Table of Contents

Cover Page

Excerpt

Dear Reader

Title Page

Lindsay Longford

Dear George

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Afterword

Preview

Copyright

“See? We’re just alike, me and you,”

Gopher said with satisfaction. “Right?”

“Yeah,” Buck said slowly, frowning. He stared into the mirror at the two sets of similar blue eyes. He reached out and scooped off some of the shaving cream along the little boy’s chin. Rounded, not like his own angular chin, but with that haunting sense of familiarity he hadn’t been able to pin down.

Crazy, the thought that had flashed through his mind.

Impossible.

Reason argued that he was letting his imagination run away with him. Reason told him that what he suspected couldn’t possibly be true. He knew Gopher could not be his son. But his heart looked in the mirror and told him something else, told him that the impossible could, sometimes, be possible. And wouldn’t the heart recognize the truth?

Jessie’s son.

His?

Dear Reader,

Happy Valentine’s Day! Silhouette Romance’s Valentine to you is our special lineup this month, starting with Daddy by Decision by bestselling, award-winning author Lindsay Longford. When rugged cowboy Buck Riley sees his estranged ex with a child who looks just like him, he believes the little boy is his son. True or not, that belief in his heart—and his love for mother and child-—is all he needs to be a FABULOUS FATHER.

And we’re celebrating love and marriage with I’M YOUR GROOM, a five-book promotion about five irresistible heroes who say “I do” for a lifetime of love. In Carolyn Zane’s It’s Raining Grooms, a preacher’s daughter prays for a husband and suddenly finds herself engaged to her gorgeous childhood nemesis. To Wed Again? by DeAnna Talcott tells the story of a divorced couple who are blessed with a second chance at marriage when they become instant parents. Next, in Judith Janeway’s An Accidental Marriage, the maid of honor and the best man are forced to act like the eloped newly weds when the bride’s parents arrive!

Plus, two authors sure to become favorites make their Romance debuts this month. In Husband Next Door by Anne Ha, a very confirmed bachelor is reformed into marriage material, and in Wedding Rings and Baby Things by Teresa Southwick, an anyminute mom-to-be says “I do” to a marriage of convenience that leads to a lifetime of love….

I hope you enjoy all six of these wonderful books.

Warm wishes,

Melissa Senate,

Senior Editor

Silhouette Books

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

Daddy by Decision
Lindsay Longford

www.millsandboon.co.uk

LINDSAY LONGFORD,

like most writers, is a reader. She even reads toothpaste labels in desperation! A former high school English teacher with an M.A. in literature, she began writing romance novels because she wanted to create stories that touched readers’ emotions by transporting them to a world where good things happened to good people and happily-ever-after is possible with a little work.

Her first book, Jake’s Child, was nominated for Best New Series Author, Best Silhouette Romance and received a Special Achievement Award for Best First Series Book from Romantic Times. It was also a finalist for the Romance Writers of America RITA Award for Best First Book. Her Silhouette Romance title Annie and the Wise Men won the RITA for the best Traditional Romance of 1993.

Dear George—I mean, Gopher,

I know you’ve found it a little strange to have me hanging around lately. You’re used to having your momma all to yourself, and all of a sudden, here I am, barging in.

I surely do appreciate your concern. Fact is, it makes me feel better that your momma has such a strong and stalwart—that means really brave—guy taking care of her.

Your momma seems to think that my hanging around with you both is some form of midlife crisis. That means—oh, to heck with what that means. Here’s what’s important: I would never, ever hurt you or your momma. I solemnly swear it, on fish bones and lizard guts and everything that’s brave and true.

Maybe someday, you and your momma will find your castle big enough for three. Until then, I shall remain your loyal subject—

Jonas “Buck” Riley

a.k.a. “Sir Cowboy”

Chapter One

It was all those damned weddings.

Since the second wedding in the Tyler family, Buck had been as itchy and cranky as a bull stomping and snorting in the pasture. Shoot, who’d have expected ol’ easygoing I’m-arambling-man Hank, the baby of the family, to waltz Jilly Elliott off to the altar in the wake of T.J. and Callie’s wedding?

And all those kids running around! A man couldn’t take two steps without tripping over Gracie or Charlie or Hank’s fifteen-month-old twin terrors, Duke and Gorp. And Hank couldn’t stop patting Jilly’s swollen belly where Flynn-to-be waited to make his appearance.

Buck picked up a package of crackers and a jar of cheese glop, scowling at the boxes of baby diapers stacked in front of him. Babies! Hell, Hank and T.J. were repopulating the whole damned county all on their own. He stared for a moment at the carton. The pink-cheeked infant’s smile was goofily appealing, the sparkle in the chocolate brown eyes—He stopped his thoughts.

Gritting his-teeth, Buck shoved his sweat-stained hat back on his head. Who was he kidding? What he needed couldn’t be found in an all-night convenience mart. He sighed and scratched at the mosquito bite on the back of his neck.

Hell of a note to find himself feeling like an outsider in his own family. He thought he’d gotten over that sense of being on the other side of the fence a long time ago, but there was nothing like a long night alone to bring back all those old feelings, that bottomless pit of loneliness welling inside and pulling him into its emptiness. He rubbed his bristly chin irritably. Maybe what ailed him was nothing more than the full moon making him restless and dissatisfied with his life, with himself.

He’d never missed one of his mother’s birthday parties, and he wouldn’t have missed this one, not really, not even with this blue funk settling over him. But still—

An elbow jostled him. “Sorry,” a husky voice muttered. Caught by the scent of flowers and cinnamon, he glanced up, welcoming the escape from his thoughts, but the woman had vanished behind a towering stack of jars of salsa, leaving behind her only a light fragrance and the memory of that low, soft bedroom voice.

Buck slapped the jar of cheese spread back on the shelf and glared at the bright fluorescence of the Palmetto Mart’s nighttime world.

He’d been a fool to leave the shabby isolation of his motel room. Nothing in that motel room to distract him, that was the problem, and he couldn’t stand staring at that two-bit painting of some pink and green tropical landscape one more second. In the face of those Pepto-Bismol pinks and puke greens, the Palmetto Mart had seemed like an oasis.

“Frankie? Where did you hide the chunky peanut butter?” The husky voice rasped again along Buck’s raw nerve endings, a wet-dog shiver of a reaction.

“Moved it, Miz McDonald. Next aisle over.” Frankie’s voice cracked on the last word.

“Thanks. You’re a lifesaver.” Shoes squeaked against the floor, punctuating the low voice.

Turning into the adjacent aisle as Frankie spoke, Buck saw a slim back and nicely rounded tush moving slowly down the aisle in front of him. And a very nice little tush it was, he decided, gratefully looking away from bright-eyed baby faces to study the slow sway of those curves under paint-spattered cutoffs. The frayed ends dangled against smooth, tanned thighs that curved down to sturdy calves and narrow feet in ragged sneakers and neon purple socks.

Buck blinked. Maybe it was the Palmetto Mart’s lighting. Nope. At second glance, the socks were still blindingly purple. With small black and green race cars stitched into the sides. His gaze lifted to the slim, soft arm reaching for a bottle of orange Gatorade on the top shelf. With a quick stride he closed the space between him and the owner of the sweetest tush he’d seen in years. And then, too, there was that quite remarkable voice that slithered along his skin. Maybe the Palmetto had more possibilities than he’d imagined.

Leaning against the display, one arm balanced along the top, he gestured to the shelf. “Need a helping hand?”

“What I need is to be taller. Or, absent that miracle, I could use a stepladder,” she said with a self-mocking lift of her shoulder. She started to turn toward him and then went very still, her head dipping down.

“No ladders around. Just me.”

“I can manage,” she said in a cool little voice. Threequarters turned away from him, her face averted, she stared at the blue basket holding a loaf of bread and a shrink-wrapped miniature car. Streaky brown hair straggled loose from a scraped-back ponytail. Obscuring his view of her face, curly tendrils flopped, floated, and coiled with her jerky movements. Wild hair, warm brown and gold, the kind that made a man want to twine its strands around his fingers, stroke its silkiness and bury his face in its softness.

Devilment and the long night stretching emptily in front of him loosened his tongue. Honesty made him admit to himself that maybe, too, he wanted to get a rise out of her after her cool dismissal. So, stretching out the syllables and slouching in the best Clint Eastwood tradition, he drawled, “No problem, little missy.”

Her shoulders tightened, nothing more than a movement under her white shirt, and he wondered if “little missy” was going to stomp on his boots. Diverted, he didn’t move, merely waited to see what she would do.

Not looking at him, she stretched on tiptoe and tilted the bottle next to the one he held. “As I said, cowboy, I’ll manage.”

