# The Mccaffertys: Thorne

Lisa Jackson

THE PAST IS NEVER TOO FAR BEHIND…When Thorne McCafferty rushes home to the family ranch, he is thinking only about whether his sister Randi will survive the car wreck that has put her in the hospital. He never expects that Randi's E.R. doctor will be Nicole Stevenson.Nicole has never forgotten the teenage passion she shared with Thorne… or the sting of his unexplained rejection. Now she's all grown up-but he still affects her in the very same way. Will they both be able to move beyond their pasts for a second chance at a happy ending?

THE PAST IS NEVER TOO FAR BEHIND…

The McCaffertys: THORNE

When Thorne McCafferty rushes home to the family ranch, he is thinking only about whether his sister Randi will survive the car wreck that has put her in the hospital. He never expects that Randi’s E.R. doctor will be Nicole Stevenson.

Nicole has never forgotten the teenage passion she shared with Thorne… or the sting of his unexplained rejection. Now she’s all grown up—but he still affects her in the very same way. Will they both be able to move beyond their pasts for a second chance at a happy ending?

The McCaffertys: Thorne

Lisa Jackson


www.millsandboon.co.uk

Dear Reader,

The most wonderful time of the year just got better! These six captivating romances from Special Edition are sure to brighten your holidays.

Reader favorite Sherryl Woods is back by popular demand with the latest addition to her series AND BABY MAKES THREE: THE DELACOURTS OF TEXAS. In The Delacourt Scandal, a curious reporter seeking revenge unexpectedly finds love.

And just in time for the holidays, Lisa Jackson kicks off her exciting new miniseries THE MCCAFFERTYS with The McCaffertys: Thorne, where a hero’s investigation takes an interesting turn when he finds himself face-to-face with his ex-lover. Unwrap the next book in A RANCHING FAMILY, a special gift this month from Victoria Pade. In The Cowboy’s Gift-Wrapped Bride, a Wyoming rancher is startled not only by his undeniable attraction to an amnesiac beauty he found in a blizzard, but also by the tantalizing secrets she reveals as she regains her memory.

And in RUMOR HAS IT…, a couple separated by tragedy in the past finally has a chance for love in Penny Richards’s compelling romance, Lara’s Lover. The holiday cheer continues with Allison Leigh’s emotional tale of a runaway American heiress who becomes a Mother in a Moment after she agrees to be nanny to a passel of tots.

And silver wedding bells are ringing as Nikki Benjamin wraps up the HERE COME THE BRIDES series with the heartwarming story of a hometown hero who convinces his childhood sweetheart to become his Expectant Bride-To-Be.

I hope all of these breathtaking romances warm your hearts and add joy to your holiday season.

Best,

Karen Taylor Richman

Senior Editor

Books by Lisa Jackson

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[*]He’s My Soldier Boy #866

[†]A Is for Always #914

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New Year’s Daddy #1004

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[‡]A Family Kind of Gal #1207

[‡]A Family Kind of Wedding #1219

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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

Epilogue

Prologue

Last Summer

“The truth of the matter, son, is that I’ve got a request for you,” John Randall McCafferty stated from his wheelchair. He’d asked Thorne to push him to the fence line some thirty yards from the front door of the ranch house he’d called home all his life.

“I hate to ask what it is,” Thorne remarked.

“It’s simple. I want you to marry. You’re thirty-nine, son, Matt’s thirty-seven and Slade—well, he’s still a boy but he is thirty-six. None of you has married and I don’t have one grandchild—well at least none that I know of.” He frowned. “Even your sister hasn’t settled down.”

“Randi’s only twenty-six.”

“High time,” J. Randall said. A shell of the man he’d once been, J. Randall nonetheless gripped the arms of his metal chair, often referred to as “that damned contraption,” so tightly his knuckles bleached white. An old afghan was draped over his legs though the temperature hovered near eighty according to the ancient thermometer tacked to the north side of the barn. Across his lap was his cane, another hated symbol of his failing health.

“I’m serious, son. I need to know that the McCafferty line won’t die with you boys.”

“That’s an archaic way of thinking.” Thorne wasn’t going to be pushed around. Not by his old man. Not by anyone.

“So be it. Damn it, Thorne, if ya haven’t noticed I don’t have a helluva lot of time left on this here earth!” J. Randall swept his cane from his lap and jabbed it into the ground for emphasis.

Harold, J. Randall’s crippled hunting dog, gave off a disgruntled woof from the front porch and a field mouse scurried into a tangle of brambles.

“I don’t understand you,” J. Randall grumbled. “This could have been yours, boy. All yours.” He swept his cane in a wide arc and Thorne’s gaze followed his father’s gesture. Spindly legged colts frolicked in one pasture while a herd of mottled cattle in shades of russet, black and brown ambled near the dry creek bed that sliced through what was commonly referred to as “the big meadow.” The paint on the barn had peeled, the windows in the stables needed replacing and the whole damned place looked as if it were suffering from the same debilitating disease as its owner.

The Flying M Ranch.

John Randall McCafferty’s pride and joy. Now run by a foreman as he was too ill and his children too busy with their own lives.

Thorne regarded the rolling acres with a mixture of emotions running the gauntlet from love to hate.

“I’m not getting married, Dad. Not for a while.”

“What’s the wait? And don’t tell me you need to make your mark. You’ve done it, boy.” Old, faded blue eyes rolled up to look at him, then blinked when rays from a blinding Montana sun were too much. “What’re ya worth now? Three million? Five?”

“Somewhere around seven.”

His father snorted. “I was a rich man once. What did it get me?” His old lips folded back on themselves. “Two wives who bled me dry when we divorced and a bellyful of worry about losin’ it all. No, money isn’t what counts, Thorne. It’s children. And land. Damn it all—” biting his lower lip, J. Randall dug deep into his pocket “—now where in tarnation is that—Oh, here we go.”

Slowly he withdrew a ring that winked in the sunlight and Thorne’s gut twisted as he recognized the band—his father’s first wedding ring; one he hadn’t worn in over a quarter of a century. “I want you to have this,” the old man said as he held out the gold band with its unique silver inlay. “Your mother gave it to me the day we were married.”

“I know.” Thorne, sensing he was making a serious mistake, accepted the ring. It felt cold and hard in his fingers, a metal circle that held no warmth, no promise, no joy. A symbol of broken dreams. He pocketed the damn ring.

“Promise me, boy.”

“What?”

“That you’ll marry.”

Thorne didn’t bat an eye. “Someday.”

“Make it soon, will ya? I’d like to leave this earth knowin’ that you were gonna have a family.”

“I’ll think about it,” Thorne said and suddenly the small band of gold and silver in his pocket seemed to weigh a thousand pounds.

Chapter One

Grand Hope, Montana

October

Dr. Nicole Stevenson felt a rush of adrenaline surge through her blood as it did each time accident victims were rushed into the emergency room of St. James Hospital.

She met the intensity in Dr. Maureen Oliverio’s eyes as the other woman hung up the phone. “The copter’s here! Let’s go, people!” The hastily grouped team of doctors and nurses responded. “The paramedics are bringing in the patient. You’re on, Dr. Stevenson.”

“What have we got?” Nicole asked.

Dr. Oliverio, a no-nonsense doctor, led the way through double doors. “Single-car accident up in Glacier Park, the patient’s a woman in her late twenties, pregnant, at term. Fractures, internal damage, concussed, a real mess. Membranes have ruptured. We’ll probably need to do a C-section because of her other injuries. While we’re inside, we’ll repair any other damage. Everybody with me? Dr. Stevenson’s in charge until we send the patient to OR.”

Nicole caught the glances of the other doctors as they adjusted masks and gloves. It was her job to stabilize the patient before shipping her off to surgery.

The doors of the room flew open and a gurney, propelled by two paramedics flew through the doors of the emergency room of St. James Hospital.

“What have we got here?” Nicole asked the nearest paramedic, a short red-faced man with clipped graying hair and a moustache. “What are her vital signs? What about the baby?”

“BP, normal, one-ten over seventy-five, heart rate sixty-two but dropping slightly…” The paramedic rattled off the information he’d gathered and Nicole, listening, looked down at the patient, an unconscious woman whose face once probably beautiful was now bloody and already beginning to bruise. Her abdomen was distended, fluid from an IV flowed into her arm and her neck and head were braced. “…lacerations, abrasions, fractured skull, mandible and femur, possible internal bleeding…”

“Let’s get a fetal monitor here!” Nicole ordered as a nurse peeled off.

“On its way.”

“Good.” Nicole nodded. “Okay, okay, now, let’s stabilize the mother.”

“Has the husband been notified? Do we have a consent?” Dr. Oliverio asked.

