Haven’s celebrity cowboy is back

...with a pint-size surprise!

Kenzie Atkins was a lovestruck teenager when Spencer Channing left Haven in the dust. But the biggest news isn’t the rodeo champion’s hotly awaited homecoming—it’s the little girl who calls him daddy. Spencer’s newfound daughter is bringing out Kenzie’s yearning for a family—and for the sexy single cowboy who still sets her heart ablaze! Maybe the roving bull rider is finally ready to ride off into the sunset for the ultimate happily-ever-after...

BRENDA HARLEN is a former attorney who once had the privilege of appearing before the Supreme Court of Canada. The practice of law taught her a lot about the world and reinforced her determination to become a writer—because in fiction, she could promise a happy ending! Now she is an award-winning, RITA® Award– nominated national bestselling author of more than thirty titles for Mills & Boon You can keep up-to-date with Brenda on Facebook and Twitter or through her website, brendaharlen.com.

Also by Brenda Harlen

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Last Single Garrett

Baby Talk & Wedding Bells

Building the Perfect Daddy

Two Doctors & a Baby

The Maverick’s Midnight Proposal The

More Mavericks, The Merrier!Merry

Merry Christmas, Baby Maverick!

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk

Six Weeks to Catch a Cowboy

Brenda Harlen

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-07809-2

SIX WEEKS TO CATCH A COWBOY

© 2018 Brenda Harlen

Published in Great Britain 2018

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

® and ™ are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For everyone who is looking for love—whether

the first or forever—may you never lose heart

in your quest for happily-ever-after. xo

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

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

Epilogue

Extract

About the Publisher

Chapter One

Spencer Channing felt as if he’d been trampled by a bull.

To a cowboy who’d spent almost half a decade on the professional rodeo circuit, it was more than a figure of speech.

Not that he’d ever actually been trampled, but he’d been tossed up, thrown over, dragged across and stepped on. Even successful rides left their mark on a cowboy in the form of strains and sprains and bruises, and for more than half a decade, he’d loved every minute of it.

But now, he was battered to the depths of his soul.

He’d always prided himself on working hard and playing hard and doing the right thing. But he’d screwed up. In a big way.

So he’d decided to go home to lick his wounds. And work on rehabbing his dislocated shoulder, since licking wouldn’t actually fix anything that was wrong.

Still, he was confident that the injury would heal. In fact, the doctor had assured him that he could be back on the circuit in time for the National Finals Rodeo in Vegas.

If that’s what you want.

Six weeks earlier, there would have been no if about it. Of course, he wanted to be back on the circuit and competing for the biggest prize of the season. Being a cowboy was more than just a job—it was his identity. If he wasn’t Spencer Channing, two-time PBR and PRCA bull riding champion, he was nobody.

He’d worked hard to get to the top and even harder to stay there. And then, it had taken only 6.2 seconds to change everything. Or maybe it was the unexpected meeting that happened before he went into the chute for the fateful ride that was to blame. A meeting he’d been confident he could put out of his mind for eight seconds.

He’d been doing pretty well, too, before his attention had shifted—for just a fraction of a second—away from the fifteen-hundred-pound beast bucking beneath him. That momentary inattention had been rewarded by a quick toss in the air and a bone-jarring thud on the dirt.

And another one bites the dust, the announcer had gleefully informed the crowd.

Coming back to Haven hadn’t been an easy choice, but Spencer knew it was the right one. And yet, six weeks after that life-changing day, he still hadn’t figured out what he was going to tell his parents when he walked through the front door. He’d driven eight hundred miles to get here, but his thoughts were as much a jumble now as when he’d started the journey.

It was almost 9:00 p.m. when he passed the town limits. Main Street was mostly quiet, as was usual for a Tuesday night, though there were several vehicles parked on the street near Diggers’. On impulse, Spencer steered his truck into an empty spot.

Stopping for a drink would only delay the inevitable, but he turned off the vehicle and stepped out onto the street, anyway. He walked through the main doors, then turned left, toward the bar section of the Bar & Grill. Only a few of the stools at the counter were occupied, and he straddled an empty one and studied the assortment of taps.

“Spencer?”

He lifted his head, his eyes skimming over the brunette working behind the bar. Pretty face with warm, dark chocolate–colored eyes, sweetly shaped lips, a tiny dent in her chin and long dark hair that tumbled over narrow shoulders. She wore a black vest over a white T-shirt tucked into slim-fitting jeans that showed off her feminine curves.

His gaze dropped automatically to her left hand, and he noted the huge diamond weighing down the third finger.

A glittering, princess-cut stop sign.

“Do I know you?” he asked, because that question seemed safer than Did I sleep with you?

Over the years, he’d learned that most females didn’t appreciate being forgettable. Although he’d realized that the forgetting said more about him than it did about the companions he’d forgotten.

There had been a lot of women while he’d traveled the circuit. Too many women; too many one-night stands. A few hookups had lasted longer than that, but he’d had no long-term relationships. It was too hard to maintain a connection when he was constantly on the move to new rodeos in new towns—and when those new towns were filled with a whole new array of willing women. The longest relationship he’d had was with Emily Whittingham, as they’d traveled the same route for a few weeks, and the friendly parting of ways had certainly not prepared him for the chaos she would introduce into his life years later.

The pretty bartender shook her head, yanking his attention back to the present like a lassoed calf at a roping competition. “No,” she said. “But you look so much like Jason, I knew you had to be his brother.”

“And you are?” he prompted.

She reached across the counter. “Alyssa Cabrera—his fiancée.”

As Spencer took her proffered hand, he looked her over again, this time attempting to picture her with his brother. Jay had always had a way with the ladies—a family trait—but he’d usually gone for long-legged blondes. Another family trait.

“I know,” Alyssa said, following his train of thought. “I’m not his type.”

“Not his usual type,” Spencer agreed. “Obviously he raised the bar.”

She laughed softly at that. “I see you have the same glib tongue as well as the same blue eyes.”

Channing blue, his mother referred to the clear, deep shade that each of her children had inherited from their father.

He pushed the distracting thought aside.

“Jay said that you’re a teacher,” he noted.

“I am,” she confirmed. “I also work here two nights a week. I originally took the job because I had too much time on my hands—but since we’ve started planning the wedding, I’ve got none. Now, I’m only working until Duke hires and trains a replacement.

“Or until he fires me,” she suggested as an alternative. “Because I’m not doing a very good job, am I? Gabbing your ear off instead of asking what you want to drink.”

He scanned the taps. “I’ll take a pint of Icky.”

She grabbed a glass and tipped it beneath the spout. “So when did you get into town?”

He glanced at his watch. “About ten minutes ago.”

Her brows lifted. “This was your first stop?”

“As my brother’s fiancée, I’m sure you’ve met my parents and can appreciate the need for a little fortification before facing them.”

She gave him a stern look that probably worked well on her students, but he could see the ghost of a smile hovering at the corners of her mouth as she set the beer glass on a paper coaster in front of him.

Maybe he was surprised to discover that this was the woman his brother had chosen as his bride—and even more surprised that he was choosing to get married at all—but he instinctively sensed that Alyssa would be good for Jay. And though Spencer had never thought in terms of a wife and kids and happily-ever-after, he decided that his brother was a lucky guy.

“Does anyone know you’re here?” she asked, after he’d sipped and nodded his approval of the draft.

“Sitting on this stool?”

“In Haven,” she clarified.

“Nah. I talked to my mom yesterday and told her I was on my way home, but I didn’t tell her when I’d be arriving.”

“You didn’t want her to slaughter the fatted calf in honor of your return?” she teased.

“All the calves at Crooked Creek Ranch were scrawny,” he told her. “Which was probably just as well, because if one had been slaughtered, my mother might try to cook it.”

“More likely she’d have Celeste do it,” Alyssa noted, referring to the Channings’ long-time cook. Then her expression grew serious. “How’s the shoulder?”

“Healing,” he said.

“How long are you planning to stay?”

He lifted his uninjured shoulder. “I’m not sure yet.”

And while it was true that he wasn’t working with a specific timeline—except maybe the end of season event in Vegas—this was the first time he’d returned to Haven since his freshman year at UNLV that he wasn’t already counting the days until he could leave again. This time, it was entirely possible that he might decide to stay. For a while, anyway.

