Praise for Brenda Novak’s Dundee, Idaho, series

“Once again author Brenda Novak delivers a stunningly magical performance…. Novak’s fans will easily recognize her unforgettable style and characterizations from the first chapter.”

—WordWeaving on A Family of Her Own

“A powerful author, Brenda Novak is an expert at creating emotionally driven romances full of heat, sensual tension and conflict that satisfy not only her characters, but her readers as well.”

—Writers Unlimited on A Husband of Her Own

“Just when you think the last book of the Dundee series was the best and there couldn’t be another one done better, Brenda Novak goes and proves you wrong. She writes an emotionally packed story about characters and their situations you find yourself caring about…Brenda Novak has the gift of involving the reader in her story on all levels. Each book feels richer, more full-bodied…. There’s no need for her to change her voice or style. She seems to have found it and simply made it stronger.”

—Once Upon A Romance.net

“The Other Woman…continues with familiar, well-loved characters and a fresh story line that will grasp your attention and hold it. Ms. Novak packs a lot of drama and interwoven suspense in this gratifying romance, The Other Woman.”

—CataRomance.com

“Novak continues her loosely connected series set in Dundee, Idaho, with this emotionally intense story of one woman starting over again. Complex, realistically flawed characters and a love story with a dash of danger are beautifully blended in this excellent contemporary romance.”

—Booklist on The Other Woman

Dear Reader,

Welcome back to Dundee, Idaho. Dundee is one of my favorite places to write about, so I’m happy you seem to enjoy getting to know all the characters who live in this small town. In Coulda Been a Cowboy, you’ll meet a professional football friend of Gabe’s—and a woman who really deserves a happy ending. What I like best about the story is the way Tyson Garnier’s heart softens and begins to change as he gets to know his son and the nanny hired to take care of him. I also enjoy watching two people who are an unlikely match get involved with each other and fall in love. I smile whenever I think of Tyson and Dakota, and I hope their story will make you smile, too.

Many of you know I also write romantic-suspense novels. In February Dead Giveaway was published. In August Dead Right will hit bookstore shelves. (In fact, there’s an excerpt in this book.) If you like my stories, you might want to give these other books a try. To watch a video trailer that will give you a hint of what they’re all about, simply visit my Web site at www.brendanovak.com. There, I blog (if you’re interested in keeping up with the latest Novak happenings), have monthly draws in which I give away various things (everything from autographed books to chocolate to free registration for the biggest booklovers’ convention of the year). I also sponsor an annual online auction for diabetes research at my Web site (my son suffers from this disease), where you can bid on more than 600 items, many of which you can’t find anywhere else. It happens every May, so be sure to check it out!

If you don’t have or use the Internet, feel free to contact me via snail mail at P.O. Box 3781, Citrus Heights, CA 94611.

Happy reading!

Brenda Novak

MILLS & BOON

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Coulda Been A Cowboy
Brenda Novak

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Since her first novel was published in 1999, Brenda Novak has written twenty-four more books—between helping her five children with homework, taking them to music lessons, baseball, soccer and basketball, and helping her youngest son manage his diabetes. Other than watching one of her sons pitch a perfect inning or one of her daughters hit a home run, writing, reading and traveling are Brenda’s favorite activities.

Winner of a Booksellers’ Best Award and nominated for Romantic Times BOOKreviews magazine’s Storyteller of the Year in 2005, Brenda writes dramatic, sophisticated stories, including her DUNDEE, IDAHO series and romantic suspense for MIRA Books. Look for her next romantic-suspense novel, Dead Right, in August 2007.

To my sister-in-law Angel, who is as beautiful as

her name suggests. Thanks for your enthusiasm for

my books. You’ve provided me with a great deal

of support and inspiration. Thanks, too, for your

pure heart. It’s been a blessing to the entire family.

May you find your own Prince Charming…

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

EPILOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

Grandpa Garnier: If you find yourself in a hole,

the first thing to do is stop digging.

SHE SEEMED IDEAL: slightly overweight, older than the typical groupie and definitely on the frumpy side. All of which would keep things as simple as Tyson Garnier needed them to be.

“What was your name again?” he asked. But he kept his voice down. God knew he didn’t want to wake the nine-month-old monster in the other room. He’d just spent twenty-four hours alone with said monster and would rather suffer the roughest tackle imaginable than flounder helplessly through another fifteen minutes.

“Dakota Brown. I didn’t send you a résumé, if that’s what you’re looking for. Gabe posted a flyer at the grocery store, saying you’d be staying at his cabin for a couple months and needed a good nanny while you’re here, but I didn’t consider applying until he called me.” The woman met his eyes, but he had no idea what she was thinking. She certainly didn’t seem impressed with him or his fame—didn’t smile coyly, unbutton the top of her outdated blouse or bat her eyelashes. She treated him as he imagined she treated anyone else, which made Tyson even more hopeful that he’d found the right candidate. It was a major point in her favor that she hadn’t turned into an idiot just because he played football on TV.

He set aside the stack of résumés he’d been studying. The name Brown was as ordinary as she seemed to be. But Dakota. That was unusual. Especially for a woman who looked to be of mixed race. Was she part Polynesian? Native American? Mexican? Tyson couldn’t tell. But her creamy café au lait skin was clearly her best physical asset.

“And you have no children of your own?” He’d told Gabe Holbrook, who’d talked him into coming to Dundee in the first place, not to send him any potential nannies with children, but it didn’t hurt to double-check. The last thing Tyson wanted was more motion and chatter. He’d come to Idaho to get his mind and body ready for training camp at the end of July, barely two months away. Considering the recent changes in his life, that was going to be hard enough without any added distractions.

“No children,” she said.

She had no discernible accent, nothing that would give away her heritage. “Are you married?”

“No.”

“Do you nanny for someone else right now or…?”

“I work at the pharmacy behind the counter in the gift shop and soda fountain.”

That was pretty ordinary, too. “You realize you won’t be able to keep that job and work for me at the same time. I need someone who’s available—” he nearly said “twenty-four/seven” but quickly amended it to something slightly more reasonable “—almost every day.”

“I understand.”

“Good, because I have to be able to rely on you a hundred percent.”

“Of course. This is your son we’re talking about.”

He tried not to wince at the reminder. He wasn’t ready for a child, for fatherhood. He’d never had much of an example. His own father had been killed trying to land his private plane in San Jose when Tyson was only two. His mother had married and divorced four times since, and he hadn’t liked any of her husbands. But Rachelle had circumvented his usual defenses, had set him up so perfectly….

Reminding himself to unclench his jaw, Tyson cleared his throat. “That’s right. He’s my son.” Maybe if he said it often enough, he’d believe it. My son. I have a son. A baby. He had a paternity test to prove it, along with a stack of canceled checks he’d given the child’s mother as a result. He’d been hoping the money would be enough until an anonymous caller, a woman who was probably a neighbor or acquaintance of some kind, made him aware that Rachelle wasn’t taking proper care of Braden. Then he’d been forced to hire a private investigator to take a closer look—and, ultimately, to make a life-changing decision. He’d seen his son for the first time only two days ago, when he took over as primary caregiver.

Stifling a groan at the tremendous responsibility behind “primary caregiver,” he rubbed his face. It was all so damned ironic. There wasn’t another member of the Stingrays more religious about avoiding the groupies that congregated wherever the team went.

But Rachelle hadn’t been a groupie. She’d been a down-on-her-luck waitress without a place to stay. And he’d felt sorry for her.

The pencil in Tyson’s hand snapped in two, which caused Ms. Brown’s eyes to widen.

He tried to smile. It probably came across more like a pained grimace—he didn’t feel particularly lighthearted these days. After the injury that had benched him last year, he was hanging on to his football career by his fingernails. Grandpa Garnier, his father’s father and a central figure in his life, had just died. He had a baby he didn’t want or know how to care for. And he had the media hounding him at every turn: Would he sign for another two years with the Los Angeles Stingrays? Or would he move to another team when he became a free agent at the end of the season? How was he handling his grandfather’s death? Would his grief hurt his ability to play? Was his knee fully healed? Was he considering an early retirement? Who’d watch his baby once the season was underway? Would Braden travel with him?

Even the details of the arrangement he’d made with Rachelle had been splashed across newspapers all over the country: Stringray Wide Receiver Tyson Garnier Pays $1,000,000 for Custody.

Who the hell told the press? he wondered. It had to have been Rachelle. She loved the attention. Which was a whole other issue, one he’d have to deal with later. He’d headed for the hills the day he saw that headline, hoping to disappear and regroup—before the paparazzi could surround his Malibu home in an attempt to get a picture of him caring for his million-dollar baby.

“You realize I won’t be here long, that the job is only temporary?” he asked, struggling to stay focused on the interview. He’d been up most the night, pacing with a crying Braden, and hadn’t had the chance to shower or shave. A day’s growth of beard covered his jaw, and his eyes burned from fatigue.

“Gabe explained that to me, yes,” she said.

“And the job still appeals to you?” He hated to ruin his chances by driving home the negatives, but he didn’t want to lie to her. She was giving up her current job for an eight-week stint as a nanny. How wise could that be?

“Actually, it’s an ideal situation for me,” she explained. “I’ve been working at the pharmacy since high school, so I have a lot of vacation time saved up. Mr. Cottle—that’s my boss—told me I had to take it or I’d lose it.”

“And you’re going to spend it working for me? You don’t want to see the ocean? Go to Disneyland?”

Her eyes slid away from his, appeared to focus on the edge of the desk. “I can’t. Not right now. Anyway, I don’t want to miss this opportunity.”

Who considered such a brief job as a nanny an opportunity? “It’s only two months of work.”

“But it pays well.”

Tyson hadn’t decided on a salary yet. He’d been waiting to ascertain the expectations of his applicants. “It does?” he asked in surprise.

“Gabe said you’d pay me at least three times what I make at the pharmacy.”

Tyson’s eyebrows jerked up. Thank you, Gabe! That’s some sympathy, buddy. “He did? Three times?” God, hadn’t he been taken for enough already?

She twisted the handle of her worn leather purse. “He told me you were looking for the best and were willing to pay for it.”

When she put it that way, what could he say? “How much is three times?” he asked, still a bit skeptical.

“Forty-five hundred a month.”

She stated the amount quickly, as if she was afraid he’d object. But he was actually relieved. Was that all? He’d have to pay at least that much in the city—for probably half as many hours. “That’s fine.”

She smiled self-consciously. “We could use it.”

