Nothing but a house full of boys and one very ornery McCabe man…

Sam McCabe | Widower, single father of five and spoiling for a fight with the new household manager—Kate Marten.
Will McCabe | High school senior and a chip off the old block.
Brad McCabe | Sweet sixteen and loving every minute of it.
Riley McCabe | In the midst of the terrible teens.
Lewis McCabe | The sensitive son.
Kevin McCabe | The baby brother.

Plus one very determined woman!

Kate Marten
Possibly in over her head and about to drown in too much testosterone!

Dear Reader,

Of all the books about love and family that I’ve written to date, my stories set in the fictional town of Laramie, Texas, have been the most well-received. First came THE MCCABES OF TEXAS, about John and Lilah McCabe’s four sons. Then, THE LOCKHARTS OF TEXAS. The four Lockhart women who grew up with the McCabe boys are no less spirited—and there’s still one sister who hasn’t yet marched down the aisle! Now, I am pleased to offer you what you’ve been asking for…another story set in Laramie, and one that is longer, more dramatic and even more emotional.

Sam McCabe is the nephew of John and Lilah McCabe. A highly successful businessman, he is overwhelmed at the prospect of bringing up his five boys, ages six to seventeen, alone. Sam has moved back to Laramie to be closer to family. He hopes his boys will be happier if they are living in the small Texas town where he grew up. As is usually the case, it’s just not that simple. His boys are acting up worse than ever, and he finds himself at his wit’s end.

Enter Kate Marten, the kid sister of an old friend with problems of her own. She knows what it’s like to lose a loved one, and she knows she can help Sam and his boys. Unlike the rest of his family, however, Kate refuses to cower in the face of Sam’s bluster, which makes for plenty of tension—sexual and otherwise.

I hope you enjoy this book as much as you’ve enjoyed the rest of the series. Your letters have warmed my heart and made all the hard work that goes into each and every book worthwhile. Thank you and happy reading!

Sincerely,

P.S. Don’t forget to pick up the final installment in the series next month—The Virgin Bride Said, “Wow!” from Harlequin American Romance.

Texas Vows

A MCCABE FAMILY SAGA

Cathy Gillen Thacker

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Charlie—For everything, always.

Read all of the Harlequin American Romance books in Cathy Gillen Thacker’s smash series and find out why Laramie, Texas, is the undisputed matchmaking capital!

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

IT WAS A BAD DAY and it was getting worse, Sam McCabe thought as he called all five of his sons to his study for an immediate accounting of what was just the latest event in a whole string of family catastrophes.

“Don’t look at me. I don’t know what happened.” Will shrugged his broad shoulders. “I was out running. I wasn’t even here.”

No surprise there, Sam thought wearily. At seventeen, the only thing Will cared about was getting in shape for the upcoming football season. He was never around to help out or hold down the fort.

Sam turned to sixteen-year-old Brad, who was busy combing his immaculately tended brown hair and checking out his reflection in the glass-front bookcase in Sam’s study. At Sam’s glare, Brad pocketed his comb and offered his version. “Actually, Dad, I think it was hormonal. You know, one of those ‘women things,’ that made Mrs. Grunwald pack up her bags and walk out of here on such short notice.”

“Hormonal,” Sam repeated disbelievingly. And “no notice” had been more like it. Sam had been called out of an important business meeting to be told she’d already left and wasn’t coming back—not now, not ever. When he’d tried to get an explanation from her, the irate woman had just said he needed to do something about his home situation and hung up.

Sam turned his attention to Riley, who at fourteen was definitely the most mischievous of his brood. And, unless Sam missed his guess, had probably been instrumental in pushing the retired lady-marine-turned-housekeeper to quit.

“I just don’t think she’s cut out to take care of growing boys,” Riley explained with a remarkably sober expression. “You know. Given the fact that she never had any kids herself.”

“Face it, Dad.” Sensitive as always to what was going on behind the scenes, Lewis stepped forward, suddenly looking much older than his eleven years. “We were never gonna be happy with her here, anyway. Mrs. Grunwald just wasn’t Mom.”

And no one ever would be, Sam McCabe thought solemnly. Ellie had been one of a kind. But that didn’t excuse what his boys had done here, chasing away their tenth housekeeper in six months. Not that they would ever come right out and admit that that was what they had done. No, they would continue giving excuses and shifting the blame.

Sam turned to Kevin, his youngest, and the only one of his five boys who hadn’t yet put in his two cents about the latest episode in their lives. “What do you have to say about all this?”

Kevin ducked his head. Sam wasn’t surprised his six-year-old had nothing to say about their housekeeper quitting. Kev hadn’t talked much to anyone about anything since Ellie had died. In a way, Sam could hardly blame him. Since Ellie had died, the light had gone out of all of their lives, and with it the need to even pretend their world would ever be normal again.

Sam looked up to see John and Lilah McCabe in the doorway of his study. His aunt and uncle were not just a gifted nurse and doctor and founders of Laramie Community Hospital, they had been his lifelines to sanity this past year. They’d provided moral support and guidance when Ellie was ill, as well as helped during the dark days after her death.

Sam had moved back to Laramie to be closer to them, thinking more of a sense of family might help his boys adjust to the loss of their mother. And it had helped, but only to a point. The boys still didn’t want a housekeeper, and indeed seemed to be doing everything they could to chase whomever Sam hired away.

After the ninth one had walked out on them, Sam had let his sons talk him into being responsible for themselves. Only to have Kevin end up in the hospital ER with a sprained wrist, numerous abrasions and a cut that needed stitches after a still-unexplained fall off the porch roof. So Sam had hired housekeeper number ten. Unfortunately, Mrs. Grunwald’s take-charge style had not worked well on his boys. And now here Sam was again, relying on his favorite aunt and uncle to come and save the day, when what they really should be doing was savoring the first heady days of their long-awaited retirement.

Gently, Lilah interrupted. “Guys, we need to speak to your dad alone. So why don’t you all see what you can do about cleaning up the kitchen?”

Sam waited until the boys had left, then shut the door to his study before turning back to John and Lilah. “Thanks for coming over. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t been here.”

Sam shook his head grimly, wondering what it would take to get a housekeeper who was reliable and responsible enough to handle all five of his boys even half as well as Ellie. “You’d think Mrs. Grunwald could have waited to quit until I got back from California.” Instead, he’d had to cut short his Silicon Valley business trip and grab the first flight back to Dallas, then drive to Laramie, where John and Lilah had been holding down the fort, awaiting his return.

“We’re glad to help you with the boys anytime, you know that,” John said sincerely.

“But this is out of even our scope,” Lilah added as if worried.

Sam didn’t like the sound of that. It seemed as if John and Lilah were planning to quit on him, too. “What do you mean?” he demanded tensely.

John clapped a comforting hand on Sam’s shoulder and led him over to the leather sofa. “Your aunt Lilah and I both grew up in large families and reared our own. So we know firsthand how chaotic households with a lot of children can be, even under the best of circumstances. But what’s happening here, Sam, in the aftermath of Ellie’s death, is not routine.”

“Which is why we’ve arranged for Kate Marten to talk to you tonight.” Lilah sat on the other side of Sam. “She’ll be over as soon as she finishes with her grief group at the hospital.”

Sam grimaced. “You know how I feel about that little busy-body.” He and the boys had barely moved back to Laramie a month ago when she’d started bombarding him with literature—none of which he’d read—and phone calls—none of which he’d bothered to return—about her professional counseling services.

Lilah and John exchanged a pointed glance. “We know you haven’t given her a chance.”

What would have been the point in that? Sam wondered, even more exasperated. “She’s just a kid.”

“No, Sam, she’s not,” Lilah said firmly as she patted his hand. “And if you took a good look at her, gave her just a few minutes of your time, you’d realize that.”

Sam shook his head and pushed to his feet. “Even if I wanted to meet with Kate—” which I don’t, he amended silently “—I don’t have the time. I’ve got my hands full with the boys tonight.”

“No. You don’t,” John corrected. “Lilah and I are taking the boys to the ranch for the evening.”

Lilah added helpfully, “That’ll give you time to talk to Kate alone.”

Sam knew his aunt and uncle meant well. It didn’t mean they were right. “All I’m going to do is tell her I don’t need her.”

Lilah paused. “If that’s really what you think, then tell her that face-to-face. But at least hear her out, and listen to what she thinks you and the boys need to get your lives back on track.”

Sam knew what they needed—they needed for the damn cancer to never have taken hold in his wife’s body. They needed their family intact, with everything just as it was. But none of that was possible. Much as he and the boys wanted to, they couldn’t turn back the clock. They couldn’t make anything happen any differently than it had. They couldn’t bring Ellie back.

SAM WAS ALREADY two shot glasses into a bottle of Scotch when the doorbell rang. He was pouring himself a third when he heard the front door open, followed by the staccato sound of high heels crossing the foyer and heading his way. From beneath hooded eyes, he watched as Kate Marten paused in the portal, and squinted in his direction.

“Sam?” Her voice filled the dark room as she carefully made her way toward his desk. It was a you-can-tell-me-anything-and-I’ll-understand kind of voice. Soft, seductive, incredibly pleasing to the ear—and the last thing he wanted to hear.

Sam propped his elbows on the desk and cupped his hands over his ears. The last thing he needed right now was Kate Marten’s perky, professional presence.

Too late. As she neared he couldn’t help but catch sight of a pair of long, slender, sexy legs that would have put a swimsuit model’s to shame. Stopping his glance at her dimpled knees—he didn’t need a woman this beautiful around, never mind one of her incredibly aggravating persistence—Sam felt a familiar bitterness seep into his veins. “Go away.”

“Sorry,” Kate responded with a nauseating amount of good cheer. “No can do, Sam.”

Muscles tensing, Sam leaned back in his desk chair and lifted his head. Usually when he told someone to clear out, they went. Double time, when he used that particular tone of voice. Not pesky little Kate. She had to be—what?—thirty-one years old now, to his thirty-six—and still she pursued him with all the unending cluelessness and vigor of a love-struck teenager.

He glared at her, momentarily tabling his urge to punch something—anything—to smithereens. He didn’t care if she thought she was helping. He wanted her gone. Now. For good. “Which of those two words don’t you understand?” he demanded in a voice that wasn’t anywhere near cordial.

“My vocabulary’s fine, thank you very much.” Kate smiled. “As for the rest…” Stepping closer yet, Kate leaned over in a drift of citrus scent and turned on his desk lamp. “I understand you all right—maybe more than you think.”

Grimacing at the glow of the light hitting him in the face, Sam reached out and adjusted the shade so that the beam exposed less of him and more of her. She was dressed in a figure-hugging yellow dress that stopped just above her knees. The matching jacket clung to her breasts and fell away slightly at her midriff. Sam glared at her. Swore. He didn’t want to be this physically close to any woman, never mind a crusading little innocent like Kate. “When did you turn into such a pest?”

Kate’s lips curved into a wry smile. “If I were to believe what you think…the moment I was born.” Her light blue eyes softening, Kate perched on the edge of his desk. “Why are you sitting here in the dark?”

Sam lifted his shoulders in an indifferent shrug. “My house. My choice.”

“I see.” Kate continued to regard Sam steadily.

Sam turned his eyes to the framed picture of Ellie, half buried in a pile of papers on his desk. “You don’t see anything.”

Kate lifted her manicured left hand—which sported a very nice diamond engagement ring—then let it fall back to her lap. “I might if you gave me half a chance.”

“Then see this.” Sam knocked back another shot of Scotch. He set the glass back on his desk with a thud and stared at her. “I don’t want you here. I don’t need you.”

Refusing to back down in the slightest, Kate lifted her delicately arched brow. “What makes you think this is all about you?”

Stung, Sam shifted his gaze away from her, anything to avoid the faint hint of derision in her blue eyes. “What is it about then?” he asked gruffly.

“Your boys.”

Sam lifted his glance to Kate’s. Held it there with effort. “My boys are doing fine,” he said flatly.

“Are they now?” Kate’s goading smile widened as she casually reached over and recapped his bottle of Scotch. “I suppose that’s why they’ve just chased off their sixteenth housekeeper in six months.”

“Tenth.” Before the little know-it-all could get any ideas about dumping his liquor down the sink, Sam took the bottle from Kate’s hand and set it next to him, well out of her reach. “Mrs. Grunwald was the tenth, not our sixteenth, housekeeper.”

“I stand corrected,” she conceded. “And if they’re doing so fine, why did you get called back from California? From what John and Lilah said, that was an important business deal you were negotiating.”

Not anymore, Sam thought, aware his quick exit and the client’s need for an extremely speedy resolution to the problem had put his company out of the running. “Don’t worry. There will be others.” His business never had and never would hinge on any single deal.

“I’m not worried. I know how well your business has been doing. Unfortunately—” Kate hopped down from the desk and began to pace the study “—money doesn’t buy happiness, does it, Sam?”

“You’re on very thin ice here, Kate. So in other words back off.”

Kate turned and looked at him as if she were pleased to know she was getting under his skin. She folded her arms in front of her and said, “You need someone to help you with the boys, Sam.”

Sam lifted his glass in a mock salutation. “The lady wins a prize for that astute observation.”

Ignoring his sarcasm, Kate edged closer, her arms still pressed tightly against her waist. “I am that person.”

Sam poured himself another drink. “I thought I made it clear—I’m not interested in bringing them in for counseling.”

“You know what they say,” Kate replied. “If Mohammed won’t go to the mountain, take the mountain to Mohammed.”

“You’re not coming here to counsel,” Sam said flatly.

“How about I just sign on as your housekeeper then? Temporarily, of course.”

Unable to resist, he goaded her. “What happened? The hospital fire you?”

The last thing Sam needed was Busybody Kate underfoot twenty-four hours a day. Never mind that he knew how his five boys would react to having someone as pretty as Kate living in the house with them. All five of them would have crushes on her in no time. A complication he also didn’t need.

“On the contrary,” she retorted pleasantly, standing so close he could take in the alluring fragrance of her hair and skin. “We’ve had so much success we’re expanding the department. The second grief counselor started last Thursday.”

