The Rancher Next Door. Susan Mallery

      “Wow. Just like in the movies.” The boy took the cloth and pressed it to his mouth, then gazed at the blood. “Cool.”

      “You’re pretty happy for someone who nearly got the snot kicked out of him.”

      The boy nodded. “Sometimes it’s important to act like a man, even if that means taking on a losing fight.”

      Jack looked at the kid. He was skinny and kind of short. He would have guessed he was maybe seven or eight, but he sounded older. Or maybe he was just an old soul, as his mother liked to say.

      “You’ve learned a good lesson early,” Jack said. “But next time, try taking on less than four bigger boys. At least then you’d have a chance.”

      The boy handed him back his handkerchief. “Thanks. I’ll remember that.” He grinned, then winced when the movement pulled his lip. “I’m Shane Fitzgerald.”

      “Jack Darby,” Jack said automatically. The boy said something else, but Jack didn’t hear it. He didn’t hear anything but the name.

      Shane Fitzgerald. Katie’s son. Jack studied his blond hair and blue eyes. All the Fitzgeralds were fair-skinned and light-haired. He should have recognized him at once.

      Katie’s child. Eleven years ago—the summer she’d graduated from high school—Katie had promised to love Jack forever. The nine-year-old boy in front of him was living proof that her promise had meant less than nothing.

      “I guess I’d better go find my mom,” Shane was saying. “She worries about me.”

      “Mothers do that,” Jack said. “Tell you what. I’ll come with you. Just in case she needs more details about the fight.”

      Some of Shane’s pride disappeared. He touched his lower lip and sighed. “Moms don’t like fighting,” he confided as he turned toward Second Avenue.

      “I know. I had more than my share of lectures when I was your age.”

      Shane looked at him worshipfully. “Did you fight a lot?”

      “Too much.”

      “Did you win?”

      Jack thought of the first time he’d met Katie Fitzgerald. They’d known each other on sight from school, but they’d never talked. Not until that summer afternoon when he’d taught her to ride a bike, and her brother and his friends had kicked his butt. “Most of the time.”

      Shane led the way to the offices of Dr. Stephen Remington, then pushed his way through the glass door. Jack followed, only to find Katie Fitzgerald in conversation with Lone Star Canyon’s new physician.

      Neither of them noticed the new arrivals, and Shane didn’t seem to be in a hurry to announce their presence. Which was fine with Jack. He wanted the chance to study Katie, to see how she’d changed since she left town eleven years ago.

      He remembered that night as if it had happened the previous week. She’d been eighteen and ready to head off to college. Even then he’d known that he was going to spend the rest of his life in Lone Star Canyon. She’d wanted him to go away with her—she’d begged him, telling him that she would love him forever, no matter what. Then she’d peeled off her shirt and pleaded with him to take her.

      They’d come close a few times, but they’d never gone all the way. And even though it had taken every bit of strength he’d possessed, he’d turned her down. Because it had been the right thing to do. Because he’d known that at least one of them had to get away, and it couldn’t be him.

      Now, all these years later, he looked at the woman who had once been that teenage girl. She was still petite, all of five foot three. Sometime in the past few years, she’d cut her long hair. Short curls danced around her face. Her coloring was the same—light blond hair, blue eyes. She still had high cheeks and a smile that could light up a room…and she was still a Fitzgerald. There were dozens of reasons a relationship between them wouldn’t have worked when they were kids, and even more reasons now.

      As he looked at her, Jack waited to feel something, a sense of regret or loss, but there wasn’t anything—for which he breathed a brief prayer of thanks. He’d learned his lesson. He wanted nothing to do with women in general and Katie Fitzgerald in particular.

      

      Something tickled at the back of Katie’s neck. She shivered slightly, then felt a knot form in her stomach. Her chest tightened. Despite Stephen Remington’s detailed conversation about a patient, Katie turned and saw two people had entered the reception area. A boy and a man.

      Her son—dirty and bleeding—accompanied by Jack Darby.

      “Hello, Katie,” the ghost from her past said.

      She gasped. She didn’t know which sight shocked her the most. Fortunately Stephen heard Jack’s greeting and glanced toward the door.

      “Hey, Jack! What happened here?” he asked, walking toward Shane, then tilting the boy’s face so the overhead light fell on his swollen lip.

      “I was in a fight,” Shane said defiantly, with a quick look at his mother. “It wasn’t my fault,” he added quickly. “They started it.”

      “But you finished it,” Stephen said, leading the boy toward an examining room. “Very impressive. Now I just want to take a quick look at your lip. Do you hurt anywhere else?”

      Katie trailed after her son. She was stunned by learning that her son had been in a fight and by seeing Jack after all this time. She didn’t know what to think or do. All she could do was tell herself to keep breathing.

      By the time she entered the examining room, Stephen had lifted Shane onto the table and was looking at his mouth.

      “His teeth seem fine,” Stephen said, giving her a quick, reassuring smile. “Don’t look so panicked.”

      “I’m not,” she said. Panicked wasn’t the right word at all, although she wasn’t sure what she felt.

      “See, Mom, I’m big and strong,” Shane said determinedly. “I’m not wimpy.”

      Katie leaned against the door frame and winced. Obviously her son had overheard her conversation with his grandfather that morning. Her father was less than impressed with his grandson’s masculinity. In return, Shane was terrified of his grandfather. It was an impossible situation.

      “He did okay,” Jack said quietly, so Shane wouldn’t hear. “And I don’t think Shane started the fight, so don’t be too hard on him, okay?”

      Katie turned toward the man who had once been the center of her universe. Time had honed the good-looking features of a nineteen-year-old into the lean, handsome profile of a grown man. Tanned skin spoke of his days outdoors. He was lean and powerful—a rancher who spent his life battling nature and stubborn cattle.

      His dark gaze was as direct as she remembered, his mouth as firm. Too-long hair still tumbled across his forehead. There had been a time when she’d known Jack as well as she’d known herself. At least that’s what she told herself. But perhaps she’d been wrong about that. Was it possible to ever know another person?

      “Thanks for helping him,” Katie said, hoping that her voice sounded normal and that he wouldn’t be able to hear her rapidly beating heart.

      He gave her a quick smile. “I owed you, remember? Many years ago you came to my defense in a fight.”

      She didn’t return his smile. “What I remember is it was my fault you got beat up in the first place.”

      There was a small scar at the corner of his mouth—a legacy from the day they’d first met. She wanted to touch it, as she had in the past. Actually, in the past she’d kissed it hundreds of times, as if her mouth could heal the wound. Jack had teased her that it was worth that scar and a dozen others just to have her feel so guilty and act so loving because of it. She’d told him she would do anything for him. Her