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: Matt

Matt has never met a woman who wouldn’t succumb to the McCafferty charm. But beautiful Kelly Dillinger, the cop assigned to his sister’s hit-and-run case, proves indifferent to his attention. Her all-business attitude pricks his ego…and fires up his blood. The more she resists, the more determined he becomes to break down her defenses. Matt might think that law enforcement is no place for a lady, but he might soon find himself making a plea for passion.

Praise for #1 New York Times bestselling author

“Bestselling Jackson cranks up the suspense to almost unbearable heights in her latest tautly written thriller.”

—Booklist on Malice

“When it comes to providing gritty and sexy stories, Ms. Jackson certainly knows how to deliver.”

—RT Book Reviews on Unspoken

“Provocative prose, an irresistible plot and finely crafted characters make up Jackson’s latest contemporary sizzler.”

—Publishers Weekly on Wishes

“Lisa Jackson takes my breath away.”

—New York Times bestselling author Linda Lael Miller

Rumors: The McCaffertys

The McCaffertys: Thorne

The McCaffertys: Matt

Lisa Jackson

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Contents

The McCaffertys: Thorne

The McCaffertys: Matt

The McCaffertys: Thorne

Lisa Jackson

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

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 1

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 O.R.”

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 2

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 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 nurses’ 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 nurses’ 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. Dr. 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 3

“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 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.

Locks clicked. The door opened. And there she stood, all five feet three of her wrapped in a fluffy white robe. “Is there something I can do for you?” she asked without a smile. Her eyes skated from his face to the flower in his hands.

He nearly laughed. “You know, this seemed like a good idea at the time but now…now I feel like a damned fool.”

“Because?” Again the lift of that lofty eyebrow.

“Because I thought I owed you an apology for the way I came on earlier.”

“In the parking lot?”

“And the hospital.”

“You were upset. Don’t worry about it.”

“I wasn’t just upset. I was, as I said before, out of line, and I’d like to make it up to you.”

Her chin lifted a fraction. “Make it up to me? With…that?” she asked, one finger pointing to the single white bud.

“To start with.” He handed her the flower and thought, beneath her hard posturing, he caught a glimpse of a deeper emotion. She held the flower, lifted it to her nose and sighed.

“Thanks. This is enough…more than you needed to do.”

“No, I think I owe you an explanation.”

She tensed again. “It was only a kiss. I’ll live.”

“I mean about the past.”

“No!” She was emphatic. “Look, let’s just forget it, okay? It’s been a long day. For both of us. Thanks for the flower and the apology, it’s…it’s very nice of you, but I think it would be best—for everyone, including your sister and her new baby—if we both just pretended that nothing ever happened between us.”

“Can you?”

“Y-yes. Of course.”

He couldn’t stop one side of his mouth from twitching upward. “Liar,” he said and Nicole nearly took a step backward. Who was he to stop by her house and…and what? Apologize? What’s the crime in that? Why don’t you ask him in and offer him a cup of coffee or a drink?

“No!”

“You’re not a liar?”

“Not usually,” she said, recovering a bit. She felt the lapel of her bathrobe gap and it took all of her willpower not to clutch it closed like a silly, frightened virgin. “You seem to bring out the worst in me.”

“Ditto.” He leaned forward and she expected him to kiss her again, but instead of molding his lips to hers, he brushed his mouth across the slope of her cheek in the briefest of touches. “Good night, Doctor,” he whispered and then he turned and hurried down the porch steps to dash through the rain.

She stood in the glow of the porch lamp, her fingers curled possessively around the rose’s stem and watched him steer his truck around in her driveway before he drove into the night. Forcing herself inside, she closed and bolted the door. She didn’t know what was happening, but she was certain it wasn’t going to be good.

She couldn’t, wouldn’t get involved with Thorne again. No way. No how. In fact, she’d toss the damned flower into the garbage right now. Padding to the kitchen she opened the cupboard under the sink, pulled out the trash can and hesitated. How childish. Thorne was trying to make amends. Nothing more. She touched the side of her cheek, then placed the rosebud in a small vase, certain it would mock her for the next week.

“Don’t let him get to you,” she warned, but had the fatalistic sensation that it was already too late. He’d gotten to her a long, long time ago.

* * *

Thorne parked outside of what had once been the machine shed and eyed the home where he’d been raised, a place he’d once vowed to leave and never return. Though it was dark and the rain was coming down in sheets, he saw the house looming on its small rise, warm patches of light glowing from tall, paned windows. It had been a haven at one time, a prison later.

He grabbed his briefcase and the overnight bag and wondered what had come over him. Why had he stopped at Nikki’s? There was more than just a simple apology involved and that thought disturbed him. It was as if seeing her again sparked something deep inside him, something he’d thought had burned out years before, a smoldering ember he hadn’t known existed.

Whatever it was, he didn’t have time for it and he didn’t want to examine it too closely.

Lights blazed from the stables and he recognized Slade’s rig parked near the barn. As he ducked through the rain he remembered the first time he’d seen Nicole—years ago at a local Fourth of July celebration in town. He’d been back from college, ready to enter law school in the fall, randy as hell and anxious to get on with his life. She’d only been seventeen, a shy girl with the most incredible eyes he’d ever seen as she’d staked out a spot on a hill overlooking the town and waited for darkness and the fireworks that were planned.

Funny, he hadn’t thought of that night in a long, long time. It seemed a million years ago and was tangled up in the other memories that haunted this particular place. As he walked up the front steps he remembered nearly drowning in the swimming hole when he was about eight, hunting pheasants with his brothers and pretending the cold silence between his parents really didn’t exist. But the memories that were the clearest, the most poignantly bright, were of Nikki.

“Yeah, well, don’t go there,” he warned himself as he yanked open the screen door. He walked inside and was greeted by the smells of his youth—soot from the fireplace, fresh lemon wax on the floors, and the lingering aroma of bacon that had been fried earlier in the day and still wisped through the familiar hallways and rooms. He dropped his briefcase and bag near the front door and swiped the rain from his face.

“Thorne?” Matt’s voice rang loudly through the century-old house. The sound of boots tripping down the stairs heralded his brother’s arrival onto the first floor. “I wondered when you’d show up.” Forever in jeans and a flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up, Matt clapped his brother on the shoulder. “How’re you, you old bastard?”

“Same as ever.”

“Mean and ornery and on your way to your next million-dollar deal?” Matt asked, as he always did, but this time the question hit a nerve and gave him pause.

“I can only hope,” he said, unbuttoning his coat, though it was a lie. He was jaded with his life. Bored. Wanted more. He just wasn’t sure what.

“How’s Randi?” Matt asked, his face becoming a mask of concern.

“The same as when you saw her. Nothing new to report since I called you from the hospital.”

“I guess it’s just gonna take time.” Matt hitched his chin toward the living room where lamplight filtered into the hallway. “Come on in. I’ll buy you a drink. You look like you could use one.”

“That bad?”

“We could all use one today.”

Thorne nodded. “So where’s Slade?”

“Feeding the stock. He’ll be in soon. I was just on my way to help him, but since you’re here, I figure it won’t hurt him to finish the job by himself.” Matt flashed his killer smile, the one that had charmed more women than Thorne wanted to count.

Matt had been described as tall, dark and handsome by too many local girls to remember. The middle of the three McCafferty brothers, Matt’s eyes were so deep brown they were nearly black, his skin tanned from spending hours outdoors, and the shadow covering his jaw was as dark as their father’s had once been.

Sinewy and rawhide tough, Matt McCafferty could bend a horseshoe at a forge as well as he could brand a mustang or rope a maverick calf. Raw. Wild. Stubborn as hell.

Matt belonged here.

Thorne didn’t.

Not since his parents had divorced.

“Look at you.” Matt gave a sharp whistle. One near-black eyebrow cocked as he fingered the wool of Thorne’s coat. “Since when did you become a fashion statement?”

Thorne snorted in derision. “Don’t think I am. But I happened to be at work when Slade got hold of me.” Thorne hung his coat on an aging brass hook mounted near the door. The long wool overcoat seemed out of place in the array of denim, down and sheepskin jackets. “Didn’t have time to change.” He pulled at the knot in his tie and let the silk drape over his shoulders. “Tell me what’s going on.”

“Good question.” Together they walked into the living room where the leather couches were worn, an upright piano gathered dust, and two rockers placed at angles near blackened stones of the fireplace remained unmoving. His great-grandfather’s rifle was mounted over the mantel, resting on the spikes of antlers from an elk killed long ago. “There’s not a lot to tell.”

Matt opened the liquor cabinet hidden in cupboards beneath a bookcase filled with leather-backed tomes that hadn’t been read in years. “What’ll it be?”

“Scotch.”

“Straight up?”

“You got it…well, I think.”

Matt scrounged around in the cabinet and with a snort of approval withdrew a dusty bottle. “Looks like you’re in luck.” He reached farther into the recesses of the cabinet, came up with a couple of glasses and, after giving them each a swipe with the tail of his shirt, poured two healthy shots. “I could get ice from the kitchen.”

“Waste of time. Unless you want it.”

Matt’s smile was a slow grin. “I think I’m man enough to handle warm liquor.”

“Figured as much.”

Thorne took the drink Matt offered and clicked the rim of his glass to his brother’s. “To Randi.”

“Yep.”

Thorne tossed back his drink, unwinding a bit as the aged liquor splashed against the back of his throat then burned a fiery path to his stomach. He rotated his neck, trying to relieve the kinks in his neck. “Okay, so shoot,” he said, as Matt lit tinder-dry kindling already stacked in the grate. “What the hell’s going on?”

