His wildest ride yet!

Jeremiah Stone: rodeo superstar. Good time guy. Father of three? That’s one pair of boots Jeremiah never expected to fill. Then his three nephews are orphaned, and his entire life changes. Not only is he now playing parent, he’s also running the family ranch. It’s almost too much for this cowboy.

Until he encounters Lucy Alatore.

He recognizes that look in her eye and knows a steamy fling could make him feel more like himself. But the intense heat between him and Lucy is distracting him from three little boys who need his undivided attention. He’s forced to choose one over the other…unless he can convince Lucy this family isn’t complete without her!

Jeremiah leaned closer

Not a lot. Just enough that the equation between them changed and Lucy’s better sense was drowned out by the sudden clamoring demands of her body.

“I might be wrong, but I’m sensing that perhaps you’re interested in breaking a certain rule you’ve given us.”

“It wasn’t just me,” she whispered, looking at his lips, the lushness of them. Gorgeous. “You agreed that anything between us would be a mistake.”

“Well...” He sighed. “Maybe we need different rules.”

His finger brushed against her hand. He tilted his head as if to get a better look at her.

She touched his hand, the roughness of his skin. Her imagination roared as she pictured his body. The perfect sculpture of it. The flex of muscle.

“Lucy.”

She looked into those endless blue eyes filled with fire. His lips fell across hers. Light and warm and sweet, and she melted into the moment, into him. He breathed out and the earth stopped rotating.

“Hey, Uncle J.” Aaron, the oldest boy, charged onto the deck, wrenching them apart.

She couldn’t figure out whether to thank Aaron or curse him for his bad timing. She turned away.

“Lucy?” Jeremiah’s voice stopped her. “We’re not done.”

They weren’t done. Not by a long shot.

Dear Reader,

My family had the most incredible opportunity to tour around New Zealand this fall. It was seven weeks of amazing. Rugby—go, the All Blacks!—hiking natural wonders of every variety, beautiful, welcoming people often offering us beautiful, delicious food. There were some lowlights. Seven weeks in a camper van with a two- and a five-year-old—things were bound to get ugly. But from the moment we arrived until the moment we left, the trip surpassed every fantasy I had going in.

Part of what made everything so memorable was being at the New Zealand RWA conference. The first night of the conference Harlequin editors took the published authors out for dinner. It was a great time and, as you can imagine with a group of like-minded women, things got personal very quickly. I had the pleasure of sitting next to Sandra Hyatt, who was one of the most gracious and enthusiastic women I’ve ever met. She invited our entire family to visit her and she offered the use of all her kids’ travel things. I was blown away by her kindness and generosity. Tragically, that night Sandra took ill suddenly and died. She was young. She had a husband, two kids and a wealth of writer friends who were left shocked and grieving (with a conference in full swing).

I urge you all to pick up any of Sandra’s Harlequin Desire books. Her last novel, Lessons In Seduction, is amazing!

I hope you enjoy my latest Harlequin Superromance, Unexpected Family, and find everyone’s happy ending as satisfying as I did. Please drop me a line at molly@molly-okeefe.com to let me know what you think!

Happy reading!

Molly O’Keefe

Unexpected Family
Molly O'Keefe

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Molly O’Keefe grew up in a small town outside Chicago, and while she and her husband and two kids now live in Toronto, Canada, there is something about Rochelle, Illinois, that will always be home. However, every time she brings up moving there her husband reminds her of the lack of sushi restaurants and she quickly changes her mind.

For the attendees of the 2011 New Zealand RWA conference, in particular those in my Conflict and Character workshop.

Thank you for such an inspiring weekend and for getting me out of the mess I had written myself into.

Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

EPILOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

NO ONE WAS GOING to stop the train wreck at the end of the bar. Lucy Alatore stopped listening to her sister describe the house she and her husband were going to build and looked around for Joey, the bartender, who was supposed to stop train wrecks like the one the drunk cowboy at the bar was courting as he searched for his car keys.

“You’re not listening to me, are you?” Mia asked.

“Sorry.” Lucy stood, only to find Joey flirting with the margarita girls at the end of the bar. “I’m trying to—”

“Find someone to take that cowboy’s keys, I know.” Mia stood and shrugged into her denim jacket. “It’s just as well, Jack’s going to be waiting up.”

As she spoke, Mia—usually as reserved and quiet as a nun when it came to sex—couldn’t keep the womanly smile from curling the corners of her lips.

Lucy refrained from doing anything as childish as pretending to gag. But if her sister didn’t stop flaunting her sex life all over the place, Lucy was going to have to resort to name-calling just to vent her envy.

Lucy hugged her sister, holding her closer for a moment, longer than what might seem necessary even between two sisters who dearly loved each other.

“I’ve been sitting here for two hours waiting for you to tell me what’s bothering you,” Mia whispered.

“Bothering me?” Lucy leaned back, making sure her smile was bright. “Nothing bothers me. It’s a rule of the universe.”

But Mia’s amber eyes drilled right into Lucy’s head and it took every weapon in her arsenal to keep her smile in place. Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies” ringtone blasted from deep in the purse on the chair beside her for the tenth time that night.

“You going to answer that?” Mia asked.

“Nope.”

Mia sighed, defeated. “You’re okay to drive?”

“Good as you.” They both glanced down at the plate of nachos and light beers on the table. Both beers were half-full. Growing up around an alcoholic had ingrained a certain caution around booze.

Mia squeezed Lucy’s shoulder and left, winding through the tables and out the door of the Sunset Bar and Grill. Lucy took a deep breath and turned toward the bar, pulling down the jersey Armani shirt she had bought at a resale shop. She wanted to give the girls a chance to do the convincing for her as she stopped a drunk train from leaving this particular station.

“Hey there, cowboy,” she said, stepping up to the man digging through his pockets for his keys while fighting to stay upright.

He yanked his keys free of the beat-up denim coat. “Found ’em.” He sighed, as if he’d been satisfied on some deep soul level by the appearance of those keys. He turned and she shifted into his way.

“Where you headed?”

“Home.” He glanced up and did a drunken man’s double take. Slow and sloppy. “Unless you want to have a drink with me?” His smile was charming despite the booze behind it and she smiled back.

“I think you’ve had enough. Why don’t you let me call someone to come pick you up?”

“No one to call.” He narrowed his eyes. “Don’t I know you?”

She looked back at the man. At first glance he looked like every man under thirty who walked through this bar, with cowboy boots, a tan, weathered face and strong chin. But those brown eyes…

“Holy crap,” he muttered, listing toward her slightly. “Lucy Alatore. You showed me your boobs at the state football game.”

Oh, Lord. Reese McKenna. “One of my proudest moments.”

“I won that game.”

“Yes, you did.”

“Your boobs were pretty.” He stared down her shirt and she reached to hike her pewter jersey shirt up higher on her chest.

“Still are.”

“Can I see?”

“Nope. But how about I drive you home?”

“Well, now, I like an aggressive—”

“You’re drunk, Reese. And you can’t drive. Not like you are right now.”

He stared down at his keys as if he were waiting for their input. As if the two of them were old friends who had been in this situation before.

“Come on,” she said quietly. “I’ll take you home.”

“I don’t…I don’t want to bother you, Lucy.” His smile was embarrassed, and she saw a sweet glimpse of that luck-kissed boy she went to high school with.

“You and I know there aren’t any cabs around here, Reese.” She patted his arm, strong and thick under his shirt, while lifting her palm up for the keys. After a moment he dropped them in.

Lucy led him out into the cool, clean air of Wassau, California, population: Podunk. In city limits, there were about twice as many cows as people. Main Street stretched down toward the Sierras, lit up for a few blocks by four streetlights.

Her beat-up Civic sat in all its rusted glory to her left. But Reese’s keys had a fancy foreign emblem on the key chain and out of curiosity she hit the lock release button.

The lights that flashed belonged to a slick sports car crouched in the far corner of the parking lot, sticking out like a sore thumb surrounded by dirty pickup trucks.

Let’s see, she thought, beat-up Civic or fancy sports car?

It wasn’t even a question.

“We’ll take your car,” she said, the heels of her Prada-knockoff boots grinding into the gravel.

Please, God, don’t let that car be stick shift.

Reese climbed into the passenger seat and tucked his hat down over his eyes, looking like a man about to sleep it off.

“Hold up, Reese, where do you live?”

“Staying out at Jeremiah’s place.”

“Jeremiah Stone?” Well, well, well, this night just keeps getting better. Playing chauffeur to a drunken Reese got a whole lot more appealing with Jeremiah Stone at the other end. “I didn’t know he was back in town.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he muttered, and then, shifting deeper into his bucket seat, he seemed to pass out.

Stone Hollow was the ranch next to the Rocky M, the ranch where she grew up and was currently calling home. It was currently her home while her life in Los Angeles fell to pieces.

Jeremiah, five years older than her and Reese, had been a local legend in Northern California. A rodeo stud, he left town to make it big in the arena when Lucy was a freshman. Last she saw Jeremiah, he was on the front page of a grocery store tabloid and on his arm was a gorgeous country music star.

The car’s engine roared to life when she turned the key, the reverberations rumbling up through her body, and she felt as if she were sitting on top of a wild creature. She put the car into Drive—not a stick shift, God had been listening for once—and a familiar reckless thrill flickered through her chest as the powerful vehicle rolled onto Main Street.

She opened the window, letting the mountain air comb fingers through her hair and blow kisses across her cheeks. The neck of her shirt gaped and the air slid down into more intimate places.

Glancing sideways at the sleeping man, she grinned and gunned the engine, racing through the night up into the mountains.

Twenty minutes later she pulled to a stop in the paved parking area in front of the sprawling, two-story ranch house that sat in a pretty pocket of land just west of Rocky M. Fields were made silver by the bright moonlight, horses took on a mystical look as they shook their manes, their breath fogging slightly in the cool night.

Funny how things worked out. When she was growing up here, all she wanted was out. Away. She wanted adventure and culture. Excitement. Not dust.

But in Los Angeles for the past five years she found herself missing the smell of sun-baked junipers. In a city where wearing a cowboy hat was an ironic statement, she’d longed for the real thing. And after dating a bunch of cynical men in skinny jeans, she’d nurtured a yen for the kind of cowboy who would squash a guy in skinny jeans like a bug.