“Are you staying with your parents?” Alyssa asked, her question again bringing him back to the present.

“For now,” he admitted. “Although I’m not sure I’ll last even a week there.”

“Well, if you decide you want to hang around longer than that and you want your own space, you could always stay at my place,” she invited.

“I’m not sure how my brother would feel about me bunking with his fiancée,” he said cautiously.

Her cheeks flushed prettily. “Not with me—just in my apartment,” she clarified. “Most of my stuff has been moved to Jason’s place already, so it wouldn’t be a big deal to get the rest of it out of your way.”

His surprise gave way to curiosity. “Is the apartment furnished?”

She nodded. “It’s not fancy, but it’s got all the essentials.”

“Bed, shower and TV?” he guessed.

“And a fridge and stove in the kitchen, too.”

He didn’t tell her that he didn’t cook, because he knew he was going to have to learn to do more than warm up canned beans to serve on toasted bread. Just one more adjustment to be made in a life he soon wouldn’t recognize as his own.

“That could work,” he agreed.

“Just let me know when you want to see the place,” she offered.

He finished his beer and pushed the empty glass across the bar. “Would now be a good time?”

She laughed. “I’m working now. Plus, you were going to stay with your parents for at least a few days.”

“Only because I didn’t think I had any other options,” he confided.

She smiled at that, then she touched a hand to his arm. “It’s great to finally meet you, Spencer. And I know everyone will be thrilled that you’re home.”

He didn’t know if it was the warmth of her touch or the sincerity of her tone, but with those words, the weight that he’d carried on his shoulders since he’d started this journey began to lift away.

For the past five years, he’d lived like a nomad, not always knowing when he woke up in the morning where he’d be laying his head that night. He hadn’t had a home—just a series of hotel rooms that all started to look the same after a while.

But Alyssa was right—this was his home.

And it was good to be back.

* * *

Spencer Channing was coming home.

The town of Haven had been buzzing with the news all week—and it was only Wednesday!

Kenzie Atkins first heard about the rodeo cowboy’s imminent return on Monday at The Daily Grind, where she stopped for a tall vanilla latte every morning on her way to work.

“He’s coming home for his brother’s wedding,” Lacey Seagram told her.

It was a credible explanation for his return, except Kenzie knew that Jason and Alyssa weren’t getting married until December and the nuptials were taking place in California.

“I heard he was suspended for fighting,” Jerry Tate had reported to her the following afternoon.

He was a twice-weekly patient at Back in the Game—the local sports medicine clinic—who suffered from chronic lower back issues. Kenzie suspected he must be on some kind of pain medication that muddled his brain, because the idea of Spencer Channing ever doing anything that might jeopardize his career was completely outrageous.

The man she’d known seven years earlier had wanted nothing more than to be a rodeo cowboy and would let nothing get in the way of his goal.

Of course, seven years was a long time and people did change. And what did she know about his life now?

Less than nothing.

Because although she’d kept in touch with his sister after Brielle moved to New York City, Kenzie wasn’t pathetic enough to pump her long-distance friend for information about a brother she rarely saw.

When she met Megan Carmichael—another friend from high school—at Diggers’ for lunch on Wednesday, Kenzie was presented with yet another possible scenario.

“Did you hear the news?” Megan asked after Deanna, their usual waitress, had delivered their food.

“If you’re referring to Spencer Channing’s return, then yes—it seems to be all anyone is talking about this week,” Kenzie noted.

“I mean why he’s back,” her friend clarified.

“Either he’s home for Jason and Alyssa’s wedding or he’s been suspended from the circuit.”

Megan nibbled on a french fry. “He wasn’t suspended—he was injured.”

Injured?

Kenzie’s hand trembled as she lifted her glass of iced tea to her lips.

She knew that bull riding—Spencer’s specialty—was both a physically demanding and dangerous sport, but she hadn’t let herself think about the possibility that he might get hurt. Other cowboys, sure, but not Spencer, who’d always been so strong and fearless, seemingly invincible.

Of course he wasn’t invincible, and the knowledge that he’d been hurt tied her stomach in painful knots.

Not that she should care. And she didn’t really. Except that Spencer was her best friend’s brother, and Brielle would be distressed to learn of any injury. Her own angst wasn’t so easy to explain—or even acknowledge.

But maybe Megan was wrong. Maybe this was just another story generated by someone wanting to appear to be in the know about what was happening in town.

She sipped her soda, then managed to ask, “Where’d you hear about the injury?”

“Becky told Suzannah who told me,” Megan said.

And since Becky worked in Margaret Channing’s office at Blake Mining, Kenzie knew this rumor was most likely the right one. “What happened?”

“A bull named Desert Storm at a rodeo in Justice Creek,” Megan responded.

Kenzie swallowed. “How bad is it?”

Her friend shrugged. “I figure it has to be pretty bad to get him to come home. Unless he’s only coming home to reassure his mother that it’s not too bad.” Then she immediately shook her head. “No, the most convincing evidence of that would be to get back on the horse again—or bull, in this case.” Megan smiled at her own joke.

Kenzie couldn’t make her lips curve.

Instead, she picked up her buffalo chicken wrap and nibbled on a corner. She’d been starving when she sat down, but now, thinking about Spencer being tossed like salad by a vicious animal, she felt as if her appetite had been trampled to bits by angry hooves.

Because as much as she tried not to care, she couldn’t deny that she did. Because when Spencer had left Haven seven years earlier, he’d taken a piece of her heart. No matter that he didn’t want it, she’d given it to him and lost it forever.

“But I guess we’ll have to wait and see to know for sure,” Megan continued. “In the meantime—” she winked suggestively “—a girl can only hope he isn’t completely out of commission.”

“I thought you were dating Brett Tanner,” Kenzie remarked.

“I am,” her friend confirmed. “But until there’s a ring on my finger, I’m keeping my options open...unless I’d be stepping on your toes.”

“What? No!”

“Are you sure?” Megan asked. “I know you had a major crush on him in high school.”

Kenzie could hardly deny it. Instead, she only said, “I got over that—and him—a lot of years ago.”

“I had a crush on him, too,” Megan confessed.

It was hardly a revelation. Most of the female contingent at Westmount High School had sighed when Spencer Channing walked through the halls, his hands tucked in the pockets of his Wranglers.

“Of course, he never gave me the time of day,” her friend continued.

“He was already a junior when we were freshmen—plus we were friends with his little sister,” Kenzie reminded her.

“Which meant that we were never likely to get anything more than a brotherly nod of recognition,” Megan noted.

It was true.

Mostly.

There had been the one time, the night before he was scheduled to leave town, that Spencer had looked at Kenzie as if he really saw her.

As if he really wanted her.

And maybe Kenzie had occasionally wondered if her life might have taken a different course if that night had ended differently. But she never dwelled on the what-ifs for too long. Because Spencer had been larger than life, with big dreams for his future, while she’d had much more modest plans.

In the end, they’d both got what they wanted.

Now he was a big-name rodeo star and she was a small-town massage therapist and, as decreed in the poem, “never the twain shall meet”—except maybe in her dreams.

And yeah, there were still times when she dreamed about him, because she had no control over the direction of her subconscious mind. And apparently her subconscious mind believed that sex with Spencer Channing would somehow be different—and better—than sex with any other guy she’d been intimate with.

“But I’m not just a friend of his little sister anymore,” Megan continued, oblivious to Kenzie’s meandering thoughts. “And he’s going to want a date for his brother’s wedding.”

“The wedding’s in Irvine,” Kenzie reminded her friend.

“And I’d love to go to SoCal in December. Going with Spencer Channing would just be delectable icing on the cake.”

“Have you considered the possibility that he might not be all that anymore?” Kenzie wondered aloud.

“Have you not seen the June cover of ProRider magazine?” Megan countered.

“I saw it,” she admitted.

Of course, she’d seen it. Because Spencer Channing was the closest thing to a celebrity to ever come out of Haven, Nevada, and as soon as the issue hit newsstands, all anyone could talk about was the local boy who’d made it big on the rodeo circuit. As if being able to stay on the back of an angry bull for eight seconds was some kind of accomplishment.

