Table of Contents

Cover Page

Excerpt

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

Dear Doogie

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Copyright

“I don’t think I’ve met your date, Nick,”

Stephanie said with a smile.

“Nikki, meet Stephanie. Stephanie, this is my favorite niece, Nikki.”

The four-year-old dimpled. “I think you’re pretty,” she said to Stephanie. “Uncle Nick doesn’t have a girlfriend. I’ve got a boyfriend,” she confided. “His name is Zach. Do you have one?”

Stephanie felt a blush warm her ears. Was everyone curious about her social life? “Not at present.”

“Do you have a little girl?” she continued.

“No, I have a son. But he’s a little old for you.”

As they chatted, Stephanie looked around the crowded diner. Heat seeped into her cheeks. In a small town, memories were long. The townsfolk would recall that she and Nick had once been inseparable. She’d thought they would be a family….

But now she knew that could never be.

Or could it?

Dear Reader,

This month, Silhouette Romance has six irresistible, emotional and heartwarming love stories for you, starting with our FABULOUS FATHERS title, Wanted: One Son by Laurie Paige. Deputy sheriff Nick Dorelli had watched the woman he loved marry another and have that man’s child. But now, mother and child need Nick. Next is The Bride Price by bestselling author Suzanne Carey. Kyra Martin has fuzzy memories of having just married her Navajo ex-fiancé in a traditional wedding ceremony. And when she discovers she’s expecting his child, she knows her dream was not only real…but had mysteriously come true! We also have two not-to-be missed new miniseries starting this month, beginning with Miss Prim’s Untamable Cowboy, book 1 of THE BRUBAKER BRIDES by Carolyn Zane. A prim image consultant tries to tame a very masculine working-class wrangler into the true Texas millionaire tycoon he really is. Good luck, Miss Prim!

In Only Bachelors Need Apply by Charlotte Maclay, a manshy woman’s handsome new neighbor has some secrets that will make her the happiest woman in the world, and in The Tycoon and the Townie by Elizabeth Lane, a struggling waitress from the wrong side of the tracks is romanced by a handsome, wealthy bachelor. Finally, our other new miniseries, ROYAL WEDDINGS by Lisa Kaye Laurel. The lovely caretaker of a royal castle finds herself a prince’s bride-to-be during a ball…with high hopes for happily ever after in The Prince’s Bride.

I hope you enjoy all six of Silhouette Romance’s terrific novels this month…and every month.

Regards,

Melissa Senate,

Senior Editor

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

Wanted: One Son
Laurie Paige

www.millsandboon.co.uk

LAURIE PAIGE

was recently presented with the Affaire de Coeur Readers’ Choice Silver Pen Award for Favorite Contemporary Author. In addition, she was a 1994 Romance Writers of America (RITA) finalist for Best Traditional Romance for her book, Sally’s Beau. She reports romance is blooming in her part of Northern California. With the birth of her second grandson, she finds herself madly in love with three wonderful males—"all hero material.” So far, her husband hasn’t complained about the other men in her life.

Dear Doogie,

Sometimes, when a fellow is hurting, he does a stupid thing. I know. I’ve been there. Once in anger and hurt, I reacted before thinking, then pride and stubbornness kept me from admitting I just might have been wrong. That cost me the future—and the family—I thought I’d have.

Well, a man makes his choices.

The only problem then is you have to live with them. Make sure yours are the ones you truly want.

Your dad was lucky in having a son like you. I thought so the first time I met you, and I still do. You have the makings of a fine man. I know I’d be proud to call you “son.”

Your mom’s a little uptight about things right now, but be honest with her, and you two will work it out For one thing—she loves you. Don’t ever forget that. I did once, and it cost me. That’s neither here nor there. Just remember, you can talk to me anytime. I’ll be here.

Love,

Nick

Chapter One

Nicholas Dorelli shifted restlessly from his left foot to his right, but his attention didn’t wander. He watched his quarry with the expertise honed by ten years on the job. As a senior deputy sheriff and special investigator in Colorado, he was there on business. Stephanie Bolt was that business.

He tongued a toothpick from the right side of his mouth to the left. With a quick jab of his fingers, he shoved the annoying wing of hair that arced over his forehead to the side, where it stayed momentarily before returning to its natural position. He settled his hat with a firm tug over the stubborn cowlick and wished he was anyplace but here.

“Here” was the public park. Stephanie was sitting on a bench gazing at the mountains that surrounded the small town high in the Rockies.

Her short brown hair glowed with honey highlights in the June sun. She caught the strands blowing across her face and hooked them behind her ear. Her wedding band reflected the warm noon light, winking at him across the well-tended lawn of the park as if laughing at a private joke.

The joke was on him. Once she’d been his girl. Until he’d found her in the arms of another man.

For three months that fateful winter while he’d been away at college, he’d refused to believe the friends who reported Steph was seeing another man, not even when his own brother had confirmed it. He’d come home on spring break, determined to find out the truth. He had.

Steph, the woman he’d trusted. Steph, who’d clung to him for comfort at her father’s funeral only three months before. Steph, who’d been his first love, had sat on her front porch and let another man hold and caress her….

After all these years, that bitter betrayal still lingered like a burr under his hide.

So did the hunger. It made him angry, this need that wouldn’t go away. With it came a sense of things unfinished, the tattered ends of emotions left over from those days when he’d thought the world was his for the taking.

He shook his head slightly, as if he could cast off the past and the feelings associated with it. It had been a mistake to return home when he finished at the police academy. Having graduated at the top of his class, he’d been offered a job with the FBI in Virginia, a long way from here and from memories….

He watched as she plucked a blade of grass, and he wondered what she’d felt for her husband. She’d certainly played the faithful and dutiful widow in the two years since Clay’s death. Too bad she hadn’t been as faithful as a lover…. He cursed silently.

When she stood, the breeze pressed her silk shirt against her breasts. Her skirt folded between her thighs. He clenched his teeth. The toothpick snapped in half.

With a grimace he dropped the two pieces into the pine needles and shoved himself off the wrought iron fence. Stephanie was heading his way.

He knew the moment she spotted him.

She stopped and watched him. Her eyes, blue as the noontime sky, seemed to become even deeper in tone. She opened the gate, stepped out, then closed it behind her, her movements precise as she made sure the latch clicked into place.

“Nick,” she said.

Not exactly a fond greeting for the man who had once been the love of her life, or so she’d claimed. They’d gone steady during their last year of high school and first year of college.

He cursed silently and nodded his head. “Stephanie.”

He noticed the faint perpetual frown she’d worn for two years. He observed the tiny, perfectly round mole one inch from the corner of her mouth on the left, a place just made for kissing…before a man moved on to the lush fullness of her lips.

She was a woman to make a man dream. Full breasts. Slender waist. Rounded hips. Shapely legs. At five-nine, she was a good height for him. In heels, she’d fit his six-one frame perfectly. Once, they’d danced the night away, locked together so tightly he couldn’t tell where he ended and she began.

She’d seldom worn heels during her marriage. That would have put her taller than Clay.

