The Cowboy's Valentine. Donna Alward

it’s yours. For as long as you want it, Lace.” He put his hand over hers on top of the table. “I mean that. I wasn’t around a lot, definitely not when you were going through some rough times. I’d like to be there for you now.”

      The backs of her eyes stung and she nodded through blurred vision. “That means a lot, Duke.”

      “Right. Better be off.” He went down the hall and put on his gear again. “Oh, Lace?”

      She looked up.

      “Maybe next time you can have some cookies to go with that coffee? Carrie’s on a ‘no sweets’ kick with the pregnancy. And somehow her kale chips just aren’t cutting it for me.”

      She couldn’t help but smile. “I’ll see what I can do,” she replied. “Now go, so I can find a job, will you?”

      With a wink he disappeared.

      Lacey turned her attention back to the document on the screen but didn’t really focus on it. Instead she was thinking about what Duke had just said, and thinking about how it felt to be here. It felt good. It felt...right. Somehow being with family, having that support, was exactly what she needed.

      She just had to be careful not to get too used to it, or use it as a crutch. This time she was making her own decisions and standing entirely on her own two feet. At least if she relied on herself, she wasn’t being set up for disappointment.

      * * *

      JACK, ONE OF the regular hands, was out with the flu so Quinn spent the rest of his morning mucking out stalls in the horse barn. It was a job he actually enjoyed. The slight physical exertion kept him warm and he usually talked to the horses as he worked. Even the scrape of the shovel on the barn floor had a comforting sound to it, and he worked away with the radio playing in the background, just him and his thoughts.

      He had a lot of thoughts, as it happened. Most days it was about what needed to be done at the ranch, or worries about being a good single dad to Amber as she got older. He already knew far more about Disney princesses and ballet slippers and hair ribbons than most dads. And it wasn’t that he minded. It was just...he knew Marie would have done a much better job. A little girl needed a mom. And Quinn wasn’t sure how to solve that, because he wasn’t really interested in getting married again.

      Not when it had hurt so much the first time.

      Thankfully he had Carrie and Kailey. Carrie was around even more now that she and Duke were married, and Amber loved spending time at Crooked Valley. Kailey was Carrie’s best friend and lived at a neighboring ranch. Between the two of them, they provided Amber with some great girlie time. On Sundays, too, they visited with Quinn’s mom, who lived in a little one-bedroom apartment in Great Falls. She’d moved there after his dad had died and she had a vital, happy life in the assisted-living complex, and help with the arthritis that sometimes made her day-to-day living a challenge.

      Visits and special time were great. The girls were great. But they weren’t her mother, and Quinn couldn’t help but feel like he’d somehow let Amber down even though Marie’s death had been a freak accident. A heart defect that had gone undetected until it was too late. One morning she’d been laughing with him over breakfast. Two hours later she’d just been...gone.

      At noon he ventured back to the house and lifted his hand to knock at the door, then pulled it back again. Lacey had said to come and go as he pleased, and he should. This was, after all, a working ranch. He was pretty sure she wasn’t going to be running around the house in her Skivvies at twelve o’clock in the afternoon.

      The thought gave him pause, because he pictured her that way and his body tensed in a familiar way. Oh, no. That would be too inconvenient. He had no business thinking about Lacey Duggan in her underwear and even less business liking it.

      He reached for the doorknob and resolutely turned it. He stepped into the foyer and heard a radio playing, heard a soft female voice singing along. He was transported back two years earlier, when he’d still had the perfect life, and the joy he felt coming home to a scene much like this one. There was the sound of something opening and closing, and the rattle of bake ware. The aroma of fresh-baked cookies reached him and his stomach growled in response.

      After hanging up his coat, he wandered to the kitchen to get his lunch out of the fridge. He’d just go eat in the office, out of Lacey’s way. It was a lonely-sounding proposition but he realized that if he stayed in her little sphere of existence, they’d probably end up arguing. They always did.

      “Don’t mind me. I’m just here to get my lunch.”

      He forgot that she had music on. That she probably hadn’t heard him come inside. But he remembered now as she squeaked and jumped with alarm, jerking the spatula which held a perfectly round, warm, chocolate chip cookie. The cookie went flying and landed with a soft splat in the middle of the kitchen floor.

      “Cripes, Quinn!” Her brows pulled together in annoyance. “Do you have to creep up on a person like that?”

      She looked so indignant he had the strangest urge to laugh. “I wasn’t trying to be quiet. I came in like I always do. I guess you didn’t hear me because of the music.”

      “Whatever.” She bent to pick up the cookie, which broke into pieces as she lifted it off the floor. She put the remnants on the counter and then went for a piece of paper towel to wipe the little dots of melted chocolate from the tile.

      Quinn went to the fridge and took out his lunch bag. “Well, if it’s any consolation, they smell great.”

      He turned around and headed back towards the hall.

      “Where are you going?”

      He paused and looked over his shoulder. “I was going to eat in the office.”

      “Is that where you normally eat?”

      He didn’t know how to answer. He usually grabbed his lunch, made himself a coffee, used the microwave if he had leftovers to heat. Today he had leftover spaghetti, which he’d planned to eat cold.

      “I assume your lack of a fast reply means no. You normally use the kitchen, don’t you?”

      He sighed. “Sometimes.”

      “Truly, Quinn, I don’t want you to alter your routine for me. Pretend I’m not here.”

      It was pretty hard to pretend because she was there, with her burnished curls caught up in a ponytail, her blue eyes snapping at him. He noticed, not for the first time, that she had the faintest dusting of freckles over the bridge of her nose. Duke was thirty, so that had to make her, what, twenty-eight or so?

      Twenty-eight, with a career job behind her, married, divorced. Quinn was thirty-three, and he knew exactly how life could age a person so that numbers were insignificant. He tried to remember that Lacey had faced her share of troubles. Duke had made it plain that the family wasn’t too impressed that her ex had walked out on her.

      He went back and put his lunch bag on the island, unzipped it and took out the plastic container holding his lunch. “Do you mind if I use the microwave?”

      She rolled her eyes. “What did I just say?”

      Saucy. At least she was consistent.

      He popped the container in the microwave and started it up, then stood awkwardly waiting for it to beep. Meanwhile, Lacey finished removing the cookies from the pan and began dropping batter by the spoonful on the parchment.

      His stomach growled again.

      When his meal was hot, he took it to the kitchen table—no laptop in sight now—and got out his knife and fork. The pasta didn’t look as appetizing as it might have. He was an adequate cook only, but he was getting better. Trying new things now and again. The trouble was that by the time he got Amber from day care, he had to cook stuff that was relatively fast if they hoped to eat before her bath time.

      He was nearly through when Lacey put a small plate beside him and a glass of milk.

      “Uh,