Chapter Two

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Seven-thirty came and went and Kate’s stomach growled as she paced the small, curtained-off ER room across the bed from Finn. Ben Tyler, the handsome orthopedic surgeon she’d met through Olivia’s boyfriend, Jake Lassen, had luckily been on shift tonight and had set Cutter’s arm. He was smoothing the last of the plaster tape, whose fragrance mingled damply with the sterile hospital smell. His cast was, by Cutter’s own choosing, a bright, neon green and would soon be decorated with copious stickers and well wishes at school.

“Luckily,” Ben told Cutter, “you got the last of the cool, green color. Everyone else who breaks an arm tonight will have to settle for a boring white or...pink.”

Cutter shuddered at that prospect. “I do not like pink.”

“Understood.” He pulled off his gloves, took something out of his pocket and handed it to the boy. Cutter opened his fist to reveal a colorful rubber tree frog. “I only give these to kids who are especially brave. Think you can handle him?”

A smile creased Cutter’s mouth. The first of the evening. He nodded and jumped the frog across his chest.

“So,” Finn said quietly to Ben, “no problems later on with the bone?”

Washing the plaster off his hands, Ben said, “Growth-wise? No. No growth plate involved, or I would have called a pediatric ortho down from Livingston for a consult. This is a clean, non-displaced fracture. It’ll heal up in no time, and he’ll be climbing play structures again and causing headaches for Dad. Right, Cutter?”

Cutter nodded sleepily. His bedtime had passed an hour ago, and the pain meds they’d given him had kicked in. Outside, they could hear the rain still pounding on the roof. Torrents slanted against the windows in a deluge Kate had hoped would abate before they had to go. Not likely.

“Thank you, Doc,” Finn told Ben, his voice thick.

Ben nodded to them both. “Glad I was able to help. So, we’re done here. I’ll make sure they have your paperwork ready so you can go home.” Ben gave Kate a kiss on the cheek and shook Finn’s hand. “But I’d feed her, if I were you. She gets very cranky without meals.”

Annoyed, she sat back down in an attempt to stop fidgeting, but gave Ben the stink eye. “Thank you for your oh-so professional opinion, Doctor Ben, but I am perfectly capable of feeding myself.”

He turned a look back at her and winked.

She grinned, absently wondering why a doctor as cute as Ben was still single. And why, for that matter, she’d never dated him? All blond and beachy-looking, with brains as a bonus?

Not a place filler, she reminded herself. Dr. Ben Tyler would make someone a very nice husband someday, if he ever got his nose out of his medical journals. For being the cutest doctor in town, he was certainly the one with the fewest social skills. With the exception of that wink, of course.

When she looked back, she found Finn watching her, all dark and broody. She felt herself blush and looked away quickly. Gads. Was there anything more awkward than old lovers meeting this way?

“I’ll be back when you’re all set to go,” Ben told them. “If I can speed up the process, I will. That shouldn’t take long. It’s still pouring out there.”

Finn sighed and brushed a hand through Cutter’s hair. “Close your eyes, Snip. It’s okay if you fall asleep.”

Cutter didn’t have to be asked twice. Within moments, he and the frog were down for the count.

Across the ER cot, Finn’s eyes met Kate’s. There were a thousand questions between them that, quite possibly, neither of them wanted answered. Speaking strictly for herself, she just wanted to get out of this evening with her dignity intact. But probably too late for that, as well. She felt exhausted from the tension of the last two hours. Now, with no doctors, nurses or five-year-olds to interfere, they stared at each other across the entrenched battlements they’d spent years erecting between them.

“Thanks, Kate,” he murmured, his gaze scanning her face. “For bringing us and hanging around. This isn’t the first trip to the ER for him, but it’s his first broken bone.” The very word ‘broken’ had made him go pale and the worry lines around his eyes deepen.

“Like father like son, I suppose.”

“I guess so.”

She nodded. From what she’d witnessed tonight, he was all in as a father now. “Twins? Really, Finn? Two?”

