Nate reminded himself he wasn’t the same bitter, resentful kid who’d been spirited out of town in a patrol car sixteen years ago.

And Katy Bates sure wasn’t the same lively, optimistic teen beauty he’d left behind.

That thought diverted Nate from the townfolks’ taunts.

Suddenly his return wasn’t about proving something to himself and the citizens of Coyote Flats.

It was about bolstering the spirits of his first love.

Now was time to return the favor Katy had granted him sixteen years ago.

Nate made a pact with himself. Somehow, some way, he was going to put a smile back on Katy’s lips, to return the sparkle to her hypnotic blue eyes.

And prove to this woman he never forgot that he could be worthy of her love.

Dear Reader,

With spring in the air, there’s no better way to herald the season and continue to celebrate Silhouette’s 20th Anniversary year than with an exhilarating month of romance from Special Edition!

Kicking off a great lineup is Beginning with Baby, a heartwarming THAT’S MY BABY! story by rising star Christie Ridgway. Longtime Special Edition favorite Susan Mallery turns up the heat in The Sheik’s Kidnapped Bride, the first book in her new DESERT ROGUES series. And popular author Laurie Paige wraps up the SO MANY BABIES miniseries with Make Way for Babies!, a poignant reunion romance in which a set of newborn twins unwittingly plays Cupid!

Beloved author Gina Wilkins weaves a sensuous modern love story about two career-minded people who are unexpectedly swept away by desire in Surprise Partners. In Her Wildest Wedding Dreams from veteran author Celeste Hamilton, a sheltered woman finds the passion of a lifetime in a rugged rancher’s arms. And finally, Carol Finch brings every woman’s fantasy to life with an irresistible millionaire hero in her compelling novel Soul Mates.

It’s a gripping month of reading in Special Edition. Enjoy!

All the best,

Karen Taylor Richman

Senior Editor

Soul Mates
Carol Finch

www.millsandboon.co.uk

This book is dedicated to my husband, Ed, and our children—Christie, Jill, Kurt, Jeff and Jon—with much love. And to our grandchildren, Brooklynn, Kennedy and Blake. Hugs and kisses!

Books by Carol Finch

Silhouette Special Edition

Not Just Another Cowboy #1242

Soul Mates #1320

CAROL FINCH,

who also writes as Gina Robins, Debra Falcon, Connie Drake and Connie Feddersen, has penned fifty-four novels in the historical romance, contemporary romance, mystery and romantic suspense genres. A former tennis pro and high school biology instructor, Ms. Finch devotes her time to writing and working on the family’s cattle ranch in Oklahoma.

Ms. Finch is a member of the Oklahoma Professional Writers’ Hall of Fame. She has received seventeen nominations and seven career achievement awards from Romantic Times Magazine for Historical Love and Laughter, Historical Adventure, Best Contemporary Romance and Storyteller of the Year.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Epilogue

Prologue

You can do this, Nate. You’ve spent fifteen years planning and dreaming of this moment. Don’t wimp out now.

Nate Channing hauled in a bracing breath and exhaled slowly. He stood face-to-face with his lowly beginnings, and he was determined to lay the bad memories to rest—here and now, once and for all.

Removing his sunglasses, he reached across the bucket seat of his car to pat his dog on the head. “Come on, Taz, let’s get this done.”

Nate got to his feet, then turned to confront his unpleasant past. The ramshackle farmhouse with its surrounding pastures, where he spent his misbegotten youth, had tumbled down on itself, like the bitter memories that avalanched over him. Nate stared at the dilapidated house that was silhouetted against the blazing orange-and-yellow sunset, where rolling hills flattened into gray, arid plains. This was the rugged landscape where Nate had grown up like a wild weed.

He flinched when the sights and sounds of that night—fifteen years ago to the day—erupted in his mind. He could almost see the flashing lights of the squad car, see the crowd of bystanders closing in around him while he was read his rights, cuffed by Sheriff Fuzz Havern and stuffed into the back seat. As if it happened only yesterday, voices exploded around Nate.

“’Bout time we got No-Account Nate out of our hair,” someone had jeered at him.

“Yeah, all he does is raise hell and howl at the moon, like the rest of the prairie wolves that prowl around Coyote Flats,” somebody else yelled smugly.

“Whaddya expect? The kid’s daddy is a jailbird, and his mama boozes it up and runs around with any man who’ll give her a second look.”

“Good riddance, loser. Now you won’t have to visit your worthless daddy in prison. You’ll be right there with him!”

The sneering comments chased one another around Nate’s head as he strode purposefully toward the run-down shack that was overgrown with weeds and sagebrush. He took one last look at the broken front steps, shattered windows and chipped paint on the wood-framed home, and he saw nothing that he was going to miss.

This was the best of his childhood memories, he thought with a snort. Hell of a childhood he’d had.

Nate reached into the pocket of his slacks to retrieve a lighter, then set the overgrown weeds aflame. The dry branches popped and crackled as orange flames consumed and devoured the shanty. A plume of dark smoke rose in the twilight, drifting down the rock-strewn hill in the light breeze.

Nate stood there, purging himself of his bad beginnings, watching his bitter memories burn to cinders. Now he owned the deed to this property that his family had rented all those years ago. Now this drafty, leaky shack was his to destroy—and rebuild. He was going to make something from nothing, something worth remembering.

Nate continued to stand there for the longest time, listening to the forlorn howls of a pack of coyotes that trotted west across the tabletop flats that were skirted by deep, winding ravines. He felt intense heat radiating from the roaring blaze that engulfed the shack and the caved-in barn that had become little more than a pile of rotted wood through the years. Smoke rolled, and flames reached up with orange-tinged fingers to claw at the gathering night.

Nate blinked back the tears that welled up in his eyes, assuring himself that it was just the pungent whiffs of smoke that caused the watery reaction.

“It’s done,” he murmured, then glanced down at his faithful companion. “Come on, Taz. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

Chapter One

One year later

“Nate Channing is back in town.” John Jessup plunked down in the front booth at the Coyote Café and stared grimly at the man across from him.

Lester Brown slumped against the red vinyl headrest, his jaw scraping his chest. “The hell you say!”

“The hell I do say. Saw him with my own eyes, Lester. He climbed out of a shiny black Lincoln, wearing one of them expensive Army suits, or whatever you call ’em. He swaggered into the post office. I was still in the barber shop when he walked out and headed for the bank.”

Lester scratched his hairy chest and muttered under his breath. “Can’t believe that hoodlum has the gumption to show his face in Coyote Flats after all these years. But he won’t hang around here long, I guaran-damn-tee, not if I have anything to say about it.”

“You might not have a say, Les.” John stared grimly at the leathery-faced rancher. “According to the gossip at the barber shop, Channing is the one who bought the property and built that fancy palace on the farm where he used to live.”

Lester snorted sardonically. “Yeah, right. Like that no-account could afford that sprawling mansion that’s been under construction for nine months. Pull my other leg, why don’tcha, John.”

“No kiddin’,” John insisted. “The news broke today, right there in the barber shop. Old Sheriff Havern is the one who made the announcement that the house and land belonged to Nate Channing.”

“What!” Lester crowed as he bolted upright in his seat. “You swear?”

John bobbed his bushy gray head.

Lester swiveled his barrel-shaped body on the seat to address the other patrons in the café. “Y’all hear that? The terror of Coyote Flats is back in town. Nobody around here has to guess where he got the cash to build that ritzy house. Drug money. You can bet your bottom dollar on it. But no matter how fancy No-Account Nate dresses these days, you can’t make silk from a sow’s ear. That bad boy is bad news. Always was. Always will be.”

While the pillars of Coyote Flats society—such as they were—speculated on Nate Channing’s reasons for setting up a base of operation in his hometown, Katy Bates-Butler sat frozen in the corner booth of the café, listening to a half-dozen conversations taking place simultaneously. Memories she hadn’t allowed herself to dwell on for more than a dozen years spiraled around her, smothering her with their intensity.

Nate Channing was back in town….

Apparently, Nate had returned to Coyote Flats the same way he’d left—in an uproar.

Forbidden and doomed were the first two words that popped into Katy’s head. Lord, she thought she had adequately buried all those feelings and sensations attached to Nate Channing’s name. Yet, emotions stirred and shifted inside her. Heartache, outrage, despair…and love. Those poignant feelings were still there, churning, threatening to crumble her carefully controlled composure.

Katy clasped her trembling hands around her coffee cup, as if it was her salvation, then squeezed her eyes shut. “Nate…” she whispered shakily.

To Katy, thoughts of Nate were synonymous with a time in her life that bubbled with dreams, promise, adventure, innocence—and torment. She could almost see Nate Channing leaning leisurely against his rattletrap car, wearing a dingy white T-shirt and faded jeans. She remembered how his shaggy hair shone like a raven’s wing, how his midnight-black eyes twinkled down at her with that endearing hint of deviltry….

That boy has a heart as black as the devil’s, and he has a soul to match. That’s what Katy’s father had said—repeatedly. Stay away from that cocky juvenile delinquent. He’s bad news, nothing but trouble.

But Nate Channing hadn’t looked like trouble to Katy. He had been her forbidden first love. In some ways he represented all those defiant, rebellious feelings that Katy had experienced when dealing with a domineering father who picked her dates and friends and demanded that she live up to his lofty expectations.

No one in this dried-up, windblown West Texas town had realized Katy and Nate were kindred spirits, even if they had been raised on opposite sides of the tracks. But Katy knew, remembered with vivid clarity, the kind of connection she’d felt to Nate. While he struggled to overcome his bad reputation and bad breeding, Katy had struggled for her independence. Nate fought back the way she’d wanted to when her father handed down his unreasonable dictates.

The night Nate was hauled off in the sheriff’s squad car, ridiculed and scorned by the citizens of this rural town, Katy had stopped believing that standing up for herself and battling her father’s high-handed decrees were worth the effort and frustration.

When Nate Channing left town he took the sunshine from Katy’s life, and she plunged into endless nightmares. Those nightmares still ruled and dictated her life.

Willfully, Katy battled for composure as she polished off her coffee, then left a tip for her lunch. She felt the desperate need to scurry from the café and take refuge in her private sanctuary before Nate Channing showed up. She couldn’t bear to have him see what had become of her after all these years. She was a shriveled mass of emotional and physical scars. Discovering what her father had done to Nate had been her unending torment. The life the dictatorial, judgmental Judge Dave Bates had imposed on Katy was nearly unbearable, but what he did to Nate was unforgivable!

