Evergreen Springs. RaeAnne Thayne

school, residency and internship—this had been her go-to happy place.

      She had done a few things to it since she purchased it. The kitchen was all new and she had taken out the old carpet and installed wood flooring throughout the house. She had taken out a couple of walls between two of the smaller rooms on the west side of the house and made one large master suite for herself with vaulted ceilings and huge windows.

      It was her retreat, her sanctuary. She headed there now, accompanied by Seamus. Devin flipped the switch to turn on the Christmas tree, one of two in the house that McKenzie had decorated for her.

      She was so tired she decided to forgo her usual routine of yoga stretches before bed and just changed into pajamas and sank into her bed. If she was going to help Cole Barrett and his kids, she had a feeling she would need all the sleep she could get.

      * * *

      HE HAD BROKEN a grand total of thirty-two bones in his body during his rodeo days but none of those injuries compared to the sheer sadistic agony of stepping on one of Ty’s LEGO pieces, even in stocking feet.

      Cole bit back a curse but let it slip out anyway when his other foot stepped down on a colored pencil that jabbed at his foot through the sock.

      Too bad he didn’t drink anymore, because right now he could really use a whiskey instead of the glass of water he had just about spilled all over the floor.

      His house was officially a pigsty. After only a few hours of the kids at home on a Saturday morning without Tricia or his housekeeper, toys, discarded backpacks and cereal crumbs were scattered everywhere. Did they just grab bags of their belongings out of their rooms and run through the house tossing things right and left?

      And how did they seem to have so much stuff, anyway? They had come to him with hardly anything. Sharla’s transient lifestyle had precluded them owning much besides some clothes and a few toys.

      He reached down and picked up a mini brick figure of Darth Vader before the bad dude could slice off his toe with his plastic light saber.

      “I think this guy is yours,” he said to Ty as his son headed in with another handful of dry cereal—which possibly explained the crushed bits on the carpet.

      “I almost broke my foot on a couple of your other toys. Sorry I broke your creation.”

      Ty winced. “I forgot to pick them up. Sorry. Should I get them now?”

      “That would be helpful. And do you remember we talked about only eating in the kitchen and dining room?”

      “I forgot that, too.”

      “One more thing. Remember the rule about snacks? If you want something to eat, you need to ask me first, and if I say yes, you should put it in a bowl so we don’t trail pieces all over the floor for other people to step on.”

      “Okay,” he said with a put-upon sigh.

      The poor kid probably felt as if he’d gone from living in Disneyland with no rules and all the junk food he could want to doing hard time in Alcatraz.

      Cole mustered a smile. “Thanks.”

      “I told him he didn’t need any more cereal, because he already had breakfast and would only ruin his lunch, but he didn’t listen to me,” Jazmyn said in that know-it-all tone that could sometimes grate on his last nerve.

      “I don’t mind him having a snack but we all need to work together to keep the place clean. Speaking of which, I believe I asked you to clear the breakfast dishes off the table.”

      “I was drawing something,” she answered. Apparently she thought obeying her father was optional—or at least negotiable.

      He wasn’t Sharla and the rules at Evergreen Springs were very different from what they were both used to.

      He had made the mistake of letting things slide for a while after they first came here, when they were both reeling from their mother’s death.

      They were still having a tough time of it—he had a feeling they would for a long time—but he was beginning to realize they needed structure and order to help them feel secure and stable here with him.

      “It’s a very lovely picture,” he answered. “You are an excellent artist, Jazmyn.”

      “Thanks.”

      “Now you need to do what I asked and clear the table, unless you would like to lose the colored pencils for the rest of the day.”

      She narrowed her gaze at him and opened her mouth as if to argue, but something in his expression stopped her. Wise girl. Instead, she gave a little huff and started clearing things off with dramatic, jerky movements.

      He didn’t know what to do with her. She didn’t want to be here. She told him continually how she couldn’t wait until she lived with her grandma Trixie. Sharla’s mother was threatening a custody battle, and while he didn’t think she would have a leg to stand on, he knew too well how quickly the system could turn on a guy.

      Trixie didn’t help the situation at all by constantly telling Jazmyn she wanted his daughter to come live with her in California.

      When she was younger, Jazmyn had adored him and thought he could do no wrong. Eight years of her grandmother and mother poisoning her against him had altered their relationship. He didn’t know how to fix things, especially when she could be so frustrating and fought him about even the most basic things, like brushing her teeth or helping out with minor chores.

      He had trained plenty of horses and dogs but was discovering training kids was a little more complicated.

      She was a tough cookie, his little girl. In a lot of ways, she had been forced to raise herself because of circumstances—particularly her selfish, immature mother with repeated substance abuse problems and the string of men she brought in and out of the kids’ lives.

      Jazmyn had been through far too much in her short eight years on the planet. It was no wonder she had become a bossy, difficult little thing.

      For now, she seemed to be willing to do something he asked and he decided to enjoy it while it lasted. He returned to his laptop and was deep in the new accounting program he was trying to figure out for the ranch when the doorbell rang.

      “Who could that be?” Ty asked, rushing to the door before Cole could even push his chair back from the table.

      He really needed to have a talk with the kid about stranger danger and taking a few basic precautions, like waiting for his dad to answer the door. He didn’t want to make his kids paranoid but Cole knew better than most that there were nasty people in the world. He’d lived among the worst for eighteen months.

      At least Coco, the old ranch dog who lived inside these days, had padded after him. She was half-blind but she would still go to the wall for everybody she considered part of her pack.

      He headed after both of them just as his son opened the door for Devin Shaw.

      Cole was struck again by how lovely she was, with her appealing smile, green eyes sparkling in the sunshine and all that delicious creamy skin, a little pink from the cold.

      A few random snowflakes spangled the blue-and-silver beanie she wore and the jaunty matching scarf. She looked bright and vibrant and very different from the scrub-wearing professional he had seen at the hospital.

      He had just a moment for purely masculine appreciation before the questions began to fly in his mind. What was she doing here? Was Tricia all right? Had there been some kind of complication? He had talked to his sister earlier in the morning but maybe the situation had changed.

      No. If there had been a problem, Tricia would have called him. Not only that, but he had a feeling Devin wouldn’t be so calm right now, nor would she be giving such a friendly smile.

      “Hi.”

      “Hi, Dr. Shaw,” Ty said. “Did you see all that snow?”

      She crouched down to