“Oh, yeah.” He gave a magnanimous shrug. “When I screw up, I do so in multiples. Not that I’d—” His gaze flicked up to her and color rose in those tanned cheeks of his.

“Not that you’d change a thing?” Kate finished. “Is that what you were going to say?”

Tight-lipped, he took the frog from Cutter’s lax hand and stuffed the thing in his own pocket. “Yeah. I guess I was.”

Her stomach cramped. “Well, I guess things all worked out for you then. You and—” she hesitated—“what’s-her-face.”

“I wouldn’t change anything, except hurting you. But how could I regret them?” he asked, tucking Cutter’s meaty, but small hand in his big one. “They’re the good that came out of the bad.”

Kate stood and turned her back to him so she could take a couple of deep breaths. “They are good. Both of them. Even if they are yours,” she added, just because. “Which, I had no idea about until tonight. What are you doing here? In Marietta, I mean. You must have remembered that this was where I’m from. Why would you—?”

“You really want to know?”

She wanted to know everything about him. Every last detail about his life since she’d seen him last. But her eagerness to answer all the questions that had nagged her for years would only make her look desperate. So she shrugged and stared past the curtain into the treatment room. “Never mind. I’m not really interested.”

You didn’t come for me. That’s all I need to know.

Kate blinked. Oh, dear God. Did I say that out loud?

She turned back to him, relieved to find him staring at the bed. “Not that I care, but...what happened to the rodeo?”

“I walked away from it. Mostly. But that’s a long story,” he said.

He’d been a star, or at least a rising star on the rodeo circuit when he’d been hers. He should have been wildly successful by now, not drifting through Marietta on his way to somewhere else.

“Does the story involve a certain buckle bunny we both know?”

He sighed. “You wanna... come back to my place for some dinner?”

“No?” The word came out sounding ridiculously like a question. She lifted her chin, and squinted back at him, just to eliminate any ambiguity. “I mean, no.”

He shrugged. “You gotta eat.”

“I don’t have to eat with you.”

“I’ll cook.”

She burned a look at him. “You? Cook?”

He smiled that old smile at her that always made her brain buzz. There was no justice in a universe where the man who had broken her heart into a million pieces, the man she’d spent the last six years hating, had only gotten more handsome with age. Not less. And he could still wield that smile that made her all her female parts go awry.

Curse him.

Nor had he lost any hair. His was still a thick, luxuriant mink brown, a little too long, but without a trace of grey or thinning as so many other guys their age had. Whatever he’d been up to the last six years, he appeared to only have gotten stronger. Her gaze strayed to his forearms, beneath his rolled up shirt sleeves and she remembered how, sometimes, just the sight of them used to make her want to jump him.

But those days were far behind them.

“I cook,” he said, in answer to her question. “I do laundry. I do a lot of things that might surprise you.”

“Oh, I think you’re good in the surprise department.” She’d meant that comment as a jab and she wasn’t about to pull her punches with him. But for a man whose world had once revolved around defeating the meanest bulls alive, almost everything about him surprised her tonight. Not that that softened or did anything to change her feelings about him. He still did, and always would, occupy that same black hole in her life he had for the past six years.

But the devil in her wanted to ask him about his wife. And why he was a single dad? Was she, God forbid, somewhere here in Marietta, too? Did he still love her?

Common sense prevailed. In a few minutes, they’d be out of here. She’d drive him back to his car; she’d go her way and he’d go his. They’d keep to their separate corners in Marietta until he moved on. And that would be that.

But even as that decision finalized in her mind, he got slowly to his feet, rounded the bed and came over to stand beside her. Kate’s eyes widened and she felt herself backing up against the sink. There was something in the way he moved, some deep sensuality or sense of purpose about him that always disarmed her. Maybe in the way he watched her through that dark sweep of lashes as he moved her way, like a big cat stalking its prey. But he held his palms up, indicating he meant no harm, and he stopped only a few feet away from her.

