“James Bravo, you may kiss your bride.”

Addie was looking up into his dark-fringed blue eyes, already feeling that she’d pretty much hit the jackpot as far as temporary husbands went.

And then James slowly smiled at her and she realized that it was actually happening: they were about to share their first kiss.

James said her name softly, in that wonderful smooth, deep voice of his that sent little thrills of excitement pulsing all through her.

She said, “James,” low and sweet, just for him. And she thought of the last three nights, of the two of them together in the hotel room bed. Of waking up each morning cuddled up close to him, of one or the other of them gently, reluctantly pulling away …

Okay, maybe it wasn’t a real marriage. And it would be over as soon as her grandfather was back on his feet.

So what? It was probably as close to a real marriage as she was ever going to get.

* * *

The Bravos of Justice Creek:

Where bold hearts collide under Western skies

James Bravo’s Shotgun Bride
Christine Rimmer

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHRISTINE RIMMER came to her profession the long way around. She tried everything from acting to teaching to telephone sales. Now she’s finally found work that suits her perfectly. She insists she never had a problem keeping a job— she was merely gaining “life experience” for her future as a novelist. Christine lives with her family in Oregon. Visit her at www.christinerimmer.com.

For Anita Hayes, crafter, great cook and world’s most attentive raiser of chickens. You make me laugh and touch my heart. This one’s for you, Anitabug.

Contents

Cover

Introduction

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Extract

Copyright

Chapter One

Waking up tied to a chair is bad.

But waking up tied to a chair staring down the deadly single barrel of old Levi Kenwright’s pump-action shotgun?

So. Much. Worse.

James Bravo stifled a groan. Not only did it appear he was about to eat serious lead, but he had the mother of all headaches. Surely Levi didn’t really intend to shoot him. James shook his head, hoping to clear it.

Still a little fuzzy. And still hurt, too. And Levi still had that shotgun trained right on him.

The old man wasn’t at his best. His wiry white hair looked as if he’d combed it with a cattle prod and his craggy face seemed kind of pale—except for two spots of color, burning red, cresting his cheekbones. Sweat shone on his wrinkled throat and darkened the underarms of his worn checked shirt.

His aim, however?

Way too steady. Levi grunted as he sighted down the barrel. “Good. You’re awake. I was beginnin’ to worry I’d hit you a mite hard.”

James winced, blinked in another failed attempt to ease his pounding head and cast a careful glance around him. Judging by the lack of windows, the knotty pine paneling, the faint smell of cool earth and the stairs leading upward along the far wall, Levi had brought him to a basement. Was it the basement of the house at Red Hill Ranch, where Levi lived with his way too damn attractive granddaughter Addie?

Probably.

On the battered pasteboard side table a few feet away, James spotted his phone, his wallet and his keys. So even if he managed to get his hand into his pocket, there was no phone in there to use to call for help.

And just how in hell had all of this happened?

James remembered standing on the porch of his nearly finished new house ten miles outside his hometown of Justice Creek, Colorado. It was a cool and sunny March afternoon. He’d been gazing off toward the big weathered barn at Red Hill, hoping that Addie would soon ride by on one of those horses she boarded and trained.

The crazy old coot must have come up on him from behind.

Cautiously, James inquired, “Er, Mr. Kenwright?”

“No need for formalities, son,” Levi replied downright pleasantly as he continued to point the shotgun at James. “We’re gonna be family. I want you to call me Levi.”

Had the old man just said they were going to be...family? James’s head hurt too much for him to even try to get a handle on that one. “Levi it is, then.”

A wry little chortle escaped the wild-haired old man. “That’s better.”

Better? Better would be if Levi put down the gun and untied him immediately. But James didn’t say that. For the time being, he would say nothing that might rile his captor. A riled Levi could suddenly decide to fire that shotgun. That would be good and bad. Good, because James would no longer have a headache. Bad, because he wouldn’t have a head, either.

“Levi, do you mind if I ask you something?”

“You go right ahead, son.”

“Why am I tied to a chair in the basement of your house?”

Another chortle. And then, very slowly, Levi lowered the shotgun. James drew a cautious breath of relief as Levi replied, “Good question. And one I am sure you will know the answer to if you just give it a little more thought.”

James closed his eyes. He thought. But thinking gave him nothing, except to make his head pound harder. “Sorry, but I honestly have no idea why you’re doing this to me.”

“Well, then.” Levi backed three steps, sank into the battered leather easy chair behind him and laid the shotgun across his knees. “Allow me to explain.”

“Wonderful. Thank you.”

“Think nothin’ of it—I know you know my granddaughter Addison.”

“Of course I know Addie.” Was she somehow involved in this? Why? He’d done nothing to cause her to make her grandfather hit him on the head, drag him to Red Hill and tie him to a chair.

Had he?

“Means everything to me, that girl,” Levi said. “She and her big sister, Carmen, are what I got that matters in this world—well, them and my great-grandkids, Tammy and Ian, and their dad, Devin. A fine lad, Devin. Like you, he needed a little convincing. But once he understood the situation, he stepped right up. Same as you’re gonna do—and where was I?”

“Uh, Addie and the rest of your family mean everything to you?”

“Right. Family, son. Family is everything. So you can imagine my concern when I recently discovered that Addie’s in the family way.” Addie pregnant? Could that be true? Levi went right on. “Naturally, I want my new great-grandbaby to have two parents. That’s the old-fashioned way, which is to say, it is God’s way. And that means it’s the best way. And of course, I know very well that you are my new great-grandbaby’s daddy. So I’m just helping things along a little here, just nudging you down the path known as doing the right thing.”

James cleared his throat. Carefully. “Hold on a minute...”

“Yeah?”

James had a strong suspicion that there was a lump on the back of his head where Levi had hit him. The lump throbbed. It felt like a big lump, a lump that was growing bigger as he tried to make sense of what Addie’s crazy grandpa said to him. “Did you just say that Addie’s having my baby?”

Holding the shotgun between his two gnarled fists, looking weary as a traveler at the end of a very long road, Levi rose to his feet again. “Your baby needs a daddy, son. And my Addie needs a husband.” He raised the gun and aimed the damn thing at James’s aching head once more. “So tell me, is the path becoming clearer now?”

James had never had sex with Addie. Never kissed her, never done more than brush a touch against her hand. True, he would very much have liked to do any number of things to Addie. But he hadn’t. So if Addie had a little one on the way, he wasn’t the man responsible.

And that he wasn’t really pissed him off.

But James’s jealousy of some mystery man who got a whole lot luckier than he ever had was not the issue here.

The issue was that Levi had kidnapped the wrong guy.

Not that James had any intention of setting the old codger straight. Not at the moment, anyway. James had more sense than to argue with a man who’d already coldcocked him, abducted him and tied him to a chair.

Yeah. Levi meant business, all right. And it was looking more and more likely that the old guy had a screw loose. James was a lawyer by profession. He’d dealt with more than one screwball client in his career. Arguing with a nutcase had never gotten him anywhere.

So instead of insisting he’d never laid a hand on Addie, James announced with all the sincerity he could muster, “Levi, the right thing is exactly what I want to do.”

“Glad to hear it, son.”

“Great, then. If you’ll just untie—”

“Not. Quite. Yet.” Levi shook his head, but at least he lowered the gun again.

Keeping it cool, James breathed slowly and carefully. “All righty, Levi. When, exactly, do you plan to untie me?”

“Soon as I’m absolutely certain you’re not gonna pull any tricks on me. Soon as I know I can count on you to...” Levi’s sentence died unfinished as a door slammed shut upstairs. The old man gasped. His rheumy eyes widened as footsteps echoed from above.

Addie. James’s heart leaped as his head pounded harder. Had to be Addie.

And it was. “PawPaw!” she hollered, the sound far away, muffled, not coming from whatever room was directly overhead. “Where are you?”

James and Levi both stared at the ceiling, tracking the path of her quick, firm footsteps on the floor above as those footsteps came closer.

And closer...

They passed right overhead.

The basement door squeaked as it opened. James couldn’t see that door, not from where he was tied in the middle of the basement floor. But he heard Addie crystal clear now as she called down the stairs, “PawPaw?”

“Don’t you come down here!” Levi glared at James and waved the shotgun threateningly for silence. “I’ll be up in a minute!”

