West looked at Annabel for a long moment, then seemed to realize he had an audience, and cleared his throat.

“See you later at my place,” he said before disappearing through the door. He was back in a heartbeat. “For the cooking lesson,” he added.

Annabel felt her cheeks warm but couldn’t help the chuckle. Yet as she thought about being alone with West Montgomery in his house, in his kitchen, standing shoulder to shoulder at the counter, the chuckle was replaced by honest-to-goodness fear.

How did you stop yourself from falling for someone you’d never gotten over to begin with?

***

Hurley’s Homestyle Kitchen: There’s nothing more delicious than falling in love …

A Cowboy in the Kitchen

Meg Maxwell

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MEG MAXWELL lives on the coast of Maine with her teen-aged son, their beagle and black-and-white cat. When she’s not writing, Meg is either reading, at the movies or thinking up new story ideas on her favorite little beach (even in winter) just minutes from her house. Interesting fact: Meg Maxwell is a pseudonym for author Melissa Senate, whose women’s fiction titles have been published in over twenty-five countries.

MILLS & BOON

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When I was twenty-one years old, I read my first category romance novel: a funny, heartwarming book by Janet Evanovich with—for reasons I forget—a hero running around in a feathered chicken costume. That book hooked me on the genre, though my favorite heroes became cowboys and cops more than six-foot-tall chickens. Since then, I’ve read thousands more category romances and dedicate my own to all those authors who inspired me and continue to do so, old and new favorites alike.

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

Chapter Thirteen

Epilogue

Extract

Copyright

Chapter One

Barbecued catfish po’boy with Hurley’s Homestyle Kitchen’s famed spicy slaw would be tonight’s special, Annabel Hurley decided—until all thought poofed from her head with a glance out the window. She ducked behind the industrial-sized silver mixing bowl, a glob of biscuit batter falling from the wooden spoon in her hand to her sneaker. She sighed at how ridiculous she was. Hiding behind a bowl because West Montgomery was coming up the path to the house? Heck yeah, she was. Annabel had been back in Blue Gulch less than twenty-four hours and already the one person she wanted to avoid was rapping on the door.

He had something in his hand, she noticed as she bolted up, another dollop of batter flying to the floor. Was that a checkbook? Maybe he wanted to wave his money around to secure a Saturday night reservation for Hurley’s best table, the one that faced the Sweet Briar Mountain Range in the distance. Last night, Annabel’s first at taking over as cook in the small restaurant’s kitchen, Jillian Quisper, homecoming queen back in high school, had gotten engaged to PJ Renner right at that round table for two. Jillian had screamed for joy so loud that everyone in the kitchen had run out to make sure she wasn’t choking on her plain green salad. It was no surprise that one of the wealthiest men in Blue Gulch would choose to propose in a small Western-style restaurant like Hurley’s; most everyone in town had had their first date at Hurley’s as teenagers. Parents knew Gram Hurley would keep an eye on kids. Plus, there was no better place to get country-fried steak, ribs or a pulled pork sandwich in the entire county. Hurley’s Homestyle Kitchen meant something to just about everyone in town, homecoming queens included. Telling folks her intended had proposed on one knee at Hurley’s over baby back ribs would get any gal “aws” from everyone, especially at the mountain-view table under the elegant little chandelier.

Annabel’s experience with marriage proposals at that table was limited to old daydreams and nightly fantasies about West Montgomery on one knee—ha. As if West would propose the traditional way. He’d buy a plane and skywrite a proposal. He’d spell it out in rocks down by the clearing in front of the woods. He’d grab her hand, look her deeply in the eye, see everything she felt and whisk her away to Vegas for a quickie ceremony in the Elvis Presley wedding chapel, not that she’d ever get married without her gram or sisters in attendance.

And not that West Montgomery would ever propose to her.

Would anyone? Sometimes she thought her cooking skills were all she had going for her in the romance department. Way to a man’s heart and all that. As if her ability to make a barbecue sauce to rival her gram’s had gotten her anywhere but right where she was, standing in a kitchen.

West shielded his eyes from the bright April morning sunshine and squinted in the window. As he spotted her, surprise crossed his features; then he held up his hand with something of a nod.

Annabel gripped the wooden spoon, took a deep breath, ran her hands down the front of her apron, a mistake, since it was speckled with flour, and headed to the kitchen’s back door. The restaurant was in the Hurley family home, an old apricot-colored Victorian that had seen better days.

He knocked again. What could he want?

Annabel Hurley, you are twenty-five years old. Open the door and find out!

So she did. The sight of him, six foot three, leanly muscular in worn jeans and a green chambray shirt, those intense brown eyes the color of driftwood, his thick, wavy hair so dark it was almost black, had her knees slightly buckling. He wore a black Stetson, which he tipped at her.

“Annabel,” he said, unease clear. “I didn’t know you were back in town.” His gaze went to her sneaker, with the glob of batter, then to the spoon she held so tightly her knuckles were white.

She loosened her hold. And wondered if he even remembered their night—just a precious hour, if that—in the loft of the barn on his family’s ranch. Given what he’d done the next day, she’d bet her meager savings he’d forgotten the minute she left that night. “Just got here yesterday.”

He seemed distracted, as though there was something weighing on his mind. She knew that look of his well. She wanted to reach out and smooth the worry lines on his forehead the way she once had done, but she couldn’t, of course. He took a deep breath, clearly bracing himself to make the expected conversation, to ask how long she was staying, if she was having a nice visit; West Montgomery wasn’t one for small talk.

He glanced at his watch and said, “Is your grandmother here? I need to sign up for her cooking class that starts tomorrow.” So much for pleasantries. For anything resembling regret for how he’d treated her.

Annabel couldn’t help staring at him, her gaze going to the one dimple. The man was impossibly good-looking, so good-looking she almost missed what he said.

“You want to sign up for the cooking class?” she asked. West in a kitchen. She couldn’t even imagine it. Her grandmother had been offering cooking classes every season in their big country kitchen for as long as Annabel could remember. When Annabel was in middle school, her older sister had pointed out that Gram had to start the cooking classes to make extra money because she’d taken in her three orphaned granddaughters. Annabel had started helping out in the kitchen from that day forward.

He glanced past her at the counter, where ingredients for Gram’s Famed Country Biscuits and homemade apple butter were spread out. “Is there room in the class?” He held up the checkbook. “I’ll pay double if it’ll get me in.”

Double? What was that about? “Actually we had to cancel the spring session. My gram’s not well and is getting lots of tests done.” At the thought of her beloved grandmother, Essie, collapsing in the kitchen, the weight of a pan of grits suddenly too heavy for the fit seventy-five year old, Annabel closed her eyes for a moment, worry and fear snaking their way inside. She should have been here. Instead she’d been hours away in Dallas, trying to make her life work—for seven years. She could feel the guilt flaming her cheeks and turned away.

