This Texas cowboy has come home to Copper Ridge to put down roots...but will he risk his heart again?

Asked where he’d be at this point in life, Cain Donnelly would have said anywhere but Copper Ridge, Oregon, living with his estranged brothers. But since his wife abandoned them, both he and his daughter, Violet, are in need of a fresh start, so he’s back to claim his share of the family ranch. Local baker Alison Davis is a delicious temptation, but she’s also his daughter’s mentor and new boss. That makes her off-limits...until she offers a no-strings deal that no red-blooded cowboy could resist.

Alison has worked tirelessly to rebuild her life, and she won’t jeopardize her hard-won independence. Especially if it also complicates Cain’s relationship with Violet. But with Cain offering a love she never thought was possible, Alison has to find the courage to let her past go...or watch her future ride away for good.

Praise for New York Times bestselling author Maisey Yates

“Fans of Robyn Carr and RaeAnne Thayne will enjoy [Yates’s] small-town romance.”

—Booklist on Part Time Cowboy

“Passionate, energetic and jam-packed with personality.”

—USATODAY.com’s Happy Ever After blog on Part Time Cowboy

“Yates writes a story with emotional depth, intense heartache and love that is hard fought for and eventually won in the second Copper Ridge installment.... This is a book readers will be telling their friends about.”

—RT Book Reviews on Brokedown Cowboy

“Wraps up nicely, leaving readers with a desire to read more about the feisty duo.”

—Publishers Weekly on Bad News Cowboy

“The setting is vivid, the secondary characters charming, and the plot has depth and interesting twists. But it is the hero and heroine who truly drive this story.”

—BookPage on Bad News Cowboy

“Yates’s thrilling seventh Copper Ridge contemporary proves that friendship can evolve into scintillating romance.... This is a surefire winner not to be missed.”

—Publishers Weekly on Slow Burn Cowboy (starred review)

Down Home Cowboy

Maisey Yates

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Praise

Title Page

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

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

EPILOGUE

Extract1

Extract2

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

CAIN DONNELLY WAS sick to death of being alone.

Or, more specifically, he was sick and tired of going to bed alone. It had been a long time since he’d touched a woman.

Four years.

Four years since Kathleen had walked out on him and Violet. And in that time, he had been consumed with trying to salvage what he could of his daughter’s childhood. With trying to make a new life for them, with trying to build something that belonged to the two of them, and didn’t have his ex-wife’s ghost lingering in the shadows.

That was why they had come to Copper Ridge, Oregon, from Texas just a month earlier. The transition had been...rocky so far.

He lifted his beer bottle to his lips and scanned the room. He didn’t know how he had allowed his younger half brothers to talk him into going out. He had to admit that his daughter made a pretty convenient excuse for his hermitage. Of course, Violet was sixteen now, and she could stay alone for a while.

Though, if his brother Finn and Finn’s new girlfriend, Lane, weren’t at home, he probably would have used the excuse of them being in a new place to avoid going out. Out in the middle of nowhere like the Laughing Irish Ranch was, Violet was likely to get scared. Or some other lie.

But Lane and Finn were at home, and Cain had found himself fresh out of excuses. So he was sitting in the local bar, Ace’s or something. Which was the name of the guy who owned it, he’d been told.

The place was a strange collision of surf and turf. There were fishing nets, half a boat hung up on the wall and other little pieces of evidence that Copper Ridge was a coastal town before it was anything else. But there were also Western touches that could rival any honky-tonk he had been to in Dallas.

Including a mechanical bull. Which he had to admit was providing a decent amount of entertainment.

“Are you going to watch that thing all night?”

Cain turned to look at his brother Alex, who had been eyeing a pack of blonde chicks in the corner, and now looked at Cain just long enough to give him a baleful stare.

They were too...young. All those girls, standing in the corner and laughing, scanning the room and trying to see if they could catch the eye of some guy who might buy them another drink. He knew his brothers were up for it. Liam and Alex would happily jump right in the middle of them—in the next thirty seconds, most likely.

Cain felt too old for all of this. He was supposed to be done. That was the point of getting married. He had liked that. That routine. That certainty.

He had been so certain about the decision to marry Kathleen. She’d been pregnant, and he’d always known that if that happened, he’d be marrying the woman. In many ways he’d been thrilled. To have something in his life that he’d felt long denied.

Stability. A family.

He’d become a father at twenty-two, and it had been the proudest day of his life. And for a while, everything had been exactly like he wanted it.

Obviously it hadn’t been what Kathleen had wanted.

And this wasn’t what he wanted. But he was just so damn sick of being alone. Being celibate. Yeah, it was the celibate thing that bothered him. He didn’t want another relationship. There was no point. Violet was sixteen, and bringing somebody else into the middle of things when their life was already hard enough just wasn’t going to happen.

He had never felt right about bringing a woman home for sex with his daughter in the house. And he had really never felt right about spending the night out while he left her at home. Not when his wife had left the way that she had.

So, here he was. Contemplating his celibacy in a bar. Looking at a mechanical bull rather than women. It was all depressing and mind-numbing enough to make him reflect.

On the slow breakdown of his marriage, the day Kathleen had packed up all her stuff and left without telling him what she was planning and where she was going.

The day she’d surrendered parental rights to their daughter, because she needed a clean break.

He looked away from the bull-riding spectacle and over toward the bar, where he saw something that most definitely caught his attention.

There was a petite redhead leaning up against the counter, her ass perfectly showcased by the tight jeans she was wearing. She shifted, and her hair shimmered beneath the multicolored lights. Then she lifted her arm, brushing all that glossy beauty to one side. Cain was transfixed by the sight of that arm. Pale, freckled, slim. She looked soft.

Just for a moment, he could imagine touching her so vividly that he could feel that creamy soft skin beneath his hand.

More likely, it was a full-on hallucination. He wasn’t even sure if he remembered what a woman’s skin felt like.

Maybe she wouldn’t be quite so pretty from the front. It was always possible. But he hoped that she was. He hoped that when she turned around she provided him with more fuel for the fires of his fantasies. Because hell, fantasy was all he had.

The beautiful redhead did not disappoint. And she was, in fact, beautiful from all angles. She turned, scanning the bar with a smile on her face. Damn, she was probably there with some other man. Not that he was in a position to do anything about it either way.

Still, it was nice to know that he could get excited about somebody.

“If you’re going to sit there looking like you’d rather be anywhere else, maybe you should be somewhere else,” Liam said, never quite as easygoing as Alex was.

Cain didn’t welcome the interruption of his fantasies. “This is my happy face,” he returned.

“You’re scaring women away,” Liam said.

“That would be your ugly face,” he said.

Alex laughed. “I love bonding time.”

Cain rolled his eyes and took another drink of his beer. Here he was, out. On a Saturday night. And it just felt wrong. He preferred the life he’d had.

Bars, picking women up—he’d done all that in his early twenties. He was just so far past it now. He couldn’t even remember what he’d found appealing about it.

“It’s better than sitting at home,” Alex said, clearly looking for some kind of reaction that he just wasn’t going to get.

“Okay,” Cain relented, “it was nice to go and eat a hamburger.”

“And spend time with us,” Alex added. “Because we’re so charming.”

“I work with you dumbasses all day, every damn day. I wasn’t exactly hurting for quality time.”

“That makes me feel sad, Cain,” Alex said. “I really thought we were making progress with our brotherly bond.”

Of the four of them, only Alex and Liam had grown up together. They were also the only two full-blood brothers. Cain had been the product of his father’s first attempt at commitment, and then Finn had been the second. Both had been short-lived and unsuccessful.

For the most part, Cain had been raised in Texas, while his brothers had spent their childhoods on the West Coast. All of them had spent sporadic summers at the Laughing Irish, their grandfather’s ranch on the outskirts of Copper Ridge—good times, sure. But added up, the brothers had only spent a handful of weeks together during their lives.

Last month, they’d all inherited an equal share in the place and, since then, it had been a labyrinth of trying to figure out how to navigate the new family dynamic. Mostly, he liked them. Mostly, he didn’t want to punch them all in the face every day. Mostly.

“For me,” Cain said, “this is progress. Drinking in public instead of drinking alone.”

“Well,” Liam said, “you might look like you enjoy it more.”

“Like you?”

Liam lifted a shoulder. “Women like this.”

“It’s true,” Alex chimed in, “they do. I go with ‘wounded war hero smiling bravely through my pain,’ and Liam...well, hell if I know why, but something about looking angry at the world seems to draw them in. You could work that angle, Cain.”

“I don’t want an angle to work,” he said, taking another drink, looking across the room to try to find the redhead again. She had sat down at a table with a couple of other women, and they were eating, laughing. Definitely having more fun than he was.

She laughed at something that must’ve been particularly funny, throwing her head back and making all that hair shimmer again.

He had to wonder if what he had just said to his brother was true.

“Planning on being alone forever?” Alex asked.

“I’m not alone. I have a daughter. You two don’t know anything about that kind of responsibility. I’m not going to bring women in and out of her life just because I want to get laid. It’s not responsible.”

“Plenty of people have kids and relationships,” Alex pointed out.

“Yeah, well, those people aren’t parenting Violet. She’s not happy with the move, you know that.”

“She seems happier since she got her job,” Liam said.

“It’s hard to tell with her.” His stomach tightened slightly as he thought about his daughter and all of the things he seemed to get wrong with her.

“We’ve all got shit to handle,” Alex said, taking a drink. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t have fun too.”

“You don’t know from having shit to handle,” Cain growled. Then felt like a dick because for all that Alex played it down, he was a war hero, and given the fact he never talked about his years of service in a substantial way, Cain had a feeling Alex was pretty deeply affected by them.

It was the Donnelly way. The more it hurt, the more you laughed it off.

He forced his gaze resolutely away from the redhead. Because there was no point in fostering any fantasies. He had too much on his plate.

“So,” Alex said, “are you just going to sit here all night?”

“I was planning on it.”

“Okay. As long as we’re clear that it’s your choice, and we’re not abandoning you.” He stood up, clapping Cain on the back. “We’re going to go be social.” Alex picked his cowboy hat up from the table and placed it firmly on his head, then he and Liam headed over to that group of women they had pointed out earlier.

Cain shook his head, leaning back in his chair, his arms crossed. He wasn’t envious of them. In his opinion, they really didn’t understand what was important in life yet. They didn’t have anything bigger to live for. Not like him. He had Violet.

And, even when she was challenging, she was the reason he got up every morning. No, he didn’t envy his brothers. Or their so-called freedom. It was empty as far as he was concerned.

He took one more look back at the redhead, ignoring the tightening in his gut, in his groin. Yeah, he didn’t envy them at all. But while he saw their freedom as empty, his bed was empty too. And right now, he was just damn sick of that.

* * *

“HE’S CHECKING YOU OUT.”

Alison glanced up from her dinner, keeping her expression purposefully bland as she looked across the table at her friend Cassie Caldwell. “Who?” She knew who. She had felt his gaze on her while she’d been standing at the bar. She’d sneaked a covert glance when he had been talking to the guys he was with, and her heart had done some weird fluttering thing that had made her want to punch her own face.

