A Hasty Wedding. Cara Colter

got this funny idea that people are more good than bad, given a chance, and that the folks of Prosperino need to be brought back to that wholesome truth.”

      She ignored Blake’s slightly cynical tone. “What a charming idea. Honestly, Joe and Meredith Colton are such a lovely couple.” The kind of couple she envied so much. The kind of couple who had found it. That thing that everyone searched for.

      Love.

      Found it and let it sustain them, but more, had not just kept it as sustenance for themselves and their family, but had given it away over and over again.

      To the community, to their foster children.

      And in that giving, they lived a truth that the whole world needed to know: that love given away, multiplied itself and came back.

      Holly suddenly felt so lonely she thought she might cry, after all. She’d never had that in her own family. Her mother was totally self-involved in her looks and her shape and her clubs, and her father was totally self-involved in his career and his power plays. They were two people with no time for each other, and in the end, no time for their daughter, who had needed things from them so desperately.

      “Holly?”

      She looked up, forced herself to smile. “Hmm?”

      “You looked so sad for a second there.”

      “Oh,” she said. “I think you were right. Too many things have happened. It’s been very stressful. You may have even been right about the incident with the knife. It may have made more of an impression than I thought.”

      “You’re in need of some diversion.”

      “I have a great book at home.” She wished she could snatch that back the moment it slipped out of her mouth. Good grief, she sounded like a pathetic old maid. It was a good thing she hadn’t mentioned her cat, as well.

      “I had something else in mind,” Blake said. “Why don’t you allow me to take you to the dance? As a way of thanking you for all the extra work you do, and apologizing for being such a boor right now.”

      She understood then that their relationship could never go back to what it had been before. Not now that she was carrying the secret. If she didn’t love him, it wouldn’t have mattered that he had only asked her out as a way of saying thank-you. Or apologizing. Or because he felt sorry for her.

      Even with her new secret knowledge, or maybe because of it, she had some pride.

      Her handsome boss fully expected his plain-Jane secretary to fall all over herself with gratitude because he had asked her out.

      Methodically, not meeting his eyes, she turned off her computer and neatly covered it with the dust cover. She placed her paperwork in a neat stack, and when she was totally composed she gave him a steady look and a frosty smile.

      “Let me think about it,” she said, and was rewarded with the stunned look that appeared on his features.

      She suspected no one had ever said no to Blake Fallon before. Oh, she’d seen how all the beautiful women of Prosperino fawned over him.

      Well, it certainly wouldn’t hurt him to feel what the rest of the world felt for once.

      She took her pocketbook out of the bottom drawer of her desk and shrugged back into her neat navy jacket, then stood up.

      “Excuse me,” she said coolly.

      He couldn’t get off the edge of her desk fast enough. She suspected he was still watching her, his mouth open, as she went out the door.

      But she didn’t give him the satisfaction of looking back, even though she suspected he stood in the office doorway, watching her as she walked all the way home.

      Home was only a few hundred yards from the office, a lovely little cabin that had once served as a bunkhouse on the ranch.

      Her mother and father, had they taken the time to visit her here, would have been mortified by her humble lodgings. She was a long way from the palatial home outside of Prosperino that her mother and father had once shared and that she had grown-up in.

      But as she walked up her creaking steps, she felt a wonderful sense of homecoming. The cat, Mr. Rogers, woke up from his favored position on the rocking chair on the front porch and came to greet her, rubbing himself against her legs until the static crackled.

      “So it’s you who’s responsible for the hair I always have on the seat of my pants,” she greeted him. She realized if anyone was watching, talking to her cat would make her seem even more the pathetic old-maid secretary.

      So she bent down to pet him, taking a quick glance back over her shoulder at the office. She had been wrong. The door was firmly shut, and Blake was not watching her.

      As if.

      She opened the door to her cabin and went in, and the troubles of the day seemed to fall away.

      She loved this space she had made for herself. Some of her favorite drawings from the children were on the rustic log walls, pictures of the children themselves crowded her mantel. The rough wood floors that demanded slippers at all times were covered in bright throw rugs.

      Her simple furniture—two red plaid armchairs and a yellow love seat—were shaped in a semicircle around the fireplace. The same stonemason must have done all the ranch fireplaces, because they were all equally beautiful.

      A ball of wool attached to two needles, which a sweater had been taking shape out of for the last six months, was heaped on one of the chairs.

      There was a stack of romance novels under the coffee table—a new addiction, one she now could see was quite related to her feelings for her boss. It was a safe way to explore her feelings without making a fool of herself.

      The way she would have if she had said yes to his invitation to accompany him to the dance.

      She wandered through to her bright but small kitchen, put her purse on the table and traded her shoes for her slippers.

      Of course, she reminded herself, she hadn’t exactly said no, either.

      She had said she would think about it, and true to her word that’s exactly what she was doing.

      The lovely feeling of homecoming dissipated, and it occurred to her that of course she was going to say yes. Eventually.

      With a moan of something approaching terror, she went into her bedroom. It was another room that gave her great pleasure, a peaceful feeling. Her big four-poster bed with the white eyelet lace cover and pillows provided such a beautiful contrast to the rough-hewn gray logs of the walls. It was a room that would have looked in place a hundred years ago. It was a restful space.

      And that restfulness was completely lost on her.

      She threw open her closet door and began to sort frantically through the meager items hanging there. After realizing she had not one suitable thing to wear to a barn dance or any other kind of dance, she went into her tiny bathroom and looked in the mirror.

      She took off her glasses and studied her eyes. Hesitating, she reached for a small pot of makeup.

      An hour later she stared at herself, aghast. She looked precisely like Bobo the Clown.

      She found herself making the call she never thought she would make.

      “Mom? I need you.”

      Four

       B lake lay awake and restless in his bed until he could stand it no more. He hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep in weeks. He would lie down, and the horror of all those people getting sick would start to replay in his mind. Especially the kids. The fear in their eyes. The paleness of their skin. Running the first ones to the hospital in the old van. Then the old yellow school bus. And then the ambulances coming, one after another.

      Rationally he knew it wasn’t his fault.

      Irrationally, he believed