A knot formed in his throat, startling him with the unexpected emotion. Clay had been his mentor on the force, taking him on as his partner when Nick was a rookie, as green as a spring leaf on a cottonwood. It had been difficult, but he’d learned to admire the seasoned officer who was eight years his senior and husband to the woman he had thought to wed.

“What brings you here?” she asked, her eyes wary.

He’d put that wariness there. Last Christinas, after a cup of hot buttered rum, he’d kissed her at the mayor’s annual party.

The mayor’s wife had hung mistletoe over every door. He’d resisted temptation for an hour. When he’d run into Stephanie in the kitchen doorway, the mistletoe had been in place, they’d been alone for a minute and he’d given in to the passion that had erupted abruptly, catching him off guard.

So sue him.

“Doogie,” he answered her question.

Surprise flew over her face, then she became wary again. “Doogie?” She sounded suspicious, as if she thought he might be lying for his own nefarious purposes.

“Yeah.” He hesitated to disclose his news.

“If he were hurt, I assume you’d tell me right off.”

“Of course.”

“So he must be in trouble.” She hooked the hair behind her ear with an impatient gesture. Her fingers trembled slightly. “What’d he do this time?”

“This time?”

“Last week he got in a fight with Clyde Marlow.”

“Clyde’s his best friend,” Nick said, filing the information away. It tied in with his reason for being there.

“Not anymore.”

Nick shoved his hands into his back pockets and considered. “Sounds like the boy needs help.”

Her shoulders stiffened. Hostility boiled between them, distorting the air like summer heat on asphalt. It was a defensive reaction on her part, he reminded himself. On his part, neither anger nor any other emotion had a place in his dealings with her. She was simply the parent with a kid in trouble.

“Doogie…Douglas is fine. He’s just…” Her voice trailed off, and she looked uncertain.

“Going through a phase?” He ended it for her.

“Yes. All boys get up to mischief. What has he done now? Another fight?” She almost looked hopeful.

“Shoplifting.” The word came out harder than he meant it to do, but there was no way to pretty it up.

Her shoulders sagged. She closed her eyes for a second while she dragged in a shaky breath. Her skin, usually a smooth, healthy pink, mottled.

Nick took a step forward, his hands going out, his arms opening instinctively before he caught himself. He tucked his hands into his back pockets again, where they’d be safe, and backed up a step.

She opened her eyes, and he saw the heat in the usually cool depths. He steeled himself. People always took their anger out on cops. The Bad News Boys, as the sheriff labeled them in his jocular moments.

“Where? What?” she asked.

“Video, over at Joe Moss’s.”

“A video,” she echoed. “Why? Why would he do something like that?”

He shrugged. “Kids.”

“Is he in…at the jail?”

“No. I, umm…Joe decided not to prosecute.”

“You talked him out of it I…thank you. Where’s Douglas? Did you take him back to the store?”

“Yeah.” He knew the boy stayed in town on Saturdays, hanging around the clothing and accessories boutique that Stephanie successfully owned and managed with the mayor’s wife. The kid ran errands for some of the merchants or went to a movie. It could be a lonely life for a twelve-year-old.

Stephanie was pretty strict about who her son was with and where he went. Since Clay’s death she was even more so. That’s what Nick had heard. He didn’t see her much. He didn’t want to. Steph was a part of his past that he’d never come to grips with. The fact that she still had the power to bother him made him angry, but that’s the way it was.

Okay, he could handle it.

“Did you drive up?” She looked around for his cruiser, a four-wheel-drive utility truck.

“Yeah. Down here under the trees.”

She’d walked the half mile from the Glass Slipper Boutique to the isolated park on a rise at the edge of town, a thing she often did during her brief periods of freedom. He shortened his steps to her pace and guided her down the sidewalk and around the corner.

The cruiser was parked in the shade of some ancient cottonwoods. A creek ran along the road and under a thirty-foot bridge nearby. The spot was pretty, romantic even. There was a nice grassy area for a picnic. Bittercress bobbed and nodded in shades of pink, white and yellow.

Not that she took the time to notice.

Without waiting for him, she wrenched open the truck door and attempted to climb inside. Her skirt was too narrow. She hiked it midway to her thigh, but still couldn’t manage. He hooked his hands on each side of her waist and lifted her.

He held himself in check as her perfume wafted around them, brought out by the warmth of the sun and the exertion of the fast walk. He was aware of the hitch in her breathing and swallowed a groan that crowded his throat.

She fell back against him, and he realized he’d taken her by surprise. Strength flowed into him in a tidal wave of adrenaline and hunger. She wasn’t a featherweight, but neither did she feel heavy. In fact, she felt wonderful in his arms, but then, she’d always felt perfect to him during those long-ago days.

“You can put me down now.”

Her voice came from far away, barely audible over the roar of the blood pulsing through his ears.

“Nick! Nicholas! Put me down.”

The sharp panic that underlined the command jerked him back from the edge of control. He released her and slammed the door.

Stalking behind the truck, he paused and swiped a hand over his forehead where sweat had gathered in a fine-beaded sheen. He caught sight of himself in the tinted rear window.

Picture of a haunted man.

He yanked his sunglasses from his shirt pocket and jammed them on his nose. There, he thought, that at least hid the treachery of raging lust from her view. The anger surged anew. He didn’t want to be susceptible to Stephanie. He forced himself to calmly walk to the driver’s door and climb in.

When the engine was purring, he flicked the fan to high. Cool air swirled around them, drowning out the need to talk as he eased into gear and headed for the heart of the. town nestled in the foothills of the Rockies, an hour out from Denver.

Stephanie hopped out of the truck before Nick had a chance to come around and lift her down. His eyes, dark as bitter chocolate when he removed his sunglasses, bored into hers.

“Thanks for the ride. And for taking care of Doogie.”

“It was nothing.”

She nodded, closed the door and dashed across the parking lot to the boutique before he could say more. One thing she didn’t need was advice from a thirty-four-year-old bachelor on how to raise her son. She was only three months younger than Nick Dorelli. She and Doogie were doing fine, just fine.

Anxiety belied her shaky confidence as she walked into the cool, pleasant interior of the shop. “Doogie?” she said.

“In your office,” Pat, the assistant manager, told her.

Stephanie hurried toward the back. No surge of satisfaction filled her as it usually did when she walked through her little kingdom, as Clay had once called it.

Passing the curtained dressing rooms, she entered the back hallway and went into the office, which was piled high with catalogs and samples. Her son sat in a wing chair, one leg thrown over the arm in a careless position. She noticed his sneakers were wearing thin. He’d soon have a hole under the ball of his big toe. She sighed. Twelve-year-olds went through everything—clothes, shoes and food—so fast.

“I just spoke to Officer Dorelli,” she said, slipping into her chair behind the desk. She hooked a strand of hair behind her ear and looked at her son. Really looked at him.

He was more than cute. He already showed the lanky form of her family and the stunning good looks of his father. His hair was dark, almost black, and he had brilliant blue eyes, a true blue, unlike hers that had a dusky gray tint.

Doogie swallowed, but he said nothing.