The door only creaked wider, followed by more creaking: footsteps on the stairs. A pair of tan boots appeared, descending, bringing with them shapely legs in a snug pair of faded jeans. “What are you up to down here?” The curvy top half of Addie came into view, including those beautiful breasts of hers in a tight T-shirt and all that softly curling ginger hair. About then, she turned and caught sight of James. Big golden-brown eyes went wide in surprise. “What the...?” She stumbled. A frantic screech escaped her as her booted feet flew out. She windmilled her arms.

“Addie!” James and Levi shouted their useless warnings simultaneously.

But then, with another cry, she grabbed the iron stair rail and righted herself just in time to keep from tumbling the rest of the way to the concrete floor.

“Get hold of yourself, girl,” old Levi grumbled as she made it down the last step and sagged against the railing. “A woman in your condition has got to be careful.”

Those baby-doll lips of hers flattened in a scowl and two bright spots of color flared high on her round cheeks as she put a hand to her stomach and tried to catch her breath. “PawPaw, you’re scaring me to death. Put down that gun and untie James immediately.”

Levi lowered the gun, but he didn’t put it down. “Now, Addie honey.” His tone had turned coaxing. “I can’t untie him right yet. First, James and I need to come to a clear understanding.”

“An understanding of what?” Addie drew herself up, stuck out her pretty, round chin and glared daggers at Levi, who stared back at her sheepishly but didn’t answer. He must have known she would figure it out—and she did. Her eyes went wide again as she put it together. “Have you lost your mind? I told you. James is not the guy.”

Levi granted her a patient, disbelieving look—and explained to James, “Morning sickness. That’s how I knew. Just like her grandma, her mom and her big sister, too. Morning sickness early and often. Then I found that little stick she used to take the test. I put it all together, yes, I did. Levi Kenwright is no fool.”

Addie made a growling sound. She actually seemed to vibrate with frustration. “You had no right, PawPaw, none, to go snooping through my bathroom wastebasket. I told you what I think of that. That is just wrong. And now to kidnap poor James, too? What is the matter with you?”

“Nothing is the matter with me,” Levi huffed. “I’m fixing things for you and James here, just like I fixed them for Carmen and Devin.”

James decided he couldn’t be hearing this right. Surely Levi wasn’t implying that he’d kidnapped Carmen’s husband, too?

Addie shrieked again, this time in fury. Waving her arms as she went, she started pacing back and forth across the big rag rug that anchored the makeshift basement living area. “How can I talk to you? You are impossible. You know very well that it was wrong of you to kidnap Devin.”

Levi just stood there, cradling his shotgun, looking smug. “Worked, didn’t it? Eight years later, he and Carmen and the kids are just as happy as bugs in a basket.”

Addie stopped stock-still beside the ancient portable TV on its rickety stand. She sucked air like a bull about to charge. “I can’t talk to you. I want to kill you.” She planted her fists on her hips and commanded, “Untie James right this minute.”

Levi didn’t budge. “Now, Addie honey, don’t get yourself all worked up. James has told me the truth, accepted his responsibility to you and the baby and promised to do the right thing.”

Addie gasped in outrage and whipped her head around to glare at James. “You told him what?”

Oh, great. As if all this was his fault? He suggested mildly, “Given the situation, arguing with your grandfather didn’t seem like a good idea.”

“I don’t... I can’t...” Addie sputtered, furious, glancing back and forth between him and the old man. And then she pinned her grandfather with another baleful glare. “Of course James confessed. What choice did he have? You held a shotgun to his head.”

Levi blustered, “He confessed because it’s true and we both know that it is.”

“No. No, it is not true. James is not my baby’s daddy. How many ways can I say it? How in the hell am I going to get through to you?”

Levi made a humphing sound and flung out an arm in James’s direction. “If not him, then who?”

By then, Addie’s plump cheeks were beet red with fury and frustration. She drew in a slow, hard breath. “Fine. All right. It is none of your business until I’m ready to tell you and you ought to know that. But if you just have to know, it’s Brandon. Brandon is my baby’s father.”

Levi blinked three times in rapid succession. And then he let out a mocking cackle of a laugh. “Brandon Hall?”

James fully understood Levi’s disbelief. A local poor boy made good who’d designed supersuccessful video games for a living, Brandon Hall was never all that hale and hearty. Recently, he’d died of cancer, having been bedridden for months before he passed on. It seemed pretty unlikely that Brandon had been in any condition to father a child—not in the last few months, anyway. And Addie’s stomach was still flat. She couldn’t be that far along. Uh-uh. James didn’t buy Addie’s story any more than Levi did.

“Yes,” Addie insisted tightly. “Brandon is the dad.”

“I may be old, but I’m not senile,” Levi reminded her. “There is no way that Brandon Hall could’ve done what needed doing to put you in this predicament, Addison Anne, and you know that as well as I do.”

Addie fumed some more. “You are so thickheaded. Honestly, I cannot talk to you...” She turned to James and spoke softly, gently. Soothingly, even. “I am so sorry, James, for what my grandpa has done.” She gave him the big eyes. God, she was cute. “Are you hurt?”

He nodded, wincing. “He got the jump on me, whacked me on the back of the head, hard, out at my new place. Knocked me out cold. I’m not sure how long I was unconscious, but when I woke up, I was here.”

She hissed in a breath and whirled to pin her grandfather with another accusing glare.

Levi played it off. “He’s fine. Hardheaded. All the Bravos are. Everybody knows that.”

“You hit him, Grandpa.” She threw out a hand in James’s direction. “You hurt him. And you have restrained him against his will.” Levi started to speak. “Shush,” she commanded. “Do not say another word to me. I can’t even look at you right now.” She turned back to James. “I really am so, so sorry...” James sat very still and tried his best to look appropriately noble and wounded. She came closer. “Can I...take a peek, see how bad it is?”

“Sure.” He turned his head so she could see.

And then she was right there, bending over him, smelling of sunshine and clean hay and something else, something purely womanly, wonderfully sweet. “Oh!” she cried. “It’s a big bump. And you’re bleeding...”

“I’m all right,” he said. It was the truth. The pain and the pounding had lessened in the past few minutes. And the closer Addie got, the better he felt. “And there’s not that much blood—is there?”

“No, just a dribble of it. But blood is blood and that’s not good.”

He turned and met her enormous eyes. “I’ll be all right. I’m sure I will.”

She drew back. He wished she wouldn’t. It was harder to smell her now she’d moved away. “I don’t know what to say, James. I feel horrible about this. We need to patch you up immediately...”

“Don’t untie him!” shouted Levi.

Addie just waved a hand in the old guy’s direction and kept those big eyes on James. “Of course I will untie you.”

“No!” Levi hollered.

She ignored him and spoke directly to James. “I will untie you right now if you’ll only promise me not to call the police on my crazy old granddad.”

“I’m not crazy!” Levi huffed. “I’m not crazy and he’s the dad—and you are not, under any circumstances, to untie him yet.”

“Grandpa, he is not the dad. Brandon’s the dad.”

“No.”

“Yeah—and if you just have to have all the gory details, Brandon was my lifelong friend.” She choked a little then, emotion welling.

Levi only groaned in impatient disgust. “I know he was your friend. I also know that’s all he was to you—nothing like you and lover boy here. Come on, Addie honey. I wasn’t born yesterday. I’ve seen the way this man looks at you, the way he’s been chasin’ after you—and though I know you’ve been trying to pretend nothing’s going on, it’s plain as the nose on my face that you are just as gone on him as he is on you.”

“She is?” James barely kept himself from grinning like a fool.

But no one was looking at him anyway. Levi kept arguing, “James is the daddy, no doubt about it. And, Addie girl, you need to quit telling your old PawPaw lies and admit the truth so that we can move on and fix what doesn’t need to be broken.”

“I am not lying,” she cried. “Brandon was my best friend in the whole world and he grew up in foster care, with no family, with nothing.”

“Stop tellin’ me things I already know.”

“What I am telling you is that he wanted a child, someone to carry on a little piece of him when he was gone. Before he got too sick, he took steps. He had his sperm frozen...” Addie sniffed. Her big eyes brimmed. She blinked furiously, but it was no good. She couldn’t hold back her tears. They overflowed and ran down her cheeks. “And then he asked me if just maybe I would do that for him, if I would have his child so that something would be left of him in this world when he was nothing but ashes scattered on the cold ground...”