Although Katy wanted to bolt to her feet and counter each one of Lester’s snide insults, to defend Nate’s honor, she had been taught the importance of not calling attention to herself, not arguing or debating, for fear of the painful consequences. A riptide of emotion bombarded Katy as she came to her feet.

With head downcast, Katy skulked toward the exit, trying to ignore the hidebound old fools who were verbally crucifying Nate Channing. She just wanted to scurry back to her office at the library and shut herself off from the world the way she usually did….

“Katy…? Kat?”

Oh, God, no! Kate froze in her tracks when his voice, like rich velvet, rolled over her. Katy reflexively shrank deeper into herself, feeling the spotlight of attention beam down on her. All conversation in the café died a quick death. Heads turned in synchronized rhythm to gape at the tall, darkly handsome man who blocked Katy’s escape route.

“Katy Bates?” he murmured. “It is you, isn’t it?”

Katy Bates was dead. Katy Bates-Butler merely existed, a fuzzy shadow of herself, one so thoroughly crushed by her nightmarish past that she had become an unperson. Lord, she would have given anything for Nate not to see her like this. Ah, if only he could have remembered her as she had once been, not as she was now!

“Remember me, Katy?”

As if she could ever forget!

It was only that gentle, caressing tone of voice that whispered from the distant past that gave her the will to look up, meet those cocoa-brown eyes and drink in the sight of olive skin and high cheekbones that denoted a mixture of Native American, Spanish and white heritage.

Mercy, he was breathtakingly attractive. He had matured magnificently, and he looked better than any man had the right to look. The tall, thin boy she remembered from the past now possessed a well-defined, athletic build. There was a dynamic aura of power and strength radiating around him. He had traded his hand-me-down clothes for an expensive three-piece suit, Italian loafers and gold Rolex watch. His lustrous black hair boasted a stylish cut that accentuated his rugged features. Everything about Nate Channing shouted wealth, prestige and success.

Wow! Could he possibly look any better?

Damn, could she possibly look any worse?

Katy stood there like a tongue-tied doofus, wearing her drab green feed-sack dress that drooped past her knees and effectively downplayed her femininity. Her mousy blond hair was shoved back in a severe knot at the nape of her neck, and several flyaway strands fell around her face. She only wore enough makeup to conceal the half-moon scar under her chin. In comparison, she resembled a lowly peasant eclipsed by a magnificent Roman god.

With all her heart—or rather what was left of it—Katy wished a hole would open beneath her feet so she could drop out of sight.

“Katy…”

She died a thousand times when his gaze flooded over her, taking in her flagpole figure and unflattering clothes. She knew what he was thinking, could almost hear him thinking it. He was thinking the same thing her deceased husband had voiced a trillion times, right to her face.

You’re an unperson with no brains and no body. You’re just a scrawny, homely nothing who takes up breathing space.

The hateful words tumbled over her, and Katy’s shoulders slumped another notch as her gaze plunged to the floor. Her husband and father had humiliated her countless times, and she had endured, but having Nate see her like this cut all the way to her shattered soul.

Nate stood in the doorway, stunned clean to the bone, watching in astonishment as Katy zipped around him and limped away. Seeing her had been no small shock, because she was a startling contrast to the mental picture he had carried around with him for years.

My God, what in the hell had happened to Katy? He remembered her as the essence of spirit and beauty. He had lived for her dimpled smiles and ringing laughter. Now she refused to meet his gaze for more than five seconds before scuttling out the door, as if the hounds of hell were nipping at her heels. He had expected a rude reception from everyone else in Coyote Flats.

But not from Katy Bates.

“Well, well,” Lester Brown mocked sarcastically. “Who are you supposed to be? The new drug lord in town, what with all your fancy duds and expensive car? You think that will impress us? Think again, No-Account Nate.”

Very slowly, very deliberately, Nate pivoted on well-shod heels to confront the unsympathetic jury of citizens who had condemned him years earlier—and still condemned him now. A dozen disparaging glares horned in on him like laser beams, not the least insulting of which was Lester Brown’s.

Nate made quick note of Lester’s rotund physique, doughy face, full jowls and that protruding lower lip that gave the man the appearance that he was perpetually pouting. Lester looked just as Nate remembered him, though age and additional weight had not been particularly kind to him.

Nate could understand why Lester held a grudge. His son had been one of Nate’s running buddies in the old days. When Nate had been arrested, Sonny Brown had been in the car with him. Lester had no intention whatsoever of forgiving Nate for soiling his son’s reputation, refused to believe that it wasn’t Nate’s influence that had been Sonny’s downfall.

Sonny hadn’t needed an ounce of help to stray from the straight and narrow. All by himself, he had dreamed up the trouble that Nate hadn’t even contemplated when he was a teenager. The kid had been every bit as worthless as his old man, as Nate recalled. And a weasely coward to boot.

Although Lester wouldn’t admit it, not in a million years, he was responsible for the way his son had turned out. But that admission would force Lester to accept blame for all his shortcomings as a man, as a father. It was never going to happen because Lester couldn’t see over, around or through his inflated ego.

Squelching his bitterness and resentment, Nate nodded at the burly farmer who was sprawled carelessly in the front booth. “Hello, Lester, nice to see you again.” Head held high, Nate ambled toward the counter to order a Coke.

“Better get that drink to go,” Lester sneered. “Folks around here don’t take to fraternizing with pond scum. And that’s all you are, no matter how fancy you wrap the package.”

The self-esteem Nate had spent years cultivating wobbled on its foundations. He had convinced himself, promised himself, that he would stand firm against the anticipated ridicule. Unfortunately, his pride was taking a beating on the first official day of his return to his hometown.

“You hear what I said, boy?” Lester taunted unmercifully. “Get it to go, and don’t come back. You aren’t wanted here.”

The teenage waitress glanced uneasily at Nate as she set the soft drink on the counter. “That’ll be seventy-five cents, sir.”

“Don’t waste your breath calling him sir,” John Jessup said. “Channing doesn’t deserve consideration or respect. Just treat him like the mongrel he is.”

Nate endured the insults without flinching. He tossed two dollar bills on the counter for an extra tip, then turned to face Lester and John’s condescending glowers. He was not going to stoop to anybody’s low expectations of him ever again, he promised himself resolutely.

Although he had been in and out of enough hot water as a teenager to pass as a load of laundry and had been picked up for assault, battery and destruction of personal property, Nate had spent his adult life working toward acceptance and respectability. He had surrounded himself with symbols of power and wealth to insulate himself against inferior feelings planted by men like Lester Brown and John Jessup. But damn, standing here, confronting the unwelcoming faces from his misguided youth resurrected all those unproductive feelings he thought he’d overcome.

Nate knew the folks in Coyote Flats were still seeing and judging him by his parentage and his past mistakes. They were not prepared to accept him for the solid citizen he had become, for the dramatic attitude adjustments he’d made. To these people, he was the same as he had been sixteen years ago, the same wayward youth who’d gone bad.

You can’t go home again…

The negative thought skittered through his mind, but Nate rejected it, even while he was being judged and rejected. Somehow, he would earn the trust and respect of these dogmatic folks in this dying Texas town. He would not let them get the better of him, and he would give them no reason whatsoever to compare him to the troubled, hurt, neglected kid he had once been.

Clinging to his battered pride, Nate exited the café, feeling the condescending gazes stabbing him in the back. The minute he stepped outside, he realized he had been holding his breath. He exhaled slowly, congratulating himself for passing the first of what he predicted would be many tests of self-control and character. He hadn’t lowered himself to Lester Brown and John Jessup’s rude, disrespectful level. He had been polite, not belligerent. He had treated the men with courtesy, even though it hadn’t been reciprocated.

Nate’s tension ebbed and an amused smile pursed his lips when he noticed that Millie Kendrick was waddling toward him. Leaning on a grocery cart for support, Millie toddled across the town square, which was surrounded by shade trees. She circled around the fountain where a statue of a coyote sat on a rock, its concrete head thrown back in an eternal howl.

Millie and her shopping cart had logged many a mile on these streets, he recalled. The old woman looked exactly as Nate remembered her. Millie was dressed in her usual attire of a flowery cotton smock and tattered straw hat that was adorned with plastic bluebirds, cardinals and sunflowers she had glued to the floppy brim. Folks in Coyote Flats claimed Millie was touched in the head, that she blurted out the first thing that came to mind. But nonetheless, folks tolerated her presence in town.

Unfortunately, the citizens of Coyote Flats had zero tolerance for Nate Channing—the hoodlum who had bad blood pumping through his veins. Nate, they had concluded, would never overcome his lowly raising. He was destined for trouble.

Millie halted ten feet away from Nate, propped her elbows on her shopping cart, then angled her head to look him up and down—twice.

“Nate Channing, ain’t it?” she panted, out of breath from her long hike.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said politely.

“Didja come back to kick some butt?”

Nate met the spry old woman’s mischievous grin and felt himself relax for the first time all day. Millie was one of the few people in his hometown who had ever bothered to give him the time of day.

“No, ma’am,” Nate replied. “I gave up on kicking butt and taking names years ago. It just never seemed to do much good.”

She appraised his appearance carefully, then said, “Pretty fancy duds for a kid from the poor side of town. Didja steal ’em?”

“No, ma’am. Paid in cash,” he assured her, smiling in response to her gruff, no-nonsense interrogation.

“Turned out all right then, did you?” She pushed herself upright and gripped the handle of her grocery cart. “Glad to see it. Figured you would, though. What he did to you wasn’t fair, not fair at all.” When she shook her frizzy gray head, the plastic birds wobbled on the brim of her hat. “Tried to tell him so, I did. But the old fool wouldn’t listen to me. Nobody ever listens to me.”

Befuddled, Nate watched Millie shove off to the mom-andpop grocery store. She was still mumbling to herself when she crossed the street.

Nate had no idea what Millie meant by her parting remarks, and he didn’t have time to stand around woolgathering. The heartbreaking sight of Katy Bates compelled him down the street. Nate damn well intended to confront Katy again, away from the prying eyes of his local hate club—of which Brown and Jessup had elected themselves president and vice president.

Nate made a beeline for the library. Katy Bates was one of the three reasons he had returned to Coyote Flats. After encountering her at the café, she had been elevated to the top of Nate’s priority list. If Katy thought she could duck and run away from him, she thought wrong. Their brief reunion had prompted a hundred questions, and Nate wanted answers—now.

Coyote Library sat a block north of Main Street. As Nate recalled, the small hole-in-the-wall structure had once housed a sleazy bar. The establishment was crying out for a coat of paint, and Nate suspected the town hadn’t allocated much in the way of funds to keep the library up-to-date.