The front door opened, a rectangle of golden lamplight spilling out into the darkness. It had to be Jeremiah who stood there, judging by the long lean size of him, blackened against all that light. She was glad to see those wide shoulders of his because she had a feeling Reese was going to have to be carried out of this car.

She got up out of the car and waved.

“I have Reese,” she said. “He was too drunk to drive home.”

Jeremiah didn’t say anything, just plugged his feet into his boots and stepped out onto the porch and down the steps to the car.

Once he cleared the shadows, the silvery moonlight highlighted his black curls, the icy blue of his eyes.

Jeremiah Stone hasn’t changed a bit, she thought, her body still humming from controlling that car. Or maybe it was Jeremiah. He was the sort of man to make a girl’s body hum.

The devil was in that man’s smile and she found herself smiling back. Honestly, Jeremiah could seduce a saint with that mouth of his. And remembering his reputation, he’d probably already given it a shot.

“Thanks for bringing him back,” Jeremiah said, opening the passenger door. Reese spilled out like all that whiskey he’d been drinking at the bar and Jeremiah grabbed him easily. He half marched, half dragged him toward the house. Reese’s hat tipped over into the dust and Jeremiah paused for a second, as if trying to figure out how he could pick it up.

“I got it,” she said, and grabbed the hat, following the men into the house.

She’d been in the house a couple of times growing up. The last time was when the husband of Jeremiah’s sister, Annie, died about five years ago. But the big open living room didn’t look anything like she remembered. It looked more like a Laundromat and sporting equipment store had a baby right there on the couch.

Jeremiah kicked a stack of laundry down to the floor and dropped Reese onto the long denim couch.

“That’s Lucy.” Reese pointed at her. “She showed me her boobs.”

Jeremiah’s dark eyebrows hit his hairline.

“Fifteen years ago. And it was for luck.”

As if that made it reasonable, she thought.

For lack of a better place, she hung the cowboy hat over a hockey stick that was jammed into the cushion of a chair.

“It was the state football game,” she added.

“It must have worked. He won that game, didn’t he?”

“Apparently my breasts have powers even I don’t understand.”

Huge points to Jeremiah, who didn’t glance down at her breasts, didn’t in any way ogle her or joke. In fact, he didn’t even look at her. He jerked a faded red, white and blue quilt off the back of the couch and draped it over his drunken houseguest, whose face was resting on a clean pair of little-boy superhero underwear.

“Thanks for bringing him back,” Jeremiah said.

“I couldn’t let him drive.”

“I shouldn’t have let him go.”

Lucy glanced around the house, waiting for his sister to come out, wrapped in a robe, to give them all hell for being too loud. “Where’s Annie?”

Jeremiah cleared his throat, bending down to pick up the laundry he shoved off the couch. His T-shirt slid up his back, revealing pale skin dotted with freckles over hard muscle. Just at the edge of his shirt she saw the snaky tail end of red scar tissue—a healed wound she didn’t want to think about. The faded denim of his jeans clung to that man like a faithful lover, and she had to wonder if the hallelujah chorus didn’t ring out every time he bent over.

“She died. Last spring.”

“What?” She tore her eyes away from his body, feeling like a degenerate. “Oh, my God, Jeremiah…what happened?”

He stood up with a stack of small blue jeans in his hands.

“Cancer.” He threw the jeans in the overflowing laundry basket. “It was fast.”

“I’m so sorry, Jeremiah. I didn’t know—”

“It’s all right, Lucy. I don’t expect the world to keep up with all the Stones’ tragedies.”

“Where are your nephews?” she asked.

“Sleeping,” he said with a wry smile. “It’s ten o’clock at night.”

“Are you…” It was just so weird to think of Jeremiah Stone as the guardian of three small boys. Jeremiah Stone was a cowboy sex symbol. He got interviewed on ESPN, and that footage of him getting trampled by a bull had been a YouTube sensation. He dated beautiful country music stars, and did not, definitely did not, fold superhero underwear.

He sighed and smiled as if he couldn’t believe it, either. “…in charge of the boys? Yep.”

Jeremiah ran a hand through those ebony curls and then set it on his hip, looking around the room as if it were the sight of a national disaster and he just didn’t know what to do next.

“I’m so sorry for your loss,” Lucy murmured, not sure what else to say.

“Yeah. Me, too.”

The silence pulsed for a moment and she opened her mouth to make her exit just as Beyoncé started singing in her bag.

“Is that your phone?” Jeremiah asked.

“It’s really more of an anthem,” she said, avoiding the question and the phone call.

He laughed and the somber mood was broken.

“You want a drink?” he asked, cutting through the melancholy like a knife. He was smiling again and a smiling Jeremiah Stone was a difficult temptation to resist. Like saying no to chocolate-covered potato chips, or a clearance sale at Macy’s. And it’s not like she had better things to do.

“I’d love a beer.”

“Great.” He took a big step over the laundry. “Let’s hope Reese didn’t drink them all.”

She followed him into the kitchen, which was in about the same shape as the living room. Not dirty, really, just very cluttered. Plates filled a drying rack and cups littered the sink. A round table on the far end of the room was covered in backpacks and schoolbooks. A plate with half a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich sat on a chair.

Jeremiah was a daddy. The sexiest daddy on the planet, which she still couldn’t get her head around.

“Here you go,” Jeremiah said, handing her a beer. “Let’s have—” He turned to look at the table and winced. “It’s nice out, let’s sit on the porch.”

“Sounds good,” she said.

He slid open the sliding glass door and she tried not to notice the casual nature of his strength, the way the worn T-shirt flowed like water over muscles that bunched and released every time he moved.

“Lucy?” Her eyes jerked to his and she caught him laughing. At her. What the hell, she thought, grinning back at him, the man had to be used to being stared at. Men who looked like him got stared at. It was a rule. “You coming?”

“Right behind you.”

The porch was a wide patio filled with more sporting equipment. Jeremiah sat down at the table and she sat next to him. The air was cool and found her skin under the thin jersey, but sitting close to Jeremiah was like sitting next to sun-warmed rock.

“So, Lucy Alatore, what brings you back to the Rocky M?”

“A girl can’t long for the scent of cattle poop in the morning?”

“Not girls like you.”

She felt him eyeing her feathered earrings, the bangles on her arms, her leggings and high-heeled boots. Around here she was exotic. Freaky almost. Not that it bothered her.

“That is true, Jeremiah. That is true.”

“How long are you staying?”

She shrugged. “We’re not in any rush.” No rush at all to get back to the mess she’d made.

“We?”

“Mom and me. She moved to Los Angeles with me when I went.”

“Your sister says your jewelry business is doing great. You’re the toast of SoCal.” Jeremiah smiled at her.

My sister has no idea what she’s talking about, she thought, but what Lucy said to Jeremiah was, “She’s proud,” and left it at that.

“I bought a girlfriend one of your necklaces,” he said, and she nearly spat out her beer.

“Really?”

“Those pretty little horseshoe ones? I liked ’em.”

Those pretty little horseshoe necklaces had been her Waterloo. Her Achilles’ heel. The snake hidden in tall grass. “Well, I should have gotten you to endorse me.”

“You didn’t need me. Those necklaces were all over Hollywood.”

There was no way she was going to ruin this moonlight by talking about those necklaces. She looked at him sideways and changed the subject. “I have a hard time imagining you in Hollywood.”

“That’s where the pretty girls are.” He waggled his eyebrows but then stared at his boots. “I was only there for a while. The relationship didn’t last much past that necklace I gave her.”

“You didn’t like it?”

“No, I really liked your necklace—”

She laughed. “Los Angeles.”

“Good God, no.” He shuddered. “Not my scene at all.”

“That city must have loved you, though.” With that hair and those eyes, the way he moved, part cowboy, part cat, but all man. Casting agents must have fallen over themselves to get to him. To say nothing of the women.

“What about you?” he asked.

“That city does not love me.” If there was one thing she could be sure of it was that Los Angeles barely knew she’d been there, which was such a bitter disappointment when she’d gone intending to light the streets on fire. And she’d been close. So damn close.

She spun the bottle between her hands. Her chest ached as if there was someone standing on her rib cage. I guess that’s what failure feels like.

“Hey.” His shoulder nudged hers, his heat a wave through her body that shook her out of her musings. “This is the closest I’ve been to a date in months so please don’t cry. If you do, I’ll probably start, and I’ve sworn off crying on dates.”

Charmed, despite her crap mood, she smiled at him. “Does that get you laid?” she asked. “Crying on dates?”

“No, actually. It’s a very effective birth control.”

He was watching her, a strange smile on his face. It was as if he’d turned around and found a treasure sitting on this porch next to him and for a long moment she got lost in the blue of his eyes.

I’m going to kiss him, she thought, delighted by the idea. Drunk on the notion. Before leaving his house tonight, she was going to taste this man.

She was a serial monogamist—hadn’t had a one-night stand in fifteen years. For her, it was one long-term relationship after the other. She didn’t just date, she contemplated marriage over dessert. But she did like to kiss.

Her life hadn’t been very easy the past few months. Stress and worry and regret and fear had worn her down to the bone and she’d grown so used to the sensation that sitting here, contemplating kissing a gorgeous cowboy in the moonlight, seemed like the sweetest relief.

He lifted a finger and brushed back a long strand of dark hair that had fallen over her eye.

Her skin sizzled at his touch and the rest of her body cried out in jealousy.

“You remind me of Hollywood,” he murmured.

“What do you mean?” she whispered, so lost in his eyes that if she was being insulted, she didn’t care.

“Beautiful and sad, all at the same time.”

She cleared her throat and looked away. It was one thing to kiss a handsome cowboy in the moonlight. It was another thing to have him see her so clearly.

“So how did you end up with a drunk cowboy on your couch?” She rolled the bottle between her hands, liking the click of the glass against her rings. The sound was loud and chased away her thoughts of kissing handsome cowboys.

“Reese? He showed up yesterday. He won big down at the rodeo in Fort Worth and was looking for some help spending the purse.”

“And the guy in charge of three young boys was the logical choice.”

His smile was thin and drawn. “He didn’t know. Nobody really knows. I just faded away after my accident.”

“I saw that footage!”

“YouTube?”

“It was awful. You were like a rag doll.”

“I know.” He laughed. “I was there.” His lightheartedness amazed her; she could only gape at him.

“How can you laugh? Didn’t you think you were going to die?”

