Книга - Daddy in the Making

Daddy in the Making
Crystal Green


“COME HERE, COWBOY.” Luminous grey eyes…long dark curls…comehither smile. For months, Conn Flannigan was haunted by tantalising images of a night he couldn’t remember – and a woman he couldn’t forget. He’d returned to St Valentine to find her and recover his lost memories. The instant he spied Rita Niles, Conn knew he was in the right place. Could he prove he wasn’t the footloose playboy he used to be…now that he was going to be a father? NO MORE COWBOYS!That was Rita’s philosophy…until the single mum met that gorgeous Texas heartbreaker. Now she was having Conn’s baby and the daddytobe wanted her to give him another chance. But who was the real Conn? Was she ready to trust her future to a man who could take off and leave her high and dry again?










A woman with brown curly hair pulled into a side ponytail that flowed past her shoulder. A lush mouth in an angular face. Light-colored eyes that reflected the same blindsided attraction he was feeling.

All Conn could do was hold his hat to his stomach, which was flipping end over end, crackling with the tremors dancing through it. It was as if a bright light was blazing over his sight, a lightning strike that illuminated that night again.

White sheets on a bed … a woman lying down on them, her hair curled over the pale linen. Come here, cowboy, she whispered …

She’d been in St Valentine.

She was the reason he was here. Somehow he knew that without a doubt.

When his vision cleared, she was still staring at him.

Something inside him told him that this had never happened before.

But how could he know for sure?


Dear Reader,

Thank you for returning to St Valentine, Texas, with me!

This time around, you’re going to meet Connall Flannigan, a Texas rancher who has returned to town for one reason—after an accident he lost his memory, and he keeps having flashes of St Valentine … as well as a woman. When he finds her, Conn, a former playboy, discovers that he broke her heart.

Not the smoothest start to a courtship, huh?

However, in spite of all his former playboy ways, this “new Conn” only knows how he feels about Rita Niles now, and he’s got a lot of winning over to do if he’s going to regain her affection and trust …

I hope that you’ll drop by my website (www.crystal-green.com), where I always have a contest running. I would love it if you’d join me on Twitter, too, at @CrystalGreenMe!

All the best,

Crystal Green




About the Author


CRYSTAL GREEN lives near Las Vegas, where she writes for the Mills & Boon


Cherish™ and Blaze


lines. She loves to read, overanalyze movies and TV programs, practice yoga and travel when she can. You can read more about her at www.crystal-green.com, where she has a blog and contests. Also, you can follow her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/people/Chris-Marie-Green/1051327765 and Twitter at www.twitter.com/ChrisMarieGreen.




Daddy in the

Making

Crystal Green







www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


To my fantastic writer buddies, Ann, Ara, Cheryl, Janet, Judy, Lorelle, Mary and Sylvia.

Eternally onward!




Chapter One


“Are you sure you’re ready for this?”

Connall Flannigan didn’t answer his brother at first. He just kept staring at the three-story, gray-wooded St. Valentine Hotel with its lacy curtains peeking through the windows.

How many times had he seen flashes of this place in what was left of his memory?

As a few obvious tourists brushed by him, Conn looked down at his hand, where he’d been palming a necklace—golden, shiny, with a pendant in the shape of an R that separated into two pieces that never seemed to fit together. It’d been found in his pocket after the car accident, and he’d come to St. Valentine to find out why it might’ve been significant, and to fill the holes in his memory—the gaping spaces from the amnesia.

Conn wrapped his fingers over the necklace. “I’m not sure about much these days, but this?” He nodded. “I’m sure.”

Emmet, who had the same blue eyes and black hair as Conn did under their cowboy hats, looked wary. “I don’t know what you think you’re gonna find here when the family can tell you everything you need.”

Conn shook his head. What he needed was something to jar his mind back to where it should be—a place where he would be forced to completely remember just what had happened right before the accident and even previous to that.

A place where he could find himself again.

Once more, the flashes came back to him: this hotel. The name “St. Valentine.” A truck bearing down on his pickup just before the world went into a tailspin. And …

He held his breath, waiting for the most puzzling and heart-clutching image of all. A woman. Dark brown hair, curling over her bare shoulders. Gray eyes full of affection as she looked up at him from where she was lying on the bed, her arms reaching up for him …

According to Emmet and his other two older brothers, Conn had enjoyed his share of women in the past. He’d never been the type to settle down, they said. Footloose, fancy-free and raising hell whenever possible. One woman on this livestock trip, another on that one.

Yet here he was, in search of this one woman who’d haunted his thoughts since the accident four months ago, flash by provocative flash.

But if there’d been so many women, why her in particular?

And why did he ache every time he thought of her?

“I just want to see what’s in here,” he said to Emmet, gesturing toward the hotel. “There’s got to be a reason I’m remembering this place more than any other. And a reason I’m recalling …”

“Her,” Emmet said just before he chuffed.

Conn sent a sidelong glance to him.

“I’ve told you,” Emmet said. “She’s just one of many, Conn. Your time would be better spent on the ranch with your family, relaxing, not running off to a little town that you drove through one night.”

“So you’ve told me.” Over and over. Conn’s brothers in particular had been pointedly direct with him about his habits—all the flirting, all the disappointed women he’d left behind. They told him that, even though he’d always made it clear that he wasn’t in anything for the long haul, he’d always managed to make the ladies think that they were the ones, only to break their hearts in the end.

Conn had a hard time imagining he could be that callous, even if he was friendly enough about loving ’em and leaving ’em.

“Well,” Emmet said, planting a booted foot up on the boardwalk. “If that’s how you want to go about this, the sooner you get this done, the sooner we can go back home.”

Conn grabbed onto the image of home, as if he was afraid of losing that, too. Home was the cattle ranch he ran with his brothers about a hundred miles away from St. Valentine, Texas. They told him that he went on business trips, such as for selling and replenishing livestock—the type of trip he’d been on when he’d had the accident. He’d felt a connection to home when he’d returned there, although there’d been something else, as well, along with the comfort, a yen to go somewhere beyond the ranch. And, months later, it’d turned out to be St. Valentine, for whatever reason.

He stepped onto the boardwalk, taking off his hat and running his fingers through his hair. His heart was beating a mile a minute.

Brown hair … gray eyes …

At the flash that kept coming to him every once in a while, his pulse jerked to a pause before jumping to a start once again.

He was just anxious about getting this over with, getting on with his life. That had to be it.

As he and Emmet walked toward the hotel, then entered the lobby, Conn took a moment to absorb the fringed lamps, the velvet-upholstered furniture, the scent of lemon polish and wood. Tasteful maroon-and-beige wallpaper lent some ease to the tone of the room, but Conn wasn’t feeling so easy at all.

They moved to the reception area, where tourists lingered, reading framed newspaper articles on the walls about the so-called ghosts that haunted this Old West establishment—supposedly a gentleman and a lovelorn woman from the 1930s. There would also be articles about the town founder, Tony Amati, and that was why these tourists had come to town on a warm November weekday, Conn thought. They’d been lured by a new mystery that had been uncovered by a couple of town reporters who’d realized that old Tony, the former Texas Ranger, had died under a shroud of seeming conspiracy and strange circumstances.

