Cassidy Harte and the Comeback Kid

It had been worlds better than anything she could have imagined. Sweet and tender and passionate all at once. Just one kiss and he had completely stolen her heart.

That had been the beginning. They were inseparable after that and had tumbled hard and fast into love. It had been the most incredible three months of her life, filled with laughter and heady excitement and slow, sexy kisses when her brothers weren’t looking.

Until it ended so horribly….

Cassie came back to the present to several depressing realizations. The water in the tub was now lukewarm, bordering on cool, and any bubbles had long since fizzled away.

And, much worse, silent tears were coursing down her cheeks as she relived the past.

Oh, cripes. Hadn’t she cried enough tears over Zack Slater? It was a waste of good salt. The man wasn’t worth it ten years ago, and he certainly wasn’t worth it now.

She climbed from the tub, wrapping herself in a thick towel, then splashed her face with cold water to cool her aching, puffy eyes. She hadn’t indulged in a good, old-fashioned pity party for a long time, and she figured she must have been long overdue. But enough was enough. Now that it was all out of her system, she could move on.

She put on her robe and decided on a glass of milk before bed. Just as she was opening the refrigerator and reaching for the carton, she heard a knock at the front door.

Rats. It was probably Jean coming to check on her one more time. The last thing she wanted was to have company, with the mood she was in tonight. She thought about ignoring it, but the knocks only grew louder and more insistent. Gritting her teeth, she looked out the small window at the cabin next to her, thinking of the man who now stayed there.

The man who now owned the whole blasted place.

What if he decided to venture outside to investigate the commotion? She didn’t need another encounter with him today. Swearing under her breath, she went to the door and swung it open, then her breath seemed to tangle in her lungs.

Well, she didn’t have to worry about Zack coming out to see who was banging on her door, since he was the one standing there, fist raised to knock one more time.

Chapter 3

As he’d expected, she didn’t look exactly thrilled to see him. Her eyes turned wintry, her mouth went as tight as a shriveled-up prune, and her spine stiffened, vertebrae by vertebrae.

Even so, she looked so beautiful he had to shove his hands into his pockets to keep from reaching for her.

She must have only just climbed out of the bath. Her still-damp hair, a few shades darker than normal, clung to her head, and she had wrapped herself in a silky robe of the palest yellow. The delectable smell of peaches wafted to him on the cool, early-summer breeze, and his mouth watered.

Framed in the light from inside her cabin, she looked warm and soft and welcoming, just as he had imagined her a thousand times over the years.

Her voice, though, was as cold as her eyes. “What do you want?”

Just to see you. To hear your voice again. He shifted his weight, alarmed at the need instantly pulsing through him just at the sight of her. He would have to do a much better job of controlling himself if he wanted this plan to work.

“I just spoke with Jean.” Despite his best intentions, his voice came out a little ragged. “She said you tendered your resignation.”

He didn’t think it was possible, but that prune-mouth tightened even more. “What else did you expect?”

“I expected you to show a little more backbone.”

She stared at him for several seconds. In the porch light her eyes looked huge, those dark lashes wide with disbelief, and then she laughed harshly. “Oh that’s a good one, coming from you. Really good. Thanks. I needed a good joke tonight.”

Okay. He deserved that. He had no right to lecture her about staying power when he had been the one who walked away just days before their wedding. Still, that was a different situation altogether.

He plodded gamely forward. “So you’re just going to walk out and turn your back on Mrs. Martineau when she needs you?”

Her gaze shifted to some spot over his shoulder. “Jean has nothing to do with this. You’re the new owner. That means I’m turning my back on you.”

“We need to talk about this.”

“No, we don’t.” She started to close the door, but his instincts kicked in and he managed to think fast enough to shove a boot in the space. Still, she pushed the door hard enough to make him wince.

“We don’t have anything to say to each other,” she snapped.

“I think we do. Come on, Cass. Let me in.”

After a long pause where she continued to shove the door painfully against his foot, she finally shrugged and stepped back. He followed before she had a chance to change her mind.

Inside, he saw the cabin’s floor plan matched his. Here, though, it was obvious Cassie had decorated it to suit her personality. It was warm and comforting, with richly textured rugs and pillows and Native American artwork covering the walls.

Cassie was a nurturer. She always had been, even as a girl just barely out of high school. She used to talk about her brothers raising her, but he had spent enough time with the family to know she took as much care of them as they did her. The Hartes looked out for each other.

The cabin reflected that nesting instinct of hers.

He smiled a little at an assortment of whimsical, ugly, carved trolls filling an entire shelf above her mother’s rocking chair. She’d been collecting them since she was a girl and he recognized several new ones since he had last seen her collection.

He narrowed his gaze, looking closer. Where were the little kissing trolls he’d given her as a gift during their first month together? He couldn’t see the piece here with the rest of the figurines.

He almost asked her what she’d done with it—why she hadn’t set it out, too—but then clamped his teeth against the question. He had no right to ask her. Even if she burned it and flushed the ashes down the toilet, nobody would have blamed her.

“This is nice,” he murmured instead.

“You must live in some grand mansion somewhere, now that you’ve hit the big time.”

He thought of his cold, impersonal apartment in Denver, with its elegant furniture he was never quite comfortable using. Her little cabin held far more appeal.

“Not really,” he answered. “It’s a place to sleep and that’s about it.”

There was an awkward pause between them, and he thought about the little trailer home they’d planned to buy in Logan while she finished school. She had decorated it in her head a hundred times, talking endlessly about curtains and furniture and wallpaper. He had even gotten into the spirit of things, something that still amazed him. Neither of them had cared how cramped the little trailer would be. They were too excited about starting their lives together.

She finally broke the silence, her expression stony and cold. “Can we skip the small talk? I’ve had a long day and need to be up at five to start breakfast over at the lodge.”

He pushed away his memories. If he wanted this to work, he had to focus on the present. “Okay. Let’s get down to business. I don’t want you to quit.”

“What you want hasn’t mattered to me for a long time, Zack.”

He ignored her clipped tone. “From all the research my people did before we made the offer, we know that the food at the Lost Creek is one of the main draws of the ranch. In just a few months you’ve developed quite a reputation for delicious, healthy meals.”

He paused, waiting for her to respond, but she remained stubbornly silent. After a moment he went on. “I want to build on that reputation. Use it as a selling point. That’s been one of my goals for the ranch from the beginning.”

She rolled her eyes. “Come on, Zack. You didn’t really think I would stay here and work for you, did you?”

At his continued silence she gazed at him for a moment, then her jaw sagged. “You did! I can’t believe this!”

He had hoped. Now he realized how completely foolish that had been. “You used to be the kind of woman who would never back down from a good fight.”