Available in April 2010 from Mills & Boon® Special Moments™

Fortune’s Woman

by RaeAnne Thayne &

A Fortune Wedding

by Kristin Hardy

Reining in the Rancher

by Karen Templeton &

His Brother’s Secret

by Debra Salonen

Healing the MD’s Heart

by Nicole Foster &

Welcome Home, Daddy

by Carrie Weaver

The Bravo Bachelor

by Christine Rimmer

The Nanny Solution

by Teresa Hill

An Ideal Father

by Elaine Grant

Not Without Her Family

by Beth Andrews

HEALING THE MD’S HEART

“It’s late,” she said. “I should – ”

She nodded towards the door of the second bedroom. She ran her tongue over her lower lip, then caught it between her teeth, the sensuous motion fixating his gaze there.

“You should,” he agreed softly. He leaned to her, gently cupping her face, and brushed a kiss against her cheek, lingering long enough for it to become a caress of breath and lips on her skin. He wanted more, to love her until they were both boneless and breathless.

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For not giving up on me.”

WELCOME HOME, DADDY

Drew stood and reached for her as if he wanted to pull her into a hug.

A part of Annie longed to accept the comfort he offered. But she couldn’t. The stakes were too high.

Raising her hand, she said, “Don’t. I just wanted you to understand.”

“I had no idea.” His voice was husky. “But you’re wrong about one thing. I wouldn’t have missed it. I could have taken compassionate leave to be there for both of you. You never gave me the chance.”

Annie almost flinched at the loss in his voice. She couldn’t continue to beat herself up wishing she’d done things differently. “So here we are, back where we started.”

Healing the MD’s Heart

by

Nicole Foster
Welcome Home, Daddy

by

Carrie Weaver

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Healing the MD’s Heart

by

Nicole Foster

Nicole Foster is the pseudonym for the writing team of Danette Fertig-Thompson and Annette Chartier-Warren. Both journalists, they met while working on the same newspaper and started writing historical romance together after discovering a shared love of the old West and happy endings. Their seventeen-year friendship has endured writer’s block, numerous caffeine-and-chocolate deadlines and the joyous chaos of marriage and raising five children between them. They love to hear from readers. Send a SAE with return postage for a bookmark to PMB 228, 8816 Manchester Rd, Brentwood, Mo 63144, USA.

Chapter One

Nearly a thousand miles from home, Duran Forrester wanted to believe, after all the regretted decisions, frustrations and slams into brick walls over the last months, that this wasn’t the biggest mistake of his life.

Then he reminded himself it didn’t matter. Even if it was, there was no undoing it because he was fast running out of options. More importantly, he was running out of time.

He glanced in the rearview mirror at his son. Noah, his dark hair ruffled and cheeks flushed, sweat beading on his brow, slumped sideways on the seat asleep, clutching his scruffy stuffed panda in a one-armed hug. Ten minutes…ten minutes and they’d be in Luna Hermosa and he’d have Noah at a hospital.

It’s only an ear infection. Some antibiotics and painkillers and he’ll be okay. He’ll be fine. He has to be.

He repeated it to himself as if it were a mantra that could shield him from the fear that struck at him with its cold, sharp edge of panic. And like all the other times, he wondered if this would be when he’d be told it wasn’t okay, that his son would never be fine.

Noah shouldn’t be here, that much now was obvious. Duran had a long debate with himself over whether or not to bring his son along in the first place. Noah had had enough disappointments in his life and Duran didn’t want this trip to be one more. But once he’d found out Duran’s destination, Noah had been so excited and after three days of his seven-year-old’s persistent wheedling, begging and insisting, Duran finally gave in. Despite his misgivings, he’d convinced himself that the trip, if nothing else, would give him precious time with Noah, a few weeks uninterrupted by work and everything life had recently thrown at them.

They’d been less than an hour from their destination when things started to go wrong. Noah’s temperature spiked, he’d started complaining about his ears hurting and Duran’s reason fought his impulse to slam his foot on the accelerator and say to hell with speed limits.

He gripped the steering wheel hard enough to imprint the shape of his hands there, finding it a poor release for the turmoil of worry, frustration, uncertainty and anger that hit him in surges despite his best efforts to keep it shoved to a dark corner of his mind. Mostly everything—his and Noah’s current predicament, the surprises of the past weeks that more often than not had been unwelcome—he could only blame on himself and his recently acquired determination to find out who’d he’d been before Eliza and Luke Forrester had made him their son.

He’d known, since he was younger than Noah, that he’d been adopted, but never had the least desire to find his birth parents until now. His adoptive parents were loving and generous people, devoted to each other and to him, who’d made him feel that it didn’t matter why he’d been given away, only that they were blessed in choosing him and that with them was where he belonged.

The why still didn’t matter; now and urgently, the who did. Looking at Noah again, he wished, for his son’s sake, he had another choice. And he prayed, hard and long, this didn’t turn out as badly as when he’d contacted the woman who considered him her biggest mistake. His birth mother.

I didn’t want you then. There’s nothing I can do for you now. It was a long time ago. My family doesn’t know about you and I plan to keep it that way.

No amount of pleas or appeals changed her mind.

But she had given him something—two names and another chance to keep his hope alive.

The first he couldn’t allow himself to think about right now.

It was my kind of luck, all bad. It wasn’t anything but too much whiskey and one long night with that cowboy, and then he disappeared and I ended up with the two of you.

Two. And just that fast he found out he was a twin. Ry Kincaid hadn’t wanted to be found and even less wanted to be called his brother. But neither of them could deny who they were and after an uneasy meeting, had left it unresolved while Duran made it his business to track down the second name on his list.

Jed Garrett. Rancho Piñtada, Luna Hermosa, New Mexico.

His father—and the man he wanted to meet most…and least.

The little girl grinned and Lia Kerrigan smiled back, returning an exuberant hug, accepting a kiss made slightly sticky by Nina’s refusal to give up her sucker. Lia only wished these infrequent office visits didn’t amount to the majority of time she got to spend with her youngest sister. Then again, for a woman with seven siblings, it was amazing how little time she’d spent with any of them. Her oldest brother she’d never even met, and the others were more like strangers with whom she happened to share a parent.

Old pain, made worse by the knowledge that as much as she cared for Nina, inevitably they would end up with the same distant relationship. Circumstance and the more than thirty years’ difference in age would see to that.

Lia immediately pushed the maudlin thought away, putting it down to too many working hours at the hospital and her office and her dad showing up with Nina ten minutes before the much anticipated end of her eleven-hour day. It was typical of him and yet it never failed to irritate her. Walter Kerrigan was a successful orthopedic surgeon who should have understood better than anyone the demands on his daughter’s time. But since the day Nina, his fifth child, was born, he’d insisted on making the drive from Santa Fe anytime he decided Nina needed to see a pediatrician, disregarding Lia’s repeated requests for at least an advance phone call.

“Madelyn wants to know if you’re planning to come to the housewarming,” her father asked when Nina, locating the stack of books Lia kept in her examining room, was happily engrossed in studying her favorite. “She says she’s left you several messages, but you haven’t gotten back to her.”

Lia stopped herself from sighing. Walter’s fourth wife was twenty-nine to his sixty-two. In fact, Madelyn was six years younger than Lia herself, but the only thing they had in common was that they were both female. Lia couldn’t think of a worse way to spend a Saturday night than a party at her dad’s new house. It was impossible not to love Nina, but she couldn’t say the same for Nina’s mother. “I’ve been busy,” she gave the usual excuse. “And I may be on call this weekend.”

“You always say that,” Walter said, his dismissive tone clearly saying he didn’t believe her. “It wouldn’t hurt if you would come to visit us once in a while, if nothing else to see Nina. You complain enough about not being able to spend time with her. Bring that fireman of yours—I can’t remember his name—the one you’ve been seeing.”

“Tonio Peña, and that’s been over for more than a year now.”

“Has it?” Walter assessed his daughter with the slight concentrated frown that he gave a particularly difficult-to-treat injury. “I suppose he went the way of the others. Relationships seem to be a self-fulfilling prophecy with you. You expect them to turn out badly and so they do.”

“You taught me well,” Lia retorted, defensiveness sharpening her voice more than she’d intended. Maybe there was some truth in what he said, but her father, who acquired and discarded wives and girlfriends as easily as if he were trading in a car for a better model, could hardly claim to be an expert on successful relationships.

“The difference between us is it doesn’t hurt me when it falls apart,” Walter said. “Unlike you, I gave up my illusions that anything lasts forever a long time ago. There are advantages to being married, but they aren’t so great that I feel the need to sentence myself to a lifetime of misery if it doesn’t work.”

That apparently was one philosophy he and her mother shared, Lia reflected, after her father and Nina had left. Shaking off her unprofitable introspection—it certainly hadn’t gotten her anywhere in the past—she finished the notations on Nina’s chart and was seriously contemplating a long bath and a cold drink when her pager beeped. Bath and drink became unlikely when she recognized the number as the emergency room extension.

“Doctor Nunez wanted to know if you could help with a sick case, a little boy,” the nurse said when Lia called in. “We’re busy this evening, and Doctor Nunez thought you could handle it more quickly.”

Translation: Hector doesn’t like kids. The thought of inflicting a harried Hector Nunez on a sick child was more than enough to hurry her to the emergency room.

Her first thought entering the curtained cubicle was the man sitting on the edge of the examining table, a protective arm around the boy curled up against his chest, was going to be difficult. His expression clearly said he was prepared to treat anyone who approached his son as an adversary until proven otherwise. Yet glancing over the boy’s chart, she thought he’d probably earned the right.

The paperwork raised questions, though, about what Duran Forrester, who listed his profession as filmmaker and gave an address in Los Angeles, was doing a thousand miles from home, in Luna Hermosa of all places, with a sick child.

“Mr. Forrester?” She gave him a quick appraisal, getting a fast impression of unruly dark brown hair that tended to slant over one eye and a runner’s body, long, hard and lean under the black shirt and jeans. The silver stud earring he wore and his sensual good looks probably had people mistaking him for someone who spent his time in front of the camera rather than behind it. His eyes, trained on her now, gave her the feeling he was sizing her up and that she so far hadn’t measured up to his standards. She wasn’t exactly at her best after nearly twelve long hours, her khaki slacks and white shirt showing the day’s wear, makeup faded and her dark auburn hair doing its best to escape her ponytail. But there was nothing she could do to fix that now, and so she pulled her professionalism around her, put on a polite smile and settled for ignoring it.

“I’m Lia Kerrigan, I’m the staff pediatrician.” As she came around to the bedside opposite Duran Forrester, the boy half glanced at her, his eyes dull with fever. “You must be Noah. Or maybe this is Noah?” She tweaked the ear of the stuffed panda the boy clutched tightly.

A spark briefly flared in the boy’s eyes. “That’s Percy.”

“Percy’s a nice name for a puppy,” Lia said conversationally as she started her exam, working around the bear and Duran Forrester, aware he was closely watching her every move.

“He’s not a puppy,” Noah protested. “He’s a panda.”

“Really?” Lia took a quick temperature reading while she gave the bear due consideration. “Are you sure?”

Noah held up his friend for inspection. “See?”

“Mmm…well, you could be right. But since I’ve never actually seen a real panda before, I’m not sure.”

“I saw two, once. In a zoo. They were awesome.” Noah leaned back against his dad’s shoulder. “My ears hurt.”

“I know, honey,” Lia said softly, gently stroking a few wayward locks of hair from his forehead. Noah so much resembled his dad, a younger version of the man with the same messy dark hair and deep river-green eyes, that she could easily imagine Duran Forrester as a child. Illness, though, had paled Noah and painted violet shadows under his eyes. “I’m going to see what I can do to fix that.”

Giving Noah what she hoped was a reassuring smile, she moved around the bed nearer to Duran. “Normally, I’d send him home with an antibiotic. But you two are a long way from home and Noah’s circumstances require special care—” She let the sentence trail off, not sure how much she should say with Noah listening. “I think it would be better if he stayed the night. I’m sure you understand there could be complications and I could do a better job of monitoring him from here.”

He didn’t answer right away, but gave her that assessing look, clearly weighing her advice against his own judgment. Lia thought it was even odds whether he’d agree to her suggestion. Finally, he gave a curt nod. “All right. If you think it’s best.”

“I don’t wanna stay here,” Noah said. “I wanna go home.”

“Not tonight, buddy,” Duran told him, putting his arm around Noah again and drawing him closer. “It’s just one night. And I’ll stay with you, I promise.”

“Sure he will, and Percy, too,” Lia added. “You’re lucky he’s not a puppy, though. We don’t let puppies in here. But pandas are different. They get to be special guests.”

Diverting Noah’s attention from having to spend night in a hospital room, Lia made a big show of giving Percy his own ID bracelet, checking his heartbeat and finding him a surgical cap to keep his ears warm, earning her Noah’s approval and most surprising, a smile from Duran Forrester. It wasn’t much, a quick sideways slant of his mouth, but it warmed some of the cold places inside and left in their place a warm, satisfied glow.

She personally saw to settling Noah in a room, and after getting him to eat a little chicken noodle soup and drink some apple juice, she tucked him into bed. Drowsy from the mild painkillers she’d given him, his eyes drooped closed almost immediately, and Lia, straightening, looked directly into Duran’s frown.

“I need to make a call,” he said, fixing his attention on Noah. “I’ve missed an appointment I had here and I should let him know where I am.” He patted his shirt pocket, came up empty, and his scowl deepened. “Damn, I left the number in the car.”

Lia considered telling him she’d stay with Noah while he retrieved the number and made his call, but figured, as protective he was of his son, he wouldn’t agree. “Where were you headed? This is a small enough town, I might be able to help you.”

“Rancho Piñtada. I was supposed to meet with a Rafe Garrett at five.”

Whatever she expected, it wasn’t that. “Are you a rancher as well as a filmmaker?” she asked lightly, curious, but not wanting to probe.

“No. My business is personal.” He didn’t volunteer anything else and she heeded the clear message to back off.

“I know Rafe and Jule. I’m their pediatrician, too.” She grabbed up a brochure from beside the bed and scrawled down the number. “Rafe should be at home by now, especially if you were supposed to meet with him.” Hesitating, she reconsidered her unspoken offer and then said, “I’ll sit with Noah while you make your call, if you like. I don’t mind. Technically I’m off duty and there’s nowhere else I need to be. And he shouldn’t wake up in the few minutes it’ll take to make your call.”

Again, she got silence and that look and then finally, he unbent a little. “Thanks,” he said gruffly. “I’ll make it quick.”

He pushed his way out of the room, leaving Lia to drop into the chair beside Noah’s bed. She watched him as he slept, wondering at Duran Forrester, who he was and why he was here, what personal business he could have with Rafe. It was none of her business, but she couldn’t help but be curious, partly because Rafe’s family was famous for their dramas, but mostly because of the air of secrecy Duran insisted on keeping close around himself and his son. She recalled the paperwork and the deliberate empty space under mother’s name, as if Noah’s mother had never existed. Questions, and more questions, and she wasn’t likely ever to get any answers.