“The really hot guy over there,” Cassie supplied helpfully. “Well, the hot guy in the plaid shirt who was sitting next to the two other hot guys.”

The guy wasn’t just hot. He defied such a paltry descriptor. He was broad-shouldered, with the kind of muscles that came from serious labor. He had dark hair, mostly covered by a black cowboy hat, and a square jawline that was visible even with the beard he was sporting.

He was gesturing broadly with very, very large hands that made her feel jittery sensations in parts of her body she preferred to ignore.

He was new, and in a town this size that was noticeable. But there was something familiar about him too.

He shifted in his seat and looked in her direction. Quickly. But she still caught it.

She averted her gaze.

“I seriously doubt he was checking me out.” Except she knew he had been, and she was processing the strange, giddy feeling that had come on as a result.

She hadn’t felt that in... Well, it had been long enough that she really couldn’t remember. Probably sometime back in high school when boys had felt new and exciting, and sneaking off with them had felt like exhilarating rebellion.

Before she had realized just how bad a turn that sort of rebellion could take.

“Well,” Cassie said with obnoxious authority, “he was.”

Alison shot her friend Rebecca a look, hoping that the other woman would back her up. Rebecca just shrugged. “Sorry,” she said, “but I think he was.”

“And?”

“Maybe you should go talk to him,” Rebecca said, flicking some dark hair behind her ear, her engagement ring glittering in the low bar light.

This was the problem. All of her friends were in relationships. Not just relationships, but the relationship. The real thing, the be-all and end-all, soul mates and all of that. Consequently, they had all turned on her. Even Lane, who had stayed home tonight rather than going out because she was spending the evening in with her best-friend-turned-boyfriend, Finn.

Before the great Sexual Finn Awakening, Lane had been the one who had understood Alison’s aversion to romantic relationships. But now that Lane had dealt with her own past trauma and moved on, she most definitely seemed to think that Alison needed to do the same. Though, she was a little more gentle than Rebecca and Cassie.

Barracudas were more gentle than Rebecca and Cassie.

“I’m not going to talk to him,” she said, taking a sip of her Diet Coke.

“Why not?” Rebecca asked. “Talking doesn’t mean anything else. It might be good practice.”

“For what? My future as everyone’s favorite spinster? I don’t need to talk to him for that, Rebecca,” she said drily.

“Suit yourself,” Rebecca said. “But he was looking at you. And that’s a nice ego boost if nothing else.”

Alison nodded begrudgingly and took hold of her straw, nudging a piece of ice up to the top of the glass and crunching it between her teeth. There, he probably wasn’t checking her out now. Who wanted to watch somebody noisily crunch ice?

Much to her chagrin, she looked back over to where he was—and, also much to her chagrin, felt a stab of disappointment when he wasn’t looking back at her. There was no reason to feel disappointed.

But the feeling only increased when he stood and made his way over to the bar, speaking to Ace for a moment before tipping his hat and heading toward the door.

Then he was gone. And she might never have a chance to talk to him. She didn’t know who he was. So he probably wasn’t local. Since she owned a bakery, and before that, had worked at Rona’s diner, which had been one of the more popular diners in town until Rona had retired and closed the place down, Alison was fairly confident that she could spot the out-of-towners.

He was probably one of the tourists that frequented the retail space Rona’s had been divided up into. He had probably been some rambling cowboy, just passing through town for a brief moment before moving on. And now she would never see him again.

Relief warred with a strange clenching feeling in her stomach. Something that felt a lot like temptation. Well, temptation had just removed itself. From her sight. Possibly from town. With any luck, she wouldn’t have to contend with it ever again.

“The only ego boost I need,” she said, dragging her gaze away from the door, drawing in a breath and forcing herself to calm down, “is for people to enjoy my baked goods.”

Rebecca and Cassie looked at each other and the corner of Rebecca’s mouth twitched.

Alison frowned. “I did not mean that euphemistically. I own a bakery.” She wadded up her paper napkin and threw it in their direction. It missed, rather grandly, and rolled sadly onto the floor.

“Sure,” Cassie said, smiling.

“My life is full,” she persisted, taking a bite of her side salad.

And if sometimes she felt a little bit wistful when she saw a handsome man, then looked at her life and saw nowhere to put him, well, that was understandable. Someday. Someday she would try to sort all that out. But for now, she was enjoying her aloneness. Enjoying her own company. Something she had absolutely not been able to do before her marriage had ended.

She had never wanted to be alone with her own thoughts, because she had hated that sad, small woman that she was. Almost as much as she had hated her husband in the end.

She had absolutely no regrets about her decisions. About the way she had chosen to move on.

One hot-ass guy in a flannel shirt and Stetson eyeing her up wasn’t going to change that.

CHAPTER TWO

“HEY, Bo,” CAIN CALLED, looking around the kitchen and living room area for his daughter, who was on the verge of being late for her second week on the job. “Are you ready to go?”

He heard footsteps hit the bottom landing, followed by a disgusted noise. “Do you have to call me that?”

“Yes,” he said, keeping his tone and expression serious. “Though I could always go back to the full name. Violet Beauregarde the Walking Blueberry.” She’d thought that nod to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was great. Back when she was four and all he’d had to do was smile funny to get her to belly laugh.

“Pass.”

“I have to call you at least one horrifying nickname a week, all the better if it slips out in public.”

“Is there public in Copper Ridge? Because I’ve yet to see it.”

“Hey, you serve the public as part of your job. And, unless you’re being a bit overdramatic about how challenging your job is, I assume you see more than two people on a given day.”

“The presence of humanity does not mean the presence of culture.”

“Chill out, Sylvia Plath. Your commitment to being angry at the world is getting old.” He shook his head, looking at his dark-haired, green-eyed daughter who was now edging closer to being a woman than being that round, rosy-cheeked little girl he still saw in his mind’s eye.

“Well, you don’t have to bear witness to it today. Lane is giving me a ride into town.”

Cain frowned. He still hadn’t been in to see Violet at work. In part because she clearly didn’t want him to. But, he had assumed that once she was established and feeling independent she wouldn’t mind if he took her.

Clearly, she did.

“Great,” he said, “I have more work to do around here anyway.”

“The life of a dairy farmer is never dull. Well, no, it’s always dull, it just never stops.” Violet walked over to the couch where she had deposited her purse yesterday and picked it up. “Same with baking pies, I guess.”

“I have yet to sample any of the pie you make.”

“I’ll bring some home if there’s any leftover,” she said, working hard to keep from sounding happy. At least, that’s how it seemed to him.

“Are you ready to go, Violet?” Lane came breezing into the room looking slightly disheveled, Cain’s younger brother Finn close behind her, also looking suspiciously mussed.

Absolutely no points for guessing what they had just been up to. Though he could see that Violet was oblivious. If she had guessed, she wouldn’t be able to hide her reaction. Which warmed his heart in a way. That his daughter was still pretty innocent about some things. That she was still young in some ways.

Hard to retain any sort of innocence when your mother abandoned you. And, since he knew all about parental abandonment and how much it screwed with you, he was even more angry that his daughter was going through the same thing.

Though she was actually a little more well-adjusted than he’d been.

Sometimes he was almost tempted to take the credit for that.

Not that it was very great credit. His own mother had been a drunk gambling addict when his father had left, so the threshold for being better than her was not a high one.

“Ready,” Violet responded.

Even though it was a one-word answer, it lacked the edge usually involved in her responses to him. He supposed being jealous of his brother’s girlfriend was a little bit ridiculous.

“Have fun,” he said, just because he knew it would irritate her.

He had lost the power to make her laugh. To make her smile, with any kind of ease. So, he supposed he would just embrace his ability to irritate.

At least he excelled at that.

He could tell he had excelled yet again when she didn’t smile at him as she left the room with Lane.

“Wait,” Finn said, walking past him and grabbing Lane around the waist, turning her and kissing her deep.

It was all Cain could do to keep from groaning audibly. Between his horndog younger brothers and his incredibly happy other brother he felt like sex was being thrown in his face constantly. Except not in a fun way that involved him having it.

Just him watching other people get it.

Lane and Violet left, and Finn walked back into the living room. “I’m going to marry that woman,” he said, the self-satisfied grin on his face scraping at Cain’s current irritation. He had a feeling he and Finn had the same smile. But it had been so long since he’d actually smiled it was hard to say.

“Have you asked her yet?”

“Not officially. But I’m going to.”

“She might not say yes,” Cain said. He was feeling like an asshole, so he figured he would go ahead and be one. “Or, worse, she might say yes.”

Finn was not deterred by Cain’s bad mood. “I want to spend the rest of my life with her.”

“That’s a long time. Trust me. Married years are different than regular years.” He had way too much experience living with somebody who didn’t even like him anymore. Way too much experience walking quietly through his own house so that he could avoid the conversation that needed to be had, or avoid the silence that seemed magnified when the two of them were in the same room.

He didn’t think Finn would suffer the same fate though. Finn and Lane had known each other for years, and they had been friends before they were a couple. Cain and Kathleen had been stupid and young. He had gotten her pregnant and wanted to do the right thing, instead of doing the kind of thing his father would do.

All in all, it wasn’t the best foundation for a marriage.

For a while, they had tried. Both of them. He wasn’t really sure when they had stopped. He couldn’t blame her for that part. For the silence and the nights when it was easier to pretend he was asleep when she slid between the sheets than it was to try to make love with someone who didn’t have two words to say to you.

Ironically, he would be thrilled to make love with someone who didn’t have two words to say to him now. But hooking up was different than marriage. At least, he vaguely remembered that it was.

“I hope they are,” Finn said, obnoxiously cheerful. “I hope every year with her feels like five. Because my time with her has been the best of my life.”

Given the way they had grown up, he really didn’t begrudge Finn his happiness. He was glad for him, in a way. When he wasn’t busy feeling irritated by his celibate status.

Of course, if he really wanted to do something about it, he could. But for a long time it had suited him to stay unattached in every way possible.

Though, in fairness to him, figuring out how to conduct a physical relationship while he was raising a teenage girl was pretty tricky. He had to set some kind of example. And casual sex wasn’t exactly the one he was aiming for.

He figured he had to at least try to be a model of the kind of man he wanted his daughter to be with. In twenty years or so, since he wasn’t in a hurry for her to be with anyone.

But that good example thing was simple in theory, and not all that enjoyable in practice.

“Good for you,” he said, sounding more annoyed than he had intended.

“How’s the barn coming along?”

Cain was grateful for the change in subject. “It’s coming.”

“Show me.”

His brother grabbed his hat off the shelf by the door, and Cain grabbed his own. Strange how this had become somewhat natural. How sharing a space with Finn, Alex and Liam—while annoying on occasion—was just starting to be life.

He took the steps on the front porch two at a time, inhaling the sharp, clear air. It was late summer, and in Texas about now walking outside would be like getting wrapped in a wet blanket. That was also on fire. He could honestly say he didn’t miss that part of his adopted home state.

