“I’ve missed you, little darlin’,” Levi said, smiling down into his daughter’s face. “Did you miss me, too?”

More than anything in the world, Claire thought, observing the way he was with Bekka. And more than you’ll ever know.

With more than a little effort, she blocked and shut down her feelings. She was not about to own up to what she was thinking or say the words out loud.

That was all she needed to do, Claire upbraided herself. If Levi had a clue as to what she was thinking, he would just take it to mean that he could move back into their apartment and, just like that, it would be business as usual.

Would that be so bad? she questioned herself.

Yes! Yes, it would be that bad. She’d be back to spending all her time taking care of the baby and missing Levi, while he’d be spending all his free time away from her.

Supposedly securing their future… if she were to believe him.

She had to remember how that felt—missing him, being taken for granted—she silently counseled herself.

But all that staying angry required effort. Effort that was hard to maintain when part of her kept longing for the touch of his hand, the feel of his lips on hers.

* * *

Montana Mavericks: What Happened at the Wedding? A weekend Rust Creek Falls will never forget!

Do You Take This Maverick?

Marie Ferrarella

www.millsandboon.co.uk

USA TODAY bestselling and RITA® Award-winning author MARIE FERRARELLA has written more than two hundred books for Mills & Boon, some under the name Marie Nicole. Her romances are beloved by fans worldwide. Visit her website, www.marieferrarella.com.

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To Gail Chasan,

who is always in my corner.

Thank you.

Contents

Cover

Introduction

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Prologue

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

Copyright

Prologue

“I don’t see what you’re so mad about.”

Levi Wyatt stared at his wife of two years in absolute confusion. The second he had opened the door and walked into their room, Claire had lit into him, reading him the riot act.

Granted, it was almost dawn and he had never stayed out anywhere near this late before, but that was no reason for Claire to be so upset.

This was definitely a side of his wife he had never seen before.

Industrious, ambitious and hardworking, Levi rarely, if ever, took any time off from his job at the furniture store. As the recently promoted store manager, most of the time he even worked on the weekends, but this weekend—the Fourth of July—he’d taken off to escort Claire to a wedding in Rust Creek Falls. He could have skipped it, personally, but it seemed to be really important to Claire that he attend, too. Her grandparents were putting them up for the weekend at the boarding house that they ran.

The wedding was held in the town’s park, and it was a great afternoon. The ceremony was crowded and joyous, the reception even more so. A few of the attendees had decided to get up a little friendly game of poker. Levi wasn’t quite sure why, but he was really tempted by the game, so he’d joined in.

Since he, Claire and their eight-month-old daughter, Bekka, were all spending the weekend at the boarding house, he felt that Claire wouldn’t lack for company while he was gone. Especially since Melba Strickland, Claire’s grandma, had graciously offered to babysit so the couple could enjoy the wedding together. This seemed to be the perfect opportunity for him to knock off a little steam.

Besides, he noticed that Claire was busy talking to a woman she knew at the reception when he’d allowed himself to be lured away by the promise of a little harmless diversion.

It was only supposed to be for an hour—two tops.

It had run over.

Way over.

But that still wasn’t any reason for Claire to explode this way.

“Oh, you don’t, do you?” Claire cried heatedly. Up until this point she had managed to keep her ever-growing discontent under control. She’d never allowed Levi to even catch a glimpse of it, just as she wouldn’t dream of letting him see her without her makeup on or with her hair looking anything but perfect. For Claire, it was all about maintaining the illusion of perfection. It always had been.

But tonight, for some reason, she was feeling rather light-headed, although all she’d had to drink at the reception was some of the wedding punch. Despite her petite frame, punch wouldn’t affect her like this, she reasoned.

Still, because of her light-headedness, her discontent had slipped out of its usual restraints, and before she knew it, the second Levi had walked into their room at the boarding house, she was giving it to her husband with both barrels.

“No,” Levi answered, standing his ground and waiting for Claire to say something that made sense to him, “I don’t. I’ve been working really hard lately, putting in some really long hours. I came to the wedding because you wanted to come and when this poker game came up, I didn’t see the harm in taking a little time off—”

“Didn’t see the harm?” Claire echoed incredulously. Her eyes narrowed into angry, accusing slits. “No, you wouldn’t, would you? Well, I’ll tell you what the harm is. The harm is that you just walked off and left me—again.” Not wanting to wake up anyone at the boarding house, she struggled to keep from shouting at him, but it wasn’t easy.

“Again? What again?” he demanded, stunned. “Claire, what are you talking about? When did I leave you?”

Was he serious? He couldn’t possibly be as clueless as he was pretending to be, could he?

“When didn’t you leave me?” Claire countered, her anger all but running over like a boiling pot of water. “You’re always going off out of town to some sales meetings or other. And if it’s not a meeting, then it’s a seminar.” She said the word as if it was a lie that he fed her. “I never get to see you anymore,” she complained.

Levi felt his own temper surging, something that almost never happened. Ordinarily, he could put up with his wife’s fluctuating moods, but right now he felt as if he’d had more than he could stand.

“You’re seeing me now.” Levi spread his hands wide, as if to highlight his presence. “I’m standing right here,” he pointed out.

Was he mocking her? His attitude just kept fueling her anger. “You know what I mean.”

“No, I don’t know what you mean,” he told her, feeling more and more bewildered and put upon by the second. “I’m going to those sales meetings and seminars because my job demands it. I’m doing it for you and the baby,” Levi stressed.

But Claire saw it differently. “You’re doing it to get away from me and the baby.”

Levi blew out a long breath as he gave up. There was no reasoning with her. “You’re tired, you don’t know what you’re saying,” Levi concluded, feeling rather desperate. He just wanted this to stop.

Her big brown eyes—eyes he had fallen in love with the first time he saw her—were all but shooting daggers at him. “Oh, so now I’m just crazy?”

Where had that come from? “I didn’t say that,” Levi insisted.

She was twisting everything, he thought helplessly. He felt as if he had stepped into quicksand and was sinking fast, no matter how hard he tried to pull himself free.

“Maybe you didn’t say it but that’s what you implied,” Claire retorted haughtily. “And who could blame me if I was crazy—which I’m not,” Claire underscored. “The only one I get to talk to all day is a colicky, crying baby. Don’t get me wrong, Levi, I love Bekka, but you’re never around.” It was an angry accusation, one she dared him to deny.

“Yes, I am,” Levi insisted. “I come home to you every night,” Levi told her.

“Sure, you come home,” she jeered. “You come home to fall into bed, dead asleep before your head hits the pillow.”

“I put in long hours, Claire, and I’m tired,” Levi tried to explain.

Claire’s back went up as she instantly took offense at what she thought he was implying. “Oh, and I don’t and I’m not?”