The instant Nate stepped inside the building, his speculations were confirmed. Unstained plywood shelves lined the main room. The floor was covered with vintage, gray-speckled linoleum left over from the days when tavern-goers boot-scooted to the strains of country music. Stains on the ceiling tile indicated there were a half-dozen leaks in the roof. The scarred wooden bar now served as the library counter. An outdated copy machine sat in the corner, and picnic tables and benches lined the walls.

Although the public library was neat and clean, the atmosphere was gloomy. Faulty fluorescent lights—that would drive Nate nuts if he had to spend the day working beneath them—flickered down on him.

This was Katy’s world, Nate realized with a sense of shock and dismay. He took another assessing appraisal of the place and found it sorely lacking. This library was nothing compared to his ultramodern office in Odessa.

“May I help you?”

Nate glanced at the teenage girl who had her blond hair pulled back in a ponytail. She smiled at him, displaying the braces on her teeth. Something about her reminded him of the visual image of Katy that he had carried around in his head. There was a noticeable family resemblance….

My God…was this Katy’s daughter? Could this girl have been Nate’s daughter…?

The startling possibility made his knees wobble.

“Were you looking for a particular kind of book, sir?” Tammy Bates asked helpfully.

Nate flashed his best smile. “No, I would like to speak with Katy, please.”

The girl hitched her thumb over her shoulder. “Katy is in her office. You can go on back if you like.”

Nate zigzagged around the picnic tables—for God’s sake!—that accommodated patrons who wanted to sit down and thumb through the limited supply of books on the shelves.

Nate was granted the opportunity to observe Katy unaware while she sat in profound concentration at her outdated computer, which looked exactly like the one Nate had pitched from his office eight years earlier so he could upgrade his equipment. Katy’s shoulders were hunched the same way they had been when he encountered her at the café.

What the sweet loving hell had happened to that bubbly teenager he had fallen head over heels in love with all those years ago? Katy had been spirited and enthusiastic. A vivacious cheerleader. A snappy dresser with a dazzling smile. Katy had been the heartthrob of every male in town—Nate included.

Pity and disappointment slammed through Nate as he stared at this new and dramatically different Katy. While he had scratched and clawed to make something of himself, desperate and determined to rise above his miserable raising, hell-bent on making a triumphant return to this crummy little spot-on-the-road town, Katy had been backsliding.

What life-altering incident had broken her spirit, made her coil in on herself, as if she had all but given up on life?

God, seeing the hunch-shouldered woman with her downcast head and unsmiling face was agonizing for Nate. He had wanted to return to find Katy exactly as she had been—full of life, the picture of innocence and hope.

Ah, how many times had she delivered pep talks to him, assuring him that he could become anything he wanted, that he shouldn’t let the stigma attached to his name get him down? She had believed in him when no one else saw the slightest potential. She had encouraged him when everyone else wrote him off as No-Account Nate who was destined for welfare checks and stints in prison.

“Katy?” he murmured, trying not to startle her as badly as he had at the restaurant.

She instantly flinched, then swiveled her head around to stare at him. Her huge blue eyes—eyes that he’d drowned in a thousand times as a kid—widened in surprise. She sat rigidly at the computer, her fingers frozen on the keyboard. Two lines of Ks bleeped across the monitor.

Nate tossed her a grin. “You might want to ease your finger off the letter K, unless you plan to print out an entire page of them.”

“Oh.” She snatched her hand off the keyboard, as if she’d been snake-bitten, then stared at her lap, not him.

The fact that she refused to make eye contact for more than a split second annoyed and confused Nate. Sixteen years of separation and all she could think to say to him was oh? Nate’s expectations of their reunion had been exceedingly high, he was the first to admit. But as far as reunions went, this one was the absolute pits.

The truth was that Nate had visions of Katy bounding from her vinyl chair—which was wrapped in duct tape to prevent the padding from sticking out—and launching herself into his arms to shower him with welcoming kisses.

So much for fantasy. This encounter was as huge a disappointment as the one in the restaurant.

Katy silently cursed the fact that Nate had tracked her down. She was thoroughly embarrassed and humiliated to have him see her at her worst. She looked like a blob of lime gelatin quivering on her chair, while he appeared dashing and vital and alive.

Why wouldn’t he go away and leave her to her misery? It was killing her to know she had made nothing of her life and that he had taken the world by the tail and given it a whirl. She was delighted for him, of course, had always known that he was teeming with potential, if only someone would give him a chance to make a fresh start.

She, on the other hand, had spiraled downhill, landed hard and never recovered. For two young kids who had made an emotional connection sixteen years ago, they had certainly ended up on opposite ends of the spectrum.

“Talk to me,” he urged as he strode forward. “What happened to you, Kat?”

He filled her cubicle office with a strength and vitality that had become a distant memory to Katy. Heavens, she couldn’t remember what spirit and enthusiasm meant these days, without looking them up in the dictionary.

“What do you want to talk about?” she asked with cool reserve. “If you need reference books, Tammy can help you at the front desk. I’m very busy, Nate. I’m typing a letter to the city council to request funds so I can afford to order more books and retain Tammy as my part-time employee.”

“We haven’t seen each other in sixteen years and all you can say is, ‘I’m busy’?” Nate asked. His gaze bore into her with such intensity that she looked the other way. “No one else in this town is thrilled to see me. I didn’t expect anything from them, but I guess I expected something more from you.”

His voice rumbled with anger and Katy reflexively shrank away. When he abruptly jerked up his hand to rake it through that shiny crop of coal-black hair, Katy embarrassed herself by ducking and flinching. Oh, God, now he would know for sure that she was a sniveling little coward who was afraid of her own shadow.

Nate froze to the spot when he witnessed Katy’s instantaneous reaction to his exasperated tone and sudden movement. It didn’t take a genius to realize she had suffered from physical abuse. She reminded him so much of Taz, the mutt that he had taken into his home. The poor animal had been starved and kicked around by its previous owners. Taz tucked his tail between its legs and slunk from the room when Nate raised his voice. The mutt had seemed the perfect pet for a man who shared the same lowly breeding, and Nate had developed a natural affinity to underdogs in this world, because he’d been one for more than half his life.

Katy, he suspected, had been struck and browbeaten until she had all but given up on hope and happiness. It was there in the desolate expression in those beautiful blue eyes, the lines of grim acceptance that bracketed her mouth, in her braced posture.

My God, she behaved as if she expected him to storm over to her desk and backhand her! She should remember that he had never laid a hand on her, should know that he would never lay a hand on her.

Dear God in heaven, who had done this to her? Who had reduced her to an insecure, fearful, shrinking violet of a female?

Tears welled up in Katy’s eyes when she saw that look of sympathy cross Nate’s ruggedly handsome face. It was killing her, inch by anguishing inch, for him to see what she had become. For every positive step Nate had taken toward his future, she had taken two crawdad shuffles backward.

“Please leave, Nate,” she whispered brokenly. “We have nothing in common anymore, except that we grew up in the same hometown. But know this…” Katy inhaled a deep breath and forced herself to meet his sympathetic gaze—at least she did for a few seconds before glancing at the air over his head. “I’m very proud of you. I admire you for turning your life around. I wish all the best for you. Never doubt that.”

She spun around in her chair to delete the two lines of Ks, then continued typing her letter, praying he would take the cue and beat a hasty retreat from her office before she broke down and blubbered.

He didn’t budge from the spot.

“Do you have any idea how long I’ve carried your memory around with me, heard the words of encouragement you offered me when times were so bad I could barely tolerate them? You inspired me to make something of myself.

“Sheriff Havern gave me the chance that no one else in this town was willing to give me. I have you and Havern to thank for turning my life around. I’m not going to turn my back on you, Katy Marie Bates, you can count on it. And you know damned good and well that I never broke a promise to you. I’m sure as hell not about to start now!”

His parting remarks were heaven and hell in one. She wanted him to stay, to teach her how to mend her broken dreams. Yet she wanted him to walk away and never come back, because she had given up hope so long ago that it was difficult to remember what hope was.

When Nate finally turned around and walked away, Katy slumped over the keyboard. Nate had no idea how hard these past sixteen years had been on her. He refused to admit that the girl he remembered no longer existed. But Katy knew that enthusiastic teenager had not survived. That vibrant young woman was nothing more than a distant memory who lived in the past.

Overwhelmed by emotion, Katy did the very thing she promised herself she wouldn’t do. She broke down and bawled her head off, just like the weak coward she was.

Chapter Two

Nate shot through the library and stormed down the street. If Katy didn’t have the courage to tell him what—or who—had broken her spirit and made her give up so completely on herself, the former sheriff of Coyote County would. Fuzz Havern was another reason Nate was back in town, and Fuzz was going to help Nate understand what had turned his sweet, adorable Katy into a pitiful, drab-looking librarian who holed herself up in an office, surrounded by books.

He suspected that she had become content to live through the pages of all those books, watching the dreams of fictitious characters come true because her own dreams had fallen short. Those damn books had become her world, her only reality.

Well, Katy Marie Bates had another thing coming if she thought Nate was going to let her continue on the pathetic course she was on! He owed her more than he could possibly repay, but that wasn’t going to stop him from doing whatever was necessary to help Katy.

Nate pounded the pavement to reach his car, totally ignoring Lester Brown and John Jessup, who had moseyed from the café to monitor his activities like a couple of tails staking out a known criminal.

“Been to the library, I see,” Lester taunted. “Bet it’s the first time you’ve set foot inside one, isn’t it?” He flicked his thick wrist as Nate walked by without breaking stride or acknowledging his presence. “Atta boy, Nate. Climb back in that fancy-schmancy car and hightail it out of Coyote Flats. You’re the reason my boy turned sour, and I don’t need any reminders of that. Sonny was a good kid until you poisoned him with your bad blood. Get the hell out of here and don’t come back!” he all but shouted at Nate’s departing back.

“Yeah, what he said,” John Jessup quickly seconded.

Nate plunked into the bucket seat and turned the key in the ignition. He revved the engine to drown out the scornful words. His knee-jerk reaction was to lay rubber and prove to those snippy old coots that he didn’t give a flying fig what they thought of him. Luckily, Nate recovered his cool before he reverted to his teenage antics and behaved exactly as Brown and Jessup anticipated.

Like a conscientious, law-abiding citizen, Nate veered slowly from the curb and observed the speed limit as he drove toward his new home three miles from this dust-choked, outdated, economically challenged, one-horse town.