If she hadn’t been badgering him, charging in repeatedly where she so clearly was not wanted or needed, Sam would have congratulated her. As it was, he let the opportunity pass, and took another sip of his Scotch. “What does that have to do with me?” He studied her, wondering what he could do to incite her to leave and never come back.

Kate pulled around one of the straight-backed chairs from in front of his desk and positioned it so it was two feet away, facing him. Then sat. “You’ve got four weeks until school starts again.”

Four weeks with the boys home every day, able to get into plenty of mischief, while he was at company headquarters in Dallas, struggling to not let any more business opportunities go down the drain.

Had it just been him, Sam could have done with the lost opportunity and income. But he had two hundred and fifty highly qualified e-commerce consultants working for him. If his company went under, the lives of his employees and their families would be thrown into chaos, too. Sam wasn’t about to let that happen. Not if he could prevent it.

Still sipping his Scotch, he watched her gung-ho expression over the rim of his glass and waited.

“Meanwhile,” Kate continued, “I’ve been so busy building up my program at the hospital I haven’t taken any significant time off in two years and I’ve got five weeks of vacation coming.”

Wariness quickly replaced Sam’s willingness to listen. The muscles in his jaw clenched as Kate sank into the chair and crossed her legs.

“And you’re proposing what exactly?” he demanded with a curious lift of his brow, irritated to find he’d been paying more attention to her knees than what she’d been saying.

Kate smiled at him as if her solution were the most natural thing in the world. “That I move in here with you and the boys until school starts and or you find someone to take over the job permanently.”

Sam would have liked to think this was all a goofy impulse on Kate’s part, but he could see by her overeagerness that it was not. The earnest little do-gooder honestly thought she was helping here. “Why would you want to do that?” he asked impatiently.

“A lot of reasons.” Kate turned her hands palm up. “Your parents are gone now, so they’re not available to help you, and you never had any siblings.”

Sam forced a smile through stiff lips and, for his beloved aunt’s and uncle’s sakes, returned with a politeness that was even more strained, “But I do have an aunt and uncle right here in Laramie. Not to mention all four of their sons and their new wives.” That was, in Sam’s view, plenty of family.

“John and Lilah are leaving tomorrow evening to go to Central America to do medical relief work for several weeks. Or had you forgotten?”

Sam had been so wrapped up in his own problems he had forgotten.

“I’ve no doubt Shane, Wade, Travis and Jackson would be happy to help you. Only problem is, they’ve got jobs and responsibilities of their own.”

Sam frowned at Kate’s holier-than-thou tone. “And you don’t?” he countered, doing nothing to mask his disbelief.

Kate straightened her spine indignantly. “I worked as a high school guidance counselor before I worked at the hospital. As it happens, I know plenty about working with kids. But there are other reasons I want to help you out, as well.”

Sam released a long, exasperated breath. He was sorry he’d ever let her get started on this pitch. “Such as…?” he asked, disinterested.

“Our families have known each other forever. And in Laramie, we help each other when circumstances warrant it.”

That was true, Sam thought, but only to a point. He reached for the bottle of Scotch. “You’re forgetting the fact your father despises me.”

Twin spots of color appeared in Kate’s fair cheeks. “What happened between you two was a long time ago,” she countered.

Sam poured himself another shot. “I’m betting your dad hasn’t forgotten or forgiven.”

Beginning to look a little annoyed herself, Kate replied, “That’s not the point.”

With an economy of movement, Sam set the uncapped bottle back on his desk. He regarded her steadily. “Isn’t it?”

“Ellie used to baby-sit me when I was a kid. Did you know that?”

Sam shrugged. As far as he was concerned, that was of no significance. “She used to baby-sit a lot of people around here.”

“Yeah, well…” Kate’s voice took on a tremulous, emotional quality Sam liked even less. “Ellie was especially kind to me in the months after my brother died, and I’ve never forgotten it.” Kate paused and looked down at her hands. “I’ve been thinking—maybe this is the way I’m supposed to repay her kindness.”

Which was, Sam knew, exactly how Ellie would have seen it. Hadn’t that been one of her favorite sayings? One kindness begets another. He sighed again, more loudly, wondering how he had ever allowed himself to get into such a mess. Now he was going to have to do what Ellie would not have wanted him to do: turn down Kate’s offer of help. Aware Kate was waiting for him to say something, Sam finally allowed, “Ellie was a good person.”

“The best.” Kate’s eyes shimmered suddenly. Her voice grew even huskier. “Everybody loved her, Sam.”

But not as much as me, Sam thought, knowing as much as everyone still missed Ellie their grief was nothing—nothing—compared to his and the boys’. He looked at Kate. “The answer is no,” he said flatly.

Her eyes widened with disbelief. “Why not?”

Sam swore silently. She was really going to torture them both by making him do this. He didn’t want to put her down. But, damn her, she’d left him no choice. “Because you’ve never been married or had kids of your own,” he told Kate, giving her a look that immediately relieved her of any responsibilities, any past debts, she thought she had here.

“A fact that will be remedied soon enough,” Kate interjected, wiggling her left ring finger.

Sam blew out an aggravated breath. “The fact you’re getting married to Craig Farrell later this fall changes nothing, Kate. You still know nothing about being a mom.”

“Maybe not,” Kate conceded, clearly hurt he didn’t think her capable. “But I know plenty about being a friend.”

What little patience he had fading fast, Sam shoved a hand through his hair. He wished Kate would just give up and go home. “My kids have friends,” he told her gruffly. “They need a disciplinarian.”

A fact that, to Sam’s consternation, did not faze Ms. Kate Marten in the least. “If you think I can’t bring order to your five rowdy boys, think again, Sam. I worked as a camp counselor five summers in a row. I was an athletic trainer for my father’s football team all four years of high school. I can handle your boys, Sam.”

Sam rolled his eyes. “That’s what Mrs. Grunwald said. And she was a marine. They drove her out in two weeks.” Sam shuddered to think what his kids would do to someone as well-intentioned but as hopelessly naive as Kate Marten.

Kate shrugged and continued to regard him like the dynamo she thought she was. “All that proves is that she wasn’t the right person for the job,” she persisted amiably.

Sam took in Kate’s dress-for-success clothing and carefully selected jewelry. With her soft honey-blond hair falling about her shoulders in a style that probably took hours every day to maintain, she looked as though she belonged in an office, not a kitchen or a laundry room. “And you are?”

“You’re darn right I am.” Kate looked at him steadily. As she continued, her voice dropped a compassionate notch. “Furthermore, I can help you, too, Sam.”

Now that grated, Sam thought. To the point it really shouldn’t go unrewarded. “How?” Sam asked sharply, eyeing her with a brooding stare designed to intimidate.

“By giving you someone to talk to.”

Finally, he acknowledged silently, they were down to the tiny print at the bottom of every contract. “What are we talking about here?” Sam asked in a deceptively casual voice that in no way revealed how truly annoyed he was with her. “Some sort of informal grief counseling on the side?”

“Yes.” Kate beamed her relief that he was catching on. Her blue eyes gleamed with a mixture of gentleness and understanding. “If that’s what you want, certainly I’d be happy to help you with that.”

Sam drained the last of his Scotch. Setting his glass down with a thud, he got slowly, deliberately, to his feet. What was it going to take, he wondered, to get people to stop trying to examine his private pain and leave him alone? What was it going to take to get people to let him grieve, in his own time, in his own way, at his own pace? He’d thought if he left Dallas—where he and Ellie and the kids had made their life together—and returned to the town where he and Ellie had spent their childhoods, that the people would be kind enough, sensitive enough, to just leave him and the kids alone to work through their grief however they saw fit. Instead, everyone wanted to help. Everyone had an opinion. Everyone had some method of coping they wanted him and or the boys to try. Leading the charge of the “Laramie, Texas, Kind Friend and Neighbor Brigade” was Kate Marten.

Sam had tried ignoring her. Been rude and unapproachable. He’d even—for a few minutes tonight—gritted his teeth and tried to reason with her. To his chagrin, all he’d done was encourage her.

And that, Sam knew, as he stood in front of Kate, would not do.

To make everyone else cease and desist their well-intentioned yet misguided efforts to snap him and the boys out of their grief, he would first have to make Kate Marten back off. As disagreeable as he found even the idea of it, Sam knew of only one surefire way to do that.

“If that seems like too much at first, we can just—I don’t know…be friends,” Kate continued a little nervously, finally beginning to eye him with the wariness he’d wanted her to all along.

“Suppose I want more than that?” His idea picking up steam, Sam reached down, took Kate’s wrist, and pulled her to her feet. Ignoring the soft, silky warmth of her skin beneath his fingertips, and the widening of her astonished blue eyes, he danced her backward to the wall. “Then what?”

“Um—” Kate swallowed as she tried and failed to unobtrusively extricate her wrist from his iron grip. “We could get into other areas, too.”

Sam smiled cynically at the sheer improbability of that ever happening. Aware his plan was working, he said gruffly, “You’re not getting it.” Sam caged her with his body and braced an arm against the wall on either side of her head.

Her expectant look changing to one of alarm, Kate tried and failed to push past him. “Not getting what?” she asked, still smiling, albeit a lot more nervously now.

“That’s not what I want from you, Kate,” Sam murmured as he slanted his head over hers. Telling himself this was for both their sakes, Sam let his gaze slowly trace the contours of her face, linger hotly on her lips, before returning—with all sensual deliberateness—to the growing panic in her ever-widening eyes. “That’s not what I want from any woman.”

Fear turned to anger as he leaned impertinently close. “Sam…” Kate warned as she splayed both her hands firmly across his chest and shoved. Again to no avail.

Now that he’d found something that would work to rid himself of her, Sam wasn’t going anywhere.

“This is the liquor talking,” Kate continued in her pious counselor’s voice.

Knowing he would have to become a real bastard to remove Kate and her damnable interference once and for all, Sam merely smiled. “I’m not that drunk,” he said, his voice taking on a menacing tone. “Yet.” Before the evening was over, for the first time since the night of Ellie’s funeral, he would be.

“You don’t have to behave this way.” Kate lectured him with a mix of compassion and desperation. Ignoring his obvious disillusionment, she insisted stubbornly, “I can help you.”

Sam shook his head. Kate was wrong. She couldn’t help. No one could. The best thing anyone could do—the only thing—was leave him the hell alone. The sooner Kate Marten understood that, the better.

“The only thing I want is this.” Grabbing her roughly, Sam lowered his lips to hers and delivered a short, swift, punishing kiss meant only to inflame her anger and vent his. “And this…” His hands moved from her shoulders to her breasts in a callous way he knew would infuriate and frighten her even more than his brief, bruising kiss. Ignoring her muffled cry of dismay and shuddering breaths, Sam forced her lips open with the pressure of his and deepened the contact.

“Are you willing to give me that, Kate?” he demanded contemptuously, shifting his hands lower still. “Do your professional services…your unending sympathy for me and all I’ve been through extend that far?” He kissed her again, harder, more relentlessly than before as his hands slipped beneath her dress and closed around the satiny softness of her inner thighs. “Or are their limits on what you’ll take, too?” he taunted, wanting her—needing her—to share some of this pain she had so cruelly dredged up.

Breathing hard, Kate shoved him away from her. Hauling back her hand, she slapped his face. Hard. “That’s for kissing me, when you know I’m engaged,” she spouted angrily, fire in her eyes. “And that—” Kate kicked his shin even harder than she’d slapped his face “—is for the grope.”

“Got to hand it to you, Kate,” Sam drawled, mocking her, even as shame flowed through him at his behavior. Limping, grimacing, he let her go. “You haven’t lost your fighting spirit.” Nor your aim. Even through the numbing haze of alcohol and grief, his face stung and his shin throbbed even worse.

“Too bad I can’t say the same for you.” Hands propped on her hips, she regarded him with unmitigated disgust.

Ellie would have hated this. Hated what I’ve become….

Pushing the guilt away, Sam went back to his bottle. He tipped it up, drank deeply. “You don’t know anything about what I’ve been through,” he said roughly, wiping his lips with the back of his hand.

“But I will, Sam,” Kate promised. “Before all is said and done, I will.” She surveyed him with one last contemplative glance, then turned on her heel and stomped out of the study.

Sam followed her into the foyer, the Scotch he’d consumed doing nothing to abate his misery over either losing Ellie or this latest debacle in his life. “Leaving? So soon?” Since Ellie’s death, he’d been empty inside. Dead. Now Kate, with her endless prodding and pushing, had made him cruel, too. He wouldn’t forgive her for that, any more than she was going to forgive him for the pass.

Kate shot him a look over her shoulder, anger flashing in her eyes. “Go to hell.”

Can’t, Sam thought miserably, I’m already there.

Not about to apologize for what he’d known would happen all along if he spent any time alone with her, he shrugged. “I told you it wouldn’t work.”

Kate gritted her teeth. “Only because you’re behaving like such a self-centered jerk.”

“What can I say? You bring out the best in me.” Ignoring the hurt in her eyes, Sam forced himself to not feel guilty, to not take anything of what he’d said or done back, no matter how unkind it was. He hadn’t invited her here. He hadn’t asked her to stir up his pain to unbearable, unmanageable levels. She’d ignored all his signals to the contrary and barged in here at her own risk. What she had gotten was her own damn fault. Not his.

“The best or the worst?” Kate returned sharply. “’Cause if this is as good as it gets from here on out, I’d sure hate to be one of your sons.”

Sam had never slapped a woman—he never would. But she made him want to slap the daylights out of her. Another first. “Get the hell out.” Sam scowled. He jerked open the door, took her by the shoulders, and shoved her stumbling across the jamb. As soon as she’d cleared the portal, he slammed the door behind her, and didn’t look back.

There were some people it was best just to stay away from.

Starting now, Kate Marten topped his list.

CHAPTER TWO

FOOTSTEPS clattered across the floor, not stopping until they were precariously near. “I had a feeling this was going to happen.”

Sam McCabe groaned. That voice again. Do-gooding. Soft. Persistent. He struggled to bring himself out of his stupor, felt the sledgehammer pounding behind his eyes, and decided it wasn’t worth it. Sighing, he headed back into the blissful darkness of sleep.

Feminine perfume teased his senses. A small, delicate hand touched his shoulder.

“Rise and shine, big guy.”