To hear the tales, Amati, who’d settled in these parts and founded St. Valentine way back in the late 1920s, had started to matter more than ever around here after a man who was his spitting image had wandered into town over four months ago, before Conn had arrived. People had started looking very closely at the pictures of the town founder then, comparing them to the stranger, the cryptic Jared Colton. They’d started getting very interested in Tony, too—a man who’d done so much for St. Valentine, yet had managed to remain a puzzle all the same.

Both Tony and this modern-day stranger had certainly captured everyone’s romantic inclinations and imagination. And the town, which had suffered through rough economic times, was now starting to benefit from the story, attracting more and more tourists. Just how had Tony died? everyone wondered. And why had he been so darn reclusive? Everyone wanted to poke around and solve the mysteries. Magazine articles and travel shows had been sniffing around town, too—there’d even been some kind of TV ghost show that had camped out in the St. Valentine Hotel, the papers said.

Yup, Conn had sure done all the research he could about St. Valentine before coming out here. Not that it had helped with his own mysteries.

“Any of it look familiar?” Emmet asked.

“Not really.”

Emmet gestured toward the reception desk. “You want to find out if you checked in here that night?”

The hotel had wanted to see some ID in person before giving out that kind of sensitive information. “Yeah.”

Conn took a step toward the long desk, then stopped in his tracks, stilled by a bolt of electricity.

A woman with brown curly hair pulled into a side pony tail that flowed past her shoulder, her torso covered by a white old-fashioned, high-collared blouse that was obviously a part of the hotel’s uniform. She had a lush mouth in an angular face, and light-colored eyes that reflected the same blindsided attraction he was feeling.

All Conn could do was hold his hat to his stomach, which was flipping end over end, crackling with the tremors dancing through it. It was as if a bright light was blazing over his sight, a lightning strike that illuminated that night again.

White sheets on a bed … a woman lying down on them, her hair curled over the pale linen. “Come here, cowboy,” she whispered …

She’d been in St. Valentine.

She was the reason he was here. Somehow, he knew that without a doubt.

When his vision cleared, she was still staring at him, just as if she’d seen one of the ghosts that this hotel was supposed to house.

Did his knees ever go this weak with all those other women he’d supposedly been with? It sure as hell hadn’t happened with the nurses at the hospital. Then again, they hadn’t looked like this brunette.

Besides, something inside him told him that this had never happened before.

But how could he know for sure?

Clutching the necklace until its edges dug into his palm, Conn left Emmet and went to the desk. The woman was still behind it, by herself, but from the way she looked away from him, down at the counter, Conn could tell that she wished she had any guest but him in line for some service.

In fact, as she glanced up again, her gaze had gone from thunderstruck to steely, all in a tumultuous second.

He didn’t even have the chance to utter a hello before she said in a low tone, “So you’re back.”

Steely, all right. A gritted comment that nearly set him back on his heels.

This was the woman in his fragmented memories, right? The limpid-eyed lady who’d begun to appear to him recently at night, giving him pleasant dreams. The one who’d been so happy to be in his bed.

He showed her the necklace, the R split in half across his palm. She sucked in a breath, but then, as if she was real good at recovering quickly, that breath turned into a small laugh.

“You came here to return this?” She was still talking quietly enough so that her voice didn’t carry. “Better late than never, I suppose.”

Return it? Why had he taken it in the first place? He thought that maybe he should apologize about something, but he wasn’t sure just what it was he would be sorry for.

“Can we talk?” he asked. “I need—”

“Talk? That’s a good euphemism.” She laughed again, taking up a pile of paper and neatly straightening it on the desk. “I’ll tell you what, cowboy—you just keep that trophy of yours and we’ll call it even.” She nodded at the necklace he was still holding. “You’ve had it for going on four months, anyway.”

Four months. She would’ve been here, at the St. Valentine Hotel, during his fateful trip.

He glanced down at the necklace again. The letter R. Then he looked up at her name tag.

Rita.

Except, on the tag, her name in cursive was one continuous string, unlike the separated necklace. Unlike his life now.

She called over a young clerk who was straightening a rack of brochures, and once she was manning the desk, Rita walked to the far end of the structure, to a quiet corner where the desk still barred her from him. Conn could hear Emmet clearing his throat as he left him behind.

Conn peered over his shoulder at his brother, who was awkwardly standing there with a “So? What gives?” expression. But it might’ve also been a “Told you this woman was just as temporary as the others” look.

Conn jerked his chin toward Rita, conveying that he still had a lot to take care of and that maybe Emmet should read some of those framed articles on the wall to pass the time. Emmet shrugged and wandered off.

As Rita shuffled papers, probably wishing Conn would think she was too busy to continue talking, he didn’t take her none-too-subtle hint.

“I apologize for the inconvenience,” he said softly, not wanting to make a scene. Strangely, that woman-luring charm his brothers had commented on still came easily to him when not much else did. “But I could really use your help.”

He added a smile for good measure. He had a feeling it had worked a million times.

“My help?” She didn’t look up at him. “Are you asking me for a place to stay the night again? A warm bed? A willing woman who doesn’t know any better than to listen to your promises?”

Oops.

“Begging your pardon,” he said, “but I hope you’ll believe me when I tell you that I don’t know anything I said to you that night. There’s a good reason I came back here, and it wasn’t to return a necklace.”

Eyes narrowed, she waited for him to go on.

He leaned his elbow on the desk, setting his hat down on it. Even from this distance, she smelled like berries and vanilla, and he nearly closed his eyes as the scent traveled through him, warming him deep down. It was as if he hadn’t ever forgotten this part of her, even though the memory had just reemerged.

But he shook himself out of it. Good God, he didn’t have time to be sniffing around a random woman who was no doubt one of many more. He needed to talk to her, not to get her into bed again.

“This is going to sound odd,” he said. How did a guy get around to telling a woman something that amounted to the lamest excuse in the world? Why would she even believe him?

But what else was he going to say?

He was still holding her necklace. “I’d really like your help in … Well, first off, I need to know when we …”

“Did it? You’ve got to be kidding me.”

All right. That was one way of getting over the awkwardness. She was just as forthright as his brothers.

“I wish I were kidding,” he said. “I had some business at the Hervy Ranch about a half hour away in July—”

“I know. You were dealing with livestock. You told me that right before you talked me into …”

She pressed her lips together, color rising in her cheeks. A buzz skimmed his belly at just the mention of what had gone on between them, even though this wasn’t the time or place for it.

The important thing was that he’d done more than just had sex with her. She was someone he’d talked to around the time of his accident, although he didn’t know how long they had chatted before getting to the bedroom. If she could just give him more details about their time together, maybe that would kick-start his brain and he could piece together more of what had happened before and just after the accident.

She shot him a slanted look. “Why the hell wouldn’t you know when we …” She lowered her voice, glancing around. Discovering that the lobby had emptied, she added, “Were together?”

Here it went.

“When I left St. Valentine,” he said, “I got in an accident on the way to my appointment. Enough of one to send me in an ambulance to the hospital.”

She raised her eyebrows. On her face he saw shock … until her gaze softened for a vulnerable moment.

“An accident?” she asked.

“That’s right. And afterward I didn’t remember where I was, who I was … My brothers and mom were there to help me put things together. Most things, anyway. I’ve got holes right where a lot of my memory used to be.”