“Don’t know,” a grim-faced paramedic replied. “The police are trying to locate her relatives. According to her ID, her name is Randi McCafferty and there’s no indication of any allergies to meds on her driver’s licence, no prescription drugs in her purse.”

Oh, God! Nicole’s heart nearly stopped. She froze. For a split second her concentration lapsed and she gave herself a quick mental shake. “Are you sure?” she asked the shorter of the two paramedics.

“Positive.”

“Randi McCafferty,” Dr. Oliverio repeated, sucking in her breath. “My daughter went to school with her. Her father’s dead—J. Randall, important man around these parts at one time. Owned the Flying M Ranch about twenty miles out of town. Randi, here, has three half brothers.”

And Thorne’s one of them, Nicole thought, her jaw tensing.

“What about the husband or boyfriend? The kid’s got a father somewhere,” Dr. Oliverio insisted.

“Don’t know. Never heard of one.”

“We’ll figure out all that later,” Nicole said, taking charge once more. “Right now, let’s just concentrate on stabilizing her and the baby.”

Dr. Oliverio nodded. “Let’s get that fetal monitor on here! STAT.”

“Got it,” a nurse replied.

“BP’s falling, doctor—one hundred over sixty,” a nurse said.

“Damn.” Nicole’s own heart began to pound. She wasn’t going to lose this patient. Come on Randi, she silently urged. Where’s that good ol’ McCafferty fight? Come on, come on! “Where’s the anesthesiologist?” Nicole demanded.

“On his way.”

“Who is he?”

“Brummel.” Dr. Oliverio met Nicole’s gaze. “A good man. He’ll be here.”

“The monitor’s in place,” a nurse said just as Dr. Brummel, a thin man in rimless glasses, pushed his way through the doors. “What have we got here?” he asked as he quickly scanned the patient.

“Woman. Unconscious. About to deliver. Single-car accident. No known allergies, no medical records, but we’re checking,” Nicole said. “She’s got a skull fracture, multiple other fractures, pneumothorax—so she’s already entubated. Her membranes have ruptured, the kid’s on his way, and there might be more abdominal injuries.”

“The mother’s BP is stabilizing—one hundred and five over sixty,” a nurse called, but Nicole didn’t relax. Couldn’t. In her estimation Randi McCafferty’s life wasn’t yet certain.

“Keep your eye on it. Now, what about the baby?” Nicole asked.

“We’ve got trouble here. The baby’s in distress,” Dr. Oliverio said, eyeing the readout of the fetal monitor.

“Then let’s get it out of there.”

“I’ll be ready in a minute,” Dr. Brummel said from behind his mask as he adjusted the breathing tube. Satisfied, he glanced up at Nicole. “Let’s go.”

“We’ve got a neonatalogist standing by.”

“Good.” Nicole checked Randi’s vital signs one last time. “Patient’s stable.” She glanced at the team, then met Dr. Oliverio’s eyes with her own. Randi McCafferty was in an uphill battle for her life. As was the baby. “All right, doctors, the patients are all yours.”

* * *

Thorne drove like a madman. He’d gotten the call from Slade less than three hours earlier that Randi was in a car accident in Glacier Park, here in Montana.

Thorne had been in Denver at the time, in a private business meeting at the offices of McCafferty International and he’d left abruptly. He told his secretary to handle everything and rearrange his schedule, then he grabbed a duffel bag he kept packed in a closet and had driven to the airfield. Within the hour he was airborne, flying the company jet directly to a private airstrip at the ranch. He hadn’t bothered checking with his brothers again, instead he’d just taken the keys to a pickup that was waiting for him, tossed his duffel bag into the truck then taken off for Grand Hope and St. James Hospital where Randi was battling for her life.

He stepped on the accelerator, took a corner too fast and heard the tires squeal in protest. He didn’t know what was going on; the phone call from his brother Slade had been broken up by static and eventually disconnected as cell service wasn’t the greatest here. But he did understand that Randi’s life was in question and that the name of the admitting doctor was Stevenson. Other than that, he knew nothing.

Night-darkened fields flew by. The wipers slapped sleet from the windshield and Thorne’s jaw grew hard. What the devil had happened? Why was Randi in Montana when her job was in Seattle? What had she been doing in Glacier Park, how serious were her injuries—was she really in danger of losing her life? A piece of information that finally pierced his brain from his conversation with Slade burrowed deep in his brain. Hadn’t his brother said something about Randi being pregnant? No way. He’d seen her less than six months ago. She was single, didn’t even have a steady boyfriend. Or did she? What did he really know about his half sister?

Not a helluva lot.

Guilt ripped through him. You should have kept in contact. You’re the oldest. It was your responsibility. It wasn’t her fault that her mother seduced your father over a quarter of a century before and broke up John Randall’s first marriage. It wasn’t her fault that you were just too damned busy with your own life.

Dozens of questions burned through his conscience as he saw the lights of the town glowing in the distance.

He’d have his answers soon enough.

If Randi survived. His fingers clenched around the wheel and he found himself praying to a God he’d thought had long ago turned a deaf ear.

* * *

Thorne McCafferty.

The last person on earth Nicole wanted to deal with. But, no doubt, he’d be here. And soon. As she tore off her surgical gloves, she told herself to buck up. He was just another worried relative of a patient. Nothing more.

Nonetheless Nicole didn’t like the idea of facing him again. There were too many old wounds, too much pain she’d never really resolved, too many emotions that she’d locked away years ago. She’d realized when she moved here after her divorce that she wouldn’t be able to avoid Thorne forever. Grand Hope, despite its recent growth, was still a small town and John Randall McCafferty had been one of its leading citizens. His sons and daughter had grown up here.

So she’d have to face Thorne again. Big deal. It was only a matter of time. Unfortunately the situation—with his sister struggling for her life—wasn’t the best of circumstances.

Nicole stuffed her stethoscope into her pocket and braced herself. Not only would she have to face Thorne again, but Randi McCafferty’s other distraught brothers as well—men she’d known in a lifetime long, long ago when she’d dated their older brother. Her time with Thorne had been short, though. Intense and unforgettable, but thankfully short. His younger brothers, who had been caught up in their own lives at the time, might not remember her.

Don’t believe it for a minute. When it comes to women, the McCafferty men were almost legendary in their conquests. They’d known all the girls in town.

Another painful old scar ripped open because Nicole had come to face the fact that she had been nothing more than another one of Thorne McCafferty’s conquests, just another notch in his belt. A poor, shy, studious girl who had, for a short period one summer, caught his eye.

An archaic way of thinking, but oh, so torturously true.

Through a high window she saw the movement of stormy gray clouds that reflected her own gloomy thoughts. Though it was only October the weather service had been predicting snow.

She’d been in the ER all day, had nearly finished her shift when Randi McCafferty had been brought in.

Nicole’s feet ached, her head pounded and the thought of a shower was pure heaven—a shower, a glass of chilled Chardonnay, a crackling fire and the twins cuddled with her under the quilt in her favorite rocker as she read them a bedtime story. She couldn’t help but smile. “Later,” she reminded herself. First she had serious business to attend to.

Randi, still in recovery, wasn’t out of the woods yet, nor would she be for a while. Comatose and fighting for her life, Randi would spend the better part of the next week in ICU being monitored, her vital signs watched twenty-four hours.

The good news was that the baby, a robust boy, had survived the accident and a quick Cesarean birth. So far.

Sweaty and forcing a smile she didn’t feel, Nicole slipped into her lab coat and pushed open the doors to the waiting room where two of Randi McCafferty’s brothers sat on chairs, thumbing through magazines, their cups of coffee ignored on a corner table. They were both tall and lanky, handsome men with bold features, expressive eyes and worry written all over their faces.

Looking up as the doors opened, they dropped their magazines and climbed hastily to their feet.

“Mr. McCafferty?” she asked, though she’d spotted them instantly.

“I’m Matt,” the taller of the two said as if he didn’t recognize her. Maybe that was for the best. Keep the situation as professional as possible. Over six feet, with dark-brown eyes and near-black hair, Matt was dressed in jeans and a Western-cut plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Cowboy boots covered his feet and a stir-stick, chewed flat, was wedged firmly in the corner of his mouth. “This is my brother, Slade.”

Again, no hint of recognition lit Slade’s gaze. The youngest of the McCafferty brothers, he’d been tagged as the hellion. He was shorter than Matt by less than an inch and a thin scar jagged down one side of a face distinguished by hawkish features and deep-set, startling blue eyes. Wearing a flannel shirt, faded jeans and beat-up tennis shoes, he shifted nervously from one foot to the other.

“I’m Dr. Stevenson, I was on duty when your sister was brought into the ER.”

“How’s she doin’?” Slade asked anxiously. His eyes narrowed a bit as he looked at her and she realized he’d started the recognition process. It would take a while. It had been years since she’d seen him, her name was different, and there were dozens of women he would have to sift through unless she missed her guess.