Cowboy? Intrigued, he straightened. Little missy had a razor-edged tongue. He had an urge to upend a broom, pull out a bit of straw and stick it into his mouth. Or find a chaw of tobacco. Anything to complete the image. With a fair degree of effort, he managed to kill the urge to thicken his drawl into molasses, but he couldn’t resist the impulse to tweak her. “Like I said, sugar, no problem.”

Grabbing the bottle with a small, square hand, she snubbed him with four throaty syllables. “Thanks, but no thanks.”

A peculiar sense of familiarity tugged at his memory and killed the teasing. Frowning, he leaned toward her. “Pardon me, ma’am, but—”

Slipping around the corner of the aisle, she disappeared behind a cardboard drop of Fourth of July sparklers and American flags. Brushed by her hip, one of the flags stirred, moved in the breeze of her passing, then collapsed among the red, white and blues.

Well, damn. Startled by the swiftness of her departure, Buck blinked again.

Her message was real, real clear. A sensible man would have picked up his corn puffs and his beer and hit the road. Buck meant to leave. Hell, he knew that’s exactly what he should do. But he wasn’t quite ready to face Maxie’s Tropical Motel, and, anyway, something about that throaty voice kept nudging him in her direction.

So he wasn’t a sensible man. What else was new?

Watching her progression through the Palmetto Mart in the silvered metal camera in a corner overhead, he ambled back past the cheese spread and crackers, past the diapers and jars of creamed this and pureed that until he reached the middle of the aisle nearest the door and the checkout counter.

Face-to-face with a row of very personal feminine products, he paused and shrugged. Probably not the best spot for him to linger. He moved back down the aisle toward the shelf of roasted, sugared and peppered peanuts. With one eye on the camera’s black-and-white screen and the twitch of little missy’s gray denim, he fumbled for a jar of salted pecans and stuffed it on top of the six-pack under his arm. Manly-man stuff, all right. Cowboy stuff.

Strolling toward the counter, he stepped behind her, waiting patiently as she unloaded peanut butter, white bread, milk, Gatorade and the toy car. Holding herself stiffly, she angled against him, away from him, her narrow shoulders hunched forward, protectively. In the TV screen above them, Buck saw the grainy gray blur of her downcast face.

Frowning, he narrowed his eyes and studied the screen while that scent of cinnamon and pulse-beat warm skin beguiled him.

“You’re gonna need a dollar and fifty-eight cents more. Or you could put something back.”

“Drat.” Gold and brown strands of hair trembled as she dug into her patchwork quilt purse. “I left in a big old hurry, Frankie.” She heaved wallet, daybook and three paperbacks onto the counter. “Fiddle, I can’t even find my checkbook. Phooey.”

The skinny teenager behind the counter lifted his shoulders. “Sorry, Miz McDonald, I’d loan you a couple of dollars, but I’m broke.” His grin was sheepish. “Me and Eva went out last night.”

“Ah, I see. Big date, huh?” A rawhide dog bone joined the stack on the counter. As Buck watched the monitor, she looked up at Frankie and a smile flashed across the screen. In that second Buck had a clear view of a square face with a stubborn jawline, a wide, generous mouth and enormous eyes behind round, metal-framed glasses. The screen blurred again as she scrabbled through her bottomless purse once more, dumping tissues, wads of paper and a yellow squirt gun onto the counter this time.

“Here.” Buck lifted the pistol and carefully placed a five-dollar bill under it. “No reason to hold up the joint. Keep the change.” He thought she’d look his way.

She didn’t. She fingered the jar of peanut butter, brushed the milk jug with a knuckle, and slid the racing car off to the side. “Ring my order up, please, Frankie, without the toy.” She nudged the bill along the counter, back toward Buck. “Not necessary. But thanks. Again.” The chilliness crisping the edges of her warmed-brandy voice was unmistakable.

Even rejecting him, she didn’t turn his way, not even a sidelong glance. Buck’s curiosity was killing him. He wanted to see her face up close, not in the grayness of the monitor. He had a hankering to see if the face matched the voice. If he could see her face, he could quiet that nagging familiarity.

But Frankie bagged her purchases with surprising efficiency, and she was out the door, leaving behind her a tantalizing scent of cinnamon on the humid night air circling into the Palmetto Mart.

“Hang on, Frankie. I’ll be back.” Buck shoved his beer and peanuts to the side, strode to the door and caught it before it swung closed.

Outside, damp air pressed against his skin, filled his lungs with heavy wetness. The air smelled of earth and kerosene from a distant plane. Low on the horizon, the golden moon cast fitful shadows across the concrete. He didn’t see the woman who’d intrigued him out of his funk, but headlights from a dark van suddenly switched on, blinding him, and he glimpsed a silhouette in the driver’s seat.

He knew it was the woman from the Palmetto. The engine idled, as if she were waiting, like him, indecisive, and Buck stood there, staring into the darkness of the van, his attention focused on that small shape behind the windshield. The lights from her van bridged the moonlit darkness between them, connected them in a curiously intimate way.

Brassy darkness and silence.

Heat rising from the dark pavement, the smell of cinnamon and jasmine floating on the wet air.

And the two of them at each end of that path of light, his blood pounding in his ears.

Shielding his eyes, Buck strained to see through the shimmering whiteness of the car lights. He needed to see her. Holding his hand up, he walked slowly toward her, from the darkness at the Palmetto’s exit into the lights of her van. Slowly, slowly, both hands hanging to his sides now, he walked toward her, blinded.

“So long, cowboy!”

The tinge of satisfaction in the throaty voice stopped him. Puzzled, he shoved his hat farther back on his head. As he did, the van reversed, smoothly turning toward the frontage road and the entrance to the highway. The left-turn signal winked triumphantly at him.

He could have loped across the parking lot and intercepted the car at the stoplight. But that edge of intimate hostility in her actions held him in place, thinking, as the light changed and the van turned left toward town.

She hadn’t been afraid of him. He knew that because she’d waited, watching him, even as he approached her. No, it wasn’t fear of him that caused her prickly wariness. Something altogether different. A kind of amused taunting, as if she’d proven something to herself.

“Well, well, well.” Shoving his hands into his jeans pockets, he watched until the red lights vanished into the hot darkness.

And then he smiled.

In the moments when his eyes adjusted back to darkness before she’d turned onto the frontage road, he’d seen the van’s license plate. Gopher 1. Not a license plate he’d be apt to forget.

Back in the Palmetto Mart, Frankie’s scowled warning greeted him. “I was watching you, mister. I’d a called the cops if you bothered Miz McDonald.”

“Good for you, Frankie,” Buck said gently, defusing the bristling animosity radiating from the spindly boy. “That was exactly the right thing to do. You did good.”

“Sorry if I was rude, man,” Frankie muttered, checking prices, “but I didn’t know what you was up to. And I wasn’t gonna let you hurt her.”

“That wasn’t my intention.” Buck handed over a twenty, took his change.

“It’s late. I didn’t know what you had in mind.”

Buck laughed. “To tell you the truth, Frankie, I don’t know what I had in mind, either. I was—interested, that’s all. Miz McDonald is an interesting woman.”

Frankie’s face reddened. “Yeah. She’s nice.”

“I’m sure she is. I could tell.” Buck watched Frankie’s face turn a brighter shade of beet.

“Yeah, well, I’m the night manager, and my customers are my responsibility. I take care of Miz McDonald when she comes in.”

Buck recognized the signs of a teenage crush when he saw one. Hell, he’d lived through T.J. and Hank’s frequent throes of love. Then T.J. met Callie Jo, and everything changed for both his brothers. Buck had always had his suspicions about Hank’s feelings toward Callie Jo, but Hank, the most open man in the world, could keep his own counsel when he wanted. Anyway, Hank worshiped Jilly and their kids, so the past was the past.

In the meantime, the bantam across from him was scratching for a showdown. Shoot, the kid wouldn’t break a hundred and thirty pounds, but his heart was in the right place. Buck tried not to smile. The kid didn’t deserve that.

“Nobody’s going to mess with her while I’m here.” Frankie squared narrow shoulders defiantly and tried to stare Buck down.

Looking away, casually, easily, he gave Frankie the move, letting the kid save face, the same way he’d yielded to the heat of his younger brothers when they’d been on the brink of manhood. “She’s lucky you’re in charge, Frankie. I could tell she likes your store. I’ll bet she comes here a lot?”

Frankie nodded.

“She must feel safe. With you around, watching out for her. And for the rest of your customers.” Sticking a finger through the plastic loops of the six-pack, Buck smiled, tipped his hat with a finger, and strolled toward the door. “Nice meetin’ you, Frankie. Take care now, hear?”

“Sure thing, man.” Frankie held his shoulders so far back Buck could have clipped them together with a clothespin.