By then James was so caught up in the story he’d pretty much forgotten his own predicament. Everyone in Justice Creek knew that Addie Kenwright and Brandon Hall had been best friends from childhood. People said that, near the end, she’d spent every spare moment at Brandon’s bedside. As the dead man had no one else, Addie had been the one to arrange the funeral service. She and Levi and her sister, Carmen, and Carmen’s husband, Devin, had sat together in the front pew, all the family that Brandon had.

James asked her gently, “So, then, it was artificial insemination?”

Addie sniffed, swiped the tears with the back of her hand and nodded. “We tried three times. What’s that they say? The third time’s the charm? Well, it was. But Brandon died the day after the third time. He died not even knowing that he was going to be a dad.”

James realized he was in awe of Addie Kenwright and her willingness to have a baby for her dying friend.

Levi, however, refused to accept that he’d kidnapped the wrong man. “That’s the most ridiculous bunch of bull I’ve ever heard. And I’m seventy-eight years old, Addie Anne, so you’d better believe I’ve heard some tall tales in my lifetime.”

Addie only swiped more tears away and moved to stand behind James again. He glanced over his shoulder at her. She met his eyes and said softly, “I just hope you’ll be kind, that you’ll take pity on an old man who never meant to hurt anyone.”

“I will,” he vowed quietly. “I do.”

“Thank you.” Her cool hands swift and capable, she began working at the knots Levi had used to bind him.

Levi let out another shout. “No!” He started waving the shotgun again. “Don’t you do that, Addie Anne. Don’t you dare. Under no circumstances can James be untied until I am absolutely certain that he’s ready to do the right thing!”

Addie said nothing. She kept working the knots as Levi kept shouting, “Stop! Stop this instant!” He ran in circles, the gun held high.

Just as the ropes binding James went slack, Levi let out a strange, strangled cry. He clapped his hand to his chest—and let go of the shotgun.

The gun hit the floor. An ungodly explosion followed and a foot-wide hole bloomed in the ceiling. Addie screamed. Ears ringing, James jumped from the chair. Sheetrock, wood framing and kitchen flooring rained down.

And Levi, his face gone a scary shade of purple, keeled over on his back gasping and moaning, clutching his chest in a desperate, gnarled fist.

“PawPaw!” Addie cried and ran to him. She dropped to her knees at his side.

Levi gasped and groaned and clutched his chest even harder. “Shouldn’t’ve...untied him...”

“Oh, dear God.” She cast a quick, frantic glance in James’s direction. “Call an ambulance. Please...”

James grabbed his phone off the side table and called 911.

Chapter Two

Once he got help on the line, James gave his phone to Addie so she could talk to the dispatcher directly. He scooped up his keys and wallet and stuck them in his pocket. And then he waited, ready to help in any way he might be needed.

Addie pulled his phone away from her ear. “You can go.”

He didn’t budge. “Later. What can I do?”

She listened on the phone again as Levi lay there groaning. “Yes,” she said. “All right, yes.” She made soothing sounds at Levi. Then she looked at James again. “If you could maybe go up and get a pillow from his bed. His room’s off the front entry on the main floor. And get the aspirin from the medicine cabinet in the bathroom there?”

He was already on his way up the stairs. He found the pillow and the aspirin and ran them back down to her.

“Thank you,” she said. “And really. We’re okay. You just go ahead and go.”

Levi was clearly very far from okay. James pretended he hadn’t heard her and eased the pillow under Levi’s head.

Addie gave the old man an aspirin. “Put it under your tongue and let it dissolve there.” Levi grumbled out a few curse words, but he did what Addie told him to do. Addie shot another glance at James. “I mean it. Go on and get out of here.”

Again, he ignored her. Not that he blamed her for wanting him to go, after all that had happened. But no way was he leaving her alone right now. What if Levi didn’t make it? James would never forgive himself for running off and deserting them at a time like this, with Addie scared to death and Levi just lying there, sweating and moaning and clutching his chest as he tried to answer the questions that Addie relayed to him from the dispatcher.

At the last minute, as the ambulance siren wailed in the yard, James glanced up at the hole in the ceiling. He looked down at the rope abandoned on the rug at the base of the chair and the shotgun that had landed in front of the TV. All that was going to look pretty strange.

He couldn’t do much about the hole, but he did grab the shotgun. He ejected the remaining shells and gathered them up, including the spent casing, which he found right out in the open in front of the sofa. He put the gun and the shells in the closet under the stairs and tossed the rope in there, too. The straight chair, he moved to a spot against the wall.

“Thank you,” Addie said. He glanced over and saw she was watching him.

He shrugged. “There’s still the hole in the ceiling. But don’t worry. It’ll be fine.”

“Hope so.”

“Just a little accident, that’s all.”

She pressed those fine lips together, her eyes full of fear for her grandpa. “Would you go up and show them down here?”

“You bet.” He ran up the stairs and greeted the med techs. “Roberta,” he said. “Sal.” They were local people and he’d known them all his life.

Sal asked, “Where is he?”

“In the basement. This way...”

Roberta and Sal were pros. In no time, they had Levi on a stretcher, an oxygen mask on his face and an IV in his arm. James helped them get Levi up the stairs. As they put him in the ambulance, Addie ran back inside to grab her purse and lock up. Her sweet-natured chocolate Labrador retriever, Moose, followed after her, whining with concern. Addie told the dog to stay. With another worried whine, Moose trotted to the porch and dropped to his haunches. Addie climbed in the back of the ambulance with her grandfather and Roberta.

Sal went around and got in behind the wheel. James trailed after him.

“Who blew the hole in the kitchen floor?” Sal asked out the open driver’s window as he started the engine.

“Levi was cleaning his shotgun.”

Sal just shook his head. “You’ve got blood on your collar.”

“It’s nothing. You taking him to Justice Creek General?”

With a nod, Sal put it in gear.

A moment later, James stood there alone in the dirt yard a few feet from Levi’s pre-WWII green Ford pickup, which had no doubt been used to kidnap him. Overhead, the sun beamed down. Not a cloud in the sky. It wasn’t at all the kind of day a man expected to be kidnapped on. Gently, he probed the goose egg on the back of his head. It was going to be fine. He was going to be fine.

Levi, though?

Hard to say.

And what about Addie, all on her own at Justice Creek General, waiting to hear if her granddad would make it or not? At a time like this, a woman should have family around her. Her half sister, Carmen, would come from Wyoming. But how long would it take for Carmen to arrive?

He just didn’t like to think of Addie sitting in a hospital waiting room all alone.

As the ambulance disappeared around the first turn in the long driveway that led to the road, James took off toward the barn.

A couple of the horses Addie boarded watched him with mild interest as he jumped the fence into the horse pasture and ran until he got to the fence on the far side. He jumped that, too, and kept on running. Fifteen minutes after leaving Addie’s front yard, he reached his quad cab, which was parked in front of his nearly finished new house. He had a bad cramp in his side and he had to walk in circles catching his breath, now and then bending over, sucking in air like a drowning man.

There was blood on his tan boots—not much, just a few drops. He pictured old Levi, hitting him on the head and then dragging him to that green Ford truck of his—and not only to the truck, but then out of the truck, into the house at Red Hill and down to the basement. No wonder the old fool had a heart attack.

As soon as his breath evened out a little, James dug his keys from his pocket and got in his quad cab. He checked his shirt collar in the sunscreen mirror. The blood wasn’t that bad and the bump hardly hurt at all anymore.

He started the pickup and peeled out of there.

* * *

Addie needed to throw up. She needed to do that way too much lately. Right now, however, was not a convenient time. She sat in the molded plastic chair in the ER waiting room and pressed her hands over her mouth as she resolutely willed the contents of her stomach to stay down.

She had James’s phone in her purse. In her frantic scramble to get in the ambulance with Levi, she hadn’t thought to give the phone back. And then she’d clutched it like a lifeline all the way to the hospital. She’d only stuck it in her purse to free her hands when the reception clerk had given her all those forms to fill out.

Addie sucked in a slow breath and let it out even slower. Oh, dear Lord, please. Let PawPaw pull through this and let me not throw up now. Everything had happened way too fast. Her mind—and her poor stomach—was still struggling to catch up.

Her own cell phone was in her purse, too. She’d barely remembered to grab it off the front hall table before racing out the door. She needed to get it out and call Carmen in Laramie. But the nurse had said Levi wouldn’t be in the ER for long. They would evaluate his condition and move him over to cardiac care for the next step. Addie was kind of waiting to find out what, exactly, the next step might be so that she could share it with her sister when she broke the terrifying news.