“I did. But somehow I didn’t.” He finished his beer and set it down beside him. “But that’s part of the job. A rare part of the job, but there isn’t a rider out there who doesn’t watch that gate get thrown open and know that he might be living his last seconds on earth.”

“That’s crazy.”

“That…” His eyes sparkled, his grin widened. Her breath caught at the danger that glittered around this man, the thrill. It was like breathing in sparks. “…is the beauty of rodeo.”

“You miss it.” It wasn’t a question because it was all too obvious the man lived and breathed that kind of excitement.

“You have no idea,” he whispered, staring up at the large moon that hung over the junipers at the edge of the lawn.

Oh, no. She set down her beer bottle and put her hands between her knees. If there was one thing she loved more than a handsome man in the moonlight, it was a sad, handsome man in the moonlight. It was a sickness, she knew that—one more weakness in her already weak character.

She liked to think she could save men. A doomed proposition every single time, but it didn’t stop her from trying.

She stood and turned to face him. He looked up at her, his eyes alight with interest, with a sexual speculation that made her entire body hum and purr. It had been so long since she’d been touched and stroked and she planned on being noble right now, and walking out of this house without having removed her clothes. But not without taking a little something for herself.

“Stand up, cowboy,” she murmured, feeling that same reckless thrill that spelled disaster.

The moonlight danced in his hair and the corner of his smile where it tipped up toward heartbreaking. Toward devilish and risky.

When he stood, his chest brushed her breasts and she gasped slightly at the pleasing pain of her nipples getting so hard so fast. They had barely touched and she was panting.

But so was he and that was about the sexiest thing she’d ever seen.

“What are you going to do with me, Lucy?”

“I’m still deciding.”

“Take your time.”

Her hand found the hard curve of his biceps, the soft cotton of his T-shirt brushing the back of her hand as she reached under it. Her palm embraced the soft skin of his arm.

“I’ve decided.”

“Thank God.”

“I’m going to kiss you.”

CHAPTER TWO

ONCE, A LONG TIME AGO, Jeremiah had been a gentleman. It was a point of pride in his life. He could afford to go slow, or take his time. Or even refuse if the moment didn’t quite feel right.

And not just women and sex. He could turn down advertising contracts, another cup of coffee, a role in a movie. It didn’t matter. He could be a gentleman because he was never desperate.

But then his brother-in-law died and then his sister died and now he craved, every day, every minute, for just a taste of all the things he turned away in his old life.

There was no abundance in his days right now. Every bone was rubbing up against another bone, his stomach growled, his body hurt, and he went to bed every damn night hungering for what he used to take for granted. And now he had the current superstar, Reese, on his couch reminding him of everything he no longer had.

If this beautiful, sexy woman wanted to kiss him, he wasn’t going to say no. When maybe he should.

He should.

There was no maybe about it.

He was too old for one-night stands. And these days with his three nephews inside and the work involved in running this ranch, he had nothing left over. There was no time, no energy, no feeling, to give Lucy except whatever she was going to take.

But there was no way in hell he was going to open his mouth and tell her all of that. Not when she was about to kiss him and he hadn’t been kissed in months.

When he last saw her, Lucy Alatore had been a skinny girl on the edge of womanhood. But the sparkle, the dare, in her eyes was still there—that was what he could not resist.

Her long, elegant arms twined around his neck and the sensation of her soft wrists made him ravenous for more. Ravenous for something sweet and soft and tender, just for him. Something he didn’t have to share or reject or postpone because three boys needed him.

That beer on her breath went right to his head and he waited, patient but burning for the silken graze of her lips over his. When it came, it was like the chute had been thrown open and he was holding on for dear life.

The kiss rocketed up out of control and ran whole hog into the wild in two seconds. She gasped against his mouth as if she was just as surprised.

Trying for gentle, but falling miles short, he pulled her closer, the rough calluses of his fingers catching on the soft material of her fancy shirt.

She opened her mouth under his and pulled him as tight as she could into her body until he was curved over her, holding her against the curl of his body so that not even a breeze could pass between them.

It was wild. Hot. The lush curve of her hips under the tight black leggings she wore was too much a temptation to resist and he slid both palms over her, squeezing as he went, listening to her groan.

Her fingers tugged on his hair, the pain an electric bliss down his back, across his skin, through his blood, waking him up. Bringing him back to life.

The growl, like the lust, the fire, rolled up through his gut, obliterating his brain, and he spun slightly, ready to drag her into the house, ready to do whatever it took to take off her clothes, to find the secrets of her skin.

“Yes,” she groaned, lifting herself into him, the sweetest arch, the sweetest capitulation. He grasped his hands over her hips, taking all her weight and, like every teenage fantasy of what a woman should do, she slipped those long legs around his waist.

Ready to take her into the house, he turned toward the screen door, but immediately tripped over Casey’s scooter and then backed into Ben’s baseball bat—both of which clattered to the ground. The sound was like gunshot in the quiet night.

He tore his lips from Lucy’s and focused his gaze on Casey’s window just above them. He held his breath, waiting for the light to come on, for the five-year-old to come looking for him like he did every night.

But the window stayed dark.

Thank God.

He sighed, resting his head against Lucy’s.

Under the relief that Casey hadn’t woken up, he felt something awful, a black tidal wave of anger. A tsunami of resentment.

A kiss. One goddamned kiss in the moonlight! Couldn’t he just have that? Couldn’t he just have this one thing for himself?

He didn’t ask for any of this—the ranch, the work and the boys who stared at him with their hearts in their eyes.

I don’t want it! I don’t want any of it!

The scream gagged him. His miserliness shamed him. Those boys didn’t ask for him, either. In a heartbeat they’d take their mom and he’d give Annie back to them if only he could.

Lucy pressed her lips to his and he wanted—more than anything in the world right now—to get right where he’d been in that kiss. But the moment was gone.

There were three kids in that house. A drunk cowboy. And three days’ worth of work to get done all before he could go to bed.

That was his life and the truth was he was terrified of what would happen if he forgot that, even for an hour. How much of his resentment and anger would slip through the cracks of the control he’d had to build up over the past year. How many days would it take for him to look those kids in the eyes again? How many nights of staring up at the ceiling and forcing himself not to run away?

The answer was too many.

He kissed her, a tender, reluctant goodbye kiss. And she must have read it in his lips because she unwrapped her legs from around his waist and slipped her arms from his neck.

“Well.” She patted his chest, her fingers so hot through his T-shirt he had to step back to get some distance. Some clarity. She blinked at him, her fingers suspended in the distance between them, and he had to look away. He hoped she wasn’t hurt, but he didn’t look at her to find out and he sure as hell didn’t ask, because he was such a mess. Everything was a mess.

Looking at her was like looking at everything he once had and could no longer have again.

“Thanks, cowboy,” she said.

“Sorry.”

“No sorry about it.” The teasing, the sauciness, in her voice made him smile, allowed him to look up at her. Allowed him to breathe.

“Thanks,” he said. “For Reese and for…”

“Rocking your world?”

He laughed. “It needed rocking.” Which was a lie. His life had been taken by its heels and shaken until everything he knew and recognized had vanished. He’d been rocked enough and what he needed was to be left alone so he could figure out how to handle it.

“Good night,” she said, and then she walked across his porch.

It was rude. Bad-mannered in the extreme but he did not follow. He did not yank open the sliding glass door for her, even though he knew it stuck. He just stood on that porch and stared up at the moon until he was numb enough to go back inside.

* * *

LUCY TOOK THE LONG WAY back to the Rocky M. Opening up Reese’s car over the pass, the engine roared and the world slipped by like a ribbon. The wind blasting through her open window wasn’t enough to cool her fevered skin and her damaged pride, so she hit the controls to roll down every window until it was a cyclone inside the car. Her hair whipped around her head and still her skin burned, her heart ached.

Stupidly, she felt like crying.

Don’t care, she told herself, slowing down to take the first curve down the mountain toward the ranch. You’ve got enough shit to worry about, without worrying about Jeremiah Stone.

The smart move would be to leave. To pack up her mother and face the mess in Los Angeles.

But the thought made her panic and a cold sweat formed around her hairline. She wasn’t ready. It had only been three weeks since she’d let go of her employees and closed up the shop.

Couldn’t she have some time to grieve? To lick her wounds? To hide?

Such a coward.

The Rocky M ranch slipped in and out of view through the pine trees until she turned left up the long driveway. The brown ranch house sat under a granite overhang. As a kid she’d prayed more than once that the mountain would fall down on that house. It baffled her that Mia could call this place home.

Mia and Lucy had grown up on here as the children of ranch employees. The McKibbons, Walter and his wife, owned the land while her father, A.J., had been the foreman and Lucy’s mom, Sandra, the housekeeper and cook. Mia and Lucy’s childhood hadn’t been unhappy, but it had never been secure. Not a moment had passed that they’d been unaware of their status. Every tie they had to this home and this land could be severed. And almost had been.

That this was where Lucy chose to lick her wounds was even more strange. But beggars couldn’t be choosy. Broke didn’t even begin to describe her financial state.

She parked beside her sister’s old pickup truck, rolled up the windows and turned off the engine. The quiet echoed and boomed like a heartbeat. Like the house was alive and waiting for her.

Exhausted by the roller coaster of the night, she finally pulled herself out of the car and into the house through the side door. It was midnight and the house was silent.

Mia and Jack were living a mile up the road, using the house Mia and Lucy grew up in—the little two-story that their mother, Sandra, had cared for so passionately—until their new house up in the high pastures was finished. Walter, Jack’s father, still occupied the ranch house. And for the past three weeks, Lucy and Sandra had been staying in the rear guest rooms of the house; they smelled like mothballs and had beds like hammocks.

She unzipped her boots in the mudroom, stepped back and looked at her gray high-heeled Prada knockoffs next to the filthy work boots. She saw it as the perfect example of how she didn’t belong here. Had never belonged here.

Just a little bit longer, she thought. Just until I formulate a plan. Get my feet under me.

Through the dark she walked right to her mother’s bedroom and knocked softly on the door.

“Mom?” she called, and she heard the bed creak.

“Come in, Lucy,” her mother said, and Lucy walked into the small bedroom. Mom pushed herself up in bed, her black hair a cloud around her shoulders. The white of her nightgown glowed in the dark. “Are you okay, sweetheart?”

Knowing she needed no special permission, she crawled into her mother’s bed, the warmth under the covers immediately banishing the chill of the evening.