Don’t let them get to you, he chanted to himself. Don’t let them whittle away at your pride and self-confidence. You’re a self-made man who came up from rock bottom, and you’ve earned your success. If you start looking at yourself through their condemning eyes, your struggles and hard-won victories will count for nothing. You knew it would take time to prove yourself to the folks in this town. You knew you would have to earn a respectable reputation. Have patience, man. You knew damned good and well this wasn’t going to be easy.

Nate sucked in a cleansing breath and reminded himself that he wasn’t the same bitter, resentful kid who had been spirited out of town in a patrol car.

And Katy Bates sure as hell wasn’t the same lively, optimistic teenage beauty queen he had left behind in a flash of lights and the scream of sirens.

That tormenting thought served to distract Nate from Brown and Jessup’s taunts. Suddenly, his return to his hometown wasn’t about proving something to himself and to the citizens of Coyote Flats. It was about bolstering the spirits of a woman who had all but given up on life. It was time to return the favor Katy had granted him sixteen years ago.

Nate made a pact with himself one mile later. Somehow, some way, he was going to put a smile back on Katy’s lips and return the sparkle to those hypnotic blue eyes that dominated Katy’s pale, thin face. She may have forgotten how to fight back, but Nate sure hadn’t. And by damned, he was going to teach her how it was done!

“My gosh, Aunt Katy, who was that hunk?” Tammy Bates questioned as she propped herself against the office door.

Katy smiled ruefully at her niece, then handed over the letter she had prepared for the city council. “He’s an old friend from high school,” she replied as casually as she knew how.

“Man, and here I thought Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon were incredible to look at! Wow! Talk about tall, dark and handsome!”

Tammy’s love-struck expression was the spitting image of the dreamy smiles Katy had worn a lifetime ago while mooning over Nate Channing. Of course, Katy had had the good sense not to bring up Nate’s name in front of her father, only in front of her friends. Judge Dave Bates had gone ballistic the few times he had caught Katy and Nate together. She had paid dearly for those secret rendezvous, too. Dave had decreed that Nate was off-limits, and her father had dreamed up ways to keep them separated.

Later, when Kate discovered to what drastic extremes her father had abused his power and used his influence to ensure Nate was out of her life for good, she had never forgiven him, had lost all respect for him.

Although Nate seemed determined to strike up a friendship with Katy, she knew it was utterly impossible to mend the broken bridges. She knew that, ultimately, she was the reason Nate had been forced out of town and never permitted to return.

She had also seen Nate’s look of pity when he stared at her. She had nothing to offer the prominent, successful man Nate Channing had become. She was damaged merchandise. Her physical and emotional scars had left her with feelings of inadequacy and unattractiveness that she couldn’t overcome.

Nate deserved better than a mousy female who had been in an emotional coma for years and couldn’t remember how to laugh and smile. He needed someone exciting and attractive, someone who could stand up for herself, someone who could walk without a limp, someone who could look a man squarely in the eye and feel that she was his equal.

Nate had reinvented himself while she had shriveled up inside. She had nothing to offer him now or ever again.

“So, what’s his name, Aunt Katy?” Tammy grilled her.

“Nate Channing.”

Tammy frowned pensively. “I don’t recognize the name. Is his family still around here?”

“No.”

“So he just stopped by to visit you on his way through town?”

Katy shrugged her thin-bladed shoulders. “Please hand-deliver this letter to the city hall. I want the secretary to put my request on the agenda before the council’s meeting.”

“Sure.” Tammy spun around, her ponytail bobbing as she walked away. “But I still think Nate Channing is incredibly good-looking. Maybe you should find out if he’s staying overnight in town and invite him over for supper.”

“Maybe you should stop playing matchmaker and mind your own business,” Katy called after her.

Tammy pirouetted, then grinned unrepentantly at her aunt. “I’ll mind my own business if you will admit that Nate is one great-looking guy.”

“Okay, he’s a knockout,” Katy admitted honestly. “Happy now?”

“I would be if you would chase him down and invite him to supper,” Tammy said before she whipped around and sauntered away.

Katy scrunched into her chair and stared at the blank wall where Nate’s handsome face had superimposed itself. “Too vital, too good-looking. Far too deserving of someone like me,” she said sensibly to herself.

There had been a time when Katy had dreamed of her darkly handsome knight riding back into her life to rescue her from a disastrous marriage and whisk her away from a domineering father who offered no moral support, who constantly sided with her husband. But no one had come to her rescue, and her own attempts to fight for her freedom earned painful blows.

It was too late for her to start fresh, too late to mend all her shattered dreams. This was as good as her life would get, she assured herself fatalistically.

Resolved not to let Nate make the mistake of trying to reestablish their friendship, Katy forced herself to concentrate on her work. For Nate’s sake she had to discourage him from future contact. Katy had nothing to offer him now. Too much water had flooded under the bridge of her life. She had learned to accept what she hadn’t been able to change, and she had learned to center her life around the books that lined the library shelves. The characters on the pages of those books were her friends and acquaintances. They were safe, and she was secure inside the walls of this building.

Eventually, Nate would realize that the happiness and confidences they shared a lifetime ago were like closed chapters in a book. He would look elsewhere for a fulfilling friendship and leave her to the life she had grown comfortable with. It was too late to change, Katy told herself. She wasn’t even going to try.

Nate strode into his new ranch-style home to see Fuzz Havern, the retired sheriff of Coyote County, sprawled on the leather recliner. Fuzz had traded his police-issued pistol for the remote control to the big-screen TV.

Fuzz was all smiles when he glanced up to see Nate stride into the spacious living room. Nate wished he felt half of Fuzz’s obvious pleasure and satisfaction. Unfortunately, seeing what had become of Katy Bates had turned Nate wrong-side-out. He still couldn’t believe Katy had changed so dramatically.

“Pinch me, Nate,” Fuzz insisted. “I swear I must be dreaming all this. How can I possibly be sitting in this luxurious house, living like a king?” Fuzz swiped a meaty hand over his military-style gray hair and beamed in pleasure again. “After all the tense situations in the line of duty, here I am, kicked back, surfing channels and loving every minute of it.” He glanced around the expensively furnished room. “This place is really something else, Nate.”

“I’m glad you agreed to our arrangements,” Nate said as he plopped down on the matching leather sofa. “I told you sixteen years ago that I would repay you for what you did for me.”

Fuzz nodded, remembering. “Yeah, well, all I did was give you the break nobody around here was willing to give you. You took the opportunity I arranged for you, and you ran with it.” He tossed Nate a knowing glance. “I don’t imagine you thought I was doing you any favors those first few months after I left you in Bud Thurston’s charge.”

Nate returned the grin. “No, I didn’t,” he recalled. “That ex-marine sergeant knew how to put a wayward youth through the drills, didn’t he?”

“Amen to that,” Fuzz agreed. “But Bud taught you discipline, the value of a hard day’s work, just as I asked him to do.”

Nate remembered the big, burly, gruff-mannered man who stood six feet six inches tall and weighed in at two-eighty—every pound solid, unyielding muscle. Bud Thurston had clamped a beefy fist around the ribbing on Nate’s T-shirt, jerked him off the ground and told Nate what was what. Bud had also taught Nate to be courteous, considerate, respectful and cooperative—or else.

Way out in the middle of nowhere, on Thurston Ranch, Bud was a law unto himself, and he was man enough to back up any command or threat he spouted. Nobody in his right mind messed with Bud, not if you planned to walk away from a confrontation in one piece.

Then, of course, there was Fuzz Havern, who checked on Nate once a month like a parole officer. Between the two men who had served together in the military, Nate had been nudged down the straight-and-narrow path and gotten his miserable life on course. It had taken a year for a bitter, mule-headed kid to change his ways, but it had been worth the effort. Nate was eternally grateful somebody was willing to help him make the needed changes in his behavior and attitude.

“You’ll notice that I didn’t extend the same generosity to Sonny Brown that night I hauled your sorry butt out of town,” Fuzz remarked, then channel-surfed to his heart’s content. “That boy never could overcome his raising, not with Lester there to defend him every time he made a bonehead mistake. The only way to save Sonny would have been to shoot his father. I couldn’t stretch the law that far.”

“Where is Sonny these days?” Nate asked.

“Doing time up in Big Spring,” Fuzz reported. “Every time he does another hitch in jail he learns another trick and tries it out when he walks back into society. And every time Sonny is taken into custody, Lester claims his kid is innocent.”

“He is still blaming me for driving Sonny to ruin,” Nate commented.

“Of course he is. Lester isn’t the kind of man who’s big enough to admit to his own failings and mistakes. It has always been someone else’s fault that his boy was worthless. It was the fault of bad weather conditions and plummeting cattle-market prices that caused him to lose his shirt in the ranching business.”

Fuzz shook his head. “Nope, you couldn’t convince Lester Brown that his laziness, his lack of ambition and lack of discipline for himself, and Sonny, caused his misfortune, not even if you dedicated an entire month of your life to explaining it to him…Why the sudden interest in Lester? Did you run into him already?”

Nate squelched his frustration and ignored the taunts still buzzing around his head. “Yeah, Lester and John Jessup headed up the unwelcoming committee when I drove into town to open a bank account and fill out the forms to have mail delivered to this address.”

Fuzz stared grimly at Nate. “Don’t let Lester get to you. I warned you that he would be on your case, along with his comical sidekick, Jessup. That was the first test you had to pass. You’ll have to turn the other cheek when those two lay into you.”

“They already did, twice today,” Nate confided.

Fuzz stared at Nate for a long, pensive moment. “Why don’t you just tell them flat-out why you came back? Maybe they would cut you a little slack.”

This wasn’t the first time Fuzz had questioned Nate’s strategy. Personally, Nate didn’t think the reasons for his return to Coyote Flats would change the low public opinion of him. No, Nate had to do things his own way, in his own good time.

The first phase of Nate’s crusade was already in place. He had constructed this spacious house on the site of his birthplace. He had convinced Fuzz Havern to share his home, rather than puttering around in that tiny garage apartment the retired sheriff rented after his wife died eight years earlier. Nate knew Sally Havern’s long bout with cancer had drained Fuzz’s savings account and plunged him into debt. Fuzz’s retirement pension barely covered expenses. Convincing Fuzz to move in with him was Nate’s way of repaying this man who had seen to it that a troubled kid had a chance to turn his life around.

Nate had specifically designed this house so Fuzz would have a private living area, bedroom, bath and kitchenette in the west wing. Of course, Fuzz could make use of the rest of the house any time he felt like socializing with Nate. That was the deal—no rent, no utility bills. Fuzz could stock his kitchenette with his favorite foods, buy personal supplies and maintain his pickup truck. Nate took care of everything else.

