Table of Contents

Cover Page

Excerpt

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Epilogue

Copyright

“Mrs. Beetle, I’d like you to meet my wife.”

His what? Miranda froze. She’d stolen away for a few minutes—and what had happened in her absence?

Brodie’s long fingers massaged her shoulders as he manipulated her under the mantle of his muscular arm. “Darlin’, come in and say howdy to Mrs. Beetle…you know, the social worker. Once she heard you were going to stay and be a mom to these kids, her whole attitude about my keeping them changed.”

Be a mom to these kids. Longing waged in Miranda’s chest. To be a mom, to make a family with Brodie—how could that not move her? And to know that very dream relied on promising the impossible?

Dear Reader,

This July, Silhouette Romance cordially invites you to a month of marriage stories, based upon your favorite themes. There’s no need to RSVP; just pick up a book, start reading…and be swept away by romance.

The month kicks off with our Fabulous Fathers title, And Baby Makes Six, by talented author Pamela Dalton. Two single parents many for convenience’ sake, only to be surprised to learn they’re expecting a baby of their own!

In Natalie Patrick’s Three Kids and a Cowboy, a woman agrees to stay married to her husband just until he adopts three adorable orphans, but soon finds herself longing to make the arrangement permanent And the romance continues when a beautiful wedding consultant asks her sexy neighbor to pose as her fiancé in Just Say I Do by RITA Award-winning author Lauryn Chandler.

The reasons for weddings keep coming, with a warmly humorous story of amnesia in Vivian Leiber’s The Bewildered Wife; a new take on the runaway bride theme in Have Honeymoon, Need Husband by Robin Wells; and a green card wedding from debut author Elizabeth Harbison in A Groom for Maggie.

Here’s to your reading enjoyment!

Melissa Senate Senior Editor Silhouette Romance

Please address questions and book requests to:

Silhouette Reader Service

U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269

Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3

Three Kids and a Cowboy
Natalie Patrick

www.millsandboon.co.uk

NATALIE PATRICK

believes in romance and has firsthand experience to back up that belief. She met her husband in January and married him in April of that same year—they would have eloped sooner but friends persuaded them to have a real wedding. Ten years and two children later she knows she’s found her real romantic hero.

Amid the clutter in her work space, she swears that her headstone will probably read She Left This World A Brighter Place But Not Necessarily A Cleaner One. She certainly hopes her books brighten her readers’ days.

Prologue

Just where are you headed to, Brodie Sykes?”

“Hell—if I don’t change my ways.” Brodie checked the bit in his horse’s mouth as he answered his ranch house cook, Curtis “Crispy” Holloman.

“As if they’d have you,” the scrappy older man muttered. “Besides, it ain’t your ways that need changin’—”

“It’s the company I keep,” Brodie said. He hoped getting the first jab in would avert a lecture from the only man alive who’d dare to give him one.

Brodie Sykes ran a tight operation. He commanded the respect of every man jack who rode for his Circle S brand—every man but that damned ol’ ornery Crispy. Somehow, in the month since he hired the cantankerous cook, Crispy had gotten under Brodie’s barbed-wire disposition to befriend him.

Brodie drew in the smells of horse and saddle leather. “Right now what I could really use is a change of scenery."

“Yeah, and I know where you’re a-goin’—down to that creek on the edge of your property. But don’t see why you have to go all that far. You can brood and be generally disagreeable anywhere.”

His horse snorted. Brodie couldn’t have given a better response himself, so he didn’t.

Crispy’s boots shifted, and the boards of the porch groaned. “She’s gone, boy. You got to get on with your life.”

Brodie ignored the fist-to-the-gut effect of that advice and tightened the cinch on his saddle. What Crispy couldn’t seem to get through his pigheaded skull was that even though he was only thirty-three, Brodie’s life wasn’t much worth living anymore. His wife’s leaving almost a year ago, had seen to that.

Dipping his hat to his cook, Brodie fit his boot into the stirrup and mounted his horse. “I’m going out to ride awhile.”

Crispy leaned against the post of the back porch. The summer breeze stirred the last few wisps of gray hair on the old man’s head. “You know you bought this place from your in-laws nigh on to a month ago?”

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Well, I can count the number of times you’ve stayed in for supper since then on my right hand. And you know it’s missing two fingers—lost in the line of duty.”

Brodie grimaced as he worked his own hands into the soft leather of his work gloves. “Would you stop saying that? It makes it sound like you lopped off a couple fingers making beef stew or something, instead of losing them in an accident in the army.”

The older man laughed—more of a cackle, really.

Brodie had to admit that having Crispy around certainly gave the ranch, if not the food, a distinctive flavor. He smoothed one hand back over his straight blond hair, then fit his hat tight on his head.

“Now, I wouldn’t take note of your stayin’ away so much if you was keeping company with a lady friend, but…”

“That’s enough.” Brodie took the reins in one hand and glared down at the wiry old man. “I hired you to be a cook, not play Cupid.”

“Seems you could use a touch of Cupid’s folly, young fellow.

Brodie’s throat tightened. His lips burned as they thinned against his bared teeth. “Not interested, old man. Just forget it. Everything they say about me is true. The blood in my veins is as cold as any snake’s, and the only thing harder than this bullhead of mine is my heart.”

Brodie thumped his fist once against his chest and finished in a voice as clean and deadly as a gleaming dagger’s blade. “That’s the reason my wife left me. I ran her off.”

“Plain as that?”

“Plain as that,” Brodie echoed flatly. Everybody in and around Lost River, Texas, knew that he and his brother had been orphaned young, then farmed out and around to various family members until they were old enough to fend for themselves. That was why he didn’t bother prefacing his explanation. “I cut my teeth on the notion that family was everything, old man. Maybe only someone who had actually lost his family could understand this, but it meant the world to me to have children of my own.”

“And?”

“And—” Brodie let out a long sigh “—the doctors said Miranda couldn’t have children.”

With one hand, Brodie rubbed his leather glove across his upper lip, then turned his gaze toward the sunset. The bright oranges and crimsons streaking the big Texas sky stung his eyes as he went on, “But I wouldn’t let it go at that. I brought home books, found specialists, suggested she have operations. I pushed her to try everything.”

“What about adopting?”

“Sometimes adoptions don’t work out, you know. I just couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d get to love a kid, only to see it taken away.” Brodie ran one finger beneath the blue bandanna tied around his neck, freeing it from the collar of his chambray shirt. “So, I wanted to try every possible avenue to have our own children first. I just kept pushing her until she had nowhere left to go but out of my life.”

The bridle clinked quietly in the prickling air between them.

“You still love the gal?”

“Love? Me?” He swallowed hard, but couldn’t budge the weighty knot in the center of his chest. “Haven’t you heard? This old cowboy ain’t capable of it.”

Touching his hat brim to bid the old man goodbye, Brodie turned his horse’s head toward the open range. He gave a quick kick to the animal’s flanks, let out a holler and rode off.

