36 Hours Serial

As a devastating summer storm hits Grand Springs, Colorado, the next thirty-six hours will change the town and its residents forever….

The Parent Plan Part 3

Vicki’s accident the night of the storm deepened the cracks in the already fragile marriage of her parents, Karen and Cassidy Sloane.

Cassidy buries the pain of his broken relationship in work on his ranch. As past demons resurface, his bottled-up feelings threaten to explode. He knows he’s made mistakes, but is it too late to heal his marriage?

Vicki needs a father, and Karen misses the strong, loving man she fell in love with. But if this marriage is going to succeed, Karen will need to help Cassidy learn there is no single way to be a loving family.

Don't miss the final book in the 36 Hours serial, You Must Remember This by Marilyn Pappano.

Dear Reader,

In the town of Grand Springs, Colorado, a devastating summer storm sets off a string of events that changes the lives of the residents forever….

Welcome to Mills & Boon’s exciting new digital serial, 36 Hours! In this thirty-six part serial share the stories of the residents of Grand Springs, Colorado, in the wake of a deadly storm.

With the power knocked out and mudslides washing over the roads, the town is plunged into darkness and the residents are forced to face their biggest fears—and find love against all odds.

Each week features a new story written by a variety of bestselling authors like Susan Mallery and Sharon Sala. The stories are published in three segments, on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and the first segment of every three-part book is free, so you can get caught up in the mystery and drama of Grand Springs. And you can get to know a new set of characters every week. You can read just one, but as the lives and stories of each intertwine in surprising ways, you’ll want to read them all!

Join Mills & Boon E every week as we bring you excitement, mystery, fun and romance in 36 Hours!

Happy reading!

About the Author

Paula Detmer Riggs discovers inspiration for her stories in her varying life experiences. During the first five years of her marriage to a naval officer she lived in nineteen different locales on both the East and West Coasts, including Southern and Northern California, the Puget Sound area and Newport, Rhode lsland. While acting as a docent in Old Town, California, she wrote and directed historic fashion shows, which led to a fascination with early California history.

In later years she and her husband owned and operated a historic nursery in Oregon listed on the National Register of Historic Sites. They are now happily living in the first territorial capital of Arizona, Prescott, which still possesses the flavor and fascination of the Wild West.

Paula writes romances because “I think we all need escape from the fast-paced, often stressful challenges of the twenty-first century lifestyles that confront us daily, and because I believe in true and lasting love—and, best of all, happy endings!”

The Parent Plan Part 3
Paula Detmer Riggs

www.millsandboon.co.uk

When Karen Sloane’s daughter was trapped in the cave during June’s massive rainstorm, it was the longest 36 hours of her life. But Vicky was rescued safe and sound. It should have been a time for celebration. Instead, months of anguish followed, leading to a pending divorce, as Cassidy’s past can’t seem to let him forgive Karen for putting her career ahead of her family. Unless there’s some compromise, the future is looking as bleak and devastating as that spring storm.

Contents

Chapter Twelve Continued

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Twelve Continued

Karen Sloane was still mulling over her friend, Lindy’s, words a week later while sitting alone in her mother’s kitchen at midnight after a hectic Saturday night helping out in the ER.

She’d seen her soon-to-be ex-husband, Cassidy, only once since the conversation in the cafeteria—this morning when she dropped Vicki and Rags off for the weekend. His face had been impassive beneath the familiar Stetson as he’d nodded in her direction. As far as she could tell, he wasn’t exactly pining for her. In fact, he looked magnificently confident as he stood in the small training corral adjacent to the big barn, working an unfamiliar black gelding on a lunging line.

Though it had been early by her standards, only a few minutes past eight, his jeans and buckskin vest were streaked with grime and sweat.

Stifling a yawn now, she forced herself to take another bite of the quiche she’d heated in the microwave and thought about the meeting she’d had that afternoon with the divorce lawyer. Terse to the point of rudeness, the man had asked a series of questions, then asked her to compile a list of assets she considered exclusively her own, and those she shared with Cassidy.

Assets, she thought with a sad shake of her head. Property.Things.

But what about her dreams? What about the threads of her life that were so firmly braided into Cassidy’s dreams?

And what about her daughter?

The attorney had sounded almost bored when he’d asked what kind of custody arrangement she wanted to set up. As though Vicki, too, was an asset to be divided.