Okay, maybe it was. She’d watched some of his competitions on TV, and she’d held her breath and curled her hands into fists, as if doing so might somehow help him hold on. And maybe she’d been excited for and proud of him every time he’d beat the buzzer. But still, it wasn’t as if he was changing the world. He was just playing at being a cowboy, as he’d always wanted to do, so that he didn’t have to grow up and get a real job.

So yes, she’d seen the magazine. She even had a copy of it—and all the other magazines that had featured him on the cover or mentioned him in a footnote—in the bottom drawer of her desk.

“If you saw that cover, then you know the guy who was all that in high school is now all that and a whole lot more,” Megan said.

“The whole lot more could be staging and airbrushing,” Kenzie suggested.

Megan pushed her empty plate aside. “I’m a little surprised by your lack of interest,” she admitted. “Of all the girls in our class, you had the biggest crush on him. If he ventured within ten feet of you, you’d get completely tongue-tied.”

“It was embarrassing,” Kenzie agreed. “It was also a long time ago.”

“You really don’t care that he’s coming home?”

The only thing she cared about was that she might see him, and then have to face the memories and humiliation of the last time she’d seen him. When she’d thrown herself at him and practically begged him to take her virginity.

Not surprisingly, he’d rejected her offer.

She’d been both heartbroken and relieved when he left for UNLV the next day—and certain she couldn’t ever face him again.

Over the years, he’d made regular if not frequent visits home, and Kenzie had always been careful to stay away from any and all of the places he might be.

If Megan was right about the reason for Spencer’s return, and if he planned to stay in Haven for any significant period of time while his unknown injuries healed, it was inevitable that Kenzie would cross paths with him.

But she was confident that when that happened, he wouldn’t detect any hint of the pathetic, lovestruck teenager she’d been inside the confident and capable woman she was now.

* * *

“Your two o’clock is waiting in treatment room four,” Jillian, the clinic receptionist, told Kenzie when she got back after lunch.

She glanced at her watch. “Mrs. Ferris is early today.”

“Mrs. Ferris canceled,” Jillian informed her. “She wasn’t feeling well.”

Kenzie shook her head. “She complains that her treatment isn’t working but refuses to take any responsibility for the fact that she only shows up for half her scheduled appointments.”

“And complains when we bill her for the ones she misses last-minute,” the receptionist added.

“So who’s my two o’clock?” Kenzie asked.

“A new patient rehabbing a shoulder injury.” Jillian sighed dreamily. “And, oh-my-god, does he have fabulous shoulders. And a smile that could melt any woman’s panties from across the room.”

Though Kenzie was accustomed to Jillian’s outrageous and unapologetic objectification of their attractive male clients, the remark made her cringe—and glance around to ensure there were no other clients within earshot.

“Not my panties,” she asserted confidently. Because only one man’s smile had ever had the power to do that, and that had been a long time ago.

“I’m telling you, if you’d been five minutes later, I might have snuck into the treatment room to massage him myself,” Jillian said, then immediately amended her claim. “No, I probably wouldn’t have lasted more than three minutes.”

Kenzie shook her head. “Does Mr. Panty-Melter have another name?”

“As a matter of fact, he does.” The receptionist glanced down at her computer screen, where the scheduled appointments were displayed. “It’s Spencer Channing.”

Chapter Two

It couldn’t be.

There was no way Spencer Channing was here. In Haven, yes. In her treatment room, no.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t catch that.”

Jillian touched the screen, where his name and number were noted in the two o’clock slot. “Spencer Channing,” she said again.

Clearly. Unequivocally.

An injury, Megan had said.

Kenzie had immediately wondered what kind of injury and how bad it was. Somehow, she’d never considered that he might come to Back in the Game for treatment.

She made her way to room four, then paused with her hand on the knob to draw in a deep breath and will her heart to stop racing. Confident and capable, she reminded herself, then stepped into the room.

“So it’s true,” she said, by way of greeting.

Spencer’s head turned toward the door, the widening of his deep blue eyes suggesting that he was as surprised to see her as she’d been to hear Jillian speak his name.

Then his lips curved in a slow, sexy smile that confirmed the receptionist’s assessment of its power.

That smile was lethal. But it was only one weapon in an arsenal that included mouthwatering good looks, a tautly-muscled physique, quick wit and effortless charm.

Yeah, Spencer Channing was all that and a whole lot more.

But it was her job to treat his injury, not lust after his body like a hormonal teenager.

“It’s good to see you, Kenzie.”

“I take it you didn’t know your appointment was with me,” she guessed.

“I didn’t,” he confirmed. “When I was told there’d been a cancellation, I just said I’d take it, without asking any questions.”

She wondered if it would have mattered if he’d known, but she didn’t voice the question.

“What brings you in?” she asked instead.

He tipped his head toward his right shoulder. “Glenohumeral dislocation.”

She winced sympathetically, imagining the pain he must have endured. Of course, he showed no outward evidence of any discomfort now. Then again, Spencer had never let anyone see what was going on inside.

He handed her a large manila envelope. “Copies of the doctor’s report and test results.”

She opened the flap, slid out the sheaf of papers. “Have you had any therapy?”

He shook his head. “The doc said not before six weeks.”

“How long has it been?” she asked.

“Six weeks and three days,” he admitted.

“Not that you’re impatient,” she noted dryly.

He smiled again. “I don’t believe in sitting around.”

And because she refused to admit that his smile did strange things to her, she took a jab at him instead. “But that’s your job, isn’t it? To sit on the back of a bull for eight seconds.”

His smile didn’t waver. If anything, it grew wider, and the twinkle in his eye suggested that he knew exactly what was going through her mind. “Most people wouldn’t consider it sitting,” he told her.

She shifted her attention back to the papers in her hand and began to scan the report.

“You look...different,” he noted, when she flipped the page.

“I’m not sixteen anymore,” she told him.

His gaze skimmed over her again, slowly, considering. “I can see that.”

She returned her attention to the notes in her hands.

“You’re not wearing a ring,” he remarked.

“Rings get in the way when I’m working.”

“Which suggests that you have a ring to wear.”

She glanced up. “What do you really want to know, Spencer?”

“Are you married? Engaged?”

He had no right to ask those questions. Her personal life was none of his business. And yet, something stirred inside her in response to his inquiries, as if pleased that he was asking. As if the questions suggested that he cared about her status.

Or maybe he was just making conversation.

“Not anymore,” she finally responded.

“Not married anymore? Or not engaged anymore?” he asked.

“Never married,” she clarified. “Briefly engaged.”

“Anyone I know?”

“Dale Shillington.”

He made a face. “How briefly? Like you were really drunk one night and said yes, then sobered up and threw the ring back at him?”

“Not quite that briefly,” she admitted.

“You can do a lot better than Shillington,” he told her.

“Dale has a lot of good qualities,” she said, wanting to defend not just the man but her acceptance of his proposal.

Yes, in hindsight she could acknowledge that it had been a mistake, but at the time, she’d thought he was a man who could give her everything she wanted. To belong with someone. To be loved. To have a family.

But no matter how hard she’d tried, she couldn’t make herself love him—and she knew that a marriage without love wouldn’t last. And she didn’t want to end up like her own mother, abandoned by her husband and raising a child alone.

“If there aren’t better options in this town, maybe you should leave Haven,” Spencer suggested.

She shook her head. “That’s not the answer for everyone.”

“And apparently not for me, either,” he said.

Before she could ask what he meant by that cryptic remark, he posed another question.

“Are you dating anyone now?”

“You’ve got an awful lot of questions for a guy who suddenly reappeared in town after seven years.”

“It’s not so sudden,” he denied. “And it’s hardly my first trip home.”

She knew that, of course. He’d been home every year for Christmas, frequently for Mother’s Day and on various other occasions, but never for his birthday, because there was always a major rodeo event somewhere on the Fourth of July.

“Why did you come back?” she wondered.

“Obviously I’m not in any condition to compete right now, and Haven seemed as good a place as any to rehab my injury,” he said.

A reasonable explanation, but she sensed that it wasn’t the whole reason. It was, however, the only reason that mattered right now because it was why he was sitting on her table.

