.

not meeting his. “Just chalk it up to a moment of weakness.”

      He stepped toward her and took her chin in his fingers, forcing her gaze to meet his. “It’s going to be all right,” he said. “Dillon is a good man. He’ll figure it out, and in the meantime I’m here to make sure nobody gets inside this house.” He dropped his hand back to his side, and at that moment Adam and Cassie came into the room.

      “Sawyer is going to keep an eye on the house through the rest of the night,” Adam said.

      “That really isn’t necessary since I’m going to be in the house,” Lucas replied.

      “We’ll have him on duty tonight and then tomorrow figure things out.” Adam raked a hand through his hair, his gaze lingering on Cassie. “I don’t want you to worry. We aren’t going to let anyone harm you. I’ll talk to you in the morning.” He looked at his watch. “It’s already after midnight. Why don’t we plan to meet here around ten.”

      “That’s fine with me,” Cassie replied. “And now that the excitement is over, I’m going to bed.” She looked at Nicolette. “Are you coming up?”

      Nicolette shook her head. “I’m too wired to sleep. I’ll be up a little bit later.”

      Adam left, Cassie disappeared up the stairs and Lucas looked at Nicolette. “Do you want me to carry Sammy upstairs?”

      “Only if you’re going up now.”

      “I’m a little wired myself,” he replied. “Why don’t we go into the living room, where we won’t bother Sammy,” he suggested.

      She nodded and followed him from the great room into the smaller, more formal living room. She sat on one side of the sofa and he sat on the other.

      “You should have told me what happened in the café when we were in town this afternoon,” he said.

      “I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it in front of Sammy. He was so upset when it happened and the only thing that made his world okay again was a cookie and ice cream from Daisy and the cowboy boots from you.”

      “Still, I could have settled it with Lloyd right then and there.” His jaw clenched tightly, making him even more handsome and slightly dangerous looking.

      She smiled. “Then I probably would have had to figure out how to get the money to pay bail for you.”

      His jaw softened and he returned her smile. “You got that right. Lloyd and his fellow cowboys are nothing but a bunch of bullies and thieves. Cass couldn’t abide Raymond Humes or any of the men who worked on his ranch. The bad blood goes both ways, which is unfortunate since his ranch is next to this one.”

      “Why the bad blood?” she asked curiously.

      Lucas shrugged. “I don’t know where it all began. Things were already bad when I first came here, and that was fifteen years ago.”

      “Fifteen years—you must have been a baby.”

      “I was just shy of seventeen years old and I hadn’t been anybody’s baby for a very long time.” He paused and took off his holster and set it with his gun on the coffee table before them. “What’s your story? How did you come to be here with Cassie?”

      She leaned back against the sofa. “In order to tell you that I have to start at the beginning when I got married, and it’s a long story.”

      “We’ve got all night,” he replied easily.

      “I can sleep in tomorrow, but you have chores to do.”

      “Tomorrow is my day off, so there’s no problem,” he replied.

      Nicolette had a feeling his questions were less about wanting to really know about her past and more about wanting to take her mind off the horrible events of the night.

      “I met Samuel when I was working as a salesperson in an upscale dress shop during the day and going to night school in the evenings. It was obvious to me that he probably didn’t have to look at price tags and it was equally obvious that he was flirting with me. But, he told me he was looking for a dress for a woman about my size and wanted shoes to match.”

      She paused a moment, remembering the first time she’d seen her future husband. He’d had sandy brown hair, earnest brown eyes. He possessed boyish good looks and was exceedingly charming.

      “Anyway, he bought a ridiculously expensive dress and shoes and after I rang up the purchases he told me to wear the clothes and meet him that night at a fancy French restaurant. Before I could protest, he left the store.”

      “And so you went to the restaurant to meet him?”

      “I did, but I wasn’t wearing the dress or shoes he’d bought. Before I left the store that day I put them back on the rack and credited his account and then I met him for dinner and told him he couldn’t buy me with a fancy dress and sparkly shoes. He was both surprised and intrigued. I guess nobody had ever turned down a gift from him before.”

      “That was the beginning of your relationship,” Lucas said.

      “It was the beginning of a whirlwind romance. Samuel is a trust-fund baby who spent the first months of our dating telling me about all the wonderful things he intended to do, to be in his future. He talked about charity work and altruistic causes and I believed him, I believed in him. I thought that he had just been waiting for the right woman to be at his side, so when he proposed I accepted and we got married in Las Vegas and honeymooned there for a week in luxury.”

      “Then what went wrong?” Lucas asked and leaned a bit closer to her.

      “When I married him he spent most of his time throwing away his money frivolously and partying until he passed out. I kept waiting for him to grow up, to start to be a productive member of society, to do something worthwhile, and then I got pregnant with Sammy. I thought that would be the catalyst for him to change. But Samuel wasn’t interested in being a father and he wasn’t interested in being a husband. By the time Sammy was two, I knew that nothing was ever going to change. He had his monthly money from his trust fund and didn’t have to do anything constructive, so I divorced him.”

      “I’m sorry he didn’t turn out to be the man you wanted him to be.”

      Nicolette shrugged. “I guess I should be grateful that all Samuel ever cared about was money and partying. When it came time for the divorce Samuel only wanted to hang on to his money and he didn’t care about any custody of Sammy. So, I walked away with full custody of my son and a little bit of money that I’d had before I met Samuel.”

      “And Cassie?”

      “She and I had met when I was going to college classes to become a teacher. We’d become best of friends and continued that friendship even during my marriage. When she heard about the divorce she insisted that Sammy and I move in with her temporarily until I got on my feet. Then I threw my money in on the store, and to be honest, I’m still waiting to get on my feet. But I’d rather live in a cardboard box with Sammy than live in luxury and have him endure a lifetime of his father’s indifference.”

      “What about your parents? Couldn’t they help you out?”

      “My mother died a year after I married Samuel and my father passed away almost a year to the day after her. I think he just missed her so much he let go of life to be with her again.”

      She looked at him with a touch of humor. “Have I put you to sleep yet?”

      He smiled, that crazy beautiful smile that always lit up a place deep inside her. “Not at all. I wanted to get to know you better, and part of the way to understand people is to learn where they’ve been.”

      “And where have you been?” she asked.

      “Now, that is a story for another night,” he said. She noticed how his eyes darkened slightly. He stood and buckled his holster back around his waist. “It’s late. I think maybe it’s time we both call