She just kept watching him, her gaze finally going from soft and gray to unreadable and cool.

Then she laughed softly, and it wasn’t a funny laugh. Her gaze was sad now.

“This is a joke, right?” she asked.

“No.” What kind of psychotic would approach her again just to lay a line like this on her?

“Whatever it is, it’s not funny at all.”

Conn started to assure her that he was deadly serious, but she had already abandoned her stack of papers and rounded the desk corner, her body fully revealed now.

As he laid eyes on her slightly swelling stomach pressing against her skirt, he froze, unable to follow her.

Rita Niles never looked back at him. She just blindly headed for the hallway, then the closed door to the tearoom, hoping he wouldn’t see where she’d gone.

Conn Flannigan, the man she’d put so much hope in, even after one night. Dumbly, naively, regretfully.

She calmly opened the door, but as soon as she was in the empty kitchen, she leaned on a stainless-steel counter, dizzy, her pulse so loud in her ears, so wild in her chest, that she almost slumped to the floor.

But not quite, because she’d promised herself that nobody was ever going to do this to her again. Not after what her ex-fiancé, Kevin, had done to her. And definitely not after she’d dropped her guard during a wonderful night of seduction with this cowboy, finally believing that she’d been wrong about love all these years.

She rubbed the curve of her belly, fighting the tears.

Conn Flannigan.

When she’d seen him in the lobby today, it’d shocked her right down to her toes, her body tingling in places that should’ve been smart enough to go numb after she thought she’d been left high and dry by him. But, with him standing there, with his thick, black hair that curled up at the ends, with his shining blue eyes, with every inch of lean, tall cowboy in a Western shirt, jeans and boots, she’d come alive in very dangerous ways.

And it was happening now, too, as that night filtered back to her.

She’d been sitting in the Queen of Hearts Saloon, resigned to hours of drudge work ahead of her at the hotel. She’d been in threadbare jeans, an untucked blouse, with her hair pulled back in a haphazard ponytail, yet when he’d walked in, she was the only one he’d looked at.

And that look … Even now, she shivered from the intensity of what it’d done to her—breathing fire under and over her skin, sizzling through her until it consumed every inch. She could’ve even sworn that time had stopped for both of them, could’ve sworn that every one of his cells was vibrating just as hard as hers were.

If she had the capacity to believe in love at first sight, she might have said that she fell in love with him then and there. Maybe, in those first few crazy moments she’d gotten the closest to love she would ever get again.

He’d ambled right over, offering to buy Rita dinner, sweet-talking her until her knees went to jelly. She’d never clicked so quickly with anyone, flirted so easily, not even with Kevin, who’d taken the slow route with her during days of high school dances and after-graduation dates. But Conn?

That night—that damned magic night—it’d felt as if Conn had been the man she should’ve held out for all along.

He’d walked her back to the hotel, and much to her surprise, she’d found herself forgetting every lesson she’d learned. Her body overtaking her mind, she’d invited him in, first to the lobby. Then, when she’d resigned herself to ditching her all-night work shift, she’d clandestinely invited him to an empty room a floor below her own quarters in the hotel.

She’d been lost in him so deeply that she’d thought …

Well, she’d thought that things could be different this time. Thought that she’d somehow wonderfully crossed a line she’d drawn years ago after Kevin had left her and their daughter.

It’d been that good with Conn, and that was why she hated him—because he’d seemed to be the answer for her. Because he’d made her body and soul agonize for so many nights afterward.

Now, Rita rested her hand on the baby growing inside of her. Ridiculous. She’d been ridiculous to think that one night might change everything, especially for a person who’d spent a long while shuttering herself away, slat by slat, until she looked at the world only through the cracks.

But …

For one night, it really had been that good.

He hadn’t checked in to the hotel, so she’d never gotten his contact information. Besides, he’d told her he was going to be back, so she hadn’t asked for a phone number, an address. He’d taken her necklace in a playful moment, saying he would return it to her that night when he returned for more, almost as if it were a vow.

She’d believed in him.

Believed and been abandoned.

But, she thought, he’d had amnesia.

She started to laugh—a crazy, cracked-at-the-edges laugh that trailed into the threat of more tears as she leaned her head down on her arms, which still rested on the kitchen counter.

Amnesia. How stupid did he think she was?

As she stifled another sob, doubt crept into her. What if …

No. Amnesia was so far out of the question that she shouldn’t believe it.

Still, the doubts stayed with her, even as she heard footsteps outside the kitchen door. She put on her “boss face,” straightening up, swiping at her cheeks and finding a few stray tears, then walked toward the entrance to the tea room, just as Margery Wilmore busted through the hallway door.

She had a plump chest and was motherly and gray-haired. “How’s my Rita doing?”

“Right as rain.” Rita glanced at her watch. “Tea prep already?”

“Like clockwork.” The older woman sent Rita a concerned look. “You okay, honey?”

Rita nodded. Margery was a carryover from the days when Rita’s mom used to run the hotel, back before she and Dad had passed on. When Rita had taken over at the age of twenty-three, Margery had “kindly” tried to offer all kinds of advice, even though Rita had been working at the hotel since she was old enough to carry out orders, raised to take over operations one day. Now, ten years later, Margery still hovered, casting a suspicious eye at Rita’s tummy when she’d started showing recently.

But didn’t everyone hover in their own ways? After Kevin, Rita had sort of become St. Valentine’s pet project. The town screwup who’d been saving up to go to college for years after graduation—and wouldn’t you know it? She’d actually earned a business scholarship but had given it up when she’d gotten preggers.

A pregnancy had been out of character for her, the straight-? student. And, even more off-putting to a lot of folks around here, after Kevin had left her and she had proudly set out to be a single parent, she had refused interference or unwanted advice from everyone who “knew better” in a town where traditional family values ruled.

Now, she was going for another round of out-of-wedlock parenthood.

“You’re running yourself ragged,” Margery said, resting a hand on Rita’s cheek to test her temperature.

Rita deftly shied away. “I’m just fine.”

The older woman clucked her tongue. “You and your stubbornness. Someday it’s all going to catch up to you, especially raising Kristy alone.”

That’s right—Margery knew best. How could Rita have forgotten?

Her cell phone rang, and gratefully, she went into the empty hallway and answered, not caring who was on the other end. When she heard the voice of her best friend, Violet, she almost cheered.

Too bad Vi’s actual words didn’t have the same effect on her.

“Is it true?” she asked.

Rita wouldn’t play dumb. “You already heard?”

“Small town. Grapevine. Newspaper reporter. Go figure.”

Gossip traveled at the speed of light in St. Valentine, but it wasn’t as if Rita had never been its subject before.

“He just showed up, Vi. Out of nowhere.”

“Want to talk about it over some lunch?”

They agreed to meet in ten minutes at the Queen of Hearts Saloon, which belonged to Vi’s family. Rita went to the lobby, taking care to scan it before she entered.

No sign of the cowboy.

Relieved—was that the word she was looking for?—she crossed the lobby, telling her desk clerk that she was going on lunch break, then feeling the girl’s eyes on her. And why not, when Janelle had probably seen Conn Flannigan in here with the necklace and heard some of their conversation while she’d been straightening the brochures?