He caught her choice of pronouns right away. “I thought you weren’t married.”

“I’m not. I live with my father. He…he can’t work right now.”

“Is he injured?” If so, Tyson immediately identified.

“No.” She tugged at one sleeve, seeming a bit self-conscious. “He has…health issues.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. I hope it’s not serious.”

“He’ll be okay.” She lifted her chin.

“Does he need constant care?”

“Not constant. A neighbor, Mrs. Duluth, looks in on him every now and then while I’m at work, and that seems to be enough until I get home.”

“So he’ll have what he needs while you’re here?”

“Yes.”

Tyson had hoped she’d explain what kind of health issues her father faced. When she didn’t, however, he had no choice but to move the conversation along. There were only so many questions he could ask without invading her privacy beyond what was reasonable in a job interview. “Have you had any experience with children, Ms. Brown?”

“Nothing official, but I’ve been babysitting since I was twelve.” At the mention of children, her face lit up with enthusiasm and, just like that, she seemed far less average than before.

It was her eyes, Tyson decided. Large and luminous and one shade darker than her skin, they seemed exotic. How old was she, anyway? Twenty-four? Twenty-five?

“I know most all the kids in Dundee,” she added, smiling wistfully. “I love babies.”

That made exactly one of them. At this point, Tyson was too angry to love anything. Even himself. “That’s encouraging.”

“I can get references if you want.”

“You already have the best reference you could get. Gabe thinks very highly of you.”

A squawk from the other room caused Tyson’s stomach muscles to cramp with tension. The monster was awake….

“When can you start?” he asked, anxious to make the final arrangements. Forget the rest of the résumés. He needed someone now. Maybe she was only the second person he’d interviewed, but he liked her better than the starstruck Ms. Davie he’d spoken to earlier. Dakota hadn’t even mentioned football. With her, he was just a man hiring a nanny, and she was just a nanny looking for work.

Perfect.

Her lips parted as she stared up at him. “I’ve got the job?”

“You’ve got the job.”

“That’s wonderful.” Smiling in apparent relief, she clasped her purse to her side and stood. “I can be here first thing tomorrow, if you like.”

He stood, too, and instinctively moved to cut off her path to the door. She couldn’t leave him alone with what was in the next room. He wouldn’t survive another hour. “Any chance you’d consider starting today?”

Her step faltered. “It’s almost two o’clock in the afternoon.”

Braden was just working himself up into a full wail, but it was enough to shred Tyson’s last nerve. “Is that a problem?”

She raked delicate-looking fingers through her dark hair. “How long do you need me?”

He wondered how many hours he could get away with. “Four hours? Five?” he asked hopefully.

“I hadn’t expected to start quite so soon. I need to notify my current employer.”

The crying was growing louder by the second. “There’s a phone.” He pointed at it.

“I was also going to check on my father.”

“Can’t you call the neighbor and have her do that?”

Her teeth sank into her bottom lip. “I could try, I guess…”

Tyson needed a more decisive answer. “I’ll give you a five-hundred-dollar bonus if you can make the arrangements,” he promised. Surely a pharmacy clerk would be willing to briefly impose on a neighbor in order to earn five hundred dollars! She could even share the money with the neighbor to make it worth his or her time.

He could tell by Dakota’s expression that she was tempted, but she still took a moment to respond. “You’re serious?”

“Completely.” He wished he could slap the cash down on the desk, but he didn’t have that much in his wallet. Maybe that wasn’t the best approach, anyway. She seemed almost as spooked by his eagerness as she was relieved to get the job. “What do you say?”

She glanced around the office, at the action photos of Gabe Holbrook from the days when he could still play football. “How long have you known Gabe?”

“Years and years,” he assured her. “We used to play together when I was a rookie and he was MVP. Before the accident that…you know.” He couldn’t say it, wouldn’t jinx himself that way. What had happened to Gabe was every professional athlete’s worst nightmare. “Gabe likes me,” he went on. “Really, he does. You can call him if you want. On that phone there.” God, stop the crying! “Then you can start.”

“No one pays five hundred dollars for one afternoon of babysitting,” she murmured. “I—I couldn’t accept that much.”

Her response threw him. “Sure you can. If you’ll stay, I’m happy to pay it. I can’t give it to you until tomorrow, though. After that I’ll pay you weekly.”

“Gabe mentioned that you’re going through a hard time right now, that you’re not quite yourself.”

Tyson couldn’t help being offended. Who’d be normal after what he’d been through? “I’ll have to remember to thank him for that.”

“He meant it well,” she said earnestly. “He’s worried about you. And…I’m not the type to take advantage of someone.”

What? Almost everyone he met wanted something from him. Sometimes he felt besieged, as if the whole world was crowding him, forcing him farther and farther into a corner as they pleaded for a photograph, an autograph, an interview, a donation, an endorsement—even sex. Some women did all they could to sleep with him just for the bragging rights.

“I’m fine. Totally…fine,” he said. It was a lie, but he figured it didn’t really count because the quality of his life was a matter of perspective. By most people’s standards, he had it all. If he couldn’t say he was fine, who could?

Her shoulders finally lifted in a shrug that said she’d let him be the judge. “Okay.”

Thank you, Lord. The baby was making such a racket he could scarcely think. “Great. Follow me.”

Tyson led his new nanny through Gabe’s cabin to the bedroom where he’d spent better than three hours trying to assemble the crib he’d had delivered from Boise. It wouldn’t have taken nearly so long except he could only work in short bursts, in between patting, bouncing and cajoling the child he’d unwittingly fathered that fateful night eighteen months ago. “There he is,” he said, waving her into the room.

He felt a little guilty, as if he was throwing her to the wolves. But she said she loved children. Doing the baby thing wasn’t torture for those who loved children, right? He just had no affinity for babies, had never been around one. An only child, he’d had a mother who was about as nurturing as an iron chair and had spent his summers at his widowed grandfather’s ranch in Montana. He’d been happiest there—but even then he’d been surrounded by cowboys, not children.

When he didn’t come into Braden’s room with her, Ms. Brown glanced between him and his child, who—amazingly enough—had quit squalling the moment the door swung open. A pair of chubby fists gripped the slats of the crib as Braden hauled himself to his feet, then stood there, wobbling, and deceptively quiet.

“What’s his name?” she asked.

“Tyson.”

“And you call him…”

Monster…“By his middle name, Braden. I guess,” he added as an afterthought. Rachelle had named the baby without any input from him. She’d used his name to strengthen the link between them.

“I guess?” Dakota repeated in confusion, but the baby interrupted with a squeal. Bouncing in anticipation of being picked up, he offered them a drool-laden smile, and she melted quicker than a Popsicle on hot cement. “Look! He’s darling! You must be so proud.”

“Just make sure you take good care of him,” Tyson said gruffly and hurried back to the relative safety of the office before the truth could come out.

What kind of man couldn’t tolerate the sight of his own baby?

CHAPTER TWO

Grandpa Garnier: Good judgment comes from experience,

and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.

IT WAS THE FIRST TIME Dakota had ever been inside Gabe Holbrook’s cabin. She’d brought him a homemade carrot cake when he’d been holed up out here a few years ago, but he hadn’t invited her in, hadn’t even answered the door. That was before they’d become friends. Ten years older, he’d been one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL by the time she reached high school—already a legend, and the best and brightest Dundee had to offer. Until the car accident that had robbed him of his ability to walk.

She remembered the details of that earlier visit as she carried Braden outside and walked around the property with him. Gabe had left her standing on the porch holding her cake, even though she knew he was home. She could feel him watching her from inside.

His lack of response didn’t offend her, though. She hadn’t expected a warm greeting. Adamant that the doctors were wrong about the permanency of his condition, he spent every minute of every day doing therapy in his upscale weight room, and was scarcely willing to talk to his own family. So she’d set the cake on the patio table for him to enjoy when he felt safe enough to retrieve it, and hoped he understood the gesture for what it was—not the hero worship he’d encountered so often in the past, not the pity that others expressed in hushed tones whenever his name came up, not the gawking of those who remained fascinated by the tragedy, but rather, a simple, “I understand.”

Their situations were very different—she had no idea how horrible it’d be to lose the use of her legs—but she could relate, at least to a certain extent, to what he’d been feeling in the months immediately following the accident. She’d had to put a brave face on her own misery. She was just less visible, which made it easier, and she’d been doing it longer. Experience had already taught her how to smile serenely to cover her pain: I’m fine. Really. We’re doing okay, don’t worry.

“Da-da-da-da,” Braden cooed, shoving his fist in his mouth and gnawing on it.

Dakota pressed her lips to the baby’s soft round cheek. “You are the cutest thing I’ve ever seen,” she told him. His father wasn’t bad, either, but she admitted that only grudgingly. The rest of the world made a big enough deal about Tyson Garnier. Nearly six feet four inches tall, he had greenish-blue eyes, golden skin and dark brown hair with a cowlick that made it stand up on the right side of his forehead. But it was his high cheekbones and strong jaw that really set him apart. And his body, of course.

She remembered the layout she’d seen in People magazine a year or so ago. Some movie director had been offering Tyson the lead in a romantic comedy, which had brought him into the Hollywood spotlight. He’d eventually refused—saying he was a football player, not an actor—but that only made this director, and others, want him more. The photographer had shot him on the beach, coming out of the surf like some sort of water god. His eyes, in stark contrast to the darkness of his hair and eyelashes, matched the green-blue of the waves in the background, and his teeth gleamed in the sun as he laughed. He looked like leading-man material, all right, and contrary to what Dakota had expected, seeing him in the flesh was no disappointment.

But she suspected he wasn’t a very nice person. He seemed rather standoffish. And she’d read all about his situation with Rachelle Rochester. Because she couldn’t leave her father for any length of time, Dakota escaped the drudgery of her life through magazines—fan magazines, decorator magazines, food magazines, even science magazines. Most recently, she’d read an interview with poor Ms. Rochester in The Lowdown. Braden’s mother was upset that Tyson didn’t love her as much as she loved him. She also said she couldn’t believe how vicious he’d become during the custody battle: “How can I stand up against a man with the kind of money and influence he’s got?” At that point, according to the journalist doing the interview, she’d broken down in tears. “He won’t let me be part of my baby’s life. Can you imagine anything so cruel?”

Dakota couldn’t. She knew Gabe liked Tyson, and she trusted Gabe’s opinion, but friendship could be as blind as love.