“Well?” she demanded, suppressing an urge to bawl like a baby rather than act the reasonable parent

.

She didn’t want to deal with this on top of worrying about money, mortgage payments and keeping the store profits up in face of each downward turn in the economy. She didn’t need the constant reminder of her youth and its romantic, idealistic dreams, as personified by Nick Dorelli, invading her peace of mind. Life could be cruel….

“What have you got to say for yourself?” she asked her son.

“Nothing.”

“Nothing? You’re caught shoplifting and you have nothing to say?” The silence stretched between them. “Why?”

He shrugged. “I wasn’t gonna keep it It was…well, like I just wanted to watch it, then I’d have brought it back.”

“You could have rented it. You got your allowance this morning. Why didn’t you do that?”

He squinched his face up as if thinking about it was really hard. She noticed the smoothness of his skin, how tan he was already this year, except for a scar running from the edge of his chin down under the line of jawbone. He’d fallen and split his chin open on a skateboard last year.

When he’d walked in the door of the shop, blood running down the front of his T-shirt like a river, her heart had stopped. She’d taken him to the emergency clinic where they’d put eight stitches in to close the cut. Had anyone ever remarked on the difficulties of raising a child alone?

The sardonic humor helped keep the despair at bay. She had a million things to do to get the store ready for the Summer Madness sale coming up next week. Time was a pit bull, always snapping at her heels.

“Doogie?”

“There was a line. It was too much hassle.” He shrugged, defiant as only an adolescent can be.

“Hassle,” she repeated. She tried to be calm, to speak without accusation in her voice. They had to get to the bottom of this. “Shoplifting isn’t a minor infraction or a fight with a friend. It’s stealing.”

“I wasn’t stealing. I’d have brought it back tomorrow.”

“Taking something without permission is wrong, no matter what your intentions might be.” Nausea gripped her as she tried to speak reasonably and appeal to his finer qualities. “Think how you would feel if Clyde took your baseball mitt without asking you first. You’d think someone had stolen it.”

“Clyde’s a dork.”

She remembered the two boys were no longer friends. “But think how you’d feel,” she persisted. She had to get through to him somehow. “You’d be hurt. And angry. That’s how I feel.”

He kept his gaze fixed on the floor at his feet, looking very much like his father when she’d tried to talk to him about the problems in their marriage. Men. They never wanted to hear the bad stuff, only the good.

“Think about how you would have felt if it had been your father who had answered the call and found his son was accused of shoplifting. Think about how he would have felt.”

Two circles of shame formed in the boy’s cheeks. Good. Maybe her words were getting through to him. His father had been one of the best deputies in the county. He’d died a hero, leaping in front of a bullet which would have hit a woman holding a child. His bullet-proof vest deflected the first shot, but not the second that went in his neck. He’d bled to death before the paramedics arrived.

Doogie didn’t stir from his sullen position. She felt an upsurge of fear and helplessness. “Well?” she demanded. “What have you got to say for yourself?”

He stared at the floor.

“You will return to Mrs. Withers tomorrow,” she decided.

He blinked at that. “I don’t need a baby-sitter.”

“A person who can’t be trusted out on his own does.” She caught sight of her face in the decorative mirror on a highboy beside the door. She saw desperation in her eyes and willed it away with an effort. “This was a trial period, remember? You said you wouldn’t be bored here at the office.”

“I’m not bored.” His mouth pulled down at the corners while his bottom lip puckered stubbornly.

She took a breath and spoke firmly. “What happened this morning tells me I was wrong to listen to your arguments.”

“It was just a dumb video. It didn’t mean anything. I’ll never do it again.” His voice, deeper of late, segued into a treble. He gestured with his hand, a quick, angry flick as if to throw out her statement.

His hands were large, more those of a man than a child. He was growing up. Twelve years old and he was only three inches shorter than she was. In another couple of years, he’d be as tall…and much stronger.

If she couldn’t use words and reasoning to control him now, what would she do then?

“You’ll go back to Mrs. Withers for the rest of the month. And you’re grounded for that time.”

His mouth opened in protest.

She continued. “You’ll also apologize to the store owner—”

“I already did. Nick…Deputy Dorelli…made me before he brought me over here.”

Stephanie frowned at this news. She wished Nick hadn’t been the one to answer the call on her son. It was embarrassing. However, she could handle it and anything else that came up. Being married to a policeman, she’d had to.

Her husband had loved his job. He’d loved the uniform and the camaraderie with his deputy buddies. He’d worked a lot of overtime so they could save up enough money for repairs, then he’d used every spare minute to fix up the small ranch she’d inherited. Those early years had been the best part of their marriage. She tried not to think of the later years.

“Can I go now?”

“No. You’ll stay here until the store closes at six. You should have brought something to read.” She hesitated. “Trust is a funny thing. It’s given automatically to those we love, but when it’s breached, you have to earn it. Your father would have been very disappointed—”

“I don’t care,” he muttered. He stood, shoving the chair back with his legs. “I don’t care what he would have thought. He wasn’t…he wasn’t…I don’t care.”

The pop of her hand against his cheek reverberated through the silent office for long seconds after the act.

Stephanie, leaning across her desk, stared as the red imprint formed on her son’s face. Tears welled in his shocked, disbelieving eyes. He’d never been struck in his life, other than his fight with Clyde. She couldn’t believe it herself. She’d never hit another person.

Doogie leapt to his feet and turned from her, his hands balled into fists. He made a loop of his arms against the wall and hid his face inside it. For all his lanky height, he looked like what he was—a kid who was in trouble, young and vulnerable, scared, defiant and sorry, all at the same time.

Stephanie straightened slowly, feeling as old and wicked as the witch from Snow White. She sank into her chair as the tremors started, earthquakes of emotion that she couldn’t control. “Doogie, I’m sorry. It was wrong of me to strike you.”

He made a muffled sound, then turned and ran, crashing through the outside door and cutting across the parking lot in front of an elderly couple, nearly knocking them down as he fled the place.

Stephanie stood, her mind in a whirl. She clenched a hand over her stomach and felt totally helpless in dealing with her son. She was aware of the disapproving glances from the couple as she stared outside. She nodded apologetically to them and closed the door.

For a moment she thought she was going to be sick. The tinkle of chimes at the front door reminded her she had a full afternoon of work ahead and Pat hadn’t had lunch yet.

Worried, her heart aching, she went to the front. “Ready for a lunch break?” she asked with forced cheer.

“Starved,” Pat affirmed. “Everything okay with the kid?” She’d known Doogie since birth, had, in fact, babysat with him when she’d still been a girl in school.

“No. Did he say anything to you?”

Pat shook her head, her smile sympathetic. “I saw Nick Dorelli drop him off at the door. I knew he must be in trouble.” She hesitated. “Don’t be too hard on him. All kids go through a stage, well, you know…” She grabbed her purse, tilted her head in the direction of two teenage girls going over the racks of earrings on a carousel, and left.