Levi threw up his hands, thoroughly frustrated. He had stayed longer at the game than he had intended and lost money, to boot. He hadn’t meant for any of that to happen. He wasn’t really sure why it had happened. But he knew that her anger was way out of proportion.

“Look, let’s not get into this now,” he pleaded. “I’m sorry, okay?”

“No, it’s not okay—and you’re not sorry,” she told him angrily. “But I am. I’m sorry I ever met you. I’m sorry I ever married you!”

Levi was close to being speechless. “Claire, what are you saying?”

Heightened fury was all but etched into her fine features and had colored her cheeks to a bright shade of pink.

“What I’m saying is that it’s over,” she retorted furiously. “I made a mistake. We both made a mistake. We should have never gotten married in the first place.”

All this because he stayed out playing poker too long? He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Claire—”

“Get out!” she cried. Circling him, she put her hands on his back and started pushing him out the door into the hallway. “Get out now!”

“Claire—” It was all Levi could get out of his mouth. He was completely stunned and unable to even understand how they had gotten to this impasse so quickly.

“Now!” she yelled, managing to shove him out all the way only because she had caught him so completely off guard.

The second he was across the threshold and in the hall, Claire pulled off her wedding ring.

“Here, I don’t want this anymore, either!” she cried, throwing her wedding ring at him.

The next second she slammed the door shut behind him.

He heard the click and knew she’d flipped the lock. Claire had the only key.

Levi stood there in front of the door to their room for several moments, dazed and wondering if he was hallucinating all this for some reason. What had just happened seemed to have come out of nowhere.

This trip was supposed to have picked up Claire’s spirits. Instead, he felt that he had just witnessed his marriage falling apart.

What the hell had just happened here? Levi wondered. He hadn’t a clue.

As he walked away from the door, Levi heard Bekka beginning to wail from inside the room.

“You and me both, kid,” he murmured under his breath. “You and me both.”

Chapter One

Almost a month had gone by since the disastrous night of the wedding, and Levi still didn’t know exactly what had happened. What he did know was that he wanted his wife back.

He missed her.

Missed the baby.

Missed being a married man more than he had ever thought possible.

In one all-too-quick swoop his orderly world had fallen into a state of formless chaos, and he absolutely hated it. He felt directionless. When he and Claire had been together, his life had had purpose, he’d had goals. Now he was just blindly going from one end of the day to the other. He still showed up for work at the furniture store every morning, but he lacked his usual energy, feeling lost and so alone that he literally ached.

Without Claire, absolutely nothing seemed to make any sense to him anymore.

Initially, as he had walked back to his truck right after Claire had thrown him out, his own anger at what he felt was her uncalled-for reaction to his late arrival continued to grow—along with his confusion. Why had she blown a gasket? After all, he’d just been playing poker with some of the guys he’d met at the wedding, not playing around with some little flirt.

He knew lots of men who took any opportunity to cheat on their wives, claiming that marriage hemmed them in, and that they needed something besides the “same old piece of stale cake” to get their adrenaline flowing.

But he wasn’t like that. And he certainly didn’t feel that way about his marriage.

The moment that he had first laid eyes on Claire in that cute little sundress she’d been wearing the day they met, peering into the show window of the furniture store where he worked, he had fallen for her like the proverbial ton of bricks. He’d even taken the initiative and gone outside the store to tell her that the set she was looking at was on sale. It really wasn’t. He’d made that up just to have an excuse to talk to her.

Had she actually wanted to buy that set, he would have had to come up with the difference out of his own pocket, but he was so taken with her, he would have done it and gladly. The way he saw it, it would have been more than worth it to him.

From that day forward, Claire Strickland had always been the only girl for him. He’d loved her so much, he’d been willing to wait until she graduated from college before they got married. In fact, he’d insisted on it. First the degree, then the ring. Because it was best for her, and he didn’t want to be the reason she had dropped out of college. From the first moment he met her, it had always been about what was best for her. He felt that she brought out the best in him.

And now he had lost her...and he wasn’t even sure why.

He could still see that look on her face as she’d pushed him out of the room. She’d been so angry at him, and he hadn’t done anything to warrant that degree of fury. One of the men in the game had actually bet and lost the house he was living in. Now that was stupid.

What would have been her reaction if he’d done something like that?

Trying to be optimistic, Levi had hoped that whatever had gotten her angry to this degree would blow over once they got back home.

But when they did get back home—she’d had her grandmother drive her and Bekka home while he’d driven himself—he’d found that his belongings had all been thrown out on the lawn in front of their apartment.

This, in addition to having thrown her wedding ring at him, made the message clear.

It was over.

Except that he didn’t want it to be.

Desperate, thinking that maybe she needed a little bit of time to come around, he gave Claire her space. By definition, that required his staying out of her way, so he’d bedded down in the storeroom at the furniture store. He alternated between that and spending the night in his truck. It was August so at least he didn’t have to worry about cold weather. But that was small consolation in the face of what was going on in his life.

With each passing day, he kept hoping that Claire would relent and take him back. But she never came to the store, never answered the phone when he called, even though he called her at least three times a day, if not more. For all intents and purposes, Claire was acting as if he didn’t exist.

And it was killing him.

Frustrated, Levi decided that enough was enough and went to the apartment where they’d lived for the past two years for a face-to-face confrontation with Claire.

But as he drove up, he saw that there were no lights on in the window to greet him, and he had a very uneasy feeling as he unlocked the front door.

Holding his breath, praying he was wrong, Levi cautiously walked in.

“Claire? Claire, it’s me. Levi. Your husband,” he added uncertainly. Nothing but silence answered him. “Claire,” he called out, “where are you?”

Still nothing. Nothing but the hollow echo of his own voice.

Growing progressively more agitated as well as aggravated, Levi went from room to small room, looking for his wife, for his baby. Finding neither.

“Come on, Claire, this isn’t funny anymore. Where are you?”

Nervous now, he debated calling Claire’s parents. He didn’t want to worry them, but then on the other hand, there might be a chance that they knew where their daughter and granddaughter were.

They might even be staying with her parents, for that matter.

He took out his cell phone and was all set to press the appropriate numbers on the keypad, but then he paused, thinking. Maybe calling her parents wasn’t such a good idea after all.

Claire’s parents, Peter and Donna Strickland, had initially been very hesitant about their daughter getting involved with someone who was several years older than she was and who didn’t have a college education. It had taken him a bit of doing to win them over.

But after her parents saw how much he really loved their youngest daughter, how he’d treated her as if she were made out of pure spun gold, they came around and gave their blessings. The older couple, who had been going strong for the past thirty years, had one of those rare, really happy marriages and according to Peter Strickland, they saw no reason why Claire and he couldn’t have one, too.

