Chapter One

      Justice King opened the front door and faced his past.

      She stood there staring at him out of pale blue eyes he’d tried desperately to forget. Her long, light red hair whipped around her head in a cold, fierce wind, and her delectable mouth curved into a cynical half smile.

      “Hello, Justice,” said a voice that haunted his dreams. “Been a while.”

      Eight months and twenty-five days, he thought but didn’t say. His gaze moved over her in a quick but thorough inspection. She was tall, with the same stubborn tilt to her chin that he remembered and the same pale sprinkle of freckles across her nose. Her full breasts rose and fell quickly with each of her rapid breaths, and that more than anything else told him she was nervous.

      Well, then, she shouldn’t have come.

      His gaze locked back on hers. “What’re you doing here, Maggie?”

      “Aren’t you going to invite me in?”

      “Nope,” he said flatly. One thing he didn’t need was to have her close enough to touch again.

      “Is that any way to talk to your wife?” she asked and walked past him into the ranch house.

      His wife.

      Automatically, his left thumb moved to play with the gold wedding band he’d stopped wearing the day he had allowed her to walk away. Memories crashed into his mind, and he closed his eyes against the onslaught.

      But nothing could stop the images crowding his brain. Maggie, naked, stretched out on his bed, welcoming him. Maggie, shouting at him