Kathleen O'Brien - [Cowboy Country] - Texas Baby p.02

“I’m sorry,” she said, shaking her head. “I don’t know what got into me. It’s just that he was such a sweet horse, and it seems so unfair. It’s not his fault if something terrible happened to him—”

She put her hands over her face. “God, listen to me! I’ve been here two days and I’m already telling you how to run your business. Forget I said anything, please. It’s none of my business.” She tried to smile. “Shall we talk about the pictures?”

“Sure.” He put his hand behind her shoulder and nudged her slightly toward the viewing stands, where she’d left the packet of photographs. They walked slowly together across the grass, the sunlight in their eyes. It was going to be a hot one. It was almost as if spring had come and gone in the span of about a week.

“Did you get a chance to look at them all? Did anyone seem familiar?”

“I’m not sure,” she said. “Most of them, no. They may have a superficial resemblance, but they’re not him.”

When they reached the stand, they sat on the first bleacher, straddling it like a pommel, with the manila envelope between them.

He opened it and drew out the dozen or so photographs Trent had found. On such short notice, some of them were far from ideal. They were clearly things he’d borrowed from the Double C scrapbook, or printouts of photos that turned up on the Internet. One was a grainy, black-and-white crowd scene from the local newspaper.

Very few of them had the full-face clarity of a mug shot. But, for now, they’d have to do.

As he shuffled through them, Chase was glad to see that Trent had followed directions to the letter. He’d included a few fillers, the way the police would do when creating a lineup of robbery suspects. A few extra pictures, just random people who matched Flim’s general description.

It wasn’t that Chase didn’t trust Josie, it was just that…

Okay.So he didn’t trust her. Not one hundred percent, anyhow. He didn’t care how waifish or sexy or whatever she was. There was still one percent of him that said he’d be a sucker to simply shove a picture of his cousin, Alexander, under her nose and say, “Is this the guy?”

He handed them to her in a pile, without speaking. “Tell me what you think.”

She flipped through the stack quickly. “No. No.” She stared at one of the photos, tilting it for better light. “He’s very like this.” She handed the photograph to Chase. “It’s not him, but it’s close.”

He looked at it without comment. It was one of the filler shots, probably some guy from copyright-free clip art on Trent’s computer. Good-looking guy, though. Not unlike Alexander, really.

He put it down. “Okay. We’ll remember that. Go on.”

She was methodical, taking each one seriously, but always ending up with ano . He watched, keeping his face completely immobile.

So…it wasn’t Marx, the guy who’d been ticked about the Hillman land sale. Too bad. Marx was married, and smart enough to realize he’d have to pay fair child support, if only to avoid the scandal.

And it wasn’t Charming Billy, the wrangler with the roving hands, either. Well, that was a good thing. Chase had heard that Billy had been fired from every spread in East Texas. He’d be nothing but a liability. Josie could end up with two babies on her hands, one of them six feet tall.

Finally she had the stack narrowed down to one last photograph.

“I don’t really think this is Flim,” she said, clearly discouraged. Her shoulders sagged, and he wondered if she was getting tired. “It could be, I guess. The profile is similar, and…I don’t know…something about the posture. But it’s not a very good picture, and it must be from a long time ago. Chase—I mean Flim—is at least ten years older than this man.”

He took the picture. She was right—it was an old one. It had been taken about ten years ago, at a Christmas party at the Double C.

“I just don’t now.” She bit her lower lip again. “If I could see him from the front, full-face…”

The Flim look-alike wasn’t even the focal point of the photograph. He was just standing in the background, drinking whiskey and flirting with an extremely elegant brunette woman.

With Lila Clayton, to be exact. Chase’s first wife. It was, in fact, the last Clayton party this guy had ever been invited to. He’d gotten drunk and made a scene with Lila. And then, the next year, he’d gone to Vegas and stuck Chase’s stolen ATM card into the slot machine.

Chase leaned back on his elbows, letting the photograph drop on the wooden seat between his knees.

Damn it.Of course, it was the biggest sleazeball in the batch.

It was Cousin Alexander.

 

AS THE WAITER REFILLEDher water glass, Susannah fidgeted with the Belgian lace that draped her upper arm. The stuff was pretty to look at, but so darned distracting. And it tickled, too.

She hadn’t worn so many girlie dresses in a row since she was old enough to choose her own clothes. She’d forgotten how much she hated them.

But though her own taste ran more to no-fuss, tailored clothes, she knew that most men preferred things lacy and sweet. Lacy and slutty would be even better, but she wasn’t willing to go that far, not even to land Ken Longstreet’s restaurant chain as an outlet for her peaches.

“Your wife and I have worked together for years, raising money for the Burn Center.” She smiled. “I’ll bet you’ve even eaten my peach cobbler at one of the fund-raisers.”

“Maybe. Can’t say I remember,” Ken responded, his mouth still half-full of rib eye and mashed potatoes. “I’ve eaten Everly peaches, of course. My sister likes ’em in her pie. She’s a spinster from over in Sundown—nothing much going on way out there, so she’s got plenty of time to cook. “

Susannah tried to keep smiling. But good grief. She didn’t even know people used the worldspinster anymore. She wished she had accepted Jim Stilling’s offer to come along as a buffer. Jim could blow clouds of good-ole-boy smoke when he needed to. She could have thrown in a dimple and a smile now and then, and a few awed murmurs, like “You don’t say!” or “Why, that’s amazing.”

And the deal would have been signed, sealed and delivered by dessert.

“So you really run that big orchard all by yourself?” He waved his fork at her, apparently unaware that a ribbon of rib eye fat still clung to the tines. “That ain’t right. A pretty little thing like you?”

Susannah gritted her teeth so hard she nearly cracked a filling. She hated millionaire Yale MBAs who talked pseudo-hillbilly, thinking it would cloak their obnoxious chauvinism. Her foot twitched. If she kicked him under the table with one of these miserably uncomfortable spiky heels, could she make him believe it was an accident?

Brilliant, Sue.She was actually considering kicking the one guy in Texas who might be able to save her ranch.

She tucked her foot behind her ankle and squeezed it in place. Maybe her grandfather was right—she wasn’t sweet enough to be a good woman, and she wasn’t tough enough to be a good man.

“It’s not easy, Ken,” she said, pouring a little syrup over the words. “But you know I’m getting married soon, and Chase will be able to help me make the big decisions.”

Damn if the creep didn’t actually look relieved. “That’s true. There’s a certain amount of security there. I know Chase, of course. He’s a hell of a businessman.”

“Yes.” She took a sip of water and counted to three. Then she smiled deeply enough to bring out the dimple. “So you see, if you decide to contract with Everly Orchards, you can be absolutely sure that—”

Her cell phone trilled.

Damn it. Her instincts told her that Ken didn’t like interruptions.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” she said. She reached her hand into her drawstring purse, pulled out the little silver rectangle, and checked the caller ID.

It was Nicole. Susannah felt a pulse beat at the edge of her jaw. Nikki knew about this dinner, and she knew how important it was. Susannah thumbed the ignore button and put the phone in her lap.

“Now.” Leaning her elbows on the tablecloth, she laced her fingers and rested her chin on them. “Where were we?”

“The contract,” he said, pushing aside the small vase of orchids, so that he could lean in a little closer. “You were reminding me that, in a few months, Chase Clayton will be—”

The phone rang again.

She looked down. Nicole again.

“Maybe you’d better take that.” Ken’s fleshy face had turned a shade or two redder, and his voice sounded much more arrogant Yale, less backwoods bumpkin. “Doesn’t sound as if they plan to take no for an answer.”

She smiled apologetically. “Yes, I’m sorry. It’s my little sister. I’ll just be a minute.”

She clicked the answer button.

“Nikki,” she said, putting an edge in the greeting. “Is everything all right?”

“No.” Nicole sounded angry. “I need you to come get me.”

“Where are you?”

“I’m at Greta’s party.”

Damn it. They’d been over and over this earlier today, and Susannah had refused to budge. No parties on weeknights. But Nicole was getting more and more brazen, and the argument had turned ugly.

For the first time, Susannah had said the B word.

Boarding school.

She had hoped the threat worked. But apparently she’d been kidding herself. It had probably just goaded Nikki into doing something even more rash. God only knew how she’d gotten to the party.

“You’re at Greta’s party. That’s interesting.” She had to keep her tone pleasant, but she squeezed in the special hint of lemon that Nicole would recognize. And she’d know it meant trouble.

“Yeah, I bet.” Nicole’s voice was hostile, but it also sounded kind of stuffy, as if she’d been crying. “Look, Sue, you really need to come get me. Eli was supposed to be here, but he didn’t show up.”

So that explained the tears. Eli had stood her up. Well, too darn bad. Nikki had insisted on going to the blasted party, in spite of everything Susannah had said. Now she’d just have to live with that decision.

“I’m afraid that’s not possible,” Susannah said. “I’m tied up right now.”

“Come on, Sue. I want to go home. You’re not going to be a bitch about this, are you?”

“Yes,” she responded sweetly. “I’m afraid I am.”

There was a silence.

“Fine. Be that way.” A rough sniffing sound. “God, I hate you sometimes.”

And then the phone went dead.

She lowered it slowly to her lap again and looked over at Ken Longstreet. He had a feathery dollop of mashed potato caught in the left edge of his mustache, and a dime-sized gravy stain on his expensive white shirt. Apparently his Yale career hadn’t included a class in table manners.

“Done?” He glanced at his Rolex. “Can we get back to business?”

“Yes,” Susannah said awkwardly. But then she shook her head. What if it wasn’t just Eli’s absence that had spoiled the party for Nik? What if there were really something wrong?

“No. I’m sorry. I need to—just one more thing…”

Ignoring Ken’s surprised scowl, she picked up the phone and, typing as fast as she could, began putting together a text message to Chase.

Nik stuck at Greta Sugarton party, any chance you’re free to…

Oh, well, she thought as she hit Send.

She had probably lost Ken Longstreet’s business now, judging from the look on his face. And she’d probably lose all credibility with Nikki, too.

Maybe it really was a good thing she would marry Chase soon. Maybe this was just one more piece of proof, as if she’d needed it, that her grandfather had been right.

She really wasn’t tough enough to make it on her own.

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHASE HAD BEEN INAUSTINwith Josie that afternoon, talking to a sketch artist, who tried to make a visual out of Josie’s description of Flim. Unfortunately, it didn’t look like anyone he recognized, although it bore a superficial resemblance to Alexander.

Josie felt dissatisfied. The sketch was close, but not really right. Maybe she wasn’t describing him right. But both she and the artist had done the best they could. Chase decided to start by tracking down Alexander. At the moment it was their only real clue.

They were on their way home when he got Susannah’s text message. He could read between the lines. Sue was a nervous wreck, not knowing what Nikki might do. He asked Josie if she minded making a detour by Greta Sugarton’s house.

What a trouper she was. Though he could tell she was tired, she wouldn’t hear of letting him take her all the way back to the ranch. Nikki should come first.

Unfortunately, Nikki had already left the party. Chase checked everyone out—and opened a big can of buzz-kill on that brainless Greta and her friends, most of whom were barfing up her daddy’s fifty-dollar whiskey on his fifty-thousand-dollar lawn.

