bag and turned it on, connecting to the Wi-Fi the diner's owner reluctantly allowed her to use. She had been coming to this diner almost daily for years. It was close to both the university she attended for two years longer than she should have—something that was an incredibly long story—and the downtown doctor's office where she was the receptionist. The owner not only knew her, but they were on a first name basis and he often ate his breakfast with her before they both rushed off to their respective responsibilities.

It was through that relationship that Agnes was able to get Finn, a fellow classmate in one of the many art classes she took, a job here.

"Did I hear you right back there?" Finn set a glass of diet Coke on the table in front of her, nudging the top of her laptop to get her attention. "You're meeting someone you met through your blog?"

"Yeah. His niece was recently diagnosed and he has a lot of questions."

"But Agnes—"

"I know, I know, I shouldn't take risks like that." She looked up and lifted the Coke gratefully to her lips. "That's why we're meeting here. I knew you were working tonight."

"So, I'm your bodyguard."

She looked him up and down, her eyes lingering on his slender fingers. They fascinated her, those fingers. She wanted to draw them, but asking someone to pose so that she could draw just one body part seemed so . . . odd.

"I guess you could say that."

Finn's eyes seemed to light up. "Then I'll be sure not to wander off too far."

Agnes bit her lip as she watched him walk away. She wondered if maybe she had just made a mistake. She knew Finn had a crush on her, had known it since the first time he asked her to help drawing straighter lines in an advanced realism drawing course. She had tried not to encourage it. It wasn't that he wasn't a good-looking guy. He was. But romance had always been a complicated thing for Agnes. She liked Finn; she didn't want to ruin it by inviting trouble.

She watched him a minute longer, the way he walked with his shoulders a little higher, his spine a little straighter. Saw the soft blush that colored his already rose colored complexion, a blush that only seemed to highlight the blue and green specks in his hazel eyes. He really was a good-looking guy. But it seemed that Agnes was not the only one to notice.

Rachel, one of the waitresses, seemed to have noticed, too, if her lingering glance suggested anything.

Agnes sighed, turning back to her laptop. She wanted to read through the messages she had shared with this guy, Matt, before he got there. He had a lot of questions and she wanted to make sure she was prepared to answer them all. He'd begun to contact her a week ago. The first comment was a simple one, just a comment on how helpful her blog—which was based on her daily life living with type 1 diabetes—was to someone trying to learn about this condition, but wondering if it would be possible to ask a few questions. When she responded in the affirmative, he bombarded her with question after question, sometimes nearly a dozen a day. That was when she learned about his niece's diagnosis. It was also why she had chosen to arrange this meeting.

Clearly this guy cared deeply about his niece and needed more than her doctors were offering him by way of information. That happened sometimes. Not all doctors could be as informative and generous with their time as her boss, Dr. Karen Carver - soon to be Gregory.

Agnes shook her head. She constantly had to remind herself that Karen was engaged and would soon be someone's wife. And not just someone, but Benton Gregory. Benton was only one of the most famous residents of Dallas, Texas, a billionaire software designer, and probably one of the most generous people Agnes had ever met. When he and Karen became engaged, he donated just over a million dollars to the American Diabetes Association as a gift to his bride to be. There was no reason for the donation other than the fact that Karen had dedicated her career to treating people with diabetes and he knew it would make her happy.

Agnes wondered where she could meet a guy like that. Unfortunately, she was pretty sure men like Benton were a one in a million kind of deal. In her experience, most men ran more along the lines of guys who ran for the hills when you told them you had a chronic condition that could cause you to need medical intervention from time to time. If they stuck around after that, they most often disappeared when you told them that complications of diabetes could include blindness, amputations, or dialysis. And those who were still around often balked when you told them having a child would be a complicated process that could result in difficulties for both you and the child.

Agnes had never gotten as far as the third level with any guy. In fact, most of her dates in recent years had run for the hills the moment they slipped their hand under her shirt and came into contact with the thin tube that connected her insulin pump to the small cannula that sat just under her skin.

No, Agnes was pretty sure a guy like Benton Gregory was not in the cards for her.

She ran her fingers through her long, mousy brown hair as she refocused on the computer screen in front of her.

"Agnes?" a voice asked at her shoulder.

She looked up, sitting back a little as she tried to focus on cool green eyes that stared down at her out of a handsome—too handsome—tan face.

_Hmm_ , she thought as she slowly uncurled herself from the booth's bench to stand and greet this tall, Greek god of a man. _I'm in trouble_.
Chapter 2

Handsome didn't even begin to describe Agnes' blog buddy. He was tall, so tall that he made Agnes feel petite despite her 5'7" frame. He was broad shouldered, but slender, one of those guys who seemed like he should be ill proportioned because of the way his waist tapered so drastically into well-tailored, hip-hugger slacks, but somehow he wasn't. He was bulky, but fit, the kind of guy who looked just as good in jeans as he did in a suit (at least, she could imagine). And those green eyes . . . Agnes knew they would haunt her dreams for nights to come. And how unfair was it that a guy with such a perfect body could also have curls that made her fingers ache to feel the curls wrapped around them, or maybe coming to life on her sketch pad?

"You must be Matt," she said, surprising herself at the calmness of her own voice.

"I am."

He held out his hand. Agnes hesitated before taking it, not because she had a problem with shaking hands, but because her overloaded mind was almost afraid that if she touched him, he would disappear into a puff of smoke like so many dreams had a habit of doing. She shook herself a little, reminding herself to get a grip, before slipping her hand against his. A tingle started at her fingertips and moved quickly up the length of her arm. She pulled away; telling herself it was a little neuropathy, nothing else.

As soon as they were seated across from each other in the booth, her computer shoved to one side so they could see each other, she cleared her throat. "So, I guess you have a lot of questions."

A quirky little smile touched his full lips. "You could say that."

"Is your niece here? Maybe if I could—"

"I thought it would be better if this was just between you and me. I hope you don't mind." He gestured with one hand, his wide palm encompassing nearly everything in the small diner. "This whole thing has been pretty overwhelming for her, as I'm sure you understand. I don't want to add to her confusion."

"Of course." Agnes wrapped her hands around her Coke glass, the condensation on the sides almost refreshing against her suddenly heated skin. "I was pretty young when I was diagnosed, so I don't remember a lot of it. But I'm sure at fifteen, it must be pretty difficult."

Matt inclined his head slightly. "You could say that."

"Can I ask how the diagnosis came about?"

Agnes could see the tension come into his shoulders. Her dragged his long, pianist fingers through his curls, disrupting them so that a few fell onto his forehead, forcing him to push them back into place.

He shook his head as he began to speak. "She was at a friend's house and they'd apparently made the ill-advised decision to sneak out of the house and attend a party one of the football players was throwing while his parents were out of town. Chance swears she never had any alcohol, that she felt ill before they arrived, but she passed out almost as soon as they walked into the house. Thank God one of the kids had the presence of mind to call 911."

"What was her sugar when she got to the hospital?"

He tilted his head slightly. "A little over 800."

Agnes nodded. "Mine was about the same."

That seemed to catch his attention. He studied her face, seemed to look right through her into her deepest thoughts. It unnerved Agnes a little.

"I assume they set you up with a diabetes educator to explain about counting carbs and adjusting medication to the food she eats."

Matt shook his head. "They gave us prescriptions for two different kinds of insulin and told her to take a set amount of one first thing in the morning and the other at meal times."

Frustration bubbled in Agnes' chest, but she tried not to let it show on her face. "Where was she treated?"

Matt mentioned a private hospital downtown. Agnes knew it, had heard stories from patients who eventually found Karen after struggling with a lack of information and poor treatment choices as a result of being treated there. She slipped a business card from her bag and slid it across the table to Matt.

"This is a diabetes educator who can give you more information. And she can give you a list of doctors in the area that can help you develop a better treatment plan for Chance."

He picked up the card and studied it for a second. "Is this really necessary? The doctors told us that we could see a dozen educators, but they would all basically tell us the same things."

"That's not really true. There are so many different treatment options available these days."

"Like the pump?" Matt slipped the card into a pocket in his sports coat as he studied her again with that intense gaze. "I know you use one. What is that like?"

Agnes pulled her pump out of her back pocket and held it up where he could see it. He slipped it out of her hand, careful not to tug on it too hard because of the tube he could clearly see snaking out of one end of the small device and disappearing under the table toward the front of her t-shirt.

"I've been reading about these, about the tighter control they help most people achieve. But when I showed a picture to Chance . . . " A slow smile touched his lips, this one a little sad. "She announced she could never live with something permanently attached to her skin."

"A lot of people say that when they first consider a pump." Agnes sat up a little straighter and lifted her shirt so that he could see the small triangle that sat on a rounded strip of tape against her upper abdomen. "It's not as bad as it sounds. It's only one needle stick every three days and the part that sits under the skin is a soft piece of flexible material that you can't even feel. It's really not as bad as it sounds."

He nodded, his eyes moving from her belly to the device in his hands. "And it automatically injects the insulin?"

"Every few minutes it administers a miniscule amount to cover the insulin needed to keep sugar levels normal. Then, at meal time, I can program another infusion of the insulin needed to cover the food I plan to eat."

He handed the pump back to Agnes who tucked it into her pocket once more. "The doctors said Chance would have to wait a while to get a pump."

"She needs to focus on figuring out how to balance her food and insulin first."

He nodded. "That's what they said."

"It's a process. And sometimes it can be quite frustrating, even for someone like me who's had it for years. But she'll get the hang of it."

Anger flashed across Matt's face. He looked out the window for a long moment, his hands curling into fists where they had come to rest on the table. Agnes watched, wondering if this was how her own father had felt when she was first diagnosed. A part of her wanted to believe it was, while another part knew that it was unlikely. Men who cared this much didn't abandon their wife and daughter less than a month after such a devastating diagnosis.

On impulse, Agnes reached over and touched one of Matt's hands.

"It seems overwhelming right now," she said. "But she will find a way to consolidate this into her life."

"All I ever wanted for her was a normal life. A happy life." He sighed, patting the top of her hand with his free hand before pulling both away. "It just seems the kid can't catch a break."

He pushed away from the table, sliding over the booth's bench and standing. "I appreciate you meeting with me."

"Of course." Agnes stood, too, handing him another card. "If you have any more questions, my cellphone number is on there."

He didn't even look at it as he shoved it into the same pocket where he had put the last. "Thank you." With that, he turned and walked away. Agnes had visions of both business cards falling into a trashcan.

"Do you know who that was?"

Agnes barely heard Finn as she watched Matt climb into a dark car and peel out of the parking lot in a squeal of tires.

Finn laid his hands on her shoulders. "Really, Agnes, do you realize who that was?"

"He was just a guy whose niece was just diagnosed with type 1 diabetes."

"Maybe. But he's also Matthew Chandler."

"Should I know that name?" Agnes asked as she returned to the booth, picking up her laptop and shoving back into her bag.

"Everyone knows that name. He's the richest man in Texas, and that's saying a lot in a state filled with oil tycoons."

Agnes just shook her head. "I don't know what you're talking about, Finn."

"I'm talking about real estate and retail stores and investment banking. Surely you've heard of the Chandler Complex?"

"Of course. It's down the street from Karen's office."

"That's his family. That's what he inherited when his father died ten years ago. He shared it with his sister until she died five years ago of cancer."

Agnes looked sharply at Finn. "His sister died?"

"Yeah. I heard they were really close, too."

She snatched up her bag, brushing past Finn as the true impact of Matt's situation finally made itself clear in her mind. He must have taken custody of his niece after her mother died. No wonder he was so concerned about treatment options and her level of happiness.

What a sad situation.
Chapter 3

"I can't believe the wedding's in less than a month."

Agnes scribbled a note on a patient file before turning to face Karen. The bride-to-be was sitting in another office chair, her hands balanced on the seat on either side of her thighs as though she was afraid to put all her weight on the cushion. She was rolling back and forth, moving in the small space behind Agnes' desk and the small writing desk along the side wall.

"Are you excited?"

"Excited and nervous and anxious . . . I never thought I would get married, let alone marry someone like Benton."

"He's pretty amazing."

Agnes said it, not just because she admired Benton's acts of philanthropy, but also because she knew what it would do for Karen. And she was not disappointed.

Karen's face lit up, as it always did when Benton's name was mentioned. "He is, isn't he?"

Agnes laughed. "You're like a girl on the playground with her first crush."

"That's the way he makes me feel." Karen rolled her chair back, her knowing eyes moving over Agnes. "Now all we have to do is find someone for you."

