Ransom Canyon. Jodi Thomas

to when the storms came. Nothing more. That was the way they both wanted it.

      Until he made it back to her porch next Friday night, he had a truckload of trouble at the ranch to worry about.

      * * *

      TWENTY MILES AWAY Quinn O’Grady curled into her blanket on her front porch and watched the night sky, knowing that Staten was still driving home. He always came to her like a raging storm and left as calm as dawn.

      Only tonight, she’d surprised him with her request. Tonight when he’d walked away at midnight, it felt different. Somehow after five years, their relationship felt newborn.

      She grinned, loving that she had made the first move. She had demanded a kiss, and he hadn’t hesitated. She knew he came to her house out of need and loneliness, but for her it had always been more. In her quiet way, she could not remember a time she hadn’t loved him.

      Yet from grade school on, Staten Kirkland had belonged to her best friend, and Quinn had promised herself she’d never try to step between them. Even now, seven years after Amalah’s death, a part of Staten still belonged to his wife. Maybe not his heart, Quinn decided, but more his willingness to be open to caring. He was a man determined never to allow anyone close again. He didn’t want love in his life; he only wanted to survive having loved and lost Amalah.

      Amalah had wanted to be Mrs. Kirkland since the day she and Quinn had gone riding on the Double K ranch. She’d loved the big house, the luncheons and the committees. She knew how to smile for the press, how to dress, and how to manage the Kirkland men to get just what she wanted. Amalah had been a perfect wife for a rich rancher.

      Quinn only wanted Staten, but never, not for one moment, would she have wished Amalah dead. Staten was a love Quinn kept locked away in her heart, knowing from the beginning that it would never see light.

      When her best friend died, Quinn never went to Staten. She couldn’t. It wouldn’t have been fair. She never called or tried to accidentally run into him in town. Amalah might be gone, but Staten still didn’t belong to her. She was not the kind of woman who could live in his world.

      Two years passed after Amalah died. Staten would stop by now and then just to check on Quinn, but her shyness kept their conversations short.

      Then, Randall died.

      She’d heard about the car crash on the local radio station and cried for the boy she’d known all his life.

      Tears for a boy’s life cut short and for a father who she knew must be hurting, but who she couldn’t go to. She wouldn’t have known what to say. He’d be surrounded by people, and Quinn was afraid of most people.

      When she’d heard a pounding on her door that night, she almost didn’t answer. Then she’d seen Staten, broken and needing someone, and she couldn’t turn him away.

      That night she’d held him, thinking that just this one time, he needed her. Tomorrow he’d be strong and they’d go back to simply being polite to one another, but for one night she could help.

      That next morning he’d left without a word. She had never expected him to return, but he did. This strong, hard man never asked anything of her, but he took what she offered. Reason told her it wouldn’t last. He’d called the two of them the leftovers, as if they were the ones abandoned on a shelf. But, Staten wasn’t a leftover. One day he would no longer suffer the storms. One day he would go back to living again, and when he did, he’d forget the way to her door.

      As the five years passed, Quinn began to store up memories to keep her warm when he stopped coming. As simple as it seemed, she wanted to be kissed. Not out of passion or need, but gently.

      Every time he walked away might be the last time. She wanted to remember that she’d been kissed goodbye that last time, even if neither of them knew it at the moment.

CHAPTER THREE

      Lauren

      A MIDNIGHT MOON blinked its way between storm clouds as Lauren Brigman cleaned the mud off her shoes. The guys had gone inside the gas station for Cokes. She didn’t really want anything to drink, but it was either walk over with the others after working on their fair projects or stay back at the church and talk to Mrs. Patterson.

      Somewhere Mrs. Patterson had gotten the idea that since Lauren didn’t have a mother around, she should take every opportunity to have a “girl talk” with the sheriff’s daughter.

      Lauren wanted to tell the old woman that she had known all the facts of life by the age of seven, and she really did not need a buddy to share her teenage years with. Besides, her mother lived in Dallas. It wasn’t like she died. She’d just left. Just because she couldn’t stand the sight of Lauren’s dad didn’t mean she didn’t call and talk to Lauren almost every week. Maybe Mom had just gotten tired of the sheriff’s nightly lectures. Lauren had heard every one of Pop’s talks so many times that she had them memorized in alphabetical order.

      Her grades put her at the top of the sophomore class, and she saw herself bound for college in less than three years. Lauren had no intention of getting pregnant, or doing drugs, or any of the other fearful situations Mrs. Patterson and her father had hinted might befall her. Her pop didn’t even want her dating until she was sixteen, and, judging from the boys she knew in high school, she’d just as soon go dateless until eighteen. Maybe college would have better pickings. Some of these guys were so dumb she was surprised they got their cowboy hats on straight every morning.

      Reid Collins walked out from the gas station first with a can of Coke in each hand. “I bought you one even though you said you didn’t want anything to drink,” he announced as he neared. “Want to lean on me while you clean your shoes?”

      Lauren rolled her eyes. Since he’d grown a few inches and started working out, Reid thought he was God’s gift to girls.

      “Why?” she asked as she tossed the stick. “I have a brick wall to lean on. And don’t get any ideas we’re on a date, Reid, just because I walked over here with you.”

      “I don’t date sophomores,” he snapped. “I’m on first string, you know. I could probably date any senior I want to. Besides, you’re like a little sister, Lauren. We’ve known each other since you were in the first grade.”

      She thought of mentioning that playing first string on a football team that only had forty players total, including the coaches and water boy, wasn’t any great accomplishment, but arguing with Reid would rot her brain. He’d been born rich, and he’d thought he knew everything since he cleared the birth canal. She feared his disease was terminal.

      “If you’re cold, I’ll let you wear my football jacket.” When she didn’t comment, he bragged, “I had to reorder a bigger size after a month of working out.”

      She hated to, but if she didn’t compliment him soon, he’d never stop begging. “You look great in the jacket, Reid. Half the seniors on the team aren’t as big as you.” There was nothing wrong with Reid from the neck down. In a few years he’d be a knockout with the Collins good looks and trademark rusty hair, not quite brown, not quite red. But he still wouldn’t interest her.

      “So, when I get my driver’s license next month, do you want to take a ride?”

      Lauren laughed. “You’ve been asking that since I was in the third grade and you got your first bike. The answer is still no. We’re friends, Reid. We’ll always be friends, I’m guessing.”

      He smiled a smile that looked like he’d been practicing. “I know, Lauren, but I keep wanting to give you a chance now and then. You know, some guys don’t want to date the sheriff’s daughter, and I hate to point it out, babe, but if you don’t fill out some, it’s going to be bad news in college.” He had the nerve to point at her chest.

      “I know.” She managed to pull off a sad look. “Having my father is a cross I have to bear. Half the guys in town are afraid of him. Like he might arrest