She curled up on her side and stared at her mother’s still-young face. They needed to find her a life. A man to take her dancing. A church group that would keep her young.

“Fine,” Lucy whispered, and Sandra turned on her side, her hands under her chin, mirroring Lucy’s position.

“It’s time for us to go home,” Sandra said.

“What? Why?”

“I thought it would be easier coming here,” she said. “But it’s difficult—”

“Because of Walter?” Lucy practically spat the man’s name.

“Not just Walter, he doesn’t help. This place used to be happy and now…now it is haunted.”

“But Mia’s here—”

“And married. Settled.” She blew out a long breath, looking at her hands. “There’s nothing for me to do here. No way for me to be useful.” Lucy could not understand her mother’s driving need to be needed.

“But, Mom…” She grasped at straws, finally settling on the truth she hadn’t wanted to face in the five years they’d lived in Los Angeles. “You don’t like the city.”

“That’s not true.”

She gave her mother a wry look.

“Well, I don’t like it here so much, either.” Sandra sat up. “There’s nothing for me to do here. I’m useless.”

“You’re cooking—”

“Cooking!” she cried, and then shook her head, as if biting her tongue.

Lucy wrapped her fingers over her mother’s fist. Her father had died five years ago and, in the grand scheme of things, that wasn’t all that long. Sandra was still grieving.

Yeah, Lucy thought, and you’re the ungrateful daughter keeping her someplace she doesn’t want to be.

“What about your jewelry?” Sandra asked. “You’ve been gone three weeks—aren’t you needed back at your studio?”

Her heart was a rock in her chest. Lying to her mother made her sick, but Lucy couldn’t give her mother more grief. Couldn’t give her a failure as a daughter. “I’m the boss, Mom. And I haven’t had a vacation in years. I’m…I’m burned out. I haven’t had a new design in months.”

Sandra stroked back Lucy’s hair. “This is true. You work so hard. A few more days, then? And then we go back.”

Lucy wished she was rich, and not for the first time. Wished that she could take her mom on vacation, whisk her away to Rome. But she was more than broke. And they couldn’t go back to Los Angeles, nor could they stay here much longer.

Talk about limbo.

Lucy forced herself to smile. “Sounds good.”

“Sleep, sweetheart,” Sandra murmured, and Lucy let her eyelids shut, pretending to sleep so her mother wouldn’t worry.

* * *

LUCY STARTED AWAKE at the sound of her mother’s snores. Hard to believe, but Saint Sandra snored like a merchant marine. Her father had always joked about it, saying sleeping next to his wife was like being back in the navy—no one thought twice about it when they found him asleep on the couch. Chased out of his bed by his wife’s deviated septum.

“Oh, man, Mom,” Lucy muttered, swinging her legs over the side of the bed. “We gotta get that fixed.”

The moon in the window was so bright she could read her watch—3:00 a.m. It would be a battle getting to sleep again. She’d never needed a lot of sleep, but in the past year she’d flirted with insomnia. It was as if her brain was a giant hamster wheel, and every hamster in the world wanted a turn. She just couldn’t turn off her thoughts.

She followed the moonlight that lay across the floor in big sheets, heading out the door of the room. But instead of going to her own room, she went to the kitchen. And to whatever dinner leftovers might be in the fridge.

The carpet of the hallway changed to stone as she walked into the dining room and she rounded the counter that separated the kitchen from the eating area. Then she stopped dead in her tracks.

Walter, owner of the Ranch and Mia’s father-in-law, sat on the floor in a puddle of moonlight, small orange pills scattered around him. His face unnaturally pale in the bone-white light.

“Hey,” he said, trying to brace himself against the floor so he could move. But she could see he was in too much pain.

“What happened?” she asked, crouching beside him. She smelled booze on his breath and she stood back up. “You’re drunk.”

“I fell.” His hard face cracked into a grimace. “I think I hurt my leg.”

His ankle, which jutted out from beneath the frayed edge of his light blue pajamas, was swollen and purple. Damn it, it had to be sprained and who the hell knew how long he’d been sitting here.

“You fell because you’re drunk.”

He sighed, looking down at his body as if it had betrayed him.

“I dropped a pill and bent down to get it… . I just lost my balance.”

“Because washing down Parkinson’s medication with whiskey improves balance?”

“Could you…could you just get Jack? Or Mia?” he asked.

Anger popped and pulsed inside of her. “No.” She went back into the mudroom and jammed her feet in her boots, then she grabbed the keys off the counter, calling Walter all the names under her breath that she was raised too well to say to his face. Stomping back into the kitchen she glared down at him.

He stared down at his hands. Ashamed. Good.

“Sandra—”

“Everybody is sleeping and I’m not dragging them out of bed because you were too drunk to stay on your feet. You’re stuck with me.”

He nodded slightly, his white hair picking up the moonlight and glinting silver. Walter was still handsome, a big masculine man, but all she saw when she looked at him was ruin.

“You’re going to have to help me a little,” she said, crouching beside him and flinging his arm over her shoulder.

He grimaced. Sweat bloomed across his forehead but he didn’t groan. Nope, not Walter. Just like he’d sit here all damn night rather than scream for help.

All that pride wasted when it came to drinking. It’s a shame.

With a lot of effort she got him to his feet and when he shifted his body to go toward the living room she steered him instead to the mudroom.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m taking you to the hospital.”

“I’m fine—”

She shifted her weight away from him and he stumbled, catching himself on the counter that split the kitchen from the dining room. Tentatively he put his foot onto the floor and cursed when he couldn’t put any weight on his ankle.

When he glanced at her she shrugged. “It’s sprained at least, and you’ve been sitting there for how long?”

He shook his head. “I’m not sure.”

“Right, then, we’re going to the hospital.”

Hopping and stumbling and then begrudgingly accepting her help she got him out to the sports car.

“Where’s your car?” he asked.

“It turned into a pumpkin.” Carefully, she eased him into the passenger seat and then walked around to the driver’s side.

She backed the car up, gravel spitting out from under her tires. He didn’t say anything and she drove into the night, the moon’s watchful eye hovering over the car.

“I’m…I’m sorry,” Walter said, his chin up, his shoulders back. Clinging to the pride he had.

“Tell that to my mother.”

She stopped, realizing what had just happened. Walter had a sprained ankle. At least. Combined with the drinking, the Parkinson’s…he’d need help. And Sandra needed to be needed. Lucy couldn’t help but laugh out loud.

“I don’t see what’s so funny,” Walter said.

“No. You wouldn’t.” But, oh, Lord, it was funny. The Fates could not conspire to help her business, but they could conspire to keep her on the ranch.

But at what cost to her mom?

“Not three hours ago Mom was saying she wanted to leave.” Her fingers curled into talons around the steering wheel. “And I had to convince her to stay. And now you have handed us the perfect reason to stay and I can’t…” She stopped at a stop sign and glared at him. “And I can’t abide by the thought of her taking care of you.”

“I haven’t asked her to. I wouldn’t.”

“It doesn’t matter. You need her. I couldn’t drag her away if I tried.”

She pushed the accelerator, too hard, and Walter winced as his foot hit the car door. In his silence the past rushed back, drowning her in bitter memories.

“Your wife—”

“Is gone. Divorced.”

“Too late. You don’t win any points for that, Walter! And she tried to kick my mom out of her home after Dad died. My dad, who was your best friend!” She threw the words at him like grenades lobbed across the car. “He was your most loyal employee. And what did you do to stop your wife? Nothing. Just like you did nothing when she was beating up Jack.” He flinched at that and her stomach turned.

This isn’t you, she thought, but she couldn’t stop. The bitterness was out of control.

“You stood by while your bitch of a wife ruined everyone’s lives and I can’t just shrug my shoulders and let my mom take care of you like nothing ever happened!”

The sound as he shifted in his seat was loud and she glanced over at him, furious.

“Don’t you have something to say?”

“I can’t forgive myself, either. And as for your mom…I don’t want her to stay. Not for me.”

She laughed, dark and resentful. “Well, at least that we can agree on. Not that it will do us much good.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, like it or not, we’ll be staying.”

CHAPTER THREE

AFTER A FEW HOURS of sleep Lucy woke up, got dressed in her favorite jeans and loose white T-shirt, pulled her hair back in a sloppy ponytail and contemplated her jewelry.

Everything was too light, she needed something heavy. Something dark. But her designs never leaned that way. Finally, she settled on the beaded silver hoops.

Sandra was already up, humming as she put scrambled eggs onto a blue plate. She glowed with a grim purpose, which was entirely expected.

Careful what you wish for, she chided herself.

“Hey, Mom,” she said, grabbing the keys to Reese’s sports car from the dish on the counter where all the keys sat. She opened her purse and pulled out her cell.

Meisha had called four times this morning.

She turned off her phone.

“You’re up early.” Her mother’s voice, softened and textured by her Spanish accent, was still the best sound in the world. And the sight of her in a kitchen was like seeing an animal in its natural habitat. Sandra ruled the kitchen, every kitchen. It didn’t matter where she was, in ten minutes she would have food and drink to end your hunger and soothe your soul. She was magic in a thin, five-foot package. And this morning all that magic was ignited.

“I’ve got to take a car back over to Stone Hollow.”

“You want some eggs?” Sandra put a fork on the plate.

“I’ll take a bite.” She reached for the fork, but Sandra moved the plate out of the way.

“These aren’t for you. I’ll make you some, though.”

“Walter?” Of course she would already be waiting on Walter.

“It was good what you did, getting him to the hospital.”

“Yeah, well, you know what they say—no good deed goes unpunished.”

“Lucia Marie—”

“Mom.” She took a deep breath and fanned her hands over the counter as if finding, by touch, the argument that was going to work. It was time to get her head out of her own misery and take care of her mom, the way her mom had always taken care of her. “I get it, he needs you, but don’t let him take advantage of you.”

“He hasn’t even let me into his room, honey.”

“You wanted to leave…remember? One more week.”

“He’s going to have that cast for at least three.”

“Jack’s not poor, Mom. He can hire someone to take care of him.”

“And how will that work? Walter—”

“I don’t think Walter gets a vote on the subject anymore.”

“Everyone is allowed their pride, sweetheart.”

Lucy put her head down on the counter. Lifted it and thunked it again. “Mom, he’s a drunk. He will always be a drunk. Caring for that man will bleed you dry.”

“Not if he quits.”