Stephanie straightened a shelf of cotton sweaters, then surveyed the small shop. The Glass Slipper looked smart, up-to-the-minute and friendly. She’d picked the muted gray-green of sage and the soft yellows and red of the local clay for a theme. Pedestals of black Colorado granite held inexpensive urns that looked priceless. Scarves and costume jewelry were casually draped over the clay pieces.

The ordered disarray didn’t comfort her today. She sighed and rubbed her forehead where a headache was making itself known. Anger and embarrassment with her son roiled in her. She felt incompetent as a parent. Maybe she was.

Giggles from the two girls brought her back to the business at hand. She dredged up a smile. “Those look lovely on you,” she said to one who’d put on a pair of earrings from the rack. “Do you want them wrapped or are you going to wear them?”

“I’ll wear them.” The girls paid and left, talking and giggling about a boy one of them liked.

Once she’d been that carefree, but not since the summer she’d graduated and her mother had divorced her father and moved to Santa Fe, leaving them behind, Stephanie reflected.

She’d started her first year at the community college while Nick went east to a big university. In January her father had gone hunting and died in an avalanche.

Clay Bolt had been the deputy who’d come to tell her. He’d been with her when they dug her father out. He’d gone to the morgue with her. He’d stayed at the house until her mother arrived. After the funeral, Stephanie had lived there alone.

Nick had come home at spring vacation and seen Clay with her on the porch, the deputy’s arms around her to comfort her at a low moment in her life. Nick had accused her of betraying him.

She’d been astounded, then furious that he didn’t trust her, when she’d trusted him at his Ivy League school with all those debutantes hanging around. After he’d stormed out, she’d waited for him to come back to apologize, but he hadn’t. Not one call, one letter. She’d stubbornly resisted the need to contact him.

Until Clay’s death, she’d thought nothing could have been worse than that bleak period. The following year had been the loneliest of her life. Clay had become her closest friend. Months later, accepting that it was over between her and Nick, she’d dated the handsome deputy. They’d married a year after that.

Her husband had been even-tempered, a man who liked working with his hands, either on the house or on the various vehicles they’d had. The marriage had had its off moments, but mostly it had been good.

She sighed shakily. Always, always, she would regret that stupid quarrel before he’d gone off to work. He’d stopped at the convenience store to pick up a pack of gum because he’d quit smoking and had run into a robbery in progress.

Sometimes she felt as if her life had ended that day, too. But she’d had a child to care for, and that alone was enough to make her go on.

The death had changed Doogie, though. He’d become quieter and harder to handle; difficult where once he’d been easygoing and good-humored; moody where once he’d been mischievous and given to joking.

If only she had a man who could talk to Doogie like a father. Doogie had adored Clay. The two males had been close.

She stewed over the situation the rest of the afternoon. When the store closed at five and Doogie hadn’t returned, she paced the tiny office, unsure what to do.

The mayor’s wife, who was also her partner in the store, breezed in. “Hi. How’s it going?”

“Hi, Amy. Fine. It was slow this afternoon.”

“Everyone’s waiting for the Summer Madness sales to start. Did all our merchandise come in?”

“Not yet, but I’m expecting it Monday.”

She and Amy had opened the store four years ago. And she and Clay had quarreled about it ever since. He had liked his wife at home, not in town until all hours, as he put it. Actually the store was open late only on Friday night.

“Good.” Amy picked up a package under the counter. “Pat said my new outfit was in. You should get yourself one of these silk gown and peignoir sets,” she advised. “You never know when you might want to seduce a man. That’s what I’m going to do to the mayor tonight” Laughing, she took her package and said good-night.

Stephanie’s smile dried up as soon as the door closed. She hadn’t thought of seducing a man in a long time. That was way down on her list of priorities. Right now, she was a parent with a missing child. After another half hour, she gave up her troubled vigil and picked up the phone. She called the dispatcher and asked for Deputy Dorelli.

Chapter Two

Ten minutes later, Stephanie stood at the barred window and watched as Nick stepped down from the cruiser and crossed the parking lot. He walked with the easy assurance of a man who knew his world and was secure in it.

Gone was the young man she’d once known. He hadn’t been that person in years, but it wasn’t until last Christmas, under a sprig of mistletoe, that she’d fully realized it.

That kiss had shaken her. It had stirred passion and longing and memories of the past that she hadn’t allowed herself to consider in years. With it had come the startling realization that she was still a woman and she still had a heart full of dreams. She blinked as unexpected tears stung her eyes.

Nick entered without knocking and got right to the point. “What’s wrong?”

For the wildest second, she thought of being enfolded in his comforting embrace. She forced her mind back to the real world. “It’s Doogie. He and I…we quarreled …about the video.” She couldn’t bring herself to call the problem by its name. “He ran off—”

“What time was that?”

“Noon. I haven’t seen him since. I thought he would come back to the shop when he calmed down.” She pressed her lips together as worry ate at her.

Nick shrugged, his expression calm. “He’s probably too ashamed to face you.”

She blurted out the rest of it. “I slapped him. I never have before. I…it just happened. Oh, Nick, if you’d seen his face. He was so upset.”

“Easy, Steph,” he said in a quiet tone.

Once she’d loved his voice with its deep cadence that could be soothing or exciting, according to the circumstances. Once just the sound of it over the phone had made her heart pound.

His gaze caught and held hers. Instead of their opaque darkness, she sensed emotions in him that she hadn’t been aware of in a long time. She also saw the wariness.

“Did you call the ranch and see if he maybe hitched a ride home? That would be my bet on where he is,” he said with a businesslike brevity.

“I’ve called every half hour. This isn’t like him. He’s always been—” A sob caught in her throat.

“Easy,” he said again in his patient-cop mode. “Stay put. I’ll cruise around and see if I can find him.”

“I can help. I’ll look….” She tried to think where a twelve-year-old would go. “He wouldn’t go to Clyde’s, would he?” She looked at Nick for his opinion.

“He might. Have you tried there?”

She shook her head, already reaching for the phone. The call revealed that Clyde was spending the night with a friend and his mother hadn’t seen Doogie in a week.

“Not there,” she said in a croak, hanging up. The sky seemed darker when she gazed out the window, hoping to see the lanky figure of her son coming back. “The sun is setting.”

A hand closed on her shoulder. She resisted the urge to lay her cheek against it and soak up the warmth. He’d been like this after her father’s death—kind, considerate, concerned about her well-being.

“It won’t be dark for hours yet. Walk over to the school. He might be hanging around there. I’ll check with you in, say, half an hour?”

“All right.” After he left, she grabbed her purse and locked up. She walked as fast as she could to the school. There wasn’t a soul around. Even the janitor had gone for the day.

Tears balled in her throat. If he was hurt…if something happened…It would be her fault. She should have remained calm. That was a mother’s job, to be calm and guide her child on the right path.

She rushed along the nearly deserted Main Street, her thoughts going in every direction. One of them shocked her. If she and Nick had married, if Doogie was their son, she wondered how things might have been different.

Dear heavens…

Nick’s cruiser was in the parking lot when she arrived. She pressed a hand to her heart. Doogie was with him.