As soon as he was out of view of his ranch, Brodie leaned back in the saddle and gazed out at the darkening clouds rippling toward the setting sun. This was what he did to relax at day’s end. He was as comfortable on a horse as some men his age were in an easy chair.

Without thinking much about it, he rode toward the peaceful, winding creek that sliced through the new land he had recently acquired. Kissing Creek, it had been called for as long as anyone could remember. But Brodie had more than memories of kissing under the sweeping leaves of the trees on it’s banks. What he most vividly remembered there was his wife—and all the time they had spent courting when the land belonged to her parents.

His in-laws, the Robbins, had built up the best ranch in this part of Texas, but then the time had come for them to retire. They’d leaped at the chance to sell to him, because they trusted him to care for the place. Guilt stabbed at him for just an instant when he admitted to himself that they also hoped that their daughter, Miranda, would someday come back to him and live in her family home.

Brodie never kidded himself into thinking that Miranda might return. Never.

He coughed uncomfortably into his fisted hand.

Brodie didn’t give a Yankee dime what others believed of him, but he’d always been brutally honest with himself. In truth, he had envisioned his wife in that home more times than he would have cared to recount. Every time he opened the front door, his heart stopped, he held his breath, and he searched the entryway for any trace that Miranda had come home.

He forced a sigh through the familiar aching in his chest and raised his face to the horizon. He lifted his hat, and cupped one hand back over his hair. A gust of light wind blew his hair into his eyes before he smoothed the strands back and shoved his hat low on his head.

Something was blowing in, and he didn’t belong out tonight. He clucked softly to his horse to turn him toward home, but a high-pitched screech, as harsh as fingernails on a blackboard, stopped him.

“What the—”

A metallic crunch came quick and hard, followed by several thuds, then nothing.

His heart contracted fiercely with every beat. He strained to hear. He scanned the dimming horizon, unable to make out any shapes against the deep blue-gray of dusk.

Then the ferocious wind picked up and sent a sound swirling across the plain to him. A frigid shudder rippled down his spine.

Desperately he searched the landscape for any sign to direct him to the child crying for help. Anything, he prayed silently. Then he saw the puff of red dust near the road running just south of his ranch.

“H’yaw!” He urged his horse to fly over the flat ground.

The moment he saw the faded beige station wagon, he knew it belonged to his longtime friends and nearest neighbors, Donna and Travis Stone.

To find the two of them in the wreckage would have been heartrending enough, but as Brodie rode faster and closer to the smoldering heap of an automobile, he recalled his last conversation with the couple. This was the day the Stones were bringing three siblings they hoped to adopt home for a trial visit.

“Please let those kids be okay,” Brodie whispered as he brought his horse to a halt beside the fence.

Dismounting, he thanked God that he still wore his heavy work gloves and could easily push open the barbed wire and get through. In a second, he was kneeling over the sobbing, battered woman and the wailing toddler at her side.

“Donna? What—?”

“Oh, Brodie, I’m hurt real bad. I got Katie out, but I can’t seem to move now.” Still, she grabbed his shirt with incredible strength. “You’ve got to get the other two children before the fire spreads.”

That was when Brodie smelled the smoke. A heavy chill sank to the pit of his stomach.

“Hurry, Brodie.” Donna choked out the word. “It’s bad, real bad.”

One look at the crumpled mass of metal and Brodie knew she was right. He held little hope of finding any survivors, yet he had to try. Gritting his teeth, he rushed to the wreck, hoping things were not as bad as they appeared from the outside,

“Travis? Can you hear me?” he called as he reached the driver’s side. Black smoke rolled from the front seat, burning Brodie’s eyes and filling his lungs with hot, suffocating thickness.

With one hard yank, he pulled the blue bandanna around his neck up over his mouth and nose before he tore open the only door accessible to him. He stretched into the back seat, feeling, more than looking, for the two other children.

His hand curved around one plump leg. A tiny hand struck out and snatched at his shirtsleeve. As gently as he could, he pulled a young child from the car.

“I’m okay,” the girl, who appeared to be about five, told him. “It’s Bubba. He’s stuck in there.”

She wriggled from his grasp, determined to go back in.

Brodie pulled her away. “You have to get clear. I’ll get Bubba.”

She stared at him for a moment, blood matted in her pale hair, gray ashes smudged on her pink cheeks.

He nudged her toward the safety of the ditch. “Go. Now.”

Gulping in fresh air, he plunged in to the car again to rescue the little boy. The heat and smoke from the front seat had grown more intense. Any second now there could be a burst of flames, and then there would be no helping anyone.

Brodie groped in the hazy, stifling air. “Bubba? Can you hear me?”

A muffled gurgle led him down, feeling his way along the floorboards until his fingertips brushed a mass of silky hair. Working blind, he quickly located the child’s trapped ankles.

His muscles tightened as he curled his fingers under the edge of the seat. It wouldn’t budge.

The child whimpered.

Brodie tightened his grip and pulled harder, bracing his legs on the floorboard for leverage.

Metal squawked. Brodie felt a hot, gouging pain in his thigh. He couldn’t see what was prodding him, but knew that neither he nor the child had much time left.

He drew in the fiery, filtered air and held it, disregarding the searing heat in his lungs. Grunting out his frustration, Brodie tried to remember not to swear. What he needed right now was a little help from the Almighty, not a string of words that would singe a demon’s ears. One last time, he tightened his grip and forced the seat upward.

The little boy cried out, but this time was able to wrench himself free. Brodie let the seat drop and scooped up the child. He dragged the small body to his chest to protect the boy from the heat and the jagged metal surrounding them.

Quickly but cautiously, Brodie backed from the car. In long strides that jarred him to the bone, he carried the boy to safety.

As Brodie knelt beside Donna once more, the children huddled together, seeking solace from one another.

“Bubba, will everything be all right?” The five-year-old turned to her brother, who looked to be a year or two older.

The boy rubbed a streak of blood from the bridge of his nose and turned his serious gaze to his younger sisters.

Brodie knew that look. Suddenly it seemed not so long ago that he had been the older brother thrust too soon into the role of caregiver. Even as the memory loomed in his mind, Brodie had to admit that this child wore the responsibility with poignant ease.

This wasn’t the first time this child had dealt with loss. As things stood, they were about to face it once again. The family they had hoped to find would never be now. These three small souls had only each other to cling to and count on.

Chapter One

Six Weeks Later

“Mom! Daddy? Time to kill the fatted calf. Your prodigal daughter is home.” Miranda Robbins Sykes kicked open the front door of her parents’ farmhouse with one upraised knee. It swung fully open, cracking against the empty pegs of the coatrack on the entry wall—just as it always had when she came whooshing in from school as a child.

She shut her eyes and inhaled the musky scent of old wood and lavender. Smiling, she dropped her purse, and the one small suitcase she’d brought from her car. She shut her eyes and sighed. Home at last.

