He stood now, his eyes never leaving his. "You're going to keep me in line, Savannah?"

If he touched her, she was very much afraid she'd go off like a rocket. "I don't think so. That's the thing. I've got these feelings for you."

"That's interesting." He hadn't known she could look so vulnerable. "Because I have these feelings for you."

"You do?" Her hands stayed balled in her pockets. "Well."

"Well," he repeated, and stepped forward. He put his hand on her cheek, and his mouth on hers.

She wasn't used to being kissed this way. As if that were all—as if she were all—that mattered. It made her weak and woozy. Those tensed fingers went limp. And her heart surrendered.

"Are we straight now?" he murmured.

She nodded and found that feeling of pleasure could be huge, just having a man's shoulder ready to cradle your head. "I hate feeling stupid."

"So you said."

"I don't want to feel stupid about this."

His lips curved as he brushed them over her hair. "Neither do I."

"So we'll make a pact. Whatever happens, neither of us will make the other feel stupid."

"I can agree to that." He lifted her chin for another kiss. "Why don't I walk home with you?"

"All right."

She couldn't help it. She felt stupid and sentimental walking hand in hand with him through the woods, aware of every beam of sunlight, every scent, every sound. She would have sworn that she could hear the leaves growing overhead and the wildflowers struggling toward the sun.

Love, she mused, honed the senses.

"I have to pick up Bryan in a little while." She glanced over. "I can call Cassie and rearrange things."

He knew what she was offering, and could feel the blood humming under his skin. When he brought their joined hands to his lips, he saw the flash of surprised pleasure in her eyes. Not yet, he told himself. Not quite yet.

"We'll both pick him up. What do you say to an early movie, and pizza after?"

She couldn't look at him now, not the way her throat was aching. She knew what he was offering. "I'd say great," she managed. "Thanks."

"Jared's cool." Bryan bounced into the top bunk of his bed, his mind full of scenes from the action flick, his belly stuffed with pepperoni pizza. "I mean, man, he knows everything about baseball, and stuff about the farm and the battlefield. He's even smarter than Connor."

"You're no slouch, Ace." She tousled his hair.

"Jared says everybody's got a special talent."

Interested, Savannah leaned on the edge of the bed so that her face was level with her son's. "He did?"

"Yeah, when we went to get popcorn. He said how everybody's got something inside than makes them different. He knows on account of he has three brothers and they're a lot alike, but they're different, too. He said I'm a natural."

She grinned. "A natural what?"

"Mom." Rolling his eyes, Bryan sat up in bed. "At baseball. And you know what else he said?"

"No. What else did he say?"

"He said how even if I decided not to be a major-leaguer I could use the stuff I know in other things. Of course, I'm going to be a major-leaguer, but maybe I'd be like a lawyer, too."

"A lawyer?" She felt a little flutter of panic. Her son was falling in love as quickly as she was.

"Yeah, 'cause you get to go to court and argue with people and put criminals in jail. But you have to go to school forever, I mean until you're old. Jared went to college and to law school and everything."

"So can you, if that's what you want."

"Well, I'm going to think about it."

He flopped back down, curled into his pillow in a way that comforted her as much as him. It was the gesture of a child. He was still her little boy.

"Night."

"Good night, Bry." She pressed her lips to his temple and lingered over it a moment or two longer than usual. Long enough to make him squirm sleepily.

She rose, turned off his light, then closed his door, because he liked his privacy.

Her son the lawyer, she thought, and rubbed her hands over her face. With a mother who'd never finished high school.

Then, as the panic gave way to a warm glow of pride for what her son might one day achieve, she smiled.

She walked quietly to her own room and moved to the window to look out at the woods. Through them, she could see the lights of the MacKade farm. And there, she thought, was the man she'd fallen in love with.

She smiled again and laid a hand on the cool glass of the window. All in all, she decided, it had been pretty smart of her to wait to fall until she'd found Jared MacKade.

Chapter Seven

He sent her yellow tulips, and she was dreamy-eyed for an hour after she slipped them, stem by stem, into numerous old bottles.

He took her and Bryan to a minor-league ball game in the neighboring county, where the stands were hard as iron and the crowd was rowdy, and won her son's heart absolutely by snagging a foul.

They had pizza at a place with worn wooden booths, a loud jukebox and a pinball machine. The three of them ate sloppily, shouted over the music and competed like fiends over the speeding silver balls.

He took her to dinner at a restaurant where there was candlelight and champagne fizzing in crystal flutes and held her hand on the snowy-white tablecloth.

He brought her a truckload of mulch for her garden, and she was lost.

"You're being courted," Cassie told her over lemonade and paint samples at Savannah's kitchen table.

"What?"

"Courted." Cassie sighed over it. The misery of her years with Joe Dolin hadn't quashed her romantic nature. Not when it concerned someone else. "Isn't she, Regan?"

"Big-time. Yellow tulips," Regan added, glancing up from her samples to the flowers that marched down the center of the table. "It's a dead giveaway."

"We're developing a relationship." Voice casual, Savannah rubbed her suddenly damp palms on her jeans. "That's all."

"He brought you mulch and helped you spread it, didn't he?" Cassie pointed out reasonably.

"Yeah." It made Savannah smile foolishly to remember it. And to remember the way he'd kissed her senseless when the two of them were grimy with dirt and sweat and chipped bark.

"She's got it bad," Regan commented.

"Maybe I do." Damping the smile, Savannah snatched up her lemonade. "So what?"

"So nothing. What do you think of this shade?"

