“Mom said you were mending fence.” Luke quickly lost interest, his gaze going to the Little Rockies. “Heard about a big buck that was seen on up the road. We thought we’d check it out.” His baby brother’s gaze finally lit on him again. “You look like hell. Rough night?” There was humor in his brother’s tone as if enjoying the moment. Not that Luke wanted him to lose sleep over Annabelle Clementine’s return. But Luke wouldn’t mind seeing proof that his big brother cared more than he’d said he did.

  “Just worried the cattle would get out with the fence down,” Dawson said noncommittally. He might look like hell, but he wasn’t about to admit who had kept him awake most of the night. “Some of us put work ahead of...” he shot Sally a look “...hunting.”

  “Uh-huh,” Luke said, not taking the bait.

  “I need to get this finished.” Dawson pushed off the side of his pickup. “Good luck finding that big buck.”

  Had he really thought he could make his brother feel guilty enough to help him? Luke drove off toward the Little Rockies with a honk of his horn, a wave of his hand and a shouted, “Save me some turkey.”

  * * *

  CLOSING THE FRONT door as Lawrence Clarkston left, Annabelle went back into the house and immediately resumed filling boxes. Her grandmother had a boyfriend? In all the years she’d lived with her grandmother, Frannie had steered clear of men, saying that her husband had been the love of her life. That there was no other man for her.

  And then along comes Lawrence Clarkston? Annabelle tried to figure out why he’d made her nervous. Because he wasn’t Frannie’s type, she thought, frowning, as she carried the full box of junk out to the porch. But, then again, who was Frannie’s type?

  It wasn’t until later, when Dawson’s mother called to tell her again that she was depending on her to show up at the house at eleven forty-five, that Annabelle quit working and went into the bedroom to start getting ready.

  As she entered, she saw the gaping hole where she’d removed the floorboard and now quickly replaced it. All she needed to do was step into that hole and break her leg. Seeing the hole, she remembered the metal box. The surprise of meeting Frannie’s boyfriend had caused her to forget all about it.

  She took the box out of the drawer and, butter knife in hand, went to work on the lock. As she worked, she thought of Willie’s call. She really couldn’t be late. She hadn’t planned on going out to the Rogers Ranch for Thanksgiving. Yesterday, even as she was nodding agreement, she was thinking of an excuse for when she would call her today to get out of it.

  Now, though, she realized she had little choice but to show up. She knew the woman well enough to know that Willie didn’t make idle threats. She would send someone after Annabelle. And what was the harm with Dawson and his brother out hunting? It wasn’t like Willie was playing matchmaker, hoping to get her and Dawson back together.

  Also, she remembered other Thanksgivings she’d shared at the Rogers Ranch. Willie put on a feast. Just the thought made her stomach growl. But she doubted Willie needed her help. She’d always admired Dawson’s mom and had felt close to her. Maybe Willie felt the same. Why else would the woman forgive her for hurting her oldest son and invite her to Thanksgiving dinner?

  The lock finally gave on the metal box. Putting down the butter knife, Annabelle carefully and slowly pried open the lid. Who had hidden this under the floorboards? The first people who owned the house? Or her grandmother? But if it had been Frannie, why hide a locked box under the floorboards?

  The hinges groaned as the lid rose. An even mustier scent than the house rose from the metal box. She’d been worried about what she would find and was a little disappointed to see that the box was only filled with old photos and some yellowed newspaper clippings.

  She picked up a few of the black-and-white photos, thumbed through them and realized that she didn’t recognize any of the faces. Who knew how long they’d been under the house? She doubted they were even Frannie’s, given the way the people in the photos were dressed. Either way, Annabelle didn’t have time to go through them right now.

  Hearing the coffeemaker shut off, she carried the box into the kitchen and absently put it on the table out of the way while she poured herself a cup of strong coffee before taking a shower and getting ready.