She didn’t have time for any of that now. Her job was to allay their fears while explaining about Randi’s condition. “The surgery went well, but your sister was in pretty rough shape when she was brought in, comatose but in labor. Dr. Oliverio delivered your nephew and he seems healthy, though he’ll be given a complete examination by a pediatrician here on staff.

“Randi’s prognosis looks good, barring unforeseen complications, but she’s survived an incredible trauma.” As the brothers listened grimly, Nicole described Randi McCafferty’s injuries—concussion, punctured lung, broken ribs, fractured jaw, nearly shattered femur—the list was long and grave. Concern etched in both brothers’ features, storm clouds gathering in their eyes. Nicole explained the procedures that had been used to repair the damage, using as many lay terms as possible. Matt’s dark skin paled slightly and he winced at one point, looking out the window and chewing the stir-stick until it was thin as parchment. On the other hand, the younger brother, Slade, stared her straight in the face, his jaw clenching, his blue eyes rarely blinking.

As she finished, Slade let out a soft whistle. “Damn it all to hell.”

Matt rubbed the stubble on his chin and stared at her. “But she will make it. Right?”

“Unless she takes a turn for the worse, I think so. There’s always a question with head injuries, but she’s stabilized.”

Slade frowned. “She’s still in a coma.”

“Yes. You understand that I’m the emergency room physician, and other doctors have taken over your sister’s care. Each of them will contact you.”

“When?” Slade demanded.

“As soon as they can.”

She managed a reassuring smile. “I’m going off duty soon. Randi’s other doctors will want to talk to you as well. I came out first because I knew you were anxious.” And because, damn it, I have a personal connection to your family.

“Anxious doesn’t begin to cover it,” Matt said and glanced at his watch. “Shouldn’t Thorne be getting here by now?” he asked his brother.

“He said he was on his way.” Slade’s gaze swung back to Nicole. “Our oldest brother.” His eyebrows knit a bit. “He’ll want a full report.”

“No doubt,” she said and Matt’s eyes narrowed. “I knew him. Years ago.”

She could almost see the wheels turning in the McCafferty brothers’ minds, but the situation with their sister was too imminent, too dire, to be distracted.

“But Randi, she’s gonna be okay,” Matt said slowly, doubts shadowing his brown eyes.

“We’re hopeful. As I said, she’s stabilized, but there’s always a question with head injuries.” Nicole wished she could instill more confidence, allay their worries, but couldn’t. “The truth is, it’s gonna be touch-and-go for a while, but she’ll be monitored around the clock.”

“Oh, God,” Slade whispered and the words sounded more like a prayer than a curse.

“I—we appreciate everything you and the other doctors have done.” Matt shot his brother a look meant to silence him. “I just want you to know that whatever she needs, specialists, equipment, whatever, we want her to have it.”

“She does,” Nicole said firmly. In her estimation the staff, facilities and equipment at St. James were excellent, the best she’d seen in a town the size of Grand Hope.

“And the baby? You said he’s okay, right?” Matt asked.

“He seems fine, but he’s being observed for any signs of trauma. He’s in pediatric ICU, as a precaution for the next few hours, just to make sure that he’s strong. From all outward appearances, he’s healthy and hale, we’re just being doubly cautious especially since your sister was in labor and her water had broken before she got to the hospital. Dr. Oliverio will have more details and of course the pediatrician will get in touch with you as well.”

“Damn,” Slade whispered while Matt stood silent and stern.

“When can we see Randi?” Matt asked.

“Soon. She’s still in Recovery. Once she’s settled in ICU and her doctors are satisfied with her condition, she can have visitors—just immediate family—for a few minutes a day. One at a time. Again, her physician will let you know.”

Matt nodded and Slade’s fist clenched, but neither argued. Both brothers’ jaws were square and set, the McCafferty resemblance impossible to ignore.

“You have to understand that Randi’s comatose. She won’t respond to you until she wakes up and I don’t know when that will be—oh, here we go. One of Randi’s doctors.” Spying Dr. Oliverio walking down the hallway, Nicole took a few minutes to introduce the McCafferty brothers, then, excusing herself, made her way to her office.

It was a small room with one window. It barely had enough space for her desk and file cabinet. She usually transcribed her own notes and after shrugging out of her lab coat, flipped on the computer and spent nearly a half an hour at the keyboard writing a report on Randi McCafferty. As she finished, she reached for the phone. Dialing her home number by rote, she massaged the back of her neck and heard the strains of piped-in music for the first time since she’d walked into the hospital hours before.

“Hello?” Jenny Riley answered on the second ring. Jenny, a student at a local community college, watched Nicole’s twins while she worked.

“Hi. It’s Nicole. Just wanted to know what was going on. I’ll be outta here in about—” she checked her watch and sighed “—probably another hour. Anything I should pick up on the way?”

“How about a ray or two of sunshine for Molly?” Jenny quipped. “She’s been in a bad mood ever since she woke up from her nap.”

“Has she?” Nicole grinned as she leaned back in her chair so far that it squeaked in protest. Molly, more precocious than her twin sister, was known to wake up grumpy while Mindy, the shier half of the two girls, always smiled, even when rousted from a nap.

“The worst.”

“Am not!” a tiny, impertinent voice disagreed. “Sure you are, but I love you anyway,” Jenny said, her voice softer as she turned away from the phone.

“Am not the worst!”

Still grinning, Nicole rested a foot on her desk and sighed. The struggles of the day melted away when she thought of her daughters, two four-year-old dynamos who kept her running, the reasons she’d stayed sane after her divorce.

“Tell them I’ll bring home pizza if they’re good.” She listened as Jenny relayed the message and heard a squeal of delight.

“They’re pumped now,” Jenny assured her and Nicole laughed just as there was a sharp rap on the door before it was pushed open abruptly. A tall man—maybe six foot three or four—nearly filled the frame. Her heart plummeted as she recognized Thorne.

“Dr. Stevenson?” he demanded, his face set and stern before recognition flared in his eyes and for the briefest of seconds she saw regret chase across his face.

“Look Jenny, I’ve got to go,” she said into the receiver as she hung up slowly, righted her chair and dropped her feet to the floor.

“Nikki?” he said, disbelieving.

Nicole stood but on her side of the desk, her barely five-foot-three-inch frame no match for his height. “Dr. Stevenson now.”

“You’re Randi’s doctor?”

“The ER physician who admitted her.” Why, after all the time that had passed and all the pain, did she still feel a ridiculous flutter of disappointment that he hadn’t, in all the years since she’d last seen him, ever looked her up? It was silly. Stupid. Beyond naive. And it had no business here; not when his sister was fighting for her life. “I’m not her doctor, you understand. I helped stabilize her for surgery, then the team took over, but I did stop to speak with your brothers out of courtesy because I knew they’d been waiting a long time and the surgeons were still wrapping things up.”

“I see.” Thorne’s handsome face had aged over the years. No longer were any vestiges of boyhood visible. His features were set and stern, matched only by the severity of his black suit, crisp white shirt and tie—the mark of a CEO of his own little empire. “I didn’t know—didn’t expect to find you here.”

“I imagine not.”

His eyes, a deep, troubled gray, held hers in a gaze that she knew was often daunting but now seemed weary and worried sick. “Did you see your brothers in ICU?” Nicole asked.

“I came directly here. Slade called, said a Dr. Stevenson was in charge, so when I got here, I asked for you at the information desk.” As if reading the questions in her eyes, he added, “I wanted to know what I was dealing with before I saw Randi.”

“Fair enough.” She waved him into the office and motioned to the small plastic chair on the other side of the desk. “Have a seat. I’ll tell you what I know, then you can talk to Randi’s other doctors about her prognosis.” As she reached for her lab coat, she leveled a gaze at him that had been known to shrink even the cockiest of interns. She wanted him to understand. She was no longer the needy little girl he’d dated, seduced and tossed aside. “But I think we should get something straight right now. As you can see this is my private office. Usually people knock, then wait for an answer, before they come barging in.”

His jaw tightened. “I was in a hurry. But—fine. Next time I’ll remember.”

Oh, Thorne, there’s never gonna be a next time. “Good.”

“So she’s in ICU?” Thorne asked.

“Yes.” Nicole sketched out the details of Randi’s emergency arrival to St. James, her conditions and the ensuing procedures. Thorne listened, his expression solemn, his gray eyes never leaving her face.

Once she was finished, he asked a few quick questions, loosened his tie and said, “Let’s go.”

“To ICU? Both of us?”

“Yes.” He was on his feet.

Nicole bristled a bit, ready to fight fire with fire until she spied the hint of pain in his gaze and a twinge of some other emotion that bordered on guilt.