Agnes shook her head. "Not me. I'm done with the whole dating scene."

"You're twenty-five. You're too young to give up."

"That's what I told you when you said the same thing and look what happened." Agnes stood, carrying a pile of patient files to the filing cabinet. "Maybe if I do the same thing, Prince Charming will come walking through those doors."

"Or maybe he already has and you just didn't notice."

Agnes made a soft snorting sound. "That would be my luck."

Rebecca, the office nurse, came into the office, a puzzled look on her face. "Did I miss something?"

"Just more wedding talk," Karen said.

Rebecca rolled her eyes. "I remember being that excited before I got married, too. But it doesn't last. Just wait until he's snoring in the bed next to you and you can't get any sleep to save your life."

Karen and Agnes exchanged a glance. Somehow Agnes didn't think the prospect of a man like Benton Gregory snoring in her bed was such a bad one. If only he had a brother . . .

"Do you know someone named Matthew Chandler?"

"Doesn't everyone?" Rebecca asked.

"He's a local businessman." Karen looked over at Agnes, curiosity lighting up her eyes. "Why?"

"I met him last night."

Both Karen and Rebecca stared at Agnes.

"Well, geez," Rebecca finally said, "if I'd known all these billionaires were going to be crawling out of the woodwork, I would have waited before marrying my Barry."

Karen laughed even as Agnes felt a hot blush cover her cheeks.

"Not like that. He has a niece with diabetes."

Karen's laugh abruptly stopped. "Chance? Really?"

"Yeah. She was diagnosed last week."

Rebecca shook her head as she grabbed her bag and stepped back. "On that note, I'm going home."

They watched her slip through the door to the reception area and stroll, without so much as a look back, through the main door. It seemed like the silence grew heavier in her absence.

"He's a little overwhelmed."

Karen stood and crossed to Agnes. "I imagine he is. But he reached out to you."

"Yeah. I guess my blog is good for something more than just getting out my frustrations."

A soft smile crossed Karen's face, the expression taking credit for pushing Agnes to start the blog in the first place. She laid her hand on Agnes' shoulder and started to say something, but her cellphone began to ring. From the change in her expression, Agnes was pretty sure it was Benton.

"Just be careful," she said as she accepted the call and headed toward the back hallway that would take her to her office. "And have him call me if he has any questions you can't answer—if there is such a thing."

Agnes nodded, but she was pretty sure Karen hadn't seen the gesture. She was already in her "Benton cloud," as Rebecca had dubbed it, that state that causes a smart, quick-witted doctor to turn into a giggling schoolgirl at the drop of a hat.

She had to laugh. She was happy for Karen, really she was. If anyone deserved a little happiness, it was Karen. But . . . sometimes watching someone else's happiness only highlighted her own loneliness.
Chapter 4

Agnes let herself into her small apartment, snagging her bag in the door as she struggled with a pile of mail and two bags of groceries. Mumbling under her breath with frustration, she slipped the bag from her shoulder, rearranged half a dozen things, and dropped it gently to the ground so that she could dump the groceries on the kitchen counter before untangling the whole mess.

She really had to get a smaller bag, or one without straps.

She dropped the groceries and the mail on the counter and went back for the bag, untangling the strap from the knob. She closed the door and leaned back against it, her eyes moving over the small cluster of stuff that was her apartment. It was an efficiency she first rented when she came to Dallas from her mother's home in Manor, a little town outside of Austin, Texas. It fit her needs perfectly seven years ago—small enough and cheap enough for her to live on her own, but in a secure building in a good neighborhood. Now, though, it felt like she was beginning to outgrow it.

The living room area was no longer dedicated to couches and a television. She had three easels set up on top of an old, dried out tarp that crackled every time she took a step on it. Shelves that once held books and DVDs now held a dozen organizing bins filled with paint and brushes and pencils and cutting implements and many, many other things. The place smelled like acrylics all the time and no amount of air freshener seemed to take the smell away.

The kitchen fared no better as far as the encroaching art studio. It was filled with as many brushes and paint palettes waiting for a good washing as it was with dishes. There were paint tubes and pencils and discarded sketches all over the counters. The only part of the apartment that was nearly devoid of art implements was the bedroom—if you ignored the sketch pads scattered over the floor beside the bed—a small alcove at the back of the apartment that was only big enough to hold a bed and a small dresser on top of which a flat screen TV precariously balanced. If she could have fit a few more shelves filled with sketchbooks and chalk, she probably would have put them there, too.

The first time her mother came to visit, her only comment about the state of the apartment was, _No one would ever guess you were an artist._

Some days, however, Agnes wondered.

She'd gotten a call from Aislin, the owner of the small art gallery downtown who showed some of her work, to tell her that the show they had been planning for November was being pushed back. A bigger, more important artist had come to the gallery looking for a local venue to showcase his work. She couldn't pass it up; it was too big of an opportunity to get the name of her gallery out there. It could only benefit them both, Aislin had argued.

And she was right. But that didn't mean Agnes wasn't disappointed at having her first big show delayed. In fact, she was wondering now if it would ever happen. What if Aislin came up with another reason to postpone? What if a gallery never wanted to give her a show? Was she destined to be a glorified secretary for the rest of her life?

It was beyond frustrating. She felt like she had been waiting forever for this first break, and now it was gone, like that proverbial carrot.

With a heavy sigh, Agnes pushed away from the door and set about putting her groceries away. Her pump began to beep, alerting her that she didn't take her dinnertime insulin. But since she hadn't eaten . . . she reset the alarm, fumbling with the buttons to check the continuous glucose monitor that told her that her blood sugars were steady, so there was really no reason to rush about making dinner. She wasn't really hungry, anyway.

She was seriously considering a hot shower and an early bedtime when her cellphone rang, displaying a number she didn't recognize. She answered it with some hesitation.

"Miss Hunter?" a deep, male voice asked.

"Yes."

"This is Matt Chandler. We met last night? I'm having a little problem and I was wondering if you could help me out?"

Agnes could hear a female voice in the background, apparently arguing with Matt, but Agnes could only catch a few words here and there. "Not really necessary . . ." and " . . . "can't believe you would . . ." If Agnes hadn't uttered the same words herself a few times; she might not have understood exactly what was happening.

"What is her blood sugar reading?"

"Um, 250."

"A little high. Has she taken any insulin?"

"That's the problem. She insists she took her normal dose at lunch, but I have a feeling she didn't. She went back to school today and she's a little embarrassed about telling anyone what she's dealing with. She didn't even want me to talk to the nurse, but thank—"

"Mr. Chandler? There's no reason to panic. She only needs to take a little more insulin to cover the high."

"But I don't know how to do that. No one told us we would have to do something like that."

Agnes bit her lip. "Have you called her doctor?"

"He said we shouldn't worry about it." There was anger and a dozen other emotions just dripping from his words, so palpable Agnes could almost feel her own emotions rising to join the party. "Do you think you could come over and help us out?"

"I'm not a doctor. I really can't dispense medical advice."

"But you live this disease. Maybe you can tell her what she did wrong and keep her from doing it again."

"She probably didn't do anything wrong," Agnes said even as she heard the female voice in the background rising in protest. Then Matt began to respond to the voice and Agnes knew he'd forgotten about her for the moment.

There was nothing new about that.

She leaned back against the counter and closed her eyes, the sound of their voices like background music to her own memories. There had been a lot of arguments like this one between she and her mother when she was a teen. She remembered one particularly heated argument when her mother discovered a box filled with all kinds of candy hidden in one of Agnes' dresser drawers.

How could you do this to yourself? How could you put yourself at such risk?

Agnes remembered thinking that her mother was comparing the eating of a piece of candy to taking an overdose of heroin or something. Like she was suicidal just because she wanted to be like everyone else. Now, as an adult, Agnes could see that her mother came to this disease at a time when sugar was the culprit, the homicidal maniac holding a gun to Agnes' head. But back then? If simply felt like she was in this prison built by a disease she didn't understand and didn't want.

It still felt that way sometimes. Like when her mother called and demanded to know the results of her latest lab tests before saying a simple greeting, or asking how she was in general.

"Listen, Matt," Agnes finally said, "why don't you let me talk to Chance?"

There was silence on the other end of the line for a long minute, followed by a quiet sigh. "Could you come over?"
Chapter 5

Unlike kind, unpretentious Benton, Matt lived in a wildly luxurious home in the heart of the swanky suburb of Westlake. Just driving through the neighborhood in her ten year old Ford Focus made Agnes feel conspicuous, sticking out like a sore thumb. She felt like the few people who were standing out their front lawns or sitting on their verandas and balconies were staring at her, wondering what nerve she had to drive through their streets. But it was nothing compared to the overwhelming feeling of not belonging when she pulled up to the wrought iron gate outside Matt's stone house.

Imposing did not begin to describe this house. It looked like something out of a movie, a towering three story structure with three massive pillars guarding the front entrance and dark shutters suggesting secrecy beside each of the immense windows. It was as wide as it was tall, seemed to go on forever. It reminded her of one of the great estates in Europe she had read about in the architecture-styled drawing course she had taken.

She pushed the buzzer on the gate, not sure what to expect. She had seen television shows where someone spoke to the person impatiently waiting, but all that happened was that the gate began a slow, silent crawl. She moved forward, unsure if she should park in the front. She felt like she should hide her car in the back somewhere lest she mar the perfect view of the front of the property.

One side of the impressive front doors opened as she shifted her car into park. Matt, dressed this time in jeans and a t-shirt—confirming her opinion that he would look good no matter what he wore—came down the marble steps in bare feet to greet her.

"Thanks for coming."

"No problem."

The calmness of her voice surprised her a little. She felt nowhere near calm as she watched him walk toward her. She wasn't even sure how she had gotten out of her car, her bag slung over her shoulder, its familiar weight a comfort as her head spun. How could such a good-looking guy be coming toward her, offering her his hand? And what about those curls? They were killing her, the way they tumbled over his forehead like a kid who did all he could to avoid the comb his mother chased him with day and night. She wanted to reach up and brush them away, wanted to let her fingers linger on his forehead, to feel the rough texture of his five o'clock shadow as she traced the edges of his heavy jaw.

Was it insane to have such thoughts about a man she had just met?

"Chance is in the kitchen. She still insists she took her insulin at lunch even though the number has gone up since I talked to you."

Agnes almost asked who Chance was before she remembered what she was doing there. She forced herself to look anywhere but at his face, focusing instead on the toes of her own boots as she made her way up the steps behind him. But, somehow, her eyes ended up moving to the backs of his legs, moving slowly up until she has having the worst thoughts about running her palms over the curves of his—

"Over here."

A blush bloomed over Agnes' cheeks. She was grateful that he wasn't looking at her. But the dark haired girl perched on the edge of a high stool was, and the weary expression in her eyes suggested it wasn't the first time she had seen that kind of blush on a woman's face.

Agnes approached her with her hand outstretched. "You must be Chance."

"And you must be the token diabetic Uncle Matt thinks will make all this better for me."

"Chance!"

"No, it's fine." Agnes set her bag down on the long island where Chance sat and took a seat in the stool next to her. "You're pissed. I get it."

"I doubt that."

"Has anyone asked you yet if you have the bad kind of diabetes? Or wanted to know how you could get it even though you aren't fat?"

Chance looked up, her pale blue eyes—the kind of unique blue that Agnes had always admired—a little more interested than they had been a minute ago. "One of my friends told me that I'm going to have to get my feet chopped off."

Agnes nodded. "I was told once that I would probably be blind before I was old enough to go on my first date. Would have been a pity, too." Agnes forced a sigh, trying to keep a smile from her lips. "That first guy was really something to look at."

Matt made a noise that was something between a snort and a chuckle. Chance glared at him, prompting him to make a quick excuse and leave the room.

"A lot of people are going to say a lot of stupid things. But that's just because they don't understand diabetes." Agnes opened her bag and pulled out a thin notebook, flipping it to a blank page. "You just have to decide what you want to do about it: Ignore them, or try to educate them."

"I would guess you choose the latter."

"Occasionally." Agnes looked up. "But not always. Diabetes is a full time job without having to add teaching to the list of job titles it requires."

Chance sat back a little, not really relaxing, but settling a little more fully on the stool. She crossed her arms and studied Agnes openly. "Why are you doing this?"

"Helping you?"

"Yeah."

"Your uncle asked me to."

"Do you like him?"

Agnes set her pen and notepad down, settling back a little more herself. "I've only just met him."

"Everyone likes him. Women are always falling all over him, even the ones who work for him."

"Must be tough."

