Christmas At Cade Ranch. Karen Rock

squashed down his rising curiosity. “Any other place you might have visited yesterday?”

      “No. That’s it.” She shoved her hair off her face and her forehead scrunched as if she had a headache. “I thought we’d find it at the diner. It’s the last place I remember using it.”

      “No one turned it in yesterday or today.”

      When the driver of a passing pickup honked, he waved, then dropped his hand quick. It was Boyd Loveland and his adopted son, Daryl. They passed by in a beat-up Chevy with the number 812 painted on its doors. Must be entering it in tonight’s smashup derby, he mused. The last of the season. If so, Justin would be gunning for them.

      “What am I going to do?” Sofia asked quietly, eyes closed, only speaking to herself.

      “Let me pay for the tickets.” It was the perfect solution, one that’d save his mother from becoming more attached the longer Javi and Sofia stayed.

      “No.”

      “What?” He gaped at her.

      “I don’t take handouts.”

      “Then pay me back once you’re settled and begin your new job.”

      “I—I can’t. You see, I need my wallet.”

      Her intensity took him aback. As did her pinched expression. She looked afraid. But of what? Did she have pills in there? Drugs? She’d reassured him of her recovery last night, but this desperation brought back bad memories of Jesse and the frantic lengths he’d go to for his next fix.

      “You can get new IDs. I’ll give you money beyond the fares. Enough to help you have your fresh start. Nothing is irreplaceable.”

      Except drugs. He would not allow another abuser near his mother.

      “Some things are. Please take me back to the ranch.”

      “Then let’s at least report it to the police,” he insisted. What was she hiding? “You can send them your Portland information once you’re settled. They’ll let you know if it turns up.”

      Her tan skin turned a sickly yellow, and she backed up a step. “No. No cops.” She turned in a small circle, her eyes darting. “Please take me back to the ranch.” She ran a shaking hand through her locks. “I need to think.”

      He nodded, resigned, then led the way to the truck, his doubts rising. Based on her erratic behavior, his gut told him she threatened his ranch’s peace. He held open the door and breathed in Sofia’s light vanilla scent as she scooted up onto the seat.

      She was a damsel in distress, yet he couldn’t be her hero. He’d never get close to a wild card like Sofia. So why was he attracted to a woman he couldn’t trust? One with a child who might—or might not—be his nephew? Clearly, Jesse had cared about the child enough to sing him lullabies. That fact, however, didn’t make Javi his son.

      Or a Cade.

      To believe in Sofia, James needed solid proof. Without it, he’d put his mother at risk. His thoughts returned to Sofia and how she’d charmed him earlier.

      Was his mother’s heart all he needed to worry about?

       CHAPTER FIVE

      “DOGGONE IT!”

      At a clattering bang, Sofia stopped tossing a salad and whirled from her place at the ranch’s granite kitchen island. Javi peered up from a coloring book spread across an oval table before a bay window. Over his shoulder loomed Mount Sopris. The setting sun gilded its jagged, snow-covered peak gold.

      Joy gaped at an upended kettle and cradled her Ace-wrapped wrist. Steaming brown stew spilled onto the red Native American–style rug covering the pine floor. The mouthwatering smell of bay leaves, cooked carrots and braised beef, already filling the vaulted kitchen, intensified.

      “Let me help.” Sofia grabbed the pot and dropped it into one of the countertops’ built-in stainless-steel sinks. She flipped on the garbage disposal and dumped the ruined dinner down the grinding mechanism. James had mentioned looking forward to beef stew on the drive home earlier. Would he be disappointed? And why did she care?!

      Clearly, he was suspicious of her. After she’d refused to visit the police, a trip that would have triggered bad memories and risked revealing her old felony, he’d barely spoken to her.

      “I want to help!” Javi scampered over, his face glowing, his compact body practically vibrating with excitement.

      Resistance was futile. The kid lived to help.

      She ruffled his hair and handed him a couple of paper towels. “Get down with your bad self.”

      “I’m using my superpowers.” Javi sank to the floor, the tip of his pink tongue clamped between his teeth as he concentrated. His long sweeps smeared the stew farther into the small spaces between the wood planks.

      “Supper’s ruined.” Joy sighed when she returned from the laundry room, where she’d dropped off the rug. “I wanted to make tonight special for you.” She leaned against one of the natural wood cabinets that matched the floor and the exposed-beam, slanted ceiling. Her apron tie knot unraveled in her hands.

      Javi sat back on his heels and waved a dripping towel. “I don’t like beef stew anyway. Celery is bleh.”

      “Hush,” Sofia hissed, mortified. They were guests here, at least for one more night, while she figured out her options.

      Her wallet couldn’t have just disappeared. Someone had to have it. Worse, Javi and Joy seemed to be joined at the hip already, spending every minute forming a bond that was becoming harder and harder to imagine severing when they left.

      Was a lasting relationship with the Cades possible? At least from a distance? Joy seemed to be comforted by Javi, and Javi bloomed under his grandmother’s doting.

      Or would staying in touch keep her chained to her past?

      “It is kind of bleh,” Joy said, her tone conspiratorial. A sparkle brightened her eyes. “Don’t tell anyone I said that.”

      Javi moved close and dropped his voice. “It’s our secret?”

      “Exactly.”

      “I don’t like secrets.”

      Sofia cringed inside.

      Please, oh, please, don’t ever learn about mine.

      “Honesty’s a good policy to have, young man. And you can put those paper towels outside in the trash.”

      “What else can I throw out?” Javi picked up a chipped ceramic saltshaker. “This is old.”

      “It is. It came all the way from Chicago when your great-great-great-great-grandfather ordered it from the Sears and Roebuck catalog over a hundred years ago.”

      “What’s a catalog?”

      “A book with pictures of different things you can buy.”

      “What kinds of things?”

      “Oh, anything back then. You name it. Rifles, chickens, fur coats, even a house. There’s one in town I can show you someday if you’re still here. They decorate it like it’s a Las Vegas casino. Blinking lights everywhere, a singing snowman and Santa on the roof.”

      When her hopeful eyes met Sofia’s, Sofia hurried to the broom closet. She had plenty of reasons to stick around, the most disturbing of which was her sudden interest in James Cade. When he’d smiled at her bungled lyrics, her breath had caught for a second, long enough for interest in the man to take hold.

      “Santa doesn’t like me.” Javi raced out the back door. A thunderclap of joyous howls rose from the Border collies.

      “He