Of all the people who had come to give condolences for her brother-in-law

It had to be him.

Four years ago, Declan Madison rescued Emmy Tate from a bombed Afghan school—and brutally dismissed their instant attraction. Now he’s back in her life, watchful of the two orphaned kids Emmy’s raising. Declan can’t bring back his best friend, but playing family with the beautiful photographer is the next best thing. If only they didn’t share so much past trauma...

VICTORIA PADE is a USA TODAY bestselling author of numerous romance novels. She has two beautiful and talented daughters—Cori and Erin—and is a native of Colorado, where she lives and writes. A devoted chocolate lover, she’s in search of the perfect chocolate-chip-cookie recipe.

For information about her latest and upcoming releases, visit Victoria Pade on Facebook—she would love to hear from you.

Also by Victoria Pade

The Marine Makes His Match AWOL

Bride

Abby, Get Your Groom!

A Sweetheart for the Single Dad

Special Forces Father

Her Baby and Her Beau

To Catch a Camden

A Camden Family Wedding

It’s a Boy

A Baby in the Bargain

Corner-Office Courtship

The Maverick’s Christmas Baby

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.

The Marine’s Family Mission

Victoria Pade

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-09154-1

THE MARINE’S FAMILY MISSION

© 2019 Victoria Pade

Published in Great Britain 2019

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

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Version: 2020-03-02

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Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Note to Readers

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Extract

About the Publisher

Chapter One

Emmy Tate took off her soiled leather work gloves, stuffed them partially into the front pocket of her jeans and ran the back of her right wrist over her forehead to wipe the sweat away. Then she pressed both fists into the ache in the small of her back.

Enough for today, she decided.

As she surveyed her progress on the field that had, until two days before, been growing spring vegetables, she fought feeling discouraged and overwhelmed.

Bad enough that the record-breaking hailstorm had wreaked massive destruction on the organic farm on the outskirts of small-town Northbridge, Montana. But why did her progress clearing the damage have to be so slow? She’d barely made a dent.

Mandy would have done better, she thought.

Of course, her late sister would have known what she was doing, and that wasn’t true for Emmy.

But she was trying—and trying, and trying, for months now—to make the best of a bad situation.

But tomorrow was another day, she told herself, surveying the farm. She looked beyond the field to the apple orchard behind it, where branches were nearly bare of leaves now, where many limbs were dangling or left broken on the ground.

It would have made an effective photograph. One she would have taken long ago when she’d worked for the Red Cross documenting their good works in natural disasters or war zones.

But those weren’t the kinds of pictures she took now. Not that she had time for pictures at all lately, with all she had to do. At least cleaning up the field left her out in the open. She was dreading getting into that orchard.

She’d called the only arborist in the area to come and take a look at it. Because he’d known and liked Mandy, he’d come despite the fact that he was overbooked with all the damage in the area. But he refused to deal with anything under ten feet high or to start work before the already-downed limbs and the ground debris were cleared.

He’d assured her that it wasn’t anything she couldn’t take care of herself. Drag out the downed limbs. Rake the leaves. Use the pole saw and pruner to cut down the broken branches below ten feet.

He’d shown her how to do that, confident that she could manage.

It wasn’t that she didn’t think she could, it was just that she’d have to be in that orchard to do it. Under those broken branches that could—would—fall to the ground, sometimes without warning. If she wasn’t far enough back or quick enough to get out of the way, they’d trap her...

It’ll be fine, she told herself impatiently, tamping down on the panic trying to rise to the surface. It isn’t the school in Afghanistan, it’s a bunch of trees, for crying out loud.

And she was over what had happened. She was okay now, she insisted to herself.

But still she closed her eyes and took a deep breath, then exhaled slowly, repeating the process again and again until the panic wasn’t looming.

Or at least until it was looming less.

“I don’t know how I’m gonna get in there, Mandy...” she confided to her late sister in a whisper.

But cleanup had to be done. She needed the place in perfect condition if she was going to find someone to lease it so she could get back to her everyday life in Denver. Back to what she’d been doing since leaving her work with the Red Cross—taking photographs of happy occasions like engagements and weddings and taking portraits of newborns.

“It’s just a bunch of trees,” she said out loud this time before she headed for the farm’s truck, assuring herself that it was only a matter of time before she could go home to Denver.

Although it wouldn’t exactly be back to her everyday life. Not when she’d be taking her three-year-old niece and two-month-old nephew with her to raise.

But even unexpected single parenthood was less daunting than the farming her sister had loved—and mastered. She reached the truck and saw her reflection in the driver’s-side window.

She’d never seen Mandy look as bad after a day’s work as Emmy did at that moment.

“You’re a mess, Em,” she told her reflection.

Strands of her chin-length reddish-brown hair had come free of the topknot she’d put it in this morning and fell limply around her face.

She hadn’t bothered to put on makeup, so there was no blush on her high cheekbones, no eyeliner or mascara to accentuate her chestnut-colored eyes, no highlighter dusting her thin, straight nose or lipstick on full lips that craved balm at that moment.

But there was a dirt smudge across her forehead and a general griminess to her appearance.

Not wanting to get into the truck with too much of that grime, she took the work gloves from her pocket, slapped them against the side of the truck until no more dust billowed out of them, then used them to whack the loose layer of soil off her jeans and faded red crew-neck T-shirt.

Once that was done, she kicked her boots against the truck’s running board to clear some of the crusted dirt from them and then climbed up behind the wheel, glad no one but her mother and the kids would see her looking like this before she could climb into a much-anticipated shower.

A shower, after which she would dry off with a clean towel before she put on equally clean clothes fresh out of the laundry her mother would have folded and waiting for her. Then she’d enjoy the nice dinner her mother was making and some time with the kids her mother had taken care of.

For this one last day until Karen Tate left.