Knowing full well who it was without even looking, Sam moaned and tried to lift his head. He swallowed around a mouth that felt as if it were filled with cotton and tasted like the bottom of a garbage pail. “Go. Away.”

“You keep saying that.” The low voice was laced with amusement. “Don’t you know by now it’s not going to work?”

Realizing the only way to get rid of the busybody was to face her, Sam grimaced and lifted his head as far as he could—which turned out to be several inches above the desk. Feeling as if he were going to throw up at any moment if he moved even the slightest bit in any direction, he struggled to open his eyes. Kate Marten was standing beside him, dressed much the same as she had been the night before, in some sort of dress-for-success business suit. Her hair fell in a gentle curve of silk to her shoulders, before flipping out and up at the ends. Her fair skin glowed with good health and just a hint of summer sun. Worse, unlike him, she looked and smelled like a million bucks.

“Do you know what time it is?” she asked with a sweet, condescending smile that made him want to throttle her all the more. Not waiting for him to answer, she replied for him. “Seven-thirty.”

Sam groaned again, even louder and, using his hands as levers, pushed his head up a little more. The last thing he wanted to be doing in his hungover state was noticing what a pretty face Kate Marten had.

“Do you know what time John and Lilah are due to bring your boys back this morning?” Kate Marten continued in a bright cheery voice that grated on his nerves like fingernails on a chalkboard. Her long-lashed light blue eyes arrowed in on his. “Eight-thirty. That gives you an hour to look halfway sober. Unless of course you want your boys to see you this way.”

Sam regarded her with unchecked hostility. Damn her not just for seeing him this way but for coming back…after what he’d done. He turned his glance away from the determined tilt of her chin. “I thought you would have learned your lesson last night,” he mumbled, cradling his pounding skull between his hands. Hell, if putting the moves on her as crudely and rudely as possible hadn’t chased Miss Respectability of Laramie, Texas, away, he didn’t know what would. He’d been damn sure his actions would send her running as fast and far away from him as possible, never to return again, or he sure as shooting wouldn’t have grabbed her and kissed her in a way neither of them was ever likely to forget.

“That works both ways,” Kate retorted. “How’s your shin?”

It still hurt like the dickens where she’d bruised it. But he wasn’t telling her that! “None of your damn business.” With a groan, Sam sat up all the way.

“I’m not afraid of some bad behavior, Sam. In my line of work, I see that all the time.”

Sam narrowed his eyes at her skeptically, taking in her finely arched brows, pert, slender nose and nicely curved lips, before returning to her wide-set, light blue eyes. “You get kissed and groped?” Sam didn’t know why, but the idea that Kate might have been manhandled that way by anyone else rankled.

“No, you were the first,” Kate said, crossing her arms against her waist in a way that accentuated the curves of her breasts beneath her sophisticated-yet-oh-so prim-and-proper dress. “No other patient has ever lashed out or acted out his grief and anger in quite that way. Not that I’m all in a tizzy about it, since I know darn well that what happened last night happened only because you were drunk.”

Sam had news for Kate: he hadn’t been that drunk when he’d made the pass. If he had been, he wouldn’t be able to remember it nearly as well as he did. He wouldn’t have had to spend half the night, and another quarter of the bottle of Scotch, trying to obliterate the soft, sexy feel of her lips or the responsiveness of her slender body as it molded sensuously to his. Because the last thing he had wanted last night was to get aroused. The last thing he had wanted was any proof he was still alive. When he had made that pass at her, he had just been angry, and looking for a way to vent.

Sam glared at her, wishing she would just go away. And stop acting as if she had something to do with the mess his life had become since Ellie died. “I’m not your patient.”

Kate looked at him as if she wished he were her patient. “I think before all is said and done I’m going to end up helping you and your boys.”

“That’s going to be hard to do if you never see us.”

“Oh, but I will see you, all of you, all the time, starting tomorrow afternoon.”

Sam tensed. “How do you figure that?”

Kate circled around the desk. She leaned against the edge, arms still folded in front of her. “Because you’re going to let me move in here until you find a suitable housekeeper for the boys.”

Sam blew out a contemptuous breath and tipped back in his swivel chair. “Dream on.”

Ignoring his hostility, Kate crossed her legs at the ankles and continued sweetly, “And you want to know why you’re going to do that…?”

Sam knew the sparring was juvenile. But he couldn’t help himself. Maybe because Kate was the first person in a very long time who wasn’t tiptoeing around him, oozing nauseating amounts of sympathy and pity. He rubbed a palm across the stubble on his face, and drawled in a voice meant to annoy, “I can’t wait to hear.”

“Because if you don’t, I am going to tell Lilah and John about your love affair with the bottle as well as the very un-called-for kiss and grope last night.”

Sam glared at her menacingly. He didn’t want to think about the way he’d tried to scare her off, his reaction to her soft body and softer lips—the fact he’d gotten turned on for the first time since Ellie’s death.

“And you know what they’ll do if that happens, don’t you?” Kate continued, oblivious to his pain. “They’ll cancel their trip to South America, and lose this chance to do medical missionary work.”

Sam knew how long his uncle John and aunt Lilah had been looking forward to that. This had been several years in the planning and was the culmination of a lifelong dream. He couldn’t do that to them. They deserved better.

“Not to mention,” Kate continued, “their month-long second honeymoon trip to New England in October to see the fall colors. It would be a lousy thing to do, depriving them of those two trips. And even in as bad a shape as you evidently are, you wouldn’t want to do that. Now would you?”

Sam didn’t need Kate reminding him how much John and Lilah had done for him and his family. For the past ten years or so, they had filled the void left by the deaths of first his and then Ellie’s parents. They had been “parents” to him and “grandparents” to his boys.

“I’m not asking my aunt and uncle to cancel anything,” Sam snapped.

“You and I both know John and Lilah won’t leave town unless they are sure you and the boys are going to be taken care of in their absence. And right now, for that, I’m your only option.”

Unfortunately, that was true, Sam thought. His cousins were all busy with their own lives, careers, families. As for housekeepers, they’d already run through quite a few. Finding another one was not going to be easy, given the bad rep in the state his boys had conjured up for the family. None of that, however, meant Sam wanted Kate’s help. He glared at her, resenting the position she’d put him in. “I know you mean well, Kate. But you living here will never work.”

“We’ll never know until we try,” she said practically, at that moment looking every inch the determined grief counselor she was. “So what’s it going to be, Sam?” Her fingertips curled impatiently around the edge of his desk. “Are you going to give me a chance to help you and your kids before this turns into the kind of crisis you can’t come back from, or do I call John and Lilah now and tell them you are in worse shape than even they realize?”

SAM DIDN’T ANSWER THAT. He didn’t have to. No one, not even the busybody Kate Marten, needed to tell Sam how important it was to shield his family from the way he’d given in to the pain and frustration and bottomed out the night before. Bad enough that Kate had been there to witness his behavior firsthand. Fortunately, he thought wearily, his kids hadn’t been around to see it. And by the time they got back from John and Lilah’s, there would be no evidence that anything had happened any differently than any other night.

He met Kate’s stare head-on, his anger under tight control. “I’m going to take a shower.” He gave her a hard look, making it clear he expected her to be gone when he returned. Then he dragged himself out of his chair, up the stairs, and into the privacy of the master bedroom suite he’d shared with Ellie on trips back to Laramie. Sam’s throat ached as he glanced at the huge four-poster where he and Ellie’d made love many times and he still slept. I love you, Sam, Ellie had whispered every night before they went to sleep as she cuddled close. I love you so much. He would murmur the words back without really thinking about what they meant, what she meant to him. Scowling, Sam shook his head. He’d had so much, for so long, and he’d taken it all for granted.

In the hierarchy of things to be done, Ellie rarely if ever took the time to see to her own needs. She was always busy seeing to everyone else’s. Had he just paid attention to those first signs, her sluggishness and unexplained weight loss. If he’d just insisted she go in for a physical, instead of letting her put it off… Instead, he had believed her when she said it was probably nothing. And by the time they discovered the tumor on her ovary, the cancer had spread. He’d known it was bad, but he still hadn’t believed she was going to die. Nor, when it came down to it, had she. After all, she was so young…just thirty-two when her illness was discovered. She had her whole life ahead of her, a husband to love and sons to raise. She’d been as certain as he that she would beat the disease. Realizing now how foolish and naive they had been, Sam shook his head and stripped down to his shorts. Leaving his clothes on the floor where they lay, he headed into the bathroom to shave. A glance in the mirror did nothing to lift his spirits. He looked even worse than Kate had indicated or he’d expected. His face was haggard beneath the stubble of his beard, his eyes puffy and red, the corners of his mouth drawn in an expression that revealed just how miserable he felt inside. There were harsh lines on his face; a grim look in his eyes. He hadn’t slept more than three or four hours a night in months and the strain showed in his gaunt, tired appearance. Kate Marten was right about one thing, Sam thought as his lips twisted in bitter gallows humor. He was a hell of a role model for his sons.

The regret inside him mounting, for all the times and ways he had failed his family, Sam picked up the can of shaving cream. Scowling, he spread the foam over his face and began to shave. He needed to start eating right and to get a decent amount of rest every night. But even as he thought it he knew: even if he hadn’t been drinking last night, he probably wouldn’t have slept. The insomnia was just one more thing he didn’t know how to deal with. It had started during the first days of Ellie’s illness, when their days and nights were filled with worry. This couldn’t be happening to them…her tumor wasn’t really malignant…her cancer hadn’t really metastasized. And even if it had, nothing was going to happen to her. Not with all the specialists he had flown in, the strings he and his uncle John McCabe—one of the most respected and well-connected family doctors in Texas—had pulled to get her the very best of care possible, the most up-to-date, comprehensive treatment.

After all, their lives had been charmed up to that point. Sam had professional success beyond his wildest dreams, he and Ellie had a lively, loving family that was the envy of all their friends. They had money and clout. And Sam hadn’t been afraid to use it to help his wife. But none of it had done any good in the end. Through endless rounds of surgery, radiation and chemotherapy, Ellie’s cancer had continued to grow and spread. She’d gotten weaker and thinner by the day. And all Sam could do was be strong for her and the boys. Behave as if everything was going to be fine, even when he and Ellie had been told by the doctors that she had very little time left. He’d wanted to level with the kids immediately. Prepare them for what was to come. Ellie had resisted—vigorously. “I don’t want them grieving while I’m still here,” she’d told him emotionally. “I want our last days together to be full of love and laughter and joy. Not weighed down with unbearable sadness.”

So Sam had prayed hard for a miracle and pretended she would survive, even when he knew her lungs ached with every breath and her pain required larger and larger doses of pain-killers to keep it manageable. When the boys had entered her sickroom she had smiled and been the mom they needed and depended on. Only with Sam, in the last few days of her life, had she let down her guard and told him the truth, that the suffering she felt was getting to be too much. She felt so unbearably weary. Weak. Sick. It was time to move on, Ellie had whispered tearfully as he’d held her in his arms, crying, too. She was beginning to want to move on. And quickly after that, she did. Slipping away from them peacefully in her sleep. Leaving him to face their boys’ wrath—at having been misled about the terminal nature of her illness—alone.

It wasn’t easy seeing the disillusionment and disappointment every time he looked into his sons’ eyes, Sam thought as a single tear slid down his cheek. Harder yet realizing just how much of their family’s happiness had centered around Ellie. His family and friends kept telling him the numbness, the disorientation, the relentless anger over Ellie’s fate would go away with time. But it hadn’t, Sam realized as the spasms shook his body and a harsh racking sob rose in his throat. Instead it seemed to get worse, Sam thought as he sank helplessly down onto the cool tile floor, buried his head in his arms, and wept the way he hadn’t, even on the day of her funeral. He’d loved Ellie so long and so much, he wasn’t ever going to get over this.

CHAPTER THREE

THE FOOTBALL TEAM had just started running drills Saturday morning when the black Jeep Wrangler pulled into the parking lot on the other side of the chain-link fence. Mike Marten frowned and glanced at his watch. Whoever it was, was late.

Seconds later, a lanky six-foot-plus kid strode through the gates and down the clay running track that rimmed the football field. He carried himself with an accomplished athlete’s confidence and was dressed in a T-shirt, running shorts and athletic shoes. Mike Marten didn’t have to see his dark buzz-cut hair, good-looking mug or familiar blue eyes to know who it was. The seventeen-year-old kid had arranged to see Mike that morning, through Laramie High School’s front office and Mike’s assistant coach Gus Barkley, and he was the spitting image of his dad.

Will McCabe tensed as he neared. “Coach Marten?”

Mike nodded, and tried not to let the gut-deep resentment he still felt for the kid’s father affect his treatment of Will as the two of them shook hands. If there was one thing he prided himself on when it came to his work, it was his fairness to every one of his players.

“I’m Will McCabe. I called about getting a tryout for the football team.”

“Right.” Mike nodded, forcing himself to put his personal feelings aside. “You played quarterback at your school in Dallas?”

“Varsity, last two years,” Will confirmed with a man-to-man glance at Mike. “I didn’t get much playing time my sophomore year, but last year I started every game.”

Zeroing in on the pride in the kid’s voice, Mike blew his whistle and waved one of his running backs over. He nodded at the sidelines. “Grab a football. Let’s see what you can do.”

Mike put them through a series of increasingly complicated passes. Given his obvious tension, he had expected Will to start out nervously and maybe get better as he went along. Instead he started out great and continued at the same level, no matter what Mike asked him to do.

When the rest of the team finished a series and took a water break, something that had to be done frequently in the summer heat, Gus Barkley came over to the sidelines to stand beside Mike and watch. He shook his head in awe. “Man, that kid’s got an arm. Speed and accuracy, too.”

All should have been qualities Mike welcomed. That was hard to do when every time he looked at Will, he saw Sam, and by association, Pete.

Gus frowned, seeming to read Mike’s mind. Gus, too, had worried about the potential for animosity between Sam McCabe’s son and Mike. Mike had assured him it wouldn’t be a problem. Now that it was happening, he wasn’t so sure. Especially when the loss he felt had returned—at the mere sight of the kid—like a sucker punch to the gut. Mike frowned. He thought he had buried all that years ago, along with Pete.