She felt pressure in her sinuses, a sudden difficulty with her breathing. As she’d done too many times in the past few weeks, she banished the need to cry to the list of things she would do later, when she had some spare time.

Time? To spare? she thought glumly. What was that?

A nasty, sadistic gnome with a whip who hated her, she decided with a whimsy that was far from comforting.

“You look like a lady who could use a slug of my famous double strength cocoa,” Frank said, flashing that rogue’s smile of his as he came into her mother’s spotless chrome-and-glass kitchen, bringing a rush of vitality and leashed power with him.

“The man is a saint,” she said, fashioning a smile of her own as she straightened her slumped shoulders and made an effort to force down another bite.

“Not even close, darling Kari,” he said as he rattled through the pans in the cupboard until he found one he liked.

“No doubt that’s a big part of the reason Mom is so crazy about you.”

A chuckle rumbled from his deep chest. “That and the fact that I’ve never tried to change a hair on that gorgeous head of hers. Not that I’d want to, you understand.”

“A refreshing attitude in a male,” she muttered.

Frank let that pass as he opened another cupboard and took down three mugs, then fetched the cocoa, sugar and the milk—all with the easy familiarity of a man very much at home in the kitchen in spite of the aura of lethal toughness surrounding him.

“Of course, your mom is wise enough to offer me the same courtesy,” he said, prying open the lid on the cocoa tin.

“I assume you’re talking about Mom and you exclusively,” she said evenly, watching him.

“Who else would I be talking about?” he asked with a bland look that made her scowl.

“Haven’t a clue,” she said, struggling against a leaden need to throw her tired body into his arms and absorb some of his strength, the way Vicki ran to her father for comfort.

“Mother said you’re trying to talk her into a June wedding,” she said, deliberately changing the subject to one less troubling. “Again.”

“Yeah, well, sooner or later she’s going to get it into her head that I’m not giving up, no matter how many jumps she puts me over.”

Karen felt the skin of her face pulling into a frown. “Are you saying that my mother is deliberately keeping you…uh—?”

“Dangling.” His voice blended a wry humor into the firm declaration.

“Now, that’s flattering,” she grumbled.

His eyes crinkled as he dug into a drawer for a wooden spoon. “I’m in love with your mother, Karen. I’ve been in love with her for years, but I’m not blind to her faults.”

“Faults? My mother?” She clucked her tongue. “Shame on you, sir.”

His grin flashed. “A stubborn streak a mile wide,” he said in his rough baritone as he pulled open the door to the fridge and took out a gallon of milk. “A tendency to fuss over the smallest things, a penchant for worrying about people she loves.” The door closed with a quiet thump as he added softly, “And a deep-seated fear that if she lets herself love me, she’ll lose me.”

Karen rubbed at her suddenly cold cheek. “Because she loved my father and he died, you mean?”

“Smart girl. Excuse me, woman. I’ve spent five years proving to that woman she’s stuck with me, no matter how hard she tries to drive me away.”

“But Mother loves you.”

“Sure she does, but that doesn’t mean she can keep herself from testing me.” He measured the cocoa by his own mental rule and added milk before turning on the burner. Only then did he turn to look at her. “She’s a special lady, my Sylvie. And dammit, she’s going to marry me if I have to toss her over my shoulder on June 1 and carry her to Judge Patrick’s chambers kicking and screaming every step of the way.”

Karen laughed at the image of her impeccably groomed mother dangling upside down over Frank’s broad shoulder. “If you do, promise me you’ll give me enough notice so that I can find a ringside seat.”

“You got it,” Frank said, grinning as he stirred the cocoa that was already beginning to smell sinful. He would make a wonderful husband for her mother and a great stepfather, she decided, watching him lift the wooden spoon to his well-shaped mouth for a taste.

At least, she was pretty sure of that—though she’d heard someone say once that he’d been a real hell-raiser as a young man. Abandoned at an early age by his teenage mother, he’d grown up in series of foster homes—until he’d slugged one of his foster “fathers” for taking a belt to one of the other kids. After that, he’d lived on his own, supporting himself by working in one of the silver mines that had been prevalent in the area thirty years ago.