The Oregon coast ran a little cold for his taste, but he had to admit it was still nicer than sweltering. The wind whipped up, filtering through the pine trees and kicking up the smell of wood, hay and horse. If green had a smell, it would be that smell that rode the coastal air across the mountains. Fresh and heavy, all at the same time.

It was fastest to take a truck out to the old barn on the property, the one that had originally stood near the first house that had been built when their great-grandparents had bought the land. The house was long gone, but the barn still remained, and with all of his near-nonexistent free time Cain had been fashioning the place into a house for Violet and himself.

“You know,” Finn said, as they pulled the truck up to the old structure, “you could always hire Jonathan Bear to finish this out. If you keep going like this, it’s going to take you forever.”

“You haven’t seen what I’ve done. Anyway, are you in a hurry to get us out of the house?” In the month since they’d come to live with Finn, he’d never seemed to mind them being in the house.

On the ranch in general, yes. But not in the house.

He shrugged. “It doesn’t make much difference to me. Even if you and Violet aren’t in the house Liam and Alex will be. So Lane and I aren’t going to start engaging in public sex anytime soon. At our house. However, there’s a reason she held on to her cabin.”

Lane owned the property down by the lake, and even though she was essentially living with Finn, she still kept that property, and harvested vegetables out of the garden to sell at her mercantile store and to share with them. Cain had no complaints.

“Well, thank God for that,” Cain said, his tone dry. “I was seriously concerned.”

He and his brother walked through the still overgrown pathway that led up to the old barn. He had started with structural things. A new roof, replacing siding where it had dilapidated. Recently, he had moved on to the interior. He slid the brand-new door to the side, revealing the gutted, mostly hollow belly of the beast.

“Wow,” Finn said, stepping deeper into the room. “You’ve done a lot.”

“New wiring,” Cain said, gesturing broadly. “Insulation, drywall. I need to texture, and then I’m going to work on interior walls. But, yeah, it’s coming along. It will be fine for the two of us for the next couple of years. And when Violet leaves...”

Unbidden, an image of the beautiful redhead he had seen at the bar last night filtered into his mind’s eye. Yeah, in a couple of years he would have a place to bring a woman like that.

Not that he couldn’t go back to her place, or get a hotel room, but he didn’t want to have to explain his absence to a teenage girl who barely thought of him as human, much less realized he was actually just a guy with a sex drive and everything. Both of them would probably die from the humiliation of that.

“It’ll be a pretty nice place,” Finn said, and Cain was grateful his younger brother couldn’t read his mind.

“Not bad. And yes, I know that I could pay somebody to finish it. But right now I’m kind of enjoying the therapy. I spent a long time managing things. Managing a big ranch, not actually working it. Managing my marriage instead of actually working at it. I’m ready to be hands-on again. This is the life that I’m choosing to build for myself. So I guess I better build it.”

He knew that at thirty-eight his feelings of midlife angst were totally unearned, but having his wife leave had forced him into kind of a strange crisis point. One where he had started asking himself if that was it. If everything good that he was going to do was behind him.

So, he had left the ranch in Texas—the one he had spent so many years building up—walked away with a decent chunk of change, and packed his entire life up, packed his kid up, and gone to the West Coast to find... Something else to do. Something else to be. To find a way to reconnect with Violet.

So far, he’d found ranch work and little else. Violet still barely tolerated him in spite of everything he was doing to try to fix their lives, and he didn’t feel any closer to moving forward than he had back in Texas.

He was just moved.

Finn’s phone buzzed and he pulled it out of his pocket. “Hey,” he said, “can you pick up Violet tonight from work?”

“I thought Lane was doing it.”

“It’s her girls’ night thing. She forgot.”

Well, he had just been thinking that he needed to actually see where Violet worked. “Sure. Sounds good.”

“What are you going to do until then?”

“I figured I would do some work in here.”

Finn pushed his sleeves up, smiling. “Mind if I help?”

“Sure,” Cain did his best to disguise the fact that he was shocked by his brother’s offer. He wasn’t used to this. He’d been navigating life alone for so long he’d forgotten what it was like to have support. “Grab a hammer.”

* * *

ALISON STARED AT the sunken cake sitting on the kitchen countertop and frowned. Then quickly erased the frown so that Violet wouldn’t see it.

“I don’t know what happened,” Violet said, looking both perturbed and confused.

“You probably took it out too early. Though, it’s nothing a little extra icing can’t fix. And it’s my girls’ night tonight, so I think it can be of use in that environment rather than being put up for sale.”

Violet screwed up her face. “It’s ugly.”

“An ugly cake is still cake. As long as it doesn’t have raisins it’s fine.”

“Well, I didn’t put any raisins in it.”

“Excellent. Of course, I try to provide raisined items to people with taste bud defects, because we here at Pie in the Sky like to be inclusive. But not in cake. It’s just not happening in cake.”

Alison was slightly amused that her newest employee seemed to know about her raisin aversion, even if she didn’t quite have cooking times down. Violet was a good employee, but she had absolutely no experience baking. For the most part Alison had put her on at the register, which she had picked up much faster than kitchen duties. But she tried to set aside a certain amount of time every shift to give Violet a chance to get some experience with the actual baking part of the bakery.

Maybe it wasn’t as necessary to do with a teenager who had her first job as it was to do with some of the other women who came through the shop, desperately in need of work experience after years out of the workforce, but Alison was applying the same principles to Violet as she did to everyone else.

Diverse experience was important on job applications, so that was what Alison tried to provide. Experience with food service, with register work, customer service, food preparation. All of her employees left with expertise in each and every one of those things, plus a food handlers’ card for the state. It was a small thing, but it made her feel like she was doing something.

It also gave her a high turnover rate at the shop, but that was okay with her. It meant a lot of work, a lot of training, but when everything went smoothly it also meant that she could put the employees who had been there the longest on training, which gave them yet another set of skills to add to their resume.

Right now she was short on staff, and even shorter on people who had the skill level she required with the baked goods to do any training. So while she could farm out Violet’s register training, the cakes, pies and other pastries had to be done by her.

“I’ll do better next time,” Violet said, sounding determined. Which encouraged Alison, because Violet hadn’t sounded anything like determined when she had first come in looking for work. Violet was a sullen teenager of the first order. And even though she most definitely made an attempt to put on a good show for Alison, she was clearly in a full internal battle with her feelings on authority figures.

Having been a horrific teenager herself, Alison felt some level of sympathy for her. But also very little patience. But Violet seemed to react well to her brand of no-nonsense response to attitude. Alison wasn’t going to let a chip on the shoulder make her angry, she wasn’t going to get into a fight with a child, after all. But she didn’t cater to it either.

“You will do better next time,” Alison said, “because I can eat one mistake cake, but if I have to continue eating mistake cakes my jeans aren’t going to fit and then I’m going to have to buy new jeans, and that’s going to have to come out of your paycheck.”

She patted Violet on the shoulder, then walked through the double doors that led from the kitchen to behind the counter. The shop was in its late-afternoon lull. A little too close to dinner for most people to be stopping in for pieces of pie. During the summer, they often got people stopping in after dinner, whereas during the school year she got a mini rush just after elementary school let out and parents brought their kids for after-school snacks.

She decided to take the opportunity to check the freshness of her baked goods. She opened the glass-backed display case, grabbed a piece of wax paper and pressed gently on the first row of muffins, then moved on to a loaf of cinnamon chip bread.

A rush of air blew into the shop and Alison looked up just in time to see a tall, muscular man walk in through the blue door. A pang of recognition hit her in the chest before she even got a good look at him. She didn’t need a good look at him. Because just like the first time she’d seen him, in Ace’s bar, the feeling he created inside of her wasn’t logical, wasn’t cerebral. It was physical. It lived in her, and it superseded control.

For somebody who prized control it was an affront on multiple levels.

He lifted his head and confirmed what her jittering nerves already knew. That beneath that dark cowboy hat was the face of the man who had most definitely been looking at her at the bar the night before.

He hadn’t left town. He hadn’t been a hallucinogenic expression of a fevered imagination. And he had found her.

The twist of attraction turned into something else, just for a moment. A strange kind of panic that she hadn’t confronted for a long time. That somehow this man had found out who she was, had tracked her down.

No. That’s not it. Even if he did, that doesn’t make him crazy. It doesn’t.

And more than likely he was just here for a piece of pie. She took a deep breath, steeling herself to look directly at him. Which was... Wow. He was hotter than she remembered. And that was saying something. She had first spotted him in the dim light of the bar, with a healthy amount of space between them.

Now, well, now the daylight was bright, and he was very close. And he was magnificent. The way that black T-shirt hugged all those muscles bordered on obscene, his dark green eyes like the deep of the forest beckoning her to draw close. Except, unlike the forest, his eyes didn’t promise solitude and inner peace. No, it was something much more carnal. Or maybe that was just her aforementioned overheated imagination.

His jaw was covered by a neatly trimmed dark beard, and she would normally have said she wasn’t a huge fan, but something about the beard on him was like flaunting an excess of testosterone. And she was in a very testosterone-starved state. So it was like stumbling onto water in a desert.

Of course, all that hyperbole was simply that. His eyes weren’t actually promising her anything; in fact, his expression was blank. And she realized that while he might look sexier to her today than he had that night, she might look unrecognizable to him.

Last night she had been wearing an outfit that at least hinted at the fact that she had a female figure. And she’d had makeup on, plus she’d gone to the effort to straighten her mass of auburn hair. Today, it was its glorious frizzy self, piled on top of her head, half captured in a rubber band, half pinned down with a pen. And as for makeup... Well, on days when she had to be at the bakery early that was just not a happening thing.

Her apron disguised her figure, and beneath it, the button-up striped shirt that she had tucked into her jeans wasn’t exactly vixen wear.

“Can I... Can I help you?” She tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear and found herself tilting her head to the side, her body apparently calling on all of the flirtation skills it hadn’t used since she was eighteen years old.

Very immature, underdeveloped skills.

Suddenly, her lips felt dry, so she had to lick them. And when she did, heat flared in those forest green eyes that made her think maybe he did recognize her. Or, if he didn’t, maybe his body did. Just like hers recognized his. Oh, Lord.

“Yes,” he said, his voice much more... Taciturn than she had imagined it might be. She hadn’t realized until that moment that she had built something of a narrative around him. Brooding, certainly, because he had most definitely been brooding a little bit in the bar, but she had imagined he might flirt with a lazy drawl. Of course, it was difficult to tell with one word, but his voice had been clipped. Definitely clipped.

“I have a lot of different pie. I mean, a lot of different kinds. So, if you need suggestions. Or a list. I can help.”

“I’m not here for pie. I’m here to pick up my daughter.”

CHAPTER THREE

WELL, THIS WAS an interesting situation. By which he meant an insane crock of fuckery.

It was the woman from the bar. Right there in the bakery where his daughter worked. Looking even more like someone he wanted to lick all over than she had at Ace’s last night.

Her hair was piled on top of her head, and he wanted to let it down. She was wearing an apron, which was sexy for some strange reason he didn’t even want to parse. And she had flour on her nose. He wanted to kick everybody in the bakery out. Wanted to lock the doors and back her up against one of the rough brick walls and take her right there, hard and fast.

