CHAPTER ONE

      CLAIRE RYAN’S first contact with Logan Pierce had been six months ago at her stepsister’s funeral. Because Farrah had alienated most people and had few friends left, the sad little service had been only minimally attended. The forty or so people who’d shown up had mostly been Claire’s friends, and they’d attended out of respect for her rather than Farrah.

      The only person Claire hadn’t recognized had been the tall, rugged stranger in the coal black suit and dress Stetson who’d walked in looking harsh and unapproachable. The moment Claire had caught sight of him, her attention had been seized by the wild impression that he was some sort of human manifestation of death itself.

      If she’d known then who he was and why he’d come to Farrah’s funeral, she would have fled the chapel and raced home to snatch up little Cody and disappear. But the singular drawback of having a modest, stable life was that it had been impossible to just pack up and run, not even to keep Farrah’s eighteen-month-old son.

      Because she hadn’t been able to run all those weeks and months ago—as much because of her sense of honor as her settled situation—Claire was about to lose the one person she loved with all her heart.

      It had taken every scrap of integrity she’d had to force herself to obey the court’s order and drive all the way from San Antonio to the Pierce Ranch that afternoon. She’d slowed her older model car to a crawl as she’d approached the huge single-story ranch house at the headquarters of what had to be one of the largest ranches in that part of Texas.

      She’d parked at the end of the front walk, then got out to gather the sleepy two-year-old from his car seat to carry him to the door. The housekeeper, who’d introduced herself as Elsa, had opened the door for her immediately, then got her and little Cody seated in the living room before she briskly went to the kitchen to bring back a tray of iced tea and orange juice that she’d set on the coffee table. After taking a few silent moments to pour a glass of tea and a smaller one of juice, the woman had disappeared into another part of the big house.

      Claire felt her throat spasm more tightly closed as she ignored the tea and cuddled the drowsy boy against herself. Emotion that was the most poignant and painful of her life made her eyes sting yet again.

      After today, or after tomorrow at the latest, she might never see this precious little boy again. Legally, she no longer had even a small claim to him, though morally she was far more entitled to be his mother than Farrah had been.

      It had been Claire who’d taken care of the boy from the day he’d come home from the hospital. Claire who’d gotten up with him in the night, Claire who’d fed him, bathed him, taken him for checkups, played with him. And Claire who had paid for anything and everything the child had needed. And though it had been Claire who’d loved him more than her life, none of that had counted for anything with the judge.

      Farrah hadn’t bonded at all with the child and she certainly hadn’t wanted the responsibility of raising him. The truth was, she’d only kept the unplanned and unwanted pregnancy in hopes of getting her rich former boyfriend to marry her. Or failing that—and she had failed to wrangle a marriage proposal out of the father—she’d meant to extort some lavish amount of child support from him. But then Cliff Pierce had been killed before Cody had been born.

      That was all Claire had known. The day after Cody’s birth, Farrah had brought the infant directly to her, then promptly