“You’re going to have to take your shirt off,” she said, reaching into the cupboard for a sheet.

When she turned back again, the shirt was already gone, revealing his chest—wide and strong—and lots of bronzed skin stretched over rock-hard muscles.

She spent a lot of time focused on naked body parts in her job. She was familiar with soft bodies and toned bodies. She’d worked with varsity stars and armchair athletes.

She’d never reacted to seeing anyone else’s body the way she reacted to seeing Spencer’s naked chest.

Her heart pounded faster.

Her mouth went dry.

Her knees felt weak.

Because this wasn’t any patient, this was Spencer.

Her first crush.

Her first kiss.

Her first heartbreak.

But that was a lot of years ago, and she was no longer a teenage girl infatuated with her best friend’s brother. She was twenty-three years old now—a grown woman and a professional massage therapist. She’d had more than a few boyfriends since he’d left town. Even a few lovers. But her body still reacted to his nearness as if she was sixteen again and she would just die if he didn’t love her, too.

She shoved all that old baggage aside and drew her professional demeanor around her like a cloak. “I guess you don’t want a sheet,” she said lightly.

“Do I need one?”

“No.” She returned the folded flannel to the cupboard. “Some people prefer to be covered. The room can feel cold at times.”

“It’s warm enough in here,” Spencer said.

Warm? Definitely.

Maybe even hot.

Certainly her body temperature seemed to have spiked.

She gave a passing thought to checking if Darren was back from lunch yet and asking Spencer if he’d be more comfortable having the other therapist work with him on his rehab.

Except that the question implied that she was uncomfortable with the situation. Which she was, but she wasn’t eager to admit as much to the man who seemed completely unaffected by any memories of the last time they’d been together.

Of course, after seven years, it was entirely possible that he didn’t even remember the events of that night.

“Do you want my pants off, too?” Spencer asked.

Yes.

“No!” she responded quickly.

And maybe a little too vehemently.

He quirked a brow.

She cleared her throat. “We’ll just focus on the shoulder today—get everything loosened up and assess your recovery.”

“Okay,” he agreed.

“Lie down on the table,” she instructed, determined to assert control of the situation.

“On my front or back?”

“Front.” She could manipulate the muscles of his chest and back from either position, but if he was on his front, she wouldn’t have to worry about him watching her with those deep blue eyes that had always seen too much of what she was thinking and feeling.

He stretched out on the table, his arms at his sides.

She breathed a quiet sigh of relief, because now she could pretend he was just a patient, like any other patient. No one special.

But the tingle that danced through her veins as her hands stroked over his skin said something very different.

* * *

As Kenzie gently probed the injured area with her fingers, Spencer acknowledged that this might have been a mistake.

It was true that he’d been so eager to start therapy he hadn’t asked who would be treating him. He hadn’t imagined it would matter, because he hadn’t known that Kenzie worked at the clinic.

In fact, he knew very little about where she’d been or what she’d done over the past seven years, because he’d never asked anyone. Because asking would have suggested that he thought about her, and when he’d left Haven, he’d been determined to put all thoughts of his little sister’s best friend out of his mind.

Still, he’d be lying if he said that he’d never thought about her. But the truth was, whenever he did, he remembered the girl she’d been. A kid with barely a hint of feminine curves and an obvious crush on him.

He hadn’t been the least bit interested in any kind of a romantic relationship with her in high school, but he hadn’t wanted to hurt her feelings, either. So he’d mostly tried to keep his distance from her, and he’d succeeded—until the night before he was scheduled to leave for UNLV.

He’d made plans to meet his current girlfriend in the barn at Crooked Creek Ranch that night. The meeting was Ashleigh’s idea, so that they could say goodbye in private.

He knew what that meant. And when he climbed up to the hayloft, his body was already stirring in anticipation of what was going to happen. But he was a little wary, too, because Ashleigh had made no secret of the fact that she didn’t want him to go—and that she’d do almost anything to make him stay.

But Spencer wouldn’t let anything distract him from his goal of getting out of this one-horse town—especially not a girl he’d only been dating a few weeks. So despite her assurance that she was on the Pill, he had a condom in his pocket, unwilling to trust his future to anyone else’s hands.

He sure as heck wasn’t going to end up like his buddy, Mason, whose wedding was scheduled for the last week of September and whose baby was due the following April. And while Gina’s pregnancy might not have been planned, at least Mason and Gina were in love.

Spencer wasn’t in love with Ashleigh. But she was pretty and popular and willing to go all the way, and he was eager to use that condom in his pocket.

But when he got up to the hayloft, instead of Ashleigh, he’d found Kenzie waiting for him.

“What are you thinking about?”

Kenzie’s softly spoken question forced him to put the brakes on his trip down memory lane.

“Nothing important,” he said.

“Are you sure?” Her hands—so much stronger than he would have guessed—moved over his shoulder, probing and kneading.

She knew what she was doing, and he’d had enough massage therapy that ordinarily his muscles would respond to the skillful touch. But his brain couldn’t seem to let go of the fact that this was Kenzie’s touch, and it teased him with intimate memories of the last time she’d touched him—and let him touch her.

“I’m sure,” he said.

“Because you’re strung tight as a drum,” she noted, her fingers sliding over his skin, pressing into the knotted muscle.

He was also hard as a rock.

Thankfully, his facedown position on the table allowed that to remain his own little (or not so little, he amended immodestly) secret.

“Some clients like to talk while they’re on the table.”

“I’m not fond of chitchat,” he told her.

“Imagine that,” she said. “And you used to be such a chatterbox.”

The situation was awkward and uncomfortable—probably for both of them—but he felt his lips curve in response to her dry remark.

“And you never used to be a smartass,” he added.

She chuckled softly before acknowledging, “Probably because I could barely put together a coherent sentence around you.”

“I guess it’s true that people do change,” he noted.

And obviously she’d done so. The skinny, geeky teenager he’d remembered had grown into a confident and attractive woman.

A very attractive woman.

She didn’t say anything else after that as she focused her attention on doing her job.

And while she continued to work on him, he couldn’t seem to focus his attention on anything but how good it felt to have her hands on him. At least until he started to imagine how it might feel to have her hands stroking other parts of his body. And, of course, the harder he tried not to think about her touching those other parts, the harder he got.

Unfortunately, his life was already complicated enough without adding any extracurricular activities—or relationships—to the mix.

And that realization was admittedly a little bit disappointing.

* * *

The day before, when Spencer had passed the Welcome to Haven sign on the highway (if the seldom-used rural road could be called a highway), he’d experienced a sense of recognition and familiarity, but not much more than that.

There’d been no sense of homecoming. As far as he was concerned, Haven had ceased to be his home a long time ago. Now it was just the town where he’d grown up and where most of his family still lived. He didn’t mind visiting on occasion, but he had no intention of putting down his own roots in the dry, hardpacked dirt.

His opinion hadn’t changed when he arrived at his parents’ house on Miners’ Pass. Of course, that house had never been his home. Sure he’d stayed there on his infrequent visits, in the room his mother had designated as his and filled with his childhood trophies and buckles, but he’d never lived there.

In Spencer’s opinion, the three-story stone-and-brick mansion was a ridiculous and ostentatious display of wealth and status. Which was undoubtedly why Ben and Margaret Channing had built it. With three of their four adult children living independently, they certainly didn’t need six bedrooms, seven baths, a great room with a twelve-foot ceiling and a soaring river-rock fireplace, or three more fireplaces around the house.

On the other hand, if it made his parents happy, who was he to judge?

But now, as he turned off the highway and onto the access road that led to Crooked Creek Ranch, he felt a tug of something in his chest. Because as eager as he’d been to escape from Haven, he did have some good memories of the town—and almost all of them had happened at the ranch.

A lot of them involved some kind of chore, too, because Gramps didn’t tolerate laziness. But Spencer didn’t mind the work, and mucking out stalls, grooming horses and cleaning tack at least gave him something to do in a town that, at the time, offered little in the way of entertainment beyond the two screens at Mann’s Theater. And when he did his chores well, Gramps would let him saddle up one of the horses and ride out with him to count the cows.

