Rodeo Rancher

Samantha snuggled Lily and spooned around her, while Colt poked his elbow into Sammy’s back. Jason slept soundly on his brother’s far side. Thank goodness for Michael’s huge bed.

Lily backed right up against her. Sammy pulled the blankets up snugly around all of them. She wrapped her arms around the child.

“Better? Warm enough?”

“Warm.” Lily sighed and dozed off right away.

Her sweet little weight against Samantha melted a path to Sammy’s heart.

“I always wanted a little girl,” she murmured, and yawned.

Despite her exhaustion, sleep didn’t come easily. She touched each of her boys, relieved to feel their healthy, slightly sweaty heat. It took a while for her heart to stop racing.

She didn’t want to, but she thought about Manny d’Onofrio and his associates.

In his letter from jail, her former employer had promised he’d called off his men. He’d written that he no longer sought revenge against her for sending him to prison. In his words, I found God and I want peace. I won’t bother you no more for ratting me out.

God, didn’t that sound like a bad movie script? But it had been all too real for Sammy, starting with getting a job in Manny’s Las Vegas casino as part of his accounting team and ending with her testifying against him for embezzling funds from his partners.

He’d vowed revenge, but she believed he’d changed. In his letter, he’d sounded sincere. Who would have thought?

But sometimes, late at night, she worried. Nightfall brought terror.

It was over. It was all finally over. Why couldn’t she stop jumping at every late-night sound?

Travis had bought the house here for her and the boys as a sanctuary, away from crooks and city crimes. Hence, her trip in a snowstorm to Rodeo.

She’d gone back to her own name, dropping her married name, and had given it to her boys, too, and no one was supposed to know where she was. Manny’s letter had reached her through their lawyers. He couldn’t find her, but Travis’s former girlfriend, Vivian, had tracked him here.

Vivian used to work for Manny.

Manny might guess she would follow Travis here, but he’d sworn he wouldn’t bother her again. Even so, she’d decided to leave the sanctuary they’d found after Las Vegas, in California, and follow Travis to the house he’d bought for her.