If he called them, asking after Claire, then her parents would realize that they were having marital problems. He had a feeling that Claire wouldn’t tell her parents what was going on. Because if she did, it was as good as admitting that their initial concerns about her getting married had been right. That he wasn’t good enough for her. And even though she might actually believe that, he knew Claire well enough to know that she wouldn’t readily admit that fact to her parents.

Who did that leave? he thought as he wandered around the empty apartment.

There were her two older sisters, Hadley and Tessa, but they were both professional career women who lived and worked in Bozeman, Montana, too. If Claire called either one of them, asking to be taken in, that would be as good as admitting failure, and she wouldn’t do that. There was just the slightest bit of competitiveness among the sisters—at least as far as Claire was concerned.

No, she wouldn’t call either one of her sisters, either. She would have rather died than allow her sisters to know that her marriage was in jeopardy.

But she had to call somebody, Levi reasoned. Claire couldn’t opt to go it alone. She had the baby to think of.

The answer suddenly came to him. Of course. Claire would have turned to her grandparents for emotional support.

Her grandmother, Melba, was a lively, full-steam-ahead woman who had raised four children, including Claire’s father, and had still managed to be a businesswoman. She and her husband, Gene, ran the Strickland Boarding House, where he and Claire had stayed when they’d attended the wedding that had ultimately torn them apart.

Claire admired her grandmother, so it was only natural that she would turn to the older woman. And, as he recalled, the crusty Gene Strickland really doted on his granddaughter and her baby girl, too.

Levi was by nature a private person. He had never gone to anyone with his hat in his hand before, pleading his case, but then, he’d never been in this sort of a situation before, either. He wanted his wife and his daughter back in the worst way. Getting them back meant more to him than his pride, even though the latter was a difficult thing for him to swallow.

But he’d do it. To get Claire back into his life, he’d do whatever was necessary.

Levi slowly looked around the apartment. Claire’s clothes were gone. The closets were empty on her side.

He knew that since Claire was gone, he could stay here again. The familiar surroundings were infinitely more comfortable than bedding down in the storeroom or utilizing the flatbed of his truck.

But staying here wasn’t going to get him any closer to Claire. He needed to go into work every day—taking any more time off was out of the question since the store was introducing a new line of furniture and he was needed to handle whatever problems might come up. That meant that in his off hours, he needed to maintain close proximity to Claire. So he needed to stay somewhere close by to where she was staying.

And that, he concluded, would most likely have to be at the boarding house. There’d been a couple of vacancies there last month when they were there for that damn wedding.

And even if there hadn’t been, her grandfather was the type to find a way to make room for his granddaughter and his great-granddaughter even if it meant that he had to go sleep in his car. Gene Strickland would have thought nothing of it if doing so meant helping out Claire.

He needed to go see her grandparents, Levi decided. Her grandmother wasn’t exactly a fan of his—the woman had made no bones about telling him that she thought Claire was too young to get married the first time she met him. But he did get along with Gene. If he could win the man over to his side in this, he’d have a fighting chance of winning Claire back, he reasoned.

Taking one last long look around, Levi closed and locked the front door behind him—fervently hoping that it wasn’t for the last time.

* * *

How had she gone from feeling like a fairy-tale princess to being Cinderella before the fairy godmother had come into the picture in such a short amount of time?

Claire asked herself that question for the umpteenth time since she had come to her grandparents, asking if she could move into the boarding house until she could get on her feet again.

She could remember the way her grandmother had looked at her that day. Melba Strickland had never been what could be called a sentimental woman by any stretch of the imagination. But the woman was fair and she was family, which was what Claire felt she needed at a time like this.

At the time, her grandfather, a somewhat crusty bear of a man, had asked her, “What’s wrong with your place?”

That was where she had broken down and cried. “I don’t have a place anymore, Grandpa. I’ve left Levi.”

“Left him?” Taking the fussing Bekka into his own arms, Gene cooed a few syllables at the baby, calming her down, and then looked at his granddaughter incredulously. “Don’t you just mean that you’ve had a lovers’ spat?”

Claire shook her head, unable to speak for a moment. When she finally could, she showed the two her bare left ring finger and said, “No, not a lovers’ spat, Grandpa. Levi and I are separated.” She took a ragged breath, telling herself that saying the words didn’t hurt—but it did. She felt as if a jagged knife had just ripped through her heart. “We’re getting divorced.”

“Now hold on there, that’s a big word, honey,” Gene had told her. “Do you know what it means?”

Melba had frowned at her husband, annoyed. “Of course she knows what it means.” And then she turned toward her granddaughter. “What happened, Claire? Did he disrespect you?” Her expression suddenly darkened. “He didn’t lay a hand on you, did he? Because if he did, your grandfather is going to kill him.”

Claire had struggled to keep her sobs from surfacing. “No, he didn’t lay a hand on me, Grandmother.”

“Then what happened? Why are you divorcing him?” Melba had demanded in her no-nonsense tone.

But Claire just shook her head, waving away the question. She had no intentions of reiterating the incident. She knew she’d break down before she even got to the middle of the story.

“It doesn’t matter what happened. We’re getting divorced. It’s over,” she told her grandparents with finality, her voice catching at the end.

For a moment she thought she was going to burst into sobs, but she managed to get herself under control at the last second.

Melba shot her husband a knowing look that all but shouted, “I told you so.”

“I knew you were too young to get married.” Although it was a declaration, there had been no triumph in Melba’s voice. “You haven’t had a chance to live yet. After graduating college, you’re supposed to sample life a little. Travel. Do things, not tie yourself down with a marriage and a baby.” She looked at her granddaughter knowingly. “Neither one of you was ready for that, especially not you.”

“Melba,” Gene warned, giving her a look that told her to keep her piece.

As headstrong and independent as ever, Melba was not about to listen. Hands on her hips, the diminutive woman turned on her husband. “Don’t Melba me, Gene. She wasn’t ready.”

The steely older woman looked at her granddaughter, then, after a moment, she enfolded the girl in her arms. Melba’s intentions were obviously good, but it still made for a rather awkward moment.

“Oh, Claire,” Melba said with a sigh, “you wound up setting yourself up. Marriage isn’t some magical, happily-ever-after state. At best it’s an ongoing work in progress.”

“I’ll say,” Gene chuckled, his chest moving up and down with the deep rumble. It managed to entertain Bekka, who in turn gurgled her approval. “The first hundred years are the hardest, honey,” he told his granddaughter with a twinkle in his eye. “After that it gets easier. But you have to invest the time.”

Claire had sniffled then, doing her best not to cry. Doing her best to face the rest of her life stoically. “That’s all water under the bridge, Grandpa. I threw Levi out.” That had been two days ago. “It’s over.”

