The prodigal cowgirl returns home...and straight into danger

Introducing the McCall Adventure Ranch miniseries!

When Piper McCall heads home, she runs smack into ranch hand Brady Summers, the man she left behind. Years later, the sparks between them burn as brightly as ever, but dark secrets—like the identity of his orphaned nephew—linger. And when Piper’s life is threatened, neither she nor Brady will ever be the same again.

BETH CORNELISON began working in public relations before pursuing her love of writing romance. She has won numerous honors for her work, including a nomination for the RWA RITA® Award for The Christmas Stranger. She enjoys featuring her cats (or friends’ pets) in her stories and always has another book in the pipeline! She currently lives in Louisiana with her husband, one son and three spoiled cats. Contact her via her website, bethcornelison.com.

Also by Beth Cornelison

Cowboy Christmas Rescue

“Rescuing the Witness”

Rock-a-Bye Rescue

“Guarding Eve”

The Return of Connor Mansfield

Protecting Her Royal Baby

The Mansfield Rescue

Soldier’s Pregnancy Protocol

The Reunion Mission

Cowboy’s Texas Rescue

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk

Rancher’s Deadly Reunion

Beth Cornelison

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-07941-9

RANCHER’S DEADLY REUNION

© 2018 Beth Cornelison

Published in Great Britain 2018

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 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.

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Version: 2020-03-02

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To Jeffery—you make me proud every day!

All my love, Mom.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Extract

About the Publisher

Prologue
Boyd Valley, Colorado

The loud, frantic pounding on the front door at 1:00 a.m. boded ill. Pam Summers belted her bathrobe around her and started for the door. Her husband followed at a slower, groggier pace, while their four-month-old yellow Lab gamboled around the foyer and barked excitedly. When Pam looked through the peephole and saw who was there, she gasped at the young man’s beleaguered appearance and snatched open the door.

“Brady? What are you doing here?” Pam studied her brother-in-law’s disheveled clothes, slumped shoulders and bloodshot eyes with concern. His showing up on their doorstep at this late hour was unusual enough to elicit worry, but his appearance as he stood on their stoop spiked her distress through the roof. She clutched the lapels of her terry-cloth robe closed near her throat. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

She heard her husband, Scott, walk up behind her, his slippers scuffing on the hardwood floor of the foyer. “Hey, little brother, what’s—Damn! You look like hell.”

“Can I come in?” Brady asked, his voice as rough as gravel.

Nerves jangling, Pam opened the door wider to let Brady into their Boyd Valley, Colorado, home. Kip, the puppy, ran out to the yard, while a warm, late-August breeze, redolent with the scents of cut grass and summer rain, followed Brady in. As for her brother-in-law, Brady reeked of beer and something harder.

“Is it Dad? Has something happened to Dad?” Scott asked as his brother staggered to the couch and dropped heavily onto the cushions.

“Nah, the old man’s fine.” Brady scrubbed a hand over his bleary face.

Scott frowned and wrinkled his nose. “You’ve been drinking. A lot by the looks and smell of it.”

“Yeah, so what?”

“So...getting drunk is Dad’s thing. I thought you knew better.” He paused a beat. “Did you drive here?”

Brady said nothing and kept his eyes down.

“Damn it, Brady!” Scott barked, “You’re not even legal yet. But driving while you’re drunk...that’s unacceptable. It’s stupid and dangerous!”

Brady squeezed his eyes tightly shut and held his head. “I know.”

Scott huffed his disgust. “You can sleep here tonight and go home tomorrow. Jeez, I thought you had more sense than to—”

“I asked Piper to marry me.” Brady’s announcement silenced Scott’s tirade.

Pam settled on the love seat positioned catty-corner to the couch where Brady had slumped, dazed-looking. Scott eased down beside her, placing a warm hand on her knee.

“I’m guessing from your demeanor that she turned you down,” Scott said.

“She’s leavin’. Goin’ to Boston for college. Didn’t wanna be tied down to a good-for-nothin’ ranch hand.”

Pam blinked her surprise. “She said that? She called you good-for-nothing?”

“Didn’t have to. It’s kinda obvious. I mean, she’s smart. Got a full scholarship to that fancy school out east. All I do is shovel horseshit and rustle cattle.”

“Being a ranch hand doesn’t make you good-for-nothing, Brady,” Scott said. “This...feeling sorry for yourself bit isn’t like you. I know you really like Piper, but people leave for college all the time.”

“I don’t really like her. I love her.” Brady gave them a woeful look. “I want to marry her. But she turned me down. Flat. It’s over.”

Pam’s heart ached for Scott’s younger brother, but she could see Piper McCall’s side, too. “I’m sorry you’ve been hurt, Brady, but Piper’s leaving for college doesn’t have to be the end of your relationship. Give her the space she needs to spread her wings. Eighteen is kinda young to get married. You both have plenty of time to—”

“What about the baby?” he muttered, his eyes filling with tears. “She thinks I only wanna marry ’cause of the baby. But...I love her. And not just ’cause of the baby like she thinks.”

Scott exchanged a startled look with Pam, then asked cautiously, “What...baby?”

“Ours.” He ducked his head and heaved a shuddering sigh. “Mine and Piper’s. She’s pregnant.”

Something sharp and bitter pierced Pam’s heart. She didn’t want to resent anyone’s pregnancy, but she couldn’t help it. She and Scott had been trying for five years to have a baby—and failing. She worked hard to shove her pain down and focus on the issue at hand. “You...you’re sure? She’s sure?”

“Pretty sure. We didn’t use protection a few weeks back.” He glanced up with a guilty expression and raised a hand, “Stupid, I know. Don’t lecture me. But we were caught up in the moment and—” He expelled a harsh breath. “She’s been sick. She claimed she just had a stomach bug, but...” Brady shook his head, adding, “And every now and then, she just...puts her hand on her belly. Not her stomach but lower. I don’t even think she realizes she’s doing it, but I noticed. So she finally took a test and... I thought if we got married... I want to do the right thing for the baby.”

Pam’s stomach knotted, and her thoughts spun off in a hundred directions. Brady and his girlfriend had created a baby together by accident, when she and Scott couldn’t have the one they craved so deeply. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair! She shoved to her feet, putting a hand to her mouth and struggling to hold back the frustrated scream in her throat.

Scott sent her a worried look. He knew where her mind had gone. He was likely thinking the same thing but had to be brave in front of his brother.

“Brady, I’m sorry, man. I don’t know what to say.” Scott rubbed his hands on his sleep pants and divided a glance between her and his brother.

“I thought we had somethin’,” Brady mumbled, his eyes blinking closed for a moment. He was about to pass out from the looks of it. “But she doesn’t care. About me...or my baby...” He swiped at his face. “She can’t get out of town fast enough. Don’t think she wants to keep the baby...it’ll mess up her college plans. That’s all she talks about lately. Goin’ off to that snotty school and leavin’ Boyd Valley in the dust. Leavin’ me in the dust.”

Scott cast a side look to Pam. “Hon, I think Brady could use some coffee. Do you mind?”

She clenched her trembling hands, trying to hide their shaking. “I think he’s beyond coffee. I’ll get him a pillow and blanket so he can sleep it off.”

She pivoted on her heel and stalked out of the living room and down the hall to the linen closet, fighting back tears. Brady had gotten a girl pregnant. Without even trying. By mistake. Pam swallowed hard. What would Piper McCall do with the baby? Keep it? Put it up for adoption? Abort it? Her gut clenched hard, churning with nausea at the idea of Piper getting rid of the baby. Scott’s niece or nephew.

It wasn’t fair! She swiped at a tear that tickled her cheek. Then stilled.

Scott’s niece or nephew. His blood relation. An idea began to form, like a tickling at the nape of her neck. The tingling spread over her scalp as the idea grew stronger. Her heart thrashed in her chest, resolve solidifying.

She jolted when Scott touched her shoulder. “He’s out.”

“I want the baby,” she said, barely a breath.

“I know. It’s crazy. It’s cruel fate that he—”

She spun to face her husband. “No. I want that baby. Brady’s baby is your family. If she’s planning to give it up or is thinking she’ll get rid of it...”

“Pam?”

She was starting to hyperventilate. Grabbing the front of her husband’s T-shirt, she met his gaze with a pleading look. “We can call George in the morning. He has all kind of connections with adoption agencies around the country. I bet he knows people in Boston. That’s who she’d contact, right?”

“Pam—”

She shook the fistful of his shirt. “Listen! Surely with this kind of head start, George can alert his people, find out what she plans to do with the baby, find out if she plans to give it away and pull whatever strings he has to to get the baby for us.”

Scott didn’t say anything for a moment, his expression sad but thoughtful. “If Brady knew we had his child, he’d—”

She shook her head vehemently. “No. We can’t tell Brady. Piper can’t know it’s us trying to adopt. It’ll be our secret. A closed adoption. If they knew it was their baby, it would be too hard, too complicated.”

Scott wiped the tears she hadn’t even realized she’d shed from her cheeks and kissed her forehead. “I know how much you’re hurting, how much you want a baby. But I don’t see how this would work. We’ll adopt another—”

“It can work. We’ll explain everything to George, and he’ll make it work. He’s the best adoption attorney out there. I know he can do this.”

Scott was shaking his head, and she released him with a shove. “So you won’t even try? We’re talking about your niece or nephew! This was meant to be. I feel it!”

Scott ducked his head, his breathing heavy and quick. When he lifted his chin again and met her gaze, a spark of determination lit his eyes. “All right. I’ll call George in the morning.”

Chapter 1
Seven years later

Piper was leaving town. Ken Grainger watched the evidence play out on his computer screen. Thanks to the tracking program he’d installed on her computer on a weekend when the accounting office was abandoned, he could see everything she did on her work computer. Getting access to her personal laptop had been a bit harder, but he’d rather enjoyed the challenge. He was even able to access her laptop camera and watch her in her apartment. Well, as far as the camera angle allowed. But he’d caught a few glimpses of her walking through her living room in her towel last week, and he was still enjoying the fantasies that peek created for him.

He shoveled another spoonful of cereal in his mouth, then wiped dribbles of milk from his chin with his sleeve. He chewed and followed the movement of her cursor as she booked her flight for Denver.

Ken frowned. He knew she was from Colorado, but she typically didn’t go back to her family’s ranch except at Christmas and for a brief visit around Mother’s Day. An October visit was unusual, and this break from her normal pattern didn’t sit well with him. Why was she going now? What was he missing?

