To single parents, my admiration.

       You have the toughest job in the world.

      Contents

       Cover

       Introduction

       Title Page

       About the Author

       Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

       Chapter Three

       Chapter Four

       Chapter Five

       Chapter Six

       Chapter Seven

       Chapter Eight

       Chapter Nine

       Chapter Ten

       Extract

       Copyright

Chapter One

      Hope Conroy sat in the City Diner in Conard City, Wyoming, waiting for a man named Jim Cashford. She had rarely in her life been as nervous as she felt just then.

      She needed the job. Her family had cut off her credit cards, she had the last hundred dollars from her bank account in her wallet and she didn’t know what in the world she would do if this guy didn’t hire her.

      Clearly she had not planned her escape well, but her need to get away from Dallas had been urgent. She couldn’t take the pressure one more minute.

      Instinctively, she lowered her hand to the gentle swell of her belly, a swelling so slight most wouldn’t notice it. But she did, just as she felt the little movements that seemed almost like bubbles popping. She would do anything for this baby, except marry the man who had raped her.

      She wondered how much she would have to explain to this Cashford guy. His ad had said he wanted a nanny for a thirteen-year-old daughter. What if he thought a pregnant unwed mother would be a bad example? He’d surely notice soon. It wouldn’t be long before the whole world would be able to tell she carried a child.

      So somehow she was going to have to explain this. Having a low-paying job for a month or two wasn’t going to help her much. A hundred dollars wouldn’t buy much gas. She doubted many people would be willing to hire a woman in her state.

      When she’d first come in here to get a little something to eat, a newspaper had been sitting on the table. She had snatched it up before the rude woman had demanded to know what she wanted. Skipping immediately to the want ads, the words about the nanny had seemed to leap out at her, and for a few glorious minutes she thought life had delivered her an answer.

      But brief as her conversation with Cashford had been, doubts had started to grow immediately. She’d hardly been able to swallow the roll she had ordered and most of it still sat on the plate in front of her. She wondered why he was so quick to come into town to meet with her. Did he have trouble keeping nannies? She feared she might be wasting nearly an hour waiting for him, and that tonight there would be no answer to her problem, merely another cold night sleeping in her car. Then what?

      She’d been a fool in so many ways, but even reaching that conclusion didn’t show her any other way she could have handled it. She needed care for her child, for one thing, and while she could have gone on assistance in Texas, getting as far as she could from her family’s reach had seemed imperative. God, they were like hound dogs with a bone. They wouldn’t give up, they wouldn’t believe her and they wouldn’t let her shame the family. A triad she couldn’t escape except with distance.

      A dusty pickup pulled up right out front. It must be Cashford. Her mouth turned immediately dry as sand, and her palms moistened. She wondered if her tongue would stick to the roof of her mouth until she sounded like an idiot who couldn’t even talk.

      A tall, lean, but powerful man climbed out. Despite what Hope considered a chilly day, he didn’t wear a jacket. Instead, he had on the basic local uniform of old jeans, cowboy boots, a chambray shirt and a cowboy hat that looked as if it had been a lot of places besides on his head. A working cowboy. She’d seen them sometimes in Texas when she got away from the city. Very different from the dudes in Dallas who only wanted to look the part.

      Sun and wind had weathered his face some, but she didn’t judge him to be terribly old. Maybe forty? A far cry from her twenty-four, but not that huge