CHAPTER ONE

      BABY SHOWERS always depressed Katy Andrews.

      So did wedding showers, April showers and, if she’d been able to think of any other kind of showers, they would no doubt depress her, too.

      The fact was, at the advanced age of thirty, Katy had neither husband, child, nor prospects of obtaining either in the foreseeable future.

      Which was the reason that sitting in the middle of pink and blue crepe-paper streamers in a corner of the Rawhide Café in Rawhide, Colorado, didn’t exactly leave her brimming with enthusiasm.

      That is, until her best friend Laura Reynolds waddled into the café, let out a little shriek of surprise and was immediately obscured by a horde of hugging females.

      Katy sighed. Laura’s baby was due in another month—late September. The glowing mother-to-be had left her job as lifestyles editor of the Rawhide Review newspaper six weeks ago to await the birth of this, her second child. Katy, city reporter for the Review, thought the place hadn’t been the same without her best friend.

      But she had to admit that married life agreed with Laura, who had never looked lovelier. Even minus her customary grace, she was a joy to behold as she waddled up to Katy with a big smile on her face.

      Katy’s answering smile was completely sincere. She might be envious of her friend’s happiness, but she wouldn’t be mean-spirited about it. “Long time, no see,” she said.

      “Too long.” Laura eased herself into a chair across the table. “There just seems so much to do to get ready for the baby.”

      “But you’ve got such good help,” Katy teased.

      “Oh, yes,” Laura agreed airily. “Just what I need—a ten-year-old girl and a seven-year-old boy ‘helping.’ This poor little baby will be lucky to have a bed when it arrives, with all that help.”

      Katy figured that “poor little baby” would be just about the luckiest baby around. It would arrive to find a loving blended family waiting, complete with father Matt, mother Laura, sister Jessica and brother Zach. The importance of a bed paled by comparison.

      “Is Matt getting excited?” Katy wanted to know.

      Laura rolled her eyes. “Deliriously. Even when I informed him that I expect him to go into the delivery room and hold my hand the entire time, he didn’t run screaming from the house.”

      “Brave guy,” Katy agreed. That her old school friend Matt would turn out to be such a rock impressed her. He was certainly nothing like his friend and Katy’s long-time nemesis, Dylan Cole. Katy would have bet that you couldn’t melt Dylan and pour him into a delivery room.

      Laura beamed. “The kids say I owe it all to you and that magic wand they gave to you,” she said with a mischievous gleam in her eyes. “They’re probably right. After all, who else would have forked out hard cash for those magnificent glass slippers? They made it impossible for me to turn down the pleas of my Prince Charming.”

      The two women laughed together, reliving the trials and tribulations leading up to the happy melding last year of Matt and his daughter with Laura and her son into one big happy family.

      Katy had been a willing participant with the children