Head held high, Rita tried her best not to feel like the town screwup once again as she left the hotel, wondering if Conn Flannigan was outside.

Wondering if she was going to be able to avoid telling him just who the father of her unborn baby was.




Chapter Two


“I wish he’d just stayed away,” Rita told Vi as she sat across from her at the Queen of Hearts in an out-of-the-way corner booth where the low-volume country songs on the jukebox were even more muted. The wagon wheel light fixtures hovered overhead, and a bunch of regulars ate burgers and drank beer at the bar, surrounded by sepia-hued pictures of the town during its early days.

“It sounds to me like he really does have amnesia.” Vi’s brown eyes reflected sympathy. Even though she was on lunch break from the small-town-reporter’s desk, she had an iPad next to her, ready to catch any breaking news should it come their way. “It’d be a good reason for him to come back here, retracing his steps before his accident. And he’d have no idea how ticked off you’d be. Besides, who goes around telling stories like that unless they’re true?”

Rita hadn’t touched her chef’s salad yet, but Vi was munching away on her fries. She’d been there for the morning after when Rita had still been on cloud nine after her night with Conn. But Vi had also seen the aftermath and how it’d decimated a newfound confidence for Rita that had lasted less than twenty-four hours before she’d felt the shame of supposedly being lied to and left behind once again.

“So what’re you going to do?” Vi asked, dipping a fry in catsup.

“What can I do?” Rita jabbed at a piece of ham with her fork. “I shouldn’t have done anything in the first place—except for running straight out of here when he bellied up to my table that night. I should’ve known—”

“Hey, you couldn’t have known.” As Vi leaned forward to rest a hand over Rita’s free one, her shoulder-length, dark red hair swung forward. “You were ready to move on after years of hating yourself for what happened with Kevin.”

“You weren’t happy when I told you about Conn after our … night.”

“I was being protective. But now there’s a baby involved, and that changes everything.”

Rita cradled her slightly curved tummy with her free hand. “That night, I should’ve just thought more about what it felt like when Kevin left. That would’ve stopped me from giving in to Conn.”

But she hadn’t been able to think about anything or anyone … except for the cowboy at her table, his eyes sparkling with fun, drawing her into their depths with “why not?” allure.

But, as she’d waited for him the day and night afterward, she’d found out “why not.” The minutes had ticked by to one hour … two … then to midnight. And still no Conn. The next morning had come, then passed, then the next and the next.

By that time, she knew she’d been had, and she’d closed up her heart tighter than ever, knowing that she was the only one she could depend on.

And then she’d missed her period, although Rita couldn’t and wouldn’t regret getting pregnant.

Maybe that was what life had in store for her. Always a great mother to the children she loved more than anything, but never a wife.

“You know what the most embarrassing part is?” Rita finally asked.

Violet swallowed her bite of burger. “What?”

A wounded laugh escaped. “There was something that kept needling at me, telling me that there was a really good reason he didn’t come back.”

“And there ended up being a good reason. Doesn’t it make you feel better to know that he didn’t reject you? That it had everything to do with circumstances beyond his control?”

Vi was wearing one of those looks filled with optimism. And why shouldn’t she? This weekend, she was going to marry millionaire Davis Jackson, her star-crossed lover from high school. They had been run through the gauntlet after Vi had come back to town after having lost her job on a city newspaper and returned to St. Valentine to lick her wounds. Davis had always loved her—the girl from the wrong side of the tracks—but Vi hadn’t been sure he was pursuing her again because of that or to get payback for how she had broken his heart. Now, though, everything was wedding marches and roses for her.

No, Rita didn’t feel nearly as positive as Vi.

“I’m just considering myself lucky to have escaped this one,” she said. “Conn is my cautionary tale.”

“For what could happen if you should ever let your guard down again and someone crushes you for real. I get it, Rita.”

“I mean, he didn’t return to St. Valentine to request my forgiveness or to sweep me off my feet again, right? And if he saw my stomach, he probably flipped.”

“You don’t know if he saw it?”

“I didn’t look at him to make sure while I was hightailing it out of the lobby.”

“You couldn’t bring yourself to see his reaction. I get that, too.” Vi sighed. “But if you left him in the dust like that, how can you be so sure just what he wants to do?”

What he wanted to do … A glimmer of the same excitement she’d felt that night—and even today when she’d first seen him—shimmered deep in Rita’s chest, where it felt as if something were struggling to come alive.

Why wouldn’t it just go away?

Vi leaned back in her seat, probably knowing Rita wouldn’t answer the rhetorical question. “Word has it that there was something in the air when you two laid eyes on each other this afternoon, you know.”

What did everyone else know? “And since when are you such a fan of gossip?”

Vi made a “touché” gesture. She’d suffered plenty of gossip herself, when her off-limits millionaire had flown in the face of everyone in town to court her.

A waitress came by, asking if they would like anything else. Rita requested a to-go container and the server left without dropping off a check. She knew Vi had it covered, since her parents owned the place, which had seen a spike in customers since Vi’s journalistic work had been featured in a “Tony Amati Mystery” story that had gotten some airtime on a national news magazine program last month. It was true that Vi and Davis, who owned the small-town newspaper, hadn’t been able to dig up much information about Tony lately, but that hadn’t stopped them from staying the course.

“To-go?” Vi asked. “You’re deserting me?”

“I’ll have to eat the rest after I pick up Kristy from preschool. She likes the little chunks of ham, anyway.”

Vi wasn’t letting this go. “So … that’s going to be it, then? You’re going back to the hotel, back to the bubble of your reception desk?”

“Safest place on earth.”

“Rita …”

She slumped in her seat. “Listen, I know that you’ve fallen in love and you just want everyone else to be as happy as you are. But I can’t do it again. I can’t have my pride and …” She rested a hand over her heart. “I can’t have it bruised again.” Then she put her hand on her tummy, rubbing it. “So, yes, I’m going back to the hotel to do some maintenance work after I pick up Kristy. And I’m going to hope that Conn Flannigan has already driven back home without knowing anything more than he needs to.”

Then she eased toward the edge of her booth seat, intending to get out. “The bottom line is that he doesn’t really remember what went on between us that night. That’s probably a blessing in disguise. I’m sure we both acted in a way we’d regret now, after the heat of the moment.”

“If that’s how you want it.”

Great—the guilt trip. But Rita was firm in her resolutions. That night four months ago, she’d rushed into something she’d never thought she would be going into again. But now, with some time and distance behind her, she really did think that she’d dodged a bullet. The hotel had been busier than ever, and Kristy needed a mother who was focused on her, not on hormonal desires and scatterbrained affairs.

“Rita?” Vi smiled sadly. “I’d give anything to see you and the kids happy.”

“All of us are just fine. We’ll be very happy.”

Rita just wanted to raise her daughter and this new child to be more than what she’d been known as in St. Valentine ever since Kevin had become a bitter, different man, then left her for the other woman she’d found out he’d been seeing while she was pregnant.

Yes, Rita was the hard-luck case. But she’d done a damned good job of raising Kristy in spite of that until—

No, she didn’t want to mull over Conn Flannigan again. Didn’t want her heart to ache with an agonizing heat just at the thought of him.