“Wish I knew. Near as the police can tell, Randi was involved in a single-car accident up in Glacier Park. No one knows for sure what happened and the cops are still lookin’ into it, but, from what anyone can piece together, she was alone and driving and probably hit ice, or swerved to miss something—who the hell knows what, a deer maybe, your guess is as good as mine. The upshot is that she lost control and drove over the side of the road. The truck rolled down an embankment and—” he studied the depths of his glass “—she and the baby are lucky to be alive.”

Thorne’s jaw tightened. “Who found her?”

“Passersby—Good Samaritans who called the local sheriff’s department.”

“You got their names?”

Matt reached into his back pocket and withdrew a piece of paper that he handed to Thorne. “Jed and Bill Swanson. Brothers who were on their way home from a hunting trip. The deputy’s name is on there, too.”

He read the list of names and numbers, his eyes lingering for a second when he came to Dr. Nicole Stevenson.

“I figured we should keep a list of everyone involved.”

“Good idea.” Thorne tucked the piece of paper into his pocket. “So do you have any idea what Randi was doing at Glacier or anywhere around here for that matter? The last I heard she was in Seattle. What about her job? Or the father of the baby?”

Matt finished his drink. “Don’t know a damned thing,” he admitted.

“Well, that’s gotta change. The three of us—Slade, you and I—we’ve got to find out what’s going on.”

“Fine with me.” Matt’s determined gaze held his brother’s.

“We’ll start tonight.” The gears were already turning in Thorne’s mind. “As soon as Slade gets in, we’ll start making plans. But first things first.”

“Randi and the baby’s health,” Matt guessed.

“Yep. We can start digging around in her private life as much as we want, but it doesn’t mean a damned thing if she or the baby don’t pull through.”

“They will.” Matt was cocksure as the front door banged open and Slade appeared.

“Thanks for all the help,” the youngest brother grumbled as he marched into the room smelling of horses and smoke. He found a glass and poured himself a stiff shot.

“You managed,” Matt guessed.

Thorne rolled up his sleeves. “Why are you so sure that Randi and her boy will be okay?”

One side of Matt’s mouth lifted. “Because they’re McCaffertys, Thorne. Just like us—too ornery not to pull through.”

But Thorne wasn’t convinced.

Chapter 4

“Don’t want to dance,” Molly insisted as Nicole shepherded both her daughters from the preschool and into the SUV. The rain had stopped in the night and an October sun peered through high, thin clouds.

“Why not?”

“Don’t like it.” Molly climbed into her car seat and started hooking the straps together while Mindy waited for her mother to snap her into place.

“Next year you can play soccer and we’ve got swim lessons in the spring. Until then, I think we’ll stick with dance. I already paid for the lessons and they won’t hurt you.”

“I like to dance,” Mindy said, casting her more outspoken sibling a look of pure piety. “I like Miss Palmer.”

“I hate Miss Palmer.” Molly crossed her chubby arms over her chest and glowered at the back of the passenger seat as Nicole slid behind the steering wheel.

“It’s not nice to hate.” Mindy lifted her eyebrows imperiously and glanced knowingly at her mother. The angel, making sure Nicole knew that Molly was being the embodiment of evil.

“Hate’s a pretty strong word,” Nicole said and started the SUV. The engine fired on the first try. “Atta girl,” she added and Mindy nodded, thinking her mother was praising her. Dark curls bounced around her head as she sent her twin a holier-than-thou look of supreme patience.

“Quit that! Mommy, she’s looking at me.”

“It’s okay.”

“I want ice cream,” Molly insisted.

“Right after dance.”

“I hate dance.”

“I know, I know, we’ve been over this before,” Nicole said adjusting the heat and defrost. Sun or no sun, the air was still cold. She drove over a small bridge and past a strip mall to the older side of town where an old brick grade school had been converted into artists’ quarters. She parked, took the girls inside, and rather than stay and watch them go through their routine, she drove to the service station where the mechanic looked under the hood of the SUV, lifted his grimy hat and scratched his head.

“Beats me,” he admitted, shifting a toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other. An elderly man with a barrel body and silver beard stubble, he frowned and wiped the oil from his hands. “Seems to be working just fine. Why don’t you bring it in next week and leave it—can you? We’ll run diagnostics on it.”

She made an appointment, mentally crossed her fingers, rounded up the girls and managed to stop at the grocery store and ice-cream parlor before they had a total meltdown.

“Why doesn’t Daddy live with us?” Mindy asked as they pulled into the driveway of their house.

Nicole parked and pocketed her keys. “Because Mommy and Daddy are divorced, you know that. Come on, let’s get out of the car.”

“And Daddy lives far away,” Molly said, drips of bubble-gum ice cream falling from her chin.

“He don’t come and see us. Bobbi Martin’s daddy comes and visits her.”

“Would you like for your father to visit?” Nicole had opened the back door and was unsnapping the straps to Mindy’s car seat.

“Yeth.”

“Nope.” Molly shook her head. “He don’t like us.”

“Oh, Molly—” Nicole was about to argue and then saw no reason to defend Paul. He’d had no interest in the twins since the divorce. Sending Nicole child support payments seemed to fulfill all his requirements as a father; at least in his opinion. “You just don’t know your father.”

“Is he going to come see us?” Mindy asked, her eyes bright, her ice-cream cone forgotten. The single scoop of cookies-’n’-cream was melting into her fingers.

“I don’t know. He doesn’t have any plans to, not yet. But, if you like, I could call him.”

“Call him!” Mindy swiped at the top of her cone with her tongue.

“He won’t come.” Molly didn’t seem upset about it; she was just stating a fact. “You can have the rest,” she said, handing her mother the cone and bolting from the rig. She tore off across the wet grass to the swing set.

“Can’t you undo this yourself?” Nicole asked lifting the safety bar of the car seat.

“You do it.” Mindy smiled impishly, then, still clutching her cone, slid out of the car.

You’re spoiling her, Nicole told herself as she juggled the grocery sacks and carried them into the house. You’re spoiling them both, trying to be father and mother, feeling sorry for them because, they, like you, are growing up without their father.

Was it her fault? She had a lot of reasons for moving away from San Francisco, for wanting to start over. But maybe in so doing, she was robbing her daughters of a vital part of their lives, of the chance to know the man who’d sired them.

Not that he’d shown any interest when they still lived in the city. He’d never seen the girls for more than a couple of hours at a time and his new wife had been pretty clear that she saw his twins as “baggage” she didn’t want or need.

So Nicole wasn’t going to beat herself up about it. The twins were doing fine. Just fine.

Patches, who had been washing his face on the windowsill, hopped lithely to the floor. “Naughty boy,” Nicole whispered, but added some dry food to his dish, unpacked the groceries and watched her girls through the back window. They were playing on the teeter-totter, laughing in the crisp air as clouds began to gather again. Nicole pressed the play button on the answering machine.

The first voice she heard was Thorne McCafferty’s.

“Hi. It’s Thorne. Call me.” He rattled off his phone number and Nicole’s stomach did a flip at the sound of it. Why he got to her after all these years she didn’t understand, but he did. There was no doubt about it. She knew that he’d been her first love, but it had been years, years since then. So why did he still affect her? She glanced to the windowsill where she’d placed the bud vase with its single white rose—a peace offering, nothing more.

Sighing, she wished she understood why she couldn’t shake Thorne from her thoughts. She wasn’t a lonely woman. She wasn’t a needy woman. She didn’t want a man in her life—at least not yet. So why was it that every time she heard his voice those old memories that she’d tucked away escaped to run and play havoc through her mind?

“Because you’re an idiot,” she said and finished unloading the car. She remembered seeing him for the first time, the summer before her senior year in high school. He’d been alone, dusk was settling, the sky still glowing pink over the western hills, the first stars beginning to sparkle in the night. The heat of the day hung heavy in the air with only a breath of a breeze to lift her hair or brush her cheeks. She was sitting on a blanket, alone, her best friend having ditched her at the last minute to be with her boyfriend and suddenly Thorne had appeared, tall, strapping, wearing a T-shirt that stretched over his shoulders and faded jeans that hung low on his hips.

“Is this spot taken?” he’d asked and she hadn’t responded, thinking he had to be talking to someone else.

“Excuse me,” he’d said again and she’d twisted her face up to stare into intense gray eyes that took hold of her and wouldn’t let go. “Would it be all right if I sat here?”

She couldn’t believe her ears. There were dozens of blankets tossed upon the bent grass of the hillside, hundreds of people gathered and picnicking as they waited for the show. And he wanted to sit here? Next to her? “Oh, well…sure,” she’d managed to reply, feeling like an utter fool, her face burning with embarrassment.

He’d taken a spot next to her on her blanket, his arms draped over half-bent knees, his spine curved, his body so close to hers she could smell some kind of cologne or soap, barely an inch between his shoulder and hers. Suddenly she found it impossible to breathe. “Thanks,” he said, his voice low, his smile a flash of white against a strong, beard-shadowed chin. “I’m Thorne. McCafferty.”

She’d recognized the name, of course, had heard the rumors and gossip swirling about his family. She had even met his younger brothers upon an occasion or two, but she’d never been face-to-face with the oldest McCafferty son. Never in her life had she felt the wild drumming of her heart just because a man—and that was it, he wasn’t a boy—was regarding her with assessing steely eyes.

Five or six years older than she, he seemed light-years ahead of her in sophistication. He’d been off to college somewhere on the East Coast, she thought, an Ivy League school, though she couldn’t really remember which one.

“I imagine you do have a name.” His lips twitched and she felt even a bigger fool.

“Oh…yes. I’m Nicole Sanders.” She started to offer him her hand, then let it drop.

“Is that what you go by? Nicole?”