  It had been years since she’d driven out to the Rogers Ranch, not that she could ever forget how to get there. It would feel strange being there, though. At least Dawson wouldn’t be around, although she feared it was only a matter of time before he’d hear she was back. Or worse, that she’d run into him.

  She couldn’t help but wonder how much he’d changed in the past thirteen years. He could be bald with a potbelly. The thought made her laugh. She wondered if she would even recognize him.

  * * *

  WALKING INTO THE large ranch house on Thanksgiving Day, Dawson saw that the table was set for at least a dozen people. He shook his head, smiling. His mother. Around the holidays, she took in every stray who crossed her path.

  “Nothing like offering people a decent meal,” Willie would say. “It’s a small thing, opening your kitchen to those who can use it.” Every year, his mother found those who could use it and filled every seat, and then some, at their huge ranch-house table.

  He followed the aroma of turkey and dressing, passing a dozen pies on the sideboard. How many people had she invited? He found Willie in the kitchen laughing with one of the neighbor ladies. His mother was in her element in this kitchen, her face glowing, her eyes bright.

  “Well, look who’s here!” Willie announced when she saw him and hurried over to give him a kiss on the cheek. She was a tall, lean woman with a warm face that was tanned year-round and seemed backlit with sunshine. Her smile had warmed more hearts than even he could imagine.

  She’d had dozens of offers to remarry since Dawson’s father had died, but she’d laughed them off, saying the last thing she needed was a husband. He often worried that she had turned down some good ones because she hadn’t wanted to install a stepfather for her sons.

  His mother motioned to the other women in the kitchen. “You know Kay from down the road,” she said, indicating a gray-haired woman in her seventies. “And Patricia.” The fiftysomething spinster who belonged to his mother’s church nodded at him. Whitehorse, as small as it was, had a half dozen churches—and as many bars.

  He smiled. “Yes, Mother, I’ve known Kay since I was two. Hello, Mrs. Welch. And I’ve known Patricia for only half my life.”

  His mother laughed. “And I guess I don’t have to introduce you to this woman,” she said as Annabelle Clementine came out of the pantry holding a huge bowl of cranberry relish. “I believe you’ve known her since you were...ten.”

  “Seven,” he corrected as his gaze met Annabelle’s. She looked as startled as he was to see her. Had she thought he wouldn’t be here? “She was five.”

  She wore the black outfit that he’d seen her in by the river just the day before. She looked sexy as hell, but then, she’d looked good even in the sweatshirt and baggy jeans she’d been cleaning in yesterday.

  “Seven,” his mother repeated. “My mistake. Just put that on the table,” she said to Annabelle. “Dawson, you can take this out.” She reached into the refrigerator and handed him several plates with sticks of butter on them.

  He shot her a Mother-how-could-you? look.

  She gave him an impatient look back. “I was delighted to learn that Annabelle was back in town. I’m just happy she could join us for Thanksgiving dinner.” His mother cocked her head and narrowed her eyes as if to say, You’d better be polite, or else, and then shooed him out to the dining room. No son of Wilhelmina Rogers would dream of being impolite to a guest at her house.

  He followed Annabelle out to the dining room and out of earshot of his mother. “What are you doing here?” he asked under his breath.

  “What are you doing here? I thought you’d be hunting.”

  “I was. Until yesterday.” He waited for her to say something about their meeting on the highway. When she didn’t, he added, “Which was a good thing or you could still be sitting beside the road in your fancy silver sports car without a drop of gas.”

  Her eyes widened in alarm and her cheeks flushed. “That was...you?”

  He let out a bitter laugh. “How easily she forgets.”

  Chapter Seven

  Those golden-brown eyes. She felt a shiver. How could she not have recognized him? She hadn’t gotten a good look at him, not that she’d been trying. The cowboy had looked so...scruffy, so filthy, so rough.

  She groaned inwardly and lied, since she would have run out of gas not a half mile up the road if he hadn’t helped her. “I wouldn’t have stopped if I’d known it was you.”

  “Thanks.”

  “No, what I meant was...”