And that was thoroughly incongruous with his usual mind-set. And with the fact that even if he did usher everybody out of the dining area, and lock the door, his daughter would probably still be in the back somewhere. Which was something he really needed to remember.

“Your daughter?” The woman blinked, biting her lower lip, which he felt all the way down in his own body.

“Violet. Violet Donnelly.”

A realization seemed to hit her on an indrawn breath. The reason he’d looked familiar when she’d seen him in the bar. He was a Donnelly. “Right. Of course.” She shook her head. “Of course. She is off about now. I’ll go get her.”

“Is your boss back there?” He didn’t know why he had stopped her, mostly because he wanted to delay her leaving just a second. For what, he didn’t know. Torturing himself? Maybe he was into that now. He wouldn’t know. It had been so long since he had explored exactly what he was into, he had forgotten.

“My boss?”

“Yes. The owner of the bakery? Alison something? I haven’t had a chance to meet her yet, and I thought maybe I would.”

“I’m Alison something,” she said, her tone dry, her expression strangely resigned. “Alison Davis, actually.”

Heat and irritation coiled in his stomach, creating a molten ball that he thought might explode. “You own the bakery.”

She didn’t look a day over twenty-five to him, much less old enough to own what appeared to be a successfully established business.

“Yes,” she said, “I do. Is that surprising?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Again, he wasn’t sure why he was submitting to the banter. He should just tell her to go get Violet. Of course, she was responsible for his daughter’s paycheck and, more than that, the only activity she had in town. Which was the only thing keeping Violet from going completely feral.

“Because. You look too young to own a bakery. Not exactly what I pictured. Except for the flour on your nose.”

She wrinkled said facial feature, reaching up and brushing at it with her fingertips. “It’s powdered sugar,” she responded.

It took everything in him to keep from commenting on the fact that that sounded even more appealing. Because it would be even sweeter if he tasted her skin.

Holy hell. He was in the middle of some kind of severe sexual psychosis. He had been married for years. Which meant that the time of seeing random women on the street as sexual possibilities was long past. His default was not to see women as potential partners.

It still was, he supposed. This...aberration was something to do with her. And she was his daughter’s boss. Which was about the most inappropriate thing he could think of.

“Well,” he said, “that’s important to know.”

“In the interest of being strictly correct, yes.”

“I’m nothing if not pedantic when it comes to the details of baked goods.”

“Maybe I should have hired you then.”

That at least penetrated his thick skull and made him think about something other than sex. “Why? Is Violet having a hard time?”

“Not any more than usual,” Alison said. She seemed much more comfortable with the topic of Violet introduced. “I just meant because she clearly doesn’t have any experience baking. So, all things considered, she’s doing really well. Just a couple of sunken cakes. But nothing I can’t eat.”

“Is there anything I can help her...work on at home?” He didn’t know why he was asking. He knew next to nothing about baking. As far as he was concerned cake came from the store.

“I can think of a few things, if you wouldn’t mind.”

“I actually have no idea how to help her. It just seemed like the thing to say.”

Alison laughed, and the sound was unexpectedly erotic. It fired through his veins, made him want to earn some more laughter. Possibly because he was mainly accustomed to having women glare at him, yell at him. It had been a long time since he’d made one laugh. Since one had looked even remotely delighted with him in any way.

“Sorry,” he said, finding himself smiling. “I’m really not that helpful. But I can taste-test.”

“Well,” she said, “Violet does have a cake in the back. You’re welcome to come back and...have a taste.”

“Sure.” Cake was not what he wanted a taste of. He wanted to taste that little hollow at the base of her throat. Wanted to see if her skin was as soft as he thought it might be. Wanted to see if she tasted like sugar, or if she tasted like flowers. He wasn’t really particular as long as the flavor of woman was layered beneath.

“Come on back,” she said, scurrying to the other side of the counter and opening a small, swinging gate, gesturing toward the double doors that he presumed led to the kitchen.

He saw no reason not to comply. So he did. It was tidy behind the counter, plates stacked out of view of the patrons, and napkins and dish towels neatly folded and stacked beside them. She ushered him into the kitchen, and he saw that it was no less organized. There were large mixers, a double oven lining a back wall and Saran-wrapped trays stacked in large holders, full of various baked goods.

And in the back of the room was his daughter, laboriously piping icing onto what looked like several dozen cookies.

“She’s practicing,” Alison said. “She learned a really basic technique the other day, so she gets to try it out on an order that we got for a client’s office party.”

Violet’s expression was full of concentration, and he was momentarily distracted from the strangeness between himself and Alison by it. By the intensity with which she was focused on her task. By the fact that, for a moment, his daughter look like a stranger to him. Not like a child, and not like the angry teenager he was used to seeing.

She looked content, even though she was deep in concentration and actually applying effort to it rather than just rolling her eyes and tossing out a careless whatever.

It struck him then that he didn’t know this version of his daughter at all.

“Wow,” he said, not sure what else to say.

Violet obviously recognized his voice, because she stopped and looked up. Her expression went flat for a moment, and then came a smile that he could tell was forced. “Oh, hi, Dad. I didn’t realize you were going to come by.”

“Lane was busy. So I figured I would come and get you.”

Violet frowned. “Is it time already?”

“Yeah, but if you want to finish, that’s fine. I can wait.”

“Yeah,” Violet said, “I’m going to finish.” She turned her focus back to the cookies. And Cain turned his focus back to Alison.

“Nice place you have.”

There were other women—it was all women—bustling around the kitchen, barely acknowledging him as they took cakes out of the oven and moved mixing bowls around, and colored bowls of frosting.

“Thank you. We’re working toward doing more than just selling things here at the bakery. We make desserts for special events. And supply cakes for parties, weddings. And we’re working on packaging some of our baked goods and getting them in stores. And in various showrooms. So what you see up front is only a small sampling of what happens here.”

He gestured back toward the dining area, because he wanted a chance to speak to her without Violet in earshot. She caught his meaning, and led the way back out of the kitchen. He showed himself back into the main room, grateful to get the counter between them. “You seem really busy. I really appreciate you taking the time to train Violet. It doesn’t seem like you would have a lot to spare.”

“I don’t. But, even though there were a few people back there, I’m actually short-staffed right now. And anyway, I’m kind of in the business of training women for the workforce.”

“Really?”

She nodded definitively. “Yeah,” she said, “that’s what I do. I mean, in addition to baking kick-ass pies.”

“I’ll take two,” he said.

“Two?”

“Pies. Kick-ass pies.”

“Which kind?”

He lifted a shoulder. “The kind that kicks the most ass?”

“That seems subjective.”

He really was out of practice with the flirting thing. Of course, he didn’t want to flirt with her. No, what he wanted to do was throw her down on the nearest flat surface and deal with all of the pent-up sexual energy that was roaring through his body. And he shouldn’t want to do any of that.

“Well, in your opinion.”

“Okay,” she said, making her way over to the pastry case and frowning. The concentration she was putting into selecting the right pie was a little too fascinating for him. He liked the way her eyebrows pleated together, that little crease it made in her forehead. The way her full lips pulled down at the corners.

She had been wearing makeup last night. A bright tint over the natural skin tone on her mouth. But he liked it better now. A soft wash of pale pink. He wanted to taste it. Wanted to bite it.

“I’m ready to go.”

He looked up, in the middle of thinking about how he wanted to bite Alison’s lip, to see his daughter coming out of the kitchen. Well, that was a great underscore to the first specific sexual fantasy he’d had in about a million years.

“Okay,” he said, “I’m just getting pie.”

“That’s all I’ve eaten for three days,” Violet said.

“If you’re whining about pie now, then you really can’t be helped.”

Violet treated him to a shrug that he had a feeling looked like the gesture he’d just made. “Maybe I don’t want to be.”

“Fine. Eat a salad and be sad. I’m going to eat pie.”

Alison walked over to the register and punched in the code. “Employee discount,” she said.

Violet frowned. “You don’t have to do that. Especially since I ruined that last cake.”

“I’m the one paying for this,” Cain said, “maybe consider that before you reject my discount.”

“I already told you, Violet,” Alison said, “the cake isn’t a big deal. It’s part of learning.”

Surprisingly, Violet smiled. An expression that looked both genuine and not sullen. “Thanks,” his daughter said, modulating her tone into something much softer than he’d heard in at least a year.

“Lemon meringue and blackberry,” Alison said, looking at him.

“Lemon meringue is my favorite.”

Her cheeks turned pink, and he had to admit he enjoyed that. Enjoyed the idea that she wasn’t any more immune to him than he was to her. Even if it was futile, it was a nice feeling. “Good. That’s... Good.”

“Nice to meet you,” he said. “Ready?” He directed that question at Violet.

Violet already had her phone out and was texting someone. She looked up just for a moment, just long enough to give him a dry look. “I said I was.”

“Okay, then.” He took the plastic bag that contained two pie boxes and waved at Alison, then headed out the door with Violet. “You could be a little bit friendlier,” he commented when they were back out on the street.

“I was friendly.”

“You were standing there texting.”

“I already said what I needed to say.”

He let out a long, slow breath. These kinds of conversations with Violet were futile. She had decided that he was being ridiculous, and she was going to hold on to that no matter what he said. Just like he always did, he wrestled with how to handle it. He could ground her, but then, the only thing he could ground her from was her phone.

Which was reasonable enough, except summer in a new town meant that it was her only source of social life. There was no school to go to, she had no friends around here. Anyway, she was mad enough. He didn’t want to make it worse. He didn’t want to cut her off from everyone.

That phone represented her entire life right now. And if she was a different kid in a different situation he might handle it differently. But Violet hadn’t been the same since her mother had left.

It had taken a couple of years for Violet to stop looking at him like she thought he might disappear. Like she was surprised that he’d come home. For all of that time she’d been almost supernaturally well-behaved. Quiet. And now, it was like she was making up for lost time. Like she had spent the first two years terrified that he might leave her too, and the second two realizing that he wouldn’t. Or maybe now she was testing his staying power; he didn’t really know.

All he knew was that being a parent was hard. And doing it by yourself when you knew jack shit about kids—about teenagers—was even harder.

Sometimes he looked at his daughter, at this girl who was closer to being a woman than a kid, and wondered where all the years had gone. Wondered how the hell he was standing on a street in a small Oregon town with a sixteen-year-old. Sometimes he didn’t know at all how he’d gotten here. He would have thought that sixteen years into parenthood he would feel like he knew something. Would feel like he understood the gig.

No, if anything, he seemed to be worse at it now. When she was three it hadn’t taken any work at all to get her to smile at him. Now it took an act of God.

“Do you want to go out to eat tonight?”

“No,” she said. “I’m ready to go home.”

It was somewhat encouraging to hear her refer to the ranch as home. Usually, she said something about going back to Uncle Finn’s house. This new terminology made him wonder if maybe they were making progress.

“Sure. I bet there’s a bunch of food in the freezer that Lane made.”

Violet shrugged. “I’m not hungry.”

“You will be later.”

“You don’t know that.”