He took off his hat and held it against his chest. “That’s why you’re back,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry about your grandmother. A few months ago, I ran into her in the supermarket when I was buying a birthday cake for my daughter. I told her my attempt caved in on itself, and she told me to put the store cake back, that she’d bake one for me. I tried to tell her that wasn’t necessary, but she insisted and asked what my daughter’s favorite things were. The next morning she brought over a cake in the shape of a tree, decorated with green leaves, branches, crab apples and a climbing girl all set in icing. Lucy flipped. She still talks about her birthday cake.”

That was Gram. Always helping, always going the extra mile. Annabel smiled at her grandmother’s kindness, but at his little girl’s name, her chest tightened. Though she’d only been back to Blue Gulch for holidays and birthdays, she’d once run into West’s heavily pregnant wife at the grocery store and another time she’d seen West with a toddler on his shoulders at a parade, a little girl with huge hazel eyes and wisps of dark hair like her daddy’s. Lucy must be six now.

She headed back to the counter and gave the biscuit batter a stir. “Why do you want to take a cooking class?” she asked to change the subject.

He stepped in and closed the door behind him, looking everywhere but at her. “I need to learn some basics. Omelets, fried chicken, maybe chicken salad with the leftovers for sandwiches. That kind of thing. And biscuits like your grandmother makes.”

She noticed he didn’t answer the question. “Your wife could teach you that, I’m sure,” she said like an idiot, the face of Lorna Dunkin Montgomery pushing into her mind. Of all the beautiful young women in town, the guy of Annabel’s dreams had fallen for the meanest, the ringleader of the group back in high school that had dubbed Annabel “Geekabel” and made her feel ashamed of her scrawny figure, frizzy reddish-brown hair and home-sewn clothes, and how foolish she’d been to even dare have a secret crush on a boy like West. Back then, Annabel had had exactly two conversations with West, both making clear that the maverick in the black leather jacket and combat boots, his hair slightly too long, was as complicated and kindhearted as he was absolutely gorgeous. But falling for Lorna? Marrying her? She’d never gotten that. And she’d never gotten over it either.

A few months after her...moment with West in his barn, she’d happened on the bride and groom coming out of the church, their families throwing rice. He must have gotten her pregnant, she remembered meanly thinking, to marry her after just a few months of dating. Gram had brought her tissues and homemade fudge brownie ice cream, and by the end of their conversation Essie Hurley had convinced Annabel to accept the scholarship she’d been offered to a culinary school in Dallas—her dream—rather than stay in town to help Gram with the restaurant. Maybe Annabel would come back to Blue Gulch; maybe she wouldn’t, Gram had said. Follow your heart, wherever it leads. She’d wanted to come back home, cook for Hurley’s Homestyle Kitchen, maybe add a bit of city to the menu here and there to bring in business from the fancy steak house that had opened a few doors down. But then she’d seen pregnant Lorna. Seen West with his little girl and couldn’t imagine watching the man she loved with another woman, a child. And so she’d stayed in Dallas, where she didn’t belong.

“Lorna was killed in a car accident a little over a year ago,” West said, his gaze going to his watch.

Shame at how she’d remembered his late wife came over her. “I’m very sorry, West. For you and your daughter.” Annabel had heard through her grandmother that West’s parents had died from smoke inhalation in a fire not too long after she went to cooking school. He’d lost his brother, his parents, his wife. So much loss at such a young age.

He held up his checkbook. “I made it out to Essie already. I realize you probably don’t have a lot of time between the restaurant and seeing to your grandmother, but maybe you could squeeze in a lesson or two?”

Why was it so important that he learn how to make an omelet and a chicken salad sandwich?

She could help him out. A quick look at the books late last night made it clear that Hurley’s Homestyle Kitchen had been losing money left and right the past six months—probably when Gram’s health started failing. Essie had kept it a secret from everyone, even Clementine, Annabel’s younger sister, who worked as a waitress at the restaurant. Annabel could use the money to keep inventory up, at least. For a few days anyway. Again she wondered if her older sister, Georgia, would come home. A businesswoman in Houston, Georgia was sorely needed at the restaurant to run the office, manage the financials. But she hadn’t responded to Clementine’s or Annabel’s calls for two days now.

“Hattie, Gram’s assistant cook, could probably teach you,” Annabel said, realizing that despite needing his three hundred dollars for the six-week course, she couldn’t bear the thought of being alone with him in close quarters, reminded of the night they’d shared, how she’d almost given all of herself to him and how he’d taken up with Lorna Dunkin the next day.

The next day. All over each other on the flat-topped boulder near where she went to pick herbs every afternoon. Their rock. She’d seen them with her own eyes.

Annabel turned away for a moment, chastising herself for how much it still stung, still hurt.

“Please, Annabel. I’m desperate.”

“Desperate to learn to make biscuits?” she snapped before she could catch herself. Seven years ago was seven years ago. You’re not eighteen and he’s not nineteen. He’s a widower, for Pete’s sake. A single father. And for some reason, he is desperate to learn to make biscuits.

He frowned as he stared at her. “Will you teach me to cook or not?” The hat went back on. “You can condense the class if you want, an hour a few times a week for two weeks, early in the morning before opening or after closing—whenever’s convenient.” He took a pen from his back pocket, filled out another check, and held it out to her. “A thousand dollars. Please, Annabel.”

A thousand dollars? Oh, heck. That she couldn’t turn down. You’ll get through it, she told herself. You’ll show him how to roast a chicken and cut up potatoes and that’ll be that. No big whoop. She glanced at him, then began stirring the biscuit batter even though it had thickened too much and was a lost cause. “The restaurant is closed on Mondays, so we might as well take advantage of using the kitchen. Be here at six sharp tomorrow. I’ll assume you don’t have your own apron.”

His shoulders relaxed and he handed her the check. “Actually I do. My daughter made it for me during craft time at her camp last summer. Her colorful handprints are all over it.”

She felt for the little girl who’d lost her mother. Annabel knew what that was like.

“Normally I wouldn’t take this,” she said, tucking the check in the back pocket of her jeans. “But things have been slow around here for the past few months since Gram got sick and didn’t tell anyone. We could use the money.”

He nodded and turned to leave.

“You don’t mind that you’re not getting Gram as your cooking teacher?” she asked. Have you thought about me once in all these years? Why did you call a halt to...things that night?

She knew why—thought she did anyway. Because it had dawned on him that he was getting hot and heavy with Geekabel. She’d just happened to be in the right place at the right time. He’d been grief-stricken over his brother’s death and out of his mind; she’d been there with whatever comfort he’d needed. Then he must have opened his eyes and seen a too-skinny, frizzy-haired girl he’d never even noticed before, realized he’d been about to make love to Geekabel, sent her home and taken up with sexy, stacked Lorna Dunkin, with her platinum blond hair and 32-D chest and high heels. Annabel doubted that West even remembered her at all.