Miranda shook back her dark hair and caught a glimpse of movement just to her right. “Mom?”

Turning to face her own reflection in the hallway mirror, Miranda gasped in surprise. The long trip from Tulsa had certainly taken its toll on her. Who’d have guessed that road-weary face had once belonged to the former Cameron County pioneer princess, the Lost River Rodeo Roundup queen and the second runner up to Miss Texas?

Miranda batted her wispy bangs from her forehead with the back of her hand and wrinkled her nose at the image staring back at her. Those days of big hair and big hopes seemed as distant to her now as her childhood here in this house. Her worldly-wise deep green eyes seemed to belong to someone she didn’t quite recognize anymore.

She had come back to Lost River to face her past and force him—no, it, she corrected mentally—to let her forge a future for herself.

She glanced again at the mirror, looked away, then fixed her gaze firmly again on the woman she had become. “Miranda Jean Robbins Sykes, you are a liar.”

She tried to smooth down the windblown mane that framed her face and tangled around her suntanned shoulders. Tugging at the waistband of her jeans, which fit even more snugly than they had a few weeks ago, she said, “You didn’t come here to face your past. You came to confront him.”

Closing one eye like a gunfighter calling out a coward, she set her lips in a hard line. “You’ll never be able to go through with this, girl, if you don’t admit right now that you’re here to look Brodie Sykes dead in the eye and tell him your marriage is…”

Over. She couldn’t make herself say it, even though the word rang loud and clear in her mind. She inhaled the familiar scents around her and dropped her gaze to the faded needlepoint rug at her feet. Through the dull but persistent pain throbbing in her being, she forced herself to admit it, even if only in silence. She had come here to make official what a year of loneliness and self-scrutiny had already taught her—her marriage was over.

The marriage had been over ever since the day she found out she could not give Brodie the thing he wanted most in life, a child of his own. Miranda ran one hand down her sleeveless cotton shirt, letting her palm rest atop the cool buttons over her flat stomach. Even after all this time, the cold reality still cut like a blade twisting in her belly.

When they first learned of her infertility, she had believed that she and Brodie could move beyond it. It wasn’t as though they didn’t love each other. If they worked together…

Brodie Sykes, she had learned during the year it took for their relationship to unravel to the point that she felt she had no choice but to leave, was not the work-it-out-together kind. It simply wasn’t in his nature.

She must have known that before, she realized now. Brodie never pretended to be anything but the man his life’s experience made him. The same Brodie who had stepped in to take charge of his younger brother, had applied the same determination to build a first-class cattle operation and then to cope with her infertility.

Books, specialists, treatments. Brodie had been relentless in his quest to create a child. With each new failure, another brick had formed in the wall between them. The passion that had once burned so hot that a look could set their hearts afire at a shared glance had been reduced to something calculated and clinical. The long talks about hopes and dreams and the future had slowly changed into discussions about odds and statistics and new procedures to aid conception. In the weeks before she left, they’d hardly spoken at all. Still, Brodie had persisted. One more theory, one more medical opinion.

Miranda shook her head at the irony. The very things she loved most about Brodie, his untamable animal passion, his mule-in-the-mud stubbornness, even his scruffydog sense of loyalty, made it impossible for her to stay married to him.

Divorce. The very word sank like stone in the pit of her stomach.

She’d found a lawyer—or, in truth, he’d found her. Conrad Harmon III was a Dallas attorney whose work brought him to Tulsa frequently. One rainy morning in the diner where she had waited tables for the past year, she’d shared a cup of coffee and an earful of her troubles with the young man.

He’d patted her hand, dried her tears and promptly offered to handle her divorce free of charge, provided she could assure him that her husband would not contest it. Once she had that assurance from Brodie, the wheels would be set in motion. And even though those wheels would run right over her heart in the process, she knew this was the right thing to do. Brodie would be free.

This way, twenty years from now, she wouldn’t wonder if the man she loved with all her being secretly resented her for cheating him out of something another woman might easily have given him. This way, he could find a woman who could love him and be the mother of his children.

She glanced around the entryway, not seeing anything in particular through her fog of sadness and resignation. Once she was out of the way, Brodie could marry again, buy a big house like this, and start filling it up with energetic, happy children. She could almost hear them now, squealing and thundering through the halls.

“I ain’t taking a bath, and you can’t make me!”

Miranda jerked her head up and glared through narrowed eyes at the still staircase in front of her. “What the—?”

A series of thumps and bumps shook the ceiling over her head. The ancient hinges of the upstairs bathroom door squawked unmercifully as it banged open.

“Catch Katie! Catch Katie!” two young voices chimed in unison.

“Who’s Katie?” Miranda murmured to no one.

“I’ve got her by a wingbone,” a rusty-throated older man hollered.

A wingbone? Maybe she should ask, “What’s Katie?” The image of her parents wrestling an angel popped into her mind. Miranda moved toward the foot of the steps, her head tilted upward. “Mom? Daddy? What’s going on up there?”

“Yeeeoooww!” The older man let out a long howl that drowned out her question even in her own ears. “That little bas—er, darlin’, bit me.”

Obviously, Katie was no angel. Miranda blinked. She pressed her hand to her chest and edged warily onto the first step. She drew a deep breath to call out again, but the sound of bare feet slapping on the floor upstairs, followed by a commotion of voices, cut her off.

“She’s headed for the bedroom!” a child cried out.

“Get her, get her!” another child screeched.

“Grab aholt and hang on,” the older man said encouragingly. “Jest stay clear of them chompers of her’n.”

What had happened here in her absence? Miranda batted her eyes, trying to comprehend what she was hearing. Had her parents started a day-care center, or could they be looking after neighbors’ children?

She hadn’t spoken to her folks in almost three months. She hadn’t dared, because she’d known they would either try to talk her out of her plan or let Brodie in on it. The last thing she wanted was a set of disapproving parents and a forewarned husband lying in wait for her when she rolled into town.

Not that this hubbub was much better. She gripped the smooth, polished wood of the oak banister, deciding the best thing to do was to go upstairs’and see for herself what was going on. Her foot had barely touched the second step when the frantic cries started again over her head.

“She’s too slippery to hold on to, Mr. Crispy,” a child complained at top volume.

Mr. Crispy? Miranda cocked her head. That sounded more like a fried-chicken franchise than someone who belonged in her parents’ home.

“She’s getting away,” the child said again. “Look out, she’s heading for—”

The stairs. Miranda raised her gaze in time to see a chubby cherub—a chubby naked cherub—with a frothy halo of white bubbles encircling wet blond hair flying straight at her. The child’s feet hardly seemed to skim the steps as she streaked down the stairs and away from the two children and one old man running after her.