“I suppose I can do that,” she agreed, hazarding a glance at her watch. She was running late, but being behind schedule came with the territory. As did dealing with worried relatives of her patients. “Let me make sure she’s out of Recovery first.” Nicole made a quick phone call, discovered that Randi had been transferred and explained that she and the patient’s brother were on their way. For the duration of the short conversation she felt the weight of Thorne McCafferty’s gaze upon her and she wondered if he remembered anything about the relationship that had changed the course of her life. Probably not. Once his initial shock at recognizing her had worn off, he was all business. “Okay,” she said hanging up. “All set. Matt and Slade have already seen Randi and the nurse on duty wasn’t crazy about a third visitor, but I persuaded her.”

“Are my brothers still here?”

“I don’t know. They told the nurse they’d be back but didn’t say when.” She adjusted her lab coat and rounded the desk. He had the manners to hold the door for her and as they swept down the hallways he kept up with her fast pace, his long strides equal to two of hers. She’d forgotten that about him. But then she’d tried to erase every memory she’d ever had of him.

A foot taller than she, intimidating and forceful, Thorne walked the same way he faced life—with a purpose. She wondered if he’d ever had a frivolous moment in his life. Years before, she’d realized that even those stolen hours with her had been all a part of Thorne’s plan.

At the elevator, Nicole waited as a gurney carrying a frail-looking elderly woman connected to an IV drip was pushed into the hallway by an aide, then she stepped inside. The doors shut. She and Thorne were alone. For the first time in years. He stood ramrod stiff beside her and if he noticed the intimacy of the elevator car, he didn’t show it. His face was set, his shoulders square, his gaze riveted to the panel displaying the floor numbers.

Silly as it was, Nicole couldn’t remember having ever been so uncomfortable.

The elevator jerked to a stop and as they walked through the carpeted hallways, Thorne finally broke the silence. “On the telephone, Slade mentioned something about Randi not making it.”

“There’s always that chance when injuries are as severe as your sister’s.” They’d reached the doors of the Intensive Care Unit and she, reminding herself to remain professional at all times, angled her head upward to stare straight into his steel-colored eyes. “But she’s young and strong, getting the best medical care we can provide, so there’s no need to borrow trouble, or voice your concerns around your sister. She’s comatose, yes, but we don’t know what she does or doesn’t hear or feel. Please, for her sake, keep all your worries and doubts to yourself.” He seemed about to protest and by instinct, Nicole reached forward and touched his hand, her fingers encountering skin that was hard and surprisingly callused. “We’re doing everything we can, Thorne,” she said and half expected him to pull away. “Your sister’s fighting for her life. I know you want what’s best for her, so whenever you’re around her, I want you to be positive, nurturing and supportive. Okay?”

He nodded curtly but his lips tightened a bit. He wasn’t and never had been used to taking orders or advice—not from anyone. “Any questions?”

“Just one,” he said slowly.

“What?”

“My sister is important to me. Very important. You know that. So I want to be assured that she’s getting the best medical care that money can buy. That means the best hospital, the best staff, and especially the best doctor.”

Realizing she was still holding his hand, she let go and felt a welling sense of disappointment. It wasn’t the first time her ability had been questioned and certainly wouldn’t be the last, but for some reason she had hoped that Thorne McCafferty would trust her and her dedication. “What are you trying to say?” she asked.

“I need to know that the people here, the doctors assigned to Randi’s care are the best in the country—or the whole damned world for that matter.”

Self-impressed, rich, corporate bastard. “That’s what everyone wants for their loved ones, Thorne.”

“The difference is,” he said, “I can afford it.” Her heart sank. Why had she thought she recognized a bit of tenderness in his eyes? Foolish, foolish, idealistic woman. “I’m a damned good doctor, Thorne. So are the others here. This hospital has won awards. It’s small but attracts the best, I can personally assure you of that. Doctors who have once practiced in major cities from Atlanta to Seattle, New York to L.A., have ended up here because they were tired of the rat race….” She let her words sink in and wished she’d just bitten her tongue. Thorne could think whatever he damn well pleased.

“Let’s go inside. Now, remember, keep it positive and when I say time’s up, don’t argue. Just leave. You can see her again tomorrow.” She waited, but he didn’t offer any response or protest, just clenched his jaw so hard a muscle jumped. “Got it?” she asked.

“Got it.”

“Then we’ll get along just fine,” she said, but she didn’t believe it for a minute. Some things didn’t change and she and Thorne McCafferty were like oil and water—they would never mix; never agree.

She pressed a button and placed her face in the window so that a nurse inside could see her, then waited to be admitted. As the electronic doors hummed open, she felt Thorne’s gaze center on the back of her neck beneath the upsweep of her hair. Without making a sound, he followed her inside. She wondered how long he’d obey the hospital’s and the doctor’s terms.

The answer, she knew, was blindingly simple.

Not long enough.

Thorne McCafferty hadn’t changed. He was the type of man who played by his own rules.

Chapter Two

Oh, God, this couldn’t be Randi. Thorne gazed down at the small, inert form lying on the bed and he felt sick inside—weak. Tubes and wires ran from the her body to monitors and equipment with gauges and digital readouts that he didn’t understand. Her head was wrapped in gauze, her body draped in sterile-looking sheets, one leg elevated and surrounded by a partial cast. The portions of her face that he could see were bruised and swollen.

His throat was thick with emotion as he stood in the tiny sheet-draped cubicle that opened at the foot of the bed to the nurse’s station. His fists clenched impotently, and a quiet, damning rage burned through his soul. How could this have happened? What was she doing up at Glacier Park? Why had her vehicle slid off the road?

The heart monitor beeped softly and steadily yet he wasn’t reassured as he stared down at this stranger who was his half sister. A dozen memories darted wildly through his mind and though at one time, when she was first born, he’d been envious and resentful of his father’s namesake, he’d never been able to really dislike her.

Randi had been so outgoing and alive, her eyes sparkling with mischief, her laughter contagious, a girl who wore her heart on her sleeve. Guileless and believing that she had every right to be the apple of her father’s eye, Randi Penelope McCafferty had bulldozed her way through life and into almost anyone’s heart she came across—including those of her reluctant, hellions of half brothers who had sworn while their new stepmother was pregnant that they would despise the baby who, as far as their tunnel-visioned young eyes could see, was the reason their own parents had divorced so bitterly.

Now, twenty-six years later, Thorne cringed at his ill-focused hostility. He’d been thirteen when his half sister had summoned the gall to arrive, red-faced and screaming into this world. Thorne had been thoroughly disgusted at the thought of his father and the younger woman he’d married actually “doing it” and creating this love child. Worse yet was the scandal surrounding her birth date, barely six months after J. Randall’s second nuptials. It had been too humiliating to think about and he’d taken a lot of needling from his classmates who, having always been envious of the McCafferty name, wealth and reputation, had found some dark humor in the situation.

Hell, it had been a long time ago and now, standing in the sterile hospital unit with patients barely clinging to life, his own sister hooked up to machines that helped her survive, Thorne felt a fool. All the mortification and shame Thorne had endured at Randi’s conception and birth had disappeared from the first time he’d caught his first real glimpse of her little, innocent face.

Staring into that fancy lace-covered bassinet in the master bedroom at the ranch, Thorne had been ready to hate the baby on sight. After all, for five or six months she’d been the source of all his anger and humiliation. But Thorne had been instantly taken with the little infant with her dark hair, bright eyes and flailing fists. She’d looked as mad to be there as he’d felt that she’d disrupted his life. She’d wailed and cried and put up a fuss that couldn’t be believed. The sound that had been emitted from her tiny voice box—like a wounded cougar—had bored right to the heart of him.

He’d hidden his feelings, kept his fascination with the baby to himself and made sure no one, least of all his brothers and father knew how he really felt about the infant, that he’d been beguiled by her from the very beginning of her life.

Now, as he watched her labored breathing and noticed the blood-encrusted bandages that were placed over her swollen face, he felt like a heel. He’d let her slip away from him, hadn’t kept in touch because it hadn’t been convenient for either of them and now she lay helpless, the victim of an accident that hadn’t yet been explained to him.

“You can talk to her,” a soft, feminine voice said to him and he looked up to see Nicole looking at him with round, compassionate eyes. The color of aged whiskey and surrounded by thick lashes, they seemed to stare right to his very soul. As they had when he was twenty-two and she’d been barely seventeen. God, that seemed a lifetime ago. “No one knows if she can hear you or not, but it certainly wouldn’t hurt.” Her lips curved into a tender, encouraging smile and though he felt like a fool, he nodded, surprised not only that she’d matured into a full-fledged woman—but that she was a doctor, no less, and one who could bark out orders or offer compassionate whispers with an equal amount of command. This was Nikki Sanders, the girl who had nearly roped his heart? The one girl who had nearly convinced him to stay in Grand Hope and scrape out a living on the ranch? Leaving her had been tough, but he’d done it. He’d had to.