The waitress brought the to-go container, and Vi stayed seated as Rita grabbed her purse, sliding the strap over her shoulder.

“Someday,” Vi said, “you’re not going to be able to ignore how you feel, Rita. You found it real easy to fall in love when we were kids. I wish it could be just as easy for you nowadays.”

Rita’s pulse thudded in bruised rhythm, but just as she was about to buck up, the room suddenly went still, as if something had entered and caught everyone’s attention.

When Rita glanced toward the entrance, her throat was tight. Was it …?

Then she saw who had come in, and she relaxed, even though her heart jittered in her chest.

It wasn’t Conn, thank goodness. But it was a man in beaten jeans and a long-sleeved black Western shirt who had taken a seat at a table that was removed from everyone else. He left his black cowboy hat on, the better to shade a dark-eyed, stoic face that everyone in town hadn’t stopped talking about since he’d arrived months ago, only to settle just on the outskirts of town after getting a job on a nearby ranch and renting a cabin.

The Tony Amati look-alike—Jared Colton. And he was just as aloof as he’d been when he’d first arrived. He was a ringer for all the photos of Tony Amati hanging on the hotel and Queen of Hearts walls, and even though everyone had their own theories about how he was connected to the town founder, he was still a mystery that Vi and Davis had been trying to solve through their journalistic investigation and the published articles that had been picked up by some national outlets.

Rita didn’t mind him at all, seeing as he’d helped stir up interest in St. Valentine, which had been languishing after the kaolin mine had stopped producing “china clay” for things such as plastic, paints and paper. Jared and Tony had certainly pumped up tourism and given her more to do, so that she could forget about her cowboy.

“The cipher cometh,” Vi whispered across the table. She grabbed her iPad with one hand, polishing off the last fry on her plate with the other. “I’ve got work to do.”

“He’s already told you a million times—no interviews.”

“Maybe this is the time he’ll break.” Vi flashed her a determined smile and was off.

Jared saw her coming, but his expression never altered, even as Vi took a seat across from him.

When Rita left the saloon, she was careful to look both ways on the boardwalk before fully coming outside. Not seeing Conn Flannigan anywhere, she started to walk toward Kristy’s preschool, telling herself that Conn had gone home again.

But why didn’t it feel so great to realize that?

Conn and Emmet had stopped at a little Tomorrowland-like joint called the Orbit Diner for lunch, and now they were walking back to Emmet’s pickup truck, which they’d parked just off Amati Street, nearer to the hotel.

“I wish you’d reconsider,” Emmet said.

“There’s too much to walk away from here.” During lunch, Conn hadn’t said anything about the tiny pooch of Rita’s belly. For all he knew, it could’ve been due to a weight gain, but he planned to get to the bottom of the story today.

His pulse gathered speed every time he thought of her coming out from behind the hotel desk … the little bump on her … the way she’d left him frozen in his tracks.

What if she was pregnant?

Something—a memory?—stirred in the back of his mind, but it didn’t come through. Not yet. All he could hold on to now was his confusion at not knowing what the hell he felt.

A baby, he thought.

Was he even the type of guy who would make a good father?

A tiny sense of panic ran through him, icing any emotion, as he and Emmet passed one of the burros that roamed St. Valentine. The critters were ancestors of the first burros that’d been used in the mines, and they were a tourist draw now, a town characteristic just as quirky as the Indian jewelry shop, the Old West trimmings or the mercantile that still made taffy and sold clothing, kitchen goods and souvenirs.

Emmet hung his thumbs in his belt loops while they walked. “Conn, I’m really not comfortable taking the truck and stranding you here.”

“Why? There’s a rental car office in the new part of town up the hill. There’re clothes stores, a pharmacy and even a real live doctor, just in case you think I’ll need one.” He’d brought his meds, too, but he doubted he was going to stay long enough for them to run out.

“Maybe we should both check into rooms.”

“Maybe you should just get back to the ranch. They can’t afford to have both of us gone.”

Just as he finished, the words died in the air, because straight up ahead, on the boardwalk, there she was.

Rita, in her old-fashioned hotel uniform—the blouse and knee-length skirt. Her legs were long, especially in the light black stockings that clung to the curves of her calves. She was shapely all over, not slender, but …

His hands skimming her hips … waist … the sides of her breasts …

Desire flushed through him like a flood of lava.

Every time he saw her he remembered yet another sensual moment. What else would come to him, though? Enough solid details to get him on his way to the rest of his life?

Emmet sighed, then said, “Call me when you’re done and we’ll get that rental car.”

“Will do.”

Rita was heading the other way, her back to him now. As he walked at a steady pace to catch up, his gaze couldn’t help but caress her rear end, which was cupped by that modest, yet somehow sexy, black skirt.

It was as if she sensed him before he said a word. Or maybe she just heard his boot steps on the boardwalk.

As she stopped and looked at him, those gray eyes were wide again. Something exploded in his chest as their gazes locked, and his pulse jumped, skipping over the next beat and landing hard on the other side.

Was he wrong, or did it seem as if she was just as rocked?

She started walking again, as if she was either resigned that he would continue to hound her or she was intent on just getting away.

“Aren’t you gone yet?” she asked, training her eyes straight ahead.

He laughed at her gumption. Somehow, laughter felt natural with her, as if they’d done a lot of it that night, even if there wasn’t much in store now. “I think there’s more in St. Valentine for me besides sightseeing.”

They were passing her hotel. Outside, where rusted iron benches waited like timeless sentries, a flock of geriatric men and one silver-haired woman wearing an Indian blanket around her shoulders were smoking cigars and watching the world go by. That included Rita and Conn, too, and their gazes followed them, even after Rita nodded a greeting.

Conn thought that she looked a little proud, her chin lifted slightly, as if she was daring someone to say something about her weight gain or …

The baby.

Again, his heart raced. He had to ask. It was just a matter of when.

She spoke when they were far enough away from the crowd. “I remember you were just as persistent then as you are now.”

“My brothers and mom call it ‘willfulness.’ They say I decide on something and I stick to it.”

“Yet you don’t remember that about yourself.”

“No, but it seems to be something I didn’t lose in that accident.”

She didn’t respond, so he decided he would do more talking. “One of the first things they said to me when I was recovering is that I’m a true cowboy, a man who’s at home on the range more than anyplace else. They say I’d rather be there than off the ranch in pursuit of a real life.”

“I know what you mean.”

He got the feeling that Rita had heard this about herself, too, except in her life, it was all about the hotel, not a ranch.

Strange that he would think this, though. Had she told him something similar that night?

Was it starting to come back to him now?

He reached inside his head but couldn’t recall it. All he could grasp were faraway things like sitting alone on his cabin porch, listening to the night sounds on his swing, enjoying what he had as a bachelor, content with nothing more.

Rita gave him a sidelong glance as they kept walking.

It was now or never.

He took off his hat, holding it in his hands. “I couldn’t help but notice …”

He motioned toward her stomach, trying to avoid the indelicacy of the words.

Immediately, she placed her palm there, as if protecting herself. Was she going to tell him to go to hell for saying she’d put on some pounds? Or …

Then she began walking again. “Don’t worry about it. The baby isn’t yours.”

Was that relief sliding through him, from chest to toe?

