LITMIR.BIZ

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her throat she nodded. “Sometimes Nikki.” She felt like a little girl in her ponytail and cutoff jeans and sleeveless blouse with the shirttails tied around her waist.

      “Nikki, I like that.” Plucking a long piece of dry grass from the hillside he shoved it into his mouth and as Nicole surreptitiously watched, he moved it from one sexy corner to the other. And he was sexy. More purely male and raw than any boy she’d ever been with. “You live around here?”

      “Yeah. In town. Alder Street.”

      “I’ll remember that,” he promised and her silly heart took flight. “Alder.”

      Dear God, she thought she’d die. Right then and there. He winked at her, stretched out and leaned back on his elbows while taking in the back of her head and the darkening heavens.

      As the fireworks had started that night, bursting in the sky in brilliant flashes of green, yellow and blue, Nicole Frances Sanders spent the evening in exquisite teenage torment and, without a thought to the consequences, began to fall in love.

      It seemed eons ago—a magical point in time that was long past. But, like it or not, even now, while standing in her cozy little kitchen, she felt the tingle of excitement, the lilt, she’d always experienced when she’d been with Thorne.

      “Don’t go there,” she warned herself, her hands gripping the edge of the counter so hard her fingers ached. “That was a long, long time ago.” A time Thorne, no doubt, didn’t remember.

      She waited until she’d fed and bathed the girls, read them stories, and then, dreading talking to him, punched out the number for the Flying M Ranch.

      Thorne picked up on the second ring. “Flying M. Thorne McCafferty.”

      “Hi, it’s Nicole. You called?” she asked while the twins ran pell-mell through the house.

      “Yeah. I thought we should get together.”

      She nearly dropped the phone. “Get together? For?”

      “Dinner.”

      A date? He was asking her out? Her heart began to thud and in the peripheral vision she saw the rose with its soft white petals beginning to open. “Was there a reason?”

      “More than one, actually. I want to talk to you about Randi and the baby, of course. Their treatment, what happens if we can’t find the baby’s father, convalescent care and rehabilitation when Randi’s finally released. That kind of thing.”

      “Oh.” She felt strangely deflated. “Sure, I suppose, but her doctors will go over all this with you.”

      “But they’re not you.” His voice was low and her pulse elevated again.

      “They’re professionals.”

      “But I don’t know them. I don’t trust them.”

      “And you trust me?” she said, unable to stop herself.

      “Yes.”

      The twins roared into the room. “Mommy, Mommy—she hit me!” Molly cried, outraged, while Mindy, eyes round, shook her head solemnly.

      “Not me.”

      “Yes, she did.”

      “You hit me first.” Molly began to wail.

      “Thorne, would you excuse me. My daughters are in the middle of their own little war.”

      “Oh, I didn’t realize.” He paused for a second as she bent on one knee, stretching the phone cord and giving Molly a hug. “I didn’t know you had children.”

      “Two girls, dynamos. I’m divorced,” she added quickly. “Nearly two years now.”

      Was there a sigh of relief on his end of the conversation, or did she imagine it over Molly’s sobs?

      “I’ll talk to you later,” he said.

      “Yes. Do.” She hung up and threw her arms around both girls, but her thoughts were already rushing forward to thoughts of Thorne and being alone with him. She couldn’t do it. Even though he’d tried to apologize for leaving her and she’d spent years fantasizing about just such a scenario, she wouldn’t risk being with him again. It wasn’t just herself and her heart she had to worry about now, she had the girls to consider. And yet…a part of her would love to see him again, to smile into his eyes, to kiss him… She pulled herself up short. What was she thinking? The kiss in the parking lot had been passionate, wild and evoked memories of their lovemaking so long ago, but it was the kiss on her cheek that had really gotten to her, the soft featherlike caress of his lips against her skin that made her want more.

      “Stop it,” she told herself.

      “Stop what?” Mindy looked at her mother with wounded, teary eyes. “I didn’t do it!”

      “I know, sweetie, I know,” Nicole said, determined not to let Thorne McCafferty bulldoze his way into her life…or her heart.

      * * *

      Thorne walked into the barn and shoved thoughts of Nicole out of his mind. He had too many other problems, pressing issues to deal with. Besides Randi’s and the baby’s health, there were questions about her accident and, of course, the ever-present responsibilities he’d left behind in Denver—hundreds of miles away but still requiring his attention.

      The smells of fresh hay, dusty hides and oiled leather brought back memories of his youth—memories he’d pushed aside long ago. As the first few drops of rain began to pepper the tin roof, Slade was tossing hay bales down from the loft above. Matt carried the bales by their string to the appropriate mangers, then deftly sliced the twine with his jackknife. Thorne grabbed a pitchfork and, as he had every winter day in his youth, began shaking loose hay into the manger.

      The cattle were inside lowing and shifting, edging toward the piles of feed. Red, dun, black and gray, their coats were thick with the coming of winter, covered with dust and splattered with mud.

      After a day of being on the phone, the physical labor felt good and eased some of the tension from muscles that had been cramped in his father’s desk chair. Thorne had called Nicole, his office in Denver, several clients and potential business partners, as well as local retailers as he needed equipment to set up a temporary office here at the ranch. But that had just been the beginning; the rest of the day he’d spent at the hospital, talking with doctors or searching for clues as to what had happened to his sister.

      For the most part, he’d come up dry. “So no one’s figured out why Randi was back in Montana?” he said, tossing a forkful of hay into the manger. A white-faced heifer plunged her broad nose into the hay.

      “I called around this afternoon while you were at the hospital.” The three brothers had visited their sister individually and checked in on their new nephew. Thorne had hoped to run into Nicole. He hadn’t.

      “What did you find out?”

      “Diddly-squat.” Another bale dropped from above. Slade swung down as well, landing next to Thorne and wincing at the jolt in his bad leg. His limp was still as noticeable as the red line that ran from his temple to his chin, compliments of a skiing accident that had nearly taken his life, though the scars on the outside of his face were far less damaging than those that, Thorne imagined, cut through his soul. “I talked to several people at the Seattle Clarion where she wrote her column, whatever the hell it is.” Slade yanked a pitchfork from its resting place on the wall.

      “Advice to the lovelorn,” Thorne supplied. Drops of frigid rain drizzled down the small windows and a wind, screaming of winter, tore through the valley.

      “It’s a lot more than that,” Matt said defensively. “It’s general advice to single people. Things like legal issues, divorce settlements, raising kids alone, dealing with grief and new relationships, juggling time around career and kids, budgeting…hell, I don’t know.”

      “Sounds like you do,” Thorne

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