“Yeah.” She swallowed hard and glanced away. Clearing her throat she nodded. “Sometimes Nikki.” She felt like a little girl in her ponytail and cutoff jeans and sleeveless blouse with the shirttails tied around her waist.

“Nikki, I like that.” Plucking a long piece of dry grass from the hillside he shoved it into his mouth and as Nicole surreptitiously watched, he moved it from one sexy corner to the other. And he was sexy. More purely male and raw than any boy she’d ever been with. “You live around here?”

“Yeah. In town. Alder Street.”

“I’ll remember that,” he promised and her silly heart took flight. “Alder.”

Dear God, she thought she’d die. Right then and there. He winked at her, stretched out and leaned back on his elbows while taking in the back of her head and the darkening heavens.

As the fireworks had started that night, bursting in the sky in brilliant flashes of green, yellow and blue, Nicole Frances Sanders spent the evening in exquisite teenage torment and, without a thought to the consequences, began to fall in love.

It seemed eons ago—a magical point in time that was long past. But, like it or not, even now, while standing in her cozy little kitchen, she felt the tingle of excitement, the lilt, she’d always experienced when she’d been with Thorne.

“Don’t go there,” she warned herself, her hands gripping the edge of the counter so hard her fingers ached. “That was a long, long time ago.” A time Thorne, no doubt, didn’t remember.

She waited until she’d fed and bathed the girls, read them stories, and then, dreading talking to him, punched out the number for the Flying M Ranch.

Thorne picked up on the second ring. “Flying M. Thorne McCafferty.”

“Hi, it’s Nicole. You called?” she asked while the twins ran pell-mell through the house.

“Yeah. I thought we should get together.”

She nearly dropped the phone. “Get together? For?”

“Dinner.”

A date? He was asking her out? Her heart began to thud and in the peripheral vision she saw the rose with its soft white petals beginning to open. “Was there a reason?”

“More than one, actually. I want to talk to you about Randi and the baby, of course. Their treatment, what happens if we can’t find the baby’s father, convalescent care and rehabilitation when Randi’s finally released. That kind of thing.”

“Oh.” She felt strangely deflated. “Sure, I suppose, but her doctors will go over all this with you.”

“But they’re not you.” His voice was low and her pulse elevated again.

“They’re professionals.”

“But I don’t know them. I don’t trust them.”

“And you trust me?” she said, unable to stop herself.

“Yes.”

The twins roared into the room. “Mommy, Mommy—she hit me!” Molly cried, outraged, while Mindy, eyes round, shook her head solemnly.

“Not me.”

“Yes, she did.”

“You hit me first.” Molly began to wail.

“Thorne, would you excuse me. My daughters are in the middle of their own little war.”

“Oh, I didn’t realize.” He paused for a second as she bent on one knee, stretching the phone cord and giving Molly a hug. “I didn’t know you had children.”

“Two girls, dynamos. I’m divorced,” she added quickly. “Nearly two years now.”

Was there a sigh of relief on his end of the conversation, or did she imagine it over Molly’s sobs?

“I’ll talk to you later,” he said.

“Yes. Do.” She hung up and threw her arms around both girls, but her thoughts were already rushing forward to thoughts of Thorne and being alone with him. She couldn’t do it. Even though he’d tried to apologize for leaving her and she’d spent years fantasizing about just such a scenario, she wouldn’t risk being with him again. It wasn’t just herself and her heart she had to worry about now, she had the girls to consider. And yet…a part of her would love to see him again, to smile into his eyes, to kiss him… She pulled herself up short. What was she thinking? The kiss in the parking lot had been passionate, wild and evoked memories of their lovemaking so long ago, but it was the kiss on her cheek that had really gotten to her, the soft featherlike caress of his lips against her skin that made her want more.

“Stop it,” she told herself.

“Stop what?” Mindy looked at her mother with wounded, teary eyes. “I didn’t do it!”

“I know, sweetie, I know,” Nicole said, determined not to let Thorne McCafferty bulldoze his way into her life…or her heart.

* * *

Thorne walked into the barn and shoved thoughts of Nicole out of his mind. He had too many other problems, pressing issues to deal with. Besides Randi’s and the baby’s health, there were questions about her accident and, of course, the ever-present responsibilities he’d left behind in Denver—hundreds of miles away but still requiring his attention.

The smells of fresh hay, dusty hides and oiled leather brought back memories of his youth—memories he’d pushed aside long ago. As the first few drops of rain began to pepper the tin roof, Slade was tossing hay bales down from the loft above. Matt carried the bales by their string to the appropriate mangers, then deftly sliced the twine with his jackknife. Thorne grabbed a pitchfork and, as he had every winter day in his youth, began shaking loose hay into the manger.

The cattle were inside lowing and shifting, edging toward the piles of feed. Red, dun, black and gray, their coats were thick with the coming of winter, covered with dust and splattered with mud.

After a day of being on the phone, the physical labor felt good and eased some of the tension from muscles that had been cramped in his father’s desk chair. Thorne had called Nicole, his office in Denver, several clients and potential business partners, as well as local retailers as he needed equipment to set up a temporary office here at the ranch. But that had just been the beginning; the rest of the day he’d spent at the hospital, talking with doctors or searching for clues as to what had happened to his sister.

For the most part, he’d come up dry. “So no one’s figured out why Randi was back in Montana?” he said, tossing a forkful of hay into the manger. A white-faced heifer plunged her broad nose into the hay.

“I called around this afternoon while you were at the hospital.” The three brothers had visited their sister individually and checked in on their new nephew. Thorne had hoped to run into Nicole. He hadn’t.

“What did you find out?”

“Diddly-squat.” Another bale dropped from above. Slade swung down as well, landing next to Thorne and wincing at the jolt in his bad leg. His limp was still as noticeable as the red line that ran from his temple to his chin, compliments of a skiing accident that had nearly taken his life, though the scars on the outside of his face were far less damaging than those that, Thorne imagined, cut through his soul. “I talked to several people at the Seattle Clarion where she wrote her column, whatever the hell it is.” Slade yanked a pitchfork from its resting place on the wall.

“Advice to the lovelorn,” Thorne supplied. Drops of frigid rain drizzled down the small windows and a wind, screaming of winter, tore through the valley.

“It’s a lot more than that,” Matt said defensively. “It’s general advice to single people. Things like legal issues, divorce settlements, raising kids alone, dealing with grief and new relationships, juggling time around career and kids, budgeting…hell, I don’t know.”

“Sounds like you do,” Thorne said, realizing that Matt had maintained a stronger relationship with their half sister than he had. But then that hadn’t been difficult.

“I take a paper that prints her column. It’s been syndicated, y’know. Picked up by a few independents as far away as Chicago.”

“Is that right?” Thorne felt a sharp jab of guilt. What did he know about his sister? Not much.

“Yeah, she adds her own touch—her quirky humor—and it sells.”

“Since when did she become an expert?” Slade wanted to know.

“Beats me.” Matt scratched the stubble on his chin. “Looks like she could’ve used some pearls of wisdom herself.”

Thorne kicked at a bale, causing it to split open. Why hadn’t Randi come to him, explained about the baby, confided in him if her life wasn’t going well? His back teeth ground together and he reminded himself that maybe she didn’t know things weren’t on track, maybe this baby was planned. “Okay, so what else did you find out?” he asked, refusing to wallow in a sea of guilt.

Slade lifted a shoulder. “Not a hell of a lot. Her co-workers, of course, all figured out she was pregnant. She couldn’t really hide it. But none of them admitted to knowing the father’s name.”

“You think they’re lying?” Thorne asked.

“Not that I could tell.”

“Great.”

“No one even thinks she was dating anyone seriously.”

“Looks serious enough to me,” Matt grumbled.

Slade reached across the manger and pushed one cow’s white face to the side so a smaller animal could wedge her nose into the hay. “Move, there,” he commanded, though the beast didn’t so much as flick her ears. Wiping his hand on the bleached denim of his jeans, he said, “Randi’s editor, Bill Withers, said that she’d planned to take a three-month maternity leave, but he’d assumed she’d stay in town, because she told him that as soon as she was on her feet and she and the baby were settled in, she was going to work out of her condominium. She had enough columns written ahead that they’ll run for a few weeks. Then, she’d be back at it again, though she didn’t plan to start going into the office until after the first of the year.”

“So there was no trouble at work?”

“None that anyone is saying, but I get the feeling that there was more going on than anyone’s willing to admit.”

“Par for the course. Reporters, they’re always ready to snoop into anyone else’s business—they’ve already been calling here, you know. But ask them about what they know and all of a sudden the First Amendment becomes the Bible.” Matt snorted and picked up the used strands of baling twine. “Does anyone at her office know anything about her accident?”

“Nope.” Slade dusted his hands. “They were shocked. Especially the ones she was supposedly closest to. Sarah Peeples, who writes movie reviews gasped and nearly fell through the floor, from the sound of her end of the conversation. She couldn’t believe that Randi was in the hospital and Dave Delacroix, he’s a guy who writes a sports column for the paper, thought I was playing some kind of practical joke. Then once he figured out I was on the level, he got angry. Demanded answers. So, basically, I drew blanks.”

“It’s a start,” Thorne said as they finished up. The wheels had been turning in his mind from the moment he’d heard about Randi’s accident; now it was time to put some kind of plan into action. Slade forked the last wisps of hay into the manger. “I’ll catch up with you,” he said as he traded his pitchfork for a broom. “Pour me a drink.”

“Will do.” Thorne followed Matt outside and dashed through rain cold enough that he knew winter was in the air.