But Emmy couldn’t think about the fact that her mother was leaving tomorrow. About the fact that she would soon be on her own, not only with the farm and storm cleanup, but also with the house and the laundry and the meals and the kids, who included a colicky baby who cried for hours at night...

No, she couldn’t think about it. She was already tired and dirty and hungry, and she just couldn’t.

So she pushed everything out of her mind, turned the key in the ignition and started the truck’s engine.

“I sure hope you didn’t bite off more than I can chew, Mandy,” she muttered as she released the emergency brake.

Then she sighed and said, “One foot in front of the other, Em. That’s all you can do. Just keep putting one foot in front of the other.”

The truck made a cranky noise when she put it into gear and she reminded herself to add auto repair to the list of skills that would be good for a leaser to have. Then she drove down the dirt path that took her to the private drive leading to the house.

It was only once she was on the private drive that she saw another truck ahead of her. A black one almost as dated as the pale blue one she was in.

Company? She wasn’t expecting anyone. She and her mother were supposed to spend this evening going over the food her mother had stocked the freezer with and the revolving schedule of babysitters her mother had lined up to help with the kids. Then her mother needed to finish packing. She was leaving early Saturday morning, so Emmy doubted her mother had invited anyone over.

Hopefully it was just someone coming to say an impromptu goodbye to Karen Tate and Emmy could leave them to it while she hit the shower.

The other truck came to a stop near the front porch of the white two-story farmhouse. Emmy parked her own truck, paying little attention to the guest, who she was increasingly sure must be there to see her mother.

Until she got out of the truck.

The other driver had already disembarked and was standing beside his vehicle, facing Emmy, apparently waiting for her.

That was when she realized who her guest was.

Oh no, not him! Anybody but him!

Of all the people who had come to give condolences for her brother-in-law, Topher, in October, of all the people who had come to give condolences for Mandy during the last six weeks, of all the people who had come to visit or help since Emmy had taken over, of all the people in the whole wide world, not him.

Declan Madison.

He was her late brother-in-law’s best friend. The neighbor Topher had grown up with and considered a brother. The person Topher had gone to the naval academy with, who he’d served with in the marines. He was the person who had been with Topher when Topher died seven months ago, in an IED explosion in Afghanistan that also left Declan wounded.

And if it wasn’t bad enough that he was also tied to Emmy’s Afghanistan nightmare four and a half years ago, he’d rejected her in the worst way at Mandy and Topher’s wedding not long after that.

Emmy had dreaded the thought of seeing him again ever since.

But there he was.

She wanted to get back in the truck and drive as far away from him as she could get.

But he was staring straight at her and making this yet another bad situation she had to make the best of.

Feeling rooted to the spot, Emmy once again took a deep breath, breathed it out, then literally forced herself to put one foot in front of the other to cross the farmyard.

As she did, she took stock of him.

She didn’t know exactly how hurt he’d been in the explosion—she’d only heard that he’d survived. But looking at him now Emmy saw no clues as to what injuries he’d suffered.

As far as she could tell, there were no visible scars, no discernible differences in him. He still stood tall and straight—inches over six feet. His shoulders were still a mile wide, and even though he looked slightly leaner, the officer’s service uniform he was wearing was still packed with muscle.

It was only when her gaze went above the impressive body that she noticed a difference.

At first she thought it was just that he’d grown out the buzz cut from his black-coffee-colored hair. But a couple of steps closer made her realize that his handsome face had a new gravity to it. A brooding quality. Plus the hint of some weight lost there, too, had carved hollows that made his cheekbones and chiseled jawline more ruggedly drawn, adding an intensity to his exquisitely masculine features.

A few more steps took her near enough to better see the remarkable cobalt blue eyes that had mesmerized her in the past, and there she saw even more change.

There was no sparkle, none of the humor or lightheartedness that she’d seen in them before. Even his supple-looking mouth looked somber. It was as if the light had completely gone out in him.

“Declan,” Emmy said in greeting, hearing the chill in her own reception but unable to heat it up as she came to within feet of him and stopped.

“Emmy...” he answered with a heavy helping of his own reservations.

Only in that moment did Emmy remember how she looked herself—awful.

It was bad enough to have to meet up with this guy again, but to do it with no makeup, with stringy hair and all-around grunge? For the second time, she wanted to run the other way.

But she squared her shoulders as if she had nothing to be self-conscious about, thanked heaven that at least seeing him again still hadn’t caused flashbacks to Afghanistan and said bluntly, “What are you doing here?”

His clean-shaven chin went up a notch, defiantly, defensively. “I’ve been in one hospital after another since October and now I’m just out of two months of rehab—I was released three days ago. I thought I’d be coming to face Mandy, but then I got the news that she died?”

The question revealed understandable shock. As far as anyone knew, her sister had been a healthy, vital thirty-two-year-old.

“Apparently she had a congenital heart problem that no one knew about... She died in her sleep two weeks after Kit was born.”

“She made it through a second pregnancy, a second birth and then...” His full dark eyebrows arched and he shook his head in disbelief.

“My mom thinks Topher came for her so they could be together,” Emmy said softly, wanting to believe that, too.

The mention of Declan’s late friend caused those eyebrows to pulse together as if she’d struck a nerve before he said, “I’m sorry for your loss. I liked Mandy. She and Topher were good together.”

“They were,” Emmy agreed.

A moment of silence followed that before Declan went on.

“So instead I’m here about the kids,” he announced.

“The kids?” Emmy repeated.

“I came to see what’s going on. To make sure Topher’s—” the name choked him up but he conquered it in a hurry “—kids are okay. To do what I can... I’m Trinity’s godfather, you know.”

And Emmy was her godmother. It had happened in two separate ceremonies—one with Emmy soon after Trinity was born, and a second with Declan when Topher and Declan had arranged leave time a month later.

It had been something Emmy was grateful for so she didn’t have to see Declan again then.