Though he was nothing like the image she held of her own gentle, intellectual father, he’d knocked around enough in his early years to acquire a rough sort of charm that Karen found endearing. Add to that the fact that he was sensitive, funny and a whiz at making her mother blush, and you had one terrific man. Even dressed casually in jeans and a luscious burgundy-and-cream cable-knit sweater that probably cost more than she made in a month, he exuded a quiet air of authority that had nothing to do with his well-padded bank account. Immediately she thought of Cassidy and waited out the fast little flurry of pain that always accompanied thoughts of him.

“So how’s it going?” he said, turning down the heat before leaning against the counter and crossing those huge miner’s arms.

“Do you want the truth or a soothing evasion?”

He lifted one silvered brow. “Let’s go for the truth first.”

She dropped her fork onto her plate and pushed it away. “Vicki’s miserable, I’m miserable, and Rags is driving everyone crazy with his own version of misery.”

Raised from a tiny pup on the ranch, the sensitive shepherd had developed signs of severe homesickness almost immediately. Night after night he sat in the backyard and howled. When he wasn’t howling, he was barking or trying to dig himself an escape route under the tall redwood fence. Sometimes he barked and dug simultaneously.

Sylvia had already received two complaints from neighbors and a not-so-veiled threat to call Animal Control from old Mr. Hornutt on the corner. They’d tried bringing Rags into the house, but the independent canine hated confined spaces and nearly wore himself out pacing from the front door to the back. It seemed he was only happy at the ranch.

“You neglected to mention Cassidy.”

Karen swiveled to the side and hooked her sock-clad toes onto the rung of the chair. “Cassidy is…like those big old boulders on that ranch he loves so much. It would take an earthquake to move him so much as an inch.”

“Obstinate, is he?”

“You have no idea,” she assured him with a heavy sigh.

A twinkle appeared in his sky blue eyes. “Oh, I think I have a glimmer,” he said before reaching into yet another cupboard for a bottle of very old, very expensive brandy that her mother kept just for him.

“You think I’m being too hard on him?”

He poured the now steaming chocolate into the cups. “What I think is, I’d be ten kinds of a fool to answer a question like that,” he said as he rinsed out the pan and upended it in the drainer.

“Coward,” she accused with a fond smile.

“Absolutely.” He added a generous amount of citrus liqueur to two of the cups, then, bottle poised over the third, lifted a brow in question.

“Sure, why not?” A nice little alcohol buzz might let her sleep through the night for once without dreaming of Cassidy.

“Not on duty tomorrow?” He poured the same amount into hers before corking the bottle and returning it to the cupboard.

“I’m working swing this month,” she said, thanking him with a smile as he set the steaming mug in front of her. The rich scents of chocolate and citrus curled upward, and she inhaled with pleasure.

“Lovely,” she murmured after taking a sip.

“Thank you, ma’am,” he said with a dip of his silvered head.

“Welcome,” she managed to say before treating herself again. The taste was both tart and sweet—and just a little wicked. Exactly like Cassidy’s kisses.

Seconds ticked by, unnoticed, until finally she realized Frank was watching her. No, measuring her. She lifted her brows and tilted her head.

Frank seemed oblivious to anything but her. Finally he sighed heavily and straightened those big shoulders. “Karen, did you know that my company had the listing on the Barlow ranch before Cassidy bought it?”

She shook her head, puzzled that he would bring that up now.

“He still had his army haircut when he showed up with everything he owned in the back of a third-hand pickup and a chip on his shoulder the size of Pikes Peak.” Frank wrapped his big hand around the mug and brought it to his lips for a quick sip. “He had no credit, no friends to recommend him and, sadly, not nearly enough cash to cover the down payment Sue Ellen Barlow was demanding for her daddy’s place.” His mouth twitched. “I took one look and told myself I’d be crazy to waste my time trying to put together a deal that didn’t have a chance in hell of getting past a reputable loans officer.”

She must have looked bewildered because he chuckled. “I quoted him a down payment that he could afford, made up the difference from my own pocket and swore Charlie Too Tall down at the bank to secrecy.”

“You did what?” she blurted out, her mug frozen halfway to her mouth.

“I took a calculated risk, nothing more.”

She blinked, trying to understand. From the family room came the sound of music. Vivaldi, she registered absently. “Why?” she asked finally.

“Now, that’s a question I asked myself a lot during that first year when it came time for him to make his monthly mortgage payment.”

“He was late?”

Frank shook his head. “Not once, but I suspect there were a lot of months when he had to choose between eating and meeting his obligation.”

She stared at him, seeing the kind eyes and the strong features. “But the risk…you must have had a reason.”