Although Fuzz had insisted on sharing a larger portion of the living expenses, Nate wouldn’t hear of it. This was his way of repaying a tremendous favor, and Fuzz just had to accept that.

The patter of canine feet on the kitchen ceramic tile prompted Fuzz to glance over his shoulder. He rolled his eyes as Taz trotted into the living room to shove his snout under Nate’s hand, demanding a pat on the head.

“I gotta tell ya, Nate. That is the ugliest mutt I’ve ever laid eyes on.” He regarded Nate shrewdly. “Is Taz the same kind of charity case I am?”

Nate stroked the affection-starved mongrel that was a cross between a blue heeler, border collie and German shepherd, but his full attention was riveted on Fuzz. “Let’s get one thing straight here,” he said firmly, directly. “You are not a charity case. You are, and always were, the only man in this Podunk town who gave a damn about me. When I was a kid, you saved me from a few beatings at my old man’s hands.”

“But there were times when I wasn’t around to stop them,” Fuzz murmured regretfully.

Nate didn’t particularly want to revisit those hellish memories. Living the nightmare was bad enough. Being knocked around, stepped on and locked out of the house for punishment was behind him now. His daddy hadn’t been anyone’s idea of a role-model parent, that was for sure. Gary Channing had done his stint in Vietnam, and the hell he’d endured screwed up his life royally. Nate wasn’t about to make excuses for his old man, who took his torment out on his kid, but the more he read about the trauma suffered by war veterans, the more he understood that Gary Channing was too busy battling his own demons to offer guidance to his son.

All Nate received from his father was a hefty life insurance policy that had been bought and paid for by his father’s parents. When Gary died in prison seven years earlier, Nate had acquired a financial base to invest in the oil industry, where he had been working for the previous three years.

It was Bud Thurston and Fuzz Havern, ex-marine sergeants, who had vouched for Nate when he applied for the job working endless hours on the oil rigs. Nate had been praised by his new employer for his hard work, respectfulness and cooperation.

Bud and Fuzz’s behavior modification program had worked like a charm. It was Bud who first employed Nate on the ranch west of Odessa and taught him to work and to be responsible for equipment and machinery. Fourteen-hour days, seven days a week on Bud’s ranch and on oil rigs was no picnic, but it left Nate no time to revert to his old ways. Nate had been too exhausted to do anything except plop his aching body into bed and sleep.

During those years on Thurston Ranch Nate had strung miles of barbed wire fences, had been launched off the backs of more ornery horses than he cared to count. He had been run down, kicked and stepped on by jittery cattle during roundup. But he had always managed to hoist himself to his feet to face another exhausting day.

Oh, yeah, Bud was one hell of a taskmaster, but Bud had been fair, honest and straightforward. He hadn’t put up with any crap from Nate or the other boys delivered to his care, and Nate had every intention of repaying “Sarge.” The firstborn calves from Nate’s cattle herd, which was presently grazing in the surrounding pastures of the property he had purchased the previous year would become a gift to Bud Thurston.

Nate Channing fully intended to repay every kindness extended to him. Furthermore, he was going to find a way to turn Katy Bates’s life around. He couldn’t abide by what she had done to herself—or rather, what some maniacal beast had done to her.

Nate continued to stroke the mongrel’s broad head. “I ran into Katy Bates in town this morning.”

Fuzz winced. “Did you?”

Nate’s gaze narrowed on the retired sheriff. What caused that reaction? he wondered.

Fuzz stared out the bay window, which provided a panoramic view of cattle grazing in the pasture. “You, I managed to rescue in time. She, I couldn’t,” he said regretfully.

A knot of apprehension coiled in the pit of Nate’s belly. He really didn’t like the sound of that. “Tell me about Katy.”

Fuzz arched a thick brow and smiled knowingly. Nate figured he must have given himself away by the way he murmured her name.

“She’s another reason you came back to town, isn’t she?” Fuzz nodded thoughtfully. “I figured as much, but you didn’t mention her name when you gave me that sales pitch about how you wanted me to move into this palace with you and help you out by checking on your cattle herd while you were tied up with overseeing the construction of your local branch office for your Sunrise Oil Company.”

Fuzz flicked off the television and settled himself more comfortably in the easy chair. “You really had it bad for that girl when you were a kid, didn’t you? Not that I blame you. Katy was really a vision in those days. Cute as a button when she was in kindergarten, then blossomed into an eye-catching young woman.”

When Nate didn’t respond, Fuzz snickered. “Aw, come on, son. You think I didn’t know how you mooned over that girl? You think the judge didn’t trot into my office and demand that I slap a restraining order on you after he found out the two of you were meeting on the sly?”

Nate’s eyes widened in surprise. He’d had a few confrontations with old man Bates, none of them pleasant. Dave Bates had warned Nate to stay away from his precious daughter, threatened to blow him to smithereens if Nate so much as set foot on the front porch. According to old man Bates, Nate was the worst kind of white trash that ever drew breath and he wasn’t fit to breathe the same air as Katy. But Nate hadn’t known the influential Judge Bates had tried to twist Fuzz’s arm into taking legal action, in attempt to halt the blossoming romance.

“Oh, yeah,” Fuzz said, then chuckled. “Dave bent my ears all the damn time. He claimed you were stalking his daughter, insisted that she was terrified of you. But I knew better. While I was cruising around the school grounds, I saw the way Katy looked at you when the two of you were speaking privately.”

“But you didn’t knuckle under to the judge’s pressure,” Nate presumed.

“No, I told Dave there was no evidence of wrongdoing. I also told him that I had talked to Katy, and she confirmed that you had done nothing whatsoever to deserve a restraining order.” Fuzz grinned wryly. “But I did cruise through that residential section of town enough times to notice that rattletrap car you used to drive was often parked a few doors down the street from Katy’s house.”

Nate squirmed uncomfortably. He’d had it bad in those days. He couldn’t begin to count the nights he had driven to Katy’s neighborhood and sat there in his car, staring at that house, wishing he were welcome. He would sit there puffing on a cigarette, wishing he wasn’t a social pariah, wishing Katy wasn’t off-limits, wishing he had the right to escort her around town and let all the other boys know she belonged to him. Oh, yeah, and he’d also wished he could win the lottery so he could afford to take her out to fancy restaurants, like the kids of Coyote Flats’ high society did when they dated.

In those days Nate barely had enough pocket change to fuel his gas-guzzling, bucket-of-rust car and put food in his mouth. His ill-fitting clothes were hand-me-downs that the United Methodist Women’s Society donated to his family once a year, along with a Thanksgiving basket of food.

It had been humiliating to be dirt poor and to be head over boot heels in love with a girl whose weekly allowance was higher than the salary he made as part-time attendant at the service station.

Embarrassment and humiliation didn’t keep Nate from caring deeply for that warm, sweet young woman who treated him as if he were special, though the other members of her social clique flung up their noses and pretended he didn’t exist. Nate honestly didn’t know what Katy had seen in him back in those days, but she had bolstered his confidence, defended him to her snooty friends, treated him with the kind of respect he had never encountered in Coyote Flats.

Nope, Nate reminded himself. There had been no one like Katy Bates. Every woman he’d been with since then had never measured up to her. She had been kind, caring, supportive and generous of heart. Nowadays, women were easily accessible because of his financial success in the oil industry. But Nate hadn’t had time for lengthy relationships, not when he was obsessively driven to succeed in business, to keep the promise he had made to himself when Sheriff Fuzz Havern had loaded his sorry butt into the squad car and driven straight to Bud Thurston’s ranch. During that late-night drive, Fuzz had told Nate that he was going to get one chance to make something out of his life. If he blew it, he would be on his own.

That long-winded lecture from Fuzz was something Nate had never forgotten. He’d been scared and desperate enough to listen that fateful night.

“Katy has changed drastically over the years, hasn’t she?” Fuzz said, jostling Nate from his pensive musings.

“I almost didn’t recognize her,” Nate admitted. “What happened?”

Fuzz rose to his feet. “I’m going to rob your fridge of a Coke to wet my whistle. Want one?”

Nate nodded as he rose to let the mongrel outside. When he returned, Fuzz handed him an iced-down cola, then sprawled in his chair. “The only reason I can tell you about what happened to Katy is that the two detrimental influences in her life are dead and gone, so you can’t revert to your old ways and beat the hell out of them.”

Nate winced. God, how grim was this tale? he wondered. It must be bad if Fuzz predicted Nate would be tempted to tear off on a mission of revenge.

Fuzz sipped his cola, then focused solemnly on Nate. “I chose to transport you out of town that night, despite the fact that Judge Bates wanted you incarcerated so he could have you delivered to a detention center. From that day forward, the judge took Katy firmly and relentlessly in hand. You already know about Dave’s crusade to pick her friends for her.”

Nate nodded. He remembered that Katy often confided her frustration with her old man. Dave saw his daughter as a reflection on his prominent position in the county. He was convinced that he and his children had a lofty image to uphold. The family was wealthy and high-class, and they were not supposed to associate with white trash, not even in this small community with its cross section of socioeconomic classes. Katy resented her father’s snobbish airs, but Dave ruled his roost with a stern hand, and when he pounded his gavel, he considered his decrees forevermore written in stone.

“Judge Bates decided the Butlers, who owned the big ranch south of town, would make an ideal connection. The Butlers had money coming out their ears,” Fuzz explained. “They also had a son and daughter who were close enough in age to Katy and her brother, James, to make a double match.”

Nate swore under his breath. He had never had a smidgen of respect for the high-and-mighty Judge Bates, who looked down his nose at the less fortunate. But Dave’s patriarchal matchmaking filled Nate with disgust.

Fuzz took another sip of his drink, then continued. “Dave pushed his son at Butler’s daughter, shelling out money so James could escort Shelly to the fanciest restaurants, the best movies and musical concerts held in Odessa.” He glanced pointedly at Nate. “Of course, if James wanted to date someone else, there was no pocket change handed out.”

“In other words, the judge used money to bribe his son into turning his attention to Shelly Butler,” Nate muttered.

“You got it,” Fuzz confirmed. “As for Katy, she was only allowed to date Brad Butler. If anyone else asked her out during high school she wasn’t allowed to go.”

“Brad Butler,” Nate murmured thoughtfully. “Wasn’t he the hotshot football star who went to play at West Texas State for a couple of years after graduation?”

“Right,” Fuzz replied. “Bradley’s dad made generous contributions to the college athletic program to get his kid on the roster. Brad was big and mean and loved full-body contact sports, on and off the playing field.”

The bitter sound of Fuzz’s voice caused alarm signals to clang in Nate’s brain. Sure as hell, he was going to hate hearing what came next.