Duran didn’t leave her much time to speculate. He came back less than ten minutes later, his expression blanked, as if he’d gotten news that had blindsided him. Mindful of his emotional privacy, she pretended not to notice. “Were you able to reach Rafe?”

Nodding, he moved to stand by Noah, staring down at his son. Very gently, he brushed his fingertips over the sleeping boy’s cheek. The love in his face was clear and strong, and yet there was grieving in it, too. Lia had to stop herself from reaching out to him, the desire to comfort was that powerful even though she knew any reassurance she could offer would be hollow and unwelcome, coming from a stranger.

For some reason—though she knew it what was she should do—she couldn’t simply detach herself from the situation, walk away, go home and leave Duran Forrester to face the long night ahead, with only his fears for Noah as company. It wasn’t her job to stay; she’d already done far more for the two of them than usual. Yet she had the impression, without having any real basis for knowing, that Duran was alone in more than just the sense of being a stranger in town and that kept her in the room, giving herself excuses to stay.

“I know Noah wasn’t very hungry earlier,” she ventured, a poor outlet for her feelings but the best she could do, “but you didn’t get any dinner at all. How about I bring us both something? I don’t know about you, but lunch was a long time ago for me.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“No, but you’re alone in a strange town with a sick little boy and you’re going to be spending the night in a very uncomfortable chair. The least I can do is treat you to some of our gourmet hospital cuisine. Besides, like I said, I’m hungry, too.” Not giving him an opportunity to refuse, she got up and moved quickly to the door. “I’ll be back.”

Calling the cafeteria from the nurses’ desk, she asked for the meals to be delivered to Noah’s room. Then she checked in with the night staff and her service, telling them she was off duty but intended to stay for a while to monitor Noah. By the time she was done, the food had arrived and she slipped back inside the room. Duran had dimmed the lights and was sitting in the chair facing the bed, his forehead propped on his fist, weariness evident in the slump of his body.

“It’s not the best,” she said, indicating the trays when he glanced up, “but at least it’s dinner.”

He pushed himself up in the chair, nodded in reply and they ate in silence for a few minutes, the air in the room thick with things they left unsaid. Finally, he pushed the tray aside and, speaking quietly so as to not disturb Noah, asked, “Is everyone in town as nice as you?”

She laughed, inexplicably self-conscious at his compliment. “I don’t think I can answer that without sounding as if I’m bragging or dissing someone else. There are a lot of good people here. It’s why I’ve stayed for so long. I like being in a smaller town. I’m sure it’s considerably different from L.A., though,” she added, risking a comment on his personal life, even if it was of the most innocuous kind.

“Night and day,” he agreed, seeming not to mind. “But I’ve only lived there since college. I grew up not far from here, just outside Rio Rancho. This is not that different.” Leaning back, he tilted his head against the wall, briefly closing his eyes. “I’m thinking about moving back, at least to New Mexico—work permitting, that is. I’ve arranged things so I’m between projects and I can have some time to decide. But, ultimately, L.A. isn’t the best place to raise a child.”

“I can only imagine living in a place like L.A. Even so, you seem to have done a good job with Noah. I know it’s not easy raising a child on your own.”

“Personal experience?”

“Hardly,” she said, the laugh this time sounding more like a harsh exclamation. “But I am a pediatrician. I see lots of different kinds of families.”

He raised his head to look at her, with that intense, disconcerting way of his that gave her the sensation he was dissecting her soul. “I always wanted the same kind of family I had growing up for Noah. I really did have the two great parents, the faithful dog and the New Mexico version of a white picket fence.”

“But?”

“But my ex-wife didn’t see it that way. She walked out before Noah turned one, got a quick divorce, gave me full custody and I haven’t seen her since. So Noah’s had to get by with just me.”

“He doesn’t appear to have suffered for it,” Lia said softly. “And things could change.”

“Not for me,” he said in a tone that put a full stop to any ideas he would ever contemplate another serious relationship. “I won’t risk putting Noah through that, loving someone and then losing them. He’s been through enough already. He was too young when his mother left to realize she didn’t want him. He sometimes asked why he doesn’t have a mother and I still don’t know what to tell him.”

She could understand and yet there was sadness in the finality of his words, his certainty that love would never touch his life again with enough strength to make him want to take another chance. But then again, didn’t she, better than anyone, know that the odds were he was right, that it was as likely to turn out badly as well? Any parent who loved his child as much as he did would consider the risks not worth it—unlike her own parents, to whom children were apparently incidental to disposable relationships.

A light knock on the door interrupted them and Lia, thinking it was the night nurse, got up to answer it. Instead, she found herself face-to-face with Cort Morente, a friend, but one of the last people she would have guessed she’d be seeing here and tonight.

“Cort—how did you know…?” She stared at him, completely confused. Duran had said he was in Luna Hermosa to meet with Rafe and now Rafe’s younger brother showed up here, out of the blue. “Is something wrong with one of the kids?” she asked, although she couldn’t imagine why Cort wouldn’t have just called her if there was a problem with one of his four children, even if it had been an emergency.

“No, they’re all fine. I wasn’t looking for you.” Cort looked behind her to where Duran had gotten to his feet and Lia instinctively stepped aside. The two men faced each other, Duran tense, already on the defensive, and Cort cautious, as if weighing his options before making a move. When he finally did, it easily qualified as something she’d never expected him to say.

“I came to see my brother.”

Duran’s first reaction was the completely irrelevant thought that maybe meeting unknown relations got easier after the first one. If so, by the time he’d gotten through all the relatives he seemed to have acquired, it should be simple, no struggling with mixed feelings or debating whether he was doing the right thing for Noah and himself.

Rafe Garrett had at least warned him, when Duran had called to postpone their meeting, that he and Ry Kincaid weren’t Duran’s only brothers. Five of Jed Garrett’s sons were living in Luna Hermosa and for some reason Rafe didn’t make clear, none of them wanted him to meet Jed first. He supposed this one had been elected to come here and determine what exactly it was that Duran wanted. From the steady, calculating gaze he got, Duran guessed Cort Morente’s business depended on him being a quick and accurate judge of character and that Cort was deciding the truth of his claim to being Jed’s son and what his motives were for showing up in Luna Hermosa.

Duran glanced back at Noah. His son slept on soundly, oblivious to the drama around him. Leaving Noah’s bedside wasn’t Duran’s first choice, but Noah would likely be asleep for hours yet and he didn’t want this first meeting with his Luna Hermosa relations constrained by the need for quiet and the concern Noah might wake up and overhear.

Lia must have sensed his hesitation because she took a step closer to the bed and told him, “I’ll stay with him.”

The rush of gratitude at her understanding seemed too intense, out of place for her simple gesture. But for an odd moment, Duran felt they were allies.

“If you wouldn’t mind—” he flicked a hand toward the door “—I think you could help explain. You understand…”

Without a pause, she nodded and after checking Noah once more, followed him and Cort outside the room.

Duran turned to Cort, not sure where to start.

Cort spoke up first. “This is not how we intended this meeting to happen. But when Rafe called and told us about your son, we wanted to see if there was anything we could do.” He made the offer and it sounded sincere. But there was a certain reservation in his manner—not quite suspicion, but a withholding of trust, an unwillingness to take Duran’s claim of kinship at face value.

He couldn’t blame the man; he hadn’t brought any proof of his blood tie to Jed Garrett. He had none for himself, except the word of the stranger who had given birth to him. But he had to convince Cort Morente to make good on that offer because he couldn’t afford to fail the way he had with his birth mother.

“Don’t take this wrong, but I’m finding it hard right now to get my head around going from being an only child to having six brothers,” Duran said slowly. “To be honest, though, it’s more than I could have hoped for under the circumstances, especially if you meant it when you said you wanted to help.”

“Mr. Forrester—” Lia began. “Duran,” she amended when he looked at her. “If it makes it any easier—” She stopped, and he could see in her eyes she wanted to intervene, maybe spare him having to say it, but knew it was his to tell.

“I’m not trying to make it harder,” Cort said, “but I can’t say I’m not curious about those circumstances. Jed doesn’t know you and your brother exist or, believe me, the rest of us would have heard about it by now. I have to wonder why you decided to track him down after all this time.”

“I never knew he existed, either. My—” he couldn’t call the woman his mother “—she didn’t put his name on my birth certificate. I had to find her first to get it.”

“Are you sure Jed’s your father then?”

“She is. She gave me his name and the name of his ranch and the town it was in. It’s all she gave me,” he added, unable to keep the anger that still lingered from his meeting with the woman out of his voice, “except to tell me about Ry—Ry Kincaid, my twin. I didn’t know about him until a few weeks ago. We were split up after we were born.” Drawing in a long breath, he tried to let it out slowly, to ease some of the tension crawling up his back and neck, stiffening his muscles. “I never cared about whether or not I had any other relatives, it didn’t matter.”

Cort assessed him and Duran understood that Cort, too, was protecting someone—his brothers, his family, maybe even Jed Garrett. “And it matters now,” Cort said flatly, a statement of fact rather than a question.

“More than anything. I’ve been trying to track down as many blood relatives as I can. I’m running out of time.” He steeled himself to say what he hadn’t dared acknowledge in his head, yet battled daily in his nightmares. “My son is dying.”

Chapter Two

He’d succeeded in shaking Cort’s composure and it brought a surge of what almost felt like triumph because he knew, without having any basis for his certainty except gut instinct, that this time, he wouldn’t be turned away.

“I’m sorry,” Cort said, a husky note in his voice replacing his earlier coolness. “I’ve got four kids and I can’t imagine…” He scrubbed a hand over his face and when he looked back this time the sympathy in his eyes was clear. “There has to be something we can do to help or you wouldn’t be here.”

“There is. Noah needs a bone marrow transplant, but they haven’t been able to find a match.”

“Noah has a rare immune-system illness,” Lia explained for him. “There’s been a lot of success in treating it with bone marrow transplants. But without it—” She looked at Duran, an apology in her eyes. “Without it, the prognosis isn’t good. Noah probably won’t survive past his late teens. The sooner he gets a transplant, the better his chances, and the odds of finding a match among blood relations are much higher.”

“Which is why I went searching for my birth parents when neither I, my ex-wife nor any of her family turned out to be a match,” Duran added. “I was hoping one of my birth parents would be a match, or if not, that maybe I had other relatives that would be. That’s why I said discovering I had five brothers here is a better outcome than I could have wished for.”

Cort nodded. “Then neither your twin nor your birth mother was a match, either.”

“Ry wasn’t. The only thing the tests proved was that we were brothers. And she refused to be tested.” Anger flared up in him again and he pushed it down. There was nothing he could do to change the past or her mind and it wouldn’t aid his appeal now. “She said she didn’t want her family to know how badly she’d screwed up over thirty years ago. According to her, admitting to having sex once when she was twenty-two with a stranger she’d met in a bar would ruin her life.”

“Jed won’t give a damn. His family already knows the worst of his sins and a one-night stand hardly ranks.” Cort hesitated and Duran readied himself for another disappointment. “He’s sick though, dying. He couldn’t be a donor even if he wanted to be. But I’m sure I can speak for my brothers and say we’d all be willing to be tested as soon as you can arrange it.” He turned to Lia. “Is there anything you can do to expedite things?”

“I’ll do whatever I can,” she assured him. “I can’t get anything done over the weekend, but I’ll see what I can do about setting things up for early next week.”

Duran found himself holding his breath, waiting to be told it was a mistake; that it wasn’t going to happen the way he wanted. When that didn’t come the sense of relief hit him hard, as if all the air had left the room and rushed back, and with it, a little of his faith in the future.

He searched for words to convey his feelings, but the thankfulness he felt was so tangled up with other, less defined and more uneasy emotions connected with finding brothers, a twin, discovering parts of himself he never knew—emotions that he hadn’t given himself time to process—that it left him floundering for what to say to the stranger who could end up saving his son’s life.

But Cort spared him from having to say anything by moving the conversation to practicalities. “I’m guessing you’re staying the night here with Noah. But when he gets out of the hospital, you and he can stay with one of us.” He forestalled any protest Duran would have made by holding up a hand. “A hotel’s no place for a sick kid. The ranch would be best. There’s plenty of room at the big house and Rafe and Josh are only a few minutes away. But that means telling Jed, and soon.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, wincing. “I don’t see any way around it.”

“I get the feeling he’s not going to be happy to find out he has two more sons,” Duran said. If that was the case, he was glad that Jed Garrett had sons who, if not happy to learn of his existence, were at least willing to accept him as a brother and do what they could for Noah.

“No, it’ll probably be just the opposite,” Cort said grimly. Apparently he saw Duran was starting to get frustrated with the veiled hints about Jed’s character and offered a rueful smile. “Sorry, I’m not deliberately trying to keep you in the dark. But it’s going to take some time to explain and I’d rather not do it here.”

“Later then, or not,” he said. “My concern right now is Noah.”

“I understand. Why don’t you give me or Rafe a call tomorrow, when you figure out what’s going on with Noah and one of us can run by and help you two get settled somewhere else?”

“About that—” Duran began. He felt uncomfortable accepting hospitality from strangers, even if he was related to them.

It was Lia who resolved the matter for him. “Say yes. Otherwise I’ll have to call security because Cort never takes no for an answer and that’s the only other way we’ll get rid of him.”

“Thanks for the character reference,” Cort retorted.

“Thanks for the warning,” Duran muttered and both Cort and Lia laughed, drawing a reluctant smile from him. “Fine, leave me a number and I’ll let you know when Noah’s released.”

Cort handed over a cell and home number and as it seemed to finish anything else they could say for now, an awkward silence intruded.

With a shift of his shoulders that telegraphed their shared uncertainty about where they should take this next, Cort finally spoke. “I should be going. You need to get back to your son and I need to get home to my family. I’ll talk to you, both of you—” he glanced at Lia “—soon.”

Duran waited until he’d gone and then by tacit agreement, he and Lia went back inside the room to check on Noah. He stood to one side while she bent over his sleeping son, not liking her frown when she finished taking his temperature again.

“It hasn’t come down much,” she said in answer to his pointed look. “We’ll monitor it for the next several hours, and if it doesn’t improve, then I’m going to start him on intravenous antibiotics. He may have had those before, if he’s had other infections.”

His eyes on Noah, Duran nodded. More hospital time, more treatments that would only buy a temporary respite, not the permanent answer Noah needed. “I should never have brought him along.”

“It wouldn’t have made any difference. The infection’s been going on for a couple of days, at least, probably since before you left L.A., and it would have been worse for him if he’d been sick while you were gone. At least here you and Noah are together and you’ve got—” she looked lost for an appropriate word, settling on “—family you can rely on to help.”

“I’m not quite ready to consider them family and whether or not I can rely on them remains to be seen.”