Then he decided to check the main road back to Everly. He had a feeling Nik was too smart to have hitched a ride home with any of these sot-faced losers.

His headlights picked her out, trudging along on the easement, about two miles from the party, maybe seven miles from Everly. He flipped his brights twice to get her attention, then slowed to a crawl beside her and rolled down his window.

“Umm…did you see my thumb out, buster?” Her voice was acid, and she didn’t even turn around to look at him. “I didn’t think so. Because I’m not looking for a ride.”

“Well, good, because I’m not looking to pick up any bad-tempered little brats, either.”

She turned around. “Chase!” Her smile was pure relief. “Boy, am I glad to see you.”

Then she noticed Josie in the passenger seat. She gave Chase a weird look.

He smiled. “Nicole Everly, this is Josie , a friend of mine from Riverfork.”

Josie smiled, and Nikki nodded stiffly. “Hi.”

Then apparently she decided to pretend Josie wasn’t there. Without preamble, she pulled open the truck’s back door and climbed in. She reached down and began peeling off her sandals. “Thank God you showed up. My feet are killing me in these stupid shoes.”

Chase had already noticed the strappy sandals with the three-inch heels. Susannah would have a stroke if she saw how Nikki was dressed.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said with a smile. “Those are just about the stupidest shoes I ever saw. Why the devil are you wearing them? Have you got your brain out on loan to somebody?”

He heard them drop on the floor. “They’re sexy. Eli likes them.” She scowled at him in the rearview mirror, drawing her brows down over her heavily made-up eyes. “Hey, that’s right. I’m not speaking to you. It’s all your fault that Eli couldn’t come to the party tonight. You’re a slave driver. Doesn’t he ever get any time off?”

Chase watched the road, picking his next sentence carefully. He thought Eli was a pretty good kid—in spite of the mechanical cow fiasco—but he knew that Sue felt their three-year age difference was a big problem. Maybe he should remind her that she’d fallen in love with Trent when she was even younger than Nikki.

Then again, the love affair with Trent hadn’t gone that well, so maybe it wasn’t the best comparison in the world. Still. If Sue didn’t back off, the kids were probably going to end up stealing a couple of his horses and eloping to Reno.

“Eli gets time off if he gets his work done. That’s how it is in the grown-up world, Nik. He can’t be out boozing and puking all night, because he’s got to punch a time clock in the morning.”

She screwed up her plum-colored lips. “I guess that means you went by Greta’s party.”

“Was that a party? I thought I’d stumbled into the monkey house at the zoo.”

“I know.” She heaved a big sigh. “Wasn’t it gross? There’s going to be trouble there tonight, I just know it. That’s why I wanted to get the heck out of there. Some of those boys are…” She pulled at her big, dangly earring. “You don’t know where I can get some mace, do you?”

He gave her a hard look in the mirror. “Did somebody get out of line with you?”

“Well, Elton Barnes is a jackass even when he’s sober, which he most definitely wasn’t, so I had to kick him in the…”

She glanced toward Josie. Chase looked over at her, too, and realized that she was smiling.

“In the family jewels,” Nikki finished.

“Ouch.”

She grinned. “Yeah, that’s what he said. Only louder. So you don’t have to worry. I can take care of myself. It’s just that mace would be so much easier. I almost broke my shoe.”

He chuckled. “And that would have been a terrible shame.” He glanced in the mirror again and nodded. “Okay. I’ll look into some pepper spray, if you want it. But don’t tell Sue.”

“Like she’d care. The only thing that she even thinks about anymore is the ranch. And her stupid volunteer work at the Burn Center. Hey, I know, maybe she’d notice me if I set myself on fire.”

He drove in silence for a couple of minutes, trying to decide whether it would be better to stay out of it. Sue and Nikki were obviously having a tough time these days.

Inevitable, he supposed. After the disaster with Trent and Paul, Sue had changed. She’d always been a levelheaded gal, a calming influence on the three hardheaded boys. But after that night…well, it was as though her internal heater just up and broke. You couldn’t quite accuse her of being cold, but her spigots seemed to run nothing but cool. No whimsy, no foolishness, no fun. No mistakes of her own, and no tolerance for other people’s, either.

Not exactly the perfect guardian for an eccentric little rascal like Nik.

“Susannah told me why you guys are really getting married,” Nikki said. She had turned her head toward the window.

He glanced at Josie one more time. He hadn’t discussed any of this with her yet. Why would he? There was no earthly reason she needed to know the details of his engagement to Susannah, and yet, now that Nikki had brought it up, he felt slightly uncomfortable, as if he’d been caught hiding something.

“Oh, really?” He kept his voice noncommittal, hoping against hope that Nikki would, for the first time in her life, show some restraint.

No such luck.

“Yeah,” Nikki said. “Not that I was exactly surprised. I knew there had to be a catch. No man in his right mind would actually be in love with a cold fish like Susannah.”

He sensed Josie’s surprise, as she moved slightly, her profile tilting toward him, just an inch or so. But she didn’t say anything, obviously realizing that this might be a sensitive topic.

In spite of his reluctance to discuss it all in front of her, Chase couldn’t let a comment like that go. He thought of Trent, and Paul, and countless other men whose hearts Sue had broken through the years.

“Hey, squirt. Easy on your sister there. You couldn’t be more wrong. I only decided to be her friend because the line to fall in love with her was way too long.”

Nikki shrugged. “Still, it seems really weird that you’d get married like a business deal. Don’t you want a real wedding, with flowers and music and people crying and everything?”

He shifted his hand on the steering wheel. Well, it was all going to come out now, wasn’t it? “God, no. I already had one of those, remember? And that was one too many.”

“Oh, yeah.” Nikki swiveled to face Josie. “Did you know Chase was married before? Her name was Lila.”

Chase groaned inwardly. Josie was certainly getting an earful tonight. He wondered whether Nikki was doing this deliberately. Did she think Josie was somehow a threat to Susannah? Given how lukewarm Nikki seemed to be about the engagement, that didn’t seem likely.

This was why he spent most of his time with horses. Women ran too deep for him. Even sixteen-year-old women.

“I’ve seen Lila’s picture,” Nikki added. “She was pretty. But I don’t really remember her.”

“Of course not. You were much too young. Hell,I was much too young.”

Finally, Josie spoke up. “How old were you?”

“Nineteen. Lila was twenty-five. My mom had just died, and I think I was probably looking for a mother substitute.”

Nikki made a hacking sound. “Gross!”

“I’m just kidding. Actually, she was gorgeous, and sweet as one of your Everly peaches. At least until we tied the knot. Then she started complaining about everything, from the way I combed my hair to the color of the sky on Tuesday. She didn’t stop until we signed the divorce papers.”

“And she took all your money, right? That’s what Susannah says. She says it cost your dad a fortune to get rid of Lila, but it was worth it.”

Josie chuckled. It was a surprisingly attractive sound. He hadn’t heard her laugh much since she’d arrived.

“It was worth it,” he agreed, smiling. It had been extremely painful at the time, but a whole decade had passed, and he could see how ridiculous he’d been. “I pretty much just went up to her and said, ‘Listen here, woman, how much money will it take to make you quit your bitching and go away?’”

Nikki giggled, still young enough to think it was funny to hear him say “bitching.” But she sobered quickly. She acted tough, but Chase knew she had a sensitive side, just like her sister. The only difference was that, while Susannah hid hers under all that icy control, Nikki used a smoke screen of badass attitude.

“That must have really sucked,” she said. “So why are you going to do it all over again?”

“Do what again?”

“Marry someone who just wants your money.”

He pulled into the driveway of the Everly Ranch. Sue’s car was here, and he could picture her pacing the front hall, waiting for his call. He wished he could get her alone, and warn her not to be too rough on Nikki. The kid hadn’t done everything wrong tonight. She’d been smart to get away from that party, and she’d been smart to refuse rides from strangers.

And she needed to know that Susannah loved her, even when she screwed up.

He swerved the car to the side of the drive, a few yards out from the house, then turned to face Nikki. He needed to set her straight about something. He didn’t want her judging her sister so harshly—especially not in front of Josie.

“Susannah isn’t marrying me for my money,” he said. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve offered to help her out, to just give her whatever she needs to get the ranch back on an even keel. But she won’t take it. What she needs is freedom, the power to run this ranch the way it should be run. Because of the will, she’ll never have that unless she gets married.”

He wasn’t really getting through to her, he could tell. Her features looked very young, and lost under all that makeup. Her eyes looked tired, damaged by the layers of color—poignantly reminiscent of Josie’s real bruises.

Susannah had spotted them. She opened the front door and came out onto the porch. She looked beautiful. She wore something feminine that had lace at the neck and arms.

“Chase? Is Nikki with you?” Susannah descended the steps and hurried toward the truck.

“Well, speak of the devil.” Nikki opened her door. Then she turned and looked at him, her colorful face bizarre in the sudden flare of the dome light. “I still think you’re both nuts. Nobody should marry for anything but love.”

Chase got out, too, and somehow reached Susannah before Nikki did.

“Don’t bring out the big guns,” he said. “She’s had a tough night.”

Susannah looked at him. Then she glanced toward the car, where Josie sat quietly waiting. He started to explain why Josie was there, but he stopped himself. Trying to justify one woman to another was like taking the first step into quicksand.

Especially when you had this many women in your life.

“Okay,” Susannah said under her breath. “It won’t be easy, but I’ll try not to kill her.”

“Good girl,” he said. He gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. “I’ll check in tomorrow if I get a chance.”

She nodded. Then he got back to the car and started the engine.

Josie spoke quietly into the darkness. “Everything okay?”

“I hope so. I have a feeling it’s going to be ugly, though.” He made a three-point turn and headed out the front gates, which gleamed white in the moonlight. “Poor dumb kid.”

They drove in silence a minute or two. When they hit the main road again, Josie put her hand out and touched his forearm.

“Just for the record,” she said, “I don’t think what you’re doing for Susannah is nuts. I think it’s very generous, and…very gallant.”

He tightened his hand on the wheel, intensely aware of her, of how she smelled, like soap and shampoo and something…something warm and female.

He sensed the silkiness of the skin on the pads of her fingers. He felt each one individually, and he imagined how they’d feel if they roamed to other places of his body.

He thought about how close she’d be to him, all night, right there in his guest room. It would be so easy to open that door, and…

A crazy heat began to stir at the tops of his thighs.

Oh, hell, no. Not again.

He couldn’t help responding to her. It was pure physical instinct. Mindless reflex. His body was primed, because they’d been talking about love, and marriage and sex.

No, they hadn’t been talking about sex. But he realized that he’d beenthinking about sex. About how Nikki just might have zeroed in on a truth. A year of a “business deal” marriage to his best friend meant a year without a woman in his bed.

A week ago, that hadn’t seemed like a problem. He wasn’t a beast. He could control himself for that long.

But now…now he wasn’t so sure.

Josie squeezed his arm gently. It wasn’t a come-on. It was just a friendly sign of support. So why did it send this sizzle straight to the hot spot between his legs?

Damn it. This didn’t mean anything.

Itcouldn’t mean anything.

He was engaged to someone else.

She was pregnant with another man’s child.

