One

      Rio Blaylock: ladies’ man. Paloma Forbes knew who he was, the tall lean cowboy striding toward her, the Missouri January wind whipping his straight, shaggy black hair. Minutes before dawn, Rio had stepped into the lighted parking lot. He looked like a hunter on the scent of his prey. And she knew he’d come for her.

      Rio’s flashing smile and exciting, careless arrogance drew women to him. He resembled all the Blaylocks Paloma remembered from her visits with Boone Llewlyn. Bred from tough, rangy mountain men, the Blaylocks were tall and angular, with sleek black Native American hair, and skin as dark as their conquistador ancestors’, despite the sturdy pioneer Scots and English stock thrown into the mix. Paloma had been just thirteen when she’d first seen Rio at a community hall dance, a flamboyant, fascinating male at seventeen; he’d been flashing his full dazzling charm to a girl. She later left the dance with him. Another time at a rodeo, he’d been surrounded by gids, dazzling them by lariat tricks, and eventually one of them ended up encircled by his arms and was drawn to him for a sizzling kiss. Then, later in the year, while chasing a puppy, Paloma had seen him lying in the meadow with yet another girl, the grass hot and flattened around them. “Get out of here, kid,” he’d said quietly, scowling fiercely at her and shielding the rumpled, giggling girl with his rangy body, sheathed only in jeans.

      The other Blaylock boys—Roman, James, Dan and Tyrell—were adorable, but according to Jasmine’s gossip, Rio was the charmer of the clan. Though now he was older, tougher than when she’d seen him at seventeen surrounded by his harem of adoring females, Rio’s rugged face had weathered into the features of a determined man. His black eyes pinned her, the hard line of his jaw, covered by a dark shadow of new beard, and the muddy black pickup with Wyoming license plates told her that he’d hurried to catch her.

      Paloma didn’t want anyone catching, pinning her. She’d had enough boxing in as a child. With a do-this, do-that demanding mother, who used a dark, locked closet as a goad, Paloma had been freed to practice and perfect her piano lessons. If she performed poorly, the closet waited. She survived and no one would push her again. Grown now, “Mother’s Little Money Maker” didn’t know if she wanted music in her life—

      She glanced at Rio, who was striding toward her, and frowned. She’d had a taste of a ladies’ man and that was enough to last her a lifetime—at twenty she hadn’t known that men played games. Now she knew that the romance she had dreamed had been of her own making. A virgin and sexually inexperienced, she’d dived into the affair, desperate to be loved for herself rather than her talent She hadn’t come up for air until reality slashed her—Jonathan hadn’t wanted her at all. She’d merely been a celebrity trophy in his quest to prove himself to his buddies. Jonathan had moved on to woo another inexperienced girl, and Paloma had pulled her defenses around her, never trusting a man again.

      She smiled tightly as Rio Blaylock strode toward her like a dark warlord, his long legs sheathed in jeans, his black leather jacket hunched up at the collar. The burgundy colored ski sweater emphasized his dark looks. Or was it his dark mood? She hadn’t exactly jumped at his offers to buy her half of the feed store. She corrected her last thought Rio had come to grasp her last bit of Boone Llewlyn, the man she’d loved desperately, her childhood protector. Boone was gone now, and she had inherited his half of Jasmine’s feed and seed store. Rio was now her partner, but in the year and a half since Boone’s death had repeatedly tried to buy her share. And Rio was pushy, a man who always got what he wanted

      Not this time, not her half of the feed store. She was keeping what she had of Boone, the man whom she resembled strongly, the man she suspected was her father. He’d kept her safe—when he could-from the selfish mother, who demanded too much of her only child. Boone. Big, strong, sweet, loving. She wouldn’t be pushed into selling her only tie to Boone. Paloma inhaled the crisp cold air, the smell of the idling bus, the excitement of the elderly women on their way to play bingo. Paloma was their driver, and for a time, she would enjoy caring for them.

      She kicked a tire with the experience of a woman who had rented vehicles that had been improperly serviced. Satisfied that the air and tread were proper, Paloma turned slowly to the tap on her shoulder. “Yes?”

      “I’m Rio Blaylock. I’d like to talk with you.”

      The demand in his raspy low voice nettled her. Or was it the intimate tone he’d used so often as he built his smoothtalker, easygoing reputation? A sexy-looking cowboy package, Rio reportedly knew “how to treat a lady.” Paloma was no lady; she had been toughened, stripped away from childhood and feminine pleasures and had managed to survive. Thanks to her mother, Paloma had been forced into the role of child prodigy and had seen too much of life and sex. At thirty-four, Paloma had little use for men like Rio. He had that datk, edgy look her mother requited in her own lovers.

      Paloma didn’t intend to make the purchase of her share easy for Rio Blaylock, not when she hadn’t resolved how she felt about Boone. Questioning the identity of her father, she asked her mother, who refused to answer. She looked like Boone—was Boone her father? Would she ever know? Why hadn’t he claimed her as his daughter?

      Paloma pushed away the searing pain of rejection from a loved one—the pain always came with the questions that had plagued her for years, and turned to meet a man she already thoroughly disliked.

      He’d finally cornered her, but she was ignoring him. “My bus is idling, sucking expensive fuel and I don’t have time to chitchat. I do this gig once a year...rent and drive a bus of seasoned women bingo players from Missouri to Oklahoma. We dnve down, they bingo day and night until we leave. We all have fun and everybody comes back happy. Now, if you’ll excuse me—” Paloma Foxbes’s husky voice lashed with impatience as she brushed by Rio to help an elderly woman into the tour bus.

      Rio stood still; he pushed down his rising temper. When he’d last seen her, leaning against Boone as though he were her only lifeline, Paloma had been a tall, gangling, rawboned girl. There had been a beaten look in her thin face then that had bothered Else, Rio’s sister, now the matriarch of the extensive Blaylock family.

      Impatient from worn nerves, Rio ran his hand through the straight black hair that wind had whipped at his face. He was bone tired and laden with sleepless, haunted nights. He seemed always to be searching—he’d spent a lifetime looking for something that had always eluded him...and then there was the boy who died—the ten-year old’s frail body haunting Rio’s nightmares. Perhaps he had inherited more from his mountain man ancestors than he knew—this need to hunt, to search for something, someone. He shrugged mentally. He couldn’t control that restless need, but he could keep the feed store safe. This woman wasn’t getting away—Paloma Forbes had been avoiding his business offer for a year and a half already. And now he had her.

      Rio Blaylock held out his hand to help a frail lady with a cane onto the bus. He smiled at her tightly. If Paloma managed to pull grace out of her six-foot body when she performed in piano concerts around the world, she wasn’t sparing him a drop. Dressed in a black heavy sweater, black jeans and truck ers’ boots, Paloma Forbes’s body wasn’t curved or graceful, rather efficient and powerful as she hefted multiple overstuffed bags into the bay of the bus. She resembled more of a trucker now, packing her product for a fast run, than a world-class pianist. There was just that small odd gait to her fast stride, and he noted that she protected her hands with leather gloves and her wrists with elastic supports.