Kids. Sheesh. Buck stepped outside into the steamy night. Rolling his head back and forth, he considered his choices. Maxie’s in town? Out to T.J.’s ranch? Or get in the Jeep and haul rear half the night south, back to Okeechobee and his own ranch and groves?

The road, glistening black under the low-lying moon, stretched in front of him. Truth was, he had nowhere he wanted to go, nothing pulling at him, no one to help him while away the lonely night hours. A light breeze tugged at his hat, filtered through the straw brim, brushed against his cheek like a feathery kiss. Scraps of paper on the concrete lifted, stirred, floated to his feet. One was a receipt from the Palmetto. He reached down to pick it up. Eggs, vanilla ice cream, milk.

Not hers.

He crushed the receipt between his fingers, holding it for a moment, staring off into the thick, empty night.

Impulse and the memory of red lights winking off toward town made him about-face back into the Palmetto.

Jessie’s hands were slippery with sweat on the plastic steering wheel. Even with the windows of the van down and the wind whipping in, perspiration pooled along her spine, slid to the waistband of her shorts. Skeezix, her shaggy mutt of undetermined origins with the temperament of an angel, eased up from the back. Sidling in next to her, he stuck his nose out her window. “Come on, you big lug. Scoot over to your own side, will you?” She pushed at the dog until he moved over and stuck his head out the passenger window.

She. wondered if Jonas Buckminster Riley had recognized her in spite of her careful attempts not to look his way. Even though he’d always been shrewd and fast on the uptake, a lot had changed in the last five years, most of all her.

He hadn’t recognized her. He would have said something if he had. But maybe not. A complicated man, he liked playing games. Tiny shivers slipped over her skin. And in her innermost soul, she knew it wasn’t fear running through her. The frisson skipping along her nerve endings was a remnant of another life, another Jessie, not this Jessie barreling down the highway in a van filled with the smell of dogs and take-out hamburger. She’d left that other Jessie behind, a long time ago.

As she unwrapped the cold hamburger and nudged it toward the dog, Skeezix moaned happily and pulled his head inside. She sneezed as dog hair drifted toward her. “Good dog! But you silly fool, why didn’t you eat it when it was hot?” She rubbed the dog’s head and scratched behind his ears. Slopping paper and hamburger bits over the seat, Skeezix collapsed onto her thighs with a wiggle of contentment. “Guess who I ran into tonight, Skeez?” Skeezix wiggled closer, his tongue lapping wetly against her cutoffs. “A ghost from my past, and you didn’t even let out a howl? For shame. Some dog you are. Would you have defended me if I’d needed you, you big mutt?” Skeezix rolled his head and thumped his heavy tail a couple of times. “Oh, sure, that’s what you say now. But where were you ten minutes ago, buster?”

She was glad her ghost hadn’t remembered her. Of course she was.

But.

“So long, cowboy!” The sound of her last words lingered in her ears. Surely she hadn’t wanted him to stop her with a flood of for-old-times’-sake memories? Had she?

But, her unruly tongue running ahead of her brain, she’d called out, “So long, cowboy!” Had that been a note of challenge, of “gotcha” in her voice? Had she wanted him to recognize her? Had some deep perversity ruled her in that last second? Surely not.

But she’d called out. In that last, crucial second, she’d called out to him.

In the light from her headlights, he’d looked bigger, tougher. A little mean with his eyes narrowed like that, a little baffled but thinking hard as he’d stared back at her from the darkness. Even sitting yards apart from him, she’d felt the insistent beating of his will against her, his determination to solve the puzzle she represented to him. That insatiable curiosity, that inability to turn away from an unanswered question—that quality had made him a brilliant lawyer.

He’d been fearsome, his cross-examinations stripping away evasions until a witness sat as vulnerable as a deer caught in the cross hairs, waiting. And then Jonas Buckminster Riley would deliver the killing blow, gently, cleanly, so elegantly that the witness seemed almost to welcome the coup de grace that put finish to the relentless, unending questions delivered in Jonas’s chillingly polite drawl.

No, the Palmetto Mart cowboy in the cream-colored straw cowboy hat and scruffy jeans might be as curious as ever, but he was not the man she remembered. Long, rangy muscles and sloping shoulders replaced the reed-thin frame she’d known; that thin, hard body covered by suits so expensively sumptuous that one time, driven by some crazy impulse as she’d passed in back of him, she’d stroked the baby-soft fabric of a jacket left casually hanging on the back of his chair.

He’d known, of course. He’d looked up at her in that moment when her index finger glided against the sleeve, slipped inside to the lining still warm from his body, and lingered against the silk.

“You like that, huh?” he’d asked and smiled, his brilliant blue eyes blazing her into ashes.

Lifting one eyebrow, she’d run her finger carelessly over the lining. “A bit too uptown for me. But then clothes make the man, so they say.” Brushing her hands together, knowing he was watching her every twitch and movement, she’d walked away, into her own office, her heart slamming against her ribs with each step.

“Do they really? Say that?” His whispery drawl had tickled the hairs along the back of her neck, sent goose bumps down her arms, her chest. “And what do you say, Ms. Bell?” His smile turned edgy, his narrowed gaze assessing, as he swiveled his chair toward her and focused all his fierce intelligence on her, pinning her in the searing beam of his gaze.

She’d smiled in return, lifted one eyebrow, and shut her door, leaving his question unanswered.

She wasn’t that Jessica Bell anymore. That woman seemed alien to her now. If she were different now, so, too, must he be. Inside. Outside. They weren’t the same people at all. So why was her heart still pumping so hard she felt as if she’d run a race? What possible impact on her life could a chance encounter at the Palmetto Mart mean at this point in her life?

Diddly. That’s what.

She braked the car in the driveway. Home. Hers. One she’d bought and paid for by herself. Downstairs in the family room a solitary splash of blue-white from the television broke the thickness of the night. Skeezix lumbered out behind her, woofing and circling her, weaving in and out between her legs until she laid her hand on top of his head. “Quiet, dopey. You want to wake up the whole neighborhood?” Two different canine greetings answered Skeezix.

The front door opened. A tiny silhouette in the rectangle of the doorjamb tilted his head and scrubbed at his eyes. “Hey,” he said sleepily.

“Hey yourself, sugar.” She swung him up over Skeezix and into her arms. “It’s mighty late. Why aren’t you asleep?”

“Me and Aunt Lolly waited for you. But we was hungry, so we ate all the pizza. Ev’ry last bite.” He spread his arms wide and clasped her around the neck, his chubby bare arms tight against her. “Loofah chewed the cheese off the cardboard.”

“Bad dog.”

“She was hungry, too.”

“I guess that’s okay, then.” Jessie nuzzled the warm, sweaty neck of her son. “C’mon, sugar, let’s say good night to Auntie Lolly and get you to bed.”

“‘Kay.” His soft hair tickled her nose as he leaned against her and fixed her with eyes as blue as her own. “But I am not at all tired.”

“No?”

“Nope. Not sleepy at all.”

Jessie stumbled against Skeezix, who’d crowded in behind her as she closed the door. Gopher tilted over her arm and blew a kiss at the dog. “Night, Skeezes. Sleep tight.” Her son glanced shrewdly up at her. “Skeezes isn’t sleepy. Me and Skeezes’ll sleep better together, right?”

Laughing, Jessie scrunched him to her. “Is that so, sugardoll?”

“Yep,” he said with satisfaction as his head drooped against her breast and his thumb found its way to his small mouth. “That’s so.”

Waiting inside the arch to the family room, her neighbor and honorary aunt Lolly rolled her eyes. “He did take a long nap. But he’s been going nonstop since he woke up. Can you give me some of whatever you’re feeding him? So I can keep up?” Her bony freckled face was cheerfully rueful. “We’ve dug worms, we’ve walked the dogs, we’ve made brownies. And taken three baths. Lord love a duck, Jessie, how do you keep up with him?”

“Practice.” Jessie anchored Gopher higher on one shoulder and slid open her desk drawer, reaching inside for her checkbook. “Hang on for a minute while I carry him up to bed, will you? And then I’ll write you a check if that’s okay?”

“You don’t have to pay me, Jess. I told you, I love staying with Gopher. Anyway, what else do I have to do most nights?”

“Take the check, Lolly. It’s better this way. Your time’s valuable, too, you know, no matter what you choose to do with it.” With her hip balancing the weight of her son and one arm curled around his rear, Jessie scribbled on a check. If she didn’t, Lolly would be gone before Jessie could come back downstairs. “And who knows? One of these nights you might decide to go out and do something wild and crazy.”

“Oh, sure,” Lolly scoffed, her face crumpling into soft folds of humor. “You seen any gents looking for sixty-twoyear-old dates?”