He eased his arm away, pretending he needed to fiddle with the mirror.

Gallant?She actually thought he was gallant?

“Remember, we’ve got an appointment with the obstetrician in the morning,” he said. “So when we get home, you’d better go right to sleep.”

And, if you know what’s good for you, lock the goddamn door.

That’s howgallant he was.

 

“WE DATE THE PREGNANCYfrom the onset of the last menstrual cycle,” Dr. Dunne said, spreading out her paperwork on his big mahogany desk. There were snapshots of newborns everywhere. He must have delivered every baby in East Texas.

“But given that you aren’t always regular, Josie, I’d rather use information from the scan we did today. Which means your due date should be mid-September. Let’s say the fifteenth.”

Josie nodded numbly.September fifteenth… For a minute she felt herself wanting to sayno, that’s too soon, we’ll have to make it later.

But the man wasn’t asking her permission. The baby was coming, sometime in September, whether she was ready or not.

She wasn’t.

The fifteenth of September.

It would be here before she knew it. One long, hot summer, that was all the time she had to get ready. The months would pass in a blur, and then, in a blinding, terrifying miracle, she would hold her own baby in her arms.

A baby she suddenly realized she wanted very much.

And yet she had nothing to give it. Nothing. Not a home, not a dollar, not even a daddy.

Nothing but love.

But oh, she had a lot of that. She’d waited her whole life for someone who would want all this love she had to give. Her father had died when Josie was only six months old. Her mother had remarried when Josie was four, to a man who demanded all his new wife’s attention. Her stepfather hadn’t wanted children in the first place, so obviously there had been no sisters and brothers.

“Hey,” Chase said softly. He touched her elbow. “Are you okay?”

She nodded. For a split second, she’d forgotten he was here.

“Yes. Yes, of course. Fine.”

When the doctor had finished examining her, Chase had joined them for the conference. At first, Josie hadn’t been sure she’d be comfortable with that. But given that he had found this obstetrician, made the appointment and paid for it, she hadn’t felt she should say no when he asked if she wanted company.

As it turned out, she was very glad to have him at her side. This obstetrician wasn’t like the general practitioner she’d seen at the clinic. The difference was more than surface, although the office suite, with its glossy walls, gorgeous flowers and soothing Mozart floating out through invisible speakers, was worlds apart from the noisy, bare-bones clinic back in Riverfork.

The real difference, though, was the attention Dr. Dunne lavished on her. He had checked every single inch of her body, asked about every detail of her past. Now he was inundating her with so much information she knew she’d never remember it all.

“You said everything looked good, right?” Chase leaned forward to pick up one of the brochures the doctor had set out for her. “Both Josie and the baby?”

“Everything looked great,” Dr. Dunne assured him. “Strong heartbeat, fetal size right on track, and a remarkably healthy mother, all things considered.”

He turned to Josie. “Dr. Marchant is already addressing the anemia, which is fairly mild. But the great news is that you’ve handled your blood sugars remarkably well, Josie, and that’s going to pay benefits in this pregnancy.”

She nodded. “Good,” she said politely, still numb. “That’s great.”

“You probably don’t know exactly how good. Your A1c levels are fantastic, which means that for the past three months the baby has had the best possible environment to grow healthy organs. Most of the risks associated with diabetic pregnancies come from letting the blood sugar levels get out of control during this early period.”

“I’ve always been very careful,” she said. “I didn’t plan to get pregnant, but my job is very demanding. I can’t afford to be sick, or even foggy-minded.”

She didn’t mention that her habit of strict monitoring, careful eating and rigorous exercise had been set in her very earliest years. Her stepfather had found his adopted daughter’s diabetes a great inconvenience. He resented every minute her mother spent caring for her, and every dollar spent on doctors. He wouldn’t have tolerated any self-indulgent candy binges, or skipping a day at the jogging track.

How ironic that, in the end, she should be grateful to him for what she’d always seen as his heartlessness. She should send him a thank-you card. Or maybe a box of sugar-free chocolates.

“As to the baby’s sex—”

She shook her head. “I don’t want to know.”

Chase looked at her, a question in his eyes. “It might help with the planning, and—”

She shook her head again. “Please. If you know, don’t tell me.”

The doctor smiled. “Don’t worry. I couldn’t make that call yet anyhow. It’s a bit early. Maybe at twenty weeks, sometimes as early as sixteen, we can try again. Think it over, and we can talk about it later.”

Later? She glanced at Chase, wondering what he had told the doctor about how long she’d be here. But he was looking at the brochure, and she couldn’t catch his gaze.

“I’m only staying in town for a few days,” she said, deciding on honesty. “I live in Riverfork, and I’ll be—”

Chase looked up. “We don’t really know exactly how long you’ll stay, do we? It might be longer.” He turned to Dr. Dunne. “Josie has some business to do here, and she’s staying at the ranch. It’s a bit open-ended at the moment.”

The doctor didn’t seem disturbed by the news. He didn’t seem to feel that the intricacies of Josie’s relationship to Chase were his business. Unless Chase was the father, of course. Dr. Dunne had asked that first, when they were alone. When she said no, he accepted her word for it. He’d simply told her that he would need as much information as possible about the father. Blood type, age, family medical history…

Josie had been mortified. She’d almost blurted out the whole sad story. In the end she simply said that she didn’t have those answers right now, but would provide them as soon as she could.

What else could she say? Luckily, Dr. Dunne took it all in stride. Perhaps hers wasn’t the first complicated, painful story to walk into his office.

“I can always recommend a good man in Riverfork. Just give me a little notice, and I’ll ask around.” He spread his hands, palms down, on the desk. “I know I’ve thrown a lot of information at you. Take some time to absorb it all, and come see me again in two or three days. I want you to get that insulin pump, and let’s see how it does.”

Josie looked over at Chase again. They’d argued about this all the way over here. She couldn’t afford the insulin pump, and that was that. There were lots of benefits to working at the Not Guilty Cafe—flexible hours, good tips, proximity to her apartment—but health insurance wasn’t one of them. She’d always bought private insurance, but she had to keep deductibles sky-high in return for decent premiums.

Chase refused to meet her eyes. He held out his hand to the doctor, said their thanks and their goodbyes, then whisked her out to the car. Apparently he’d taken care of the bill while she was being examined. Or perhaps people like Chase Clayton didn’t have to pay cash on the spot like the rest of the world.

She waited until they got to the street to launch her protests.

“Chase, I can’t let you do this,” she said for the tenth time. “Weren’t you listening to Dr. Dunne? I keep my blood sugar under excellent control the old-fashioned way, one shot at a time. The insulin pump is a luxury, not a necessity.”

Chase opened the passenger door of his truck and stepped back to let her in. “Weren’tyou listening? He said that in the second and third trimesters the placenta can release hormones that make you more insulin resistant. Keeping the levels right is going to be much trickier now. The pump will help with that.”

Boy, he really had paid attention. She’d forgotten that part, if she’d even heard it in the first place. The truth was, the whole visit had a surreal quality to her. She still couldn’t quite believe she was pregnant.

She climbed into the truck, settled herself against the cool leather seats, and waited for him to join her. Then, as he put the key into the ignition, she reached out and stopped him from starting the engine.

“Chase, listen to me.”

He let go of the keys. “I’ll listen if you’ll make sense. You need the pump, and that’s a fact. You’re not scared of it, are you? I know it sounds strange, having the needle in you all the time, but—”

She smiled. “I’ve had thousands of insulin injections over the past twenty years. I’m not afraid. It’s just not something I can let you do. I can’t take money from you. It’s a very generous offer, but…this just isn’t your problem.”

He tilted his head, his blue eyes catching the afternoon sunlight. He had kind eyes, she thought. Even when he was annoyed, which he clearly was right now.

“Not my problem?” He frowned. “I thought we were working together here. I thought we’d agreed that this was a problem we shared.”

“Finding Flim is the problem we share. Not the pregnancy. And certainly not my diabetes.” She shook her head. “I know you probably think, because of the crazy way I showed up at your ranch, that I’m some kind of kook who can’t be trusted to take care of anything. But you heard the doctor. Ido take care of my blood sugar. And Iwill take care of my baby.”

For a long minute, he was silent. The only sound was the drumming of his fingers against the steering wheel. She wondered if she’d made him mad. She hoped not. She wasn’t a complete ingrate—she did appreciate how much he’d done for her.

But he already had too many people counting on him, trying to slip their hands in his pockets. After what she’d heard about Susannah Everly last night…

And, besides, there had to be a limit. She had to hold on tosome self-respect.

Finally he turned to her. He looked frustrated, but not angry. She let go of a breath she had unconsciously been holding. She realized she’d been waiting to see whether he was at all like her stepfather—a hot-tempered control-freak, set off by the least show of defiance.

“I know I’m under no obligation to help,” he said simply. “But you haven’t considered the possibility that Iwant to. Look, it’s not that much money, and I have it to spare. That part means nothing to me. There are no strings attached, Josie. I’d just like to make things a little easier. Is that so bad?”

The humility in his voice, the down-to-earth honesty, caught her off guard. She felt herself choking up again, and tried to will her hormones into submission.

“It’s not bad. It’s very generous. But if I do that…” She squeezed her hands in her lap. “I can’t just give up every shred of pride I have left.”

He touched her shoulder softly. “I think you can,” he said. “I saw your face in there. For this baby, I think you can do whatever you have to do.”

CHAPTER NINE

THEOLDEMISSIONWOODSdevelopment, where Chase’s cousin, Alexander, now worked as a salesman, had no olde mission, no woods and not much development, either.

Chase slid his truck into one of the parking spaces and surveyed the area irritably. Wouldn’t you just know Alexander would end up working at a place like this? Selling smoke and mirrors to the unsuspecting masses.

For the moment, Olde Mission Woods was just a barren stretch of land a few miles northwest of San Antonio. The owners had put up a two-story concrete-block box, slapped some adobe siding on it, added arched windows, a bell tower and a turquoise sign that said Sales Center.

Instant Olde Mission.

That and three windswept models of medium sized ranch homes were the only buildings in sight, although the brochure boasted an architectural rendering of a shady green neighborhood bustling with mommies and kids on bicycles and expensive SUVs in the driveways.

“What a joke,” he said. “Olde?Maybe about two weeks.Mission? Only if your mission is making money.Woods? ”

He gestured toward the dozen or so spindly oaks propped up by orange guy wire. In about fifty years, they might provide the kind of shade pictured in the brochure, but for now they looked like toothpicks with curly green plastic heads.

Josie smiled. “It’s not so bad. It’ll look better when it matures. The houses seem reasonably priced and kind of cute. Lots of people would think that owning a home here—or anywhere—was a little slice of heaven.”

Her tone wasn’t critical, and yet he felt like a jerk. Or worse, a snob. She was right, of course—this was a dream come true for a lot of people. The parking lot was overflowing. Potential buyers swarmed in and out of the model homes, smiling eagerly at the salesmen.

“Okay. Maybe I’m just being nasty because I don’t much care for Alexander.” And he definitely didn’t like the idea that his slick cousin might be the father of Josie’s baby. “So. Are you ready?”

“Yeah. I guess so.”