“Want me to get him outfitted with some gear?” Gus asked, the anxiousness in his eyes contrasting to the easy-going camaraderie of his voice.

“Not until after I talk to him.” Mike motioned Will over to him and Gus, and let his running back know, with a nod in the other direction, that he could take a break with the other players. Will trotted over. He looked at Mike hopefully.

“No guarantees about starting or anything else,” Mike warned gruffly. He didn’t care how naturally gifted a kid was. That went for Will and everyone else. “Whatever you get on this team, you earn. And you haven’t earned anything yet. Got it?”

Will nodded and, to his credit, kept his composure despite Mike’s underlying message that this was not going to be easy. Will was not just going to be “given” a slot as starting quarterback on Mike’s team.

“You’re also going to need a physical before I can let you on the team,” Mike said, turning away from the disappointment in the kid’s eyes. Obviously he had expected to be praised for his performance on the field. In fact, had probably been used to that in Dallas. “Assistant Coach Barkley will take you inside the field house and get you the forms. You can come back when you’ve gotten them filled out, and not before.”

WILL KNEW IF HE WANTED to get a football physical fast, he’d have to arrange it himself. He could hardly ask his dad to do it, he was so preoccupied and out of touch with what was going on with the rest of the family he might as well have been on a different planet.

Of course, it hadn’t always been that way, with him and his brothers left to fend for themselves for practically everything. When his mom was alive all any of them had ever had to do with a problem was go to her. She’d be on the phone and two minutes later everything was all fixed. Didn’t matter what it was, Mom had known what to say and do to take care of it.

That had changed when she’d gotten sick, of course. But even when she was really suffering there at the end, she’d call the shots, while his dad stood around, helpless to do anything except comfort her physically and fly in more specialists.

On the domestic front, his Dad hadn’t a clue. And thanks to the succession of ridiculously bad and bossy housekeepers, he still didn’t. Will knew the reason why his dad wanted those idiotic ladies there. It made it easier for him to go off to work and forget all about the rest of them, the way he always had before Mom died.

Only it wasn’t like before, Will thought as he turned his Jeep Wrangler into the hospital parking lot. Life was hell. Home was worse. The best he could do was try to make this year as bearable as possible by finding a girlfriend and playing football. Then go to college and never look back. Maybe never even come back.

JACKSON MCCABE was waiting for Will, as promised, in his office at the hospital. Young, handsome, successful and newly—happily—married, Jackson was everything Will wanted to be when he grew up. “Thanks for doing this for me, Jackson.” Will handed over the forms. “I know it’s a Saturday morning and you’re a surgeon not a family doc, but I really need this physical right away. Otherwise, I can’t show up for practice Monday morning with the rest of the team.”

“Not a problem.” Jackson gave Will a look that let him know he understood how chaotic life had been for him and his brothers since their mom had died and that he didn’t mind the last-minute call one bit. He ushered Will onto the scale. “What are second cousins for, anyway? Besides—” Jackson shifted the metal weights on the bar until it hung perfectly in balance at one hundred and eighty seven. “I know what a stickler Coach Marten is for the rules.”

“That’s right.” Will stood perfectly still while Jackson measured his height. “You used to play on the L.H.S. football team, too, didn’t you?”

“A couple years after your dad.” Jackson paused to jot down Will’s weight and height on the form. “I sure did.”

Appreciating the way Jackson treated him—as a man instead of a kid—Will walked with Jackson into the adjacent exam room. Figuring Jackson was enough of a straight-talker to tell him the truth, he asked, “What did you think about Coach Marten?”

Jackson checked out Will’s ears and throat. “He’s an excellent coach. Tough. Demanding. A little blustery at times, but don’t let that worry you. His bark’s worse than his bite, if you know what I mean. By the time you finish playing on his team, you’ll know the sport inside and out. And probably a lot more about yourself, as well.”

Will watched as Jackson jotted down some notes on the paper, then fit a blood pressure cuff around Will’s arm. “What do you mean?”

Jackson took Will’s blood pressure. “This is going to sound like one of those really hokey sports metaphors, but it’s true.” Jackson paused to look Will straight in the eye. “Coach Marten doesn’t just teach you about football—he also teaches you about honesty, integrity, responsibility and commitment. Playing on his team changes a guy—for the better. If you let it.”

Funny, Will thought. Jackson, never a guy to wax eloquent about anything, was speaking almost reverently about Coach Marten. His dad hadn’t mentioned any of this. In fact, his dad hadn’t looked all that happy about the prospect of Will playing on Coach Marten’s team. Though, as usual, he’d done nothing to discourage that or any other extracurricular activity his kids wanted to pursue.

Puzzled, Will slipped off his T-shirt so Jackson could listen to his heart and lungs. He breathed in and out as directed. Something was going on here that they weren’t telling him, just like when his mom had died. Damn it all, if they were deliberately keeping something from him again, he was going to be pissed.

He looked at Jackson curiously. “Did Coach Marten and my dad get along?”

Jackson tensed slightly as he unhooked the stethoscope from his ears. “Why would you ask that?”

Gut instinct. Something was off here. Will just wasn’t sure what. “I don’t know,” he said slowly, doing his best to put all the little signs together to come up with something. “Usually when I do something around here that my dad or mom did when they were a kid, people get all nostalgic or something. Coach didn’t.”

Jackson sat on a stool. Suddenly he looked as if he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. “Maybe he just wanted you to feel like you were there under your own steam, not as a relation to anyone else,” Jackson finally said.

And maybe, Will thought, the bitterness that had been with him since his mother’s death rising up inside him once again, there was something else they weren’t telling him. Something he had every right to know.

KATE SPENT SATURDAY afternoon conducting two back-to-back grief groups and the evening juggling her schedule and calling her associates at the hospital to let them know she would be taking her accumulated time off to deal with a personal emergency. She waited until Sunday afternoon to tell her parents where they would be able to reach her, starting that evening. Her mom hadn’t said much when they spoke on the phone. But fifteen minutes later, both her parents were on the doorstep of her apartment, which was located on the second floor of a big white Victorian that had been converted into four separate dwellings, each with its own outside entrance.

Kate’s mom, a homemaker with gray-blond hair and pale blue eyes, had obviously been baking. She still wore her blue denim chef’s apron over her coordinating shorts set. Kate’s dad, wearing a burnt-orange Laramie High School knit shirt, shorts and coach’s cap, had a roll of antacids in his hand. A big bear of a man, he was known for his blunt speech, admirably strong character and often brutal honesty. He was also still extremely protective of “his little girl.” Part of it was that he didn’t want anything to happen to Kate. He’d already lost a son and he didn’t want to lose his one remaining child. The other part was his protectiveness of women in general. He just wasn’t sure members of the fairer sex should be out on their own, without a man to watch over them. Hence, he couldn’t wait for Kate to marry her intended, Air Force Major Craig Farrell. But that wasn’t going to happen until much later in the autumn. Right now, at the beginning of August, Coach Mike Marten, and his loving, dutiful wife Joyce, apparently felt they had a problem on their hands. As Kate suspected, it didn’t take her father long to get to the point.

“I don’t want to hurt your feelings, honey, but this is the dumbest idea you’ve ever had.”

Out of respect, Kate tried to not roll her eyes as she continued moving around her apartment, packing up a few of her things. “Thanks for being so supportive, Dad.”

Mike sighed, lifting his burnt orange coach’s cap off his head and running his hand through his short salt-and-pepper hair. “You’re a professional woman,” Mike declared, replacing the cap low across his forehead, “not a domestic hire.”

“Meaning what?” Kate interrupted, not about to let her dad talk her out of doing what she knew in her gut had to be done. “I can’t help out a friend?”

Mike Marten looked at her steadily. “Sam’s not your friend.”

Leave it to Dad to hit the nail on the head in two seconds flat, Kate thought. “Ellie was, when we were kids.”

“But you rarely saw each other,” Mike pointed out.

“Only because she was so much older than I was and she moved to Dallas after she married and then I went off to college. That doesn’t erase all the kindness she showed me both before and after Pete died.” At the mention of her brother, her father’s face turned to stone. “Is it really so wrong of me to want to return the kindness?”

Silence fell between the three of them as Mike looked to Joyce for help. Joyce nervously wrung her hands together. There was nothing she hated more than family discord of any kind. She would do or say whatever she had to do to try to keep the peace. “I think what your father is trying to say, sweetheart, is that we don’t understand why you have to move in there in order to help Sam McCabe and his boys.”

Even as Kate had rued telling her parents where she could be reached for the next few weeks, she’d known there had been no avoiding it. It would have been worse had they found out any other way, and in a town as small as Laramie, they would have found out. “There are a lot of reasons. Number one, the boys are too much for Sam to handle on his own. Kevin’s accident proved that.”

“So let him hire a housekeeper,” Mike interrupted.

“He’s hired ten,” Kate spouted back, beginning to resent her father’s protectiveness as much as she loved him as a parent and a man. “They’ve all quit within a matter of weeks.”

“And what makes you think you’re going to do any better?” Mike demanded impatiently, peeling another antacid tablet off the role and popping it into his mouth.

Kate grinned and offered her father a disarming smile. “The fact that I’m your daughter and you taught me to never be a quitter.”

Mike’s brows knit together. “Don’t try to charm your way out of this, Kate. I have serious concerns here.”

Kate sobered immediately. She sat on the edge of her bed. “So do I, Dad. Sam’s boys are in trouble.” So was Sam for that matter, but Kate figured it was best to not get into that just yet. One thing at a time, and Sam’s boys were first on the priority list.

Mike shrugged, not unsympathetic to Sam’s plight, just more realistic—in his view, anyway. “So let ’em come to the hospital for your help like everyone else who can’t handle things on their own.”

Kate ignored the faint hint of derision in her father’s voice. Mike, not only one of the premiere football coaches in the state with more state championship experience than anyone else in the Triple A division, was a staunch believer in survival-of-the-fittest theories. He approached every life situation as though it were a game to be strategized, played and won. In his view, there was no room for failure of any kind, and only the weak needed counseling. Unfortunately his “survivor strategies” very possibly cost Kate’s older brother his life, which was something her own family was still trying to come to grips with.

“Sam doesn’t believe in any kind of therapy or grief counseling for the kids,” Kate said quietly, putting her own hurts aside.

“Well, I can’t say I blame Sam there,” Mike Marten muttered.

“Mike.” Joyce gasped.

“Oh.” Mike looked sheepish. “You know what I mean.”

Kate surely did. If her mom and dad had only believed in counseling, her brother might have talked out his feelings instead of acted them out. If only her parents had gotten help at the first sign of trouble with Pete, instead of trying to ignore his problems, maybe Pete wouldn’t have felt so misunderstood and behaved so recklessly. And maybe the three of them wouldn’t have suffered for years after Pete died. Knowing there was no way to change the past, only ways to deal with it honestly and openly and move on, Kate had eventually resolved her feelings about her family’s tragedy. She wasn’t sure her parents had yet, or ever would without the appropriate help, which they were determined not to get.

Watching as Kate closed the suitcase containing her clothes Joyce said gently, “I know you feel like you owe John and Lilah McCabe a lot for helping you start your grief and crisis counseling program over at the hospital.”

Not to mention what she owed Ellie, Kate thought, for all the times she had cried on Ellie’s shoulder the year after Pete died.

“But can’t you just help them out in some other way?” Joyce continued.

“Such as?” Kate asked impatiently, wishing her parents were not so difficult about this.

“Maybe you and I could just act as general coordinators for them, to help get them through this emergency. We could enlist other women to cook dinner for them. Find someone else to clean the house on a regular basis. Teenagers to baby-sit the little one in Sam’s absence.”

Kate wasn’t surprised by her mother’s suggestion. Joyce believed in community service, though she would avoid becoming too involved in anything that might turn out to be emotionally painful or difficult. Mike was the same way. Even when Kate’s brother had died, her mom and dad had simply toughed it out and expected her to do the same. They’d never talked about the accident, except to declare Pete innocent and apportion blame for Pete’s bad judgment on others. They’d never shown or talked about their feelings, or allowed Kate to do so with them, either. Grief, uncertainty, despair, angst, sadness were not allowed in her family. In her family you moved on, period. And you avoided like mad anything that might tempt you to do otherwise. In her family, you were part of the team or you had no place there. And Kate was perilously close to getting benched. At least temporarily.

But she couldn’t worry about that. She had to concentrate on Sam’s boys. She had only to look at them to know they were suffering exactly the way she had suffered for years after Pete’s death. Everyone was telling them everything was going to be fine—when it wasn’t. Everyone was pretending things were fine—when they weren’t. If it continued, the boys would start to think the problem wasn’t the tragic situation they’d found themselves in, or their unresolved feelings about their mom’s death. They’d begin to believe there was something wrong with them because they weren’t dealing with their grief. They had enough to contend with, just losing their mother and their previously happy family life, without adding the burden of low self-esteem, anxiety and depression, too. Sam and his boys needed her and the help she could provide—whether they realized it or not. What they didn’t need was another temporary solution like her mother’s, which was no solution at all.

“Assume you and I could work out the cooking and cleaning and all that by some round-robin system, Mom, the bottom line here is child care. Do you really want to put teenage girls in the house while Sam’s not home, knowing he’s got three teenage boys there already?”

Joyce paused, thinking hard. “Maybe the little one could go into day care?”

“That would work for Kevin, sure, as long as Sam doesn’t have to travel. But then you’ve still got the other four unsupervised, and believe me, you don’t want to leave those boys without round-the-clock guidance the rest of the summer.” Not the way they were acting out. “But not to worry, Mom, Dad. Sam’s still looking for a housekeeper. As soon as he finds one, I’m out of there.” In the meantime, she’d try to figure out the best way to help each of the boys. Maybe they would get to know her and regard her as a friend, eventually becoming comfortable enough to talk to her on an informal basis. Kate didn’t care about being paid for her services. She just wanted to help the boys deal with their feelings so they could get on with their lives. If she ended up eventually helping Sam, too, all the better.

Mike sighed as he popped yet another antacid tablet into his mouth. “I still don’t see why this is your problem, Kate.”