“Sure, but you can go out with a guy for company. Doesn’t have to be a date.” Jessie shifted Gopher and handed Lolly the check. “And you have friends. You could go to the movies. Or to the theater over in Sarasota? Lolly, listen. Life’s too short to pull up the drawbridge and hide out forever. You’ve got a lot of years ahead of you. Enjoy them. Go out. Party. Even if the wildest you get is going to the DeSoto Salad Bar.”

“Maybe.” Lolly opened the door.

With Lolly, “maybe” meant “no way.”

Lolly stuffed the check inside her vinyl purse. “Jess, I’ll take Loofah and Mitzi home with me. You can pick them up tomorrow if you’re going to use them at the rehab center.”

“Right. I’ll come get them. I wanted to give Skeezix the day off. Loofah and Mitzi work really well. They’re sweethearts. The patients are crazy about them.” Jessie blew Lolly a kiss and headed up the stairs, Gopher murmuring in her ear all the way.

“I luuv Lolly. And I luuuv Skeezes and I love my mommy and Loofah—”

“I know, sugar, and I luuuv you.” She kissed his soft cheek where a red scratch testified to his busy day. “Let’s tuck you in bed and you can tell me all about your day.” Pulling back the faded purple dinosaur sheets, Jessie slid him under the light cover and shucked off her sneakers, climbing in beside him. “Oof, sugar, you’re getting so big.”

“That’s my job,” he told her sleepily. “Going to Sunny Days Early Learning Preschool, and coloring and getting big. I luuuuv Sunny Days.” He wriggled his rump into the curve of her arm and waist.

Curling him close to her, his tough little body radiating heat, Jessie shut her eyes wearily. “So how many worms did you collect for our fishing trip tomorrow, sugar?”

“Maybe seventy-leven zillion.” He half rose and kissed the underneath side of her chin, a sweet, damp press of not-quitebaby mouth that never failed to squeeze her heart.

“That should do the trick,” she said, hugging him tightly to her, this child, a child she’d never expected, hadn’t wanted yet would die for. Smoothing his hair off his forehead, she returned his kiss. Her child.

But it was Jonas Buckminster’s intense eyes she saw in the darkness as she drifted into sleep beside her son.

Sometime before dawn the phone rang in the stuffy room of Maxie’s Motel, dragging Buck out of a fitful sleep where he’d been running and running and running, chasing something, someone, the figure disappearing into shadows and mist In the dream where an iron band squeezed his heart, he’d needed to stop that figure, ask it—what? Something. He yawned. Sheets twisted around his naked body, wound in between his legs. Groggy, mouth dry, he fumbled for the phone, lifting it to his ear.

His brother T.J. spoke, the words fast and harsh. “Daddy’s in the hospital, Buck.”

He sat up, pulling free of sweaty sheets. “What? You’re kidding. He was fine today at Mama’s birthday party.”

T.J. paused, and Buck heard the unspoken words in the tension in T.J.’s voice. “I don’t know. No one’s said anything yet. I don’t know what happened, but Mama wants you here. Can you come?”

“Yeah. I’ll be there in half an hour.”

Static crackled between them. “Good thing you stayed over, Buck.”

“Yeah.” There was nothing more to be said.

Hanging up the phone, Buck rubbed his eyes. Hoyt? In the hospital? There must be a mistake. Tough, as strong as the oak tree on the Tyler ranch that now belonged to T.J., Hoyt was immortal. A man among men, the patriarch of patriarchs. John Wayne and Clint Eastwood couldn’t walk in his shadow.

Shrugging into jeans, Buck zipped and snapped with steady fingers while the air conditioner labored in the muggy air. Hoyt was going to be fine. Nothing else was possible. Jamming loose change into one pocket and his wallet into the threadbare rear pocket, Buck scanned the shadows of the room.

Funny, but he’d almost decided to drive back down to Okeechobee last night. Instead he’d stayed and checked the listings for McDonalds in the Tarpon City phone book. Too many to call, so he’d tossed the book on the floor and crawled into bed.

If he hadn’t stayed, he would have been out in the pasture, too far away to make it back to Tarpon City before late evening. Fate. Shaking his head, he grabbed the Jeep keys from the round table near the window.

On the scarred and peeling veneer of the bed stand, the toy car glittered in the predawn watery light, gold flecks sparkling in its bright red metal.

A quick flash of memory stilled him. The keys dangled from his slack fingers.

Her head bent away from him, that streaky hair curling and sliding every which way, she’d hesitated, her hand lingering on the toy. And, briefly glimpsed in the monitor, her squarechinned face with its wide mouth.

Like mist on the bayou, memory swirled gently through his brain. Picking up the toy, he frowned as he touched the smooth, sleek finish.

Chapter Two

Buck shut the door to his room and jogged to the Jeep through the dim parking lot where gray shadows lingered under cabbage palms and moss-draped oaks. Even before sunrise, heat radiated up from the black asphalt and thickened the humid air.

Twenty minutes later, he slammed through the automatic doors of the hospital and leaned over the fake plastic wood of the reception desk. “Hoyt Tyler? Room?”

Before the woman with the elaborate cornrow hairstyle could answer, a deep voice interrupted. “Hey, Buck. How many red lights did you run? Or did you scam a police escort?” Thomas Jefferson Tyler, Buck’s middle brother, punched him on the shoulder and draped an arm across Buck’s shoulders as he guided him to the bank of elevators. “You look like ten miles of bad highway.”

“How’s Daddy?” Buck wiped the back of his hand across his forehead. The expression in T.J.’s eyes unnerved him.

“Don’t know. He’s in intensive care. Internal bleeding, apparently. Anyway,” T.J. said, punching the Up button, “they’re running tests, Mama looks like hell, and the doctors aren’t saying anything. I’m just real glad the folks are here and not back in Seattle.”

“Yeah.” Studying his brother’s tightly controlled expression, Buck felt his stomach tighten. T.J. didn’t panic. Like all the Tylers, like Hoyt himself, T.J. was the calm in the center of the hurricane. But at the moment T.J. vibrated with clamped-down feelings, that unspoken urgency communicating itself to Buck, screeching at him like fingernails on a blackboard. “Can I see Daddy?”

“Sure. Every hour they let someone in for five minutes, but don’t expect much. I think they have him doped up. Hank and Mama are in the waiting room. Callie and Jilly are coming up later. They’re switching off with the kids and looking after the ranch. Everybody’s staying there until we find out what’s going on. You going to come on out and bunk with us?”

“Don’t think so.”

Watching the red lights blink at each stop, they rode up to the seventh floor in silence. Jamming his hands into his pockets, Buck turned off his whirling thoughts, let himself exist in the cocoon of metal and piped-in music. He found himself closing his fist around the miniature car he’d stuffed into his pocket at the last minute. Fingering its smooth surface like a prayer stone, he traced its unseen shape over and over.

In the intensive care waiting room, his mother sat waiting, her hands folded tightly together, her face gray-white. “I’m glad T.J. got hold of you. Hank’s with Hoyt. We brought him in ourselves. The ambulance would have taken too long.” Her voice was steady, her smile a brave slash of pink, but she didn’t unclasp her trembling hands.

Hugging her and covering her hands with his much larger ones, Buck held her close to him. He didn’t expect her to collapse in tears. Bea Tyler wouldn’t. She did her crying in private. But her clasped hands trembled with a fine vibration that belied her outward calm and he felt helpless to comfort her. He folded himself into a sitting position next to her. “What happened?”

As his mother talked, sorting through her thoughts, her words slow and halting, Buck greeted Hank, his younger brother, with a nod. Stricken, all his sunshine good humor vanished, Hank seemed suddenly years older than he had the day before, reminding Buck of T.J. when he heard about his infant son’s diabetes.

A word here, a question there, thoughts sputtering into speech and trailing off, they finally abandoned the attempt and sat in silence, together but alone, while the clock moved sluggishly through the unending minutes until it was Buck’s turn to visit.

Entering the quiet room filled with the electrical whirring of IV pumps and flashing green monitors, Buck stopped. Tubes went down Hoyt’s mouth, nose, draped across the bed. Two bags of packed cells for blood transfusion hung on a pole beside the bed. As Buck stayed at the entrance, his hand on the curtain, Hoyt opened his eyes and glanced around.

Walking around the foot of the bed, Buck smiled. “Hey, Daddy. You gave us a hell of a scare.”

Hoyt’s gaze lit briefly on Buck before his eyelids drooped shut, closing Buck out.

Buck felt as though he’d been punched in the gut. He’d heard what his mama and brothers had told him, but even so, they hadn’t prepared him. Reality transcended words.

The only father he’d ever known had looked at him and not recognized him. Loss, enormous and incomprehensible, swamped him.

With his hand gripping Hoyt’s, Buck swallowed. Cast adrift, he clung to the weathered, rough hand of the man who’d raised him, who’d taught him everything, and it-was the longest, loneliest five minutes of his life.