She didn’t sound sure. She fidgeted with her yellow blouse, which was a little too big. He knew she’d bought it because it was on sale, not because she particularly liked it. He’d watched her at the store, checking the price tag over and over, as if trying to convince herself that it was the sensible decision.

She hadn’t been willing to let him buy her anything, of course. Not even a fresh pair of socks. He’d never met a woman more prickly about her independence.

Even the prospect of facing Flim here today hadn’t budged her.

Chase hadn’t pushed. Two days ago, he had won the victory of the insulin pump, and for now that was enough. Besides, he was secretly glad that she didn’t obsess about getting new clothes. He wanted to believe it meant she was over Flim, that she wasn’t dreaming of rekindling the affair, that looking pretty for her lost lover no longer mattered.

But he wasn’t sure. Without spending any money, she’d still taken special pains with her appearance. Marchant had removed her stitches yesterday, and she’d seemed delighted to graduate to an inconspicuous tan bandage. This morning, she’d carefully applied powder to the fading bruises around her eye, and brought out a lipstick and blush he hadn’t even realized she owned.

She looked terrific, actually—and he gave himself some of the credit for that. This little respite, in which she’d eaten well, rested well, taken her iron pills, and been tended by some of the best medical men in the business, had worked miracles. He wouldn’t have recognized her as the haggard woman who crashed into his front yard ten days ago.

“You don’t have to go in if you don’t want to.” He fought the urge to touch her cheek and try to coax a smile onto those serious lips. “I can take a picture with my cell, and we can see if you recognize him.”

“No. I want to do it. That’s why we’re here.” She adjusted her blouse one more time and squared her shoulders. “I’m not going to chicken out now.”

Actually, it wasn’t thewhole reason they were here, though she didn’t know that. He could have hired an investigator to get a current, full-face shot of Alexander and e-mail it to the ranch. But he’d wanted to see Alexander’s reaction to Josie, and hers to him. He wanted to know what kind of emotion lingered between the two of them.

Even more, he had wanted to get Josie out of the house. He’d wanted to get her in the sun, give her a change of scenery. She’d taken to working with Imogene all day, vacuuming and cooking and arranging flowers. It was as if she felt she needed to earn her keep, which was absurd. He wanted her to relax, and enjoy herself for a change.

But she didn’t look relaxed. She stared through the windshield toward the sales center, her hands braided in her lap.

They’d confirmed that Alexander was working this afternoon. A one-hour drive was too far for a wild-goose chase. He might be in one of the model homes, shepherding a customer, but he might be just on the other side of that carved fake-mission door.

“If he does turn out to be…Flim, I wonder what he’ll do when he sees me?” She glanced at Chase. “Especially when he sees me standing next to the real Chase Clayton?”

“Well…” He smiled. “Have you ever seen when Popeye gets surprised, and his eyes bulge out of their sockets? He lifts off the ground, and his hat shoots off his head?”

“You think so?” She chuckled. “I don’t know. When we were together, Flim was considerably smoother than that.”

He grinned, ridiculously pleased with himself for being able to make her laugh. “Of course he was smooth. He’d have to be, or no one would believe he was me.”

She groaned. “Luckily, he didn’t have to pretend to be humble.” She took a deep breath, then pushed open the truck door. “All right, I’m as ready as I’ll ever be. Let’s get the Father Hunt started.”

The sales center was packed. According to the newspaper advertisement blown up and displayed on an easel by the door, this was the final day of the preconstruction sale prices.

He started to make a joke about that, but he realized that, under his arm, her shoulders trembled slightly.

He looked down at her face, which had grown almost as pale as it had been when he first saw her. Alexander was nowhere in sight, so that wasn’t it. It was obviously just the fear of seeing him.

She was dreading this more than he’d realized.

He wished he knew exactly why. Was it because seeing Flim would hurt too badly? Or was it because so much was riding on Flim’s willingness to accept financial responsibility for this child?

If it was just about the money, she could relax. If Alexander turned out to be the father, Chase would see to it that he did the right thing, even if it meant choking every damn dollar out of the bastard, one penny at a time.

“Do you see him?” She was walking gingerly, as if she were balancing an egg on the crown of her head.

“Not yet.” Several salesmen wearing forest-green blazers with name tags glided around, each of them with a customer in tow. But no Alexander. Chase hadn’t seen his cousin in years, but he would recognize that ambitious, ingratiating face anywhere.

It was so like his own and yet, he hoped, so different.

He guided Josie over to the architectural model that dominated the center of the large room. It was quite elaborate, with small fake trees and people, and even a couple of dogs. Maybe it would distract her.

“Look,” he said calmly. “The development is going to be even bigger than the picture in the brochure.”

She nodded, though he wasn’t sure she heard him. She gripped the edge of the table with both hands, and he noticed that her knuckles were white.

“Hello, there. I’m Patty. I’d be glad to answer any questions you might have.” A young woman in one of the green blazers stood beside Josie. “Would you like to tour one of the models?”

Josie looked up blankly, as if she weren’t sure how to handle this departure from their script.

Chase put his arm around Josie, smiling at the woman. “Thanks, but we’re waiting for Alexander Clayton. You don’t happen to know where he is, do you?”

She tapped her pen against her lips. “Let’s see. He was with a customer a little while ago. I think they may have gone to one of the—”

She broke off, her eyes brightening. “Oh, there he is. He’s coming in the door right now.”

Chase felt Josie stiffen. He tightened his arm around her shoulders. “I’m here,” he said, though he wasn’t sure that would help.

They watched the entryway in silence. For a minute, all they could see of Alexander was his arm. He was holding the door open with one hand, while he stood on the sidewalk, no doubt giving a last-minute pep talk to his customers.

Buy today, or else…

Finally, he waved them off and moved into the building, his face still beaming from all that energetic salesmanship. He scanned the room with his bright blue eyes, trying to pick out the most likely buyers.

Chase felt irrationally ticked off, just watching him. He looked handsome as hell, full of life and confidence. Several women in the room smiled at him as he moved through the crowd.

Chase looked at Josie. She shook her head numbly.

“No,” she said, frowning. “No.”

“He’s not the one?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

She nodded. “Of course I’m sure. Do you think I wouldn’t recognize the man I—”

“Chase?” Alexander’s prowl for well-heeled customers had brought him close enough to recognize his cousin. “Chase, is that you?”

He moved toward them, his trim body dapper in his blazer, his clear, broad brow furrowed with surprise. He was clearly shocked to see Chase here. And a little defiant, too, perhaps—daring Chase to bring up their uncomfortable past. Chase could see him trying to decide whether to extend a hand, just in case it was rejected.

Then, at the last minute, Alexander noticed Josie. Chase caught the quick dart of his cousin’s eyes down to her breasts, the rapid-fire appraisal of her body. She was too thin, but she had curves in all the right places, and Alexander no doubt liked what he saw.

So the bastard hadn’t changed. He was still a hound dog, interested in only one thing. Make that two things. Sex and money. He was still hungry for more of each. And if he could take them from Chase, all the better.

Surprise, defiance, greed, envy…Chase saw all that in the two seconds it took Alexander to reach them. He knew his cousin well, and had always found him easy to read.

But the one thing he’d expected to see wasn’t anywhere in sight.

He didn’t see guilt.

Nope. The Father Hunt didn’t end here.

 

JOSIE HAD NEVER BEENto San Antonio before, so when they finished the perfunctory tour of Alexander’s model homes, Chase decided to take her to dinner at Riverwalk.

It was just the thing, Chase said, to clear away any unpleasant taste left by the tacky Olde Mission Woods—or by Alexander himself.

He was right. It was lovely. The retail-restaurant wonderland built along the banks of the San Antonio River was a magical spot at night, filled with light and color, with the scents of fabulous food and the lilting guitars of street performers.

They ate wonderful Mexican cuisine under a blue umbrella and watched the people strolling along the curved paths, holding hands and laughing, sometimes spontaneously breaking into song. Platform boats floated down the river, stirring up the reflected lights, until the whole river seemed a swirling cauldron of color.

“Oh, my heavens,” she said when she finished the last bite of her taco salad. She leaned back and put both hands against her stomach. “I think I’m going to pop.”

“Me, too.” He leaned forward. “But no queasiness?”

She shook her head. The morning sickness seemed to have passed. “I’m feeling great.”

“Good. Come on, then. Let’s walk it off.”

She looked longingly at the winding trails, bursting with greenery and flowers. Then she looked at her watch. “You don’t think we should be getting back? I know you have to be up early tomorrow for that meeting and the auction.”

“Hang tomorrow,” he said. “I can sleep through the meeting if I have to. The night is gorgeous, and the company is great. I feel as if I’m finally getting to know the real Josie. No, ma’am. I’m not giving up a minute of tonight.”

She knew he wasn’t just being polite. Somehow, after getting through the meeting with Alexander, she’d felt a surge of well-being and confidence, and it had made her feel like herself again.

All this contentment didn’t make any sense, really. Nothing had been resolved. Alexander had been eliminated, but they’d just have to resume the hunt tomorrow—and who knew where it might lead them?

For now, though, she’d cleared the hurdle. And somehow, that seemed to give her the freedom to let go and relax.

This kind of camaraderie wouldn’t have seemed possible, back when she first arrived, hurt and embarrassed and frightened. But little by little, mostly because of Chase’s easy nature, they’d become…well, almost friends.

Sometimes, after Imogene had gone to bed, Josie and Chase sat out on the back porch at night, listening to the owls call and the wind rustling in the trees. Sometimes, they talked over the problem of finding Flim, Chase asking questions and Josie trying to remember something, anything, that would lead to an identification. But sometimes, bored with Flim, they’d wander off to other topics, problems on the ranch, a horse he was thinking of buying, or something she was reading for school.

She enjoyed those quiet nights. Almost too much. He was interesting and witty, but comfortably down-to-earth. No airs, no vanity, no subtle reminders that he was a Clayton, and she was just his uninvited guest.

But she didn’t need reminders. How could she forget? For twenty-five thousand acres all around them, the owls they listened to, and the trees they perched in, belonged to him.

Tonight, though, out here on neutral ground, all that fell away. Tonight they were just two people having dinner. Equal partners in a quest to find the truth.

She could still remember the warmth of his protective arm, resting against her shoulders, as she turned to face Alexander. She could still hear the bracing strength of his voice, assuring her that he was there, that she wasn’t alone.

In that moment, something had changed. The mousy Cinderella had dropped away, and Josie had been reborn.

They’d sat over dinner for almost three hours, and the conversation had flowed as easily as the river beside them. It was strangely exciting, and she felt that she could keep talking all night.

He stood, and held out his hand. “Come.”

“Okay,” she said, pushing her chair back. “But I hope you don’t regret it, especially if you end up buying some nasty nag at the auction because you were too groggy to think straight.”

“I promise you.” He took her hand. “I won’t regret it.”

They walked slowly, taking in the beauty of the place. Shining bridges looped and braided the pedestrian walkways on both sides of the water. The cafes glowed green and yellow and red and blue, and white fairy lights draped from one awning to the next, as if magical spiders had woven enchanted webs of stars.

He had let go of her hand, but on the narrow pedestrian walk they strolled so close together their shoulders often touched.