Too overcome to speak, she nodded, unlocked the office door and went inside. Doogie followed. He looked scared and defiant, but his eyes were worried and his mouth was pinched in at the corners.

Unexpected tears rolled down her face. She folded her arms on the cluttered desk surface and wept in silent misery.

After a minute, arms glided around her middle. She raised up and clasped Doogie to her breast. His tears fell with hers.

“I’m sorry, Mom. I’m sorry. Please, please don’t…”

She cupped his face in her hands. “You must promise me never, never to do anything like that again. Promise.”

“I won’t. Never. Honest.”

She hugged him to her, fear eating holes in her stomach. She must be raising him wrong for this to happen, but she didn’t know how she could do better. She needed advice, someone who understood boys and could talk to Doogie.

A picture of Nick, his keen gaze peering all the way to her soul, came to her. Her breath caught in her throat. Not him.

At Christmas, he’d been cynical and hard when he’d taunted her about being the grieving widow. This after he’d kissed her nearly mindless. She’d been furious…and excited and totally confused.

Her son stirred in her arms. She released him and grabbed a tissue for each of them. He wiped his eyes and blew his nose, then moved away from her.

She didn’t try to hold him. There was something older and infinitely sadder in the depths of her son’s eyes, as if a part of his childhood had been ripped away from him in the hours he’d been gone. It hurt her.

“Where did you go?”

“Nowhere, just walked around.” His voice cracked. “Then I tried to thumb a ride home.”

Just as Nick had thought he would.

“I have to thank Deputy Dorelli,” she said, recalling they’d left him in the parking lot.

When she went out, the cruiser was gone. He’d brought her son back, then thoughtfully left them alone. She stood in the last warm rays of sunlight, not sure what she felt.

Since Christmas, something had changed between her and Nick. He made her uneasy with his unrelenting gaze, as if he’d weighed her worth and she came up a full pound short.

She drew a shaky breath and turned to her son. “Let’s go home, shall we?”

“Yeah, we’ve got to check the stock.”

“Right. ’On a ranch, the chores are never done—’”

“’Just caught up for the moment,’” Doogie finished the often-quoted lecture from his father.

Later, thinking over the long day, Stephanie decided she’d overreacted. She inhaled the sage-scented air. Her son was in bed, she had a successful business, all was right with her world.

So why did she feel so miserable?

Stephanie dropped the day’s receipts into the after-hours depository at the bank with a weary sigh. The Summer Madness sale was over, thank heavens. For six days, from Monday until one o’clock today, they’d been swamped by customers. She and Pat and Amy had put in long hours this week.

Not that she was complaining. They’d moved a lot of merchandise. The new line of jewelry they’d decided to try had done very well. She’d already ordered more of it.

Stopping by her car, she viewed the Saturday traffic, which was light. She had to go to the grocery, but first she’d have lunch before going home to her recalcitrant son.

The week had been a terrible one. They’d hardly spoken to each other. He’d resented going to the sitter’s house, and she had missed having him at the shop. They could certainly have used his help. However, she had to stick to her guns.

To have rescinded his punishment would have meant she could be maneuvered into changing her mind or that she didn’t think shoplifting a serious offense. He might have gotten the idea he could do as he darned well pleased.

But it had been a hard week. He didn’t speak unless spoken to, and then, as briefly as possible. She’d left him at the ranch doing chores that morning.

A truck, one of those sports utility vehicles that the sheriff’s department used, turned the corner. She recognized the dark hair and wide shoulders even from a distance. She quickly climbed into her car and drove off.

She didn’t want Nick to see her standing on the sidewalk, unable to make up her mind about what to do on a Saturday afternoon and dreading the weekend. He would probably go to the Bear Tooth Saloon that evening. It was the local hangout for singles. She drove down the block, trying to decide what she wanted to eat.

She quietly sighed. She really was beat. She’d get her groceries and head home. She pulled into the parking lot at the only shopping mall located in the town and stopped. Her gaze fell on the new deli that had recently opened.

A sign in the window proclaimed the special of the day was a soup and salad combo. That sounded good.

The air-conditioning hit her with a pleasantly chilling blast when she went inside. It was unusually hot for June. She called a greeting to the waitress, who’d been two years behind her in school. “Hi, Peg. How’s it going?”

“Hi. We’re busy today. You alone?”

“Yes.”

The first person she spotted when Peg led her to a table was her nemesis. Nick was seated at a booth with an adorable blonde who leaned against his shoulder and gave him a kiss on the cheek while Stephanie watched, her eyes going wide.

He smiled and playfully tugged at a golden curl that brushed his chin. When he looked up, his eyes met hers.

She didn’t look away fast enough. He nodded a greeting, then glanced around at the restaurant. The place was full and a line was forming for tables. He gestured to the banquette opposite him and his dinner partner.

The waitress, who knew both of them, noticed the invitation. “Do you want to sit with Nick?” she asked. “That way you won’t be alone, and it’ll free up a table for someone else.”

Stephanie remembered a time when she’d been alone and had longed for his company. She’d faithfully waited for him, for all the good that had done her. Ah, well, she could stand his company for one meal, she decided grimly. “Okay.”

She followed the younger woman across the room and slipped into the seat opposite Nick and the cute blonde. “I don’t think I’ve met your date,” she said, her smile real this time.

“Nikki, meet Stephanie. Stephanie, this is my favorite niece, Nikki Carradine.”

The four-year-old dimpled into a charming smile. “I think you’re pretty,” she said to Stephanie. “I’ve got a boyfriend,” she confided. “His name is Zach. Do you have one?”

Stephanie felt a blush warm her ears. “Not at the present.”

“Uncle Nick doesn’t have a girlfriend,” she continued. “I was going to marry him, but Momma said I have to marry somebody my age. How old are you?”

“Nikki, it isn’t polite to ask a lady her age,” Nick chided with a gentle smile that did things to Stephanie’s heart.

“Why not?”

His brows drew together. “I’m not sure, but I think Nonna said it wasn’t done, and I always believed her.”

“I’m the same age as your uncle,” Stephanie told the pretty youngster, ignoring her escort.

“Do you have a little girl?”

“No. I have a twelve-year-old son.”

“Is he nice?”

“Most of the time.”

Nikki looked at her uncle with a question in her beautiful blue eyes. Stephanie remembered that her father, an attorney in Denver, had blond hair and blue eyes.

“A little old for you. Better stick with Zach. He’s in her Sunday School class,” Nick explained to Steph.

“But I’m not going to marry him,” Nikki declared.

Talk of marriage made Stephanie uncomfortable. She tried to avoid looking at Nick, all but impossible since he sat directly across the table from her. She was acutely aware of his dark chocolate eyes flashing from one person to another as he followed the conversation. He wore a slightly skewed, definitely sardonic, grin.

The waitress came for their order. When she left, there was an awkward lull in the conversation.

“How was the Summer Madness sale?” Nick asked.

“Fine. Busy.” She took a sip of water.

His foot brushed hers under the table. “Sorry.”

Tingles floated up her leg. “That’s okay.”

“Uncle Nick, I need to go potty,” Nikki announced.