Kissing Braden again, she shot a dirty look at the window to the office where she’d left Tyson a few minutes earlier. As far as she was concerned, taking a child away from a loving mother was unforgivable.

“OKAY, OKAY—YOU WERE RIGHT,” Tyson told Gabe on the phone.

Relaxed for the first time in three weeks, he leaned back in the leather office chair and stretched his legs in front of him. He’d considered going to bed—his eyes felt so grainy he could barely open them, and his knee was aching again—but he was afraid he’d encounter Dakota and Braden on the way. Then she might want to talk about what he expected of her, and how could he tell her when he didn’t know what a baby’s care entailed in the first place? Maybe, like the rest of the world, she understood that he was new to parenting Braden full-time. But Braden was nine months old. At a minimum, she’d expect him to be prepared for his son’s most basic needs.

He just wanted her to keep Braden healthy and happy. That was all there was to it.

He supposed he could say that much, but if she asked specific questions—what to feed the baby, how his meals should be prepared, what his naptimes were, whether or not she had his permission to administer medication if needed—he wouldn’t know what to tell her. They’d have to figure that out, as well as her hours and her duties, as they went along. He was enjoying this brief respite too much to risk losing it.

“I knew she’d be ideal,” Gabe said. “Dakota’s great. And unusually smart. There’s no telling what she could’ve done with a college degree.”

“She doesn’t have one?” Tyson doodled on the clean, white desk calendar, which was turned to February instead of May. According to Gabe, he’d been too busy to visit the cabin over the past few months, but Tyson knew his friend hadn’t worked since finishing coaching high school football last season. He’d been traveling all over the world, hoping to find a specialist who could help him regain the use of his legs—something no one had been able to accomplish yet.

“Family problems.”

Tyson drew a football in a man’s hand. He could understand family problems. Since his grandfather died, his mother hadn’t been the same. Neither was he. “She mentioned that her father is unable to work.”

“He was in an accident something like fifteen years ago. She’s been taking care of him ever since.”

“What kind of accident?”

“Hang on a sec.”

As Gabe took care of whatever it was that had called him away from the phone, Tyson added a Super Bowl ring to one of the fingers he’d drawn, and an arm tattooed with the words The Duke. Grandpa Garnier had loved the old John Wayne movies. Tyson was thinking of getting such a tattoo on his bicep in memory of his grandfather. Problem was, his grandfather had never really liked tattoos. “Why’d you do that?” he’d said when he spotted Tyson’s only tattoo—his jersey number etched on the inside of his forearm. “Think y’might forget?”

The entire team had done it before a big game, but Tyson didn’t bother to explain. Grandpa Garnier didn’t understand following the crowd. He also didn’t understand why Tyson wanted to play football—something that would afford him such a short career—instead of becoming a cowboy like him.

Some days, Tyson thought he would’ve been better off taking over at the ranch.

“Sorry,” Gabe said, coming back on the line. “Hannah needed the car keys.”

“You were telling me about Dakota’s father,” Tyson reminded him, still curious about his new nanny.

There was a brief pause. “Actually, I think I’ll leave it up to her to tell you more about Skelton.”

Tyson didn’t have high hopes about that. Dakota didn’t seem very forthcoming on the subject. “Did she crash into him with her car or something?”

“No.” Gabe chuckled softly. “That’s my story, remember?”

How could Tyson forget? Gabe had married the woman who’d crippled him, which was almost as shocking as what had happened to him in the first place. “Do you ever find it hard to forgive Hannah?” he asked. He knew he shouldn’t pry, but he’d been curious about it ever since Gabe and Hannah had gotten together. A lot of people were.

“No,” Gabe responded immediately. “The accident wasn’t really her fault. If her ex hadn’t taken the boys, she wouldn’t have been on the road that night, trying to chase him down. Besides, if she hadn’t hit me, I wouldn’t have moved home, and I never would’ve realized that she—and Kenny and Brent—are all I could ever want.”

Tyson couldn’t imagine the kind of marital bliss Gabe seemed to enjoy. After nearly falling in love with Rachelle, only to learn that she cared more about his money and status and what it could provide than she did him, he wasn’t sure he was any better suited to marriage than he was to fatherhood.

“Doesn’t Dakota have a sibling or two who can help her with her father?” he asked. “It’s gotta be tough to be his sole support.”

“She has some relatives in Salt Lake, an aunt and uncle and a few cousins, but as far as I know they don’t have any contact. That’s it.”

“What happened to her mother?”

“She went back to Chile, where she was from.”

That explained Dakota’s coloring. “Does Dakota ever hear from her?”

“Sometimes. I know Consuela has asked her to visit, but Dakota won’t go. She can’t leave Skelton for that long.”

“How did her mother and father meet?”

“I’m not sure exactly. I know Consuela worked in Boise, where Skelton went to school. But once they were married, she was unhappy.”

Tyson sketched a pair of shoulders, complete with pads, and a helmet. “Why didn’t she take Dakota with her when she left?”

“She couldn’t. Dakota’s an American citizen. That was the sacrifice she had to make in order to go home.”

Tyson couldn’t help feeling sorry for his dark-eyed nanny. It didn’t sound as if she’d had many breaks in life. “I guess marriage isn’t for everyone.”

“Are you talking about yourself?”

“I wasn’t, but I might as well be.”

“It’d be easier to raise Braden if you had a wife.”

Rachelle had forced too many changes on him already. But he knew he and Gabe would disagree, so he veered away from the subject. “Fortunately, I have the help I need now.”

“That’s all you want?” Gabe asked. “A nanny?”

“That’s all I can afford,” Tyson said ruefully.

There was a slight pause. “You did the right thing, Tyson. Braden’s worth every dime.”

Tyson didn’t regret the money. Once he’d found out what was going on, he’d had to do something. His sense of responsibility was too strong to allow the child to be neglected. But he still lamented that he’d been fool enough to allow a gold-digger to change the course of his life. “Thanks for stocking the kitchen,” he said. “I got in too late last night to hit a grocery store.”

“That was Hannah.”

“Thank her for me.”

“You bet. How’s the knee?”

“Healing.” I think. It wasn’t as strong as he’d hoped it’d be, but he had two months to strengthen it. “The equipment you have here will help.”

“The whirlpool should be good for it, too. And I’ll send the trainer I work with at the high school to meet you. He’ll get you on a good therapy program. He’s one of the best.”

Tyson finished drawing his football player and started on a cowboy. His grandfather had lived a solid, clean life. A simple life. Which seemed damned enviable at this point. “So what’s he doing in the mountains of Idaho?”

“He’s also the town vet. Loves it here.”

Tyson shaded the face of the cowboy he was drawing to reflect the craggy nature of Grandpa Garnier’s features. God, he missed the old man. Had his grandfather still been around, Tyson could’ve taken Braden back to the ranch.

But those days were over. The ranch was now owned by Tyson’s uncle, who refused to sell it to him. And Grandpa Garnier lived only in Tyson’s memory.

At least in Dundee he had someone to help him with Braden, a trainer to get him ready for the start of the season, top-of-the-line therapy equipment and—best of all—some privacy.

For the moment, that would have to do.

DAKOTA STARED at the light beneath the door in Tyson Garnier’s office. He’d been in there since he’d hired her more than five hours earlier. She’d occasionally heard his voice as he talked on the phone, but the cabin had been deathly quiet for at least ninety minutes.

Should she knock? He’d mentioned that she needed to stay four or five hours, which meant she could go home at eight. But it was past eight-thirty and nearly dark, and he hadn’t come out to take the baby, make arrangements for tomorrow, anything.

She shifted Braden onto her other hip and double-checked her watch. Sure enough—eight thirty-five. She had to get home before her father headed to the bar. He often grew restless after dark, wanted to go out and join his friends. And he wasn’t the same when he was drunk.

“Mr. Garnier?” She knocked softly. He must’ve fallen asleep, she thought, but he proved her wrong when the door swung open almost immediately.

“Yes?” He towered over her by at least ten inches, appearing even more unkempt than he had before. His brown hair, although short, stood up all over, as if he’d pushed his fingers through it a few hundred times. The shadow of beard on his jaw and chin had darkened. And his eyes were bloodshot.

Except for the hard, flat stomach beneath his T-shirt, he looked like her father after a drinking binge. She couldn’t smell any alcohol, but maybe he was on some kind of drug. Who else would promise someone five hundred dollars for a few hours of babysitting?

“It’s time for me to go,” she said and tried to hand him his son.

He stepped back as quickly as a vampire would from a Christian cross. “It can’t be eight o’clock already.”

She pulled Braden’s hand away from her hair before he could get another fistful. “It’s past that. And I really need to go.” Or she’d have to track down her father and drag him home. They’d recently taken his driver’s license away from him, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t try to drive that old clunker truck of his. And if he did get on the road, and the police picked him up, she’d have to bail him out of jail again. They were already so deeply in debt they could barely scrape by.

“Of course,” he said but made no move to take the baby. Instead, he gave her the sexy smile she felt certain had garnered him the attention of Hollywood in the first place. “Any chance you could get him…er, Braden…down for the night before you leave?” he asked hopefully. “I’m pretty busy in here.”

Dakota would rather have stayed in the elegantly appointed cabin than return to what she called home, but she felt too much pressure. Although her father had once been a kind, responsible, loving man, the pain he suffered from the accident and the alcohol he drank to battle it had changed him. She scarcely recognized him anymore. “I don’t think Braden’s ready for bed. He had a late nap and could probably use a bath.”

“You didn’t give him one?”

“I would have,” she explained, a bit defensive at his tone, “but I couldn’t find the baby shampoo, and I didn’t want to disturb you in case you were sleeping.”

Tyson also intimidated her. On television, he seemed very cocky—the kind of guy who might stride into an event late and unapologetic, wearing an expensive pair of sunglasses and an “eat your heart out” smile. But he didn’t seem very confident right now. “Isn’t all shampoo basically the same?”

“Not if it gets in his eyes. You’ve got to go shopping anyway, so you might as well pick up some.”

“Why do I have to go shopping? Hannah already stocked the cupboards.”

The muscles in his arms flexed impressively as he shoved his oversized hands into his pockets. She could tell he wasn’t trying to put on a show, but his well-toned body made Dakota more self-conscious of the twenty pounds she’d gained over the past few months. With her father behaving so badly, she couldn’t get out of the house the way she used to. It was difficult leaving him alone long enough to go to work. Now that she’d be putting in longer hours, she’d have to rely even more heavily on Mrs. Duluth. But at least the arrangement was only temporary. She didn’t think Mrs. Duluth would mind.