“You can—rely on them, I mean. I’ve known four of them for years, and they’re all good guys.”

He noticed she deliberately avoided referring to them as his brothers, perhaps because of his comment wary of acknowledging a blood link between him and the others. “You don’t seem surprised to find out Garrett’s got two more sons.”

“Not really,” she said. “Jed’s five sons here were by four different women, and the oldest one he didn’t even acknowledge until a few months ago. I’d have been more surprised if it had turned out the five of them were the only children he fathered.”

Duran shook his head, not yet ready to learn any more about what was obviously a convoluted family tree. “Noah wants to meet them all. When I explained to him why I was coming here, that I had found out I had more family than just his grandparents, that’s all he could talk about.” He lightly stroked his hand over his son’s tousled hair. “He’s lonely, with just him and me, and because he’s been sick for so long. My ex-wife’s family decided that he and I didn’t exist after Amber left me. So the idea of having more family is exciting—to him. But he doesn’t have to think about the consequences.”

“That one of them might not be a match?”

“That they might not care about knowing him, or that it’s all temporary. We stay here for a while and then he never sees them again.”

Suddenly, Duran felt tired, drained by the emotional roller-coaster ride he’d been on for what seemed like years now. He heard himself, a damning echo in his head, admitting Noah was dying and all the fear, grief and worry he’d been shouldering alone for so many months welled up in him, tearing at his control.

Turning away from the sympathy in Lia’s eyes, he leaned his hands on the back of a chair, head bowed, struggling to regain his composure. There was a pause, a whisper of sound and then a gentle hand touched his shoulder.

“You’re doing everything you can,” she said softly.

“It hasn’t been enough so far, what if it isn’t enough now?”

“Then you keep trying. Because even if it isn’t enough, that’s all you can do.”

If it wasn’t enough, it would break him. There would be no compromises with his emotions, no comfort in telling himself he’d done his best. “I can’t let that happen,” he said, but instead of coming out as clear, hard resolve, it sounded desperate, already cracked with sorrow.

“Duran—” Lia reached around and laid her hand against his jaw, turning him to face her. Whatever she saw in his expression prompted her to abandon what she intended to say and before he understood, he was in her arms, she was holding him or he was holding her, and it didn’t matter because it had been so long since he shared the burden, that giving even a little of it up, for however short a time, was like being able to breathe again.

The moment stretched into many, into time he couldn’t measure, before the comfort she offered and he grasped at became too much to accept and he very carefully pulled out of her embrace. Still within touching distance, they stood looking at each other and for the first time, he saw her as a woman and not the doctor who’d stepped in to help a stranger in need. She was barely to his shoulder, on the thin side of slender, and there was a delicacy about her, as if she were finely made and vulnerable to the rigors of life. Her dark red hair was gilded with copper and gold in the dim light, her eyes an unusual shade of light brown. He might have, at first glance, dismissed her as merely decorative, with little substance, except he had felt the strength in her hands, seen the intelligence and empathy in her eyes, been touched by her warmth even when he thought himself immune.

She accepted his study for a minute or two and then dropped her eyes and took an uncertain step back. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”

“Don’t be.” Duran resisted the urge to reach out to her, to reassure her that she’d misinterpreted his moving away from her; he’d been alone for so long it had become habit to throw up his defenses when he was most vulnerable. “I appreciate everything you’ve done so far. You’ve gone way out of your way to help us.”

“Yes, well, that is my job,” she said briskly. She avoided eye contact with him and busied herself taking Noah’s temperature again. “I’ll have the nurse check him again in a couple of hours. If there’s no change, then we’ll start the IV. But we’ll keep our fingers crossed he won’t need it this time. I’ll be back first thing in the morning, unless there’s a problem before then.”

For some reason, her determined return to professional detachment irritated him. It felt jarringly out of place, though by all rights, it shouldn’t have. “Does this mean I have to start calling you Dr. Kerrigan again?”

“You haven’t called me anything,” she said. A slight smile touched her mouth, bringing back a whisper of the warmth. “At least out loud.”

“Okay, Lia,” he said deliberately. “Then we’ll see you in the morning.”

This time the smile blossomed. “Count on it.”

Lia left the hospital, her body tired, but thoughts and emotions too unsettled to let her rest. It was late, nearly ten, but the notion of going home and confessing her sins to her elderly cat didn’t appeal. Instead, she decided to stop by Morente’s and see if Nova could spare half an hour for a glass of wine.

She and Nova Vargas—six months now Mrs. Alex Tréjos—had been friends for a decade, ever since Lia had come to Luna Hermosa as a young intern and decided to make it home. Nova had been waitressing at the local diner—they’d met the first time Lia, new in town, came in search of a serious caffeine transfusion—and almost from the first they’d started a ritual, Lia sticking around after the diner closed, the two of them having coffee or a drink, sharing grievances and confidences. Since last year, when Nova had taken over managing the upscale Morente’s and then in February, had married the local middle-school principal, they’d had less time together. But they both resolved to keep their weekly ritual, even if it meant an hour in Nova’s office, sharing a margarita and whatever chocolate dessert was left over from the kitchen.

“Hey, girl, I didn’t expect to see you here tonight,” Nova greeted her with a hug before stepping back to give Lia a critical once-over. “I thought you were going to go home and actually relax for once.”

“I was, but something came up.”

“I hope he was tall, dark and gorgeous.”

“He is, but he comes packaged with a short, dark and cute one,” Lia said, smiling when Nova’s mouth pulled up in an expression of serious disbelief. “I promise to tell all, if you’ve got time for a glass of wine.”

“I can make time for this,” Nova said and gestured Lia to follow her to the back office.

A few minutes later, settled on the office couch with a glass of wine and a generous serving of wickedly rich chocolate soufflé, Lia told her about Duran and his reason for coming to town to find Jed. She knew Nova wouldn’t gossip. She was Cort’s former lover and had married his best friend, and the three of them had stayed close. Besides, news got around fast enough in Luna Hermosa without Nova’s help. Lia gave it less than a week before everyone would be talking about it.

Nova, like her, shrugged off the revelation of Jed fathering two more sons. “Everyone knows Jed Garrett likes women and lots of them. So what’s this Duran Forrester like?”

“Tall, dark and gorgeous,” Lia said lightly. She felt herself coloring and reached for another bite of soufflé to cover it, hoping Nova wouldn’t notice. Bad enough she’d practically thrown herself into his arms back in Noah’s room. She didn’t need Nova deciding there was more going on than just her normal concern for the father of a seriously sick child.

“And?” Nova prompted.

“And he’s a single father who loves his son and would make a deal with the devil to save his life.”

“Ah.” Taking a sip of her wine, Nova studied her for a moment. “You seem to have gone above and beyond to help him out.”

“It’s my job.” Lia repeated the same excuse she’d given Duran.

“And you’re doing it very thoroughly.”

“It’s not like that at all.”

“Sure it isn’t.”

“Oh, for pity’s sake, we spent most of our time together in a hospital room with his sick child. What could possibly have happened?”

“I don’t know, you tell me,” Nova said and Lia wanted to answer, nothing, absolutely nothing, except it felt like a lie. “I can imagine it’d be pretty easy to get attached to a sick little boy and a devoted single dad who came to a town full of strangers looking for someone to help save his son’s life. And if he’s as hot as you say he is—”

“I didn’t say that,” Lia protested.

“You didn’t have to. Just be careful, okay? I know you want to help, but I also know how you are when it comes to getting too involved.”

Her friend probably did, but Lia didn’t want to be reminded of it right now. “And how am I?” she asked, knowing Nova would tell her if even if she didn’t.

“I love you, but you have this way of sabotaging every relationship you’re in because you’re afraid it might work,” Nova said.

“Oh, please, that’s not true. And a few hours with a stranger hardly qualifies as a relationship.”

“Look what happened with Tonio,” Nova continued. “He started to get serious and you decided you were too busy to spend time with him. You kept pushing him away until he finally got fed up and left you. He and Rita Pérez are dating,” she added, mentioning the name of one of Morente’s waitresses. “In case you’re interested.”

It was hard, coming up with a defense, when Lia suspected—no, she knew—that Nova was probably right. “I’m not,” she grumbled. “And you aren’t exactly a model for a successful relationship, you know.”

Nova laughed. “Until Alex, I never wanted one. My dad walking out on Mama and me cured me of wanting to tie myself to anyone for too long.”

“You and Cort were together for years,” Lia pointed out.

“Cort and I were lovers but we were never together. We were always just friends. Good friends,” she added at Lia’s skeptical look. “I liked being with him and he’s one helluva lover. But, trust me, neither of us ever had the least intention of making it permanent.”

“And now you’re married,” Lia said, emphasizing the word. “That can be pretty permanent.”

“Can be? There speaks the cynic. I intend for it to be, honey.”

“You can’t know that,” Lia said. She thought about everyone she’d ever loved and how, in one way or another, they’d all left her. Sometimes it had been a deliberate decision on their part; sometimes the fault could be assigned elsewhere, but the end result had been the same. “Things change, people go away.”

Her dark eyes speaking her understanding, Nova said quietly, “Not always.”

Maybe it worked for other people, but not for her. Lia had had hard lessons in loving and losing, ones she didn’t intend to repeat. “Don’t worry,” she told Nova. “I don’t plan on letting myself get involved beyond doing what I can for his son. That is my job.”

“No, honey, that’s the problem,” Nova said. She tipped her wineglass toward Lia. “You don’t ever plan on getting involved but you do. And then it’s too late.”

Not this time. It’s not too late because nothing has started. And I won’t let it.

She kept that thought with her long after she left the restaurant and took it home and to bed with her, using it as a shield against any doubts that crept in, any whispered warnings that she’d already started something she couldn’t stop or turn back from, that it already was too late.

Chapter Three

The next morning, Lia edged open the door a few inches and looked into the still darkened hospital room, uncertain of her reception despite it being almost seven-thirty. Both still sleeping, neither son nor father knew she was there. She stood in the doorway for a moment simply watching them.

That Duran was sleeping at all surprised her. She couldn’t imagine he was anything approaching comfortable. Awkwardly sitting at his son’s side, he was bent halfway across the bed, one arm crooked under his head for a makeshift pillow, the other stretched out over the blanket to cradle Noah’s small hand in his palm.

His position suggested he couldn’t bear to be even a chair’s length from his son and an odd feeling, both warmth and chill, twisted in her chest. She could imagine the fear and uncertainty Duran lived with constantly; his desperation in trying to hold on to the little person who meant everything to him. It wasn’t with the same intensity, but she, also, understood only too well the fear of losing someone you loved. For Duran—alone save for Noah—that fear at times had to be overwhelming.

Figuring Duran’s night had been too short, she hesitated stepping any further inside, torn between not wanting to disturb him and needing to check on Noah. Concern for Noah won out. Quietly as possible, she moved close to the bed and gently brushed her fingers to Noah’s cheek, pleased to find his skin cool and dry. The light touch made him wriggle and scrunch up his face as he blinked awake.

“Dr. Kerrigan?”

“That’s right,” Lia said barely above a whisper, giving him a reassuring smile. “I just came to check on you and Percy.” She patted the panda’s furry head. “Percy looks pretty good. How do you feel?”

“Okay, I guess.” Noah thought for a moment, then added, “Hungry.”

Lia laughed softly. “I think I can fix that. But I need to check your ears and take your temperature first. Then we’ll see about getting you and your dad some breakfast.”

“Why is Dad still sleeping?” Noah asked, frowning as he looked at his father. “He never sleeps late.” Before Lia could intervene, he pushed at Duran’s arm. “Dad—Dad, Dr. Kerrigan is here.”

Duran stirred and sat up, looking at once disoriented and impossibly sexy. His dark, sleep-mussed hair fell over his brow. He yawned, stretched and with no more than a quick glance Lia’s way, turned full attention to his son.

“Hey, good morning,” he said, smiling as he smoothed Noah’s hair back from his forehead. “You look like you’re feeling a lot better.”

“I woke up before you.”

“I see that. Guess I was being lazy today.”

Noah giggled at that and Lia couldn’t help but smile. She scarcely knew him, but what she had learned of Duran Forrester made for an attractive package: fiercely loving, responsible father, effortlessly sexy guy, a man not easily deterred once he’d chosen a course of action. And—and she needed to stop where this was going because it was so far off course from where her focus should be.

As though he sensed her eyes on him, Duran looked up, giving her half a smile. “Sorry, I didn’t fall asleep until nearly six. You were right about the uncomfortable chair.”

“No, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you. I just needed to check on Noah.”

Duran stood up, walking stiffly at first, taking a few paces around the room as Lia bent over Noah, satisfying herself that the antibiotics and fever reducers had done their job. Noah’s temperature was normal again and although it would be a few days before the infection cleared, his ears didn’t seem as painful for him as the night before.

Finishing, she briefly squeezed the boy’s shoulder. “Okay, I think we’ll let you and Percy out of here in a little bit—after breakfast,” she added at his hopeful look. “Give me a few minutes and I’ll see what I can rustle up.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Duran started.

“I promised,” Lia said, winking at Noah as she headed for the door.

She returned fifteen minutes later, backing into the room, balancing the heavy tray.

“Whatever that is it smells great,” Duran said, relieving her of her load.

“Nothing too fancy, I’m afraid, but at least the coffee’s decent. And it’s a definite improvement over the oatmeal they’d be bringing you, Noah. Unless you like your oatmeal kinda gray and sticky?” Noah made a face and Lia laughed. “I didn’t think so. How about some eggs and bagels instead?”

“I think you’ve just saved my life.” Duran, accepting a mug of coffee, breathed an appreciative sigh over the hot brew as Noah dug into his breakfast. “I can go without just about anything—”

“—except decent coffee,” Lia chimed in and they finished the sentence in unison.

“An addict after my own heart, I see.”

“With the hours I keep, believe me, it’s survival.”

Duran smiled, for the first time giving her a full, open gesture of appreciation, unrestrained by reluctance or circumstance. A subtle, insidious heat curled through her, and she cursed it, irritated at herself for being so susceptible to a simple smile that didn’t mean anything except his gratitude for a cup of coffee and her sparing his son overcooked oatmeal.

“Thank you again,” he said, “for everything. You’ve made this whole ordeal a lot easier. Right, guy?” He glanced at Noah.

Noah, in the process of stuffing a chunk of bagel in his mouth, nodded. “I hate hospitals,” he mumbled around the bread. “But you made it not so bad.”

Whatever she could have said stuck in her throat and left her swallowing hard in blank silence. Looking at the trusting smile on Noah’s pale face and the dark hollows shadowing his father’s soulful eyes, she realized father and son had touched her in a way that would leave her marked, this time unable to maintain the detachment necessary to her job—to help them, then move on and forget.

It made no sense. She’d had many patients with serious, even terminal illnesses, but she’d always been able to distance herself enough to remain emotionally protected. She couldn’t very well get deeply involved with the children she’d devoted her life to helping, to care too much, or she wouldn’t be able to function as a professional. She’d learned that lesson well enough over the years. Until Duran Forrester and his little boy showed up, she’d stuck by it religiously.