“What are you doing?” she asked in a hushed voice. “Go back to your side of the bed.”

“Relax. I don’t want to wake him.” He leaned a hip against the counter, and folded his arms. “I’m not going to bite you.”

“Maybe I should go and get the car—”

“I’m divorced, Kate,” he said, almost as if he’d read her thoughts of a moment ago. “For the past four years.”

Four years? Disappointment or anger or some other unrecognizable emotion sliced through her, sharp and quick. She did the mental math. That meant since the twins were under two? And never once had he come looking for her? Not, she corrected, that she’d wanted him to, aside from the overwhelming urge to punch him. But with her back up against the sink, she didn’t want to indulge her curiosity about why he hadn’t ever tried to find her. “I don’t care,” she told him, flatly.

She could tell he didn’t believe her. When he twisted his mouth that way, that was a sure sign he was plotting something. “What about you?” he asked.

“What about me?”

“You never married?”

She shot a glance at her bare left hand where his gaze had landed, then curled her fingers into a fist, furious that he’d goaded her into looking. “No. Not,” she added quickly, “because there haven’t been...I just haven’t—oh, it’s none of your business, Finn. Seriously.”

“I saw you the other night at Grey’s.”

Surprise thrummed through her for the hundredth time tonight. Had he been watching her while she’d been watching him? “Yeah? Well, I saw you, too. Although I wasn’t sure that was you. In fact, I was certain it wasn’t. Because I couldn’t imagine what you’d be doing in my home town.”

“What happened to your dreams of going to the big city, Kate? New York? San Francisco?”

She hated him for remembering that. “They were just dreams. And dreams change. I’m a teacher. And I teach here. Well, part time now, anyway. And I love my job. My family is here. My life is here.”

“I can see why you love it. It’s a beautiful place, Marietta.” As if to dispute that, the rain slashed against the window with a ferocious swipe that rattled the glass. She gave him nothing but her most ironic smile.

He changed tactics. “That singer, the other night, the one who called you out...?”

An involuntary shudder of memory tore through her. Of course, he’d heard him call her out. Of course, she could keep no illusion of dignity here, with her butt backed up to the sink. “Cree? What about him?”

“Are you...involved with him?”

“What could that possibly matter to you?”

He shrugged. “Are you?”

“No! He was just being...drunk.” She peered through the curtain and down the corridor, hoping someone would be coming with their paperwork. No rescue was in sight. “I’m not dating anyone. I’m on a dating hiatus.” Drat! Why had she told him that?

“Good. Then you can have dinner with me tonight.” That smile again.

“I told you, I’m not dating anyone. Especially you.”

“That’s good, then. Because it won’t be a date. It’s a thank-you for helping us tonight. That’s all. Will you let me cook you dinner?”

“No.”

He tilted his head patiently. “It’s been nearly six years—”

“Whose fault is that?”

Surprise caused a little tick between his brows. “I...I didn’t think you’d want anything to do with me.”

“You would have been right.”

Liar.

Kate mentally slapped her inner critic and told her to shut up, despite, or maybe because of the flicker of hurt she saw in his eyes. All these years, she’d purposefully avoided any mention of him, refused to search him out on social media, or the regular media, afraid she’d see photos of his happy little family together where she should have been. Not that she cared anymore. She’d been over him for years. Forever.

She reminded herself of this, despite the fact that his standing so close to her, smelling as good as he did, made her want to touch him. Reach out and run her fingers along the hollows of his shadowed cheek and thread her fingers into his hair until he pulled her into his arms one last time.

Feeling dizzy at the thought, she knew a scenario like that one was not what she wanted. She was a reasonable person with a hair-trigger sense of self-preservation. And touching him—even in her imagination—would only set off a fire storm of trouble she did not want.

No. Finn showing up tonight was merely an annoyance and the sooner she moved past this and put him behind her, the better off she’d be. They could act like adults. Tie up this loose thread between them and put their history to rest. Maybe that was for the best. Maybe she’d been waiting to do this since the day he’d left her.