He grumbled a curse under his breath. He had to find a way to hack her new cell phone. He was missing so much valuable information by not being party to her texts and phone calls. Putting that kind of hacking in place would take a little more planning. Cunning.

He grinned as she typed in her credit card number to purchase the airline ticket. Challenge accepted. Piper was worth the effort and the expense involved. He would convince her, some way, that they were soul mates, destined to be together, and anyone who interfered with that destiny would pay the price.

Like Ron Sandburg had.

The dirtwad had tried to move in on his turf and had regretted it. He’d overheard Piper tell Elaine in the break room that the way Ron stared at her from his cubicle gave Piper the creeps. So after he’d seen Ron hitting on Piper at the coffee shop in the lobby of the office building, he’d made sure Ron Sandburg left Piper alone. Permanently.

The look of confusion in Ron’s eyes, the instant of fear when Ron had known he was about to die, had been sweet payoff. A well-centered push on Ron’s chest as he’d topped the long flight of stairs in his apartment building...and any threat Ron had posed to his plans with Piper went tumbling down.

Ken grinned to himself, relishing that victory.

Yes, he would come up with a way to add her new phone to his surveillance, he vowed as he hit Print Screen to make a hard copy of her flight schedule. He’d remedy this gap in his surveillance as soon as feasible.

But how? She kept her damn cell on her person all the time while she was at the office. He’d tried before to steal a peek at it, but she carried it in the pocket of the cardigan she wore year-round because the management kept the temperature of the office set to arctic.

Turning to his second screen, he navigated to the airline’s reservation page and booked himself a ticket to Denver on the flight arriving just before Piper’s. He wanted to be in place at the Denver airport to observe her arrival. Who would pick her up? Where would she go after arriving? The family ranch or a hotel?

He sloshed another bite of cereal into his mouth, irritated that he didn’t know the nature of her trip. Had someone died? Was this a business meeting? He dismissed the idea of this trip being work-related with a brisk shake of his head. Surely if this was company travel, he’d have heard about it in staff meetings or seen something come through her work email. If he could—

He cut the thought off, seeing new activity on her laptop. Speaking of email...she was apparently writing one to—he leaned closer to the screen to see what she’d typed—Josh and Zane. Her brothers.

He set his now-soggy dinner aside and rolled his desk chair closer to the monitor where he followed her activity.

Hi guys, I just booked my flight out for Mom and Dad’s anniversary party. Can one of you dolts find it in your hearts to pick me up and save me the cab fare in from Denver? I arrive on the Wednesday before the party at 3:10 p.m. Love you both (despite your many flaws!) Ha ha! P.

An anniversary party, huh? He rubbed his jaw and considered that for a moment. On the surface, a family event seemed innocent enough, but...

Ken ground his back teeth together and stared at the monitor, as if he could read any hidden agenda into her return to her family’s ranch. She had a good job, a good life here in Boston. She had him here in Boston, even if she hadn’t yet realized what they could mean to each other. Maybe he was paranoid, but every time she went back to Colorado, he worried that she might decide she was missing something by not being close to her family. She talked fairly often about her brothers. He knew she and her brothers were triplets. Did she have some triplet bond with her brothers that might trump everything she had here in Boston?

Mentally, he bumped up the urgency to hack her cell phone before she left town in a couple weeks. He couldn’t be sure how closely he’d be able to observe her once she got to Colorado, and he needed that additional link to her ASAP.

He went back to reserving a flight to Denver, then pulled up a list of motels near Boyd Valley, Colorado. Piper had said the town was small and rather remote, and the lack of lodging options in the town confirmed that. Two motels were listed within a twenty-five mile radius. One called The Mountaineer in Boyd Valley itself and a place called Catch-a-Wink in a community ten miles to the south. Next closest result was 56 miles away. He clicked the link for The Mountaineer’s website and arrived at a rudimentary website that looked like it had been created as a junior high kid’s school project. Jotting down the phone number for the office, he’d started tapping in the number on his cell phone. Activity on his monitor caught his attention. A quick reply from one of the brothers to her email.

Of course we’ll pick you up, dummy. No prob. Can’t wait to see your ugly mug! LOL! BTW, do you want to go in thirds on the cruise Josh and I are giving them as their gift? Have a good trip, Zane

“Mountaineer Inn. Can I help you?” asked the woman who answered his call.

“Yeah, you got any rooms left for later this month?”

“Absolutely. How many rooms do you need, and when will you be checking in?”

“Just one room.” He only gave the lady from the motel half of his attention as he rattled off an alias. If Boyd Valley was as small as Piper said, it wouldn’t do for her to catch wind of his presence there thanks to some town gossip.

“Can I pay cash for the room when I get there?”

“Yes, if you pay for the full stay on arrival.” The lady from The Mountaineer went on to rattle off a spiel about their hot breakfast and something about local attractions, but he tuned her out.

Piper was replying to Zane’s email.

Yes on the cruise. I already told Josh that. Not surprised Doofus forgot to tell you! :-) I’ll give you a check when I get there. Excited! See you soon, P.

“Yeah,” he muttered, hanging up on the lady at the motel. “We’ll see you soon, bro.”

Piper McCall entered the baggage claim area at Denver International Airport and scanned the crowd for a familiar face. Her brothers had assured her they would pick her up, but since then some question had come up about which of them it would be. Despite the long flight, she actually looked forward to the ride to the Double M Ranch. The hour-long drive would give her the chance to catch up on ranch and family news. She hadn’t seen her identical twin brothers, the other two-thirds of the McCall triplets, since Christmas.

She missed the bond she’d had with her brothers. She might have felt a bit odd-woman-out growing up, but you didn’t share a womb for nine months and not have a connection to your siblings.

“Piper!” a strong male voice called over the crowd noise, and she turned in the direction she’d heard her name. And froze.

The face she spotted by the luggage carts was definitely someone from the ranch. But not one of her brothers.

Brady Summers.

Son of their foreman. Her first love. And her first lover.

Her mouth dried. Why did it have to be Brady?

He raised a hand to make sure she’d seen him, and she bobbed a stiff nod of acknowledgment. Her gut somersaulting, she wove through the milling passengers and airport personnel toward Brady.

She silently cursed her mother, who had, no doubt, set this up. She’d have to explain to her mother, again, that she and Brady were over. Kaput. History. Time to stop throwing them together, believing that the old spark would reignite, and the McCalls and Summerses would live happily ever after.

She exhaled a cleansing breath. Okay, so her mother didn’t know the whole truth about what had happened between Piper and Brady. Probably for the best. Piper shuddered internally at the notion of what her mother might do if she knew the whole story, the whole, checkered past between her and the foreman’s son.

Brady doffed his cowboy hat as Piper approached and gave her his charming, lopsided grin. “Hey there. Good flight?”

“Average.” She heard the slight falter in her voice, the flutter that matched her staggering heartbeat.

Damn it, why did he have to look so good to her even after all these years? Better even. His youthful face had matured with a stronger jawline, sharper angles to his cheekbones and more rugged overall appeal. Brady’s eyes were the same piercing green, though, and the smile that tugged at his lips had the same power to tie her insides in giddy knots. His gaze held hers as he greeted her, and she felt his stare to her marrow. Could he see how he still affected her? How the mere sight of him turned her insides to goo?

Steeling herself, Piper surreptitiously wiped her sweaty palms on the seat of her jeans.

“Welcome home.” He reached for the backpack she had draped on one shoulder, and she shrugged away.

“I can get this. I have two suitcases coming, though. Carousel 3.”

He lifted a shoulder. “All right.”

She jerked a nod and turned to search the lit signs for the carousel.

“Piper?”

She glanced back at him. Please don’t make this harder than it already is.

His gaze dropped to a boy standing slightly behind him. The boy was playing with a small windup fire truck, rolling the toy up the side of a trash can. “Connor, c’mere. I want you to meet someone.”

Connor glanced up, staring at Piper for a moment, his eyes the same clear green as a Rocky Mountain lake. The same green as Brady’s eyes. Air backed up in her lungs. If her life had gone differently...

Connor scuttled to Brady’s side, jerking her from the dangerous path of what-ifs.

“Piper, this is Connor. My nephew.”

The breath she’d been holding left her in a gush. His nephew. Of course. Relief made her knees tremble, but on the heels of that release came the stark reminder of why his nephew was with him.

Brady’s brother and sister-in-law were killed in a bad traffic accident on Interstate 70, her mother had said in a phone call a few months back. When had that been? January? February? The couple had left custody of their son to Brady, a move that still puzzled her. Pam had family, sisters with children who’d surely have been better equipped to care for the little boy.

She worked to hide her dismay over the couple’s deaths from the boy.

“Connor, this is Josh and Zane’s sister, Piper. Can you tell her hello?”

The boy stepped forward with a shy smile and stuck his hand out. “Hello. I’m Connor. Nice to meet you.”

A smile bloomed on her face, and she took the small proffered hand. Crouching to the boy’s level and letting her backpack slip to the floor, she said, “Pleased to meet you, Connor. You have wonderful manners.”

He twitched a crooked grin and shrugged. “Yeah. I know.”

She snorted a laugh before she could muffle it. Glancing up at Brady, she added, “And so humble.”

He grinned and flipped up his palm. “He’s a work in progress.”

Piper sandwiched Connor’s hand between hers in a warm clasp. “How old are you, Connor?”

“Six.” His face brightened. “I had a cowboy birthday party.”

Piper chuckled. “Cowboys, huh? Like your uncle?”

“And Grampa. He’s foreman at the Double M!”

Piper matched the boy’s enthusiastic expression. “I know! Guess what? I’ve known your Grampa since before I was your age.”

Connor tipped his head and gave her a skeptical frown. “Really?”

“The Double M is my family’s ranch. I grew up there.”

He nodded sagely. “Like Josh and Zane.”

She tapped his nose. “Bingo. They’re my brothers. We’re triplets. We were all born the same day.”

“And Brady?” Connor’s green eyes widened. “He grew up at the Double M, too. Like my daddy. ’Cept... Mama and Daddy died. So now Brady’s my daddy.”

Piper’s smile drooped, and her throat clogged painfully as if she’d swallowed a jagged stone. She angled her gaze to Brady and nodded. “Right. And Brady. I knew Brady and your dad growing up.” Drawing deep breath to regain her composure, she pushed to her feet. “Wanna help me get my suitcases?”