He turned back and held her gaze so intensely she had to look away. “I still think about that chili con carne you made me the day my brother died. I’ve never forgotten how good it was or how it actually managed to distract me for a minute from my grief. And you were how old, barely eighteen?”

So he did remember. An image pushed into her mind, of finding him sitting atop that big rock near the field where her gram had always sent her to collect chickweed and henbit, his arms wrapped around his knees, his head down, his back shaking. West Montgomery, sobbing, his older brother, an army soldier, killed in Afghanistan.

He shifted, straightening his Stetson and digging his hands in pocket. “Anyway.”

“Anyway,” she said, unable to stop the memory of the way he’d held her seven years ago in the barn where he’d hidden out during most of the sympathy visits to his parents’ house. He’d eaten the chili and they’d talked some, and she’d known he wanted to say thank you but couldn’t speak, wanted comfort but couldn’t ask for it, so he’d just hugged her tightly and held on for a full minute, Annabel gripping his shoulders. He’d kissed her then, her knees actually buckling from the surprise, the sensation, the dream, and he’d picked her up and laid her down on the blanket in the straw.

She shook herself out of the memory and thought back to what he said, about her chili distracting him from his grief. Was that why he wanted to learn to cook? To help with his loss of his late wife? He didn’t look sad. If anything, he looked...worried. He hadn’t said he wanted to learn to cook. He said he needed to. There was a story there, she’d bet on it.

He pulled a tissue from the pocket of his leather jacket and leaned over, dabbing it at her cheek. “Batter,” he said. “See you tomorrow at six.”

Annabel watched him head back up the path and get into his silver pickup. What the heck had she just agreed to?

* * *

At five-thirty on Monday, West took a bite of the homemade chicken tenders he’d cooked for his daughter and shook his head. What the blast was he doing wrong? He’d followed the recipe he found online. Put chicken in beaten egg, coat with flour, then fry in oil in a pan. What was so hard? Why didn’t it taste like the chicken he had last week at Hurley’s? It didn’t even come close to the chicken dinners Lorna had served, which, granted, were nuggets from a big bag in the freezer. He’d relied on frozen, takeout and hot dogs too often. No more. But proof that he needed a cooking teacher was on the plate in front of him. And his daughter.

He looked over at six-year-old Lucy sitting across from him at the dining room table in their ranch house, his heart clenching as always at how much he loved her, how beautiful she was, her dark ringlets bouncing on her narrow shoulders with every poke of her fork at the green beans she wasn’t eating. She’d had four bites. According to Lucy’s pediatrician at her last checkup, that was perfectly normal for a six-year-old. She’d eaten two bites of the baked potato, which wasn’t quite soft enough, even though he’d followed an online recipe to the letter—wrap in foil and bake for fifty minutes at 425 degrees—and then added some extra butter to make up for it. She’d eaten two bites of chicken. And she’d taken one sniff of a green bean and snuck it under the table to an always-hungry Daisy, their beagle.

“One more bite of chicken?” he said to Lucy.

She smiled, the dimple that matched his popping out in her left cheek, her big, round hazel-green eyes, just like her mother’s, darting to her lap. “Okay, Daddy.”

He watched her pick up a piece of the chicken with her fingers and surreptitiously slide her hand under the table where he knew Daisy was waiting. “Lucy Montgomery,” he chastised, but couldn’t help the smile.

Hell, he didn’t want to eat his tough, bland dinner either. He scooped up Lucy from the table and held her tight, her arms around his neck the best feeling in the world. “You be a good girl for Miss Letty. She’s going to watch you while I’m at a cooking class.”

Annabel Hurley came to mind, tall and curvy, with that porcelain skin and long, silky auburn hair. He could still remember wrapping his hands in that hair, the cocoa-butter scent of it, the feel of her soft skin. The sight of her shyly taking off her sweater in the barn loft, the lacy white bra driving him mad with desire for her. If he could go back in time seven years ago, he’d have handled that night differently, wouldn’t have let things have gone that far, no matter how badly he’d wanted things to have gone much, much further. But not with Annabel Hurley. Then again, if he could go back, there’d be no Lucy. That wasn’t anything he wanted to imagine.

“Will you learn to cook ice cream?” Lucy asked, slipping Daisy another bite of chicken. Lucy’s favorite thing on earth—besides a tree to climb—was a hot-fudge sundae.

“I will,” he said, a chill snaking up his spine as he remembered his last conversation with Raina Dunkin, Lucy’s grandmother—and Lorna’s mother.

No young child should be having a hot fudge sundae at eleven o’clock in the morning! Raina had screeched at him in her high-pitched Texas drawl two days ago. She’d barged in for “an impromptu visit to check on my grandchild,” in her trademark silk pantsuit and heels, and didn’t even say hello to Lucy before asking Lucy to hand over the bowl of ice cream and then dumping it in the sink.

Furious, West had told Lucy as calmly as he could to go play in her room while he talked to Nana. The moment the girl left the room, Raina had stabbed her manicured finger at him and said, You listen to me, West. You’d better start taking proper care of your daughter or Landon and I will have no choice but to petition for custody. We’ve given you plenty of time to adjust to being a single father. But it’s constant hot dogs and candy. And now it’s ice cream before lunch, which I have no doubt will be a fast-food burger. And her hair. God, West. Brush the girl’s hair. Put it in a ponytail. And throw out those damn raggedy green pants already!

How he’d held his temper was beyond him. First of all, it’s Saturday, he’d snapped. She can have messy hair if she wants and wear her favorite pants. Second of all, I’m doing the best I can, he’d added, anger—and shame—burning in his gut.

Your best isn’t good enough, now, is it? she said. And if you’d watch her more closely, she wouldn’t have scrapes and marks all over her legs like some wild boy.

West loved to watch his daughter race around the yard and the playground structure after Daisy, following the beagle down the slide. Yeah, Lucy landed badly sometimes, and there were scrapes and cuts and bruises. When they played hide-and-seek, he always knew he’d find her hiding in the crab apple tree, so high up that sometimes it scared him. But Lucy was happy and loved and cared for. He had the love part of fatherhood down pat; it was the rest he wasn’t great at. He mangled meals and resorted to fast food or Hurley’s too many times. And he had trouble with the knots in Lucy’s hair, so he let the shoulder-length ringlets do their own thing, resulting in weird tufts that his sitter would fix if she could. Miss Letty was a great sitter, kind and patient, and lived just five minutes down the road at the next ranch, but she’d said she’d never been much of a cook and West had to leave meals for her to heat up for Lucy.

My disappointment of a daughter couldn’t even beat an egg, Raina had continued, but at least she had Lucy looking presentable in public. Get your act together, Weston Montgomery, or I will see you in court. She’d turned and stalked to the front door.