Why were they different? Why did she feel this connection to them, this urgent need to do anything, everything to help? She had no answers.

“You’re not having any?” Duran asked, jerking her out of her thoughts.

“What? Oh, no, thanks. I’m fine.” She made herself focus on the business at hand. “There are a few things we should talk about, though. I did some checking and the earliest we can start the testing is Tuesday.” Hesitating over whether or not she should bring up what was probably a touchy subject, she gave in to her need for answers and asked, “Were you planning on calling Cort this morning?”

“Calling him, yes.” Duran pushed his coffee mug onto the tray and got to his feet. “Accepting his offer of housing—that I’m rethinking. I appreciate it, but I’m not comfortable with accepting it.”

“Last night—”

“Last night I promised to call him. I didn’t say I’d move in with any of them.”

“They’re family.”

“No, they’re strangers whom I happen to be related to. And I need some place quiet and stable—” He glanced at Noah. “I can better control that in a hotel.”

“I could argue that,” Lia persisted. Maybe she didn’t have a right to interfere, but she knew Duran’s brothers and their families, and she couldn’t believe that they wouldn’t accept Noah as one of their own. In her opinion, that was better medicine right now than any other treatment she could prescribe. “A hotel is impersonal and there aren’t any guarantees you’re going to get the peace and quiet you want. Apart from that, weren’t you the one who said—”

“I want to meet your family!” Noah broke in. “You said I had cousins.”

Lia gestured to Noah, who’d made her point for her. “They aren’t going to get the chance to know him if they never get to meet him.”

His hardened expression clearly said Duran didn’t like where the conversation was headed. For Noah’s sake, though, Lia refused to back down. It might do Duran some good, as well, she reasoned. He’d been shouldering the weight of his son’s illness alone. Support from any quarter had to be better for him than the isolation he’d imposed on himself. She assured herself she was doing the right thing because of Noah, ignoring the little nagging voice at the back of her head that she was far overstepping her boundaries, that she was involving herself in Duran’s life far more than she should.

“I didn’t come here for a family reunion,” Duran said tightly.

“Didn’t you? I thought that was the point.”

“Why are you pushing this? Why is it so important to you?”

She could have answered that in ways that were personal, knowing in part she was letting her feelings about her own family and the distance she’d always felt between them influence her urging Duran to connect with his brothers. “It’s important to you and to Noah,” she answered instead and that was true, too. “Isn’t it why you’re here?”

Noah, oblivious to the tension, asked, “Are cousins like brothers and sisters?”

“Kind of,” Duran answered, his attention on Lia momentarily diverted. “But cousins don’t usually live in the same house as you, like brothers and sisters would.”

“They can be especially good friends, though, because they’re friends and they’re family,” Lia tried to explain, which was difficult, because for her it was only theory.

“I want to meet them,” Noah insisted again, his mouth pulled in a stubborn line as he looked at his father. “You said I could.”

“I know I did. But—” Duran pushed a hand through his hair and blew out a breath. “It’s not that simple.”

“Why?” Noah demanded.

Duran’s frown accused Lia of pursuing a subject he’d wanted to avoid for as long as possible. “For a lot of reasons.” He stopped, seemed to consider for a minute, then finally came to a decision. “I promised you’d meet them and you will. But it might not be right away and I don’t know if staying in the same house with them is a good idea right now.” This last was aimed at Lia and she flushed, knowing she probably deserved the reprimand but was unwilling to back down.

Before she could come back with a defense, the door pushed open and they were confronted with the morning nurse, followed by Cort.

Duran’s eyes snapped to her, but Lia shook her head in denial she’d had anything to do with Cort’s appearance.

“It’s not her fault,” Cort answered Duran’s unspoken question. “I invited myself.”

“Thinks he doesn’t have to follow the rules like everyone else,” the nurse grumbled. Toting a breakfast tray that was about as wide as she was, the nurse took one look at the stack of empty dishes on the table beside Noah and scowled at Lia. “I see someone’s already done my job.”

Lia hustled to explain. “I got here early and—”

“Oh, save it. I’ll take the oatmeal home for Cruiser. Don’t know what that dog sees in mushy oatmeal, but he gets plenty of it.” She flung an accusatory look at Lia. “I suppose you’ve taken the boy’s vitals, too?”

“I did, earlier, but I’m going to release him soon, so if you wouldn’t mind checking them again, I’ll have a quick word with Mr. Forrester and Cort outside.”

“Fine, let me earn my keep, then. You three give me some space.”

Heeding the older woman, Lia gestured Duran and Cort toward the door. “We’ll just be a few minutes,” she reassured Noah, who was eyeing the nurse doubtfully. “Don’t worry, she’s only cranky with adults.”

“Forty years and I still get no respect,” the sassy, rotund nurse muttered as the others left the room.

“Is she—?” Duran nodded to the door.

“No worries,” Lia said. “She’s the best pediatric nurse we have. She just saves her bedside manner for the kids.”

Duran didn’t seem convinced but looked to Cort. “I would have called.”

“I’m sure you would have,” Cort said easily. “But I figured it would be harder for you to turn down my offer in person. This way you can’t hang up on me. So before you give me all the reasons why it won’t work, I’ll tell you that we’ve fixed it so you and Noah can stay at the ranch. My brother Josh used to live in one wing of the house. It’s three rooms and more than big enough for the two of you.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Duran said. “But this is all happening pretty fast. I’m not sure it’s the best place for Noah right now.”

“Trust me, the place is huge. You won’t have to see Jed or Del—my stepmother—if you don’t want to. Jed doesn’t get around much these days, and Del—” Cort grimaced at his mention of Jed Garrett’s wife. “Well, let’s just say she’ll be more than happy to stay out of your way.”

“Noah would probably love being around all the animals,” Lia put in.

Flicking a look at her, Duran said nothing for a moment. “You told Jed about me—us?”

For the first time, Cort looked uneasy. “Yeah, I told him everything. The timing wasn’t ideal. He’s been in Albuquerque for the past few days, seeing some specialist and won’t be back until late this afternoon, so I had to do it by phone. But he knows.”

“And?”

“And it was a shock. But like I predicted last night, once he got past the surprise, he was more than ready to bring two more sons into the family fold.”

Cort’s words and the troubled thread in his voice eroded Lia’s previous confidence that staying at the ranch would be best for Duran and Noah. She’d been thinking of his brothers, instead of remembering who their father was. Jed Garrett might be sick, but it hadn’t softened him, hadn’t, as far as she could tell, caused him to repent his life of taking what he wanted, discarding anything and anyone that had stood in his way of building Rancho Piñtada into one of the biggest and most successful ranch operations in New Mexico. That had included wives, lovers and his own sons, and it was only recently that there had been a tentative attempt on his part to reconcile with the family he’d had no use for.

Duran, though, seemed strong enough in his resolve to save his son to face down any challenge without blinking, even the devil in the form of his newfound father. She’d no doubt that although it might be an awkward and even contentious first meeting, he’d be more than a match for Jed.

“What do you think?” Cort asked her pointedly.

Not liking him putting her on the spot, especially when she was already at odds with Duran over this, Lia forced an even tone. “I think the decision is up to Duran.”

She thought she saw a flash of surprised gratitude in Duran’s eyes, replaced quickly by a conflicted hesitation. “It’s not that I don’t appreciate this—”

“I understand,” Cort said. “We all do, in one way or another. But you don’t know how long you’ll be here. Do you really want Noah living in a hotel for a month or more? Give it a night or two. If it doesn’t work, then we’ll figure out something that will.”

“You know why I’m here,” Duran reminded him. “If staying at the ranch doesn’t work out—”

“Then it doesn’t work out. It doesn’t have anything to do with helping Noah.”

“That’s all any of us want,” Lia couldn’t help adding. She didn’t know what to say that would convince Duran of his brothers’ sincerity. There wasn’t an easy way to describe the family the five of them had become despite the sins of their father that had nearly broken them apart forever.

She admired them, Sawyer, Rafe, Cort, Josh and Cruz. Somehow, against the odds and despite Jed, they had reconciled and become a true family. Lia envied them that, the bond they had.

And yet it would be tested once again, in a way none of them had expected. There were two more Garrett brothers now, strangers both, and one with a desperate need to find the person who could save his son’s life.

Yet the fierce resolve in Cort’s eyes answered the question of whether he and the others would stand together to help. “When you release Noah, they’re coming back to the ranch with me,” he said, leaving no room for argument. “You want to come along and help them get settled? You’d be best at explaining all the details of Noah’s illness and what we need to do for the testing. Laurel and the kids are going to be there, too. We thought they’d be company for Noah.”

Lia glanced at Duran, searching for a clue that he wanted her. He looked steadily back, seemingly searching himself before giving a brief nod. “Okay then, I’ll get the paperwork started. If you’re sure?” she asked him, still uncertain if he’d actually agreed to Cort’s plan.

“I’m not sure,” he said flatly. “But I’m not being given much of a choice.”

“Then don’t go.”

“No.” He shifted his gaze between her and Cort. “I’m going to give it a try, mostly because I promised Noah and I’m not going to go back on that.” Turning, his hand on the door, he started back to his son, and over his shoulder, without looking at either of them, said, “I just hope I’m not going to regret it.”

Five minutes after walking into the great room of Rancho Piñtada, Duran discovered the drawback to being raised an only child—being completely unprepared for the chaos and noise of a large family.

It was more than he’d hoped for. But it was also more than he’d anticipated, to the point that the combination of stress, lack of sleep, and being introduced to the confusing assembly of four of his brothers, Sawyer, Cort, Rafe and Josh and Cort’s wife Laurel and their four children, Tommy, Angela, Sophia and Quin, was beginning to feel overwhelming. The oldest brother, Cruz, had called to say he’d be a little late for the family meeting, and Duran could only be thankful for one less person in the room and hope he’d be coming alone.

Noah lingered at his side, looking both intimidated and excited. He stared wide-eyed as Tommy, who seemed to Duran to be about twelve or thirteen, played the role of Bigfoot, chasing his much younger siblings around the room. His son was used to a quiet house and often only his imagination and toys for company. He could feel Noah fairly quivering with anticipation, wanting to join in and yet unsure of whether he could or should.

Sidestepping out of the way as one of the girls dodged around him, Rafe gave Duran a knowing look. “Be glad we left the other ankle biters at home,” he commented with a shake of his head. “When they’re all together, it’s a lot worse.”

Duran briefly wondered exactly how many of them there were and then thought of Ry. From the little time he’d spent with his twin, he got the impression that for Ry, family ties—ties to anyone—were something to be avoided at all costs. He suspected for Ry, a meeting like this would be akin to slow torture.

“Tommy, why don’t you take Noah out and show him the new foal?” Laurel made the suggestion over the rising ruckus in the ranch great room, giving an exasperated shake of her head when it went unacknowledged by her oldest son. She turned to Duran. “Would that be all right with you? There’s a brand new baby on the ranch and she’s just beautiful.”

“I don’t—I’m not sure Noah is up to a long walk right now,” he hedged, trying for a diplomatic way to say no. Though he didn’t doubt Laurel meant well, he wasn’t ready to entrust his son to people he’d barely met, related or not.

Silently urging her to back him up he glanced at Lia, sitting to the other side of Noah.

He’d argued with himself, even up to the moment he was standing at the front door of the ranch, over whether her coming along was a good idea or not. He’d wanted her there, for Noah’s sake and his own.

She was Noah’s pediatrician, at least while they were here. Noah had had other doctors, but he sensed Lia cared more deeply for Noah. And that counted for a lot. Besides, he wanted her there, for Noah’s sake and his own, because her empathy for their situation and her knowing his brothers and Jed Garrett eased the difficulties of first meetings and explanations. Although they’d disagreed over his staying at the ranch, in his mind she was still his strongest supporter here, and he hoped in this, her understanding of the situation would lead her to add her own objections to Laurel’s suggestion.

“Can I go, Dad?” Noah tugged at his sleeve. “I feel fine now. Dr. Kerrigan said I was fine.” He turned to Lia in hopeful appeal.

“I said you were better,” Lia amended gently. Over Noah’s head, her eyes met Duran’s. “I don’t think a short walk would hurt, as long as you took it slow. But it’s up to your dad. He might want you to keep him company since he’s in a strange place and doesn’t really know anybody.”

“You’re here. He knows you,” Noah persisted. “Please, Dad. I want to go.”

“Noah—” His first instinct to say no battled with wanting to let Noah explore and enjoy being a part of a group of kids. It so rarely happened and he hated that his son had spent so much of his short life lonely.

“Please?” Noah looked over to where Tommy in his role of Bigfoot with Quin, a sturdy toddler, clinging to his back, was about to pounce on his little sisters and then at Duran with that wide-eyed pleading expression that never failed to break the back of Duran’s resolve.

“You don’t have to worry about Tommy,” Josh put in. “He’s as good as Rafe and me at knowin’ his way around the ranch. And since he’s the oldest, he’s had lots of practice at keepin’ an eye on the littler ones.”

“Tommy’s very responsible,” Laurel added, a touch of pride in her voice. Tommy’s mock ferocious snarl elicited high-pitched shrieks from the girls and Laurel winced. “Okay, enough. Tommy—stop growling.” She walked over and scooped up Quin. “The girls are getting completely out of control. Why don’t you take them and Noah on a walk to the barn and show Noah the new filly? Slowly, though, Noah just got out of the hospital.”

“Sure.” Tommy gestured to Noah, “Come on, let’s get outta here.”

“Take your sisters by the hand,” Cort insisted. “Don’t let them wander off.”

“Come on, Dad, they can—”

“Tommy.”

Cort’s tone was enough to silence his son. “Fine, I’ll take Angela and you take Sophie,” he told Noah, gently pushing the smallest girl toward him.

For a moment, Sophie contemplated Noah with big black eyes and then grinned. Noah looked to Duran and Duran smiled. “It’s okay. Take her hand and stay close. And no running, okay?”

Hesitantly, Noah pushed off the couch and stood there, staring at Sophie as if he wasn’t sure what part of her to hold on to.

With none of Noah’s reticence, Sophie grabbed his hand and tugged. “Let’s go see the pony!”

Then Noah beamed back and Duran knew he’d made the right choice. “No longer than an hour,” he said as his son let Sophie pull him toward the front door.

“You keep track of the time, Tommy,” Cort called to his son as the four kids made a noisy exit.

“He’ll be fine.” Without him noticing, Lia had shifted a little closer and spoke only for him, following his gaze to the empty place his son had just left.

She touched his hand, a brief brush of her fingers, intended to punctuate her reassurance, and for a moment, Duran had the urge to grasp hers as if she were the tether that would keep him anchored above the confusion of feelings and people and remind him of what was important.

Instead, he let the feeling pass and settled for a half nod, half shrug.

