Chapter One

Over the years, she'd accepted the fact that a woman couldn't expect someone to rescue her, to step in and make life picture-book perfect.

So when Hailey walked out of the Granville drugstore and a young man jerked on her black vinyl purse, she didn't scream for help. Instead, she struggled with the thug until he knocked her fanny-first on the sidewalk.

At the gas station across the street, a tall, dark- haired stranger in a leather jacket yelled to the attendant to call the police, then took off in pursuit of Hailey's mugger.

Heart pounding and hands trembling, she stood on wobbly legs and grimaced at the pain in her right hip. She didn't think anything was broken, but her bottom hurt like the dickens. She brushed the dirt from her wool slacks and looked down the street. Both suspect and stranger were long gone.

And so was her oversize purse. But it wasn't her cash and credit cards she worried about. It was the package she'd discreetly slipped inside that concerned her. A package she'd traveled twenty miles to buy.

Now she was not only missing her purse and her purchase, she was rubbing an aching rear end.

A police cruiser pulled to a stop in front of the drugstore, and a stocky, red-haired officer climbed from the car. "What seems to be the problem, ma'am?"

Hailey explained what had happened, then pointed in the direction the mugger and the stranger had run.

"Your name?" he asked.

"Hailey Conway." She hoped she wouldn't have to list the contents of her missing purse. Wallet, thirty-seven dollars i