“And you honestly think that will happen?”

“I pray for it.”

Like a true sinner, she wondered what prayer’s success rate was against alcoholism, but she kept her mouth shut. There was no arguing with her mother when she was all hopped up on playing the nursemaid. And Walter was like an amusement park of need.

“Have you forgotten what he did to us after Dad died?” Lucy hated saying the words, bringing the memory up front like this. It made her stomach hurt. It made her want to do over last night and let Walter sit in pain on the kitchen floor for another couple of hours.

“I have forgotten nothing.” Sandra’s tone of voice made her seem a foot taller. “But the man has a sprained foot, Lucy. When did you get so hard-hearted?”

“Me?” Lucy gaped at her mother. “It’s not like I’m saying let’s leave him in the mountains to die. I’m saying you’ve done enough, Mom.”

“How about this,” Sandra said. “We stay until they hire someone Walter can live with to take care of him.”

“That will be forever.”

And that suits your purposes just fine, a dark voice said. Three more weeks of not having to face up to the mess you made in Los Angeles. Why are you fighting this?

Sandra licked her lips. “I’ll…I’ll do what I can to hurry it along.”

“What does that mean?”

“Walter doesn’t want me here, not really. And when reminded of that, he’ll…” She shrugged. “He’ll agree to have someone else help him.”

Lucy wasn’t going to ask for more information. She had enough problems of her own without digging into Walter’s issues with Sandra.

“Okay, three weeks. That’s as long as we’re staying. I swear, Mom, if I have to drag you—”

Mom lifted a hand, her face unsmiling.

Right, Lucy thought, Mom didn’t get dragged. She went willingly or not at all.

“Three weeks should be sufficient,” Sandra said.

“I’ll be back in an hour,” Lucy said. “And then I’ll talk to Mia and Jack about getting a nurse.” She grabbed her bag and headed out into the sunny morning.

Once in town, she used what money she had left in her wallet to get gas. She was going to have to get a job soon. Or sell the condo, but she needed to talk to Sandra about that, since she helped put down the deposit, and that was a conversation she wasn’t quite ready to have.

Then she drove by her Civic at the bar just to make sure it was still there. It was. Dusty and red and old. Reese could drop her off here after she returned the car.

She stared at her car for a while, stalling for time, reluctant to go up to Stone Hollow and pretend like that sad desperate kiss had never happened with Jeremiah. Because that was really the only thing to do.

Life sure has gotten complicated in the past twenty-four hours. She sped out of town, opening the engine up over the pass in a fond goodbye.

She could use a car like this to outrun all the problems after her. Hell, a car like this she could sell and solve most of her problems.

The parking area in front of Jeremiah’s house was empty and she nearly sang a little song of relief. No brooding cowboy problem. Huzzah.

Once out of the car, she knocked on the door to the house and waited. A long time. She cupped her hands around her eyes and peered through the glass, trying to see signs of life.

Suddenly, there was thump that shook the door. Wary, she stepped back and a small face covered in what looked like grape jelly appeared in the window. A little boy with brown curly hair. His blue eyes not unlike Jeremiah’s.

“It’s a girl!” the boy yelled over his shoulder, the sound muffled by the door. Someone over the boy’s shoulder must have said something because he nodded and turned back to face her.

“Do we know you?” he asked.

“I’m your neighbor.”

“No, you’re not. Mia is our neighbor.”

“I’m Mia’s sister.”

The boy seemed to process that and he turned to yell something over his shoulder.

“What’s your name?” he asked when he turned back around.

“Lucy.”

His face split in a wide grape-jelly smile and Lucy felt herself smile in return. Heartbreaker.

“My friend Willow has a dog named Lucy,” he yelled through the glass.

“That’s great, buddy, is your uncle here?”

“No.”

She blinked. “Are you here by yourself?”

The door thumped again and the little boy vanished only to be replaced by a slightly older boy. Under his dark hair, dark eyes narrowed in an attempt to be threatening. It was oddly effective. Troublemaker.

“I’m going to need to see some ID,” the boy said, and she laughed before she realized he was serious. She pulled her driver’s license out and pressed it up to the glass.

The boy studied it and then looked back up at her with his simultaneously young and old eyes. “You here to rob us? ’Cause there’s nothing here to rob. Not even a video game or computer.”

She shook her head.

“You going to kidnap us?”

“What? No!”

“Because you don’t want to kidnap Casey,” the boy said. “He wets the bed.”

“I do not!” a little voice yelled, and the boy jostled and grinned down at Casey, who hit him.

“I’m not kidnapping anyone.”

“That’s the sort of thing a kidnapper would say.”

Perhaps it was the lack of sleep, but she had no comeback. This boy totally had the better of her. Instead, she held up the keys. “I’m here to give Reese his car back.”

The boy looked down, presumably at his brother, and she had to admit this was the strangest, yet most thorough, interrogation she’d ever been a part of.

There was another thump and the older boy vanished seconds before the door opened.

The two boys stood barefoot in the doorway and somehow the sight of those small pink toes on the edge of the welcome mat brutally reminded her of their situation. Orphans.

“Where’s your uncle?”

“He’s picking up Aaron from hockey practice,” Casey said, and the older boy punched him in the arm.

“You’re not supposed to say that sort of stuff, remember? We’re supposed to say he’s in the shower.”

“Sorry.” Casey’s lower lip started to shake. “I forgot. There are so many rules now.”

“I’m Lucy,” she said quickly, holding out her hand to the little boy, who grabbed it and shook using his whole body.

“I’m Casey. I’m five.”

“Wow,” she said, putting on a show of being impressed. “Big boy.” She turned to the older boy, who still watched her with suspicion. Which she supposed was a good thing in this situation, but it made the boy look disturbingly old. “Who are you?”

“Ben.” He crossed his arms over his chest, effectively ending that discussion.

“Well, it’s nice to meet you guys. Is Reese here?”

Casey shot his brother a panicked guilty look but Ben just jerked his thumb over his shoulder.

Lucy stepped past the boys into the living room, which no longer looked like the love scene between a Laundromat and a sporting goods store. Reese was still there, a quilt-covered blob on the couch. But he wasn’t just covered by a quilt anymore.

Balanced all over his body were toys, glasses and plates. Stuffed animals. A hockey puck.

He looked like an altar.

She glanced, wide-eyed, at the boys. Casey at least had the good sense to look guilty.

“It’s a game we’re playing,” he said.

“It’s a pretty strange game. Some of those glasses look heavy.”

“It’s none of your business,” Ben said.

Reese shifted and a full glass of water that had been balancing on him fell to the ground, spilling water everywhere. A stuffed bear followed and so did a storybook and half a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich.

“Uh-oh,” Casey muttered, running forward to clean it up.

Lucy stepped forward to help. She grabbed what looked like a dirty towel from the coffee table, but Ben snatched it out of her hands.

“You don’t use that,” he said, handing the green towel over to Casey, who quickly shoved it under the couch.

Ooooookay. “How about you go grab another towel from somewhere.”

“I’ll get it,” Casey said, darting off into the kitchen. Lucy cleaned up what had fallen off Reese and eyed what was still stacked on top of him.

Careful not to look at Ben, who radiated tension like a nuclear reactor, she picked up a glass plate and replaced it with a throw pillow and on top of that she stacked the stuffed bear and a bunch of Lego pieces.

“See,” she whispered, “you have to put your big things on the bottom so that there’s better balance. And things made out of glass don’t stack as well.” She grabbed a coffee mug from off Reese’s feet and replaced it with three race cars she stacked one on top of the other.

She glanced over her shoulder to see Ben watching her, his neck all red. His body held so taut she thought he might snap right in front of her eyes, as if all the pressure inside of him were pulling him to pieces.

It seemed natural to hug him; it seemed, in fact, like that was exactly what he needed—she would be a heartless monster not to hug him—but when she reached out he jerked back so hard he bumped into the coffee table.

The juice cups and coffee mugs shimmied and toppled. A glass plate broke on the floor.

“What the hell?” Reese yelled, and sat up, knocking all the toys and pillows off.

Casey ran back around the corner and, seeing the mess and his brother’s furious expression, burst into tears.

“Now, look what you did!” Ben shouted. “You made Casey cry!”

“Oh, my God, please stop yelling,” Reese muttered.

So, of course, that was the moment Jeremiah walked in.

* * *

JEREMIAH HAD COME TO EXPECT a certain amount of disaster when he walked back into the house from picking up Aaron every other Saturday morning. He wasn’t a father but even he understood leaving a nine-year-old in charge of a five-year-old for an hour wasn’t the best idea. Or maybe it was okay for other kids…but for Ben it was like an engraved invitation to trouble.

Not that the kid needed much of an invitation.

But he and a few of the other parents carpooled to hockey practice and he couldn’t take Ben and Casey because there just wasn’t any room in the truck. And he couldn’t beg off because he’d done enough of that. Yeah, things were hard here, but it was time to handle it and stop taking every handout that came his way.

So every other week he walked in the front door wondering what it was going to be this time. Shaving the dog? Casey tied up in the closet? The kitchen the scene of a breakfast cereal war?

The last thing he expected was Lucy on her knees in front of Reese with Casey—holding every kitchen towel they owned—crying in the corner.

Ben, with his arms over his chest, glaring daggers at Jeremiah was, however, totally expected.

“What’s going on?” Jeremiah asked, throwing his keys on the ledge by the door.

Aaron bumped into him from behind with his hockey bag. “Take all of that stuff into the laundry room, Aaron,” he said. “I’m tired of washing clothes that have been sitting in that bag all week. It’s gross.”

Aaron nodded and stepped toward the laundry room in the back but stopped when he saw Lucy. Jeremiah had to admit, she looked just as gorgeous as she did last night, even without the feathers and boots and moonlight.

“Hey.” Lucy lifted her hand in a little wave.

“Hey.” Aaron’s voice broke over the word and he got so red the tips of his ears lit on fire. He vanished down the hall to the laundry room.

“I came by to do a car exchange, but Reese wasn’t up yet.”

The lump on the couch groaned and pulled the quilt up over his head.

“Still isn’t.” Jeremiah sighed and rubbed his hands over his face. “Casey, buddy, could you stop crying?”

Like a faucet was turned off, the whimpering stopped.

“Are you mad?” Casey whispered.

“Of course not,” Lucy answered for him.