Melba’s dark eyebrows drew together in a puzzled single line. “If you threw Levi out, what are you doing here?”

Claire shook her head. “Well, it’s his apartment. I can’t stay there now. Everywhere I look—the kitchen, the closet, our bedroom—I can see him. It’s just too hard for me to take.”

Gene had glanced over toward his wife as if he knew that Melba was obviously going to say something that would echo the voice of reason—and be utterly practical. But Claire didn’t need practical. What she needed—rather desperately, if the look in her eyes was any gauge—was understanding.

In order to forestall his wife and whatever it was that she was going to say, Gene quickly spoke up, trying to stop whatever words were going to come out of Melba’s mouth.

“Claire-bear,” he said, addressing his granddaughter by the nickname he’d given her when she was about a month old, “You can stay here as long as you like. As it so happens, we’ve got a couple of vacancies, and it’s been a long time since your grandmother and I have heard the sound of little running feet.”

“Bekka is only eight months old, Grandpa. She doesn’t even walk yet, much less run,” Claire reminded her grandfather.

What her daughter did do, almost all night long, was fuss and cry. Another reason that she felt so worn out, hemmed in and trapped, Claire thought, struggling not to be resentful.

Her hostile feelings were redirected toward her husband. If he had been there to share in the responsibility, if he would have taken his turn walking the floor with the baby, then she wouldn’t have felt as exhausted and out of sorts as she did.

“But she will,” Gene was telling her. “She will and when she does, we’ll be there to make sure she doesn’t hurt herself, won’t we, Mel?” he said, turning toward his wife.

“Sure. And the boarding house will just run itself,” Melba commented sarcastically.

Gene shook his head as he looked at his granddaughter. “Don’t mind your grandmother. She always sees the downside of things. Me, I see the upside.” He winked at Claire. “That’s why our marriage works.”

“That’s why your grandfather is a cockeyed optimist,” Melba corrected.

For the sake of peace, Gene ignored his wife’s comment. Instead, he said to Claire, “Like I said, you can stay here as long as you like.” He turned toward the staircase, still holding Bekka in his arms. “Come on, we’ll get you and the princess here settled in.”

“I’ll pay for the room, Grandmother,” Claire had said, looking over her shoulder at Melba.

“You’ll do no such thing,” Gene informed her. “Family doesn’t pay.”

“But family pitches in,” Melba had interjected. “We’ll find something for you to do here at the boarding house, Claire.”

“Anything,” Claire had offered.

“How’s your cooking?” Melba asked her. “I need someone to pick up the slack when Gina is busy,” she elaborated, referring to the cook she’d recently hired. “I’m giving having someone else handling the cooking a try. I’ve already got a lot to keep me busy.”

“Anything but that,” Claire had amended almost sheepishly. “I’m afraid I still haven’t gotten the hang of cooking.” And then she brightened. “But I can make beds,” she volunteered.

“This is a boarding house, Claire, not a bed-and-breakfast. People here make their own beds,” Melba informed her matter-of-factly.

“Don’t worry,” Gene had said, putting one arm around his granddaughter’s shoulders as he held his great-granddaughter against him with the other, “We’ll come up with something for you to do until you find your way.”

Claire had sighed then, leaning into him as she had done on so many occasions when she had been a little girl, growing up.

“I hope so, Grandpa,” Claire said, doing her best to sound cheerful. “I really hope so.”

Chapter Two

Gene Strickland tried to ignore it, but even after all these years of marriage, he hadn’t found a way to go about things as if everything was all right when it wasn’t. His wife’s scowl—which was aimed directly at him and had been an ongoing thing now for the past two weeks—seemed to go clean down to the bone. There was no use pretending that it didn’t.

So he didn’t even try.

Pushing aside the monthly inventory he was in the process of updating in connection with the boarding house’s current supplies, Gene asked, “Okay, woman. Out with it. What’s got your panties all in a twist like this?”

Brooding dark brown eyes looked at him accusingly from across the large scarred oak desk they both shared in the corner room that served as an office.

“As if you don’t know,” she muttered under her breath, but clearly enough for Gene to hear.

“No, I don’t know,” he’d informed her. “I’d like to think that I’d have the good sense not to ask if I knew. I’ve been with you long enough to know that lots of things set you off and right now, I don’t want to risk bringing up any of them.”

Melba pursed her lips as her eyes held his. “You’re coddling her.”

“Her?” Gene echoed innocently.

“Yes, her. Claire,” she finally said. “Don’t play dumb with me,” Melba warned. “You know damn well that I’m talking about our granddaughter, Gene.”

Unable to properly focus on the inventory while his wife was talking, Gene put down his pen and shook his head. This whole thing with Claire had hit Melba hard, he thought. He had a feeling that his wife blamed herself for not speaking up more to change Claire’s mind about marrying so young. Or, at the very least, getting Claire to wait another year or so before leaping into marriage. But they all knew that the young never listened to the old, he thought, resigned.

Melba needed to change her opinion about Claire’s marriage as well.

Especially since he was going to have to let her in on a secret he would have rather not had to divulge. However, if Melba found out about this on her own—and she had a knack for doing that—then Claire and Levi’s marriage might not be the only one in trouble.

“Claire’s going through a really rough patch right now, Mel.”

“I know that,” the old woman snapped. “And she needs a backbone to get through it, not to be treated as if she was made out of spun glass and could break at any second. She needs to toughen up.” The very thought of a fragile granddaughter exasperated Melba beyond words. “Her parents were just too soft on her. If it were me, I would have never given my permission for those two to get married two years ago.”

“Two years ago she wasn’t a minor anymore, Mel,” Gene gently reminded her. “Legally, she could make her own decisions,” the man pointed out.

Melba threw up her hands. “And look how great that turned out for her,” she huffed.

Gene thought of the newest boarder he’d just taken in—without his wife’s knowledge, certainly without her permission.

Time to lay some groundwork, he told himself.

“Story’s not over yet, Mel. There’s a second act coming. I just know it. Just remember,” he told her, making eye contact with the woman he had slept beside for five decades, “not everyone has an iron resolve like you.” Gene leaned over and kissed his wife’s temple.

“Don’t try to sweet-talk me into going soft, Gene Strickland,” Melba snapped—but with less verve.

It was obvious that even that small a kiss had her lighting up in response. They had a connection, she and Gene. The kind that poets used to celebrate in their works. And spats or not, the warranty on that connection hadn’t expired yet.

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” he told her with a straight face. “As a matter of fact, I’m appealing to the businesswoman in you.”

Melba looked at her husband, somewhat confused. Where was all this going? “What’s that supposed to mean?” she wanted to know.

“Well, you’re a savvy businesswoman, aren’t you, Mel?” he asked.

