Light the Stars

“Right. A week. Let’s hope I’m still sane by then.”

Cody fell asleep on the six-mile drive from Jake’s clinic in Pine Gulch to Cold Creek Ranch. Tanner, jacked up by the excitement of the morning and probably still running on adrenaline, kept up a steady stream of conversation that didn’t give Wade a minute to think about what he was going to do.

Tanner didn’t even stop his running commentary during the phone call Wade took on his cell from Seth, who informed him glumly that the shop in Rexburg wouldn’t have the part they needed for the baler until the next day. Without it, they wouldn’t be able to bring the hay in, which meant they might lose the whole damn crop to the rain.

“I’m almost home. I’ll get the boys some lunch and then try to come down and see if we can jury-rig something until tomorrow.”

The clouds continued to boil and churn overhead as he drove under the arch that read Cold Creek Land and Cattle Company, and Wade could feel bony fingers of tension dig into his shoulders.

Sometimes he hated the responsibility that came from being the one in charge. He hated knowing he held the livelihood of his own family and those of three other men in his hands, that his every decision could make or break the ranch.

He couldn’t just take a week off and play Mr. Mom. Too much depended on him meeting his responsibilities, especially right now.

But who could he ask for help? His mind went through everyone he could think of among their neighbors and friends.

His wife’s family had sold their ranch a year ago and her parents were serving in South America as missionaries for their church.

Viviana Cruz was the next logical choice. She owned the small ranch that adjoined the Cold Creek to the west and was his mother’s best friend as well as a sort of surrogate grandmother to his kids. Unfortunately, she had left the week before to spend some time with her daughter in Arizona before Maggie’s national guard unit shipped off to Afghanistan.

He couldn’t think of anyone else, off the top of his head. Everyone who came to mind was either busy with their own ranch or their own kids or already had a job.

Seth knew every female with a pulse in a fifty-mile radius. Maybe his brother could think of somebody in his vast network who might be suitable to help with the kids for a week. Though it didn’t really have to be a woman, he supposed as he pulled up to the back door of the ranch house.

“Can I watch TV?” Tanner asked when Wade unhooked him from his booster seat.

“Sure. Just no soap operas.”

He grinned at the wrinkled-up face Tanner made. “Yuck,” the boy exclaimed. “I hate those shows. Grandma watches them sometimes but they’re so boring!”

By that, Wade assumed he didn’t have to worry about Tanner developing a deep and abiding love for drama in the afternoons.

His injury apparently forgotten for now, Tanner skipped up the steps and into the house, leaving Wade to carefully unhook the sleeping Cody and heft him to his shoulder, holding his breath that he could keep the boy sleep. Cody murmured something unintelligible then burrowed closer.

So far so good, Wade thought as he went inside and headed straight up the back stairs to Cody’s bedroom.

This was always the tricky part, putting him into his bed without disturbing him enough to wake him. He held his breath and lowered him to the crib mattress.

Cody arched a little and slid toward the top edge, where he liked to sleep, but didn’t open his eyes. After a breathless moment, Wade covered him with his Bob the Builder quilt, then returned downstairs to find Tanner and figure something out for lunch.

He found Tanner in the great room with the TV on, the volume turned low.

“Can you even hear that?” Wade asked.

Tanner answered by putting a finger to his mouth. “Quiet, Daddy. You’ll wake up the lady.”

Wade frowned. “What lady?”

Tanner pointed to the other couch, just out of his field of vision. Wade moved forward for a better view and stared at the sight of Caroline Montgomery curled up on his couch, her shoes off and her lovely features still and peaceful.

Looked like she had made herself right at home in his absence.

He wasn’t sure why the discovery should send this hot beam of fury through him, but he couldn’t stop it any more than he could control those clouds gathering outside.

Chapter Three

“Hey lady! Wake up!”

Caroline barely registered the voice, completely caught up in a perfectly lovely dream. She was riding a little paint mare up a mountain trail, the air sweet and clear, and their way shaded by fringy pines and pale quaking aspen. She’d never been on a horse in her life and might have expected the experience to be frightening, bumpy and precarious, but it wasn’t. It was smooth, relaxing, moving in rhythm with a huge, powerful creature.

The mountains promised peace, a warm embrace of balance and serenity she realized she had been seeking forever.

“Lady!” the voice said louder, jerking her off the horse’s back and out of the dream. “You want to tell me what you’re still doing here?”

Jarred, disoriented, Caroline blinked her hazy way back to awareness. Instead of the beautiful alpine setting and the horse’s smooth gait beneath her, she was in a large, open room gazing directly at a painting of a horse and rider climbing a mountain trail.

Beneath the painting stood an angry man glowering at her from beneath a black cowboy hat, and it took her sleep-numbed brain a moment to figure out who he was.

Wade Dalton.

Marjorie Dalton’s oldest son. In a flash, she remembered everything—Quinn’s gushing e-mail about his lady love, her shocked reaction to find his lady love was her client, then that frenzied trip to eastern Idaho in a mad effort to stop him from doing anything rash.

She’d been too late, she remembered. Instead of Marjorie and Quinn, she had found only a surly, suspicious Wade Dalton and his two darling, troublemaking boys.

Striving desperately for composure, she drew in a deep, cleansing breath to clear the rest of the cobwebs from her brain, then sat up, aware she must look an absolute mess.

She pushed a hank of hair out of her eyes, feeling at a distinct disadvantage that he had caught her this way.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep. I sat down to wait for you and must have drifted off.”

“Why?”

“Probably because I traveled all night to get here.” To her embarrassment, her words ended in a giant yawn, but the man didn’t seem to notice.

“I wasn’t asking why you fell asleep. I was asking why in the …” He looked over at his son and lowered his voice. “Why in the heck would you think you had to wait for us? As far as I’m concerned, we’ve said everything we needed to say.”

She followed his gaze to the boy, noting the bandage on his hand. “I wanted to make sure Tanner was all right.”

“He’s fine,” he answered. “Second-degree burn but it could have been a lot worse.”

“Uncle Jake put lots of stinky stuff on it,” Tanner piped up from the other couch, “and said I have to keep it wrapped up for a week ’cept at bedtime, to keep out the ’fection. This is my mummy claw of death.”

He made a menacing lunge toward her with his wrapped hand and Caroline laughed, charmed by him.

“You’ll have to make sure you do everything your uncle told you. You don’t want to get an infection.”

“I know.” His sigh sounded heartfelt and put-upon. “And I can’t ever roast marshmallows by myself again or Daddy will drag me behind Jupiter until my skin falls off.”

“Jupiter?”