“Sure thing, sport.” He stood and held out his hand to help his niece jump down from the banquette.

He wore a neatly pressed, long-sleeved white shirt, the cuffs rolled up a couple of turns, jeans with a sharp crease and dress boots. Since he lived in bachelor quarters in town, and she felt certain he didn’t iron his own things, she assumed he sent his clothes to the laundry.

“Would you like me to take her?” Stephanie asked.

“Would you mind? I always stand outside the door, feeling like some kind of weirdo while I wait.” He grinned in that lopsided manner that had once seared right into her heart.

Nikki placed her hand trustfully in Stephanie’s. She chattered about her favorite things to eat while they wound their way to the back of the restaurant.

When Stephanie spoke to people she knew, they smiled at her and invariably glanced toward the booth where Nick sat. Heat seeped into her cheeks. In a small town, memories were long. The townsfolk would recall that she and Nick had once been inseparable. She’d thought they would one day be a family….

When she and Nikki returned to the table, she found Nick talking to a friend in the next booth about the soccer season and how it was going. He finished and stood to let his niece back into her seat.

“We can use another player on the team,” he mentioned. “Doogie might be interested. We practice three afternoons a week and play on Saturday afternoon over at the high school.”

“He can’t. Doogie is on restriction the rest of the month.” She spoke calmly in the face of Nick’s frowning perusal. “That’s another ten days.”

“Maybe later,” Nick put in easily.

“Is Doogie being punished?” Nikki wanted to know.

“Yes. He did something he wasn’t supposed to, and now he’s grounded.” She avoided Nick’s eyes.

Their order arrived, the house specialty burgers for Nick and his niece, a salad with a grilled chicken sandwich for her.

“Hmm, maybe we’d better put something over that pretty dress,” Nick mused. “We wouldn’t want to get mustard on it. How about my handkerchief?”

“Okay,” Nikki said agreeably. She let him tuck a white hankie under her chin. “This was my Easter dress.”

“It’s very nice,” Stephanie said.

“Mom and I saw the Easter Bunny at the store.” She clapped a hand over her mouth and giggled. “You know something? It wasn’t him. It was a man pretending to be the Easter Bunny.” With an indignant huff, she confided, “He had glasses. Everybody knows rabbits don’t need glasses. They eat lots of carrots.”

Nick and Stephanie laughed at the end of this charming tale, told with great earnestness and a precise knowledge of the Easter Bunny and his ways.

Stephanie’s laughter died when she found Nick’s narrowed gaze on her. Hungry eyes. Her breath strangled in her throat. She couldn’t breathe or think or tear her gaze away.

“Pass the ketchup, please,” Nikki said, breaking into the turbulent moment.

Nick glanced away from her and passed the bottle over. When he looked at Stephanie again, she went hazy with relief. She’d been mistaken in what he was thinking. He was utterly calm, as cool as shaved ice, the way he normally was…except for that one incident in Amy’s kitchen.

“It’s going to be a hot summer, it seems,” she said. “The news said the high temperatures last week set a new record.” A blush crawled up her neck. Brilliant conversation.

“Yeah, I heard the same on TV this morning. I hope it isn’t true. We don’t need that problem this summer.”

“Are you expecting others?”

“The highway will be resurfaced down to Denver next month. It’ll slow traffic. The tourists will get grouchy. There’ll be some fender benders because of it and probably some fist fights.” He gave a snort of laughter. “Business as usual.”

“Do we still have more crime in the summer than in the winter?” she asked. She missed knowing the details of life around her, she realized. Being a cop’s wife, she used to know everything that happened in the county.

“Yes, mostly vandalism. Some petty stealing. In cow country, you get rustling, but we haven’t had anything major in a couple of years. No murders or grand larceny.”

“Have there been any bank robberies?” Nikki asked.

“Not lately,” he said with a grin at her avid interest. “The last big thing was the break-in at the summer house where that diamond necklace was taken. That was a couple of years ago.” Nick saw Steph’s eyes darken and could have kicked himself. Clay had been killed during a robbery at a quick market right after that. “The county is pretty quiet.”

She ducked her head over her plate and ate busily. Nick sighed internally. He knew Steph had been horrified and embarrassed at her son’s brush with the law. There was no need to embarrass her further with talk of crime.

He cut Nikki’s hamburger into quarters, saw that she had ketchup for her fries, then added some to his own plate. Across from him, Stephanie ate without enthusiasm. If it had been left to her, he thought, she’d have chosen not to sit with him.

They’d managed to avoid each other for most of the years since he’d returned from college, as much as one could in a place that size. Until last Christmas, they’d managed to be polite, cordial even.

When they’d split up, he remembered, she’d acted as if she’d been the hurt party and he the guilty culprit. She’d never forgiven him for distrusting her, but with the rumors of her infidelity confirmed, what did she expect? He’d waited for her to explain, to make him see how she could let another man hold her, but she hadn’t.

The memory rekindled his anger. He tamped it down. Their time together had been a lifetime ago.

A kid two tables over banged a spoon on the high chair tray. He wanted to go over and arrest the parents for letting him disturb the peace. “Did you sell out of everything in the store this week?” he asked.

“Nearly.”

“Amy said it was one of the best weeks you’d ever had.”

“It was. I was nervous about some new jewelry we’d ordered, but it went over very well.”

“Those earrings you’re wearing are real pretty. Were they part of the new stuff?”

The earrings looked like tiny sunbursts hanging from her ears. When she reached up and touched one, he remembered what it had been like to be able to kiss her right below the filigree of gold. He shut that thought off pronto.

“Yes. We ordered from a company in Reno. Their designer, a Native American named Jackson Firebird, did them. He’s getting quite a reputation.”

Nick couldn’t keep his eyes off her mouth and the tiny mole near it. Each word hit him like a caress, reminding him of things he’d forced himself to forget. When she talked about her ideas for expanding the shop, she actually became animated, something that hadn’t happened in his presence for years.

Stephanie, he realized, was very much like his sister, Dina, a CPA with her own business in Denver. Dina had just had a new daughter, which was why he’d gone down and picked up Nikki for the weekend. He’d figured Nikki needed some extra attention and Dina needed all the rest she could get. Besides, he liked kids, had always figured on having a passel of ’em.

With this woman.

He set his jaw and focused on the conversation. The anger faded somewhat as he listened. Steph had sound business sense. A modern woman with a mind of her own.

Clay, he suddenly remembered, hadn’t liked his wife working. He’d resented the success of the shop. Nick had counseled him to accept and encourage Stephanie’s interest in the store, knowing from talking to Dina that women sometimes needed more than a husband and a family to keep them occupied.

“If you need an accountant or an attorney,” he told her, “I’ve got an ’in’ with some good ones.”

“Amy and I were talking about that this morning and decided to let someone else do the taxes in the future. It’s too much for us. We’ve decided to use the new guy in town, but thanks, anyway,” she said politely, making it clear she needed no helpful suggestions from him.

“I ate half my dinner, Uncle Nick. Is that enough?”

“Uh, yeah, that’s fine.”

