And so he took a deep breath, cringed inside and burped.

  * * *

  The second Lindsay was back at home after dinner—a chaperoned drop-off with Lillie ready to jump into the front seat as soon as Lindsay vacated—she was on the phone with Savannah.

  “Find me some flaws. I don’t care how much it costs.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Pacing the apartment, from bedroom through living room to kitchen and back, Lindsay stared at the bare feet visible beneath the hem of her skirt. “Brent Wilson. It’s too clean. Too perfect. No one’s perfect.”

  “What’s going on, Lins?”

  “If I take at face value everything I’m hearing, the man’s a saint. And I know firsthand that he is not. I’m here to find out why he deserted my mother and me, or at least to find some kind of closure where he’s concerned, and all this praise isn’t getting me there.” Through the living room, back to the bedroom and turn. Ms. Bohemian needed to make enough to afford a bigger place. Or, at the very least, a balcony where one could get some fresh air.

  “I thought you were there to get to know him. Find out who he is.”

  “Which is what I just said.” Her frustration level settled down a notch as she heard her tone of voice. And did a mental replay of her exact words to her friend. I’m here to find out why he deserted my mother and me. Not once had she stated that intention aloud.

  She was flailing around like a hooked fish. She’d not only kissed Cole, she’d have gone to bed with him if he’d asked. Cole, who was her father’s mentee.

  “After all these years, I’m thinking the only way you’re going to get answers to a decision a man made nearly twenty-nine years ago, give or take a month, is to ask him.”

  “I can’t do that.” Technically, she could form the words in his presence. She wasn’t going to. She’d decided that before she’d had Savannah put the current plan in motion. Most likely, the answer would be a lie. He wasn’t going to tell her to her face that he’d had better things to do than raise a daughter.

  “You knew that going in.”

  Right. She’d come to town to surreptitiously get to know the man. Because it had seemed like fate when Savannah’s team had happened upon the job opening at Elite that seemed like it had been designed specifically for Lindsay Warren.

  “It made more sense on paper,” she said then, plopping down on the couch in the near dark, tucking her feet up under her skirt.

  “Life events shape people.” Savannah’s words came softly. “It’s possible that getting your mother pregnant, and then running out before you were born, turned Wilson’s life around.”

  The idea didn’t sit well with her. And yet...it kind of did. Her mother’s addiction issues couldn’t be laid completely at Wilson’s feet. It wasn’t like he forced her to take drugs. Lindsay didn’t even know if he’d ever taken them with her. And her own life...she’d done just fine without him.

  So if her growing up without him meant that he was a great father, provider, business owner, benefitting the lives of so many others...

  “It’s all too perfect,” she said again. “No one’s perfect.”

  Perfect. Perfect. Perfect.

  She strived for perfection in her art. In her life’s work as chief fundraising officer. In her own personal behavior.

  Did she expect it from others, too?

  “Everyone has flaws,” she said aloud, thinking maybe she’d just stumbled onto one of her own. Something to keep in mind.

  Worry about later.

  “You want us to dig deeper, we will.”

  “I do.” And didn’t feel a bit of shame, or guilt, about that one. “As it stands, there’s no way I can consider introducing myself to him. I won’t implode the life he’s built, bring scandal upon this town or hurt the hundreds of people who look up to him, who rely on him, if he’s for real.”

  “We knew that going in, too.”

  Samantha’s softly uttered response didn’t ease the tension in Lindsay. If anything, the confirmation worsened her own inner battle.

  Because if she couldn’t come clean about her identity in Shelter Valley, she couldn’t entertain even the slightest hope of a possibility that she and Cole Bennet could be anything more than short-term friends.

  * * *

  Cole told himself a lot of things. For the remainder of Saturday night, into Sunday morning, he laid down mandates. Mostly to do with cooling down relations with Lindsay Warren.

  He kept them, too, throughout the day. The fact that he had back-to-back obligations made his task somewhat more doable. Starting with an early morning basketball game followed by breakfast and a shower before church, he stayed on track. Then a nine-hole game of golf with a couple of buddies from high school and a promise to show up at Homestead Ranch to watch Brent’s thirteen-year-old daughter, Kaitlin, practice her barrel jumping for an upcoming rodeo kept him out of trouble for most of the afternoon.

  Right up until he’d climbed into his SUV with several hours of sunlight shining ahead of him. And the specter of running into Lindsay at the office the next morning with that kiss hanging there between them. If it was awkward, others would notice.

  He absolutely didn’t want her to get cagey and leave. At all. Most certainly on Elite Paper’s behalf. Her talent was looking to be the year’s greatest asset.

  And for himself...well, he hadn’t enjoyed being with anyone as much as her. Not in way too long, at any rate.

  Yet, he couldn’t really say he knew her. In all of the dinners and drives and time they’d spent together over the previous many days, she’d mentioned nothing personal about her life.

  He knew she liked wine, but could only handle a couple of glasses before she fell asleep. That she adored salads. That she was a gifted artist who only sold her wares online and at the shows listed on her website.

  That she was from Southern California—San Diego.

  She’d never had a dog, but seemed as taken with Lillie as the old girl was with Lindsay.

