She glanced over at him, simply studied him for a fraction of a second, then, without a word, turned her attention back to the dirt road and the never-ending expanse of nothingness stretching out in front of them.

      But in that fraction of a second he felt … There weren’t any words to describe it, really. Except she’d looked not into his soul but through it, and it shook him. Shook him bad.

      “For us,” he conceded. “And for our son. I really want to make this work, Belle. We may not be married, but Michael needs consistency from us … together.”

      No. 1 Dad

       in Texas

      Dianne Drake

      To Chris, one of the people I love most. You make the world a better place.

       Dear Reader

      When I approached my editor with an idea to write a story featuring a child with Asperger’s Syndrome Mills & Boon^® stood behind me solidly—for which I’m grateful. Asperger’s has become popularised in fiction lately. I knew some of the overall facts, but after I began the deep research I needed for this book what I discovered was that every piece of information written about Asperger’s Syndrome is basically the same: a laundry list of traits.

      Then I met Chris who, with his Asperger’s Syndrome, pretty much defies everything on the experts’ list. And Chris is where the idea for my story went—from that laundry list of traits to the real face of Asperger’s Syndrome. Musician, composer, poet, computer tech, athlete, scholar … you won’t find those on the lists, but that’s who Chris is—as well as a guy who absolutely makes direct eye contact and has a wicked, funny sense of humour. While he’s not the character Michael I created, Chris inspired me to find that little boy—and, amazingly, what I discovered is that my Michael is pretty much like every other seven-year-old boy.

      I think we tend to believe the lists, no matter what the situation or diagnosed condition. But Michael is an athlete, a computer genius, he loves bugs, plays games, has a passion for pizza, and the desperate wish of his heart is that his mom and dad will get back together. He’s a kid with a plan.

      Michael is also a kid with parents who love him more than anything in the world, and who are both trying hard to give him the support he’ll need in the struggles he’ll face in life. It’s through Michael’s eyes they finally see themselves.

      As always, wishing you health and happiness.

       Dianne Drake

      www.DianneDrake.com

      CHAPTER ONE

      “ANYONE else?” Dr. Belle Carter called out to the ten or so ranch hands standing around, gawking at her. She was used to men gawking, but not like this bunch was doing. They were queasy, some of them wobbling on their feet, grabbing on to furniture, hugging walls. If there was a particular shade of color common to the sickly lot presently resisting her, she’d call it gray-green. But food poisoning did that, even in slight cases. Today, the old E. coli bug had struck down half the crew who worked on the Chachalaca Creek Ranch outside Big Badger, Texas. She’d suspected bad bean sprouts on the salad were the culprit when she’d sent the first samples to the lab for tests, though she was actually quite encouraged over a bunch of cowboys eating salads and not big, thick steaks or pork chops. Until all those cowboys let her take a look, she wasn’t going to be sure about anything, though. “If you’ve still got any of the symptoms I’ve just described, or talked about the other times I was out here, you’d better tell me now. If you don’t, it’s going to knock you down, maybe for up to ten days. That’s a promise.” She held up a large bottle of pills, rattled it for effect. “Anti-nausea pills, if you’re interested.” Which nobody was. This was her third trip out here for this, and her last, if they continued to shun her the way they were doing.

      “It’s hard getting used to a new doc in town,” Maudie Tucker, her nurse, said under her breath as she pulled Belle back from the men. “These boys are used to the way Doc Nelson used to do it, and having a lady doc makes them jumpy. They don’t trust you yet.”

      They didn’t trust her? That was clear. But they were sick, and in most cases sickness would override distrust. Not here apparently, and she was about to be bested by a bacterial gastric upset. “But Doc Nelson eloped with his thirty-five-years-his-junior receptionist, and I’m the only doctor within a hundred miles, so it’s get used to the lady doctor or ride out the illness without my help,” she whispered back, sympathetic to the men’s plight and at the same time annoyed, watching them lope and drag themselves in single file into the next room over—the game room. Just to get away from her. As if she couldn’t follow them and perform their exams on the pool table if she had to.

      “It’ll take them some time to adjust,” Maudie replied. “Folks around here are cautious, but they’ll get used to you—eventually.”

      “Eventually’s not good enough. They’re sick right now.” Belle loved Maudie to pieces. She’d come with the medical practice, boasted forty-two years of hard-boiled nursing, and if she could she’d mother every one of Big Badger’s citizens. Today, though, mothering wouldn’t work. But a firm hand would, and she doubted Maudie had it in her to be firm with any of the ranch hands. “Which means they take the pills or …” She shrugged. “Some of them will probably get sicker, incur more time off work, and have to face the consequences when I explain to the ranch owner that they refused treatment—treatment he hired me to give.” It also meant she was going to be the one to take a hard line here, if she intended on getting somewhere with the men. So she was going to chase them down, examine them, and treat them, whether or not they liked it. Good thing she was used to taking a hard line. Dr. Belle Carter, family practice specialist, had developed pretty thick skin over the course. Had had to, with what she’d gone through to get to this point in her life—tackling med school years later than many of her classmates, being a single mother, marriage to a man who’d spent most of their wedded years somewhere else. Married, past tense, naturally.

      So today, with ten moderately sick people trying desperately to run away from her in their sluggardly sick gait, six appointments back at the office this afternoon, and flu vaccinations to give out later at the Salt Creek Ranch, she was extra-busy, and time was something she didn’t have much of because at the end of it all she’d promised most of her evening to her son, Michael, and that was a promise she didn’t want to break. He was the reason she was doing this, and doing it the hard way.

      “My purpose here, my only purpose, is to have a look at each and every one of them, check their vital signs to make sure nothing else is going on and assess for dehydration or worsening symptoms, then treat what I find. It’s a simple thing. Or it should be, if they’d let me do my job.”

      “Need some help?” a familiar voice asked from the doorway. “I don’t have my medical bag with me this trip, but I can certainly help you with some of the process.”

      Anger was her first reaction to that voice. Then her heart skipped a beat. Then her lungs clutched, but only for a fraction of a second as when she caught her breath again she was right back at anger.

      “What are you doing here, Cade?” she hissed, trying hard not to let the ranch hands overhear, even though every last one of them had now exited the room. “It’s not your weekend. In fact, it’s not even a weekend. So why are you here, bothering me, while I’m trying to do my job?”

      “I’m here because I missed my favorite person in the world.”

      She swallowed hard, fighting to regain control as all the ranch hands in the other room, no matter how sick, were watching her, gauging her reaction, probably trying to find some argument to use against her when they were called out for refusing treatment. She sucked in a deep breath, squared her shoulders, steadied herself,