“Yes, he is,” Ben said, always ready for a fight, and Jeremiah sighed again—bone-weary of these fights he never won no matter what he did.

“Come on, Casey and Ben,” Lucy said, “let’s get this stuff cleaned up.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Jeremiah said, stepping forward to take one of the towels in Casey’s hand.

She smiled at him, sympathetic and perhaps a little pitying, which was exactly the opposite of the way he wanted her to look at him and it pissed him off. He wanted her to look at him the way she had last night. He wanted that little bubble of time to be unbroken, unsullied by reality, so he could think about it alone in his cold bed. But having her here, in the unflinching light of day, robbed him of the fantasy.

“I’ll just take you home.” He was way gruffer than he intended and he saw Casey look over at him full of anxiety.

God, I just cannot get this shit right.

“Don’t worry about it,” Lucy said, picking up toys and stacking them on the coffee table.

“You don’t have to clean this up.” He stepped forward, taking the toys from her, trying to get her to stand. Trying actually to get her out of here, but she was stubbornly reluctant.

“It’s almost done, isn’t it, Casey?” She winked at Casey, who’d thrown all the kitchen towels over the lake of water next to the couch. Great, just great. Now, I’ll have to dry all of them. But Casey beamed at her and it was the last damn straw.

“I said stop!”

Everyone halted and turned to stare at him. Casey’s lower lip started to tremble. The front door slammed shut and he figured that was Ben running out to the barn, which is what he did every time Jeremiah yelled.

“Okay.” Lucy stood and dropped the car keys on the coffee table. “Don’t worry about the ride, I’ll just call Mia and wait for her outside.” She gave Casey a big grin and the little boy stared after her with his broken heart in his eyes.

“See you,” Lucy said without making any eye contact, and Jeremiah knew, he totally understood, that he was the biggest asshole in the world. Yelling at kids and a woman who were just trying to help.

The front door shut and in the silence Casey’s big five-year-old eyes damned him.

“Hey.” Aaron came back in the room reeking of that deodorant all the preteen boys wear, convinced the smell made them irresistible to girls. “Where’s Lucy?”

“Jeremiah scared her away,” Casey said.

“Uncle J.” Aaron sighed and then walked into the kitchen for something to eat.

“I was a jerk, wasn’t I?” he asked Casey, who nodded.

“I should apologize, shouldn’t I?” Casey nodded again.

Swearing under his breath, he grabbed Reese’s keys from the coffee table and headed outside to apologize to Lucy.

* * *

MIA WASN’T PICKING UP her phone. Probably because she and Jack were having wild monkey sex while Lucy stood here getting barked at by a man she’d almost had sex with just a few short hours ago.

She snapped shut her cell phone and looked up at the sky wishing there was some kind of prayer for teleportation. Mom hadn’t shared that one with her.

“Lucy?”

She spun at the sound of Jeremiah’s voice. He stepped down the steps to the asphalt and she opened her phone and quickly pressed Redial.

“Look, Jeremiah, I get it, things are tough for you, but frankly, my life is no picnic right now. So, why don’t you just go deal with your mess and I’ll deal with mine?”

He ignored her, stopping a foot from her. “I’m sorry, Lucy.”

Mia’s voice mail came on and she snapped the phone shut.

“Your sister’s not around?”

“No.”

His smile was a variation on his million-dollar grin, more devastating because it was tarnished at the corners. “I can take you home.”

Past caring about his feelings, she looked him right in the eye and didn’t bother mincing words. “I think you have bigger problems to deal with.”

She watched him bristle, his blue eyes dark.

“Where’s Ben?” she asked.

“Probably in the barn.”

“He do that a lot? Run away?”

“Enough that I know he’s in the barn.”

“Are you—?”

“I’m giving him and me a chance to cool down,” he interrupted. “I appreciate your concern, but I’ve been doing this for a year, Lucy. You met these boys five minutes ago.” He held up Reese’s keys. “Take Reese’s car. He’ll come and get it when he gets off the couch.”

There was more she wanted to say. Plenty more. But what was the point, really? She grabbed the keys. “Thanks.”

“See you.”

“Yeah,” she snapped, remembering the way the touch of his hands turned her inside out, the way he kissed her like she was the best thing he’d tasted in years. She felt duped by that man in the moonlight last night. “See you.”

She got back in Reese’s car and peeled out of the driveway, leaving Jeremiah Stone in her dust.

Good riddance, she thought.

CHAPTER FOUR

JEREMIAH WAITED UNTIL he could no longer see the dust plume behind Lucy’s car.

Not your finest showing, Stone. Not at all.

If his sister were alive she’d take him by his ear and give him a good shaking. But the truth was, he’d suffered through months of women with the best intentions coming through this house with their casseroles and sympathy and he’d watched the boys run roughshod all over them. Using that well-meaning sympathy to their advantage.

Eating pie for dinner, sleeping all together in Aaron’s room, playing video games for hours at a time, not doing their homework. The last babysitter he’d hired had let Casey walk around with Annie’s favorite green towel, like it was a baby blanket. And Ben… Christ, that kid’s temper had grown out of control the past few months. He was like a lit bomb and Jeremiah never knew when he was going to go off.

It’s not that he didn’t think the boys needed sympathy, but they also needed rules. He needed rules. He needed some boundaries and Ben needed to know that he couldn’t just run off to the barn every time he felt like Jeremiah was being unfair.

Jeremiah mentally braced himself and headed into the barn. Usually Ben sat in the empty stall at the back, burying himself in the clean hay. But he wasn’t there.

“Ben?” he yelled, and then listened for a rustle or a creaking board. Nothing. He climbed up into the hayloft and only found the cats snoozing in the sunlight.

The nine-year-old wasn’t in the arena, or feeding any of the horses in the paddocks.

He tried; he really did, not to jump to the worst possible conclusion. But the worst possible conclusion was the kind of thing that happened to this family time and time again. And he couldn’t stop himself from imagining him running off along the fence line toward the creek and the high pastures and all kinds of trouble. His heart, feeding on worry and anger, pounded in his neck as he stomped toward the house.

He threw open the front door and stepped into the living room where Reese was finally sitting up, his head in his hands. Aaron and Casey were eating peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches and watching ESPN.

“We got a problem,” he said.

“Could you not yell?” Reese groaned.

“Ben’s run off.”

“What else is new?” Aaron asked, not taking his eyes off the TV and the baseball highlights.

“He’s not in the barn.”

Aaron glanced over. Annie’s eyes were in Aaron’s man-boy face, and it brought Jeremiah up short every damn time he looked at the kid. Aaron put down the sandwich and stood. “Casey and I will take the ATV,” he said.

“I’ll saddle Rider and check out the creek.”

“What can I do?” Reese asked.

“Stay here in case he comes back.”

“Oh, thank God,” he muttered, and flopped backward on the couch.

“It will be okay, Uncle J.,” Aaron said as he and Casey put on their boots. “He always comes back.”

Grateful for the help and the optimism, Jeremiah clapped his hand on the eleven-year-old’s shoulder, wishing things weren’t they way they were. Wishing these boys could just be boys, and he could just be an uncle and that every situation didn’t have the capacity for disaster.

* * *

LUCY DROVE UP to the small house she grew up in. She was happy to see the red climbing roses her mother had cultivated through the years still creating a green canopy over the south end of the house. It wasn’t warm enough for blooms yet, but every summer the scent of those flowers filled the air that came in through the window of her old bedroom.

Rose was the scent of her childhood. Of a warm, safe home. It was the scent of her family all together. In Los Angeles Sandra grew roses in pots on the balcony of their condo. But they weren’t the same. The scent had to combat exhaust and smog and Mr. Lezinsky’s cabbage rolls. And they didn’t bloom with the same wildness, the same gorgeous display of excess, as they did here.

Sort of like Mom, she thought.

Lucy stopped the car in front of the yellow house with white shutters and a bright red front door. For the hundredth time this morning, she called her sister.

“Jeez, Lucy,” Mia finally answered, lewdly out of breath. “Take a hint, would you?”

“Oh, for crying out loud. I’m outside. Stop whatever it is you two are doing. We need to talk.”

By the time she got out of the car and past the roses, Mia had the door open and was kissing Jack as he walked out the front.

“Your shirt is buttoned wrong,” Lucy pointed out, and Jack’s hands flew to fix the buttons on the black shirt he wore, in the process revealing pale skin and muscle.

“Stop staring at my husband,” Mia said.

“I’m sorry, I can’t stop. I didn’t think hydro-engineers were supposed to have bodies like that.”

“Mine does. Now git.” Mia pushed Jack down the porch steps. “I’ll meet you and the architect in an hour.”

“Wait,” Lucy said, stopping Jack from walking down the steps. “We have a situation up at the ranch house.” She filled Jack and Mia in on Walter’s sprained ankle.

“How long was he sitting there?” Jack asked.

“Doctors said according to the amount of fluid in his foot at least two hours.”

“Stubborn son of a bitch,” Jack muttered.

“Well, he’s on an air cast and is supposed to stay off it for at least three weeks. And that’s best-case scenario. And now Mom is talking about staying until Walter gets on his feet.”

“Well, that’s handy, isn’t it?” Jack blinked at Mia and then Lucy, as if the problem were solved.

Men are so dense.

“I’m not going to let our mom care for your dad. Not after what he did,” Lucy said.

“I agree with Lucy,” Mia said when it looked like Jack was going to argue. “We should just move back to the house,” Mia said. “I can—”

“No!” Jack said quickly. “I mean, I will move back if we have to, but…”

Mia ran a hand down his arm. That house didn’t have a whole lot of happy memories for Jack.

God, what a mess. Lucy didn’t want to go home and she didn’t want to stay. She didn’t want Mom taking care of Walter, but it was utterly unfair to ask these two to do it.

Mom wants to do it, she reminded herself.

“Mia,” Lucy said. “You guys deserve a little time alone. You’ve been caring for that man for five years.”

Jack and Mia shared a look and then Jack nodded. “We were just talking about this. Getting a ‘housekeeper’ who could act as a nurse.”

Mia pushed away from the white door frame to cup her husband’s cheek. It was too bad they were going to move out of this little house. It looked pretty on her sister. Sweet.

“It won’t be easy to find someone to take Walter on, much less get Walter to agree to it,” Mia pointed out.

“Well, Mom seems to think she knows how to get him to agree to a caregiver sooner rather than later.”

“How?” Mia asked.