Because even after gold and silver had been discovered in the hills and the family had turned their attention away from ranching and toward mining, Gramps had continued to raise cattle. It was a small herd that he managed—nothing comparable to that of the Circle G—but it was his and he took pride in the routine of breeding, calving, culling, weaning. There were more lean years than profitable ones, but he didn’t care. Of course, now that the family was making its fortune in gold and silver, his interest in the market price of beef was mostly academic.

Whenever Spencer returned to Haven, he tried to visit the ranch and ride out with Gramps. But today’s visit had another purpose—to check on Copper Penny.

He didn’t have a trailer hitch on his truck and, truthfully, he hadn’t felt up to wrestling with a thousand-pound animal on the eight-hundred-mile journey, so he’d arranged to have the mare delivered. He’d received confirmation that she’d arrived that morning, and he was eager to ensure that she’d suffered no ill effects from the journey, which was why he’d headed to the ranch as soon as he’d completed his first therapy session with Kenzie.

He was on his way to the barn when he spotted her grazing in the nearest corral. The sun shone on her chestnut coat so that she gleamed as bright as her name, and her tail flicked leisurely back and forth. If she was at all distressed by the recent travel or the change in her environment, she gave no evidence of being anything but perfectly content.

“She’s a beauty,” Gramps remarked, joining him by the fence.

Spencer nodded his agreement. It had been the mare that caught his eye first, five years earlier at a barrel racing event in Cherokee, Iowa, before he’d noticed the pretty girl hunkered low over her back. As horse and rider raced the familiar cloverleaf pattern, he’d been impressed by their form and their speed. Afterward, the girl who’d introduced herself as Emily had proven that she was just as fast outside of the ring.

“Where’d you pick her up?”

He was taken aback by the question, until he realized that Gramps was asking about the horse.

“Denver,” Spencer told him.

“Any particular reason you decided to buy a horse?”

“I didn’t buy her,” he said. “She was a gift.”

His grandfather’s pale gaze shifted to the horse again. “Heckuva gift,” he remarked.

“Yeah. And that’s not the half of it.”

The old man’s bushy white brows lifted. “I didn’t figure you came home just to deliver the horse.”

“I’m also rehabbing my shoulder, hoping to be ready for the National Finals.”

“It’s a good thing you can usually manage to stay on the back of a bull for eight seconds, because you’d never make any money at the card tables in Vegas,” Gramps noted.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means you can’t bluff worth the stuff that comes out of the back end of those beasts you ride.”

Spencer felt a smile tug at his lips. Though Gramps had never been one to mince words, his wife had disapproved of coarse language. Widowed now for more than three years, the old man still lived by her strict rules.

“We both know you could rehab that injury anywhere,” Gramps said, calling his bluff.

“Maybe I wanted to do it at home.”

“And maybe those cows out there are gonna sprout wings and fly away.”

Spencer shifted his gaze to the far pasture, dotted with the thick bodies of his grandfather’s cattle—no wings in sight.

“I decided to take some time to reevaluate my life and my priorities.”

Gramps shifted the toothpick he held clenched in his jaw from one side to the other. “You knock up some girl?”

Though he was often amused by his grandfather’s characteristic bluntness, this time, Spencer couldn’t even fake a laugh.

His body was hurting, his mind was spinning and nothing about his current situation was the least bit amusing.

Chapter Three

Seven years was more than enough time for a girl to get over a silly crush. And when Kenzie had been at lunch with Megan earlier that day, she’d been confident that any feelings she’d had for Spencer Channing had been trampled into dust a long time ago. Of course, that was before she’d walked into her treatment room and found him waiting for her.

Well, not waiting for her. Waiting for a therapist to work on his injured shoulder, and she just happened to be that therapist. She’d studied hard and trained carefully so that she knew how all the muscles in the body worked, how they were affected by various types of injuries and how she could manipulate the tissue to release tension and ease pain.

She’d treated the same kind of shoulder trauma in other patients, but when Spencer had removed his shirt, all that experience had faded from her mind. She’d been mesmerized by the taut bronzed skin molded to hard, sinewy muscle. She’d wanted to press her lips to his shoulder, drop kisses across that broad, powerful chest, then slowly lick her way down those washboard abs.

She didn’t entirely trust herself to continue to touch his body and maintain a professional distance, which meant that she should ask one of her coworkers to take over Spencer’s treatments. Therapists traded patients all the time and for various reasons, but she had no intention of admitting that being near Spencer, touching the exquisitely sculpted body that her hormonally-driven teenage-self had lusted for with every fiber of her being, had reawakened long dormant feelings inside her and started the playback of memories in her mind.

She’d always liked hanging out at Crooked Creek Ranch, and she never missed an opportunity to go down to the barn and visit with the horses that were stabled there. Brielle’s grandfather had taught her to ride, and she remembered how hard her heart had knocked against her ribs the first time she’d sat in the saddle astride the black gelding with white markings for which he’d been named Domino. She’d been equal parts excited and terrified, and she’d felt the same way waiting for Spencer to show up.

He’d been dating Ashleigh Singer for the past few weeks. Of course, he’d dated a lot of girls—and gone “all the way” with more than one, if the rumors were to be believed. According to the conversation Kenzie had overheard, Ashleigh was going to give Spencer a going-away present that just might change his mind about going away.

Kenzie hadn’t been sure what that meant, so she was glad when Rebecca asked for an explanation—and heartsick when Ashleigh told of her plan to meet Spencer at nine o’clock in the barn at the Crooked Creek Ranch and “knock boots” in the hayloft.

So Kenzie got to the barn first, and when Ashleigh showed up, she told the other girl that Spencer had asked her to meet him there. Ashleigh, furious at the thought of her boyfriend two-timing her with one of his little sister’s friends, stormed off. And when Spencer showed up to meet with Ashleigh, he found Kenzie there instead.

“Where’s Ashleigh?” He asked the question gruffly, without even saying hello.

Her heart was racing, her throat was dry, and she was grateful to be sitting on the edge of a hay bale, because her knees felt so wobbly she was certain they wouldn’t hold her up. “She, uh, had to go.”

“Where?” he demanded.

She shrugged, because she really didn’t know, didn’t care. All that mattered was that Spencer was here—with her.

“But I waited for you,” she pointed out to him.

He looked wary. “Why?”

“Because Brie told me that you’re leaving tomorrow.”

“Did she tell you to meet me here, too?”

Kenzie felt her cheeks flush. “Of course not. She has no idea that I’m here.”

And she’d probably be horrified if she knew what her friend had planned. But Kenzie wasn’t worried that Brielle would find out, because Spencer’s sister had snuck away from the house to meet someone, too.

“And I’m still waiting for you to tell me why you’re here,” Spencer said impatiently.

“I just wanted to, uh, say goodbye.”

“Goodbye.” He turned away.

“Wait!” She leaped up.

He sighed and turned back. “What do you want, Kenzie?”

“Are you, uh, ever gonna come back?”

“I’m only going to college,” he said. “I’ll be home for Christmas.”

But Christmas was a long way away, and she couldn’t wait that long. Besides, she was here now. And she was ready.

“It was my birthday last week,” she said.

“Happy birthday,” he replied, with more than a touch of impatience.

“I’m sixteen now,” she told him, hoping he understood the significance of the revelation.

“Okay,” he acknowledged cautiously.

The next words spilled out of her mouth in a rush: “Sixteen’s the legal age of consent in Nevada.”

His brows drew together and his mouth thinned. “How do you know that?”

“I looked it up,” she admitted, her cheeks burning.

“Why?” he asked.

She lifted her chin to meet his gaze. “Because I’m ready.”

“For what?”

“To do it.” Her cheeks were hot and her armpits were damp, but she forged ahead determinedly. “With you.”

He sighed. “Kenzie, you’re not ready to have sex if you can’t even say the words.”

“I am ready,” she insisted, with far more certainty than she felt. “And I want you to be my first.”

He shook his head. “That’s not going to happen.”

“Why not? You were going to have sex with Ashleigh, weren’t you?”

“I’m not going to talk to you about Ashleigh,” he told her.

“But she left and I’m still here.”