“Hannah did a general stock,” she said. “I think she expected you to bring your own baby items.”

“Like shampoo? That’s a baby item?”

“Gentle shampoo, yes—and diapers and formula.”

“I have diapers.”

“Not anymore, unless they’re in your luggage.” So far, in addition to the diaper bag in the baby’s room, which was empty, she’d only spotted a duffle tossed carelessly at the foot of the bed in the master. But Tyson could have diapers in there, she supposed. Or in whatever vehicle he’d brought. She hadn’t checked the detached garage.

“You used them all?”

“There were only three, and I had good reason.”

He seemed to grasp that she’d spared him a few messy changes and backed off. “Right. Okay.”

Feeling slightly vindicated, she mentally measured what was left in the can from which she’d made Braden’s last bottle. “You also need more formula, or you will in another day or two. And it’d be nice if you could get a teething ring, a couple of baby spoons and a playpen. If you brought that stuff with you, I couldn’t find it.”

“No, I—Maybe you should make a list,” he said.

Dakota’s anxiety increased as she imagined her father revving the engine of his old truck, preparing to leave for the Honky Tonk. She’d hidden the keys, but he’d found them before. And Mrs. Duluth wouldn’t stop him. She’d be in bed by now. “A list. Sure.”

This time he took the baby when she held him out, and she hurried to the desk to find a paper and pen.

“Where can I get those items?” he asked, peering over her shoulder while she wrote.

“Finley’s Market is open till ten. But it’s a forty-minute drive to town, so you’d better hurry if you plan to go tonight.” She ripped off the sheet and handed it to him. “You can follow me, if you leave right away. I drive right past there.”

“Thanks. I think I’ll do that.”

Braden squirmed and reached for her, which made Dakota hesitate. Tyson seemed tense, unsure of himself. And the way he was holding his son—out away from his body instead of cuddling him close—concerned her. What if Tyson really was taking drugs? “Are you on something?” she asked.

Two deep furrows formed between his eyebrows. “What?”

She glanced anxiously toward the door but stayed where she was. She couldn’t conscionably leave until she knew the baby would be okay. “I’m asking if you’ve been snorting coke, shooting heroin, swallowing pills…you know.”

“Of course not! Do I look like I’m on drugs?”

She refused to blanch at his angry response. “Sort of.”

His prominent Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed, and his eyes narrowed. Obviously he wasn’t used to hearing the hard truth. But she had a responsibility to the baby. “I’m not,” he insisted.

“Not even steroids?” Steroids affected behavior, sometimes caused undue anger, right? She’d read that somewhere.

“Not even steroids.”

She wasn’t sure he’d admit it to her even if he were. But she didn’t dare argue further. Braden was his baby. There wasn’t anything more she could do. “Good.” She headed for the door, her mind now fully focused on getting home to her father, but Tyson intercepted her.

“What time can you be here in the morning?”

“When would you like me?”

“I’ll give you a key, so you can let yourself in at dawn.”

Dawn? She almost protested. She’d have to get up before five to get back here that early. But the nine thousand dollars she’d earn working for him would stop the bank from taking possession of their home. They were nearly five months behind on their mortgage.

Hopefully, her father would behave so she’d be able to get some sleep tonight.

“Fine.” She waited for him to fish an extra key out of the desk. Then she gave Braden an affectionate pat. “If you want to follow me to Finley’s, you’ll have to keep up,” she told Tyson. “I’m in a big hurry.”

But it didn’t take long to realize he wasn’t going to fall behind. While her 1992 rattletrap Maxima could barely do twenty-five miles an hour on the winding road, Tyson’s red Ferrari had no such limitations. His headlights never left her rearview mirror.

Where he’d put Braden’s car seat in that sports car, she had no idea. Obviously Tyson Garnier wasn’t much of a family man. That Ferrari was as much of a chick magnet as he was.

“You’re some father,” she muttered. But these days her own father wasn’t anything to brag about, and she grew more and more anxious as she drove closer to home.

CHAPTER THREE

Grandpa Garnier: If you want to forget all your troubles,

take a little walk in a brand-new pair of high-heeled

riding boots.

DAKOTA WAVED HIM OFF at the small supermarket in the middle of town, but Tyson didn’t stop. First he wanted to see where his new nanny lived. Under her care he hadn’t heard the baby so much as whimper all afternoon; he wasn’t about to let her drive off without at least knowing where to find her.

Two blocks later, she pulled onto the side of the road. “You missed it,” she called when he came up even with her and lowered his window.

“I know.”

“So where are you going?”

“I was…” He couldn’t divulge too much, or she’d know how inept he was, and his inability to be a decent father was the last thing he wanted spread across the front page of tomorrow’s paper. He deserved a little privacy, didn’t he? But he knew from experience he had only as much as he could fiercely guard. “…curious to see where you live,” he finished.

Her face filled with irritation. “Why?”

“Because I’m trying to learn my way around.”

Her car rattled and shook as if it was a struggle just to keep idling. “My place is not a landmark. Besides, you don’t have time to mess around. You’ll miss the store, and you can’t survive without diapers, remember?”

“I’ve got thirty minutes.”

“It’ll take you that long to do your shopping.”

He thought he could get what he needed in fifteen. But whether he had time or not wasn’t the real issue. She obviously didn’t want him following her any farther. He couldn’t imagine what it’d hurt, but she was scowling as though it was out of the question. “Okay.”

The tension in her face eased. “You have my phone number. Give me a call if you need anything.”

Did she really mean that? “I will.”

“Good night,” she said pointedly and maneuvered her heap of junk back onto the road.

Tyson nearly turned the Ferrari around. He was being ridiculous. Surely he could make it through eight hours on his own.

But then Braden started to fuss and pull at the harness restraining him, and fear that they’d pass another night like the last one slithered up Tyson’s spine. He couldn’t do it; he didn’t have the patience or the emotional reserves.

Waiting until he could barely see Dakota’s taillights, he pulled onto the road and trailed her at a much more discreet distance. She’d said he could call her, but what if she was a deep sleeper and didn’t pick up? It wouldn’t hurt to see where she lived, just in case.

Initially, he’d expected her to turn into the drive of one of the small brick houses surrounding the high school. It seemed that most folks in these parts lived there. When she passed those neighborhoods, however, he figured she had to live in one of the ranchettes on the outskirts of town. But he was wrong again. Beyond the cemetery, as buildings began to give way to the surrounding countryside, she entered a dusty trailer park that didn’t have so much as a patch of grass or a few trees to recommend it.

Tyson crept forward. Cast-off tires, cardboard boxes and wine bottles littered the weed-filled spaces in between twenty or so single-wide trailers. A few cars rested on blocks, and red lava rocks had been used to spruce up those units whose owners had even bothered with landscaping. His mother would’ve been appalled. If his mother had anything, it was good taste.

“She can’t live here,” he muttered, trying to avoid some of the deeper ruts in the dirt drive.

Tyson knew his car was hardly the kind to blend in. He couldn’t follow Dakota any farther without drawing attention, even in the dark. So he parked next to a Dumpster that had apparently been looted by kids or animals—or both. The trash scattered on the ground smelled worse than Braden’s dirty diapers, but the Dumpster provided some cover as he stepped out.

Dakota pulled into a lean-to carport attached to what a sign boldly proclaimed was Unit 13. At the far back, it was one of the shabbiest trailers in the park. But someone had hung some cheap wind chimes from one of the beams that supported the carport and planted flowers in front. Tyson could see the flowers in the pool of light coming from the streetlamp right next to her trailer. He was willing to bet they were wilted and badly in need of water—everything here looked wilted and badly in need of something—but Dakota didn’t so much as glance at her surroundings as she hurried up the four steps of the landing and let herself in.

The door slammed shut. Then the lights went on.

Tyson rubbed the whiskers on his chin as he listened to those wind chimes tinkling in the evening breeze, a television blaring through an open window of another trailer and a woman in the trailer closest to him ranting at someone, presumably her husband: “Get your ass in here, Willy. How many times do I gotta tell ya to empty your own damn ashtray? You’d think you could get up off that couch at least once a day….”

No wonder Gabe had promised Dakota that he would triple her pay, Tyson thought. This place was freakin’ depressing. He didn’t want to stick around. He couldn’t, anyway. Braden was crying again, probably tired of being in his car seat. But Tyson wasn’t sure taking him out would do any good. Last night, nothing had calmed him.

He sighed. The torture was already starting. Eight interminable hours yawned before him, during which he wouldn’t know what to do with the little human he’d inadvertently helped to create. But seeing Dakota’s home put his own problems in perspective. Life could be worse, right? He could always live here.

Settling into the familiar comfort of his leather seat, he turned around and drove to Finley’s Market.

HER FATHER’S TRUCK was in the drive but he wasn’t home.

A sick feeling descended on Dakota as she hurried inside. She hoped he’d gone to bed, but she knew better.

Sure enough, his room was as empty as the rest of the trailer. From the mess in the kitchen, he’d fixed himself dinner, at least, which was good. But there was no note on the fridge, on the counter amid the stacks of bills, or on the cluttered side table that held his glasses, his newspaper, his solitaire deck and, typically, his beer. If he was merely out for a walk or over at Johnny Diddimyer’s to play poker, he would’ve left word. He knew she’d worry.

Covering her face, Dakota tried to steady her nerves. She didn’t feel as if she could go through again what she’d been through last week. But she couldn’t eat and go to bed. If her dad was already drunk and acting up, the police would put him in jail until he was sober and he wasn’t well enough to withstand that. Having to walk with a cane wasn’t the worst of his problems. He could have a stroke or a heart attack at any time. He already needed a new liver.

Dakota’s stomach growled as she passed the kitchen. She was hungry because she hadn’t felt comfortable helping herself to Tyson’s food without an invitation—and he hadn’t emerged from his office to give her one—but she didn’t have time to scrounge through the refrigerator for leftovers. If her father had somehow managed to get to the Honky Tonk, she needed to reach him sooner rather than later. He could get so belligerent, so violent when he drank. It had been tough taking care of him since the accident, but it was getting more so as time wore on. He wasn’t himself anymore. Sometimes he scared her so badly she didn’t know if she’d survive the next few months.