She exhaled sharply. “Fine. All right. I’ll come. But it’s just dinner. Nothing more. Understood?”

A nurse chose that moment to open the curtain with paperwork in her hand. She froze uncertainly, hearing the tense exchange. “Am I...interrupting?”

He took the papers and smiled at Kate. “No. You’re just in time.”

***

After getting the kids settled for the night, Finn put on some low music, poured Kate a glass of red wine and handed it to her in his avocado-colored kitchen. She took the glass reluctantly, arguing that she had school tomorrow, then gulped half of the wine down. He watched her with amusement over the rim of his own glass, understanding the impulse whole-heartedly.

He could see that she’d been surprised to follow him to the doorstep of this ranch. Everyone in town had known Frank Greevy and knew this place had been his forever. And very few knew about him or the will. If he wasn’t mistaken, she was bursting with questions about what he was doing here, but she didn’t ask one.

In the soft lighting, out of the daylight, her hair looked less red and more the deep burgundy color of that wine in her glass. He remembered how her hair used to change color that way, and how her eyes changed, chameleon-like, according to what she was wearing. The sea-green top she had on tonight turned them a grey-green color, but sometimes, they were the color of emeralds.

She’d grown into her beauty, and she was still long and lean. Athletic. Memories stirred of those long limbs of hers wrapped around him. Of long, slow kisses on summer nights like this one and sex that had left them exhausted, but happy. As good as that part of their lives had been—better than good—that was only part of what he missed about her the most. The other was simply this. Standing in their kitchen, sharing the day. Letting his gaze slide over her and imagining a future together.

Maybe spending his time around nothing but laconic cowboys and chatty five-year-olds had simply made him miss a grown woman’s company. This grown woman’s company.

As Van Morrison sang in the background about Tupelo Honey, Kate took another gulp, clutching her wine glass as if the thing were a floating seat cushion and she’d just found herself in the water.

“Better?” he asked, as he got the steaks into the pan.

She lingered at the fringes of his kitchen, checking out his house as he worked on dinner. “Should I lie and say that glass of wine wasn’t necessary? Or should I just admit that I might not get through this without this?”

“You could lie, but that first gulp was a dead giveaway,” he said. “Besides, the truth is always better.”

“Said the spider to the fly.”

God, he’d missed her. He took a sip of his own wine, letting the alcohol soothe the tension from his throat. “So, I’m the spider?”

She smiled tightly. “That’s not how I remember things, exactly, but there was some venom involved. Speaking of venom, where is she anyway? Your ex?”

“No clue,” he answered, tossing some asparagus onto a broiler pan and dousing the veggies with a dash of salt, pepper and olive oil. “I haven’t seen Melissa for years.”

Surprise parted Kate’s lips and she lowered her drink. “What? But...what about the kids?”

He shoved the pan under the broiler. “Turned out she liked the idea of being a mother better than actually being a mother.”

Kate fluttered a look at the floor. “Oh. Finn...”

“Go on. You can say you told me so.” God knew, he would if he were her.

“That would be spiteful,” she said, running her finger along the rim of her glass. “And wrong. But you don’t mind if I think that, do you?”

“No. I don’t mind.”

She wandered along his counter, touching the handful of spice jars lined up on a little rack, the toaster, a basket full of organic apples. “So...this...is all you. You and the twins.”

He ripped up a handful of lettuce leaves and added them to a salad bowl. “There’s Izzy. She’s been essential, notwithstanding what happened tonight. I was lucky to find her when I got here. What about about you?” he asked, redirecting. “Have you been here since graduating?”

“Yes.” She pulled open his refrigerator and looked inside. “I came home after I did my teaching practicum in Missoula and got a job. Here I am. I worked at the school for two years, then this summer I got laid off because of budget cuts. With the least amount of time there, I was the first to go. Right now, I’m a long-term sub, until the regular teacher comes back.”