“What do we get for dessert?”

“The sky’s the limit, kiddo. Name it.”

“We could share a banana split,” she said hopefully.

“You got it.” He glanced across the table. “How about you? Can you hold a banana split?”

“Well…”

Nick willed her to agree. Stephanie was too serious. She needed to relax and enjoy some of the simple pleasures of life.

Whoa, boy, back off, he warned himself.

“That sounds wonderful. Fattening, but wonderful,” she finally acquiesced with a little trill of laughter.

It went right to his head. And other places.

When their treat was served, they dug in. He let Nikki eat her fill, then he finished it off. Stephanie ate half of hers. He finished it off, too. Nick was aware of her eyes on him.

“What?” he demanded. “Do I have ice cream on my chin or something?”

“I was wondering if you ever got filled up.”

“Nope. I have a hollow leg, right, Nikki?”

“Momma said I have one, too,” Nikki piped up. “She said I was just like you, Uncle Nick.”

Stephanie’s laughter pealed out again. He grinned ruefully. “Well, there are worse things you could be,” he said with great self-righteousness.

Nick cruised the two-lane section of the highway until the traffic flow was a smooth sixty-five. As soon as he exited, he knew it would speed back up except for a few pokies who would bunch up and irritate drivers who were trapped behind them and wanted to zip ahead. He took the last Off ramp into town.

His regular duties didn’t include highway patrol, but he filled in for vacationing deputies during the summer. He headed for the station. His shift was over, but he wanted to check out a misdemeanor reported earlier.

No one was in except the dispatcher. “The sheriff’s gone to talk to the mayor. He won’t be back unless it’s an emergency,” the old man, a semiretired deputy, told him.

“Who was on the misdemeanor reported this afternoon?”

“Thurman.”

“Who’d he pick up?”

“Nobody. Two boys were trying to grab some tires outside a garage. They scattered when Thurman showed up.”

“They were on foot?”

“Yeah. Thurman figured they needed a set of tires to get back in action. Said they looked about sixteen or seventeen.”

Nick didn’t acknowledge the sense of relief that made him feel ten pounds lighter. Steph would have grounded her son for life if he’d been involved. “I’m heading out. See you in the morning.”

The old deputy waved to him while he answered a call. Nick lingered to see if he would be needed. The dispatcher shook his head to tell him it wasn’t an emergency.

In the cruiser once more, Nick drove slowly along the main street of the town. Most of the shops were closed. Thursday evening wasn’t a big night on the town for the local folks.

There was one shop whose window displayed a Closed sign, but a light burned in the back. Stephanie’s compact sedan was in the parking lot next door. She was working late. He drove past and turned down a side street.

At a turn-of-the-century Victorian, Nick saw Doogie sitting on the steps, his chin in his hands, his elbows on his knees, waiting for his mom. Two much younger children chased each other in the yard. Mrs. Withers sat on the porch swing and watched them.

A car stopped at the curb. The two kids rushed to greet their father, who scooped them both up into a hug. He talked to the baby-sitter for a minute before leaving to pick up his wife at the county courthouse where she worked.

Nick headed back for Main Street and the heart of town, hoping to catch Stephanie before she left the office. He had a thing or two to say to her and, by damn, he was going to say them.

Chapter Three

Steph’s car was still parked in the lot next door when Nick arrived. He wheeled in beside it and headed for the back of the store. With his fist balled, he banged on the door.

“Who is it?” Stephanie’s voice called out a second later.

“Nick.”

He resented the cautious way she opened the door, as if she expected a trick or maybe an attack.

“Yes? Is something wrong?” She glanced out at her car.

“Not as long as you cooperate. We need to talk.”

She appeared confused. “Well, I suppose I can. I just finished the books. What do you want to talk about?”

He took hold of the door and pushed his way inside. She didn’t resist, but her eyes changed from questioning to wary in a blink. She should be wary. He was damned irritated.

“About Doogie,” he added, going into her office and sitting in a wing chair across from her desk.

She followed more slowly and took her seat. “What about him?” It was clear she didn’t want advice.

“I want him on the team.”

Hooking her hair behind her ear, she stared at him as if unable to comprehend his words.

“The soccer team,” he clarified. “I want him to join the soccer team that I coach.”

“Why?”

“Because he needs it.”

“Really?” Her tone chilled. She picked up a pencil and tapped the eraser end on the desk.

“Yes, really.” He took a breath and suppressed the sarcastic remarks he wanted to utter. “He’s not a six-year-old. He needs to be with kids his own age. He needs action…and rules, the safety of the sport to work out his aggressions—”

She flung down the pencil and stood. With her knuckles hitched on her hips, she demanded, “Who are you to tell me what my son needs?”

He stood and straightened to his full six-one height, which didn’t intimidate her one whit. “I’m a man. I’ve gone through puberty and all the frustrations and upheavals that brings.”

“But you’ve never been married or had children. You’ve never had to raise a child on your own.”

“No,” he agreed. “I haven’t.”

The office was tiny and held her scent—a sweet, breezy perfume with a hint of sultry passion and tangy bite in it. He wanted to gather her into his arms and rediscover all the secret places she touched it to her skin.

“Well, as they say, until you’ve tried it, don’t knock it, or in this case, don’t tell others how to do it.” She pulled her mouth in at the corners when she was angry, causing her lips to sort of bunch together. It reminded him of Nikki puckering up for a kiss. Only the kiss wouldn’t be anything like his niece’s if Stephanie did it. Heat broke loose in him.

He hooked his thumbs in his belt. “I took a master’s degree in psychology along with law enforcement. I’ve worked with youths for ten years. I’ve seen how they get in trouble. Doogie is headed for trouble.”

“That’s why he’s at Mrs. Withers’s.”

“That’s why he’s going to get in deeper.”

She glared at him. He held the look.

At last she unfolded her hands and let them slide from her hips. When she sank into the chair, he sat in the wing chair again, his forearms resting across his knees as he leaned forward. “Let me work with him for a while. He needs boys his own age to wrestle with and maybe talk to. He might tell me what’s bothering him.”

“How do you know something’s bothering him?” She pushed a hand through her hair in an agitated manner.

Nick shrugged, but said nothing. He wondered why he was there. She’d made it plainer than a mean cow with a sore tail she didn’t want him butting into her life. A man would be a fool to get involved with a woman who’d already cast him aside once. Her voice brought him back to the matter at hand.

“When we had the quarrel over the video, I reminded him of how terrible his father would have felt if he’d known. Doogie said he didn’t care and stormed out. How could he not care? He adored his father. Clay adored him.”

Nick stood and went to the small, barred window at the back wall, shutting out the pain and confusion in her beautiful eyes. He watched the sun rays dance on the drops of water misting up from the car wash behind the shopping center.

“It isn’t enough.” He turned to Stephanie. “Memories aren’t enough to live on.”

She lifted her chin. “No one said they were.”

“You act like you’re trying. It’s been two years, Steph. You’ve got to loosen the apron strings on the boy.”

She looked so affronted, he half expected her to slap him. Instead she asked, “How?” Her lips trembled.