For an instant, Miranda considered nabbing the fleeing child, but in the flurry of confusion, she couldn’t act fast enough. The little girl whisked past in a blur of arms, legs and suds, leaving a soapy imprint on Miranda’s jeans as she did.

The old man came pounding down the stairs with his knobby knees and elbows poking out at odd angles from his thin body. He pointed to the quivering plops of bubbles that left a trail into the formal living room to the right of the stairway. “She went that-a-way.”

The two children, a young boy and an even younger girl, both dressed in what in Texas would be called their “Sunday best,” stomped down the stairs behind the man. The girl clutched a faded red robe that Miranda recognized as her own, left in her bedroom closet years ago. None of them seemed aware of her presence on the stairs until they were almost on top of her.

Miranda held up one hand, keeping her voice steady as she tried to get the situation under control. “Excuse me, but who are you, and what are you doing in my parents’ house?”

“Whoa!” the old man bellowed, practically in her face. He stopped short one step up from her.

When the two children stumbled into the man’s bony back, Miranda grimaced, but she held on to her composure. “Just what is going on here?”

“It’s her.” A blush of pure awe colored the words whispered by the young girl, who was peering up at her from behind one of the old man’s legs.

“Her who?” the boy asked. He crossed his arms over his chest, and his tortoise-shell glasses bobbled as he crinkled his nose at her.

The old man reared back his head and clamped his hands on his hips. “Well, tuck a feather in my shirt and call me tickled, it is her.”

“Her who?” the boy demanded again. Then, suddenly, his blue eyes seemed to grow huge behind the brown circular frames. “Oh, m’gosh,” he murmured. “It’s the lady whose picture is on the wall in the den.”

“Howdy-do, Miz Sykes,” the man said in a soft voice.

Miranda pursed her lips and cocked her head. How did this odd fellow know her name? Had they met before?

“Who are you?” she asked again. “And what are you doing in my parents’ home?”

“Whur’s my manners?” He let out a quiet clucking laugh. “My name is Curtis Holloman, ma’am, but just every-danged-body calls me Crispy.”

The man dipped his head, his hand raising automatically to his head, as though to tip a hat that wasn’t there.

Miranda noticed something else that wasn’t there—two of the man’s fingers. She made a quick study of him, from his thin gray hair to his bowed legs, and felt certain that if she had ever met this man before, she would not have forgotten it.

She nodded stiffly and said, “Nice to meet you, Mr.—”

“Call me Crispy, ma’am.” He pressed a hand to his chest.

Miranda realized he probably did that because there were people who felt uncomfortable about shaking hands with him. Sighing, she wished she could smack some sense into whoever had made him feel he had to shelter them from his injury. She thrust her own hand out. “Nice to meet you, Crispy.”

He glanced down at her hand, then into her eyes, and then he seized her hand with outright enthusiasm. “Pleasure to meet you, too, Miz Sykes. Been mighty curious to make your acquaintance, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

Curious. Now there was a word for the moment. Miranda returned the hearty shake Crispy gave and held his hand a bit longer as she asked, “I don’t mind your saying so if you don’t mind explaining why you’re in my parents’ house and what—”

“Sorry, ma’am, but I make it a strict personal policy not to mix into other folks’s bidness. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I got to ketch little Katie.”

“B-but—” Miranda grasped air as she tried to keep Crispy in the handshake.

He slipped past her, only pausing in the doorway of the living room to say over his.shoulder, “Got someone from the dee-partment of social services coming ’round today. And it jest wouldn’t do for her to find one of the children runnin’ through the house all wild and nekkid, now would it?”

“I…suppose…not.” Miranda wound her arms over her churning stomach as she watched the old fellow lumber out of sight. Twisting around, she suddenly became aware of two blond heads close together, with two sets of big blue eyes focused on her.

“I don’t suppose either of you can tell me what’s going on here?” she asked, leaning against the banister.

The pair looked at one another, but said nothing.

“Can’t you at least tell me where the owners of this house are?”

The little boy narrowed his eyes and moved one step closer to her, puffing out his chest as he said firmly, “We’re not allowed to talk to strangers, and even if we did we can’t tell ’em important stuff like where the owner of the house is.”

“She’s not a stranger, Bubba.” The girl wadded Miranda’s robe into a ball and used it to nudge the boy out of the way as she moved to share the second stair with Miranda. “She’s the princess on the wall.”

Miranda had to smile at the idea that this girl thought her a princess. The child must have seen the photos of her in full beauty-queen regalia in her father’s den and drawn that conclusion. She smiled down at the innocent admiration and placed one hand under the girl’s pudgy chin. “I’m not really—”

“You’re pretty, just like in your pictures, Your Highness,” the girl whispered before Miranda could finish. “Everybody thinks so, especially Brodie, ‘cause he spends a lots of time looking at—”

“Brodie?” Miranda dropped her hand, a wave of apprehension rolled from her thudding heart to her weakened knees at the mention of the name. “Brodie Sykes? Why would Brodie Sykes be in this house, looking at my trophy wall?”

“’Cause he lives here, silly.” The girl giggled, hugging the bunched up robe tightly to her body.

The child’s happy laughter sounded tinny and distant to Miranda. Everything seemed to disappear in a dark swirl of incomprehension as she tried to sort out what the child had told her. “Brodie lives here? In this house? I…I don’t believe it”

“Well, you don’t have to believe it, lady,” the boy said, his chin set in confident defiance. “You can see it for yourself, on account of here he comes.”

Miranda scarcely had time to pivot on her heel before the door swept open to crash again against the coatrack.

“Brodie.” The name tingled on her lips, even as her body went numb.

He stepped up to fill the doorway with his broad shoulders and black hat. The bright sunlight behind him put his face in shadow, so that Miranda could not see what emotion showed in his eyes.

For a heartbeat, she wondered if he saw her standing there. Then the paper of the grocery sacks he carried crackled, like a jolt of tension suddenly filling the dry air around them. He had seen her.

She tried to swallow. Tried to blink. Tried to think of what to say after all this time. Her mind went blank, her ability to speak as shrouded as the figure looming in the doorway. It was Brodie’s move.

Randi. Brodie felt his lips move, heard the once affectionate nickname rip through his entire body, yet knew he hadn’t said a thing. He couldn’t say a thing. He just stood in the doorway, the Texas sun warming his back, the sight of his wife standing before him searing his soul. Still, he had to fight off the urge to shudder as if chilled to the core of his being.

Miranda had come home. To him? Could he hope for such a miracle? Could time have healed the wounds he’d inflicted on the woman he loved—the woman whose love he had so battered that she felt she had to run away from him, instead of trusting him enough to work it out?

If Brodie thought for one moment that Miranda had actually come home to him, he wouldn’t have hesitated. He’d have fallen down on his knees and beg her forgiveness. Then, after he thanked God, all the angels and whatever mode of transportation brought her back to him, he’d have stood, scooped her up in his arms, and headed for the nearest bedroom. There, they’d have made love until they could hardly breathe anymore, until they’d loved away all the cold lonely nights of this past year, until they both knew they could never sleep alone ever again.