Once in the house again, Matt built another fire from last night’s embers and Thorne poured them each a drink. As they waited for Slade, they sipped their father’s Scotch and worried aloud about their headstrong sister and wondering how they would take care of a newborn.

“The problem is, none of us know much about Randi’s life,” Thorne said as he capped the bottle.

“I think that’s the way she wanted it. We can beat ourselves up one side and down the other for not being a part of her life, but that was Randi’s choice. Remember?”

How could he forget? At their father’s funeral in May, Randi had been inconsolable, refusing any outward show of emotion from her brothers, preferring to stand in an oversize, gauzy black dress apart from the rest of the family, while a young preacher, who knew very little of the man in the coffin, prayed solemnly. Most of the townspeople of Grand Hope came to the service to pay their respects.

She had to have been four months pregnant at the time. Thorne would never have guessed as they paid their last respects on the hillside. But then he’d been lost in his own black thoughts, the ring his father had given him the summer before hidden deep in his pocket.

John Randall hadn’t been a churchgoing man. Under the circumstances, the young minister whose eulogy had been from notes he’d taken the day earlier, had done a decent enough job asking that the blackheart’s soul be accepted into heaven. Thorne wasn’t certain God had made such a huge exception.

“Randi’s kept her life pretty private.”

“Haven’t we all?” Matt remarked.

“Maybe it’s time to change all that.” Thorne ran a hand through the thin layer of dust that had collected on the mantel.

“Agreed.” Matt lifted his glass and nodded.

The front door banged open. A gust of cold wind blew through the hallway and Slade, wiping the rain from his face, hitched himself into the living room. He shrugged out of his jacket and tossed it over the back of the couch.

“Any word on Randi?” Making his way across the braided rug, Slade found an old-fashioned glass in the cupboard and without much fanfare, poured himself a long drink from the rapidly diminishing bottle of Scotch.

“Not yet. But I’ll check the answering machine.” Matt crossed the room and disappeared down the hallway leading to the den.

“She’d better pull out of this,” Slade said, as if to himself. The youngest of the three brothers, Slade was also the wildest. He’d left a trail of broken hearts from Mexico to Canada, if rumors were to be believed and never had really settled down. While Matt had his own ranch, a small spread near the Idaho border, Slade had put down no roots and probably never would. He’d done everything from race cars, to ride rodeo, and do stunt work in films. The scar running down one side of his face was testament to his hard, reckless lifestyle and Thorne had, at times, wondered if the youngest McCafferty son harbored some kind of death wish.

Slade stood in front of the fire and warmed the backs of his legs. “What’re we gonna do about the baby?”

“We take care of him until Randi’s able.”

“Then we’d better get this place ready,” Slade observed.

“The orthopedist called earlier,” Matt said, entering the room. “As soon as some of the swelling has gone down and Randi’s out of critical condition, he’ll take care of her leg.”

“Good. I put a call in to Nicole. I want to meet with her so that she can tell me about Randi’s doctors and her prognosis, rehab, that sort of thing.”

“Nicole?” Matt replied, his eyes narrowing as if struck by a sudden memory. “You know she mentioned that you knew each other, but I’d forgotten that you were an item.”

“It was only a few weeks,” Thorne clarified.

Slade rubbed the back of his neck. “I hardly remember it.”

“Because you were off racing cars and chasing women on the stock car circuit,” Matt said. “You weren’t around much when Thorne got out of college and was heading to law school. It was that summer, right?”

“Part of the summer.”

Slade shook his head. “Let me guess, you dumped her for some other long-legged plaything.”

“There was no other woman,” Thorne snapped, surprised at the anger surging through his blood.

“No, you just had to go out and prove to Dad and God and anyone else who would listen that you could make it on your own without J. Randall’s help.”

“It was a long time ago,” Thorne muttered. “Right now we’ve got to concentrate on Randi.”

“And that’s why you called Dr. Stevenson?” Obviously Matt wasn’t buying it.

“Of course.” Thorne sat on the arm of the leather couch and knew he was lying, not only to his brothers but to himself. It was more than just wanting to discuss Randi’s condition with her; he wanted to see Nicole again, be with her. The strange part of it was, ever since seeing her again, he wanted to see more of her. “Now, listen,” he said to his brothers. “Something we’ll have to deal with and pronto is finding out who the father is.”

“That’s gonna be tough considerin’ Randi’s condition.” Slade rested a shoulder against the mantel and folded his arms over his chest. “Just how long you plannin’ on stickin’ around, city boy?”

“As long as it takes.”

“Aren’t there some big deals in Denver and Laramie and wherever the hell else you own property—things you need to oversee?”

Thorne resisted being baited and managed a guarded grin, the kind Slade so often gave the rest of the world. “I can oversee them from here.”

“How?”

“By the fine art of telecommunication. I’ll set up a fax, modem, Internet connection, cell phone and computer in the den.”

Matt rubbed his chin. “Thought you hated it here. Except for a few times like that summer after you graduated from college you’ve avoided this ranch like the plague. Ever since Dad and Mom split, you’ve spent as little time here as possible.”

Thorne couldn’t argue the fact. “Randi needs me—us.”

Matt added wood to the fire and switched on a lamp. “Okay, I think we need a game plan,” Thorne said.

“Let me guess, you’ll be the quarterback, just like in high school,” Slade said.

Thorne’s temper snapped. “Let’s just work together, okay? It’s not about calling the shots so much as getting the job done.”

“Okay.” Matt nodded. “I’ll be in charge of the ranch. I’ve already talked to a couple of guys who will help out.”

Slade walked to the couch and picked up his jacket. “Good enough. Matt should run the place, he’s used to it and I’ll pitch in if we need an extra hand. Thorne, why don’t you give Juanita a call? Maybe she can help with the baby. She’s had some experience raising McCaffertys, after all, she helped Dad with us.”

“Good idea, as we’ll need round-the-clock help,” Thorne decided.

“We’ll get it. Now, the way I think I can help best is by concentrating on finding out all I can about what was going on in our sister’s life, especially in the past year or so. I have a friend who’s a private investigator. For the right price, he’ll help us out,” Slade said.

“Is he any good?” Thorne asked.

Slade’s expression turned dark. “If anyone can find out what’s going on, it’ll be Kurt Striker. I’d bet my life on it.”

“You’re sure?”

Slade’s gaze could’ve cut through steel. “I said, I’d bet my life on it. I meant that. Literally.”

“Call him,” Thorne said, persuaded by his usually cynical brother’s conviction.

“Already have.”

Thorne was surprised that Slade had already started the ball rolling. “I want to talk to him.”

“You will.”

“I’ll keep on top of the doctors at the hospital,” Thorne said. “I’ll can do most of my business here by phone, fax and e-mail, so I won’t have to go back to Denver for a while.”

Matt held his gaze for a long second and for the first time in his life Thorne realized that his middle brother didn’t approve of his lifestyle. Not that it really mattered. “Then let’s just get through this,” Matt finally said, as if he suddenly trusted Thorne again, as he had a long time before.

“We will.”

“As long as Randi cooperates,” Slade said.

“She’s a fighter.” Thorne’s reaction was swift and he recognized the irony of his words. Phrases such as she’s really strong, she’ll make it, or she’s too ornery to die, or she’s a fighter, were hollow words, expressed by people who usually doubted their meaning. They were uttered to chase away the person’s own fears.

“Look, I’m going to take inventory of the feed,” Matt said.

“I’ll check the gas pump, see what’s in the tank.” Slade snagged his jacket with one finger and the two younger brothers headed for the front door.

Thorne watched them through the window. Slade paused to light a cigarette on the porch while Matt jogged across the lot, disappearing into the barn again.

As kids they’d been through a lot together; depended upon each other, but as men, they’d gone about their own lives. Thorne had become the businessman, first law school and a stint with a firm before branching out on his own. His father had been right. He’d wanted to prove himself and the measure of a man’s success, he’d always thought, was the size of his bank account.

For the first time in his life he wondered if he’d been wrong. Thinking of Randi battling death and her newborn son just starting his life gave him pause as he walked down the hallway where family portraits graced the walls. There were pictures of his father and mother, his stepmother and all four McCafferty children. Thorne in his high school football uniform and his graduation cap and gown, Matt riding a bucking bronco in a local rodeo, Slade skiing down a steep mountain and Randi in her prom dress, standing next to some boy Thorne couldn’t begin to name. He stopped, touched that framed photo and silently vowed that he’d do anything, anything to make sure she was healthy again. He’d heat a cup of coffee, then call Nicole. She might have more news on his sister. That was the only reason he was calling her, he reminded himself as he walked into the kitchen and snapped on the lights. From the corner of his eye, he caught sight of his reflection in the windows. For a split second he imagined a mite of a woman with wide gold eyes and a fleeting smile at his side, then pulled himself up short.

What was he thinking? Nicole was Randi’s ER admitting physician and that was it. Nothing more. Yet, ever since he’d first seen her in her office at the hospital, her heels propped on her desk, and her chair leaned back as she cradled the phone between her ear and shoulder, he hadn’t been able to force her from his mind. It hadn’t helped that when he’d caught up with her in the parking lot, he’d seen her not as Randi’s doctor, but as a woman—a beautiful, bright and articulate woman. He hadn’t been able to stop himself from kissing her and he’d been thinking about it off and on ever since. Nicole Sanders Stevenson was all grown-up, educated and self-confident—more intriguing now than she had been as a girl of seventeen. Despite her small stature she was a force to be reckoned with—way too much trouble for any man.

And yet…

The wall phone jangled. Snapped out of the ridiculous path of his thoughts, he grabbed the receiver on the second ring. “McCafferty ranch,” he said. “Thorne McCafferty.”