  “Don’t worry, I got the message.” His gaze locked with hers. “Just like I got it thirteen years ago.”

  “Dawson—” She stopped. Just saying his name was a painful reminder of the intimacy they’d shared—and she’d thrown away. “I never—”

  “Please don’t.”

  No matter what she said, there was no way she could take it all back. She looked into those warm brown eyes, now so familiar in that handsome face. He was clean-shaven today, accentuating the razor edge of his unyielding jaw. Dawson looked damned good. The Western shirt he wore stretched over the taut muscles of his wide shoulders. She didn’t need to see his abs to know they would be rock hard and still tanned from a summer spent bare chested on the ranch.

  She swallowed, remembering the feel of his body against hers. “I’m sorry. I should have at least offered to pay you something for the gas.”

  “Seriously?” He looked even more disappointed in her. “Girl, you’ve been livin’ in the big city for too long,” he said with a shake of his head. “Out here in this part of Montana we help each other without expecting anything in return. I thought maybe you might have remembered that from growing up here, but then again, you couldn’t wait to get out of here, could you? What was it you said to me? Unlike me, you were going to make something of yourself.”

  She felt her cheeks flame again. “Daw—”

  “Don’t bother. You were real clear when you left town. You didn’t stutter,” he said and turned on his boot heel to stride off, all long legs and attitude.

  She watched him go, swamped with a wave of regret that she hadn’t expected. For years she’d told herself that she hadn’t left behind anything in Whitehorse. She hadn’t even come back for her grandmother’s funeral. What kind of woman was she?

  “I understand that you need to spread your wings, Annabelle,” Grandma Frannie had said the day she’d packed to leave. “There’s nothing for you here. You need space to find what it is you’re looking for. I was just like you when I was your age. I wanted to take a big bite out of the world. I craved it so much, it was eating me up inside. Fame, fortune, whatever it is, I know if anyone can find it, it will be you. I just hope it’s everything you expect it to be.”

  “But I hate to leave you.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. It’s time for this little bird to fly the nest.” She’d hugged Annabelle. “I have great hopes for you no matter what happens.”

  “That’s because I’m your favorite.”

  Frannie had laughed. “You’re the one, all right,” she’d said with a wink. “You’re the one I’m depending on in the end.”

  Annabelle realized now that Patricia had come into the dining room and said something to her. “I’m sorry. My mind was a million miles away.”

  “I gathered that,” the woman said. “I was saying that I hadn’t realized you and Dawson had a history. Willie was just telling me that she always thought you’d be her daughter-in-law.”

  There was that pain again. She’d left this life behind without a backward glance and yet... She thought of the tree house two doors down from her grandmother’s and the first time she’d laid eyes on Dawson. Being the way she’d always been, she had climbed up the ladder to the tree house even though she could read the sign: Do Not Enter. She’d been reading since she was three.

  Earlier, she’d sneaked away from her sisters. They’d been told not to let her leave the yard, but they often got to playing with their dolls and not paying any attention to her.

  Once up in the tree house, she hadn’t been able to get down. She’d been five. “Precocious for your age,” is what Frannie always said. “A brat,” is what her older sisters contended.

  Seven-year-old Dawson had come along and seen her up there. “Get down from there right now!” he’d ordered. “The sign says—”

  “I know what the sign says,” she’d said, surprised by how scared she was about being this high off the ground. Her words had come out in a stutter.

  “What’s your name?” he’d asked as he started up the ladder.

  She’d watched him, feeling sick to her stomach and wishing she hadn’t looked down. She tried to say her name but it came out “Anna.”

  “All right, Annie, you just have to trust me, okay?” He had been almost to her by then. He was nice, nothing like those boys her sisters made goggle eyes over.

  Instinctively, she had trusted him. She’d let him help her down from the tree house, saving her. Just like he’d saved her on the highway yesterday.