If she had come home to him. But the look in Miranda’s eyes made it clear that she had come here thinking to find her parents, not her husband. After a year away, the first contact she wanted to make had been with her family—and that no longer included him.

That realization, wrenched loose the past year’s full measure of pain, anger and loneliness from the depths of his soul. It welled up in his chest, almost stifling him. He inhaled the hint of Miranda’s perfume that lingered in the still air, and with it the memory of her betrayal, which sliced through his body like bits of jagged glass.

How could he love someone so much he thought her leaving would near about kill him and yet, seeing her again, want nothing more than to push right past her as though she didn’t even exist for him anymore? By instinct, his hand went to his hat brim, tipping it downward, not in greeting, but to keep her from seeing the potent mix of love and heartache in his face.

If she did see his pain, she did not react. Instead, she just stood there, her face paled by the surprise of his entrance, her breathing shallow, her whole body tensed, as though she might bolt at the slightest provocation.

He narrowed his eyes and studied her for a moment. Though only a year had passed since he last laid eyes on her, he could see a definite change, but he was hardpressed to pinpoint it. She seemed softer somehow, more womanly, but with a confidence tested by fire.

Hellfire, he mused. That was certainly where he felt he’d spent most of this past year—in hell. And it had changed him, too. But would Miranda give him a chance to prove that? Would she even believe it? And why should he give a damn whether she believed it or not, after what she’d put him through…after what they’d put each other through?

A year ago, he’d run her off by proclaiming he couldn’t care for someone else’s children. Now Miranda had come back to find that his house was teeming with them. Brodie felt his lips tug into a sad smile. His gaze flicked over Bubba and Grace, whose faces were filled with excitement and wonder at the situation.

He didn’t know how the children would affect Miranda’s opinion of him, didn’t know if there was any chance that they could work things out or if they should try. He only knew that the first time he and Miranda spoke again, they did not need an audience.

Slowly, he slid the filled grocery sacks to the floor beside his feet. With his eyes always on the three people in front of him, he only heard the paper crunch as the sacks settled on the wooden floor. Too late, he realized he’d set one on the toe of his boot, and it toppled, spilling apples and sending several cans rolling across the entryway. Ignoring them, he stepped forward.

“Bubba, Grace, where’s Crispy?” he asked

“He’s chasing Katie,” Grace said matter-of-factly as she smoothed one small hand over the faded fabric lumped over her arm. “She got out of her bath and ran off when he accidentally got soap in her eyes.”

“Then maybe you two should help him get her and get her hair rinsed off.” Brodie was surprised at the even, natural tone of his voice, given the white-hot emotional brew roiling in his belly. Hoping he could maintain that facade of control, he raised his gaze from the two children to meet Miranda’s shock-filled eyes.

He swallowed hard and clamped his hands on his hips. The fabric of his freshly laundered jeans rasped against his damp palms as he lowered his voice and spoke to his wife for the first time in a year. “Randi…I mean, Mrs. Sykes and I…need a few moments alone.”

Chapter Two

“What is going on here? Where are my parents? And why are you living in their house?” Miranda hadn’t thought herself capable of speaking. However, once she had dutifully followed Brodie into what had been her father’s den, the questions began to tumble out of her mouth.

She supposed they were a defense against the waves of emotion crashing down on her at the sight of Brodie, big as life, before her. She hadn’t thought seeing him again would be so…confusing.

Stabbing heartache fought with buoyant joy inside her. To complicate things further, as she watched him walking away from her now—a sight that could buckle the knees of any healthy woman—that old thrill rippled through her again.

She brushed her fingertips over the crisp cotton of her shirt, feeling her heart pounding through the summer-weight fabric. She wondered what was going through Brodie’s mind. Was he glad to see her, or angry that she’d dare to reappear as suddenly as she’d left a year ago?

Despite a flutter in her stomach, she gritted her teeth and told herself that Brodie’s reaction didn’t really matter. How he felt about seeing her wouldn’t change reality. For both their sakes, she had to put aside her questions and never let Brodie see any weakness he inspired in her. If he sensed her turmoil, he’d try to fix it.

In her present confused state, she just might be tempted to let him try. And what would that get her but a new crack in an already crumbling heart?

She tossed back her hair and angled her chin up. She’d come here to confront Brodie, and that was what she was going to do, as soon as he explained the strange set of circumstances in which she found him and her family home. Standing by the open door, her back pressed against the cool wall, she crossed her arms over her chest and waited for that explanation.

Brodie moved slowly, like a man recovering from a body blow, around the big desk dominating a room whose focal point had once been a wall of her photos. The photos remained, but they seemed overshadowed by the unfamiliar trappings of a ranch office now in place.

Behind the desk, he seemed to notice neither her nor the gaudy memorial her parents had made to her. His leather chair squeaked as he dropped into it. It squeaked again when he swiveled it frontward, then moved to take his Stetson from his head and place the bad-boy-black hat on the desktop.

The moments dragged by, forcing Miranda to make a study of Brodie, rather than get her answers and get gone, as she would have liked.

The last time she saw Brodie, he’d been fast asleep in their bed, naked except for a tangled sheet and that stealyour-heart grin on his face. She could still see his bare chest, well-muscled arms and long legs. He’d always been built like something out of a western fantasy, lean and clean-cut, with broad shoulders and a behind made to be caressed by faded denim. If anything, this past year had amplified those qualities.

Miranda shifted against the wall, well aware of the changes she’d gone though—inwardly and outwardly—since she last kissed her husband goodbye. She tugged at the front of her shirt, hoping to make it blouse over the top of her jeans enough to disguise the ten pounds she’d gained trying to assuage her misery with chocolate candy and pasta Alfredo.

He ran one of his big hands through the sun-streaked waves of his blond hair, which had grown considerably. He always did that when he took his hat off. Now he had a heck of a lot more hair to rake through.

He’d let his hair get shaggy before, but it had never been this long. To her surprise, it worked for him. Worked too damn well, she thought, trying to quell the stirrings in the pit of her stomach.

Miranda swallowed hard and touched her own soft hair. She wondered if he hadn’t bothered with a haircut because she wasn’t around to remind him to do it. Or could he possibly know how truly sexy and powerful the golden mane made him look? Could it be a calculated thing to attract women? Had he moved on that much?

Not that it mattered, she told herself. In fact, that was exactly what she hoped would happened. She’d left Brodie so that he could find another woman, and if he’d actually started to make himself more attractive for just that reason, well…

It stank. After all, he was still married to her. A tightening in her chest made her pull her shoulders square and tilt her head back. Only a jerk would go out looking for another relationship with so much unresolved.

That wasn’t Brodie’s style. Like a dog with a bone, he would have held on. He had held on. That was why she had come back—because one of them had to let go. And a year’s worth of silence told her it wasn’t going to be Brodie.