So much for his temper. Don’t you ever refer to Lucy’s mother as a disappointment again, he’d said through gritted teeth at Raina’s back, his anger reaching the boiling point.

His and Lorna’s marriage hadn’t been good, and Lorna had told him she was leaving permanently—and leaving Lucy behind—just a day before the car accident that had taken her life. But preserving a good memory of Lorna for his daughter was important to West, and no one, especially not Raina’s mother, who had a history of slinging cruelty, would disparage his child’s mother.

Raina had rolled her eyes and stormed out and West had needed to do something physical to get his anger out, so he’d taken Lucy over to Miss Letty’s for an hour and then ridden fence along his vast property, mending and hammering his frustration out.

West vs. Parents. Story of his life. Lorna’s wealthy, powerful parents had never liked him. Not only had his family been from the wrong side of the tracks in Blue Gulch, but he was the Montgomery family’s black sheep. He and his own parents had never gotten along well; they’d lost their golden boy and had been left with the troublemaker when West was nineteen. Back then, West could imagine his father wishing it had been West who’d been killed overseas in Afghanistan, and his mother responding: As if West had it in him to fight for his country in the first place.

They’d never said that, but they might as well have. And before he could even try to show them who he was, they’d hightailed it out of Blue Gulch to start fresh in Austin, where Garrett had always wanted to live; a way to honor him, West figured. And to get away from West and his pregnant girlfriend and the gossip in town. But just a few months in, a fire had broken out from faulty wiring, and West had buried his parents, everything in him numb. Lorna and the Dunkins hadn’t had much patience for him and his grief, which had turned him even more inward.

His relationship with the Dunkins hadn’t improved much over the years either; he’d gotten their “little girl” pregnant and stolen her dreams, they’d said, then trapped her on a ranch in a life she never wanted ten miles from town, where they lived in a huge Colonial.

He couldn’t lose Lucy—and not to the Dunkins. He’d do whatever he had to keep her. Which meant learning to cook. He’d tried hiring a housekeeper after Lorna’s death, but one woman had harshly scolded Lucy for leaving her toys out in the playroom and made elaborate meals that West had told her neither he nor Lucy wanted to eat, such as beef bourguignon. The next housekeeper forgot Lucy was allergic to soy and made her some inedible vegetable-fruit smoothie with soy milk, which landed Lucy in the emergency room with severe stomach pains and a strained visit from the Dunkins about his carelessness.

He would learn to cook.

Taking a class from a Hurley would kill two birds too. Everyone in town, including the Dunkins, liked Gram Hurley, respected her, which was saying something. Essie Hurley had never been wealthy, but she was wise and had been something of a grandmother to most everyone in Blue Gulch in some way or another. Essie had once saved Raina Dunkin from public embarrassment; Lorna had told West all about it when they first got married. Raina would likely back off from threatening to sue for custody once they found out Essie’s granddaughter, with her fancy Dallas culinary school background, was giving him cooking lessons. If they didn’t, well, West had taken over his parents’ small cattle ranch and had turned it into a very prosperous operation; he had the money to hire a good lawyer, but the toll it would take on West, the distraction from work and from Lucy, would just about kill him.

He’d learn to cook. He’d figure out how to get the knots out of Lucy’s hair, even if the detangler the clerk in Walgreens told him about was no match for the thick curls.

What he wouldn’t do was let himself fall for Annabel—again. He was done with romance, done with relationships, done with disappointing people. And besides, things with Annabel just cut too deep in too many ways. Where she was concerned, there was too much he wanted to forget.

Anyway, after the way he’d treated Annabel seven years ago, he was surprised she hadn’t hit him over the head with that wooden spoon she’d been gripping yesterday.

West heard Miss Letty’s car arrive and took Lucy out to meet her, the fresh April air a relief from the smell of rubbery chicken.

Lucy bounded over to her sitter, a tall woman in her early fifties with a long gray braid, jeans and sneakers for Lucy’s outdoor play, and a warm smile. “Miss Letty, come play house with Daisy. I’m the mother and Daisy is the daughter and you’ll be the grandmother.” Lucy turned to Daisy, who eyed her skeptically. “Okay, Daisy, I said only one treat after lunch.”

Miss Letty smiled and followed after Lucy, who pulled her by the hand. “You go ahead,” Letty said to West.

He hugged and kissed Lucy goodbye, told Letty he’d pay her extra if she’d clean up the dinner dishes, which got him a wink and a sure thing, and then got in his pickup. Time to learn how not to screw up fried eggs.

Chapter Two

Yesterday, when Gram was reminding Annabel of how the restaurant worked, Essie Hurley had made clear that Mondays were a real day off—no prep, no cleaning, no ordering supplies. In fact, family who lived in the Victorian were only allowed in the kitchen on Mondays to cook simple meals for themselves. So at five-thirty, Annabel was surprised to come down the back stairs into the kitchen and find her younger sister, Clementine, kneeling in front of the sink and meticulously cleaning the little red rooster cabinet knobs. Twenty-four-year-old Clementine wore gray yoga pants and a long pale pink T-shirt, her feet in orange flip-flops and her long dark hair in a high ponytail.

“Clem?” Annabel said, watching her sister dip a rag into a small bucket of cleaning solution and go over the rooster’s tiny tail.

Clementine turned around and shot Annabel a tight smile. “I forgot to clean these last night,” she said, moving on to the next cabinet knob. “Aren’t they cute? Georgia sent them from Houston a few months ago.” She smiled again and returned to work, scrubbing at the rooster’s crown.

Something was wrong. Annabel had been gone for seven years, and she and Clementine had never been as close as Annabel had hoped, even when they’d lived under one roof, but she knew when Clementine was holding back. Maybe Clem was angry at her for staying away so long. For leaving the restaurant and Gram on her shoulders all these years. It was hard to tell with Clem. Clem was a “fine, everything’s fine” kind of person, the sort who’d tell you “no worries!” with a bright smile and then go off alone to cry over something dreadful that had just happened to her, like when her birth mother had stood her up for their twice-a-year reunions, only to text an hour later to say something had come up. Annabel’s parents had adopted Clementine when she was eight from a bad foster-care situation, and though Clem’s birth mother was cagey and distant, Clementine had worked hard, often fruitlessly, to keep up some kind of relationship with the woman.

If Clem was cleaning cabinet pulls—and on a Monday—something had happened.

“Is everything okay with you?” Annabel asked.

“I’m fine. Just worried about Gram.” She glanced back at Annabel. “I’m fine, really.”

Annabel wished her sister would open to her. But Annabel knew she couldn’t rush things. This morning she and Clementine had taken Gram to an appointment at the county hospital; three hours later, after testing and poking, they were sent home, Gram told to rest as much as possible until the test results came in. Clementine had been quiet on the ride to the hospital, quiet there, quiet on the way back.