He wanted to cover them with his own and make her forget that she’d ever preferred another man to him.

He jerked back, startled at the thought.

“He can stay with the baby-sitter in the mornings,” he suggested. “I’ll pick him up at three on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday for practice. Our game is on Saturday. He can do some work at my place on the weekend. I’ll pay him—”

“He can work here at the shop.” She eyed him suspiciously. “What kind of work do you have for a boy?”

“Riding fences. Checking on the llamas I’m boarding for some dude from the city.” He grinned. “Interesting critters, those llamas. Did you know they can spit just like a camel?”

She looked rather dazed at the change of subject.

“Well, how about the team? Make up your mind. I’m hungry. You want to go out to dinner?”

She shook her head. “I’ve got to pick Doogie up and go to the grocery. We have chores at home, the horses, the calves.” She waved her hand vaguely.

“Are you going to let him on the team?” He carefully kept any trace of impatience from his voice.

“I…yes, I suppose it’ll be all right. If he wants to.”

“He does.” He tipped a finger to his forehead and headed for the door. No use pushing his luck with her. He’d got what he’d come for. He knew when to leave.

Stephanie sat in the chair, gently rocking back and forth for a few minutes after Nick left. Her mind was on her son and the estrangement between them for the past month. He seemed to resent everything she said to him, no matter how trivial.

Maybe Nick was right. Being around boys his own age might be the very thing he needed. She would see how it went. If his attitude didn’t improve, it was back to Mrs. Withers with him.

After locking up, she drove the short distance to pick him up. He was sitting on the steps as usual. He sprang to his feet as soon as he saw her turn the corner and was ready to go when she stopped at the curb. Stephanie waved to Mrs. Withers and started off.

“I have some news,” she commented.

“What is it?”

“I, um, talked to Officer Dorelli this afternoon. We have agreed that you can join the soccer team. If you’re interested.”

“I am,” he said at once, as if afraid she’d change her mind if he didn’t jump on it. “You said it was okay?”

Stephanie nodded. “Yes. I thought it sounded like fun.”

“Yeah. He’s the best coach in the county. His team wins the playoffs nearly every year. When do I start?”

“He’s going to come by for you tomorrow. I’ll call Mrs. Withers when we get home and tell her you’ll stay with me.” She paused. “I thought you could help out at the store for a couple of hours each day. You volunteered to do the vacuuming and dusting.” She grinned. “The pay is minimal and you have to bank half your earnings.”

“I will,” he promised, a big grin on his face. Like his father’s, his smile made her heart ache.

At the house he changed his clothes and went to the barn without a reminder. She heard him whistling as he fed calves and mucked out stalls. She felt something curiously like envy. She wished life was as simple as a soccer game.

Maybe it was. Maybe she’d lost.

Nick feinted right, then went left. Doogie stayed with him. When Nick let the ball drift in front of him, the kid was on top of it. He stole it and headed back down the field toward his goal.

“Good,” Nick called. He glanced at his watch. Almost five. He’d been working with the boy for two hours. “You have sound moves. Good instincts, too.”

Doogie nodded modestly, his attention trained on Nick as if he were delivering the wisdom of the ages. It made a man humble to be around kids.

“I played at school last year,” Doogie explained.

“I’ll keep you on the bench tomorrow afternoon, but you can suit up with us if you’d like.”

“Sure.”

Nick saw Doogie’s ears go pink with pleasure. At the truck, he reached into the back, then tossed him a T-shirt with the team’s name and logo—a growling bear—on it.

Doogie held it up. “Wow, neat.”

“We usually wear black shorts, but anything will do. You got shin guards?”

“I’ll get some.”

“Okay. Let’s get some supper. We can pick something up and eat at the store. I’ll have your mom sign the necessary forms so you can play.”

“Sure. Uh, what position do you think I ought to play once I start?”

“I like to move my players around so we get depth. That way any player can fill in for another if we need ’em. Families tend to go on vacations in the summer, you know?”

“Yeah.”

Nick noticed the silence that ensued. Doogie was troubled about something. That was a fact.

He wondered what he would have done about the shoplifting episode if the boy had been his son. Would he have been as understanding as he was with another man’s kid?

Absolute honesty forced him to admit he might not have been as keenly observant if Stephanie wasn’t involved. He considered that idea for an unnerving moment. All right, he admitted it. He wanted her. He wondered if he was using the son as an excuse to see the mother.

Maybe he was, but there were other matters between them. The past, for one. The acute awareness for another. Maybe it was time to bury the hatchet and—and what?

With this in mind, he told Doogie they would pick up some supper and take it to Stephanie’s boutique.

“That would be great.”

He stopped at the Bear Tooth Saloon and bought pork barbecue sandwiches, curly french fries and, because Stephanie used to be a health freak, a big bowl of salad and one of fruit.

With a start, Nick realized he no longer knew her tastes, whereas once he’d known her as well as he’d known himself…or thought he had.

Doogie ran into the Main Street Market and picked up soft drinks, then Nick drove to the store on Main Street.

He waited at the back door while Doogie went through the front of the store and into the office to let him in. They spread out their feast. Doogie called his mom.

“Surprise. Dinner is served.”

Stephanie closed the register and glanced at her son with a questioning smile. He smiled back. His eyes gleamed with pleasure. His sunny nature had returned. She realized how much she had missed it.

“Dinner? Wow, I’m impressed,” she said as they walked to the back of the store. “I hope you remembered the jelly. I’m starved.”

His grin widened as she teased him about the dinner he’d planned and executed all by himself when he’d been four. She and Clay and Doogie had sat on the living room rug and eaten the meal, which consisted of peanut butter sandwiches, chocolate milk and two cookies each. Halfway through, he had remembered he hadn’t put any jelly on the sandwiches. He’d taken the remains to the kitchen and added the jelly before he let his parents finish. Remembering the jelly had become a family joke.

“Actually,” he told her as they entered the hallway, “Nick got everything.”

“Nick?” Her steps slowed. “Is he in the office?”

“Yeah.” Doogie’s expression became anxious. “Is that okay? I didn’t think you’d mind.”

What could she say? “Of course not. I was just surprised, that’s all.”

“He picked me up at Mrs. Withers today. We kicked some balls around at the field. He gave me the team shirt. I get to sit on the bench at the game tomorrow.”

Stephanie digested all this news. She felt danger closing in around her like a smothering fog. She couldn’t figure out the nervy way Nick made her feel.

Once he’d been the hero in her world, but that was long ago. Now…now he was just a man, a cop like her husband had been. Nothing special in that.

Except that lately he made her nervous. Since that kiss under the mistletoe, she’d felt off balance around him, and she didn’t like it. She kept remembering things she shouldn’t. She thought he was, too. His eyes, when he looked at her…

She paused to collect herself before entering the office after her son. The desk was covered with napkins acting as place mats. Paper plates held curly fries and sandwiches still in their wrappers. Bowls of salad and fruit completed the meal. Nick sat in a straight chair at the corner of her desk. The wing chair was pulled up to the other end.

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