A door opened across the room. The doctor she’d talked to earlier emerged and came toward her.

Addie jumped to her feet, swallowed hard to keep from vomiting all over her boots and demanded, “My grandfather. Is he...?” Somehow she couldn’t quite make herself ask the whole dangerous question.

“He’s all right for now.” The doctor, a tall, thin woman with straight brown hair, spoke to her soothingly. “We’ve done a series of X-rays and given him medications to stabilize him.”

“Stabilize him,” Addie repeated idiotically. “Is that good? That’s good, right?”

“Yes. But his X-rays show that he’s got more than one artery blocked. He’s going to need emergency open-heart surgery. We want to airlift him to Denver, to St. Anne’s Memorial. It’s a Level-One trauma center and they will be fully equipped to give him the specialized care that he needs.”

Her head spun. Denver. Open-heart surgery. How could this be happening? From the moment she’d caught sight of James Bravo tied to a chair in the basement at Red Hill, nothing had seemed real. “But...he’s never been sick a day in his life.”

The doctor spoke gently, “It happens like this sometimes. That’s why they call heart disease the silent killer. Too often, you only know you’ve got a problem when you have a heart attack—but I promise we’re doing everything we can to get him the best care there is. You got him here quickly and that’s a large part of the battle. His chances are good.”

Good. His chances were good. Was the doctor just saying that or was it really true? Addie sucked in air slowly and ordered her queasy stomach to settle down. “Can I see my grandfather, please?”

“Of course you can. This way.”

* * *

In the curtained-off cubicle, Addie kissed Levi’s pale, wrinkled cheek and smoothed his wiry white hair and whispered, as much to reassure herself as to comfort him, “PawPaw, I promise you, everything is going to be fine. You’ll be on the mend before you know it.”

Levi only groaned and demanded in a rough whisper, “Where’s James?”

That made her long to start yelling at him again. But he looked so small and shrunken lying there, hooked up to an IV and a bunch of machines that monitored every breath he took, every beat of his overstressed heart. Yelling at him would have to wait until he was better.

Because he would get better. He had to get better. The alternative was simply unthinkable.

Right now nothing could be allowed to upset him. So she lied through her teeth. “James is out in front waiting to hear how you’re doing.”

“Good.” Levi barely mouthed the word. “Good...” And then, with a long, tired sigh, he shut his eyes.

Addie bent close to him. “I love you, PawPaw.” She kissed him and had to close her mind against the flood of tender images. Her mom had died having her and she’d never known her dad. All her memories of growing up, he was there for her, and for Carmen. He was their mom and their dad, all rolled into one cantankerous, dependable, annoyingly lovable package.

She could not—would not—lose him now.

A nurse pushed back the curtain and announced, “The critical-care helicopter has arrived. We need to get your grandfather on his way now.”

“Can I ride with him?”

The nurse explained gently that there just wasn’t room.

About then, Addie realized her pickup was back at the ranch. She’d have to call someone to give her a ride home so she could get herself to Denver. And what about the horses? She had to find someone to look after them at least until tomorrow. And she still really needed to call Carmen immediately.

She thanked the nurse, kissed her grandpa one more time and hustled back out to the waiting room, where the clerk had more paperwork waiting for her to fill out. She took the clipboard the clerk passed her through the reception window, reclaimed her seat and got to work filling in the blanks and signing her name repeatedly, simultaneously praying that Levi was going to pull through.

At least they had the best health coverage money could buy now. Brandon had seen to that months ago. When she agreed to have the baby, he’d set up a fund that would pay thirty years’ worth of premiums for her and the child. At the time, she’d argued that she had Affordable Care and that would be plenty. But he’d insisted that she should have the very best—and that the fund would be set up to cover Levi, too, and any children she ever had.

“Everybody gets sick at some point,” Brandon had reminded her softly, a hard truth that he knew all too intimately. “Everybody needs health care at some point. When that happens for you, for the baby or for Levi, you don’t need to be worrying about how to pay your share of the hospital bill.”

Thank God for Brandon.

Tears searing the back of her throat, Addie signed the last form, got up and passed the clipboard through the window to the clerk. The clerk handed back a couple of forms and her insurance card. She jammed all that in her purse and was pulling out her phone to call her half sister when James Bravo pushed through the emergency room doors.

He came right for her, so big and solid and capable-looking, still wearing the same jeans and chambray shirt with blood on the collar that he’d been wearing when she found him tied up in the basement an hour before. Those blue eyes with the dark rims around the iris were full of concern. “How’re you holding up?”

She wanted to lean on him, to have him put his big arms around her and promise her that everything would work out fine. But what gave her the right to go leaning on him? She didn’t get it. It was...something he did to her. As if he were a magnet and she were a paper clip. Every time she saw the guy, she felt like just...falling into him, plastering herself against him. She didn’t understand it, felt nothing but suspicious of it, of her own powerful attraction to him.

And what made it all even worse was that she seemed to feel he was magnetized to her, too.

Addie didn’t have time for indulging in the feelings he stirred in her. She completely distrusted feelings like those and she knew she was right to distrust them. Really, why shouldn’t she reject all that craziness that happened between men and women?

Her dad ran off, vanished before she was born, never to be seen or heard from again, just as her sister’s dad had done before that, leaving their mother single, pregnant and brokenhearted both times—or so her grandpa always said. Addie had never been able to ask her mom about it. Hannah Kenwright had died giving her life.

So yeah, Addie was cynical about romantic love. And every time she’d tried it, she’d grown only more cynical. Yes, all right. Love had worked out fine for her sister. Still, Addie didn’t trust it. To her, romance and all that just seemed like a really stupid and dangerous thing.

And it wasn’t as if she hadn’t given it her best shot. Three times. In high school and then again when she was twenty-one and finally with a bull rider she’d met at the county rodeo. Her high school love had married someone else and her second forever guy had dumped her flat. The bull rider had dumped her, too, the morning after their first night together. For her, same as for her mother, love had not lasted.

And now she had a baby on the way. And her grandfather to care for. And Red Hill and her horses and a side business she loved. It was enough. She didn’t need the human magnet that was James Bravo, thank you very much.

He asked again if she was okay.

“I’m fine,” she lied and plastered on a smile. “It’s all taken care of. Before he died, Brandon saw to it that we have the kind of insurance that covers everything, no deductibles and no co-pays. So money is no worry. Everything is going to be okay.”

He didn’t buy that lie. She could see that in those gorgeous eyes of his. But he didn’t call her on it. He only asked, “How’s Levi?”

“They have him stabilized, they said, and they’re flying him to St. Anne’s Memorial in Denver for surgery.” She dropped her phone in her purse yet again and pulled his out. It was one of those fancy android phones with all the bells and whistles. “I’m sorry. I forgot to give this back to you.” She shoved it at him.

He took it. “No problem.”

“Thank you. For everything, up to and including not having my granddad thrown in jail.”

A smile twitched at the corner of his handsome mouth. “You’re welcome.”

She was just trying to figure out how to tell him gently to get lost, when he continued, “So you need to get to Denver? Come on, I’ll drive you.”

And then, with no warning, he touched her.

He wrapped his big, warm fingers around her bare arm right below the short sleeve of her T-shirt, causing a sudden hot havoc of sensation, like little fireworks exploding in a line, up to her shoulder, across to the base of her throat and then straight down to the center of her.

She stood stock-still, gaping up at him, thinking, Just tell him that you’ll manage. Just tell him to let go and leave.

“Let me drive you.” He said it low. Intensely. As if he knew what she was thinking and wouldn’t give up until he’d gone and changed her mind.

She demanded, “Don’t you have to be in court or something?”

He looked kind of amused—but in a serious and determined way. “Not today. Let me take you to Denver.”

She longed to refuse again. But the truth was she needed to get to St. Anne’s, and she needed to get there fast. As soon as PawPaw was safely through his surgery, she could figure out the rest.

James watched her face. He still held her arm and he smelled way too good. A little dusty, a little sweaty, with a faint hint of some manly aftershave still lingering even after all her grandpa had put him through. He demanded, “Have you called Carmen?”

“Not yet.”

“So it’s best to let me take you. You can make all the calls you need to make while we’re on the road.”

* * *

Ten minutes later, they were flying along the state highway on the way to I-25. She called Carmen.