“So you are there!” a sharp female voice accused, and Thorne envisioned Annette’s pretty face in a scowl. He’d dated her for a few months, but had never really connected with her. “What in the world happened? We were supposed to meet the mayor last night!” Annette’s tone brought him up sharp and he gave himself a quick mental shake. He’d never called her. Never once thought of her after leaving his office yesterday.

“There was a family emergency.”

“So you couldn’t pick up a phone? You have a cell phone and you’re on one right now…oh, listen, I don’t mean to go off on you.” She took in a deep, audible breath. “Your secretary told me that your half sister was in some kind of wreck and I’m sorry for her, I really am. I hope she’s okay…?”

“She’s in a coma.”

“Oh, God.” There was another long, weighty pause. “Well, I, um, understand, I really do. Dear Lord, how awful. I know you had to get back there in a hurry, Thorne. That’s understandable and I made your apologies to my father and the mayor, but it seems to me that you could have called me yourself.”

“I should have.”

“Yeah…oh, well.” She sighed. “Dad was disappointed.”

“Was he?” Thorne drawled, imagining Kent Williams’s reaction. The shrewd old man was probably in a stew as he’d wanted to invest with Thorne and was hoping they could cozy up with members of the city council and get an edge on a zoning ordinance that was up for review. “Thanks for giving him my apologies. You didn’t have to do that. I would have called him.”

“And me, would you have called me?”

“Yes.”

“Eventually.”

“Right.” No reason to lie. “Eventually.”

“Oh, Thorne.” She let out a world-weary sigh and some of the shrewishness in her voice disappeared. “I miss you.”

Did she? He doubted it and their relationship had always left him feeling alone. “It looks like I’m going to be in Montana a while.”

“Oh.” There was hesitation in her voice. “How long?”

“A few weeks, maybe months. It all depends on Randi.”

“But what about your work?”

“What about it?”

“It’s—it’s your life.”

Was my life, he wanted to say. Instead, added, “Things have changed.”

“Have they?” Silent accusations sizzled over the wires.

“Afraid so.”

“What does that mean?” But she knew. It was obvious. “You know, there are other men who are interested in me. I’ve put them on hold because of you.”

“I’m sorry.”

She waited and the silence ticked between them. “So, what’re you telling me, Thorne?” she asked. “That it’s over? Just like that? Because your sister is in the hospital?”

“No, Annette,” he admitted, “it’s not because of Randi. You and I both know that this wasn’t going anywhere. I was up front about that at the beginning.”

“I thought you’d change your mind.”

“It didn’t happen.”

“So I should start seeing other men.”

“It wouldn’t be a bad idea.”

“Okay.” Again a frosty pause. “I’ll think about it,” she said.

“Do.”

“And you, too, Thorne,” she said with a renewed amount of spunk. “You think about what you’re giving up.” She hung up with a click and he replaced the receiver slowly, wondering why he didn’t feel any sense of loss. But then he never had; not with any woman. Not even with Nikki way back when, and she’d been the most difficult. But he hadn’t trusted her with his heart and when it came time to take off for law school, he’d left Grand Hope, his family and Nicole Sanders and never once looked back. Until now. While away at school, whenever he’d thought of her, which was often at first, he steadfastly turned his mind to other things. Eventually he’d quit thinking about her altogether and he’d lived by the axiom that women weren’t a priority in his life.

But now, as he stared out the window into the dark, wet night, he felt a change inside him, a new kind of need. He reached for the phone as it rang again sharply.

Annette. He should have known she wouldn’t give up without a fight.

“Hello,” he said, as the receiver reached his ear.

“Thorne? This is Nicole.” Her voice was cold and professional.

He knew in a heartbeat that Randi’s condition had worsened. Fear clutched his heart and for the first time in his life he felt absolutely helpless. Oh, God. “It’s my sister,” he stated.

“No. Randi’s still stable, but I just got a call from the hospital because they couldn’t get through to you—your line was busy.” Nicole hesitated a beat and before she got the words out, Thorne experienced an anguish the like of which he’d never felt before. He sagged against the wall as she said, “It’s the baby.”

Chapter 5

“What about him?” Thorne clutched the receiver in a death grip. His heart thudded in dread. For the love of Mike, how could one little baby, Randi’s son whom he’d never even held, make such a difference in his life?

He heard the back door open and Matt, unbuttoning his sheepskin jacket, strode in. “Slade’s still—”

Thorne silenced his brother with a killing glance and a finger to his lips.

“What about the baby?” he repeated, bracing himself and he saw Matt’s dark complexion pale.

“He’s lethargic, experiencing feeding problems and respiratory distress, his abdomen is distended, his temp has spiked—”

“Just cut to the chase, Nicole. What’s he got? What went wrong?” Thorne was pacing now, stretching the telephone cord as Matt’s eyes followed his every move.

Nicole hesitated a beat and Thorne found it hard to breathe. “Dr. Arnold thinks the baby might have bacterial meningitis. He’s going to call you later and—”

“Meningitis?” Thorne repeated.

“No way!” Matt broke his silence.

“How the hell did that happen?”

“When Randi came into the hospital, her membranes had already ruptured—”

“What? Ruptured?”

Matt swore under his breath, then looked up, his gaze locking with that of his older brother. “Let’s go,” Matt said. “Right now. To the damned hospital!” Thorne cut him off with a quick shake of his head. He had to concentrate.

Nicole was talking again—her voice calm, though he sensed an urgency to her. “Her water had broken in the accident and there’s a chance that there was contamination, the baby was exposed to some source of bacteria.”

“This Dr. Arnold? Is he there? At the hospital now?”

“Yes. He’ll call you with more information—”

“We’re on our way.”

“I’ll meet you there,” she said as he slammed the receiver down.

“What the hell’s going on?” Matt demanded.

“The baby’s in trouble. It doesn’t sound good.” Thorne was already striding to the front hall where he yanked his coat from a hook and shoved his arms down the sleeves. Matt was right on his heels. The two men half ran to Thorne’s truck, but before he climbed into the passenger side, Matt said, “Wait a minute, I’d better tell Slade that we’re on our way to the hospital—”

“Make it fast,” Thorne ordered, but Matt was already running toward the barn. He disappeared inside. Thorne jabbed his key into the ignition, the truck roared to life and he glared at the barn, willing his brother to return.

Less than a minute later Matt, head ducked, holding on to the brim of his Stetson, dashed through the rain. Thorne was already throwing the pickup into gear by the time Matt opened the door and slid inside.

“He’s gonna follow us.”

“Good.”

Thorne stepped hard on the accelerator, though he didn’t know why. The urge to get to the hospital, to do something pounded through him. What had gone wrong?

Rain poured from the sky and the twin ruts of the lane glistened in the glow of the headlights as water spun beneath the tires.

“Okay, now what happened?” Matt demanded, his face tense in the dark interior.

“Something went wrong.”

“What?”

“Everything.” Thorne squinted against oncoming headlights, shifted down and turned onto the main road cutting through the pine-forested canyons and rolling acres of farmland surrounding the Flying M. In clipped words, Thorne repeated his conversation with Nicole.

Matt’s jaw clenched. “Why was Nicole the one who called? Why not the pediatrician?”

“He couldn’t get through, but I’ll have more phone lines installed. Tomorrow. And I’d asked Nicole to phone me if there was any change. She said Dr. Arnold would call us, but I’m not going to hang around and wait. I want answers and I want them now.”

The ranch was nearly twenty miles from town. Thorne pushed the speed limit and the truck’s tires sang against the wet pavement.

They arrived at the hospital in record time. Thorne was out of the truck like a shot. Matt kept up with him, stride for stride. They sprinted across the dark parking lot, flew through the automatic doors of the lobby, then took the stairs two at a time to the second floor.

This time, Thorne didn’t allow any nurse to tell him what to do. The poor woman, a slight blonde with a tentative smile tried to ward them off. “Excuse me, you can’t come in here,” she said, pointing to a sign that read Authorized Personnel Only.

“Where’s the McCafferty baby?” Thorne demanded.

“Who are you?”

“I’m the baby’s uncle and so is he,” Matt said, hooking a thumb toward Thorne. “We’re Randi McCafferty’s brothers.”

“The only family the baby has right now,” Thorne explained, “as our sister is in Intensive Care and we haven’t located the child’s father.” That wasn’t a lie. Not really. He just didn’t bother to add that they had no idea who the father was. Slicing Matt a look warning him not to elaborate, Thorne continued. “I want to see my nephew.”

“He’s in his crib,” the nurse said patiently. “And he’s being monitored closely.” Her lips pursed and she motioned toward the glassed-in room where the baby, lying seemingly peacefully under a warm lamp, with a monitor strapped to him, was sleeping. Tubes were inserted into his small body and he breathed with his tiny mouth open. Another nurse hovered near his plastic bed. The blonde nurse continued, “Dr. Arnold has seen him and should be right back—oh, here he is now.” She was obviously relieved to pass the responsibility of dealing with Thorne and Matt to a small man with wire-rimmed glasses, slightly stooped shoulders and a ring of wild white hair.

“Dr. Arnold?” Thorne asked, pinning the shorter man with his gaze.

“Yes.”

“I’m Thorne McCafferty. This is my brother, Matt. The baby’s mother is our sister. What the hell’s going on?”

“That’s what we’re trying to find out,” Dr. Arnold said calmly, obviously not offended by Thorne’s sharp words and demanding attitude. “The baby’s suffering from bacterial meningitis, probably contracted at the site of the accident as your sister’s amniotic sac had already ruptured.” Thorne’s chest tightened. He felt a muscle in his jaw work as the doctor explained in finer detail what Nicole had already told him on the phone. Slade, white-faced, jaw set, fists coiled, arrived and was introduced quickly and brought up to speed.