Five minutes at a time, the day crept into late afternoon.

Buck felt the walls of the waiting room closing in on him, imprisoning him with each passing moment until he thought he’d throw something at the picture on the wall.

He’d volunteered to come back and spend the night at the hospital so that the others could go back to the ranch. Callie Jo and Jilly were coming for the evening, but then they would return home so that everyone could rest and regroup while he stayed guard. He convinced everyone that was the best plan. They all had family responsibilities. He didn’t.

In the meantime, it was going to be another three hours before he could see Hoyt again, and he seriously didn’t think he could take three more minutes penned up in the waiting room. He jerked to his feet. “I need a change of scenery. Some fresh air. Maybe a walk.”

Hank, T.J. and their mother looked up at him, their eyes as dazed as his must be. Maybe it was the way they all stared at him with the same blue-green gaze, maybe it was the restlessness that had settled in his bones some time past, but he felt like a kid on the other side of a fence. “I’m going down for coffee. Y’all want some? A sandwich? Mama, can’t I get you something?”

One after the other, like dominoes falling, they shook their heads. Once more he was struck by his brothers’ similarities to their mother and to Hoyt. And today more than ever before, Buck felt like the cuckoo in the robin’s nest.

He passed up the cafeteria, opting for the more private vending machine lounge. Leaning his arm against the cold drink machine, he rested his forehead on his arm, staring uncomprehendingly at the selections. The machine ka-chunked as he pressed the round red button. A can of cola rolled to the bottom. All he could see was Hoyt’s blank gaze staring at him and looking away.

Hoyt was only sixty-one. In the prime of life, he could still ride and rope with the best of them. Buck shut his eyes. Anger and frustration boiling up in him, he wanted to slam his fist into the machine.

He wanted to grab Hoyt out of that bed, rip all the tubes and machines off him and run hell-for-leather out of the damned hospital. Get Hoyt out into the fresh air at the ranch where he belonged.

But for the second time in his life, he was helpless.

And so he stayed there, breathing deeply, trying to block out all the anger and fury ripping through him. He wasn’t used to being helpless, and he didn’t like it one damned bit.

It was a faint, elusive scent that alerted him, a hint of cinnamon underlying flowers.

He lifted his head and stared straight into eyes as bright blue as his own, eyes that widened before going carefully blank behind round glasses that slipped down her narrow nose.

The black-and-white reflection in the Palmetto Mart monitor had been way, way off the mark—only a shadow of the real woman. In living color, her wide mouth didn’t need bright lipstick. Rosy pink and full, her lips curved deeply into small creases at the corners, a mouth made for laughing, for kissing. Falling to her shoulders in a mass of gold and brown, curls twisted into small corkscrews and tendrils.

She was wearing some kind of loose green-blue dress with tiny, silly straps over a sleeveless white T-shirt, and the light ocean-colored material swirled around her bare legs as she stepped sideways, away from him. The dollar bill fluttered in her hand as she moved.

“We meet again, Miz McDonald.” Pushing away from the drink machine, he scooped up his can of cola and nodded once to her. He gestured with the can toward her dollar and watched those curves around her lips tighten as pink tinged the edges of apple cheeks. “Flush—and flushed today, I see.”

Her fingers clutching her dollar, her wallet-on-a-string drooping down her arm, Jessie wondered how fate could be so wicked. “Hmm,” she said and turned, walking steadily to the coffee machine, Jonas Buckminster Riley’s long shadow covering her as he followed.

“What brings you to Tarpon City Memorial Hospital?” His drawl curled around the question, putting a slight spin on it that made her wary.

“Now why would I tell you?” Jessie smiled sweetly at him and marched toward the coffee machine, her heart thumping sickeningly. She knew how Jonas could move panther-smooth from one unimportant question into a killing pounce.

“Ah, answering a question with a question. You’re either Irish or a lawyer.”

She didn’t stumble, didn’t stop, didn’t flinch. “And you can’t stop fishing, can you? Maybe the cowboy getup,” she said, gesturing toward his jeans and shirt, “is only camouflage, and you’re the lawyer?” She pleated her dollar. Had she gone too far? Drat her tongue.

“You didn’t answer my question.” He braced himself against the soup vending machine.

“No, I didn’t, did I?” Again Jessie managed her teeth-onedge-sweet smile. “How perceptive of you. To catch that. Oooh, I’m so impressed.” She batted her eyelashes mockingly.

She thought the sound she heard coming from him was a surprised snort. It might have been a cough. She hoped it was a cough.

“Once in a while I’m—perceptive,” he said with not an ounce of inflection in his melted caramel drawl.

Her mind ran through every possibility she could think of. He knew. He remembered. He didn’t remember anything and was simply on the prowl.

Except that Jonas never prowled. He’d never needed to. She believed he must have learned in his cradle that all things came to him who waited, because everything did come to Jonas, sooner or later. He’d never had to exert himself for attention. He’d been the man with the golden touch, the man everyone crowded around while he backed away from the attention.

And the more elusive he became, the more sought after he was.

“Cat got your tongue, Miz McDonald?” Moving from the machine, he settled himself comfortably against the wall and popped the top of the can, holding her gaze the entire time as he tipped the can back and drank from it. Beneath the mischief in his eyes, she saw the veiled curiosity, the interest that sharpened with each second she didn’t answer. “You surprise me.” Again there was a note of another meaning rippling beneath his comment.

Sun and age lines radiated from the corners of his eyes. Caught in the power of that gaze, breathless and dizzy, Jessie couldn’t look away. She felt as though he were willing her to answer him, to tell him everything he wanted to know, to wring her soul dry.

The artificial light of the lounge highlighted deep mahogany gleams in his thick hair, glimmered in the red-gold bristles that darkened his narrow, hard-angled face. Lowering the can, he hooked his thumb in the waistband of his jeans. As he shifted, the washed-thin fabric pulled across his flat belly andtightened against his thighs.

Jonas Riley had been born to wear tight, worn jeans.

Jessie’s dollar drifted to the floor, brushed her leg and broke the spell he’d spun. Her face burning, she stooped to pick up the bill, took a toe-deep breath and stood up. Turning away from him with a quick movement, she pressed her fist into her skirt.

He didn’t remember her.

But he was on the hunt.

Feeding the dollar into the coffee machine with shaking fingers, she tapped the coffee selections without even seeing what she was choosing.

“Don’t you want to know how I know your name, Miz McDonald?” He hadn’t moved, but his question shivered the hairs on the back of her neck. “I’d think you’d be—interested. Me being a stranger and all?”

In the metal and plastic of the machine, she saw his rangy reflection. He was studying her, frowning, definitely on the hunt. “Don’t you want to know, Miz McDonald? Aren’t you a little curious?”

Goaded, she whirled, her skirt whipping around her. “I don’t have to ask. I know. You were right behind me. You heard Frankie.” Coffee slopped onto the floor.

“So I did.” He closed the distance between them with one step and dropped a stack of napkins over the coffee stain at her feet. Squatting to swipe up the liquid, he glanced up at her, the light spilling over his face and throwing into sharp relief lines of strain and exhaustion she hadn’t noticed earlier. “Well, Miz McDonald, you might want to remind your friend Frankie that it’s not a good idea, even in a small town like Tarpon City, to identify his customers, especially his—” he glanced at her naked left hand “—single female ones.” Soft and deceptively gentle, his voice drifted through the air, moved over her skin like a teasing feather stroke.

The Jonas she remembered was toying with her, seeking the weak spot. She knew it, and she still struck back, the old Jessie rising to the bait.

“Thanks for the helpful hint, cowboy. I’ll make sure I mention your advice to Frankie.”

Not fooling her one bit with his nonchalance, he pitched the wet brown wad of paper in the trash, took a final pull of his cola and asked, “By the way, does Miz McDonald have a first name?”

“And wouldn’t she be a fool for telling you?” Jessie smiled sweetly. “Even with this being such a small town. And you the picture of respectability? It’s a wonder I don’t just hand you my safe-deposit number and key. Gosh, can’t imagine why I don’t.” Quirking one eyebrow, she sipped deliberately from her plastic-coated cup, relaxed, all easy confidence, her voice as mellow as his as she continued. “And since you’ve been so helpful, may I return the favor, cowboy?”

“Of course, ma’am.” He dropped the cola can into the recycling bin. “I’m always grateful for good advice.” Butter-smooth, his polite tone matched the respectful tip of his head. But his eyes narrowed suddenly, as if she’d somehow made a mistake. Suddenly intent, he looked as if she’d handed him the end of the thread leading through the puzzle maze. “What was it you wanted to say?” He stepped back, waving her through as she approached the door.