At the sound of her sister’s voice, the damn tears started spurting again. “Carm?” she squeaked, all tight and wobbly, both at once.

And Carmen knew instantly that something was wrong. “Omigod, honey, what’s happened?”

James reached over in front of her and dropped open the glove box. He pulled out a box of tissues. Was there anything the man wasn’t ready for? She whipped out a tissue and dabbed at her eyes. He put the box back and withdrew his big, hard arm.

“Addie Anne. Honey, are you still there?”

“I’m here. I’m okay. It’s PawPaw.”

“Oh, no. Is he—”

“He had a heart attack, but he’s still alive.” At least, he was half an hour ago. She explained about the helicopter to St. Anne’s and the emergency surgery that would happen there.

“But...a heart attack? How...?”

Addie squeezed her eyes shut as she pictured James tied to that chair, Levi yelling and waving his shotgun, the hole he’d blown in the basement ceiling. “Long story.” Dear Lord. Was it ever! And Carmen didn’t know about the baby yet, either. “I’ll fill you in on everything later, promise. But...do you think you can come?”

“Of course I’ll come.”

Relief flooded through Addie. Times like this, a girl needed her big sister’s hand to hold. “I’m so glad.”

“I’ll be there as soon as I can. St. Anne’s, you said?”

“Yeah. I’ve got nothing but the name of the hospital at this point.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll find you. I can get family leave from work and figure it all out with Devin, see if his mom can come and stay with the kids.” Devin’s mother had moved to Laramie after her husband died. She’d wanted to be closer to her grandkids. “I’ll get everything arranged as fast as I can and then meet you there. Call my cell if...” Carmen faltered and then finished weakly, “If there’s any other news.”

“I will. Love you, Carm.”

“Love you, too...”

They said goodbye. Addie disconnected the call and sagged against the passenger window. Too much was happening. Losing Brandon followed by constant morning sickness had been more than enough for her to handle. She had simply not been prepared to deal with her crazy grandpa kidnapping James Bravo and then having a heart attack on top of the rest. Pressing a hand against her roiling belly, she dabbed at her eyes and willed James’s fancy quad cab to get there superfast.

* * *

At the hospital, they were sent straight to the surgery wing, where her grandpa was being prepped for bypass surgery. Addie dealt with yet more forms. James took a seat in the waiting room and Addie went in with the surgeon to look at images of Levi’s heart and listen to a description of the surgery to come.

James was waiting when she emerged. She knew the sweetest rush of gratitude, just to have him there. He was practically a stranger—or at least, no more than a casual friend—and she needed to remember that. Still, it meant so much to have someone waiting when she left the surgeon and his pictures of her grandpa’s blocked-up arteries. It meant the world to her not to have to do this alone.

At the sight of her, he got up and came for her. “Addie,” he said. “You’re dead white. You need to sit down.”

“I can’t... I don’t...” What was wrong with her words? Why wouldn’t they organize themselves into actual sentences?

“Come on now.” He reached out and drew her close, into his height and hardness and warmth. “It’s going to be all right.” She let herself sag against his solid strength. It felt way too good there, pressed tight to his side, his big arm banded around her.

But then her poor stomach started churning again. And this time, she couldn’t swallow hard enough or breathe slowly enough to settle it down. With a sharp cry, she pushed James away and ran for the ladies’ room.

At least it wasn’t far, a quick sprint across the waiting room. She shoved through the door and made for the first stall, knocking the stall door inward with the flat of her hand, flinging back the seat and bracing her palms on her thighs just in time. Everything started coming up as her long hair fell forward, getting in the way. She grabbed for it, trying to shove it back and keep her purse from dropping off her shoulder and spilling all over the floor, too.

And then, suddenly, there was James again, right there in the stall with her, gently gathering her hair and smoothing it back out of the way. God. How humiliating. And this was the ladies’ room. He shouldn’t even be in here.

“It’s okay, take it easy. You’re okay, okay...” He kept saying that, “You’re okay,” over and over in that deep, velvety voice of his. She didn’t feel okay, not in the least. But she was in no position to argue the point, with all her attention focused on the grim job of ejecting what was left of her lunch.

She gagged for what seemed like such a long, awful time. But then, finally, when there was nothing left inside her poor belly, the retching slowed and stopped. Panting, trying to even out her breathing, she waited to make sure there would be no surprises.

“Better?” he asked, still in that low, gentle, comforting voice.

Addie groaned and nodded. “Would you...?” Sentences. Whole sentences. “Go. I’ll be all right. Just...go on out. I’ll be there in a minute.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yeah. Uh, thank you. I’m sure.” She flushed away the mess and straightened with care, clutching her shoulder bag closer, physically unable to face him right then.

She felt him back from the stall, the warmth and size of him retreating. He said, “I’ll be right outside, if you need anything.”

“Thank you.” She stared, unblinking, at the tan wall above the toilet, willing him to go.

And at last, he did. She heard the door open and shut and instantly released the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.

Slowly, with another long sigh, she turned to confront the empty space behind her. On rubbery legs, she went to the sink and rinsed her face and her mouth. At least there were Tic Tacs in her purse. She ate four of them, sucking on them madly, grateful beyond measure for their sharp, minty taste. She brushed her hair and checked her T-shirt for spills. Really, she looked terrible, hollow-eyed and pasty-faced. But at least her stomach had stopped churning now that it was empty.

Note to self: Never eat again—and get out there and tell poor James that you are fine and he can go.

Smoothing her hair one last time and settling her purse strap firmly on her shoulder, she returned to the waiting room.

He was sitting across the room in the row of padded chairs, busy on his fancy phone. She got maybe two steps in his direction before he glanced up and saw her. He jumped to his feet, his handsome, square-jawed face so serious, his beautiful eyes darkened with concern.

For her.

Okay, he really was a good person. And he shouldn’t be so concerned about her. He should find himself a nice woman, one who didn’t have all her issues, one who believed in true love and forever. Clearly, the guy deserved a woman like that.

She marched right up to him and aimed her chin high. “You have been...amazing. I can’t thank you enough for everything. And my sister will be here before you know it, so there isn’t any need for you to—”

“Stop.” He actually put up a hand. And then he took her by the arm again, causing all those strange, heated sensations to pulse along her skin. “Sit down before you fall down.” He took her other arm, too, and then he turned her and carefully guided her down into the chair where he’d been sitting. The chair was warm from his body, and that felt both enormously comforting—and way too intimate, somehow.

Once he had her in the chair, he just stayed there, bent over her, his big hands gripping the chair arms, kind of holding her there, his face with its manly sprouting of five-o’clock shadow so close she could see the faint, white ridge of an old scar on the underside of his chin. It was a tiny scar, and she wondered where he might have gotten it.

She stared up at him, miserable, wishing for a little more gumption when she needed it. “It’s not right that you have to be here. It’s not fair, after...everything. Given the...situation. James, I’m taking total advantage of you and I hate that.”

“You’re not. Stop saying you are. I’m here because I want to be here.”

She laughed. It was a sad laugh, almost like a sob. “Having a great time, are you?”

“Wonderful.”

“Ha!”

He let go of the chair arms and rose to his height. “And you’ll feel better if you eat something.”

“Oh, no.” She pressed a hand to her belly, which still ached a little from the aftermath of losing everything that had been in it, including what felt like a good portion of her stomach lining. “Uh-uh. What I need is never, ever to eat again.”

“A little hot tea and some soda crackers. You should be able to keep that down. Then later, I’ll get you some soup.”

She glared up at him. “What I really hate...”

“Tell me.”

“...is that tea and soda crackers sound kind of good.”

His fine mouth twitched at the corners. “Sugar?”

“Yes, please. Two packets.”

“Don’t budge from that chair. I’ll be right back.”

* * *

Addie drank her tea and ate four packets of soda crackers. She felt better after that, and she told James so. He nodded approvingly as he munched on the turkey sandwich he’d brought back from the cafeteria along with her tea and crackers.

Actually, his sandwich looked kind of good, too. She tried not to stare at it longingly.

But the man missed nothing. He chuckled and held out the other half to her.

She should have refused it. It wasn’t right to take the guy’s food. He was probably starving. She knew she was. And just to prove it, her stomach rumbled.

“Take it,” he said, those blue eyes all twinkly and teasing. “I know where to get more.”

She did take it. Ate it all, too. And felt a whole lot better once she did.

A few minutes after she’d demolished half his sandwich, her cell rang. It was Carm, who said that her mother-in-law was staying with the kids and she and Devin were on the way.