  That she drove an old car, that her apartment was the smallest one available in Shelter Valley and that it was pretty much barren inside. No wall of photos like he’d hung in his family room, that was for sure. From what he’d seen at a brief glimpse on the way from the bathroom the one time he’d been up to her place to help her carry in the bags of veggies she’d picked up at a fresh market in Phoenix, there hadn’t been a single piece of decor even in her bedroom.

  Her parents, past relationships—hell, maybe even a current one—her education or dreams or goals...all a blank.

  In the many hours they’d spent together, she’d never offered a thing about herself. And he hadn’t wanted to push. Used to women spilling their guts to him, he’d never had to do so.

  But what if she was hiding something? Running from someone?

  His way wasn’t to run from things.

  The reminder drove him to push his vehicle’s hands-free system, call her and ask if she wanted to visit Yucacho Peak—a popular viewpoint a quarter of the way to Phoenix—with him. With the heat reaching a hundred and fifteen that afternoon, they’d have no trouble securing a little table on the covered and misted portion of the cemented overlook. He’d bring a fresh fruit salad and bottles of ice water.

  He felt a twinge of guilt at her ready acceptance.

  Because of the rush of hormonal pleasure shooting through him.

  A sensation that hit again as he pulled on the lightweight shorts and loose-fitting tank with tennis shoes and, telling Lillie he’d be back before bedtime, headed back out the door before the girl could make her opinion on his state known to him.

  His attire exposed impressive shoulders and arm muscles. His reason for wearing it was the fifteen-minute paved walk he’d be taking with Lindsay after they united in the peak’s parking lot.

  Her suggestion that they drive separately had been a good one, he’d decided. Kept distance between them.

  Realizing that the choice meant she’d probably been having issues over that kiss too, that like him she needed to make sure that nothing came of it, didn’t please him as much as it should have done.

  No worries, though. The walk up to the peak in triple-digit temps would tax both of them. The cooler he’d be hauling, and the extra ten pounds he always carried, would hopefully leave him pleasantly tired out.

  He had it all figured out. Thought the plan as perfect as it could get. Right up until Lindsay got out of her snazzy little old yellow car wearing black Lycra bike shorts that pretty much showed him what she’d look like naked, and a red-white-and-blue tie-dyed cropped spaghetti-strap T-shirt that covered her waistband—just barely.

  Before she’d even reached him, Cole had the cooler that had been hoisted on his shoulder down, unzipped, had a bottle of water out, uncapped, and was sucking it down as though to save his life.

  Chapter Eight

  Lindsay was glad to see Cole. The part where her heart sped up and she got all squirrely down below, she ignored. His grin as he greeted her, water bottle still at his lips, brought a ready smile to her own lips.

  Being with him just plain did that to her.

  And short-term friends aside, she had questions to ask of him. Not about Brent Wilson. The man was most definitely off-limits as far as conversation with Cole Bennet was concerned. After his revelations from the night before—his mentor-like attachment to the man Lindsay did not trust—she couldn’t listen to another sentence Cole had to say about her father.

  Had already heard too much.

  No way was she going to risk Cole ever thinking that she’d been using him to get to her father. The hiring interview, okay, on a stretch, yeah maybe. Although it hadn’t been Cole she’d been using, but rather her father’s chief of personnel.

  She’d been so careful not to allow any talk of work, and thus Brent Wilson, into any of their conversation since the day of the barbecue. And then she’d seen that picture on Cole’s wall—the law degree Cole had been holding open to the camera—and Ms. Bohemian, who’d still been swirling from the kiss, had started blurting words.

  But the questions she did have for him...

  “I heard that there’s a horse therapy program, mainly for kids, being run at a place called Homestead Ranch here in town,” she said as soon as they fell into step on the paved walkway leading up the mountain.

  Savannah had told her about the program the night before, after Lindsay—who’d been looking for distraction from thoughts of Cole and needing something else to do when she was in town and not working—had mentioned wanting to do some small-time fundraising for therapy dog programs in Phoenix.

  Nothing on the scale she’d do once she got back home. But if she was going to complete her mission without anyone getting hurt, she had to get Lindsay Warren-Smythe back on the front page before Ms. Bohemian created a mess she couldn’t fix.

  Warren-Smythe wouldn’t be there in any formal way, of course, or her cover would be completely blown. And chances were really good that if that happened, Brent Wilson would be exposed, even if just between the two of them. He’d impregnated a Warren-Smythe. Not too many of those hanging around. Most particularly not female ones who were twenty-eight.

  Cole had stepped to the side to allow an older couple coming down the path to pass them, with Lindsay waiting just down from him, her back also against the mountain wall.

  “I was just at Homestead this afternoon,” he told her as they resumed their walk. “The owner, Mia Jones, is a friend of mine. We went to high school together.”

  Oh. Well, good. She had an in then. Because as she and Savannah had both determined the night before, she couldn’t use the Sierra’s Web connection, which was how Savannah even knew about the program.

  And Cole spending the afternoon with a woman friend, this Mia Jones, should not in any way diminish her pleasure in the day.

  Short-term friends had absolutely no ownership of any committed feelings such a jealousy.