Chance shrugged, dropping her hands to her lap. "It's a little weird, especially when some of the women hitting on him are the mothers of my friends."

"He cares about you. If he didn't, he wouldn't be so crazy about all this."

Chance scratched at the nail polish on the corner of her thumbnail. "He just doesn't want me to die. He made a promise to my mom."

"I'm sure it's deeper than that."

Chance climbed off the stool and walked over to the fridge, pulling a bottle of juice off a shelf. She popped the top and took a long swallow before leaning against the counter and regarding Agnes.

"You've really had this most of your life?"

"Since I was seven."

Chance looked down at the floor. "I don't know if I can do this."

Agnes got up and walked to her, wanting to comfort this child she barely knew, but unsure how. "Can I ask you something?"

Chance shrugged, the movement jerky, nearly causing some of the juice to spill out over her hand.

"Are you into sports? Do you play games?"

"Yes and yes."

"Do you like the challenge of trying to win?"

A spark had come into her eyes as she raised her head. "Yeah. It's the best part."

"Then think of this as a challenge, a game that you strive to win every day."

Disappointment made a thin line appear at each corner of her mouth. "But it's not a game I can win."

"Sure it is. Every day you keep those numbers under a certain threshold is a win. Every time your labs come back at a good level, that's a win. Whenever you go a whole day without having to take a dozen correction doses or battle a low, that's a win."

Chance shook her head, but something had changed in her expression. "I did take my insulin at lunch."

"I believe you." Agnes flicked a nail against the plastic bottle in Chance's hand. "But did you have one of these when you came home from school?"

"I always do."

Agnes took the bottle from her hand. She turned it so that Chance could see the nutrition label on the side. "This has thirty carbs. So you should have taken enough insulin to cover those."

Chance's mouth moved slowly from a straight line to a small, rounded look of surprise. "I have to take insulin for snacks and drinks, too?"

"Everything that has a measurable amount of carbs in it." Agnes gestured back toward the island. "Come on, I'll explain it all to you."
Chapter 6

Agnes and Chance worked together for more than an hour. The doctor had explained everything to Chance fairly well, but, with the shock of such a life altering diagnosis, it sometimes took more than one time for all the information to sink in. It might have helped, too, to hear it coming from someone living with the same condition, as Matt had pointed out.

"I just don't understand why I have to eat so much at every meal. I don't usually eat like that unless I'm training for soccer."

Agnes looked at the meal plan the doctor had given Chance. "It's just for now. Just until you get used to the routine and you can start playing with your insulin doses."

"Do you have to eat like this?"

Agnes had a momentary flashback of the carefully planned and measured meals her mother used to feed her. "I did. But not as much anymore." She touched the pump attached to the waistband of her skirt. "The pump allows a lot more flexibility."

"I don't know if I could wear a pump. Uncle Matt showed me a picture of one, but the idea of having something tied to me all the time . . ."

"Yeah, he mentioned that. But, really, it's not so bad."

Chance kind of shrugged. "For you, maybe."

Agnes thought of the kids who came to Karen's office, overflowing with excitement when she gave them the clearance they needed to get their own pumps, and simply nodded. Chance would change her mind when the time came. They almost always did.

"How's it going, ladies?"

Chance sat up straighter as her uncle came into the room. Agnes turned slowly, feeling like everyone's eyes were on her filled with two different expectations.

"How's her blood sugar now?"

"It's fine, Uncle Matt." Chance climbed down off her stool. "I have homework." She began to storm from the room, but paused at the door. "Thanks," she said softly.

"Any time."

Chance smiled before she turned and left.

"Impressive." Matt spun on his heel from watching Chance leave, his green eyes falling on Agnes. "That's the first polite word I've heard that came from her lips since this whole thing started."

"It's a lot for a kid to handle."

Matt buried his hands in the front pockets of his jeans and leaned back against a long set of mahogany cabinets. "I appreciate you doing this."

Agnes turned away, putting away the notebook she had used to show Chance how to count and keep track of the carbs in her meals. "I'm glad I could help. But I would recommend you discuss her insulin dosing with her doctor."

"Why's that?"

"She's on a set dose now, but it would be much easier for her to control her sugars if she was placed on a sliding scale, one she could adjust to the amount of food she eats and the blood sugar numbers she starts her meals or snacks with."

"That sounds complicated."

Agnes stood and lifted her bag to her shoulder. "It is, but she's a smart kid. She'll get it pretty quick."

"She is."

Matt responded in a way that made it clear he was talking about Chance, but the way he was looking at Agnes made her feel like there was some hidden meaning to his words, though she couldn't imagine what it might be. It made her nervous. She wished she had pockets to bury her hands in, but her simple skirt and blouse left her without a hiding place. She felt like a bug under a microscope. And it was not a very interesting bug, at that.

She shifted, her eyes moving to the doorway. "I should probably go."

"Have you eaten?" Matt gestured toward the clean, practically new stove. "You should let me treat you to a quick meal for your trouble."

"I don't want to keep you from something."

"Just work, and there's always more to do, so putting it on hold won't make much difference." Matt straightened, pushing himself away from the cabinets as he tugged his hands out of his pockets. "Besides, I hate eating alone."

"I guess we can't have that." Agnes dropped her bag to the floor. "What can I do to help?"

Matt crossed to the refrigerator, taking a quick inventory of its contents. "Do you chop vegetables?"

"Whatever you need."

He gathered a head of lettuce, some tomatoes, and a couple of other things, dumping them all on the counter. "I have some chicken breasts we can grill to go with this . . . if you like chicken?"

"Chicken's fine."

He handed her a knife and gestured toward the counter. When Agnes moved closer, she realized the counter where he dumped the vegetables had a cutting board built into the counter. She'd never seen anything like it. Her mother's voice whispered in the back of her head: _How the other half lives._

It definitely was that.

"Have you lived here long?"

Matt glanced at her as he backed out of the refrigerator again, this time holding two sealed bags with raw chicken breasts in some sort of marinade. "About five years, I guess."

"It's nice."

He shrugged as he moved around her to the far counter, slicing open the bags as the built-in grill on the stove heated. "It's a little big for just Chance and I, but it's comfortable."

That was about the extent of Agnes' small talk. She had no idea what else there was to talk about with a man like Matthew Chandler. He was this well-known —apparently — business man who probably had a private jet and traveled all over the world while she . . . what was she? She was barely a college graduate who liked to draw pictures. What could they possibly have in common?

She busied herself with the vegetables, chopping them in nice, small chunks the way her mother had taught her, aware of him moving around beside her. Then she became aware that he was no longer moving, and it made the tomato she was slicing try to escape her light hold.

"Your blog says you're an artist."

She wasn't sure if it was a question or a statement. Agnes bit her lip as she turned the tomato and sliced it, as it lay flat before she could slice off the tips of her fingers.

"Yes, I am." She felt a blush come to her cheeks as she said it, the same blush that always flooded her cheeks when she said she was an artist because there was still a part of her that felt she couldn't legitimately claim such a title until she actually sold something to an actual art collector. "But I work in a doctor's office during the day."

"Oh? Like a nurse?"

"A receptionist, actually. For Dr. Karen Carver."

"I know her." He came to stand beside her, stealing a chunk of tomato as she reached to lift it into the bowl with the lettuce. "She's engaged to Benton Gregory."

"Yes."

"I met her at the Breast Cancer Foundation Ball back in May."

Agnes reached for a cucumber, her arm brushing his as she did. "That was quite a night for her."

"Was it? Was that when they got engaged?"

"No, but they discovered the physician manager of the Gregory Free Clinic was embezzling that night. I'm sure you read about all that."

"Yeah, I seem to remember something about that. Dee Walton, right?"

Agnes nodded, and then regretted it because a piece of her long, straight hair fell in front of her eyes. She reached up to push it back, but her hands were covered in tomato juice.

"Here." Matt tore a piece of paper towel from a roll sitting in a corner of the counter. She took it, wiping her hands roughly as he reached over and tucked the hair behind her ear. It forced her to look up at him, to see amusement in his green eyes as he studied her face. "Messy work," he said with a gesture to her hands.

Something about the look in his eyes disconcerted Agnes. She reached up and pulled her hair away from her face, twisting it into a knot at the back of her neck. He watched as though it were the most fascinating thing in the world, as though he couldn't think of anything more entertaining to do at that moment.

"Isn't Dr. Carver an endocrinologist?"

"Hmm?" Agnes stepped back slightly, trying to make herself focus. "Yes, she is."

"Must be convenient."

Agnes shrugged as she picked up the knife again and began working over the cucumber. "It is, actually. I went to see her as a patient originally and when she found out I was kind of desperate for a better paying job, she offered me a position filing in the afternoons. And when her receptionist quit to have a baby, she gave me the job."

"Isn't there something a little unethical about a doctor treating her own staff?"

"I don't know. I suppose there could be an argument made either way."

She glanced at him, but he didn't seem terribly interested. In fact, he pushed away from the counter and went to check on the chicken. Which was fine. It meant she didn't have to explain to him the horrible experiences she had with some of her past doctors and how, if Karen hadn't been willing to help her, she probably wouldn't be standing here now. But, she supposed, that was a story for some other time. And it was a story for some other ears, for that matter.

She dropped the chopped cucumber into the bowl and used her hands to mix the ingredients together. She wiped her hands on another piece of paper towel and watched as Matt carefully checked the chicken before pulling it off the grill. It seemed odd making a meal with a man, or with anyone. Agnes had never been allowed in the kitchen when she was a kid—her mother was afraid she would take sneaky tastes of the meal that they wouldn't take into account in her insulin dose—and only learned to cook after moving out and realizing she couldn't eat prepared foods for the rest of her life. Not to mention that fact that none of her boyfriends, the few who had stuck around long enough to be called boyfriends, ever seemed interested in food when they came to her apartment.

They settled at the small kitchen nook on the far side of the room, a beautiful handmade table with matching mahogany bench that sat right in front of a beautiful bay window that looked out over the front garden. Agnes could imagine how nice it would be to sit here with her morning cup of coffee. A cup of coffee, the newspaper crossword puzzle, and a nice looking guy — boy, was she old fashioned - and possibly delusional.

She slipped her pump off her skirt and quickly checked the CGM before programming her bolus. When she was finished, she looked up and found Matt watching her.

"That really does make things simpler."

"It does."

He handed her a plate and she served herself some salad to go with the chicken breast already sitting on the plate. When she cut into the chicken, she closed her eyes and sighed. "That's amazing."

"Thanks. A little marinade I make myself."

"Lemons and garlic and . . . what else is that?"

"Basil and a little cayenne to give it a kick."

Agnes looked over at him with honest admiration. "It's amazing. You'll have to give me the recipe someday."

"I might just do that."

He sat back a little, taking a big bite of salad. She watched his fingers, the way they wrapped around the fork. As an artist, she often found herself noticing things that other people might miss, like the way a woman's smile leaves little creases on the corners of her mouth or the way a man's stance might cast an odd shadow on the ground behind him. With Finn, she always seemed to be drawn to the way his long, thin fingers seemed so delicate, so refined, whenever he touched something, anything. She wanted to tell herself it was the same with her fascination with Matt's fingers, but, deep down, she knew it was something else.

"Tell me something about yourself that has nothing to do with diabetes."

Agnes looked up, met his eyes for the dozenth time, but it felt like the first. "Like what?"

"Anything. What you like to do with your free time, what kinds of movies you can't stand, and what music you listen to. How you got such a unique name."

"Well, the last one's easy. My mother was an amateur southwestern artist before I came along. She named me after the artist Agnes Lawrence Pelton."

Matt nodded as he stabbed his chicken with the tines of his fork. "Does she still paint?"

"No, she gave it up." Agnes looked down at her own plate. "But she was good. I always kind of assumed that's where my talent comes from."

"What about the others?" Matt tilted his head slightly. "What kind of movies do you just absolutely hate?"

"Cheesy horror movies," Agnes said immediately. "Especially those ones that seem to have no plot, just dialogue that moves the movie from one kill scene to the next."

Matt laughed, a sound that was deep and smooth. Honest. "I have to admit to a certain affection for those kinds of things."

"What about you? What movies do you hate?"

She expected him to say chick flicks, the kind of movies where the guy always looks like an idiot as he tries to win his ladylove. But he surprised her.

"I really hate movies that are remakes. Is there really nothing original in the world anymore? How many times can they remake _Godzilla_?"

Agnes burst into laughter, covering her mouth with the back of her hand as the giggles just flowed like water from a waterfall. "Isn't that the truth?"