“With Dave Bates pushing and prodding both his kids, they married into the Butler family. James was married a month after he graduated high school and had a child within the year.”

“A girl who works at the library with Katy?” Nate asked.

“That’d be Tammy,” Fuzz confirmed. “Her mama ran off with another man when Tammy was six, causing the Butlers and the judge all sorts of embarrassment. James only comes around a couple of weekends a month. He is married to his profession as a legal consultant for one of those highfalutin corporations in Dallas. Tammy lives with Katy most of the time.”

“And Katy’s husband?” Nate questioned. The first thing he had noticed when he recognized Katy at the café was that she wasn’t wearing a wedding ring. According to what Fuzz had said earlier, Nate knew that Brad Butler had died. “What happened to the football star?”

“Six feet under,” Fuzz said without an ounce of regret. “Same as Judge Bates, who had a heart attack and keeled over on the courthouse steps. Dave and Brad are probably rotting in hell together as we speak.”

No love lost there, Nate noted. It was easy to tell that Fuzz wasn’t a member of Dave or Brad’s fan clubs.

Fuzz squirmed in his chair, clearly unenthused about continuing this briefing. “You got any chips and dip in that fully automated refrigerator of yours?”

Nate smiled faintly as he came to his feet. He remembered how Fuzz had carried on about the ice-and-water dispenser in the door of the freezing unit. The man loved to watch crushed ice plunk into his glass.

“Sure, Fuzz, dip and chips coming right up.”

Chapter Three

Nate grabbed the sack of Doritos and spicy salsa, then strode back to the living room to set the snacks on the end table beside Fuzz. “I’ve been thinking about hiring a cook and housekeeper,” Nate commented. “Do you think Mary Jane Calloway might be interested?”

Fuzz grinned devilishly. “You sly young scamp. You haven’t outgrown your ornery streak entirely, have you. If you hire Mary Jane away from Coyote Café, the whole town will be up in arms. It’s the only decent place in town to eat, the place where Lester Brown hangs out, shooting off his big mouth.”

Nate returned the wry grin. “As I see it, I would be doing Mary Jane a favor. She’s a widow who has a hard time making ends meet. If she comes to work for me, she’ll have shorter work hours and better pay. You think she might be interested?”

“You want me to ask her?”

Nate bobbed his head.

“Done.” Fuzz rubbed his lean belly. “I can almost taste her mouthwatering homemade pies from here. She can make chicken-fried steak and gravy that is to die for. Mmm…and her pot roast—”

“You’re stalling,” Nate broke in. “You were going to tell me about Katy’s marriage.”

Fuzz crammed a chip in his mouth, chewed, then swallowed. “You’re right, son. But I’m not one of those people who gets his kicks from reporting disasters. That was exactly what Katy’s marriage was—pure dee-saster.”

Nate sipped his drink, wishing he could have been there to rescue Katy. But that had been impossible. The night Nate was driven to Bud Thurston’s ranch, Fuzz made him promise not to make contact with anyone in Coyote Flats. Nate suspected Judge Bates would have been waiting for him, looking for any excuse to shove No-Account Nate into the Texas penal system—and keep him there indefinitely. The judge had the power and connections to get it done.

Until today, Nate hadn’t realized the full extent of Fuzz’s intervention. The judge had wanted a quick conviction and jail time. Fuzz had bucked the judge and insisted on an alternative plan. No doubt, Fuzz had promised that Nate would have no future contact with Katy.

Fuzz champed on a few more chips, then sighed audibly. “Well, hell, there is no delicate way to describe Katy’s marriage, so I may as well be blunt. Katy gave up fighting the judge’s domineering decrees after you left town. Her daddy sang high praises to Brad Butler and put on a spectacular wedding that boasted all the bells and whistles. I didn’t have much contact with Katy after her daddy packed her belongings and moved her off to college with Brad. I do know the judge saved Brad’s bacon several times when he was picked up for drunk and disorderly conduct on campus and DWI.”

Nate had a sick feeling in his gut about this prearranged marriage. He suspected the judge had been embarrassed that his son’s marriage had ended in divorce. Therefore, Dave vowed to prevent his daughter’s marriage from reaching scandalous proportions.

“The judge wouldn’t let Katy walk away from her drunken husband, I don’t suppose,” Nate muttered bitterly.

“Of course not,” Fuzz said, then snorted. “Wouldn’t look good for the judge, you know. Katy wanted out, but the judge refused to let her come home, refused to pay her college tuition and living expenses if she divorced Brad. Katy tried to run away and make it on her own, but the judge hired a private detective to track her down in Colorado and bring her back.”

Nate’s opinion of Judge Bates went right down the toilet. Dave’s attempt to prevent Katy’s actions from being seen as a bad reflection on himself was deplorable. He had no concern for his daughter’s well-being or happiness, only for his reputation.

“When Brad got booted off the football team, because of the incident involving rape—”

“Good Lord!” Nate erupted in outrage.

“What can I say?” Fuzz grunted in disgust. “The Butler kid was a creep. I didn’t know all the details until Katy and Brad moved back to Coyote Flats to work on Butler Ranch for his father. I saw Katy every once in a while, sporting a few bruises, but Brad would never let me close enough to question her, always had some excuse about how clumsy she was.”

Nate’s hands curled into tight fists. He had been granted a second chance in life, but Katy had had no chance at all. Her situation had gone from bad to worse after her wedding. Nate’s imagination ran wild, visualizing Brad getting snockered and knocking his wife around for kicks. Apparently the son of a bitch delighted in exerting his strength over a woman.

“No wonder Katy stopped standing up for herself,” Nate muttered. “Her own father manipulated her, then handed her over to an abusive beast. God, I wish I would have been there to go a few rounds with that Neanderthal bully Katy was forced to marry.”

Nate stared at Fuzz, noting the former sheriff’s bleak expression, realizing that, as bad as this tale was, it was going to get worse. Fuzz’s mouth was set in a grim line, and frustrated anger glittered in his eyes.

“Six years ago, Brad and Katy were on their way out to Butler Ranch for Christmas dinner. They had a wreck because Brad was legally intoxicated. He went through the windshield and Katy was trapped in the car, which was wrapped around an electric pole.”

Nate grimaced, realizing what had caused Katy’s limp. “She was hurt badly,” he presumed.

Fuzz nodded. “She was three months pregnant at the time. We cut her from the twisted metal with the jaws of life, and the judge had her airlifted to Dallas for surgery on her broken hip. He paid for the year of physical therapy needed for Katy to walk without crutches or a cane.”

Nate blew out his breath, wishing he could spout the F word a few times. Unfortunately, he had given up saying the queen mother word at the same time he quit smoking. But right now, he would sure feel better if he could chain-smoke and curse a blue streak.

The picture Fuzz painted was so depressing that Nate could understand why Katy’s will to live had been stripped away. His youth had been a nightmare, but her young adult years had been hell. She’d had no one to provide moral support, no one to rescue her from pain and anguish. And so she had drawn into herself, hiding behind a shell, going through the motions of living, existing only in books that lined the shelves in the library. Nate guessed that Katy only read books that guaranteed happy endings. It was her only escape from tormenting reality.

“These days Katy keeps to herself, raises her niece and quietly goes about the business of helping the unfortunate in the community,” Fuzz continued. “If a family is dealing with death or illness, you can count on Katy to arrive at the bereaved family’s home, laden down with food, supplies and flowers.

“Katy moved into her father’s home after his fatal heart attack. She sold the house where she and Brad lived after he was suspended from college. She uses the money she made from the sale to fund the library and aid needy families.”

Nate suspected Katy hadn’t wanted to live in the house where she was knocked around and treated like Brad’s convenient whore. Not that living in the judge’s house was much better. But then, the Bates home was a monstrous structure and a woman who had turned into a recluse had plenty of space to move around.

“Katy took some of the money from her inheritance and set up two college scholarships for high school students who want to make a better place for themselves in society,” Fuzz reported.

Nate smiled ruefully. He couldn’t help but wonder if Katy was providing for the other Nate Channings in Coyote Flats—the down-on-their-luck kids who faced grim futures. That sounded like something Katy would do. Those qualities of kindness, caring and generosity were still there, he realized. Though Katy had cut herself off from the world, it was her nature to help the less fortunate.

Nate felt so damned sorry for her that he wanted to weep.

“Wipe that look off your face right this very minute,” Fuzz scolded abruptly.

Nate jerked up his head to see Fuzz wagging an index finger in his face. “What look?”

“That pitying look, that’s what,” Fuzz grumbled. “That is the one thing Katy can’t tolerate from folks. I oughta know, because I made the mistake of feeling sorry for her and telling her so.”

Nate winced when he recalled how he had welled up with sympathy at the library. He remembered how Katy had spun around in her chair and promptly dismissed him. She was sensitive about being looked upon with pity, and he had hurt her feelings unintentionally. Well, damn.

“Knowing how you operate,” Fuzz continued, frowning darkly, “You will probably decide to storm over to Katy’s house and tell her how sorry you are that she suffered through a hellish marriage and lost her unborn child, then endured injuries that left her with a noticeable limp.”

Fuzz pushed forward in his chair to stare Nate squarely in the eye. “Hear me and hear me well, Nate. That is not the proper approach to take with Katy. Am I coming through loud and clear?”

“Crystal clear,” Nate confirmed.

“If you have visions of drawing Katy from her shell, you can’t march over there and tell her that you want to take up where the two of you left off all those years ago. I’m no psychologist, but I’ve dealt with enough traumatized and abused victims to know they bottle their emotions inside, just like Katy does. She will never be able to get on with her life until she lets go of her past, until she feels a strong, compelling reason to let go of her pain. My experience tells me that you will have to earn Katy’s trust and confidence, slowly but surely. The men in her life have abused and betrayed her. Any changes she makes in her attitude toward men will be gradual.”

Nate’s shoulders slumped and he sighed audibly. “Hell, here I was, hoping for instant, miraculous results.”

“Then expect to be disappointed,” Fuzz said as he reached for another chip to dip into the salsa. “It took sixteen years of browbeating, manipulation, physical and mental abuse to turn Katy into a hermit. It may take sixteen years to teach her to trust men, to live and laugh again.” He shot Nate a stern glance. “Don’t start some noble crusade that you might not have the patience and dedication to finish, because you will only make matters worse for Katy if you do.”

Nate flopped back in his chair and scrubbed his hands over his face. Fuzz had read him well. Nate had learned to attack business problems with swift, relentless efficiency. The skills he had perfected on the road to financial success were worthless when it came to dealing with Katy.

“So where do I start?” Nate asked helplessly.