She rubbed the bandage that covered the cut on her arm. She was pretty sure she should’ve gotten some stitches, but she hadn’t dared seek medical care. If anyone found out her father had come at her with a knife, they’d insist she put him in an institution. Most people told her to do that already. But where would she get the money? He received a small check from the state each month but even combined with what Dakota earned, it wasn’t enough to pay for institutionalized care. Besides, she couldn’t abandon Skelton. It was because of her that he lived in constant pain.

Hesitating at the door, she threw her shoulders back and lifted her head. It’d be okay. She’d find him, and she’d bring him home where she could take care of him. He’d cried—literally broken down and sobbed—when he realized what he’d done last time. Surely he wouldn’t hurt her again.

TYSON DIDN’T KNOW what he was going to do. Braden had fallen asleep during the ride home and had stayed asleep as he was gently transferred into his crib, giving Tyson hope that they’d have an easy night together, after all. But it was only midnight, and the baby was already awake and crying. Tyson had changed his diaper and given him a bottle. He’d even tried the pacifier he’d bought at the store—which he’d boiled just like it said on the package.

Nothing seemed to work.

He considered calling his mother for advice, but he’d tried that last night and it hadn’t done any good. Priscilla Garnier, who was single at the moment and living in Phoenix, didn’t know what to do with a baby any more than he did. Her suggestion had been to put Braden in his crib and let him cry, and to get some rest, but that answer was completely unacceptable to him. He’d taken Braden away from Rachelle for neglect. He wasn’t about to follow in her footsteps.

“What do you want?” he asked the baby, so on edge he felt close to tears himself.

Braden’s face turned a deeper shade of red, and his mouth remained open but no sound came out.

“Breathe!” Tyson said in a panic.

Finally, Braden hauled in a breath and let go of another earsplitting wail.

That was it, Tyson decided. He had to call Dakota Brown. He hated to do it, especially in the middle of the night. But it looked as if she could use the extra cash, and no price was too high if it’d bring him and this baby some relief. He’d promise her another five hundred dollars, or whatever it’d take, to get her to come back right away. He’d been stupid to let her go in the first place.

He wanted to put Braden in his crib and shut the door, so that he’d be able to hear on the phone, but he didn’t dare. What if the monster quit breathing completely? Died of SIDS?

He continued to scream as Tyson carried him to the office. Dakota’s number was in a very prominent place—he’d made sure of that—so it wasn’t difficult to find. But instead of a sleepy voice on the other end of the line, he got a recorded message.

I’m sorry, this number has been disconnected. If you feel you have reached this recording in error—

What? She’d given him that number just today!

Had he dialed wrong? He thought that might be the case, but when he tried again, he got the same message.

Shit. Now what was he to do? He couldn’t keep pacing the floor. Something had to be wrong with Braden—and they were way up in the mountains in an unfamiliar state, completely out of Tyson’s element. He didn’t even know where to find a hospital if he needed one.

Grabbing the car seat, he strapped the baby inside—which wasn’t easy because Braden was straining and kicking so hard—then loaded his demon son in the passenger seat of the Ferrari and drove like a bat out of hell.

BY THE TIME Tyson reached the trailer park, Braden had cried himself to sleep. The silence was absolute bliss, but he knew better than to turn around. He wasn’t about to fall for the temporary nap trick. Anyway, the peace didn’t last long. Tyson could hear shouting the second he opened his car door.

At first he thought it was coming from the trailer next to Dakota’s. The light was on there, too. But he soon realized the neighbors were only awake because of the ruckus. He could see an old couple peeking through their blinds, trying to get a look at what was going on next door.

He was wondering himself. He couldn’t imagine the father Dakota had mentioned as having “health issues” using the kind of foul language that rang so clearly on the cool night air.

“Make him stop,” the old lady called out when she spotted Tyson. “Or I’m calling the cops.”

Tyson closed the door of his car before the noise could wake Braden. “What’s going on?”

“They’re at it again,” the woman answered.

“At what again?”

“Fighting! Can’t you hear?” the man said. “He gets drunk and goes after her every now and then, more often lately than before.”

“I swear, he’s gonna kill her one of these days,” the woman fretted.

Alcoholism was Dakota’s father’s “health issue”? Tyson nearly groaned aloud. What was he doing here? He was standing at the back of a neglected trailer park in the middle of the night in a town of about 1500 people, which he’d never visited before. And he had a baby with him. His baby.

God, how life could unravel. Maybe his grandfather had been right. Maybe he should’ve stayed in Montana where he belonged.

“Give me the keys!” a male voice roared. “Or so help me, Dakota—”

“Stop it! Dad, listen.” She attempted to lower her voice, but Tyson could still hear her. “You’re going to wake the neighbors. Then they’ll call the police. Again. Do you want to spend the night in jail? You have to calm down—”

“Don’t you tell me what to do!”

A scream and a thud reverberated through the air. Then a crash.

“What the hell?” Tyson sprinted for the door and, after flinging it open, found Dakota trying to keep a table between her and her attacker. A vase lay broken on the floor. Several strands of her long black hair clung to her T-shirt, as if her father had gotten hold of a handful and yanked it out. But it was the blood trickling from her mouth that enraged Tyson. Who was this old man to think he could get away with beating up his daughter?

“Sit down!” Tyson shouted.

The man who turned to face him had a yellow cast to his skin and a bulldog’s sagging jowls. He also had a mean glint in his eye, and he wasn’t pleased to see he had a visitor.

“Who the hell are you? Get out of my house!” He tried to raise the cane he’d been brandishing at Dakota, but Tyson wrested it from his grip. Mr. Brown wasn’t all that mobile. His feet were so swollen he could hardly walk. Had Dakota been out where she could run, she would’ve had no problem getting away.

Tossing the cane out of reach, Tyson grabbed the older man by the shirtfront, dodged a clumsy blow and shoved him onto the couch. “I said sit down.”

“Stop! You’ll hurt him!” Dakota cried, but Tyson was more concerned with what her father was saying.

“You little prick, I don’t even know you! Who do you think you are?”

“I’m your worst nightmare if you don’t stay put and shut up,” Tyson said. And then, just when Dakota’s father looked as if he’d get up and try to take another swing, he blinked and his rage evaporated.

“Hey, you’re…Tyson Garnier? The Tyson Garnier? What the hell are you doing in my trailer?” he asked, and laughed as though he hadn’t been trying to kill his daughter thirty seconds earlier. “Imagine that,” he said, sounding awestruck. “Tyson Garnier, right here in my living room.”

Tyson’s anger didn’t dissipate quite so quickly. “My foot’s gonna be halfway up your ass if you ever touch her again,” he growled.

Mr. Brown seemed befuddled. Then the confusion cleared. “Dakota? Oh, I don’t mean her no harm. She’s my girl. We have a blow-up every now and then. It’s tough having her tell me what to do. But she knows I wouldn’t really hurt her.”

Dakota avoided Tyson’s gaze. Her father had already hurt her. Tyson could see that her lip was swelling, and she had a scratch on her neck.

“Have a seat.” Mr. Brown waved magnanimously to an old vinyl recliner. “Dakota, can you get Tyson a beer?”

Dakota stared at her father. “He doesn’t want a beer, Daddy.”

“What else we got?”

“Nothing. I’m going outside to have a little talk with him.”

She stepped out, leaving Tyson standing in the middle of the cramped room, adrenaline still rushing through his blood. He wanted to do something more than he’d done—but he couldn’t. It wasn’t his place to teach Mr. Brown a lesson. And Dakota’s father was obviously a sick man.

Giving him a final glare, Tyson followed Dakota outside and waited through the apology she delivered to the neighbors.

“We’re tired of this, Dakota. You need to do something about him,” the old man said before he and his wife eventually turned off the lights and went back to bed.

Tyson expected Dakota to ask what he was doing at her house in the middle of the night. He was even prepared for her to be angry. He’d seen that sort of thing on TV, where an abused wife didn’t appreciate outside interference. But Dakota didn’t bring up what had just happened.

“Where’s Braden?” she asked.

“In the car.”

“How is he?”

Tyson drew a deep breath. “He’s having a hard night.” They both were. But after what she’d been through, he didn’t feel that he could complain.

“That’s why you came?”

“I tried to call. You didn’t tell me your phone was disconnected.”

A pained expression claimed her face. “It wasn’t when I left for the cabin this afternoon.”

“Maybe I dialed wrong,” he said, reluctant to pile more stress on her.

“No. I noticed it myself just before I went to bed. But…I’ll catch up.”

He handed her the five hundred dollars he’d withdrawn at Finley’s Market. Because the ATM would only allow him to get three hundred dollars in one day, he’d had to take it from two different accounts, but he had several. “This might help.”

She said nothing as she slipped the money into her pocket.

“Any chance you’d consider coming back to the cabin with me?” He scratched his neck. “I’m…not very good with babies.” After what he’d witnessed, he couldn’t leave her behind. But he thought it better to appeal to her sympathy than challenge her pride.

A police siren sounded in the distance. Dakota tilted her head in such a way that he knew she was listening. Then she pressed her fingers to her closed eyelids. “I don’t know what to do.”

“I’ll pay extra.”

She touched her lip self-consciously. “And if they see this, they might charge him with assault.”

He reached over and plucked the loose hairs off her shirt, being careful not to come too close to her breasts. “Maybe a good long stay behind bars would be the best thing for him.”

“No. You saw him. He’s not well. He can’t sleep lying down, reacts poorly to certain foods, has to have someone keep a close watch on his meds.”

“Is that why you stay?” he asked softly.

“That’s part of the reason,” she replied and went back inside. When she returned, she had a small bag, her purse and her keys. “Let’s get out of here.”

CHAPTER FOUR

Grandpa Garnier: You can just about always stand more

than you think you can.

DAKOTA SAT ON THE veranda of Gabe Holbrook’s cabin. Along with her purse and makeup kit, she’d already deposited her small satchel in one of the guest bedrooms, and she’d rocked Braden back to sleep when he woke up after they got home. But she wasn’t in any hurry to go to bed herself. She couldn’t unwind, couldn’t relax. She hoped to sort through her thoughts and emotions while listening to the cicadas and admiring the full moon, which seemed close enough to reach out and touch.

“You okay?”

She hadn’t heard the front door open, so Tyson’s presence surprised her. She’d assumed he’d retired for the night. “I’m fine,” she said, but her lip was numb and swelling from the whack her father had given her with his cane, and she could still taste blood from where her teeth had cut the inside of her cheek. “I’m thinking of going back.”

“What?”