"And all those 80s movies? Every time I turn on the TV, it seems like there's a commercial for another remake. _Footloose_ was only good because it was the eighties."

He laughed again, his eyes dancing as he did. Now she had an urge to draw him. She had the impression that this side of him came out rarely. Maybe it was just because of Chance's diagnosis, of the reason for their meeting, but he did not impress her as the kind of guy who laughed often. She felt a certain amount of honor that he felt relaxed enough with her to let himself go.

She was still thinking about it hours later as she lay in bed, a pencil in her hand and a sketchbook balanced on her thighs. Dinner hadn't lasted long and his cellphone continuously called his thoughts away from their conversation until she finally suggested she needed to go. But there was still a smile on his lips when he walked her out to her car—the same smile that was coming to life now under the tip of her pencil.

There was an ache in Agnes' chest that she had thought she had put to rest some time ago. But meeting Matt had awakened it, that deep desire to be a part of something bigger than herself, to trust again. She knew it was a mistake, that these things always had a way of ending badly. But there was one thing she had always found difficult to bury.

Hope.
Chapter 7

Agnes was sitting on a small wooden stool in front of an easel gently dabbing paint into the corners of a fresh canvas. Music played from her iPod on the shelf behind her, filling the room with the silky, sad lamenting of singer she had recently discovered by listening a little too closely to the piped in music at the office. Sometimes Musak wasn't that bad.

She was humming under her breath, but not really to the song that was playing. It was just a way to force herself to focus. There was too much going on this week, too many things on her mind. Karen's wedding was three weeks away. That meant rescheduling patients who had made appointments months in advance, finding a doctor willing to take their patients on an emergency basis, and reminding the answering service every other day of what was going on. It seemed like they were always getting the dates mixed up.

Karen was excited, and Agnes was happy for her. But she hated the trips to the dress boutiques. The task of trying to find a dress that not only fit her tall, oddly curvaceous, body and could also accommodate her pump was horrifying. Every dress she liked and could make work turned out to cost twice her monthly rent. Karen had already offered to pay for the dress, but Agnes didn't want to be more of a nuisance than she felt like she had already been.

And then there was the familiar anxiety of her upcoming blood tests. Every year she felt this weight come down on her shoulders as the time came for that annual set of labs to check her kidney, heart, and liver function, to see how much of an impact her diabetes has had on her body this year. Last year's tests came back without any concerns, but her protein levels had been elevated since she was sixteen. One of these days, those numbers were going to be sky high she was going to have to face a life of dialysis or the potential of an organ transplant.

To top it all off, Aislin had called yesterday. The new artist wanted to display his work in her gallery until the end of the year, meaning Agnes' show would have to be delayed until January. Or even February.

"But there's been good buzz about this guy's work," Aislin assured Agnes, as though that meant that his buzz would transfer to Agnes' own show. Somehow, she didn't think it worked that way.

So, she sat here planning out a new painting that would likely end up stacked in the back of a closet somewhere at her mom's house like most of her other paintings.

The only bright spot in the past week had been the almost daily calls from Matt. It was always about Chance, always a question about her insulin dosages or her blood sugar numbers. But there was something about the tone of his voice, about the fact that she had already answered most of these questions more than once, that made her wonder if he had another reason for calling her so often. Not that she honestly believed that someone like Matthew Chandler could find her attractive. It was just that sense of a common purpose, the fact that Agnes knew what Chance faced and she could help him feel as though they weren't so alone in this battle.

That was okay, too.

She dipped the tip of her brush into a bright blue and began to smear it across the top of the canvas. In a minute, the outlines of a window began to appear on the white background. She rounded the edges, made them soft with a turn of the brush, and added a little contrast. A new color and a little more detail and it quickly took on dimensions that hadn't been there a moment before. She slipped off the stool, stood back to see it from a different angle. She was about to dip her brush into another color when her phone rang.

She answered as a new song began to play in the background. She had almost forgotten she had her iPod on.

"Is that Sam Smith?"

"Hmm?"

"The music. Is that Sam Smith?"

A slow smile slipped over Agnes' face. "It is. You know his music?"

"I do." There was a smile in Matt's voice, too. "I actually have tickets to his concert in Houston tomorrow night."

"Oh, lucky you. It would pretty amazing to see him in concert."

"Then come with me."

Agnes set her palette on the kitchen counter and wiped her hand on the front of her jeans. "I wasn't fishing for an invitation."

"I know. But I bought the tickets to take Chance, but she'd rather stay home and watch some marathon of one of her favorite shows— _Pretty Little_ . . . something—with a group of friends."

Agnes couldn't help but laugh at the clueless sound in his voice. "You're serious?"

"Of course. It's the least I could do, after everything you've done for us."

The laughter died. Agnes bit her lip, imagining him sitting behind some imposing desk even on a late Saturday afternoon, a computer filled with financial spreadsheets in front of him. A man who could afford to take pity on a pathetic, single woman with nowhere to be but at home, answering phone calls, on the same Saturday afternoon.

But the idea of seeing Sam Smith in concert . . . going with Matthew Chandler was just a plus.

"You're serious?" she had to ask again, just to make sure.

"I'll pick you up at five."

He hung up without telling her why he had called in the first place.

***

"The House of Blues is one of those places that's kind of nice-casual." Karen sifted through the clothes hanging in Agnes' closet. "Maybe slacks and a light blouse? Or a skirt would work."

"You've been there?"

"Benton and I went last month to see Willie Nelson."

"Willie Nelson?"

"Benton has a thing for old country." Karen glanced over her shoulder, her nose wrinkled with a look that wasn't quite disgust, but not really pleased, either. "He assures me it will grow on me."

"Yes, the doctor from Boston . . . I can see you in cowboy boots and a hat, dancing to _Boot Scootin' Boogie_."

"Boot scooting, what?"

Agnes laughed. "Exactly."

"The things you do for love." Karen pulled a dark cotton dress from the back of Agnes' closet and held it up. "This would be perfect with a light sweater."

"You don't think it's too formal?"

"No," Karen said, bringing it over to the bed where Agnes was perched on the edge. "I think it's perfect."

Agnes stood and took it, holding it to herself as she studied it in the mirror. "Pink or white for the sweater?"

"Pink. It's a good color on you, draws out the gold flecks in your eyes."

"I don't have gold flecks in my eyes."

Karen came up behind her and lifted her hair off of her neck. "Yes, you do." She twisted her hair into a casual knot and held it to the top of her head. "I could do your hair."

Agnes met Karen's eyes in the mirror. "Don't you have wedding plans you need to get back to?"

"I'm done with my part. Now it's all in Benton's corner."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. Now he has to write all those checks."

They both laughed. Agnes felt some of the nervous energy that had been building begin to dissipate a little. She studied her face in the mirror, found herself comparing it to Karen's. They couldn't have been more different. Karen's hair was red, Agnes' a mousy brown. Karen's eyes were hazel, more green than blue, unlike Finn's eyes, which were more blue than green. Karen was petite, but not childlike. Agnes was tall, solidly built—which she had always thought was a little ironic considering she lived with a chronic illness—her body softened by her surprisingly feminine curves.

Yes, they were so different. Yet, if Agnes had ever had a sister, she felt as though she would have been something like Karen.

"Nervous?"

"Were you nervous before your first date with Benton?"

Karen let go of Agnes' hair and let it fall in a heavy cascade down her back. "We never really had a first date."

"Never?"

"He invited me to dinner at his house not long after we met. But it was more of an apology than it was a date."

"An apology for what?"

Karen slipped past Agnes, reaching for a soft pink sweater hanging in the closet. "For lying to me. He let me think he was someone else."

"You never told me that."

She came back behind Agnes, sliding the sweater over her shoulders so they could both see the effect on the dress. Karen was right, the color did do something for Agnes' eyes. And it softened the hard lines of the dress, the long lines of Agnes' body.

"You have a good eye."

Karen shook her head. "I've always thought your sense of fashion was so much better than mine. Why do you think I dragged you to a wedding dress shopping with me?" Karen smiled and winked at Agnes in the mirror.

"I guess we're all our own worst critic."

"Maybe." Karen lifted her hair again. "Come on; let's get you ready for your date."
Chapter 8

He was prompt, eliciting both fear and relief. Agnes was glad he was on time because that meant less time sitting around wondering what this night had in store. But he was on time, meaning she had less time to prepare herself for the roller coaster of emotion her mind was about to climb aboard.

She felt like a child, listening to that little voice in the back of her head that wondered: Does he like me? Is this a date? Is this really happening?

"For you," he said as she opened the door, holding up a bouquet of yellow roses.

She smiled and felt her lips tremble a little as she tried to hold the casual expression.

"Thanks."

She stared down into the luscious bouquet for a moment; trying to remember the last time a man brought her flowers. She wasn't sure anyone ever had.

"Can I come in?"

She looked up, a heated blush making its way quickly across her cheeks. "Of course. Come in."

Agnes stepped back, her eyes moving from the dark suit that seemed to fit his body so perfectly to the mess that was her tiny apartment. It had never really looked as small as it did when he walked in. There was something about his presence that seemed to make everything small in comparison.

She took the roses into the kitchen, trying to think of what she had that was big enough to hold such a bouquet, as he wandered into her little studio. She could see him studying the canvases she had in progress on her three easels, each at different stages of completion. He seemed to linger over the new one, the one she was just starting when he called yesterday afternoon.

She pulled a tea jar down from a top shelf in her kitchen and filled it with water, careful to trim the roses the way her mother showed her to keep the roses from dying too quickly. When they were settled in the jar, she set it on the counter and walked over to him. He hadn't moved. He was still studying the painting as though it was talking to him. She'd seen patrons do that in museums and art galleries, stare at a painting for hours as though it took that long to truly absorb everything the painting had to offer. But she'd never had anyone do that to one of her pieces.

"I just started that one," she said. "There's really not much to see yet."

"I'm just trying to guess where you're going with it." He glanced at her, a teasing light in his eyes. "The window looks familiar."

She looked at the painting and blushed as she realized it had a very similar shape to the large bay window in his kitchen. It had been an unconscious choice, one she hadn't even recognized until now.

"You're very talented."

"From your lips to Aislin's ears."

"Aislin?"

Agnes waved her hand, dismissing her own comment. "We should probably go."

He turned back to the painting for a long moment before he seemed capable of pulling himself away and following her across the small space. She lifted her sweater from a hook by the door where she had put it, nervously, just a few minutes before he arrived. He came up behind her and helped her into it, lifting her hair out from underneath, his fingertips brushing lightly against the back of her neck. A shiver ran down her spine, one she found it difficult to hide.

"Ready?"

His voice was so close to her ear that she gasped, and then was afraid he had heard. But if he did, he ignored it. He reached around her and pulled the door open, guiding her out with a hand on the small of her back.

His car, the same dark one she vaguely recalled seeing the first night they met, sat at the curb outside her building. He pushed a button and it lit up, the headlights flashing and the interior lights coming on. A Mercedes. She had never been inside such a luxurious car before. The leather was supple, the skirt of her dress sliding across it like butter. And the instrument panel was filled with things her old Ford never had and would never need.

He climbed in beside her, efficiently starting the car and moving into traffic in one fluid motion. Agnes folded her hands together on her lap, almost afraid to touch something. She remembered riding in a friend's car for the first time when she was eight or nine and breaking the knob off of the radio somehow. She couldn't imagine how much a radio knob would cost in a car like this, but she imagined it would be a lot more than the twenty bucks that friend's mother had made Agnes' mother pay.

"Have you lived in that building long?"

"Seven years."

Matt glanced at her. "Really?"

"I moved there when I came up for college."

"Where are you originally from?"

"The Austin area."

Matt nodded, his eyes flicking quickly between mirror and windshield as he navigated the car onto the highway. "It's beautiful down there."

Agnes nodded, trying not to stare at his profile, to not admire the masculine angles of his jaw.

"What university did you attend?"

"UT Dallas."

He glanced at her. "I attended UT Austin."

Agnes' eyebrows rose. "Really? I would have thought —"

"I would have gone somewhere like Harvard?" An ironic smile touched his lips. "I get that a lot."

"What did you study?"

"American Lit."

Agnes sat up a little straighter. "When did you go there?"

"About ten years ago." He glanced at her. "Why?"

"Did you take one of the lower British lit classes with Professor Hunter?"

He slowed the car to take the next exit, his flashers making a little tinkling sound that seemed to punctuate the silence. "Medieval British lit. We did an in-depth paper on the Green Knight."

"She doesn't do the Green Knight anymore. She's moved on to Lancelot."

