LITMIR.BIZ

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across your butt?” The question slipped out before she could stop it.

      His lips twitched into a grin. “Yes.”

      Shay realized the conversation had switched into flirtation. This could be easy.

      She flipped back her hair. “Maybe you’ll show me one day.”

      “Maybe,” he drawled, and then his voice became serious again. “But first you have something to tell me.”

      Damn. She should have known this wouldn’t be easy. He probably really did have loyalty tattooed on his butt.

      “Well?” He waited.

      She tried to speak, but her tongue seemed glued to the roof of her mouth.

      “Shay.”

      Her name sounded so wonderful on his lips. It reminded her of lovers, moonlight and… What was she thinking? There was never going to be anything between her and Chance Hardin, especially after she told him the truth, and for a number of other reasons.

      The words hovered in her throat and then she blurted them out. “My mother was once married to Jack Calhoun.”

      Chance felt as if he’d been kicked in the head by the meanest bronc in Texas. Had he heard her correctly? “Excuse me?”

      “My mother, Blanche Dumont, was Jack’s second wife. He lavished her with jewels and anything she wanted, but in the end he took everything from her, including her wedding rings.” Shay drew a long breath. “As I told you, my mother is dying of lung cancer and she’s obsessed with Jack Calhoun. He’s all she thinks about. She’s been pressing me for months about her rings. She wants to be buried with them on her finger, so she devised this plan…. That’s what I was doing in High Cotton.” Shay grimaced. “But things went awry.”

      The name finally clicked. Blanche Dumont—the stepmother from hell. How many times had he heard Judd say that? But not lately. Since Judd and Cait had found happiness, Blanche’s name was no longer mentioned. Judd had filed that away under his father’s bad taste in women.

      Chance barely remembered the details. He’d been just a kid, but everyone in High Cotton knew of Jack Calhoun’s love triangle with Renee and Blanche.

      “How…how were you planning on getting in the house? You didn’t…”

      “Have the wreck on purpose?” she finished for him. “I may have been under pressure, but I’m not that stupid. I didn’t plan on being gone overnight, either. I would never leave Darcy that long.”

      Chance was glad to hear that, but he was still grappling with the truth. Could Shay be Judd’s half sister? How old was she? And how did you ask a woman that question?

      “I was distracted with my phone,” she was saying. “I was going to introduce myself as Blanche’s daughter and ask for the rings, or demand them, as my mother wanted me to.”

      “The asking part would have worked. The Calhouns are very nice people.”

      “My mother didn’t have a good relationship with Renee, and I wasn’t sure.” Shay shrugged. “It doesn’t matter now. Once I met her I couldn’t do it. She was too kind. But…” Shay hesitated. “When I left you in the kitchen, I had a wild idea to check and see if the rings were still in the safe, as my mother had said. The moment I saw the jewelry in the velvet box I knew it would be robbery. Just because something once belonged to you doesn’t mean it still does. I couldn’t take the rings—not even for my mother.”

      Chance’s eyes narrowed. “How did you get the combination?”

      “From my mother. She got it out of Jack one night when he was drunk. I was surprised it still worked.”

      “Nothing much ever happens in High Cotton. It would take a real crazy person to come onto a ranch that size with armed cowboys everywhere.”

      She held up a hand. “That would be me.”

      Her green eyes sparkled and he had to resist that lure. “Why didn’t Blanche ask for the rings after Jack’s death?”

      “She would never belittle herself to Renee.”

      “But she’d ask her daughter to steal?”

      Shay stepped back, her hand on the door. “You got what you wanted, now, please leave.”

      Silence stretched as they stared at one another. He had so many things to say, questions to ask, but all he could do was stare into her eyes and wish there was such a thing as a happy ending instead of pain and heartache.

      “I’m sorry if my coming here has hurt you and—”

      “Just keep your promise,” she replied, and closed the door.

      CHANCE’S STEP WAS a little slower as he walked to his truck. Blanche Dumont. He didn’t know that much about her, and what he’d heard wasn’t good. Rumor was that Blanche had enticed Jack away from Renee with lies. The two women used to be friends, waitresses together, but that all ended when Jack walked into their lives. They then became enemies fighting for the man’s attention. It was a weird love triangle, and now there was Shay. Blanche’s child—a daughter no one knew about.

      As Chance reached his truck, he saw two kids inside—Darcy and Petey. Darcy was in the driver’s seat, pretending to turn the wheel.

      Chance opened the door. “What are you two doing?”

      His voice must have come out rough, because Darcy seemed to shrink away from him. But her stubborn chin told him she wasn’t afraid. “Driving your truck to see if it’s a piece of junk,” she retorted.

      “You should have asked permission first.”

      “Uh-oh, there’s Mom. We gotta go.” The girl crawled out of the truck, followed by her friend, and ran to Shay, who was standing at the backyard gate.

      Chance and Shay’s eyes met for a brief second as he slid into his truck. He remembered a line from a movie: “You can’t handle the truth.” Maybe it was best if he forgot the whole thing for his friends’, the Calhouns’, sake. The truth would be a blow to all of them.

      But what about Shay?

      CHAPTER THREE

      THE TRIO WALKED INTO THE house in silence. Darcy and Petey hurriedly sat at the kitchen table and buried their heads in their homework. Shay glanced at her watch.

      “Petey, it’s time for you to go home. Your mom should be off by now. She only works until noon on Saturday. I’ll phone to make sure.”

      Petey gathered his books and Shay placed the call. Sally was divorced, working two jobs to make a living. Petey was usually at their house unless his teenage sister or brother watched him. It was a sad situation, but Shay’s was no better. She sighed. Between Darcy and her mother she had no life. But she never regretted for a minute honoring Beth’s wishes concerning Darcy. Shay just wished she knew how to handle her and how to handle her mother. She wished for a lot of things, and at the top of the list was a dark-eyed cowboy who took her breath away. A cowboy she would never see again.

      “Shay?”

      “She’s calling again,” Darcy remarked, writing in a workbook.

      “I can hear,” Shay replied. “Stay put and finish your homework.”

      “Yes, ma’am,” the girl muttered.

      “Shay!”

      She ran to her mother’s room. Blanche sat up in bed, propped on pillows, with tubing in her nose hooked to an oxygen machine on the floor. Her blond hair was now white. Nettie used to bleach it, but Blanche couldn’t stand the fumes anymore. She’d been a beautiful woman with blond hair, green eyes and a svelte figure. A lot of people said Shay looked like her. Shay hoped that was all she’d inherited from her mother.

      As hard as she had tried, she

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