“I like to think so,” she said guardedly, watching her husband as if she expected him to pull a rabbit out of a hat or something equally as predictable, yet at bottom, magical. “Okay, out with it. Just where are you going with this?”

He built the blocks up slowly. “Being a good businesswoman means that you like to make money, true?”

“Yes, yes, we already know this,” she told her husband impatiently. Everyone knew she loved making money, loved the challenge of running the boarding house efficiently. Having half a dozen adults—or so—in one place presented a great many hurdles to clear. But so far she was managing to run the place very successfully. “Get to the point. Sometime before next Christmas would be nice.”

He approached the heart of this matter cautiously, determined to set up a strong foundation first. “A good businesswoman wouldn’t allow personal prejudices to get in the way of her making a good-size profit.”

Though Gene had argued against it, Levi had insisted on paying more than the usual going rate for the room. Most likely in an effort to appeal to the entrepreneur in Melba when she learned of his being there.

“A good-size profit,” she repeated. “What are you getting us into, Gene?” she wanted to know, eyeing her husband suspiciously. Usually, she could rely on him to ultimately come through at the end of the day, doing nothing to jeopardize their way of life or their income. But he was making her nervous now with his vague innuendos. Just exactly what did the man have up his sleeve?

“Making money in what way?” she asked her husband when he didn’t answer her question.

“By renting out the last available room in the boarding house for more than the usual rate,” he told her with just a shade too much innocence to satisfy Melba.

“What are you trying to say, Gene? Come on, spit it out,” she ordered. “Just who is it that you’re renting out this last room to?” she demanded. And then, just before her husband could give her an answer, a look of horrified indignation washed over the older woman’s features. “Oh no, you can’t mean to tell me—”

Her voice had gone up so high that it completely vanished at its peak.

Wanting to get this out and then, hopefully, put to rest, Gene supplied the name that Melba seemed incapable of uttering.

“Levi. Claire’s husband. Yes, I rented it out to him,” he told her with an air of finality that let her know that she was not allowed to toss the young man out on his ear under any circumstances.

Melba glared at him. “Have you gone and lost your mind, Gene?”

The heated accusation did not surprise him. “Not that I know of, no. Last I checked, it was still where it was supposed to be. Right between my ears—same as yours, Mel.”

“Then why aren’t you using it?” Melba wanted to know. Because the man was certainly acting as if he had lost his mind.

“I thought I was,” he told her simply. “Not to mention my heart,” he added pointedly.

“Claire came here to get away from that man,” Melba reminded her husband. “Or did you somehow forget that little fact?”

“No, I didn’t forget that,” he replied calmly. “And since when did you condone cowardice?” Gene wanted to know.

The accusation instantly stirred her up. “What are you talking about?” Melba demanded heatedly. “I am most certainly not condoning cowardice.”

He gave her a skeptical look. “Then what would you call letting her run away from her situation instead of facing up to it and trying to resolve it?”

Melba’s scowl deepened, even though it didn’t seem physically possible for it to become any deeper than it already was. She debated giving her husband the silent treatment, but the words were burning on her tongue, and she knew she’d have no peace until this was resolved and she said what had been—and still was—on her mind.

“You and I both know that she married too young,” she said to Gene.

Gene gave her a knowing look. “As I recall, she was the same age as you were when we got married.” Apparently, that little fact had escaped his wife.

“Don’t compare us,” Melba retorted. “I was years older emotionally.”

He tended to agree with her—although there were times when he felt Melba was too young to make competent decisions even at this age. Not that he would ever dare to tell her that.

“Be that as it may,” Gene told her, “Levi’s a good man, Mel, and he loves her.” It was clear that he believed the couple should take another shot at recapturing the magic that had brought them together and had existed in the first months of their marriage.

“Love alone never solved anything,” Melba retorted.

Gene gave her a sly, knowing look. “Maybe not, but it sure gave us something to look forward to on those cold, long nights. Remember?”

Melba pressed her lips together and swatted her husband’s arm. She could feel her cheeks warming. “Behave yourself, Gene.”

Gene chuckled, amused. “You don’t really mean that and you know it,” he told her.

The impish, sexy look he gave her melted the years away and brought them both back to a time when the only aches they felt involved their hearts and striving to be together over her parents’ wishes otherwise.

Rising from his side of the desk, he circled around to where his wife was sitting. Hands bracketing her shoulders, he brought her up to her feet before him. Melba was a small woman. Her bombastic personality made him forget that at times. In reality, Gene all but dwarfed her when he stood beside his wife.

Height difference notwithstanding, Melba filled up his whole world and had from the moment he’d first met her.

“Give him a chance, Mel,” he requested. “Give them both a chance to work this out.”

Melba thought of how hurt Claire had been when she first came to them. How hurt she still seemed to be. “And if she doesn’t want to?” she challenged.

“I have a feeling that she does,” Gene told her confidently. He saw the skeptical look come over her face and said, “They have a daughter and four years invested in one another, two of them as a married couple. They’ve simply run into some turbulence just like a lot of other couples, but abandoning ship isn’t the answer. If they do, if they don’t try to make this work, they’ll never forgive each other—or themselves.”

Melba frowned, looking at her husband as if for the first time. “Since when did you get to be such a hopeless romantic?” she wanted to know.

That was an easy one to answer. “Since I married the most beautiful girl at the dance,” he told her.

Melba huffed and shook her head. Her husband’s answer both surprised her and pleased her, but she couldn’t let him see that. If she did, she felt that she’d lose the upper hand in their relationship.

“Fine, Levi can stay,” she informed him. “But he pays rent like everyone else,” she warned. This wasn’t a charity mission she was running here, she thought.

Levi had been one step ahead of Melba, Gene now thought. Insisting on paying more than the usual rate had been very smart of him. “I told you, that was already part of the deal.”

Melba looked far from pleased. The scowl on her face not only remained, it deepened, too. “One wrong move and he’s out of here.”

“Understood.” Gene paused, allowing her to savor her moment before he decided to bedevil her a little and asked, “Define wrong move.”

She was at a disadvantage and not thinking as clearly as she should, Melba realized. Her mind was already on other matters that concerned the boarding house.

She chose the vague way out.

“You’ll know it when you see it,” she snapped. “Now I have to see if Gina has gotten dinner started,” she told him, referring to the boarding-house cook. To that end, Melba shrugged off her husband’s large, capable hands from about her shoulders. “One wrong move,” she repeated warningly just before she left the room.

“Hard to believe that woman once had what I took to be a soft heart underneath all that,” Gene said out loud to the other occupant of the area once his wife had left the room.

Turning around he looked at the young man he knew had been standing in the shadows of the hallway until the matter of his staying at the boarding house had been resolved. He was a little bit afraid of Melba—as were they all.