Now she glanced at the big yellow clock on the wall above the stove. “I promised Mae Tucker I’d babysit the triplets tonight. See you around midnight.” With that, Clementine bolted up, dumped out the bucket and stored it away, then dashed up the back stairs.

It’ll take time to rebuild your relationship with Clem, Gram had said during lunch earlier. Don’t give up on her.

Annabel wouldn’t. Ever. She’d never give up on family.

And she’d never give up on Hurley’s Homestyle Kitchen either. Since the restaurant wasn’t doing well, it was up to Annabel to keep the kitchen going. Folks counted on Hurley’s to be open Tuesday through Sundays for lunch and dinner, and Annabel didn’t want to let her Gram down.

West Montgomery wants to learn how to cook, does he? Gram had said that afternoon, taking a nibble of the potato chowder Annabel had made her. Teach him everything I taught you, Essie had added. The tips and secrets. The things you can’t learn by a recipe alone. I know he hurt you, Annabel. But I’ve seen him around town with that little girl of his and it would melt the heart of Constance Brichard. Constance Brichard was the grumpiest person in town, an elderly widow who was always threatening to sic her mean little Chihuahua on kids for making too much noise at the bus stop across the street from her house.

Which made things worse for Annabel. If West could get Constance Brichard to crack a smile, what would he do to her?

Annabel put on her favorite yellow apron and glanced at the clock—ten minutes till West walked through the door, daughter-sized handprint apron on.

She pulled the list she’d made from her jeans pocket. Breakfasts: cheese omelet, scrambled eggs, quiche Lorraine, French toast. Bacon. Biscuits with apple butter. Tonight’s cooking lesson would be about breakfast. Annabel was about to open the walk-in refrigerator for the eggs and milk and butter, then realized if West was paying her a thousand dollars to learn how to make an omelet and biscuits, he could probably use a tutorial about the ingredients themselves, what to buy, how to store them.

A rap sounded at the back door and Annabel glanced out the window. There he was, right on time. She held up a hand and went to the door, taking a deep breath before she opened it.

“Got my apron,” he said, clutching it in one hand.

She smiled and held the door open for him, willing herself not to stare at him, not to look too closely at his handsome face or the way his broad shoulders filled the doorway. He wore a navy blue T-shirt and low-slung jeans, a brown belt with a bronc buckle. He’d filled out from the nineteen-year-old boy she’d known. He was tall then, but now he was muscular from years of ranch work. “Come on in.”

He hung his hat on a peg by the door, then stood at the huge center island.

Speak, Annabel. She cleared her throat. “Since you said you want to learn the basics, I thought we’d start with breakfast—scrambled eggs, omelets, French toast, bacon.”

“Lucy loves scrambled eggs and French toast, and I love bacon, so all that sounds great.”

“So Lucy is six?” she asked. Six. It just occurred to her that in all this time, all these years, of course he hadn’t given Annabel two thoughts. She’d been so focused on how he’d dropped her like a hot biscuit for sexy Lorna when she should have realized it had been fatherhood that wiped his memory of all that had come before. One hour in the hayloft in his parents’ barn where they’d groped and kissed? How could that even register amid the birth of a baby, the first cold, the first steps, the first day of school? How could it register against daily life with sweet miracles in the form of a toothless smile or a child’s pride at learning to read?

She’d been a dope to wonder these past seven years if he’d thought about her. Of course he hadn’t.

But that hadn’t stopped her from tossing and turning for hours last night, remembering how it had felt to be in his arms, to be kissed so passionately by him. At around three in the morning, she’d made herself promise she wouldn’t be sucked back in by his face, by his incredible body, by his...story. He had a story seven years ago. She’d responded and had her heart broken and her life set on a path she hadn’t expected. She’d left her home, left her gram and her younger sister and had lived in a kind of emptiness, of going through the motions.

He had a story now. She might not be able to stop herself from responding; he was standing in her kitchen, after all, awaiting her help. But she would respond only so much, only so far. She wouldn’t let him get to her, wouldn’t let him affect her, wouldn’t let him in.

West nodded and slipped on his apron. “I can’t believe it, but yeah, she’s six. She’s in first grade and something of a math whiz.”

“That’s something I’ll never be,” Annabel said. “Although I know my way around a measuring cup and my ounces and quarts and gallons.” She eyed the clock. One minute after six. For a thousand dollars, he was expecting results, not chitchat. “So, I also thought I’d walk you through the ingredients. We’re going to start with scrambled eggs.” She went over to the counter and picked up a stack of papers she’d inserted into a folder. “I made you a folder of recipes,” she said, handing it to him. “Find the one for scrambled eggs and bacon and tell me what we need.”

He opened the folder and scanned it. “Got it.” He held out a sheet and put the folder back on the counter. “Eggs, milk, butter, bacon.”

She explained how the bacon would take longer to fry than the eggs needed to cook, so they should start with the bacon. She went over the different kinds of bacon to buy, how folks at Hurley’s liked thick-cut the best, how long to keep it, how to store it, and he jotted down notes on the recipe, listening intently to everything she said. She showed him different kinds of pans, from sauté to cast iron. A few minutes later he had single-file bacon beginning to sizzle in the pan, tongs at the ready.

“While that’s cooking, let’s get the eggs ready.” She told him how many eggs to use for him and his daughter, how to crack them so the shells wouldn’t land in the bowl, how to beat the eggs and for how long, how some people like to add a little milk and he could try it both ways, with or without, but she liked it with. A little salt and pepper and he was ready to pour the beaten eggs in the fry pan on the next burner.

The smell of frying bacon made her mouth water and she realized she hadn’t eaten much today. By the time he was slowly stirring the eggs in the pan, she was ravenous. She had him turn the heat off the eggs and drain the bacon on paper towels, then transfer everything to two plates. After instructing him to grab a small handful of cherries from the basket on the counter and add it to the plate, they sat down at the round table by the window.

“Depending on how hungry you are, you can add toast or biscuits too,” she said. “Well, dig in.”

He glanced at his plate, then forked a bite of eggs into his mouth. “I made this? It’s pretty good.” He leaned back as though relieved. She wanted to ask again why he was paying a thousand dollars to learn to make a few basics, but as she stole a glance at him while he popped a cherry into his mouth, that mouth she’d fantasized about for at least three years of high school before he’d ever kissed her, she could see the hard set of his jaw, something inscrutable in his eyes. He didn’t want questions, didn’t want to talk. He wanted to learn to cook and was paying good money for it.

Okay, then.

She dragged her gaze off him and took a bite of eggs, then tasted a piece of bacon. “It’s better than good. It’s absolutely delicious.” Nerves made her ramble on about how he could get the best tasting eggs from the farm stands in town, rather than from the supermarket. He did a lot of nodding in response and said maybe he’d get some chickens of his own, that his daughter would love that.