“You seem to be in a mighty good mood,” she observed when he tossed a twenty-dollar bill into the open guitar case of a street performer.

“I am. I have to admit I’m glad Alexander didn’t turn out to be the guy we’re looking for.”

“Why?”

Yesterday, she wouldn’t have dared to ask that question. She would have assumed that he didn’t want the baby’s father to be part of his family because he didn’t want to be tied permanently to her in any way.

Tonight she knew better. They might be from different tax brackets, but she wasn’t exactly a pariah, and he wasn’t a superficial snob.

“Why? Because he’s a weasel.”

She laughed. “I think it’s pretty much guaranteed that whoever pretended to be you is a weasel, don’t you? At best.”

“I guess. But Alexander is a particularly annoying weasel.” He glanced at her. “You aren’t disappointed, are you? Believe me, he would make a terrible father.”

“No. Not disappointed, exactly.”

“Then what?”

She tried to pinpoint how she felt. “Maybe it’s just that Alexander would have been a known quantity. He’s not an escapee from a lunatic asylum, or the Boston Strangler. And his motive for impersonating you would be relatively benign. A lifelong envy of his glamorous cousin, Chase, who’s always had all the luck.”

He grimaced. “Doesn’t sound very benign to me. Still sounds criminal—and cruel.”

“Well, it’s not nearly as creepy as some total stranger deciding to steal your name, your life, your childhood memories. Right down to Yipster, the world’s nicest dog.”

He seemed to be taking it in. “Yeah,” he said finally. “I guess you’re right. But I honestly don’t think you have to worry about Flim turning out to be the Boston Strangler.”

“Why not?”

He smiled. “I think your instincts would have warned you to stay away. I just can’t see you falling for someone who was truly evil.”

“You may have more confidence in me than I have in myself,” she said. She paused to watch one of the crowded platform boats go by. “But I hope you’re right.”

The boat seemed to be filled with couples, some older, some still in their teens. Arms entwined, heads tilted together, they snuggled and stared at the stars.

It was that kind of night. Balmy, beautiful, heavy with the scent of flowers.

Even the walkway where they stood was full of paired-off lovers. One young family had also stopped to watch the boat. The man wore a soft fabric baby carrier that held his infant up against his chest. His wife leaned her head against his shoulder, her hand cupping the baby’s tiny head.

The love around the three of them was so powerful it practically glowed like one of the Riverwalk spotlights. They seemed wrapped in a magic circle of joy—and Josie was sure they weren’t even aware of anyone else around them.

Suddenly, the painful truth of her situation hit her like a dart, right between the ribs. She would never have any of that. She and her baby’s father would never stand inside a magic cocoon of love, never feel three hearts beating as one.

“Are you all right?”

She tore her gaze away from the little family. “I’m fine,” she said.

But it wasn’t true. The comfortable peace that had buoyed her for the past three hours drained away as if someone had pulled an invisible plug. She sagged, inexplicably tired, and for the first time she noticed that the river smelled slightly musty and stale.

“Are you tired?” He touched her elbow. “I’ve kept you out too long.”

“No, no, it’s been terrific, honestly.”

At that moment, the baby lifted its head uncertainly, wobbling with the charming weakness of a newborn, and let out a sleepy, mewing cry. His parents smiled at one another, then bent over him, murmuring the eternal wordless promises of love.

Chase clearly hadn’t noticed them before. He watched for a second, until the baby settled back into his papoose, lips pursing and unpursing. The infant shut his unfocused eyes and sighed, breathing in the security of his father’s scent.

Then Chase turned to Josie, his face tight.

“It’s going to be all right,” he said. “I promise you. It’s going to be all right.”

It was the same tone, the same soothing nonsense the young father was even now crooning to his baby.

She nodded, trying to smile. “I know,” she said.

He put the flat of his hand against her cheek. She felt her head tilt into it, just a fraction of an inch, as if of its own accord,

Her eyes drifted shut. His hands were warm. And strong. His thumb traced the ridge of her cheekbone, grazed the sensitive edge of her ear.

“Josie.”

She opened her eyes. He was gazing down at her, the blue of his eyes drowned by the night. She couldn’t read them.

But she knew he could read hers.

He hesitated another agonizing second, and then he kissed her. Slowly. And so softly that, at first, it was no more than the tingle of heat. Warm streaks of that glittering warmth cascaded down across her shoulders, across her back, over her breasts.

She made a small sound. She felt as weak as an infant herself, falling into a warm, deep dream of Chase.

“Josie,” he whispered again, right against her lips.

And then he pulled back. He blinked, as if he were trying to awaken from a trance.

He let his hand fall from her cheek.

“We should go home,” he said.

CHAPTER TEN

THE RIDE HOME WAS QUIET, the empty road stretching out like a bleached ribbon in the moonlight. He turned on the radio, found a nice soft rock station and dialed the volume just high enough to discourage talking. What the devil would they say? He didnot intend to talk about that kiss, and it would have felt totally fake to talk about anything else.

He shouldn’t have worried. Josie seemed as determined as he was to pretend the kiss hadn’t happened. Besides, she was obviously exhausted, and within ten minutes she’d nodded off, her head tilted against the side window.

That left Chase with an hour and fifty minutes of pure solitude, to lecture himself for being such a goddamn fool.

The highway lights flashed rhythmically against her face, first spotlighting, then obscuring that sweet mouth, those long, dark lashes.Now you see her, now you don’t. It kept Chase’s nerves on edge, to the point that he had to make an effort not to look.

He searched for a country station. But some guy was singing about lips sweeter than wine, a cliche Chase had always found particularly dumb. But he realized that the guy who first wrote that line had probably kissed someone like Josie Whitford.

He turned to public radio instead, but they were playing some cello thing fit only for a funeral. With a disgusted grunt, he flicked the radio off completely.

As if the silence reached her dreams, she sighed, wriggling into a more comfortable position. A delicate finger of her perfume reached out and touched him on the nose.

God, would he never make it back to the Double C? He’d traveled this road a hundred times, but it hadn’t ever seemed so long. The white lines kept rolling under his tires, but new ones continued to slide at him, unwound from an endless string of torture.

And—damn it. When the car finally dragged itself through the Double C gates, he realized that, for him at least, the night wasn’t over.

Trent was waiting for them, a dark silhouette on the brightly lit front porch. The minute the truck came to a stop, crunching across the oyster-shell driveway, he loped over to the driver’s side.

Chase was already rolling down the window. Trent didn’t have any mother hen tendencies. If he’d waited up for Chase, there was a damn good reason.

Or rather, a damn bad one.

“It’s Captain Kirk,” Trent said in a low voice, resting his elbows on the window and leaning in. “He showed signs of colic this afternoon, and tonight he started rolling. Johnson is with him. He’s hurting pretty bad, I think.”

Chase cursed under his breath. “Have you called Doc Blaiser?”

“Of course. He was at the Berringer place. He’ll be here in about fifteen minutes.”

On the other side of the truck, Josie was finally waking up. She rubbed her eyes and moistened her dry lips. She ran her fingers through her tousled hair and blinked toward Chase.

“I’m sorry,” she said around a yawn. “I guess I was more tired than I thought.” Then she noticed Trent at the window. She must have seen something on his face, because her smile died. “What’s wrong?”

“One of my horses is sick. Colic. It’s probably nothing, but you can’t mess around with colic.”

“Which horse?”

He frowned. He’d forgotten that she already knew most of his horses by name. It crossed his mind suddenly that her collection of “Chase” stories might hold a clue. How current was Flim’s information? If they could determine when he stopped having access to details about Chase’s private life, they might be able to pinpoint how long ago Chase had known him.

For instance, Alexander wouldn’t have known about any horses Chase bought in the past five years. Charming Billy had been gone for three.

But that was something Chase and Josie could explore tomorrow.

“It’s Captain Kirk,” he told her. He turned back to Trent. “When did the rolling start?”

“I’m not sure.” Trent’s face tightened. “Eli was supposed to be sitting with him. When I came through to check on things, maybe an hour ago, Captain Kirk was already on the ground, in a lot of pain. But Eli wasn’t there.”

“What?”

“I know.”

“Where the hell was he?”

“We just found him. Out behind the hay barn. He and Nikki were…counting stars.”

“Unbelievable.”

“Yeah. I told him to take her home and then get his ass back here so that you can chew it off.”

Chase pressed his fingers against the bridge of his nose, trying to hold back the headache that had begun to set up shop in his skull.

“I haven’t got the energy.” He exhaled. “Just fire him.”

Trent nodded. “Gladly.”

Beside him, Josie made a small noise.

Chase turned to her. “I’ve got to get to the stables,” he said. “Are you okay?”

“Yes, I’m fine. It’s just that…you’re really going to fire that boy?”

“Yes. This isn’t his first mistake, although this one would be enough by itself. You don’t leave a sick animal alone, not on this ranch. But as it happens, he broke a twenty-thousand-dollar mechanical cow earlier this week. So this screwup is actually his second big one.”

“Third,” Trent put in. “He’s ignored the feed schedule, fed the horses early or late, to work it around his social life. Probably all week.”

“Oh.” On hearing that, Josie looked subdued.

Chase wondered if she knew enough about horses to understand how imperative it was to establish and keep a regular feeding routine. Or maybe she was just remembering a few days ago, when she had challenged him about giving up on the roan with a phobia.

She really did have a thing for protecting the underdog, didn’t she?

Trent glanced at Josie through the window. He raised one brow to Chase. “You sure you want to fire him?”

“No,” Chase said. “What Iwant to do is strangle him.” He opened the truck door and climbed out. “Get Josie upstairs, Trent. And then tell Eli Breslin to get his lazy, undisciplined butt off my ranch.”

 

“SUE,COME ON ! Please! You could make him change his mind.”

Nicole, dressed in the trashiest short-shorts Susannah had ever seen, had been pacing the wood-paneled great room at Everly Ranch for the past ten minutes.

She dropped onto the arm of the big leather sofa, then popped right back up again. She was clearly too full of furious adrenaline to settle anywhere. “You know you could get Eli his job back. You just don’t want to!”

“You’re right,” Susannah said, putting her initials on the housekeeper’s shopping list, then turning to the menu for the Burn Center’s barn dance this weekend—their biggest fund-raiser of the year.

Nikki, who had already opened her mouth for her next barrage of accusations, stared at her sister. “What did you say?”

“I said you’re right. I don’t want to. Chase knows how to run his own ranch, and he wouldn’t welcome any interference from me, any more than I’d welcome interference about Everly from him.”

“But you’re his fiancee!” Nikki’s voice had reached a high-pitched whine. She sounded about ten years old, which made her thick, black eyeliner look even more absurd. “Doesn’t that mean anything?”

“It means I respect him enough to leave him alone. What you and Eli did last night was wrong. You know it, and Eli knows it. It was selfish of you to let him put his job in jeopardy. Not to mention what could have happened to Captain Kirk.”

That took a little of the wind out of Nikki’s sails. She loved the sweet old bay. Chase had taught her to ride on Captain Kirk’s gentle, slightly swaying back.

But apparently teenage hormones were even more powerful than old loyalties. “Captain Kirk was fine when Eli left him. And he wasn’t gone that long. Trent tried to make it sound worse than it was.”

