LITMIR.BIZ

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your name?” he asked the young man.

      “Bo Evans.” He said it as if it should mean something. It didn’t to Nick.

      “You live around here?”

      “Old Town Whitehorse.” Bo was giving him an are-you-stupid look. “You’re not from around here, huh?”

      “What’s your name?” Nick asked the woman.

      She hesitated. “Maddie Cavanaugh.”

      She was edging toward her car. “I have to get to work,” she said.

      “Where do you work?” Nick asked.

      Maddie Cavanaugh looked around as if searching for an answer. “In Old Town Whitehorse. I just help Geraldine Shaw out.”

      Nick nodded and turned to Bo Evans. “Disagreements are one thing, but you were scaring your fiancée. Keep your hands off her when you’re angry, okay?”

      Bo Evans shook his head as if in disbelief. “I wouldn’t hurt Maddie. I love her. We’re getting married. What is wrong with you, man?”

      Nick watched them leave in separate cars, worried about the young woman. Whatever she’d been planning to tell someone at the sheriff’s office, her fiancé had done a good job of changing her mind.

       Chapter Three

      Laney Cavanaugh saw him as she came out of the hospital. He stood across the street talking to her grandfather Titus.

      She wasn’t sure what it was about the man that caught her attention let alone held it as she crossed the street. He wore jeans and boots, a tan short-sleeved shirt and a cowboy hat. Nothing unusual about that in Whitehorse, Montana.

      He had one boot sole resting on the bumper of Titus’s pickup truck and was leaning forward, listening intently. She tried to imagine what her grandfather might be saying that would require that kind of attention as she crossed the street.

      It wasn’t until she was almost to the pair that the sun glinted off the man’s silver star and she realized that the tan shirt was actually part of a uniform.

      “Laney, I want you to meet the town’s new deputy sheriff, Nick Rogers,” Titus said. “This is my granddaughter Laney Cavanaugh.”

      She smiled and extended her hand, which quickly disappeared into the lawman’s large sun-browned one. His handshake was firm, his skin warm and dry. His dark-eyed gaze made the already hot day sizzle. She sensed that odd expectation in the air that she’d felt earlier as if she wasn’t the only one holding her breath.

      “I was just telling Nick that you and your sister are staying out at my daughter’s place,” Titus said. “Nick’s new to the area. I’m sure it’s all a bit strange after Houston.”

      “I’m adjusting,” he said, never taking his eyes off Laney. He had the kind of face that she’d thought only existed in the movies. Rugged and yet as handsome as any she’d ever seen, with dark hair and eyes. But it was the way he stood, his head cocked to one side, an air of confidence about him, that drew her like a moth to a flame.

      “I told Nick we’d have to get him back down our way for dinner sometime,” Titus said.

      “He should come to the party,” Laci said, coming up behind them. She’d hung back to give their grandmother’s nurses the chocolate-chip cookies. Laney could feel her sister’s gaze on her, hear the humor in her voice. “Shouldn’t he, Laney?”

      “Of course,” Laney said because what else could she say under the circumstances? She looked down, surprised to see he was still holding her hand.

      “What kind of party is this?” he asked as he let go, as if as reluctant to break the connection as she’d been. His gaze, however, came right back to her after he shook her sister’s hand.

      “It’s our cousin’s engagement party,” Laci said.

      He smiled. “Thank you, but I really couldn’t intrude.”

      “It’s no intrusion,” Laci said, grinning curiously from Laney to Nick. “The entire town is invited and half the county. That’s the way things are done around here. Haven’t you seen the baby shower and anniversary notices in the local newspaper inviting the whole county? Welcome to small-town America.”

      “A lot different from the big city,” Nick said. “But still I don’t think I—”

      “It’s for our cousin Maddie Cavanaugh and her fiancé Bo Evans,” Laci interrupted. “It would be a good time to meet more of the locals. Everyone will be there.”

      Laney saw the change in Nick’s expression. “Maybe I will reconsider,” he said. “When is this party?”

      “Saturday afternoon,” Laci said. “Wear your dancing boots. Gramps will be playing his fiddle as part of the Whitehorse Country Band.”

      Nick met Laney’s gaze. “Save me a dance?”

      She nodded, feeling sixteen again and just as foolish because she was beginning to think this engagement party for Maddie wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

      ARLENE EVANS LOOKED ACROSS the table at her handsome son and smiled. She’d suggested dinner at the Hi-Line Café because she had something important to announce.

      “I’m going to have the steak sandwich,” Bo said, closing his menu. He glanced toward the street and drummed his fingers on the table as if bored.

      Arlene tamped down her annoyance. “Have whatever you want,” she said, feeling magnanimous. Bo was the light of her life. Her son. The one who would carry on the family name. It was especially important to have a son when you lived on a farm. Sons stayed and worked the place and, although Bo had shown little interest in farming, she knew he would once he was married.

      Daughters on the other hand, well, they were supposed to get married and leave.

      She let her gaze shift from her son to her youngest daughter, Charlotte. Charlotte was staring at a lank of her long straight blond hair, looking for split ends. Arlene applauded Charlotte’s interest in her looks at seventeen. At least one of her daughters understood the importance of looking her best from her hair to her prettily painted acrylic nails.

      Arlene glanced at her other daughter and scowled. Violet, her unmarried daughter, was her burden to bear. Not pretty, not overly bright, certainly not ambitious, Violet was thirty-four with few prospects. No matter what Violet wore, she looked…well, frumpy.

      Her hair was a dull brown and her complexion muddy, and her nails! Arlene had done everything possible to break Violet of biting her nails and it had done no good.

      Arlene feared her daughter would never marry and leave home as was natural. And how would that reflect on Arlene? She couldn’t bear such a blight on her as a mother.

      “I’ll have a cheeseburger with fries and a chocolate milk shake,” Violet said tentatively.

      “Are you sure you don’t want a nice salad, dear? All that fried food. It isn’t a problem for the rest of us, but with you watching your weight…”

      Violet closed her menu. “Why don’t you order for me, Mother?”

      Arlene thought she detected an edge to her daughter’s voice, but that would be so unlike Violet that she dismissed it.

      “So what’s this about?” Bo asked impatiently. “You said you had something you wanted to tell us?”

      Arlene refused to be rushed. Fortunately, the waitress came to take their orders just then. A steak sandwich and jojos for Bo, the grilled chicken salad for Violet, a side salad with vinegar and oil for Charlotte and a strawberry milk shake, the fish basket with fries for Arlene.

      “So did anything interesting happen last night?” she asked Violet after the waitress had gone.

      Violet looked

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