LITMIR.BIZ

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a soul that a rubbery seal nearly got the best of me.”

      “It’ll be our secret.” She pulled out onto the road, winding back toward the highway. “I could make a pit stop at the hospital—”

      “I am not hurt,” he insisted. “I probably just caught a bit of wind shear when I was hang-gliding and didn’t realize I’d reorganized my internal organs at that time. Next breeze I’ll be fine.”

      Her giggle was annoying. “Whatever.”

      He kept his eyes tightly shut, enjoying Esme’s smooth driving. Okay, he would let her drive all the way to the ranch. There he could find some tape to bandage his rib. Shoot, he’d been hurt worse than this in rodeos and had still dragged himself back to the ranch. He could do it again.

      Only…this time there was Mason to think about. Now that would be pain that would send him into the next galaxy. Cracking one eye open, he stared over at Esme as she concentrated on the road. Damn, she was pretty. So exotic. And good to her family. He liked that in a woman. And she had a little bit of attitude, which he thought spiced her up just fine.

      His eye traveled from her top to the sequined band at her hips where the cloth strips hung. Her exposed waist was a smooth road, he decided poetically, one which he would certainly like to navigate. Such a shame she was totally wrong for him.

      Valentine hadn’t been right for him, and she was the mother of his child. So there was no way that Esme could be the one. With her two kids and her unstable ways she was the worst-case scenario of what could happen if a man didn’t look before he leaped off the cliff of romance.

      “You’re staring at me,” she said. “With one eye. And it gives you a remarkably Popeye-ish appearance.”

      “You could have said pirate,” he complained.

      “Your eye is pretty swollen. I feel Popeye is appropriate.”

      “Lovely. Popeye and Poppy sitting in a tree—”

      “Oh, good grief.” She stopped the truck. “I think you have a concussion.”

      “I swear I do not, madam. I am insulted you would suggest it.”

      He thought he heard her say, “What a fruitcake” under her breath. Magnanimously he ignored that.

      “So what exactly does the judge think your parents could do better with the children than you do?” he asked.

      She sighed, starting to drive again. “Send them to a regular school, give them a one-home environment, all the things children need. I know it’s true, but he simply does not understand that I’ve been caring for my parents for some time. The strain of losing my sister was too much for them. Unless you’ve lost a child, I don’t think you can understand that pain.”

      He nodded, thinking about his father. “Actually I do understand a little.” Maverick had never gotten over losing his wife, and as much as Last hated the fact that his father had left them, at least Maverick hadn’t let himself die from grief. Last could remember their father, his skin gray from shock, his gait changed—he shook his head. “The ranch is a great place. You’re doing the right thing. If you think you can handle it.”

      “I do,” she said. “Thank you for taking us with you.”

      He groaned, trying not to think about Mason and the coronary to come. “Don’t mention it.” But he couldn’t help thinking about the children in the back of the truck. “I wasn’t certain I liked you having them in your act,” he admitted now.

      Esme looked at him. “They’re with me all the time. And I teach them, as did other people in the troupe. What was wrong with it?”

      “I don’t know. When you sawed Curtis—” he lowered his voice “—you scared me. It seemed almost medieval.”

      Stopping the car, she peered into his face. “Are you sure you didn’t get a screw knocked out of you?”

      “All my screws are tight,” he replied airily, “but I really did not like it when you made Amelia disappear. That was much too high for a little girl. I was afraid she’d fall.”

      “She wears a harness that you can’t see, and there’s a cleverly concealed net below, in case something did go wrong.”

      “I knew you’d take all the proper precautions, but still I was afraid,” he admitted. “I don’t know how your circus act is scarier than teaching a child how to rodeo—and we all got busted up at one time or another—and yet it bothered me.”

      She blinked. “You sound like the judge.”

      He held up a hand. “I don’t mean to. I’m just trying to figure out why it bothered me so much.”

      “Perhaps you believed in the magic,” she suggested.

      “No,” he said. “I most certainly did not.”

      “What is the difference between my act and yours?” she demanded. “All this superstition nonsense?”

      “That is a Jefferson fact,” he insisted, “and you’re simply using optical illusions.”

      She laughed at him as she pulled up in front of a small cottage-style bungalow. “Home,” she said. “Do I need to help you out of the truck?”

      “I’m fine.” Stubbornly he crawled out of the passenger seat. “Though I wonder if your parents have a teeny-weeny bandage I could borrow.”

      “For your ribs?”

      “Never mind.” Her trouble was that she was so sure of herself. So pigheaded. And, unfortunately, so sexy.

      He just had to stop thinking of her that way.

      “Come inside,” she said, tucking one of his arms over her shoulder. “My parents will fix you a cup of tea.”

      He needed some Jack Daniel’s in that tea, but he refused to inquire as to her parents’ preference for something harder than chamomile. Trying not to groan, he let Esme lead him inside the small house.

      It smelled of cinnamon, he realized. Very much like Valentine’s bakery. Suddenly he missed home—he missed his little daughter—and he dreadfully regretted all the actions that had brought him broken to this place in his life.

      “Hello?” a kindly elderly woman said to him. “Are you hurt?”

      He looked into the gentle blue eyes of a woman who had to be eighty years old. “I think so, ma’am. But I swear, your daughter had nothing to do with it.”

      She smiled. “I should think not. Come in and lie down next to Chester.”

      He hoped Chester was a very still, very plump pillow, but it turned out to be a large, old yellow dog on the sofa. Across from the sofa was a recliner, and an elderly gentleman raised an arm at Last.

      “Don’t mind Chester,” he said. “He won’t mind you.”

      Last wouldn’t have minded a pig at this moment. Sinking onto the sofa, he laid his head back, gasping as he stared at the ceiling.

      “Where did you find him, dear?” the mother asked the daughter. “Did he take over the lion tamer’s position prematurely?”

      “Not exactly,” Esme replied. “Let me get the children out of the truck and put them to bed. We may have to spend the night, Mom.”

      “Fine, fine. I have plenty of eggs for breakfast. Young man, do you like bacon?”

      “His name is Last, Mom.”

      “Last?” She sounded confused, and Last was too tired to explain. “All right. Do you like bacon, Last?”

      “I would really like an aspirin, ma’am,” he said, before saying, “Timber!” and crashing face-first into the elderly dog’s pillow.

      “That’s right, Chester, you

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