.

stared at his brother in shock. “What?”

      “You’re the only one I trust…to see that he’s done right by. You gotta do it for me, little bro. Give him a good life.”

      “R.J.—”

      R.J.’s eyes rolled back. Cimarron’s probing fingers found no pulse this time.

      “R.J.!”

      No sign of breathing.

      “Don’t you die on me!”

      By rote, Cimarron started CPR, his own heart pounding, drumming out every other sound. Breathe, breathe, pump, pump, pump…

      His expression fixed, his face turning blue, R.J. looked just like their mother had when Cimarron turned her over that night so long ago. Sweat poured down his body as the panic grew. He glanced in the direction of the construction office, where a little boy sat waiting…Cimarron would be the one who had to tell him his daddy wasn’t coming to get him after all.

       No way. No way in hell!

      “Damn it, R.J. Don’t you die and leave me with that child!”

       CHAPTER TWO

       Little Lobo, Montana

       July

       OKAY, WHAT DID I DO to deserve this?

      Sarah James ducked her head to check the big black knobs on the industrial griddle again. All on and set to Medium-High. So why was half of her first pancake crusty brown and the other runny goop? She muttered under her breath and twisted one of the knobs to Off, then back to High, hoping by some miracle the malfunctioning burner would begin to heat.

      A customer tapped his menu impatiently on the counter. The pancake was a no-go. She scraped it into the waste bucket that she used to save scraps for a local farmer’s pig slop. An apt description, too. Pig slop.

      Pushing a damp lock of red hair off her forehead, she turned to the impatient customer. “Sorry. I’ll be with you in a moment.”

      “I ain’t got all day, shug,” Big Buck Flannigan said. A bull of a man, with a face that was weathered like cowhide, beefy bare arms and a ten-gallon hat perched high on his head, Buck delivered goods from a Bozeman feed distributor to regional hardware stores. He stopped in every few weeks when he came over the pass from Bozeman.

      “I know. I’m really sorry. Problems with the griddle.”

      “I gotta git back on the road. Think you can scrape me up two eggs over easy, order o’ linked sausages, some hash browns scattered and slathered, biscuits with gravy and orange juice?”

      Sarah jotted down the order, wondering how in the world these foods were going to materialize on her haphazard griddle. Her helper Aaron Dawson would pick a morning when the café was filled to capacity to go AWOL. Sometimes he could make the ancient appliance function when she couldn’t. She didn’t have time to try to run him down right now, but, boy, when she did find him…

      She quickly brought Buck’s juice and surveyed the room for other impatient customers. Normally she served and Aaron cooked on the large range in the kitchen. She was finding it almost impossible to do both, with the café so crowded. Now she wished she had hired that high-school kid who was looking for a part-time job last week, instead of trying to cut corners and save money.

      A stranger opened the door and glanced around until he spotted the only vacant booth left, a table for two tucked into a narrow alcove at the far end of the room. He motioned behind him and a young boy came in. The man lifted the child onto the booth bench, then sat down opposite him. Sarah gave them a cheery “Good morning, be right with you” that she hoped masked her frustration. She noted the resemblance between the two—dark curling hair, striking brown eyes, and the man had a nice smile. But before she could get to them, another customer demanded her attention.

      “Look, Miss Sarah, you need to decide if you want me to do the work for you or not. I got other jobs lined up.” Harry Upshaw raked his food onto his fork with a piece of biscuit.

      He’d been the first to come in this morning and he’d ordered eggs over easy, so that hadn’t been too bad. Then half the griddle quit on her, and now she was forced to cook a lot of food on an extremely limited surface. Her only alternative was to cook in the kitchen, but that meant leaving the front and the cash register unattended.

      “I do want you to work for me,” Sarah said, wishing they could discuss this another time. Like after her customers were gone. “But first we need to sit down and go over the plans and talk about my ideas for the place.”

      “Now, missy, you know I’ll do the job right.” He winked. His blue eyes were set in a face roughened and baked by long hours in the sun building houses and running a small cattle operation on the outskirts of town. An ample belly attested to his love of food—he was in the café several times a week.

      “I know you will, but I want to be sure that we’re on the same track. I have some ideas sketched out and—”

      “I don’t need no sketches. You just tell me what you want done and I’ll make it happen.”

      “I’ll just take the biscuits and gravy now, while I wait,” Buck broke in. “I’m goin’ to starve here, with you two jabbering.”

      “Sorry. Hang around just a minute, Harry. I’ll be back.” At least she could serve biscuits. As always, she had come in early, baked biscuits and brewed urns of coffee using the special house blends that had become her trademark around Little Lobo.

      The tiny Montana town just north of the Bozeman Pass made up for its lack of citified entertainment with stunning scenery, wide-open spaces, a tiny school, the basic stores necessary for survival and Sarah’s Little Lobo Eatery and Daily Grind. Her special and often exotic coffee and her luscious, fresh-fruit tarts drew regulars from as far away as Big Sky and Helena.

      After she served the biscuits, she took a menu and water to the stranger and his little boy. He nodded thanks.

      The man was far more handsome than she’d first thought. Black lashes fringed eyes the color of rich Creole coffee and dark, thick hair curled over his forehead, giving him a devil-may-care look that suited his faded jeans and well-worn chambray shirt.

      “Do you need some time?” Please!

      “Sure,” he said, opening the menu to study it. From his smile and his glance around, she knew that he realized he was doing her a favor. “Bring a couple of orange juices when you have time.”

      “No problem.” She brought the juice and then made a quick run around the room, refilling water glasses and coffee cups and taking orders from customers who had already been waiting too long.

      Ordinarily she would have been overjoyed with the crowd, but today the chatter in the room sounded more like grumbling. Every eye cut her way seemed critical. All she could do was keep smiling and try to get them all fed.

      Behind the counter again, trying to cook a dozen things at once on a half-cold griddle, she looked around at Harry. “I want to have Nolan draw up a contract, too. And I still need that estimate I asked for.”

      Harry downed the last gulp of coffee and ran a pink napkin across his greasy lips, then belched and said, “Puh, contract. We don’t need no legalese bull. ’Scuse my language, missy. Anyway, you got a contract with your brother to buy that old house from him?”

      Sarah shook her head. “Not yet, just a verbal agreement. But I’m going to pin him down as soon as I can get in touch with him.”

      “Didn’t think so. Never understood why your uncle Eual split up that property and left the house to Bobby. He shoulda just left everything to you and give Bobby some money to blow. You was the one always spent your summers and holidays here helping him out. Don’t recall Bobby so much as lifting a hand in the café or the fishing end