“How could he? Eli had a job to do, and he didn’t do it. End of story.”

“You think it’s that simple?” Nikki’s face was as red as her midriff-cropped see-through-net shirt. “God, you’re all such hypocrites and liars!”

Susannah half rose from her chair. She felt a shocking desire to slap her little sister silly. How dare she take that tone? But she lowered herself back onto the cushion, fighting for control.

“Nicole, if you are going to be insolent, this conversation is over.”

“Why can’t you at least tell the truth? Chase didn’t fire Eli because he left the barn. He fired him because you asked him to.”

Tears were rolling down her cheeks, and she wiped them with the hem of her tacky shirt. “You wanted Chase to get rid of him. Just because you’re so miserable, you can’t stand to see me happy.”

Oh,right . Susannah dropped the menu on her desk and rubbed her temples. God bless the egocentricity of youth. Your relationship hits a snag, and the whole world must be in a conspiracy against True Love.

“That’s absurd,” she said wearily. “I’m not miserable, and even if I were, I’d still want you to be happy.”

“You’re not miserable? Look at you. You never have any fun. You never do anything but worry about the ranch and making money. On the weekends, yourentertainment is working at the Burn Center.”

“That’s not called misery, Nikki. It’s called growing up. Someday you’ll learn that you can’t be happy if you’re ignoring your obligations.”

“God, Susannah. Can you hear yourself? You sound just like Grandfather.”

That was a jab right at the jugular, and Nikki knew it. In their family, comparing people to Arlington Everly was like comparing them to Hitler, or Satan.

Susannah glanced at the portrait over the fireplace, which her grandfather had commissioned just a few years ago, right before he died. The hard brown eyes met hers without wavering, and without mercy, just as they had done in life.

Arlington had refused to smile for the sitting. He had prohibited the artist to indulge in any sugarcoating, any prettying-up, to make him look younger, nicer, less thin-lipped and hollow-eyed. Less like a man about to die.

He’d been proud of being the toughest son of a bitch in East Texas. He thought every crag and furrow in his strong-boned, weathered face was a badge of honor. Stone-jawed and sour, clearly at the emaciated end of his rugged life, he stood beneath a rack of sixteen-point antlers, the biggest kill of his eighty-nine years.

Death comes for the hunter. And the hunter doesn’t flinch.

“Maybe I am like him,” Susannah said dully. “Maybe I have to be.”

“Okay, then, fine.” Nikki curled her lip and glared at her sister with scornful green eyes that could have been cloned from the man in the portrait.

Susannah braced herself. Nikki clearly knew she’d hit a brick wall and being thwarted made her mean.She was like her grandfather that way.

Maybe, each in her own style, they’d both inherited his hard-hearted streak.

“So I guess if I want help I should ask Josie Whitford, I’ll bet Chase listens to her. At least she looks like a real person. Like someone who might have a heart. Because you clearly don’t.”

 

MID MORNING, while Josie was doing her English homework, Chase stuck his head in briefly to let her know Captain Kirk was fine. Apparently, though they’d feared enteritis, it had turned out to be plain old gas. Painful, but not dangerous.

He looked relieved, and she was happy for him. Apparently, no matter how many younger, more valuable quarter horses they bought for this ranch, he’d always have a special affection for that old bay.

He didn’t stay long. He had an appointment in town, he said.

They didn’t mention Eli Breslin. Josie had immediately regretted her remarks last night—and her embarrassment had kept her awake. Round about midnight, she’d actually considered putting on a robe and going out to the stables to apologize.

But then she realized she was just kidding herself. The apology was secondary. Mostly, she just wanted to go out there because Chase was out there.

Had she hoped he’d kiss her again?

Surely not. It had been a wonderful kiss. But they both knew it was a mistake they must never repeat. So she stayed where she was and willed herself to sleep.

After he left, she spent the rest of the morning in his office, using his computer to upload her homework and take the weekly vocab quiz. Thank heavens for online classes! Otherwise, she might have had to let that Greyhound bus drag her back to Riverfork after all.

But, now that she’d been fired from the Not Guilty Cafe, she had no reason to hurry home. Online banking took care of the bills. Online education kept her enrolled in the one class she’d been able to afford. She didn’t own a dog or a cat or a parakeet. Not even a goldfish was staring sadly at the door, praying for her to turn the key.

Which was a good thing. Because every day she saw a little more clearly just how much she didn’t want to return to her old life. If you could call it a life. A half-empty efficiency apartment, an online class and a job waiting tables hadn’t ever seemed exciting, but she had accepted it as the slow road to something better.

Now she knew it wasn’t enough.

Not for her. And not for the baby who would be born in September.

What she didn’t see clearly was what shedid want. And unfortunately she’d have to decide before long. That bill she’d clicked this morning, sending in her quarterly health insurance premium, had scraped the last of the cash from the bottom of the barrel.

She was going to have to get a job and very soon.

Even if she had a huge, cushiony savings account, she couldn’t take advantage of Chase’s hospitality forever. No matter what he said about teaming up to find the bad guy, this lovely interlude was nothing but a charity vacation at Club Clayton.

Lazy mornings, catered food, long walks beneath flowering trees. Horses gamboling in green pastures. Daffodils dancing at the edge of Clayton Creek. A handsome, intelligent man to drive her to the doctor, pick up her medicines, sit across from her at dinner.

Kiss her in the moonlight…

If she wasn’t careful, this delightful fantasy would spoil her for real life.

It was time to climb back onto her own two feet. Thanks to Chase and his doctors, thanks to Imogene and her fabulous feasts…and of course, thanks to the insulin pump, she was healthy enough to get back to work.

Healthier, in fact, than she’d been in months. Maybe years.

Tomorrow, she’d look in the paper and see what jobs were listed nearby. Why not move east? This part of Texas was beautiful. After only ten days here, the three years she’d spent in dusty Riverfork seemed like a bad dream.

Besides, her mother and stepfather lived in Austin. When the baby was born, wouldn’t it be nice to have family close by?

She clicked off the monitor and stood, setting her papers to one side. Now she really was dreaming. She could see her stepfather’s face, if she asked him to make room in his well-run life for an unwed mother and her illegitimate baby. He’d trot out some judgmental cliche that let him off the hook entirely. Josie had made her own bed, he’d insist, and she would have to lie in it alone.

Her mother would probably wish she could patch things up. She might yearn to be a part of her grandchild’s life. She might even send Josie a twenty-dollar bill in the mail, or a gift certificate to a sensible drugstore.

But she wouldn’t have the nerve to cross her husband. She never had.

Outside, a mower was humming along, happily munching on the grass that had shot up after last night’s rain.

Josie went to the window, but Chase’s truck wasn’t there. He hadn’t come back after his appointment. She wondered if he was avoiding her.

She needed something to distract her. She made her way back to the kitchen, as usual following her nose.

Imogene looked more frazzled than Josie had ever seen her, her wispy hair flying all around her face, and her chipmunk cheeks flushed beet-red.

“Oh, Lordy, I hope you’ve come to help.”

Josie smiled. Here in the kitchen with Imogene was just about the only time she didn’t feel like a freeloader. With no fuss or bother, Imogene always put her to work.

“I have. What do you need?”

“I need someone to take these box lunches out to the construction site. Can you drive?”

Josie wrinkled her nose. “That depends on who you ask. The guy who fixed the pillar out front probably doesn’t think so.”

Imogene waved her hand impatiently. “I mean when you’re not in a diabetic coma.”

“Yes,” Josie said. “That is, I could, if I had anything left to drive.”

“Oh, we’ve got vehicles all over the ranch, just sitting there growing moss. But my sister is coming in from Houston, and I’ve got to meet her at the airport in an hour. I’m running behind, and I need you to take these lunches out to the site.”

“Okay. I’d be glad to.”

Imogene hadn’t even waited for her response. She was already drawing a crude map on the back of a napkin. “It’s not far. Just come out here—” she pointed to an intersection nearby “—and then turn right. It’s the old Bradley place, about six miles past Everly. It burned down last month, and they’re holding a barn raising, so to speak.”

“Who is?”

“Everybody,” she said absently. She was counting boxes under her breath, pointing and scowling, as if someone might be trying to fool her into sending the wrong amounts.

Finally satisfied, she turned to Josie. “Take one of the vans, so it’ll all fit. The red ones are Black Forest ham and Swiss on croissant. The yellow ones are mandarin chicken salad. The white ones are grilled eggplant.”

“Yummy,” Josie said sincerely. She’d had one of Imogene’s grilled eggplant sandwiches, and it was heaven.

“You get any complaints, you just tell them to shut up and eat.” She wiped a strand of hair away from her damp forehead. “Ned had the nerve to ask for a turkey wrap, can you believe it? I said, you get what you always get. If I give in to even one person, I’ll end up making forty different sandwiches for forty different mouths.”

“Do they have barn raisings a lot?”

“This one’s organized by the Burn Center. But about once a month, they’re out there fixing something for somebody. Like the Habitat people, only more informal like. Chase’s mother started it, but now it’s just a habit. It’s the way Chase is. He likes to help people out.”

“Yes,” Josie said, nodding self-consciously. “I know.”

Imogene laughed, reaching around to untie her apron. “Lordie, honey, I didn’t mean you. You’re…” She screwed up her mouth, considering. “You’re different.”

“I am?”

“Yes. Now get going. You’ve got to stop by the diner, too, and I won’t be sending soggy sandwiches.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

AFTER THE BLOWUPwith Nikki, Susannah was almost too distracted to focus on anything. As she pulled into the Bradley lot, with her forty-two-ounce jugs of lemonade, coffee and ice water on the seat beside her, she was still reliving the argument, thinking of all the brilliant comebacks she should have used.

The whole thing made her furious, and her body thrummed with tension. As a result, her foot was heavy on the pedals, and she was going far too fast. She took the corner too sharply.

And she came within a rabbit’s whisker of colliding with another car, pulling in from the other side.

The Coleman jugs tumbled everywhere as she hit the brakes. Her head snapped forward, and she felt the cool kiss of the windshield against her brow. She squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for the sound of shattering glass.

But nothing happened. The other car braked sharply, too. Her shoulder belt held her in place. The car rocked slightly, settling, like a cup knocked sideways, but not hard enough to fall over.

She closed her eyes and tried to breathe. Gradually, over a couple of seconds, she felt her own balance returning. The whooshing in her ears stopped as the adrenaline eased off. As shock receded, she gained a little room in her brain to think.

And that’s when she noticed that the shiny black Mercedes she’d almost hit belonged to Trent.

Damn it.Could anything else go wrong today?

He recovered faster than she did and pulled his car smoothly into one of the few open slots. They were late for the building party, and everyone else clearly had already arrived.

If only she’d come sooner.

If only he hadn’t come at all.

He got out, and sauntered back toward her, his movements efficient and graceful. He was never awkward, was he? She felt an unwanted response to the elegant motion of his perfectly shaped body. But she couldn’t help that. He was a good-looking man, and she still had eyes in her head.

However, she didn’t have to let herself stare. She averted her gaze and focused on maneuvering her car into the only other available space. When she turned in, she found herself nose to nose with Chase’s truck. It felt comforting, like encountering an ally just before a battle.