Aware that their knees were awfully close and had brushed together more than once, Annabel couldn’t take it and got up with the excuse that she could use some coffee.

“Ditto,” he said. “Guess we were both hungry,” he added, glancing at their empty plates. “I imagine you have your hands full, cooking for the restaurant and caring for your grandmother. I appreciate you taking me on.”

As a student only.

“Well, we really need the money,” she said pointedly, and he glanced at her. Don’t follow up that comment, don’t qualify, just move on to French toast. He doesn’t need to know your business, that he hurt you so badly you wouldn’t help him if you didn’t have to. Which would be a lie. Of course she’d help him. But he didn’t need to know Gram’s business, how much trouble the restaurant was in. If only Georgia would call back. Talk about a math whiz. Georgia Hurley ran a company in Houston. She’d know how to get Hurley’s back in the black.

A half hour later, on their second cup of coffee, they sat at the same spot, trying the French toast they’d made, the first bite with a sprinkle of cinnamon.

“Delicious,” he said. “I wish I wasn’t so full from all that bacon I ate.”

She laughed. “Me too. But try a piece with cinnamon and a sprinkle of confectioners’ sugar.”

“Lucy will love this,” he said, swiping a bite in some maple syrup—which she quickly explained was the real thing and worth every penny.

They moved on to a western omelet, with West slicing and dicing vegetables—mushroom, green and red peppers and onions. He stood beside her at the island, slicing the mushrooms a bit too thick.

“Thinner,” she said, moving his hand on the knife a bit to the left. “The mushrooms will sauté quicker and won’t be too chunky in the omelet.”

He glanced at her hand on his, and pulled away slightly. “Got it,” he said.

Annabel, you fool, she chastised herself, feeling like a total idiot. Hadn’t Gram told her he had women throwing themselves at him since his wife had died? A gorgeous widower with a sweet little girl and a prosperous ranch brought out all kinds, Gram had said. Now he probably thought she was flirting. Grrr. Her cheeks flamed with embarrassment. Seven years in Dallas might have changed Annabel from that scrawny, frizzy-haired girl into a woman who knew her way around a little makeup and a blow dryer, but she was a jeans and T-shirt kind of gal and always would be and wore her long auburn hair in a low ponytail, tool of the trade. West wasn’t really attracted to her seven years ago, and with a glamorous wife like Lorna, who’d worn push-up bras and high heels to the supermarket at ten in the morning, he wouldn’t be attracted to her now. Especially now, when she smelled like bacon grease and cinnamon. Real sexy.

She just had a “duh” moment. His sudden interest in cooking was likely tied to his wife’s recent passing. For the past year, he’d probably been responsible for feeding his daughter and maybe he’d burned a few breakfasts or bungled some dinners.

She moved to the other side of the counter. “You can slide those mushrooms and the onions in the pan,” she said, showing him how to gently sauté them with a wooden spoon.

He nodded and glanced out the window as if all he really wanted to do was get out of here.

Unnerved and unsure what to do, what to say, Annabel thought about launching into a discussion of how to properly store vegetables, but she could see something was wrong, that she’d crossed a line. For touching him? Maybe she should remind him that he’d crossed a line, that he’d touched her—ran his hands over her bra, kissed a line down her stomach to the waistband of her jeans. And then dumped her without a damned word the next day.

It doesn’t matter, she reminded herself, a hollow feeling opening in her stomach. It was a long time ago. A lifetime ago for him. You’re his cooking teacher, Annabel. That’s it.

“The Dunkins were in for dinner last night,” she said to change the subject—the one in her head anyway.

He stirred the mushrooms, peppers and onions. And didn’t respond. Interesting.

Raina and Landon Dunkin, Lucy’s maternal grandparents, had left Clementine a huge tip too. Raina, a former Miss Texas contestant, had special ordered a mixed green salad, dressing on the side, with grilled chicken breast and just a bit of Hurley’s famed Creole sauce. Landon, a nice enough but reserved man who’d done very well for himself in real estate, had the barbecue crawfish po’boy special, with its side of slaw and sweet potato fries. When Annabel had peered through the little round window on the kitchen door to see how busy the dining room was, she saw the Dunkins lingering over cappuccino, deep in quiet conversation.

“The restaurant sign could use some fresh paint,” West suddenly said, gesturing out the window where the Hurley’s Homestyle Kitchen sign, hanging from a post by the white picket fence, clearly needed some sprucing up. Hmm. Guess West wasn’t interested in chatting about the Dunkins. Just bored by the small talk? She wasn’t sure. “And the walkway needs work. There are a couple of loose stones. It’s okay now, but in a few weeks they’ll come loose enough that someone could trip and sue you for everything.”

Annabel closed her eyes, a swirl of panic shooting up her spine. There was no money. Gram admitted yesterday that the restaurant was losing money every day. There was little in the account for repairs. With everyone knowing Essie was out of commission, Hurley’s just wasn’t the same. Clementine had suggested holding a fundraiser; after all, didn’t everyone love Hurley’s? The place was a community treasure. But Gram had shot down that idea and had called it charity. You’re just as good a cook as I am, better probably, Gram had said this afternoon as she finished her potato chowder. There’s something special in your cooking. Folks just have to have the chance to know that. Give it time.

“I’ll take care of it,” Annabel said to West, then instructed him to turn the heat off the vegetables. “We have some paint in the basement, I think. And I can probably watch a YouTube video on re-whatevering the stones on the path.” She made a mental note to check on the paint and look up “whatevering” stones.

West eyed her, took a sip of his coffee and said, “It’ll take me ten minutes to do both myself. I’ll take care of it.” She watched him transfer the vegetables onto the cheese she’d had him sprinkle on the eggs, then showed him to carefully flip half the omelet over.

She wanted to tell him to forget about it, but she wasn’t above accepting help when she really needed it. “I’d appreciate that, West. Thanks.”

“Least I can do,” he said, plating the omelet. He cut it in two, then slid half onto another plate, added another handful of cherries and brought both plates to the table. He was getting pretty good at this. “Really. You have no idea.”

So tell me, she wanted to shout.

They sat down at the table and he took a couple of bites of the omelet. “This is delicious,” he said. “I really hope I can do this myself when you’re not standing beside me. You’re a good teacher, Annabel.” He took a long slug of his coffee, finishing it, then got up. “How’s tomorrow after the restaurant closes for the lunch lesson? Could you come to the ranch? My daughter will be spending the night at her grandparents’ house, so I’ll have extra time and I like the idea of learning to cook on-site. But if it’s too late, I can come here in the morning.”

Alone with him at his house. At night. She cleared her throat. “Tomorrow after closing will be fine,” she said. “I’ll be over by nine-thirty. We close at nine, but I’ll need to help clean up.”