“How come you never married?” he said.

She took a gulp of wine. “I’m not in the market. Doesn’t mean I don’t date. Just,” she added with the lift of one brow, “no one my family approves of. They seem to have...opinions.”

“Then they must definitely hate me.”

She shut the fridge door deliberately. “They never really knew about what happened with us. No one did.”

He frowned, truly taken aback for the first time. A stab of something like hurt washed through him. But he supposed he didn’t have the right to feel hurt about anything she did. “You never told your family about me? Even before...?”

She blushed and leaned her back against the fridge. “My family would have been all over us if they’d known I was dating you. They’re like that. Not in a bad way, but call me superstitious. I didn’t want to jinx it. Then...Italy. After we got engaged, I’d planned on taking you home that next weekend, and then, well, I guess we both know what happened to that plan.”

After they’d broken up, she’d kept her hurt all to herself? But she was close to her family. That didn’t make any sense to him. For the first time, he wondered if there had been more to their breakup than what he’d thought. Had she kept their relationship from her family because she wasn’t sure they’d accept him? Or because she wasn’t sure she did?

Cowboy. Bull rider. He came from a different world and his family was nothing like hers—rich, successful. He still had half a family. Just his mom. She lived in Florida now, far from the brutal Montana winters and he only saw her a few times a year. His father had been out of the picture since he was a boy.

Still, as he contemplated their ending—his and Kate’s—he found himself wanting to explain himself again, revise, rewrite their ending, but, of course, it was too damn late for that. Moving forward. That had always been his only choice.

Dinner came together then and he turned to plate the food up. Kate found the silverware and set two place settings for them on the small dining room table. She refilled the wine glasses and they sat down to eat. She’d put the table between them and sat on the opposite side.

“Mmmm,” she murmured after tasting the steak. “I must confess. This is really good.”

“High praise.”

“I’ll give the Devil his due.”

Her smile made his gut twist with a hunger that had nothing to do with steak.

“Though I must admit,” she went on, “whenever I imagined you over the years, you as Mr. Mom never occurred to me.”

“You imagined me?” he asked hopefully, returning her grin.

Color rose in her cheeks and her eye twitched. “Once or twice. But don’t flatter yourself. I moved on long ago.”

With guys like Cree, he thought. Tattooed musicians didn’t fit his mental picture of the Kate he remembered. His Kate. But the universe had taken a substantial shift since they’d seen each other last. Anything could have happened, and probably had.

“So,” she asked, without looking at him, “this used to be Frank Greevy’s place, didn’t it? Are you...renting until you move on?” She took another gulp of wine.

“I own this place now. Frank Greevy left the ranch to me when he passed.”

She choked on her wine. When she finally stopped coughing, she managed to say, “You’re staying in Marietta?”

Watching her with concern, he picked up his wine and let the glass hover near his mouth for a moment before taking a sip. “I like it here. The kids like it. And apparently, they don’t let you pick up five hundred acres and leave the county with them. So...yeah. I’m staying.”

For a long beat, she just stared at him as if he’d just told her Darth Vader was her father. “I see.”

“Don’t take it too hard. Marietta’s a small town, Kate, but it’s not that small. If you don’t want to see me I can make that happen.” But not if I can help it.

“No, it’s smaller than you think. Today’s the perfect example.”

He lifted his glass to her. “Speaking of which, I don’t think I’ve properly thanked you for your help tonight.” He touched her glass with a clink. “Thank you. What you did was real kind, considering.”

She tilted her head and took a sip. “Cutter’s a sweet boy. You’ve done well with him. With both of them.”

He glanced behind him. “Whoa, I could’ve sworn that was a compliment that just shot past me.”

“It was. Okay? Which does nothing to ameliorate my feelings about you being here.”

Am-eliorate?” He rubbed his jaw. “Huh. I might have to look that one up.”

She rolled her eyes. “Alter. Change. Improve.”