“Not long after Topher died, Mandy decided she’d better make a will and name a guardian for the kids in case anything ever happened to her. Nobody thought it would, but...” This time it was Emmy who choked up a bit before she got on top of it. “She named me as the kids’ guardian, so...they’re mine and you don’t have to concern yourself with them.”

That beetled his brow again. And seemed to raise a little ire in him because there was an edge to his deep voice when he said, “Topher was no different to me than either of my own brothers. I feel about his kids the way I’d feel about my own blood niece or nephew. I’m going to do what I can for them.”

“They don’t need you. Or anything from you,” Emmy said tersely, her own ire raised at the thought of having to have anything to do with him—and also at the implication she wasn’t enough to look after them.

“Look—” he said in a commanding, no-nonsense voice just as the front door opened and her mother came out.

“Declan! Is that you? I looked out to see if Emmy was back and... It is you, isn’t it?”

Oh nooo... Emmy groaned silently.

She knew how her mother felt about Declan Madison. Even before meeting him, Karen Tate—like Emmy herself—had been grateful to him for saving Emmy’s life in Afghanistan.

At Mandy and Topher’s wedding—unaware of the memories Emmy feared that the sight of him might cause her—her mother had expressed that gratitude and developed a fondness for him.

What her mother didn’t know was what had happened later on the night of the wedding.

Or how incredibly confused Emmy’s feelings about Declan had become.

Or that he’d walked her to her hotel room, made a date for breakfast with her and then gone next door for a night of what had sounded like very raucous sex with another bridesmaid.

So of course Karen Tate was excited to see him and hurried down the steps of the front porch to give him a hug.

“Oh, honey, how are you?” she asked.

Declan returned the hug stiffly, keeping his solemn, steady gaze on Emmy over her mother’s head as if to let her know that they weren’t finished with their talk.

“I’m okay,” he answered, his tone oddly reserved.

Emmy’s mom must have heard it, too, because she ended the hug and linked her arm through Declan’s to turn him toward the porch. “Come in. I want to know how you really are. And I know you must want to see Kit. And every time Trinity looks at the picture of her daddy, I point you out standing next to him and tell her who you are—she calls you Decan. Let’s see if she recognizes you in person.”

Then over her shoulder, Karen Tate said, “Go on up and have your shower, Em. I’ll keep Decan occupied.”

As her mother urged Declan to the porch steps, Emmy noted his slight limp.

For his part he didn’t cast her so much as another glance. Which irked Emmy even more.

She let them get all the way through the door before she followed, thinking about what had seemed like nothing but a generous idea when Mandy had said she wanted to volunteer for the Red Cross mission to Afghanistan that Emmy had been assigned to follow and photograph four and a half years ago.

And how much her sister’s life and her own had been altered when Topher Samms and Declan Madison had become their military escorts.

Chapter Two

“You’re going to stay at Topher’s farm?”

Declan was sitting at the kitchen table with his sister, Kinsey, in the farmhouse where they’d grown up. Kinsey had made him breakfast, and while she was at it, he’d told her about his visit to the Sammses’ place the day before. About the long talk he’d had with Topher’s mother-in-law that had made it clear Emmy Tate needed his help.

“I know you thought it would be fun for us all to be back here,” he said. “To stay in the house together one more time before it gets packed up and sold—”

“I keep scheduling times to come and clear it out, but something always interferes. So while we still have it—and it isn’t packed up yet—I wanted to get married here.”

“Sure. But come on—this place will be bursting at the seams by the wedding next week. Me, you, your groom and his mother are already here. Conor and Maicy, and Liam and Dani and the twins are all coming... This place just isn’t that big. What difference does it make if I bunk in the workout room downstairs or down the road? I’m just five minutes away. And I need to do what I can for Topher’s family. Whatever I can. I owe him that...”

“I know that’s important to you,” his sister admitted.

It was. He felt responsible for his best friend’s death, and that meant it was on him to step in on whatever Topher had left behind. Even more than his sister’s wedding, that driving need was what had brought him back to the small town where he’d been made to feel like the scum of the earth growing up.

“It’s bad over at the Sammses’ place, huh?” his sister asked. “It’s so strange that the storm totally missed us but decimated them. I guess we dodged the bullet.”

“It’s definitely bad over there,” he confirmed. Karen Tate had described three fields full of spring plants wiped out, the orchard torn apart, the family vegetable garden gone, the roof and one side of the house and the barn shredded, the chicken coop battered and untold damage on the apiaries.

“The farm has been in the Samms family for six generations, and Topher—and Mandy—loved that place,” he went on after outlining the problems. “They were dedicated to keeping it in the family, to raising the kids there, to passing it down to them.” And had his friend been alive, Declan knew that there was nothing Topher wouldn’t have done to meet that goal.

“It can’t happen the way Topher and Mandy planned now,” he said, hearing the ragged edge that came into his own voice as guilt weighed him down. “The kids aren’t going to grow up on the farm—Mandy made her sister their guardian—”

“Emmy—that’s her name, right? Mandy’s sister? You rescued her in Afghanistan?”

“I dug her out of some rubble when a bomb hit a school she was in taking pictures of kids for the Red Cross,” he confirmed.

“You say that like it was no big deal, but you saved her life.”

He shrugged that off. “I was just doing my job,” he said as if he hadn’t been frantic to get her out from under that debris. Because even though it hadn’t been the same love at first sight for them as it had been for Topher and Mandy, before that school had been hit, he’d had a few laughs with Emmy, he’d liked her.

But that was water far, far under the bridge now.

“Anyway,” he continued, “she doesn’t know squat about farming. She lives and works in Denver, and her mother says that’s where she plans to take Trinity and Kit. But she wants to keep the farm in the family so the kids have the option of running it when they grow up, which means she’s figuring on leasing it. Only nobody’s going to take it on until she gets it cleaned up. And she needs an extra pair of hands and someone who knows their way around a farm to do that.”

“Are you well enough for farm work?” Kinsey was a nurse and very protective of his health right now.