“I only wanted to make sure,” he said. “I might not know much about myself, but I do know that if it came down to it, I wouldn’t have left you in a lurch.”

“A baby’s not a lurch.”

Damn, she was making him work hard. “I didn’t mean it that way. I’m sorry, Rita.”

She stopped walking again, her hands on her hips as she shook her head. “You’ve been sorry a hundred times already.”

“Listen, all I want to know is—”

“I know what you want to know and I get the feeling that you won’t be going anywhere until you drag it out of me.”

Did she actually believe him now when he said that he had amnesia?

“So you just want me to paint you a picture of a memory, is that all?” she said, seemingly giving in. “You want me to fill in what happened before your accident?”

“I’d be grateful for it.” He held his hat with both hands. “I’ve had snippets of memory, where nothing has made much sense. So I thought I’d come back here, based on a few flashes, to get my past straightened out.”

She smoothed down her skirt, as civil as could be. “There’s really not much to tell. It started when you strolled into the saloon down the street while I was grabbing dinner.”

A slight glow lit in her eyes before she quickly banished it. Was she thinking of how it’d been, with him walking into the room, latching gazes with her?

A bang-up attraction just like the one he was feeling now?

Was she feeling it, too, but doing her damnedest to tamp it down?

“I was taking a break from doing some repair work in the hotel,” she said. “So it was going to be a long night. I own the place, along with my brother and sister, but I’m the one who runs it. And the only time I have to do catch-up work is when the desk isn’t very busy. But it’s been that way ever since the Tony Amati story came to the forefront.”

“I heard all about that.”

She crossed her arms over her chest, as if resisting any small talk. “Anyway, you came right over to my table. Charming. Persistent. Long story short, we ended up in bed in one of the empty hotel rooms. And when you left the next morning, you said you’d …”

He’d already guessed what he’d said, and he wondered how many women he’d done it to and if he’d really meant it at the time.

“I told you I’d be back,” he said.

“Yes. You said you’d come back after you’d taken care of your business for the day.” She fingered her collar, as if missing the jewelry she used to wear. “You took my necklace from my pile of clothing and said you wanted to bring it with you. You were in a playful, good mood. ‘It’s just some insurance,’ you said. ‘A guarantee I’ll come strolling through the lobby again tonight.’”

Insurance? A guarantee? Okay, from what he remembered about himself, this didn’t sound like him at all.

Had he been toying with her? His brothers—his best friends—had told him that he was a pretty harmless scamp, but it didn’t sound like it right now.

Why hadn’t he just made it clear to her that their one-night stand was merely that?

A sense of bewilderment rotated within him, as if trying to find a place to stop, to lock in and provide some clarity, but it never did.

“At any rate,” she said, still cool, “that’s the gist of it.”

He wanted to ask her just when she’d stopped expecting him to come back, but he wasn’t sure why he was even wondering.

She started walking again, and he knew she’d said all she was going to say. He knew that he’d done a real number on her, too, whether she showed it or not.

“I’m sorry,” he said again, following her, taking the necklace out of his back pocket and holding it out. “I wish I could—”

“You don’t have to wish anything.” She ignored the necklace. “Actually, it’s good to know the reason you didn’t come back—not to say I’m glad you were in an accident, but …” She blew out a breath. “At least you’re okay.”

He acknowledged that, nodding, then out of pure impulse, took her hand, intending to put the necklace in it. She gasped just as a zing of energy flew up his fingers, his arm—

Holding her … Curves against his palms, sleek, smooth, so beautiful …

He came out of it as she pulled her hand away from his and walked off again.

“You can keep it. It’s only a bauble.”

But, as he stood there, he got the feeling that this necklace—and everything that went along with it—no doubt meant a lot more than that to her.

He wanted to apologize again, but by now, apologies were just air. Meaningless.

He caught up with her in a couple of long strides. “If there’s anything else you can tell me—”

The words spilled out of her, as if the sooner she said them, the sooner he would leave. “You said that two out of three of your brothers are happily married. They tease you about being a bachelor until you’d like to punch their lights out. Your mom’s a widow, and you think that, more than anyone, she wishes you’d get out more to find someone who’d make your days ‘shine all the brighter,’ as she’d say. That’s what happened to her and your father—true, fast love.”

What? “I told you all that?”

“Well, we didn’t sleep much, whether it was talking or …” She trailed off, as if she regretted how far she’d gone in this conversation.

But he was swamped by yet another image. Holding her against him as she closed her eyes, pressing kissesto her eyelids, one by one, then the tip of her nose. Watching her in the glow of a soft lamp as she drifted off to sleep. Feeling something unfamiliar twisting inside of him, as if being born …

But wasn’t he the ultimate cowboy bachelor?

The same twisting sensation ripped through him now, as if daring him to define what it was.

Up ahead, he could hear children’s laughter, the clang of a playground, past all the dust-brushed Old West buildings. Rita kept leading him toward it.

“Rita,” he said, “when I came back here, it was because of you.”

This time, when she slowed down, she almost seemed to stumble before she straightened her posture. “What?”

“I had this fragment of a memory …” He gentled his tone. “About you. It drove me to find you, even if I can’t remember exactly why. I keep thinking that if I spend some time with you, it’s going to shake things loose in my head.”

His directness had apparently stunned her, because she kept walking slowly, not looking at him.

But then, she did sneak a glance, her expression even more torn now.

He’d played his last card with her.

They stopped at a chain-link fence that separated them from swing sets, a teeter-totter and a field where children were playing tag and doing somersaults and cartwheels in front of a woman wearing a floppy camp hat. Next to the field stood a small pastel-colored building with a mural on it. In the mural, children of all sizes and colors laughed, held hands and peered up at a rainbow.

One little girl with dark curls just like Rita’s spied her, and she jumped up, then waved.

Rita waved back as the girl picked up a bag from the edge of the grass and came running toward a swinging gate in the fence.

“Mommy!” she yelled, curls bouncing, skirt flying.

A new flash of memory hit Conn hard.

“Kristy. That’s my daughter’s name …”

He just stood there as the girl came through the gate and hopped into her mother’s arms. Rita buried her face in her daughter’s hair, squeezing her until she pulled away, planting a kiss on the child’s forehead.

Then the girl sucked in a breath. “I forgot!”

She ran back to the field, where her teacher was holding a majorette’s baton.

Meanwhile, it looked as if Rita was daring Conn to say something about her having a daughter. Looked as if she was wondering if this would be enough to let him know that she’d never truly expected him to stay for more than one night in the first place.

How had he reacted when she had told him she had a daughter that night? Had he wanted to run?

But then why would he have taken her necklace and promised to come back? Had he been that much of a jerk that he would’ve led her on just for another night of great sex?

She watched him wade through all these emotions that he couldn’t identify, then finally said, “You remember me telling you about my girl?”

“Yeah. I do now.”

“Okay.” She looked straight ahead at her daughter. “Then I can’t give you any more than that, Conn.”

The little girl ran out the gate and Rita took her hand, guiding her away before they could even be introduced.

Conn had checked into the Co-Zee Inn in the more modern east side of town, thinking that he didn’t want to crowd Rita too much by checking in to her hotel. He was lying in bed, hoping that his brain would catch up to what he’d experienced today.