She tousled Connor’s sandy-brown hair, the same color as Brady’s—

She determinedly cut the thought off as she hiked her backpack onto her shoulder again. Not Brady’s. Like Scott’s. But even that wasn’t right, she thought as she set off toward the luggage carousel.

She cast a side-glance at Brady as they made their way through the crowd, allowing herself to conjure a painful memory from the first summer she’d been home from college. The trip that summer had been the first time she’d returned to Colorado since breaking up with Brady and setting out for Boston, for independence, for her fresh start. That first year had been the toughest year of her life, and seeing Brady after eleven months away from home and family had been gut-wrenching.

In a stiff conversation with Brady in the stables, an accidental meeting she’d barely made it through without crying, she’d asked all the polite questions.

“How’s your dad?”

“Dad is Dad. Same as always.”

“And Scott?”

“Good. He and Pam adopted a baby.”

Piper remembered the stabbing pain in her heart and how she’d forced a quivering smile. “Wow. That’s great. Tell them congratulations from me.”

Connor wasn’t Scott’s biological son, so the similarities she saw between Connor and Brady were just coincidence. Or some misplaced wishful thinking. Or her head playing the heart-wrenching what-if game again.

Brady placed a callus-roughened hand on Connor’s head, lightly ruffling the boy’s silky hair, as they waited beside carousel 3 for the belt to start moving. “What do your suitcases look like?”

“Plain black like a thousand others.” She set her backpack at her feet and rubbed her aching shoulder. “One has a red luggage tag, and I tied a little blue ribbon on the other.”

He nodded. “Got it.”

“So...you drew the short straw, huh?” she asked without looking at him. She pretended to be intently watching the crowd and the shadowed maw where her flight’s cargo would soon appear.

“Pardon?”

“To come get me. You pulled the short straw?”

“Actually, I volunteered.”

She cut a side-glance at him and met his piercing gaze. “You did?”

“Yeah. I thought Connor would get a kick outta seeing the airplanes, the terminal. Oh, before we leave, I’ve promised him we can get a cinnamon pretzel at Auntie Anne’s.”

A loud warning beep blared from a speaker just above their heads, interrupting any reply. He wasn’t here for her. He was here for Connor...and a cinnamon pretzel. She wasn’t sure how that made her feel. Relief? Disappointment? And why did it matter to her?

The conveyor belt started rolling, and someone with an oversize duffel bag on his arm pushed past Piper, knocking her into Brady. She tripped over her backpack, lost her balance and landed against him with an oof, her hands splayed on his chest and her nose in the V of his open collar.

Brady wrapped his arm around her waist to steady her as she regained her footing, and heat flashed through her. From his taut body, from embarrassment...and from a kick of lust she couldn’t quell. As she righted herself, she drew a deep, calming breath and immediately regretted it.

Brady smelled so good. And familiar. A sexy combination of soap, hay and male warmth that took her back to hours spent in his arms. Naked. Inquisitive. Bursting with young love and rampant teenage desire.

Piper shifted her grip from his chest to his arms, trying to wiggle free of his hold. “I’m good. You can let go.”

But he didn’t.

After a couple of strained seconds, she glanced up to repeat herself. Maybe he hadn’t heard her in the din and bustle of the airport. When she met his eyes, her voice stuck in her throat. The intensity of his gaze left no question that his thoughts had followed a similar track to hers. Motes of longing swirled through the green depths and tangled with shadows of regret. His mouth looked soft, but his jaw muscles flexed and tightened with restraint. He wanted to kiss her. She recognized that look well, and so did the muscles in her belly that quickened and the nerves in her lips that tingled with the memory of his kisses. How easy it would be to push up on her toes and steal the kiss his eyes promised.

Instead, she forced her throat to loosen enough to wheeze. “I’m okay. L-let go.”

Slowly, his arm slipped away, even though his stare held hers for several more painful heartbeats. Despite her assurances to Brady that she could stand alone, her knees trembled as she stepped back, threatening to give out.

Pull it together, McCall! This moony, love-sick calf act will not help you get through the week and back to Boston with your heart intact. With the steely determination that had helped her survive her freshman year, keeping her grades up while she battled morning sickness and a broken heart, she shoved aside the jittery sparks dancing through her and put some starch in her spine.

“That one?” a young voice asked, and she felt a tug on her shirt. She glanced down at Brady’s nephew and found him pointing behind her. “That one has blue string.”

Blue string...suitcase...airport. Piper blinked several times, bringing her surroundings back into focus. For just a moment, she’d lost track of the rest of the world. Being with Brady had a way of narrowing her scope to just the two of them.

“Grab it, buddy.” Brady stepped past her, a guiding hand on Connor’s shoulder.

The little boy scuttled forward through the crowd with his uncle at his heels. When Connor grabbed the huge suitcase’s handle and struggled to drag it off the conveyor belt, Brady added a helping hand. After the bag thunked to the floor, Brady stepped back, letting his nephew raise the handle and roll the suitcase through the crowd.

Piper shook the tension from her hands and arms and blew out a puff of air, gathering some semblance of composure. Pasting on a smile for Connor, she reached for the oversized suitcase as he dragged it to her feet. “Need some help?”

“I got it,” Connor said and grunted. “Sheesh! How many clothes did you bring? That’s heavy!”

“Oh, that’s not clothes. That’s my bag of rocks.”

Connor frowned for a second before twisting his mouth in a crooked grin. “You’re teasing!”

She flashed a playful grin and shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not.”

Brady approached with her other suitcase in tow and asked, “Is this it?”

She nodded. “Thanks. I think that’s everything.”

“All right then.” Brady dug his keys from his pocket and bounced them once in his hand. “Let’s go home.”

Piper’s stomach swooped. Home. Once upon a time, she’d called the Double M Ranch home. But she had a new life now in Boston. She’d found the independence she’d been looking for when she went to college, but that independence had come at a cost. She’d lost the close family connections she’d taken for granted growing up. She’d stayed away from the ranch for most of the last seven years. Her freshman year, she’d hidden herself at college to protect the secret she carried, afraid of her family’s reaction, running from Brady and from a future that couldn’t be. She’d flogged herself with regret and guilt. Each year that followed, she allowed herself brief visits, but kept mostly to the main house, avoiding the stable and cattle pens at times she knew Brady would be there.

“Wait!” Connor cried as they started for the parking garage. “Don’t forget my pretzel!”

“Oh, right,” Brady said, giving his head a shake and patting Connor on the back. “Sorry, buddy. Now let’s see. Where is Auntie Anne’s?”

A review of the airport map in the lobby showed the only Auntie Anne’s was past the security gates.

“Sorry, buddy. They won’t let us go to the part of the airport where the pretzel store is without a ticket,” Brady told his nephew and ruffled the boy’s hair.

“Where do we get a ticket?” Connor asked.

“We don’t. Not today.”

Connor wrinkled his nose in protest. “How come? You said I could have a pretzel!”

“I know. I’m sorry.” The look on Brady’s face said everything he didn’t. How much he hated letting his nephew down. How hard he was thinking about a way to make it up to Connor. Piper sent Brady a sympathetic smile and tapped Connor on the shoulder.

“You know what? I’ve been craving a big chocolate ice cream cone for hours. What do you say we stop for ice cream on the way home instead?”

Connor looked unconvinced at first, but when Piper batted her eyelashes and clasped her hands under her chin with a “Please?” the boy nodded. “Is that okay, Uncle Brady? Can we get Piper some ice cream?”

“That we can, Con.” He gave her a wink of thanks, and the moment of conspiratorial connection wrapped around her like a hug, warmth burrowing to her core. As they made their way out of the airport, Piper tried to rein in the soft emotions that tugged at her. She didn’t want to let her guard down around Brady or share private smiles that would chip away at her protective walls. Even after seven years, she was clearly still vulnerable to Brady’s lopsided grin and soft-spoken charm, and she was thankful for the buffer and distraction Connor would provide on the drive back to the ranch.

With Connor struggling valiantly to roll one of her heavy suitcases, they strolled down the long aisle of the parking deck until they reached Brady’s mud-speckled pickup truck. After Connor scrambled up onto the back seat of the extended cab F-150, he seized Piper’s hand and tugged. “Sit with me, Piper!”

“Well, I—”

“Pleeeeeease?”

The light green, puppy-dog eyes that beseeched her were impossible to turn down. She glanced at Brady, who only chuckled as he slid behind the steering wheel.

“Sure. Why not?” she said.

Closing the front door and glad for the excuse to move to the back seat, she climbed in next to Brady’s nephew, waved her hand blithely and in a nasal voice, said, “Home, James.”

Connor wrinkled his nose. “James? His name’s Brady!”

“Not when he’s our chauffeur,” she said, wagging a finger, her voice still pinched and snooty.

Connor caught on to her joke and gave a belly laugh. Mimicking her hoity-toity tone, he said, “Drive us home, James!”

Brady loosed an indelicate snort, then returned, “Righty-o, Sir Snoodlepants.”

Connor’s peals of laughter filled Piper with an odd warmth, and she couldn’t stop the giggles that bubbled up.

“Hey, Piper,” Connor asked as they backed out of the parking space, “how do you stop an elephant from charging?”

She cut a glance to Brady, whose cheek dimpled as he grinned. “I don’t know. How?”

“Take away her credit card!” Connor’s eyes lit as he delivered the punch line, and Piper found herself chuckling at the boy’s delight. She didn’t have much experience around children. Most of her friends were either unmarried or putting off starting a family while they launched their careers. Yet Brady had had fatherhood handed to him under difficult circumstances. The notion made her chest tighten. If she hadn’t gotten the scholarship that took her to Boston College, how would her life have been different? Could she and Brady have made their relationship work? Could they have been parents to—

She nipped off the thought before it fully formed. Don’t go there.

Focusing her attention on Brady’s nephew, she asked, “Do you know what an elephant’s favorite vegetable is?”

He shook his head.

“Squash!”

“Squash!” Connor repeated with another hardy laugh. “Did you hear that, Brady? Squash!”

“Afraid so, little man.”

Connor continued to entertain her with riddles as they drove out of the airport and merged onto the highway.

She mentally thanked Connor for providing an excuse not to make awkward conversation with Brady. The boy’s invitation to ride in the back seat with him also gave her the opportunity to study Brady’s profile covertly, to drink in the subtle changes in his face without him knowing.