“This can’t go on, Brodie, and you know it,” she said aloud, to her own surprise.

He jerked his head up, and for the first time, his gaze penetrated her facade.

Miranda gasped quietly at the sheer power in his piercing blue eyes.

His thin lips went pale as he spoke through a tight smile. “It’s nice to see you again, too, Randi.”

“Don’t…” She glanced down at the tips of her favorite red cowboy boots and jiggled her foot. Telling herself she couldn’t afford to sound so distraught, she drew in a deep breath and went on softly, “Please don’t call me that, Brodie.”

He tipped his head to one side and flattened his hands on the desk in front of him. Sunlight from the nearby window made the wedding band on his left hand glint as he whispered, “You used to like it when I called you that.”

“Things change.”

“Tell me about it,” he muttered, his gaze still fixed on hers.

Miranda pressed her tight shoulders to the wall and swallowed hard. “No, you tell me about it. Tell me what’s going on…and I mean right now.”

He laughed. It didn’t sound one bit as if he found her insistence amusing, though. It was a hard laugh. Cold.

Miranda shivered.

“That’s a hoot, Ran—uh, Miranda. You take off in the night, stay gone a year, then just show up on my doorstep and demand I tell you what’s going on.”

“That’s exactly what I’m doing,” she said with false bravado. “And you can start by telling me why you call my mom and dad’s house your doorstep.”

“I call it mine because I bought this place from them lock, stock and your barrel-racing trophies over three months ago.” He looked away from her. “You’d know that if you had bothered to phone home more than once every blue moon, or if you’d given your folks some way to get in touch with you.”

“B-bought it?” Her shoulders slumped as all the pretense she had mustered drained out of her. “You own Robbins Nest Ranch?”

He shifted in the chair. “It’s the Circle S now.”

“You kept the name of the old ranch?” She blinked against the pain of the memory.

The Circle S. They’d decided to name their ranch after the symbol of unending love—the circle—on their honeymoon. Miranda didn’t know what to read into Brodie’s keeping the name.

“I didn’t keep the name,” he said, as if he knew what she was thinking. “I kept the ranch—expanded it to include this one.”

“But you’re living here?”

“I let the foreman and his wife stay in the old house.” His relentless gaze drove into hers. “I think it pleased your folks to know this house wouldn’t set empty.”

Guilt at the mention of her parents made her bow her head. “I never had much to say to my folks while I was gone. I called now and then to let them know I was okay. When I wasn’t able to reach them these last few times, I sent a note. Then I didn’t call at all this last month because I was planning on coming home and I wanted it to be a…” She glanced up at him, almost cringing as she finished in a hoarse whisper, “…surprise.”

“Well, you got your wish.” He leaned back in his chair. “I’m surprised.”

“Me too.” She choked out the words.

“The question is, what do we do about it? It was pretty clear from the look on your face when I came through the door that you didn’t come home to me.”

A weak smile was all Miranda could manage to thank him for being the one to say it. She doubted she’d have had the strength. Right now, she wondered how she would get the courage to walk out the door again.

Still, she sighed and said, “I did come back to see you, Brodie, but I won’t pretend. It wasn’t to reconcile.”

He nodded, his jaw tight. For an instant, his eyes betrayed something—a flicker of pain, or was it resignation?—and then they went hard and distant, emptied of any emotion.

If only he’d let that emotion surface, Miranda thought, if only he’d yell and give her hell for leaving. If only he’d once crack open that facade enough to let her see what was inside, then maybe they could work things out. But as long as he kept it all locked up tight, she’d never be able to trust that he didn’t secretly resent, even hate, her for the fact that she couldn’t give him a child.

She forced her gaze away to sweep the room, hoping to draw comfort from the familiarity of her father’s den. The old green-and-gold wall paper remained, and so did the footstool of hand-tooled leather and the big bookshelves. She scanned the books’ spines, thinking the titles of old books of cowboy poetry would trigger a warm memory of the past, something she could cling to as she faced her future.

Making Babies: Modern Techniques in Aiding Conception. The Pregnant Pause: Why You Can’t Wait To Treat Infertility.

Who was she kidding? She wouldn’t have to wonder in twenty years if Brodie would feel cheated. She knew now, just as she had known the night she left.

She blinked back the tears. She had to get out of there. She wiped one damp palm down the rough denim of her jeans and managed to speak. “Maybe it would be best if you just told me where I could find my folks and I’ll get out of your hair.”

A thin smile crooked his lips up on one side, and he scored his splayed fingers back through his hair again. “I wondered when you’d notice my hair.”

“Don’t, Brodie,” she croaked softly.

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t what?” How dare he play it so calm, when they both knew this was shredding them up inside. She lifted her head in a flash of challenge. “Don’t bury your real feelings under that cowboy charm of yours. I’m not buying it anymore.”

He stood, sending his chair swiveling backward until it thudded into the photo-covered wall. “What the hell does that mean?”

“It means, get mad at me, darn it.” She pushed off from the wall and strode toward him. Slamming both hands on his desk, she tossed down the verbal gauntlet. “Throw me out of your house. Call me all the names I’m sure you’ve thought about me this last year. Vow to make me pay for the way I treated you. Tell me you’ve met another woman.”

With each suggestion, her voice rose in volume and intensity, until she demanded in a shriek of fury, “Tell me you don’t love me anymore.”

He planted his hands on the desk beside hers and leaned forward until the tips of their noses almost brushed.

Her nostrils twitched at the scent of his skin, of his cotton shirt, dried on the clothesline then starched and ironed. She pushed down the inevitable memories and met his gaze. His deep blue eyes held no clue as to what went on inside the man, and yet, gazing into them made Miranda tremble with pain and passion.

She wanted to withdraw, but didn’t dare show him that he could affect her that much. She’d never get through this if he saw what he still did to her with those eyes, that slow molasses-and-whiskey voice of his.

She wet her trembling lips and whispered, “Tell me you don’t love me.”

“No.”

If he expected her to feel flattered or relieved or even overwhelmed by his simple refusal, then he had her pegged pretty damned good. She felt all those things and more. She also felt like grabbing him and trying to shake some sense into his hard head. Instead, she looked to the ceiling and groaned her frustration, knowing her only hope was to get out of there and find a place to clear her mind.

Sighing wearily, she said, “Then tell me where my parents are.”

He relinquished the desk to stand straight and reply, “Phoenix.”

She blinked at him, the tense muscles in her arms relaxing as she asked, “Phoenix? Arizona?”

“Yep.”

“Why?”

He gave a tight shrug that made his answer seem more angry than casual. “Retired.”

“You mean they went out there already, to that little retirement community they always talked about?”

“Yep.”

“They weren’t planning on doing that for another year,” she said, trying to make it all fit. “I thought I had plenty of time before…I mean, who just up and leaves like that?”