Maybe it wouldn’t have been, Kate thought uncomfortably, if what the boys were going through wasn’t so close to what her family had suffered. Like Sam, her parents had ignored the warning signs about her brother, when he first began acting out his unhappiness. They had reassured each other and everyone else it was just growing pains, when even Kate—at age twelve—had been able to see that it was much more. Her brother had died as a result of that naiveté. She didn’t want to see it happen again. Not to anyone. And especially not to Sam McCabe’s family who had already suffered such a devastating loss.

“Sam has family in the area,” Mike continued.

“Yes, he does, and they’re all being too easy on him, cutting him too much slack because of what he’s been through.” Kate felt for Sam, too. But she wasn’t afraid to confront him.

Kate’s dad sighed, shook his head. “You should never have gone and gotten that Ph.D. in clinical psychology. You should have kept your job at the high school. You should be spending your time helping kids get into college—” A task Kate knew her father considered much more practical, respectable and laudable “—instead of pushing your way into situations you have no business getting involved in.”

It was Kate’s turn to sigh as she packed her toiletries into a tote. “I became involved, Dad, when I was asked to talk to the boys at the hospital after Kevin’s fall off the porch roof.”

Mike gave Kate a stern look. “And your involvement ended when he was sent home, with little more than a sprained wrist and a few stitches.”

Joyce laid a restraining hand on Mike’s arm. “Honey, we don’t want to fight about Kate’s choice of careers. That’s not why we came over here.”

“Why did you come over here?” Kate asked, exasperated.

“To make you see that moving in with Sam and his boys, even for a few days, is a mistake.”

He was beginning to sound like Sam.

“First of all, you don’t owe that man anything, and neither do I. Maybe if he’d been there for your older brother the way a best friend should have been, I’d feel differently, but the way it is…I don’t.”

Tension stiffened Kate’s shoulders as the conversation veered into dangerous territory. She folded her arms in front of her and squared off with her dad. “Pete’s death was not Sam McCabe’s fault.”

“And I suppose what he did to Ellie that year wasn’t his fault, either,” Mike countered sarcastically.

Kate flushed. “Sam loved Ellie, Dad.”

“He ruined her reputation, Kate.”

Just as Mike now feared Sam would somehow ruin hers, Kate thought. “Maybe for five minutes,” Kate allowed, remembering how the scandal had rocked the town initially. Kate went over to the bureau and got her brush. “Once they were married, I don’t think anyone cared.”

“Nevertheless, he proved he can’t be trusted around innocent young women.”

“Dad, I’m thirty-one years old,” Kate said wearily as she caught her hair in a French twist and pinned it in place.

Mike’s face softened. “And still as sweet and innocent as the day is long, thank God.”

Kate was silent. She had lost her virginity to her fiancé a long time ago, but her father would never accept that she was not a kid anymore. No, as far as Mike Marten was concerned, she was still daddy’s little girl! Wondering when it was going to get easier to deal with her dad, she slipped her hairbrush into her tote bag and regarded her dad steadily. “I’m old enough to take care of myself.”

“That won’t stop a man like Sam McCabe from making a pass at you,” Mike warned grimly.

He already has. Pushing the memory of Sam’s lips and hands away, Kate turned back to her suitcase. “There are going to be five boys there as chaperones. Sam is not going to do anything in front of his sons, especially when they are so clearly grieving the loss of the mother they loved so much.” Otherwise, she probably wouldn’t be able to stay over there, given what had already happened between her and Sam.

“I still think you ought to concentrate on your upcoming marriage to Craig and let the McCabes take care of their own.”

Kate wondered how her dad would feel if she were involved in the solution. Would he at long last be really and truly proud of her? As proud as he’d been of Pete at the height of Pete’s high school football career? Even as she wondered she knew the only thing her dad was likely to respect her for was becoming Craig’s wife—and providing a few grandchildren for him and her mom to love. Mike was desperate to carry on the family name, and had even talked Craig into naming their first son Marten Michael Farrell.

“It may just be for a couple of days, at most a few weeks.”

Gently, Joyce asked, “What does Craig think about this?”

Kate shrugged. “I didn’t ask him.”

“But he’s your fiancé,” Joyce protested, upset.

“That doesn’t mean he controls my life,” Kate countered stubbornly.

“Honey,” Joyce said, aghast, “this is the kind of thing…moving into another man’s house…that a young woman should discuss with her fiancé.”

Kate knew Craig wouldn’t mind. She grabbed her laptop computer and headed for the door. “I’ll tell Craig what I’m doing the next time I hear from him,” she promised.

“When will that be?” Mike asked, exchanging concerned looks with Joyce.

“I don’t know. I never know.” That was one of the frustrations of being involved with a military man. “Soon.” She hoped.

“I’ll tell you one thing,” Kate’s dad said as he carried her suitcase and tote bag down to the car for her. “That Sam McCabe better appreciate what you’re doing for him and do right by you or he’s going to find himself answering to me.”

CHAPTER FOUR

LATE SUNDAY AFTERNOON, Sam summoned his boys to the living room to tell them Kate Marten would be taking care of them temporarily.

“Starting when?” Will asked, belligerent as ever.

“She’ll be here any minute,” Sam said. And he was dreading it.

“Why’d you wait so long to tell us?” Riley demanded at once.

Because I was hoping she’d come to her senses and change her mind, Sam thought. He gave his most brashly outspoken son a stern look. “I’m telling you now.” Not that she’d be here more than a day, anyway, Sam reassured himself. Once Kate had refereed a few fistfights and put up with temper tantrums, surly moods and nonstop rowdiness, she’d understand what it was really like to ride herd on five boys twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. She’d want out. And no one, least of all him, would blame her for packing up and going back to work at the hospital, where she belonged.

“It seems to me—if we really want a total babe like Kate Marten to help us out for the next few weeks—that we should be doing the opposite and really cleaning up our act.” Brad pulled mint breath freshener from his pocket, sprayed some in his mouth, then paused to check his reflection in the mirror.

Sam frowned. It was exactly this kind of thing he sought to avoid. He did not want his home life turning into some sort of B movie with a bunch of underage kids lusting after the “baby-sitter.” “That’s enough,” he warned. “I don’t want anyone coming on to Kate Marten or calling her a babe, even on a lark. She’s a nice woman.” If ill-advised, Sam amended silently to himself. “And she deserves your respect.”

“Just not yours?” Riley guessed, his shiny silver trumpet dangling from his fingertips.

Sam tensed. “What do you mean?”

Lewis stopped fiddling with his hand-held video game long enough to say, “We get the feeling you don’t like her.”

Sam felt the eyes of all five of his sons upon him. “It’s not that,” he said uncomfortably.

“Then what is it?” six-year-old Kevin asked in frustration as everyone turned to him in amazement. Since Ellie’s death, he rarely spoke.

Noticing the peanut butter and jelly on his hands, Kev attempted to clean them off by wiping them on his shirt.

“Are you afraid she’s gonna get on your nerves by asking you how you’re feeling all the time and stuff like that?” Riley blurted.

There was that, Sam thought. Kate, being the do-gooder she was, probably wouldn’t hesitate to try to force some counseling down his throat. He had news for her—it wasn’t going to happen. Here, or at the hospital. He knew how women liked to talk things to death, but there was nothing talking about Ellie’s passing managed to do except bring him and the boys more pain. They’d already had enough pain the past year to last them a lifetime. He wasn’t signing any of them up for any more. Once Kate understood that…well, Sam had no doubt she’d find some other family to “help.”

“Nah, Dad can handle that. Dad doesn’t want her staying here cause he’s afraid we’ll fantasize about her,” Brad said.

It was, Sam thought, a little more complicated than that. Made more difficult by the callous pass he had used to try to scare Kate away. If his ploy had worked the way he had intended, he wouldn’t be dealing with Kate or her well-intentioned but unwanted meddling again. Unfortunately, it hadn’t worked, and now every time he looked at her they’d both be reminded of what he had done. And neither of them needed that.

Lewis, who at almost twelve had yet to discover girls, frowned and looked disgusted. He adjusted his glasses on the bridge of his nose. “Yuck. I would never fantasize about someone as old as Kate!”

“You say that now,” Brad replied with a smug wink, “but we haven’t seen her in her nightie, yet, either.”

Sam grimaced at just the thought. He watched as Kevin slid under the coffee table to play with his toy cars. “Kate Marten is not going to be running around here in her nightie,” he said firmly.

“We saw all our other housekeepers in their bathrobes,” Brad pointed out.

“Yeah, but they were all over fifty and none of them looked anywhere near as ‘babe-a-licious’ as Kate,” Riley added.

Sam did not see what the big deal was about Kate. So she had a trim figure that curved in all the right places, slender legs that looked good in high heels. There was nothing extraordinary about the honey-blond hair that fell to her shoulders. He saw hair that soft and silky all the time. As for her face, any prettiness Kate had on that score—and he reluctantly admitted she had some—was canceled out by her boldly assessing manner and the unflappable determination in her light blue eyes. Sure, she had full, kissable lips. And a softness about her that made a guy want to do his best to protect her even though he knew from the sassy look in her eyes and the confident way she carried herself that it wasn’t at all necessary. But none of that made up for the way she had judged him to be a total screwup as a father and forcibly inserted herself into his private life. And it was high time his boys realized it took more than a slender waist and a pair of breasts to make a woman worth going after.

Six-year-old Kev came out from beneath the coffee table. “I like Kate. She was nice to me at the hospital. She wasn’t all mean and bossy like Mrs. Grunwald and the other baby-sitters.”

Will looked bored as he tossed his football from hand to hand. “Who cares who comes to stay here?” he asked insolently. “I’m out of here.”

Sam stopped his oldest son before he could depart. “Oh, no, you’re not. When Kate gets here, we’re all going to be here. We’re still a family, remember?”

Will gave Sam a look that reminded Sam that wasn’t quite true. They hadn’t really been a family since Ellie’s death. She’d been the center of love and warmth in the family and the glue that held them together. Without her here to care for them, they were all kind of lost.

“Look, Dad, if you don’t want Kate staying here—and we can all tell by looking at you that you don’t—how come you don’t just come right out and tell her that?” Brad asked.

Sam figured the boys didn’t need to know about the way he and Kate had already squared off about this. That was between him and Kate. “Because Kate really wants to help us out here and thanks to the unmitigated encouragement she’s been getting from Aunt Lilah and Uncle John, she’s not going to stop pestering me until I let her try.”

Lewis studied Sam thoughtfully. “But you don’t think she’ll last.”

“It’s not that I don’t appreciate the sentiment behind her actions,” Sam said carefully. “When someone wants to help you out of the goodness of their heart, it’s important to appreciate the thought behind the gesture. What Kate doesn’t realize—” Sam looked at the dirty dishes and fast-food wrappers littering every conceivable surface throughout the entire downstairs, including the living room “—is that she doesn’t have the life experience to be able to handle all the cooking and cleaning and organizing around here and ride herd on all you boys simultaneously.” Only Ellie had been able to do that, Sam thought. And she’d done it with such style, warmth, wit and love that everyone else who’d tried to fill her shoes, even partway, had paled by comparison and failed miserably.

Will gave Sam a faintly accusing look as he finally sat. “So why didn’t you just tell Kate Marten she’s getting in over her head, and find someone else to move in?”

Sam let out a frustrated breath. “I tried.” He knew from the moment it was suggested that it wasn’t going to work out. But Kate hadn’t accepted that. And here he was, Sam thought, still having to deal with Kate. His four older sons exchanged speculative glances, forcing Sam to explain further as he picked up some clothes off the floor and clumped them together on the piano bench. “Look, I know her,” Sam muttered, picking up a few empty soda cans, too. “We grew up together. I can try talking to Kate Marten until I’m blue in the face and it’s not going to matter one whit until she figures it out for herself. However…” Sam sighed. “Once Kate’s here for a few days—” if it even took that long, Sam amended silently “—she’ll realize she wouldn’t wish this job on her worst enemy. By then, I’ll have found another housekeeper for us. Kate’ll be able to leave, knowing she did her part to help us survive in the interim, and everyone’s happy.” His aunt and uncle would be satisfied Sam had given Kate a chance, and Kate could move on to her next do-gooding project. And best of all, he’d be rid of Kate and her interference once and for all.

“Gee, Dad, don’t think you have to sugarcoat it for us,” Riley retorted glibly.

Sam shrugged and continued just as bluntly, “We gotta face facts here, guys. Collectively, you boys have not been easy on the help.”

The boys exchanged disgruntled looks. “That’s ’cause we don’t like them,” Will growled finally, standing and looking immensely irritated at being forced to stick around.

Abruptly, Sam realized he was missing a son. “Where did Brad go?” he demanded irritably. How was he supposed to have a family meeting if one or another of the boys kept running off whenever he turned his head?

“He’s where he always is, upstairs on the phone with a girl,” Lewis said.

Will paced aimlessly, tossing his football around. “He’s in a panic cause he’s only got one date so far tonight instead of the usual three.”

Irked to find even the smallest details of his life unmanageable, Sam strode to the front of the house and bellowed up the stairs, “Brad, get down here now!”

Footsteps rumbled across the third, then the second floor. Reeking of aftershave, Brad appeared at the head of the stairs, the phone glued to his ear. “But, Da-ad…”

“Now, Brad!” Sam ordered.

Outside, a car door slammed. In tandem, the boys rushed to the window and peered out. “Kate’s here—” Lewis reported, looking happy to see her.

Brad stopped checking his reflection long enough to look out the window. He let out a wolf whistle. “Man, oh, man…”

“Brad…” Sam warned.

“We’re serious, Dad,” Riley added, his jaw dropping open in amazement. “You ought to see her.”

That was just it, Sam thought wearily, the dread inside him increasing by leaps and bounds. He didn’t want to see Kate. At all.

KATE KNEW SAM and his boys were desperate for help the first time she’d met with them at the hospital after Kevin’s accident. That impression had been reinforced when she’d come to the house to talk to Sam alone. Kate had been hoping Sam and the boys would clean up a bit before she arrived. They hadn’t.