“Do you know any more jokes?” Connor asked, his cheeks flushed and eyes bright with his amusement.

Piper scoured her memory for one of the lame riddles she and her brothers had told each other years ago. “What is black and white and red all over?”

“A zebra with a sun burn!” Connor shouted, clearly pleased with himself.

The boy’s mirth elicited an answering chuckle from her. The music of Connor’s giggles fed her soul. Laughing loosened the knots of tension that had kinked inside her the moment she spotted Brady across the airport lobby. More than that, goofing around with the little boy was a release she’d needed from the pressures and worries of her sixty-hour-a-week job and a few high-maintenance friends in Boston.

When was the last time she’d allowed herself to be silly? To laugh with the kind of carefree abandon that Connor enjoyed? Not that she didn’t share light moments with her friends and coworkers in Boston. She did. But with Connor there was no agenda, no drama. Just a little boy enjoying bad puns and simple irony.

Connor delivered the punch line of a joke she realized she’d missed as she was musing, but she groaned and grinned as if she’d been paying attention. As he started another riddle, Piper had the odd sensation of being watched. She’d experienced the prickling sensation at the back of her neck frequently over the past few months, so she knew the unsettling feeling well. Her gaze flew to the driver’s seat, and she found Brady staring at her via the rearview mirror. His gaze locked with hers, a strange, unreadable expression sculpting his face. The odd look held a note of intimacy, but also an edgy curiosity. Was it wariness? Fear? What did Brady have to fear from her? She didn’t have long to analyze his expression before his attention darted back to the road.

Connor, too, had fallen oddly quiet, eyeing them, then turning his gaze out the window and shifting restlessly in his booster seat. The boy’s brow beetled, and he said, “Uncle Brady, is this the road where Mama and Daddy died?”

Piper stilled, and a cold sorrow sliced through her.

Brady’s hand tightened around the steering wheel, and he again glanced in the rearview mirror, this time to study his nephew. “Yeah, it is.” He paused, then added, “But not this part. Their accident happened the other direction from the big city.”

“Oh,” was all Connor replied, still staring out the window.

Piper rubbed her thumb over the knuckles of her opposite hand, keeping a concerned gaze on Connor and regretting the lost conviviality. How was the boy handling the death of his parents? Knowing the challenge Brady had faced, taking custody of a newly orphaned boy while dealing with his own grief over Scott and Pam’s deaths filled her with a new respect for her longtime friend. Brady had dealt with a lot more obligations and hardships than other men his age, even when he and Piper been involved as teenagers. The loss of his mother and his father’s heavy drinking had meant he’d had to grow up fast and take on more family responsibility, especially after Scott married and moved out of town.

“Connor?” Brady said softly. “You all right, buddy?”

The boy heaved a mature-sounding sigh. “Yeah.” Then, “I miss them.”

Brady nodded. “Me, too, buddy.”

Piper tightened her fists in her lap, hurting for Connor, for Brady. Scott and Pam had only been gone nine months. Their deaths had to still be a raw and confusing subject for Connor.

After another minute or two of strained silence in the truck, Piper searched for another joke to tell, a distracting question to redirect Connor’s thoughts and lighten the mood. Or was that even the right move? Should she follow Brady’s lead and let Connor work through this moment on his own? All she knew was that her heart hurt for the little boy, and her instinct was to do something, anything, to put a smile back on his face. But what did she know about parenting?

While she was debating, Connor said, “Hey, Piper?”

“Yes, sweetie?”

“What do you call a wet bear?”

She released the breath she held and flashed a warm smile at the boy. “I don’t know.”

“A drizzily bear.” He shot her a quick grin, then turned back to his window, falling quiet again. “My dad told me that one.”

“That’s a good one,” she said and patted his knobby knee.

Connor twisted his mouth and wrinkled his nose. “My mom and dad died in a car accident.”

Her grip on his knee tightened. “I know, sweetie. I’m so sorry.”

“I live with Uncle Brady and Grampa now. At the Double M.”

Piper nodded. “Do you like the ranch?”

His face brightened a bit. “It smells bad ’cause of all the animal poop, but you get used to it.”

She couldn’t help but snort a chuckle at the boy’s bluntness. Having grown up on the ranch, she’d never really noticed or cared about the odors that accompanied all the animals. For her, the scents of oiled leather and freshly cut alfalfa were sweeter than roses.

“Riding horses and helping Uncle Brady with the cows is fun,” Connor added.

“Well, I’ve been away from the ranch for a lot of months, so my riding may be rusty.” She tipped her head and gave the boy a dubious frown. “Would you help me with my horse while I’m visiting this week?”

Connor sat taller and grinned. “Sure! I’m good at saddling and riding.” He glanced to his uncle, adding, “Aren’t I, Brady?”

“You are, little man. That you are.” Brady sent Connor a proud grin as he met his nephew’s gaze in the mirror. “When we get home, Grampa will have dinner waiting, so I want you to go straight back to the house and wash up. Okay?”

“Y’sir.”

Home. Piper turned her attention to the scenery passing outside her window. She’d been so absorbed in Connor that she’d not realized how close they were getting to the Double M. The beef-cattle ranch had been in her family for three generations. She’d grown up around muddy boots, bleating calves and horse tails swishing away flies. Her parents and brothers still lived on and worked the ranch, and someday she’d inherit one third of the Double M.

But was the ranch still her home? She’d been gone seven years. Seven eventful years. She’d done a lot of growing up since she left the Double M. She’d earned her degree in finance, gotten her first nine-to-five job with a finance company, set herself up in an apartment that she’d decorated to her taste.

And she’d made the toughest decisions of her life to give birth to, then give away, Brady’s baby.

She swallowed hard and pressed her hand to her stomach. The memory always caused a guilty roil in her gut. She’d made the best decision she could as a scared eighteen-year-old, but that didn’t mean she didn’t constantly second-guess herself.

As Brady took an unexpected exit from the interstate, Piper glanced up, confused. “Where are you going?”

He angled his head toward her. “Ice cream. Remember?”

Connor sat taller, and his face brightened. “Yay! I’m gonna get chocolate, too, Piper!”

“One scoop, buddy. And you have to promise to eat your vegetables at dinner,” Brady said, one eyebrow arched.

She shook her head slightly. When had Brady turned into such a...a...parent?

The answer came to her, and her stomach curled in on itself. She really had no appetite for ice cream. No desire to extend the awkwardness between her and Brady. She only wanted to get to the ranch and decompress after her flight, unwind the tension that had coiled in her the instant she’d spotted Brady. But she’d be damned if she’d be party to disappointing Connor, a boy whose world had been so thoroughly devastated in recent months. For Connor’s sake, she’d paste on a smile, eat a chocolate ice cream cone and endure a few more taut minutes playing nice with the one man who still had the power to break her heart.

Ken didn’t recognize the cowboy who’d met Piper at the airport. Nor did he know anything about the little boy. The guy wasn’t one of her brothers. He’d seen the pictures of them she had on her desk at the office...and stored in her laptop. Irritation crawled through him. He didn’t like the idea that Piper had people in her life that he didn’t have at least a little information on.

Whoever the guy was, Piper had seemed startled to see him. She’d been cool and standoffish at first, but when that klutz with his big duffel had knocked her into the cowboy, he had been quick to catch her, slow to release her. Piper and the cowboy had shared a look that hinted at a history together. A history that might not be completely in the past. Something hot and not-yet smothered.

Hatred had burned his gut, and he’d wanted to charge across the airport and grab the randy cowboy by the throat. He’d vibrated with the urge to tear up the mystery rancher and leave no question that Piper was his.

But doing so would blow his cover, would mean leaving the concealed post he’d staked out ahead of Piper’s arrival. It was too soon to let her know he was here, that he’d come to Colorado to be with her, to prove to her that they belonged together.

Now, from the rental car he’d had waiting in the short-term parking lot since his arrival two hours ahead of Piper, he followed the cowboy’s pickup truck from a cautious distance, across the plain at the foot of the Rocky Mountains where crops, pastures and farms dotted the landscape.

Not wanting to be noticed, he hung back when the truck left the interstate, waited impatiently while they stopped for ice cream, then continued following from a distance as they headed northeast on a state road. He managed to keep Piper and the cowboy in sight until they turned in at a gravel driveway. Ken slowed as he drove past the rutted road the pickup had taken and studied a crude, stripped-log entry arch. Hanging from the top of the arch, a sun-aged wooden sign greeted people with Welcome to the Double M.

He paused long enough to search for GPS coordinates with his phone, planning to use satellite images to scope out the terrain tonight from his motel room. He had a cell signal, but it was mediocre at best. He grunted his disgust. Why would anyone in their right mind want to live out here in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of smelly cows? He could give Piper so much more than this!

He shook his head. No, not could...he would give Piper more. He would show her their destinies were locked, intertwined. He would save her from this dirt hole in the middle of Nothing, Colorado. He’d even take her away from Boston, if needed. They’d find a place where no one could find them, no one could distract her, no one could interfere with his plans for the future with Piper. His Piper. His soul mate.

He’d make it happen. And just like he’d eliminated Ron Sandburg, he’d get rid of anything or anyone who stood in his way.

Chapter 2

A menagerie of people, dogs and horses filled the ranch yard as Brady pulled to a stop near her parents’ house. Her mother was the first to reach her as she clambered from the back seat of Brady’s truck, and Melissa McCall wrapped Piper into a tight hug, while Ace and Checkers, the family’s blue heelers, circled happily with their tails thumping against her legs. Brady silently unloaded her suitcases and climbed back on the front seat without a word.

Her brothers appeared from the stable and took turns lifting Piper off the ground as they greeted her with bear hugs.

“Your dad is out in the north pasture, but he texted me to say he’d seen you arrive and would be in soon,” her mother said.

Piper nodded and watched Brady drive his truck to the foreman’s house across the ranch yard, where he’d lived with his father his whole life. He parked under a large tree and helped Connor out.

The little boy gave a wave to her, which she returned, before he ran inside with an awkward six-year-old’s gait.

“That Connor is such a sweet kid,” her mother said, putting an arm around Piper’s shoulders and walking her into the house. Zane and Josh each grabbed a suitcase and followed.

Piper swung her backpack onto the bed she’d slept in for eighteen years, then cast a gaze around her childhood bedroom. Her mother had changed little about the decor since Piper had left for college seven years earlier, and the familiar pink-and-gray chevron pattern of the curtains, the 4-H ribbons and high-school rodeo trophies on her bookshelf, and the ragged stuffed rabbit, nestled with the throw pillows on her bed, flooded her with a nostalgia that tugged in her chest.