"She?"

"My mother."

Matt turned into a fenced parking lot and pulled to a stop in one of the many spaces. As he turned off the car, he studied her face. "Professor Hunter is your mother?"

"She is."

Matt laughed. "What a small world."

He gestured out the windshield. "We should probably go. Our chariot awaits."

Their chariot turned out to be a Learjet 60 XR.
Chapter 9

Agnes held on to the arms of the leather seat with all her strength. Her eyes were glued to the window, watching as the clouds quickly surrounded them and then dissipated, moving below them.

"Have ever flown before?"

She shook her head a little harder than she had intended. Matt chuckled as he reached over and touched her knee.

"It's much safer than driving on the highway."

"But at least when I'm in a car, I'm usually in charge."

He laughed again, this time deeper and hardier than before. But his hand was still on her knee and she had to admit she liked that. She stole a glance at him and the sight of all that merriment in those dancing green eyes took her mind off her current predicament—even that sense of impending doom that settled in her chest the moment the plane began to move.

"Why UT Austin?"

His eyebrows rose a little. "Why UT Dallas?"

"Because my mother wasn't there."

He nodded slowly, a smile barely hidden under fingers that rubbed gently at his jaw. "I guess you could say that was my motivation, too." He dropped his hand from his face, the other squeezing her knee lightly before he pulled it away to straighten a little in his seat. "My father and his father before him were both Stanford graduates. I was expected to go to Stanford, or somewhere better. But I was tired of living in my father's shadow and wanted to do something that was just for me, just because it was what I wanted."

"I get that."

"You're one of a few." He glanced out the window. "Most people saw it as the act of rebellion of a poor, little rich boy."

"Why literature?"

His eyes moved to hers again. "Because it was the only thing I felt passionate about when I was taking my core classes."

She reached up and pushed a stray hair out of her face. "My mother wanted me to study literature. She had it all planned out, how I would take my undergraduate classes and then become her student assistant while I was working through the upper graduate courses. I'm pretty sure she imagined me becoming a professor, just like her."

"A mini-me."

"Yeah." Agnes shook her head. "It never occurred to her to ask what I wanted."

"At least you managed to escape."

Agnes shrugged. "After much arguing and crying and begging."

Matt dragged his fingers through his hair, again knocking loose those curls she so wanted to wrap her fingers in. "I got my four years at school, but then everything fell apart and I was dragged right back in."

He stared out the window for a long, silent moment. Agnes could see he was lost in thoughts. There was a dark cloud that seemed to have settled in his eyes, darkness that deepened the clear green until they took on a whole other shade. A part of her wanted to reach out to him, to touch him, as he had done for her while they were taking off. But . . . there was something about the tension in his shoulders that warned her away.

He looked over at her after a minute. "I guess you've wondered about Chance, about how she came to be in my custody."

Agnes tilted her head slightly. "It's none of my business."

The darkness in his eyes softened a little. "You are refreshing, Miss Hunter." He ran his hands over the front of his slacks, as though his palms were moist. "Most women would already have dragged all the pertinent information out of me by this point."

"I just assumed you would tell me if you wanted me to know."

"And that attitude is what makes me want to tell you." He shifted in his seat, crossing his legs and then uncrossing them, as though he were suddenly the one who felt out of place. "It's complicated, but the simple version is that my sister, Julia, was diagnosed with leukemia when she was twelve. My dad did everything they could to ensure her survival. And it seemed like they had, for a while. She went into remission. She married young, the son of one of my father's business associates, determined to have a family and live as much life as she could in as short a time as possible."

Matt crossed his arms over his chest. "It was as if she had some inside knowledge that she wasn't going to live a long life despite all the things the doctors told her. She had a few miscarriages. The treatments for her cancer had caused infertility issues. So, when she managed to carry Chance to term, she named her Chance because she was the last chance . . ."

His voice flattened out when he said that last part, as though the memory was still too emotional for him to express. He dragged his fingers through his hair again.

"When Chance was five, my father died — a heart attack — and left the family business to the both of us, with Julia in control. She couldn't do it, couldn't handle the pressure. And then her husband took off. It was about a month after that when she finally told me that the cancer had come back months before, and that doctors were not as optimistic about her recovery this time. But Julia was determined. She wanted to live long enough to see Chance to graduate high school."

His eyes settled on Agnes, moving slowly over her face, down to her hands where they were once again clutched in her lap, and back to her face. "She died a little over four years ago."

Agnes didn't know what to say. She slid forward on her seat, but she was afraid to touch him. He was staring out the window now, his eyes again lost under that dark cloud. She lifted a hand to touch his knee just as he turned and crossed his legs again, blocking the path she had intended to take.

"I don't know why I just did that." He shook his head. "Sorry."

"Don't be."

His eyes fell on hers again. "Something about you just makes me want to purge my soul."

She gestured at her own face. "It's the puppy dog eyes. It just makes everyone turn to pudding in my presence."

A surprised laugh burst from his perfectly shaped mouth. "I guess so."

He climbed to his feet. "How about a drink. I know I need one."

Agnes followed him to the little galley at the back of the cabin. He opened a cabinet door to reveal a well-stocked bar. He lifted a bottle of whiskey that looked nothing like the few labels Agnes had seen in her limited experience with alcohol and poured a few ounces in two small, heavy glasses. He handed her one and lifted his slightly.

"To puppy dog eyes."

"To honesty."

He hesitated slightly, his glass tilted toward his lips. "To honesty."
Chapter 10

The concert was amazing.

They had dinner in a small restaurant at the venue—Portobello sliders and cowboy tacos—and then moved into the event room, their seats just a row from the front of the stage. When Sam Smith came out, it was as if he was standing in someone's living room the place was so small, the setting so intimate. He told little stories before each of the songs he sang, explaining how he had come to write the lyrics and what the song meant to him. And then he would sing and his voice was . . . indescribable. There was one song in particular that Agnes waited most of the evening to hear, one about the pain of unrequited love. And when he began to sing it, Matt slipped his fingers between hers and held her hand with all the intimacy and emotion the song implied.

It couldn't have been any more perfect if she had written it out on paper herself.

"You're glowing."

Agnes glanced up at Matt as the heat of a blush joined the heat the evening's excitement had already spread over her face. She had to lean in close to him so that he could hear her over the music.

"This is amazing. I can't thank you enough."

"Oh, believe me, it's been my pleasure."

Agnes studied his face for a long second, not sure she heard him correctly, before turning back to watch Sam Smith finished his last set. Matt's hand tugged at hers, pulling her closer to the length of his body. In just one movement, she found herself pressed back against his chest, his cheek resting against her temple. They fit together perfectly, his height and bulk wrapping around her like a warm winter coat. He let go of her hand, but only so he could slide it over her hip, tugging her even closer to him as both his arms came around her waist.

She closed her eyes and sent up a silent wish that this moment would never end.

As the final strains of music filled the room, people around them burst into applause. Agnes didn't want to move, didn't want to break the magic of the moment. Matt didn't either. They just stood there, his arms snug around her, swaying slightly to music that was no longer playing. She shivered when he finally did let her go, as the house lights came up and other attendees began to make their way to the few, crowded exits. He held her hand as they left the building and caught a taxi that would take them back to the private airstrip where the plane waited.

"Thank you."

"Quit thanking me." He tugged her hand, still tightly caught in his, and pulled her closer against his side. "I wouldn't have enjoyed it nearly enough to justify the time if you hadn't been with me."

"Did you really buy these tickets for Chance?"

He cleared his throat a little. "Actually, they were given to me by a colleague who had a change of plans."

"You lied?"

"Yes. But it was just a little white lie." He held up his free hand, as though trying to prove he had nothing up his sleeve. "I wasn't sure you would come if you thought it was a date."

"Are you saying it is a date?"

He turned into her, his face just inches from hers. "I certainly hope so. If not, I probably shouldn't do this."

And then . . .

She had read romance novels where the heroine describes the first kiss as a theft of her basic abilities to breathe. That the first touch sent tingles down her spine, that it was like nothing she had ever felt before. Agnes had always thought those things were an exaggeration.

She'd been wrong.

Matt tasted like the bottle of wine they'd share, like sweetness and tart, like the spiciness of the meat in their tacos, the earthiness of the mushrooms. But he also tasted like all the best things Agnes had ever tasted, all the heavy carbs she had been denied as a child and indulged much too often as an independent adult. He tasted familiar and forbidden all at the same time, a taste she knew she would never get enough of.

His hand shook a little as he slid it over the curve of her jaw and over the long, thin strands of her hair that Karen had taken hours to coax into a soft curl. She could feel the puff of air that was his attempts at breathing, could feel the pounding of his pulse as she ran her hand over the front of his shirt, over that chest whose muscles were like carefully sculpted marble. She wanted more, wanted to touch parts of him she'd never thought about before. She wanted to feel the bony protrusion of his collar bone, wanted to run her fingers over the tender skin at the inside of his elbows, his wrists. She wanted to run her fingers through his hair and watch those silky curls fall over her skin, wanted to know if he was ticklish, if a soft kiss at the base of his throat would make him catch his breath or bring laughter to his lips.

So many wants burst through her mind in just the tiny expanse of that one kiss.

It was almost frightening.

The car came to a stop with a sudden cease of forward motion. Matt shoved a wad of bills at the driver and reached over Agnes to open the door. Her legs were a little unsteady as she climbed to her feet and waited for him in the shadow of his jet plane. He led the way, barely nodding to the pilot as they climbed aboard. Instead of the captain's chairs, Matt led her to the small divan beside the gallery. They sat hip to hip as they listened to the pilot make final preparations, Matt's hand tight in hers.

As the anxiety of impending take off began to settle on Agnes' shoulders, Matt lifted her hair away from the side of her face. "You should know," he said against her ear, "I'm not the guy who normally makes out with women in the back of a plane."

"And what kind of guy are you?"

He nibbled gently on the thin cartilage at the top of her ear. "The guy who doesn't have to work for what he wants."

"Do you think this is work?"

"I think I would really like to get a hotel room and have my way with you as often and as wildly as possible." He kissed the curve of her jaw just in front of her ear. "But I don't think you are that kind of lady."

She twisted her head a little so that she could see his eyes. "And what kind of lady do you think I am?"

"One who's a little more innocent than my normal companions."

Agnes wasn't sure what stuck out more about that comment: that he thought she was innocent, or that he used the plural when discussing his past relationships. She bit her lip, realizing for the first time just how far out of her league she really was with Matt.

He kissed her temple lightly as the plane began to move. Agnes turned into him, more for the security his arms offered than anything else. He lifted her face and pressed his lips to her forehead before letting them slide slowly down the bridge of her nose to that little dimple just above her lips. When his lips found hers, it was sensory overload. She couldn't think about the plane hurtling down the runway, couldn't concentrate on the idea that they would soon be soaring through the sky at heights that would make a bird think twice. All she could think of was how surprisingly soft his lips were, how that taste seemed to overwhelm everything else until it was . . . everything.

As the engines roared around them, as the plane lifted into the air, his lips moved from hers to the tender flesh along the edges of her throat. She sighed, goose bumps rising on her arms—thank goodness for the covering of her light, pink sweater—her hands wandering dangerously close to the back of his head. Instinct seemed to take over as she tilted her head back, allowed him access to places that seemed to cry out for his touch. She shifted slightly, slid a hand over the front of his chest until she felt that familiar pounding of his heart again.

Was it her touch that did that to him? Or was it just the situation, the moment? Could it have been any woman who made his heart race in that way, or did he feel something new for her?

She wanted to ask, wanted to know. But she didn't.

Was this what he meant by innocence?

And then his lips were on hers again and the thoughts died where they had begun. His hands were on her back, on her hip, her upper thighs. His skin felt like it was on fire, leaving a trail of fire, even through the thin cotton of her dress. She'd been touched before. She wasn't as innocent as he seemed to think she was. But this . . . she couldn't deny that it was different.

There was nothing like the feel of his touch. Each time his hand skimmed the thin material of her dress, all she could think of was how desperately she wanted it to continue, how much she wanted him to stop and touch her there for the rest of the night. She wanted it so very much that it seemed all she could think about . . . except for the other parts of her body that cried out for his touch.

Her head was spinning, the lightness making her feel as though she could just lift up out of her body and fly the rest of the way home without the benefit of the plane. An alarm began to sound in the small cabin. For a minute, Agnes thought something might be wrong with the plane. And then she realized what it was and a heavy weight began to press down on her shoulders.

Diabetes was rearing its ugly head once again.