“So how dangerous is this?” Thorne demanded.

“Very.” The doctor was solemn. “We’re a small hospital but luckily, we’ve got a state-of-the-art intensive pediatric unit.”

Matt got straight to the point. “Is the baby going to make it?”

“I wish I could tell you that he’s out of the woods, but I can’t.” The doctor’s eyes, behind his glasses, were solemn. “The mortality rate for this kind of meningitis is high, somewhere between twenty to fifty percent—”

“Oh, God,” Matt whispered.

“However, your nephew’s survival chances are good here because of the staff and equipment. Already the baby’s on antibiotic therapy and a mechanical ventilator along with compulsive fluid management.”

“What?”

“An IV to minimize the effects of cerebral edema. Even if the baby is to survive, there’s a chance that he might be deaf, blind or have some retardation.”

“Damn,” Slade mumbled and ran a hand over his chin and was suddenly pale as death, his scar more visible.

Thorne was thunderstruck. He stared at Randi’s baby and felt, for the first time in his life, impotent. Frustration burned through his bloodstream.

“Isn’t there anything else you can do?” Matt asked, lines of worry sketching his brow.

“There must be,” Thorne added.

“Believe me, we’re doing everything possible.” Dr. Arnold’s voice was steady.

“If there’s anything he needs, anything at all—equipment, specialists, whatever—we’ll pay for it.” Thorne was adamant. “Money isn’t an issue here.”

The doctor’s lips pulled together just a fraction. His spine seemed to stiffen and his voice was clipped. “Money isn’t the problem right now, Mr. McCafferty. As I said we have the best equipment available, but this hospital is always looking for endowments and benefactors. I’ll see that your name is on the list. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I want to check on my patient.”

He punched a code into a keypad and the doors marked Authorized Personnel Only opened. Dr. Arnold disappeared for an instant before he stepped into the neonatal nursery and was visible through the thick glass of the viewing window. Thorne’s teeth clenched, anger and impotence burned in his brain. There had to be something he could do to help Randi’s boy. There had to be! He stared at the pediatrician hard, but if Dr. Arnold felt Thorne’s eyes upon him, he didn’t so much as flinch or glance up. Instead he focused on the baby, carefully examining the fragile little boy who was Randi’s only child—John Randall McCafferty’s sole grandchild.

“He’s got to pull through,” Matt said, his fists balling in determination. “If he doesn’t and Randi wakes up to find out that he didn’t make it—”

“Don’t say it! Don’t even think it! He’s gonna be fine. He’s got to!” Slade slashed Matt a harsh glance filled with his own private hell. Not too long ago he’d lost a girlfriend and an unborn child. “He’ll make it.”

“Will he?” Matt wasn’t convinced. “Here? I mean, I know this is a good hospital—the best around—but maybe he needs specialists, the kind that you find in bigger cities at teaching hospitals in L.A. or Denver or Seattle.”

“We’ll check it out,” Thorne agreed. “I’ll find out the best in the country.”

“Right now it would be a mistake to move him.” Nicole’s voice came from somewhere down the hallway.

Thorne hadn’t heard her approach but saw her reflection in the glass, a pale ghost in jeans and ski jacket, a filmy image that pulled strangely on his heartstrings. “Trust me on this one, Thorne, the baby’s in good hands.”

He turned and stared into a face devoid of makeup except for a bit of lipstick, her hair falling freely to her shoulders, her gold eyes quietly reassuring. She looked younger than she had before, more like the girl he remembered, the one he’d thought he’d loved, the one he’d so callously left behind. “Sorry it took me a while to get here, I had to round up a babysitter.”

“You have a child?” Matt asked.

“Two. Twin girls. Four years old.” Her serious face brightened at the mention of her daughters and Thorne tried to ignore the ridiculous spurt of jealousy that ran through his blood that another man had fathered her daughters, then he gave himself a swift mental shake. What the hell was he thinking? “And I’d trust them to Geoff—er, Dr. Arnold.”

“Good enough for me,” Matt allowed, though his face was still tense.

“Nothin’ else we can do but have some faith in the guy,” Slade agreed, then cursed softly in frustration.

“There are always other options,” Thorne disagreed.

“None better.” Nicole’s voice brooked no argument. Her face was a mask of certainty. She had absolute trust in this man and again, ludicrously, Thorne felt a prick of jealousy that she would have such unflagging confidence in another male. “Let me talk to Geoff and see what’s up.” Nicole punched a code into the door lock. “I’ll just be a minute.” The electronic doors opened. Nicole slipped through.

Slade shifted from one foot to the other. Scowling through the glass, he eyed the two doctors and finally said, “I think I’ll go check on Randi, then head back. You can fill me in when you get home.”

Matt nodded curtly. “I’ll come with you.” He glanced at Thorne. “I’ll catch a ride back to the ranch with Slade.”

“Fine,” Thorne said. “Call Striker again. Tell him I want to talk to him. ASAP.”

“What about?” Slade asked.

“The kid’s father for starters.”

“Okay, I’ll try to find Kurt.”

“Don’t try. Do it.”

Slade’s eyes flared and he slanted Thorne a condescending, don’t-push-me-around smile. “Don’t worry, brother. I’ll handle it.” With that he turned and walked away.

“Hell, you can be an insufferable bastard,” Matt growled. “You might be used to barking orders at your office and everyone hustles to do what you want, but back off a bit, okay? We’re all in this together. Slade’ll call Striker.”

“Will he?” Thorne’s eyes narrowed. “It seems to me he’s made a lot of promises in his life that he somehow managed to forget.”

“He’s straightening out.”

“Good, ’cause he sure as hell has messed up his life.”

“Not all of us are blessed with the Midas touch,” Matt reminded him. “And, as far as I can see, you’re not in much of a position to start slinging arrows.” Matt glanced through the glass to Nicole. “Somethin’ about the lady doctor that’s got you riled?”

Thorne didn’t respond.

“Thought so.” Matt’s smile was positively irritating. “Well, good luck. She doesn’t much look like a filly that’s easy to tame.”

“This has nothing to do with her.”

“Right. I forgot. You never get too involved with a woman, now, do ya?” Matt gave an exaggerated wink, pointed his finger at Thorne’s chest, then sauntered down the hall after Slade.

Irritated as hell Thorne waited, watching Nicole and Dr. Arnold through the glass, hating the feeling that he was powerless, that the baby’s life was out of his control, and that his brother had seen through his facade of indifference when it came to Nicole Sanders Stevenson. The truth of the matter was that she’d already gotten under his skin. He’d kissed her last night not certain of her marital state, not really giving a damn, then taken a flower to her doorstep like some kind of junior high kid suffering some kind of crush. Afterward he’d called her and manipulated the facts just to get a date with the woman. He’d never acted this way before. Never. Didn’t understand it. Yes, she was beautiful and beyond that she was smart. Sassy and clever. But deeper still, he sensed a woman like no other he’d ever met. And he’d lost her once. Given her up all for the sake of making a buck.

He was still mentally kicking himself up one side and down the other when Nicole emerged. Her brow was creased, her eyes shadowed with concern.

“How bad is it?” Thorne asked.

Little lines appeared between her eyebrows and he braced himself for the worst. “It’s not good, Thorne, but Dr. Arnold is doing everything he can here. He’s also linked by computer to other neonatologists across the country.”

Thorne’s jaw was clenched so hard it ached. “What can

I do?”

“Be patient and wait.”

“Not my strong suit.”

“I know.” The ghost of a smile crossed her lips as they walked down the stairs and outside together. Nicole flipped up her hood and held it tightly around her chin. They dashed through puddles to her SUV while sleet pelted from the sky in icy needles.

“Thanks for calling me and letting me know about J.R.,” he said as they reached the rig.

“J.R.? That’s the baby’s name?”

“He doesn’t really have one. But I’ve been thinking that he should be named after my father since Randi is still in a coma and well…who knows what she’ll call him when she wakes up.” If she wakes up. If the baby survives. “Anyway, I appreciate the call.”

“No problem. I said I would.” She fumbled in her purse, found her keys and unlocked the door.

“Yeah, but you didn’t have to go to the trouble of getting a babysitter and driving down here.” It had touched him.

“I thought it would be best.” She flashed him a small grin. “Believe it or not, Thorne, some of the doctors here, including Dr. Arnold and me, really care about our patients. It’s not a matter of clocking in and out on a schedule so much as it is about making sure the patient not only survives but receives the best care possible.”

“I know that.”

“Good.” She blinked against the drops of water running down her face and a twinkle lighted her gold eyes. “Okay, so now you owe me one.”

“Name it,” he said so softly that she barely heard the words, but when she looked into his face and saw an unspoken message in his eyes, her throat caught and she was suddenly touched in the most dangerous part of her heart. She remembered his kiss, just yesterday in this very parking lot, and she couldn’t forget all the passion that was coiled behind the press of his lips against hers. And that was just the start of it. She knew that within the past day and a half her life had changed irrevocably, that she and Thorne had rediscovered each other and it scared the devil out of her, so much that she couldn’t think about it. Not now. Not ever. “Careful, McCafferty,” she said, clearing her throat. “Giving me carte blanche could be dangerous.”

“I’ve never been one to steer clear of trouble.”

“I know.” She sighed, remembering how many of her friends had tried to warn her off Thorne way back when. The McCafferty boys were known as everything from rogues to hellions who always managed to find more than their share of trouble. “Look, I’ve got to go—”

He grabbed the crook of her elbow. “I meant it when I said thank you, Nicole. And I really am sorry.”

“For—?”

“For taking off on you way back when.”