“You shouldn’t be,” he told her bluntly.

In the past, Kenzie had rarely managed to string a complete sentence together in his presence. But she was sixteen now, and she would not be dissuaded.

Instead of taking the hint, she took a step closer.

Then she lifted herself onto her toes and pressed her mouth to his.

He didn’t respond at first, but she refused to give up. She refused to consider that this night might not end the way she’d planned. Then he muttered a shocking curse against her lips and finally gave in to the deep and abiding love she was certain he must feel for her.

She gasped a little when his tongue slid between her parted lips, but she didn’t pull away. Not even when he pushed her back against the hay bales and pressed his body against hers—

The ring of her cell phone jolted Kenzie back to the present.

Seven years later, the memories of that night were still vivid enough to make her feel hot and shaky. Inwardly chiding herself for this reaction, she pressed cool hands to her heated cheeks and drew in a deep, steadying breath, then reached for her phone.

“Hey,” Kenzie said, smiling as she answered the FaceTime request from Spencer’s sister. “How are things in the Big Apple?”

“Everything’s great here,” Brielle said. “But there might be a bit of a tremor on its way to the Silver State.”

Kenzie heard the worry underlying her friend’s deliberately casual words and immediately suspected the reason for the call. “If you’re talking about Spencer returning to Haven, your warning is too late.”

“Who told you?”

“It would be a shorter list to mention the people who didn’t tell me,” Kenzie noted dryly.

But she was touched by her friend’s concern. Although Brie didn’t know all the details about what had happened—or almost happened—between Kenzie and Spencer before he went away to college, she knew about her friend’s crush and that she’d been heartbroken when he left.

“That’s only one of the many things I don’t miss about living in a small town,” Brielle muttered.

“But you miss your friends, don’t you?”

“I miss you,” Brie confirmed. “I’ve lost touch with almost everyone else from high school.”

“They’d be happy to see you if you came home for a visit,” Kenzie said.

“I will,” Brielle responded, as she always did. And though she always sounded as if she meant it, she’d only ever returned to Haven once since she’d moved to New York City for college and decided to stay—and that had been for her grandmother’s funeral.

“In the meantime, I thought you should know that Spencer is on his way home.”

“Your intel is a little out-of-date,” Kenzie noted.

“Huh?”

“He’s not on his way, he is home. In fact, he came into the clinic today.”

“How bad is his shoulder?” Brielle asked.

“You know I can’t share any details of a patient’s treatment,” she said. She probably shouldn’t even have disclosed his appointment, but it was hardly a secret as anyone might have seen Spencer on his way into or out of the building.

“He’s not a patient—he’s my brother,” Brie reminded her.

Kenzie relented enough to say, “And he’s healing.”

Brielle considered this for a moment before asking, “You don’t think it’s anything that would keep him away from the circuit, do you?”

Though she knew she was breaching the rules regarding patient confidentiality, she was eager to assuage the concern she heard in her friend’s voice. “Numerous tests and physical examinations suggest a simple glenohumeral dislocation.”

“Okay.” Brie nodded. “That’s good. I mean, I have no idea what a gle-no-whatever is, but the way you said it was reassuring.”

Kenzie smiled at that. But her friend’s earlier question made her ask, “Do you know something that you’re not telling me?”

“No,” Brie denied. “But when we talked last week...he seemed to suggest that he was thinking about making a career change...and I didn’t get the impression that it was entirely willingly.”

“Bull riding takes a toll on the body,” Kenzie noted. “He’s probably starting to feel his age.”

“He’s twenty-five.”

“And he’s been a professional bull rider for five years already, after competing in college and as an amateur for I-don’t-know-how-many years before that.”

“At least ten,” Brielle admitted. “Because that’s how old he was when he won his first buckle for steer riding.”

“Maybe he’s just ready for a change,” Kenzie suggested.

And as she considered the possibility that Spencer might not just be home for a visit but forever, a tiny blossom of something that felt like joyful hope began to unfurl inside her heart. Then she remembered how eager he’d been to leave Haven, how determined he’d been to find fame and fortune away from “this backwards backwoods town,” and that tiny blossom shriveled up again.

“Maybe,” her friend echoed, though her tone was dubious.

“And speaking of change—rumor has it that the Mountainview kindergarten teacher put in for a transfer to Reno.”

“Shelby Bradford’s been making plans to leave Haven since long before I did,” Brielle remarked. “She’s not going anywhere.”

“Well, she’ll have to retire eventually,” Kenzie pointed out.

Her friend laughed. “Don’t hold your breath.”

They chatted for a few more minutes, then Brie had to run to meet some friends for dinner, which prompted Kenzie to think about her own evening meal.

Not that she was really hungry, but anything was better than thinking about Spencer Channing—and the long-forgotten feelings that his return had stirred inside her.

* * *

If Spencer had asked around town, he might have learned that Kenzie rented an apartment above a law office on Main Street, not too far from the clinic where she worked. Instead, he’d taken a more circuitous route to get there.

“Hey,” he said, when Kenzie replied to the buzz of the intercom from the street level entrance behind the building.

“Spencer? What are you doing here?”

There was reservation along with surprise in her tone. He had no reason to assume that she’d want to see him, but he was counting on her long-term friendship with his sister to at least get him in the door. “Can I come up?” he asked. “Or are we going to have an entire conversation through this speaker?”

She hesitated. Or maybe he only thought she did, because the next sound he heard was the lock being released.

“Now are you going to tell me why you’re here?” she asked after letting him into her apartment.

He took a moment to appreciate the fact that she’d changed out of the all-black she’d been wearing at the clinic and into a pair of slim-fitting jeans and a flowy kind of top in a patchwork print. She’d released her hair from its ponytail, too, so that the long tresses hung like a curtain of shiny silk around her face. Her driver’s license probably described her hair as brown, but it was actually an intriguing mix of many shades, including hints of gold and copper.

“Spencer?” she prompted, when he didn’t respond to her question.

“Sorry,” he apologized, realizing he’d been staring. “I just—wow, Kenzie. You really look great.”

“Thank you,” she said, a little cautiously.

He couldn’t blame her for being wary. Although she’d been best friends with his sister, he’d never been particularly close with Kenzie. Well, there was that one time...but it was probably best not to think about that night right now. Or ever.

Except that being back in Haven and seeing Kenzie again, he couldn’t seem to stop thinking about that night. And, seven years later, he still didn’t know if he was relieved or disappointed that it hadn’t ended differently.

Firmly pushing those memories to the back of his mind, he focused on the present—and his empty stomach. “I came by to see if you wanted to grab a bite to eat.”

“Grab a bite?” she echoed the words as if he’d suggested a quick trip to the moon.

Okay, so she was surprised by the invitation. And obviously skeptical about his motivations for showing up at her door. But a buddy had once remarked that he could charm a nun out of her habit if he put his mind to it, so he didn’t figure it should be too difficult to convince Kenzie to share a meal with him.

“Dinner,” he clarified, his lips curving in an easy smile. “You know—when you sit down at a table, sometimes in a restaurant, and enjoy a meal.”

“I’m vaguely familiar with the concept,” she said dryly. “In fact, I’ve got soup heating on the stove for mine.”

“Soup isn’t a meal,” he chided. “Even Diggers’ menu lists it as a starter.”

“Well, it’s my meal tonight,” she insisted, and turned her back on him.

Which afforded him a spectacular view of her nicely shaped derriere encased in snug denim.

He followed that sweetly curved butt to the kitchen, where she picked up a spoon from the counter and stirred the soup.

He averted his gaze so she wouldn’t catch him staring again and looked around the ultramodern kitchen with dark walnut cupboards and stainless steel appliances. A granite-topped island separated the kitchen from the open-concept living area with a trio of tall windows that overlooked Main Street.

“Nice place,” he remarked.

“I like it,” she agreed.

“How long have you lived here?”

“Just over a year,” she said. “Katelyn used to live up here and work downstairs, but then she married the new sheriff and they bought a house over on Sagebrush. As soon as I heard she was moving out, I asked if she’d rent the place to me.”

“Katelyn...Gilmore?”

“It’s Davidson now,” she told him.