“Jeez, Piper, did you leave anything in Boston? You’re only gonna be here a week. You needed two suitcases for seven days?” Josh griped as he tossed her suitcase onto the bed next to the backpack.

“Plus a backpack,” Zane added as he brought her second piece of luggage into the room and dropped it on the floor at the foot of her dresser.

“Hey, careful with that! My laptop’s in there,” she said, frowning at Zane. “And yes, I need two suitcases. I brought work clothes and boots for helping in the stable or pens, nicer things for dinner or going to town, and dressy stuff, shoes and makeup for Mom and Dad’s party.”

Josh snorted and shook his head. “Whatever. Glad I’m not a girl. I like to travel light.”

“Is travel light code for not change your underwear?” she said with a smirk.

Josh faked a belly laugh. “Oh, sister dear, you are a riot!” She play-punched his arm, and Josh caught her wrist, pulling her into another bear hug. “It’s good to have you and your hundred-pound luggage home again, Pipsqueak.”

She hugged him back, then turned to give Zane a similar squeeze. “I missed you two lugs.”

“Of course, you did,” Josh replied, ruffling her hair, which he knew good and well she hated.

Though her brothers were technically identical twins, each had developed a look that matched their individual personalities. Zane, the oldest by three minutes, was also the studious and more responsible one. He kept his raven hair cut short and his square jaw clean-shaven. He’d made marginally better grades than Josh or Piper, primarily because he’d applied himself more diligently.

She yanked away from Josh’s manhandling and scowled at him. “Jerk.” She knocked his black Stetson off his head, a retaliation which she knew would irritate him, and gave him a triumphant grin.

Josh, who’d been the more athletic and adventurous twin from the get-go, wore his hair past his ears and often neglected to shave for a day or two at a time, leaving him with a scruffy shadow of a beard. Their mother claimed Josh was part wild stallion, hard to tame, and he had seemed pleased to live up to the reputation. Both had piercing blue eyes that made girls swoon, and they were happy to take advantage of that benefit. Piper had envied her brothers’ blue eyes, her own being a lackluster shade of gray.

Josh swatted at Piper with his hat as he picked it up, and Zane snorted a laugh at her expense.

“Well, some things never change,” said their mother from the doorway with an eye-roll for their shenanigans. “You two leave your sister alone and let her unpack in peace. I’m sure she’s tired after traveling all day.”

The family cat, a brown and black Maine coon mix named Zeke, trotted in and hopped up on her bed to sniff her suitcase. She reached over to pat the feline, glad to see the family pet after months away. She really needed to rethink the apartment she was in with the no-pets rule, she decided. She scratched Zeke on the cheek, the chin, then stroked his back, finishing with a scritch at the base of his tail. Zeke ate up the attention, tilting his head this way and that, encouraging her to continue.

“Can I get you something to eat, honey?” her mother asked. “Or maybe a glass of lemonade? Dinner’s not for another hour, and I’m sure you must be famished.”

“Actually, Brady, Connor and I had ice cream on the way home from the airport. But lemonade sounds great. The airplane air really dried me out.” She grabbed her throat and stuck out her tongue as if dying of thirst.

Giving a mrrp of protest when she stopped petting him, Zeke climbed on the suitcase and rolled over to show the long, silky hair of his belly. Piper couldn’t resist plowing her fingers into the thick, super-soft fur and giving Zeke a belly rub. “Good boy, Zeke. I missed you, too. I bet these mean ole boys ignore you, don’t they?”

Their mother smiled as she said, “Zeke lets us know when he wants attention. Believe me!” Turning to leave, her mother crooked a finger, motioning to Zane and Josh. “Let’s go, boys. Back in a minute with your lemonade.”

Zane lifted a wave as he turned for the door. “Later, then.”

“No, don’t go. I don’t need quiet to unpack,” Piper said, stopping him with a hand on his arm. “In fact, I’d love to hear what you’ve been up to. What’s the gossip in town?”

“Gossip? How the hell should I know?” Zane said. “We don’t keep up with all that he-said-she-said, who’s-doing-who crap.”

Piper pulled a face. “You know what I mean. What’s happening around here? How’s the ranch?”

Zane and Josh exchanged worrisome looks.

Josh rubbed a hand on his scruffy chin. “Honestly, not so good.”

“What?” she said, sitting heavily on the edge of her bed. Zeke nipped at her wrist, demanding more pats, and she stroked the cat’s head while focusing on her brothers. “What’s wrong?”

“Man, don’t dump it on her now,” Zane said. “She just got here.”

“Dump what on me?” She divided a wide-eyed glance between her brothers, her pulse kicking into high gear. “Tell me, ’cause my imagination is going to fill in the blank with the worst possible scenarios if you leave me hanging.”

“We’re planning a family meeting after dinner.” Zane put a placating hand on her shoulder. “We’ll tell you then.”

She shrugged Zane’s hand off and shifted toward Josh. “Tell me, Josh. Give me the bullet points at least.”

Josh shoved his hands in his pockets and sent Zane a defiant look. “She has a right to know.”

Zane only sighed.

“What!” She was ready to clobber them both if someone didn’t end her suspense.

“We’re in pretty bad financial straits. We’ve had a couple turns of bad luck, had some investments go sour and...” Josh took off his hat and raked fingers through his shaggy black hair. “Thing is, we need to find a new income source or we could go under.”

Piper let her jaw drop and her shoulders sag in shock. She narrowed a hard stare on Josh, then cut a querying glance to Zane for confirmation. “Go under? As in lose the ranch? Have to sell?”

Zane raised a hand. “It’s not time to panic yet.” He shot Josh a dark glare. “Tactful, man. Way to go.”

“No point in sugarcoating it.” Josh beat his hand against his Stetson and leaned back against the wall. “The truth is the truth. We’ve had a series of bad years, topped off by accidents and hard luck, and it’s taken a toll.”

Acid burned her gut and backed up in her throat. In all the years she’d been in Boston, she’d never considered the possibility that someday the ranch wouldn’t be here, that her childhood home and her family’s way of life could disappear. “Wh-what kind of accidents?”

Josh crossed his arms over his chest. “Well, this summer we lost a lot of cattle when one of the ponds in the west pasture got tainted with pesticides.”

She furrowed her brow, perplexed. “How did that happen? We don’t use pesticides in the pastures.”

“Vandalism, most likely,” Zane said.

“Vandalism!” She goggled at Zane. “Did you find out who did it? Were they charged?”

“We may never know.” Josh’s face was dark with disgust. “Not like there were security cameras out there to catch the perp. No cans left around with fingerprints. No reports of the same happening to other farmers.”

“What about tire tracks or footprints or...or...”

Zane was shaking his head. “Nada. The ground was too hard thanks to the dry spell in July.”

“That’s horrible! How many head did we lose?”

The tap of footsteps heralded their mother’s return before she appeared in Piper’s doorway with a glass in her hand. “Here you go, sweetheart. I—” Melissa McCall stopped short, sending a frown to her sons. “I told you two to skedaddle and let her unpack.” Her scowl softened when she looked from her sons to Piper and back again. “Good grief. What’s wrong? Why the long faces?”

“They were telling me about the financial troubles the ranch has had. And the poisoning of the west-pasture pond.”

Their mother pinched her mouth tight in irritation. “Why are you two burdening her with this? She’s only been home five minutes!”

“Don’t blame them, Mom. I asked. A better question might be why didn’t anyone tell me about the trouble the ranch has been having sooner?” She pinned an accusing look on her mother, then shared the glare with her brothers.

“Oh, honey, I didn’t want to worry you when there was nothing you could do about any of it. The ranch business is—”

“Still my business,” she interrupted.

“Is it?” Zane asked. The bitter edge in his voice surprised her. “Your absence over the last few years would say otherwise. I don’t remember you being here while we were sweating through vaccinations and branding or losing sleep over how to make the books balance.”

“Zane!” Their mother stepped into her bedroom and set her glass of lemonade down on her dresser with a thump. “That’s enough!”

He rolled a palm up, his jaw remaining set. “I’m just saying...she chose to move away and not be a part of the nitty gritty of running the ranch. Family is supposed to come first, and it bothers me to know she can turn her back on us so easily.”

“Bro,” Josh said in a hushed tone, “chill.”

Piper raised a hand to Josh. “No, that’s okay.”

“It’s not okay, Piper. I’m sorry he was so rude to you,” Melissa said.

She shook her head again. “No, I’m a big girl. If that’s how he feels...” She shifted on the bed to face Zane, tucking a foot under her. “Nothing about leaving my family for Boston was easy, Zane. My staying away has nothing to do with my love of the ranch or my family. It’s...complicated. But the last time I checked, I’m still a McCall. I’m still one-third heir to the ranch...eventually.” She cut a wry grin to her mother. “No rush, Mom. Just saying.” Then to Zane, “Just because I chose to accept a scholarship and pursue a career in Boston doesn’t mean I don’t care about the ranch. Especially if the future of the ranch itself is at stake. This ranch is in my blood, same as yours. Don’t shut me out.”

Zane rubbed the back of his neck and sighed. “Here’s the thing, Piper. And don’t take this the wrong way because, well...you know I love you, right? I’d do anything for you.”

She hummed her disagreement and twitched a corner of her mouth at him. “Except clean the bathroom, as I recall.”

Zane matched her teasing grin. “Okay, there are exceptions, but...when it counts, I’d die for you.”

Josh clapped a hand to his heart, his expression melodramatic. “Same here, sister. In a heartbeat.”

She tossed a throw pillow at Josh. With a withering glance to Zane, she said, “I’m touched. Why do I hear a but coming?”

“But...” Zane said.

She tapped the tip of her nose and sent Josh a wink. “Called it.”

“But...” Zane continued, nonplussed by his siblings, “I see no reason to keep you in the loop if you’re not here on the frontlines, putting in sweat equity every day the way we are.”

Zane’s bluntness punched Piper like a cattle prod to the gut. She grabbed a fistful of chenille bedspread and squeezed while she swallowed her pain and worked to hide her hurt from the three pairs of eyes studying her. She lifted a shoulder and forced a tight grin. “Love you, too, bro.”

“Way to win her over before we lay out our proposal,” Josh muttered.

“What proposal?” she asked.

