"Explain? You lied to me."

"I did no such thing," David said.

"First, you let me believe you were homeless, and now," she said, gesturing toward his large portfolio, "you gave a lie of omission."

"Did I?" he asked, not bothering to mask the sarcastic tone of the inquiry. "Was that when I told you and the receptionist at the free clinic that I could pay for my son's care and that I had insurance? Or maybe it was at the hospital when you were so busy throwing facts and figures at me about Common Ground's community care projects? Is that when, Spring? I told you in the hospital's cafeteria that I wasn't homeless. But you had a notion in your head and decided not to hear me. And I told you I was an architect in the city for business. I didn't know I was required to tell my kid's doctor my entire life story with a resume and reference letters."

For several awful moments she wordlessly stared as he walked her back through all their encounters.

He'd arrived at the community care clinic with Jeremy in his arms. She'd just a.s.sumed...

And when they were talking in the hospital cafeteria, he'd said they weren't homeless and was about to say something else when she'd been called to the emergency department to help with its short staffing. That was unusual enough to warrant her justified distraction from their conversation-a conversation they'd never finished.

Embarra.s.sed, Spring glanced at the floor. "I've been..." she started, swallowed and then looked up to meet his gaze. She'd made a major error. Her judgment had been clouded by what was on the surface-maybe in an attempt to quell the almost immediate attraction she'd had toward him, an attraction that was overwhelming in its sheer being.

"I made some a.s.sumptions," she told him. "And that's something I shouldn't have done. I'm sorry, David."

He sighed, the anger seeming to drain from him as he shifted the laptop bag on his shoulder.

"I didn't mean to lose my temper with you," he said. He nodded toward the room they'd recently vacated. "I wasn't prepared for that type of reception."

"You should have been," snapped a woman who was standing nearby and clearly eavesdropping.

"It's all right, Mary," Spring said. "Why don't you go catch up with the others? I'm fine here."

"Are you sure, Dr. Spring?"

Spring a.s.sured her that she was. Then, with a dubious look at David, the woman nodded. "You holler if you need some backup."

"I will," Spring told her with a gentle smile. The woman departed, and so did the warmth in Spring's voice and demeanor.

She took a step back, putting distance between them. Her moment of contrition about her a.s.sumptions had ended, and the reality of the situation came crashing back on her. "Your mission is to destroy my house!"

She may have been mistaken about his financial solvency, but on this she was more than certain. David Camden's objective in Cedar Springs, North Carolina, was to destroy her home, the history and heritage of the six generations of Darlings who'd come before her.

"You're here to steal my land," she added.

He shook his head. "I'm here to give the city council recommendations on three proposed sites."

"One of which is the mayor's preferred location. And, I might add, a location that goes straight through Darling land-land she is probably already finagling to s.n.a.t.c.h via eminent domain."

"You could extend to the city a right of way, eas.e.m.e.nts."

Spring snorted. "A fat lot of good that will do when a four-lane thoroughfare is on one side and a twenty-four-hour burger-hangout-slash-fast-food-drive-through-slash-gas-station-slash-multiplex-theater is on the other."

David folded his arms and regarded her. His laugh held no humor. "You're one of them," he said.

"One of who?"

"One of those self-righteous do-gooders who like to do good for the unfortunate," he said, adding air quotes around the word unfortunate, "as long as the application of said services doesn't touch your backyard. In my field, we have a name for folks like you, NIMBY. That stands for-"

"I know what it stands for," Spring snapped. "And this isn't about my backyard. It's about preserving history. You don't know me. You don't know anything about me, so you can keep your little name-calling and stereotyping to yourself."

Had the ice in the air between them been real, her words could not have been colder.

"Why would you think that this wouldn't be important to me?"

"Spring, I never said it wasn't important to you. I have a job to do here. That task is to integrate design with function and present options to elected officials and city staff."

"Options? What options?"

"They are as varied as each of the properties," he said, hedging.

"And among those options can be recommend taking the whole thing to some other city?"