She bristled at the incredulity in his voice, but she didn’t really have another option. For all she knew, her father was sitting in a jail cell. And, if not for the accident she’d caused, he’d be just like he was before—a sober, rational, good man. “I don’t expect you to understand.”

“According to what your neighbors said, what happened tonight happens fairly often.”

“Not so often,” she argued.

“Once is too much.”

He was right, but there was a lot more to it than what he knew. “It’s complicated.”

“You want to explain it to me?”

The scent of the surrounding forest—wet earth, evergreen trees, cool wind—filled her nostrils as she hauled in a deep breath. “Not really.”

The floorboards creaked as he sat in the chair across from her. “You’re more guarded than anyone I’ve ever met, you know that?”

She laughed aloud. “And you’re an open book?”

He shrugged.

“According to People, you hide what you really feel behind a megawatt smile and slip out of the limelight at the first opportunity.”

“They don’t know anything about me.”

“I think that was their point. You don’t let anyone close enough.”

He seemed uncomfortable with that statement, but he didn’t argue with it. Getting up again, he moved restlessly around the porch, eventually leaning on the railing. “It’s beautiful here.”

She let him change the subject. They were employer and employee, and had only met this morning. They had no business getting into each other’s personal lives. “Gabe’s taken good care of the place.” She sank more comfortably into the chair Gabe had built when he was first learning to work with wood after he lost his football career. “He’s quite a man. Have you been to his shop, seen some of the furniture he’s building these days?”

The porch light brightened one side of Tyson’s face as he turned. Only the subtle hollow beneath his cheekbone bore any shadow. “You mean the store? In town?”

“Yeah. It’s across from his wife’s photography studio on Main Street.”

“I’ve been there, even bought a few things. It’s in a cool building.”

“An old one, built in the late 1800s. That used to be Rudy Perez’s cabinet shop before he passed away.”

“You know a lot about the people in your community.” Tyson made that comment as if he’d experienced the exact opposite, as if he didn’t know much about anyone. Which made her suspect she’d been right earlier: he didn’t let anyone close.

“I’ve lived here my whole life.” Sometimes she thought she’d never escape….

“Have you ever considered moving away?”

“Every day.”

Her immediate and unqualified response seemed to surprise him. “You don’t like it?”

“Can you blame me? I’m working at the pharmacy making eight bucks an hour. The folks who own it are wonderful, don’t get me wrong. They’d pay me more if they could. But that isn’t what I always envisioned for my life.”

“So what’s keeping you?” he asked.

She laughed mirthlessly. “I’ll give you one guess.”

“That’s a pretty big sacrifice for someone who just bloodied your lip.”

It was her turn to avoid answering. “I’m going inside. I need to call the police and see what’s happened to him.”

“I’ve already talked to them.”

His words stopped her before she could reach the door, and she whipped around. “They called here? And you didn’t tell me?”

Putting his back to her, he sat on the front steps. “I contacted them.”

“Why?”

“I wanted to see what we could work out,” he said over his shoulder.

Dakota had never had anyone step between her and her father before. Most people muttered that she was crazy to stick around, or they gave Skelton disgruntled looks for how he sometimes treated her. Which only made her situation worse, because she was always in the middle, trying to defend him. But this was the first time someone had contacted the police for something other than to complain about the noise. “And?” she asked hesitantly.

“We made a deal.”

“You didn’t think to discuss it with me first?” Anger put an edge to her voice.

He twisted to face her. “I can’t imagine you’ll have a problem with it. It’s the best possible solution, for everyone.”

Spoken like a true egotist. He thought it was best, so it must be best. But if he really had an answer, she was eager to hear it. She’d been searching for a way out of her current situation for years. “I’m waiting.”

“They said they’d overlook what happened tonight if you’d stay away from your father in the future.”

“How’s that a solution?” she cried. “I’m the one who takes care of him. Half the time he doesn’t eat unless I prepare his food. And we can’t afford two households.”

He stood up, leaned against the pillar that supported the porch and crossed his arms. “I hired the brother of one of the police officers—a Terrance Bennett—to look after him in the evenings and at night when you’d typically be off work.”

“You what?”

“I hired some help.”

“For how long?”

“For the next two months. That way, you can stay here. If the arrangement works, maybe you can even go back to California with me.”

Dakota was speechless, torn between gratitude that this man, who’d only hired her today, would be willing to help her to such a degree, pique that he’d interfered in her situation without consulting her and excitement to think she had the opportunity to go to California. How hard could it be to raise one baby who would never want for anything, while living in a mansion—maybe on the beach—with a professional football player? Think of the places she’d get to see, the people she might meet…

Her mind raced with the possibilities. But she couldn’t leave her father. He was her only family. The woman with the heavy Spanish accent who’d called her all of two times in the past ten years didn’t count. She was a complete stranger. And what if he died while she was gone?

She massaged her temples, hoping to relieve the headache that had started from the blow she’d sustained to her mouth. She couldn’t turn her back on her father now. She was all he had. “I’m sorry. I can’t leave Dundee. I have to stay with him.”

“I just told you he’ll have someone looking after him.”

“It won’t be the same. No one else really cares about him.”

Tyson moved close and tipped up her chin, making a point of studying her fat lip. “You have nothing here.”

She jerked away. “I have my self-respect. If I turned my back on the one person who really needs me, I wouldn’t even have that.”

She started into the house, but he caught her elbow. “If you go back, they’ll put him in jail. They’ve had it, Dakota. I spoke to Chief Clanahan myself.”

“They can’t. I’m fine, so there’s no need. And he’s sick.”

“That doesn’t mean they’ll keep putting up with his behavior. He could really hurt you, and then they’d be partially to blame because they didn’t stop him when they had the chance.”

Her head was pounding too hard to make such a difficult decision. “So what do I do?” she asked. She wasn’t really talking to him—it was more of a rhetorical question to herself—but he answered.

“Stay here for a couple weeks. You can go into town every afternoon if you want—check in on him, make sure the new guy is doing a good job, cook his dinner, whatever. The fact that you’re not living with him should mollify the police and your neighbors. Then…we’ll see where things go from there.”

The warmth of his fingers sank through the thin sleeve of her blouse, but she doubted he even knew he was still holding on to her. “Is this really about helping me?” she asked skeptically.

He glanced at the house. “I need you and you need me,” he said simply and let go.

He was talking about Braden. She could tell he wanted to leave it right there, but she couldn’t. Lowering her voice, she asked, “If you didn’t really want him, why’d you take him?”

He stared at some mysterious point over her shoulder for so long she thought he wasn’t going to answer. Finally he spoke. “I had no choice.”

“You could’ve left him with his mother.”

“Then I would’ve lost my self-respect,” he said and went inside.

A KNOCK AT THE DOOR woke Tyson early. He scowled, but then something became apparent to him that quickly countered his irritation at being disturbed before he was ready. He couldn’t hear any crying. Not one cursed peep.

He opened his eyes and lay still for a moment, holding his breath.

Yep, no crying.

“God that feels good.” Rolling over, he started drifting off to sleep again when a second knock reminded him that someone was at his door.

“Come in.” His voice was muffled by a pillow, but Dakota must’ve heard him because the door opened, and she poked her head in. “You have a phone call.”

He sat up and rubbed his eyes. “I do?”

“It’s Greg Higgins.”

His agent. “Oh.” He fell back onto the bed. “Tell him I’ll call him later.”

“I already told him you weren’t up yet. He said it’s important.”

With Greg, “important” was always relative. He might be calling simply to pass along a compliment the owner of the Stingrays had paid him. Or it could have to do with Rachelle. When Tyson forked over the one mil in exchange for her signature on the custody papers, she’d agreed not to disclose the terms of their agreement—and it made Greg even madder than Tyson that she’d flagrantly disregarded that stipulation. They couldn’t fix it now, but maybe something else had happened. Or maybe she was trying to renege on their deal.

“Fine.” He reached for the telephone next to the bed, but Dakota spoke as his hand closed around the receiver.

“He called on line two, which I finally figured out is only in the office.”

“How’d he get that number?” Tyson asked.

“It must be the one you gave him.”

Which meant it had originally come from Gabe. Tyson hadn’t expected two lines. This was supposed to be a remote cabin.

When he started to get up, the door closed so fast Tyson startled, then realized he’d fallen into bed in just his briefs last night. When he’d thrown off the covers, he hadn’t even considered that his near nudity might offend Dakota. He’d lost all sensitivity to modesty after spending the past decade dressing and undressing in a locker room that allowed female reporters to wander through at will. But he found it interesting that Dakota had beat such a quick retreat.

He grinned at the memory as he pulled on a pair of sweatpants and headed down the hall to the office. And that was when he caught the scent of bacon, eggs and…waffles? There was coffee, too. This was certainly a better morning than the one he’d spent yesterday. He couldn’t wait to gorge himself. He hadn’t had a solid meal since he’d picked up Braden.

The receiver was resting on the ink blotter next to the football player he’d drawn yesterday. He brought it to his ear and said hello, then realized that someone had added a number to the jersey on the paper. His number. Imagine that. Dakota had never mentioned football, and yet she knew his number.

“We’ve got problems,” Greg said.

Pasty-skinned and habitually nervous, with what he called a “power haircut” and football tattoos on both forearms that looked like a failed attempt to fit in rather than an extension of his own personality, Greg worried about everything, which drove Tyson crazy. But it was also one of the reasons Tyson kept him around. Tyson viewed life as one big picture; Greg minded the minutiae.

“What kind of problems?” Tyson wasn’t nervous. Buying the wrong kind of toilet paper could be a serious problem for Greg.

“That bitch went on Montel Williams yesterday.”

“That bitch” was, of course, Rachelle. “She already disclosed the terms of our agreement,” he said, wondering why Greg had to wake him up for this. “No use getting our jocks in a knot over that.”

“But that’s not all,” his agent went on. “She hinted that you took advantage of her when she was down on her luck.”

Tyson sat up straighter. Now he was worried. “I took advantage of her?”

“Yeah. She led everyone to believe…” Greg hesitated.

“What?” Tyson snapped.

“You’re not going to like it.”

“Say it anyway.”

“That you forced her to have sex with you.”

The image of Rachelle climbing into his bed filled Tyson’s mind. Sleeping together had been her idea. He hadn’t demanded, or even asked, for anything.

He rubbed his left temple. “Shit.”

“I contacted her, told her you’d sue her for libel if she ever said that again.”

“Good. I will.”

“It doesn’t end there.”