As soon as he shut his eyes to the faint neon from the “vacancy” sign bleeding through the green curtains that didn’t quite shut all the way, it was as if his mind finally cooperated.

A few memories crept in. In bed, Rita leaning her head in her hand as she propped herself up with an elbow, her curls spilling down. She was looking down at him as he lay there, using his finger to lazily trace the soft, pale inside of her arm. Their skin was drying from the sweat that had beaded on it during their lovemaking.

“I usually don’t sleep around like this,” she said. “I’ve got responsibilities that I take seriously.”

“Like your hotel,” he said.

She swallowed hard, her gaze widening, as if what she was about to say next would change everything.

“It’s more than that, Conn.”

He’d risen up on an elbow, too, coming face-to-face with her.

“Tell me,” he said.

“Kristy. That’s my daughter’s name.”

Conn looked into her eyes, expecting that the urge to flee would grab him at any second. Instead, he heard himself saying, “A little girl with your hair and eyes.”

Rita seemed as if she thought the night was about to end right there, but …

He leaned toward her, kissed her on the temple, reaching out to slide a hand over her hip …

His eyes opened, his heart beating so fast that he had to sit up to find balance.

Dammit, he’d been smitten by Rita in that moment, hadn’t he? But, based on what his brothers had told him, Conn probably would’ve sent the necklace back to her with an endearment-filled note, finding some charming way to ease their parting while never promising to return after that. He would’ve used his “Jedi mind tricks,” as his oldest brother, Bradon, called it, to make her think that one night of happiness was wonderful enough without expecting more from him.

As he swung his legs over the side of the bed, planting his feet firmly on the shag carpet, he leveled his breathing.

Had he hurt Rita enough to send her into another man’s arms? And had that man gotten her pregnant and left, too?

Or had the old Conn, the furthest thing from ideal father material, made a baby with her and accidentally left anyway?

As he lay back down, the neon light from the window beat like a red heartbeat on the ceiling.

But it also looked like a warning light, advising him to leave well enough alone.




Chapter Three


The next morning, Rita finished putting Kristy in a leotard for “Job Day” at the preschool. It was Dress Up Week, and right now, at least, Kristy was dressed as a ballerina, her dream career for when she grew up. Last week it’d been a cowgirl like her aunt Kim, the week before, an astronaut.

She wrangled her daughter’s curls into a bun using a scrunchy. “Tomorrow you get to wear a princess costume for Royalty Day.”

“Pancake Day comes after.” Kristy was admiring a beaded pink bracelet around her wrist. “What do I wear for that?”

“Your cutest pajamas, my dear.” Rita kissed Kristy’s cheek, lingering, loving the sweet smell of her. She still had that little-girl scent, sugar and spice and everything nice, and she hoped it would never go away.

When Conn had walked with her to the preschool yesterday, Rita had at first been reluctant to have him along while she picked up her daughter. But since she’d told him about Kristy “that night,” a part of her genuinely wanted to see if he would remember. And if he would get the same look on his face that he’d had after she’d revealed that she was the mother of a four-year-old.

But that was where she’d stopped with the honesty. She’d also had a total knee-jerk, ultradefensive reaction when he’d asked about her little baby bump; she’d outright lied to him that the child wasn’t his.

Right afterward, she’d known it wasn’t the right thing to do. He was the father. Yet he was also a very scattered man who wouldn’t be remotely reliable. He might even be another Kevin, so making Conn think that this was someone else’s baby seemed to be the safest choice for both of them.

Even so, Rita kept picturing Conn as he’d been in that bed, while he smiled down at her as if the news about her having a daughter already didn’t bother him at all.

“A little girl with your hair and eyes,” he’d said before caressing her again, leading her into a place where she could hope and love and forget the past.

Would he be able to show that kind of affection for a surprise baby? Kevin sure hadn’t.

Kristy hopped toward her bedroom door. “Can I do the computer now? We brushed my teeth!”

“You sure can.” Kristy often got sidetracked by everything but getting ready in the morning, so Rita had found that dangling the reward of using the laptop computer was incentive for her to stay focused.

They went to the kitchen table where Rita directed the computer to a kid-friendly page with Barbie games and went to her room to finish her own toilette.

The top floor of the hotel had always been the caretaker’s quarters and, even though the property had been handed down, generation after generation, Rita’s own family hadn’t actually lived in the suite, which was decorated with the same Victorian furniture and antiques that gave the rest of the hotel its Old West feel. It’d been too small for two parents and three children when she was younger.

But it was just right for her and Kristy and another one on the way. The three of them.

She didn’t stop to think about how it might’ve seemed a little more crowded with Kevin, had he stuck around. Or with any other man.

As she got to her bathroom, then pinned back her hair with a barrette, she tried not to think about Conn, but it was impossible not to. What would’ve happened if he hadn’t gotten in that accident? Would he have come back?

How long would he have stayed?

Heart muted, she told herself to stop dwelling on it. Instead, she forced her attention to the task of applying a little blush, then eye shadow, mascara, which she seemed low on, and pink lipstick. Then she stifled a yawn as she went to the personal calendar she kept posted on the refrigerator in the kitchen area. It mainly showed Kristy’s upcoming activities: Job Day, a slumber party tonight with Aunt Kim, Royalty Day, Pancake Day, dance and baton lessons.

All this in addition to her own schedule, which included a doctor’s appointment this week, maid-of-honor duties for Violet’s wedding this weekend, then Thanksgiving next week. She would definitely have to begin working in more time for her and her unborn baby—nap time so she wouldn’t be stressed, a little light exercise time …

Rita thought about the looks she’d been getting around town recently as she strolled the boardwalk, her tummy just beginning to show. Some glanced at her and smiled. Others had an expression on their faces as if thinking, “She never learns, does she?”

Another unplanned pregnancy. And the thing was, Rita was such a careful person. Always had been, too.

With Kevin, she’d been engaged. She hadn’t seen him for a while, because he’d needed to relocate near Houston for a job in some natural-gas fields because of the kaolin-mine closure. She’d been so young then, so unsuspecting about how life could go wrong, and she’d thought that she and Kevin would always love each other, that neither of them would ever change.

But he’d grown distant after taking the new job. It’d been a gradual thing, with him being more withdrawn during his weekend visits, with him complaining more and more about the mine closure and how life wasn’t fair. Kevin had never done well with change.

Yet Rita had merely told herself that he would get used to life as she worked her rear off in the hopes of taking time away from the hotel and attending college. She had loved him as she had during high school, when they’d been sweethearts, and after graduation, when they’d kept on seeing each other, saving their money for when they would have a family one day.

Then, one night, during a rushed bout of weekend lovemaking, something had happened. Her diaphragm hadn’t been inserted as it should’ve been—at least, that was the doctor’s guess. She’d gotten pregnant before getting married and …

Dammit, Rita, we’re not ready for a family.

Now, at the memory of Kevin’s reaction to the news, Rita turned away from the calendar. Why did it all have to come back?

Kevin demanding that she rethink their situation in life. Kevin “suggesting” that she “take care” of their “mistake.” Her finding out that their life had been a lie all along when he told her he had been seeing another woman in his “other home,” the one he lived in during the week for his job.