Turning her head to look at him over her shoulder, she smiled. “Not much. Except that even cowboys go in for a shave and a change of clothes once in a while. Maybe you’re working too hard at creating an image?”

She heard the quick intake of his breath. “Ah. I see. Clothes. The image. Yes, Miz McDonald, I sure do appreciate your input.” Rich satisfaction rippled through his voice, over his face, as he smiled. “You’ve been right helpful, ma’am.”

Jessie fled. She couldn’t imagine what she’d revealed, but in giving in to her desire to score one tiny point off him, she’d obviously messed up somehow.

Fast-walking down the corridor to the parking lot, Jessie muttered under her breath. “Coffee. That was the problem. It wouldn’t have killed me to skip my mocha latte for once.” She should never have stopped in for coffee before leaving for home. But she always did. “Why would I expect to see Jonas Riley stretched out over the cola machine like some martyred saint?” Swearing at herself under her breath, she stomped down the hall.

For her, the road to hell was clearly paved with coffee beans.

Two nurses stared at her as she stormed by them, and then their eyes drifted past her, their steps slowed, and one of the nurses lifted a hand to fluff out shiny black hair.

Jessie fought the impulse to break into a flat-out run. She didn’t have to look. Like the sun at high noon in summer, heat and determination came from the man keeping easy pace a step behind her.

“You took off in such a hurry, Miz McDonald, that you left your purse on the table near the door.” Lean brown fingers dangled her wallet-on-a-string in front of her. “You’re a busy lady, I reckon, rushing around the way you do, forgetting your wallet today, your checkbook last night?”

“I manage to fill my days,” she muttered, reaching for the wallet.

“I’m sure you do.” With a flick of his hand, he looped the burgundy leather strap over her neck. “Glad to help, ma’am,” he added, his voice cordial, his manner solicitous, his cowboy act perfect down to the slightest tone and gesture.

But she’d observed Jonas Buckminster Riley in action, had seen the man who’d been a shark in court, urbane, cultivated, as he cut through bloody waters, and she didn’t trust this blueeyed, tough-featured cowboy metamorphosis any farther than she could pitch an elephant. “Yes, well, for the umpteenth time, thank you.” She jerked as he touched her shoulder.

“Anything else I can do for you?” He straightened the strap, his knuckle sliding against her bare arm.

Prickles of alarm and awareness ran down her arm. She caught her breath. It was nothing more than a touch, nothing to be upset about, but her skin went hot and she wanted to shut her eyes and let him run that callused knuckle down her neck, across her shoulder—

Too many nights alone had made her forget the power of a simple touch.

Worse, she’d forgotten her susceptibility to the touch of Jonas Riley.

Clamping her arm close to her side, Jessie kept her gaze on the corridor floor, on the square, dusty toes of his boots. He’d had long, narrow, beautiful feet.

“Better?” He adjusted the strap once more, his face coming into her view as he stooped to her eye level, his breath mingling with her own, warm, cola-and-coffee-scented.

She’d known coffee would be her downfall. She hadn’t expected it to tempt her in this manner, though. “Thank you. You’re an exceptionally—helpful—person, aren’t you?” Trying to outpace him, Jessie lengthened her stride, taking two and a half to every one of his and feeling crowded the whole time, surrounded by him, his energy, his sheer, overwhelming presence. “Or perhaps you’re a retro Boy Scout?”

“I like to be useful.”

“Good for you,” Jessie said through gritted teeth. “The world could use a lot more useful men.” She reached the automatic exit doors that swung open as she stepped toward them.

Huddled under the portico, the smokers cleared way for her. For Jonas. Hurrying toward her car, she fumbled for her keys, pulling them out. A wave of heat curled toward her from the concrete sidewalks, washed over her. The red sun lay fat and hot on the horizon and she wanted to be home, to escape the very solid spirit from her past. Just as she opened her van door, he stopped her.

“Wait.” His hand closed around her elbow, his thumb flat against the inner pulse, and her heartbeat slammed in a staccato rhythm to that light, insistent pressure. His thumb was rough as he moved it against her skin, against her underarm in a slow, unconscious stroking that had nothing’ at all to do with the questions gleaming at her from his eyes.

“Take your hand off me, cowboy. Now.”

Buck did.

She hadn’t needed to tell him. As he’d touched her, her face had turned pinched and tight, and he’d already taken a step away from her. He recognized the desperation blazing in her eyes. Holding his hands up, palms toward her, he didn’t move. “Sorry, Ms. McDonald. I wasn’t thinking. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“You didn’t. I don’t scare that easily.” Not looking in back of her, she opened her van door and stepped quickly inside, shutting the door between them with a quiet snick. She stabbed the key into the ignition as she said in a low, furious voice, “But I don’t like strange men grabbing me, cowboy, no matter how charming they are. And you don’t know me well enough to be anything else except a stranger.” Sunlight burnished her hair to pale gold.

Like an overlay, another image superimposed itself, this one in vivid color.

Her hair should have been sleek—a smooth, bright blond helmet cut close to her face, that full mouth dark red, seductive.

“But we’ve met before, haven’t we?” Trying to meld the two images, he rested his hand on the open window of the van. A strand of her hair brushed the back of his hand, curled around his palm with the feel of a forgotten touch, a remembered kiss. “I know you, don’t I?”

She looked as if he’d struck her. Her face went paper-white, and a rumbling growl came from the shadowy interior of the van. “Believe me, you don’t know me at all.” As she spoke, a wide head with enormous teeth and lolling tongue appeared next to hers at the window edge.

Buck kept his hand on the window. “Does he bite?”

“She. Yes, she does.” Color was flowing slowly back into the woman’s face as she regained her equilibrium.

“Bites, huh?” Buck scanned the dog’s face, noting the wagging tail. “She doesn’t strike me as a dog who’d bite.” Dog slobber dripped on his hand but he didn’t move, didn’t try to pat that wide, rough head.

“Well, she does. Enthusiastically. Every chance she gets.”

“Now why don’t I believe you?” he asked gently.

“Maybe you’re not a trusting soul,” she said, her gaze flashing to his and back to the key.

The woman’s astringent tone matched her earlier, back-offfella attitude, and he was relieved. Her skim milk white face had disturbed him. He’d never seen himself as a man who intimidated women, and he didn’t like the idea that he’d scared her. Pushing for answers was one thing, but reducing her inyour-face thorniness to white-faced fear wasn’t an image of himself he cared for. “Not trusting? Me? I’m wounded,” he said, placing his hand over his heart.

“Now why don’t I believe you?” Her arm resting on the dog, she turned to him and lifted her eyebrow, her mockery obvious.

“How perceptive of you.” Deliberately he repeated her earlier gibe and watched her quite remarkable blue eyes darken behind her glasses. “I’d almost think we’d met before—for you to have such insight into my character, Miz McDonald. Or was it only a lucky guess?” He wondered if she’d let him have the last word. He somehow didn’t think she would.

“Down, Loofah,” the woman said and ground the ignition key, restarting the engine before tilting her chin up at him. “Look, cowboy, you tried out your pickup routine, and it didn’t work. You were bored, at loose ends, and I wasn’t interested. Don’t make a big deal out of it, okay? Call it a day.”

Pebbles and dust spurted out from under the tires as she backed out. The monster dog watched him from the rear window, tongue hanging out as if maybe after all she’d like Buck to be dinner.

For the second time in less than twenty-four hours, Buck found himself contemplating the van’s taillights. But this time, he had an answer.

She knew him. Her slightly acid responses hadn’t been those of a stranger. And he knew her. But she wasn’t a Miz, Ms. or Mrs. McDonald. Some other name. It would come to him sooner or later. Dust blew into his face as he stared into the empty distance.

He understood the sizzle crackling between them. He understood sex. He liked the way her pupils dilated when she looked at him. He liked the way her smooth skin shone pink with discomfort. He liked the faint scent of flowers that rose from her skin, her hair.

The sense that there was something more than a sexual pull between them disturbed him. He liked sex a whole, heaping bunch. It was simple, uncomplicated. What he felt toward the woman with the bedroom voice and cautious eyes wasn’t simple at all.

Scratching the still-itching mosquito bite on his neck, he thought about the peculiar swirl of emotions the woman created in him. He’d never exerted this kind of energy in pursuit of a woman, and he wasn’t comfortable with the sense that he was sailing over the edge into unknown seas, that she had some power over him.

But he trusted his instincts and his instincts told him that she had her own reasons for pretending not to remember him. He couldn’t help wondering what they were. Rocking slowly back and forth on his worn-down boot heels, he stayed there until the van was nothing more than a dark speck on the red horizon.

Dust swirling and blowing around him, foretelling the coming storm, he walked around the hospital and the physical rehabilitation center for veterans. He didn’t want to go back inside the hospital. Out here in the wind and dust, the air was rich with the smells of ozone and earth, with sweat and flowers. Inside the automatic doors were filtered air and the smells of disinfectant and tragedy.