A grin crept to his mouth. He’d forgotten how much fun it was to tease her. “Uh-huh. I get you. Well, I know this place doesn’t look like much now, but I’m gonna ameliorate it. The house has good bones and a lot of potential, don’t you think?”

She cast a furtive look around his personal time warp. “I wasn’t referring to the house.”

He leaned back in his chair and toyed with his glass, enjoying the way the light from the 70’s chandelier cast her skin in porcelain light. “Right.”

“Exactly what do you plan to do with this five-hundred-acre gift?” she asked, forking in a mouthful of salad.

“Run some cattle. Start a bucking bull breeding business.”

Those green eyes flicked up to his. “That sounds expensive.”

Money was the last thing he intended to discuss with her, especially when there were so many other topics that came to mind. Like when he was going to see her again. Or if she ever intended to forgive him. His gaze drifted to her hair and his fingers itched to touch it. “I’m good. Hey, I signed up for the Copper Mountain Rodeo at the end of this month. Maybe you’ll come.”

“The rodeo? I thought you gave that up.”

“For a long time, I did. But I still have a few left in me.”

“But bull riding isn’t something you just pick up when you feel like it. After being gone from the sport for years.”

“I’ve stayed in shape. I can still ride a bull.”

Kate’s gaze flicked to his arms again. She cleared her throat and took a deep sip of wine. “It’s not the riding part that will kill you, it’s the falling off part. It’s the two thousand pounds of angry maniac pounding you into the ground or pulling you into the well and beating you to death. And you’re not twenty-three anymore.”

He leaned back with a grin. “Is that concern for my well-being?”

“What? No.” She fingered her wine glass. “All right. I may hate you, but that doesn’t mean I want to see you get in some bull-riding wreck. Your children only have you. If you got hurt...”

“It’s a considered risk. Everything in life is a risk, Kate. Everything. No risk, no real life.”

She sat back. “I see. This is your philosophy? Risk everything? Damn the consequences? But I guess I should know that by now about you.”

“Now we’re talking about us?”

“If the shoe fits...”

“We were both wearing those shoes, Kate.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? You’re blaming me for what happened?”

“No.” This was the last direction he’d wanted to take this conversation in. “That was me. But there were two of us in that relationship, Kate. You were the one who insisted we take a break while you went to Florence for that semester abroad. I was the one who didn’t want a break. I was the one who wanted to marry you. And then there was Marcello.” He could tell he shocked her with that name. “Oh, yeah. I know about him. Surprised?”

“Who told you about—?”

“Sharon. Your roommate. I ran into her on the street a few months later and she felt obliged to inform me about your side-of-Italian.”

She bit back whatever she’d been about to say and shoved to her feet, heading to the couch where she’d left her things. “Okay. I knew this was a bad idea.”

He got up and followed her. “Where you going?”

“Home.”

“Just like that? You won’t even talk about it?”

“Remind me to throttle Sharon Birch next time I see her.” She pushed her arms into the sleeves of her jacket.

“But it’s okay that you never mentioned him to me?”

She gulped and turned back to him. “Marcello...was nothing more than a—”

“—boyfriend?”

“No. We had a couple of innocent dates over there. He was...it turned out he was a jerk. If anything, meeting Marcello only solidified my feelings about you.”

“Yeah? Well, I didn’t date anyone while you were gone. Not one girl. Not until that night when I was drunk and Melissa was—”

“—a buckle bunny, hoping to hitch herself to your star?”

One night. I never intended for...what happened to happen, but I didn’t cheat on you, Kate. We were broken up.”

“Maybe. But at least I didn’t sleep with Marcello.”

“We were broken up.”

“Until we weren’t. Until I had a ring on my finger and we were planning our wedding. And she came up pregnant. And you chose her.”

A long, awful pause stretched between them. All the hurt and pain between them filled that terrible space, and he realized that neither of them had put the past behind them. Not any of it.

