My Cowboy Valentine: Be Mine, Cowboy / Hill Country Cupid. Jane Porter

      * * *

      RACHEL MOVED SOUNDLESSLY through her house, picking up a few toys, turning out a table lamp in the living room, washing up Tommy’s dessert plate and cup from his milk.

      Tommy had fallen asleep earlier tonight than usual, but frankly, it was a good thing. He’d come home from Mrs. Munoz overly exhausted, stressed and needing to decompress, which for him meant opening and closing his bedroom door thirty some times. She’d tried to distract him, but it’d only made him more determined to bang, so after a while she left him to his door activity. She folded a load of laundry, and then unloaded the dishwasher, trying to stay busy, trying to stay calm, trying not to worry about Tommy or think about Cade.

      But now Tommy was in bed, and the house was tidy, and the laundry put away, and she couldn’t keep Cade from intruding on her thoughts any longer.

      Cade had once been her world. She’d loved him so much, and she knew he wasn’t perfect, knew he had his fair share of demons...not that he talked about them. No, Cade was private and a bit of a lone wolf. But he’d loved her and Grandma. He’d really loved Grandma, and her grandmother had loved him, too.

      She opened a flat empty box and was taping the bottom when the doorbell rang. Rachel tore the tape, sealed the flaps and hurried to the front door, hoping that the doorbell wouldn’t wake up Tommy. Wondering who’d be stopping by now, Rachel peeked through the window and saw a big black pickup truck with a huge cab and lots of shiny chrome parked out front. Rachel dropped the curtain, tensing. Cade’s truck.

      He was back.

      Stomach knotting, she unlocked the front door. “Cade,” she said, opening the door.

      His head tipped. “Rachel.”

      Her heart was racing, thudding so hard her hands shook, and suddenly she couldn’t do this. Make conversation with him again. Act as though everything was all right. Everything wasn’t all right. She was exhausted, frazzled and overwhelmed, and seeing him just made it worse. Seeing him made her realize how much life had happened in the past five-plus years. How much had happened to her. She’d changed. She wasn’t the same girl he’d left behind, and there was no place in her life for him now.

      And so instead of letting him into the house, she stepped out onto the porch, quietly closing the door behind her, not wanting to wake Tommy. But joining Cade on the small stoop put her in close proximity with him, reminding her with a jolt that he wasn’t just tall, but broad shouldered, lean hipped and handsome. Heartbreakingly handsome. But looks had never been his problem. Drinking was his problem. Drinking and control...or lack of.

      But she didn’t want to go there, didn’t want to feel all that again. Deliberately she pushed the past away and glanced out to the street where the lamp shone yellow on Cade’s big glossy truck. “That’s a nice truck.”

      “Bought it two years ago with some of the prize money, and now it’s got close to 100,000 miles on it.”

      “You do a lot of driving.”

      “That I do.” He hesitated, cleared his throat. “Just saw Larry Strauss. At the diner downtown.”

      “How’s he?” she asked, crossing her arms tightly over her chest to keep from shivering. It was a clear night and cold, but she wasn’t going to be out here long enough to need a sweater.

      “Good.” Cade paused. “But concerned about you.”

      “Oh? Why?”

      “He said you’re moving.”

      “I’m not allowed to move?”

      “But this was your grandmother’s house, and your house—”

      “Not anymore.”

      “She didn’t leave it to you?”

      “No, Grandma did.”

      “Then why would—”

      Cade never finished. He couldn’t because he was cut off by a piercing shriek from inside the house.

      Rachel threw open the door, racing inside to Tommy, who stood in the middle of the hallway in his pajamas.

      “Ma! Ma!” he screamed, even as she crouched in front of him.

      “Hey, Tommy, Momma’s here. It’s okay.” She tried to smooth his dark hair back from his forehead but he flinched and pulled away.

      “Ma.” He batted her hand away.

      “Did you have a bad dream?”

      But he wasn’t listening to her. He was looking past her to Cade, who’d followed Rachel inside.

      “Man,” he said, staring at Cade.

      She glanced over her shoulder, her stomach falling. Cade’s jaw had dropped. He looked stunned. She swallowed hard, wishing none of this was happening. “That’s Mommy’s friend. Cade. Cade King.”

      Tommy shook his head. He didn’t like strangers, and he especially didn’t like them in his home. “Go.”

      “Tommy, can you say hi to Mr. King?”

      “Man. Go. Leave.”

      “That’s not nice,” she rebuked gently, reaching up and trying once again to soothe him by smoothing a fistful of hair off his brow. This time he let her, and her palm lingered on top of his head, his hair silky smooth and reminding her of rich, dark chocolate.

      “Leave,” he insisted, pointing at Cade. “Go. Leave.” Then he pushed her hand away and ran back to his room.

      Rachel watched him go, heart heavy, before standing and looking at Cade, her lips curving in a tight smile. “And that was my son, Thomas James.” Her gaze met Cade’s and held. “And no, he’s not yours. He’s four and a half. He’ll be five in July.”

      Then she, too, walked away, but headed in the opposite direction, going to her kitchen where she pushed in the chairs around the small kitchen table, the legs scraping the old linoleum floor, and knocked an imaginary crumb off the scratched table surface.

      Cade entered the kitchen, too, but she ignored him, continuing to straighten things that didn’t need straightening, but it was better than looking at Cade and seeing whatever it was he was thinking.

      “He has developmental delays,” she said jerkily, adjusting the faded terry-cloth dish towel hanging on the handle fronting the old oven. “Autism. Which isn’t actually a single disorder, but a spectrum of closely related disorders—” She broke off, took another breath. “And he doesn’t mean to be rude. He just doesn’t have strong verbal skills.”

      “That’s all right.”

      She heard his flat tone and shot Cade a quick glance. He looked pale, almost sick, and she looked away just as swiftly. It’d been so difficult getting Tommy diagnosed...none of the Mineral Wells doctors agreed on his exact diagnosis. Obviously Tommy had PDD, pervasive developmental disorder, but was it classical autism or autism with Asperger’s syndrome, or PDD-NOS? “People don’t understand that he has special needs. He’s not a bad boy, and he’s not a problem. He just gets agitated easily. Overwhelmed by change and too much stimuli. Kind of a sensory overload.”

      “You don’t have to explain to me. I wouldn’t judge him or criticize him.”

      Her head jerked up again, and her eyes searched his. She knew Cade had had problems, knew he’d gotten in plenty of trouble growing up, and wished she could believe him. But she didn’t. Couldn’t. Her shoulders twisted. “You wouldn’t like how he acts in public. You’d say he was out of control. And you know, he does get out of control. He’ll throw something in a store—a can of soup or frozen orange juice—and it’ll hit someone or something, or he’ll knock over a display and send a hundred packages of toilet paper all over the store. And you’d be like everyone else. ‘Why don’t you give that boy some discipline?’ It’s embarrassing, but it’s not his fault.