He nodded, took his Stetson off the coat hook by the door and left, twenty different thoughts scrambling around Annabel’s head. But the one that stood out was about how she’d feel being over at the Montgomery Ranch. For the second time.

* * *

Tuesday afternoon, just an hour after Lucy had come racing off the school bus, waving her “sight words” quiz with 100% and a smiley face at the top, West rushed Lucy to Doc McTuft’s office, cursing himself with what was left of his breath. They’d been in the backyard, Lucy on the low sturdy branch of her favorite climbing tree, calling out words and spelling them, West nailing on the piece of wood for the roof of the new dollhouse he promised to make for her. One minute Lucy had been saying, “Daddy, look how high I am—am, A M!”—and she’d been so high that he called himself an idiot for not watching more closely—and the next, she let out a high-pitched yelp and was on the ground.

Doc McTufts had assured him that Lucy was fine, no broken bones, and that the doc herself had fallen out of plenty of trees as a kid and lived to tell the tale to worried parents all over town. But of course, as they were settling up at the reception desk, who was giving him the stink eye but the Dunkins’ next-door neighbor, sitting with pursed lips next to her daughter and grandbaby. As West drove home, Lucy in her car seat in the back with her superhero coloring book, he figured the woman had already called Raina to let her know her poor granddaughter had almost been injured and had left the doc’s office with a big bandage over a nasty scrape.

Lucy was all right. That was what mattered. But he would keep a better eye on her when she was climbing.

“Daddy, can we have ice cream for dinner?” Lucy asked.

“How about your second favorite for dinner and ice cream for dessert?” he asked, smiling at her in the rearview mirror.

“French toast with strawberries for the mouth and blueberries for the eyes?”

“Sounds good to me,” he said, feeling pretty confident about his French toast after yesterday’s cooking lesson. Plus, hadn’t Annabel said that she’d often eaten breakfast for dinner in Dallas when she was feeling low or missed her family? Comfort food. The very reason he ate at Hurley’s so often.

He’d lain awake for hours last night, thinking about the cooking lesson. Annabel was so beautiful with that silky dark red hair caught in the ponytail, her pale, porcelainlike skin free of makeup, her long, lush body in low-slung jeans rolled up at the ankles and a loose white button down shirt tucked in. Her uniform, she’d called it. He called it sexy. She was like summertime, like sunshine, and her nearness, the scent of her, the sight of the swell of her breasts against the cotton shirt, the curve of her hip...it had been all he could do not to grab her against the wall and kiss her, memories of their time in the barn hitting him hard, as he’d shaken confectioners’ sugar on French toast, slid peppers around in the pan.

And then she’d touched him, her soft hand, her skin electrifying his with the most casual of gestures, moving his hand over on the knife. Her touch had sent a shock through him and brought him back to the barn to forty-five minutes when he thought he’d found his future, when he thought everything made sense.

Until it didn’t.

Back then West had been going nowhere fast. Annabel would have joined him there if he’d let something happen between them. After he and Annabel had almost gone too far in the barn, he forced himself to stop for her sake and said he’d better get back to the house. She’d gotten a funny look on her face, and he’d wanted to ask her if she was okay, to get a handle on why she seemed upset, but she seemed in a hurry to get away. From him. Maybe she’d just meant to pay her condolences, nice enough to bring him his favorite chili con carne that he always ordered to go after school, and he’d practically ripped her clothes off. Jerk. Maybe she was just being nice and he’d taken things too far, like always.

So then they’d gone back to the house so she could say goodbye to his parents, but his parents were standing outside, his mother crying, his father’s arm over her shoulder, and they’d seen West and Annabel come out of the barn. He held back a bit and it was too late to tell Annabel she had a bit of hay in her hair. He saw his mother stare at the hay, then glance at him, disapproval turning her grief-stricken eyes cold. West doing the wrong thing again—fooling around with a girl in the barn while friends and neighbors came to pay their respects. That wasn’t how it was, but it was how it had looked to his parents. West was sure of it.

Annabel had told his parents how sorry she was for their loss, glanced at West with such sorrow, then she’d gotten on her bike and raced away. Later that night, after the last of the relatives had left, West had come downstairs for a cold drink when he overheard his mother crying again and his father comforting her. The sound of his mother crying was like a slam in his gut, and West had stood there, frozen, his head hung, wishing he could go in and say the right thing, but he’d known, he’d always known, that he wasn’t “living up to their expectations” and he’d be no comfort, that the wrong Montgomery brother was gone. Then he’d heard his mother say Annabel’s name and he strained to hear.

Did you see West and Annabel come out of the barn together? his mother was saying. She had hay in her hair. Hopefully her grandmother will have the sense to tell Annabel to stay away from West. I hear she has a scholarship to culinary school in Dallas. I’d hate for her to give up her future.

West had gone rigid. He’d waited for his father’s response, for some kind of defense, but his dad had said, She won’t give that up to stay in Blue Gulch.

Plenty of girls give up their dreams for handsome boys they’re in love with, his mother had said. Annabel has her whole life ahead of her, and West will be here, doing what? Odd jobs. New girlfriend every weekend. I love West, but he’s...who he is.

Who he is... His heart in his throat, he’d crept back upstairs, lying awake for a long, long time, tears streaming down his face. He’d lost his brother. His parents thought he was nothing. And now he had to lose Annabel—to save her...from himself. His mother was right. Annabel was a good girl, straight A’s, helped out her grandmother by working in the family restaurant every day after school as a cook’s assistant and sometimes as a waitress when someone called in sick. And West was the troublemaker in the black leather jacket, calls to his parents from the principal about fights he got into with jerk jocks who thought they could say anything they wanted about anyone. And yeah, since barely graduating, he worked for room and board at a big spread on the outskirts of town, thinking he might want to be a rancher, breed cattle, raise horses. His dad was a mechanic who’d tried his hand at starting a small ranch on their property and hadn’t done well, so his father had figured West would fail at that life too. But West wasn’t like Garrett, who’d joined the military and planned to become a police officer, a trajectory his parents could be proud of.

Back then he’d lain awake for hours, vowing to avoid Annabel Hurley so that he wouldn’t screw up her life. In the barn, she’d taken off her sweater, let him touch her breasts in the lacy white bra, and kissed him deeper and deeper, driving him wild until he’d stopped things, afraid to go too far and take advantage of the situation.

So yeah, she liked him. That had been clear. Liked him enough to give up her scholarship and Dallas? Maybe. So he’d made the decision to avoid her from that moment on, let her go have her great life with a better guy than him.

And when Lorna Dunkin had told him the next day that she knew exactly how to make him forget his grief for a little while, looking him up and down and whispering in his ear, he took her to the flat-topped boulder where he often saw Annabel picking herbs for her grandmother, and he let Lorna help him forget everything—losing his brother, his parents’ disappointment in him, his disappointment in himself and giving up Annabel for her own damned good. At some point, he’d heard the crack of a twig and he knew it was her, knew that she saw, and the footsteps running away let him know he’d achieved his goal.