Technically, of course, the contemporary Victorian home with the slate-blue paint, white trim and dark gray roof, was one of the largest and loveliest homes in Laramie. Or at least it had been when Ellie was alive. Sam had inherited the place from his folks. But it was Ellie who had, over the years they’d lived in Dallas, made it into an elegant summer and holiday retreat for the family.

A waist-high white-picket fence placed just inside the sidewalk that ran along the street framed the large square lot. Live oak trees shaded the front yard. Low-lying juniper and holly bushes edged the porch. The flower beds had been filled with an astonishing profusion of Texas wildflowers that bloomed year after year with little care. Some, like the Texas bluebonnets, bloomed in early spring. While the Indian paintbrush, shasta daisies, scarlet sage, rocket larkspur, baby’s breath and pink evening primrose bloomed all summer long and into the fall.

A rope-hung swing with a wooden seat hung from one of the trees. On the wide shady porch that adorned the front and both sides of the large, three-story Victorian home, were comfortable groupings of cushioned wicker furniture. Ellie had worked hard to make it warm and welcoming.

Kate shuddered to think what Ellie would make of the unkempt condition of the home now. The grass was thick with weeds and hadn’t been cut in several weeks. Bats, balls, bikes, skateboards, lacrosse sticks, a soccer ball and goals were strewn across the front yard. Worse than the disarray, was the air of neglect. Spiderwebs clung to the porch ceiling. A wasp’s nest had started atop one of the shutters. The glass had been broken out of one of the old-fashioned porch lamps and the windows were covered with a thick layer of dirt and smudges. And that was just the outside. Knowing the inside was in even worse shape, Kate squared her shoulders, shoved her sunglasses atop her head and rang the bell.

The front door opened and Sam’s boys filed out en masse. Despite the fact they were still grieving Ellie’s death intensely in their private moments, all were glowing with good health and physical strength and tons of somewhat misguided energy. They were an intelligent, handsome group of boys, with Sam’s dark hair and Ellie’s soft eyes.

Kate greeted them all in turn. Although they’d been happy enough to speak with her at the hospital during the aftermath of Kevin’s accident, to her dismay they did not seem anywhere near as enthusiastic to see her now. Probably because she was going to be the family housekeeper, aka Hired Gun, for the next few days.

Tension radiated from Sam McCabe as he stepped out onto the porch.

He was wearing neatly pressed olive-green slacks and a sport shirt in a slightly lighter hue. His face was clean-shaven and his short brown hair had been combed away from his face in a no-nonsense style that mirrored the look on his ruggedly handsome face. His dark brown eyes were shadowed with a fatigue that seemed months old. In previous summers his face had always been tanned. This year he looked as if he hadn’t spent a second outdoors. His lips pressed together thinly, Sam continued to regard Kate in a way that was meant to intimidate.

“Now can I go?” Will asked Sam impatiently.

“No,” Sam answered his oldest son, his implacable gaze totally centered on Kate’s face. “No one leaves here until after dinner.”

Kate had been hoping Sam McCabe would greet her with more enthusiasm than he had shown when she had pressured him into letting her help out. Obviously, she conceded silently, that wasn’t going to happen.

Sam gestured at Kate. “I’ll show you around,” Sam said, leading the group back into the house. “Then I’ve got some work to do.”

“I’m hungry,” Riley complained loudly.

“Kate will get you guys dinner in a few minutes,” Sam promised.

“Okay, but not take-out again,” Riley interjected. “I’m sick to death of it. That’s all we ever have for dinner when one of the housekeepers quits.”

“And whose fault is that?” Sam asked, abruptly wheeling around and looking at his sons. A guilty silence fell all around. Having subdued them all for a moment, he turned back to Kate. Wordlessly he took Kate’s elbow and steered her inside. “I want this to be a strictly business arrangement, so I’ll pay you what I’ve paid all the other housekeepers as long as you’re here.”

Kate tensed in surprise. “It isn’t necessary for you to do that. I’m doing this as a friend.”

“It’s the only way I’ll let you stay.”

He didn’t want her friendship, Kate noted with disappointment.

“All right,” Kate conceded, trying to not feel hurt. “If you insist.”

Sam escorted her briskly up the stairs to the second floor. They passed Kevin’s and Lewis’s extremely messy bedrooms—a kid’s bathroom, which was also a royal mess. As they headed for the stairs leading to the third floor, Kate pointed to the closed door on the left. “What’s in there?”

Sam stopped just short of her. They were close. Too close.

“Master bedroom and bath. It’s off-limits.”

Kate took a step back. “To just me or the kids, too?”

His glance narrowed. The unhappiness that had been part of his face for months now deepened. “What do you think?”

That was just it, Kate thought, she didn’t have a clue. And Sam wasn’t helping her to understand him.

Sam led the way up to the third floor, where Riley, Will and Brad bunked. Their bedrooms and the spacious bath were equally messy. “Are the boys responsible for their own rooms?” Kate asked as she looked around.

“To a point,” Sam said. “Someone else usually vacuums and dusts.”

“Their rooms would have to be picked up first.”

“You’re beginning to catch on to the problem.”

“You can’t just tell them to clean up?”

A shadow passed over Sam’s eyes and the lines of fatigue around his mouth deepened. “You really don’t know much about rearing kids, do you?” He gave the stinging words a second to sink in, then continued. “In any case, as our temporary household manager you’ll be expected to ride herd on the boys ’round the clock.”

“What are you going to be doing?”

“Working. From home tonight, but I’ll probably go into my office in Dallas first thing tomorrow morning.” Sam brushed by her, inundating her with his masculinity and rapidly led the way back down the two sets of stairs to the first floor. Bypassing his study and the formal dining room—which were both at the front of the house, on either side of the foyer—he escorted her through a living room with comfy-looking sofas. Kate couldn’t help but notice that sometime in the last ten minutes, mud had been tracked inside. Ignoring the mess on the floor, Sam led the way past a screened-in sunporch off the family room to the dream kitchen with every built-in, top-of-the-line appliance imaginable. “I’ll give you some money to buy groceries in the morning. In the meantime…” He gestured at the polished black-granite countertops and open cherrywood cabinets. Here, too, dirty dishes and trash covered every surface. The floor was sticky. “You better use what’s here to rustle up some dinner for the boys.”

Kate nodded. Having apparently decided to not wait for her to fix anything, Riley came out of the laundry room on the other side of the breakfast nook. He was eating a pickle and drinking milk straight from the container. Brad looked ready to go out for the evening and was reeking with cologne. Will was putting on his running shoes. Kevin came toward Kate. Shyly, he slipped a Matchbox car in her hand, then stood close to her while Lewis picked up a discarded burger wrapper next to Kate’s foot, wadded it up and dropped it into the overflowing kitchen trash bin.

“When are we gonna eat, Kate?” Riley prodded, helping himself to another pickle from the big jar on the counter. “I’m starving.”

“As soon as possible,” Kate said, wondering where to start. Not even in summer camps had she encountered such a disorganized mess.

“I can help you, if you want,” Lewis piped up shyly.

Happy at least one of Sam’s sons was into being helpful, Kate dug in her pocket and handed over her keys. “Thank you, Lewis. I’d appreciate that. Would you mind getting my bags out of my car? And bring in my laptop computer, too, please.”

Sam’s lips compressed. He leaned against the counter and folded his arms across his chest. “Why do you need your laptop?”

“E-mail—it’s our main way of communicating when Craig is stationed overseas.”

Looking happy to be able to help, Lewis went off to do Kate’s bidding. The other boys, perhaps fearing they would be enlisted to help out, too, drifted off in all directions. Kate turned to Sam, already mentally rolling up her sleeves. “Before I start cooking, I want to get this place straightened up,” she said.

“Fine.” Sam regarded Kate impatiently. “But before you do that, let me show you where you’re going to bunk.” Sam led the way to the small bedroom and bath on the other side of the kitchen. “This is the guest suite. As you can see, you have your own TV, phone, bedroom and bath.”

Lewis came rushing in, her suitcase and laptop computer in tow. He set both down on the floor, then asked, “Did you need those boxes of wedding books and stuff, too?”

“I sure do.” Kate smiled and watched as he ran back outside.

Sam arched a brow in Kate’s direction. “I’m using my vacation to plan my wedding,” Kate explained as they headed back into the kitchen.

He lounged against the counter and folded his arms in front of him. “When’s the date?”

“Sometime in the fall or maybe over the Thanksgiving or Christmas holidays. Craig and I haven’t actually set a date yet.”

His brows drew together in a frown. “Why not?”

Kate flushed, feeling abruptly self-conscious as she met Sam’s eyes. “It’s not that easy,” she said, wishing Sam suddenly didn’t sound so much like her parents. “Craig has to get permission from his superiors to take time off.”

“So why hasn’t he already done that?” Sam prodded, difficult as ever. “Given the fact you’ve been engaged for…what?” he asked impatiently.

“Three years now,” Kate said, beginning to feel a little bit defensive despite herself. “And it’s complicated.”

Sam shrugged. He obviously didn’t think so. “Seems to me if you and Craig really wanted to do this, nothing, not even the U.S. military, would stand in the way.”

“Thanks for the insight,” Kate said, annoyed he had so quickly and easily gotten under her skin.

“Any time.” Sam shrugged.

“And for your information,” Kate continued, “we’re going to set a date when Craig comes home on leave the weekend after next.” She paused, knowing now was as good a time as any to inform Sam of her plans. “I’m going to need that time off, by the way, if you still haven’t found someone suitable to care for the boys.”

“I’ll have found someone by then,” Sam vowed flatly. He sent her a hard, warning look. “In the meantime, I meant what I said, you’re here as a temporary household manager and baby-sitter and that’s all.”

Back to that again. “I promise I won’t run any group therapy sessions,” Kate said dryly. She wouldn’t promise she wouldn’t be available to listen, if either Sam or his boys decided they wanted to talk.

Sam regarded her sternly. “Just so we understand each other.”

“Oh, we do,” Kate replied. Maybe more than you’d like, Sam McCabe.

A tense silence fell between them. Sam turned and started to head out. “I’ll be in my study, working,” he said over his shoulder.

“Wait just a minute.” Kate hurried ahead and inserted herself between him and the doorway. “I’m going to need your help as well as the boys’, Sam.”

Sam looked at her suspiciously.

“Whether you’re paying me or not, you shouldn’t expect me to clean this up alone,” she said practically. “All six of you made this mess. All six of you should help clean it up.”

Sam’s shoulders tensed. Kate knew what he was thinking: she’d been here five minutes and already they were arguing about where the lines should be drawn. Nostrils flaring, he leaned toward her in a deliberately intimidating manner. “Let’s get something straight. I don’t do housework, and I don’t run interference between you and my boys.”

“You mean, you won’t back me up on this,” she surmised, not giving an inch despite the way he was physically crowding her, and pushing her back out of the doorway.

Sam shrugged, letting her know it wasn’t too soon for her to see how things were going to be. “You wanted to run the show around here. Now’s your chance.” Brushing past her, he stalked off.

KNOWING WHAT SHE DID in her first few minutes on the job would set the tone for her entire stay in the McCabe household, Kate gathered the boys into the kitchen for a meeting. While they listened with varying degrees of attention, she explained what she had planned.

“There’s only one problem with that,” Will announced as soon as Kate had concluded, looking more than a bit surly as he worked with two hand-held weights. “As I mentioned earlier, I’ve already got plans for the evening.”

“So do I,” Brad interjected, then resumed talking on the phone.

Wordlessly, Kate reached over and took the receiver from Brad’s hand. “He’ll call you back after he’s finished his chores,” she said into the receiver, then cut the connection.

Brad’s mouth gaped open. “Hey! You can’t do that!”

Riley grinned, enjoying his brother’s discomfiture. “Looks like she just did.”

Will looked at the list of chores Kate had scribbled. “I don’t do bathrooms—ever!” he said with a scowl.

“Don’t look at me. I’m not scrubbing anything!” Brad said.

“Then that’s too bad,” Kate said as she cut the jobs into little slips of paper and put them into the newly christened Job Jar in the center of the table. She folded her hands in front of her calmly. “Because none of you will be getting out of here anytime soon.”

It was time this group started behaving like a family, Kate had decided. And the first order of building a team was to identify and then embrace collective responsibility. Then to work together to make things happen. Without either of those things, there could be no real caring for each other or pride in or acknowledgment of all they still had in the wake of Ellie’s death, which, whether they realized it or not, was plenty.

All four older boys exchanged anxious looks. “What are you talking about?” Will demanded.

“As long as I’m in charge here, the rule is, you do your chores before you go anywhere. So each of you four older boys pick two tasks and get busy. Meantime, I’ll get supper going. And Kev here can help by picking up all his toys and putting them away and setting the table.”

As Kate opened the refrigerator door to see what was on hand, she could feel the McCabe boys’ eyes staring at her as if she’d grown two heads. She perused the shelves crammed with junk food and wilting produce and forced herself to not think about how much easier this would have been if Sam had been in here with her, pitching in, too, and setting a good example for his kids.

He wouldn’t be here during the day tomorrow, anyway, so they might as well get used to listening to her now—while he was still on the premises to witness her success at handling them. Because if this was a test, from both him and his boys, she was determined to pass it. She turned around and smiled at them, using the same matter-of-fact tone of voice she’d heard her father use with his football teams countless times. “You heard me, guys. Get moving.”

ALL THREE OLDER BOYS—having completed their chores in the most unhelpful manner possible—stared at the platters of hot dogs, macaroni and cheese, baked beans and cut-up fruit Kate had put on the kitchen table. “You’ve got to be kidding,” Riley said.

“This is kid food,” Will scowled. At seventeen, he did not see himself as a kid. “I don’t see any hot dog buns,” Brad complained.

“There aren’t any,” Kate told them, not about to apologize for the meal she’d put together.

“Well, I can’t eat a hot dog without a bun,” Brad announced grimly.

“We have bread,” Kate offered. It had been stale but not moldy and she had freshened it as much as she could by warming it in the microwave.

“Bread is not the same as buns!” Brad pushed back his chair with a screech.

“Mom made her mac-n-cheese from scratch.” Riley scowled and pushed the bright orange pasta around with the tines of his fork.

So did Kate, when she had the resources. Since she hadn’t, she’d used the mix in the pantry.