He gritted his teeth. This actually did remind him of when she was a toddler. All kinds of screaming about not being hungry anytime food was placed in front of her. And of course, she would whine about not having anything to eat the minute it was taken away.

“You’re right,” he said, not doing a great job of keeping his tone even. “I don’t know that. I don’t know a damn thing.” He jerked the driver’s side door of the truck open and got in. Violet climbed into the passenger side, slamming the door hard enough that he was afraid she might have broken something in the old rig.

She didn’t say anything in response to that. Rather, she just gave him a standard eye roll and long-suffering sigh. He was tempted to tell her she didn’t know anything about long-suffering. He was pretty sure he had the monopoly on that at this point.

They drove the rest of the way back to the homestead in silence, and he was grateful. He didn’t know how to talk to her. At least, not in ways that didn’t do more damage.

When he parked, Violet got out of the car wordlessly and headed toward the house, her eyes fixed on her phone. He looked at the front door, which she slammed behind her, not waiting for him. He decided he was going to avoid the house for a while. He looked back up toward the barn that he was preparing for the two of them, a place where—he hoped—they might find a little more peace between them. Where she might see what the point of all of this was.

That he was doing it for her. For them. So that they could finally move on from everything that had happened in Texas.

He was building a life, dammit. Literally. Building them a place to live, a place to call home. One that wasn’t completely overrun with the memory of Kathleen and her abandonment.

She would see. When the barn house was finished, when she settled in here, got going at school, made some friends... Everything would be fine. He would make it fine. The lone alternative was failing the only other person on Earth who had ever depended on him. And as far as he was concerned, that just wasn’t an option.

CHAPTER FOUR

ALISON WAS HAVING a hard time concentrating on the chatter at their official monthly girls’ night—different from their occasional random get-togethers for dinner simply because it was on the calendar. Which was really crappy of her since Lane had arrived with a shiny new ring on her finger, bursting to tell them about Finn proposing, and she was still thinking about her encounter with Cain Donnelly earlier.

The proposal had been beautiful, romantic and utterly spontaneous. At the lake by Lane’s house, and they’d been naked apparently. Alison wasn’t surprised. Well, the nudity was kind of surprising—she had follow-up questions about where Finn had been keeping the ring—but the proposal had been inevitable as far as she was concerned.

She’d never seen two people who loved each other more. And that had been true long before they’d gone from Just Friends to more. They were meant to be. Even a curmudgeon like Alison could see that.

And the fact it had been such a certainty in her mind was the excuse she was using for zoning out now. And feeling...well, not left out. But something.

Lane and Rebecca were excitedly talking wedding plans, the diamond rings on their fingers casting showers of sparks across the room as they waved their hands in increasingly broad gestures. Cassie was smiling, sitting there with a dreamy expression on her face, clearly caught up in the romance of it all and no doubt remembering her own wedding.

Bah humbug.

Alison wasn’t caught up in any romance. And, she didn’t want to be. And somehow, she was the last remaining single girl in her group of friends when just a year ago Rebecca and Lane had been staunchly anti-love right alongside her.

It was a conspiracy.

Her mind wandered back to earlier that day, when she had met Violet’s father. She hadn’t caught his first name. She knew that Lane would know, but expressing any kind of interest would probably seem suspicious. Then again, maybe not. Seeing as Violet was her employee. And Finn was Lane’s fiancé.

It might, in fact, be germane to the conversation. It could be. It was always possible.

“What are Finn’s brothers’ names again?” she asked, realizing as the words tumbled out of her mouth that it had been a bit of a rough transition.

“Cain, Liam and Alex. Why?” Lane frowned. She tented her fingers, and that diamond ring sparkled all the brighter.

Finn and Lane had been together for only a little over a month. But they had been best friends for more than a decade, and when the two of them had tumbled headfirst into a physical relationship, true love had followed quickly. Though, actually, Alison believed that they’d probably always loved each other, they’d just been hesitant to get involved in romantic relationships for some very compelling reasons.

Alison was glad the two of them had worked it out. She really was.

And she wasn’t jealous. Not of the love.

But they all glowed. All of her friends. Every last one of them. And Alison believed firmly, that it was not with love, but with recently had orgasms. And that, she was a bit jealous of.

“Oh, I met Violet’s father today,” she said, keeping her voice perfectly neutral. “But I forgot to catch his name.”

“Yeah,” Lane said, “that’s Cain.”

“And he’s divorced, right?” she asked, doing her best to sound not the least bit personally interested. Academic. She was aiming to sound academic.

Lane nodded. “Kind of horrifically, if I’ve interpreted the comments he’s made correctly. And I think I have. But as far as I know his wife just kind of disappeared and left both him and Violet.”

Well, that explained a lot about Violet’s attitude. Alison had known that she was coming from something of a difficult home situation, but she hadn’t exactly known the details.

“That’s good to know. I mean, good to know so that I can make sure to relate to Violet in the appropriate way. I’ve helped a lot of women start their lives over, a teenager should be similar. And it sounds to me like she’ll have some of the same issues. Confidence, self-esteem.” Typically, Alison worked with women like herself. Women who had lost themselves somewhere inside an abusive relationship and were working on resurfacing.

But, abandonment, feeling lonely, being afraid that you always would be... That was part of it. Alison was intimately acquainted with some of those fears. And she had come out the other side of them. She had gotten to a place where she actually enjoyed her own company, which she considered something of a triumph. She felt very strongly about wanting to help other people reach that same place. Where they knew that the people who hurt them were the ones who were at fault. Where they knew that it wasn’t something broken in them.

“I think you’re the perfect mentor,” Rebecca said, “because you’re sensitive, but also pretty firm when you have to be.”

“My firmness was hard-won,” Alison responded.

“I know,” Rebecca said, smiling. But not in that way people did when they looked at her and thought only of how broken she was.

That was just one of the many things she appreciated about her friends. They didn’t baby her. They didn’t treat her like a sad little fledgling that needed special care.

“Though I have to say, being a good mentor is kind of a depressing thought since it clearly means I don’t misbehave enough.”

“Are you suggesting we go toilet paper some houses?” Rebecca asked. “Because if so, I’m in.”

“No time for that,” Lane said, “I have to figure out what color bridesmaids dresses to put all of you in.”

Cassie groaned. “I’m pregnant.”

“What?” The question was asked in chorus.

“Yes, pregnant. I was waiting for a chance to bring it up. I didn’t want to run over the wedding stuff. But baby number three is officially on the way and that means I’m going to be wearing taffeta for two at your wedding, Lane.”

“Absolutely not. There will be no taffeta at my wedding. I am a classy lady,” Lane said, reaching into the bowl that contained chip remnants and gathering as much as she could into her hand.

“Good Lord,” Rebecca snorted, “can’t Jake keep it in his pants?”

“I can’t keep it in Jake’s pants,” Cassie said. “My husband is a wicked hot bastard, and I was led into temptation and convinced that it would be okay to do it just once without protection.”

Lane and Rebecca looked somewhat wistful and abashed by that. As if they could relate to wanting to take the risk, or perhaps had. Alison could scarcely remember feeling passion like that. Most certainly not for the man she’d been married to for eight long years. Again, she struggled with a bit of envy. Not so much over the babies. Although, sometimes she wished there were babies. But she was thirty-two, and had absolutely no relationship prospects on the horizon. Maybe she would adopt someday. But she certainly wasn’t going to be having the traditional husband and white picket fence scenario. At least, not in the next five years.

“I’m going to make sure that Gage keeps it wrapped,” Rebecca commented.

Rebecca was the youngest of their group, and was of course not quite as biologically predisposed to having full-blown ovarian explosions when people announced pregnancy as Alison and Lane were.

“I’m on the pill,” Lane said, “to avoid just that sort of thing. Because Lord knows lapses in judgment happen. Especially with Finn.”

“Stop it,” Alison said. “You are talking to an extremely celibate woman. And it just feels mean.”

“What about that hot guy that was checking you out at the bar the other night?” Rebecca asked. “Do it with him.”

“What hot guy?” Lane asked, looking between Alison and Rebecca. “There was a hot guy?”

“Some sexy cowboy checking her out when we went out the other night.”

Suddenly, everyone was looking at her. “I said it then, and I’ll say it again. I’m not going to get involved with anyone.”

“Clearly, you have needs that have to be met,” Lane said.

“Well, they’re not going to be met with him.”

“Why not?” Rebecca asked.

“There’s no reason for it to be him. Nothing happened. He... He was looking at me. That’s it. For all we know he could’ve been staring because my makeup looked funky and I had lipstick on my teeth.” She really didn’t want to get into the fact that it was Cain Donnelly who had been looking at her. There was too much small-town weirdness happening without her letting her friends in on it.

And Lane would enjoy it too much. And try to matchmake or something. No thank you.

“He wanted to get into your pants. Literally the only reason men stare at women.”

“Thank you for that, Lane,” Alison said.

“You’re welcome. And, now that I’ve pointed out the very helpful piece of information, maybe you can admit that you actually had a guy who wanted to get with you and you passed it up for no good reason.”

Alison sputtered. “I have good reason.”

“Tell me your reasons. I want a list of them,” Lane said, crossing her arms and staring her down.

Alison held up a finger. “I don’t want a relationship.”

“Who said anything about a relationship? I was talking about hooking up.”

“Well, I’m not in a place in my life where I feel comfortable doing that.”

“Uh-huh. I don’t believe that.” This was when she wished her friends would treat her a little more like a fragile fledgling.

Alison threw up her hands, exasperated, then leaned in and took a piece of pie off the tray that was sitting on the table between them. “It doesn’t matter what you believe. What matters is the truth. And the truth is that I... I don’t feel... Like I should sleep with a guy just to sleep with him.”

“You don’t have to sleep with him,” Rebecca said, her tone sly. “Just have sex with him and leave.”

Alison looked at her younger friend. “Rebecca. I’m shocked. This coming from you, who has literally only ever been intimate with the man you’re in love with.”

Rebecca made a dismissive sound. “I was not in love with him the first time I was intimate with him.” She put air quotes around that phrase. “In fact, I was decidedly not in love with him the first time.”

“Settle down, you horrendous bitches,” Cassie said. “If Alison wants to stay celibate, Alison can stay celibate.”

“Thank you,” Alison said, her tone arch.

“And,” Cassie continued, “if she wants to become a nun, she can become a nun.”

“Okay,” Alison said, shooting her friend a deadly glare. “I’m not even Catholic.”

“If you’re not devoting your life to the church, Alison, I feel like you might devote some of it to having a little bit of fun, but that’s just me,” Cassie said.

“Wow, your support waned quickly.”

Cassie grabbed a second piece of pie for herself. “I’m supportive. I’m very supportive. But in this instance my support includes giving the opinion that if a hot guy—correction, a hot cowboy—is checking you out...”

“It was Cain Donnelly,” Alison exploded, forgetting why she hadn’t wanted to share the information in the first place. “Okay? Are you satisfied? I discovered today that the man who checked me out at the bar was Cain Donnelly.”

Cassie and Rebecca just blinked in silence.

But Lane exploded with laughter. “Oh, my goodness. That is funny.”