“You.” His gaze bored into hers. His tanned cheeks grew taut, and his hands gripped his lean hips.

As strong, silent types went, Brodie took the prize as the strongest and most silent. Many times he’d told Miranda that he didn’t want to “talk things to death.” She knew that meant he just wanted to get on with things by fixing them himself. But when talking was his only recourse and he resorted to one-word answers, she knew things had gone from bad to worse, in his estimation.

Suddenly Miranda realized how hard this must be on him, as well, and she wanted doubly to get out, to give him some time and space to deal with it.

She stubbed the toe of her red boot against the leg of the desk. “I guess they got tired of waiting for me to call and just decided to go ahead with their plans.”

“Apparently.”

She took her hands off the desk and straightened. “Guess they also figured when I did call the ranch there’d be a familiar voice on the line to tell me where they’d gone. Right?”

Brodie cocked his head. A lock of blond hair swung onto his forehead.

Her fingertips burned to touch that hair. She squeezed her eyes shut to block it and him from her sight as she muttered, “I really goofed up big this time. I can’t think how this homecoming could have gotten anymore awkward or chaotic, not by any stretch of the imagination.”

A tiny rap came at the office door. “Daddy, it’s Katie. Come quick, the so-so circus lady is here!”

“You obviously need to stretch your imagination a little further, Miranda,” Brodie muttered.

He rubbed one hand over his face and tried to shoo away the fog that Miranda’s physical nearness created in him. As his callused palm dragged over his nose and down to his jaw, he slowly opened his eyes to face Miranda’s reaction!

“Daddy?” Miranda’s voice registered disbelief above the constant knocking at the door.

Yes, Daddy, he thought. It still startled him a bit to be called that. He wasn’t certain when it had started since Katie’s pronunciation of Brodie had teetered dangerously close to the “D” word from the beginning. Now that the child had slipped into the easy habit, he didn’t have the heart to correct her. Brodie sighed, shook his head, then strode from behind the desk.

As he passed her, Miranda tugged at his shirtsleeve and asked again, “Daddy?”

He moved forward so that his shirt slipped from between her fingers. Without looking at Miranda, he yanked open the door to reveal Katie, draped in a big, old robe, her hair soap-free but damp, standing barefoot in the doorway.

“The so-so circus lady is here.”

“That’s social service, darlin’, and I heard you the first time.” In the excitement of Miranda’s arrival, he had forgotten all about the social-service visit scheduled for today.

What was he going to do? This was his chance to make a lasting impression as a potential parent for the three kids who needed him so desperately, the kids he had come to care about enough to fight tooth and nail for them. He couldn’t let them down.

Their welfare had to take precedence over his own situation. Somehow he had to get Miranda out and then explain away the spilled groceries, the wet carpet, not to mention the fact that they hadn’t gotten Katie dressed yet….

He leaned down to the child and placed one hand on her head, “It’s okay, Katie. Tell Crispy to get her some coffee, and I’ll be right there.”

“Okeydokey, Daddy.” She pivoted on her heel, kicked the long robe out behind her, then skipped off down the hall.

“She did say Daddy,” Miranda murmured.

“Guess it’s my turn to say ‘surprise,’ huh?” He raised an eyebrow at her. “Unfortunately, I don’t have time for that, or for any more conversation. I’ve got to get out there and convince a pinched-faced social-service lady, who didn’t really even want me to take these kids into emergency foster care, that I should be allowed to adopt them.”

“Adopt?” Her voice sounded breathy—as if she’d just taken a sucker punch to the gut.

He inhaled the delicate scent of her perfume and held it while a thousand things raced through his mind. He thought of how to explain it all to her, of how to tell her of Travis and Donna’s death. He wondered if this news would change anything, and he wondered how he could walk out of this room, knowing she might well decide to run off again. Finally he thought of the children, and he exhaled slowly.

“Miranda, I…” He glanced out into the airy hallway and then back to Miranda. “I have to go.”

She pressed her full lips together. A mist softened the green of her eyes to a gleaming jade. She shook back her rich brown hair and dipped her head to the open door. “We’ll talk later.”

“Your folks’ new number is in the address book on top of my desk.” He put one hand on her arm. The urge raged in him to pull her close and fold her into an embrace that would comfort them both. Instead, he turned and headed down the hall. No time for personal problems today.

No time? he thought as his boots pounded the floorboards of the hall. Or no guts?

He might have considered it further if, just before he reached the end of the hallway, three young ragamuffins hadn’t spun around the corner and smacked straight into his legs.

“We saw her, Brodie,” Grace said, her eyebrows arched high and her mouth pulled down in an exaggerated expression. “It’s Mrs. Beetle.”

Grace stretched out the woman’s name so that it seemed to have four too many es in it. Brodie had to smile at that.

“Well, we suspected Mrs. Beetle might stay on the case, you know,” he told her as he slowly lowered himself to the children’s eye level, knowing it was up to him to put a good face on things. Too bad he didn’t feel as positive as he sounded when he said, “We’ll just have to make the best of it.”

From the doorway, Miranda couldn’t help watching the scene being played out a few feet away. Tall, brawny Brodie hunkered down to talk to three children. Children with hair just slightly paler than his own and eyes almost as blue. If she’d seen them together on the street, she might never have guessed the kids weren’t his by blood.

An icy chill snaked through her, and she fisted her hand over her stomach, even as she heard the nearby conversation continue.

“How can we make the best of it?” the older girl whined. “Mrs. Beetle doesn’t like us.”

Brodie’s calm expression never wavered. “Don’t be silly, Grace. What’s not to like about three adorable kids like you?”

“I was trying to be nice,” Grace said, her eyes rolled heavenward. “What I really meant was, she doesn’t like you.”

“And she doesn’t like us living with you,” the boy added solemnly. “She says we have abandonment issues.”

What a big word for such a little boy, Miranda thought. Still, he said it as if he’d heard it often before. As if he fully understood its ramifications. The idea tugged at her already tender heart.

“She says,” the boy went on, “that they placed us with the Stones on account of they had a good environment.”

Brodie’s face went grim. He lowered his head and didn’t say a thing.

The smallest girl tapped Brodie on the shoulder. “Don’t you have a good varmint, Daddy?”

Brodie gave a soft snort of a chuckle. “This being a ranch, Katie, we got plenty of varmints.”

The children looked at him expectantly, needing more than Miranda suspected Brodie could give. They needed him to dig into his gut and give them emotional support about a situation that remained entirely out of his control. All it would take was a smile, or a look, or a touch that said, “We can tackle this together.” Experience told Miranda that Brodie couldn’t—or wouldn’t—be able to do it.

Brodie glanced at the floor. He folded his hands together. His great shoulders lifted, then fell, and slowly he raised his head.