Some damned victory.

Except about six weeks later, Lorna had shown him a white stick that looked like a thermometer with a pink plus sign in a tiny window and said she wanted a big wedding.

Lucy had made everything he’d given up worth it. But those times when he’d be stacking hay or training a horse, he’d think of Annabel’s beautiful face, those round dark brown eyes, full of trust, of feeling, and he’d feel like the scum of the earth. He’d hurt her, no doubt. But hadn’t she gone off to Dallas to the fancy cooking school? Hadn’t he stepped out of her way? He’d heard she had a condo in a swanky apartment building near Reunion Tower. That she was a chef at a Michelin-starred American fusion restaurant, whatever that meant. She probably had a serious boyfriend in a fancy suit.

With Lucy lying on her stomach on the living room rug with her coloring book, Daisy half snoozing nearby, West opened the folder of recipes Annabel had given him. Breakfast was written in red marker on the tab in her neat script. He found the one for French toast, and set to work, cracking eggs, melting butter in the pan, getting out the bread. Soon enough he had four slices of French toast cooking, eyeholes cut out for blueberries and a mouth cut out for strawberry slices for Lucy’s portion. Smelled pretty darned good too.

He thought about all those women coming by, in the first couple of months after Lorna died, with casseroles and offers to cook for him. There’d been innuendo and flat-out invitations. More than a few times he’d taken up those invitations, needing to forget, to be taken out of himself. And more than a few times he’d failed Lucy. One time he’d been in a woman’s bed when he was supposed to pick up Lucy early from school for a dentist appointment, but the woman had made him forget himself so well he forgot his own daughter. Another time Lucy had been calling him over and over on the phone from Lorna’s parents’ house, where she was sleeping over, to tell him she lost a tooth, her first, but he’d shut the ringer so no one could interrupt him while a stranger with big breasts was naked beside him.

The next morning, the look of absolute disdain and disappointment on Raina Dunkin’s face had said it all. A father, especially a widowed father, needs to be reachable at all times, West, she’d practically spit at him. But it was the look on Lucy’s face, with one of her bottom front teeth gone, the where were you, Daddy? I tried to call you like one million times that had made him vow that was it. No more women. No more whiskey. No more hiding from his life. He’d focus on his daughter.

So beautiful women with long red hair and dark brown eyes, who made him want to rip off their loose jeans and white button-down shirts, women like Annabel Hurley, just couldn’t go around casually touching his hand while slicing mushrooms.

“Daddy, I think Daisy ate my silver crayon,” Lucy called from the living room. “She’s choking!”

West rushed into the living room, where Daisy was sputtering a bit, trying to get something out of her mouth and pushing on her teeth with her paw.

“Daddy, is Daisy okay?” Lucy asked, hazel eyes worried.

“Well, let’s see if we can help her,” he said, kneeling beside Daisy and opening the beagle’s mouth, where half a crayon was wedged in her back teeth. “Daisy, that couldn’t possibly have tasted good,” he said, shaking his head and trying to pop up the flattened, bitten crayon. Finally out it came. As the smell of something burning wafted into the living room, Daisy stood up and spit out the other half of the crayon.

Damn it, the French toast! It would be burned to a crisp by now.

The doorbell rang just as West was rushing back into the kitchen, so he quickly shut off the burner, then noticed he’d left the bag of bread too close to the burner; part of it started to cinder. He threw that in the sink and stood there for a moment, hands braced on the counter, wishing his headache away.

“Daddy, the doorbell rang again,” Lucy called out just as the smoke alarm started blaring.

“Lucy, it’s Nana and Pop-Pop,” he heard Raina’s shrill voice call out. “Come open the door, sweetheart.”

Oh, hell.

He quickly tried to fan the smoke from the alarm with a magazine, then hurried into the living room, where Raina and Landon glared at him.

“What is that burning smell?” Raina said, barreling in and heading for the kitchen. West could hear her shoving up the kitchen window, and in a few moments, the alarm stopped its beeping. Raina was back in the living room in seconds, holding the charred bag of bread. “Blackened bread is in a pan on the stove. This burned bag was in the sink, and the kitchen is all smoky, which can seriously hurt developing lungs. God, West.”

“We had a mergency with Daisy because she ate my crayon,” Lucy said, holding up the flattened sliver for her nana.

“Even the dog isn’t safe in this house,” Landon said, shaking his silver-gray head at West as he took the crayon from Lucy. “I’ll make sure this ends up in the garbage so there isn’t another ‘mergency.’”

“I heard Lucy was at the doctor today,” Raina said as she went over to Lucy to examine her leg. She peeled back the bandage and added her own head shake at the nasty cut. He watched Raina’s gaze take in Lucy’s torn purple leggings, the scrape on her arm, the knot clumping together a cluster of ringlets on the left side of her head, the dirt smudge on her cheek.

“I fell out of the tree today,” Lucy said proudly, sticking out her injured leg.

“Oh, I can see that,” Raina said, shooting a death stare at West. “Lucy, can you go play in your room?” she added through gritted teeth. “Grandpa and I need to talk to your father.”

When Lucy left, Raina lowered her voice. “You leave me no choice, West. We’ve given you a year to get your act together. But you’re unfit to parent Lucy alone. Landon and I will be filing for custody. This was the final straw.” She held up a hand. “Don’t bother to defend yourself,” she said, and then they swept out.

West dropped down on the sofa, his head in his hands. No one was taking his daughter away from him. But how would he fight the Dunkins when a lot of circumstantial evidence said he wasn’t exactly father of the year?

“Daddy, is the French toast ready? I’m starving,” Lucy said as she burst out of her room. “Hey, where’s Nana and Pop-Pop?” she asked, looking around.

Keep it together for Lucy, he ordered himself. The Dunkins aren’t taking your girl away. They can’t. He’d figure it out, he’d fight them, he’d...do whatever he had to do.

He sucked in a breath and let it out. “They had to get home. You know what, Lucy? Even Daisy wouldn’t eat the burned French toast. How about dinner at Hurley’s, just the two of us? Go wash your hands, sweetcakes.”

As Lucy grinned and ran to wash up, West felt a slow snake of cold fear slither up his spine. Could the Dunkins prove he was unfit? He was a better father now than he was in the terrible first month after Lorna’s death, when Lucy didn’t quite understand where her mother was, but had two sets of doting grandparents. He’d let them do what he should have done—been there for his daughter. Then his parents moved away...and he’d lost them too—permanently. Instead of focusing on being a good dad to Lucy, he’d drank too much and spent too many nights with women, trying to make himself forget who and what he was. A man very much alone who had no idea how to be a good father.

He would not lose his daughter. No matter what he had to do.

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