The Millionaires' Club: Ryan, Alex and Darin: Breathless for the Bachelor. KRISTI GOLD

nightshirt that still smelled fresh from the dryer, then tugging a pair of socks over her cold tootsies, she wandered into the living room working a brush through her wet hair as she went. Snagging the remote on the way by the end table, she punched it toward the TV then plunked down on the sofa. The soft navy-blue chenille throw felt snuggly and warm as she dragged it from the back of the sofa and settled it over her upraised knees. It would have felt infinitely better if she’d been snuggled up to Ry.

      She caught herself. “You’re doing it again, Whelan. It’s not going to happen. Not with Ry, so just give it up.”

      For the next five minutes she tried to get used to the idea that she did need to do just that. She needed to once and for all let go of the fantasy of him and her together.

      So she thought about her volunteer work at the burn center, of the kids at day care. Anything to take her mind off him as she channel surfed, punching the remote with one hand and unconsciously fiddling with the hair on the left side of her forehead where the cowlick she always fought to tame remained as stubborn as ever.

      “Nothing. You’d think you could find one thing among the dozens of cable channels that looks interesting,” she sputtered aloud. One thing to distract her or to snag her thoughts away from the lost cause that was Ry Evans.

      Disgusted with herself, she flicked off the TV and tossed the remote on the coffee table. The photo album on the second shelf caught and held her attention. She stared at it for a long time before finally giving in to the temptation to take a little stroll down memory lane.

      A picture of her mom and dad and her and Trav brought a bittersweet smile. She trailed her index finger across the smiling faces of her parents. She’d been nine; Trav was seventeen when the photo had been taken. They’d been in Fort Worth at the stock show. It was one of the last photos taken of them all together before the accident that had claimed Sue and Joe Whelan’s young lives.

      She wished with everything in her that it wasn’t so difficult to attach animation to the still photos. She’d always wanted to remember them as three-dimensional and full of life…but after fourteen years, those vital connections had faded along with the picture’s color.

      She’d gotten on with her life a long time ago. The pain had ebbed to something tolerable. A misty sort of longing had replaced the cruel, agonizing grief that had shattered the sanctity of her perfect little world. But all these years later, she still missed them.

      With one last, lingering look, she turned the page…and there he was. Ryan. Lanky and lean, broad-shouldered and brown-eyed. He’d been eighteen to her ten, larger than life, grinning and strong. Her heart tripped, like it always did when she saw him, when she thought of him, when she let herself believe he could be more to her than a surrogate big brother after his parents had taken her in following the accident that had left her bewildered and withdrawn and confused.

      To make matters worse, Travis had signed up for the U.S. Marines just before the accident and had had to leave shortly after. She’d never felt so alone. Even now her eyes stung as she remembered more than one lost, lonely night when Ry would find her in the room his mother had decorated with such special attention to please the sad little person she had been.

      He’d stand broad-shouldered and thoughtful in her doorway, a pained, helpless expression momentarily crossing his handsome face. Then he’d smile and charge into her room like a big, noisy teddy bear and proceed to tease a grin out of her, coax her into a giggle and, ultimately and unintentionally, stir the woman budding inside her ten-year-old soul into loving him.

      “We’re your family now,” Ry’s mom had told her more than once after that horrible day. “You and Travis belong to us. Your daddy was our foreman. I loved your mother like a sister and your father was like a brother to my John…just like Travis and Ryan are like brothers. Just like you are our daughter now.”

      Very quietly Carrie closed the album and hugged it to her breast, as Sandy used to hug her to hers. This album represented her past. So did the lifelong fantasy of Ryan falling in love with her. Tonight had finally made her accept that it wasn’t meant to be.

      Ryan Evans was not her Mr. Right.

      “So…this is it, then, isn’t it?” she whispered aloud, and felt her heartbeat flutter with sadness.

      “The infamous defining moment.”

      A tear trickled down her cheek at the reality that she’d finally decided to let it go. It was time to move on. She wanted a relationship. She wanted a husband and little chubby-cheeked kids. And since she’d finally accepted Ry wasn’t going to be a part of that picture, she was determined to find someone who would be. Soon.

      A knock sounded at her door, startling her. She rose, sniffed and—brushing the moisture from her cheeks—walked to her foyer, checking the clock on the way. It was almost midnight. A quick look through the peephole had her heart jumping again.

      She threw open the door. “Ryan.”

      “Hey, bear,” he said, with a lopsided grin. “Can I come in…just for a second…or did I officially make myself persona non gratis in your book tonight?”

      She looked at his beautiful, lived-in face, at the smiling brown eyes that made her think of blended whiskey or pricey bourbon and had warmed her like a bonfire more times than she cared to remember. A fine, hook-shaped scar rode the ridge of his cheekbone beneath his left eye—a reminder of his rodeo days and a run-in with a bronc that had all but stomped him into the arena floor.

      There were other scars. His hands were peppered with the little nicks and scrapes of a working cattleman. The little bump on the bridge of his nose signified it had been broken once…probably by a horse, possibly in a bar fight. She knew he’d had his share of them, too, when he was rodeoing. The road, she knew, had been rough, and fists had sometimes flown as freely as the BS and the dreams of an NFR championship.

      He’d come close to catching his dream. So close.

      And so had she. She’d come close to reaching her dream of being loved by him. At least she’d come close in her mind.

      “Carrie? Hellloooo? Where’d you go, sweet pea?”

      She blinked, realized she’d gone back there…to that place where he filled her senses and her thoughts and kept her from moving away from him and toward her future.

      “Sorry,” she said, and opened the door wider so he could step inside out of the chill. “You…surprised me,” she said lamely. “What’s up?”

      He lifted a broad shoulder, gave her a sheepish look. “Just wanted to make sure we were okay after…you know.”

      She tilted her head. “After you herded me out of the diner like a maverick calf?”

      He actually flinched, then grinned. “Ah…yeah. After that.”

      “Don’t sweat it,” she said, determined to turn over this new leaf and ignore the slow, melting action going on around her heart. “But don’t let it happen again, okay?”

      He considered her as he stood just inside her foyer. “Does that mean you’re still planning on—”

      “Putting the moves on Dr. Beldon?” she interrupted cheekily, then told him how it was going to be. “Know what, Ry? I think you and Trav—and for that matter, the rest of the guys at the Cattleman’s Club—all function on some misguided notion that every female in the free world needs saving.”

      He looked a little stunned.

      “What? You don’t think I know what goes on behind closed doors at that place? Trav is my brother, for Pete’s sake. He disappears…sometimes for days. For that matter, so do you and the others. And isn’t it coincidental that shortly after you all pop up again, world or local headlines report on some heinous crime being thwarted, or some country being saved from a disastrous coup by some radical extremist group?”

      She laughed at the pained and panicked expression on his face.

      “Oh,