Her heart jolted a bit when she realized his thoughts had taken the same wayward path as her own. As the wind ripped the hood from her head, she warned herself not to trust him. “That was a long, long time ago, Thorne. We—well, I was a kid. Didn’t really know what I wanted. Let’s just forget it.”

“Maybe I can’t.”

“Well, you did a damned fine job of it for a lot of years.”

“Not as fine as I’d hoped,” he said. “Look, I’d just like to set the record straight.”

“Now?” She glanced away from him and felt her pulse skyrocketing as the sleet ran down her neck. “How about another time? When we’re both not in danger of freezing?”

His fingers gave up their possessive grip and she yanked open the door. Hoisting herself behind the wheel, she pulled the door shut and plunged her key into the ignition. With a flick of her wrist, she tried to start the engine. It ground, then died. She pumped the gas, all too aware that Thorne hadn’t moved. He stood outside the driver’s door, his bare head soaked, his long coat dripping, as she tried again. The engine turned over slowly, revved a bit and then sputtered out.

Three more flicks of her wrist.

Three more grinding attempts until there was no sound at all. “No,” she muttered, but knew it was over. The damned rig wasn’t going to move unless she got behind it and started pushing. “Great. Just…great.” And Thorne was still standing there, like a man without a lick of sense who wouldn’t come in out of the freezing rain.

He opened the door. “Need a ride?”

“What I need is a mechanic—one who knows a piston from a tailpipe!” she grumbled, but reached for her purse and slid to the ground. “Failing that, I suppose a ride would be the next best thing.” She locked the SUV, abstained from kicking it and turned. He took her hand in his, linking cold, wet fingers through hers as they dashed to his pickup. She told herself not to make any more of this than what it was, just an old friend offering help. But she knew better.

Once inside the cab, she swiped water from her face and directed him through town as the defroster chased away the condensation on the windows. He drove carefully, negotiating streets that were slick with puddles of ice as the radio played softly.

“So tell me about yourself.” Headlights from slowly passing cars illuminated the bladed angles of his face and she reminded herself that he really wasn’t all that handsome, that he was a corporate lawyer, for God’s sake, the kind of man she wanted to avoid.

“What do you want to know?” she asked.

“How you got to be a doctor.”

“Medical school.”

He arched a brow and she laughed. “Okay, okay, I know what you mean,” she admitted, glad to have broken some of the ice that seemed to exist between them. “Guess I wanted to prove myself. My mother always told me to aim high, that I could achieve whatever I wanted and I believed her. She insisted I have a career where I didn’t have to rely on a man.” And Nicole knew why. Her own father had taken off when she was barely two and no one had seen or heard from him since. No child support. No birthday cards. Not even a phone call at Christmas. If her mother knew where he was, she’d never said and her answer to all of Nicole’s questions had never wavered. “He’s gone. Took off when we needed him most. Well, we don’t need him now and never will. Trust me, Nicole, we don’t want to know what happened to him. It really doesn’t matter one way or another if he’s dead or alive.” At that point in the speech she’d usually bend on a knee to look her young daughter straight in the eye. Strong maternal fingers had held firm to Nicole’s small shoulders. “You can do anything you want, honey. You don’t need a deadbeat of a father to prove that. You don’t need a husband. No—you’ll do it all on your own, I know you will and you can do and be anything, anyone you want. The sky’s the limit.”

In the last few years Nicole had wondered secretly if her need to succeed, her driving ambition, her quest to make her mark was some inner need to prove to herself that she could make it on her own and that the reason her father left had nothing to do with her.

Of course at seventeen, after meeting Thorne McCafferty, she’d fallen head over heels in love and been ready to chuck all her plans—her dreams and her mother’s hopes—for one man…a man who hadn’t cared enough for her to explain what had gone wrong.

Until now.

She sensed it coming. Like the clouds gathering before a storm, the warning signs that Thorne hadn’t given up his need to explain himself were evident in the set of his jaw and thin line of his mouth.

He waited until the second light, then slowed the truck and turned down the radio. “I said I wanted to explain what happened.”

“And I said I thought it could wait.”

“It’s been nearly twenty years, Nikki.”

She closed her eyes and her heart fluttered stupidly at the nickname she’d carried with her through high school, the only name he’d called her. “So why rush things?” Don’t be taken in, Nicole. He used you once and obviously he thinks he can do it again.

He let her sarcasm slide by. “I was wrong.”

“About?” she said in a voice so low, she thought he might not have heard her.

“Everything. You. Me. What’s important in life. I thought I had to go out and prove myself. I thought I couldn’t get entangled with anyone or anything—I had to be free. I thought I had to finish law school and make a million dollars. After that I thought I’d better keep at it.”

“And now you don’t?” She didn’t believe him.

“And now I’m not sure,” he admitted, his fingers drumming on the steering wheel as the interior of the cab started to fog.

“Sounds like midlife crisis to me.”

He shifted down and took a corner a little too fast. “Easy answer.”

“Usually right on.”

“You really believe that?”

She leaned back in the seat and stared out the window to the neon lights of the old theater, and wondered why she was in this discussion. “Let’s just say I’ve experienced it firsthand.”

“Oh.”

“And I swore to myself that the next midlife crisis I was going to suffer through was going to be my own.”

He parked at the curb in front of her little bungalow and she reached for the door handle. “I suppose I could ask you in for some coffee, or cocoa or tea or something.”

“You could.”

She hesitated, one hand on the door handle. “Then again, maybe it wouldn’t be such a good idea.”

“And why’s that?”

She tilted up her chin a bit. “Because this is getting a little too personal, I think.”

“And you’d rather keep it professional.”

“It would be best for everyone. Randi—the baby—”

To her surprise one side of his mouth lifted in a sexy, damnably arrogant slash of white. “Is that the reason, Doctor, or is it that you’re scared of me?”

No, Thorne, I’m not scared of you. I’m scared of me. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

“Why should I stop now?” He reached for her, dragged her close and started to kiss her, only to stop short, his mouth the barest of whispers from hers. His breath fanned her face. “Good night, Nikki.” Then he released her. She opened the door and nearly fell out of the truck. Embarrassment washed up her cheeks as she strode to the door and felt him watching her, waiting until she made it inside. Then he threw his truck into gear and took off, disappearing through the veil of silvery sleet.

Chapter 6

“Damn!” Thorne slammed down the receiver and stared out the window to a winter-crisp day where evidence of last night’s storm still glistened on the grass and hung from the eaves in shimmering icicles. A headache pounded behind his eyes. He’d been on the phone all morning, guzzling cups of coffee as bitter as a spinster’s heart.

He’d bedded down in his old room, the one that had abutted his folks’ suite and his brothers had, by instinct, claimed the bedrooms where they’d been raised. But when he’d awoken this morning he’d been alone in the house.

During the intervening hours, he’d called the hospital, hoping for a report of improvement in Randi and the baby’s condition. As far as he could tell, nothing had changed. His sister was still comatose and the baby, though stable, was still in danger. He’d hooked up his laptop computer to the antiquated phone lines and looked up everything he could on little J.R.’s condition. From what he could determine, everything that could be done to counteract the meningitis was being done at St. James. He’d even managed to call the office, check in with Eloise and tell her that he hoped a portable office would be set up here, in his father’s den, by the end of the day. He wondered what John Randall would’ve done in a similar situation and, thinking about his father, removed the gift he’d been given from his pocket. The ring winked in the sunlight and Thorne folded his hand over the silver-and-gold band.

“I want you to marry. Give me grandchildren.” John Randall’s request seemed to bounce off the walls of this old pine-paneled room that still smelled faintly of the elder McCafferty’s cigars and Nicole’s image came to mind, the only woman he’d ever dated that he’d considered as a mother for his children. And that thought had scared him nearly twenty years ago. It still did because nothing had changed. Oh, there had been a lot of women since he’d dated her; Thorne hadn’t been celibate by any means, but no one woman had come close to touching his heart.

Until he’d seen Nicole again.

Not that he wanted a wife or mother for his children or—

What was he thinking? Wife? Children? Not him. Not now. Probably not ever…and yet…the reason he was thinking this way was probably because of his father’s dying request, his father’s wedding ring, and the fact that his own mortality wouldn’t go on forever. Randi’s situation was proof enough of that.

Oh, for the love of God. Enough with these morbid thoughts. He looked around this room again and wondered how many deals had been concocted here in the past. How many family or business decisions dreamed up while John Randall had puffed on a black market Havana cigar, rested the worn heels of his boots on the scarred maple desk and leaned back in a leather chair that had been worn smooth by years of use?

This damned metal band had been his father’s wedding ring, a gift from Larissa, Thorne’s mother, on their wedding day. John Randall had worn it proudly until Larissa had found out about Penelope, the younger woman whom her philandering husband had been seeing. The woman who had broken up a marriage that had already been foundering. The woman who had eventually given John Randall his only daughter.

And now Thorne’s mother, too, was dead, a heart attack just two years ago taking her life.

Thorne slid the ring into his pocket and reached for the phone again. He dialed Nicole’s number and hung up when her answering machine picked up. Drumming his fingers on the desktop he wondered if she’d managed to get her car towed, if she’d found another means of transportation and how, as a single mother of four-year-old twins she was getting along. “Not that it’s any of your business,” he reminded himself, bothered nonetheless. He wondered about her marital state—about the man who had been her husband, then forced himself to concentrate on the problems at hand—there were certainly enough without borrowing more. Nicole was a professional, a mother, and a levelheaded woman. She’d be fine. She had to be.

He heard the sound of the front door opening and the heavy tread of boots. “Anyone here?” Slade yelled, his uneven footsteps becoming louder.