Why not? It should. He’d fulfilled his end of the bargain, and now he was trying to live with the fallout. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“She…she said she was thinking of going to the police and telling them the same story.”

“That I raped her? The only thing I forced her to do was get the hell out of my house!” He drummed his fingers on the desktop. This couldn’t be happening.

“It’s her word against yours.”

“Then I’ll take a lie detector test.”

“No, you won’t. Those things aren’t completely reliable. They depend on the interpretation of the technician. If, for some strange reason, the tech happens to screw up and we get a false positive, we’d be done for. That’s a risk we can’t take.”

There had to be something they could do. “I know if we check her background, we’ll find she’s no virtuous saint.”

“Doesn’t matter. Just the claim will drag your reputation through the mud. You’ll lose your endorsements. Strive Athletic Equipment is already acting funny after that newspaper article. I had to send Howard the private investigator’s report that made you decide to take Braden in the first place.”

“What’d he say?”

“That he wasn’t happy. And he told me what we already know—with endorsements, the truth doesn’t really matter. It’s the public’s perception of an athlete, that’s all. You can’t be perceived as a womanizer or a jerk or a man who has no kindness for the mother of his baby, no feelings.”

Just because he refused to wear them on his sleeve didn’t mean he didn’t have them. Rachelle had cut him to the quick. Even Greg didn’t understand how betrayed Tyson felt. “So what’s the bottom line?”

“We’ve got to stop her.”

“How? I don’t even know why she’s doing this!”

“You’re kidding me, right?”

Tyson jumped to his feet. “She got the money she wanted.”

“But she didn’t reach her true objective; she wasn’t admitted to your world.”

Tyson knew Greg would understand that. The man had been trying to fit in since he started agenting. “She expected me to marry her?”

“I’ll bet that was her fondest dream. Now that she knows she’s not going to get it, she wants the money and the baby.”

Turning the slats of the wooden blinds to protect his eyes from the glare, Tyson began to pace. “She’s not getting the baby. That’s bullshit.”

“You’re committed to ‘no’?”

“To the tune of $1,000,000, remember?”

“This could cost you your career, Tyson. And that’s worth a lot more than a measly one mil.”

He gripped the phone that much tighter. “You’re telling me to give the baby back?”

“Having you step in scared her. She knows we’re watching now. Maybe she’ll take better care of him.”

Tyson didn’t believe it for a minute. He’d never met anyone more self-serving than Rachelle Rochester, no one more coldly calculating. That she came off so sweet and innocent made her all the more dangerous.

Even if she took better care of Braden’s physical needs, how would it be to have her for a mother? Tyson had always thought his own mother was too consumed with building her title and escrow company to be a good parent. He’d become nothing more than a painful reminder of the only man she’d ever really loved. This would be worse. Braden would fall second to mere vanity and greed. And Rachelle would use him shamelessly until he turned eighteen.

Tyson wouldn’t allow it. “Tell her she can go to hell.”

There was a long pause. Obviously his agent wasn’t happy with his response. “Tyson, with your knee the way it is…”

“What are you saying, Greg? What does my knee have to do with this?”

“I’m saying you need to be cautious. You’re not as young as you used to be. I don’t know if you can afford this kind of fight. Maybe it’s better to concede this round.”

Concede? To a crook and a phony? Never. If there was one thing his mother had taught him, it was to fight when he felt he had to. “Whose side are you on?” he asked and slammed down the phone.

There was a rattle of plates, and he turned in time to see Dakota hurrying away from the open doorway. She’d obviously been bringing him breakfast—but had changed her mind when she heard him screaming into the receiver.

Damn. She’d caught him at a vulnerable moment.

He considered calling her back so he could smooth over his temperamental display. He didn’t want her whispering about him to the locals. Who knew what might leak out? The press would follow him here eventually. The last thing he needed was to do anything that could be interpreted as supporting the terrible things Rachelle was saying about him.

But he was too angry to pretend he wasn’t.

Besides, he no longer felt like eating.

CHAPTER FIVE

Grandpa Garnier: Never kick a cow chip on a hot day.

AFTER TYSON’S PHONE CALL, the house fell silent, except for the television, which was tuned to Good Morning America, and an occasional squeal from Braden as he crawled around the living room. While Dakota did the dishes, she wondered what kind of news the man Greg Higgins had delivered to Tyson. Clearly, her employer wasn’t pleased with whatever he’d heard.

A few minutes later, a creak on the stairs alerted her that he was coming. Then he appeared wearing basketball shorts, a Stingrays T-shirt and tennis shoes.

He still hadn’t shaved. Maybe he was trying to make himself less recognizable. He obviously didn’t want to draw any attention, or he wouldn’t be staying by himself in a friend’s cabin way out in the boonies.

“Hungry?” she asked, trying to pretend she hadn’t just tried to bring him a tray.

“No.” He jerked his head toward the baby. “How’s he doing?”

“Good. He ate some cereal and mashed banana for breakfast, with a bottle of juice.”

Braden gave his father a beaming smile. But Tyson, who was already wearing a scowl, didn’t acknowledge it or respond.

“And what about you?” he asked.

Dakota had been doing her best to keep her face averted when possible. She knew her lip and the bruise on her cheek looked worse than they would if she’d had the chance to shower and use the cover-up that came in handy when she needed to hide the remnants of her and her father’s fights. “Better,” she said, rinsing off another dish.

“Let’s see.”

She kept working. “There’s nothing to see.”

“Look at me. How bad is it?”

Again she tried to shrug him off. “It’s fine.”

He didn’t respond, but he stood in the center of the room watching her—she could feel his attention—so she finally relented and turned.

His eyes zeroed in on her lip. “Damn, he clipped you pretty good.”

“It’ll be better tomorrow.”

“And that bruise on your cheek?”

“I’ve got something I can put on it. You won’t be able to see it.”

“Just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it isn’t there.”

What could she say? She was getting used to hiding the worst of her injuries. The cut on her arm still hadn’t healed. She was afraid it was getting infected.

“I’m going out for a jog,” he said and took a water bottle from the cupboard above the fridge.

Dakota put another plate in the dishwasher. “It’s about to rain. You might want to run inside. Gabe’s got two different treadmills back there.” The workout room took up as much square footage as the living room, dining room and kitchen combined, and was better equipped than most professional spas. Dakota had already wandered through it, admiring the expensive equipment and imagining how she could look if she had access to that every day.

“I don’t care about a little rain. Running in place has never made much sense to me.”

The door slammed shut, leaving Dakota alone with Braden. “Don’t worry about him,” she told the baby. “He’s just in a bad mood.”

Braden sat on his diapered behind and jabbered as he played with her keys, which she’d given him because he didn’t seem to have any toys.

“I’ll get you some blocks when I go to town today,” she promised.

Finished drying the last pan, she scooped the baby into her arms and laughed as he planted a wet kiss on her chin. She knew the behavior had more to do with teething than affection, but it felt good all the same. “You’re something else, you know that?” she told him, tickling him under the chin.

He giggled and buried his face in her neck, and she hugged him close. He felt so solid and round and soft. He was going to be big, just like his daddy.

She could get used to this job, she decided. She already liked it more than anything else she’d done.

“If your father’s not going to use the gym, maybe I will,” she said. “Then you and I will go outside and see what needs to be done to plant a garden.”

As long as she’d be at the cabin so much, she figured she might as well take advantage of all the amenities. The cupboards in the kitchen, and the freezer in the mudroom, were so well stocked maybe she’d even do some cooking. She’d found steaks, shrimp, crab, even a couple of lobster tails—and Tyson acted as if he didn’t care what she did as long as she kept the baby happy.

She thought of the magazines piled in her bedroom in the trailer—mostly fan magazines because they were quick reads, but there were plenty of food and wine magazines, too. Mr. and Mrs. Cottle at the pharmacy gave her the outdated ones they pulled from the shelves. When she was young, she’d dreamed of becoming a gourmet cook and had spent a lot of time since then studying food preparation and experimenting with various menus.

Later today, she’d pick up a few recipes she wanted to try. She needed to check on her father anyway. But she didn’t really want to see him. His irrational and violent behavior wasn’t easy to forget. After he cut her last time, he’d promised he would never raise a hand to her again.

She ran her tongue over her sore lip. Since he’d started drinking, he was no longer the man she’d once known and loved.

She wouldn’t visit today. Nor would she call, she decided. Mrs. Duluth would alert her if there was anything serious going on. Feeling better, she hurried to exercise before Tyson came home.

TYSON FORCED HIMSELF to run uphill so fast he felt as if his lungs might burst. With so many personal problems and so much competition on the field, he had to be better, stronger, faster. Mind over matter, he reminded himself, and kept going even when he was convinced he’d drop if he didn’t quit. His knee was starting to hurt—he knew a trainer would tell him to take it easy—but he was tired of giving in to the weakness. He wasn’t ready to leave the NFL. He still had five good years in him.

If only his body would cooperate.

As long as he could play, the endorsements wouldn’t matter, he told himself. He’d still be gainfully employed. And if he played well, he could outlast the scandal over Rachelle’s accusations and, eventually, maybe he’d win a few of them back.

But that wasn’t very realistic, and he knew it. By then, he’d be older and that much closer to retirement. It was the young guys the big names wanted—the ones with a perfect reputation.

“Damn her,” he said aloud. Then, unaccustomed to the altitude, he finally stopped and bent over to suck some cool, mountain air into his burning lungs.

He had to go back to California, he realized, had to meet with Rachelle. Maybe he could talk some sense into her. He knew it wasn’t likely. She had no conscience or she wouldn’t have done what she’d done in the first place. But what other option did he have? He wouldn’t relinquish Braden. He was convinced taking the baby had been the best thing to do. How else could he be sure his son would be raised right?

But he couldn’t stand by and let her destroy his reputation and possibly his career.

“I can be back tomorrow,” he promised himself and headed for the cabin.

TYSON’S VISIT to California didn’t turn out to be the quick trip he’d intended. He couldn’t get a flight out of Boise until the following morning, and when he reached L.A., Rachelle wouldn’t respond to his attempts to contact her. After three days, he finally showed up at her place unannounced, only to be confronted by a man who claimed to be her bodyguard.

“I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave, Mr. Garnier.” The giant Samoan left the security chain in place and spoke through the crack. “You can get in a lot of trouble for being here.”

Garnier wasn’t intimidated by the hulky bodyguard. He faced men who weighed one and a half times his weight for a living. “Why? All I want to do is talk to her.”

“I’m sorry, but you’re violating a restraining order.”