As if sensing he might need some privacy, she turned back to the chart on which she was taking notes.

Thorne dragged his gaze from the curve of Nikki’s neck, though he couldn’t help but notice that one strand of gold-streaked hair fell from the knot she’d pinned at her crown. Maybe she wasn’t so buttoned-down after all.

Grabbing the cool metal railing at the side of Randi’s hospital bed, he concentrated on his sister again. He cleared his throat. “Randi?” he whispered, feeling like an utter fool. “Hey, kid, can you hear me? It’s me. Thorne.” He swallowed hard as she lay motionless. Old memories flashed through his mind in a kaleidoscope of pictures. It had been Thorne who had found her crying after she’d fallen off her bike when she’d been learning to ride at five. He’d returned home from college for a quick visit, had discovered her at the edge of the lane, her knees scraped, her cheeks dusty and tracked with tears, her pride bitterly wounded as she couldn’t get the hang of the two-wheeler. After carrying her to the house, Thorne had plucked the gravel from her knees, then fixed the bent wheel of her bike and helped her keep the damned two-wheeler from toppling every time she tried to learn.

When Randi had been around nine or ten, Thorne had spent an afternoon teaching her how to throw a baseball like a boy—a curveball and a slider. She’d spent hours working at it, throwing that damned old ball at the side of the barn until the paint had peeled off.

Years later, Thorne had returned home one weekend to find his tomboy of a half sister dressed in a long pink dress as she’d waited for her date to the senior prom. Her hair, a rich mahogany color, had been twisted onto the top of her head. She’d stood tall on high heels with a poise and beauty that had shocked him. Around her neck she’d worn a gold chain with the same locket J. Randall had given Randi’s mother on their wedding day. Randi had been downright breathtaking. Exuberant. Full of life.

And now she lay unmoving, unconscious, her body battered as she struggled to breathe.

Nicole returned to the side of the bed. Gently she shone a penlight into Randi’s eyes, then touched Randi’s bare wrist with probing, professional fingers. Little worry lines appeared between her sharply arched brows. Her upper teeth sank into her lower lip as if she were deep in thought. It was an unconsciously sexy movement and he looked away quickly, disgusted at the turn of his thoughts.

From the corner of his eye he noticed her making notations on Randi’s chart as she moved to the central area where a nurse’s station had full view of all of the patients’ beds. Like spokes of a wheel the separated “rooms” radiated from the central desk area. Pale-green privacy drapes separated each bed from the others and nurses in soft-soled shoes moved quietly from one area to the next.

“Why don’t you try to speak with her again?” Nicole suggested quietly, not even glancing his way.

He felt so awkward. So out of place. So big. So damned healthy.

“Go on,” she encouraged, then turned her back on him completely.

His fingers tightened over the rail. What could he say? What did it matter? Thorne leaned forward, closer to the bed where his sister lay so still. “Randi,” he whispered in a voice that nearly cracked with emotions he tried desperately to repress. He touched one of her fingers and she didn’t respond, didn’t move. “Can ya hear me? Well, you’d better.” Hell, he was bad at this sort of thing. He shifted so that his fingers laced with hers. “How ya doin’?”

Of course she didn’t answer and as the heart monitor beeped a steady, reassuring beat, he wished to heaven that he’d been a better older brother to her, that he’d been more involved with her life. He noticed the soft rounding of her abdomen beneath the sheet stretched over her belly. She’d been pregnant. Now had a child. A mother at twenty-six. Yet no one in the family knew of any man with whom she’d been involved. “Can…can you hear me? Huh, kiddo?”

Oh, this was inane. She wasn’t going to respond. Couldn’t. He doubted she heard a word he said, or sensed that he was near. He felt like a fool and yet he was stuck like proverbial glue, adhering to her, their fingers linked, as if someway he could force some of his sheer brute strength into her tiny body, could by his indomitable will make her strong, healthy and safe.

He caught a glance from Nicole, an unspoken word that told him his time was up.

Clearing his throat again, he pulled his hand from hers, then gently tapped the end of her index finger with his. “You hang in there, okay? Matt, Slade and I, we’re all pulling for you, kid, so you just give it your best. And you’ve got a baby, now—a little boy who needs you. Like we all do, kid.” Oh, hell, this was impossible. Ludicrous. And yet he said, “I, uh, I—we’re all pullin’ for you and I’ll be back soon. Promise.” The last word nearly cracked.

Randi didn’t move and the back of Thorne’s eyes burned in a way they hadn’t since the day he learned his father had died. Shoving his hands into the pockets of his coat, he crossed the room and walked through the doors that opened as he approached. He sensed, rather than saw Nicole as she joined him.

“Give it to me straight,” he said as they strode along a corridor with bright lights and windows overlooking a parking lot. Outside it was dark as night, black clouds showering rain that puddled on the asphalt and dripped from the few scraggly trees that were planted near the building. “What are her chances?”

Nicole’s steps, shorter by half than his own, were quick. She managed to keep up with him though her brow was knitted, her eyes narrowed in thought. “She’s young and strong. She has as good a chance as anyone.”

An aide pushing a man in a wheelchair passed them going the opposite direction and somewhere a phone rang. Piped-in music competed with the hum of soft conversation and the muted rattle of equipment being wheeled down other corridors. As they reached the elevator, Thorne touched Nicole lightly on the elbow.

“I want to know if my sister is going to make it.”

Color flushed her cheeks. “I don’t have a crystal ball, you know, Thorne. I realize that you and your brothers want precise, finite answers. I just don’t have them. It’s too early.”

“But she will live?” he asked, desperate to be reassured. He, who was always in control, was hanging on the words of a small woman whom he’d once come close to loving.

“As I said before, barring any unforeseen—”

“I heard you the first time. Just tell me the truth. Point-blank. Is my sister going to make it?”

She looked about to launch into him, then took a deep breath. “I believe so. We’re all doing everything possible for her.” As if reading the concern in his eyes, she sighed and rubbed the kinks from the back of her neck. Her face softened a bit and he couldn’t help but notice the lines of strain surrounding her eyes, the intelligence in those gorgeous amber-colored irises and he felt the same male interest he had years ago, when she was a senior in high school. “Look, I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be evasive. Really.” She tucked an errant lock of hair behind her ear. “I wish I could tell you that Randi will be fine, that within a couple of weeks she’ll be up walking around, laughing, going back to work, taking care of that baby of hers and that everything will be all right. But I can’t do that. She’s suffered a lot of trauma. Internal organs are damaged, bones broken. Her concussion is more than just a little bump on her head. I won’t kid you. There’s a chance that if she does survive, there may be brain damage. We just don’t know yet.”

His heart nearly stopped. He’d feared for his sister’s life, but never once considered that she might survive only to live her life with less mental capabilities than she had before. She’d always been so smart— “Sharp as a tack,” their father had bragged often enough.

“Shouldn’t she see a specialist?” Thorne asked. “She’s seeing several. Doctor Nimmo is one of the best neurosurgeons in the Northwest. He’s already examined her. He usually works out of Bitterroot Memorial and just after Randi’s surgery he was called away on another emergency, but he’ll phone you. Believe me. Your sister’s getting the best medical care we can provide, and it’s as good as you’re going to get anywhere. I think we’ve already had this conversation, so you’re just going to have to trust me. Now, is there anything else?”

“Just that I want to be kept apprised of her situation. If there is any change, any change at all in her condition or that of the child, I expect to be contacted immediately.” He withdrew his wallet and slid a crisp business card from the smooth leather. “This is my business phone number and this—” he found a pen in the breast pocket of his suit jacket and scribbled another number on the back of his card “—is the number of the ranch. I’ll be staying there.” He handed her the card and watched as one of her finely arched brows elevated a bit.

“You expect me to contact you. Me, personally.”

“I—I’d appreciate it,” he said and touched her shoulder. She glanced down at his hand and little lines converged between her eyebrows. “As a personal favor.”

Her lips pulled into a tight knot. Color stained her cheeks. “Because we were so close to each other?” she asked, gold eyes snapping as she pulled her shoulder away.

He dropped his hand. “Because you care. I don’t know the rest of the staff and I’m sure that they’re fine. All good doctors. But I know I can trust you.”

“You don’t know me at all.”

“I did once.”

She swallowed hard. “Let’s keep that out of this,” she said. “But, fine…I’ll keep you informed.”

“Thanks.” He offered her a smile and she rolled her eyes.

“Just don’t try to smooth-talk or con me, Thorne, okay? I’ll tell it to you straight, but don’t, not for a minute, try to play on my sympathies and, just to make sure you’re getting this, I’m not doing it for old times’ sake or anything the least bit maudlin or nostalgic, okay? If there’s a change, you’ll be notified immediately.”