David sighed and ran a hand over his face. "This is getting us nowhere, Spring. I'd like the opportunity to show you what it is I do. I think there are some misconceptions about exactly what that is and what I'm in Cedar Springs for."

Spring was pretty sure she knew exactly what it was he did and what Mayor Howell had in mind for the city. But for the sake of peace, she was willing to go along with him. They were on opposite sides of this issue, and there was little he could do to sway her on the topic of development.

But if-when!-she was honest with herself, she just wanted to spend some time with him, even though she was so angry. Since she could hardly admit that to him, she used the one plausible rationale she had at her disposal. Despite the shield she'd erected around her heart, David Camden had somehow wiggled in when she wasn't on guard.

She was thirty-five years old, a responsible and respected adult in a professional field. Long gone were the frivolous years when she could act on any whim like her youngest sister, Autumn.

Spring shook her head. Who was she kidding? She'd never been young and carefree. She was thirty when she was ten. Her grandmother always said Spring was an old soul who took after her grandmother's mother. But did being rooted mean she had to be boring, not willing to take a chance when happiness unexpectedly presented itself in her path?

She'd been in love once, and all it had gotten her was a broken heart and a disciplinary citation in her academic file. The last ten-plus years had been spent making up for that indiscretion, proving to herself that she was no longer that vulnerable and naive medical student she'd been when she'd fallen hard for Keith Henson. Keith. Just his name made her shudder.

"Well?"

Spring blinked. "Huh?"

"You've clearly been standing there debating all of the pros and cons. I've seen the arguments flash across your face," David said. "Instead of looking for ways to say no, let me show you that your fears are misplaced."

She doubted he would be able to accomplish that. But she nodded her a.s.sent.

"All right, David. Show me."

They took the discussion outside, where both could get some air away from the prying eyes of a few onlookers who clearly wondered if there would be any additional fireworks to view.

"You give him what for, Doc!" an elderly woman he'd seen in the meeting room called as he followed Spring.

Outside city hall, the sun was shining warm and bright, in stark contrast to the chilly atmosphere inside the building.

If he had been hoping to be led to a downtown cafe for a repeat of their amiable conversation over lattes like before, he'd been sadly mistaken. Spring walked no more than a few yards from the building's main entrance to a bench that was in a gra.s.sy parklike area fronting the building. People sat on other benches nearby, none close enough to overhear a conversation. An elderly couple tossed bread crumbs to birds at one; a young mother with a stroller watched a toddler run after a puppy on another. Across the way, an older black man sipped from a cup and watched people go by.

"My intent was not to upset you or anyone," he said without preamble.

He watched as Spring placed her purse on her lap and then clasped her hands on top of it reminiscent of the way his grandmother used to sit in church. All that was missing were the white gloves and little hat that matched her shoes.

On Spring, the pose looked as prim and proper as it did on his nana. But the curves on the woman sitting there waiting for him to explain himself were far from grandmotherly.

He suspected she'd taken the afternoon off from work to attend the meeting. She was dressed in a light blue linen wraparound dress, one of those numbers that women could dress up or down depending on the occasion, and heels. She'd paired the outfit with a simple small crucifix on a gold chain around her neck and minimal makeup. The look suited her-well put together and subtle though unmistakably expensive. Not for the first time he wondered why she didn't have a husband and children to dote on.

The compet.i.tive businessman in him-or, rather, the caveman, he mused-wondered why she didn't have a family to tend to rather than expending so much energy on history. But David knew he was as pa.s.sionate about his work as Spring was about her family's land. And he'd seen firsthand her commitment to her patients.

The words should have come easy to him, but he struggled to explain his work to this woman who'd been there for him in the middle of the night, this woman who had shown compa.s.sion and care beyond the call of duty toward his son.

For reasons he was unwilling to delve into too deeply, what she thought mattered to him-a lot. And right now, what she a.s.sumed was that he was out to destroy her family's long-held homestead.

The land was private, so none of his team had been able to survey it. But the images from Google Earth had shown just a few buildings on the vast acreage, and most of them were centered near a large house. A rudimentary trail that connected with the property owned by the city had lots of potential for a nature way that could be a key selling point to those who wanted to live in the new community.