Although she smiled a little in return, her eyes were troubled. She answered some comment of Laurel’s but Duran felt and saw her watching him, slantways, pretending her attention was elsewhere but keeping him in view in a way that was almost protective.

Before he could decide how he felt about that, the front door flung open and a man strode in to join the company. From his strong resemblance to Sawyer and Cort, Duran guessed this was Cruz Déclan, his opinion justified a moment later when the man walked up and offered his hand as Duran got to his feet.

“You must be Duran,” he said. “I’m Cruz. Welcome to the family.”

The words were friendly enough but came with a wry twist that gave Duran the impression Cruz understood some of how he felt about being the outsider who suddenly found himself a part of a tight-knit family group.

Taking a chair opposite Duran, Cruz asked, “Looks like I beat Jed here.” He looked to Cort. “I heard you got voted the one to make the call last night. How’d he take it?”

“Like we expected,” Cort said. “Del on the other hand—”

“She isn’t takin’ it too well,” Josh finished for him.

Sawyer gave a short laugh. “Now there’s an understatement. Del is Josh’s mother,” he added for Duran’s benefit. “So we’re gonna let him handle her.”

“Just don’t take it personally if she’s less than warm and fuzzy,” Josh said, with an apologetic smile Duran’s way.

“I understand. It’s a difficult situation. If there’d been any other way—”

“We’re glad you found us,” Laurel said. She gently stroked Quin’s back where he lay, snuggled against her chest. “If there’s any chance one of us could help Noah…” Leaving the sentence unfinished, she looked at Quin, shaking her head, her eyes misty.

“I think we can all understand how you feel when it comes to your son,” Sawyer said quietly.

“I’ll get things lined up for the testing next week,” Lia said. “I know everyone here is more than willing.”

Duran’s brothers all nodded and made comments in full agreement. Their enthusiasm and open acceptance of him and Noah, and Lia’s determination to help him find what he most wanted for his son, wrapped around an empty place inside, warming it and filling it with feelings too tangled to recognize. For a moment, he couldn’t speak, gripped by a sense that he’d found a lot more than he’d ever bargained for here.

Before he could muster words of thanks around the catch in his throat, the front door opened again. And again, Duran recognized the features on the man’s face. Not so much because he strongly resembled any of his sons in the room, but because he was looking at an image of Ry—older, grayer, harder, but a reflection of his twin.

The clear proof of his identity was there and now he had to confront it face-to-face in the man who was his father.

Chapter Four

They stood facing each other and there didn’t seem to be a right thing to say.

The sense of imbalance Duran had been feeling since he started the search for his birth parents visited him now, more strongly than ever. He’d always been confident of who he was, where he belonged. The confrontations with his past, though, had stirred to life a stranger inside; someone, that if it hadn’t been for Noah, he wasn’t certain he would have wanted to know.

“Not sure what I expected,” Jed said at last. He came slowly into the room until he faced Duran. His blunt assessing look ended with a grunt and a shake of his head. “But it wasn’t you.”

“That’s pretty much what Ry said,” Duran told him, despite the circumstances a little amused at the similar reaction from his twin and the father neither of them had ever known. “You’d have a hard time guessing we were twins. There’s no question he’s your son, though. You’re more his twin than I am, at least in looks.”

Jed accepted that with a nod. “Who’s your mama?”

“Lucy Miller, or she was then. And the only place she’s my mother is on a birth certificate.”

“Maybe so. But you can’t change where you came from. Believe me, boy, I’ve tried.” Eyes narrowed as if he were peering into the past, Jed said after a moment, “I don’t recall a Lucy Miller.”

“One-night stands generally don’t leave much of an impression,” Duran said dryly. “She probably wouldn’t have remembered you, either, if you hadn’t given her two sons.”

“When?” The question was shot at Duran from behind Jed and for the first time Duran noticed the blond woman, fluffy white poodle clutched in her arm, still standing by the doorway. Duran guessed she had to be Jed’s wife, Del. When Duran didn’t answer her straightaway, Del spun on Jed. “When did you know her?”

“Like I said, I can’t recall. What’s it matter?”

Del’s painted mouth tightened. “People will be talking.”

“Let ’em. Not like they haven’t before.”

From the hard set of her face, Duran guessed whatever had been said about Jed Garrett in the past hadn’t been good. He had a pretty fair idea of what they’d be talking about this time, the speculation over whether or not Jed and Del had been married when Jed’s night with a stranger had produced two more Garrett sons. Judging Josh’s age as fairly close to his, there was a better than even chance they had. He couldn’t blame Del Garrett for resenting his suddenly showing up in Luna Hermosa. For Jed’s wife, meeting him face-to-face was unwelcome evidence her husband had cheated on her.

Before Del could counter Jed, though, Josh came up and took his mother by the arm. “How ’bout you come over to my place and tell Ellie and me all about your trip?” Del’s protesting didn’t start until Josh had her turned around and halfway out the door. Flashing a wink and a grin over his shoulder, he pulled the door closed on his mother’s increasingly loud sputtering.

“Damned woman’s gonna make a fuss about this,” Jed grumbled as he made his way to a chair, dropping heavily into the seat. He sent a scowl around the room at each of his sons, sparing only Duran. “And don’t any of you start. I’ll get enough grief from her to make up for the lot of you.” He fixed his attention back on Duran. “Cort says you’re here about your boy. What makes you so sure one of your brothers can help?”

“Because they are his brothers,” Lia spoke for him.

Duran had forgotten she was there behind him, now at his side, squarely facing Jed in a stance that clearly warned the older man to back off. He didn’t need her to fight his battles but she ignored his glance.

“A blood relative is more likely to be a match,” she persisted. “And if one of them is, it can save Noah’s life.”

“And then what?”

Lia bristled but Duran took her hand, squeezing lightly, trying to telegraph his appreciation for her defense in equal measure with insistence he handle this on his own.

“You either get what you want or you don’t,” Jed went on. “Is that gonna be the end of it?”

“You’re asking for something I can’t give right now,” Duran said, not knowing if Jed wanted him to say he’d stick around, acknowledge these strangers as family, but suspecting Jed wanted a commitment of that sort. Whether or not Jed had that in mind, Duran couldn’t promise, not now, maybe never.

“Let it go for now,” Cruz told Jed, undeterred by his father’s obvious irritation at his interruption. “Duran has enough to worry about without taking on all of us on top of it.”

Jed looked as if he wanted to argue. But after a moment, he shifted his glare from Cruz back to Duran. His gaze was speculative, and Duran realized he still held Lia’s hand and that she hadn’t made any attempt to let him go. Gently, Duran loosed his grip, briefly meeting her eyes before he broke their connection.

“I want to meet your brother,” Jed said. “Why isn’t he here?”

“This has got nothing to do with Ry. I don’t know him that well, but he doesn’t strike me as the social type. He wasn’t exactly thrilled to find out about me, let alone a whole family. We agreed we’d keep in touch but we haven’t gotten much further than that.”

“Your mama should’ve told me about you two.”

“Would it have made a difference?” Duran asked shortly. “Then?”

“Might’ve. I guess it makes more now.” Jed rubbed a hand over his jaw and weariness seemed to wash over him, weighing down his shoulders and taking the aggression out of his stance. He pushed himself to his feet. “Get settled in. We’ll talk more at dinner.”

Duran almost said no, thanks, he wasn’t staying, this wasn’t what he’d bargained on when he’d come to Luna Hermosa looking for help. But before he could voice any of it, Noah and his cousins came back in a burst of noise and energy. His focus turned to his son’s excited telling of his visit to the barns, and seeing the horses and a family of cats.

Seeing Noah’s excitement reminded him of why he was here and that it didn’t matter what price he had to pay for coming. The only thing that mattered to Duran was that Noah had a chance at a normal, happy life, free of hospitals and worries about what tomorrow would bring…that his son had a chance to live.

Lia decided that at some point in her life, she must have been forced to endure a worse dinner party, but she couldn’t remember when.

Once Noah returned and the family gathering started to break up, she’d planned to leave and avoid any more time with Jed and Del Garrett. A scant half an hour after Josh had led her away, Del had come back to the house, more upset than before, and flounced off to find Jed when she learned Duran and Noah would be temporary houseguests. Lia could only imagine the scene that followed and was more than ready to excuse herself for home.

It was Duran who stopped her.

She’d been surprised when he asked her to stay. But she accepted, deliberately refusing to think too much about her motivation, certain little about it was professional.

She let herself wonder about his reasons, though. She supposed it could have been as simple as wanting the support of the person he knew best in Luna Hermosa, though he and she were hardly much more than strangers. Apart from that, he’d given her the message several times that he didn’t need her involved in his personal life beyond her caring for Noah.

All through dinner he left her wondering, contributing little to the conversations, volunteering even less, particularly in response to Jed’s questioning. Cort, ever the family peacemaker, had done his best to smooth over the tensions, and the five kids provided some diversions. But Duran seemed distracted, his attention inward. Del was obviously in a temper and as a consequence, Jed was surlier than ever. Shortly after dinner, Cort and Laurel departed for home and Duran, seeing Noah’s yawns and eye rubbing, whisked him off to bed.

That left Lia in the awkward position of not wanting to leave without saying something to Duran, but not wanting to stay if it meant lingering in Del and Jed’s company. She finally settled on thanking them and then saying she wanted to check on Noah before she, too, went home.

Quickly navigating the long hallway that led to the west wing of the house, Lia tapped lightly on the door at the end of it, waiting for a few moments before Duran answered.

“I’m sorry,” he said, as he showed her in. “I didn’t mean to abandon you.”

“It’s okay. I just wanted to make sure Noah was all right before I left. And to say good-night.”

“He’s finally sleeping.” Duran glanced back at the closed door of one of the bedrooms. “It took awhile. He was tired but he’s had too much excitement for one day.”

“He seemed to enjoy himself, though. I think it was good for him to be with the other kids.”

“Is that your professional opinion?” Duran asked with a slight smile.

“It could be.” There were long moments of silence, weighted with things unsaid, and then Lia took a step back. “I should go. I’ll call you later about the testing once I’ve gotten a firm commitment on the time.”

“Lia…” In the dim light, his expression was unreadable, but she sensed his hesitation. “I know I keep asking, but would you stay? For just a little while? There’s a patio outside…” He let the suggestion trail off, leaving it to her to decide if any of this was a good idea.

She told herself there were no decisions to make—it was a bad idea, them alone together in a situation that could easily be misconstrued. Yet she succumbed too easily to the temptation to say yes and was nodding and following him out to the patio before the voice telling her to turn and leave could sound the alarm.

At the height of summer, the day’s heat had been brilliant, but in the deep evening darkness, the warmth had softened, tempered by a light breeze. Duran moved to stand by the low wall surrounding the patio, staring at the blended expanse of land and sky spread in front of them.

Uncertain of his mood, Lia tentatively approached him, taking a seat on the low wall a little distance from him. He hadn’t bothered with lights so she saw him largely in shadow, faintly lit by the dim aura of the lamp in the room behind and the pale glow of full moonlight in front.

“I hope this wasn’t a mistake,” he said, more to himself than to her.

“I don’t think so,” she said quietly. “This can be a good place, for you and for Noah. It could be healing in itself.”

“I’d say after today, the verdict is out on whether or not this is a good place for either of us,” he said, not looking at her.

“I didn’t mean here—the ranch—so much.” She followed his gaze. “I meant Luna Hermosa. It’s why I’ve stayed for so long. It’s the only place that’s ever felt like home.”

“You didn’t grow up here?”

“I didn’t grow up in any one place. My parents split up when I was three and I got bounced between the two of them. My mother in particular doesn’t like staying in one spot for too long.” The bitter edge to her words surprised her although she knew she’d been hoarding it up for years now. Quickly, she tried to bury it again, unwilling to expose her skeletons to Duran Forrester. “It doesn’t matter now. I hadn’t been here very long before I decided to adopt it as home.”

“I doubt Noah and I will ever call it home, but I’m going to give it a few days. At least until we know the test results.”

“I’ll try and make that happen as quickly as possible. I can imagine how you feel about having to wait, but if we can get everyone tested on Tuesday, we should know something by the end of next week, at the latest.”

He turned to her then. “I appreciate everything you’ve done, that you’re doing.”

“But…?”

“I wasn’t going to qualify it.”

“Not out loud. But I have the impression you think I’ve stepped in where I shouldn’t have. That I’ve gotten too involved in your personal business. Maybe I have,” she said before he could answer her. She could hear herself, knew she was doing what Nova had accused her of—throwing up obstacles to protect herself from getting in any deeper with Duran and his son. Standing up, she instinctively shifted toward the light and escape.

“Maybe you have,” Duran said, his flat agreement startling her, holding her in place. Then, with mingled regret and relief, when she thought she might be able to leave without having to confront her feelings, he knocked aside all her barriers with ridiculous ease. “But you care and I think you understand—”

“What it’s like to be afraid of losing someone you love?” she finished for him, and at his nod, thought, Oh, if you only knew.

“Duran…” She didn’t know what she was asking him, whether to stop or to continue.

He moved closer, close enough she had to look up to meet his steady gaze. Close enough for him to reach out, slowly, and trace his fingertips over her cheek.

“You’re not the only one who’s gone where they shouldn’t have,” he said softly.

“I don’t—” What? Feel this much, want this much, because of a man I hardly know? Unsettled, agitated by what she didn’t understand and her inability to control it, she finished, “I don’t know how to handle what’s happened between us. I didn’t expect to—care the way I do.”

“Neither did I. But it doesn’t seem to matter.”

“It’s the situation—Noah, and the timing, and your family,” she rushed out, grasping for a sensible explanation. “It makes everything seem more intense than it is.”

Looking doubtful, he said, “That’s part of it.”

“And you’re grateful—”

“I’m not that damned grateful, Lia.”

“You needed someone and I wanted to help.”

“No. That’s not it.”

Before she could find another reason to convince him that whatever imagined connection between them was nothing more than the heightened emotion of the circumstances, Duran slid his hand around her nape and kissed her.

She wanted it and it scared the hell out of her at the same time because of how much she wanted it. She could tell herself all day it was comfort he needed and she provided, but the feeling—too basic, too elemental—made that a lie. It was desire, although definitely not pure or simple. For long moments, she indulged it, leaning into his warmth, opening her mouth to his, taking as much as she gave because she knew it couldn’t last.

Stopping it herself would have been best. Instead, Duran abruptly ended it, letting her go and taking a step back. He looked slightly stunned, as if he couldn’t believe what he’d just done. “Lia—”

“Forget it.” Unable to look him straight in the eye, she turned away. Running a hand over her hair, she was annoyed to find it trembling. “It doesn’t mean anything.”

“Do you really believe that?” The demand for honesty in his voice compelled her to face him.

“No,” she answered truthfully, “but I need to try. I shouldn’t—none of this is very professional of me.”

“It hasn’t been very professional between us from the beginning.”

“And that makes it okay?”