If only Chase were in it, and could act as a buffer between his two friends. It was a role he’d perfected over the past few years.

But Chase had probably already been working on the Bradley house for hours.

Oh, well. What couldn’t be avoided might as well be faced. It was no big deal, really. She saw Trent all the time, though she hadn’t seen him since her engagement to Chase had been announced.

Even before that, they had always managed to avoid being alone.

She took a deep breath, grabbed one of the coolers and climbed out. It was a hot, sunny day already. Everyone would be dying of thirst, wondering where the drinks were.

“I’m sorry,” she said as Trent approached her. “That was my fault.”

“It certainly was,” he said with that air of amusement that attracted so many women, but only irritated her. “Did you learn that trick from Josie? I thought I was having deja vu for a minute there.”

His gaze scanned her lazily. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.” Her knees wobbled a little—the adrenaline, no doubt—so she stood by the side of the car, waiting for them to settle. “The lemonade is probably going to have a nice head of froth, though.”

He peered in. The jugs lay every which way on the floor of the passenger seat. “I’ll get the rest of those for you.”

She shook her head. “I’m all right, thanks. Chase will get them.”

Trent raised one of his dark brows. “Chase is probably fifteen feet in the air right now, with a mouth full of carpenter’s nails. You’d drag him over here, just to deny me the privilege of hauling your lemonade?”

She flushed. Through the years, she’d developed a thick skin where Trent was concerned, and it ordinarily took more than his sardonic smile to fluster her. But she simply wasn’t up to sparring with him today, not after going toe-to-toe with Nikki all morning.

“Of course not,” she said. “If you think it’s such a big deal to carry the coolers, help yourself. I’m just—” She backed away to provide access to the car. “I’m just surprised to see you here, that’s all. You don’t usually…I mean, when the Burn Center is involved in something—”

He shrugged. “Bradley is a friend of mine. I want to help him. The fact that he ended up in your precious Burn Center doesn’t change that.”

She felt her spine stiffen. “My precious Burn Center?”

She shouldn’t have provided the opening for him. She should have seen that he was spoiling for a fight.

“Sure it is. It’s your baby, isn’t it? You spearheaded the drive for it, you raised the money for it, and you’ve been martyring yourself for it ever since. St. Susannah of the Fiery Flames, that’s what we call you.”

She put the cooler of lemonade down carefully. And then she reached out and slapped him. Hard. Flat-palmed across the cheek.

With lightning reflexes, he caught her hand. He held it in the air, his gaze never dropping from hers, even as the red outline of her fingers appeared like a brand on his face.

“How dare you?” Her breath came roughly. She refused to demean herself by trying to wriggle her hand away. He was twice as strong as she was, and she wouldn’t be free until he decided to let her go.

“How dare I? I dare because it’s true. And because enough is enough. It’s gone on too long, Sue. It’s been more than ten years. More than a decade since Paul died. And you’re still using that goddamn Burn Center to punish me for it.”

“That’s ridiculous.” She lifted her chin. “But how typical of you to think that everything, including a project I’ve been deeply involved in for years, is actually all about you.”

“It is all about me. Or rather, it’s all aboutus .”

“Us?” She laughed harshly. “There hasn’t been an ‘us’ for ten years, Trent. And there never will be again.”

He let go of her hand slowly. His face looked raw, shockingly young, stripped of the mocking mask that had covered it for so long. She caught the faint whiff of old smoke in the air. Was it left over from the Bradley fire, she wondered? Or was it the smell of her own bridges burning?

“What the hell happened to you, Sue? You used to be so…” He shook his head, as if he found himself unable to come up with the right word. “So…”

She held her breath, calling on her hard-won thick skin to protect her from whatever he might say next. To keep her from doing anything stupid, like letting her voice break, or allowing a tear to fall.

He gave up. “When did you turn so cold?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it was during the six months I sat in Paul’s hospital room, watching him die. Watching his mother’s heart break. Watching his father fade away before my eyes.”

Trent shook his head again. It was a primitive denial, a subconscious rejection of a truth too painful to accept. But it was all true. Why shouldn’t he face it? She’d had to face it back then, day after day, month after month. And she faced it still, every day, in her memories, in her dreams.

She shrugged. “Or maybe it was the day your father showed up and told me you were gone. That you’d left town. And you’d married someone else.”

“You know why I left. Surely you haven’t forgotten telling me you’d never speak to me again as long as you lived.”

“No, I haven’t forgotten. So you moved on. And quickly, too. Well, good for you. It shows a certain resilience, to be able to kill a man, abandon your family and betray your girlfriend, all without blinking an eye.”

“What is it you won’t forgive me for, Sue? Is it what happened to Paul? Or is it the fact that I married someone else?”

“Hey, guys.” Suddenly Chase was there behind them, looking sweaty and golden from hard labor in the spring sun. Her heart was pounding like a jackhammer. It amazed her that anyone could look so wholesome, so normal, at a moment like this.

“What’s going on out here?” Chase frowned at Trent, then turned his gaze to Susannah. “Is everything all right?”

Susannah looked at Trent, inviting him to respond. In an instant, his elegant bitterness was back in place. He was devilishly handsome, dangerously self-composed and utterly unreachable.

“Not to worry, Chase,” he said, pulling his keys from his pocket. He shook them with a light jingle. “I was just leaving.”

“Damn it, Trent, what have you—” He narrowed his eyes, obviously spotting the shape of Susannah’s hand still flaming on the other man’s cheek. He whipped his head around. “Sue? Tell me. Are you okay?”

“Okay?”Trent laughed, a jagged, joyless sound. “No, she’s not okay. She’s a stone-cold bitch, and there’s nothing that remotely resembles a heart beating inside that beautiful breast.”

“Cripes, Trent—”

“Sorry, buddy.” He smiled at Chase with his usual ironic detachment. “But it’s true. And all I can say is…better you than me.”

 

THESLOWHANDSDINERwas easy to find, thank goodness. Josie parked the van out front, locked the precious boxed lunches inside, and then hurried to the front counter.

A huge man ambled over. He had bushy black hair, horn-rims, and a tattoo on his monstrous bicep that said Sell by: 1987.

“Hi, there,” he said with a smile so warm it took her by surprise. “Lunch for one?”

“No, thanks. Imogene asked me to tell you that she needs two of your big muddies. And she said, well, she said we’re in a bit of a hurry.”

Actually, Imogene had said to tell him to “hustle like it’s 1970,” but at the last minute Josie just couldn’t do it.

“Two big muddies coming up.” The giant reached under the counter, grabbed a bottled water and handed it to her. “Grab a stool and make yourself at home. I’ll be back in two shakes of a stick.”

She took the stool closest to the cash register. It was the best vantage point for seeing the dozen or so customers, all dusty, stubbled ranch hands who were clearly stretching their lunch hours to the max.

Slow Hands…She smiled to herself, finally getting the pun.

She unscrewed the cap of the water and, taking a drink, sneaked a glance at the first table. She didn’t really think that Flim could be one of these customers—he had been so well-groomed, so believable in the role of a privileged young son of Texas. But you never knew. Give some of these guys good clothes and a good haircut, and they might look like Robert Redford themselves.

She checked each table out, one sip of water per cowboy. But when the bottle came up empty, so did her search. Flim wasn’t here.

Then she noticed that the walls were crowded with photographs. Rodeos, it looked like, and county fairs, and Fourth of July picnics.

A gold mine…a virtual mug book of local cowboys.

She slid off her stool and walked casually over to the nearest photo. It showed several cowboys in ten-gallon hats, grinning as they gathered around a beautiful black horse. Mysty Rios takes the blue rosette in reining, the caption read.

But she didn’t recognize any of the men in the picture. She tried not to feel disappointed. Even bothering to look at the pictures was a little like playing the lottery. Actually, the odds that she’d find Flim’s face among this sea of cowboys were probably even slimmer than her odds of winning the Saturday-night jackpot.

But here she was, with time to kill, and it didn’t hurt to try. How she would love to be able to walk up to Chase and say, “I found him!”

She smiled at one of the real-life ranch hands as she bumped his chair, trying to get a better angle on the picture on the wall behind him. “Sorry,” she said. “I just wanted to take a quick look—”

“Miss Whitford?” The cowboy stood up awkwardly and took his hat in his hand. “Boss Johnson,” he supplied politely. “I work at the Double C.”

She searched her mind, and then she placed him. He was the cutting horse trainer, the one who had spotted the phobia in that beautiful roan.

“Hi, Mr. Johnson. I’m sorry I didn’t recognize you.”

If only he knewhow sorry. When she’d seen Johnson riding the roan, he’d reminded her of Willie Nelson, his face covered in a reddish-gray beard, and his hair tied back in a long, scruffy ponytail. Today he had apparently come from the barber. His face was clean-shaven, and he had the neatly parted, above-the-ears haircut of a banker, or a schoolteacher.

It was unnerving to realize how much of her impressions were based on such superficial details. If she couldn’t recognize a man she’d seen just a few days ago, a man who wasn’t trying to hide from anyone, how could she be so sure she’d know Flim when she saw him?

“It’s okay, ma’am,” Johnson said with a smile. “I reckon my own mother wouldn’t recognize me today. I’m fixing to ask my girl to marry me, and I thought I’d better not show up looking like yesterday’s hog slop.”

“You look great. How romantic. I’ll keep my fingers crossed that she says yes.”

“Oh, she will.” Johnson laughed, a big, heartfelt roll from the diaphragm. “She’s been hinting for weeks. And besides, I got this.” He dug in his pocket and brought out a black velvet box. He snapped it open with two fingers.

Josie caught her breath. Nestled in the bed of satin was one of the prettiest diamond rings she’d ever seen. Big and round, and giving off colored light like a Fourth of July sparkler. Chase must pay his cutting trainers amazingly well…or else this guy had saved up for years.

“Wow,” she said. “She’s one lucky lady.”

“Naw, I’m the lucky one,” he said, flushing in the most endearing way. “She’s flat-dab gorgeous, and I’m as ugly as homemade soap, but—”

He stopped midsentence, and stared at the door. “Well, I’ll be damned.” He frowned. “Excuse me, ma’am, but I was hoping I wouldn’t have to lay eyes on that little gelding again so soon.”

She looked at the door, too. And this time she did recognize the cowboy walking in. It was Eli Breslin, the kid Chase had fired last night. The boy glanced toward where she and Johnson stood, colored up, and then looked away, pretending he hadn’t seen them.

“Good decision,” Johnson grunted. “He better not push his luck. If it’d been up to me, he would’ve been fired from living, not just from that job. And I darn sure wouldn’t have found work for him anywhere else.”

He took a last swig of his sweet tea, then wiped his napkin across his mouth in one big sweep.

“But Mr. Clayton’s got a soft heart, everybody knows that.” He shrugged good-naturedly. “What can you do?”

“Mr. Clayton got Eli a new job already?”

“Yeah. At the hardware store. I guess it’s okay, as long as he’s not working with living critters. A person can’t actually kill a monkey wrench, right?” He chuckled, amused at his own joke. “Though if anybody could, that’s your boy.”