“I have no idea, but Mom wants to stay for three weeks. By then he’s off the cast and the worst of it should be over. If I can’t get Mom to leave after three weeks, then I’m never going to get her leave.”

And three weeks should be enough time for me to figure out a plan for the rest of my life.

“You know,” Mia said, “if you need to get back to Los Angeles, you can. It’s not like Mom needs a babysitter.”

“You’ve done your time, Mia.” She smiled over at Jack, hoping she sounded convincing. “The two of you are building a house, starting a life. You don’t need to play referee between Mom and Walter.”

Mia sighed and put her hand on Lucy’s shoulder as if she could discern what was wrong just by touch. And she probably could. Lucy felt uncomfortable being so naked to anyone—even her sister. She fought the urge to shake off Mia’s fingers.

“Hey, Lucy?” Jack asked, his eyes focused on something past her head. “Who’s the kid in your car?”

She whirled in time to see Ben climbing out of the backseat of Reese’s car into the driver’s seat. The boy barely saw over the steering wheel, not that he was looking at them. Nope, the kid was focused on the steering wheel. The ignition key.

“Oh, Jesus,” she muttered, running down the steps of the porch just as Ben started the car.

The engine roared to life and she heard Jack and Mia charge down the steps after her.

“Stop!” she screamed, her heartbeat deafening in her ears. “Ben!”

The boy looked up, his dark eyes barely clearing the steering wheel. And then the car rocketed into Reverse and spun out, kicking up clouds of dust that choked and blinded her.

Frantic, she waved the dust away but it didn’t do any good, so she simply ran after the sound of the engine.

Oh, God, please don’t let him hit anything big.

Just as she sent the prayer skyward there was a sickening crunch and the terrifying sound of breaking glass. The dust cleared and she stopped at the sight of the back end of the car buried in the green roses on the side of the house.

She skid to a halt just as Jack ran past her and threw open the driver’s side door. She was a coward but she knew her heart couldn’t take seeing that boy hurt in the driver’s seat of that car. The blood and broken little bones.

Please, please let him be okay. Please.

“He’s fine,” Jack said, glancing at her over the roof of the car. “A little banged up, but fine.”

“I’m going to go see if the inside of the house is okay,” Mia said, and she ran back inside.

Ben, looking so small, so fragile, walked around the car and stopped in front of her.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

She laughed, a wild gust of breath. It was impossible to process what had just happened in…had it even been ten seconds? Ten seconds of terror and relief. She was light-headed. “I think maybe you need to save that apology for Reese. Look at what you did to his car.”

He glanced over his shoulder and hung his head, the black curls along his thin neck damp with sweat.

So small, so terrifyingly small.

“He scraped through a big patch of paint, but the structure of the house is fine,” Jack said as he came up. “The roses, however, are toast. You dodged a bullet, son.” Jack propped his hands on his hips and managed to look so disappointed even Lucy felt like apologizing.

“Does your uncle know where you are?” Lucy asked. She reached out to put a hand on Ben’s shoulder but he jerked away before she made contact.

“No.”

“Well, we’re going to have to call him. He’s probably freaking out.”

“He’s always freaking out.”

“Doesn’t make what you did okay,” Lucy said.

“Not by a long shot,” Jack said. “You could have been hurt. Or you could have hurt someone else. Badly. You should know better, Ben.”

Ben’s jaw, remarkably similar to his uncle’s, set like concrete.

“I’ll go call Jeremiah,” Jack said, and stepped back toward the house.

“Do you have to tell my uncle?” Ben asked when Jack was gone. For the first time in the few hours she’d known him, the little boy looked his age.

“Uh, yeah.”

Ben stared down at his boots, which were beat up and dusty.

“What were you thinking, Ben?” she whispered.

He jerked a shoulder, trying so hard to be cool. An instinct she understood all too well, and she applauded his effort. Hard to act cool when you’ve just plowed a hundred-thousand-dollar sports car into someone’s house, but he was giving it his best shot.

Things were bad at Stone Hollow, she thought, if a nine-year-old boy had to pretend to be so hard. Worse than she’d thought and she wondered if anyone knew it.

“He hates me,” Ben whispered.

“Who?”

“Uncle J.”

Lucy gaped at the boy, at the heartbreak and anger. This was bad, really bad. And she had no idea what the boundaries were. Or the rules. Jeremiah wouldn’t like her interfering but Ben was a nine-year-old boy in a lot of pain who needed all the help he could get. “Oh, honey, no, he doesn’t—”

“Yes, he does,” Ben spat. “And I hate him, too. I do. I hate him. He’s not my dad.”

“Jeremiah’s on his way,” Mia said, coming around the side of the house. She glanced over at the car and winced. “So much for Mom’s roses.”

“I’m sorry,” Ben whispered.

Mia laughed and handed Ben a glass of water. “Not as sorry as you’re gonna be when your uncle gets here.”

* * *

JEREMIAH STARED AT REESE’S sports car covered in slaughtered rosebushes and wished he had one clue about how to handle this. One single clue. A hint. He wished he could have a five-minute conversation with his sister for some guidance, because he was totally in the dark. He tried to think of what his own father would have done in this situation, a tactic that usually helped him in whatever parenting dilemma he was facing. But Jeremiah had never caused the kind of trouble Ben seemed drawn to.

So he stared at those rosebushes, the yellow clapboard house with the—thank God—cement foundation, and waited for the answers to come to him.

“The house is fine,” Jack said, and Jeremiah nodded as if that was the much-needed answer to a question. But the truth was he didn’t care about the house right now. He cared about the sullen, wild-eyed nine-year-old ball of anger to his left.

What about Ben? he wanted to ask. Is he fine? Will he ever be fine again? Will any of us?

Reese started up his car and slowly pulled it away from the house. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief as if they’d all been expecting the house to fall apart. The back of the car looked like an accordion. A broken and very, very expensive accordion.

“You,” Jeremiah said through his teeth, unable to even look at his nephew, “will be working at the ranch until you’ve paid off repairs to that car. In fact, I think you’re grounded until you’re about thirty and if you even—”

Lucy cleared her throat and he glanced sideways at her, infuriated at her interruption.

“About that,” she said. “What if he works off the repairs here?”

Ben looked up at that and his hope was palpable.

“Don’t get excited, buddy,” he muttered. “There’s no way you’re working here.”

“Wait, Jeremiah, hear me out.” She stepped toward him, the long dark locks of hair that had fallen from the messy knot on top of her head reaching out toward him on the breeze. The lines of weariness around her eyes didn’t make her any less pretty and he felt like a jackass even noticing that.

“Ben, go wait for me in the truck.” Like a criminal out on parole, the boy took off for the truck and Jeremiah watched him go, gathering up what was left of his composure. When he felt as if he could speak like an adult he turned back to Lucy and held up his hand. “The kid is in some kind of crisis,” he said. “And he doesn’t need to be coddled. He needs to understand he’s done something wrong—”

“I’m not arguing with you, Jeremiah,” she said. “But…look, something isn’t working between you and Ben. It’s obvious.”

Jeremiah felt his ears get hot. She was right. So painfully right.

“You’re not sticking around, why would you want to have Ben here?”

“Mom and I are staying at least three more weeks. And I’m just…I’m just offering you a chance to try something new with him. Something different. So, you know, you don’t have to always be the bad guy.”

“And you’re going to be the bad guy?”

Lucy bristled at his sarcasm and took a step back.

“I’m just trying to help.”

“Yeah, and I appreciate it, but this is family stuff. And we’ll handle it.”

Reese approached, looking like death warmed over in last night’s clothes. “I think I’m going to have to get the car fixed here. There’s no way I can drive it back to Fort Worth.”

Jeremiah swore and kept on swearing.

“Come on, man,” Reese said, his smile bright despite the black circles under his eyes. “It’s not that bad.”

“It is,” he said, honest because he couldn’t pretend anymore. “Because it takes time to fix this.” Just saying that made him feel better, made him feel like he was pulling this family away from rock bottom. First, he had to get Reese off his damn couch. Life would be easier without this living reminder of the old days drinking beer and snoring in his living room.

And then, maybe, it would be time to break the family code of silence. Get Ben some help.

* * *

WALTER STARED AT the bright noon sky out the window of his bedroom and contemplated the long walk to the bathroom. Hard on a good day, impossible with the cast on his foot.

He rolled as best he could to the side of his bed looking for an empty bottle. Or a coffee cup. Anything. But Sandra’s presence in this house was all too obvious these days.

Clutter didn’t stand a chance against Sandra.

He pressed fists to his eyes. And neither do I.

A month ago he’d been so excited to have Sandra back in his house. Like righting a terrible wrong in the world, bringing Sandra back to the Rocky M was his best effort at repairing the mess he’d made years ago when A.J. died, his best friend, foreman and Sandra’s husband.

All with the benefit of being able to see her every day. Being near her again—Sandra of the warm heart and the joyful laugh. Sandra, whom he’d always loved. Deeply. Secretly.

Yeah, and how did that work out for you?

“You are a sorry man, Walter. I thought I could come back here and feel nothing, but I have twenty-five years of living in these walls and if I’d had my way I would have died here and been buried right beside my husband, and you robbed me of that.”

That’s what she’d said two weeks ago, shattering all those delusions that he was doing Sandra a favor bringing her back here.

Her fury with him, rooted in disappointment, went deep. And he had no idea what it would take to change it. If he even could.

Damn, where was a bottle when he needed one? For being the room of a degenerate alcoholic, his room sure was devoid of the evidence.

No choice but to do this on his own.

Taking a deep breath, he swung his body up over the side of the bed and reached out to grab the crutch beside the bedside table. Carefully, holding his breath against the pain, he pushed himself up on his good leg and hopped slightly to get his balance.

Moving slowly, he made his way to the bathroom and—feeling pretty damn good—kicked the door shut behind him.

Once done, he washed his hands and hobbled back to the bedroom. Only to stumble at the sight of Sandra standing at the foot of his bed.

She wore black slacks and a bright red shirt, her long dark hair back in a ponytail that made her look like a girl. So bright, so lovely, he couldn’t look directly at her.

He fell against the doorjamb, banging his knee, and then winced when his hurt foot hit the door. Sandra started toward him as if to help, as if to touch him, and he waved her off. Breathing through the pain, he made his way past her to the chair in the small window alcove. A chair he’d never in his life sat in. Why in the world, he often wondered, did you need a chair in a bedroom? But now he was grateful for it.