Zane and Josh exchanged one of their twin-telepathy glances. After a moment, Josh bobbed a quick nod and said, “We’ll fill you in tonight. Zane and I want to have a family meeting after supper to talk about some ideas we have for the ranch.”

“Am I invited?” Piper asked, giving Zane a churlish look.

“Don’t be a brat.” He hooked an arm loosely around her neck and dragged her in for a knuckle noogie to the top of her head. “Of course you are. You’re family, right?”

Wiggling to her feet and free of his grasp, she swatted at him and straightened her hair. “Am I, Mr. Sweat Equity? Am I allowed an opinion?”

He easily caught one of her hands as she batted at him and drew her into a hug. “Sure, as long as it agrees with mine.”

“Okay then, my opinions and I will be there.” She returned his hug, savoring the sense of calm and security that flowed through her after the strained ride from the airport. Her brothers had always protected her growing up, and she’d missed having them close by while she faced the challenges of her life in Boston. Too soon, her brother backed out of the embrace—because heaven forbid he appear too emotional or affectionate!—and, reluctantly, she released Zane. His crooked smile asked silently, Are we good?

She nodded and returned a we’re good half grin.

Josh quickly took his brother’s place, giving her a quick squeeze before shuffling toward the door. “Welcome home, Pipsqueak.”

“Thanks, Doofus.”

“Ditto,” Zane said.

Their mother stood back to let her sons pass, and she smiled warmly at Piper. “It is good to have you home, honey. Oh, I’ve missed you!” Her mother stroked her hair and kissed her forehead before following the guys out. “Let me know if you need anything.”

A sudden, unexpected wallop of emotion surged up in Piper’s throat, making a verbal reply impossible. Instead, she blinked back tears and gave her mother a nod and a smile.

Turning toward her suitcases on the bed, she dashed away the moisture that stung her eyes and swallowed against the knot that choked her. Why was she so weepy about this trip to the ranch? She hadn’t been this sentimental and fragile even on her first trip back after her freshman year at BC. After the physical, mental and emotional upheaval of the longest year of her life. After having Brady’s baby, surviving finals week while purging all the pregnancy hormones from her system, and coming to grips with the idea she’d never again see the face of the tiny life she’d created—and given away.

She’d prayed that whole first trip that no one would read the truth of what she’d done in her eyes...and that Brady wouldn’t learn how she’d deceived him about the fate of their baby. No, she hadn’t lied to him, she’d told herself, but letting him live with his mistaken beliefs that she’d miscarried still gnawed at her conscience. Yes, that trip back to the Double M had been colossally difficult, but she’d survived it and visits since then with a stiff upper lip. And she had to do the same now.

Certainly the shock of seeing Brady at the airport had worn down her defenses. As had the poignant introduction to his nephew and the reminder of Scott and Pam’s tragic deaths. Add to that the stressful month at work where the company had lost the Regal, Inc. account, one of their most important clients, and had reps from the corporate office breathing down her neck. And the freak accident that had killed the guy that worked in the cubicle across from her. Ron had been a nice enough guy, if a bit forward at times, and his bizarre death a couple weeks back had shaken the office staff. Then to be greeted with the news that the Double M could go under was the pickax blow to the thin shell that had held her intact in recent weeks.

With a cleansing breath, she shoved at Zeke’s backside to scoot him off her suitcase where he’d settled. “Time to unpack, fuzzball. Move it.” Another push roused the large cat, who stood and stretched. When she unzipped the top of the luggage, the noise intrigued Zeke. With his ears pointed forward and a quick head cock to the side, he bicycled his paws on the suitcase as if digging up whatever prey inside had made the rasping sound. The cat’s antics tickled Piper, and the laugh that bubbled up in her helped staunch the rising tears. “You goofball,” she said, lifting the Maine coon into her arms for a snuggle. Immediately the feline’s chest rumbled and he head-butted her chin, returning the affection. “I missed you, too, fuzzball.”

After a moment, Piper set Zeke on the floor and pulled her favorite blue jeans from the suitcase along with her well-worn cowboy boots and started for the closet. Then paused. Turning back to the bed, she stripped out of the slacks and blouse she’d worn on the airplane. As the clothes fell to the floor, she kicked them aside and pulled on the jeans, a T-shirt and her boots, welcoming the comfortable fit like an old friend.

Seeing Brady at the airport had been an unsettling surprise, but it was behind her. For the rest of her trip, she resolved, squaring her shoulders, she would survive by avoiding Brady the same way she had on previous visits. She’d help her family sort through the difficulties the ranch was facing, would celebrate her parents’ anniversary and would be back to Boston in a week. And everything would return to normal.

Yes. Normal. Normal was good. The status quo was safe.

Her strategy seemed sound. Logical. Achievable.

So why did her plan leave her feeling so empty?

Brady couldn’t sit still. He paced from the kitchen table in the house he shared with his father to the picture window in their living room. He gazed out at the Double M Ranch yard to the tree where Connor was playing on a tire swing while the boy’s dog, Kip, sniffed around the yard, and he heaved a sigh. Ever since picking up Piper at the airport he’d been restless.

Of course, he knew the source of his restlessness. Piper’s visit had the potential to blow his world apart.

Or not.

The situation could play out in so many different ways. And if experience had taught him anything, it was that life had a way of unfolding in completely unexpected directions. You couldn’t prepare for all the strange twists and possible scenarios fate had in store. That unpredictability was at the root of his uneasiness. Because his first and most important priority was protecting Connor.

He knew Piper would never intentionally hurt Connor. But Brady, of all people, knew that good intentions could still backfire. He’d let Piper rip his heart out again, relive the agony he’d known when she’d left him behind for Boston, if he could spare Connor even a little pain. The poor kid was already dealing with the loss of his parents. The boy was vulnerable, and Brady had to keep his guard up.

He heard the back door open and close, followed by the familiar scuff of feet and weary grunt as his father came in at the end of the day and shucked his work boots in the mudroom. “Brady?”

“In here.” He shuffled back to the kitchen to greet his dad.

“You’re back from the airport already?”

“Yeah. Plane was on time. We got back a few minutes ago.” Brady propped a hip against the counter and jabbed his fingertips in his front pockets.

Roy Summers gave a small nod. “And how is Piper?”

“Fine.” Still beautiful. And witty. And determined to deny the feelings that are so clearly just beneath the surface of our broken relationship.

His father stopped at the sink to wash his hands. “She met Connor?”

“Yep.”

“And?”

“And what?” he asked irritably.

Roy frowned as he dried his hands on a dishcloth, then yanked open the refrigerator. He selected a beer and popped the tab on the can. “Jeez, never mind.”

“What do you want me to say? They met. Connor charmed her with his jokes. We stopped for ice cream. Connor and Piper had chocolate fudge. I had butter pecan. Anything else you want to know?”

His father took a long drink of his beer and gave Brady a sour stare. “Nope. Not a thing.”

Shoving away from the counter, Brady stalked across the worn linoleum floor to move Connor’s school backpack from the table to a hook by the mudroom. With his back still to his father, he said softly, “Sorry. I’m just...edgy.”

“Welp,” his dad said, pausing to take another sip, “best get yourself pulled together before this evening. Zane stopped me on the way in from the stable to ask us to join the family at the main house tonight for some kind of meeting.”

Brady faced his father and narrowed a dubious look at him. “A meeting? About what? Why does he want us there?”

“He didn’t say. Just that he’d like us to come. He wanted our input on some business or other about the ranch.”

Brady scratched his cheek while a wary curiosity warred with the logistics of attending the mysterious summit. “What do I do with Connor?”

His question earned a slight hitch of his father’s shoulder as Roy settled in his favorite living room chair. “Don’t know. Bring him. Or ask Helen if she’ll keep an eye on him for a bit.”

Helen Shaw had been a cook at the ranch for the last five years and the girlfriend of ranch hand Dave Giblan for the last two years. She’d flirted with Brady when she first arrived, but he’d let her know, as kindly as he could, that his heart belonged to someone else. Maybe that had been a mistake. Helen was great. She was everything you could want in a girlfriend and potential spouse. Except that she wasn’t Piper.

At the time, he’d still hoped that Piper would come around and realize they were meant to be together. But in every subsequent visit from Boston, Piper had been increasingly distant, more evasive, more guarded around him. Brady knew he should move on, find someone else to build a life with, but his heart was stubborn. Setting aside his feelings for Piper wasn’t easy, and just a glimpse of her when she was home for the holidays or stilted pleasantries when they crossed paths in the stable or ranch yard was enough to rekindle his hope.

And then Zane had agreed when Brady volunteered to pick Piper up from the airport today. He’d spent more time with her this afternoon than in all the years since their breakup combined. When she’d stumbled into his arms at the luggage carousel, the urge to kiss her had smacked him hard, shaken him to the marrow. If she hadn’t pulled away when she did, he’d have given the kiss her eyes had asked for...because her face had said she still wanted him. The sexy catch in her breath had been the same telltale signal of her desire that he’d learned when they made out in high school.

But then, damn it, she’d raised the shield she’d used for the last seven years to keep him at bay. The shift in her body language had said clearly that nothing had changed for her. She had closed the book on him and moved on.

Fine, he told himself, pulling out his cell phone to text Helen about babysitting. Message received, Piper. He was no glutton for punishment.

And yet... Brady knew he was sitting on a landmine. He had a moral responsibility to deal with the situation and correct all the wrongs that had been done in the past. He gritted his back teeth as resentment curled through him. All of his life he tried to do the right thing—for his father, for Piper and now for Connor. For all his best efforts, he’d gotten nothing but heartache, frustration and the burden of untangling the messes other people dropped in his lap.

He sent his text to Helen, and as he stashed his phone in his back pocket again, he hitched his chin toward his father’s beer. “If we’re meeting with the family tonight on ranch business, then maybe you should lay off the booze. At least until after the meeting.”

His father responded with a surly look and another pull of his beer. Then with a grunt of fatigue, his father shoved himself off the stuffed chair and carried his can to the sink. After pouring the rest of the beer down the sink, he sent a dark look to Brady. “There. Happy?”

Brady swallowed the bitter retort that rose on his tongue. He’d only be happy when he no longer had to retrieve his old man from bars where he’d gotten too drunk to drive home. And when he no longer had to cover for his father around the ranch on mornings when Roy was sleeping off a bender. His father had always been a heavy drinker, but this year, since Scott and Pam’s deaths, Roy had crawled deeper into the bottle.