“I’m fine. The knee is a little stiff, but I’m keeping up on the physical therapy exercises for it. The farm work will just help get me the rest of the way back in shape. I have to wait for my review with the Medical Evaluation Board anyway before I can get the go-ahead to get back to my unit. Might as well be productive in the meantime.”

His sister didn’t look convinced, but he knew his body. He knew how hard he’d worked in rehab not just on regaining the use and strength of his leg, but with weight training on the rest of his body so he’d be ready and able to return to duty.

“Plus there’s the kids,” he said then. “Mandy’s mom has been staying at the farm, but she told me she’s leaving today. Mandy’s dad has been holding down the fort at their travel agency, but her mom really needs to get back. The timing is rough. Before the hail hit, there was someone serious about leasing the farm—he was set to take over so Emmy could take the kids to Denver with her mother this weekend. But he backed out once he saw the hail damage.”

“So now they have to start all over trying to find someone else?”

“That’s what Karen said. She also said that Emmy is good with the kids but she was in over her head with the farm even before the storm, when other farmers were lending her a hand here and there—”

“But now other farmers have to regroup from the hail themselves,” Kinsey said.

“Right. So she has to clear the damage, replant the fields, take care of the animals and, with her mother leaving, do all the household stuff and take care of Trinity and Kit, too. Plus Karen said Kit is colicky—whatever that is—and he cries a lot at night... There’ll be some help from babysitters coming in during the day, but Emmy will be on her own for one sleepless night after another and—”

Declan sighed. “Bottom line—there’s a big need for help over there, for more than two hands. So I’m going to work with Emmy to do what I can.”

As long as he didn’t go over there today and find her standing on the front porch with a shotgun to run him off the property.

It had been her mother—not Emmy—who had told him what was going on. In fact, Emmy had looked like she wanted to strangle her mother when she’d come downstairs after her shower to discover just how candid Karen had been.

And when he’d offered his services, Emmy couldn’t have been more against it. She’d flatly and fervently refused his help.

The two women had gone back and forth for a while. But Karen had held her ground and eventually Emmy had conceded, even to the idea of him moving into the basement so they could trade off nights being up with Kit.

But the whole concession had been so obviously against Emmy’s will that he thought she might have only pretended to go along with the plan in order to end the argument, always intending to keep him away once her mother was out of the picture.

It was what Declan was half expecting.

More than half, really. He already knew how changeable she could be.

She’d been friendly when they’d first met in Afghanistan. But after digging her out of that bombed school, she wouldn’t even let him visit her in the hospital. Instead she’d sent a thank-you note with her sister. Her sister, who hadn’t been inside the school when it was blown up and had escaped injury.

After leaving the hospital, when Mandy and Topher were still keeping as constant company as they could, Emmy had had her sister tell him that she still wasn’t up for any visits.

And during Mandy and Topher’s lengthy parting at the airport? Emmy had hidden aboard the plane and Declan had been left hanging on the tarmac, not even allotted a goodbye.

Message received—that was what he’d thought. Apparently sharing a couple of laughs had meant more to him than it had to her and she didn’t want anything to do with him. Okay, fine.

But then there was the wedding.

She’d been weird toward him initially. She hadn’t done anything but raise her chin to say hello before taking off as if her tail was on fire. And she’d kept her distance from him through the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner, through the pre-wedding pictures.

Then at the reception she’d approached him. She’d said she wanted to thank him again for unburying her from the school debris. She’d even stuck around to chat and that friendly, fun side of her had come out again. To the extent that he’d started to think they might hit it off after all.

They’d spent almost the entire reception together, doing a lot of drinking, dancing, laughing. He’d had a great time with her. But she’d been pretty drunk by the end of it, so he’d walked her to her room. He hadn’t so much as kissed her because he hadn’t wanted it to seem as if he was taking any kind of advantage.

What he had done was make a date for breakfast the next morning.

But by breakfast she’d turned on him again—she’d stood him up, and when he’d happened to run into her in the hotel lobby and asked if she’d forgotten about it, she’d said, “Are you kidding? You really thought I’d have breakfast with you after last night?”

Then she’d turned her back on him, stormed off and not spoken to him the two other times their paths had crossed post-wedding.

So yeah, he wasn’t putting much stock in her agreement to his help now. She was a Jekyll and Hyde if ever he’d seen one.

But despite that, he did hope that she accepted his help.

Not because he had any desire at all to deal with her but because helping with the farm and the kids until a leaser could step in or until he passed his medical review and was deployed again was something he could do for Topher.

For Topher he would do anything. For Topher nothing would ever be enough...

“You don’t say her name like you like her,” Kinsey observed, bringing him out of his reverie.

“I don’t dislike her,” he said, though it didn’t sound altogether believable even to him. “I don’t know... For some reason things just don’t gel between us.”

“I’ve heard that she’s really pretty, though. I met Greg Kravitz in town and he asked if I knew her—he sounded interested.”

“Kravitz? He’s still here?” Declan said through nearly clenched teeth.

“Yeah, he has a landscaping business—mostly I think he mows lawns, shovels snow in the winter... I forgot, you guys really hated each other, didn’t you? You were like archenemies.”

Kinsey had no idea...

“He’s a jerk” was all Declan said. He’d always kept things to himself when it had come to Kravitz. And maybe his own long and ugly history with him was the reason that it rubbed him so wrong to think of Kravitz being interested in Emmy Tate. But it did. It rubbed him really, really wrong...

“I wouldn’t wish Kravitz on anyone,” he grumbled.

“But especially not on Emmy Tate?” his sister probed.

Declan sighed and shook his head. “You know what happens when everybody in your family finds someone and you’re single? They all think they have to pair you up with someone. But let’s just put any idea of me and Emmy Tate to rest once and for all, huh? I don’t know what makes her tick, but I do know that it doesn’t work for me.”