“But she does,” Gene affirmed.

Levi looked off in the direction the woman had gone in. “She doesn’t like me very much, does she?”

It wasn’t a question so much as an observation on Levi’s part.

“She likes you fine, boy,” Gene assured him. “What she doesn’t like is the situation. She’s very protective of the people she loves, kind of like a lioness guarding her cubs. And there is no second-guessing her moves.” He looked pointedly at his granddaughter’s husband. “Consider yourself warned.”

Levi nodded. “Yes, sir. And I appreciate you taking my side in this,” he said with genuine gratitude and feeling.

“Not taking sides,” Gene corrected the younger man. “Just facilitating things so that they can move ahead if that’s what’s in the cards. I think that little girl loves you,” Gene told the young man who had come to him with his hat in his hand as well as his heart on his sleeve. “The problem is that she just got really overwhelmed by everything.

“People figure that getting married and having babies is no big deal—but it is. It’s a huge deal, and there’s a lot of adjusting to be done by everybody. You impress me as a sensible, hardworking young man, and I can tell that you love Claire—just like I can tell that she loves you. But she expected that life would go on being one great big party, and that’s just not so. Marriage takes work and sacrifice. That’s the part people forget about. If you find someone you love, there always comes a time when you have to fight for them. And that’s a good thing in the long run because nothing that’s precious gets that way if it’s too easy.”

Levi nodded. “I’m willing to fight for Claire until my dying breath.”

“Nobody’s talking about dying, boy,” Gene told him, clapping one hand against Levi’s broad shoulders. “Now come with me. I’ve got some things in the basement I need moved around and brought up to the kitchen. I could use a hand with them.”

“Absolutely,” Levi responded eagerly, wanting nothing more than to try to pay the man back in some small way for his kindness in allowing him this chance to win back the only woman he had ever loved.

* * *

Not a day went by when Claire didn’t regret all the hot words that just seemed to fly out of her mouth on their own accord that fateful morning after the wedding reception. Most of all, she regretted throwing Levi out—and throwing her wedding ring at him. But she had been so angry and so hurt that he had preferred a stupid card game to being with her, she’d lost all reason. She’d been so furious, she was almost blinded by it.

At first she’d been so angry, she felt justified in leaving his phone calls unanswered.

But then he’d stopped calling.

Which meant to her that he had stopped caring. Because if Levi cared, he would have upped the number of his calls, not stopped them so abruptly. If he cared about her, truly cared, he would have come looking for her and wouldn’t have stopped—not to eat or drink or sleep—until he found her. And then he would have gone on to move heaven and earth to win her back.

Since none of that, heretofore, had happened, nor did it appear to be happening, it just told her that she was right.

Levi didn’t care anymore.

Well, if he didn’t care anymore, then she didn’t, either.

Except that she did.

She cared so much, she literally hurt inside. Which just served to make her feel as if she was a fool. Only a fool pined for someone who wasn’t worth it, she argued over and over again.

What she needed to do, she told herself at least once a day, was to forget all about Levi and just move on, the way normal people did.

But how could she forget about him when every time she looked down into her daughter’s face, she saw traces of Levi?

How could she move on when every morning began with thoughts of Levi? And every night ended that way, as well?

How could she forget about Levi when, in her head, she kept hearing his voice? Seeing his face? Everywhere she turned, she could swear he’d been there, or even was there.

She felt haunted, and with each day it was just getting worse, not better.

“Okay, today is the first day of the rest of your life, and you are going to stop this,” Claire ordered her reflection in the mirror over the bureau. “You are going to take your adorable baby and march right out that door and into the rest of your life. A life without boundaries and without Levi.”

Easier said than done, a little voice said in her head.

Still, she couldn’t just live her life standing here in this room, staring at her reflection, too afraid to venture out.

“The hell I am,” she declared out loud with enthusiasm.

So resolved, she took her baby daughter into her arms, rested Bekka on her hip and walked out of her room and into the rest of her life, or so she wanted to believe.

Unfortunately, as she all but marched into the hallway, she also walked straight into the person she was trying most to avoid.

She walked straight into Levi.

Chapter Three

Caught completely off guard, Claire shrieked.

Her breath caught in her throat as she felt her heart—an organ she had become painfully aware of in the past month—slam against her rib cage.

Stunned, she blinked, fully expecting Levi to fade away, a mere wistful product of her overactive imagination.

He didn’t fade away. Levi remained exactly where he was, standing in front of her, holding on to her shoulders to keep her from falling.

He’d been hoping to run into her, but not quite like this and definitely not so literally.

Reacting automatically, Levi had grabbed his wife by the shoulders to steady her. That turned out to be a good thing, seeing how if he hadn’t, Claire would have probably stumbled backward and fallen while still holding Bekka tightly against her.

Holding on to Claire like this did more than just prevent a very unfortunate accident from happening. The exceedingly brief contact once again brought home the fact that he’d missed her. Missed his wife acutely. Missed the sight of her, the feel of her. The very first time he’d laid eyes on her, he’d known. Known that Claire Strickland was the one for him. Known that there was something very special going on between them.

The chemistry that all but sizzled whenever they were close to one another was just too hard to miss and too intense to ignore. At that moment he’d realized that he would have rather waited forever for Claire than settled for anyone else, no matter how willing she might have been to be in a relationship with him.

Claire was completely shaken. It took everything she had not to visibly tremble. Ever since she had thrown her husband out of her life, her nights had been filled with Levi.

Filled with dreams of him, with memories of him.

Filled with overwhelming longing for him.

In the privacy of the room she and Bekka were living in, she’d allowed herself to cry over a precious relationship that she believed in her heart had died—and it was her fault.

Bumping into Levi like this, in the last place in the world she’d thought that she would see him, her first reaction was a surge of sheer joy, not to mention that every fiber of her being had instantly—physically—responded to the very sight of him. At that moment she would have thrown her arms around Levi’s neck if her arms had been free.

The next moment her sanity, as she chose to view it, returned.

Luckily for her, she realized, her arms were filled with baby, so she couldn’t go with her first impulse. That allowed her second impulse to take root and swiftly take over. Her second impulse belonged to the young woman who had felt hurt and abandoned that fateful night a month ago. It belonged to the young woman whose husband was absent a good deal of the time—not to mention that the one time he wasn’t absent, he’d turned his back on her, choosing a stupid poker game over her company. That made the whole thing even worse because he’d abandoned her without so much as a second thought, as if she were some inconsequential afterthought in his life.

As that realization had taken root, Claire felt that she had to be worthless and unattractive in his eyes. This despite the fact that she had always made sure that she was her most attractive before he laid eyes on her in the morning. Even before she’d said “I do” she was determined not to turn into one of those wives who allowed herself to let her appearance go after the wedding.