“Why is that funny? I finally found a man who made me consider the benefits of a little bit of medicinal penis and he happens to be the father of one of my employees.”

“And a man less likely to show a woman a good time I cannot think of,” Lane said, wiping a tear from beneath her eye as she continued to hoot like a deranged burrowing owl.

Alison thought back to that strong, muscular frame, those large, very capable-looking hands, that angular jaw...

“He looks perfectly able to show a woman a good time to me,” she said.

“Oh, sure, physically. He’s hot. They all are,” Lane said. “All the Donnelly men, I mean. Did you not notice that there’s a family resemblance?”

“No,” she said. “I mean, later when I realized, yes. But I don’t think of Finn that way and it just...didn’t occur to me.”

She’d been caught up in more than just looks. It had been about the connection. The electricity.

“Every Donnelly is hot,” Lane said. “But Cain has extenuating circumstances, and he’s not the most charming individual at the best of times. Though for him I’m not really sure what constitutes the best of times.”

For some reason, Alison felt instantly defensive of him. Which was crazy, because tall, dark and not-getting-in-her-pants did not need her defense. “He was really nice when I talked to him.”

“Well, this sucks.” Cassie looked deflated. “She finally meets a decent guy and he’s complicated.”

“All men are complicated,” Lane said. “Some are just worth it.”

“Why does it have to suck?” Rebecca asked. “You could still hook up with him.”

“No,” Alison said definitively. “That’s too many connections. When I thought he was just a guy passing through town I was almost kind of open to the idea. Of course, then he left the bar and I figured I would never see him again. But when he walked into the shop today... I thought maybe. I thought maybe it was fate. But then it turned out he was Violet’s father. And no. First of all, I have so much of my own baggage that I am required to pay oversize luggage fees. So I don’t want a guy who’s carrying that much of his own. Second of all, Violet needs... Something. Stability. Someone she can talk to. And I feel like she’s really getting somewhere at the bakery. I want to help her. Like I’ve helped other people. I can’t do that if I have my hand in her father’s pants.”

“I don’t know,” Lane said, her expression taking on a dipped-in-honey sweetness that spoke of nothing but trouble. “You do like to help the needy. Cain is awfully needy.”

That brought to mind some very choice images. Hot, sweaty ones. Of how she might help Cain’s needs. Wrap her fingers right around that need. Test its strength. Lean in and...

“Dammit,” Alison said, sliding her fingers through her hair and cradling her forehead on her palms. “Don’t tell me things like that.”

“I can tell you a few things about the Donnellys,” Lane continued. “I mean, assuming certain anatomical traits are hereditary...”

“Stop it.” She let out a heavy sigh. “Lane, you of all people should understand why I don’t want an entanglement. And, until recently, you didn’t want one either. Don’t betray me just because Finn liked it and put a ring on it.”

“I would never betray you,” Lane said. “But I don’t really consider endorsing a sexy man a betrayal.”

“You just said he wouldn’t be any fun,” Alison said.

“Right. You’ve seen him, so you know that actually isn’t true. I mean, physically, he would be a lot of fun.”

“You’re a bunch of perverts,” Alison said. “Anyway, my life is full. I’m fulfilled. My business is going well, I’m making a difference. I don’t need to be distracted.”

“I make a difference in a man’s life every night,” Lane said, looking very smug indeed.

“Go away, you’re disgusting,” Alison said. “Good thing my pie is delicious.”

“Does it take the horrible taste out of your mouth of how disgusting I am?” Lane asked.

“Can we talk about anything else, please? It seems to me that many people in this specific circle are either getting married or having babies and I think that both of those things should get more airtime than the hookup that I’m not going to have.”

Her friends begrudgingly complied with her request, but for Alison, the evening was pretty much tainted. By the memory of Cain Donnelly and how gorgeous he was. How much she wanted to trace that square jaw with her fingertip, feel his beard and how rough it might be. See those green eyes sharpen with interest. And by how much she wished... She just wished things were different. Or maybe she didn’t. Maybe she felt relieved.

Or maybe she was caught somewhere between the two things. Which was a strange experience indeed. Regret and relief warring for pride of place inside of her.

Whatever, it was a get-out-of-jail-free card. She knew who he was, and who he was made him off-limits.

So, she wasn’t going to have sex. Which meant she could just eat more pie, because nobody was going to see her naked anyway.

And so that was what she did.

CHAPTER FIVE

THE MORNING WAS cold and clear, the sun rising up over the mountains just as Cain finished with milking the cows. He walked across the paddock and leaned over the edge of the fence, watching as the rose gold burned away and shimmered into a true, bright yellow gold that washed over the tops of the mountains, over the trees, gilding the edges and setting the fields below on fire. Little yellow-and-purple flowers all ablaze in the day’s early light.

There was something about this part of the day that Cain had come to love. It had taken some getting used to. Getting up at five in the morning and dragging his ass out into the cold with a thermos of coffee and a can-do attitude. But over the past couple of months it had become his favorite moment.

Nothing had gone wrong yet. There was still a world of possibility ahead. And sometimes, it felt like it was just him and the mountains.

“Good morning, jackass,” came a voice from behind him.

And Alex. Him and the mountains, and his annoying little brother Alex.

“It was a good morning,” Cain said, turning and facing the other man, who was currently grinning from ear to ear like an idiot. Which basically summed Alex up.

“I’m not feeling the love.”

“You shouldn’t be.”

“What were you pondering?” Alex asked, making his way over to the fence to stand next to him.

“The joy of silence. And of being an only child.”

“Well, you pretty much were growing up.”

That was true. Their dad had liked to spread it around, and he had liked to procreate. But he hadn’t liked to raise the children he created. So, even though there had been variations in their childhoods, they’d had that in common.

“I was,” Cain said. “And you know what? I was happy.”

“I have yet to see evidence that you’ve ever been happy a day in your life,” Alex said, ripping him cheerfully. Alex did everything just a little bit too cheerfully. Sometimes, Cain thought he glimpsed something else beneath that good-natured cheer. Something darker, something that Alex clearly didn’t want anyone else to see.

Alex had served in the army for more than a decade, and during those years had spent a lot of time overseas. Cain knew that his younger brother hadn’t come out of that service without some scarring, mentally, if not physically. But he did a damn good job of hiding it.

Which made Cain suspicious that what was under all that was pretty dark. But he wasn’t going to go poking at it with a stick. If he did that, his brother might return the favor.

“If I remember correctly, I have been happy once or twice,” he said. The day of his wedding and the day of his daughter’s birth came to mind. Nothing else jumped out in his memory.

“I would be happier if I had a refill of coffee. How about you?”

“It’s about that time,” he acknowledged, brushing his knuckles against the brim of his hat and tipping it back on his head. “Actually, it feels past time.”

Suddenly, he felt tired. The kind of tired that had nothing to do with sleep. The kind that weighed a man down.

He hadn’t slept for shit last night. Every time he closed his eyes he’d imagined sifting his fingers through red hair, touching soft, pale skin. He’d been so hard it had been physically painful. But he had refused to do anything about it. Had refused to give himself any relief.

Because his damn body deserved to be punished for wanting to get it on with the single most complicated woman he could have found in a small town. And, given that it was such a small town, most women were going to be complicated in some way or another. So, that was saying something.

Really, the only woman that could possibly be more complicated would be a married one. And even then, maybe not so much. Because, as long as it was a secret...

Not that he would ever go there. His own marriage might have been an unmitigated disaster but he respected the institution too much to go sticking his dick where it didn’t belong.

Just as they were approaching the house, the front door jerked open and out came a very stormy-looking Violet, wearing black leggings, a plain gray T-shirt, and a hoodie with only the bottom zipped, the hood up over her hair. She stomped down the stairs and stopped in front of Cain, seeming surprised momentarily as she very nearly ran into him. “Where were you?” she asked, expression furious.

“I was out doing my job,” he said, trying to keep his tone measured, even though he could sense that this was about to become a fight.

“Well, I’m late to my job,” she said, nearly shouting. “Why didn’t you wake me up?”

“I didn’t know you were opening this morning, Violet,” he said, much more patiently than the situation warranted, he felt. “And it’s your responsibility to set your own alarm.”

“I did,” she said. “But it didn’t go off.”

“Technology failure,” he returned, “that’s not my fault. But if you head over to the truck I’ll get ready to drive you over.”

“You should have been around, instead of out playing cowboy, or whatever the hell you’re doing.”

He couldn’t do much of anything but stare at the little viper whose diapers he had once changed. “Playing cowboy? This is my job. This is our legacy.”

“No. We had a ranch in Texas. And I know you sold it for a crap ton of money. You don’t have to work here, you’re just choosing to work here. Because I guess you really like being too busy to do anything for me.”

“That’s it. Get into the truck before we both say something we’re going to regret,” he said, grinding his teeth together.

“No. I mean, I’m going to get into the truck,” she said. “Because I’m late for work. But not because you told me to.”

“Violet. At this point, I don’t give a damn why you get in the truck, but you need to do it. And you need to shut your mouth for about thirty seconds and then think very carefully about the next thing you let come out of it. I’m going inside to get coffee. Wait for me.”

Alex didn’t say anything as the two of them headed into the house. And he continued to say nothing as Cain went over and poured himself a travel mug full of coffee.

“No comment?” Cain asked finally, because surely his younger brother, who had a smart remark for everything, had a smart remark for this.

“No comment at all. Except that teenagers are hell. I should remember, seeing as I was one of the worst.”

“She overslept, and somehow I’m the bad guy.”

Alex laughed. “I have a feeling at this point you could buy her a pony and be the bad guy.”

“Too fucking true,” he grumbled, feeling seriously aggrieved as he strode out of the kitchen and made his way out to the truck, where Violet was waiting, her arms crossed, her expression the physical embodiment of the storm cloud.

He jerked the driver’s side door open and got in, starting the engine with a little more violence than was strictly necessary.

They began the drive toward town in silence, and Cain told himself to keep it that way. To keep his temper in check. Because Violet was a teenager, and she was testing boundaries. Because she was angry, because ever since they had left Texas she had felt disenfranchised and stuff because she’d had to leave her friends behind. So it wasn’t about him. It really wasn’t. It was about the change. And he needed to remember that.

That lasted all of ten minutes.

“You think I did this for me?” he asked. “You think that I sold everything I spent your entire life building because I thought it would be hilarious to start over somewhere? Just for fun?”

“I think you’d rather work yourself to death than sit in the same room with me for more than five seconds.”

“I sat in a truck with you from Texas to Oregon, I don’t think that’s the real issue here. That was a long-ass drive, Violet. I didn’t avoid that, did I?”

“Whatever,” she said, propping her chin up on her hand and staring out the window.

He was so mad at her, and he wanted to leave her on the side of the road. But suddenly he was overwhelmed by the urge to laugh. Because the drama was just a little too much, and a whole lot familiar. He could remember doing the exact same thing at Violet’s age. Of course, when he’d been angry at his mother it was because she had stayed out all night at the casino and gone home with a strange man.

Violet had no freaking idea how good she had it.