Sure, she was great-looking, there was no doubt about that—even when she was as dirty as a farmhand after a day’s hard work yesterday he’d still seen that. And then she’d cleaned up and...

Okay, yeah, great-looking.

She had the creamiest skin he’d ever seen and a face like some kind of enticing girl next door, with gorgeous, big, doe-brown eyes, a straight little nose, kissably full lips that he’d never had the chance to kiss and dimples—she had the damn sexiest dimples...

Plus she had smooth, shiny reddish-brown hair that turned toward her chin on the bottom, with a long wisp of bangs that sometimes fell like a see-through silk scarf over one eye in a way that was shy and coy and seductive all at once.

And her body?

Yeah, that was great, too. Trim and tight with just enough oomph in all the right places.

So sure, he’d been interested when he’d come across what had seemed like a little breath of fresh air from home in Afghanistan.

And yeah, she’d been intriguing enough for him to drop his guard again with her when she’d warmed up at the wedding reception.

But those cold shoulders she’d thrown his way the rest of the time—including yesterday? That definitely didn’t work for him.

“I’m here because we lost Topher and there are things that have to be taken care of on his behalf,” he said firmly then. “And from here the only place I’m headed for is where I belong—back to the marines and my unit. So don’t go hoping for some kind of romance with anyone while I’m here.”

“It might do you some good,” his sister suggested with a different tone that he also recognized—the worried-about-him-and-his-state-of-mind-since-Topher’s-death look and sound that he’d met from Kinsey and Conor and Liam.

“I’m good enough,” he proclaimed, even if he was finding it hard to be the old Declan. “So all you happy lovebirds can roost here and I’ll go down the road and hope I can do some good there. But don’t be putting some other kind of spin on it because it isn’t gonna happen.”

“Declan...” his sister said, sounding more worried still.

“I’m good, Kinsey,” he cut her off, his tone more reprimand than anything. He knew that wasn’t going to reassure her, but it was still the best he could manage.

And feeling the weight of his sister’s concern heaped on top of what he’d been carrying around since Topher’s death—over Topher’s death—had him thinking that weathering the ups and downs of Topher’s sister-in-law was preferable to hanging around here and weathering concern from all three siblings.

At least he hoped it would be.

But with Emmy Tate?

He couldn’t be sure of anything.

* * *

“The guy whose gorgeous face gave you nightmares, the guy who turned out to be a player, will be moving in with you?” Carla Figarello demanded.

“I don’t know...” Emmy said uncertainly. “It’s my mother’s idea... A really bad one...”

Saturday had been a loss in terms of getting anything done beyond the usual morning chores—water and feed the animals, collect the eggs, milk the cow and the cantankerous goats that gave her fits. Then a babysitter had come in to stay with Trinity and Kit so she could drive her mother to the Billings airport.

The babysitter had had to leave when she got back, so she’d given Trinity lunch, fed the baby and put them both down for naps. And now, while the kids slept and she couldn’t be out of earshot, she was indulging herself with a much-needed phone call to Carla—her best friend since kindergarten, her confidante, the only person she’d talked to about what had begun to happen to her in the aftermath of Afghanistan.

“It’s not a bad idea when you desperately need help and he’s someone who can give it,” Carla hedged. “But it sounds like your mother steamrolled you into agreeing to let the guy move into the basement, and what I want to know is if you’re going to be able to handle being with him.”

Emmy didn’t know.

Since the wedding—and until the hailstorm—she’d been sure she was in control of the emotional backlash from the school collapse. Yes, some things had changed for her, but she’d found ways to manage her anxiety pretty well. A lot of people didn’t like small spaces, so she wasn’t the only one to avoid them, and who wouldn’t be afraid of the idea of being underneath something that might fall on them—like the broken tree limbs in the orchard?

For the most part, though, she’d considered herself perfectly fine until seeing the devastation of the hail damage had brought the fear back. Not a lot of it—she took heart in that. But now seeing Declan Madison again did make her worry that more might break through.

“I didn’t have a panic attack at the first sight of him,” she said, putting as much optimism into her voice as she could.

Panic attacks when she saw him didn’t make any sense to her, but soon after her rescue from the rubble, her reaction to Declan Madison had morphed from deep gratitude into the first of that emotional turmoil.

When the bomb had hit the school in Afghanistan, she’d been alone in a supply closet, packing her cameras and equipment. The explosion had flung her, knocking her unconscious.

When she’d come to—before she had any conception of what had happened or where she was—all she’d known was that both of her feet were trapped under a lot of weight. She’d worked to get them out, and when she had, bricks and mortar had crumbled with the movement, enclosing her even more.

She’d been left with her knees to her chest, in a space about the size of a barrel. There was no room to move—when she tried, more debris fell on her.

It had been pitch-black except for a speck of light that she’d been able to see above her, and that had given her hope that she’d somehow ended up near to the outside.

She’d shouted for help, not knowing if there was aid available or if she’d be rescued by friend or foe.

For four hours she’d been entombed, and all she’d known was that periodically her surroundings would shift, crumble and fall in, closing the space around her even more. She’d been terrified that at any moment the whole thing would collapse on top of her.

Then her shouts brought a voice from outside and the sounds of digging in to reach her.

When that dot of light had finally grown bigger, the first thing she’d seen had been Declan Madison’s face.

Relief had flooded her, followed by more stress as he tried not to cause a cave-in while working at opening a space to pull her through.

He’d been diligent, assuring her that everything was going to be okay, that he’d get her out.

He’d barely made a two-foot gap in the wreckage when something overhead shifted more drastically. Acting quickly, he’d shoved his upper half in to grab her under the arms and had yanked her free just as a collapse did occur, dragging her out of harm’s way a split second before she would have been crushed.

As he’d helped load her onto a gurney, then into an ambulance, she remembered thanking him—again and again and again—before she was rushed to a hospital. It was only later, after she’d been treated, after she’d been diagnosed with a concussion and had been given a bed so she could be watched overnight, that her appreciation had been eclipsed by something new and terrifying.