Roy moved to the refrigerator and sent Brady a hooded glare over the open door. “What’s for supper?”

Brady scrubbed his hands on his face and shook his head. “Hadn’t gotten that far. There’s leftover soup. Guess I’ll make Connor a sandwich to go with that. What time is this meeting we’ve been asked to attend?”

“Seven.” His dad, the foreman at the Double M for the last twenty-eight years and a hand before that, bore all the signs of a life in the sun, a career of hard work and heavy drinking. Tanned, leathery skin with heavy creases around the eyes made him look older than he was, and his thinning brown hair bore a permanent crease from his sweat-stained Stetson.

Was that what he had in store? Brady wondered. Aging prematurely and finding his only solace to a lonely life in the bottom of a bottle? He loved ranching, loved fresh air and the wind in his face. He even loved the Double M as if it belonged to his own family. He appreciated and respected the McCalls, but he dreamed, too, of having his own place someday. He wanted to build a prosperous cattle ranch that he could leave to Connor. Maybe there was still a chance he’d find a way to go to veterinary school. He supposed it was getting time to make some decisions. Some hard choices. Having Connor in the mix now, along with his concerns about his father’s drinking, complicated things. He needed a steady income, a place for Connor to feel he had roots and stability for a while longer.

Of course, he’d also always thought he’d settle down and raise a family with a woman who shared his passion for the outdoors, animals and hard work. In his mind’s eye, ever since he’d stolen his first kiss from her behind the bunkhouse when they were twelve years old, that woman had always had Piper’s glossy dark hair and gray eyes. Her willowy body and full lips. Her sunny smile and contagious laugh.

After the last seven years of receiving the cold shoulder and distance from her, he really needed to let that vision go. Folding his cards and moving on was the smart thing to do. He knew that. But how did he walk away when he’d so recently been dealt the ace he now held?

No, he’d keep his seat awhile longer and play out the hand. Piper was worth one last chance.

Chapter 3

That evening after dinner, Piper walked into the den with Josh and eyed the available seats for the family meeting. Spying her father’s big, comfy recliner, she headed for it. As did Josh. Realizing his destination, she quickened her step, as did he, until they were racing for the prized seat. They arrived from opposite angles at the same time and end up in a tangled, laughing pile that made the chair rock and creak.

Their father came in carrying a glass of lemonade and sized up the situation with a wry grin. “Joshua,” he said, lifting Zeke the cat off the couch and patting the cushion, “I’ve got a place saved for you right here.” Michael waved a hand, telling him to vacate the recliner. “Vamoose.”

Josh feigned affront. “Why me?”

“’Cause she’s prettier, and I like her more,” their dad deadpanned.

“Ha!” she gloated and shoved at her brother’s shoulder. “You heard him, Doofus. Move it!”

As Josh shoved to his feet, two new arrivals to the den caught her attention. Brady and his father. Piper’s heart slammed against her ribs, and she grabbed the back of Josh’s shirt, tugging him close enough to whisper in his ear. “What are they doing here? I thought this was a family meeting.”

“It is,” he said, straightening his shirt where she’d mussed it up. “But since they are key to the running of the ranch, we thought they would give us useful input.”

“Roy, Brady, thanks for coming,” her father said, offering his hand to their foreman to shake. “Come in. Have a seat.”

Piper avoided eye contact with Brady as he walked past her, sidestepping Zeke, who’d flopped on the floor and rolled on his back to stretch. Brady took the love seat across from her. But Roy Summers stopped in front of her with a lopsided smile. “Piper, it’s good to see you, darlin’.”

She stood and gave Brady’s father a hug. “You, too, Roy. How have you been?”

He heaved a sigh that smelled of beer. “Honestly? Not so good. It’s been a hard year.”

She bit her bottom lip and tightened her hug. “I bet it has. I’m so sorry about Scott and Pam.”

He pulled free of her embrace with a stiff nod. “Thanks.”

Pausing to rub Zeke’s belly, Roy moved to take his seat on the sofa next to Josh and Zane, and when Piper turned to reclaim the recliner, she found her father had stolen it. Her father gave her an unrepentant grin, and she grunted her protest. “Dad!”

Josh chortled as she searched the remaining seats for an empty spot. Her mother was in her favorite armchair, which meant the last seat left was the other half of the narrow love seat. Next to Brady. Schooling her expression to hide her dismay, she sank onto the cushions, trying not to brush against Brady.

“All right, boys,” her father said, turning up his palms as he divided a glance between Zane and Josh. “We’re all here. What is this about?”

“Yeah, um...” Josh rubbed his hands on his thighs as his eyes met his twin’s gaze. “Zane and I have come up with an idea for the ranch that we think will add enough revenue to help pull us out of the financial crunch we’re feeling.”

Piper’s stomach clenched anew at the idea that the family business—their home and way of life—could be facing a crisis large enough to threaten their future. Beside her, Brady settled back on the love seat, adjusting his position in such a way that his elbow poked her upper arm. She tried to ignore the casual contact. She needed to focus on what her brothers were saying and not on her seatmate. She bent over and snapped her fingers near her ankles, hoping to entice Zeke to come to her. The cat raised his head and looked her way but refused to answer her summons. She’d have to find another distraction from Brady’s proximity. Sending the Maine coon a thanks-for-nothing glare, she readjusted her position, trying to appear relaxed while staying as far to her side of the seat as possible.

“In looking for new sources of income, we knew that in order to make any new ventures a success, we needed to look at areas we were already skilled in,” Zane added.

“Besides the cattle business, the thing Zane and I know best is adventure sports. Rock climbing, white water rafting, rappelling and the like.” Josh’s expression grew animated as he named the high-adrenaline activities he and Zane had mastered in the nearby Rocky Mountains.

“So we thought we could share that knowledge, that love of adrenaline, with others,” Zane said, picking up the explanation in a seamless back and forth of input, the twins practically finishing each other’s sentences.

Brady shifted his position on the love seat, resting his arm along the back. Piper sensed more than saw the move, and her skin prickled with an awareness of his arm so near her shoulders. She could tell he’d recently showered. The crisp scent of his soap mingled with a more woodsy aroma of deodorant or other body product, teasing her nose...and her imagination. She struggled to focus on what her brothers were saying instead of the body heat and sultry scents that radiated from her seatmate. She sat taller, keeping her back stiff as she perched at the front of the cushion in order to avoid touching him. Even the thought of his arm brushing the back of her neck sent distracting ripples of disquiet dancing along her nerves.

“We can renovate the bunkhouse to lodge paying guests,” Zane continued, “and take people out to Grandpa’s tract of land on hiking, camping and adventure-sports outings.”

“Sorta like a dude ranch but with the focus being the sports and extra activities. An adventure ranch.” Josh paused briefly, casting his gaze around the room, clearly gauging his family’s reaction. “We’ll show people stuff about the ranch, riding horses and working with the cattle, but the highlight will be a camping and hiking trip where we rock climb, raft, zip-line...whatever.”

Zane picked up the thread, his eyes alight with a fiery passion for the idea. “The point being to give adventure seekers the chance to do the kind of stuff they come to the mountains to do in combination with the ranch experience.”

Piper caught her brothers’ excitement, knowing they wouldn’t have brought this idea to the family without having a plan to make it work. Zane, the workhorse and responsible one of the triplets, would have addressed the details, at least.

Their father knitted his brow. “Have you looked into the cost of liability insurance for something like this? Start-up costs? The advertising expense to get people to come?”

“We’ve done preliminary inquiries with a few insurance companies and have drawn up a list of start-up costs.” Zane paused for a beat, leaning down to idly scratch Zeke’s ears as the cat rubbed against his legs. Glancing up from the cat, Piper’s brother pulled his mouth into a moue of regret. “Getting the ball rolling will be costly, but Josh and I can take out a business loan—”

Their mother made a soft sound of displeasure.

Zane gave their mother a quick, we’ll-be-okay grin and continued, “And we’ll do the lion’s share of the work in order to keep the cost of salaries to a minimum.”

“Our plan is not to go full-scale right off the bat,” Josh jumped in. “We’ll do smaller, more manageable trips at first while we figure out what works and where we need to make changes.” He faced their father and included Roy with a glance and a nod. “We don’t want to cause any trouble with the cattle operations or burden anyone with unmanageable workloads.”

“Of course, we’d love to have any help or expertise you want to offer,” Zane said, “and we’ll pay any ranch staff that contributes time and skills to the effort.”

“What time frame are you looking at? When do you hope to have your first guests take one of these trips?” Roy asked.

Her brothers exchanged a look, and Josh said, “We’d love to get this off the ground as soon as possible. We’ll start the renovation work on the bunkhouse this month and shoot for our first trip in the spring. Around April?”

A meditative silence fell over the group as their parents and Roy, judging by their expressions, mulled over the idea and formulated more questions. Piper hazarded a quick side-glance to Brady, and as if he felt her gaze, he angled his head to meet her eyes. Her pulse stuttered, and a warmth stole through her. To hide her reaction to him, which she feared showed on her face, she pasted on a grin and turned to her brothers.

“I love the idea! It makes sense, considering we aren’t using the bunkhouse now. It uses your talents and passion for outdoor recreation in a profitable way. And vacation ranches are very popular. I read an article in the airline magazine—not this trip but one I took for business a couple months ago—that talked about how popular adventure sports are becoming.” She knew she was prattling, filling the silence and hoping everyone would credit the flush in her cheeks and at her neck to excitement for the plan rather than Brady’s unsettling proximity.

Zane and Josh beamed, and after exchanging a brief but meaningful look, Josh said, “I’m glad you think so, because we have a proposal for you.”

Piper blinked her surprise. “For me?”

Zane nodded and scooted to the edge of the sofa as he leaned toward her, hands on his knees. “We want you on our team.”

She chuckled warily. “I am. I just said I was behind you, that I liked the idea.”

“No, not behind us. Beside us. A joint effort,” Zane clarified.

She tipped her head in query. “You want me to invest in the start-up? I...guess I could give you—”

“Not your money,” Josh interrupted, then flipping up a palm, “Well, maybe some money. Down the road. But right now what we are asking is for you to work with us. To be part of this.”

Piper’s heartbeat thundered against her ribs. “I don’t unders—”

“Move back home, Piper. Be our accountant, our bookkeeper, office manager...”