Fuzz grinned broadly. “Right here.” When Nate frowned, bemused, Fuzz made a sweeping gesture with his arm. “Bring her out to your ranch, tell her how you burned those bad memories from your past to the ground and constructed this palace, with its panoramic view of the rugged gullies and rocky ravines of West Texas. Maybe if she realizes that you wanted to make a fresh start, she’ll want to do the same thing.”

“Hell of an idea, Fuzz,” Nate complimented him.

“Hey, son, I wasn’t born yesterday, you know. I’ve got a gray hair for every damn one of life’s experiences.” His smile faded from his wrinkled features. “I encountered a similar problem when my wife was diagnosed with cancer. Sally was ready to give up the fight, and she tried to push me away, make me angry enough to quit on her, the same way she quit on herself. But I refused to back off. I was determined to eke out every moment of happiness during that last year. We traveled when she felt up to it. We attended every community activity, and we made the most of every day we had left together.

“Maybe if Katy realizes you have no intention of giving up on her she’ll come around,” Fuzz added before he switched on the big-screen TV.

“I’m going for a walk,” Nate announced, rising to his feet.

“Take that mutt with you,” Fuzz requested. “Taz has been cooped up in the house most of the day, trying to coax me into petting him constantly. He needs to chase a few rabbits and burn off some energy.”

When Nate had changed into a T-shirt and jeans, he called to Taz and took a long, meditative stroll across the rolling pasture. Checking on his cattle herd was the least of his concerns at the moment. His thoughts were centered on his campaign of reaching that vibrant young woman who had been his inspiration, his unattainable dream way back when. Nate knew he needed a game plan—the best.

“Got any bright ideas about how to handle this situation, Taz?” Nate asked his four-legged companion.

When a jackrabbit bounded up in front of them, Taz took off at a dead run, yipping at the top of his lungs.

Nate realized, and not for the first time in his life, that he was on his own when it came to solving his problems. Turning Katy’s life around would have to be a one-man crusade, and it would take him a few days to work out his plan of action.

Katy was in the process of pulling a bubbling chicken casserole from the oven when the doorbell rang. It had become her habit to let Tammy answer the door in the evening, but Tammy had gone back to school to design posters for the basketball king-and-queen coronation and dance that was scheduled for the upcoming weekend.

Setting aside the casserole, Katy limped to the front door. Her breath gushed from her lungs when a vision from the past returned to haunt her. Nate Channing, dressed in faded blue jeans and a T-shirt that had seen better days, was standing on the porch—the exact place her father had refused to let him set foot all those years ago.

His dark hair, ruffled by the evening breeze, drooped on his forehead, giving him a devil-may-care appearance. He was leaning against the supporting beam of the porch in a negligent stance that had been his trademark as a teenager. A knock-’em-dead smile pursed his lips, and Katy reacted instinctively to it.

He held a bouquet of roses in one suntanned hand and a box of candy in the other. It was difficult for Katy to maintain the distant, remote attitude she practiced in the presence of men. This was one devastatingly attractive man, and despite the fact that Katy knew it would be better for her and Nate not to renew their friendship, there was a lot of history between them—and no closure whatsoever. Nate had been whisked from her life, never to be seen or heard from in sixteen years.

“I always wanted to do this, Katy Marie,” Nate said in that sexy Texas drawl that turned her knees to the consistency of tapioca. “But sixteen years ago I didn’t have enough cash to shower you with gifts.” He glanced at the wrought-iron railing surrounding the porch. “Never thought I’d even get this close to your front door, either.”

Katy inhaled a steadying breath, only to be assailed by the alluring scent of expensive cologne—a vivid contradiction to his bad-boy appearance. Nate looked tough, invincible and adorably appealing to her, just as he had in the old days. His appearance resurrected memories and sensations that Katy hadn’t allowed herself to revisit for fear of driving herself crazy.

But here stood Nate Channing, looking larger than her life-size memories, smelling absolutely wonderful, filling up all her senses to overflowing. God, how she had missed him those first few years, lived on the hope that he would contact her, save her from the life her father had mapped out for her.

Nate extended the box to her. “Chocolate-and-pecan Turtles,” he said in that husky baritone voice that sent gooseflesh flying across her skin. “Your favorite, if memory serves.”

Katy accepted the candy, unable to meet Nate’s gaze. “Thank you.”

“And roses,” he murmured softly, taking a whiff of their fragrant scent. “I wanted to ask you to the prom my senior year and present you with a bouquet of roses and a box of candy, but I never got the chance.”

The reminder caused Katy to flinch as she accepted the flowers. Because of her father, Nate hadn’t been allowed to attend the prom or graduate with his class. God, how would Nate react if he knew the truth about that night he was spirited out of town? Katy wasn’t sure she could find the nerve to tell him.

“May I come in, Kat? I always wondered what the inside of this house looked like. Heaven knows I spent countless evenings staring at it from the street, wishing I was welcome here.”

The admission startled her, and it must have shown in her expression, because Nate’s obsidian eyes twinkled down at her. “I confided a lot of things to you in the old days, Kat, but I guess I was too embarrassed to tell you how I sat by the curb in my bucket-of-bolts car. I used to stare at your house, wishing…”

He shrugged impossibly broad shoulders in that lackadaisical way that once upon a time concealed his feelings of inferiority and frustration. Yet, this handsome hunk—as Tammy had referred to him—had nothing to be ashamed of now. He had obviously made something of himself. Not with laundered drug money, as Lester Brown had everybody thinking.

Despite the fact that Nate had been caught for possession of marijuana and cocaine that night he was arrested, Katy knew he never touched those illegal substances. Because of Gary Channing’s addiction to booze, Nate had developed a fierce aversion to liquor and drugs.

It outraged Katy no end to hear the cruel gossip Brown and Jessup were spreading around town, in an attempt to turn everybody against Nate. If Katy could have found the nerve to confront those two blowhards she would have rushed to Nate’s defense at lunch at the café today. But she had learned the hard way that to contradict a man could incite violence.

Instead of bounding up to refute Brown’s nasty gossip, she just sat there in her corner booth, staring at her plate, listening to that old cuss plant seeds of mistrust and contempt for Nate.

“May I come in?” Nate prompted, jolting Katy from her musings.

She stepped back to allow him inside. How could she refuse him? Nate deserved the opportunity to tour the house that Dave Bates had decreed off-limits to him.

“Wow,” Nate said as he surveyed the spacious living area that was furnished with expensive, refinished antiques. “No wonder the judge didn’t want me in here. He was probably afraid I’d break an irreplaceable heirloom.”

Katy smiled remorsefully. “This room was off-limits to me and my older brother, too,” she confided. “It was nothing but a showroom for Dad’s influential guests. James and I were confined to the playroom until we graduated from high school. I doubt that anyone sat on the flowered fainting couch or hand-carved gliding chair, except our forefathers who originally owned them.”

Nate breathed an inward sigh of relief. He finally had Katy talking. That was the most she had said to him since his arrival in town. He had made it a point to be on the sidewalk outside the library when she went to work the past three days, but she had merely nodded, ducked her head and limped into the library.

Maybe he was being sneaky by dressing as the dirt-poor kid she remembered and preying on her sympathy. But hell, this was the best strategy he’d come up with, even after three nights of profound deliberation. Fortunately, the strategy had worked. He was in the house, and Katy was talking to him, though she still refused to make eye contact for more than a nanosecond at a time.

“I don’t want to impose, but do you have time to give me the grand tour?”

“If you like,” Katy murmured, then ducked her head. “Let me get a vase for the roses.”

Nate followed at a respectable distance behind Katy as she limped through the formal dining room to the spacious kitchen—which had been remodeled and boasted every high-tech convenience. Nate expected that from Dave Bates. Nothing but the best for his children and himself. The sorry son of a bitch.

“Damn, maybe I’m glad I didn’t know what I was missing in the old days,” Nate commented, admiring the shiny oak cabinets, antique Hoosier cabinet and jelly cupboard. I would have been feeling even more sorry for myself when I went home to that pile of rubble that served as my house.”

When Katy failed to comment, just reached into the cabinet to retrieve a vase, Nate gestured toward the casserole dish that was steaming on the stove. “Am I interrupting? Are you expecting guests for supper?”

“No. Alice Rother’s son fell off the slipper slide during recess this morning and broke his arm. I fixed supper so the family would have something to eat when they return from the doctor’s office.”

“Skinny Alice has a kid?” Nate asked. “When I left town, she’d never even had a date, not to my knowledge.”

The comment provoked Katy’s smile. Nate felt as if he had worked a small miracle. There and then, he promised himself to find ways to make Katy smile more often.

“Alice married Cody Phelps after he divorced Mandy Slater. You probably wouldn’t recognize Alice if you saw her. She was a late bloomer who turned out to be quite attractive.”

“Yeah? Well, I’d have to see it to believe it,” Nate said, and chuckled.

Before Katy could take Nate on a tour of the house, a sharp rap resounded on the back door. “Excuse me a moment.”

She scuttled off, quickly closing the door behind her. Curious, Nate tiptoed over to peek through the kitchen window. To his amazement, he saw a teenage boy standing at the bottom of the steps. The kid had his hands crammed in the front pockets of his baggy jeans. He wore his dingy baseball cap backward, pulled down low over his mop of unruly hair.

“Need lunch money, Chad?” Katy asked her visitor.

Nate watched the teenager nod, then shuffle his oversize feet. Nate’s heart twisted in his chest, knowing that he was staring at a younger version of himself. Chad’s clothes and self-cut hair indicated a shortage of funds.

“You know the deal, Chad,” Katy said. “No drugs, only food. Don’t let yourself be sucked into the pressure put on by the kids you hang around with. I know they are razzing you, but don’t give in to them. Promise me?”

Chad bobbed his shaggy head. “Yes, ma’am.”

Katy pulled a twenty dollar bill from the pocket of her jeans and handed it to the teenager. “I’ve requested funds from the city council to hire a janitor. If the funds are approved, the job is yours. It will give you an excuse not to get involved with those troublemakers who have befriended you.”

“It’s not easy to break loose from them when nobody else will accept me,” Chad grumbled sourly, then swiped a hand across his faded shirt. “I can’t dress well enough to be accepted by the ‘in’ crowd in town.”

“You can spiff up your wardrobe when you get the job,” Katy encouraged him.

“I can’t afford to buy duds fancy enough to make Tammy sit up and take notice,” Chad challenged.

Nate watched Katy bless the kid with a tender smile. “She notices now, Chad, but she is old-fashioned enough not to chase after boys, and she is just as self-conscious and unsure of how to approach you.”