Declan had shown up at the hospital, and at first she’d only heard his voice asking where she was. That alone had caused uneasiness in her, but when she’d glanced in his direction and had actually seen him, the simple sight of that face had mentally thrown her back into the dark, dusty cranny amid the crumbling rubble.

And rather than associating Declan Madison with the relief of being freed, instead, in her mind, he instantly became a fast ride right back into the heart of her terror.

Mandy—who had been outside the school with Topher and Declan and hadn’t been hurt—had been with her in the hospital, at her bedside. Emmy hadn’t wanted her sister to know what she was feeling. In fact, she’d been ashamed of it—children and teachers had died in the attack, others had been scarred or maimed for life, there were little kids in beds around her stoically accepting their irreversibly changed lives, while she’d suffered nothing but a headache and a few cuts and bruises. Yet she was ready to crawl out of her skin with one look at the very person who had saved her. Thankfulness should have been the only thing she’d felt, and instead she was fighting terror.

Hiding it, she’d told her sister that she was tired and needed to rest. She’d asked Mandy to leave and take Declan with her.

So Mandy had left without knowing about that first distress, and Emmy had kept every other incident of it to herself ever since—except for telling Carla.

“So that’s stuck—no panic attacks when you saw him at the wedding and none yesterday either,” her friend said.

The wedding had been six months after the bombing. By then Emmy had reset her career. She’d talked poor Carla’s ear off about her nightmares, her problem with small spaces, the flashbacks and anxiety, and she’d been doing much better. But she hadn’t been sure what would happen if she had to see Declan Madison’s face again.

Then she had. And while it had raised some memories, it hadn’t made her hyperventilate, it hadn’t caused all-out panic. In fact, worrying about it had been worse than anything that had happened when she had actually seen him.

Partly in order to celebrate that, and partly to control the worry that the panic still might hit, she’d had a whole lot to drink—beginning with champagne while the wedding party dressed and continuing at the reception. The more she’d had to drink, the calmer she’d felt, until she’d found the courage to approach Declan, to thank him again the way she knew she should have before leaving Afghanistan.

“No, no panic attacks yesterday either,” Emmy confirmed.

“No symptoms of the PTSD at all?”

“I hate when you call it that. That isn’t what it is. I’ve taken pictures of the kinds of things that cause PTSD—they’re big and devastating and life changing, they aren’t just a few hours being scared until somebody finds them and everything is okay again.”

“I know that’s how you see it, but—”

“That’s how it is,” she insisted, refusing to accept her friend’s opinion. “What I have is just fallout from a bad experience, and it hardly ever even happens anymore.”

“Okay—it hardly ever happens anymore, you’re over the Afghanistan thing and seeing Declan Madison at the wedding and again yesterday didn’t cause anything bad,” Carla repeated as if she was temporarily conceding to Emmy’s arguments. “But what about what did happen at the wedding? Do you want to be under the same roof with a guy who seemed interested in you and then spent the night with somebody else right next door to you?”

“That’s definitely the other half of why I was hoping I might not ever have to see him again. But I guess going into this knowing I’m not his type is something,” she said facetiously.

“So spending time with him now won’t send you out into the arms of another Bryce?” Carla pressed.

Emmy laughed humorlessly. “There definitely won’t be another Bryce. Ever. And as for this guy? I’m a whole lot tougher and smarter than I was four years ago at the wedding. He will not get to me.”

Not even with those incredibly blue eyes or that face that could have been carved by the gods or that hella-hot body.

Besides, this wasn’t a Las Vegas wedding, with wine flowing and inhibitions discarded. Now there was Topher’s death. Mandy’s death. Now there was the farm and hail damage. Now there were two kids she was suddenly a single parent to, and she had so much to wade through, to get used to. She was in no mood for anything but getting some control and order back into her life.

And unless she was mistaken, the changes she’d seen in Declan Madison made her think that he wasn’t in any mood for anything either.

They’d just do what needed to be done and then move on in separate directions.

“I know we have some weird history—” she said then.

“I’d say,” Carla agreed. “All good and cheery in Afghanistan at first, then really, really not good. Then sort of good again for a while at the wedding, until you were thinking one thing was going on between the two of you and—”

“It wasn’t. Like with Bryce...” she added derisively. “But it’s all in the past and this is now,” Emmy concluded.

“And you think you can just do the now without any of the past poking in?”

Emmy sighed and wished she was in any other position. But she wasn’t. “I hope so,” she answered her friend honestly. “I know I can’t do everything here on my own.”

“Then I guess you kind of have to take him up on his offer of help,” Carla said. “At least the faster you can get the hail damage cleaned up, the faster I can hopefully find you a new leaser and the faster you can come home.”

“Oh, that would be good...” Emmy said earnestly.

“So that settles it.”

“Yeah,” Emmy agreed.

But for some reason she still didn’t feel at all settled when she thought about letting Declan Madison anywhere near her.

And not only because there was a bit of nervousness that being anywhere near him might bring to the surface more of that bombing backlash.

There was also no denying that his looks were potent.

Or that, when he tried, he could disarm her with his heady charm.

Or that, at the wedding, he’d somehow managed to get her to let down her defenses when she shouldn’t have.

Only for her to end up feeling like a fool...

* * *

“Tell Declan good-night,” Emmy encouraged her niece as she tucked the three-year-old into bed.

Emmy had suggested that Trinity let Declan read the bedtime books she’d chosen. But Trinity had denied him that privilege. She’d granted him only permission to listen to Emmy read them.

Dressed in combat boots, a camouflage-print shirt and pants today, he’d stood in the doorway of Trinity’s room to do that and was still leaning against the jamb.

“Night, Decan,” the little girl said in answer to her aunt’s prompting.