Miranda almost gasped aloud at the light that shone in the man’s once cool blue eyes. A teasing tenderness played on his smiling lips as he reached out and gingerly brushed the back of his hand along Katie’s pink cheek. “Don’t tell anybody this, darlin’—” He leaned in, and the children copied his action, creating a circle of blond heads “—but I half think Mr. Crispy is part varmint himself.”

A peal of giggles wafted down the hall. Brodie’s laughter providing a resonant undertone. He did it, Miranda marveled. He gave a little of himself to make those kids feel better. He didn’t just tell them that he’d take care of it and storm off to meet the social worker.

“The word is environment, anyway, Katie,” the boy they called Bubba said after the laughter faded. “Mrs. Beetle says she’d rather see us sent to separate homes than be together in a place that didn’t have the proper environment.”

Katie turned her big eyes on the boy. “What does that mean?”

Brodie dropped his gaze, and his shoulders slumped as if they were suddenly carrying the weight of the world. “It means she doubts if Crispy and I are enough to take care of you three. It means she thinks we need…”

“A mom,” Bubba concluded quietly.

“That’s not necessarily so, Bubba.” Brodie looked the boy in the eye, his gaze and tone upbeat, not contradictory. “Mrs. Beetle does think you belong in a house with two parents, but that’s not the law, it’s just Mrs. Beetle’s recommendation.”

“But what she says counts with the courts,” Bubba reminded them all, like a seasoned veteran of the system. “And I heard her say, Brodie, that she’s talked to folks around town, and unless you can prove you aren’t a grouchy old hermit like they all say, she’ll have us out of here so fast it’ll make our heads spin.”

Katie grabbed her curly blond head with both pudgy hands. “I get dizzy just going on the merry-go-round. I don’t want my head to spin, Daddy. Don’t let her do that.”

“I’ll try my dam—Uh, I’ll try real hard, darlin’,” Brodie said. “Unfortunately, I haven’t done much this last year to keep folks from thinking I am a grouchy old hermit.”

“Don’t you know anyone who can say different?” Grace asked.

“Just Crispy, and you can guess how much weight he’ll carry.”

Katie wrinkled up her nub of nose. “He’s too skinny to carry any weight.”

“My brother, but he hasn’t exactly got the kind of reputation that dazzles the family-values crowd. My in-laws would’ve stood up for me, but they’re in Phoenix. The only other folks who would have gone to bat for me are…” Brodie pressed his lips shut.

“Mr. and Mrs. Stone,” Bubba filled in. “And they’re dead.”

Dead? Could that be so? From the looks on Brodie’s and the children’s faces, Miranda realized it must be.

Miranda had known Donna and Travis for years, but they had been in Brodie’s class in high school—three years ahead of hers—and she’d never been close to either of them. Still, it was a shock to learn of their passing.

When Miranda first discovered her infertility, Donna had rushed over, thinking that as two childless women they would forge a common bond. But Miranda had pushed her away, unready for that kind of reminder of her own failure. She had also feared that the Stones, who had tried everything and were considering adopting, would side with Brodie, forcing her into trying some extreme fertility treatment she simply couldn’t handle. And now they were gone.

Suddenly everything became crystal-clear—where the three children had come from and why Brodie had stepped in to care for them. He was determined to fix this, too. And by some strange quirk of fate these kids might just fix him, as well. They brought out something in him that she never could.

Even through her own hurt and confusion, she could see the risk that Brodie would be cheated out of the family he’d always longed for. Only this time, things were different. This time, it was within her power to give him that family—if she dared.

“Then if what Mrs. Beetle says counts a lot, we’re in big trouble,” Grace said, her blond head wagging back and forth.

“’Cause she’s the lady that said you and Mr. Crispy needed to live in a stable.”

“She said the household needed to be more stable,” Bubba corrected.

“She might have been right the first time.” Miranda smiled as she stepped into the hallway. The smile was a big, fat fake. Beneath it she was scared—no, terrified.

This was where her training on the pageant circuit came in handy, she thought as she walked purposefully toward the four stunned people gaping at her. Stopping in front of them, she placed her hands on her hips and tried to sound absolutely charming as she said, “I don’t know about Crispy, but this fellow here is sure more at home in a barn than almost anywhere.”

Brodie stood and towered over her, his eyes narrowed so that she could not see his reaction in their depths. “What are you up to, Miranda?”

“I’m up to about here,” she answered, slashing her open hand over her head. “And getting in deeper every second.”

Miranda swallowed. She was about to do either the stupidest or the smartest thing she had ever done. Either way, it would change her life forever. More important, it would change Brodie’s life—for the better. She owed him that much, after the year she’d just given him.

Her gaze dipped to the small children staring up at her, their mouths hanging open. It didn’t hurt that she was helping three sweet-faced orphans find a family, either.

She wet her lips and tilted her head back to fix her eyes on Brodie.

He cocked his head.

“Brodie,” she whispered, “I know this won’t make up for the way I left. I know it won’t change the fact that you will someday want your own flesh-and-blood baby, or that you’d need another woman to give you that. But for now, for you and these sweet kids, I’m offering to help you convince the social-service people that this is the best home ever, and you are the best parent in all of Texas.”

Chapter Three

“Mrs. Beetle, I’d like you to meet—” Brodie unfurled his arm toward Miranda as she stepped into the formal living room “—my wife.”

His what? Miranda froze. She’d stolen away for only a few minutes to make herself presentable after her long drive, and to mentally prepare herself to defend Brodie’s character. And what had happened in her absence?

“Randi, darlin’?” Brodie motioned with one hand for her to enter the room.

Miranda attempted to smile, but couldn’t help thinking she must look like a deer caught in some headlights. That was certainly how she felt.

“Randi?” He took one sidestep toward her. His long fingers massaged her shoulders as he manipulated her under the mantle of his muscular arm. “Darlin’, come in and say howdy to Mrs. Beetle…you know, the social worker.”

Her fine Texas upbringing forced Miranda to acknowledge the silver-haired woman nestled in her father’s favorite wingbacked chair.

“How do you do, Mrs. Beetle? It’s so nice to meet you,” she murmured, her mind more on Brodie’s nearness and the sensation it set off in her than on her own words.

“It’s certainly nice to meet you, my dear. I was so pleased when your cook told me that you’d returned to the ranch.” A wizened smile seemed to ease the severity of the wrinkles draping around her eyes. “I hope you’re not too tired to talk to me after your long drive.”

“My cook?” Miranda struggled to make sense of the puzzle pieces of information jumbled in her head.

“Crispy,” Brodie leaned close to whisper. “Seems he got to Mrs. Beetle before I did. The old coot painted a pretty rosy picture of your return.”

The warm stirrings of her husband’s breath tickled the shell of her ear and sent a faded but not forgotten yearning swirling though her body. The full meaning of his message failed to register in her muddled mind.

“Um, apparently there’s been some confusion here concerning my trip back, Mrs. Beetle.” She wriggled to put distance between Brodie and herself.

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