"Sorry."

Agnes pulled back from Matt's touch, sliding the hem of her skirt up her thigh so that she could reach the little pouch strapped to her leg where her insulin pump was hiding. The alarm grew louder as she pulled it out, touching the right combination of buttons to silence it.

The CGM programmed into her insulin pump was warning her that her blood sugar was falling dangerously low. She slipped the pump back into its pouch and reached for her clutch, extracting her meter so that she could verify the number before treating.

"And to think we'd almost gone the whole evening without thinking about diabetes."

Agnes looked up as Matt stood, his back to her as he reached for the bottle of whiskey in the galley cabinet. But he changed his mind, snatching a water bottle from the small refrigerator instead.

"Sorry," she said again as she waited for the final number from her meter.

Matt didn't respond at first. But she could see from the tension in his shoulders that he wasn't pleased with the sudden turn of events. It was a familiar scenario for Agnes. She had, unfortunately, been here before.

"Is there anything you need? A bottle of juice?"

Agnes held up the small bottle of glucose tabs she'd brought along. "I've got it."

He glanced at her, his eyes unreadable. "I should call Chance, check in."

Agnes' meter beeped. 52. Lovely.

Why couldn't the lightheadedness have really been Matt's touch?

She popped a couple of the tabs in her mouth, chewing them slowly as the dizziness became a little more intent. Matt walked around her, tugging the phone out of his pocket. In a second, she could hear him talking to someone named Joanna.

Agnes popped more of the tabs into her mouth, sitting back with her head on the back of the divan. She wanted to disappear. Why hadn't she been more careful about her dinnertime bolus? She knew the excitement of the evening, the alcohol she'd had both before and during dinner would affect her sugars. Why hadn't she been more cautious in programming her pump?

Why did these things always seem to happen at all the worst times?

Matt came back to the divan just as the dizziness began to lessen. He laid a hand on her knee.

"Okay?"

"Yeah. Sorry about that."

"It's fine."

Agnes popped one more tab into her mouth before putting away her supplies. She ran a hand over her skirt, smoothing it back into place, careful not to dislodge Matt's hand.

"Is Chance alright?"

Matt nodded. "She's hanging out with the housekeeper, watching her show and eating all the crap I won't let her eat. I just hope she doesn't pay for it later."

"I'm sure she's being careful."

Matt squeezed her knee lightly. "She's a child. I don't know if a child understands the concept of careful."

Agnes stiffened, pulling away from his touch as she straightened in the seat.

"What?"

She shrugged slightly. "You sound a little like my mother."

"Oh, well, we can't have that." There was humor in his tone but his eyes were dark, the humor not quite reaching that far. "But she is fifteen."

"When I was fifteen, I was constantly fighting my mother for the right to just go to the corner store without her following a few steps behind." Agnes glanced at him, tried to assess the impact of her words on him. "There has to be a point when you start trusting her."

There was no assessing his reaction. His face was blank, as though he'd pulled a mask down over his eyes. She started to touch his knee, to try to better explain what she was trying to say, but the plane began to descend in that moment. Her heart seemed to drop into her belly and she grabbed the edges of the divan, as though holding on to the thick padding would help in the event of a crash.

Matt slipped an arm around her shoulder, drew her closer to him.

"You are a ball of contradictions, you know?"
Chapter 11

"Do you have Lily Johnson's chart?"

Agnes pointed to a stack of patient files on the edge of her desk. "Should be the one on top."

Karen picked it up and lifted the carefully fastened papers to find what she was looking for. They had a computer program that streamlined all the patient files they dealt with on a daily basis—thanks to Benton, whose company provided not only the program that would interface with several of the local hospitals, but also new computers for Agnes, Karen, and each of the exam rooms—but it was a long, complicated process to add all the information they had on paper before they began using the new program. That was what Agnes was going to do the three weeks Karen would be out on her honeymoon. Fun stuff.

At least she would still be working, still earning a paycheck.

In the meantime, Karen had to shuffle between paper files and the computer files.

"I don't see her latest labs in here."

"Those would be on the computer."

Karen groaned. "I don't think I'm ever going to get used to all this. Once we get them on the computer, it'll be time to do something else."

"Probably."

Karen looked up, her dark expression softening when she saw the smile on Agnes' face. "What would I do without you?" She shook her head, dropping the file back on the growing pile on Agnes' desk. "Maybe we should have brought in that team of technicians Benton offered to loan us."

"And then we'd have to worry about patient confidentiality and HIPAA laws."

"Yeah, there was that."

Karen leaned back against the wall and watched Agnes working at her computer, updating information on the last patient of the day. Tony Gonzalez. Routine exam, diabetes type 2. All routine stuff she'd done a dozen times that day alone.

"So, you never told me about your date with Matthew on Sunday."

"I told you it really wasn't a date. He was just thanking me for helping with Chance."

"Then, how was your not-a-date?" Karen couldn't hide an amused smile. "Did you enjoy the concert?"

"The concert was amazing." Agnes remembered the way Matt pulled her back against his chest as they listened to the final song. She bit her lip, drawing it slowly over her teeth. "I could have done without the plane, though. Flying is not something I think I enjoy very much."

"It takes a little getting used to, flying on a small jet."

Agnes glanced at Karen. Sometimes she forgot that Karen grew up in a world filled with the kind of luxuries Matt probably took for granted. "I don't think I could ever get used to it."

"And how was Matthew?"

Agnes refocused on the computer screen, telling her fingers to type more. But the message failed to get through. She bit her lip again.

"I'm going to need a new prescription for my insulin before you go," she said, hoping the change of subject was smoother than it sounded to her own ears.

Karen pushed away from the wall. "Remind me in the morning and I'll send it in. We need to draw your labs, too."

Agnes just nodded, finishing the patient information and shutting down the computer. When she turned, Karen was still standing in the office, a curious tilt to her head.

"You're dodging my question."

Agnes stood and went to the large cabinet at the back of the room to get her bag. "I'm not dodging it. I'm just not sure how to answer it."

"Did you have a good time?"

"Yes." She shifted slightly, feeling like she was reciting an ill-prepared report to a classroom full of potential bullies. "But I've enjoyed a lot of first dates that never turned into a second."

"You're starting to sound like me." Karen laughed. "At least, the me before Benton."

"Hmm, we're going to have to start referring to your life as BB and AB — before Benton and after Benton."

Karen's laugh sobered a little even as a huge smile glided across her face. "And I'm not even going to argue."

Agnes shook her head. "You're shameless." She took Karen's arm and led the way out of the office. "Giving up your independence for a good looking computer nerd."

"A good looking computer nerd with a multi-million dollar company and a surprisingly not creepy close relationship with his mother."

"Well, you know what they say about guys who are close to their moms."

Karen paused to lock the office door behind them before she turned to look at Agnes. "What?"

"That they treat their wives like queens."

"Benton's got that down pretty well already, and it's not even official yet."

"It might as well be." Agnes jammed her thumb into the elevator button. "The two of you have been acting like a married couple since you got engaged."

"I wouldn't say that. There're still a few surprises in our relationship."

"Please, don't feel like you have to tell me about it."

Karen laughed as she stepped onto the elevator. "Oh, come on, don't you want to know all about Benton and my relationship in the bedroom? Might learn a few things you didn't already know."

Agnes shuttered. "It's like listening to my mother talk about the man she went to dinner with the night before. Sometimes there really is such a thing as too much information."

Karen just laughed, shaking so hard that when the elevator doors opened on the lobby she almost couldn't stop long enough to put one foot in front of the other. Agnes just shook her head and started for the sun bathed front doors. But when she saw them open and a familiar profile come into view in a puddle of shadows, she stopped short. Karen ran into her, nearly knocking her off her feet.

"I was just kidding." Karen wrapped her arms around Agnes' shoulders. "You know that, right?"

"Is that Matt?"

Agnes felt Karen shift as her arms slowly slipped from Agnes. "It is."

He spotted them in that instant and strode over. He was dressed in a tailored suit, a long overcoat on over it in some sort of light brown material that looked very expensive. In fact, everything about him just seemed to ooze wealth, even the confident way in which he came toward them, as though it never occurred to him that they would welcome him into their little twosome with anything other than enthusiasm.

"Matthew," Karen said, stepping around Agnes. "It's so nice to see you."

"Karen." He took her politely offered hand and, for a second, Agnes expected him to bend low and kiss it. Instead, he squeezed it lightly and let it go. "How are you? How's Benton?"

"Well, thank you." Karen stepped back slightly, moving in such a way as to pull Agnes into their redefined circle. "I was sorry to hear about Chance's diagnosis. If there's anything you need, don't hesitate to call me."

Matt's eyes moved quickly over Agnes' face before he focused on Karen again. "I appreciate that. And I might . . . after your honeymoon, of course."

That smile that seemed to ooze pleasure came back to Karen's face, as if it had ever left. "You are coming to the wedding, aren't you?"

"I was planning on it."

"Good." Karen glanced at Agnes at the same time Matt's eyes again moved to her face. "Well, on that note, I think I should go. Benton's waiting for me." She winked at Agnes before turning back to Matt. "It was nice to see you again."

"You too."

Matt turned slightly as he watched Karen leave the lobby. Then he pivoted, his eyes again falling on Agnes. "I was hoping to catch you."

"Is Chance okay?"

He tilted his head slightly. "As far as I know. She's spending the afternoon working on a school project with a friend."

"Good." Agnes stepped back a little, trying not to look too hard at the soft material of his overcoat, or the way his shoulders seemed to fill it out like a football player's shoulder pads. She adjusted the bag on her own shoulder, too aware of the intensity of his gaze on her face.

"I was wondering if you'd like to have dinner with me."

She couldn't hide the surprise that jumped into her eyes. He noticed—he seemed to notice everything—and a slow smile broke the hard lines of his jaw.

"Should I be offended that you're so surprised?"

"No, of course not." She took another step backward, her face burning with a sudden blush. "I was just . . . I thought after you didn't call —"

"I've been caught up in this business deal that went insanely wrong. Every time I had a moment to myself, it was after midnight and I didn't want to make any assumptions that weren't mine to make."

"I wouldn't have minded."

Agnes bit her lip, aware that she might have just slipped over an invisible line that was always drawn between newly dating couples. It was too much, too soon. But Matt's smile only widened. He stepped close to her and laid a hand on her bare arm, rubbing the cool skin just above her elbow.

"I should have called." He lifted her head with a finger under her chin. "Let me make it up to you."

Her voice was gone, the look in his eyes stealing it away along with the doubts that had been plaguing her ever since he offered her an almost chaste kiss on her doorstep before leaving her Sunday night. She just nodded, a wave of pleasure washing over her as she saw relief flood his beautiful, green eyes.
Chapter 12

The restaurant was one of those insanely expensive ones that Agnes had always heard crazy stories about, but had never so much as attempted to visit. The reservation lists were rumored to be months long and with the chefs of the kind that had shows on cable television and wrote bestselling autobiographies.

And here she was, sitting at one of the best tables — according to the maître d — watching a waiter dressed in tails pore her a glass of a red wine she couldn't pronounce, let alone comprehend a price tag that was so exclusive it had its own menu.

They ordered, both choosing the same steak meal though Matt chose to have his closer to rare than Agnes' medium well. Their salads arrived almost the moment the last of their order was written down. Agnes fiddled with her pump under the table, reluctant to be the reason Matt was forced to remember the darker parts of his niece's existence tonight.

"Do you enjoy working for Karen?"

She looked up to find him watching her. "Love it."

"She's really something."

Agnes nodded. "She's blossomed since meeting Benton. Before she was quieter, less likely to smile and laugh as she is now."

"Love will do that to you." Matt lifted his wine glass and studied it thoughtfully. Agnes wondered what he was thinking about when his eyes came up to hers, that expressionless mask once again in place. "I've known Benton quite a while; we have a few business ventures in common. He seems more settled now, too."

There seemed to be something final about his tone. Agnes finished programming her pump and hooked it back into the pocket of her slacks before she looked up again.

"Can I ask you something?"

A guarded look came into Matt's eyes. "Sure."

"What exactly is it you do for a living?"

He laughed, the amusement transforming his face so completely that she made a silent note to herself to make him laugh more often. He set the wine glass down and settled back in his seat a little more casually.

"The easy answer is that I run CBC, Inc., my family's company. The more complicated answer is that I run a multi-billion dollar company that has investments in just about every type of business venture you can think of. My great-grandfather started the company in real estate. He once owned most of the land this city is built on."

"Really?"

