Rocky Mountain Homecoming. Pamela Nissen

other than fair. Dedicated. Loyal. Reasonable. What had transpired between him and his only daughter—his only child—to drive such a wedge between them, Zach could only imagine.

      Contrary to all that he’d vowed regarding Ivy, he felt compelled to be a safeguard, of sorts. Her safeguard. Just long enough to ease the stinging effects of Mr. Harris’s rough edge.

      With a gentle clank, Ivy set her knife and fork across the far edge of her fine bone china plate. She dabbed the white cloth napkin to her lips, her gaze never once straying to him.

      “D-d-did you get enough to eat?” he asked, annoyed by his stutter that cropped up like some ungainly weed. With anyone else, he could talk up one side and down another without a single pause.

      But with Ivy …

      “Plenty.” She folded her napkin then set it next to her plate.

      He peered at her nearly untouched food servings. “You barely ate enough to keep a bird—” He shot up his focus to find her beautiful eyes wide and peering at him as though he’d just tossed a feathered foe her direction.

      “Really?” She locked an irritated gaze on him. “Could you think of nothing else?”

      “All right then, a p-puppy alive,” he amended on an innocent wink.

      When one corner of her mouth tipped ever-so-slightly, he couldn’t miss the way his heart skipped a beat.

      Zach dragged in a steadying breath. He’d have to keep his head about him if he planned on being any kind of a buffer for her, especially when she seemed determined to put up a strong front.

      “I don’t want to p-p-put my nose into someplace it doesn’t belong, but is there something wrong?” he braved, setting down his utensils and willing his throat muscles to relax. “B-b-because, earlier when you saw your father—”

      “It’s a very long story, Zach.” She traced a single fingertip around the delicate flower pattern framing the plate, her wary gaze flitting to him momentarily. “One I’m fairly certain you won’t want to hear.”

      “T-t-tell me, anyway.” He rested his forearms on the table and leaned toward her. As awkward and irritating as his stutter was, he couldn’t allow himself to be absorbed by its effects.

      A silence, broken only by the gentle ticking of the hall clock, filled the room. He held her gaze, struck by the expert way she instantly cloaked any hint of vulnerability.

      Perhaps it was just as well. He had no business rifling through Ivy’s past, present or future. If he knew what was best for him, he’d keep his distance.

      But what was best for her?

      She raised her chin a notch, her expression an unreadable mask.

      “Well, if ever you want to talk …” he began, sidestepping his resolve yet again. He couldn’t seem to help himself when it came to Ivy. “I’d be glad to listen. I’m pretty good at that, you know.”

      A dim smile inched across her face. “And how did you get so good?”

      Leaning back, he draped an arm over an adjacent chair. “B-b-brothers who insist on communication when things get tough. Sisters-in-law who talk circles around them,” he added, keeping his words slow and steady in the hopes of limiting his stuttering. “And,” he continued, holding up his index finger, “I spent plenty of time not t-t-talking when I was younger.”

      She pinned her gaze to the table. Fingered the tatted edge of her napkin. She opened her mouth as if to say something, but then stopped herself with a jarring suddenness.

      He searched her expression. Did she remember—was she even aware of just how difficult things had been for him then? “Just know that the offer st-stands,” he finally said, refusing to bend to any amount of self-pity. “All right?”

      “Thank you,” she breathed.

      When the sound of footsteps came from the long hallway leading from Mr. Harris’s office, Zach glanced up to see Ben coming to a stop at the dining room entrance.

      “Come join us.” Zach motioned his brother in.

      “Hope I’m not interrupting dinner.” Ben set down his bag at the end of the long table.

      “We just finished.” Standing, Zach shook his brother’s hand. “Thanks for c-c-coming out. I know how busy you’ve b-been.”

      His brother’s brow crimped for a brief, questioning moment, as though caught off guard by his stutter. “I was just finishing up for the day when Hugh found me at my office.”

      As the oldest Drake brother, Ben had done all he could to encourage Zach in those years when Zach’s stutter had been so bad. But Zach had refused to be mollycoddled. His brothers had never known what, exactly, had transpired to cause the impediment. So they’d never known how closely connected it was to Ivy Harris. And that every beat of his childhood heart had been spent on her.

      “D-d-do you remember Ivy, Ben?” Zach motioned across the table to her.

      Ben grasped the back of the chair and slid a confused gaze at her. “I do. It’s good to see you again, Ivy.”

      She pivoted in her chair to face Ben, the gracious tilt of her chin commanding Zach’s attention more than he cared to admit. “And you, as well. Should I call you Doct—”

      “Ben is fine.” He held up a hand. “So what brings you back to Boulder?”

      Ivy swerved her gaze to her plate as though unsure of what she should say.

      “Violet sssss—” The word got stuck somewhere between his head and his mouth.

      “Violet sent for me,” she finished for him, the gesture grating his pride. “My father’s been sick.”

      He hated when he couldn’t speak clearly. Loathed even more when others, well-meaning though they may be, completed his sentences for him.

      “Well, as far as your father’s concerned, there’s nothing wrong.” He pulled a hand over the shadow of a beard darkening his face. “As far as I’m concerned, with the dark circles under his eyes, the hollowness of his cheeks and a few other symptoms I noticed, he has to be fighting some kind of sickness. But he flat out refuses to let me check him over.”

      “That comes as no surprise,” she murmured with a frustrated shake of her head.

      Ben crossed his arms at his chest. “I’ll say one thing for him … he’s—”

      “Stubborn,” she supplied, her eyebrows arching. “He always has been.”

      “A family trait,” Zach put in on a muffled cough. He gave Ivy a quick wink, half surprised and pleased that he could hold his own with her.

      She pushed up from the table, her scolding focus set on him in halfhearted chastisement.

      Zach bit back a grin and casually swung his gaze to his brother. “Sorry you made the trip out for n-n-nothing, Ben.”

      “Oh, it’s never a waste of time.” His brother tapped the top of his bag with hands that had eased many a patient’s pain—even his own wife’s, after she’d shown up on his doorstep, half frozen and nearly drained of all hope. “After all, Violet said she’d wrap up a pie for my trouble, and it’s not every day I get to see my baby brother.”

      “Baby?” Zach challenged on a sigh. Clasping his hands behind his back, he stretched, unable to miss the wide-eyed way Ivy’s attention flitted to him. “Are you sure you want to ssstick with that?”

      Though there’d never been a pecking order with his brothers, they’d all teased about it as though a certain hierarchy was well-established. In truth, Ben had been the family’s saving grace after their parents had both passed away when Ben was just seventeen. He’d raised his brothers, and Zach was grateful. But that didn’t mean