“No, it complicates the hell out of things,” he said bluntly. “But it doesn’t change the way they are.”

He was right but she didn’t want him to be; she wanted to pretend she could ignore it, dismiss it and move on. Duran and her own feelings wouldn’t let her.

Brushing her hand with his, he drew her eyes back to his. “We don’t have to figure it all out tonight. Just don’t expect me to pretend it didn’t happen.”

Lia shook her head, the only answer she could give him, and she wasn’t sure if she was agreeing or denying him. Both felt like the wrong choice.

Chapter Five

“I’m sorry to keep you waiting so long.” Lia hurried into the pediatrician’s patient room, interrupting Duran’s agitated pacing. “Overscheduling seems to be the rule these days,” she said, closing the door behind her.

The tension radiating from him was like a living thing in the room. He offered her little more than a terse nod in reply.

“Noah’s not with you?”

“Josh and Eliana offered to look after him while we talked. They’re meeting me here later,” he said tightly. “You said you’d rather talk to me alone.”

He didn’t look happy with that, but Lia knew it was better this way. “Did they bring Sammy along?” she asked, thinking Eliana’s little brother, only a year older than Noah, would have helped distract Noah from being away from his father again.

“Yeah, Noah was excited. He can’t get enough of his new family. Look, Lia, can we avoid the chitchat and get on with it? It’s been over a week and I don’t do waiting well, especially when it comes to this.”

Lia drew in a breath. She had rehearsed since the moment she’d gotten the results of his brothers’ blood tests. She had to make it clear that while there was hope, she could promise nothing at this point. And, despite the feelings, real or imagined, that had passed between Duran and her, first and foremost, she had to remain professional.

But more and more that obligation was becoming a challenge that was harder to meet. She’d deliberately avoided close contact with Duran in the past days, making sure the few times she did see him were because of Noah and always at the hospital or her office. It didn’t make it any easier to ignore the attraction between them and to pretend he’d never kissed her. She couldn’t ignore or forget, not with him ever present in her thoughts, despite her best efforts to relegate him to a safe father-of-patient status only.

He was watching her now with barely concealed impatience. Putting herself in doctor mode, she said, “I have good news.”

Duran stared at her, frozen in place, as if he were waiting for a blow and certain she was going to take her words back. “Go on.”

“Sawyer is a match for Noah.”

He said nothing, just stood there.

“It’s true, Duran,” Lia said softly. Moving close to him, she put a gentle hand on his arm. “Sawyer’s tests came back as a perfect match. There’s a very good chance he’ll be able to be a donor for Noah.”

A tremor passed over him and he swayed slightly, causing Lia to grab for the nearest chair and pull it near enough for him to collapse into it.

“I—I can’t believe…” he rasped. “All this time—and finally…” He leaned forward and dropped his head to his hands.

An ache tightened her chest and throat, threatening to become tears. All these years of fear and anguished waiting, wondering if and when he would lose his son forever. Had he ever truly let himself believe Noah had a chance for a normal life? Or had he resigned himself to the inevitable, certain that with so few close blood family members, the chance Noah would find a compatible donor in time was virtually impossible?

It wasn’t professional or even wise, but she didn’t care as she knelt beside him and put her arm around him; her instinct to comfort him was stronger than any common sense dictated.

His body shook with his effort to bank the tumult of emotions she knew he must be feeling. It touched her in a way for which she had no response except to tighten her hold, to offer him an anchor in the storm.

“It’s okay,” she murmured, stroking his hair. “You don’t always have to be strong. And you don’t always have to do it alone.”

“I told myself I had hope,” he said hoarsely. “That I believed this would happen.” He raised his head to look at her then, and his eyes were glazed with unshed tears. “When I couldn’t find a donor, though, and they told me it could be years, or never…” Leaning back in his chair, he squeezed his eyes shut, shoving his hands through his hair. “I wasn’t strong enough to believe it then.”

“Oh, Duran.” Lia touched her fingers to his face to bring his gaze to hers. “Noah has an excellent chance now. Once Sawyer knows, I’m certain he’ll more than willing to do whatever is necessary to help.”

His expression wavered, caught between desperately wanting to believe and being afraid it was all a mistake. “You’re sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure,” she said firmly, her smile tempered by the need to be realistic with him. “But you realize this is only the first step along a long, rocky road ahead. They’ll be more tests and the transplant procedure itself, then the recovery time for Noah—none of it’s going to be short or easy.”

“But it is the first step, isn’t it? At last…Lia—” He caught her hands in his. “Thank you.”

Now it was her turn to try to contain a whirl of emotion—empathy for his years of waiting, relief that the test results opened up new possibilities, a fierce happiness knowing Duran’s faith had been renewed—so many feelings rushing her heart that if she tried to speak them it would be through tears. So she only nodded, and said quietly, “All I’ve done is arrange the testing. You’re the reason you and Noah have gotten this far.”

“You’ve done a lot more than that.” He shook his head, a dazed look in his eyes. “It’s still hard to believe that I came here looking for my father and found five brothers and now one of them is going to save Noah’s life.”

Lia ached to echo his newfound certainty, but didn’t dare. Duran needed to be positive now. His mindset would determine Noah’s attitude and that in turn would give Noah strength. But she had to keep a balance, stating the truth in careful terms, cautioning Duran, yet encouraging him in equal measure. From now on it would be a delicate line to walk, especially given the other complications of her burgeoning attraction to him and her deepening affection for his little boy.

“It’s true. Sawyer is a match and he may very well be the one to help Noah get well. But we’ve got dozens of details to work out now. You need to start by finding a transplant clinic. You may have to go out of state for that. But there is one in Albuquerque. There’s another in Dallas. I’ll be glad to liaison for you, but that decision is yours. And keep in mind, the wait time for the actual transplant could be several weeks and Noah’s recovery will be a lot longer.” She backed away and drew herself to her feet. “What I’m saying is that this is good news, but you both have a long way to go yet.”

“I know. I’ve read everything I could get my hands on for years.” Duran stood up, walked across the room over to the sink and splashed his face with cold water. He grabbed a paper towel from the holder and turned back to her. “I’ll do whatever it takes, however long it takes.”

Lia nodded, not trusting herself to speak as she tried to banish thoughts of the myriad of things that could go wrong. Duran needed to know them all, but not today. Right now, it was more important he believe in everything that could go right. “Are you ready to talk to Noah?”

“Oh, yeah,” he said, and for the first time he smiled.

In the waiting room, they found Noah and Sammy sitting happily at a children’s table playing video games and making all manner of boy sound effects. Josh and Eliana sat nearby watching them. They looked up simultaneously as Lia and Duran walked into the room.

“Dad!” Noah bounced up and ran over to them when he spotted Duran. “Sammy has that new game I was telling you about. It’s way awesome, come check it out.”

Duran swept his son into his arms and hugged him as though he would never let him go. “Sure, in a minute, okay?” he said, his voice breaking a little.

“What’s wrong?” Noah squirmed in his father’s embrace. “You’re squashing me.”

“Sorry, I guess I was.” Duran released his son, keeping his hands on his shoulders. “I missed you, that’s all. Did you have fun?”

“Yeah, we went to the video store. I found three games I want,” he added with a hopeful look.

“No doubt,” Duran said with a chuckle. “We’ll see about that later.”

Noah’s mouth twisted. “That always means no,” he grumbled. Wriggling out of Duran’s hold, he ran back to the table to watch over Sammy’s shoulder as the older boy manipulated the game with quick fingers.

“So, you gonna keep us in suspense?” Josh asked when Noah was out of earshot.

Lia and Duran exchanged a glance and he nodded slightly, giving her tacit permission. “Sawyer’s a match,” she said, giving them a brief outline of what she’d told Duran.

Eliana, her eyes bright, caught Duran by surprise with a warm hug. “That’s wonderful. We’ve all been hoping and praying this would happen. I can only imagine how awful the waiting’s been for you.”

“Noah’s got a long way to go yet.” Lia repeated her gentle warning. She smiled at Duran. “But this is a very good start.”

“Does Sawyer know yet?” Eliana asked.

“No, I’m going to call him as soon as we’re done here. I’m sure he’ll be happy.”

“’Course he will, you know that,” Josh said, including Duran in his assurance. “We all are.”

Duran glanced at his son and then turned his smile to his brother and Eliana. “I appreciate everything you’ve all done. I’ll admit I had doubts about coming here but right now, it’s looking like the best decision I’ve ever made.”

“Good thing, since you’re stuck with us all now,” Josh said with a laugh. “Hey, you think Noah would be up for a little celebration? I promised Sammy we’d go ridin’ today. Cort and Tommy’ll be there, and Anna. Ellie’s little sister,” he added for Duran’s benefit. “She and Tommy are sweet on each other.”

Eliana grimaced. “They’re just kids.”

“They’re teenagers and if Tommy’s anything like I was…” He finished with a grin and a shrug as Eliana muttered, “God forbid,” and rolled her eyes. “So, what do you say?” Josh asked. “You and Noah wanna come along? You, too, Lia. We’ll make it a real party.”

“I don’t know,” both Lia and Duran started at the same time. He gestured her to go ahead and she said, “I’m going to be tied up here until at least three. I’m sure Noah would enjoy the outing, though, if you think he’s up to it.”

Duran hesitated then said, “I need to talk to Noah first, explain to him what’s going on.” He looked at Lia. “Would you—”

“Of course,” she answered his unspoken request. Josh and Eliana agreed to wait while she and Duran took Noah back to the patient room to tell Noah about the test results and to decide on the afternoon’s plans.

It was easier, this time, telling Noah the news, because all she had to do was echo Duran’s explanation, adding a few words of encouragement. She was pretty sure Noah didn’t hear anything beyond Duran telling him Sawyer was a match anyway.

What she hadn’t been prepared for, though, was the rush of emotion when Noah flung himself at her for an enthusiastic hug.

“I’m gonna get better!”

Lia returned his hug, swallowed her tears and put on a smile for him. “We’re going to do everything we can to make that happen.”

“You’re the best doctor ever,” Noah told her, grinning from ear to ear.

“I don’t know about that. Your uncle Sawyer is going to be doing more than me. But thank you.” She blinked hard as she gently brushed a wayward lock of hair from his forehead. “I think you’re pretty special, too.”

She was glad for the reprieve when Duran repeated Josh’s invitation to go riding. Noah was practically glowing with excitement.

“Can we go now?” he asked. “’Cept—” He frowned. “I don’t know how to ride a horse. I only ride bikes.”

Lia laughed and gently ruffled his hair. “You don’t need to know how. You can ride with your dad or maybe Josh will find you a gentle older horse who’s not in any hurry. Do you like to ride?” she asked Duran.

He shrugged. “I’ve enjoyed it the few times I’ve done it but I can’t say I’m any cowboy. I’m a cyclist and so is Noah.”

“That won’t be a problem. Josh gives riding lessons to special-needs kids like Sammy. He’s good at matching people and horses.”

“Can everybody come?” Noah asked. “All my cousins?”

“Not today,” Duran said with a smile. “And we’re not going anywhere ourselves until after you’ve had lunch and a nap. I want to call your grandparents, too, and give them the news.”

Noah’s grumbled objections accompanied them back into the waiting room, abating only when Josh told him it would be late afternoon before everyone else could go, too.

“I’ve got to put in a couple of hours at the school,” Josh said, referring to the training center for would-be rodeo riders he and a friend had launched several months ago. “And Cort and Tommy are givin’ Rafe a hand around the ranch. Why don’t we meet at four? We can ride down to the pond and let the kids mess around awhile and then you can come back to our place for dinner. That work for you, Lia?”

“You’re coming, right?” Noah looked at her and then glanced to his dad.

Lia saw the hesitation cross Duran’s face. It was all still so new, his brothers, nephews and nieces, her—probably her more than anything else. She sensed his uneasiness and the last thing she wanted was to add to it. “I’d love to, but—”

“Great, then it’s settled,” Josh broke in.

Doubting it, at least in Duran’s case, Lia nearly made the excuse of work to back out of it. The excitement and expectation in Noah’s eyes gave her pause. She hated to disappoint the little boy and at the same time she didn’t want to make things harder for his father.

“It sounds good,” Duran answered before she could say anything. He looked at her, his slight smile rueful. “Are you okay with that?”

She knew he was asking about more than the afternoon’s plans and she really wanted to ask him the question in return. But there didn’t seem to be a good way to do that in front of Josh and Eliana. “I guess I could take a few hours off this afternoon. My last appointment is at three and I’m not on call today.”

“Then it’s a date,” Duran told Josh. “And thanks for everything.”

“Hey, you know we’re here for you and Noah, don’t you? I know it’s not been easy, gettin’ used to havin’ so much family all at once. But I meant what I said before, you’re stuck with us all now.”

Eliana smiled warmly, “And that does mean all of us.”

They said their goodbyes then, gathering up Sammy and leaving Duran and Lia to face each other.

“I hope you know that I’m here for you and Noah, too, however I can help,” she said.

“Is that professionally or personally?”

“I—”

“Never mind.” He shook his head as if irritated at himself for asking her. He looked at her a long moment, the intensity of his searching gaze making Lia want to look away before he saw too much. Then he said softly, “I know I’ve said it before, but thank you.” Leaning to her, he brushed a kiss over her cheek.

Warmth spread through her from his light touch and for a second she let herself savor the feel of his mouth against hers and for so much more.

“Are you done? Can we go now?” Noah interrupted. “I wanna go ride the horses.”

Noah’s protest broke their spell and they laughed and moved apart.

“Come on, pal,” Duran said, taking Noah by the hand, “let’s get out of here so Dr. Kerrigan can get back to work.”

Lia bent and gave Noah a hug. “We’ll be talking again about some exciting things for you soon. For today, though, I’ll just finish up here so I can meet you at the ranch later.”

“We’ll be looking forward to it,” Duran said and after all her doubts about whether or not he wanted her there, Lia believed it was true.

Chapter Six

“All saddled up and ready to ride,” Josh said with a brisk slap to the plump old paint’s rump. “Peggy here will do just fine for you, Noah. She’s used to goin’ nice and slow. Anna never had a bit of trouble with her when she was learnin’ to ride.”

“This is my horse,” Sammy, sitting atop a smaller mare, proudly pointed out to Noah. “Her name is Sarah. I always ride her.”

Nearby, Cort was helping Tommy lengthen his stirrup, Anna watching from the horse beside them. “If you keep growing like this, we’re gonna have to find you a new saddle.” He turned to Duran. “Just wait until Noah hits his teens. You can’t keep ’em clothed or fed.”

Duran had rarely let himself indulge in imaging Noah as a teenager. The thought that he might never see his son grow up always quelled his visions. But now, could he dare to indulge in thinking of, even planning for Noah’s future? Every cell in his body screamed yes, but the euphoria of hearing Sawyer was a match was dispelling, leaving in its wake all-too-familiar fears. At the hospital all he could feel was hope. After even a few short hours of mulling things over, letting the news sink in, reason declared war on blind optimism.