“I’d give anything not to have hurt you the way I did, Kate. But wishing changes nothing. I chose my child. My children, as things turned out. And yeah. No matter the consequences of marrying their mother, no child of mine would ever grow up the way I did. Without feeling loved and cared for by their father. And I’ll never regret being their father or doing what needed to be done to protect them.”

She shifted the things in her arms. “Like riding bulls again.”

“Yes,” he bit out a little defensively.

“And now, apparently, she wants them back.”

He blinked. His turn to feel heat blossom on his face. “How could you know about—?”

“The court papers. The ones you left on your side table? I wasn’t really snooping. I just happened to see them lying out there when you were upstairs putting the kids to bed. I am the daughter of an attorney. They caught my eye. And I know what they are. Hong Kong?”

The loose ends of him felt like they were unwinding like a fraying rope. But now that she knew, there was no undoing it. “I think she just wants to screw with me. That’s become her life’s ambition.”

Silent, Kate waited for more. He shoved two hands through his hair. “After the kids were born, with me gone competing, she started to drink. She discovered early on that she didn’t want kids after all, she wanted my undivided attention. She never gave a damn about them. She’s the reason I gave up the rodeo, because she was incapable of caring for them.”

Kate watched him now, her eyes turning a deep, dark green.

He went on. “She would leave them with babysitters and go out to party when I was out of town. Sometimes for days on end, though I didn’t find that out until later. One day, I came home a day early to find her passed out on the couch and Cutter’s little mouth bleeding from a fall or something that could have been so much worse. And that was my fault, for not seeing what was happening until almost too late.

“That day, I gave up the rodeo, the trips out of town. I tried to get her help, but she didn’t want it. Because between us, Melissa and me? There was nothing but the twins holding us together. And that was the end for us, for her as a mother, for me with my bull riding career. She gladly signed away full custody and it’s been me and them ever since. Until now. The kids, they don’t even know her. They wouldn’t know her if they passed her on the street.”

Kate blinked back some emotion he couldn’t name as she watched him. “I’m sorry.”

“So,” he said, “I need to settle. I need stability. I need to give my children the home they deserve. And yes, I’ll risk everything to give that to them. More even. Because I owe them that. And I’ll never let her take them.”

Outside, the rain had stopped and a slow drip-drip-drip echoed outside the door. “So, you’re going to fight her?”

“Yes. With everything I have. But keeping custody will be an uphill battle. Seems the court favors families and biological mothers, whether they abandon their children or not. So my attorney tells me. And I’m an unmarried, single dad who works too much.” He stopped short, knowing he’d probably told her more than she’d wanted to hear. But when he looked up, her eyes had gone dark with some lurch of realization and she was glaring at him.

Backing up a step, she said, “Ohhh, no. Oh, no you don’t.”

He frowned. “What?”

She backed away from him. “Absolutely not! Is that what this whole evening has been about?” she demanded. “All leading up to this? That you need a ‘wife’ to parade in front of a judge?”

Her accusation roiled through him. “Of course not. Don’t be ridiculous. No. This has nothing to do with you.”

She blushed furiously, then headed to the door. “Good, because you can forget it. That will never happen, Finn. Not in a million years. You know I hate you, right? I can’t even believe you would consider such a thing.”

“I didn’t.” Until you mentioned it. “But just for the record, if I were going to ask you for that kind of help...that kind of favor, I wouldn’t have gone through the back door like that. I would have asked you straight out. That is, if I’d thought there was a chance in hell you’d do something like that for me.”

She blinked back at him, something on the tip of her tongue to say before she changed her mind. “Well, I wouldn’t.”

“And I didn’t ask. Kate, stop. Where are you going?”

“I’m leaving.”

“Wait a minute.”

Her hand on the door knob, she turned on him. “No, you wait, you...you...” She gave a frustrated growl for lack of a more descriptive word. “That is just low. Telling me your sad story. Playing on my sympathies like that, so I’d feel sorry for you. I could just...just—”

“Just what? Punch me?” he asked, moving between her and the doorway. “Kiss me?”