“He had hungry eyes.” Something flickered in his own eyes, and for an instant, his jaw tightened. “Nobody had to tell me he’d had a rough time as a kid. Or that he was desperate for a place of his own, a piece of earth and sky and security where he could put down roots, a place no one could take from him.” His smile was sad. “It’s hell growing up knowing no one wants you.”

“Oh, Frank,” she whispered, deeply touched, for him, for Cassidy—and more than a little confused. “Does Mother know what you did?”

“No one knows, except Charlie and me—and Cassidy.”

That threw her. “When did you tell him?”

“I didn’t. He found out a few weeks before you two were married, when he went to the bank for a second mortgage in order to finance some renovations on the house.”

“He was angry?”

“You might say that, yeah,” Frank drawled before lifting the mug to his mouth again. “Had this notion I felt sorry for him, and his pride wouldn’t let him accept charity.”

Karen rubbed her toes along the chair rung. “Men and their pride.”

Instead of grinning as she’d expected, Frank responded with a frown. “Sometimes, when a man’s had a lot to overcome, pride’s the only thing holding him together.” Absently he rubbed at a thin white scar along his jaw.

“Did you feel sorry for him?”

“No.” She heard the trace of annoyance in his deep voice and knew he’d put it there deliberately. “I told you I understood him, but what I told him was the truth, too. What he got from me was a loan, nothing more—with enough interest tacked on to have him sucking in hard.”

I’ll bet, she thought, seeing Frank in a new light. “And?”

“And he chewed on the furniture for a while, added a couple of points to that interest and told me to write it up as a separate note.” He grinned. “Made me a tidy bit of change on that cowboy of yours.”

She smiled, but it seemed he wasn’t finished. “I’ve made a fortune on reading people—what they say they want and what they really want. Cassidy wants you. I’d stake every penny I made on that.”

She held the mug to her cheek and wondered if she would ever be able to talk about her failed marriage without feeling sick inside. “Then why am I sitting here talking to you instead of out at the ranch where I belong?”

He arched a brow. “Good question. Got an answer you’d care to run by me?”

“A lot of them, some that even make sense.” She took another sip and held her breath against the intoxicating heat sliding down her throat. “He just wore me out, I guess. I got tired of defending myself for wanting to do what I could to make the world a better place.”

He nodded. As practically a member of the family, he knew all about the problems that had led up to their separation.

“I have pride, too, Frank. Maybe more than I should, but I simply couldn’t stay with a man who held me and my goals in contempt.”

“Are you so sure he did?”

“He…he told me I reminded him of his mother and that he hated her.” She felt her stomach lurch as she revisited the scene in the den in her mind. “He used our daughter as a weapon to blackmail me into doing what he wanted, and when that didn’t work he threatened to take my daughter away from me.”

“And you can’t forgive him for that?”

“No. Yes.” She frowned. “I don’t know.”

“Poor kid, you’re really hung up on the guy, aren’t you?” He slipped the words out so softly that it took her a moment to react.

When she did, it was with a bleak smile. “Does it show?”

“In neon lights.”

She drew a shaky breath. “All I was asking was that he bend just a little,” she said in a small voice.

He regarded her in sympathetic silence for a long moment, then picked up both mugs. “It’s just an observation, Kari, but it seems to me Cassidy was doing nothing but bending from the moment you decided to go back to med school. And he’s been bending ever since.” He paused by her chair to drop a kiss on her hair. “You might want to think on that some when you get to feeling lonely.”

Chapter Thirteen

Cassidy had just turned off his computer on Monday morning and was thinking about the week just starting out when the phone rang, demanding his attention. Since it wasn’t yet 6:00 a.m., he figured the call was important. With a scowl, he snatched up the receiver before the second ring.

“Sloane here.”

“Cass, it’s Rio Redtree.”

He’d met the Grand Springs native a few years back when Rio sat in for Bren Gallagher during one of their poker nights. Never one to warm to a stranger quickly, Cassidy had found himself liking the younger man immensely by the end of the evening. Since that time, they’d spent many a night glaring at each other across a steadily mounting pot. More often than not, to Cassidy’s chagrin, Redtree had gone home with more money in his jeans than he’d brought while Cassidy’s pockets tended to be all but empty.

Curiosity surfaced in his mind as he leaned back in his chair and made a stab at massaging away the hard ache at the base of his skull that was his constant companion.