Matt nodded. "It was dumb luck, really. He bought up the land around his ranch to keep his neighbors from encroaching on his herd and the next thing he knew, these investors were asking to buy the land to build a city. He became a millionaire overnight in a time before that sort of thing was common. Then he made some smart investments in oil and cotton, then left the whole thing to my grandfather who went on to make more investments, mostly in retail. Then my father came to the helm at a time when computers were just beginning to become a household name." Matt waved a hand. "And that's about all there was to it."

"And now it's yours."

"And now it's mine, until Chance is old enough to take it over."

"Chance?"

"Leadership of the company falls to the eldest child of the first born. That would have been my sister, but . . ."

Agnes picked up her wine glass and took a sip, watching him over the rim. "You were never supposed to run it."

"No. I had my own plans." He lifted his fork and speared a couple of pieces of lettuce. "Julia never really wanted it, either. She resigned from the board almost as soon as they handed the reigns over to her. If I hadn't stepped in, it probably would have been run into the ground by her loser of a husband."

"Chance's father?"

He looked up, the fork halfway to his mouth. "Yeah. He ran out when Julia got sick again."

"I'm sorry."

Matt shrugged as he popped the lettuce into his mouth. "No skin off my nose. Never liked the guy, anyway."

"My dad took off when I was diagnosed."

She wasn't sure why she said it. She rarely ever told anyone about her dad—she wasn't even sure she had mentioned it to Karen. But there was something about the look in Matt's eye that made her want to tell him. Maybe it was just a way of commiserating with someone she thought might understand.

Or maybe she was just trying to, unconsciously, get him to feel sorry for her.

She lifted her wineglass to her lips again, the cool, fruity taste of the wine bursting over her tongue as she drank in a little too much for it to be a dainty sip. So much for acting like a delicate flower like she imagined the women he normally dated did.

"That's his loss, then." Matt reached over and touched the rim of his wineglass to hers. "Here's to getting rid of old trash."

Agnes hesitated only a second before she touched her glass to his. "I will definitely drink to that."

It was like tension that had no reason building between them shattered in that instance. That crooked grin that sometimes made her heart stutter appeared on his face, amusement making his eyes dance in the dim light. From that moment on, the conversation flowed like a clear river rushing toward a waterfall. They talked about everything from music to movies to literature. She had never met anyone — other than her mother — who could debate with her on the merits of Dickens novels versus those of his contemporaries: Twain, Tolstoy, Hardy and Alcott. Not only did he debate her, he came up with arguments that blew some of her own opinions out the window.

She loved the way his mind worked, the paths his logic took. She could have sat there over that bottle of wine and listened to him argue against her theories all night.

Agnes finally raised her wineglass in a gesture of defeat. "My mother taught you well."

"Your mother and a dozen other professors who thought I was a lost cause until it came to midterms." He poured the last of the wine into each of their glasses. "College was an interesting experience."

"Why is it that most men talk about college as though it was the last good time they ever had?"

"Because, for most men, it was." Matt stared into the depths of his wineglass. "It was the first, and last, time I felt like I knew exactly what I wanted and where I was going with my life."

"And where was that?"

He tapped his finger on the outside of the glass for a second; so quiet that was thought he might not answer her question. Then he looked up, a dreamy look on his face. "I was going to marry my college sweetheart — Claire was her name — and we were going to buy a small ranch in Wyoming, somewhere out in the middle of nowhere. And I was going to write novels for the rest of my life while she raised a whole brood of children."

"Sounds nice." Agnes watched the dreaminess turn dark and slip from his face. "What went wrong?"

He shrugged. "My dad died and Julia begged me to come home, to deal with CBC." He looked at Agnes across the table, a table that suddenly seemed miles wide. "I couldn't exactly walk away from family."

"What about your girlfriend?"

Agnes hadn't meant to let him hear the little catch in her voice. But, again, he didn't seem to have noticed. He swallowed the last of his wine before he stood and held out his hand to her.

"Let's get out of here."

She hadn't realized how empty the restaurant had gotten while they sat there lingering over that final bottle of wine. She grabbed her bag and took his hand, followed him outside. His car was waiting by the curb, the silent driver waiting beside the back door. Agnes wondered for a moment what he had done while they were inside — found herself hoping that he'd been able to get something to eat while they dined on steak and truffle laced potatoes.

It was a little cool. Winter was finally making an appearance the first week of November. She shivered and Matt immediately wrapped his overcoat over her shoulders. She pulled it closer to her skin as she ducked and slipped into the back of the car, Matt's cologne suddenly a cloud that made her head spin a little more than the wine had done.

Matt climbed in beside her, sliding closer to her than was necessary in the spacious car.

"I didn't mean to keep you out so late." He touched her knee lightly. "I hope you aren't too tired to go to work in the morning."

"Fridays are a light day at the office."

He pulled his phone out of an inner pocket of his suit jacket and began to scroll through messages. After a minute, she asked, "Is everything okay?"

"Chance was supposed to text when she got home. But, as usual, she seemed to have forgotten."

"You should call her."

Matt looked at her, one eyebrow arched high on his forehead. "You want me to call my niece on our date?"

"If it makes you feel better."

He shook his head, but he dialed just the same. Agnes stared out the window, watching the city flash by as they drove toward her apartment building. Even though she couldn't quite make out the words, she could hear the undertone of resentment coming from Chance's side of the conversation. It reminded her of similar phone calls her mother made to her when something — a late departmental meeting or a rare date — kept her out past dinnertime. Agnes had been just as resentful, to have her few hours of independence marred for just a few moments by that phone call.

It made her feel a little guilty that she hadn't called her mom in a couple of weeks.

Matt pulled her out of her thoughts with a light touch on her knee.

"She wants to talk to you."

"Me?"

Matt shrugged as he urged her to take the phone. She pressed it to her ear and mumbled a greeting.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

"What would happen if I only took like half my insulin dose at dinner?"

"It depends on how much you ate."

There was a little hesitation on the other end of the line. "Well, Joanna made this bean and cheese casserole and I really don't like black beans all that much . . . "

"How much did you eat?"

"Maybe three or four forkfuls?"

"Have you checked your blood sugar since?"

"No."

"Check it now. You could go low if you didn't eat enough. Or you could go high if you ate more than you think you did."

"It's really stupid, you know, this whole thing." Agnes could hear Chance moving things around near the phone, could hear the hiss of a zipper being pulled and the beep of a glucose meter turning on. "I wish I didn't have to think so much about everything I eat."

"So do I."

"I've been reading your blog, you know. I really like some of the things you say about the everyday stuff you have to do. It makes me feel less . . . I don't know. Alone, I guess."

"I'm glad."

There was another beep and then Chance sighed. "It's 95."

"That's good. You did the right thing this time. But you shouldn't change your insulin dosage without talking to your doctor first."

"But what happens if Joanna makes something else I don't like?"

Agnes bit her lip. She didn't agree with Chance's treatment plan, but it really wasn't her place to advice anything else. She wasn't a doctor. "Talk to your doctor," she said, feeling like the words were completely inadequate.

"I wish I could do things like other diabetics."

"You will. It just takes time."

Chance was making frustrated sounds when Agnes handed the phone back to Matt. He had been watching her the whole time, taking in everything about what she said and how she said it. She had the sense that if she had said something he disagreed with, he would have made his disapproval known. Agnes found herself hoping Chance's situation didn't prove to be an obstacle between she and Matt, but a part of her knew it already was.

He disconnected the call and put the phone away just as they pulled to a stop outside of her apartment building. Like a true gentleman from a generation long gone, Matt stepped out of the car and helped her out, holding her hand as he escorted her into the building. He even took the key from her hand and unlocked her door for her, shaking the deadbolt's key just right to get the stubborn thing to turn properly without her having to tell him.

"Thanks for talking to Chance. I think it helps her to have someone with experience in this thing to talk to."

Agnes dropped her bag on the floor next to the kitchen and turned. "I wish I had someone to talk to when I was her age. It might have saved my mother from a lot of aggravation."

"I can't imagine you as a difficult child."

"You'd be surprised."

He smiled as he came toward her. "Did you sneak out of the house in the middle of the night?"

"No. But I lied about having after school tutoring so that I could go to this local diner where all the kids hung out."

"Hmm, sneaking around to get your French fry kick, uhn?"

She laughed as he came to stand so close in front of her that she backed up a little and quickly found herself trapped between him and the kitchen island. She laid her hand almost hesitantly on his chest, the heat of his body immediately seeping into her skin and warming her like the heat of a cozy fire.

"If that's the only problem I have with Chance, I guess I should count myself lucky."

"She's a good kid," she said, looking up at him. "She's just a little overwhelmed right now."

"She's not the only one."

He dropped Agnes' keys that he had still been holding on the counter behind her. He touched her cheek gently with the side of his finger.

"Do you know how beautiful you are?"

Agnes slid her hand a little higher up on his chest, her fingers slipping underneath his dangling tie to brush against the buttons at the front of his shirt. She didn't know how to answer him except to reach up and press her lips lightly against his. So that's what she did, taking the bold step to initiate the one thing she had wanted to do most all evening long.

He sighed against her lips, his breath warm and rich as she breathed it in. What started as a soft, gentle kiss quickly became something more. He buried his hand in the long tresses at the bag of her head, pulling her closer against him even as his body forced hers back, hard, against the kitchen island. Her hand was trapped against his chest, his pounding heart beating roughly against the palm of her hand.

With one hand tangled in her hair, his other slipped down her side, tugging her hip forward as his hand slipped low over top of her thigh. Her belly fluttered as she imagined his touch in places she had never spent much time thinking of, but which were suddenly at the front of her imagination. She wanted to know his touch, wanted to feel him in places she had never invited a man before.

Want. It seemed like such a familiar thing. She had wanted so much when she was a kid. Wanted to be like everyone else, wanted to be able to eat birthday cake without worrying about insulin dosages like all the other kids. But this . . . this was a different kind of want. This was overwhelming, a want that took away her ability to think logically, to assess the dangers that might lie in waiting. This was all encompassing, a want that was more need than desire.

She slipped her fingers into his hair, vaguely aware of the curls that seemed to grab and wrap around her fingers, in an effort to pull him in tighter, to keep him forever locked against her. She responded to his every movement in a way she had never done before, concerns about what he might think of her forward actions the furthest thing from her mind. She simply didn't want the moment to end.

Matt groaned against her lips. "I should go."

"You don't have to."

He pressed his forehead to hers, his breaths coming in quick, hard puffs. "I told Chance I would be home soon."

Agnes pressed her lips to his throat just above his shirt's collar. "Then I guess you better go."

He groaned again as he ran his hand down the length of her side, his fingers skating over the thin material of her blouse. "You're not making this easy."

She kissed his throat again before pulling back the few inches her position between the kitchen island and his body would allow. "I'm not stopping you."

He kissed her lightly. "I'll call you."

"Okay."

He stepped back, but only a half-step. He touched her cheek lightly. "I assume you're going to Karen and Benton's wedding?"

"I'm the maid of honor."

"Do you have a date?"

"No, not really."

"Do you want one?"

She tilted her head a little, pretending to consider the idea. "I suppose."

He took her arm and pulled her into his chest again. "You are a tease, aren't you?" He kissed her again, his touch slow and lingering. Then he stepped back and strode to the door without looking back, pausing only once he was standing in the corridor again. "I'll call you."

Agnes watched him go, unable to wipe the smile from her face even after he disappeared around the corner and she had secured the door to her apartment.
Chapter 13

Agnes checked her phone again, a blush spreading over her cheeks as she read the text message that had arrived only moments ago.

"Stand still."

There was laughter in Karen's voice even as she attempted to make the order a stern one. Agnes met her eye in the wall of mirrors in front of which she stood, an ice blue dress shimmering in the bright lights as the seamstress stuck pins into the lower edge of the bodice.

"Are you sure this dress is what you want?"

Karen walked around her as though assessing it again. "I think after looking for six weeks, and with the wedding a week away, it had better be." But then she broke into a wide smile. "You look amazing in it."

"Do you think so?"

"It was well worth the wait."

Agnes looked at herself in the mirror. The dress was strapless chiffon with a pleated bodice. It hugged her body in places she was not used to showing off, but she had to admit that it looked a lot better on than she had imagined when she first saw it on the hanger. She found herself wondering what Matt would see when he saw her in it.

"The question is," Karen broke into her thoughts, "what do you think of it?"

The seamstress stepped back, assessing her work. Agnes turned a little, watched the skirt swish around her ankles in that flowing way long skirts had; the smile that had never been far from her lips since her dinner with Matt appeared again.