Riley frowned and held his nose. “Did somebody put onions in the baked beans?”

Okay, so it wasn’t going smoothly so far, Kate reassured herself firmly, but this was only the first meal and she was only two hours into the job. It would get better as soon as she acclimated.

Lewis returned, his glasses sliding down his nose, his hands stuck in the pockets of his jeans. “Dad says eat without him,” he reported with a deeply disappointed sigh as he slid into the chair next to Kate. “He’s busy.”

The boys exchanged unhappy glances. “No surprise there,” Will muttered.

Clearly they wanted their dad to join them. So did Kate. Thinking maybe that would help the boys feel better, like more of a family unit, she murmured, “I’ll see what I can do.”

“Better not bother him,” Lewis warned, looking worried.

“I’ll just be a minute. You boys can go ahead and start putting food on your plates,” Kate said. She went to the study. The door was shut, as it had been earlier. She knocked.

“What?” Sam demanded in an irritated voice from the other side.

In for a penny, in for a pound, Kate thought as she pushed open the door.

Sam shot her an annoyed glance then went back to his computer screen. “I already told Lewis I don’t want to eat now.”

“Sure now?” Kate prodded lightly, “we’re having all your favorites.” And then proceeded to name what was on the menu.

Ignoring her, Sam continued to stare at the chart on the computer screen in front of him. “I’ll get something later.”

Kate edged closer. On the shelves behind his desk were a variety of framed family photos taken over the years. Some had been taken on vacations, others on birthdays. And there were a couple of formal portraits, too. In all of them, the McCabes appeared to be a close-knit group. And in all of them, Ellie, a hauntingly beautiful brunette, with delicate features and light green eyes, stood at the center of the group.

Realizing what she was looking at, Sam spun around in his chair. Suddenly his dark brown eyes were cold as ice. “Didn’t the boys tell you the rule? When I’m in here working, I’m not to be disturbed! And you aren’t to be in here, either. I don’t want you in here cleaning, or reading a book, or even opening a window, whether I’m here or not. Got it?”

Kate got it, all right. She didn’t need her Ph.D. to realize this wasn’t just about maintaining his privacy. By effectively fencing himself off from his sons at home, just as he did at work, Sam McCabe had made himself damn near inaccessible to his sons much of the time. No wonder they were all acting out. He didn’t even show up for meals when he was actually present. But figuring it was too soon to get into all that with any hope of success, Kate concentrated on the things they might be able to discuss with a little more success. “What about your laundry?” Kate asked.

Sam grimaced and turned back to his computer. “I send it out.” A muscle worked in his jaw as he slanted her yet another aggravated glance. “You just get the boys organized and back on schedule and we’ll all do fine.”

“I can do that,” she acknowledged quietly. “Maybe even eventually be their friend if I’m here long enough, but I can’t be their mom or their dad, Sam. Only you can do that. And right now, those boys of yours want a parent eating dinner with them.”

A grim silence fell between them but once again Sam made no move to join them. Instead he snapped defensively, “My relationship with the boys has not changed since Ellie died.”

If that was true, it was a pity. But Kate didn’t think it was. Kate glanced again at the framed photos of happier times, when Sam and Ellie both looked very much engaged in their children’s lives. “Those photos, Sam, say otherwise.”

“HE’S NOT COMING, is he?” Lewis said, frowning unhappily.

“No.” Kate put on a cheerful face and worked to hide her disappointment. “He said he’ll grab something later.” She took her place at the head of the table, between Kev and Riley.

Dinner was a silent affair. The three older boys, still angry about their chores, merely picked at their food. They bolted the moment they were excused from the table, muttering disparaging comments just loud enough for Kate to hear. Lewis did his best to enjoy the meal Kate had prepared, but after the way Sam had shut them out, he didn’t seem to have much of an appetite. Only six-year-old Kevin ate heartily, getting as much on him as in him. “If you want, I can watch Kev for a while,” Lewis offered as Kate began to clear the table.

“That would be great, Lewis.” Kate smiled. “Thank you.”

She was nearly finished cleaning up the kitchen when Sam walked in. Doing her best to hide the discouragement she felt about the way things were going thus far, she said, “I made up a plate for you.”

As he opened the refrigerator door, Sam gave the food a dismissive glance. “I’ll get it later.” He took out a cold beer and a single serving of string cheese. “I just put Help Wanted ads in all the major Texas newspapers.”

Kate closed the dishwasher and tried not to think how easily his six-foot-four frame dwarfed her own five-foot-seven inches. She tilted her head, studying him. “You’re not going through an agency this time?”

Sam shook his head, his dark eyes grim. “Been there, done that,” he said, sounding exhausted.

“In other words, you’ve been blacklisted.”

“Something like that, yeah,” he said dryly.

“Doesn’t surprise me.”

Tensing visibly from head to toe, Sam twisted off the beer cap, and tossed it into the trash. “Why?”

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe because the three older boys are just a tad hostile,” Kate said sweetly. And so are you.

“I thought they liked you,” he remarked.

That was the irony of it, Kate admitted reluctantly. She and the boys had started off fine…at the hospital. Had Sam only consented to bring them there for group counseling, she and the kids might still be communicating fine. But he hadn’t. She’d had to go to them. Invade what was essentially hostile territory. As a result they’d gone so far backward in the trust department it was going to take days to recover lost ground. This could have been avoided, had Sam welcomed her into their home and their lives, or even given his boys the slightest hint he thought she might be able to help them deal with losing Ellie. Instead, he had worked to make things that much worse, and succeeded.

Aware Sam was still waiting for an explanation, Kate struggled to contain her frustration. She knew she had come on strong, but it had been necessary. The boys needed to know they couldn’t walk all over her the way they had their previous housekeepers. They had to know that even though their mother was gone, there were still rules.

“I think they did like me until I tried to come in and take Ellie’s place.”

Sam’s expression hardened as he took a swig of beer. “No one can do that,” he warned grimly. “However, I will find someone who can run the house.”

“And until then?” Kate challenged, knowing, even if Sam didn’t, the boys needed much more than clean clothes, good food and a tidy environment to get over the loss of their mom.

Sam glared at her and took another long drink. “What’s your point?”

Finding it awkward to talk about something so intimate when he was standing all the way across the kitchen, Kate stepped toward him and lowered her voice. “When was the last time you and the boys did something together as a family, Sam?”

“I don’t know.” Resentment glimmered in his eyes. “Why?”

“Are you telling me it was so long ago you can’t remember?”

“I’m not telling you anything,” Sam said stonily, pushing away from her, “except to mind your own business.”

“So we can’t even talk about the boys?”

He straightened, towering over her, intimidating her with his height and weight and strength. “You got that right.”

“What about Ellie?” Kate persisted, deliberately pushing his buttons, to bring his emotions closer to the surface. She edged closer, mimicking his kick-butt stance. “Are we allowed to talk about her?”

“Ellie’s gone, Kate,” Sam said, the edgy expression on his face intense. “No amount of talking is going to bring her back.”

No wonder the family was such a wreck, Kate thought on a beleaguered sigh. Not only had they all suffered a major loss, they were following Sam’s lead and keeping all their grief locked deep inside.

Sam took a long drink of his beer. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, letting her know with a glance they were changing the subject—now. “I have to be out of here early tomorrow.”

Kate ignored the curtness of his voice and the feeling that he didn’t want her—or any other woman—in his house any more than his three older sons did. It wouldn’t be easy living in such a hostile environment, even for a few days. “How early?” she asked.

“4:00 a.m.”

Kate waited, but to her mounting frustration no explanation was forthcoming. Was this typical of his schedule? she wondered, as she turned and headed back to the sink. Something being enacted just for her behalf? Part of the “test” he was expecting her to fail? Or a once-in-a-while occurrence? He gave her no clue. Because he seemed to be expecting some reaction from her, she utilized the most professional response that came to mind. “Do you want me to get up and cook breakfast for you?” Is that what he wanted from her?

Sam did a double take. Obviously not the reaction he had been looking for. “No,” Sam said as he helped himself to some whole wheat crackers.

So you’re not going to make this easy on me, either, Kate thought as she fished the dishrag out of the sudsy water and wrung it out with both hands. “When do the boys get up in the morning?” she asked as she began to wipe down the kitchen table.

Still ignoring the dinner plate she’d made for him, Sam polished off the crackers, drained the rest of his beer, and reached for another long-necked brown bottle. “Generally, the older four sleep as late as they can, since it’s summer, although that will change starting this week when their extracurricular activities kick into full pre-season throttle with daily rehearsals and stuff. Kev gets up around seven-thirty—like clockwork.”

“I’ll set my alarm for six, then,” Kate promised, briskly wiping down the already-wiped black granite countertops. Finished, she flipped the cloth back into the sink and wiped her hands on a towel. “If Kev needs me before that, wakes with a bad dream or something, and you’re already gone, will he know to come to me?”

“I’ll tell him when I tuck him in.” Sam paused to twist open his second beer. “As for tomorrow specifically, I don’t know what any of the boys has on the agenda. Although Will may have said something about an early football practice….”

“I’ll find out and handle it,” Kate promised.

Sam lapsed into a brooding silence. Kate looked into his face and read his unease. Odds were he was thinking about her inexperience in the homemaking arena, worried she couldn’t handle his crew. She’d prove him wrong if it was the last thing she did. And once she conquered that, she’d win his confidence as a professional therapist and start to work on their grief.

LATE SUNDAY EVENING while Mike was over at the high school working on the physical training program and practice schedule for the entire season, Joyce Marten spread sample styles of wedding invitations across her dining-room table.

She was determined Kate would have the most perfect wedding Laramie, Texas, had ever seen. She had promised Kate that she and Kate’s father would “take care of everything,” from the invitations to the reception. She didn’t want her daughter worrying about anything during what should be the happiest time of her life. Joyce knew what it was like to have parents who weren’t the least bit interested in their child’s life.

Joyce had grown up in a chaotic, two-career household where the only thing that could be absolutely counted on was the constant bickering between her two very strong-willed, domestically disinclined parents. Early on, Joyce had decided she was not going to let that happen in her own adult life. When she married Mike and had his children, she made homemaking—instead of an outside career—her priority, ensuring their home was a cozy, warm and welcoming place where hot meals and clean sheets were to be counted on. She did whatever she needed to do to keep the peace between Mike and herself and the kids. It wasn’t easy, given Mike’s overprotective attitude where his kids were concerned. He felt he knew what was best for them in every situation and no one was going to tell him any different.

But Joyce had managed just fine, keeping everyone happy and healthy and reasonably content, until the summer before Pete’s senior year of high school. Then, for reasons she still didn’t completely understand, everything had fallen apart. Tension between Pete and Mike escalated day by day until Pete’s death. And Joyce had been powerless to stop it.

She saw the same potential for family conflict arising from Kate’s involvement with Sam McCabe and his boys. Mike still resented Sam for his role in Pete’s death. He felt, more than anyone, that Sam had had the potential to prevent the accident, and hadn’t. In Mike’s mind, Sam was part of the reason Pete had died, and the last thing Mike wanted was Kate under Sam’s roof, even temporarily.

But how to get Kate out of there without causing a rift between herself and Kate, Joyce didn’t know. Especially since Kate was every bit as headstrong as her father. She couldn’t just tell Kate not to do it. Mike had already tried that and it hadn’t worked. And now Kate was, if not angry at her father, at least very exasperated and upset with him. Joyce couldn’t get Mike to change his attitude, either. If she even tried, they would end up having an argument. So here she was, Joyce thought, powerless and caught in the middle again. And all this with Kate’s wedding coming up….

Outside, Joyce heard a door slam. Seconds later Mike strode in the back door. “I drove by Sam McCabe’s place on the way home,” he reported gruffly, coming into the dining room where she was working. “Kate’s car is parked out front.”

Joyce put down a lovely ivory parchment invitation with a filigreed gold leaf design. “I don’t know why you’re surprised about that,” she said gently. “Kate told us this afternoon she was going to do this, whether we approved of her actions or not.”

Mike sat at the table, opposite Joyce. “I was hoping she would change her mind when she found out how much we both disapproved of what she’s doing. Failing that, I hoped Craig would be able to talk her out of it.” Mike shook his head disparagingly. “What’s wrong with that boy, anyway?”

The last thing Joyce wanted was for Mike to find fault with Craig who, up to now, anyway, had been very high on Mike’s approval list. “I’m sure he just trusts her judgment,” Joyce said gently as she picked up a pale blue invitation with embossed wedding bells on the front and navy ink.

“There’s a difference between trusting your woman and handing her over to another man,” Mike replied sagely.

Joyce paused to give Mike a level look. “Craig is not handing her over to Sam.”

Mike took off his coach’s cap and set it on the table. “He may as well be.”

“Kate’s not going to do anything to disrupt her upcoming marriage to Craig.”

Mike leaned forward urgently, elbows on the table. “I’m not saying it would be deliberate. But let’s review facts here. Kate loves helping people. She loves being needed and knowing she’s making a difference. And God knows, Sam McCabe needs help with his kids in the wake of Ellie’s death. That’s why he moved back to Laramie. You put Kate there for a couple weeks, when she’s on vacation and should be off somewhere with Craig—” Mike snapped his fingers and looked all the more disgruntled and upset. “Kate could get emotionally involved with Sam and his boys before she knows what is happening.”

Joyce pushed her own uneasiness away. “She probably will get closer to all of them. That doesn’t mean Sam is going to try to steal her away from Craig and marry her himself.”

“But he might take advantage of her.”

Under normal circumstances Joyce would have said that was impossible. But these weren’t normal circumstances, Joyce admitted silently to herself as she began gathering up her things. Kate wasn’t doing this on a professional basis, but as a friend of Ellie’s, and that put a personal emotional tilt on the situation that would not have been there otherwise. She had been away from Craig for more than nine months now. And although Kate never complained about the long separations, Joyce could tell Kate was finding them increasingly hard to take, which in turn made her not just lonely but vulnerable in a way her daughter had yet to admit.

