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This woman had been affected by his actions—or lack of in this case—and he needed to directly help her .
    Dammit, his brother was right.
    “The family has already made their decision, Ms. Donovan. The money is yours.”
    “I don’t want it.”
    “You don’t understand—”
    “Yes, I do. Edward Movey’s family feels bad about my husband dying and wants to give me money to make it all better.”
    It definitely sounded lame when she said it like that. But giving her the money had seemed like a decent gesture. And it was easy. Write the check, hand it over, leave town. At least, that’s what he’d imagined happening. He let his head drop, resting his elbows on his knees. Of course, if he imagined it going that way, it would go any way but like that.
    “Ms. Donovan—”
    “Mr. Silver, I’m not taking the money. There’s nothing you can say to change my mind.”
    And she hung up on him again.
     
     
    Brooke shut her cell phone off to prevent any callbacks and pulled back onto the gravel road to the Nelsons’. She was strangely restless after the phone call. It was really too bad that such a good-looking guy, who could kiss like it was a superpower, was determined to complicate her life.
    Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars was a hell of a lot of money.
    There was just no way around that fact.
    But she couldn’t take it. As unbelievable as that was even to her.
    A good-looking man that she wanted to sleep with was offering her money.
    An exorbitant amount of money.
    She was proud of her ability to say no in the face of such temptation.
    But she had said no. Emphatically.
    If only Walter Worthington could see this. Her ex-father-in-law would never believe she was saying no to both sex and money.
    But she was not taking help, and definitely not financial help, from anyone. Especially young, hot, single men.
    Even if taking the life insurance money hadn’t seemed creepy—which it did—she still didn’t want any help. She was going to pay her debt to Honey Creek with hard work. Period. Because it would shock and amaze them all.
    She had a contract—a stroke of genius on Mike’s part—that stated as long as she showed up to staff the clinic every day for two years, Honey Creek would pay off the student loans she’d taken out to get her Physician’s Assistant degree. Mike had known how things would go with her and Honey Creek in the case he wasn’t there to be a buffer, so the contract read that as long as she showed up she’d have her loans paid. The fact that almost no one came to the clinic for care didn’t matter. She was still going to leave Honey Creek debt free in another eight months. In the meantime, she knew it bugged the hell out of Walter for her to even play at running the clinic, so she showed up every day and went through the motions.
    The thing was, she didn’t want to be here either. She’d agreed to come back to Honey Creek to help Mike out. Again.
    And then he’d up and died.
    When she saw him in Heaven, he was going to owe her big-time. Heaven better have a Macy’s and Starbucks.
    But for now, she was stuck here. She couldn’t leave. She wanted Honey Creek to be shocked and amazed, to know they were wrong about her. They figured that she was the kind of person to get going when the going got tough.
    Which was exactly why Walter kept making things tougher and tougher. It had worked with her mother. Dixie had finally tucked tail and slunk out of town.
    But Brooke was not her mother.
    In any way.
    She’d been intent on proving that for years and damned if she was going to let a little thing like Mike’s death derail her efforts. She didn’t need a man to take care of her. She could handle anything that came her way.
    She could also resist the temptation of money, gifts, flattery, hot kisses and even hotter sex. Even with Jack Silver.
    She could.
    Absolutely.
     
     
    Brooke eyed her cell phone with trepidation as it lay ringing on her kitchen counter. Only a very few people had