“And I’ll be in contact with you.”

“I’m not her doctor, Thorne.”

“But you’ll be here.”

“Most of the time. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve really got to run.” She started to turn away, but he caught the crook of her elbow, his fingers gripping the starched white coat.

“Thanks, Nikki,” he said and to his amazement she blushed, a deep shade of pink stealing up her cheeks.

“No problem. It comes with the job,” she said, then glanced down at his fingers and pulled away. With clipped steps she disappeared through a door marked Staff Only. Thorne watched the door swing shut behind her and fought the urge to ignore the warning and follow her. Why he couldn’t imagine. There was nothing more to say—the conversation was finished, but as he tucked his wallet back into his pocket, he experienced a foolish need to catch up with her—to catch up with his past. He had dozens of questions for her and he’d probably never ask one. “Fool,” he muttered to himself and felt a headache begin to pound at the base of his skull. Nicole Stevenson was a doctor here at the hospital, nothing more. And she had his number. Big time. She’d made that clear enough.

Yes, she was a woman; a beautiful woman, a smart woman, a seemingly driven woman, a woman with whom he’d made love once upon a time, but their affair was long over.

And she could be married, you idiot. Her name is Stevenson now, remember?

But he’d checked her ring finger. It had been bare. Why he’d bothered, he didn’t understand; didn’t want to assess. But he was satisfied that she was no longer another man’s wife. Nonetheless she was off-limits. Period. A complicated, beguiling woman.

He stepped onto the elevator, pounded the button for the floor of the maternity level and tried to shove all thoughts of Nikki Sanders—Dr. Nicole Stevenson—from his mind.

But it didn’t work; just as it hadn’t worked years before when he’d left her. Without so much as an explanation. How could he have explained that he’d left her because staying in Grand Hope, being close to her, touching her and loving her made his departure all that much harder? He’d left because he’d had a deep sense of insight that if he’d stayed much longer, he would never have been able to tear himself away from her, that he never would have gone out into the world and proved to himself and his father that he could make his own mark.

“Hell,” he cursed. He’d been a fool and let the only woman who had come close to touching a part of him he didn’t want to know existed—that nebulous essence that was his soul—get away from him. He’d figured that out a couple of years later, but Thorne had never been one to look back and second-guess himself. He’d told himself there would be another woman someday—when he was ready.

Of course he’d never found her.

And he hadn’t even worried about it until he’d seen Nikki Sanders again, remembered how it felt to kiss her, and the phrase what if had entered his mind. If he’d stuck by her, married her, had children by her, his father wouldn’t have gone to his grave without grandchildren. “Stop it,” he growled to himself.

* * *

Nicole let out her breath as she walked through the maze that was St. James. She was still unsettled and shaken. Used to dealing with anxious, sometimes even grieving relatives, she hadn’t expected that she would have such an intense and disturbing reaction to Thorne McCafferty.

“He’s just a man,” she grumbled, taking the stairs. “That’s all.”

But she met men every day of the week. All kinds from all walks of life and none of them caused anywhere near this kind of response.

Was it because he had been her first lover? Because he nearly broke her heart? Because he left her, not because of another woman, not because he had any good reason, just because she didn’t mean enough to him?

“Fool,” she muttered under her breath as she pushed open the door to the floor where her office was housed.

“Excuse me?” a janitor who was walking down the hall asked.

“Nothing. Talking to myself.” She offered the man an embarrassed smile and continued to her office where she plopped into her desk chair and stared at the monitor of her computer. The notes that had filled her head only an hour earlier seemed scattered to the wind and she couldn’t budge thoughts of Thorne from her brain. In her silly, very feminine mind’s eye she saw him with the clarity of young, loving eyes. Oh, she’d adored him. He was older. Sophisticated. Rich. One of the McCafferty scoundrels—bad boys every one, who had been known to womanize, smoke, drink and generally raise hell in their youths.

Handsome, arrogant and cocky, Thorne had found easy access to her naive heart. The only daughter of a poor, hardworking woman who pushed for and expected perfection, Nicole had, at seventeen, been ripe for rebellion. And then she’d stumbled onto Thorne.

She’d fallen stupidly head over heels in love, nearly throwing all of her own hopes and dreams away on the rakish college boy.

Blowing her bangs out of her eyes she shook her head to dislodge those old, painful and humiliating memories. She’d been so young. So mindlessly sophomoric, caught up in romantic fantasies with the least likely candidate for a long-term relationship in the state.

“Don’t even think about it,” she reminded herself, moving the mouse of her computer and studying the screen while memories of making love to him under the star-studded Montana sky swept through her mind. His body had been young, hard, muscular and sheened in sweat. His eyes had been silver with the moon glow, his hair unkempt.

And now he was some kind of corporate hotshot.

Like Paul. She glanced down at her hands and was relieved to see that the groove her wedding ring had once carved in her finger had disappeared in the past two years. Paul Stevenson had been climbing the corporate ladder so fast, he’d lost track of his wife and young daughters.

She suspected Thorne wasn’t much different.

When she’d moved back to Grand Hope a year ago, she’d known his family was still scattered around the state, but she’d thought Thorne was long gone and hadn’t expected to come face-to-face with him. According to the rumors circulating through Grand Hope like endless eddies and whirlpools, Thorne had finished law school, linked up with a firm in Missoula, then moved to California and finally wound up in Denver where he was the executive for a multinational corporation. He’d never married, had no children that anyone knew of, and had been linked to several beautiful, wealthy, career-minded women over the years, none of whom had lasted on his arm too long before they’d been replaced with a newer model.

Yep. Thorne was a lot like Paul.

Except that you’re still attracted to him, aren’t you? One look, and your gullible heart started pounding all over again.

“Stop it!” she growled and forced herself to concentrate. This wasn’t like her. She’d been known to be single-minded when it came to her work or her children and she found the distraction of Thorne McCafferty more than a little disconcerting. She couldn’t, wouldn’t fall victim to his insidious charms again. With renewed conviction, she ignored any lingering thoughts of Thorne and undid the clasp holding her hair in place. No doubt she’d have to deal with him later and at the thought her heart alternately leaped and sank. “Great,” she told herself as she finger-combed her hair, “Just…great.”

Right now facing Thorne again seemed an insurmountable challenge.

* * *

Twenty minutes later Thorne was still smarting from the tongue-lashing he’d received from a very sturdily built and strong-willed nurse who allowed him one glimpse of Randi’s infant, then ushered him out of the pediatric intensive care unit. Thorne had peered through thick glass to an airy room where two newborns were sleeping in plastic bassinets. Randi’s boy had lain under lamps, a shock of red-blond hair sticking upward, his tiny lips moving slightly as he breathed. To his utter surprise, Thorne had felt an unexpected pull on his heartstrings and he’d promptly advised himself that idiocy ran in the McCafferty family. Nonetheless Thorne had stared at the baby, so tiny, so mystifying, so innocent and unaware of all the turmoil he had caused.

As he’d left the pediatric unit Thorne wondered about the man who had fathered the child. Who was he? Shouldn’t he be contacted? Was Randi in love with him? Or…had she hidden her pregnancy and the fact that she was involved with someone from her brothers for a reason?

Thorne didn’t care. He’d find out about the kid’s father if it killed him. And he couldn’t sit idle just waiting for Randi to recover. No, there was too much to do. Ramming his hands into his coat pockets, he took a flight of stairs to the first floor.

“Think,” he ordered himself and a plan started forming in his mind. First he had to make sure that both Randi and her child were on the road to recovery, then he’d hire a private investigator to look into his sister’s life. Wincing at the thought of prying into Randi’s private business, he rationalized that he had no choice. In her current state, Randi couldn’t help herself. Nor could she care for her child.

Thorne would have to locate the baby’s father, interview the son of a bitch, then set up a trust fund for the kid.

Already planning how to attack the “Randi situation” as he’d begun to think of it, he shouldered open a door to the parking lot. Outside, the wind raged. Ice-cold raindrops beat down from a leaden sky. He hiked his collar more closely around his neck and ducked his head. Skirting puddles, he strode toward his vehicle—a Ford pickup that was usually garaged at the ranch’s airstrip.

Then he saw her.

Running to her car, her briefcase held over her head, Dr. Nicole Stevenson—Nikki Sanders once upon a time—dashed toward a white four-wheel-drive that was parked in a nearby lot.

Rain ran down his neck and dripped off his nose as he watched her. Her hair was no longer pinned to the back of her head, but caught in the wind. Her stark white lab coat had been replaced by a long leather jacket cinched firmly around her waist.

Without thinking, Thorne swept across the puddle-strewn lot. “Nikki!”

