Woodrose Mountain. RaeAnne Thayne

beads and bangles she tended to favor—colorful, splashy, unique.

       He knew his reaction to her was purely physical. Something about that lithe body, her delicate, sun-kissed features, all that sumptuous, silky honey-blond hair just reached into his gut and twisted hard.

       Having her here in his house for the next few weeks would be an exercise in self-restraint, especially when his unruly mind drifted into all kinds of unwelcome areas, like wondering just what she would do if he gave in to temptation and tasted that mobile, fascinating mouth of hers.

       If he tried it, he didn’t doubt she would probably shut him down faster than that pissed-off badger would go for his throat if he ventured into its personal space.

       He couldn’t afford to antagonize her any more than he seemed to do just by simply breathing. The woman knew her stuff. His mother was right. He hadn’t even seen her work with Taryn yet but he sensed knowledge and competence in the cool appraisal she’d given the renovations to the house.

       He was impressed, despite his instinctive objections, by her firm assurance that she planned to begin working immediately with Taryn. How could he help but respect her willingness to jump right in, especially when she was still quite obviously reluctant to take on Taryn’s therapy.

       Absolute authority, Evie had demanded he give her. He shook his head, watching as her little SUV headed down the hill. That wasn’t going to be an easy thing to surrender but he understood the wisdom of it. In every one of his endeavors, someone needed to be the boss. Sometimes he refused to relinquish that role but most of the time he had seen the wisdom and efficiency in handing it off to someone else he trusted. Like it or not, this was going to have to be one of those times. If he second-guessed every decision, she might bolt before the two weeks were up.

       Already, he could tell he wasn’t going to be satisfied with her agreement to only help Taryn transition to a home program. He wanted her here permanently. She was the best choice to help Taryn; he knew it in that same gut that responded so physically to Evie as a beautiful woman—which meant he would have to do everything in his power to convince her to stay beyond that initial two weeks.

       What choice did he have? She was absolutely right. He intended to do every freaking thing possible to make sure his daughter had the best chance at a normal life, no matter what the cost.

      CHAPTER FOUR

      HOME.

       She was almost home.

       Taryn looked out the window of the van. Town. Trees. Mountains.

       Home.

       She was glad. So glad.

       She shifted, back aching from the wheelchair.

       “We’re almost there, baby.” Her dad spoke from the front seat.

       “Only a few more miles.” Grandma smiled. She looked pretty. Tired.

       No more hospital. Her friends. Her room.

       Normal.

       She heard the word just right in her head but she when she tried to talk, she could only make a stupid sound. “Noorrmmm.”

       Grandma smiled again. “You’re going to be surprised. Your dad’s been so busy fixing things up for you. You’ve got a beautiful new room downstairs with a roll-in shower in the bathroom and your own private workout space.”

       She frowned. “No. Up.” She thought of posters on the wall, her pillow couch, purple walls. Her room.

       Her dad turned, frowning. “We don’t have an elevator yet and you’re a ways from tackling the stairs, kiddo. This will be better.”

       She wanted her room. Window seat, canopy bed, everything. She wanted to argue but the words caught. “No. Up.”

       “Wait until you see your new room, Taryn.” Dad’s smile was fake, too big. “We painted the trim your favorite color and it has a really nice view. I think you’re going to love it.”

       She shook her head. She wouldn’t.

       This wasn’t right. She was going home but it wasn’t the same. Out the window, she saw trees, flowers, mountains.

       Home.

       Everything else was normal. Not her. Not anymore. Never again.

       She was broken.

      * * *

      IN THE REARVIEW MIRROR, Brodie watched his daughter’s chin tremble and he thought she would cry. He’d been afraid of this. She wanted her regular room, her regular life. That she couldn’t have those things right now would be one more stark reality-check for a girl who had endured far too many already.

       He kept his gaze on the road as he drove the wheelchair-accessible van he’d purchased for an ungodly amount from a dealership in Loveland just a few days earlier, but he allowed himself occasional glances at Taryn in her wheelchair—secured by latches to the lowered floor behind the driver and passenger seats—until finally the distress in her features eased a little.

       She was still pretty, his baby girl. Her facial features might seem a little more slack than before the accident and she would always have faint traces of scars but most of them were beneath her hairline.

       Her hair was short since they’d had to shave it during her various procedures, but it was dark and impishly curly, and her eyes were still the same blue of the sky just before a twilight thunderstorm. He wondered if others would see the courage and strength inside her or if they would only register the wheelchair, the scars, the halting, mangled words.

       “Oh, it will be nice to be home,” Katherine said from the seat beside him.

       She gazed out the window as if she’d been away for years and he was grateful all over again for his mother’s sacrifices for him and his daughter. After the accident, Katherine had basically given up her own life and moved to Denver to stay at Taryn’s bedside around the clock. He had spent as much time at the hospital as he could and had turned many of his business responsibilities over to his associates at Thorne and Company. He had eventually set up a mobile office at the apartment they had rented near the hospital and had scrambled the best he could to keep everything running smoothly.

       “Look at that,” Katherine suddenly exclaimed.

       He followed the direction she was pointing and saw a six-foot-long poster driven with stakes into a grassy parking strip near Miners’ Park. “Welcome Home, Taryn,” he read. A little farther, splashed in washable paint in the window of a fast-food restaurant, was the same message.

       On the marquee at the grocery store that usually broadcast the latest sale on chicken legs or a good buy on broccoli was another one. “We love you, Taryn.”

       And as they headed through town, he saw another message in big letters on the street, “Taryn Rocks!”

       The kids at the high school had probably done it, since it was similar to the kind of messages displayed during the Paint the Town event of Homecoming Week.

       He was grateful for the sentiment, even as a petty little part of him thought with some bitterness that the message might have been a little more effective if a few of them could have been bothered to visit her on a regular basis in the hospital.

       That wasn’t completely fair, he knew. The first few weeks after she’d come out of a coma, Taryn had been inundated with visitors. Too many, really. The cheerleading squad, of which she was still technically a part, the captains of the football team, the student body officers.

       Eventually those visits had dwindled to basically nothing, until the last time anybody from Hope’s Crossing High School stopped in to see her had been about a month ago.

       He supposed he couldn’t really blame the kids. It was obvious Taryn wasn’t the same social bug she had been. She couldn’t carry on a conversation yet, not really, and while many teenagers he knew didn’t particularly need anybody else to participate