“How’s it going?” he asked, because it was expected.

“Can’t complain. And you?”

“Overworked.” And missing his wife so much he was sick with it.

Redtree chuckled. “There is that.”

“You got a reason for calling a hardworking rancher in the middle of the night?”

“Like you were asleep.” The other man cleared his throat. “Something’s come up I think you ought to know about.”

Instantly alert, Cassidy narrowed his gaze. “I’m listening.”

There was a brief hesitation, as if Rio was searching for words. Cassidy felt the first prickling of concern and sat up straighter.

“It concerns Vicki, mostly,” Rio confided finally.

Fear stabbed deep. He warned himself not to bolt before he knew where he was heading. “Concerns her how?”

“Easy, Cass, it’s probably not serious, but—”

“Answer the question, Redtree.” He heard the threat in his voice and made a conscious effort to control himself as he added, “What do you know that you’re not telling me?”

Rio’s sigh did little to stem Cassidy’s growing alarm. “Vicki’s class was here at the Herald last week on a field trip, and while the other kids were learning about computer pasteup and design, she slipped away to talk to me. Said she recognized me because I played poker with her daddy.”

Cassidy heard the crunch of gravel outside and glanced at the clock. Billy was a few minutes early. The other hands wouldn’t be arriving for another half hour or so.

“Go on.”

There was the sound of rustling paper before the other man continued. “It seems she’s decided I should do an article on the effect of divorce on little girls and dogs.”

Cassidy indulged in a curt oath that had Rio chuckling. “Yeah, well, I told her that it might be a better idea if she wrote it, seeing as she’s had experience.”

Because he was alone, Cassidy let his head drop. “Why do I think I’m not going to enjoy this?” he muttered, digging harder into the knotted muscles of his neck.

“You have a fax machine, right?”

Cassidy already knew where this was going. “Yeah.”

“Hold on a minute while I get a pencil.”

Cassidy heard drawers opening and Rio muttering. “Okay, what’s the number?” he asked when he came back on the line.

Cassidy recited the digits, waited until Rio repeated them before asking a little too brusquely, “She didn’t, uh, cry or anything, did she?”

“Like a bubbling little fountain,” Rio said cheerfully, earning him another rude comment. “But I had her laughing again before they left.”

“Hell, Redtree, I didn’t think you had a sensitive bone in that pitiful wreck you call a body.”

Rio’s chuckle would have been infectious—if Cassidy wasn’t busy bracing himself to read his daughter’s words as soon as they spilled out of the fax. “Funny what living with a good woman can do for a man, ain’t it, Sloane.”

Cassidy closed his eyes on a knife-thrust of pain. “What is this, Redtree, a damned conspiracy to rub my nose in my own stupidity?”

“Something like that, yeah. Is it working?”

“It’s working.”

“Going to try to get her back?”

Cassidy thought about lying. A man had his pride. “I’m considering it.”

“Want some advice from a man who’s been there?” Redtree’s voice was subtly altered, as though he was grinning.

“Might as well, since I figure you’re gonna give it whether I want it or not.”

Rio laughed. “Well, hell, you’re smarter than I figured.”

“You gonna tell me or insult me?”

Cassidy heard a long-suffering sigh that had his teeth grating together.

“Get yourself all duded up, buy her a coupla dozen roses and maybe some candy—to get her in the mood, you know. And then, get down on your knees and grovel. Works every time.”

* * *

Karen woke a little before noon, still groggy from the aftereffects of a long and stressful weekend as a resident-on-duty. Exhaustion still buzzed in her head, and her arches ached.

Just over seven more months and her days as an ill-paid, overworked resident would be at an end. Then, after surviving the worst, she could look forward to private practice as a better-paid, but still overworked doctor.

With a heartfelt sigh, she sat up and threw off the covers. Though her bedroom was the smallest of four on the second floor, she’d chosen it because its two dormer windows looked out on the snow-capped Rockies marking the western horizon. It was the same view she’d had from the master bedroom at the ranch, and it didn’t take much thought to realize why she favored it.

Three weeks down and a lifetime to go, she thought as she glanced at the thick packet of legal papers on the small desk between the windows. She must have signed her name two dozen times in the past weeks, each signature taking her closer to a final act of separation from the man she loved. And couldn’t have, she reminded herself as she climbed out of bed.