“I didn’t know she’d married the sheriff.” Then he frowned. “Or maybe I just don’t pay much attention when my mother starts gossiping about local events.” It was also possible that Margaret Channing hadn’t said anything, preferring to pretend that the entire Gilmore family didn’t exist.

“Not just married but a new mom now to the most adorable little girl,” Kenzie told him.

Though she hadn’t invited him to sit, he straddled a stool at the island and folded his arms on the counter. His stomach rumbled.

“You know, if you made sandwiches to go with that soup, you’d probably be able to feed two people,” he told her.

“Is that your way of inviting yourself to stay for dinner?”

“Soup’s not dinner,” he said again. “But if you added a sandwich...”

She shook her head, but the smile that tugged at her lips confirmed that she was warming up to his presence. “Grilled cheese, okay?”

He grinned. “Grilled cheese is the best kind of sandwich with soup.”

Kenzie turned the knob for another burner, set a frying pan on it, then retrieved the ingredients for the sandwiches.

“Can I help?” he offered, as she began to butter slices of bread.

She nodded to the pot on the stove. “Just keep an eye on the soup.”

He picked up the wooden spoon she’d set down, so that he was armed and ready.

“If you haven’t kept up with local events, how did you know that I was living here?” Kenzie asked him now.

“Your mother told me,” he admitted.

The knife she’d taken out of the block to slice the cheese slipped from her grasp and clattered against the counter. “When did you talk to my mother?”

“When I stopped by the house on Whitechurch Road earlier.”

“Well, that would explain the three voice-mail messages she left for me,” Kenzie noted, picking up the knife again.

“Three messages and you didn’t call her back?” he asked in feigned shock.

She shrugged and resumed slicing the cheese. “If it had been anything important, she would have said so.”

He mimed thrusting a dagger in his heart. “Ouch.”

She rolled her eyes.

“She was surprised to see me,” he confided. “And reluctant to let me know where I could find you.”

Butter sizzled as Kenzie set the sandwiches in the hot pan.

“She’s always been...protective of me,” she said.

“I knew that,” he acknowledged. “I just never knew that she disliked me so much. Which was a surprise, because most women usually find me charming. Even moms.”

“No doubt.”

“And I never did anything to earn her disapproval.” But they both knew that wasn’t exactly true, so he clarified, “At least not anything that she knows about.” He sent Kenzie a questioning glance. “Or does she?”

She dropped her gaze to the pan, as if turning the sandwiches required her complete focus. “There’s nothing for her to know.”

He nodded, relieved by her response. Glad to hear her confirm that what happened between them hadn’t been a big deal to her, either.

Glad...and a little bit skeptical.

But he didn’t express his doubt. He didn’t want to have the awkward conversation they probably should have had seven years earlier. And he especially didn’t want to dig up old feelings of guilt and regret—not hers or his own.

She reached into the cupboard over the sink for dishes, then pulled open a drawer for cutlery.

He rose from his seat at the island to help.

“I do appreciate this.” He slid the sandwiches out of the pan and onto the plates while she poured the soup into the bowls. “You feeding me, I mean.”

She smiled at that. “As if I had a choice.”

“You always have a choice,” he told her.

She sat down beside him. “So tell me why you showed up at my door instead of grabbing a bite with Gage or Brett or one of the other guys you used to hang out with,” she suggested.

“Truthfully—” he dipped his spoon into his bowl “—I didn’t keep in touch with anyone when I left Haven. Aside from you, I don’t have many friends remaining in this town.”

“I was your sister’s friend,” she said, as she tore off a piece of her sandwich and popped it into her mouth. “Not yours.”

“Maybe we weren’t friends,” he acknowledged. And then, because he apparently did want to have the awkward conversation they’d skipped seven years earlier, he added, “But we were almost lovers.”

She shook her head as she finished chewing. “A quick roll in the hay would not have made us lovers.”

He touched a hand to her arm. “I treated you badly that night, and I’m sorry.”

“It was a long time ago—and long forgotten,” she told him.

But he didn’t believe it.

Certainly he’d never forgotten.

“Then you’re not still mad at me—about what happened that night?” he prompted.

“Nothing happened,” she said again, tearing off another piece of her sandwich. “And I was never mad at you,” she confided. “I was mad at myself. And...embarrassed.”

“Why would you be embarrassed?” he wondered aloud.

She swirled her spoon in her soup. “Because I threw myself at you.”

Apparently they had different recollections of that night. Because while there was no denying that she’d made the first move, he’d made a lot more after that. “As you said, it was a long time ago and nothing happened.”

“Nothing of any significance,” she agreed. “But not for lack of trying on my part.”

It was true that she hadn’t been shy about what she wanted. And he’d been unexpectedly and shockingly aroused by the bold actions of a girl he’d previously dismissed as just another friend of his little sister.

“Back then, you and me—” He shook his head. “It would have been a mistake.”

She nodded. “I know.”

“But now...” He deliberately let the words trail off and dramatically waggled his eyebrows.

She smiled, seemingly appreciative of his effort to lighten the mood, but immediately shot him down. “Now it would be an even bigger mistake.”

She was probably right—for more reasons than even she knew—but he was curious about her rationale. “Why would you say that?”

“Because even if we weren’t friends before, I get the impression you showed up at my door because you need a friend now.”

“Or at least wanted to see a friendly face,” he acknowledged, as he shoved the last bite of sandwich into his mouth before turning his attention back to the soup.

“What was going on at your parents’ place tonight that you didn’t want to eat there?” she asked.

“Celeste had a thing this afternoon—a baby shower? Bridal shower? Some kind of shower, anyway. And I told her that I’d fend for myself so she didn’t have to rush back.”

“Fending for yourself meaning inviting yourself to share my dinner?” she queried dryly.

“I offered to take you out,” he reminded her. “You could have had a thick, juicy steak at Diggers’—or anything else on the menu.”

“Mmm... I do love their strip loin, but this is better,” she told him.

He spooned up the last of his soup which, along with the sandwich, had sated his gnawing hunger but was, by no stretch of the imagination, better than steak. “Why?”

“Because if we’d walked into Diggers’ together, the whole town would be buzzing about it before the meat hit the grill.”

“And that would bother you?”

“I don’t like being the subject of gossip and speculation,” she said.

“You’re not worried that people will remark on my truck being parked outside your apartment?”

“I wasn’t—” she frowned as she stacked the empty bowls and plates “—until just now.”

“I’m sure they have better things to talk about,” he said, attempting to reassure her.

“You’re the closest thing this town has to a celebrity,” she reminded him, as she transferred the dishes and cutlery to the dishwasher. “Everything you do and say is major news.”

“Then the gossips are going to throw a ticker tape parade when they find out about Dani.”

She sent him a quizzical look. “Who’s Dani?”

“My daughter.”

Chapter Four

Kenzie stared at him, stunned. “You’re serious? You have a child?”

Spencer nodded. “A little girl.”

There were so many thoughts swirling through her mind, she didn’t know where to begin.

“How old is she?” she asked, latching onto the most obvious question first.

“Three. Well, almost four.”

“Are you...married?”

He shook his head. “No. Never. I mean, I would have married Emily, but she never told me that she was pregnant. In fact, it was only six weeks ago that I found out about Dani.”

“I can’t... I never...wow.”

“Yeah, that about sums up my reaction, too,” he admitted.

She took another minute to absorb the information he’d provided, but her brain was stuck on the fact that the wild child of the esteemed Channing family had a child of his own now. But maybe even more shocking was that the object of her adolescent adoration was sitting in her kitchen talking to her about it.

And while it had taken a concerted effort not to drool over his hotness as she sat beside him eating her dinner, this new information made her uneasy, because now she knew she hadn’t been ogling—surreptitiously, of course—the hottest guy in school but a little girl’s father.

Obviously her tired brain needed caffeine to process this.

She reached into the cupboard for a mug, then remembered the hot guy still in her kitchen. “Do you want coffee?”

“Sure,” Spencer said.

She grabbed a second mug, then popped a pod into the single-serve brewer. “Cream? Sugar?”

“Black’s good,” he said.

She handed him the first mug then brewed a second, to which she added a splash of milk.

“So.” She lifted her cup toward her lips, sipped. “An almost-four-year-old daughter.”