Kiss you? As if!” But her eyes had dilated to black splotches and a tremor ran down her as she backed up against the opened door. Her nostrils flared with anger, and her scent washed over him afresh.

“Punch me then. Or kiss me. Whatever makes you feel better.”

Hands splayed against the door behind her, she narrowed a look at him. “As I am not a violent person, I choose C. None of the above.” But with the door wide open beside her, she wasn’t choosing to exit either.

He braced a hand on the doorjamb beside her and loomed over her. “When was the last time someone kissed you ’til your knees stopped workin’? Huh? I used to be able to do that to you, remember?”

Oh, she was remembering. He could see the memory in her eyes.

“I—no, I don’t recall that...and—” she flicked that red hair out of her eyes with a jerk of her head—“I’m leaving now.” But her effort to go was merely a twitch in the direction of the car.

“Wow. That long, huh?”

She opened her mouth in silent outrage, but no words came to mind. No denial anyway.

In fact, right now, she looked as if a windstorm had just blown through all of her carefully nurtured self-righteousness. Finally, she stammered, “I’ve had plenty of kisses from plenty of men and I—”

“—men like Cree Malone, for instance? Is he a good kisser?”

She probably thought he didn’t catch the wince, but he did.

“Plenty of men,” she repeated. “Not that it’s any of your business. At all. And the last thing I need is a kiss from you.”

“Really?” He took a step closer until their mouths were only inches apart. Until he could feel the pebbled nubs of her nipples brush against his shirt. “The last thing?”

She swallowed hard and moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. “The very last thing,” she reiterated, as he bracketed his hands beside her head there on the doorway and lowered his nose to her hair to inhale her scent. “Stop doing that.”

“You smell really good,” he murmured against her hair. “What is that?”

Clutching the wooden door behind her, she tipped her face away from him. “I’m warning you.”

“Is that the same perfume you used to wear? Right here, wasn’t it?” He dropped his mouth down to a spot below her ear, that place he remembered used to make her lose it. He nipped at that spot gently with his teeth and a quake rolled through her.

“Chanel,” she breathed so quietly he almost missed it, and she tipped her head back against the door giving him access to more.

And not being a fool, he took the opportunity to slide his mouth along the ridge of her throat and up her jaw.

“I like it,” he murmured, but in truth, he’d been hard all night for her and the close-up scent of her skin was like a drug. “You remember this, Kate? I do.” He exhaled against her throat. “God, I do.”

He took her face in his hands and pulled her to him, kissing her as if this would be the last time. His mouth slid against hers, taking, tasting what he’d wanted to taste all these years. She made a small sound of protest as she pushed against his chest, but a moment later, her fingers clutched his shirt and she relented, kissing him back. Her soft lips—oh, yeah, he’d never forgotten them—opened to his with unexpected hunger, and the door banged against the wall behind it. He tasted wine on her tongue and anger in the way hers did battle with his. But she flattened herself against him, wanting more.

He forgot the risks of touching her this way again, the years it had taken him to pull himself back from the loss of her last time. Because all he could think about now was how right they felt together after all these years. How perfectly right.

For a heartbeat, her arms went around his neck, then, just as quickly, fell away as if touching him that way had betrayed her restraint somehow. With his knee braced between her legs he felt her knees buckle slightly before she slapped her hands behind her to support herself against the door.

She broke the kiss. “Stop!” she breathed, breathless, turning her head away from him. “Stop doing that.”

He tipped his forehead against her temple, breathing hard before he stepped back away from her, locking his thumbs in his back pockets so he wouldn’t be tempted to touch her again.

She glared at him, her eyes filled with a myriad of emotions: accusation, raw hunger and confusion. And those were just the ones he understood.

He didn’t try to explain himself. He let the kiss speak for itself.

She clapped a hand on his chest, a gesture halfway between a push and tug. And with a thousand arguments on the tip of her tongue, she was gone.