The bushy-haired giant appeared suddenly from the kitchen, holding two huge white containers. “Two big muddies, ready to roll!”

Josie blinked, wondering where those monster sized boxes were going to fit in the van. And what was in them, anyhow? She leaned a little closer to Johnson and whispered, “What is a big muddy?”

He grinned. “Only the sweetest, gooiest, finger-lickin’ fantastic chocolate cream pie this side of the Mississippi.”

Josie sighed. Great. One more terrific, tempting thing that she couldn’t allow herself to have. Not even if she used all the insulin this lovely new pump could produce.

She hesitated.

She’d said that the pie was one more tempting thing she couldn’t have.

One more?That meant there had been another.

What was the other one?

But she didn’t have to think very hard. She already knew the answer.

The other one was Chase.

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHASE WAS HOT, and tired and frustrated, and ready to call it a day. There were at least fifty people out here, helping to frame Drew Bradley’s new house. Surely they could manage without him for the rest of the afternoon.

He wanted to get home and find out what the hell had happened between Trent and Susannah. Not that either one of them was likely to tell him the truth. They just might be the stubbornest two people on the planet. They kept everything inside.

Which was why, after eleven years, they still hadn’t been able to work out their problems. And why they probably never would, not in a hundred more.

But just as he was about to track down Liam, the framing contractor who’d come all the way from Madisonville to head up today’s crew, and ask him to put someone else on measuring rafters, he saw Josie walking toward him. Her hands were full of red, yellow and white boxes.

Imogene’s famous lunches. A roar of approval went up from the workers, most of whom had eaten Imogene’s grub before. They gathered around Josie eagerly, and pretty soon a posse headed off to collect the rest of the boxes.

She stayed where she was, a red box in her hand, scanning the empty lot. She must have been looking for him, because when she spotted him, she smiled.

And suddenly he wasn’t tired anymore.

He smiled back and crooked his hand to invite her over. He could have met her halfway, but he was enjoying the view too much. He watched her coming toward him, with that light sway in her hips, that natural bounce in her step.

He wondered what it was about her that always made him feel so…

Horny.

Sure, she was pretty, with that honey hair that swished around her shoulders, catching the afternoon sunlight. And those pink lips. And those subtle river-bottom-blue eyes fringed in feathery black lashes.

But what did he care about “pretty”? He’d dated true beauties. He’d been married to a woman who was off-the-charts gorgeous. Lila’s lovers had written mournful ballads about her, and tragic Shakespearean sonnets. Rumor was that one of them had tried to kill himself. Another had applied to become a monk.

Maybe that was the difference, he thought. Lila made men miserable. Josie Whitford made them smile.

“Hi,” she said as she finally reached him. “I bought you this, from Imogene. She put a dot here—” she pointed to the top right corner of the box “—so that I’d know exactly which one to give you. She didn’t tell me why.”

He laughed. “That’s probably the one she put the poison in.”

But when he opened it up, he saw what Imogene had planned. There were two sandwiches inside. One was ham, his usual. The other was a cucumber and egg salad sandwich—Josie’s favorite. There was also a slice of chocolate cake, with a sticky note on the protective cellophane.

“Sugar free,” the note read.

He wondered for a minute whether Imogene might be playing matchmaker, just a little. But his housekeeper idolized Susannah, so that didn’t make any sense.

More likely, she’d grown fond of Josie, the same way everyone on his ranch had done. She probably thought it was unfair that Josie should just sit and drool while the rest of them gobbled up slices of Big Muddy.

“I think she hoped you’d stay and eat with me,” he said. And he was absurdly pleased when Josie picked up the chocolate cake and grinned.

“You bet I will,” she said. She kissed the cake. “Oh, Imogene, you are an angel!”

While she carried the box, he got them both big plastic cups of water. And then he led her over to the east side of the lot, the wooded side, where the property sloped off steeply toward Clayton Creek. Drew Bradley didn’t have much—especially now that most of it had gone up in flames—but he did have one heavenly view down that daffodil-covered hillside.

They found a shady spot under a spreading maple, with the closest thing to privacy they were going to get today. At least fifteen feet and two trees lay between them and the other workers.

For several minutes they ate in silence. Imogene’s food was too good to give it only half your attention. They’d grown comfortable with each other, he realized. Sometime in the past ten days, they’d relaxed enough to be silent together. It was a good place—one he’d never reached with Lila.

Finally, their appetites were satisfied. Josie put her napkin and empty cup inside the box, then stretched out along the grass, tilting her head back so that her face could catch the dappled sunlight through the leaves.

He scanned her body, assessing her condition. She wore shorts and a T-shirt, which gave him a good view from head to toe. He could even see the tiniest swell at her abdomen, which might have been the first outward sign of the baby.

It made the baby real, as nothing else had done so far, not even the visit to Dunne. It was growing there, inside her. Some man had created this life with her, and had walked away from it.

The bloody fool should be taken out back and shot.

She was still dramatically slender, but finally it looked healthy, the slightly bony, long-legged look of a new foal. Strong. Full of life. She looked as if she could run down this hill, the wind in her hair and the daffodils at her feet, and splash into the creek at the bottom, laughing and panting.

He had a sudden ache, wanting to see her do that. Wanting to do it with her. He’d like to lift her up onto Captain Kirk’s broad, slow-moving back and ride her under the trees. He’d take her to Green Fern Hole and show her the two-winged silverbell.

But if he did that…how exactly was he any different from the bastard who had gotten her pregnant in the first place? Was a condom really all that stood between right and wrong?

He wadded his napkin up hard in his hand and squeezed it till his joints turned white.

“You awake?” Her voice was soft, as if she didn’t want to disturb him, in case he’d dozed off.

“Yeah,” he said. He tried to remove the tension from his tone. She wouldn’t have any idea what had caused it. Her thoughts undoubtedly weren’t turgid, as obsessed with sex as a teenager.

“I just wanted to tell you. When I stopped by the diner to get the pie, I looked at all the pictures they have in there. I thought maybe, if Flim lived here at any time, he might have been photographed at one of the events.”

“Not a bad idea. And?”

She shook her head. “Nothing. I didn’t recognize anyone.”

“Don’t worry. We’ll find him sooner or later. I’m thinking about sending a private investigator to Riverfork. Maybe Flim did something dumb, like pay for a hotel or a meal with his own credit card. He’s mortal, right? He has to have made a misstep somewhere.”

She looked at him a minute. Then she sat up, cross-legged, with her hands in her lap. Her face was solemn. “How long do you intend to keep hunting, Chase?”

“Until we find him.”

“But what if we don’t? What if there is no logic we can apply, no description we can come up with, that will tie him to you? What if he’s just some random guy, some person you’ve never even met? He could have heard the stories about you third hand. You’re sort of a celebrity around here. People talk about you. Stories get passed around.”

“I don’t believe that,” he said. “My gut tells me I know this guy. I just have to find out how, and where.”

“And what if it takes a long time? What if it takes months?”

He shrugged. “Fine.”

“What if it takes years? Do you want me to be hanging around your guest room when the baby is starting school? Would it still be fine then?”

“Sure. Why not? The schools around here are great.”

She plucked a blade of grass absently. She gazed into the mid-distance, still smiling, but with a faraway look that held a touch of sadness.

Finally she looked back at him. “I think it’s time for me to go.”

“Why?” He frowned, suddenly irritable. “You said yourself there’s nothing for you to go back to. If you’re bored, take a class or something. If you want a job, I’ve got plenty of them here on the ranch.”

“No. You’ve been more than generous. But I can’t go on being your charity case.”

He felt heat tighten the muscles of his chest. That “charity” line just didn’t wash anymore. They had become friends, and he would do as much for any friend. Besides, she worked so hard around the house she ought to be getting a salary.

And it just plain didn’t ring true. She wasn’t being completely honest with him, and he had a feeling he knew why.

“Look, Josie. If this is about last night…”

“It isn’t,” she said, too quickly. The flush on her face wasn’t merely from the sun. “I know that didn’t mean anything. It was just…just the river and the moonlight. And you feeling sorry for me because I was feeling a little—”

“No,” he said, making a conscious effort to keep his voice low. Their neighbors were close enough to hear everything if they weren’t careful. “It had nothing to do with pity. It was just what it seemed to be. Me wanting to kiss you so much I thought I’d go crazy.”

Her eyes widened. “Chase—”

“But I know it was a mistake. It was the dumbest thing I could possibly have done, for more reasons than I can possibly count. You don’t have to worry, and you damn sure don’t have to run away. I won’t do it again.”

“I know,” she said. “And honestly, that’s not why I’m thinking of leaving. It was no big deal, in the end. It was just a kiss.”

Not even that, he wanted to say. It had been only half a kiss. Only the tiniest fraction of what he’d wanted to do. Of what he could make her feel.

If he were free…If she were free…

But they weren’t.

“The truth is…I need to start making some decisions about my future.” She touched her stomach with the palms of her hands. “September will be here so soon, and I’m not ready.”

“No one is telling you not to make plans. Just make them here, where you’ve got a support system—good doctors, good food. A comfortable roof over your head.”

He couldn’t believe he was doing this. He was getting married in a month. He had no right to get emotionally involved with this woman. He’d talked to Susannah about it, and had admitted that, though at first he’d been involved only so that he could find the impostor, it had morphed into something else. Josie’s vulnerability moved him. He felt oddly guilty, because the creep who left her like this had used his name.

He knew it didn’t make sense, but he wanted to help her. To provide at least a little piece of the safety net she needed.

As usual, Sue had been a brick. She’d made a joke about his superhero syndrome. And then she’d assured him that she had no problem with any decision he made. He could help Josie in any way that seemed fair.

So, officially, he had his fiancee’s blessing.

But, deep inside, he knew he wasn’t telling Susannah everything. When he was with Josie, he wasn’t just a protective uncle, or a friendly pal, or a fairy godfather.

He was a man. And she was a woman.

Whether he allowed himself to act on it or not, it was disloyal to Sue, to whom he had already promised his support.

Now that Josie had said she wanted to go home, he should wish her Godspeed. In spite of what Susannah said, he didn’t think he was a superhero. He couldn’t make everything right for everyone.

When she went back to Riverfork, he could stay in touch. He could send money to help with the baby. He could arrange for good prenatal care.

Why wasn’t that enough?

Was it possible that, in less than two weeks, he had grown so accustomed to her presence in his house that he couldn’t imagine the place without her?

Next thing he knew he’d be offering her a job as his housekeeper. Or his secretary.

Or his mistress.

“Stay through the weekend, anyhow,” he suggested, grasping at straws. “Come with me to the horse auction on Sunday. A lot of the people I’ve done business with through the years will be there. If nothing comes of all that, I’ll take you home on Monday.”

She bit her lower lip. She was obviously deeply conflicted. He was sorry for that. But not sorry enough to make her decision any easier.

“I did tell Susannah I’d come to the Burn Center’s dance tomorrow night. Not that I can afford to make any kind of donation, but—”

“She didn’t ask you because she wanted a donation. She asked you because she thought you might enjoy it.”

She took a deep breath. “All right. I’ll stay through the weekend. But then, if we haven’t found him—”

“I know,” he said. “If we haven’t found him, I promise I’ll take you home.”