Him leaving Rita as an unmarried mother for that other woman.

Blowing out a breath, Rita told herself that she’d been careful with Conn, too—at least physically. It was just that, when they’d used protection, there’d been one time when the condom had slipped a little after they’d made love and he was pulling out of her …

She rubbed her belly under her work skirt. No matter the circumstances, she was already head over heels for this child. Like Kristy, this baby would be easy to love, to take care of, to hold and kiss and treasure.

I’ll always be here, she thought, softly patting her tummy. But who needs a daddy you can’t trust?

She kept telling herself that Conn didn’t even know who he was, so what kind of father could he be? As far as she even knew, she’d gone to bed with a fantasy—the Conn Flannigan who had seemed just as taken with her as she’d been with him that night.

That fantasy man didn’t exist, though.

Walking down the hall, she heard the sounds from the computer and went over to Kristy, bending down to plant a long kiss on top of her head. “Come on, sweetie. Time to go.”

“One more minute?” the little girl asked.

“Nope. You’ve still got a half hour banked for computer time this week, though, and you can use it later.”

A jaunty knock sounded on the door, and Kristy bounded over to open it. As Rita shut down the computer, Kristy squealed.

“Aunt Kim!”

When Rita glanced over she saw her younger sister, dressed in old boots and jeans and a threadbare blue T-shirt. Kim was wearing her dark curly hair in a ponytail, seeming every inch the tomboy of the family. She lifted Kristy up, twirled her around, then set her back down and used her forefinger to tweak the child’s nose.

“Why, if it isn’t Tina Ballerina,” Kim said.

“Kristy Ballerina.”

Both Kim and Rita laughed. “Thanks for walking her to school,” she said to Kim on the way out the door.

“No problem. It’s my day off, anyway, and Nick’s got everything covered.”

Good ol’ big bro.

As Rita shut the door, she braced herself for what the day would bring. Would wagging tongues be spreading news about Conn, with the way he was following her around and holding on to that R necklace she’d always worn, ever since she’d bought it from the White-feather Jewelry Boutique with her first real paycheck from the hotel?

She hoped he’d finally gone home. At least, part of her did. The other part of her was just plain masochistic, she supposed, because it yearned for him, even after all that had happened.

They all went down the stairs, coming to the lobby, which was empty at this time of the morning.

Except for one person sitting in a velvet-upholstered chair.

Wouldn’t you know it, at the sight of Conn, Rita’s belly spun into a whir of desire and anxiety. His hat was perched on one bent knee as he perused a brochure about tourist sites in Houston. His hair was so thick and tempting that she bunched her fists, wishing she didn’t want to touch him so badly. He’d also taken a razor to his face, which was freshly shaven, emphasizing a strong jaw and cleft chin.

She shivered, thinking of how he’d held her, how he’d been inside of her. How he’d looked down at her as the dawn had rolled through the crack in the curtains. She’d never seen a look like that before, not even from Kevin, and it’d seemed so real.

Real enough to make her believe that he would stay forever.

He glanced up from his reading, as if he had Rita Radar. “Morning,” he said ever so casually.

Rita was desperate to make it seem as if he were just another customer. “Morning.”

Kristy wasn’t fooled, though. By the way she was pressing against her aunt Kim’s leg, checking Conn out, she recognized him from yesterday.

Rita kissed her daughter goodbye, then thanked Kim again. There weren’t any employees coming in to cover the front desk this morning, so it was up to Rita to do it.

“So we’ll see you tomorrow,” Kim said, heading for the exit with Kristy in tow. Then to Kristy, “We’re going to have fun at our slumber party tonight.”

“Yeah!” Kristy said.

Since Kristy visited Kim frequently, there was no need for packing this morning—Kristy had a drawer of clothing, plus a toothbrush, over at her aunt’s cabin.

Rita went over and gave Kristy an extra-big kiss. “Call me tonight?”

“Okay, Mommy.”

“We’ll check in before we have our Caillou marathon.” Kim gave Conn a curious glance before ushering Kristy to the door.

As for Kristy, she just kept checking out the cowboy.

When they left, the room seemed way too quiet. Rita thought about turning on the radio, until Conn got out of his seat and ambled over to the desk.

“I want to thank you for yesterday,” he said. “It helped.”

“Good to hear.”

Her pulse jittered. The last thing she needed was for all her hot-blooded, ill-thought-out feelings to come bursting up right now.

Good thing his next words put a stop to them. “I keep remembering bits and pieces about that night but … There are things that go along with them that I’m not really understanding, Rita.”

Oh, the sound of her name. He had a way of saying it, deep and low. Of owning it, somehow.

But she’d already come to the conclusion during the four months he’d been gone that she’d never be owned—not by another man, not by the anguish she’d managed to tame.

She decided to duck any deeper conversation. It was safer that way. “So your memory’s been jarred?”

“Somewhat.” His brow furrowed, as if he were on the edge of saying or thinking something that wasn’t quite gelling for him. “I could really use more of your help, though. You seem to be some kind of key for me.” He added that devastating smile that had gotten her into bed in the first place. “What do you say?”

That smile tugged at her so hard that she had to grip the counter.

He added, “There’d even be a good dinner it in for you after you finish with work.”

“Then you’ll go home?”

He laughed. “I made arrangements this morning to take some time off from the ranch, so I’m not in any hurry. But I swear I won’t bother you anymore after this. I’d just like to wander around town, see if there’s anything else here that’ll tweak my brain.”

“Goody.”

He ignored her sarcasm. “Don’t tell me you’re not free tonight, Rita. I was sitting right here when your sister said she’d be having a slumber party with Kristy.”

Shoot. Kim had mentioned the aunt/niece outing right in front of him. But there were a million other excuses to get out of this—like her final dress fitting for Vi’s wedding early tomorrow, for one. Resting her tired feet, for another.

Yet … She touched her belly. A baby. His baby. Maybe she owed him or her one dinner with the father, just for some closure and a chance to tell him the truth—if she could bring herself to do it.

She gripped the counter even tighter with her free hand. Thing was, she didn’t trust herself around this man. Whenever he was within range, her blood heated, her heart twirled, her body urged her to do things she shouldn’t even be dreaming of repeating with him.

Ground rules. Maybe she should just make some for him and for her.

“If we had dinner tonight,” she said, “it wouldn’t be anything …”

“Romantic?” He nodded. “I understand.”

She couldn’t decipher his expression, but the sinking sensation in her chest was real easy to read. Had she actually expected him to beg her to take up where they’d left off? He had to be just as wary of coming back to face her as she was to see him, and just because he was here didn’t mean he …

Well, that he remembered that night and the connection she’d thought they had, even just after several hours together.

He backed away from the counter, seemingly satisfied now. While putting his hat back on, he said, “What time’s good for you?”

It’d been a long while since she’d gotten ready to go out socially after work, so she calculated quickly. “Six?”

“Six it is.”

“There’s a good fish shack by Dempsy Lake, south of town. The Levee, they call it.” It was very public, although a little bit off the beaten track in St. Valentine itself, and usually populated by families during the afternoons she’d been there.

“Sounds good.” He sent her that grin again.

As he tipped his hat to her and went out the doorway, she held her breath.

And, for the rest of the day, it felt as if she never let it go.





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