To that end, Claire made sure that she was always up before Levi so that she could put on her makeup and be flawlessly beautiful when her husband looked at her first thing in the morning.

It wasn’t always easy, but she’d managed. Her makeup was flawless. The same went for her hair. Not a single strand was out of place, despite the demands of motherhood, made that much more acute by a colicky baby.

Claire’s first priority was to make sure that she was just as attractive to her husband on an everyday basis as she had been the first time he’d seen her.

And where had that gotten her? Abandoned for the first night they’d had baby-free in eight months, that’s where, she thought angrily.

The honeymoon, Claire thought not for the first time, was definitely over and so was, by default, their marriage.

Claire pressed her lips together, suppressing a sob. She just wished she didn’t still want Levi so damn much. Levi was a fantastic, thoughtful lover. She had no need to go through a litany of others to know just how very special he was. Her heart—and her body—told her so.

But even so, she refused to allow herself to be a needy woman in that respect.

Refused to allow Levi to see the advantage he had over her.

Finally finding her voice, she demanded, “What are you doing here?” as she shrugged out of his grasp.

The second he was sure that Claire was steady on her feet, he dropped his hands from her shoulders. Making eye contact with his daughter, he winked at her.

Placing her hand so that she blocked the baby’s line of vision, Claire turned so that Bekka was against her and not between them.

Levi squelched the protest that rose to his lips. The only way he was going to get Claire back was not to antagonize her any further. That entailed walking on eggshells, but, seeing what was at stake, he was up to it. He had to be.

“I’m staying here for a while,” he told her.

Claire’s eyes widened in disbelief. Levi had never lied to her before—but he had to be lying now. There was no other explanation for what he had just said.

“No, you’re not,” she cried. Why was he messing with her mind like this? Wasn’t it enough that he had ripped her heart right out of her chest?

“Yes, I am,” he contradicted. “I convinced your grandfather to rent a room to me.”

Claire felt as if someone had just literally yanked a rug out from under her feet and sent her crashing down to the floor.

Her grandfather wouldn’t do that to her—would he? As early as this morning, she would have confidently maintained that her grandfather wouldn’t rent Levi a room because he knew how much it would upset her—not to mention that allowing Levi to stay at the boarding house would effectively negate the very reason she was staying here instead of in the two-bedroom apartment that she had shared with Levi.

But now, looking at the confident expression on her estranged husband’s face, she no longer knew if what he was telling her was a pack of lies—or actually the truth.

The look in her eyes dared him to continue with what she viewed as his fabrication. “Why would my grandfather do that?” she demanded.

It took everything Levi had in him not to just sweep her into his arms and kiss her, baby and all. But he knew he couldn’t force this. For now he had to be satisfied with giving her his most sincere look as he pleaded his case, laying it at her feet. “Maybe your grandfather sees how much you mean to me.”

Was he still doing this? Still perpetuating the lie he had tried to sell her in the wee hours of the morning when he had come stumbling in after the wedding reception had long been over? She was no more inclined to believe him now than she had been then.

Less, in fact.

There was no way she was going to let Levi think that she bought his story.

“Ha! If I meant anything to you, you’d be around more often, not working at all hours, going out of town for so-called meetings at the drop of a hat and going off to play poker when we were supposed to be spending time together on our first free night in months.”

“We were spending time together,” Levi insisted. “We went to the wedding together.”

How gullible did he think she was? “I was in a room with a crying baby while you were at a poker table surrounded by your friends and playing cards until dawn. Just how is that being together?” Claire demanded hotly. Bekka began to fuss, and Claire automatically started to rock the baby to try and soothe her.

“Okay,” Levi conceded. “But up to that point, we were together,” he reminded her.

Stressed out, Claire began to pat the baby’s bottom, trying desperately to calm her down.

“That was the whole point,” she informed Levi. “After the wedding we were supposed to spend some quality time together,” she insisted. “My grandparents were taking care of Bekka. You and I were supposed to spend a nice, romantic evening together.”

“How was I to know that? You didn’t tell me,” Levi pointed out.

Claire stared at him, stunned. He couldn’t have been that thickheaded—could he?

“I shouldn’t have to tell you,” she cried. “You’re supposed to have wanted that on your own, not had me force-feed you your lines or hold up a cue card for you.”

The only way he could think to backtrack out of the potential explosion in the making he saw coming was to apologize. So he gave it a shot.

“Look, if I messed up, I’m sorry—”

“If? If?” Claire echoed incredulously. “You most certainly did mess up, no if about it.”

She was getting him exasperated again, hitting the ball totally into his yard and then not allowing him to retrieve it or hit it back. He should have expected as much, he thought.

Mentally, Levi counted to ten, telling himself that he had to be calm or he would wind up losing any chance he had to get Claire back.

To get Bekka back.

He missed them both like crazy.

“Claire,” he said as evenly as possible, “I’m trying to apologize here.”

Her eyes were like small, intense laser beams, trained on his every move. “I’m glad you told me because I wouldn’t have known otherwise,” she informed him.

“You’re making it really hard to be nice to you,” he told her, his anger getting the best of him, at least for the moment.

“Then don’t bother,” Claire snapped coldly. She was forced to raise her voice because Bekka had started to wail again. The increased volume only made the baby cry more. “Because it’s not going to get you anywhere. Apologies have to be sincere, and I can see now that every single word out of your mouth is nothing but a fabrication, a lie.”

“What are you talking about?” Levi cried, completely confused. “When have I lied to you?”

Claire tossed her head, wanting desperately to get away from him and wanting, just as desperately, to never have gotten to this point in the first place. This wasn’t the way she envisioned her life when she’d watched Levi slip the ring on her finger two years ago.

“You said you loved me,” she accused.

“How is that a lie?” he wanted to know. “I do love you.”

“No, you don’t!” Claire cried. “If you loved me, you’d be home more often at night and you certainly wouldn’t have picked poker over me.”

He closed his eyes, searching for strength. How did he get through to her? “That again,” he retorted. “I didn’t pick poker over you—”

“Oh, someone put a gun to your head then, telling you to deal or they’d blow your brains out, is that it?”

“It wasn’t a choice between you and poker,” Levi insisted. How could she possibly think that? “You’re not in the same league.”

Was that supposed to make her happy? Claire looked at her husband coldly, doing her very best not to allow her mind to drift, to make her think back and relive exciting, intimate moments with him just because of their proximity. “Thanks.”

Her icy tone ripped through him, and Levi threw up his hands in total disgust. “I just can’t win with you, can I?”

