ABOUT THE AUTHOR

      For the past eleven years Cathy McDavid has been juggling a family, a job and writing, and has been doing pretty well at it except for the cooking and housecleaning part. Mother of boy and girl teenaged twins, she manages the near impossible by working every day with her husband of twenty years at their commercial construction company. They survive by not bringing work home and not bringing home to the office. A mutual love of all things Western also helps. Horses and ranch animals have been a part of Cathy’s life since she moved to Arizona as a child and asked her mother for riding lessons. She can hardly remember a time when she couldn’t walk outside and pet a soft, velvety nose (or beak, or snout) whenever the mood struck. You can visit her Web site at www.cathymcdavid.com.

      To Paula Eykelhof,

       who saw something in that first Harlequin American

       proposal and helped launch me

       on the career of my dreams, and to

       Kathleen Scheibling, a remarkably skilled editor

       with an extraordinary eye who has

       guided me through four books thus far

       and I hope many more to come.

      Contents

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

      Chapter Three

      Chapter Four

      Chapter Five

      Chapter Six

      Chapter Seven

      Chapter Eight

      Chapter Nine

      Chapter Ten

      Chapter Eleven

      Chapter Twelve

      Chapter Thirteen

      Chapter Fourteen

      Chapter Fifteen

      Chapter Sixteen

      Chapter One

      Natalie Forrester stood on the sweeping front porch and watched the old truck rumble down the long road, its tires kicking up a cloud of brown dust. The truck pulled a dilapidated horse trailer that rattled and banged as if it might fall apart with each pothole it hit.

      As manager of guest services at Bear Creek Ranch, Natalie considered herself quite adept at determining a visitor’s purpose based on the vehicle they drove. This fellow, in his seen-better-days pickup, was either a local from nearby Payson or a cowboy looking for work. Since she didn’t recognize the vehicle, cowboy got her vote. Her hunch grew stronger when the driver continued through the ranch in the direction of the barn and corrals.

      Whoever he was, he’d be disappointed when he met Natalie’s father, head of the resort’s guest amenities. Bear Creek Ranch was fully staffed for the upcoming season, scheduled to begin in a mere ten days.

      And speaking of the upcoming season, Natalie had a lot of work ahead of her. Break time was over. Her feet, however, refused to heed her brain’s command to turn around and march inside. The weather was unusually warm for February, the afternoon particularly balmy. According to the thermometer hanging by the front door of the main lodge, the temperature hovered in the mid-sixties. Quite nice, even for the southern edge of Arizona’s rim country, which enjoyed considerably milder winters than its northern counterpart.

      Natalie leaned her shoulder against a column built from a tree that had been harvested in the nearby woods about the time President John F. Kennedy took office. The wood, once rough and unfinished, had been worn smooth through the decades by thousands of shoulders belonging to the guests of Bear Creek Ranch.

      She never tired of the view from the front porch. Majestic pines towered toward wispy clouds floating in a sky so blue no artist could truly capture the vibrant hue. Behind the trees, the nearby Mazatzal Mountains rose, their stair-step peaks covered in snow much of the year. Bear Creek, the ranch’s namesake, could be easily reached by foot from any of the resort’s thirty-three cabins. Clear and clean, the creek teemed with trout and was a favorite with guests wanting to drop a line and test their luck.

      Natalie had been born on Bear Creek Ranch, in the same cabin her parents occupied today. Like her younger sister, Sabrina, she’d grown up on the ranch. Unlike Sabrina, Natalie stayed on after reaching adulthood, learning the hospitality business from the ground up.

      She wasn’t related to the Tuckers, the family who owned the ranch and had since it was constructed back when the railroad still made a stop at the old Bear Creek Station. But she and her parents were treated like family in many ways, and her loyalty to the Tuckers ran deep.

      The front screen door banged open, rousing Natalie from her woolgathering. Alice Gilbert, the ranch’s office manager and Jake Tucker’s personal assistant, popped her head out the door.

      “I think Shiloh’s awake.” She wore the expression of a person who had no experience with babies and wasn’t interested in acquiring any.

      “Thanks.”

      Pushing off the column, Natalie hurried inside. Her shoes clicked softly on the highly polished hardwood floors as she crossed the lobby toward the front desk. Alice had already disappeared into her small office, which was situated