“We were dying there,” he said, his tone rough. “Waiting for her to come back. And I wasn’t going to wait anymore.”

“You didn’t ask me.”

He tightened his grip on the steering wheel. “No. I didn’t. This isn’t a democracy, this is a dictatorship. I wasn’t taking votes.”

She made that horrible, cat-hacking-up-a-hair-ball sound that teenagers made when they just couldn’t even with you.

And after that, he let it rest. Because he did have to take her to work, not leave her on the side of the road.

“I’m going to get in trouble,” Violet said when they pulled up in front of Pie in the Sky. And in that moment, she sounded so young, so small, and so defeated he just couldn’t be mad anymore.

“No, you aren’t. Alison seems nice. She’ll understand that your alarm didn’t go off. It was a mistake. It happens.”

She looked up at him then, her eyes suspiciously bright, the expression in them pleading. But she wasn’t going to ask for his help, of course not. She was just going to sit there looking miserable until he offered it. And of course he was going to offer it. Because dammit, it felt good to have her need him.

Usually, he had no idea what in the hell he could do for her. But this, he could do.

“Come on. I’ll walk you inside.”

The fact that she didn’t argue with him confirmed his suspicions about the fact that she did want his help. As soon as they entered the bakery Violet scampered behind the counter, grabbing an apron as she went, disappearing into the kitchen. A few seconds later, Alison appeared.

She was wearing much the same thing she’d worn yesterday, all that red hair piled on top of her head again. She looked up, pausing, her expression like someone who had been hit by a truck. “Oh. I didn’t realize you were here,” she said, reaching up and patting her hair, then dropping her hand quickly and smoothing her apron in what looked like a nervous, fluttery motion.

He affected her. He made her nervous. Well. Hell.

“I figured I would walk Violet in. I know she’s late.”

Alison frowned. “Right. I put her to work on cupcake duty. I really needed the help this morning.”

“Her alarm didn’t go off. You know how phones are.” Or, he figured it was something to do with the phone. He didn’t really know how phones were. He had no clue what he was saying.

“She needs to get a backup,” Alison said, her tone not unkind, but definitely firm. “But I have no trouble talking to her about that. She’s sixteen, I think she can take the responsibility for it.”

That rankled a little bit. Because he had decided to come in and take the responsibility for it. Because he wanted to be the hero here. Violet might be too little for him to pick up and put on his shoulders, but he could do this. “Yes,” he said. “But she is still learning. She’s never had a job before. And she’s used to me getting her up in the morning for school. But with the way things are working here at the ranch I’m out early. I wasn’t back in time to be her backup today. And she’s not used to that. She’ll learn, but you can’t expect her to get it right the first time.”

Alison blinked. “Are you scolding me?”

“Maybe.”

“I’m not sure how I feel about that,” she said, resting her elbow on the counter and leaning in ever so slightly.

“You don’t seem too offended,” he said, resting his own elbow on the counter and moving in toward her.

“I’m in my place of business,” she countered. “So I’m being measured in my responses.”

“I would hate to see your temper in full force.”

“Is that a redhead joke?”

“I don’t think so.” He leaned in just a little bit more, and when her breath caught, an answering catch hit him low in the stomach. “You seem a little defensive about that though. It makes me think people have commented on your temper before.”

“Not for a while,” she said, a soft smile playing with the edges of her mouth.

He wanted to taste that smile. And again, like she’d done the first time they’d talked here in the bakery, she licked her lips, as if she could read his mind about all the tasting he wanted to do.

“Alison, the rest of the cupcakes are too hot to frost.”

Both he and Alison looked up quickly, Alison’s head whipping back toward the kitchen, when Violet came out wringing her hands and looking lost.

Violet. Yes. He had brought Violet to work. And he had been... Well. Damn. He had been flirting with her boss. And he had decided he wasn’t going to do that.

“That’s fine,” Alison said. “You can watch Sabine do doughnuts. It’s pretty easy. I think you’ll be able to pick it up pretty fast.”

“Bye, Dad,” Violet said, turning and heading back into the kitchen. Clearly, he was dismissed.

“I’d better get back,” he said. And he really needed to get his damn head on straight.

“Right. Well. Get your daughter an alarm clock.”

He touched the tip of his hat with his fingertips and drew it down. “Yes, ma’am,” he said, thickening his drawl on purpose.

He wasn’t sure what he expected, but he liked the result. The color rose in her cheeks, pretty and bright, and for a moment he just enjoyed the sight. He wasn’t going to do anything about her response to him, but, apparently he hadn’t forgotten how to do this entirely. That was good to know.

“I’ll be back later,” he said. And he didn’t wait for her response before he walked out of the shop and back onto the street.

* * *

ALISON WAS STILL flustered a couple of hours after Cain left. She had been ready to stand firm when it had come to Violet and her lateness. But then... Then... Stuff had happened. And she still wasn’t entirely sure what it had been. Well, okay, it had been flirting. She was reasonably sure. But why? Why did she have to respond to him like this? And what was even the point of him making it blatantly obvious that he was...that there was electricity between them?

She heard a loud groan from across the kitchen, and turned just in time to see her problem child pulling another sunken cake out of the oven.

She could fire Violet. She could blame it on the cake. No one would ever have to know it was because she thought Violet’s dad was hot.

No. She wasn’t going to do that. The entire cornerstone of her business was helping women. If she compromised that mission because of a man... Well. Hypocrisy, that’s what it was.

“You’re still having trouble, Violet?” she asked, once she had her rogue thoughts under control.

“I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.” She looked so distressed that all of Alison’s petty thoughts faded away.

“I’ll tell you what. I’m going to help you. I’m going to spend extra time on this with you.”

Violet shifted uncomfortable, tucking a strand of dark hair that had escaped her ponytail behind her ear. “I don’t know if I can get down here for that. Or stay late or anything. My dad has to get up super early to work and I don’t have my license yet.”

“Okay,” Alison said, feeling determined now. She had been passive, once upon a time. That was not her way now. Now, when she got the bug to do something, she dug her heels right in. “Is there space to cook at your place?”

“I guess so. We’re staying in my uncle Finn’s house, and his kitchen is gigantic.”

“Do you think anyone would mind if I came over after shift and helped you with a few things?”

Violet blinked, obviously surprised by the offer. “No. Probably none of them will be around. Finn will be with Lane, my dad will be... Well, anywhere but in the house. My other two uncles... Mostly I don’t want to know what they’re up to.”

She wasn’t quite sure what to make of the comment about her dad, but it suited Alison to think he wouldn’t be around. “Perfect. Actually, if you want to text your dad and let him know that I can drive you home...”

Violet frowned. “You don’t have to do that. It seems like you’re doing an awful lot for me.” And that clearly made the teenager uncomfortable. But Alison was willing to make her uncomfortable for the sake of proving she was valued.

She’d needed that. And no one in her life had given it.

“Yes,” Alison said. “I am. But you should never feel like you don’t deserve that, Violet.” Alison felt passionate about this part of her job, about this part of the bakery, and her calling. Because she had spent so many years living in a dark hole. Thinking that she didn’t even deserve to see the sun, not after what she had submitted herself to for so many years. It was difficult to ask for help when you’d half convinced yourself that it was your own fault you needed it.

Now that she was in a position to offer help to other people, now that she wasn’t in quite such a desperate situation, she wanted them to feel the freedom in accepting help. In feeling that they deserved it.

Especially somebody as young as Violet. She wanted her to always know that she could ask for extra help if she needed it. That she wasn’t a burden. That she could offer help herself when she saw the need, and she was able.

“I don’t understand why you’re being so nice,” Violet responded.

“This is something that I can do. I’m good at baking. And I’m good at helping other people learn how to do it. Or if not baking specifically, then job skills in general. Why wouldn’t I want to pass that on?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t have to know. But I do want to help. So after work we’re going to tackle more cake. If you think you’re up to it.”

“Definitely,” Violet said, looking a little more certain now.

“Great.”

Alison attacked the rest of the day with a solid sense of determination. She felt...a renewed sense of something. And she was rolling with it. By the time they closed up shop, she was feeling even more amped up.

Last night’s sense of...whatever that had been had faded. She didn’t need attraction. She didn’t need flirting. She had this. She was making a difference.

“Are you ready?” she asked Violet, grabbing a few of the ingredients she would need to do some more specialized baking tonight and piling her arms high with them.

“Yes,” Violet said. “Do you need help?”

“Yes. If you could get those icing bags and a couple of different extracts—whatever you’re in the mood for—that would be great.”

Violet complied, pausing briefly in front of the various flavored extracts. “What should I choose?”

“If we were making your birthday cake, what would you pick?”

“Lemon. And vanilla. Lemon for the cake, vanilla for the frosting.”

“Then choose those. We are going to make a badass lemon vanilla cake.”

Violet looked absolutely delighted by that. And Alison wasn’t sure she had ever seen the teenager delighted before.

Violet was almost chatty on the drive out of town, up to the ranch that she and her father were living on. Alison had never been to Finn’s house, though given the fact that Lane was almost living there now, she had a feeling that she would have been invited up soon enough.

The house itself was set back from the main road, at the end of a long, winding driveway. A stunning log creation that almost seemed to flow with the nature around it. “This is... Well, it’s beautiful,” Alison said as she pulled up to the expansive dwelling.

“I guess so,” Violet said, her enthusiasm noticeably dampened.

“You don’t like it here?” Alison asked, turning her car engine off and unbuckling.

“I don’t know. It’s not that I don’t like it, I guess.” Except she clearly didn’t.

“An issue with ranch life or small-town life?” Alison asked.

“I don’t know. It’s just different. It’s cold and there’s nothing to do in town. We lived on a ranch in Texas but we were closer to a city.”

“I’ve never lived anywhere but Copper Ridge,” Alison said. “Though I’ve fantasized about running away a few times.”

“Really?”

“Yes. I just don’t know where I would run to.”

“Adults can’t really run away. They just move.” Violet let out a heavy sigh. “They have all the control.”

“That isn’t true,” Alison said. “Adults can most definitely run away. Mostly when they feel like they aren’t in control. Anyway. Let’s get all of the baking stuff.” She got out of the car, inhaling a deep breath of the sweet, pine-scented air. She loved her little apartment on Main Street, right above the bakery. Right in the heart of town. But sometimes, she craved an escape. A sanctuary.

She certainly wouldn’t say no to a luxury cabin in the middle of the woods.

She and Violet collected the ingredients, and the two of them walked up to the porch together. Violet pushed the door open, and Alison followed her inside.

Then she followed the girl into the most beautiful kitchen she had ever seen. The rest of the cabin was nice, but there was nothing like a custom kitchen with a view to get Alison’s heart pumping. For some strange reason, the sight threw her mind back to the tiny house she’d lived in on the outskirts of town only four years ago.

Four years. It felt like a lifetime. Like it had been another person. Pale, beaten down.

For some reason, when she took a step forward she could almost feel that tacky yellow linoleum beneath her shoe. She shook her head. She was walking across a gorgeous stone floor, in a beautiful home that bore absolutely no resemblance to the house she had once shared with her ex-husband, Jared. There was no reason to think of him now. And yet, she found herself thinking of him sometimes at the strangest moments. Moments that shouldn’t remind her of him, but somehow did.