Sitting on his bed—the bed he’d shared with his wife—seemed an utterly wrong thing to do in front of Sandra.

“You haven’t touched your eggs.” She pointed to the plate of eggs long gone cold, sitting on the bedside table.

“I’m not hungry,” he panted, rubbing his knee, wishing he could reach his ankle.

“You want some painkillers?”

He looked at her for a long time and realized he was at a crossroads of his own making. He’d been responsible for planting the idea in his son’s mind. But now it was time for her to leave. And Lucy had been right last night—Sandra wasn’t going to leave him when he was in need like this. Not unless he forced the issue.

“I want some whiskey.”

“It’s noon.”

“I’m an alcoholic, Sandra. It doesn’t much matter to me.”

“I won’t bring you booze.”

“Well, then stop bringing me eggs.”

She narrowed her eyes, an expression he’d seen on her stubborn, beautiful face more times than he could count.

“You should just leave, Sandra. There’s nothing here for you anymore. Your husband is dead. Your girls are grown—”

“I’m not leaving you when you need so much help.”

“I don’t want your help.”

“That doesn’t much matter to me.”

“A.J.—”

“Do not bring my husband into this,” she said, bristling.

“He wouldn’t like you being my nursemaid.”

“He was your best friend, Walter.” It was an accusation, a plea. The reason behind so much of their heartache. Walter had cared too much for his best friend’s wife and his own wife had seen his secret shame. His favorite torture these days was wondering if Sandra knew. He would—without a shred of exaggeration—rather die than have Sandra know how he felt about her.

“Please,” he whispered. “Just leave.”

“If you want me to go, then get better. Stop drinking.”

“Fine.” He laughed, shaky and sick because he hadn’t had a drink in fourteen hours. “I’ve stopped.”

“Until the cast comes off. You stop drinking that long, I’ll leave.”

He laughed before he thought better of it. “Three weeks without a drink?” There was no way. No point.

She lifted her chin, her eyes sparkling with a challenge. “There’s an AA meeting at the church on Sunday nights.” She slipped a piece of paper onto his dresser. “I’ve written down the information.”

“You’re wasting your time, Sandra.”

“If you love me like you think you do, stop drinking.”

His heart stopped, blood pooled in his brain.

She knew. Oh, God. She knew.

CHAPTER FIVE

IF THERE WAS ANY EASE in Jeremiah’s life, it arrived every Saturday afternoon with his dead brother-in-law’s parents. Cynthia and Larry Bilkhead were going to be seventy this year, too old to care for the boys full-time. They never contested Annie and Connor’s will, even when it was obvious that Jeremiah had no freaking clue what he was doing when it came to parenting.

But they came when he needed them as well as every Saturday afternoon, like clockwork. Like angels.

“Hi, Jeremiah, how are you doing?” Cynthia asked, stepping into the foyer to wrap him in her arms. She was small and round and smelled like cookies and pie. And there were times when he could have stood in her hug for a day.

“We’re good.” He lied, because really, what could they do with the truth? He kissed her papery, powdery cheek. “Some trouble with Ben—”

“What did that boy do now?” Larry Bilkhead stepped inside behind his wife. He was a six-foot-four-inch cowboy, who still carried himself like a man who’d won some rodeo in his day. His words might sound stern but Larry could not keep the love he had for his grandsons out of his eyes.

“I’ll let him tell you,” Jeremiah said, shaking Larry’s hand. Jeremiah had always liked the rawboned man, who wore his age and his time in a saddle with pride. Now, Jeremiah loved him like family.

“The cooler is in the van.” Cynthia put down her purse and kicked off her shoes to step into the family room. “Where are my boys?”

Upstairs there was a wild scream of “Grandma!” and the thundering of a herd of elephants running for the stairs. Casey was the first one down, followed by Aaron, who at eleven was too cool for a lot of things, but not too cool for Cynthia and Larry. Probably because Larry wasn’t like other grandpas. And Cynthia was exactly what a grandmother should be.

Jeremiah eased out the front door to grab the cooler from the back of their minivan. Every week she showed up with some casseroles for the freezer and enough cookies and cakes and brownies for a hockey team. And bags of fresh fruit and vegetables from their greenhouse.

“Ben,” he said, once he was back inside with the cooler. “You can unpack this.”

The nine-year-old had the good grace not to argue, and followed him into the kitchen meekly. Jeremiah cleaned off the kitchen table while the boy put things away and then Ben took the cooler back out to the minivan.

“He smashed up a car?” Larry asked, filling the door frame between the kitchen and the living room.

Jeremiah nodded, carefully stacking some clean glasses in the cupboard.

“What’s his punishment going to be?” Larry asked, and Jeremiah shook his head.

“I’m not sure.”

“In my day—”

“I’m not going to spank him.” Jeremiah turned to face the older man. “I know how you feel about this, but I can’t hurt that kid any more than he’s been hurt.”

Larry nodded, his cheeks red under the edge of his glasses. It was grief, not anger. Jeremiah knew Larry was just as at a loss for what to do when it came to Ben.

“I know,” he murmured. “But what are you going to do?”

“I can make him muck stalls until he’s eighty—but what good is that going to do? He’s already working hard around here. Hell, I have the five-year-old doing fence work.”

Larry just stared at him, his white hair lying smooth against his head. His blue eyes runny beneath his glasses. Larry was an old-world kind of guy. If Ben was his child, Jeremiah knew that Ben would have gotten the belt after this last stunt. Hell, maybe before then. But Jeremiah just couldn’t.

As it was, Jeremiah made Casey swear not to tell Grandpa Larry that he allowed Casey to spend half the night sleeping in his bed. The poor kid was plagued by nightmares. Jeremiah let Aaron sleep with his parents’ wedding picture under his pillow. Despite his tough words, Jeremiah was a total softy.

What these boys had been through couldn’t be fixed by work. Or more violence.

They needed help—they all needed help. He ran a thumb over the chip in the counter. He’d put that chip there himself, when as a kid he tried to get the Pop-Tarts from the top shelf.

This isn’t going to go well, he thought.

“I think Ben needs someone to talk to,” Jeremiah said, anyway.

“What do you mean, ‘talk to’?” Larry pushed off the door frame, his shoulders already tense because he knew where Jeremiah was headed. They’d been down this road before, when Ben first started acting out.

“A counsellor.”

“He already has people to talk to. Us.”

Jeremiah’s laughter was bitter in the back of his throat. “He’s not talking to me, Larry. He’s never talked to me.”

“I know, son, but Connor and Annie, they wouldn’t like this going outside of the family. They were circle-the-wagons kind of people.”

“I know.” But they’re not here, are they? It’s just me and I’m out of ideas!

He didn’t say it because it would only hurt Larry. It would only make them try harder to help and they were seventy years old. They did enough.

“Besides, he talks to Cynthia.”

Jeremiah knew Ben talked to his grandmother. After these Saturday visits Ben always seemed better. Like the kid he used to be.

“Well, try to get them to talk tonight, would you?”

“Sure thing, son. I’ll send them out for a yarrow walk.”

Jeremiah smiled. Months ago, Larry had realized that Ben and Cynthia had a special bond so he made up this sudden need for the yarrow that grew wild along the driveway. He frequently sent his wife and troubled grandson out to pick armfuls of the stuff even though he burned all of it once back at his place. But the walks did Ben some good.

“Now.” Larry’s hand landed on Jeremiah’s shoulder, heavy and warm. “You go have some fun. Don’t try to take everyone’s money.”

“Isn’t that the point of poker?”

“Well, no one likes a bad winner.”

“You forget, Larry,” he said with a smile, dropping out of reach only to pretend to land a punch to Larry’s midsection, “I’m a great winner.”

Larry laughed and put his arm over Jeremiah’s shoulders, walking him to the door, past Cynthia on the couch with all three boys piled up around her. Aaron was telling her about his goal in practice this morning. Cynthia winked as he walked by.

“We’ll be fine. Have fun,” Larry said, and then, with one last step, Jeremiah was out of the house, the door closed behind him.

On his own. For a wild second every possibility open to him flooded his brain. He could be in Las Vegas in seven hours. Fort Worth in ten. Mexico in twelve. Women and drinks and sleeping in and no kids to worry about. No ranch. No house. Just him, the truck, the road and no worries.

When the second was over, he folded up those thoughts and put them away before checking his watch. Crap. If he didn’t speed like crazy he was going to be late.

Speed like crazy, it was.

Forty minutes later he parked the truck in front of a small house in Redmen. To those who didn’t know, it just looked like every other house on the street. Pretty redbrick with flowers along the porch. There was no sign, no indication, that it was more than a house.

When he stepped inside a bell rang out over the door and Jennifer, the receptionist, looked up.

“She’s waiting for you,” Jennifer said.

“Sorry I’m late.” He took off his hat, patting down the more wild of his overlong curls. A haircut was one more thing to put on his list of things to do.

“We understand, Jeremiah.” Her pretty smile held no pity. Just the kind of firm understanding that he had come to expect from the women in this house.

He nodded in gratitude. Anxious because despite knowing how important these weekly meetings were, he still didn’t like needing them. He didn’t want to be here, but he was glad he was—a conflict that just didn’t sit well.

Jennifer led him down the hallway to the back room.

“Dr. Gilman?” she said at the closed door.

“Come in,” a voice answered, and Jennifer pushed open the door. The room was awash with end-of-day sunlight and Dr. Gilman, a sturdy woman in a denim skirt and long silver earrings, stepped out from behind a big oak desk to shake his hand.

Dr. Gilman had the firmest handshake of any woman he’d ever known. It was the handshake that convinced him to trust her six months ago when he came here desperate and worried for himself and the boys. Though at that point he would have trusted a paper bag if it promised to help him.

“Hi, Jeremiah,” she said, her smile all earth-motherly and welcoming. Honestly, he loved this woman.

“Sorry I’m late,” he said again, because he didn’t know what else to say. All his charm and small talk were left in the truck; they seemed silly here. He hung his hat up on the rack beside the door. Briefly he wondered how many cowboys Dr. Gilman saw, if any. Getting psychological help was sort of against the whole code. Just ask Larry.

“It’s all right.” She held her hand out to the deep leather chair in front of the windows and across from a smaller chair where she usually sat. “Why don’t you have a seat and tell me what’s happened since last week.”

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