When Josh paused, Zane added, “Be our partner. We want you to do this thing with us. You’re the third part of the McCall Trouble Trio. And we want you to be one third of the whole venture, expenses, profits, duties. We want your talent, your education, your experience with finance. Not just for the adventure ranch but to help save the Double M.”

Her heart swelled hearing her brothers ask her to join them. To be included. To be wanted and needed by them. Her throat tightened with the same damn emotions that had ambushed her earlier in her bedroom.

Josh reached for her hand and squeezed it. “You belong here, Piper. Not in Boston.”

Frowning, she pulled her hand back. “Excuse me! I like my life in Boston. I have a good job and friends and—” She cut herself off with a disgruntled huff.

Stunned by her brothers’ request, she flopped back on the love seat, heedless of how doing so meant Brady’s arm was now draped close to her shoulders, his warm forearm pressed to her nape. Flattered as she was by their proposal—Josh’s Boston comment aside—the notion of leaving Boston and moving back to the ranch was daunting. Giving up her income, giving up the little apartment that she’d decorated to fit her style, giving up her friends...could she do that?

But coming back to the Double M would mean being near her roots, her family.

And being near Brady, she realized, her heart shuddering to a stop. She sucked in a sharp breath as her pulse now lurched to a gallop, and she became acutely aware of the heat of Brady’s arm against her neck, the weight of his penetrating gaze. The sensation of a thousand champagne bubbles bursting tingled in her belly and skittered from her neck to her fingertips. She swallowed hard and, knowing all eyes were on her, waiting for her response, she forced her tongue to work.

“I...don’t know. I’m honored that you asked. Truly, it means a lot to me that you want me to be part of this...”

“Of course we want you, Pipsqueak. You’re a McCall. This ranch is as much your legacy as ours.” Zane flashed her a gentle smile. “In fact, you could say it’s your duty, your family obligation to help save the ranch.”

Josh smirked and tipped his head toward his brother as if to say, Yeah. What he said.

“Boys, don’t guilt-trip her. Being part of the family doesn’t come with strings attached,” their mother fussed. “Piper, dear, I know you love your life in Boston, and moving home to be part of the boys’ venture is a big decision. Don’t let them pressure you.”

She nodded, then shook her head, not really knowing what she wanted to convey. Her hands were shaking, and her thoughts spun like a dust devil. “I have to think about it. I just don’t know...”

“Can you give us an answer before you go home next week?” Josh asked.

“Joshua, your mother just said not to pressure her.” Their dad arched an eyebrow at the twins. “You just hit her with this. Give her breathing room.”

She flashed her dad a smile of thanks and fell silent again, thinking, stewing...and trying to suppress her body’s sensitivity to the man beside her. His every subtle movement or heavy breath, each side-glance or faint whiff of his scent managed to scatter her thoughts and throw all of her senses into a tizzy.

Finally, she said, “I need more detail. How far have you gotten working out fees and expenses, insurance, construction, logistics? There’s a million little things that could trip you up if you don’t have a well-thought-out plan.”

“I have to say,” Roy said quietly, “I agree with Piper.”

Zane and Josh were nodding.

“Of course,” Josh said. He launched into a deeper discussion of how the trips would be planned, how they would convert and upgrade the bunkhouse, and the contractors they’d talked to about rigging up a zip-line on the scenic property in the foothills of the Rockies that the family had inherited from the triplets’ grandfather. The adventure tours was the perfect use for the property that couldn’t be sold thanks to their grandfather’s wily will stipulations and bequests.

Zane took over when questions turned to financing, liability and staffing.

Piper had to admit, her brothers had given the idea a lot of thought, and their passion for the project was a vibrant, breathing presence in the room.

“Wow,” Piper muttered, when Zane finished speaking and cast his glance around the room.

“I’m proud of you, boys,” their father said. “You’ve put a lot of work in this, and I believe the idea has merit.”

Melissa said nothing, but the shine in her eyes and the wide smile she gave her sons spoke plenty.

Zane glanced toward the love seat. “Well, Piper?”

“It’s a lot to consider, dork.” She gave him a wry grin. “Give me a chance to process.”

“Any other questions?” Josh asked, shifting an expectant gaze from face to face.

“Brady,” Zane said after a few beats, breaking the silence, “you haven’t said anything.”

Brady grew still, then sitting forward and splaying his legs slightly, he propped his forearms on his thighs and pressed his fingertips against each other. His change of position meant his leg touched hers from knee to hip, and it took all her composure not to jerk away as if burned. But the heat of his body penetrated to her marrow and flowed deep into the dark spaces where she’d tried for years to lock away her memories of him, of young love and what could have been.

“Not sure it’s my place to weigh in,” Brady replied, and the low rumble of his voice vibrated in her chest, in her soul.

“We wouldn’t have asked you here if we didn’t value your opinion. You know ranching as well as anyone in the room, and you’ve gone rock climbing and rafting with us out at Grandpa’s property. We’re hoping you’ll be on our staff, help us get up and running.”

She held her breath, waiting for Brady’s reply, thinking of what it would mean to live close to him again, see him daily, if she accepted her brothers’ request. The thumping in her chest that echoed like a drumbeat in her ears had to be loud enough for Brady to hear. She balled her hands in her lap and fought to calm her ragged nerves. She’d come so far in her healing, in making a fresh start for herself. Or so she’d thought.

And now her brothers, whom she loved deeply and shared a special triplet bond with, wanted her to move back to Colorado. To be a part of a new and exciting project, part of saving the family ranch. To be included in a venture, a closely held dream for themselves and the family business. What would she have given in high school to have felt that kind of inclusion, to have believed she was as important to the ranch as her brothers?

Brady lifted a shoulder and said simply, “I like it. I’m behind you whatever you decide.”

“Great! Thanks, man,” Zane said while Josh beamed with relief. “Maybe you could help us persuade Piper, then?”

She shot a glare toward Zane that went ignored.

Brady turned his face to study her profile, and a prickly flush started on her neck and crept to her cheeks, sinking to her soul.

When he spoke, his voice was hushed, tinged with a note of sadness that arrowed to her heart. “I’m not sure I have any influence with her anymore. Can’t say I ever really did, truth be told.”

She met his piercing green gaze, and a fist of regret and grief clamped around her throat. “That’s not true,” she whispered for only him to hear.

“You sure about that?” he said, his voice pitched low to match hers. “I remember things differently.”

She drew and expelled a ragged breath. “This isn’t the time or place.”

“I agree.”

She tore her gaze away from his, masking her hurt and discomfort from her family with a trembling half smile and lift of her chin.

Brady was undeterred, whispering, “But since you seem to want to avoid me, we’ve never had another opportunity.”

“Stop,” she growled under her breath.

He heaved a weary sigh, and his shoulders slumped as he dropped his focus to his boots. “Later then.”

Later? No. Not if she could help it. She was so tempted to get back on a plane and flee the ranch for the safety of Boston, the safety of distance from Brady. But she’d come for her parents’ anniversary celebration, and she refused to leave before the weekend party. Standing up her parents, disappointing them was unthinkable.

The awkward expressions her family wore told her the exchange with Brady had not gone unnoted. Josh scratched his chin and rolled his eyes, while Zane clapped his hands together once and said, “Well, that’s the plan. Any other ideas or questions before we call it a night?”

Roy rose from his seat and jammed his hands in his back pockets. “If you guys want me to take a look at that business plan with you, especially as it relates to the activities happening on the ranch premises, the bunkhouse renovation and so forth, give me a holler. I’m glad to help where I can.”

Josh stepped forward to shake Roy’s hand. “Thanks. We appreciate that.”

Piper’s mother and father also stood and approached the twins, and Brady used the moment to lean closer, his breath warm against her ear. “We need to talk.”

Piper shoved to her feet and sent him a quelling glare. “No, we don’t.” Then softening her tone and digging for a tight smile, she added, “Thanks again for getting me at the airport today. Tell Connor I said good night.”

“Piper—” He reached for her hand, and she jolted at the warm scrape of his callused palm closing around her fingers.

“Good night, Brady,” she said firmly, although she heard the telltale crack in her tone. Pulling free of his grasp, she clutched her now-tingling hand to her chest and rushed from the den.

Her brothers had given her so much to consider, possibilities that she’d once longed for with her whole heart. If she’d felt she had a place here at the ranch after high school, would she have followed the same path, made the same choices she had back then?

Regret was a bitter pill, and she knew second-guessing herself served no purpose. For seven years she’d dealt with the hard choices she’d made. She’d not looked back. Yet in only a few hours of being back at her family’s ranch this trip, her world had been upended. She couldn’t deny a part of her longed to move back to the Double M. What a cherished honor it would be to take an active role in saving the ranch, her family legacy.

But was she strong enough to have Brady in her life again? Leaving him in the past had been hard enough. The past needed to stay buried. Because if Brady became a regular part of her life again, the walls she’d built to protect her heart would come crumbling down.

From his position at the top of a ridge, Ken squinted through his telephoto lens and brought the Double M Ranch buildings into focus. Figuring out which one was the main house, where Piper would be staying, was easy enough. The main house was the biggest building and had a long front porch with rocking chairs, a river-rock chimney and large windows that glowed with warm golden light. Through process of elimination, he would figure out soon enough which window was Piper’s bedroom.

As he studied the house, two men emerged through the front door and shuffled across the ranch yard toward a house nearer the stables. Several dogs yipped and raced around, following the men.

Damn it! The presence of dogs meant he’d have to be extra careful when he approached the buildings. Dogs were living security alarms. From his vantage point, one appeared to be a yellow Labrador retriever, and the other two were medium-sized black-and-white dogs with big pointy ears. Ken lowered the lens for a minute, thinking. What were those dogs called? Shepherds? No, blue heelers. Smart dogs, he’d heard. Sighing his frustration, he made a note on his pad to figure the mutts into the equation, then raised the high-powered lens again, snapping pictures.

Zooming in on the faces of the cowboys, he discovered one was older, maybe fifty or sixty years, and the other was the guy that had driven Piper from the airport that afternoon. The guy who’d been too familiar with her, held her too long when she’d stumbled, watched her too closely when she hadn’t known he was looking. But Ken had seen it all, and he didn’t need a crystal ball to know this guy meant trouble. The younger cowboy with too much interest in Piper had to be dealt with.

Ken clenched his teeth and lowered the camera with the powerful lens. Piper belonged to him, and if anyone or anything posed a threat to the future he had planned for them, Ken swore that threat would be eliminated.

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