“No, because I see right through you,” she informed him, her voice cold enough to freeze a cup of hot coffee. Just then, as if she was aware that she had lapsed into another long, quiet moment, the baby began to cry. “Now look what you’ve done. You’ve agitated the baby,” she accused.

“Me?” he said, stunned at the way she could shift blame onto someone else’s shoulders so easily. “You’re the one who’s shouting.”

Claire made no effort to back down or back off. The baby grew louder with each passing second. “If I’m shouting it’s so I can get the words through your thick skull.”

He sighed, shaking his head and struggling not to have his temper snap. “You’re impossible.”

“Right back at you!” she retorted.

Levi strode away before he said something he was going to regret and couldn’t take back.

“That’s right,” she taunted, hurling the words at his back. “Run. That’s all you ever do. You’re never willing to talk things out, to own your mistakes. It’s just easier for you to run away from any confrontation.”

Don’t say it, don’t say it, Levi counseled himself, afraid that if he did open his mouth, he wouldn’t be able to control the words that would come flying out. There was no doubt about it. Claire knew how to press all his buttons. Press them until he believed that all the negative thoughts she was spouting and hurling at him were his own, and all the detrimental things that Claire had said against him she actually believed to be the gospel truth.

There was a child to think of, Levi reminded himself. He couldn’t just put this all behind him and walk out. Besides, he didn’t want to. What he wanted was his life back.

Not today, Wyatt. Not after that little run-in, a voice in his head mocked him.

But where did that leave them?

They were at an impasse, he thought. But one of them was going to have to give in if this was ever going to be resolved.

Walking away, Levi paused for a second to look over his shoulder at his wife and daughter. Even as angry as she made him, he couldn’t help thinking how much he’d missed having them in his life.

How empty his life seemed with the realization that he didn’t have them to come home to anymore.

That had to change.

But how?

He wasn’t about to come crawling over to her side. After all, a man did have his pride.

But pride was a cold thing to take to bed with him, Levi thought unhappily.

Besides, there had to be more to this. She couldn’t be this angry over a stupid poker game—could she? He needed to get her to do more than just shout at him. He had to get her to come around—and really talk to him about what she was feeling,

Squelching the desire to march back to her, take her into his arms and kiss her until she forgot all about this stupid argument and all the stupid things she was saying to him, Levi forced himself to keep walking.

This was all probably just a ruse on her part anyway. Her so-called accusations were just an excuse she was using to stay away from him because she was disappointed in him.

He’d failed her somehow, and by failing he’d inadvertently shown her that he just wasn’t good enough for her. That he couldn’t give her the kind of comforts she had grown up with. Even if he tried to approximate the kind of life she’d had before she married him by working his way up the ladder and earning more money, she complained that he was never home. And if he kept the hours that she wanted him to, if he was home earlier, then he couldn’t give her any of the things she’d come to expect in her day-to-day life.

Either way, Levi thought glumly, he was doomed.

He had to get his priorities straight. He needed to find a way to fix all this and soon, otherwise, he was going to lose her for good.

Levi didn’t know how much longer he could put up with living without his girls. Living without seeing Claire and Bekka every day.

There had to be a way to fix all this. There just had to be.

* * *

“Grandpa, can I see you for a minute?” Claire asked, standing in the doorway of Gene’s cubbyhole of an office.

Gene rose to his feet. For the time being, what he was working on was temporarily forgotten.

“You, princess, can see me for a whole hour if you like,” he told her cheerfully. Joining them, he asked, “And how are my two best girls this morning?”

Claire thought of her run-in with Levi a few minutes ago. “Stunned and confused,” she told him.

Bushy eyebrows drew together, forming a squiggly line worthy of a fat caterpillar.

“Come again?” Gene asked. “Are you stunned and confused, peanut?” he asked Bekka.

Responding to the sound of his deep, resonant voice, the baby cooed at Gene, making him laugh with unabashed pleasure.

“Grandpa, she can’t talk,” Claire informed the older man flatly.

“Maybe you can’t understand her, but she can talk,” he assured Claire with a touch of whimsy. “Look at her expression,” he said pointedly. “That little girl is definitely trying to communicate.”

“And so am I,” Claire said to her grandfather in barely curbed exasperation.

Faced with this situation, Gene sobered slightly. “Go ahead, princess. I’m listening.”

Claire’s frown deepened. “Levi is staying here at the boarding house.”

He had a feeling that Claire knew she wasn’t telling him anything that he wasn’t already aware of. He didn’t bother feigning surprise at her news.

“Yes, I know.”

She stared at the older man in disbelief. How could he have betrayed her this way? Unless Levi was lying about this, too. She found herself fervently hoping that he was. Otherwise, this was really going to shake her faith in her grandfather.

“He said you rented him a room.” Maybe there was some other explanation for his being here.

The next moment her grandfather dashed that slim hope. He nodded his head. “I did.”

Her mouth all but dropped open. “Why?” Claire demanded.

“Well, I couldn’t very well not rent it to him,” Gene replied seriously. “That would be prejudicial.”

Claire’s big brown eyes widened. She couldn’t believe her ears. “Are you saying you were afraid he’d report you to the sheriff?”

Wide shoulders moved up and down in a vague shrug. He went with the excuse his granddaughter had unknowingly come up with.

“You never know,” he told her.

“Grandpa, this is Levi,” she reminded him. “He wouldn’t do that. Levi likes you.”

“He also likes you,” Gene told her. “A lot. And all he wants is a chance to prove it.”

Claire couldn’t believe her ears. “You’re taking his side, Grandpa?” she cried, appalled.

“Like I told your grandmother, I’m not taking any sides, I’m just making sure that both sides get a chance to be heard.”

“I don’t need to ‘hear’ anything,” his granddaughter informed him. “Besides,” she reminded the man, “weren’t you the one who once told me that actions speak louder than words?”

“I might have said that,” he allowed, then went on to remind her, “I’m also the one who said everyone deserves a second chance.”

“If you mean Levi, I gave him a second chance.” She was working herself up. “I gave him lots of second chances, and he blew them all.”

“He’s been skipping out on you to play poker on a regular basis?” Gene asked innocently.

“No,” she admitted reluctantly. As upset as she was about this situation, she wasn’t about to lie about it to her grandfather.

Her grandfather looked at her pointedly. “Then what?” he wanted to know.

She was referring to Levi going out of town for meetings and seminars as well as coming home late and falling asleep on the couch before she could get his dinner warmed up. But she had no intentions of going into all that now.

Besides, she had a feeling that her grandfather would be taking Levi’s side in that, saying he saw nothing wrong in a man trying to better his family’s lot by putting in all those long hours at work.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she informed her grandfather and with that, she turned on her heel and hurried away to find her grandmother.

At least her grandmother sided with her, Claire thought.

Or at least she hoped so.

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