Resolutely, she set the ingredients down on the granite-topped island in the middle of the room, the sudden motion and the noise that it made forcing her back into the present. “Okay,” she said, “let’s get baking.”

CHAPTER SIX

WHEN CAIN CAME back in from his evening chores, the house smelled amazing, and the sound of clattering dishes was filtering out of the kitchen. He wondered if Lane was here cooking something for dinner. That was his favorite part of his brother having a girlfriend. The fact that she fed all of them, and happily. In fact, she saw to it like it was a mission.

Lane owned the Mercantile in town, and specialty foods were her passion. That meant that she simply wouldn’t let any of them go unfed on her watch, or fed on cruddy, frozen meals.

It suited him just fine. Though Finn’s disgusting happiness and constant look of satisfaction got a little bit old. But there was food.

He made his way into the kitchen, and stopped, feeling like he had been slugged in the stomach.

Because there she was, red hair piled on top of her head, bent over in front of the oven, showing off an ass that was even more perfect than he had imagined it might be. He knew it was Alison. There was no one else it could be. Nobody else affected him like this. Wasn’t that a joke?

“What’s going on?”

Both Violet and Alison jumped. “Baking practice,” Violet responded, lifting a red spatula.

“Okay,” he said, but it wasn’t okay at all. Because temptation had walked right into his house, and he was doing his very best to stay away from temptation.

“I thought... I thought you knew,” Alison said.

“No,” he returned.

“Sorry,” Violet said, looking more angry than sorry. “I said that Alison was bringing me home. I didn’t think you needed details. I figured I wouldn’t see you at all.”

What struck him was the way that his daughter’s body language had changed since realizing he was there. When he had walked in she had looked happy, at least the small blips he had gotten of her before his gaze had fixated on Alison’s butt. And now she was back to looking angry. Angry and tense.

So, it was just him, then.

“The cake is almost done,” Alison said. “Do you want to do the honors, Violet?”

Violet gave him a wary look. “I guess.”

“It’s okay that I’m here, right?” Alison asked him.

That woman. She had no problem coming at him from the front. Of course, not exactly the way that he fantasized about her coming at him from the front. He’d like to come at her from behind. He tried to ignore the kick of heat that pooled in his gut at that thought.

“Of course,” he said. “Have you had dinner?”

He didn’t know why he was testing this line. Or maybe he did. Because she was here. She was here in his house. Baiting him with her perfect ass. And if she was going to do that, then he was going to push right back.

“No,” she said. “But that’s fine.”

“What’s fine?”

“You don’t need to feed me.”

He crossed his arms and leaned against the door frame. “I didn’t offer to.”

“Dad,” Violet said, jerking him out of the interaction, and out of the haze that had descended upon him. “What’s your problem?”

“Nothing. But I do think that Alison should stay for dinner. And then we can enjoy the cake afterward. I was just giving her a hard time.”

“Whatever. You’re weird. Can I...” She shot a sideways glance at Alison. “I just want to talk to my friends until dinner.”

“You’re not on the clock,” Alison pointed out. “But thanks for asking.”

“Well, I didn’t want to deprive you of my company,” Violet added.

“Go talk to your friends,” Cain said. “We’d hate for them to experience Violet deprivation.”

Violet walked out of the kitchen, pulling her phone out of her pocket as she moved away from them to head up the stairs.

His stomach tightened, a strange sense of anticipation stealing over him. Oh, yes, he remembered this. Very vaguely. That crackle of possibility that sizzled over your skin when you were near somebody that you wanted. When you wondered if you were going to have them.

It had been a long time. But he still remembered that.

And he wondered where all his common sense was. That common sense that told him he needed to steer clear of a woman who was so involved in his daughter’s life.

But then, flirting wasn’t sex.

It had just been so long since a woman had looked at him like that. With color in her cheeks. Since he had felt this kind of excitement. Since he had wanted.

“I hope she’s better for you than she is for me,” he said, not really meaning to lead with mention of his daughter. But then, he supposed that was a pretty fitting metaphor for his life. Violet came first. No matter what. Even when he would rather just be a man, just talk to a beautiful woman, he couldn’t really. Because he was a father. First and foremost.

His ex-wife might have forgotten that. But he hadn’t. He never would.

“She’s fine, honestly. I don’t know what’s going on between the two of you, but with me she’s fine.”

“Normal teenage stuff, I guess.” he said, making his way over to the fridge and opening the freezer. There were several meals that had been premade by Lane there, ready for them to heat up when necessary. “Did you like your parents when you were a teenager?”

“No,” she said. “Not even a little bit. But I don’t like them very much now either.”

“That...isn’t encouraging.”

“Do you have a better relationship than that with your parents?”

He laughed. “Hell no.”

“Right. Well, then.”

“Do you have a food preference?” he asked. “It looks like there’s pasta, pot roast and...meat loaf? All made by Lane Jensen.”

“Then all of it will be good,” Alison said. “Lane is one of my best friends, so I’ve eaten most of her food.”

“Right,” he said, “I know that she’s a good friend of yours. She talks about you a lot. And she kind of helped Violet get the job at your bakery, right?”

“Oh,” Alison said, leaning against the island in the kitchen, tucking a stray curl behind her year. “Right. What else has she... She talks about me?”

She looked concerned by that. Which seemed strange to him. “She hasn’t told me anything.”

“Okay. Good to know.”

“I’m voting for pasta,” he said lightly, taking a metal pan out of the freezer. “I had a long workday.”

“Have you always been a rancher?” she asked. “I mean, Lane did tell me a little bit about you. Or, I mean about Violet. But I applied some of it to you.”

“Right. Well, then you know we just moved here from Texas. And yes, I have always been a rancher. I sold the spread back in Dallas. That was beef, this is different. But I like different. Violet not so much.”

“Well, you know what they say. You can please some of the people some of the time... But you can’t please teenagers ever.”

He laughed, making his way over to the oven and sticking the pan of pasta inside. “True. Very true.”

“Really though, she’s not bad as far as teens go. She’s a good kid.”

He felt a momentary flash of... Something. Jealousy almost? That this woman, this stranger, got something from his own child that he didn’t. And then, he was just pissed. Pissed that he was standing here with a beautiful woman, the first woman he wanted to touch since his divorce, and he couldn’t.

Because of his daughter who hated him anyway.

“Do you want to come sit in the living room while that warms up?”

That was better than inviting her up to his room, which was what he actually wanted to do.

“Sure,” she said.

They both walked into the living room, and he took a seat on the couch. She took the chair across from him. Probably for the best.

“She’s a good kid,” Alison repeated, keeping her eyes focused on the window, on the view outside. Which was pretty spectacular. His grandfather had had the custom home built a few years ago, if Cain understood the timeline correctly. It was nestled in the center of the mountain, taking advantage of the scenery of the valley and the fields below.

“You said that,” he responded.

“Yes,” she said, “I did. And I mean it. She’s a good kid. But I think she needs to take a little more of her own responsibility. She could be driving herself to work. And she can definitely get herself up in the morning.”

Irritation streaked through him, heat that rivaled the heat of attraction that had been firing in his gut just a moment before. “Excuse me?”

“She can take more responsibility than she is. I understand that you’re feeling protective because you just moved here...”

“Look, I know you think that you know the situation because Lane told you some things, but you don’t. I do feel protective of her. Very protective. She’s been through enough.”

“Yes. But I have a feeling that part of the reason she’s sometimes surly with you is that you’re hovering a little too much.”

“No. That isn’t it. Just ask her. She feels like she doesn’t see me. She’s mad at me because I have a job, and because I don’t talk to her, which she doesn’t actually want. Because she hates me.” He was not going to let this woman, no matter how sexy, tell him anything about his relationship with his daughter.

Because you’re such an expert about your relationship with your daughter?

He ignored that obnoxious inner voice.

“Hovering over her and driving her to work, and coming in to talk to her boss when she’s late isn’t the same as spending time with her,” Alison said calmly.

“How many children do you have, Alison?” he asked, crossing his arms.

She frowned. “None.”

“That’s what I thought. So, you’ll understand if I don’t take your advice on mine.”

“I don’t have any children, but since my bakery essentially functions as job training I see a lot of different kinds of women. And I’ve learned to work with a lot of different personality types. I’ve learned the most effective ways to build different kinds of people up, to give them confidence. I want Violet to understand that she can accept help, and that it’s a good thing to get help. But I also want to see her standing on her own two feet.”

“You think I don’t want that? You think that because you spend a few hours a day with her you know her better than I do? I’ve been raising her for sixteen years. Four of them by myself. You don’t have any right to make commentary.”

She stood up, making her way over to the window, twisting her hands in front of her. “All right. Maybe I don’t. And fine, I don’t know anything about kids. But I do know about women. And she’s almost a woman.”

He didn’t want to hear that, even though he’d been having similar thoughts earlier. He stood too, agitation pouring through him. “She’s still a kid. And she needs certain things done for her. She’s had it rough. Her mother abandoned her and she needs...she needs more from me because of it, okay? She needs to feel taken care of.”

Alison turned to face him, her cheeks pink, this time from anger, and not from any kind of attraction. “If you’re going to purposely misunderstand me, then I don’t see the point of having this discussion.”

She started to walk back toward the kitchen and he reached out and caught her arm. She looked down at where his hand was curled around her, and she jerked away, her expression wary. “Don’t.”

“Sorry,” he said. “Did I hurt you?”

She blinked, her expression schooled into a perfect, blank slate. “No.”

He knew she was attracted to him. And he’d bet money that was why she’d reacted the way she had when he’d touched her.

He expected her to walk past him. To walk away then. But she didn’t. Instead, she just stood there, looking at him. And he forgot what they were talking about. He forgot that they’d been arguing. And the tension—tension that had been associated with anger only a second ago—shifted, changed.

He forgot everything. Except that she looked like heaven. And a little bit angry, but that just made him want to reach out and smooth the crease between her eyebrows, then trace the shape of her face, down to her chin, slide his thumb across her lower lip and see if it was as soft as a rose petal, like he suspected it might be.

He took a step toward her. Again, he expected her to move away. Again, she didn’t. No, instead, she held her ground, and she licked her lips again.

Before he knew what he was doing, he reached out, hooking his arm around her waist and drawing her up against him. She looked startled for a moment, her hands held up like he had her at gunpoint. But that only lasted a moment. Then she softened, her spine curving as she melted against him, pressing her palms to his chest.

“This is a bad idea,” he said.

She nodded slowly. “Yes.”

But she didn’t push at him. Didn’t try to pull away. So he began to lower his head, slowly, those rose-petal lips so close to his own he was already anticipating the taste.

“No,” she said suddenly. “Oh, no.” And then she did push against him, extricating herself from his hold. “I can’t do this. I don’t do things like this. I’m sorry. I really need to go.”

And then, as it seemed to be the pattern in his life, Alison stormed from the room, leaving him standing there to wonder what the hell he had done wrong now.

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