"Too yellow."

Regan blew out a breath. "You're right."

Filled with admiration, Cassie watched the way her two friends chose and discarded colors. She hoped when she had just a little more put aside, Regan would help her pick out new paint for her living room. She'd washed those white walls so often, scrubbed till her shoulders sang, but she couldn't make them bright again.

Then, if Savannah could help her pick the right material, she could make new curtains for Emma's room. Something cheerful, something special for a little girl.

It was hard, harder than she could admit to anyone, to take on these little challenges. To accomplish things that she imagined were just everyday things to some women. How could she explain that for the first time in her life—her entire life—there was no one to tell her yes or no? No one to complain or criticize or humiliate her?

Constantly she had to remind herself that she was in charge, and that if she tried, if she kept at it step by step, she could change the tiny rented house into a home. A real home, where her kids wouldn't remember the shouting and the beatings and the smell of soured beer.

Wistfully she looked around Savannah's cabin. It was no larger than the house where Cassie lived with her children, but it was so much more. Bright colors, carelessly tossed cushions. Dust.

She still attacked dust like a maniac, afraid Joe would walk in the door and pounce on her for forgetting. No matter how often she told herself he wouldn't, couldn't, because he was locked up, she still lay awake at night, shuddering at every creak.

And woke up every morning relieved. And ashamed.

Her ears pricked. "The kids are coming back," she announced, and pushed all those old fears aside. "Is it all right if I make more lemonade?"

Savannah merely grunted and studied the colors Regan had selected for Jared's law library.

Then the kids burst in like rockets.

"Only three more weeks," Bryan shouted, and waved both fists in triumph. "The kittens can come in three more weeks."

"Happy days," Savannah murmured, but she smiled when Emma darted over to wrap an arm around Cassie's leg. "Hi, angel face."

"Hello. Bryan let me pet his kittens. They're soft."

"She wants one." Shyness had never been a problem for Bryan. He scooped a hand into the cookie jar and hauled out a fistful. "Can she have one, Mrs. Dolin?"

"What?"

He stuffed a cookie into his mouth and eyed the lemonade Cassie was making. "Can Emma have one of the kittens? Shane's got extra."

"A kitten." Automatically Cassie put a protective hand on Emma's head. "We can't have animals in the house, because—" She broke off, her gaze darting to Connor's, even as her son dropped his head to stare at his feet.

Because Joe doesn't like them. She'd nearly said it, so ingrained was the habit. A habit, she realized, that had prevented her from seeing how longingly Connor spoke of Bryan's expected pets. How much Emma liked to play with the neighbor's little brown dog.

"I don't see why we couldn't."

Her reward was a brilliant and grateful look from her son. "Really?" The disbelief and hope in his voice almost made her weep. "Can we really?"

"Sure we can." She scooped Emma into her arms and nuzzled. "You want one of Shane's kittens, Emma?"

"They're soft," Emma said again.

"So are you." It was time she did this, Cassie told herself. Made simple decisions without worrying about what Joe would do. "Tell Shane you'd like one, Connor."

"Cool." Unaware of the drama, Bryan chomped down another cookie. "Then you can bring him over sometimes so he can play with his brothers. Let's go work on your pitching arm, Con."

"Okay." Connor darted after his friend, skidded to a halt. "Thanks, Mama."

"Whoa." At the door, Rafe barely avoided a head-on collision with Connor. He pretended he didn't see the way the boy stiffened and paled, and patted his shoulder, very casually. "You guys are quick. Jared and I lost you in the woods."

"I'm sorry."

"Next year you'll have to try running bases with that speed." He stepped inside, grinned at the ladies. "This was worth a tramp through the woods."

"We're nearly done," Regan told him, and tilted her face up for a kiss.

"No hurry. Hey, gorgeous."

"Hello, handsome." Savannah picked up one of her son's forgotten cookies and offered it.

"Thanks. Cassie—just the woman I want to see."

"Oh? Is something wrong?"

"I've got a problem." To bribe a smile out of Emma, he held out his cookie. "Would you give me a kiss right here for this?" he asked.

Keeping an eye on the cookie, Emma leaned forward and touched her pursed lips to his nose.

"A problem?" Cassie repeated. Nerves humming, she set Emma down and told her to go out and watch the boys play. "What is it?"

"Well, I'll tell you." He leaned back on the counter. "Regan and I found this place a little farther out of town, on the Quarry Road. Needs some work." He grinned at his wife. "We're thinking of moving over in a couple months. Probably around June."

"That's nice."

"Well, the thing is, Cassie, we need somebody at the inn. A—what did you call it, darling?"

"Chatelaine."

"Fancy word for manager, if you ask me. Somebody to look after the place," Rafe explained. "And the guests, once we've got them. Somebody who can cook breakfast, manage the housekeeping. Somebody who wouldn't mind living in and running things."

"Oh." Nerves settled, Cassie smiled. "You want me to ask around. We could put the word out at the diner."

"No, we've already got somebody in mind." Eagle-eyed, Rafe spotted the cookie jar and helped himself. "We want someone we know, someone we trust." He paused to chug down the full glass of lemonade Cassie handed him. "So how about it?"

"How about it?" she repeated.

"That's not the way you offer someone a position, Rafe," Regan said with a sigh. "Cassie, we'd like you to move in and manage the inn for us. We just can't do it, between my shop and Rafe's work."

"You want me?" If she'd still been holding the glass, it would have been smashed on the floor. "I don't know anything about managing an inn. You'd have to have experience, and—"