Without bothering with a robe, she padded across the chilly floor to the door. The second floor was wrapped in silence as she gained the hall and turned left, heading toward the bathroom at the end of the hall. Halfway to her destination, she was startled to hear a heavy footfall behind her. Turning quickly, her heart suddenly pounding, she was stunned to see Cassidy coming toward her from the direction of the stairs.

He was wearing a sky blue Western-cut shirt that she’d never seen before, and his jeans were clean, though far from new. His jaw was shiny from a recent shave, and he’d made an attempt to tame the unruly curl from his glossy black hair.

Her body responded before her mind, and desire was already racing through her as she stood frozen, unable to move. How long would it take before she stopped acting like a giddy schoolgirl with a crush every time they happened to meet unexpectedly? she wondered as she fought to regain her composure.

When the earth stops spinning or that untamed sex appeal that he exudes suddenly disappears, came the answer from the more primitive part of her woman’s heart.

Cassidy, too, stopped dead when he caught sight of her, and for an instant, she was sure she saw a naked look of longing flash across his carved-granite features, but when he spoke, his voice was as controlled as ever.

“I rang the bell,” he said, shifting his stance. “I figured you wouldn’t mind if I let myself in.”

Karen resisted the urge to huddle deeper into the oversize Broncos jersey that served as her nightshirt. She hadn’t missed the hot lick of arousal that had appeared in his eyes when he first caught sight of her standing there with her legs bare and the neck of the big shirt hanging over one shoulder. That, at least, hadn’t changed. Cassidy found her sexually appealing.

“Of course not. You’re always welcome in my mother’s house.”

He narrowed his gaze, but not before she saw a slice of frustration in those dark depths. “But not in yours?”

“You’re Vicki’s father,” she said evasively. “You’ll always be welcome in her house.”

His mouth slanted. “I came up to see if you were awake yet. I tried to be quiet, just in case.”

She couldn’t help smiling. Cassidy was too big and too impatient to be quiet—unless he was sleeping. And even then, he had a tendency to mutter disjointedly. Though she’d never managed to make out more than an odd word or two, the urgent tone of his rambling suggested that he was pleading with someone only he could see.

Early in their marriage, she’d tried to get him to talk about the problems that followed him so tenaciously into sleep. After a few abrupt but icy rebuffs, she’d let him fight his nocturnal battles alone. Now she wondered if the pleading words had been directed at the mother he claimed to hate.

“You didn’t wake me,” she assured him, endeavoring to make her voice as cool as his. “Or, if you did, it was time for me to get up, anyway.”

He nodded, then glanced back toward the stairs. Probably planning his escape route, she thought. These days they rarely managed more than five minutes of conversation before one or the other walked away. This time she decided to make it easy for him.

“Was there anything particular you wanted?” she murmured politely. To her surprise, he scowled and turned red.

“I had a call from Redtree this morning. It seems that our daughter has taken up journalism.” He reached behind him and pulled a folded piece of paper from the back pocket of his jeans. “She wrote this article after her class visited the Herald.”

Cassidy saw the quick look of puzzlement come into Karen’s still sleep-drowsy eyes as she took the fax. Though he kept his gaze resolutely fixed on hers, he was all too painfully aware of the familiar outline of her small, firm breasts beneath the thin covering of her orange-and-blue sleep shirt. One look and he wanted her with an intensity that could weaken him, if he gave into it.

“I was one of the chaperones for that trip,” she said, unfolding the paper. “I do recall seeing her talking with Rio at one point, but she didn’t say anything to me about an article.”

“Yeah, well, she wrote one.” Cassidy shifted, far too aware of the growing desire in his lower body. “Look, why don’t I make some coffee while you read it? We’ll talk when you’re finished.” And dressed, preferably in something that a nun might consider conservative, he added silently as he turned and beat a hasty retreat.

The coffee took four minutes to brew. She was back in six, dressed in old jeans and an outsize University of Colorado sweatshirt the color of a strawberry roan colt he’d once had.

The shirt he could handle. It was too baggy to do more than whet a man’s imagination. But those damn jeans—now, they were giving him big trouble. Something about the way they cupped her backside and caressed her thighs, he suspected, wrenching his gaze to her face.

He’d accepted his sexual need, but his craving for her affection and warmth just seemed to grow stronger the longer they were apart. He thought he’d had this leftover ache tucked safely away, but he’d been wrong.