He distanced himself from the raging conflict of emotions, not willing to air them to his brothers, and simply answered Cort with a noncommittal, “So I’ve heard.”

Cort stopped what he was doing and laid a hand on Duran’s shoulder. Duran tensed, but it didn’t seem to discourage Cort. “You’ll find out. Josh told me the great news about Sawyer.”

“It is good news,” Duran said, thinking how inadequate his words were compared to his feelings. “I’m still a little overwhelmed, I guess.”

“I can see why. But you’ve got the best pediatrician in town on your team.” Both men turned to catch Lia a few feet away throwing one long, slender leg over her mount. “And she’s not a half-bad horsewoman either.”

Lia, not knowing they were talking about her, threaded the reins through her fingers. “Where are your girls and your little boy today?” she called over to Cort.

“Quin had a playdate and the girls are at ballet. Angela would have gladly skipped it to come riding, but Laurel wouldn’t hear of it. That’s what they get for having a teacher for a mother. Laurel would consider it an insult to another teacher to let her daughter ditch class.”

“Too bad for them,” Tommy said, slanting a grin at Anna. “They’re gonna be jealous we got to go.”

Cort gave Tommy a stern look. “No rubbing it in or next time you’ll be sitting in on ballet class.”

The threat made Noah giggle. “That would be way funny.”

“Ha, ha,” Tommy shot back.

Finishing Tommy’s stirrups, Cort turned back to Duran. “I know you keep hearing this, but anything Laurel and I can do—” he paused “—anything at all. We’re here.”

“I told him he was stuck with us,” Josh added as he lifted Noah onto Peggy’s back. He gave Noah a quick lesson on how to steady himself and stay upright, then swung into the saddle of his own mount.

Duran appreciated the gesture; he still couldn’t believe how readily and easily his brothers had accepted him, Noah and their situation. It almost seemed too good to be true, and a big part of him feared it was. While none of his brothers had said or done anything to justify his doubts yet, he had long abandoned the habit of relying on anyone else for support or comfort.

And that’s why you keep spilling everything to Lia? Because you don’t share, you don’t rely on anyone?

He caught her watching him and the slight questioning expression on her face made him wonder what she’d read in his. Shaking off his introspection, he looked between Cort and Josh and said, “I don’t know how to thank you, all of you.”

“By helpin’ us get these kids to the pond.” Josh pointed to a wooded area to the east. “We’ll keep it to a walk, since it’s your first time, Noah.”

“Can we go already?” Noah insisted, wriggling excitedly in his saddle.

Duran watched his eager son, reins in hand, looking as comfortable and confident on Peggy as a boy who’d grown up on a ranch. “Stay close to Dr. Kerrigan and me, okay?”

“Tommy, you and Anna keep an eye on Noah, same as you do with Angela,” Cort called after his son, who’d already taken the group’s lead.

Tommy waved him off over his shoulder and let out an exaggerated sigh. “I know, I know.”

“Don’t worry,” Josh said, “Noah will be fine. Peggy’s real good with kids and she knows her way to the pond. All Noah’s gotta do is hold on.”

Wanting to believe Josh, Duran nodded, but the protective father in him wouldn’t rest easy again until Peggy was back in the barn and Noah was safely on solid ground.

Once started in the right direction, the group of them fell into a comfortable pattern, the kids riding a little ahead, he and Lia side by side behind them, Cort and Josh bringing up the rear. Duran began to relax a bit, soak in the sun and breathtaking high country scenery. It was then he was finally able to focus his attention on Lia.

She fairly glowed beneath the afternoon sun, her hair threaded with a thousand different highlights of copper and gold, her cheeks flushed soft pink, a slight smile curving her lips as she savored the air fragrant with pinion and sage.

“You ride well,” he said, taking note of the curve of her backside and thighs beneath slim jeans as her body rose and fell in harmony with her horse’s rhythm.

“Me? No, hardly,” she said with a chuckle. “I’ve never had time to pursue it as a sport or a hobby. Medical school, then my practice pretty much precluded getting good at any sports.”

“You could have fooled me. You ride like a natural.”

“You’re not doing so badly yourself for someone not used to a horse.”

They smiled at each other. “I haven’t fallen off yet, so I guess that’s progress. I have to admit, this is a nice change. My preferred mode of transport is my bicycle. In California, I hardly use a car. Now that Noah is old enough to ride with me, when he’s feeling up to it, we bike everywhere together.”

“What a great thing to do together. Did you grow up riding bikes a lot?”

Nodding, Duran remembered his childhood fondly. “Yeah, my dad got me into it. We used to spend endless hours messing around in the garage, building bikes, taking them apart, getting new components and rebuilding them. He ran sort of a neighborhood bike shop out of our garage.” He glanced over to Lia, noticing she had a distant look in her eyes. “I’m sorry, I’m boring you.”

Lia’s horse sneezed and shook all over. She bent and stroked his neck. “Almost to the pond, where you can take a rest under a shady tree,” she soothed. Slowly, she turned toward Duran, a strangely solemn look on her face. “You’re not boring me at all,” she answered softly. “I’m imagining what it must have been like growing up with parents who spent so much time with you, and thinking how lucky Noah is to have such a devoted father.”

The few things she’d said, the old pain underlying her words, made him wonder, yet hesitant to ask directly about her childhood. It might be something she wasn’t comfortable talking about with him. But curiosity got the best of him and he asked straight out, “I get the impression you aren’t that close to your parents.”

Lia laughed, but it was a brittle sound, without joy. “That would be the understatement of the century. I spent very little time with my parents. They were far too occupied messing up their lives to waste time trying to improve ours. I taught myself to ride a bike, finally, out of embarrassment at being the last kid on the block to learn, at about Noah’s age. I fell so many times, my knees still have scars. Neither of my parents had time to help me. Between work, destroying their marriage, divorce, remarriage, boyfriends and girlfriends, kids were mostly an inconvenient blip in their social schedules.”

Duran could barely conceive that kind of life, although he wasn’t naive enough to think it didn’t exist. He’d been lucky. Compared to his stable, constant, loving middle-class upbringing, her childhood sounded like a bad soap opera.

He couldn’t help but wonder how years of living with instability had affected her own sense of self, her ideas of love and commitment. Red flags immediately went up and he knew one thing for certain. He had to get to know Lia Kerrigan a lot better before allowing his son to get any closer or investing more of himself in her.

They rode along in an awkward silence for several minutes, the only sound a muffled clop of the horses’ hooves through tall grass. Ahead of them, the sound of the kids’ talking and laughing made happy music on the breeze.

When he turned to her, he found her watching him, her eyes now veiled in caution. “I’ve scared you, haven’t I? You didn’t grow up at all the way I did.”

“No, I didn’t. In fact, you’d probably call my life dull compared to yours. My parents, who were quite a bit older than is typical by the time they decided to adopt, loved me and doted on me, but I never felt spoiled, exactly. We didn’t have a lot of money, but we did have a lot of love in our house, Mom and Dad for each other and each of them for me. I guess that’s why I grew up being naive to the fact that all marriages are not so idyllic.” Unwillingly, the memory of the day Amber walked out on Noah and him reared up from the dark corner of his mind where he’d shoved it. He shook his head in remembered anger and pain. “Mine certainly wasn’t.”

“I’m sorry. I’ve never been married, but I have been through more breakups and separations, mostly because of my parents’, than I can count. It hurts every time, especially if you don’t see it coming.”

“I should have. I did, probably. I just didn’t want to see it because it didn’t fit the image in my head. It wasn’t supposed to happen. Not to me. Not to Noah. When I married, I married for life, just like my parents. For better or for worse—all that idealistic stuff.”

“And now?” Lia asked, brushing aside an errant strand of hair the light wind had blown across her cheek. “What do you believe?”

Duran watched the delicate play of her slender fingers over her smooth, flushed skin. Looking at her—strong, radiant with health and vivacity, yet soft with caring and tenderness toward him and Noah—he wanted to say he felt nothing but hope, that his beliefs were unshaken despite his ex-wife’s abandonment.

But that would be a lie. The truth was his idealism had been shaken to its core. And despite the genuineness of Lia’s compassion and kindness, he had to remind himself to remain on guard, to be wary even though it felt so natural to be vulnerable to her. Like no other woman he’d met, from the start something about her relaxed his usual defenses. He almost couldn’t help but open himself to her, yet he knew he had to resist that impulse for Noah’s sake and his.

Finally he shifted in his saddle and twisted to look at her. “I believe people still find that kind of love, the kind that lasts a lifetime. But I also believe those people are few and far between.”

Lia’s smile fell away, betraying her disappointment at his answer. “That’s too bad. I was hoping that if anyone could have optimism about love and marriage it would be you. Because of your parents, I mean.”

“I haven’t totally lost it,” he said lightly. “But I’ve definitely gotten out of the habit of thinking it’s going to be a part of my life. I’ve been on my own for so long now that it’s hard for me to imagine myself ever finding someone I’d be willing to share it with again.”

“Yes…” She glanced away, focusing on the path ahead. “It’s hard, when you’re afraid of losing someone you love.”

It wasn’t exactly his meaning and at first he thought she was referring to Noah. But his next impression was that it was more about her vulnerability or one she thought they shared.

They once more fell into an uneasy silence, avoiding looking at each other, until thankfully, the kids turned around then, Tommy helping Noah swing his mount around, starting back toward them.

Pulling their horses up nose to nose with Lia and Duran’s, Noah was all smiles. “The pond’s up there. Can I go with everybody else?”

Cort and Josh caught up to them then and Cort grabbed Noah’s reins. “We’ll go with them. You and Lia can take your time.”

“You won’t have any trouble findin’ us,” Josh said with a nod toward the kids. “Just follow the noise.”

“Watch me, Dad, I can ride,” Noah said gleefully. With that he gave Peggy a nudge in the flanks and the old horse picked up the pace ever so slightly, following obediently in the path of the other horses.

Duran laughed at his son’s enthusiasm as the group moved off, the awkwardness with Lia forgotten in his happiness at seeing Noah enjoy himself. “This was a great idea. He’s having a blast. Thanks for riding out here with us.”

“My pleasure,” Lia said, her tone shifting from intimate friend to kindly, as if she’d put back on the mantle of professionalism.

Duran followed Lia on a path that led them out from under the beating sun on open grazing land, into a wooded hideaway. He dodged low-lying branches and scrub bushes until the dense green foliage opened up around a lush, blue pond, little shards of sunlight sparkling atop it, dancing the lazy summer afternoon away.

The rest of the group had already tethered their horses where they could sip cool water and nibble on thick grass. Noah now sat with Sammy on the edge of an old wood dock, pants rolled up, bare feet splashing in the inviting water. Anna and Tommy had already abandoned them and, after shedding their jeans, had jumped in the pond to swim.

“Can I go swimming, Dad?” Noah called out as Duran lowered himself to the ground. “Can I? I know how.”

“If it’s okay with you, I promised Sammy,” Josh said.

“Don’t worry,” Cort added. “Josh and I grew up swimming here and I bring my kids all the time.”

Lia, dismounting next to him, nodded to Duran’s brothers. “You’ve got some pretty good lifeguards here.”

“Go ahead,” Duran told Noah. “Just stay close. I’ll be right here.”

With a whoop, Noah followed Sammy’s example and stripped down to his boxers. Both boys jumped off the end of the dock in a cannonball that left Lia and Duran partly drenched in cold pond water.

The two boys’ heads sprang up in moments. What they saw sent them bursting into uncontrolled laughter. With a quick high five, they paddled off toward a big tree with a rope swing that flew over the pond.

Lia and Duran exchanged looks, then burst out laughing, too. “They got us,” Duran said. “Sorry.”

“No apologies necessary,” Lia said as she swiped a strand of soaked hair from her eyes. “It actually felt great. I was sweltering.”

A glance passed between Cort and Josh and by some silent agreement they moved off a few feet, eventually giving in to the calls and challenges from the kids and joining them in the water.

Still smiling, Lia turned and moved to a shady patch near a stand of trees.

Duran followed behind, unable not to notice the way her damp T-shirt clung to every curve, the way the skin was exposed as her shirt lifted when she reached up to refasten her ponytail.

She smoothed her hands over her face and neck, wiping away the last droplets of water and he wanted his hands there. The urge to touch her was so strong he had to stop himself an arm’s length from her to keep from acting on his desires.

Looking up, she caught him staring. A warm pink flushed her cheeks, but she held his gaze steadily.

“Duran…” she said softly, and his name from her lips came with a sigh of longing.

“You’re so beautiful.” The words spilled out before his thoughts formed them.

Her lips parted, her tongue slid over them and Duran inwardly groaned. After a long moment, she whispered shakily, “I don’t know what to say.”

“You don’t need to say anything. You are beautiful, inside and out.”

Glancing away, she shook her head. “Thank you.”

Behind them, the shouts and laughter of the group in the pond seemed distant. Duran gestured to the tree and without a word, she joined him to sit with their backs against it. This close, her shoulder brushing his, he could smell her light perfume, his urge to touch her becoming an ache.

Maybe this hadn’t been a good idea, at least for him. Lia appeared oblivious to the effect she was having on him, smiling as she watched the play in the pond. Duran wished his body would get the message this interlude was about relaxation, not other, more tempting pursuits.

“This is great, isn’t it? I mean, whoever takes time out to relax like this? It’s just good for the soul, you know?”

Duran’s mind was far from the soul, his or hers. “Huh?” he heard himself ask, sounding like an idiot.

Shading her eyes, she turned her face to him. “I said it’s good to take time away from work, isn’t it?”

“Oh, yeah, definitely.”

“But it’s hard to do that when there are so many pressures every day.”

“Pressures. Yeah, constantly.” The pressure he was feeling at the moment had nothing to do with work. Forcing himself not to stare openly at her, he focused on the boys. Maybe if he didn’t look at her he could regain some inward composure because right now, red flags aside, all he wanted to do was lean in and kiss her breathless.

“Duran?”

“What?” He turned back to her. She seemed to have moved even closer, as though she’d read his thoughts and was as eager as he to accommodate them. He could kiss her now and he doubted she’d object, but wondered if they’d both regret it letting it happen.

Probably, an inner voice cautioned him. But at the moment that voice could easily be silenced if she moved a fraction closer, if her lips so much as brushed his.

He shifted, sliding his hand up her arm and she caught her breath. One slight motion and there wouldn’t be any room for regrets, only feeling. He slanted his head to hers—

And in the same instant, Lia glanced toward Noah.

He knew a warning when he saw one. It shattered the sensual spell, frustrating him, but at the same time he appreciated her thinking of Noah, and the possibility his son might see them and interpret their physical closeness as much more.

She turned her face toward the endless panorama of jagged cliffs and rugged purple peaks far beyond, avoiding his eyes. There was nothing he could say that felt right and so he sat with her in the shadows of the trees, in silence, wondering how quickly things had become so complicated.