“A couple of hours and we’re there,” Carmen promised. “How’s PawPaw?”

“In surgery, which is going to take at least three hours from what the surgeon said. When you get here, they’ll still be operating on him.”

“Anything you need?”

She longed for a toothbrush. And she still needed to find someone to take care of Moose and the horses back at the ranch. But she could call her neighbors herself. And she didn’t want her sister wasting her time stopping at a drugstore. “Just you. Just get here as fast as you can.” Carmen promised she would do exactly that and they said goodbye.

Addie got to work trying to find someone to look after the livestock. But the Fitzgeralds, who had twenty acres bordering Red Hill, were off visiting relatives in Southern California. And Grant Newsome, Levi’s longtime friend, had put his house and acreage up for sale and gone to Florida to live near his oldest daughter and her family.

She was trying to figure out who else she might try when James suggested, “How about Walker McKellan? He and his wife, my cousin Rory, would be happy to help. They’re not that far from Red Hill.” Walker and Rory lived at Walker’s guest ranch, the Bar N, which was maybe eight miles from the Red Hill ranch house.

Addie knew Walker, but not that well. He’d been more than a decade ahead of her in school. And Rory was an actual princess from some tiny country in Europe. Addie had met her just once and been impressed with how friendly and down-to-earth she was. “I hardly know them and I’m sure they’re busy and don’t have time to—”

“Stop,” James said again, in the same flat, dismissive tone he’d used on her when she tried to tell him to go. “I know them. And I know they’ll want to help. I’m calling them.” He had his phone out and ready.

“You stop,” she insisted, strongly enough that he quit scrolling through his contacts and looked at her with great patience. She added, “I said that I hardly know them and it doesn’t seem right to take advantage of them.”

“It’s not taking advantage. It’s just asking for help. And there’s nothing wrong with asking for help now and then, Addie.”

She didn’t really have a comeback ready for that one, so she settled for glaring daggers at him.

He gentled his tone. “Look. You’d do the same for them in a heartbeat, wouldn’t you?”

“Of course I would, but—”

“So someday they’ll need you. And you’ll be there. And that’s good.”

By then, she didn’t know why she’d even tried to argue with him. “I bet you could sell an Eskimo a refrigerator,” she grumbled.

He shrugged. “Hey, with the way weather patterns are changing, an Eskimo might need one. Ah. Here we go.” He punched in the call.

Ten minutes later, she’d talked to both Walker and Rory and they were set to tend to the animals for as long as she needed them to. Walker said he’d take Moose back to the Bar-N. He even insisted she give him the phone numbers of the owners of the horses she boarded. He said he would call them personally and let them know what was happening, reassure them that their animals were being cared for and that if they needed anything, he would see that they got it.

Addie thanked Walker profusely.

He said essentially what James had said. “We should have joined forces years ago for times like this.”

When she hung up, she handed James back his phone. “I think I’m running out of ways to thank you.”

He didn’t miss a beat. “You can thank me by eating the soup I’m going to go get for you now. They have chicken noodle or New England clam chowder.”

“No clams. Please.”

“Chicken noodle it is, then.”

She dug in her purse for her wallet. But he was already up and headed for the elevators.

When he returned with the soup, he also brought sandwiches. Two of them—one roast beef, one ham, both with chips.

She took the soup and tried to give him a ten. He waved it away. She should insist he take the money, but so far, insisting wasn’t getting her anywhere with him.

So fine, then. She ate every last drop of that soup and half of his ham sandwich, too. Unfortunately, once the food was gone, there was nothing else to do but sit there and try to read the magazines strewn about the waiting room tables, try not to watch the second hand crawling around the face of the clock on the far wall, try not to think too hard about what might be happening down the long hallway beyond the automatic double doors.

Carmen and Devin arrived at a little after nine. Addie ran to her sister. Carmen grabbed her and they hugged each other tight. Then Carmen took her by the shoulders and held her a little away. Carmen was taller and thinner than Addie and her hair was dark brown, her eyes a warm hazel.

“Any news?” her sister asked.

Addie pressed her lips together and shook her head. “We’re still waiting to hear. I’m hoping it won’t be too long now.”

Devin, tall and lean with light blond hair, said, “Levi’s tough as old boots. He’ll pull through and be driving us all crazy again in no time.”

Addie turned to her brother-in-law. “I know you’re right.” He hugged her, too. “I can’t even tell you how glad I am you’re both here.” She wrapped an arm around each of them and turned for the row of chairs several feet away where James, on his feet now, was waiting.

Carmen leaned close and whispered, “Isn’t that one of the Bravo brothers?”

Addie stifled a tired sigh. “It’s James.”

“The lawyer, right, second of Sondra’s two sons?”

Addie nodded. “He was, um, there when PawPaw had the heart attack. He’s been wonderful,” she whispered back grimly, reminded again of all the news she needed to share with her sister. “I can’t get him to leave.”

“I heard that,” James said wryly. “Carmen, Devin. How have you been?” He held out his big hand.

Devin took it first, and then Carmen. Carmen said how grateful she was for his help. She assured him he could go now.

He just shook his head. “I can’t go now. I wouldn’t feel right. At least not until Levi’s through surgery.”

Carmen shot Addie a look and then turned to him again. “You and our grandfather are...friends?”

“Well, we’ve kind of formed a bond, I think you might say.”

Now Carmen glanced at Devin, who shrugged, then back to James and finally at Addie. “Okay. What is going on?”

Addie groaned. “Got a month, I’ll tell you everything.”

“I’m here and I’m listening,” Carmen replied.

Addie hardly knew where to start.

James got up. “I could use some coffee. Anybody else?”

Carmen piped right up. “I’ll take some.” She elbowed her husband. “Dev will go with you.”

“Uh. I will?” When Carmen elbowed him again, Devin caught on. “Sure. Great idea.”

“Tea?” Addie asked James, and then got uncomfortable all over again thinking how easily she’d started to depend on him.

“You got it—and maybe Devin and I will hang around the cafeteria for a while.” He gave her a look—one thick, dark eyebrow raised.

And she took his meaning. “Go ahead. Tell him,” she said. “Tell him everything you know. Believe me, he won’t be surprised.”

“My God,” murmured Carmen. “What is going on?” For that, she got another bewildered shrug from her husband.

James asked, “You sure?”

Addie nodded. “He has to know eventually anyway.”

So the men left. And Carmen said, “Okay. Tell me everything.”

Addie told all—from how she’d agreed to have Brandon’s baby, to the fact that she was now pregnant with said baby, to Levi snooping in her trash and finding the test stick and then kidnapping James just the way he’d done to Devin eight years ago. Carmen sat there with her mouth hanging open, as Addie went on to describe finding James and Levi in the basement and the shotgun going off, blowing a hole in the ceiling while Levi had a heart attack.

Finally, when the totally out-there story was told, Carmen hugged her again and told her she loved her and could hardly believe she was going to be an auntie.

Then came the questions. “If Brandon’s the father, why did PawPaw kidnap James?”

“He won’t believe it’s Brandon. He claims he’s seen the way James and I look at each other and he just knows there’s been a lot more than looking going on.”

Carmen was silent. Too silent.

Addie was forced to demand, “What is all this silence about, Carm?”

“Well, now, honey. I did see the way you and James looked at each other just now...”

“What are you talking about? I swear to you, James Bravo has never done more than shake my hand—at least not until today, when he put his arm around me to comfort me, held my hair while I threw up and then made me sit down when I tried to get him to leave.”

“But that’s just it, see?”

“No, I don’t see.”

“He seems very devoted. And I saw the blood on his collar.”

“I told you, PawPaw knocked him out, tied him to a chair in the basement and put a shotgun to his head. Because you know PawPaw. He thinks we live in some Wild West romance novel where it’s perfectly okay to hold a man at gunpoint in order to convince him to ‘do the right thing.’” She said that with air quotes.

Carm snickered and then quickly switched to a more sober expression. “And yet, even after all the abuse PawPaw heaped on the poor guy, James drives you to Denver and holds your hair while you hurl? He knows you’re having another man’s baby, but he brings you food and tea and insists he has to stay with you to make sure that your crazy old grandpa makes it through surgery?”

“Carm, it’s not like that. It’s just that he’s a good guy.”

“Beyond stellar, apparently.”

“Really, I hardly know him. We...well, we talk now and then.”