There was also the secret crush Kate had had on Sam McCabe when she was just a kid. Mike didn’t know about that. And, Joyce was pretty sure, neither had Sam. But Joyce had seen the way Kate’s face would light up whenever Sam came over to toss the football around with Pete. The way Kate had hung on Sam’s every word or deed. Unfortunately, because he had been a good five years older than Kate, Sam had never seen Kate as anything more than Pete’s pesky kid sister. And then, when Pete had died, Sam had stopped coming around altogether.

Other crushes had followed. And eventually Kate had started dating Craig. But a girl never forgot a first crush. And that was what worried Joyce. But, figuring Mike was upset enough without knowing any of that, Joyce rose and carried the stack of sample invitations to the rolltop desk in the corner of the living room. Mike followed her and, still brooding, watched as she put everything away.

“Kate is not going to let Sam use her to ease his grief,” she said firmly, doing her best to soothe Mike’s fears. “She wouldn’t let anyone do that. She’s got too much self-respect. Plus, they’ll be well chaperoned by the boys.”

“I hope you’re right,” Mike sighed.

Joyce closed the distance between them. She turned her face up to his and fanned her hands across his chest. More than anything, she wanted this new tension in her family to just go away. “I know I’m right,” she said with quiet confidence.

“And how is that?” Mike demanded gruffly, taking Joyce all the way into his arms. He looked down at her, smiling just a little as he waited for her reply.

Joyce leaned her head against Mike’s chest, loving the warmth and strength and smell of him. “Because starting tomorrow, I’m going to be keeping an eye on the situation there, while I help Kate with her wedding plans. And before you know it, Craig will be home on leave, too.” Those two things combined would work to keep Kate’s heart focused firmly on her own future. Joyce was sure of it.

“WILL?” The urgent whisper sounded outside Will’s bedroom door.

“Are you up? Come on. Let us in.”

Will groaned at the sound of Brad’s and Riley’s voices. He wasn’t asleep yet but the last thing he wanted to do was be bothered by those two troublemakers. He rolled over and put the covers over his head, feigning deafness.

Too late, the lock gave under the persistent fiddling from the other side. His bedroom door eased open. Lewis and Brad and Riley tiptoed in, flashlights in hand, whipped back the covers, and hunkered down beside Will’s bed. “We’re having a secret meeting,” Riley announced.

“Yeah, and we need you to come.” Lewis sent Will a pleading glance.

Will had an idea why Lewis wanted him there. He wanted someone to talk some sense into Brad and Riley, because while Lewis liked to be part of the “group” he didn’t like to get chewed out or grounded. And whatever mischief Brad and Riley were concocting for Kate Marten’s first night under their roof was probably going to cause both things to happen, Will thought. Dad would hit the ceiling. And some—if not all of them—would end up on some sort of restriction. Will had had enough of that the past six months to last him a lifetime. Even when he’d had nothing to do with it, he’d ended up getting blamed just because he was the oldest. He glared at the three of them. “Next person who unlocks my door is going to get a fist for breakfast. Now get out of here.”

Lewis looked disappointed. Brad and Riley remained unperturbed. “Fine. Be that way.” Brad shrugged, already heading for the door.

“Yeah, your loss,” Riley warned. “You’re going to miss some fun.” Together, they eased from his room as stealthily as they had entered.

Will flipped onto his stomach and pressed his face into the pillow. He wished he could have some fun. But now that he was living in Laramie, there wasn’t much chance of that. All of his friends were back in Dallas.

He could have vetoed the move here. Persuaded his dad they should stay in Dallas. But he hadn’t because he was tired of seeing the pitying glances of his friends and teachers, tired of being reminded everywhere he went, in everything he did, that his mom had died. And he’d known, with his senior year coming up, and all the senior activities scheduled that it was only going to get worse.

He wasn’t the only one feeling the pain. It had been just as bad for his brothers and his dad. So once school was out, they’d taken a vote and decided to move back to Laramie, to their house there. To see if that was any better.

In a sense it was. In Laramie, he really felt part of the McCabe clan in a way he never had in Dallas, and Will liked being closer to Aunt Lilah and Uncle John, their four sons and their families. It gave him a sense of belonging he hadn’t had since his mom had died.

What he didn’t like was the way he was constantly being compared to his dad. Since they had moved back here at the beginning of July, Will had been told he looked like his dad, acted like his dad, and as far as some people were concerned, might as well have been his dad “at that age.”

Will just didn’t see it.

Okay, so there was some physical resemblance. He had seen pictures of his dad at seventeen. Admittedly, they did look a lot alike. But any similarities ended there. Will couldn’t have cared less about computers or business or any of that. He wasn’t going to grow up to be a workaholic who knew more about what was going on at work than he did in his own home. And he sure as heck wasn’t going to get so wrapped up in any one woman that he couldn’t seem to function without her. There was a place for females in his life. But no female was going to be his life. Any girlfriend he had from this point forward would just have to understand that.

Meantime, Will sighed, looking at the clock and seeing another half-hour had passed, he had to get some sleep if he was going to be worth a damn at practice tomorrow. Knowing there was only one way that would happen anytime soon, Will got up and went to his closet. He reached for the duffel bag beneath the pile of clothes and magazines and brought it out just far enough to get what he needed before he headed back to bed.

CHAPTER FIVE

KATE WOKE to find the sun streaming in through the curtains. She sat up with a start and glanced at the clock. The digital display flashed four-fifteen. Damn, she thought, tossing back the covers. Her first full day taking care of the boys and the electricity was out. Odds were, six-year-old Kevin had been up for hours. Anxious to make sure everything was under control in the rest of the house, she grabbed her robe, belted it around her, and went to the bedroom door.

Though she could see the door was unlocked, the handle still wouldn’t budge. Frowning, Kate tried again to no avail. It was definitely stuck and she had the sinking sense it was no accident. So the boys were giving her a welcome of their own, hmm? Amused but far from defeated, Kate grabbed a pair of denim shorts, a T-shirt, and sneakers. She dressed hurriedly, put her hair up in a ponytail, then went back to try the door one last time. It still wouldn’t budge. Which left only one way out. Her bedroom window.

Kate went to the curtains and opened them. She lifted the window, then the screen. Ducking her head, she swung her leg out over the wide wooden sill. She groaned in dismay as something soft, thick and squishy plastered the inside of her thigh. Almost afraid to look, Kate touched a finger to the gooey mess. Peanut butter. Oh, nice, boys, nice.

Well, a little peanut butter had never hurt anyone, Kate told herself sternly as she wiped what she could off with the flat of her hand, then smeared it on the sill, figuring that was going to have to be cleaned, anyway. And she knew by whom! Her heart thudding in her chest, she used her hands as leverage and lowered her sneaker-clad feet onto the ground beneath her. Kate swore again as her ankles stuck to the surprisingly wet ground cover.

Knowing by now there had to be something there, too, Kate looked down at her feet. She was up to her ankles in leaves and—oh, God—was that…maple syrup that had been generously slopped all over the ivy? She touched her finger to it, then lifted it to her face and cautiously sniffed. Yes, it sure was.

“Funny, boys,” Kate muttered as the Texas summer sun shone down on her head. Telling herself she had been a camp counselor for six years and could certainly handle this, Kate made her way out of the ground cover and onto the stone pathway that curved around the house, her shoes smacking irritatingly with every step. She made her way down the sidewalk to the garden hose. Using the flat of her unsticky left hand, she removed as much of the remaining peanut butter from her inner thigh as she could, then took off her shoes and rinsed off her feet and ankles. She did not want to be barefoot when she confronted the boys, but she had no choice.

Aware she did not have a house key, as Sam had neglected to give her one, Kate leisurely made her way around to the front door. It was locked. She rang the bell. No one answered.

Sure by now she was being watched from somewhere—the boys would not have wanted to miss this!—Kate glanced around behind her and saw nothing. No one in the trees or in the cars. Kate went around to the garage. It, too, was locked up tight as a drum. Kate headed for the back door off the laundry room. It was unlocked. Which meant what? she wondered. Another booby trap?

Determined not to be caught unawares this time, she edged it open. Then waited just outside the doorway. Again, not so much as one breath was heard. “Okay, guys,” she called in a firm but cheerful voice as she gingerly stepped inside. As she did so, a bucket above her upended, pouring at least a quart of white flour onto her head.

Kate sneezed several times, and thought, but couldn’t be sure, she heard a chorus of muffled male giggles. “All right, guys, you’ve made your point,” Kate announced as she dusted the flour from her face.

Heading for the kitchen, she went straight to the drawer beside the sink and brought out a clean dishtowel. Still standing in front of the sink, she reached for the spigot, turned the water on and was promptly drenched from neck to waist by the sprayer hose beside the faucet. Screaming in surprise, Kate jumped backward away from the still-spraying hose on the sink ledge. This time she heard lots of laughter. Kate swiftly moved around to shut off the water.

Okay, this was the place where she was supposed to scream and threaten and lose it, Kate concluded thoughtfully. No doubt that was what all the other housekeepers Sam had employed had done. But not her, Kate thought as she studied the rubber band the boys had wrapped around the handle of the sink sprayer, pressing the lever into an on position and guaranteeing that whomever turned on the water next would be drenched. They might have gotten her four times in a row. But this was one situation where they would definitely not have the last laugh.

Her plan already forming, Kate tiptoed back out of the house and headed for the driveway. Will’s Jeep was gone—he was probably at football practice. But Brad’s car was still there and it was unlocked. Kate lifted the hood and did a little quick handiwork, then dashed around to the side of the house, out of view. Seconds later the front door opened. Stealthy footsteps padded out onto the sidewalk. “Hey! The hood on my car is up!” Brad said.

“And that’s not all!” Riley noted grimly. “She took the distributor cap!”

“That’s it,” Brad vowed passionately, upset to have his social life interrupted yet again. “We’re gonna have to—”

“Gonna have to what?” Kate taunted as she came around the side of the house and gave Brad and Riley a good squirt with the garden hose.

“Show you who’s boss!” Riley shouted, followed with a rebel yell as he and Brad whipped loaded Super Soaker water pistols from their belts, confirming Kate’s guess that their earlier pranks had just been a warmup to their much-anticipated grand finale. Still whooping, they let her have it. Kev and Lewis—who’d been lingering uncertainly on the front porch—jumped out to join the melee.

Grinning, Kate gave back as good as they gave her, even as they all dashed around madly and soaked each other from head to toe. If she and the boys were going to have it out, they might as well do it now. And maybe that was just what these boys needed, a rousing fight with their new sitter. Fortunately for her, she had an endless supply of water—they didn’t.

“Run for the house!” Lewis directed, taking charge as the Super Soaker pistols emptied. “She can’t get us there!”

“Want to bet?” Kate shouted as she merrily gave chase, still spraying them madly all the while. The boys shrieked and howled and stumbled over one another as they scrambled up on the porch, climbing over the railing that edged it in an attempt to get to safety.

“Cowards!” Kate teased as she ran up the front steps and joyously squirted them again. Dashing forward, she put herself between them and the front door. Still aiming the hose at the boys, she effectively kept them from getting inside. And that was when she heard the powerful motor of Sam’s limo pulling into the driveway.

THAT QUICKLY, everyone froze in mid-mischief, the laughter dying in their throats, the smiles fading from their faces. Kate lowered the hose as Sam stepped out of the rear of the vehicle. Ever so casually, he leaned back toward the car, and said something to his driver through the open window. The driver nodded, backed out of the drive, and drove away, while Sam started for them, his lips set, his eyes hard.

“Oh, man, are we in for it now,” Brad groaned, wiping his forearm across his drenched brow.

And that, Kate thought glumly, water dripping down her face as she watched Sam coolly and methodically close the distance between them, just about summed it up. Suddenly she felt as if she’d been transported back to the Old West and it was high noon in the middle of the street. She was the cowboy—or girl—in the white hat that everyone was relying on to get them out of the mess they were in. Sam was the much-feared gunslinger.

A muscle working in his jaw, Sam stopped just short of her.

Kate smiled with as much charm as she could muster and, garden hose still in hand, stepped off the front porch. The boys may have started this, but the fact they’d been caught whooping it up red-handed was just as much her fault as theirs. “So, Sam,” she said cheerfully, as if such a riot as this were to be commended instead of denigrated. “What brings you home this early?”

“Instinct,” Sam retorted grimly. “I had a feeling something might happen.” His eyes ruthlessly swept the group before returning to Kate’s. “Just what in blazes is going on here?” he demanded furiously.

The boys exchanged uneasy glances, and much to Kate’s surprise, couldn’t seem to wait to leap to her defense. “We were just horsing around, Dad,” they claimed, surprising Sam, too.

Seeing no point in involving Sam in what was essentially a power struggle between her and the boys, Kate inserted glibly, “And now that we’re finished—”

“Boys. Inside. Now!” Sam commanded. Hands braced on his waist, he regarded them all sternly. “Unless I miss my guess you have a lot to undo in there.”

Uh-oh. Work fast, guys, Kate thought.

She turned to go, too. Maybe if she lent a hand, things wouldn’t look so bad.

Unfortunately, Sam moved with her, blocking her way. “Oh, no, you don’t.”

Aw, heck.

His hand curved over her shoulder, grabbing a fistful of drenched pale blue cotton. “I want to talk to you.”

SAM WAITED UNTIL THE BOYS had all gone inside before he continued. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Having a little fun?” Kate said cheekily. Unfortunately, the irony in her voice was lost on him.

“This was precisely the kind of behavior I had hoped to avoid by having you stay here.”

Abruptly aware her shirt was clinging damply to her breasts in a way that was much too revealing, Kate grabbed a handful of fabric and pulled it away from her body. “If you don’t mind, Sam, I’d like to change clothes…” Maybe by the time she was dry, she’d have figured out how to handle him.

He remained much too close to her. “I do mind,” he said, his brown eyes boring into hers. “What possessed you to get down to their level?”

Kate decided to put some distance between them and moved away from him to replace the distributor cap on Brad’s Mustang. “Maybe because I wanted to pass initiation,” she said over her shoulder. She paused long enough to see his eyes soften, his posture relax. “You don’t look surprised,” she said as she replaced the hose at the side of the house.

Sam sighed, looking no less unhappy but a little less fierce as he told her, “They’ve put everyone who’s worked for me through some kind of test, though never to this extent.” His glance traveling over her from head to toe, he continued to regard her with disapproval.

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