For a lot of years he’d fooled himself into thinking it was strictly sex he wanted, and sex he offered. But now, even as his body stirred and swelled behind the barbed constriction of his button fly, he knew that he would take a vow of celibacy for the rest of his life if she would look at him with love in those pretty gray eyes just one more time.

Before either of them had a chance to speak, he picked up the mug he’d just filled with coffee and silently held it out to her. He knew her fingers would brush his, told himself he was braced to feel her touch. Even so, when her fingertips whispered against his, heat raced through him like a fever, leaving him weak and wanting inside.

“Thanks,” she said, drawing the mug to her so quickly a few drops slopped over the side and onto her shirt where the big C curved over her breast. His mouth went dry, and he focused his attention on tasting his own coffee. He waited until she took a greedy sip before suggesting that they sit.

“You look exactly the way I felt earlier.”

“Actually, I feel as though I just might shatter if I breathe too hard,” she said, pulling out a chair. “And you?”

“Like I’ve been kicked so hard my belly button got shoved into my backbone.” He took the chair opposite and dragged it back far enough to allow room for his long legs. Maybe, with the width of the table between them, the need to hold her would settle. Or maybe not, he realized as he tried to adjust his large frame to the medium-size chair.

Beyond the sunny bay window his mother-in-law’s garden was bursting with color and life. There were flowers on the table, too, yellow trumpety things with long stiff stalks like the ones Kari had planted beneath the bedroom window. One of the frilly petals had a torn edge, as though it had been attacked by some garden pest.

“Her penmanship is atrocious,” she said finally, breaking the silence.

“Especially since she printed most of it,” he drawled, his throat so tight it was a miracle he could draw breath, let alone speak.

Her smile was a ray of sunshine, but before he felt its warmth reach his cold face, it was gone, swallowed by the torment reflected on her face. “Imagine, promising to give up her allowance forever if we got back together.”

“Take my advice, and take her up on it. It might be your only chance.”

“You’re probably right.” Eyes downcast, Karen fiddled with the mug’s thick handle, turning it one way, then another. Since reading Vicki’s plaintive words, she’d been heartsick. A wry smile bloomed in her mind for a brief span at the layman’s terminology.

Heartsick. Heartbroken. Heartsore.

Words coined by poets to describe the feeling that now filled her to bursting. And yet, she knew that the human heart was incredibly resilient. Even hers.

And Cassidy’s? Had his past layered his heart with so much bitterness it was no longer capable of doing anything other than pump blood?

She hunched forward and pressed her hands around the mug. The daffodils were new, and she realized her mother must have picked them after Karen had seen Vicki off to school and gone back to bed.

“I’ll talk to her.” She lifted her gaze to his hard, unreadable, beloved face. “Unless you—”

“You read the article, Karen. I’m not exactly her favorite person at the moment.” His words were raw, his expression savage. “‘My daddy won’t let my mommy be a doctor and that makes Mommy sad. And he says I can’t be a rancher ’cause I’m a girl, which is the most special thing I can be.’” He shook his head. “Guess that pretty much sums it up.”

“Children see things in simple terms, Cass. When she’s older, she’ll understand.”

“Maybe. But she’ll always carry scars.” His mouth twisted. “How’s that for irony? I was trying to protect her from hurt, when all along, I should have been protecting her from myself.”

“Time will help her heal. That and knowing we love her.”

Cassidy saw the faith shining in his wife’s eyes and wished he had the same trust. But life had taught him a long time ago that trust was a trap. “Yeah, well, she’s not real sure about that right now, is she.”

Her face twisted and tears welled in her eyes. “I hate to cry,” she grumbled, wiping them away with hurt, stabbing gestures.

He slid his own rough, range-ruined hands from the tabletop and fisted them on his thighs. “You’re entitled.”

She glared at him across the fussy tips of the ridiculous-looking flowers. “Men always say that when a woman breaks down in their presence, but they never do it themselves.”

“Some do. Depends on the man.”

The fire was back in her eyes. For now, anyway. Fury he could ride out. It was the hurt that tore him apart. “What about you, Cassidy? When was the last time you cried?”

Across the table Karen saw a trapped look come into his eyes and allowed herself a tired smile. What was the use? Cassidy was never going to trust her with anything more than his scorn—and, maybe once upon a time, his affection. “Never mind. Forget I asked.”

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