A sideways look from Carmen. “You talk.”

“Yeah. He’s bought land that borders Red Hill and he’s building a house there. I go by there a lot, working with the horses, you know?”

“Right...”

“Quit looking at me like that. Sometimes I stop is all. We visit. We talk about life and stuff—in general, I mean. Nothing all that personal.” Well, okay. Once, James had told her about his ex-wife. But as a rule, they kept it casual. She added, “And now and then, he drops by the ranch house. We sit out under the stars and chat.”

“Chat,” Carmen repeated, as though the simple word held a bunch of other meanings that Addie wasn’t admitting to.

“Yeah.” Addie straightened her shoulders. “Chat. Just chat. And that’s it. That’s all. I’ve never gone out with him. It’s casual and it’s only conversation and you couldn’t even really call us friends.”

Carmen patted her hand. “I’m only saying I’m not surprised that PawPaw jumped to conclusions.”

Addie batted off her sister’s touch. “It is Brandon’s baby. I have never even kissed James Bravo.”

Carmen put up both hands. “Okay, okay. I believe you.”

“Oh, gee. Thanks a bunch.” Addie pressed a hand to her stomach, which had started churning again.

Carmen hooked an arm around her shoulders and drew her close. “And I don’t want you upset.” She stroked Addie’s hair. It felt really good. Carmen was only two years older, but Addie had always looked up to her. When you grow up without a mom, a good big sister really helps. Carmen chided, “It’s bad for the baby, for you to get so upset.”

“No kidding.” Grudgingly, Addie leaned her head on her big sister’s shoulder.

“Just breathe and relax. We’re going to get through this. PawPaw is going to be fine—and here come the guys.”

Addie glanced up and saw that James and Devin had just come around the corner from the elevators. “I don’t like the way you say the guys. Like James is suddenly part of the family.”

“Honey, stop overreacting. It’s only going to make you want to throw up.”

Well, okay. That was true. And Carmen was right. They just needed to stay calm and support each other. There’d been more than enough drama today to last Addie a lifetime.

So she focused on speaking softly, on being grateful—for her sister and Devin. And yes, for James, too. He’d made a horrible time a lot less awful and she needed to remember how much she owed him.

She drank her tea and ate the toast James had brought her. Strangely enough, she’d kept more food down in the past few hours than she had in days. Yet another reason to be grateful to James.

When she finished her tea and toast, she realized she was completely exhausted. She leaned her head back against the wall behind her and closed her eyes just for a minute.

* * *

The next thing she knew, James was rubbing her arm, stroking her hair, whispering in her ear, “Addie, wake up. The doctor’s coming...”

With a sharp cry she sat bolt upright—and realized she’d been sound asleep, her head on James’s broad shoulder. The big clock on the far wall showed that over an hour had passed since she leaned back and closed her eyes.

And James was right.

Levi’s surgeon had emerged from the long hallway between the double doors and was coming right for them.

Chapter Three

They all popped to their feet at once—James, Addie, Carmen and Devin. And then they waited in a horrible, breath-held silence until the doctor, still in surgical scrubs with a matching cap on his head and a mask hanging around his neck, reached them and started speaking.

Addie watched his mouth move and tried to listen to what he was saying, but her heart was beating so damn loud and her blood made a whooshing sound as it spurted through her body and the words were really hard to understand.

But then Carm said, “Oh, thank God.”

And Addie put it together: he’d made it. PawPaw had survived the surgery.

* * *

Forty-five minutes later, they all proceeded to a new waiting room, this one adjacent to the Cardiac Surgery Intensive Care Unit, which was five floors up from surgery and in another wing.

A nurse came out and led Addie and Carmen through automatic doors and down a hall to one of those rooms full of curtained cubicles. In this room, all the curtains were drawn back. There were twenty beds, two rows of ten, half of them with patients in them. Nurses, doctors and technicians moved between the beds and back and forth from the group of desks that formed a command center in the middle of the room. The nurse led them to the left side of the room, the third bed from the door. Addie clutched for Carm’s hand and when she got it, she held on tight.

Levi lay on the hospital bed with a tube down his throat and another in his nose. There were tubes and wires hooked to his chest, and more of them disappearing under the blankets. And there was an IV in the back of his hand and another in the crook of his arm. Both arms were strapped to the bed; Addie assumed that was to keep him from pulling out any of the complicated apparatus that hooked him up to the various machines. There was a ventilator by the bed. It wheezed softly as it pushed air in through the tube in his mouth.

He looked terrible, every line in his craggy face dug in deeper than before. But he did open his eyes briefly. It seemed he saw them, recognized them. But then a second later, his eyelids drooped shut. Together, still clutching each other’s hands, Addie and Carm moved closer, up to the head of the bed. Gently, so lightly, Addie dared to touch his pale forehead below the blue cap that covered his hair.

He groaned and opened his eyes again.

Carm touched his wiry upper arm at a rare spot where no tube or needle was stuck. “I’m here, PawPaw. We’re both here. You made it through your surgery and you’re going to get well.”

“We love you,” said Addie, biting back tears. “We love you so much.”

His red-rimmed blue eyes tracked—from Addie, to Carmen, back to Addie again. And then he tried to speak. “Aiff. Air aiff?”

Carm said, “Shh, don’t try to talk now. The tube’s in the way.”

But he wouldn’t shush. “Aiff? Ear? Aiff?” He tried to lift an arm, found it pinned to the bed and groaned in frustration.

Addie stroked his brow. “Shh, PawPaw. Don’t. You’ll only hurt your throat.”

The nurse who’d brought them in approached again. Addie and Carmen stepped back and the nurse bent close to Levi. “Easy, now, Levi. It’s okay. We’ll find out what you want and get it for you. I’ve got a pencil and a paper...” She pulled a small tablet and a pencil out of her pocket.

He nodded, making a harsh gargling sound around the tube.

“Is he left-handed?” she asked.

Carm said, “No, right-handed.”

The nurse eased the tablet under his right hand and wrapped his scarred, knotted old fingers around the pencil. He gripped it and scratched at the paper.

When he stopped, the nurse asked, “Is that it?”

Levi grunted a yes.

The nurse took the tablet and read, “Jane? You want to see Jane?”

Another grunt accompanied by a head shake.

Addie knew. “James,” she said bleakly. “You want James.”

More grunting, but this time with a nod. Her grandpa stared right at her, daring her to produce the man he demanded to see.

She turned away—and there was Carm, looking all innocent, giving a little “what can you do about it?” shrug.

“Fine,” Addie said and tried not to sound as fed up as she felt. “I’ll get him.”

Levi grunted again. To Addie, the sound was way too triumphant.

The nurse took her out and waited by the double doors.

Devin and James jumped to their feet again at the sight of her. She marched up to James, blew out a breath of pure frustration and said, “I’m sorry. He’s asking to see you.”

“Uh. Sure.”

“I hate to ask you to go in there.”

“I don’t mind. Honestly, I don’t.”

“It only encourages him in his ridiculous delusions.”

James held her eyes steadily. “Addie. Right now we just want him happy and calm, right?”

“Yeah. But what if you weren’t here?”

“But I am here.”

And you shouldn’t be. But she didn’t say that out loud. Because he’d been a lifesaver and she was so grateful to him it made an ache down in the heart of her. She turned to Devin. “Don’t be hurt that PawPaw didn’t ask for you. You know he thinks the world of you.”

“I’m not hurt.” Dev seemed to mean it. “I’m just glad he’s pulled through the surgery all right.” He clapped James on the shoulder. “Good luck, man.”

James made a low noise in his throat that could have meant anything and fell in beside Addie as she marched back to where the nurse waited to lead them through the double doors.

In CSICU, Carm stood by the bed holding Levi’s hand. His eyes were shut. But he must have heard their footsteps, because, with obvious effort, he opened them again and focused instantly in on James.

“Levi,” James said mildly. “See? I’m right here and I’m going nowhere.” Addie gasped and shot him a sharp look, but he kept his gaze on Levi as he softly added, “Rest now.”

Levi blinked a couple of times, as if to reassure himself that his old eyes and his drugged mind weren’t playing any tricks on him. Then, with a low, rough sound of pure satisfaction, he closed his eyes and didn’t open them again, though the three of them stood there for several more minutes. Finally, the nurse bustled over and whispered that it was time to go. They would be allowed back in for brief visits—no more than two of them at a time, please—for as long as Levi stayed in intensive care.