The words were all there in his head, but when he verbalized them, they sounded condescending to his ears.

"You don't understand," he said.

"I have an undergraduate degree in biology and a medical degree," she said. "I'm capable of understanding complex sentences."

Ouch.

The lady had a bite.

He sighed. Then he loosened his tie and leaned forward on the bench, dropping his hands between his legs.

"We-"

"You."

He glanced at her. Then decided to concede that point. "My firm identified areas that were best suited for a couple of small retail shops, with garden-style apartments and midpriced condos, residences that would appeal to empty nesters as well as young professionals. There would be businesses to support the residents who call the community home."

"We have that here," she said. "Look around. It's called downtown."

Spring pointed down Main Street which had the look of a village. With the exception of the bookends of city hall and the library, none of the thoroughfare's buildings were more than two stories high.

"Everything you're seeing is the product of a recently completed downtown renovation effort to bring people and businesses downtown," she said. "And as you've gathered-or already knew when you met me-my family has more than a pa.s.sing interest in these plans. Plans, I should add, that were hatched from Mayor Howell's vendetta against my mother."

"Excuse me?"

Spring sighed. "That was probably an exaggeration, at least my sisters and I would like to believe it is."

"I feel like I've stumbled into a feud between the Hatfields and the McCoys."

"No blood has been shed...yet," she said. "But as you saw in the meeting, tempers tend to run high on this topic."

"Yes, of the 'not in my backyard' variety."

Spring shook her head. "It's more than that. Something happened between them, my mother and Bernadette Howell. Neither I nor any of my sisters have been able to suss out from Lovie what it was."

"You call your mother by her first name?"

Spring's eyes widened, and she gave him a look that could only be called incredulous. "Not to her face! She may be approaching sixty, but she's still our mom and therefore the boss."

He smiled. "You favor her."

Spring shook her head. "You mean I look just like her. Everybody says so. At least I know that if I still exercise, remain healthy and stay out of Sweetings-and away from my sister Summer's cheesecake and cooking-I'll look good when I reach her age."

"Spring, I don't want what just happened in there to come between us."

"Us? There is no us."

He reached for her hand and held tight when she would have pulled away.

"I thought we'd made a connection. At the hospital and at the coffeehouse."

"I thought so, too," she said, tugging her hand free from his grasp. "But that was before I found out just what your business is here in Cedar Springs."

David pinched his nose and sighed. "All right, Spring," he said. He reached into the breast pocket of his suit jacket and retrieved a card and a fountain pen.

He scrawled something on the back and handed it to her.

Spring stared at the drying ink and then raised her gaze to meet his.

"My number. In case you change your mind. Jeremy and my mom will be in town for another day before they head home. I'll be here for two more days after that."

With nothing else to say, he got up, retrieved his laptop bag and the large portfolio containing the preliminary renderings and walked away without a backward glance.

Chapter Seven.

The day was pretty much a bust for Spring. In a surly mood, she wasn't up for the rehashing of the meeting that she knew would take place if she went home and saw her mother.

Living on the estate the sisters affectionately called The Compound within a stone's throw of her mother's house had its advantages at times. This was not one of them.

She thought about driving out to the farmhouse. But all that would do was remind her of just how precarious a situation that property might be in if David and the mayor got what they wanted. The very notion depressed her.

She picked up her mobile and speed-dialed Winter, the sister she could count on to get her mind off land deals and medical trauma. Even as she waited for the call to connect, she thought of young Jeremy Camden. He was such a sweet little boy. Like his father, he'd managed to squiggle into her consciousness in ways that she didn't want to explore too deeply for fear of what that excavation might reveal.

"Hey, Doc Sis. I was just talking about you," Winter said by way of h.e.l.lo.

The greeting made Spring smile. She was Doc Sis. Autumn was Coach Sis and Summer had the t.i.tle Perfect Miss from the second-eldest Darling daughter. The reference was to Summer's pageant days and her reign as Miss Cedar Springs.

"What are you doing?" Spring asked.