A Montana Homecoming. Allison Leigh

as she’d looked ravaged and pained the last time he’d seen her.

      Except for her eyes.

      Her eyes looked positively shell-shocked.

      And he felt like the proverbial bull in a china shop.

      Then her lashes swept down for a moment, and when she looked up at him again, the shock was gone. Everything was gone. There was nothing but politeness, and for an awful moment Shane thought maybe the stories had it wrong and that Laurel Runyan had never climbed out of the pit of despair she’d been tossed into that long-ago summer when her family had disintegrated before her eyes.

      “Hello, Shane. What are you doing here?” The greeting was considerably less welcoming than the light shining from the front window had been.

      But at least she remembered him. That was good. He’d rather have her still hate him than be feeling the emotional numbness that had gripped her for months after that summer.

      “Saw the light,” he said, looking past her into the house. But he couldn’t see hide nor hair of another person. Had she come alone to Lucius? Had she married? Did she have a little tribe of kids now? He wished he could blame the questions on simple curiosity. But nothing about Laurel had ever been simple. “Wanted to check it out.”

      Her eyebrows drew together a little, and the corners of her lips lifted a little. “Check it out. For what? New church members?” Her hands lifted to her sides for a moment.

      A moment long enough for him to see there was no ring. A faint tan line where one had been, though.

      Recently.

      “Sorry,” she went on, oblivious to his cataloging. “I gave up going to church years ago.”

      He had, too. For a while.

      “Thought maybe you were one of the agents from Lucius Realty,” he admitted.

      “Well, as you can see, I’m not.” Her voice was still pleasant. But the edge of curiosity was still there, not quite hidden. “I…didn’t think you were still in Lucius,” she said. “I saw the sign outside your dad’s church. He’s still pastor there. And there was a name I didn’t recognize listed as the associate pastor. Um, Morrison or something.”

      “Morrissey.”

      She nodded and leaned slightly against the opened screen door. Her position was clear. She had no intention of inviting him in.

      But she was still curious.

      Hell. So was he. If he’d had any way of reaching her, any way of knowing where she was, he would have notified her himself about her dad.

      “I’m sorry about your father.” He should have said that right off. No wonder he hadn’t ended up in the ministry. Unlike his father, Beau, Shane’s people skills were miserable. He took care of his townspeople’s safety. He left it to people like his father to take care of their sensibilities.

      Her head tilted a little to one side, and a few strands of silky hair drifted from the knot to lie against her slender throat. Her hair was darker than he remembered. Almost the color of walnuts. Back then, it had been streaked with blond from the summer sun, a shifting mass of burnished gold that had felt like silk against his rough fingers.

      “Condolences?” she asked. “I know what you thought of him. What everyone in this town thought of him.”

      “He was still your father.” He wasn’t sorry about Roger. But he was sorry if the loss hurt Laurel. He was always sorry when something—or someone—hurt Laurel.

      Her lips pursed a little and her lashes swept down, hiding her expressive brown eyes again. “Yes,” she murmured after a moment. “He was. Thank you.”

      “If you need any help with the arrangements, just ask.”

      She lifted her hand and tucked the stray strands of hair behind her ear. She pushed the screen door the rest of the way open. It was so worn, it merely settled open with a sigh and she stepped out onto the porch. Even with her high-heeled shoes—pretty for her ankles, but still a conservative tan color—she didn’t reach past his shoulder.

      How could he have forgotten how small she was compared to him?

      “I’m not sure my father would have wanted a religious service,” she admitted. “His lawyer, Mr. Newsome—I can hardly believe my dad had a lawyer—said he didn’t have a will when he notified me about his death. He didn’t say if Dad had specified any instructions at all. Only that he’d asked Mr. Newsome to contact me.” Her voice faltered a little. “I, um, I haven’t had a chance to go through any of Dad’s records here yet.” The prospect clearly held little appeal for her.

      He couldn’t blame her. Even under the best of circumstances, such a task would be difficult. “The lawyer might not have known, but your father went to Sunday service every week. Talk to Beau. He’ll be able to help you figure it all out.”

      “He went to church?”

      “Regular as rain,” he assured. But he couldn’t fault her for her skepticism. Unlike Roger, who had never gone to church until after his wife died, Laurel had once been a regular presence at Lucius Community Church. Her grandmother had taken her every Sunday, and then when Lucille died, Laurel had continued going on her own.

      Until the summer she turned eighteen.

      Twelve years ago.

      A lot had changed that summer for the Runyan family.

      And for Shane.

      “So,” Laurel finally said, as if she were anxious to move on from the notion of her father having discovered religion. “Your name wasn’t alongside your father’s on the sign at the church. So I guess your ministry took you elsewhere, after all.”

      “I didn’t go into the ministry. Don’t know why I ever thought I could.”

      Her eyes widened again at that, and for a long moment she stared at him. “You’d planned it all your life.”

      “Planning doesn’t mean the same thing as having a calling.”

      She finally unfolded her arms and propped one hand on the doorjamb near her shoulder, which let the lamplight behind her shine through the fine weave of her lightweight blouse. He could clearly see the outline of her bra beneath it.

      “But you’re here. In Lucius. So what do you do?” she asked.

      Look at you and still want. He wasn’t quick enough to cut off the realization. “I’m the sheriff,” he said.

      She closed her hand over the screen door latch, that brief moment of softening, of near welcome in her demeanor drying up as surely as the grass in the yard behind him had.

      “Sheriff. I see. No wonder you wanted to check things out at the Runyan place. But as you know, my father’s dead. There’s no one here anymore for the law to come after.”

      Without another glance at him, she stepped back into the house and firmly pulled the screen door shut.

      Then she turned away, closing the wooden door with a thud. He heard the lock sliding into place as she disappeared into the house where, twelve years ago, her father, Roger Runyan, had gotten away with killing his wife.

      Laurel was shaking.

      The moment the door slammed shut behind her, she reached out for the arm of the couch and shuffled around to sit before her legs simply quit functioning.

      Shane Golightly.

      She closed her eyes, her hand pressed against the base of her throat.

      She’d known that returning to Lucius—to this house—would stir up memories. She could handle memories.

      Most of them.

      But why, oh why, hadn’t she prepared herself for this? Why had she let herself believe that he would’ve followed through, chapter and verse, with