They filed back out to the waiting room, where Carmen went straight to Devin. She sagged against him. He gathered her in and stroked her hair as Addie told herself she was not, under any circumstances, going to sidle up close to James and hope that he might wrap those big arms around her.

James said, “I’ve got a room at the Marriott down the street. I figure we can take turns using it. For showers, naps, whatever.”

Carm beamed at him from her husband’s arms. “Great idea. Addie should go first. She looks dead on her feet.”

Addie sent her sister a quelling glance and asked James, “When did you have time to get a room at the Marriott?”

All twinkly blue eyes and easy charm, he coaxed, “Come on, don’t look so suspicious. I made a phone call when you two went in to see Levi. The Marriott had rooms available—you know, being a hotel and all? So I got us one.”

He’d done way more than she should have let him do and she needed to put an end to it. Immediately. “We have to talk.”

He frowned. “Now, Addie—”

“Go ahead,” said Carm with a shooing motion. “You two work it out. We’ll be right here.”

Addie so didn’t like the way Carm had shooed her—as if she and James had had some lovers’ spat they needed to resolve. But she could deal with her sister later. Now she and James had to get a few things straight.

She whirled and marched across the waiting room to a grouping of chairs along the other wall. When she got there, she dropped into one.

James took his sweet time following, but finally he sat down next to her. “What’s the problem now?”

She turned and met his beautiful eyes and said sincerely, “It’s enough—no, it’s too much, all you’ve done. And I thank you so much for everything. But my grandfather’s out of surgery now. You said yourself that you were only staying to see that he made it through all right. Well, he has. And Carm and Devin are here, to help me. You don’t need to stay anymore.”

He studied her face for several nerve-racking seconds. Then he shook his head. “I’ve reconsidered.”

Somehow she made herself ask him quietly, “Reconsidered what?”

“Levi wants me here. And he needs to have what he wants—at least until he’s out of the woods.”

“But he is out of the woods.”

“Addie. He’s almost eighty. He’s just been through major surgery. You know you want him relaxed and focused on getting well. You don’t want anything preying on his mind.”

Okay, that was true. She didn’t want PawPaw upset. But sometimes, well, people just didn’t get things the way they wanted them. “I can’t help it if he insists on lying to himself.” She blew out a hard breath. “Uh-uh. He needs to accept that he’s got it all wrong and get past his totally out-there assumption that you are the father of my baby. As long as you’re here, that’s not going to happen. As long as you’re here, he can tell himself his crazy-ass plan to marry us at gunpoint is working the same as it worked when he pulled it on Dev and Carmen.”

“So what if he tells himself his plan is working?”

She was gaping again. She’d been doing way too much of that recently. “What do you mean, so what? His plan is not working. It’s never going to work. You are not my baby’s daddy and PawPaw needs to learn to accept that.”

“And he will. When he’s ready. But he’s not ready now. All I’m saying is let me help. Let him believe what he needs to believe until he’s back on his feet.”

God. He was not only big and strong and kind and helpful, with that killer smile and those damn twinkly eyes. He not only looked good and smelled way too manly and tempting. He was also so calm and logical. And what he said actually seemed to make a bizarre kind of sense.

And she was so darn tired. She kept thinking of that room he’d taken at the Marriott. Of a shower and clean sheets and a few hours of much-needed sleep.

He leaned closer, filling her tipped-over world with his strength and his steadiness. “Come on, Addie.” His deep, smooth voice washed through her, so soothing, making her want to lean into him, to curl into a ball and cuddle up close. “Let me help you. I want to help you.”

“Why?”

The question seemed to hang in the charged air between them.

And then he actually answered it. “I like it, helping you. I honestly do. I like Levi and I want him to get well.”

“Even after what he did to you?”

James chuckled. “He’s a determined old guy. I admire that. I’m not crazy about his methods, but his intentions are good.”

She almost laughed. “What’s that they say about good intentions paving the road to hell?”

“Addie, lighten up.”

“You shouldn’t make excuses for him.”

“I’m not. And it’s not really all that complicated, or it doesn’t have to be. I’ll just hang around for a few days, help out however I can, until your grandfather’s better.”

“Define better.”

He dodged right on by that one. “Can’t we just play that by ear, see how he does?”

“I don’t...get what you get out of this. I really don’t. It’s not fair to you, to take advantage of you this way.”

His square jaw hardened. “Didn’t we already clear up the whole ‘taking advantage’ question when you finally let Walker and Rory help you out with the animals? No one is taking advantage of me. I’m doing what I want to do. And that is to be here and help out however I can. I like helping out.”

She really needed just to say it outright and she knew that she did. “You do get that you and me, that’s never going to happen, right? I’ve got a whole lot to deal with in my life right now, and a man is the last thing I need.”

He leaned even closer. Every nerve in her body went on red alert. “I do get that, Addie. Yes.” Something deep inside her ached with loss when he said that. Which was absurd. It was a simple fact and they needed to be on the same page about it. And then he smiled, so slow and sweet and tender. “Nothing is going to happen. Not unless you ask me real nice.”

Warmth slithered through her, followed immediately by annoyance. “Oh, very funny.”

“Was I funny?” he teased. “I didn’t mean to be funny...”

“This isn’t a joke.”

“And I wasn’t joking.” His voice was so serious. His eyes were not.

She decided she’d better just let it go. “Good, then. Hold that thought. And...well, you need to remember that I’m pregnant, James.” She thought of Brandon then, with a sharp ache of loss. Brandon, too thin, too pale, the light fading from his green eyes. She made herself put it right out there, blunt as you please. “I’m pregnant with my dead best friend’s baby.”

“I am very clear on that.” He took her hand. His was so warm and big and strong. It felt way too good and she should pull away.

But she didn’t.

Across the waiting area, Carm was watching her, a sly smile on her face.

That did it. Addie tried to jerk free.

But James held on. “Hey.”

“What?”

“I want to help and I think you could use the support. It doesn’t have to mean anything more than that.”

“But you know that it does. People...think we’re together. My grandpa is still sure of that. And Carm thinks so, too, and so does Dev.”

“So...?”

She did pull her hand from his then. “Do you need everything spelled out for you?”

He just wouldn’t give up. “Look at me. In my eyes.” The man was impossible.

She puffed out her cheeks with a hard breath. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”

“Come on...”

“Fine.” She met that gorgeous blue gaze. “What?”

“It’s so simple. I want to be here and I don’t expect anything from you. Can’t you just take my word on that?”

Why not just let him stay?

He wanted to help and she liked having him here. She felt...safe and protected with him around. No, it couldn’t go anywhere. And yeah, the way he hovered over her, taking care of her, gave her family the wrong idea. But if it made PawPaw happy right now, if it took a load off his mind when he needed to be focused on getting well...

How could that be bad, really? How could that possibly hurt?

She groused, “You’re way too convincing.”

He seemed amused. “You mentioned that before.”

“Yeah, well, I’d hate to see you in court. You’re probably responsible for a whole bunch of murderers getting off scot-free.”

He gave her that smile of his, the one that warmed her up from her head to her toes and just about everywhere in between. “I’m in business and family law. Trusts and estates, real estate, asset protection. Not a single murderer ever got off because of me.”

“I am so relieved to hear it.”

He leaned closer. “So, then. Are you going to let me stay?”

She made a humphing sound. “Is there any way I can get rid of you?”

He pretended to think it over. “Nope. Give it up. There’s no way I’m leaving, not until I’m sure you don’t need me anymore.”

What if I never stop needing you? The crazy question just popped into her head.

And she quickly banished it. Because it really wasn’t a question of need. Uh-uh. Not at all. She didn’t need him. She didn’t need any man. She could take care of herself and her coming baby just fine on her own. They’d get through this rough patch, get her grandfather back on his feet, and her life would go back to the way it had always been.

James didn’t even wait for her to say he could stay, just went right on as though it was all settled—which, she supposed, it was. “I think your sister is right. You should get some rest. Let me take you to the hotel and get you settled in.”

“I hate to leave Carm and Dev here to deal with everything on their—”

“Shh.” He put a finger to her lips, so lightly, causing a bunch of silly butterflies to start flapping their wings low in her belly. “You’ll be right down the street. Carmen can call you if there’s any news.”

Addie gave in and confessed, “I am kind of tired...”

He took her hand again. “Come on. You’ll be rested and back here at the hospital before you know it.”

* * *

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