  “You and Mia an item then?” Ms. Bohemian spilled the words. “I hope the time we’ve spent together this past week, while you’re being so nice and making me feel welcome, doesn’t bother her?”

  He seemed to miss a step. But then she saw the jutted part of mountain wall that interrupted the path they were on. Made sure she stepped over it as he said, “Hardly. Mia’s a one-guy woman, and when the one guy broke her heart their senior year at Montford, there was no hope for anyone else. I talked her into giving herself a chance to fall in love again when she met a pretty dynamic guy through her brother. She gave it her best shot, the new guy wanted to marry her, but her heart just wasn’t in it. Instead, she took her father’s failing farm and turned it into a huge financial success.”

  “Wow.” Lindsay felt a sudden kinship with the woman. Not the boyfriend breaking her heart part, but the brokenness inside that kept one focused on things that one could control.

  “What happened to the second guy?”

  “He was offered a professorship at Montford. They’re still friends.”

  The idea pleased her. Gave her a seed of hope that somehow she and Cole could remain in contact. Until Warren-Smythe piped up silently, reminding her why that couldn’t happen for them.

  And they were right back to Mia being all alone and Cole spending Sunday afternoon with her. “You help her out then?” She asked, figuring, great guy that he was, he’d handle heavy work for a friend who asked.

  “I have in the past on occasion,” he said, rounding another curve on their way to the top. Revealing an already glorious view of the world extending as far as the eye could see. “But she’s got all the help she needs now,” Cole continued. “Crazy story, but it turns out that she and her first love, Jordon, had donated embryos to some couple whose stuff wasn’t compatible. They froze them and the woman had twins four years ago. The couple was killed in a boating accident and left the twins to Jordon. He showed up in town last month, completely shell-shocked with these two little girls in tow.”

  Cole was grinning, and she was, too. She couldn’t help it. The way he had of relaying information—it all came alive in the best possible way.

  “So...she got the kids?” Savannah had said that Kelly and Mariah, who Lindsay knew to be the psychiatrist and child life expert partners in Sierra’s Web, had worked with Mia. She hadn’t been able to disclose why. Lindsay had assumed it had to do with horse therapy. That the three had shared a young client...

  “The kids and the guy,” Cole told her. “Turns out, he’d been as unsuccessful as she’d been at finding anyone else to fill his heart. So now you’ve got these two businesspeople, both single through their twenties, trying to keep up with two very busy and determined four-year-olds. It’s a hoot to watch.” His chuckle as he told her about the twins calling their biological mother Mama Mia and singing a song from the popular musical to her the first week they met her had Lindsay smiling, and tearing up.

  Cole not only brought his stories more alive, but apparently their listeners, too.

  Something Lindsay would be prudent to remember.

  And guard against.

  * * *

  Damn. She’d done it again. Gotten him talking, seeming so interested and entertained by his conversation that he just went blithely on, and failed to get any return out of her.

  Determined not to go home without at least one new piece of personal information about Lindsay Warren, Cole went back to her original question.

  “What’s your interest in horse therapy?” he asked, as they drew closer to the top of the smallish mountain they were ascending. Had she been in therapy herself?

  Or did she know of someone who could benefit from it?

  A child maybe?

  Had she had a child? Lost custody of it somehow?

  Or was there a younger sibling, maybe a troubled one, still back in California?

  He was sweating, but not dripping with it. Poured a bit of water left in the bottom of his bottle down his shoulders, just in case, as he awaited her answer.

  “I’m interested in pet therapy in general,” she told him, her tone as easy as it had been throughout their visits during the past week. “Until Lillie, I’ve never actually been exposed to it. And horse therapy, I looked it up last night...it’s fascinating. Did you know in Arizona that there are wild horses that, when hurt, are rescued, and then many of them find homes as therapy horses?”

  “I did know that,” he said, with a nod. And a quick sideways grin at her.

  “Of course you did. You know Mia.” She grimaced. “Sorry. Anyway, I’ve done some fundraising...it’s something I enjoy, and I thought maybe I could reach out to them, to Mia, Homestead, whoever and see if they’d like me to see what I can do. For free, of course. I just... It’s a way I could...”

  Cole’s mood soared. Shelter Valley was already growing on Lindsay! She wanted to be a part of the community. His joy was for Elite Paper, he told himself.

  Even as he knew that joke was on him.

  “The horse therapy program, Forever Friends, is run by Mariah Montford,” he told her.

  “Didn’t you say the vet you got Lillie from was named Montford? And I met her and her husband at the barbecue.”

  “Cassie, yes. Her husband, Sam, is the son of the town’s founders. Sam met Mariah’s parents in the Peace Corps. Her father was a Native American. The couple was killed by insurgents and had named Sam as her guardian. Mariah, who was five or six at the time, had witnessed the whole thing and for the first many months that Sam had her, Mariah didn’t speak at all. Cassie’s pet therapy program helped bring Mariah back to life.”

  “And now Mariah runs a horse therapy program,” Lindsay said, nodding, and sounding...focused and supportive, too. In a practical business way he hadn’t noticed in her before. Like she was already planning...