LITMIR.BIZ

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didn’t know what—or who—to believe. Savannah? A woman he’d just met. Or Rob, the guy who’d laughed with him? Encouraged him to pray, even though every mile Carter had hiked through the rugged hills of Afghanistan had taken him that much farther from the faith he’d professed as a child?

      The guy that Savannah claimed had abandoned her.

      What he did know was that she wanted him to leave.

      “I’m sorry,” Carter muttered, although he wasn’t quite sure why he was apologizing. Or even who he was apologizing to. “I won’t take up any more of your time.”

      As he started to move past her, she touched his arm. A gesture that stopped Carter in his tracks.

      “Sergeant Wallace? Thank you for keeping your promise,” she whispered. “I am... I’m glad that Rob had a friend over there.”

      The words brought Carter up short. He had kept his promise—but not all of it.

      Find Savannah and make sure she’s okay.

      For the first time, he noticed the lavender shadows below her eyes. Being the youngest in the family, Carter didn’t have a lot of experience with kids, but he figured that working at a diner wouldn’t be easy on a pregnant woman.

      Savannah’s grief might be coloring her perspective about Rob’s feelings for her—maybe she’d somehow misinterpreted the reason he’d left—but Carter couldn’t simply walk out the door until he knew that she wasn’t alone.

      “Are you moving back home?” he asked abruptly.

      “Home?”

      “Back to your family.”

      “I’m staying in Dallas.” An emotion Carter couldn’t identify flickered in Savannah’s eyes. “But my landlady’s nephew needed a place to stay so she asked me to find something else.”

      She was being evicted?

      “Don’t you have a lease?”

      “Mrs. Cabera only agreed to let me stay here because Rob and her son had gone to high school together. It was a verbal agreement.”

      Carter didn’t like the sound of that. “But you have somewhere to go, right?”

      Savannah hesitated just long enough to make him suspicious. “Of course.”

      “Where?”

      Her pink lips compressed. “This isn’t your problem.”

      In a roundabout way, that answered his question.

      “What are your plans?”

      Savannah was silent for so long that Carter didn’t think she was going to answer the question.

      “I’ll check into a hotel for a few days. Until I find something else,” she finally said.

      “Isn’t there a family member who can put you up for a while?”

      “No.”

      Funny how one simple word could complicate a situation, Carter thought.

      “Well, I happen to have picked up a few extras recently,” he said lightly. “And one of them owns a ranch near Grasslands. My sister, Maddie, offered me one of the empty cottages on the property, but you can stay there—”

      Savannah’s eyes widened and Carter felt a slow burn crawl up his neck when he realized how that sounded. “—and I can bunk in the main house,” he added quickly. “You’d have a place to rest up. Until you find something else.”

      Color swept into Savannah’s cheeks, filling the faint hollows beneath her cheekbones.

      “That’s very nice of you.” She regarded him warily, as if she wasn’t sure it was nice of him at all. “But I can’t just quit my job at the diner. And I’m sure that when your sister offered you a place to stay, she wasn’t expecting you to pass it on to a random stranger.”

      Carter could have argued the point. Savannah wasn’t a stranger. He’d carried her photograph around in his pocket for the past two months. Memorized the heart-shaped face and delicate features.

      But how could he tell her that without coming across as some kind of stalker?

      “I heard someone say that sometimes, a change of scenery can change your perspective.”

      Carter decided not to mention Rob was the one who’d told him that.

      For a moment it looked as if Savannah was wavering. But then her chin came up and Carter saw the answer in her eyes.

      “You don’t have to worry about me. I know you were Rob’s friend, but I’m not your responsibility.”

      Find Savannah and make sure she’s okay.

      Whether Carter wanted it to or not, that made her his responsibility.

      “But it’s not just you anymore, is it?” he reminded her. “You have your baby to think of, too.”

      Savannah flinched. “Goodbye, Sergeant Wallace.”

      Carter battled his rising frustration, not sure how to get through to her. “When I make a promise, I keep it.”

      “And you did. You delivered Rob’s message—”

      “Not that promise.” Carter interrupted. “I’m a marine, ma’am. And we never leave a man—or a woman—behind.”

      Even though he was serious, Carter flashed a smile, letting her know that she could trust him.

      A smile Savannah didn’t return.

      “You aren’t leaving me behind, sergeant.” The door began to close. “I’m asking you to go.”

      Chapter Three

      “So, when will you be here?”

      Carter sighed into the phone as he entered the post office. “Soon.”

      “How soon?” Maddie wanted to know.

      “A few more days.” Long enough to give Savannah time to change her mind.

      Carter had jotted his cell phone number and the Colby Ranch’s address on a piece of paper and tucked it under the windshield wiper of her car after she’d shut the door in his face the day before.

      He hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her. Wondering what had happened between her and Rob. None of the things Savannah had told him lined up with the claims his friend had made, but Carter couldn’t shake the feeling that she was the one who’d been telling the truth. Unsettling, given the fact he’d trusted Rob with his life.

      “Jack said he might be able to find some work for you around the ranch now that you’re out of the service,” Maddie continued. “You love being outdoors. You helped Dad build that playhouse in the backyard when we lived in Appleton, remember? Once it was finished, you told everyone that you wanted to live there. I had to lure you into the house with chocolate chip cookies when it was bedtime.”

      Maddie’s low laugh flowed over him, stirring up memories from the past.

      Carter remembered handing his dad the nails, one by one. It was one of the few times they’d actually worked on a project together. Once his dad had started medical school, he’d left Rachel, the full-time nanny he’d hired, in charge of the family. Carter had heard the words “don’t bother your father” so often over the next few years, he’d eventually taken them to heart.

      “I’ll come to Grasslands and meet Violet and Jack—” Carter still couldn’t think of them as family. “But I can’t promise any more than that right now.”

      “I just want us to be together,” Maddie whispered. “With Dad gone...”

      Dad is always gone, Carter was tempted to say. He knew that Gray

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