  “We used to play together as kids, that’s all,” she said to Pamela now, feeling the pinch of the lie. Dawson had always been there for her when she’d needed him. But while his feet had been firmly planted in this county’s soil, hers had itched to kick the dust off her shoes and put this town in her rearview mirror. Too bad it hadn’t turned out quite like she’d planned it.

  “You look like a woman who could use a drink,” said a male voice behind her. She turned to see Dawson’s best friend, Jason Reynolds. “Welcome back to Whitehorse.”

  She felt a surge of relief. “I can’t tell you how great it is to see a friendly face.” Jason had always been nice to her and was one of the few people who had seemed to understand her need to leave Whitehorse—and Dawson.

  He laughed now and hugged her. “I heard you were back, but I didn’t believe it.”

  “Just long enough to sell my grandmother’s house.”

  “Oh,” he said and glanced toward the kitchen where Dawson was leaning against the counter scowling. “That explains a lot, then. What do you say when we’re done here today we meet at the Mint Bar?”

  She hesitated, but only for a moment. “One drink. I have a lot of work to do, but you’re on.”

  * * *

  DAWSON DID HIS best to be civil during the meal, but having Annabelle there just like old times had ruined his appetite. His mother had acted as if his high school girlfriend was part of the family.

  “Jason flirted with her the entire meal,” Dawson snapped after he and his brother had helped take dishes to the kitchen. Their mother had shooed them out to the family room where there was a game on the television. Jason had left right after the meal, saying he had to stop by the nursing home to see his grandmother. Annabelle had cut out shortly after that when their mother wouldn’t let her help with the dishes.

  His brother now grinned from the couch. His girlfriend, Sally, was having Thanksgiving with her own family. Willie and an assortment of guests were in the kitchen, finishing up. “It’s your own fault. You’re the one who gave Jason your seat next to Annabelle. Looked like the two of them were having a fine time.”

  Dawson growled under his breath. He hadn’t missed a moment of it. “It wasn’t my idea, having her over for Thanksgiving. It was Mother’s. All I need is Willie playing matchmaker.”

  Luke laughed. “Well, if it makes you feel any better, Mom wasn’t all that happy that Jason and Annabelle hit it off at dinner.”

  Dawson got to his feet, unable to sit another moment.

  “Oh, come on. What’s the harm if Jason flirted with her? Like you said, she isn’t staying. So lighten up. Anyway, once she gets her grandmother’s house sold, she’ll be gone.”

  “Just not soon enough.”

  “I thought you were over her?” Luke said. “That you didn’t care she was back. That—where are you headed?”

  “I need a stiff drink.”

  “I think Mom’s got some brandy that she uses for her fruitcakes. I know where she hides it.”

  Dawson shook his head. “I need to get out of here. Want to go to the Mint?”

  * * *

  THE MOMENT HE and his brother walked in, Dawson spotted Annabelle and almost turned back around and left. He would have if his brother hadn’t stopped him.

  “You can’t keep dodging her,” Luke argued. “You two are going to see each other. If you really don’t care, then what’s the big deal?”

  He knew he was being manipulated, but he wanted a drink more than he wanted to argue with his brother. The band was finishing up a cheating song. Just the sight of Annabelle there with Jason... He was moving toward the bar when Jason saw him and called him over to their table.

  “Everything all right?” his friend asked. Dawson ordered a shot of whiskey and a beer from the waitress who appeared.

  “Why wouldn’t everything be all right?” he snapped as he looked at Annabelle. She was pretending interest in the couples out on the dance floor.

  “Your mama outdid herself on that Thanksgiving dinner,” Jason said, as if ignoring the tension at the table.

  “You should know. You’ve been showing up there every year since we were kids.”

  His friend smiled. “Got up on the wrong side of the bed, did you?”

  Dawson glared at him, feeling like a jackass. Jason was his best friend and part of the Rogers family. The waitress brought his drinks. He picked up the shot of whiskey, downed it and chased it with some of the beer. As the band wrapped up their song and broke into a slow one, he turned to Annabelle.