“Yeah?” Chad asked hopefully.

“Uh-huh, so you’ll have to do the asking when it comes to dating.”

“Right, like I have pocket change for that,” Chad said, then scowled. “What am I supposed to do? Borrow the neighbor kid’s bicycle and ask Tammy out? Like, that would really impress her, wouldn’t it? Like, she’d leap at the chance to go out with a guy from the poor side of town to have a Coke date, because that’s all the cash I could scrape together to spend on her.”

Nate stepped away from the window and resumed his position by the door, so he wouldn’t get caught eavesdropping. Katy returned a couple of minutes later.

“Sorry for the interruption,” she said.

“No problem.”

When Katy limped upstairs, Nate followed in her wake. He appraised the grand old home, finding it as neat and tidy as he expected. It was a far cry from the disheveled, filthy shack where he’d grown up. His mother had never been around much. When she was, it was only to sleep off the most recent hangover. Nate had been responsible for all the handyman jobs he could manage and for tidying up the place. There was only so much you could do with a drafty old shanty that should have been condemned during the Dust Bowl days.

Nate wondered if the kid named Chad who came calling at the back door hailed from a similar background. Probably.

Nate halted abruptly at the door that was filled with Katy’s soft scent, then studied her bedroom. Vivid images leaped to mind; he wondered how the two of them would look cozied up in that priceless antique four-poster bed, improving on those intimate secrets they had shared in the back seat of his car.

Those stolen moments had been indelibly etched in Nate’s memory. Despite his bad reputation, his first experience with sex had been Katy’s first experience. He hadn’t known what the hell he was doing, only that his feelings for her demanded to be communicated physically, emotionally.

To this day Nate could still remember how sweetly and trustingly she had responded to him. And he wished with all his heart that he and Katy could have spent the past decade learning all the intimate ways of pleasuring each other. Instead, Katy had been used, abused and treated so abominably that she had lost faith in men, in herself.

The thought caused Nate to grind his teeth until he practically wore off the enamel. He clenched his fist, wishing he could retaliate against the men who had brought Katy such pain. Judge Bates and Brad Butler should consider themselves extremely fortunate they were dead, because Nate would have gladly reverted to his old habits and beat the living hell out of them.

Chapter Four

“Something wrong?” Katy guessed when Nate stared silently at her bedroom.

Nate flashed a smile he didn’t feel. “I was just thinking how I used to sit in my car and stare up at the lights in your bedroom window. You must have spent most of your time up here. Either that or you didn’t need to worry about conserving on the electric bills the way I did.”

“This was my haven,” she admitted quietly. “I only went downstairs when it was time for one of Dad’s many lectures.”

Katy was amazed how easily she had slipped back into confiding in Nate. For years she had kept her own counsel. But when Nate arrived to stroll down memory lane it seemed only natural to tell him about those difficult years with her tyrannical father. She always wondered, if her mother hadn’t died shortly after childbirth, if Victoria Bates would have served as a buffer and go-between for Katy and James, if things had turned out differently…As it was, the judge had handed down his decrees and sentences to his children the same way he delivered legal rulings from the bench. The man had never been able to separate his personal and professional lives.

“Come on, Kat. I’ve seen your place, now I would like to show you mine.”

When Nate reached for her hand, Katy reflexively withdrew. And felt like a fool. Although she expected to see a look of confusion or sympathy on Nate’s face, he merely smiled and patiently held out his hand a second time.

“Still the best of friends?” he asked softly. “I would like to have two allies in this town. Sheriff Havern is one. I would very much like for you to be the other, Katy.”

Katy stared at his long, lean fingers. She hadn’t liked to be touched, had avoided contact every chance she got. The remembered pain and humiliation had taught her to keep her distance from men. In years past a touch had become an insulting grope, a slapping reprimand for disobedience, then blessed oblivion from the pain.

Suddenly, Katy remembered what Nate had told her the first day he returned to Coyote Flats. He had reminded her that he had never hurt her, that he would never hurt her. Could she trust him to keep his word when the other men in her life hadn’t?

Hesitantly, she slipped her hand into his, though she couldn’t quite meet his gaze. Her heart bled when he brought her hand to his lips and grazed her knuckles with a kiss. The old Katy would have pressed up on tiptoe, flung her arms around his neck and kissed him full on the mouth. The new Katy didn’t dare take initiative, because old habits died hard.

“Thanks, Katy, you’ll never know how badly I needed to do that. Just touch you, I mean.”

Gently, Nate squeezed her clammy hand. He could tell she was self-conscious, wary and nervous as hell. Already, he was moving so slowly and cautiously with her that it nearly killed him. But if slow and cautious were the only ways of drawing Katy from her self-imposed shell, then he would damned well inch along like a snail.

Never in his life had he expected to count his progress in inches. But hey, even a snail got somewhere—eventually—Nate reminded himself.

Hand in hand, Nate and Katy strode down the hall. Nate was careful not to pull her behind him, because he suspected that bastard she’d married had pulled and dragged her around constantly. Nate made damned sure he and Katy remained on equal footing.

“I’m anxious for you to see my house,” Nate continued on the way down the steps. “I built it on the same spot where the shack used to sit. It seemed symbolic and necessary to erect my future on the ashes of the past.”

She slipped her hand from his, then limped toward the kitchen. “Maybe I can come out some other time, Nate. I have to deliver the casserole and pick up Tammy from school.”

“I’d be glad to drive you.” Nate flashed what he hoped was his most engaging grin. “Surely you aren’t going to deprive me of the chance of seeing Skinny Alice again, are you? A real knockout these days, you say?”

It came again. A smile—one shade brighter than the first. Still, though, it didn’t reach Katy’s eyes and make them sparkle with the inner spirit he remembered from the old days. But when a man was counting his progress in quarter-inch increments, he took what he got and was glad of it.

Katy knew it was a mistake to allow herself to associate with Nate, even for a few hours. They were too different these days, and she had nothing to offer except limited friendship. But darn, it was hard to say no to that charming grin, to the incredibly handsome man who appealed to her on so many levels. The fact that she was still impossibly attracted to Nate assured Katy that not all her emotions were frozen solid. She simply couldn’t resist that compelling field around him that offered strength, comfort and pleasure.

“You and Tammy can stay for supper,” Nate invited. “Fuzz would love the company. He spent so many years cruising around all by his lonesome in the patrol car that he’s practically talked my ears off since he moved in with me.”

“So the rumor circulating around town is true? Fuzz does live with you?”

Nate nodded. “Yep, I designed the house to accommodate him. It is my way of repaying him for giving me a second chance, though I had to promise not to make contact with you or anyone else after I left. Otherwise, I would face punishment at the judge’s hands.”

Katy flinched. Her father had gone to extremes to ensure that she had no future contact with the young man she had fallen hopelessly in love with at the tender age of sixteen. Dave Bates had known how to break her spirit and bend her to his will. He had taken away the only person who meant something to Katy. Her father had made Nate disappear and left her with no hope of his return.

Katy shoved aside the bitter thoughts to inform Nate of what he was up against in town. “According to Lester Brown, you moved the former sheriff in with you so you would have good connections, in case you ran into trouble with the law during your drug dealings.”

Nate blinked in surprise. “That’s the scuttlebutt in town? Well hell, Lester doesn’t miss a trick, does he?”

“I wanted to pop him in the mouth when he blurted out that lie at the café today,” Katy muttered.

The comment, spoken with more emotion than Nate had seen, or heard, Katy display, gave him hope. Katy had obviously become a master at maintaining a neutral tone for fear of igniting her husband’s volatile temper. But she was obviously offended by Lester Brown’s attempt to turn the town against Nate.

“Thanks, Katy, I’m glad to hear you’re in my corner, even if you didn’t wallop Lester upside the head. So…will you come with me tonight?”

Nate could tell by the way she sidestepped that she was still reluctant to break her habit of avoiding men. Nate reached out slowly, so as not to startle her, then took her hand in his.

“I doubt that anyone else in town would accept the invitation, me being a no-account drug lord who has surrounded himself with hoodlums and headquartered at my house where I keep a former law official under my roof. But I really would like to show off the place to someone. I really would like for that someone to be you, Kat.”

“Okay,” she said finally. “But just for a little while. I’m sure Tammy has homework, so I don’t want to keep her out late.”

Another small victory, Nate thought as he strode over to grab a hot pad so he could scoop up the casserole. Although he had developed the Midas touch when it came to financial investments, his profits seemed insignificant in comparison to coaxing Katy from her house, to spend time with him.

How far do you plan to take this crusade of yours, Nate? he asked himself on the way to his car. Given the rumors circulating around Coyote Flats, Katy might catch flack because of her association with you. For God’s sake, don’t hurt her more than she’s already been hurt!

Nate wondered if maybe he had jumped the gun by trying to draw Katy from her hermitage so soon after his return. Maybe he should have waited until he had earned the trust and acceptance of the citizens first—if ever. Maybe Fuzz was right in criticizing his methods and strategy of constructing a branch office of Sunrise Oil Company in town without announcing ownership. Maybe he had screwed up after only a week in his hometown.

Yet, one look at Katy slumped on the bucket seat renewed his determined resolve. Teaching Katy to live again had become his number one priority. If he had to take on the lynch mob, commandeered by Lester Brown and his sidekick, then he would. Nate owed Katy for building up his ego all those years ago, for believing in him, for offering her innocence to him with such extraordinary trust and affection.

Somehow, he was going to make this work, he told himself. Even if Lester had the citizens of Coyote Flats believing the devil incarnate had returned to town, hurling pitchforks and breathing fire, he was going to give this economically strained town the boost it needed.

Of course, there was a strong possibility that he would have to drag the residents—kicking and screaming—every damn step of the f—

Nate came to a mental halt. He was not going to start slinging around derivatives of the F word, just because he had returned to his old stomping ground. He had reinvented himself and he was not—repeat not with great emphasis!—going to backpedal.

“Every blessed step of the way,” he corrected himself aloud.

Katy stared curiously at him. “Pardon?”

“Nothing.” Nate flashed a grin. “I was just talking to myself. Now, give me directions to Skinny Alice’s place. I can’t wait to take a gander at the male magnet you claim she has become.”

Katy watched Alice Rother Phelps recoil in the doorway of her expensive brick home when she realized who was standing behind Katy. “N-Nate Channing?” she stuttered, wide-eyed.

Katy felt the fierce need to protect Nate from Alice’s stunned reaction. Nate had been hurt enough by the citizens of this town. Knowing she was the reason Nate had been sent away left Katy feeling personally responsible for ensuring that he was granted a new start in Coyote Flats.

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