“Night, Trinity. Sleep tight. I’ll see you tomorrow,” he responded.

“Decan’ll be here too-morrow?” Trinity asked Emmy.

“He will. He’s staying with us. In the basement,” she explained, trying not to sound negative despite her own lack of enthusiasm for it.

“Okay,” Trinity said, accepting it far more easily than her aunt.

Trinity’s honey-colored hair was cut into an easy-to-care-for bob just long enough to cover her ears, with bangs that came to her eyebrows. Emmy smoothed them away from the child’s forehead so she could kiss it.

“Goodnight, my sweet-thing,” she whispered.

“Night, my Em,” Trinity said in a sleepy voice before tugging her stuffed monkey to her side and closing her big brown eyes.

Emmy gave her a second kiss, then turned off the bedside lamp and headed for the doorway.

Since Declan had arrived just after dinner tonight, they’d had the kids as a buffer between them. Trinity had been standoffish toward him the day before—she hadn’t seen him for over a year and didn’t remember him despite her grandmother pointing him out in the photograph.

It had taken some time for the little girl to warm up to him tonight, but eventually she’d stopped hugging Emmy’s leg and glaring at him, tentatively letting him in.

When that had happened, Emmy had had the chance to teach him how to hold Kit, heat a bottle, change a diaper and burp the baby. She’d taught the jiggle-and-walk to use when Kit was unhappy, and she’d even tutored Declan through Kit’s bath in the kitchen sink.

Because Trinity fancied herself an expert on her brother she’d added her instructions wherever she’d thought Emmy had overlooked anything. And when it came to Emmy teaching him Trinity’s routine, the three-year-old had insisted that she could do everything herself.

“At least she tries to,” Emmy had told Declan, humoring the little girl. “But sometimes she needs a little help,” Emmy had stated, demonstrating when it came to taking clothes off and putting on pajamas, reminding to go potty and brushing teeth.

But now Kit was asleep and Trinity was in bed, and it was just Emmy alone with Declan Madison.

And while no, she hadn’t had any flashbacks or anxiety, she also wasn’t comfortable being with him. Her stomach was tied in knots. Between that and their history, she knew she was not being very welcoming. But it was the best she could manage. And honestly, she didn’t think he had any right expecting anything more from her.

And his solemn and withdrawn attitude wasn’t making things any easier.

Not that any of it mattered. One way or another she just had to get through this. They both did.

“Now I can finally show you the basement,” she said as she joined him in the hallway, closing Trinity’s door all but a crack, hoping he would go down there and not come up again until tomorrow.

“I nearly grew up here. I know how to get to the basement and what’s down there—unless Mandy changed things up.”

“Oh sure...” Emmy said, feeling stupid for having spent the evening being a bit of a tour guide throughout the house. So why hadn’t he pointed that out to her at the get-go? she thought, not appreciating what seemed misleading by omission.

But all she said was “I wasn’t thinking about you knowing the place probably better than I do.”

Declan didn’t say anything as he waited for her to lead the way downstairs to the main level.

As she did, she wondered if being here was actually the reason for his somber attitude.

“It’s gotten better, but when I first moved in after Mandy died, it was hard—to me, this was her house, her furniture, where I’ve seen her most for the last four years... But for you... I guess I wasn’t thinking about all the memories you must have of this place...of being here with Topher.”

“Mandy redecorated. It doesn’t look anything like it did when we were kids,” he answered without any inflection.

“Still, it’s where you grew up with Topher, and now...it can’t be easy.”

Declan didn’t respond at all to that. It left Emmy wondering if she was right. Or not. At any rate it didn’t seem as if she’d hit on the root of whatever was going on with him.

The silence felt awkward, though, so as they reached the entryway she felt the need to fill the gap.

“Since they built the new garage, Mandy was turning the old one into a guesthouse. She wanted a place for me or for Mom and Dad to stay when we came. It isn’t quite finished yet and there isn’t any furniture, but you could stay out there if you wanted...”

They were passing in front of the sofa where she’d slept for two weeks. She hadn’t been able to bring herself to sleep in Mandy’s bed until she’d rearranged the room. Seeing the couch made her remember that.

As much as it pained her to make the offer when she really wanted Declan to vanish into the basement as often as possible, she forced herself to say, “If it will bother you to use the basement bedroom, you could sleep on the couch...”

“I stayed in the basement bedroom the last time I was here,” he said, again flatly.

And again he left dead air as they passed through the living room and moved on to the kitchen.

Emmy struggled for something more to say. “Later on I’ll have the guesthouse—that’s what Mandy called it—finished, so maybe I can bring the kids for weekends or on vacations to spend some time here. I want the farm to be familiar to them, for it to seem like home as much as it can when I’ll have them living in Denver. Maybe Mandy and Topher won’t mind so much that the kids won’t grow up here if I can at least bring them for visits...”

Declan had been a great conversationalist when they’d initially met in Afghanistan and again at the reception. Even when he wasn’t talking, he’d seemed engaged and interested in everything she had to say. But now it was like she was talking to a brick wall. It only made being with him worse. If he doesn’t want to be here, why doesn’t he leave?

But she didn’t say that. She reminded herself that she needed his help. Damn him anyway!

When they reached the kitchen, Emmy opted for abandoning the small talk and simply returning to instruction—maybe he saw himself as her employee. If that was the case, fine, they’d just talk business.

“Mom and I have been trading off nights walking Kit—I know, since he’s sleeping now, it seems like he’ll just stay that way till the morning, but he won’t. He’ll wake up for a bottle somewhere between ten and eleven and after that he’ll be fussy and he won’t go back to sleep. And he won’t even be happy just being held. He has to be walked and rocked and patted and jiggled until he’s hungry enough to take another bottle—which will be somewhere between 2:00 and 3:00 a.m.—and then he’ll fall asleep again.”

“Yeah, your mom told me that. I said I thought I could take her shifts so you could sleep every other night the way you were with her here.”

