For most people, coming ‘home’ again would be a good thing.  But for Mercy O’Malley returning to Hunter’s Gap, Colorado was anything but.  It stirred up too many memories.  Ones she’d tried so hard to forget.

    Like the car crash she’d been in with her parents when she was fifteen.  She’d survived.  They hadn’t.  That left her brother, Mike, who was only nineteen at the time, with the responsibility of raising her.  Then, a year later, her best friend, Katie, nearly drowned while they were swimming in the lake behind Mercy’s family’s cabin.  Just when she thought her brother had escaped being affected by her curse, he broke his ankle walking down the bleacher steps after her high school graduation ceremony.  Bad things seemed to befall everyone she cared about.  It was the Mercy O’Malley Curse.  

    Her brother refused to believe that she harbored some sort of permanent jinx, but her ex-fiancé knew better.  Neil knew firsthand just how dangerous loving her could be.  Not that he loved her anymore.  And if people knew what was good for them no one ever would.

    After Neil’s accident, she had been more determined than ever to keep her brother safe, so she’d packed up and moved to Boulder and had never come back.

    Mercy looked around the busy little town with a sense of longing.  She’d known returning to Hunter’s Gap would be hard, but the emotional pull was almost overwhelming.  Grabbing up her bags, she started walking in the direction of the tiny cabin she’d grown up in which sat nestled among the pines a few miles outside of town.

    She hadn’t been back since leaving all those years before, and it was only sheer desperation that brought her home now.  She needed a car.  The old beater Grand Am she’d been using in Boulder had taken an unexpected detour to ‘Car Heaven’ and her funds were limited.  Most of her paychecks went to the vet bills she had accumulated rescuing injured animals from the roadside.  So her only choice at that point was to go home and pick up the convertible Mustang GT her parents had left her in their will.  The one she’d kept safely stored away at the cabin for fear of something happening to it.  

    Fortunately, when she’d called to tell her brother she was coming home, he was just getting ready to board a flight to the Caribbean.  That meant there was no chance of Mike getting hurt while she was there.  As much as she’d have loved to see her brother again, it was better this way. 

    A high-pitch yapping erupted from the nylon pet carrier she held clutched in her hand.  Mercy lowered it onto the grass and knelt to peek in at the rambunctious pup running around inside it.  Another one of her roadside rescues. 

    “I don’t know what you’re complaining about,” she told the pup with a smile.  “I’m the one doing all the walking.”  She dropped her floral travel bag onto the ground beside the portable pet tote and reached out to unzip the carrier. 

    She scooped up the pint-sized Yorkie, dodging its tiny wet kisses with a soft giggle.  “I love you, too.  Just be thankful you’re an animal.”  Her curse didn’t seem to affect four-legged creatures.

    An old Ford pickup truck rattled past and then rolled to a stop.  The dusty window slid down and a familiar face appeared.  “Mercy?”

    “Doc?”  She stood, clutching the pup to her chest.  Doc Landers had been Hunter Gap’s only veterinarian for as long as she could remember.  He and his wife of over forty years, Maggie, had hired Mercy to help out at their clinic the summer after her graduation.  That was where her love of animals first began.   

    “Well, I’ll be,” he said with a chuckle as he climbed from the truck and hurried over to hug her.  “I never thought I’d see you around these parts again.”

    “You and me both.” 

    “And who is this handsome young fellow?”

    She looked down at the pup in her arms.  “This is Rambo.”

    The pup barked.

    He reached out to scratch the pup behind its ear.  “Pleased to meet you, Rambo.”  His gaze lifted.  “So how long you home for?”

    “Just long enough to pick up the car my parents left me.”

    “Why are you walking?  Where’s Mike?”

    “On his way to the Caribbean.”

    “Convenient timing.  I take it you’re still avoiding everyone that cares about you?” he added with a frown.

    Doc knew about her past and how she felt responsible for the bad things that had happened.  He and Maggie had done their best to convince her to stay after Neil broke off their engagement.  So had Mike, but she couldn’t do that to them.  She loved them all too much.

    “I do what I have to,” she told him, her voice cracking. 

    “Still a stubborn little thing, I see.”  He walked past her and grabbed her things.  “Come on, I’ll give you two a lift to the cabin.”

    She knew it would do her no good to argue.  Doc could be just as stubborn as she was when he set his mind to it.   