She looked up and he was stunned. “Oh. Thorne.” With raindrops caught in the sweep of her eyelashes and her blond-streaked hair tossed around her face in soft layers, she was more gorgeous than he remembered. Raindrops slipped down sculpted cheekbones to a small mouth that was set in a startled pout.

For a split second he thought of kissing her, but quickly shoved that ridiculous thought from his mind.

She jabbed her key into the SUV’s lock. “What’re you doing lurking around out here?”

“Maybe I was waiting for you,” he said automatically—actually flirting with her. For the love of God, what had gotten into him?

He saw her eyes round a bit, then one corner of her mouth lifted in sarcasm. “Try again.”

“Okay, how about this? I just got finished dealing with Nurse Ratched up in Pediatrics and was tossed out on my ear.”

“Someone intimidated you?” One eyebrow lifted in disbelief. “I don’t think so.” If she’d been teasing him before, she’d obviously thought better of it and her smile fell away. She yanked open the door and the interior light blinked on. “Now…was there something you wanted?”

You, he thought, then chided himself. What the devil was he thinking? What they’d shared was long over. “I didn’t get your home number.”

“I didn’t give it to you.”

“Because of your husband?”

“What? No.” She shook her head. “There is no husband, not anymore.” She was standing between the car and open door, waiting, her hair turning dark with the rain. His heart raced. She was single. “You can reach me here,” she said. “If it’s an emergency, the hospital will page me.”

“I’d feel better if I could—”

“Look, Thorne,” she said pointedly. “I understand that you’re a man used to getting your way, of being in charge, of making things happen, but this time you can’t, okay? At least not with me, not any more, nor with St. James Hospital. So, if there’s nothing else, you’ll have to excuse me.” Her eyes weren’t the least bit warm and yet her lips, slick with rainwater just begged to be kissed.

And, damn it, he reacted. Knowing that she’d probably slap him silly, he grabbed her, hauled her body close to his and bent his head so that his lips were suspended just above hers. “Okay, Nikki,” he said as he felt her tense. “I excuse you.” Then he kissed her, pressed his mouth over hers and felt a second’s surrender when her lips parted and her breath mingled with his as rain drenched them both. The scent of her perfume teased his nostrils and memories of making love to her over and over again burned through his brain. Dear God, how she’d responded to him then, just as she was now. He was lost in the feel of her and old emotions escaped from the place where he’d so steadfastly locked them long ago. With a groan, he kissed her harder, deeper, his arms tightening around her.

Her entire body stiffened. She jerked her head away as if she’d been burned. “Don’t,” she warned, her voice husky, her lips trembling a bit. She swallowed hard, then leaned back to glare up at him. “Don’t ever do this again. This—” she raised a hand only to let it fall “—this was uncalled for and…and entirely…entirely inappropriate.”

“Entirely,” he agreed, not releasing her.

“I mean it, Thorne.”

“Why? Because I scare you?”

“Because whatever you and I shared together is over.”

He lifted a doubting eyebrow as rain drizzled down his face. “Then why—?”

“Over!” Her eyes narrowed and she pulled out of his embrace. Though he wanted nothing more than to drag her close again, he let her go and tamped down the fire that had stormed through his blood, the pulse of lust that had thudded in his brain and caused a heat to burn in his loins. “I don’t know what happened to you in the past seventeen years, but believe me, you should take some lessons in subtlety.”

“Should I? Maybe you could give them to me.”

“Me?” She let out a whisper of a laugh. “Right. Just don’t hold your breath.”

She slid into the interior of the car and reached for the door handle. Before she could yank the door closed, he said, “Okay, maybe I was outta line.”

“Oh? You think?”

“I know.”

“Good, then it won’t happen again.” She crammed her key into the ignition, muttered something about self-important bullheaded men, twisted her wrist and sent him a look that was meant to cut to the quick. The SUV’s engine sputtered, then died. “Don’t do this to me,” she said and he wondered if she was talking to him or her rig. “Don’t do this to me now.” She turned the key again and the engine ground but didn’t catch. “Damn.”

“If you need a ride—”

“It’ll start. It’s just temperamental.”

“Like its owner.”

“If you say so.” She took a deep breath, snapped her seat belt into place and grabbed the handle of her door. “Good night, Thorne.” She yanked the door closed, turned the key again and finally the rig roared to life. Pressing on the gas pedal, she revved the engine and rolled down the window. “I’ll let you know if there are any changes in your sister’s condition.” With that she tore out of the parking lot and Thorne, watching the taillights disappear, mentally kicked himself.

He’d been a fool to grab her.

And yet he knew he’d do it again.

If given half a chance.

Yep, he’d do it in a heartbeat.

Chapter Three

“God help me,” Nicole whispered, trying to understand why in the world Thorne would embrace her so intimately and more to the point, why didn’t she stop him. Because you wanted him to, you idiot.

As she wheeled out of the parking lot, she glanced in the rearview mirror, and saw him standing beneath a security light. Tall, broad-shouldered, bareheaded, rain dripping from the tip of his nose and the hem of his coat, he watched her leave. “Cocky son of a gun,” she muttered, flipping on her blinker and joining the thin stream of traffic. She hoped Thorne Almighty McCafferty got soaked to the skin. She switched her windshield wipers to a faster pace to keep up with the rain. Who was he to barge in on her, to question her and the hospital’s integrity and then…and then have the audacity, the sheer arrogance, to grab her as if she were some weak-willed, starry-eyed, spineless…ninny!

Oh, like the girl you once were, the one he remembered?

She blushed and her fingers curled around the steering wheel in a death grip. She’d worked hard for years to overcome her shyness, to become the confident, scholarly, take-charge emergency room physician she was today and Thorne McCafferty seemed hell-bent to change all that. Well, she wouldn’t let him. No way. No how. She wasn’t the little girl he’d left a lifetime ago—her broken heart had mended.

As she braked for a red light, she flipped on the radio, fumbled with the stations until she heard a melody that was familiar—Whitney Houston singing something she should know—and tried to calm down. Why she let Thorne get to her, she didn’t understand.

She cranked the wheel and turned into a side street where the neon lights and Western facade of Montana Joe’s Pizza Parlor came into view.

She pulled into the lot, raced inside and waited in line between five or six other patrons whose raincoats, parkas and ski jackets dripped water onto the tile floor in front of the take-out counter. A gas flame hissed in the fireplace in one corner of the room that was divided by fences into different seating areas. Pickaxes and shovels and other mining memorabilia were tacked to bare cedar walls and in one corner, Montana Joe, a stuffed bison, stared with glassy eyes at the patrons who were listening to Garth Brooks’s latest hit while drinking beer and eating hot, stringy pizza made with Joe’s “secret” tomato sauce.

As Nicole stood in line and dug into her wallet to check how much cash she was carrying, she couldn’t help but overhear some of the conversation of the other patrons. Two men in front of her were discussing the previous Friday’s high school football game. From the sound of it the Grand Hope Wolverines were edged out by an arch rival in a nearby town though there was some dispute over a few of the calls. Typical.

Other conversations buzzed around her and she heard the name McCafferty more often than she wanted to. “Terrible accident…half sister, you know…pregnant, but no mention of a father and no husband…always was bad blood in that family…what goes around comes around, I tell you…”

Nicole grabbed a menu from the counter and turned her attention from the gossip that swirled around her. Though Grand Hope had grown by leaps and bounds in the past few years and had become a major metropolis by Montana standards, it was still, at its heart, a small town, where many of the citizens knew each other. She placed her order, lingered near the jukebox and listened to a three or four songs ranging from Patsy Cline to Wynona Judd, then, once her name was called, picked up her pizza and refused to think about any member of the McCafferty family—especially Thorne. He was off-limits. Period. The reason she’d responded to his kiss was simple. It had been over two years since she’d kissed any man and at least five since she’d felt even the tiniest spark of passion. She didn’t even want to think how long it had been since she’d been consumed with desire—that particular thought led her back to a path that she didn’t want to follow, a path heading straight back to her youth and Thorne. She was just susceptible right now, that was all. Nothing more. It had nothing to do with chemistry. Nothing.

Once in her SUV again, she twisted on the key and the engine refused to fire. “Come on, come on,” she muttered. She tried again, pumping the gas frantically and mentally chiding herself for not taking the rig into the shop for its regular maintenance. “You can do it,” she encouraged and finally, on the fourth attempt, the engine caught. “Tomorrow,” she promised, patting the dash as if comforting the vehicle, as if that would help. “I’ll take you in. Promise.”

