Rocky Mountain Homecoming. Pamela Nissen

worked a swallow past the lump that had knotted his throat. Battled back that familiar, thick, tongue-tied feeling that strangled him even now. Struggled to keep all six feet of his work-hardened body from trembling.

      For over a year now he’d been foreman on John Harris’s

      ranch, and for the first time since childhood he’d felt secure. Confident.

      But now …

      Now with this girl—this woman’s—appearance, he was catapulted back to nearly twelve years ago all over again.

      He blinked back the apprehension she was sure to find in his gaze. Swerved his focus a block down the street where he spotted Beatrice Duncan beelining toward them, her short legs eating up the walkway with surprising swiftness as she aimed an overly eager, almost giddy look in his direction. He clenched his jaw at the woman’s clear intent. But it was the woman in front of him that gave him pause.

      “Zachariah Drake?” Ivy worked her gaze from his head all the way down to his toes and then back again in a slow, silent and wholly discomforting perusal. “Is it you?”

      He stared at her, struggling to find his voice.

      “Is it really you?” The buoyant sound of her voice disconcerted him all the more.

      “Yes,” he managed to force out. “It’s me.”

      “What a surprise,” she breathed, swiping a muddy hand across the front of her lavender-colored skirt. Her long eyelashes whispered down over those eyes of hers like tender branches bending to kiss the fresh green of a beautiful spring landscape. “I barely recognized you. It’s been—”

      “S-s-six years.” Clearing his throat, his stomach convulsed at the way he could’ve rattled off the months, the days … maybe the hours since he’d last seen her.

      But he was more disgusted with the way the one syllable had suddenly become three.

      The sound of his broken speech raked over his hearing like a hundred pricking barbs. Surely it was a mishap. A blunder. There was no way, after all the labor, sweat and fortitude he’d poured into overcoming his stutter that it’d descend on him again like some dark and stormy day.

       No way.

      “It has been, hasn’t it?” She lifted her chin in that stately way of hers. Fingered the wilting blue fringe dangling from the navy wrap that was now plastered by mud to her back.

      He nodded, shoving his hands into his pockets as he hauled in a deep, deep breath, something he’d learned to do when he’d faced his stutter head-on. Dragging his hands out of his pockets, he unfurled his tight fists one finger at a time. “What are you d-d-doing here?”

      What in the name of all that was true!

      There it was again.

      He’d defeated this thing. Hadn’t tripped up more than once over the past couple years. He could speak clearly. Wasn’t given to stumbling. Or even pausing overly long.

       He was fine. Just fine.

      She tipped her head slightly. Furrowed her graceful brow.

      Zach held his ground, even when part of him wanted to flee from her presence and from the haunting impediment. But he’d come too far over the past six years to let her shake his confidence, even if it was quite a shock to see her again.

      His boss hadn’t said a word about Ivy coming for a visit. In fact, Zach had only heard the man speak of his daughter once since he’d been working at the Harris ranch.

      She lifted her hat from her head, exposing those silken auburn curls he’d stared at for hours on end when he was in school. “As you can see, I was stopping by the mercantile. That is until that bird—”

      “What I mean is … why are you in B-B-B-Boulder?” His face muscles tensed.

      She set a quivering hand to her neck. “I was stopping by to see if I could find someone who might be able to drive me to the ranch,” she measured out as though he had a miniscule understanding of the English language.

      Her placating tone grated his nerves. In school, he’d been ridiculed. Teased without mercy. Treated as though he couldn’t read, write or add two plus two.

      He hadn’t been able to speak one sentence without stumbling over the words. And all because of this beautiful woman standing in front of him now.

      She glanced around as though there might be a fancy carriage waiting to do her bidding. “My visit … it’s unexpected.”

      He’d rather flinch beneath that stubborn stance of hers that he’d glimpsed just moments ago than to writhe in the obvious pity seen in her gaze at this moment. He sure as shootin’ wasn’t going to allow her to strip away all the confidence he’d worked for. No matter how beautiful she was—even more stunning than she’d been six years ago. No matter how often her perfect face had sneaked into his dreams.

      He thought he’d overcome the strange hold Ivy once had on him, but one look at her and his traitorous heart had begun beating a wild-stallion rhythm.

      And the sight of Beatrice Duncan invading his peripheral vision didn’t help matters one bit. The woman, as benevolent as she was at times, seemed to glory in drama.

      “Ivy Harris? Is that you?” Mrs. Duncan’s shrill voice pierced the noise of clattering wagons. “What in the world happened to you? You look a sight.”

      Ivy glanced at him, that heart-stopping gaze of hers undermining the core of his resolve as Mrs. Duncan tramped over the last few feet and came to a sudden stop.

      “Don’t tell me you knocked this poor girl off that platform there, Zachariah Drake,” she scolded, a stiff gust of wind blowing wisps of bright orange hair into the woman’s round face.

      Scrambling to gain control over his slipping confidence, he drew in a deep breath as the memory of Ivy fearfully ducking for cover from a harmless bird flashed through his mind.

      Ivy sighed, perching her hat on her head again. “He didn’t—”

      “It was my fault,” Zach confessed, meeting Mrs. Duncan’s scorn, face-first. He gulped back his pride, knowing that the woman would pick the situation apart until Ivy would have to admit to being terrified of a harmless bird, and he just couldn’t allow that to happen.

      He set his back teeth, annoyed that he somehow felt it was his responsibility to leap to her rescue. He’d learned the hard way—the long, painful, life-altering way—that following his heart like he had twelve years ago, was a very bad idea. At least where Ivy Harris was concerned.

      “I had my hands full c-carrying those crates.” He nodded up at the platform, where the crates lay on their sides, the contents having spilled out like some bountiful cornucopia. “I wasn’t looking where I was g-g-going and startled—”

      “It was an accident, ma’am.” Ivy sliced him an admonishing look, mortifying Zach by refusing to let him take the blame.

      Beatrice Duncan slid a doubtful gaze from the front edge of the platform then down to the patch of mud created by the recent rains and constant run of horse hooves and wagon wheels. She jammed her fists on her doughy waist. “I don’t know how many times I’ve said to my Horace, ‘Horace, you need to get out there and fasten a railing to the front of this platform before some soul or another gets hurt!’“ She gave her round head a decided shake, huffing and puffing in a gratuitous show of frustration. “But that mule-headed man of mine insists that it stay like it is. Says it makes loading wagons easier.”

      The corners of Ivy’s mouth tipped up the slightest bit. “The platform is just fine the way it is, Mrs. Duncan. I was—”

      “Oh, never you mind the platform. You come here, girl, and give me a big ole hug.” She started for Ivy, flinging her arms wide open and then shutting them