Chapter Seven

“Dr. Kerrigan’s gonna be there, isn’t she?”

Duran glanced up from the last e-mail he wanted to finish before he and Noah left for the afternoon. Sawyer, Tommy and Cruz’s wife, Aria, all had July birthdays and in celebration, the family had decided to throw a large barbeque at the ranch, inviting—it seemed to Duran—most of Luna Hermosa. Everyone, Noah included, automatically assumed Duran and his son would be there, and Duran had made the same assumption about Lia, although no one had specifically mentioned her name.

“I don’t know for sure,” he told Noah, who was standing by his chair with Percy under his arm, shifting from foot to foot, impatiently waiting for an answer.

“Then call her and ask her,” Noah insisted.

“I could, but it’s not our party. If she didn’t get invited, then I can’t ask her to come.”

“Why not? Don’t you want her to come?”

He did, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to admit that to Noah. In the course of a few weeks, she’d somehow become an important part of their lives. Lia was great with Noah. His son loved being the center of her caring attention and was quickly forming an attachment to Lia that wouldn’t be easily broken. And that was fast becoming a problem.

“Dad—”

“Okay, I’ll call,” Duran said, avoiding answering Noah’s question. “But I can’t promise she’ll say yes.”

Lia had given him her cell number but she sounded surprised he’d used it, asking immediately if something was wrong. “I was on my way out there for the party, but I can meet you in town if there’s a problem.”

“There’s not. One of your admirers just wanted to know if you were coming by the ranch today, but since you’ve answered that question, we’re good.”

He could almost hear her smile and with it, relax. “Well, it’s nice to know I have admirers. Tell Noah I’m looking forward to seeing him.”

“How about Noah’s dad?” he asked.

“Him, too,” she admitted softly. “I’ll be there soon.”

By the time she arrived, little less than an hour later, it was nearly five, most everyone else had arrived, and behind the big ranch house the talking, laughter and music signaled the party was well underway. Duran, finding himself in a group with Sawyer, his wife Maya and several of their friends from the fire department where Sawyer worked, was trying to remember all the introductions while keeping a watchful eye on Noah, playing a short distance away.

Within ten minutes of them walking into the party, his son had been drawn into a group of children around his age that included Sammy and the two Gonzalez brothers, sons of the doctor Maya worked with at the town’s wellness clinic. They were all now engrossed in building various structures out of sticks and rocks for an eclectic assortment of action figures. Noah looked happy and busy and Duran thought that, if nothing else, this trip had given his son a chance to forget his problems for a while and enjoy being a kid.

“Oh, there’s Lia,” Maya said, pulling Duran’s attention from Noah. She smiled and waved Lia in their direction. Duran found himself watching her, momentarily oblivious to everyone around him, as she made her way toward him.

She wore low-riding jeans and sandals and a tiny, deep-gold sleeveless top, and she’d left her hair loose so it framed her face, straight and smooth. She smiled for him first before greeting everyone else, the smile slipping momentarily when she recognized one of the men in the group.

“Hi, Tonio, I haven’t seen you for a while.”

He nodded, his return smile brief. “Likewise. How’ve you been?”

“Fine. Busy. How about you?”

“The same. I’m surprised to see you here, though. You’ve usually got some reason to be working.”

The last came out with a touch of reproach and although Duran didn’t understand the silent meaning behind it, the man’s tone irritated him. “Today she’s got some reason to be here,” he said as he casually slid his arm around her waist.

The gesture had everyone looking at the two of them with mixed surprise and speculation, Maya and Sawyer in particular. Lia, a little flushed, glanced at him but didn’t attempt to move away.

“I see,” Tonio finally said, and might have added something else, but a woman and another couple walked up, the woman leaning into his arm as Tonio smiled down at her.

Sawyer introduced her as Rita Pérez, and the conversation turned to some planned group outing, but Duran was only half listening. He was watching Lia, her strained smile and the stiffness in her shoulders telling him she was uncomfortable with the situation. He hoped he hadn’t made things worse with his impulse to defend her.

“You haven’t said hi to Noah yet,” he said to her. “He’ll want to know you’re here.”

When they’d made their excuses and were out of earshot of the others, Lia stopped and turned to him. “Thanks, but you didn’t have to do that. Any of it,” she added.

He wanted to ask who Tonio Peña was to her and the undercurrent of animosity that ran between them, but it wasn’t any of his business. Instead he said, “No, but you looked like you needed a reprieve.”

“I appreciate it, but now you’re going to have put up with us being the new topic of gossip around town. You’ve probably had more than your fair share of attention already since everyone’s found out you’re Jed’s son. I hate being the reason you’re going to get more. It’s the last thing you need.”

“I’ll survive,” he said, shrugging it off. “Besides, I’d rather be talked about for being seen with a beautiful woman than for being Jed Garrett’s long lost son.”

She smiled at that. “I’m still sorry. But I can’t say I was disappointed to get away from that group.” Hesitating, she seemed to debate with herself for a moment then sighed. “Tonio and I were—” she gestured, grasping for the right word “—together, for almost a year. It didn’t end very well.”

“I’m sorry. I know what that’s like.”

Her gaze slid away from his. “It wasn’t quite the same. He’s a good guy, and if I’d given him a chance, we might have…” She shook her head. “We’d been dating for a while and he wanted to move in together, to make things more permanent. I just—I didn’t think it would work. He finally gave up and walked out.” When she looked up at him again, her expression was regretful. “Fair warning, I’m lousy at relationships.”

“My mother used to tell me people who say that just haven’t found the right one.” He kept his tone deliberately light, disguising the uneasiness her confession had stirred in him. She was telling him that she wasn’t good at commitment and from the few things she’d said about her parents, he’d gathered that unlike him, she’d never had an example to follow, had never learned to value steadfast devotion and love. In that, she wasn’t so very different from his ex, though Amber had never shown the depth of caring and concern for others that Lia did.

“If I ever found the right one, he’d be smart enough to run the opposite direction,” Lia said with a short laugh, but it was layered with regrets and a touch of sorrow.

Instinctively, he wanted to reach out to her again, to offer comfort for all the past pain that had put those shadows in her eyes. She didn’t let him, but, catching sight of Noah, went over to say hi, kneeling down to accept a hug and listen with apparently rapt interest as Noah and his new friends gave her a detailed explanation of their construction project.

“Noah seems to have made a lot of new friends,” a voice spoke up behind him. Duran turned to find Aria and Cruz next to him. Aria nodded toward Lia, who was now examining one of Noah’s action figures. “Lia’s such a kid magnet. It’s no wonder she’s so terrific at her job.” She glanced at Duran, mischief in her smile. “From what I hear, she’s made an impression on you, too.”

“Don’t start,” Cruz warned. “You’re getting as bad as Maya with the matchmaking attempts.”

Aria leaned back against her husband and he took her in his arms, their hands linked over the prominent curve of her belly. “Sorry,” she told Duran. “I blame being pregnant. It’s turned me into a sappy romantic.”

“You were always a sappy romantic,” Cruz murmured, brushing a kiss on her temple.

“Says you.”

“When’s the baby due?” Duran asked them.

“The end of August. Although with our track record, he’ll probably be early or late.” Aria laughed at Duran’s questioning look. “So far nothing about Cruz and me has gone according to any plan, Mateo included.”

“But think how bored we’d be if it did,” Cruz said.

They reminded Duran of the early days of his own marriage, when life with Amber seemed almost idyllic—until the day she found out she was pregnant. Her disgust and anger with the realization quickly disillusioned him and he could only be thankful she’d cared enough about him to see the pregnancy through. Cruz was a lucky man in finding a woman who both loved him and welcomed becoming a family, even if it hadn’t been planned.

He stayed talking with them a little longer, until people started moving toward the buffet tables for dinner. The three of them, he, Lia and Noah, ended up together. Lia had hesitated at first and Duran guessed she was trying to spare him new fodder for the gossips, but he knew all three of them would be disappointed if he accepted her silent offer. Instead he mouthed, To hell with it, over Noah’s head, put aside his reservations, and let himself enjoy being with his son and her.

They talked amongst themselves, mostly listening to Noah, until about halfway through dinner, when Noah was absorbed with his hamburger and there was a lull in his chatter. Lia tilted toward Duran and murmured, “Is it me, or have you made Del’s top ten list of least favorite people? She hasn’t stopped glaring at you since we sat down.”

Duran deliberately kept his eyes fixed on her and Noah instead of following Lia’s nod to where Del and Jed sat at the end of the table. “I’m pretty sure I made number one, showing up like I did, although right now, Jed and I are fighting it out for first. Josh and I talked about it, and Jed and Del hadn’t been married that long when Jed cheated on her with Lucy Miller. It’s bad enough Del knows that, but from what Josh says, people in town are looking at him and me and seeing how close we are in age and coming to their own conclusions.”

“Knowing Del, having people whisper behind her back is probably worse than learning Jed cheated on her,” Lia said. She suddenly gave a worried frown. “Has it made things difficult for you, staying at the ranch? I feel bad, pushing you in that direction—”

“Don’t. It’s fine. For the most part, she avoids us, and believe it or not, Jed seems to like Noah.” He laughed when she raised a skeptical brow. “It’s true. He actually smiled once when Noah was telling him how much he liked going riding.”

Lia started to comment, but a disturbance at the end of the table pulled their attention that direction. Del, flushed and looking on the verge of tears, had stood up and was staring at Jed with an expression that clearly said her husband had moved past Duran on her list.

“Sit down and stop your fussin’, woman,” Jed said, not bothering to look back. “You ain’t goin’ anywhere.”

“We’ll just see about that!” Snatching up Jed’s glass, she flung the contents at him, splashing him in the face and chest, then flounced away, ignoring his sputtered curses. Josh, sitting nearby, rolled his eyes, said something quickly to his wife and started after his mother.

Jed half rose to follow, but Cort’s hand on his shoulder stopped him. Cort sat down next to his father, talking to him in lowered tones. Scowling, Jed stayed put and eventually the noise and activity of the party had left most of the crowd oblivious to their family drama.

Shifting to look at each other, Duran could see Lia shared his uncomfortable feeling at being witness to the exchange. She shrugged it off, inviting him to do the same, and as one they focused on Noah and their temporarily forgotten dinner.

Half an hour later, when they’d finished, Sammy came up to them, wanting to show Noah a family of cats living in one of the barns. Cort and Laurel offered to take both boys, along with their three youngest, for a visit. Duran gave in to Noah’s pleading look, but he and Lia followed, far enough behind to give them the illusion of being alone in the deepening shadows of the early evening.

They could still hear the sounds of the party behind them, but softened by the distance, and Lia let go a long breath.

“Long day?” he asked.

“Not really. I’m just glad to be away from that—” she waved over her shoulder “—for a while.” Glancing at him, she gave an apologetic shrug. “I’m not really much of a party person most of the time, at least not on that scale. You must be used to it, though, living in L.A., in the business you’re in.”

Duran laughed. “I make documentaries, not movies, so I’m not exactly on the A-list when it comes to Hollywood parties. Even before I had Noah, I wasn’t much into the party scene. My ex used to say L.A. was wasted on me.”

“This, at least, isn’t that kind of party. Family is different.”

“Well this family is a little overwhelming for me right now,” Duran admitted. “They’ve been great about accepting us, but they’re definitely going to take some getting used to, Jed in particular.”

Focusing on the path before them, a brief smile touched her mouth, a little wistful. “That’s not necessarily a bad thing,” she said quietly, “having so much family. They all want to get to know you and Noah and to help—well, I’m still not so sure about Jed—but your brothers, anyway.”

“Aren’t you close to anyone in your family?”

“Not really. I’ve never had much of a chance to be.” She shifted her shoulders as if she carried a weight that chafed. “I’ve got seven brothers and sisters, but we hardly know each other. Somewhere, I’ve got an older stepbrother that I wouldn’t recognize if we met face-to-face and I don’t even have a circumstance like yours to blame. My father just never bothered introducing us.”

“That seems strange. Why wouldn’t he?”

“Probably because in my father’s mind it didn’t matter. He didn’t care if all of the kids and stepkids bonded and became a family or not. He always focused on the woman he was with. Any children caught in the crossfire were left to their own devices. Neither of my parents ever encouraged any of their children to get to know each other, let alone become close.”

Duran knew what he wanted to say, that people like her parents didn’t deserve to have children, that the emotional scars they inflicted could be as damaging and longer lasting than physical ones. But he didn’t want to put her in a position of feeling required to defend her parents, especially if her heart wasn’t in it.

“I guess that’s why I think it’s good you and Noah have had the chance to know your family,” she mused. “I know what I’ve missed and I hate to see someone else miss out, as well.”

“I didn’t know what I was missing out on until I had to go looking for them. So far it’s worked out. But when it comes to Noah, I can’t afford not to be careful. He’s gotten very attached to a lot of people here already. I just hope it’s not temporary on their part.” He didn’t look at her when he said it, but he could feel her eyes on him.

They were near the corral fence and she stopped, compelling him to face her head-on. “You’re talking about me, aren’t you?”

“Not specifically,” he started, then stopped because he was lying and she knew it. “Okay, yes, I am and we both know why. Like you said before, maybe it’s the circumstances, but you can’t argue that Noah cares a lot about you and you and I…” He tried to find the words to define it and couldn’t. “I don’t know what it is, just that it’s more than either of us expected.”

“And apparently it’s not good,” she said flatly.

“I didn’t say that, but maybe it’s not. You’re the one who told me you were lousy at relationships. Am I supposed to take the chance that doesn’t apply to Noah?”

She flinched as if he’d struck her a blow in a vulnerable spot. “I would never do anything to hurt Noah. And if you believe that, we’re done, not just now, but you need to find yourself a new pediatrician while you’re here.”

“I don’t believe you’d ever do anything deliberately to hurt him,” Duran said, choosing his words carefully. “But I need a guarantee you aren’t going to let him learn to love you and then decide you can’t deal with that or it’s not what you want.”

“For you or for Noah?” Momentarily confused by her snapped question, he didn’t answer right away and she plunged ahead. “This guarantee, is it for you or for Noah? Because I think you’re the one who wants the guarantee, Duran. And you know what? You’re right—I can’t give it to you. So maybe it’s better we end this—whatever it is—right now.”

Spinning away from him, she started back the way they’d come. Duran caught her in two paces, grasping her arm to turn her back to him. “Is that what you want? Because it sure as hell isn’t what I want.”

“No,” she said, so softly he wasn’t sure he’d heard her answer. She looked shaken and he could feel the effort she was making to hold herself stiffly, to keep her control. “But you aren’t the only one who’s afraid of getting hurt. I do care—a lot more than I should—and I don’t even want to think about how I could hurt either of you. I don’t want to think about how you could hurt me, either, when you decide it’s time for you to leave. So, no, it’s not what I want. But maybe it’s the best thing for both of us.”

She pulled herself free from his grip and quickly strode into the darkness, leaving him there alone.

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