Bea refused to leave. “I’ve slept beside Hoyt every night for almost forty years. We’ve never been separated. I don’t intend to start now. I don’t want y’all fussing me about it, hear?”

They heard. And they quit pestering her to go back to the ranch and rest. “You know how Mama is,” Buck said to his brothers. “Don’t push. She’ll only dig in her heels harder.” Like the woman in the Palmetto Mart, he thought, surprised. “I’ll be here. Let’s back off, all right?”

There was a curious peacefulness during the quiet night hours with the pinging bells and shushing sounds of doors opening and closing. Bea dozed beside him, her head falling to his shoulder and then snapping up as anxiety slapped her awake. Buck brought her soup and tea. Later, the tea and soup gone cold, he disposed of the paper cups.

During the night, while he sat in the pulled-up chair close to Hoyt’s bed, Buck felt his stepfather’s gnarled hand pull against his own.

“That you, son?” Hoyt’s words were slurred and hard to hear, his effort at speech palpable.

“Yeah, Daddy, I’m here.” Keeping in the shadows at the head of the bed, Buck stayed out of sight, only his touch linking him to this man he loved as much as he loved anyone in the world. He would be whoever Hoyt needed him to be, Hank or T.J. He could give Hoyt that comfort. “I won’t leave,” Buck said, his throat closing as he swallowed.

“Bea?” The rough hand rubbed against Buck’s.

“Mama’s here, too. All of us.”

There was a long pause. Green spikes marched in regular waves across the heart monitor.

“Buck?”

“Yeah, Daddy?” Buck leaned forward. Even without seeing him, Hoyt knew who he was, knew he wasn’t T.J. or Hank.

“Don’t let Bea wear herself out, hear? You know how she gets.” Hoyt’s words echoed his earlier ones.

“I know how Mama gets.” Buck smiled in spite of the lump in his throat. “I’ll watch out for her. We’ll take care of her.”

“Shoot, son, sounds like y’all got me with one foot in the grave already.” Hoyt’s breath rattled as his chest rose laboriously up and down. “Don’t go picking out my tombstone just yet.” Slow, spaced out, the words fell into the quiet, the man’s spirit rising above the limitations of body and tubes. “I ain’t ready to call it a day, you know. I got things to do. Grandkids I ain’t seen yet.”

Tightening his hold around his daddy’s large hand, Buck said, “Reckon that means you want us to cancel the flowers, huh?”

The rasping cough was Hoyt’s version of a chuckle. “Hell, yeah. No sense in wasting all that money. I got a few miles left. Ain’t time to count me out, son.”

“I won’t.”

Hoyt’s eyes closed. “Good.”

“They were awful nice flowers, Daddy.”

“Hope to Billy hell they were.” An almost-smile twitched the corners of Hoyt’s mouth. “Y’all better show this old coot proper respect.” He grunted and then was silent, his chest moving slowly, slowly, rising and falling to the regular rhythm of his sleep.

Holding Hoyt’s hand between both of his, Buck stroked the rough, weathered skin as he whispered, “Hang in there, Daddy.” Carefully he squeezed his father’s hand. “I love you,” he whispered, his throat raspy with unshed tears.

For the rest of the night as Bea and Buck alternated visits, Hoyt drifted back and forth between consciousness and wherever he’d been. Like wings beating lightly against his face, Buck felt hope settle softly in him, easing the dreadful weight of fear. What would be, would be. They would handle it Together.

In the twilight between sleeping and waking, Buck saw a tiny red race car barreling past him over and over again while two women—one with sleek blond hair, the other with wildly tumbling curls—strolled toward him and continued past, their mocking laughs blending into one as they left him behind, alone.

And when night sounds changed to morning bustle, he sat up with a start, everything coming together in his brain with an almost audible click.

He knew damned good and well who she was.

And he was going to find her, one way or the other.

Oh, yes, he remembered Jessica Bell.

Chapter Three

“I dub thee Sir Mommy.” The metal toy sword tapped Jessie’s left shoulder, then her right.

Her son’s excited eyes met hers as she opened them blearily. “I’m a knight of the realm, am I, love bug?”

“Yep.” He stood up, wrapping the rag-tattered afghan around him. A plastic, economy-size peanut butter bucket wobbled on his head. The strap under his chin kept it from falling off. “Me and Skeezes is kings.” He pointed. The dog’s shaggy eyebrows supported a paper plate cut into points. Red and blue and black scribbles decorated the plate. Sparkles drifted onto the floor, onto Skeezix’s coat.

Jessie yawned. “Nice hat. Skeezix, you’re the next GQ cover.”

“Skeezes is wearing the crown.” Gopher frowned. “See?” He lifted the unevenly cut cardboard. “Rubies and jewels. Oxen—” he frowned again “—and turkey-something.”

“Onyx and turquoise?”

Releasing his chubby grip on Skeezix’s crown, Gopher nodded, sparkles floated and Skeezix sneezed.

“How silly of me. I should have known. You’re a warrior king?” She tapped the top of the bucket. Snagging the strap under his chin, she tugged him toward her. “Well, this knight of the realm expects a big old smackeroo kiss from the warrior king, so pucker up, warrior king.”

Gopher’s soft lips puckered up, and he planted a warm, wet, sweet kiss on Jessie’s mouth. The bucket smacked her in the forehead, Skeezix planted his version of a smackeroo, and the doorbell rang.

Collapsing on top of her, giggling and woofing, child and dog wrestled her off the sofa. “Wow. Now that’s what I call a kiss, sugar. Haul Skeezix off me, will you?” Jessie fumbled for her glasses that had twisted off and lay buried somewhere under dog and child and cushions. “Hey, guys, anybody see my glasses?”

The doorbell rang again, two short, commanding peals.

Gopher held up her glasses. “Ransom, ransom!” Shrieking toward the door with the dog following him, he galloped around unpacked boxes and stacks of paint cans. “Ransom!”

“Never, says I, me buckeroo!” Chasing after him, Jessie leaped over a roll of wallpaper that appeared out of nowhere, staggered, and bounced off Skeezix’s flank. Sliding to a halt, she extended her arms in an effort to block Gopher’s feints and dodges.

“Runrunasfastas you can—” he paused for breath “—can’t catch me! I’m the gingerbread man!” He lowered his head and barreled toward her.

Four and a half was a delightful age, old enough so that she could see the person her son would be, young enough for goofy kisses and games. But four and a half was hard on a thirty-five-year-old body, she thought ruefully as he slipped through her grasp like beads of mercury.

On a prolonged note, the doorbell shrilled. “Hold your horses. We’re on our way,” Jessie grumbled, lunging for her speed-demon child. Grabbing Gopher around the waist, she threw him over her shoulder and pulled open the door as the bell sounded again. “Good grief,” Jessie muttered. “Keep your pants on, buster.”

“Yep, good grief,” Gopher repeated. “Keep your—”

“Enough, sugar.” Jessie blew a strand of hair out of her face.

Fanny wiggling in the air and nose pointed toward the door, Gopher lifted his head. “Hey, mister. You got your pants on. Why din’t you hold your horses?”

“Sorry.” Jessie laughed as she scooped her hair behind her ear. Late-afternoon sun shone into her eyes, made the man in front of her a lean shadow. Peering up and clasping her son’s bottom with one hand, Jessie inhaled. She didn’t need her glasses to recognize trouble when it came knocking at her door. “Hello, Jonas Riley.”

“And a very pleasant afternoon to you, Ms. Jessica Bell.”

“My mommy’s not a bell,” Gopher informed him. “She’s a McDonald, like old McDonald and me. Only we don’t got any chickens and cows, but we got dogs, Loofah and Mitzi and this is Skeezes—” he pointed “—and I like your hat and—”

“That’s enough, sugar,” Jessie repeated, letting her talkative terror slide to the ground. “Hand over my glasses, please.”

“Nope.” Gopher stared up at her, his bare toes curled under. “Ransom first.”

“George. Glasses. Now.” Jessie stared him down until he reluctantly handed her her eyeglasses.

“Unfair to Gopher!” he cried, the soft mouth that had been so generous with a smackeroo now turning upside down with temper and a finely tuned sense of injustice. Snatching the afghan off the floor and wrapping himself in it, Gopher stomped away in high dudgeon, Skeezix torn between following him and staying at the door. “Very unfair. I captured booty. I earned a ransom,” he shouted as he stormed through the swinging door to the kitchen, Skeezix trotting behind him, tail wagging like an automatic dust cloth. “And I am the king!”

“Tough,” Jessie called after him. “But that’s life outside the castle. Sometimes even the king has to yield to a higher power.”

“Unfair!” The door swung shut on his words.