He could have said that before she went into the whole spiel.

Again, she wondered if he liked making her feel dim.

Emmy didn’t say anything, though. She merely finished what she’d been about to tell him. “Mom took last night and let me sleep, so I can take tonight. That’ll give you tomorrow to get more used to handling him before you have him on your own.”

“Okay.”

One word.

“I have to clean the kitchen, but if you want to go down and unpack and get to bed early or something—”

“I can help.”

“With the dishes? But you came after we’d finished—you didn’t even eat.”

He shrugged a broad shoulder. But said nothing.

She just wanted him to go away despite the fact that he was eye candy. But without waiting for instruction, he merely went to the kitchen table and picked up the dishes, then took them to the sink.

Emmy tried not to sigh and gathered the rest of the silverware and glasses.

“I do have to get Kit’s formula ready for tomorrow—I guess you could learn how to do that,” she said resignedly. She lapsed into silence of her own as she rinsed the dishes, loaded the dishwasher and then got out what she needed to mix the infant formula and fill bottles.

She had no idea exactly how long they went without talking, but it seemed like forever before he said, “So how are you going to follow around the Red Cross to take pictures and raise two kids?”

“I don’t do that anymore,” she said, just about as flatly as he’d answered her questions earlier. And without offering additional explanation the same way either.

“Really? You said you loved that job—that it was better than when you were a freelance photographer taking pictures of the destruction of war or natural disasters because you got to take pictures of people trying to do good, getting things done.”

She had said that. And it had been true. For a day and a half more after they’d had that conversation.

“After the school bombing I...I just decided... I don’t know... When I first started my career, it was exciting to be in the thick of things—that’s why I chose photojournalism. But a few years of that and I wanted to look through my viewfinder and see more positive images—so I went to work with the Red Cross. But I was with them for almost six years and...” She shrugged as if the latest career alteration wasn’t a big deal. “Then I wanted to see and be a part of things that weren’t anywhere near the thick of anything. When I got home from Afghanistan, I just...stayed. Now I take mostly wedding photographs with a few engagement or retirement parties thrown in, and the occasional shoot for a new baby.”

“Pretty pictures.”

“That memorialize the happiest times in people’s lives rather than the—”

“Ugliest.”

Like everything else he’d said since yesterday, his tone was matter-of-fact. But still it somehow irritated Emmy, making her feel guilty and embarrassed. And weak.

She was on the verge of defending herself when Declan said, “Lucky for Trinity and Kit—now you’ll be around for them. Mandy probably wouldn’t have been able to make a guardian of someone like me, who’s halfway around the world for who-knows-how-long at the drop of a hat.”

So he hadn’t been judging her, she’d just done that to herself. She was glad she hadn’t launched into the justifications she’d been about to fire off.

Instead she merely muttered, “Yeah, lucky. If I hadn’t quit before, I would have had to now.”

“How do you feel about...you know, instant parenthood?”

“I’m okay with it,” she said succinctly. “It’s strange—I’ll admit that. But I love those little buggers and...” She shrugged again. “I’m adjusting. I’ll always do my best for them.”

“Just like that?”

“Yes,” she said with resolve. Not that it had been so simple to accept such a huge responsibility. But she’d promised her sister. So she didn’t allow herself to think about the way she used to envision her life.

“Even while Mandy was still alive, my course changed suddenly. Again...” she added. “I needed to...embrace that and make new plans—”

“For your career again?”

“No, for my personal life.” But she wasn’t about to say more on that subject. “Then this happened and...now the kids will be a part of everything I do from here on. And when it comes to them, now that Mandy and Topher are gone, I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

She thought she could feel his eyes on her, and as she finished prepping to make the formula, she stole a glance to see if she was right.

She was. He was staring intently at her.

Then he said, “Thanks for that.”

There was genuine gratitude in his tone that surprised her.

“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” she repeated, meaning it.

Then she turned to making formula and tutoring him, explaining that anything left after twenty-four hours—even under refrigeration—had to be thrown out when he asked why they didn’t make a larger quantity.

Once the bottles were filled, he put them in the fridge while she cleaned that mess and started the dishwasher, both of them silent again.

Into that silence he said, “Tomorrow is Sunday. I don’t know if you go to church or—”

“No, but if you want to, feel free.”

“Church attendance is an ‘only in the right time and place’ thing for me and Northbridge is never either of those,” he said acerbically.

“You don’t like Northbridge or you don’t like the church here?”

“Both.” His tone was flat again, definitive, but he didn’t explain why he disliked his hometown—and the church here. Instead he went on without revealing anything. “I need to see all the damage to the farm so I know what we’re up against. Why don’t we do that tomorrow?”

“Sure. But we’ll have to take the kids out with us—Sundays are the hardest time to get babysitters and Mom couldn’t set up one for tomorrow.”

He was back to making no comments, but he did raise an acknowledging chin.

That seemed to be the end of his efforts because he took a breath, exhaled and said, “If there’s nothing else to do tonight, then I think I’ll turn in.”

Emmy again gave what she was getting and only nodded, watching him as he went toward the door to the basement.

And while the first thing she thought was that he still had a great butt, the second thing to register again was his limp.

“Uh...” she said.

He stopped and turned halfway around to look at her.

“Are there things you can’t do around the farm?” she asked with a slight lowering of her gaze to his leg.

“No.”

Once more his tone was flat, definitive, and this time with a warning not to ask him that again.

So okay, she wouldn’t explore it.

She only said a curt “Tomorrow, then.”

And for that she received nothing, not even another raise of that sculpted chin of his before he went to the basement door and finally disappeared down the stairs.

Oh, this is going to be loads of fun, Emmy thought, trying all over again to resign herself to living and working with the guy she no longer had even the slightest illusion of any rapport with.

Which was good.

No illusions that he liked her was good.

So why did the reality of that rub her so wrong?

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