On the road again, Nicole drove through the side streets to her little cottage on the outskirts of town. Her stomach rumbled as the tangy scents of melting cheese and spicy sauce filled the rig’s interior and her mind, damn it, ran back to Thorne and the feel of his lips on hers. He was everything she despised in a man: arrogant, competitive, in control and determined—a real corporate Type A and the kind of man she had learned to avoid like the plague. But beneath his layer of pride and his take-charge mentality, she’d caught glimpses of a more complex man, a gentler soul who stumbled through the awkwardness of talking to his comatose sister. He’d tried to communicate with Randi, the back of his neck flushing in embarrassment, his steely gray eyes conveying a sense of raw pain at his sister’s condition—as if he somehow blamed himself for her accident.

“Don’t read more into it than there is,” she warned herself as she cranked the wheel and braked in her driveway. She pulled to a stop in front of her garage and made a mental note that between helping at preschool, the twins’ dance lessons, the housework and the grocery shopping, she should call a roofer for a bid on the sagging roof.

Juggling her briefcase and boxed pizza, she made a mad dash to the back porch and was able to unlock the door, then shove it open with her hip.

Patches, her black-and-white cat, streaked through the opening and Nicole nearly tripped on the speeding feline. Tiny footsteps thundered through the house. “Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!” the twins cried, flying pell-mell into the kitchen and sliding on the yellowed linoleum as Patches slunk down the bedroom hallway. Molly and Mindy were dressed in identical pink-and-white-checked sleepers that zipped up the front and covered their feet in attached slippers. Their hair was wet and curled in dark-brown ringlets around cherubic faces and bright brown eyes.

Nicole slid the pizza onto a counter, knelt and opened her arms wide. The four-year-old imps nearly bowled her over. “Miss me?” she asked.

“Yeth,” Mindy said shyly, nodding her head and smiling.

“You got pizza?” Molly demanded. “I’m hungry.”

“I sure do. Lots of it.” She dropped kisses on each wet head, then standing once again, she stripped out of her coat and hung it in a tiny closet near the eating alcove.

Jenny Riley appeared in the archway separating the kitchen from the dining room. Tall and willowy, with long straight black hair and a nose ring, the twenty-year-old had been the twins’ nanny since Nicole had moved to Grand Hope.

“How were they today?” Nicole asked.

“Miserable as usual,” Jenny said, her green eyes twinkling, sarcasm lacing her words.

“Were not!” Molly said, planting her little fists on her hips. “We was good.”

“Were,” Nicole corrected. “You were good.”

“Yeth,” Mindy said, nodding agreement with her precocious sister. “Real good.”

Jenny laughed and bent down to retie the laces of her elevated tennis shoes, “Oh, okay, I lied,” she admitted. “You were good. Both of you. Very good.”

“It’s not nice to lie!” Molly said with a toss of her wet curls.

“I know, I know, it won’t happen again,” Jenny promised, straightening and slinging the strap of her fringed leather purse over her shoulder.

“Want a piece of pizza?” Nicole offered. Using her fingers and a spatula she’d grabbed from a hook over the stove, she slid piping hot slices onto paper plates. The girls scrambled onto the booster seats. Nicole licked a piece of melted cheese from her fingers and looked questioningly at Jenny.

“No thanks, Mom’s got dinner waiting and—” Jenny winked broadly “—I’ve got a hot date after.”

“Oooh,” Nicole said, licking gooey cheese from her fingers. “Anyone I know?”

“Nope. Not unless you’re into twenty-two-year-old cowboys.”

“Only in the ER. I have been known to treat them upon occasion.”

“Not this one,” Jenny said with a wide grin and slight blush.

“Tell me more.”

“His name is Adam. He’s a hired hand at the McCafferty spread. And…I’ll fill you in more later.”

Nicole’s good mood vanished at the mention of the McCaffertys. Today, it seemed, she couldn’t avoid them for a minute.

“Gotta run,” Jenny said as Molly reached across the table to peel off pieces of pepperoni from her sister’s slice of pizza.

Mindy sent up a wail guaranteed to wake the dead in every cemetery in the county. “No!” she cried. “Mommeee!”

Grinning, Molly dangled all the pilfered slices of pepperoni over her open mouth before dropping them onto her tongue. Gleefully she chewed them in front of her sister.

“I’m outta here,” Jenny said and slipped through the door as Nicole tried to right the wrong and Patches, appearing from the hallway, had the nerve to hop onto the counter near the microwave.

“You, down!” Nicole said, clapping her hands loudly. The cat leaped to the floor and darted in a black-and-white streak into the living room. “Everyone seems to have an attitude today.” She turned her attention back to the twins and pointed at Molly. “Don’t touch your sister’s food.”

“She’s not eating it,” Molly argued while chewing.

“Am, too!” Big tears rolled down Mindy’s face.

“But it’s hers and—”

“And we’re s’posed to share. You said so.”

“Not your food…well, not now. You know better. Now, come on, there’s no real harm done here.” Nicole picked off pepperoni slices from another piece of pizza and placed them on the half-eaten wedge that sat on Mindy’s plate. “Good as new.”

But the damage was done. Mindy wouldn’t stop sobbing and pointing a condemning finger at her twin. “You, bad!”

Molly shook her head. “Am not.”

Nicole shot her outspoken daughter a look meant to silence her, then picked Mindy up and, consoling her while walking toward the hallway, whispered into her ear, “Come on, big girl, let’s brush your teeth and get you into bed.”

“Don’t wanna—” Mindy complained and Molly cackled loudly before realizing she was alone. Quickly she slid out of her chair and little feet pounding, ran after Nicole and Mindy. In the bathroom, the dispute was forgotten, tears were wiped away and two sets of teeth were brushed. As the pizza cooled, mozzarella cheese congealing, Nicole and the girls spent the next twenty minutes cuddled beneath a quilt in her grandmother’s old rocker. She read them two stories they’d heard a dozen times before. Mindy’s eyes immediately shut while Molly, ever the fighter, struggled to stay awake only to drop off a few minutes later.

For the first time that day, Nicole felt at peace. She eyed the fire that Jenny had built earlier. Dying embers and glowing coals in deep ashes were all that remained to light the little living room in shades of gold and red. Humming, she rocked until she too, nearly dozed off.

Struggling out of the chair she managed to carry her daughters into their bedroom and tuck them into matching twin beds. Mindy yawned and rolled over, her thumb moving instinctively to her mouth and Molly blinked twice, said, “I love you, Mommy,” then fell asleep again.

“Me, too, baby. Me, too.” She kissed each daughter and smelled the scents of shampoo and baby powder, then walked softly to the door.

Molly sighed loudly. Mindy smacked her little lips.

Folding her arms over her chest Nicole leaned against the doorjamb.

Her ex-husband’s words, “You’ll never make it on your own,” echoed through her mind and she felt her spine stiffen. Right, Paul, she thought now, but I’m not on my own. I’ve got the kids. And I’m going to make it. On my own.

Every minute of that painful, doomed marriage was worth it because she had the girls. They were a family—maybe not an old-fashioned, traditional, 1950s sitcom family, but a family nonetheless.

She thought fleetingly of Randi’s baby, tucked away in the maternity ward, his father not yet found, his mother in a coma and she wondered what would become of the little boy.

But the baby has Thorne and Matt and Slade. Between the three of them, certainly the boy would be taken care of. Every one of the McCafferty brothers seemed interested in the child, but each one of them was a bachelor—how confirmed, she didn’t know.

“Not that it matters,” she reminded herself and glanced outside where rain was dripping from the gutters and splashing against the window. She thought of Thorne again, of the way his lips felt against hers, and she realized that she had to avoid being alone with him. She had to keep their relationship professional because she knew from experience that Thorne was trouble.

Big trouble.

* * *

He was making a mistake of incredible proportions and he knew it, but he couldn’t stop himself. Driving through the city streets and silently marveling at how this town had grown, he’d decided to see Nikki again before returning to the ranch. She’d probably throw him out and he really didn’t blame her as he’d come on way too strong, but he had to see her again.

After watching her wheel out of the parking lot after their last confrontation, he’d walked back into the hospital, downed a cup of bitter coffee in the cafeteria, then tried to track down any doctor remotely associated with Randi and the baby. He’d struck out with most, left messages on their answering machines and after talking to a nurse in Pediatrics and one in ICU, he’d called the ranch, told Slade that he’d be back soon, then paused at the gift shop in the hospital lobby, bought a single white rose and, ducking his shoulders against the rain, ran outside and climbed into his truck.

“This is nuts,” he told himself as he drove across a bridge and into an established part of town, to the address he’d found in the telephone directory when he’d made his calls to the other doctors. Bracing himself for a blistering reception, he parked in front of the small cottage, grabbed the single flower and climbed out of the car.

Jaw set he dashed up the cement walk, and before he could change his mind, pressed on the door buzzer. He’d been in tighter spots than this. He heard noises inside, the sound of feet. The porch light snapped on and he saw her eyebrows and eyes peer through one of the three small windows cut into the door. A moment later they disappeared as, he supposed, she dropped to her flat feet from her tiptoes.