“Live with it, sugar.” She inhaled deeply, gathering her nerve, and faced the man she’d never expected to see again, much less twice in less than forty-eight hours.

“Well, golly gee, Miz Kitty, you sure run a tight ship. No ransom? Just off to the dungeons for the mutinous troops? I reckon I’m shaking in my boots.”

Jessie looked down at his boots. “They could use a shine. And they don’t look as if they’re moving, much less shaking.”

“Appearances can be deceiving, Jessica.” Five years vanished like smoke as that smooth, silky voice skimmed over her, tweaking her nerve endings, moving through her until her knees went weak.

“Apparently so.” Poking the ends of her glasses through her hair and over her ears, Jessie surveyed him. “Because you sure look like a derelict without a nickel to his name, not the hottest lawyer in the South and a man with more money than’s good for him. Although—” she scrutinized him with a slow up-and-down glance “—I have to admit there’s something about the cowboy getup that suits you.” Meeting his gaze, she gestured with her chin toward the jeans and shirt he’d worn each time she’d seen him. “Grown attached to that outfit, have you, Jonas?”

He slapped his hat against his leg. “Turned into a snob, have you, Jessica?” Back and forth, the hat whisked a slow, regular rhythm against his thigh, his muscle bunching and flexing under soft denim as he shifted his weight. “Going to invite me in?”

No question about it, Jonas was trouble.

With one arm blocking the entrance, Jessie tipped her head up and shaded her eyes. She’d be double-damned if she’d invite him in. “I’ll have to admit it’s nice to see you again, Jonas, but I’m terribly sorry I didn’t recognize you last night—” She nodded in assumed bafflement. “If I had, we could have had a fabulous—”

“Fabulous?” A streak of amusement flashed in his eyes as he interrupted her. And in that moment she knew as if he’d spoken out loud that he hadn’t forgotten anything.

“—time catching up on our lives, but you’ve caught me at a really awkward moment. Gopher and I were just leaving—”

“Was not.” Gopher wound an arm around her leg and looked up at the man standing in the doorway. The plastic bucket tipped to the back of her son’s head. “You’re letting all the cold air out, mister. Mommy doesn’t like me to hold the door open.”

“Makes sense.” Jonas studied her son’s round face. “Gopher, is it?”

“George Robert McDonald,” Gopher said and stuck out his hand. “You kin shake my hand.”

Jonas did.

“Want some lemonade, mister? I made it. Sort of. I squozed a lemon. It’s good lemonade.” He leaned forward confidingly. “But kinda sour.”

Jessie sighed. Coffee and Gopher would do her in every time. “As George so politely noticed, you’re letting all the cold air out, Jonas. You might as well come in.”

“Reckon I can’t refuse such a graciously extended invitation now, can I?”

“You could,” she muttered. “I wouldn’t mind.”

“Pardon?” A quizzical expression clouded his face. The picture of innocent confusion, he didn’t fool her. “What did you say?”

“Nothing important.” Jessie motioned him into the living room and stooped down to Gopher’s level. His body language shouted his fascination with the dusty cowboy. “Sugar, why don’t you take Skeezix out into the backyard?”

“Don’t want to.” He smiled beguilingly. “Want to visit.”

“Not now, Gopher. Keep Skeezix company while he has a nice run in the yard. He needs some exercise.” Reaching into her dress pocket, she pulled out a doggy treat and tucked it into her son’s grubby hand. “Give Skeez a snack. Take the grapes in the fridge for yourself.”

From the corner of her eye she saw Jonas’s boots move out of sight. The air stirred in back of her with his movement, and the hairs on the back of her neck rose in the sudden chill. She could hear him move toward the windows, around boxes. The brown paper on a roll of wallpaper crackled as he nudged it. He was a man who could enter a room and make it his own. Whether or not the effect was intentional, she couldn’t decide, but she’d seen him work his magic in a courtroom, and now, in her living room, all the energy and light centered on him. Standing up, she turned so that she could keep him and Gopher both in sight.

Watching Jonas peruse the stacks of boxes, run his thin, clever fingers over a pile of her books and settle in a dining chair he flipped around, Jessie sighed. The man claimed territory effortlessly. Give Jonas Riley a proverbial inch and he’d take the mile. Well, she’d let him past the front door, so she had no one to blame but herself. This was her space, not his. She got to set the ground rules.

And she definitely did not want to rehash old times.

“Making yourself comfortable, Jonas?” she asked politely.

His folded arms rested on the curved back of the chair. “Thank you, yes,” he replied, equally polite, nodding to her.

Holding the dog treat in one hand, Gopher hopped on one foot toward Jonas. “So, mister, you got horses and cows like old McDonald?”

“Yeah, a few.” Steady on Gopher, Jonas’s gaze was serious. “You like horses? Cows?”

“Yeah.” Gopher hopped another step.

Even the damned dog couldn’t leave Jonas alone, Jessie noted grouchily. Skeezix sniffed Jonas’s knee and then rested his head against his thigh, regarding him soulfully.

Jessie wanted to pull her hair. “Gopher, say goodbye to Mr. Riley. He’ll be leaving shortly.”

Two pairs of blue eyes met her own.

“Will I?” Jonas smiled, and her toes tingled, curled. His gaze dropped to those ten traitors.’

“Oh, yes,” she said, shooting him a level glance she regretted as soon as she had. “Maybe you have time for reunions, but I don’t. Come on, Gopher.” She took her son’s hand firmly in hers, and led him to the kitchen door. “Scoot, sugar. But stay inside the fence.” Shutting the door behind him, she went to the refrigerator and took out the pitcher of lemonade.

Backing up, one palm flat against the fridge door to shut it, she collided with Jonas. His hands cupped her elbows, steadying her. Face burning, Jessie slammed the door and stepped sideways, away from the heat flashing from his body, hers, she couldn’t tell and didn’t care. She brushed his support away. “Good grief, you make yourself at home, don’t you?”

“Sorry,” he said, backing away as fast as she did. “I thought you knew I was behind you.”

“How would I know that? You crept in here like a thief,” she said crossly. Her hip tingled where it had brushed against his thigh.

“Crept? In these? Not likely.” He held up a booted foot. The thick-heeled boot spanked loudly against the linoleum floor as he put his foot down. The floorboards creaking under his boots, he took four noncreeping steps and shot her a glance over his shoulder.

“All right. Maybe you didn’t sneak up on me. But I didn’t hear you. I thought you were still in the living room.” Cradling the cold pitcher closely to her, a barrier, she opened the cabinet and pulled out two glasses, banging them on the table. Even in the air-conditioned house, steam rose from the cloudy ice cubes she dropped into the glasses. Lemonade hissed over the cubes as she poured. She pulled out a chair. “Sit.”

“That work with Skeezix?” Jonas sat, stretching out his long legs to the side. Rattling ice in the glass, he saluted her with it. “So, Jessica Bell, why did you pretend you didn’t know me?”

“Why do you think I recognized you?” Taking her time, she sat down.

“Didn’t you?” Sharp, determined, his eyes fastened on hers.

“Wouldn’t I have said so if I did?”

“Don’t know. Would you have?”

“Of course. Anything else would be—weird.” She smiled brightly.

“And you’re the last person I’d ever call weird. However—” He touched her nose and she snapped her head back.

“What on earth are you doing?” She rubbed her nose fretfully.

“Checking to see if that elegant nose is growing.”

“For goodness’ sake, why on earth would I pretend not to know you?” She sipped delicately from the glass and hoped he’d buy the act. “And why would I lie about something like that?” She leaned forward, curious in her own right “At any rate, Jonas, why were you at the hospital? I hope it’s nothing serious?” That much was true. She placed her glass carefully on the table. “Is everything all right?”

“Don’t want to answer my questions, so you’ll ask your own? I remember you used to do that.” He rolled the chilled glass across his cheek. “We’ll play it your way, then, Jessica. As you said earlier, nice seeing you again. How are you?” His gaze held hers as he pressed the glass against his forehead, and once more she saw the hint of exhaustion in the lines around his mouth and eyes.

Compassion moved her to say, “Better than you, apparently, Jonas, to judge by the looks of you. What happened? Did all of your investments fall out the bottom of the market?”

Setting the glass down and not answering, he looked at the table and stood up. Striding to the window, he nudged aside the curtain and watched Gopher chasing Skeezix. “Nice kid. Full of beans.”

“He has his moments.” Remembering some of them, Jessie smiled.

Glancing over his shoulder, Buck caught that smile, the way her face softened, and his breath hitched in his chest. “I thought you were dead set on never getting married or having a family, Jessie. You said you didn’t have time for a family. All you wanted was to make partner in the firm, be the next lawyer to have her name in gold leaf on the door. But you got married after all, huh?”

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