He nodded.

“And you only found out about her six weeks ago?”

He nodded again.

Which jived with the timing of his shoulder injury, she realized. Probably not a coincidence. More likely, he’d been distracted by the revelation when he’d climbed onto the back of the bull for that fateful ride.

“Why did her mom track you down now?” Kenzie wondered.

“She didn’t,” he acknowledged, his tone grim. “Emily died in a motorcycle accident three months ago.”

“Oh, Spencer.” She set her mug on the counter and instinctively reached out to touch a hand to his arm. “I’m so sorry.”

“Me, too,” he said. “Mostly for Dani. But I’ll admit to being a little frustrated, too, because now I’ll never know why she didn’t tell me about my child.”

“Then how did you find out?”

“Linda—Emily’s mom and Dani’s grandmother—tracked me down through the PRCA,” he said, referring to the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association.

“Just to stop by and tell you that you were a father?”

“No, to tell me that Emily put in her will that she wanted me to have Copper Penny—her horse—and custody of Dani.”

“Wow,” she said again.

“Can you picture it?” he asked her. “Me? With a kid?”

She lifted her mug to her lips again.

It was obvious what he thought her response would be, and her knee-jerk reaction was to give him the definitive “no” he expected. Because when she tried to picture the Spencer Channing she’d known in high school as a dad, the image refused to form. But when she looked at him now and took a moment to really consider his question, she realized that her instinctive reaction wasn’t just unfair, it was wrong.

“Actually, I can—and it’s not as hard as I would have imagined.”

“Well, I can’t,” he told her. “I mean, what was she thinking? We met at a rodeo—she knows what my life is like.”

But there was a hint of something in his voice that made Kenzie think he wished his situation was different—something that suggested he might want to be a father to his daughter but just didn’t know how. “She was probably thinking that a child should be raised by a parent,” she told him.

“Without even giving me a heads-up that I was a parent,” he noted.

She could empathize with his frustration, but there was a bigger issue at the forefront of her mind. “Where’s Dani now?”

“In Denver. With her grandmother.” He unlocked his phone, then turned it toward Kenzie.

The wallpaper on his screen was a picture of a little girl with familiar Channing blue eyes, wispy blond hair and a sweet Cupid’s-bow mouth curved in a tentative smile. “Oh, Spencer. She’s beautiful.”

“She is, isn’t she?” he said, sounding pleased and proud—and more than a little overwhelmed.

“Are you going to honor her mother’s wishes?”

He turned the phone around again and studied the picture for a long minute before responding to her question. “I’m going to try. Maybe I wonder about the wisdom of Emily’s choices and worry that I’m going to screw up...but Dani’s my daughter—and I want to be her father.” He managed a wry smile. “And no one could be more surprised by that realization than me.”

Obviously Kenzie’s perceptions were colored by her own experiences. She’d grown up without a father because her own had abandoned his pregnant wife and, as a result, Spencer’s quiet determination to do the right thing made him even more appealing to her.

Not that she would ever let him know it. Although he’d been flirting and teasing earlier, she had no intention of opening up her heart to him again. The revelations about his daughter only strengthened her resolve, because Dani’s grieving heart was the only one that mattered.

“Do you have a plan?” she asked cautiously. “What’s going to happen next?”

“Well, I’m still hopeful that I can compete at the National Finals.”

Which she knew took place in December—barely six weeks away, and which confirmed her suspicion that his return to Haven was only temporary.

“I meant with Dani,” she clarified.

“The caseworker thought she should stay with Linda until I had suitable accommodations.”

“Caseworker?” she echoed, surprised.

He explained that Dani had been in the care of a teenage babysitter when Emily was killed. Apparently she’d promised to be home by ten o’clock, and when it got to be midnight and she still hadn’t returned, the babysitter tried to reach her on her cell phone. Emily didn’t answer, so the babysitter called her parents, who then contacted the police. They, of course, reached out to family services to take custody of the child until her next of kin could be contacted. At the time, that was her grandmother because nobody knew anything about Dani’s father.

He recited the facts in a level tone, but his hands were holding on to the mug so tightly that his knuckles were white. And though Kenzie didn’t want to add to his worry, she had to ask, “Is it possible that the grandmother might fight for custody?”

“No,” he said confidently. “Linda made it clear that she’d already raised one daughter and this one was my responsibility.”

“Charming,” Kenzie remarked.

“I know she loves Dani,” he said. “And she’s been taking care of her since the accident, even moving into Emily’s place so that Dani could stay in familiar surroundings.”

“But only temporarily.”

He shrugged. “Her boyfriend is some rich international banker who likes to jet-set around Europe and she wants to be free to see the world with him.”

Maybe the grandmother did love Dani, but it seemed to Kenzie that she loved her boyfriend—or at least the lifestyle he could provide—more. And without even having met the little girl, Kenzie ached for the child who’d lost the only parent she’d ever known and who would soon be facing even more changes and challenges.

“Speaking of grandparents,” she said. “How did your parents respond to the big news?”

Spencer sighed. “Well, it was awkward, that’s for sure.”

“You didn’t tell us you were coming home tonight,” his mother said, but softened the admonishment with a kiss on his cheek.

“I wasn’t sure myself,” he told her.

“How’s the shoulder?” his dad asked.

“It’s coming along,” he said, as if the words might lessen the current throbbing in the joint. “I’m hoping to start therapy this week.”

“That’s good news,” Ben said.

“Speaking of news,” Spencer said.

“Please tell me you’re going to give up riding bulls and come home to work at Blake Mining,” Margaret implored.

Since he couldn’t confirm her request—because even if he didn’t know how long he was going to stay in Haven, he did know that didn’t ever want to work at Blake Mining—he decide to ignore it.

Instead, he took two chocolate cigars out of his pocket. They were wrapped in shiny pink foil with paper bands announcing, “It’s a Girl.” As he handed one to each of his parents, he said, “Congratulations, you have a granddaughter.”

His father’s brows drew together; his mother’s eyes went wide.

“Is this some kind of joke?” Ben wanted to know, obviously not amused.

“It’s not a joke,” he assured them. “It’s happy news.”

“For Christ’s sake, Spencer.” His father shook his head. “Of all the stupid, reckless—”

Margaret reached up to put her hand on her husband’s arm, the gesture effectively halting his outburst. “Is it true...you have a baby?”

“Well, she’s not actually a baby,” he said. “Dani will be four in a few weeks.”

“Then why in hell are we only learning about her now?” his father demanded.

“Because I only found out about her myself a few weeks ago,” he admitted.

But he didn’t share any of those details with Kenzie now, opting to summarize the hour-long confrontation by simply saying: “My dad yelled, my mom cried, and then, when they’d both had some time for the news to sink in, they said that they’re looking forward to meeting Dani.”

“I think I’m beginning to understand why there was so much tension in your body when you were on the table today,” she remarked.

“Yeah, that’s part of it,” Spencer acknowledged.

“Well, and your injury, obviously.”

“That, too,” he agreed.

* * *

Spencer left a short while later, after thanking Kenzie again for dinner—and for listening to him. She still wasn’t sure why he’d come to her. It might have been as simple as he’d claimed: that he hadn’t kept in touch with any of his old friends and just wanted someone to talk to. Whatever the reason, she was glad he’d shown up at her door.

She was also admittedly a little disappointed that he was already planning his return to the rodeo. When she’d heard about his injury, she hadn’t expected it would keep him sidelined for long. But finding out that he was a father—well, she would have thought that might have more of an impact.

Of course, the change in his circumstances was fairly recent, and it was entirely possible he was still processing what it meant to be a father and how that status would impact every aspect of his life.

But when I talked to him last week...he seemed to suggest that he was thinking about making a career change...

Brielle’s words echoed in her mind, assuring her that Spencer was thinking about his future—and his daughter’s, too.

And maybe, after some thinking, he would decide to stay.

Not that it should matter to her one way or the other. Sure, she’d love to meet his daughter. And maybe, if he stuck around, Kenzie and Spencer might become friends. But she wasn’t going to start spinning fairy tales in her head about some kind of happily-ever-after with a guy who’d broken her heart once before.

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