“In the den.”

Slade appeared in the doorway. He was wearing beat-up jeans, a flannel shirt and a day’s worth of whiskers he hadn’t bothered to shave. A denim jacket with frayed cuffs was his only protection against the weather. He held a paper coffee cup in one hand. “Good mornin’.”

“Not yet, it isn’t.”

Slade’s countenance turned grim. “Don’t tell me there’s more bad news. I called the hospital a couple of hours ago. They said there was no change.”

“There isn’t. Randi’s still in critical condition and the baby’s holding his own.” Thorne rounded the desk and snapped off his laptop, turning off his link to the outside world—news, weather and stock reports. “I was talking about everything else.”

“Such as?”

“To begin with, your friend Striker hasn’t returned any of my calls, Randi’s editor at the Clarion is always ‘out’ or ‘in a meeting.’ I think he’s avoiding me. I’ve talked to the sheriff’s department, but so far there’s nothing new. A detective is supposed to call me back. The good news is that the equipment I ordered for this office is due to arrive today, and the phone company’s gonna come in and install a couple of lines. I’ve talked to an agency specializing in nannies as we’ll need one when J.R. gets home—”

“J.R.?” Slade repeated.

“I call the baby that.”

“After Dad?” Slade asked, obviously perplexed.

“And Randi.”

Slade gave out a long, low whistle. “You have been busy, haven’t you?”

Thorne elevated an eyebrow and remembered that this was his youngest brother, the playboy, a man who had never settled down to any kind of responsibility.

“All I’ve had time for this morning is a call into Striker and a couple of cups of weak coffee down at the Pub’n’Grub. I ran into Larry Todd down there.”

“Why does his name sound familiar?”

“Because he was the man who ran this place when Dad became ill.”

Thorne settled into his father’s chair and leaned back until it squeaked in protest.

“Get this. Randi kept Larry on when she inherited the bulk of this place.”

Thorne remembered, though he hadn’t paid much attention at the time. He’d been in negotiations for the Canterbury Farms subdivision at the time and had been dealing with land use laws, an environmental group, the city council and an accounting nightmare because one of his bookkeepers had been caught embezzling off the previous project. On top of all that, John Randall had died and Thorne, though he’d known his father was dying, had been stricken by the news and assuaged by grief. He hadn’t cared much about the sixth of the ranch he’d inherited and had left Randi, who owned half of the acres and the old ranch house, to run the place as she saw fit.

“But just last week, Randi called Larry up, told him she didn’t need him any longer and that she’d pay him a couple of months’ severance pay.”

Thorne’s head snapped up. “Why?”

“Beats me. Larry was really ticked off.”

“When did this happen?”

“A day before the accident.”

“Did she hire anyone else?”

“Don’t know. I just found out about it.”

“Someone would have to come and look after the stock.”

“You’d think.” He saw movement outside the window and watched Matt hiking the collar of his jacket more closely around his neck as he made his way to the back door. Slade frowned. “Guess I’d better help out with the cattle. I told Larry we’d hire him back, but he’s pretty mad. I thought Matt might talk to him.”

“Let’s see.”

They convened in the kitchen where Matt had set his hat on the table and had flung his jacket over the back of a ladder-back chair. He was in the process of pouring himself a cup of coffee. “There’s nothing to eat around here,” he grumbled as he searched in the refrigerator, then the cupboard. He dragged out an old jar of instant creamer and poured in a healthy dose as Slade and Thorne filled him in on everything they’d already discussed.

“We need Larry Todd back on the payroll,” Thorne said to Matt. “Slade ran into him today and thought you might talk to him.”

Matt studied the contents of his cup and nodded slowly. “I can try. But he called me after Randi let him go, and to say he was a little ticked off is an understatement.”

“See what he wants,” Thorne suggested.

“I’ll give it a shot.”

“Convince him.”

“I’ll try.” Matt slowly stirred his coffee. “But Larry’s been known to be stubborn.”

“We’ll deal with that. I’ve got a call in to Juanita to see if she’ll come on board again,” Thorne said.

“She might be working for someone else by now. Randi let her go after Dad died.” Matt hoisted himself onto the counter and his feet swung free.

“Then we’ll have to make it attractive enough that she’ll come back.”

“Might not be that easy,” Slade said, sipping coffee from his paper cup. “Some people feel obligated to stay with their employer.”

“Everyone can be bought.”

Slade and Matt exchanged glances.

Thorne didn’t waver. “Everyone has a price.”

“Including you?” Matt asked.

Thorne’s jaw hardened. “Yep.”

Slade snorted in contempt. “Hell, you’re a cynic.”

“Aren’t we all?” Thorne said, undeterred. “And we’ll need a nurse. When Randi and the baby get here, we’ll need professional help.” He was running through a mental checklist. “I’ll call a law firm I used to deal with.”

“A law firm?” Slade shook his head. “Why in the world would we need lawyers?”

“For when we find the boy’s father—he might want custody.”

“He should probably get it, at least partial,” Matt allowed.

“Maybe, maybe not. We don’t know a thing about this guy.”

Slade rolled his eyes and tossed the remains of his coffee into the sink. “For the love of Mike, Thorne, don’t you trust anyone?”

“Nope.”

“If Randi chose this guy, he might be all right,” Matt conceded.

“So then where is he? Assuming he knows that she was pregnant, why the hell hasn’t he appeared?” The same old questions that had been plaguing Thorne ever since learning of his sister’s accident gnawed at him. “If he’s such a peach of a guy, why isn’t he with her?”

“Maybe she doesn’t want him.” Slade lifted a shoulder. “It happens.”

“Any way around it, we’ll need to see about our rights, the baby’s rights, Randi’s rights and—”

“And the father’s rights.” Matt pointed out before taking a long swallow of coffee. “Okay, I’ve got to run into town and go to the feed store. While I’m there I’ll pick up some supplies and hit the grocery store for a few things. When I get back, I’ll call Larry.”

Slade reached into his pocket for a pack of cigarettes. “I’ll ride into town with you,” he said to Matt. “I want to talk to the sheriff’s department, find out what they know about Randi’s accident.”

“Good idea,” Thorne agreed. “I’ve called but haven’t heard back.”

“Figures. Look, I’ve left a message with Striker, but I’ll phone him again,” Slade promised, shaking out a cigarette and jabbing the filter tip into the corner of his mouth. “What’s your game plan?”

“I’m setting up my office in the den, already scheduled equipment delivery and then I’m going to run into town myself. Visit Randi and the baby.” He didn’t add that he intended to see Nicole again.

“Yeah. I figured we’d stop by the hospital, too,” Matt allowed. “If you get any calls from Mike Kavanaugh, tell him I’ll call him back.”

“Who’s Kavanaugh?” Thorne asked.

“My neighbor. He’s looking after my spread while I’m here.”

Slade crumpled his empty coffee cup and threw it into the trash. “How long will he take care of it?”

Matt shrugged into his jacket and squared his hat on his head. “As long as it takes.” He locked gazes with his brothers. “Randi and the baby come first.”

* * *

Nicole ground the gears of the rental car and swore under her breath. She wheeled into the parking lot of the hospital and told herself to trust that the mechanics looking at the SUV could find the problem, get the part, fix whatever was wrong, and return it to her soon, without it costing an arm and a leg.

She had half an hour before she was actually on duty and planned to use the time to check on Randi McCafferty and the baby before taking over in the ER.

Setting the emergency brake, she switched off the rental, grabbed her briefcase and told herself that her interest in Randi and the baby was just common courtesy and professional concern, that oftentimes she looked in on patients once they’d been moved from the ER. This wasn’t about Thorne. No way. The fact that he was related to Randi was incidental.

She argued with herself all the way through the physicians’ entrance and in the elevator to her office.

“Something wrong?” a nurse she’d known since she’d arrived at St. James asked as she passed the nurses’ station in the west wing.

“What?”

“You look worried. Are the twins okay?”

“Yes, I mean Molly has a case of the sniffles, but nothing a little TLC and a couple of Disney movies won’t cure. I guess I was just thinking.”

“Well, smile a little when you think,” the nurse said with a wink.

“I’ll try.”

She made her way to the Intensive Care Unit, where she looked at Randi’s chart. “Any change?” she asked.

“Not much,” Betty, the ICU nurse, said with a shake of perfectly coiffed red curls. “Still comatose. Unresponsive, but hanging in there. How’s the baby?”

“Not good,” Nicole admitted as she glanced into Betty’s concerned gaze. “I’m on my way to check on him now.”

Betty’s lips folded in on themselves. The gold cross suspended from her neck winked against her skin. “A shame,” she said.

“Where there’s life, there’s hope.” Nicole glanced over Randi’s chart, then headed down to Neonatal Pediatrics where little J.R., as Thorne called him, was struggling for his life. As she stared at the tiny baby, hooked up to tubes and monitors, her heart ached. She remembered the birth of her own twins, the elation of seeing each little girl for the first time, the feeling of relief that they were both so perfect and healthy. She’d been jubilant and even Paul, at that time, had seemed happy. He’d looked at her with tears in his eyes and told her, “They’re beautiful, Nicole. As beautiful as their mother.”

His kind words still haunted her. Were they the last he’d ever spoken to her? Surely not. There had to have been a few more compliments and tender glances before the toll of two high-powered jobs and rambunctious daughters had robbed the marriage of whatever gel had bound it together. Naively Nicole had believed that children would bring Paul and her closer together—of course she’d been wrong. Bitterly so.

“Has Dr. Arnold been in today?” she asked the nurse on duty.

“Twice.”

“Good.” Come on, J.R., she thought watching the tiny fingers curl into fists. Fight. You can do it!

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