“A what?” Tyson cried in confusion. Restraining orders were for dangerous, violent men. He’d never struck a woman in his life.

The man shoved some papers through the crack. “Consider yourself served.”

Tyson stared down at the official-looking paperwork.

“You can’t come within two city blocks of Ms. Rochester or you could be arrested,” the bodyguard informed him. “The hearing is in six days.”

Disbelieving, Tyson scanned the fine print. It was true. Rachelle had filed for a restraining order. “Wait!” Tyson put a hand on the door so the Samoan couldn’t close it. “The only thing I should be arrested for is being stupid enough to get mixed up with her in the first place,” he nearly shouted.

The man glanced nervously at Tyson’s hand. “The cops are already on their way.”

Tyson’s muscles bunched in impotent rage. “This is nuts!”

“Just because you’re a famous football player doesn’t mean you have the right to harass women.”

“Harass them!” This time Tyson did shout. “When have I done anything to her? She’s a freakin’ parasite, that’s what she is. It’s my money that’s paying your salary!”

At Tyson’s sudden burst of temper, the Samoan stepped back. “You’re losing your cool,” he said. “Please leave before the police have to drag you away.”

No, this was too unfair! “Look.” Rolling up the papers, he shoved them in his pocket and forced himself to lower his voice. There was no need for a hearing, no need for this to get out of hand. All he wanted was for Rachelle to live up to the agreement she’d made. “You can stay in the room if you want. Or bring her to the door so we can talk through the crack. I’m not going to touch her. I swear.” He lifted his hands to convince the man of his honesty. “I just want to speak to her. I need to know what’s going on.”

A female voice said something in the background that led Tyson to believe Rachelle was close by, but the bodyguard shut the door before Tyson could address her directly. A moment later, the Samoan opened it again, but only as far as the security chain would allow. “Sorry. Ms. Rochester feels she’d be unsafe.”

A tic began in Tyson’s cheek. “In what way?”

“She says you’re not stable.”

Until that moment, Tyson had never seriously considered hurting anyone. “Rachelle, what the hell are you doing?” he yelled. “We had a deal. You got every penny you asked for. What more do you want?”

“I want my baby back,” he heard her say. Then the door closed again.

Tyson banged on the wooden panel. He even went around back to see if he could get Rachelle’s attention through the windows. He hoped the police were really on their way—maybe they’d help him sort this out. But, evidently, she’d called the media, too. Because it was a reporter who showed up first—and snapped a picture of him climbing over her fence, the set of his jaw so rigid that, when it was published in the paper the following day, he looked ready to kill.

TYSON HAD BEEN GONE for ten days when Dakota spotted his picture on the cover of one of the tabloids. She was in Finley’s Market, picking up more baby food, and had Braden in the shopping cart. Tired of being strapped in, the baby kept holding his arms out for her to pick him up, but she was too mesmerized by what she saw.

Football Star Stalking Ex-Lover

What a headline! Her heart raced as she grabbed the paper and began to read:

Tyson Garnier, five-time all-pro wide receiver for the Los Angeles Stingrays, was caught Sunday trying to force his way into the home of twenty-four-year-old onetime waitress Rachelle Rochester. Although the pair have a nine-month-old baby together, friends of Ms. Rochester say they’ve never been a couple. One woman, who agreed to speak only upon condition of anonymity, says Garnier became obsessed with Rochester after spotting her at the restaurant where she worked, going so far as to follow her home and insist she accompany him to his place. She was gone nearly three weeks, during which time her roommate filed a missing persons report.

Ming Lee is the owner of the restaurant where Rochester worked. “She just disappeared,” Lee said of her waitress. “When she came back, I asked her, ‘Where’d you go?’ And she said she was kidnapped.”

Another friend adds, “When Rach finally resurfaced, she told me a bizarre tale about how this professional football player had kept her locked up as a sex slave, and forced her to do all kinds of kinky things.”

If that were true, why didn’t Ms. Rochester go to the police? Dakota wondered. Or had she tried? Did Tyson have connections that would enable him to clean up his mess without any penalty?

As if in direct answer to her question, the article continued:

When asked why Ms. Rochester never filed a police report on the incident, her roommate, Adrienne LeFever said, “She told me it was because no one would believe her. Tyson Garnier’s a star athlete. Everyone loves him. She’s a lowly waitress who barely graduated with a GED, poor thing. My guess is he paid her off.”

“It’s not true.”

The voice cut through Dakota’s concentration. Lowering the paper, she found Gabriel Holbrook sitting in his wheelchair next to the newsstand. His black hair was wet, suggesting he was fresh from a shower, and she was pretty sure he’d just shaved, because there was a tiny nick in his cleft chin. With his dark coloring, vivid blue eyes, massive shoulders and disarming grin, he was as handsome as ever.

“They’re looking to sell papers,” he explained.

The story was gripping, she had to give them that. And a little frightening, if it was true.

“Of course.” She quickly put the paper away. Tyson was her employer. Thanks to him, she’d be able to make the back payments on her mortgage and catch up on most of her other bills. Besides, Braden was so sweet and loveable she couldn’t imagine him coming from anyone as twisted as that article implied.

In any case, she had no complaints against Tyson personally. Everything he’d said and done where she was concerned had been normal enough. He’d called to check on Braden every night since he’d been gone, and had been polite, if slightly aloof. Before he’d left, he hired Terrance Bennett to look after her dad, just as he’d promised, which seemed to be working out okay despite her father’s displeasure at having “a babysitter.” Tyson had told her to go ahead and enjoy any food she found in the house, and when she’d expressed an interest in gardening, he’d gotten permission from Gabe for her to plant what she wanted.

Then again, she wasn’t the type of woman to inspire obsession, especially from someone as handsome and famous as Tyson. Her only boyfriend had broken up with her when he realized she wouldn’t leave her father and go with him to the oil fields of Colorado.

“Where’s Hannah?” she asked.

“At the studio. She has a couple shoots today.”

“I should have her take Braden’s picture.”

“Sounds like the job’s working out.”

“I love it.”

“You’re not getting lonely up there all by yourself?”

“No. Not yet, anyway.” She’d never been to an expensive resort, but she couldn’t imagine it being any more enjoyable than Gabe’s cabin. She’d been able to work out and lift weights, use the Jacuzzi tub, build a fire in the fireplace when the air grew brisk at night, take Braden on hikes through the forest by putting him in the baby carrier she’d bought with the money Tyson had left for her to use. She’d put in an entire spring garden, as well, complete with tomatoes, zucchini, squash, corn, carrots, peas and string beans. And she’d been driving Tyson’s Ferrari. Hannah had watched Braden while Dakota went to the airport with Tyson so she could bring the car home. For the first time, she’d been glad that her own car had a manual transmission. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have known how to drive the Ferrari.

The only blight on the whole week was the way her father behaved whenever she went home to check on him. He treated her as if it was a personal betrayal that she’d involved Terrance in their lives. “They feedin’ya enough caviar over there?” he’d taunted her yesterday.

“I think I’m getting spoiled,” she told Gabe with a laugh. “I’ve been meaning to tell you that you don’t have to hire the housekeeper that came on Wednesday. I’d be happy to keep the place clean while I’m there.”

“I appreciate it, but I can’t do that to Rosalee. I think she really counts on the income.”

“See that? I don’t have to clean. And now I don’t even have to feel guilty about it. It’s like staying at Club Med.”

“You deserve the break, Dakota.” Gabe was a little too serious, serious enough to make her uncomfortable. She didn’t want him to pity her. She hated that.

“Tyson will probably be back soon,” she said, trying to keep the conversation on the light side.

“He never should’ve left.”

There were several gawkers gathering a few feet away. Like Tyson, Gabe attracted stares. It was inspiring just to see him get around so capably. But he was also a local hero. Everyone was eager to get some face time with him, so they could talk about next year’s high school football season, if nothing else. High school football was The Town Event.

“Why did he?” she asked, lowering her voice so she wouldn’t be overheard. It was none of her business and she knew it, but she was hoping to hear something that would bolster her faith in Braden’s father.

She glanced at the photo of Tyson scaling Rachelle Rochester’s fence. With that glint in his eye, most men would scramble to get out of his way.

“He keeps his personal business to himself. But if I had to venture a guess, I’d say Braden’s mother is causing some trouble.”

Was it him—or her? “That’s too bad.”

Gabe looked her over. “You losing weight?”

She smiled, suddenly shy. “A little. I’ve got a lot more to go.”

“Not a lot. You look fantastic.”

She felt herself flush. “Thanks.”

“Are you enjoying the baby?”

Dakota took Braden, who was starting to cry, from the cart. “Very much!”

The babe quieted immediately. “Ba…ba…ba…ba,” he cooed and nearly broke her nose with his eagerness to give her another wet kiss.

Gabe laughed at the collision. “That kid keeps growing, he’ll be a lineman someday.”

Dakota hugged Braden close. She loved his chubby body, especially the soft rolls at his thighs and the place where he would one day grow a wrist. “He’s in the ninety-ninth percentile for height and the eighty-seventh percentile for weight. I looked it up on the Internet.”

“Sounds like Paul Bunyan’s kid to me.”

She brushed her lips across Braden’s temple, enjoying the scent of his shampoo. “It’s not as if his father is small. Tyson’s at least six-four, isn’t he?”

“Around there.”

“And Braden’s going to be every bit as handsome.”

An odd expression flitted across Gabe’s face. Or maybe it was her imagination.

“Is something wrong?” she asked.

He seemed slightly hesitant, as though he was unsure whether or not to speak his mind.

She shifted the baby, so her hip could help support his weight. “What is it?”

“I hope I did the right thing.”

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing.” He smiled again, but it wasn’t quite as genuine as before. Now it was tempered with a hint of worry.

“Gabe?”

A furrow formed between his eyebrows. “I don’t want to see you get hurt, Dakota. I envisioned this as a great opportunity for you, but—”

She waved her free hand in an unconcerned motion. “I’m not going to get hurt.”

“I hope not. Lord knows you deserve a lot better than what you’ve had. I’d like to see you get it. But…”

“Tyson would never go for a plain girl like me?” Dakota’s chest constricted. It was one thing to know the truth in her heart and another to have someone she admired as much as Gabe point it out to her. But she added a scoffing laugh so he wouldn’t know he’d hurt her. “Come on, Gabe. I know he’s way out of my league.”

Gabe’s eyes fell to Braden. “I wasn’t talking about Tyson.”

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