 

                                                                                               *    *    *

 

    After making her promise to stop by and see Maggie before leaving town, Doc Landers drove away.  Mercy turned and started toward the garage, her pup dancing excitedly around her feet.  If only she felt that same excitement.  All she felt at that moment was trepidation.  That was why she had to get her car and leave.  No wistful reminiscing through the cabin. 

    She set her things down and punched in the key code, opening the garage door.  Taking a deep breath, she stepped inside.  Her gaze drifted over the garage walls, taking in the snowshoes she and Mike used to wear when they were kids.  Beside them, a couple of mountain bikes covered in a thin layer of dust hung suspended from utility hooks.  Her gaze shifted to her father’s old workbench and emotion knotted up in her throat.      

    Mercy forced herself to turn away, quickly yanking the protective covering of sheets from the cherry red Mustang.  She had to get out of there.  She tossed her purse onto the passenger floor and then shoved her travel bag and Rambo’s carrier onto the floor in the backseat.

    “Come on, boy,” she called out as she opened the driver’s side door.  “Time to go.” 

    The pup clamored up into the car and took its place on the passenger side.  Mercy slid in behind the wheel and closed the door.  Hot tears pricked at the backs of her eyes as she started the engine.  She had to get out of there before she lost it completely.

    Shifting the car into reverse, she pressed down on the gas.  The convertible, surprisingly touchier than her old Grand Am, lurched backwards startling her.  But not nearly as much as the unexpected masculine shout behind her did.  Several loud thumps across the trunk of her convertible followed.    

    Mercy’s hand snaked out to keep her pup from being thrown to the floor as she hit the brakes.  Throwing the Mustang into Park, she glanced back over her shoulder and gasped in horror.  She had just killed a man.

    Where had he come from?  She twisted around beneath the seatbelt to stare at the hulking form sprawled haphazardly across the backseat of her car.  He’d charged out of the overgrown bushes lining the gravel drive without any sort of warning.

    Her gaze followed one long, jean-clad leg to the floor behind her.  The man’s other leg, still attached, thank God, hung out over the top of the passenger door.  His eyes were closed and partially hidden beneath the dark hair that had fallen over his brows.

    He’s dead.  I’ve just killed a man.  He was the fly and my car was the fly swatter. 

    “Shoot!” Mercy exclaimed, a slightly milder sentiment than the one the stranger had expressed just a millisecond before she turned him into another statistic.  This wasn’t supposed to happen.  She didn’t even know the man lying in her car.

    A high-pitched yapping drew her from her panicked thoughts.  She turned to the pint-sized pup in the passenger seat and raised a trembling finger to her lips.  “Hush, boy.  I need to think.”

    Problem was her brain wasn’t cooperating.  Mercy grabbed for her purse and dug inside for her cell phone.  “I...I have to call for an ambulance.”

    She began frantically punching buttons and then stopped.  What was she doing?  She’d killed the man.  What good would an ambulance do him now?

    “The police...” She looked down at the phone she held clutched in her trembling in her hand.  “I...I need to turn myself in.”

    The dead man behind her groaned, making Mercy jump with a startled shriek.  Relief quickly overcame her surprise.  She hadn’t killed him.  That relief was short-lived, however, as the man groaned loudly, clearly in a great deal of pain.  Pain she had caused him.

    “You’re going to be all right,” she promised.  “Just lie still while I call for an ambulance.”  Turning, she poked at the numbers on the phone and muttered a curse.  How hard could it be to dial 9-1-1?  Three little numbers.  Yet, she couldn’t get them in the right order to save her life.

    “That’s it, baby,” the not-so-dead man mumbled behind her, his tone surprisingly sensual.  “That’s how I like it.”

    Mercy dropped the phone from her ear and turned to find her pup perched atop the man’s broad chest, happily licking his face. 

    “Oh, no!” she gasped as she undid her seatbelt and twisted around in the seat.  “Rambo, get down.”

    The pup held steadfast, continuing to make up to the semiconscious man, its furry little tail wagging happily.   

    The only good thing was the man no longer seemed to be in pain.  His eyes were closed and his mouth curled up into one of the sexiest smiles Mercy had ever seen. 

    She exhaled a lengthy sigh of relief.  To think that just moments before she believed this man to be a goner.  But he was nowhere near dead.  Instead, he was...  She looked again.  Making out with her dog?