"It makes me feel more feminine than I probably have a right to feel."

"I don't know why you say that. You're one of the most fashionable, feminine women I've ever known."

Agnes glanced at her. "Thank you."

Karen came over and lifted Agnes' skirt just a little, adjusting it around her bare feet. "We are going to make some spectacular wedding photos."

Agnes looked at the mirror again. "Yes, we are."

***

They went to lunch at Tony's, giggling together in one of the back booths like a couple of teenagers. Agnes found herself checking her phone every few minutes, looking for new messages from Matt. They'd been talking regularly since their last date, texting throughout the day and talking at night. He was busy, always rushing off to one meeting or another. It was amazing he'd ever had time to date in the past. But, somehow, it made her feel that much more special that he made the time to talk to her at all.

"Things must be getting serious if he has you glued to your phone."

Agnes blushed as she slid the phone back into her pocket. "I wouldn't say that."

"You've spent the entire day looking at that thing. I thought I was going to have to confiscate it during the fitting."

"He only has so much time to talk, so I don't want to miss anything."

Karen nodded, understanding clear in her eyes. "I know the feeling. The first few months I was with Benton, I wasn't sure how the man ever had time for a personal life with all the meetings and travel and whatever that filled his days."

Agnes tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. "Matt has Chance, too."

Karen's expression sobered a little. "How is she?"

"She sent me a message through my blog the other day." Agnes picked up her glass of diet coke, moistening her fingers in the condensation on the sides. "Her doctor has her on a set dosage for her boluses and she's really frustrated."

"I don't know why some doctors do that. It's asking for trouble."

"That's what I thought, too, but I can't exactly say anything. If I tell her how to use a carb to insulin ratio and she has a problem, it would be on me."

Karen shook her head. "She has to get a new doctor. Have you talked to Matt about it?"

"No." Agnes ran her hand over her phone where it made a small bulge in her pocket. "I'm trying not to interfere too much. He's so protective of her; I don't want to do anything that would cause any more trouble for him."

"But if you don't — "

"If I don't, she continues to be frustrated and she might try something on her own that will just make things worse."

"Exactly."

Agnes set her Coke back down and wiped her hands on her pants. "I don't know how you do it, always advocating for these kids. I don't think I could."

Before Karen could say anything else, Finn suddenly appeared, dropping onto the bench next to Agnes.

"Hey," he said, rubbing his shoulder against hers. "What's going on?"

Agnes laughed, unable to resist the carefree attitude that seemed to follow Finn like the little black cloud that sometimes followed hard-luck cartoon characters. She laid her head briefly on his shoulder.

"You have amazing timing."

"Thank you." He bowed as much as the tight constraint of the table allowed. "I always aim to please."

"How are you, Finn?"

He looked across at Karen, taking her in with the same warmth he offered anyone who fell within his radar. "I'm wonderful, Dr. Karen. How are you?"

Karen glanced from him to Agnes and back again. "I'm getting married in a week, so I'm great."

"We finally found a bride's maid dress."

Finn held up a hand for a high five. "Congrats."

"It's perfect," Agnes said as Karen nodded in agreement. "The right color blue, long and classy, just like we wanted."

"I'm sure it is. Anything you wear would be perfect."

Karen's eyebrows rose, but Agnes ignored her.

"Are you coming to the wedding?"

Finn glanced at Karen before his eyes fell on Agnes again. "Wouldn't miss it. Especially if it means seeing you in the perfect dress."

Agnes chose to brush off the last part of his comment, changing the subject to ask about an art class she knew he was taking at the community college. As she and Karen walked out of the diner a little while later, Karen moved up close beside her and spoke in a loud, stage whisper.

"You do know that boy has a crush on you, right?"

"Finn?"

"Yeah."

"No, he's just a friend."

Karen laughed. "If I had friends like that, I think Benton would turn green with jealousy."

Agnes turned and looked back at the diner, catching Finn watching them from one of the front windows. He lifted a hand in a casual wave.

"I've never thought of Finn that way."

"It's funny how hard it is to see what's right in front of you."
Chapter 14

Agnes sat at her desk early Tuesday morning talking on the phone with a patient who was less than pleased with the idea of postponing a hard to come by appointment with Karen. Her phone buzzed and she slipped it out of her pocket even as she spoke calm, reassuring words into the phone she had already said dozens of times in the last few weeks. Her heart skipped a beat when she saw the prefix on the phone—it was Matt's. But then she realized the number that followed was slightly different.

Can we meet somewhere?

Agnes frowned. _Chance?_ she replied.

Yeah. Have questions that Uncle Matt doesn't want to talk about.

Agnes bit her lip, trying to decide how to respond. If she agreed to meet with Chance and didn't tell Matt, what would he say if he found out? When he found out, since these things never seemed to remain secret for long. And if she told him, it would save her from a problem later, but what would he say to Chance? Would it break her trust?

"Miss Hunter?"

"Sorry, Mr. Watson," she said distractedly. "I have you down for January 10 at nine. Does that work for you?"

"If it has to."

Agnes ended her phone call and stared at the text message still unanswered on her phone. Finally she responded with: _When and where?_

She'd tell Matt about it. But she wanted to know what Chance needed first.

They met at the food court at a local mall surrounded by harried housewives trying to get a head start on Christmas shopping and screaming toddlers in need of a nap. Chance was sitting alone at a table toward the back, a diet Coke on the table in front of her. Agnes slipped into a chair across from her and smiled.

"What's going on?"

Chance stared at the top of the table for a long moment as though she hadn't noticed that Agnes had joined her. Then she slapped a hand against her thigh so hard that the sharp crack made a couple of people look up from their hurried lunches.

"I don't want to do this anymore."

She bent her head low and her shoulders began to shake. Agnes scooted around to her side of the table and tentatively touched her back, rubbing the top corner of her shoulder. She waited for Chance to get control of herself. In just a minute, Chance began rubbing at her cheeks with the back of her sweater, moistening the sweater sleeve she had pulled down over her hand.

"Sorry," she muttered.

"Don't apologize. I understand."

Chance rubbed her cheek again. "My uncle doesn't. He keeps telling me I just have to learn as much as I can about it and move on with my life."

"That's just his way of dealing with a crisis."

"Yeah, well, this isn't a crisis. This is my life."

Agnes rubbed her back again. "I know it's hard, Chance. I wish I could tell you that it gets easier. In a way, it does. But, in a way, it will always be a struggle you have to deal with every single day."

"Thanks."

"But you're a smart kid. You'll figure it out."

Chance sat up a little, pulling away from Agnes' touch. "It would be so much easier if I didn't have to do it at school. All the other kids stare at me when I leave to go to the nurse's office and my friends complain that we never have any time to hang out together anymore."

"I know." Agnes dragged her fingers through her hair, moving it out of her face as she remembered her own experiences at school. "I once had a low while giving a speech in my communications class. I began to slur my words and I got dizzy, nearly fell over. The kids in the class thought I was drunk. For a week afterward, they made comments about it, calling me Saint Agnes — I'm not really sure how the two connected, but you know how kids are."

"How did you deal with it?"

Agnes shrugged. "I had a couple of really good friends who stood by me. One of them, Sarah, tried to set everyone straight by explaining about my blood sugar. Of course, no one really cared what the truth was. They just wanted to believe the stories."

Chance nodded. "Everyone thinks I have cancer, or something." She pulled her sleeves further over her hands, catching them with her fingers. "I guess Uncle Matt told you about my mom."

"Yeah. I'm sorry."

"I hardly remember her." She rubbed her cheek again, her eyes moving around the food court as though she had just remembered where they were. "But Uncle Matt talks about her a lot. Tells me all the time how much I remind him of her."

"I guess they were pretty close."

"Yeah." Chance looked at Agnes. "Do you think that's why this happened to me? Because my mom was sick?"

Agnes took her hand and smoothed her fingers over her sweater sleeve. "My mom has never been seriously sick a day in her life. She doesn't even take a day off of work when she has a cold." She met Chance's eye as she squeezed her hand lightly. "Nobody knows for sure why this happens to some people and not to others. We just won some very unlucky lottery and we have to do the best we can to keep from allowing it to define us."

"And how do you do that?"

Agnes shook her head. "If I knew that, I would be rich from selling the secret to everyone else."

Chance chuckled at that, a little color coming back to her cheeks.

"I write in my blog about my frustrations. I talk with other people who have it, listen to their tricks and their frustrations. I work in Dr. Carver's office so that she can help people like us." Agnes patted the top of Chance's hand once more. "You have to find your own way to deal with it."

"I was afraid you would say that."

Agnes pulled back and took her cellphone from her back pocket. "And I think the first thing you should do is call your uncle and tell him where you're at."

"He thinks I'm at a study group."

Agnes' eyebrow rose. "Trust is something you have to earn."

Chance nodded. "I'll call him."

They were still sitting in the food court an hour later when Matt came striding through the mall, a wave of single — and some not so single — women turning as one to watch him go by. It was hard to tell by the look on his face what he thought of this impromptu meeting. Even as her chest tightened for fear of his wrath, Agnes couldn't take her eyes off of him. It made her a little proud to see all those women staring at him and know that he was coming to sit with her; or, at least, at her table. It was like being in high school again and finally sitting at the popular table.

Silly, the direction her thoughts sometimes moved in.

"Why aren't you at study group?"

"Uncle Matt — "

Chance began to speak, but Matt gave her a look that made it clear he wasn't interested in her answer. Instead, he gestured for her to stand. "Let's go. We'll talk about this at home."

Chance glanced at Agnes, a look of defeat on her face as she grabbed her bag and began a slow stumble toward the far exit.

"Don't be too mad at her." Agnes stood and laid a hand on Matt's chest. "She's was a little upset and she needed to talk."

"She called you?"

"Yes."

"And you didn't call me."

His words fell like an accusation at her feet. Agnes stepped back. "She needed to talk to somebody who understands what she's going through."

"I'm her family. Her only family."

"And maybe you're a little too close to this." Agnes gestured toward him, the movement taking in everything about his appearance, the look of success that oozed from his expensive suit. "You can't control this. You can't tell her how to deal with something that's turned her life upside down. You have to give her time to figure it out herself."

His eyes narrowed. "And you would know this because of all the children you have waiting for you at home?"

Agnes could feel the blood drain from her face. She bit her lip, inclining her head enough to show that she acknowledged what he said.

"You're right, I don't have kids. But I live with diabetes and I spend my days watching kids just like Chance walking in and out of Karen's office, every one of them dealing with the same frustrations. She needs help dealing with this— "

"She has all the help she needs." He turned, but seemed to think twice about it. He stopped, his hands balled into fists at his side. "Just, please, stay away from my niece."

Then he walked away.

#

###

About the Author

J.M. Cagle began writing stories while in high school. She went on to attend California State University, Dominguez Hills and continued her pursuing her writing interests by interning at KTLA, a Los Angeles television station. She also became a sports writer for two community newspapers. She would attend sporting events and write articles on the games. Ms. Cagle also worked part-time at internationally acclaimed The Studios at Paramount where she garnered first-hand knowledge of the intricacies of television and film production. She has since gone on to write a multitude of screenplays and theatrical productions.

Ms. Cagle's focus is now centered on the writing genres of romance, paranormal and suspense novels. She also enjoys writing in the spiritual genre as well. When she isn't engaged in her favorite pastime of writing she takes pleasure in singing, visiting the beach, bicycling, reading, walking and spending time with her loved ones. Ms. Cagle currently resides in Michigan where she continues to speak her heart through her writing.

Other Books by This Author

Please check your favorite eBook retailers for the other books of J.M. Cagle

Other Books in the Falling for the Billionaire Series

Book Two: Almost a Happy Ending

Book Three: Against All Odds

Books in A Billionaire's Love Story Trilogy

Book One: Falling in a Moment

Book Two: Chasing Love

Book Three: The Billionaire's Assistant

The Doctor and The Billionaire Series

Book One: Misled

Book Two: Misunderstood

Book Three: Miscomputed

Bewitched with Love Trilogy

Bewitched with Love, Book One: A Carpenter's Witch

Bewitched with Love, Book Two: A Rogue's Match

Bewitched with Love, Book Three: Romancing a Witch

Enchanted Love Series

Book One: A Search for Love

Book Two: A Wicked Vision

Book Three: Winter Witch

Haunting Love Trilogy

Haunting Love, Book One: House of Darkness

Haunting Love, Book Two: Passionate Delirium

Haunting Love, Book Three: Chaotic Lust

Connect with J.M. Cagle

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