Chapter One

      “Sorry, Dad,” Dixon said into his cell phone. “You’ve got to get the plumber back in here before I can set these kitchen cabinets. Water’s running down the outside of this pipe.” Dixon listened to the expected complaints. He shared his father’s frustration. They’d hoped to have this old house completely renovated before Thanksgiving and rented by the end of November, but the first week of December had now come and gone, and the kitchen cabinets weren’t even installed.

      Dixon blamed himself. Carpentry wasn’t his only occupation, and not since he’d inherited his maternal grandfather’s small ranch some eight years earlier had he experienced so much sickness in his herd as recently. These days it seemed he was constantly leaving the job to tend to some ailing cow. He had an injured heifer in the barn now, and he might as well get home to take care of it because he sure wasn’t going to get anything more done here today.

      Fitting his brown beaver cowboy hat to his head, he briefly considered stopping in at the War Bonnet diner for an early dinner, but he was more tired of the diner’s meager offerings than he was hungry. Not that he had many choices. Like many small towns in Oklahoma, little War Bonnet’s options were severely limited. He decided he’d open a can at home. After all, he’d worked long and hard to update the kitchen in the 1970s-era ranch house. Might as well make use of it.

      The hour hadn’t reached 5:00 p.m. when he turned his pickup truck onto the red dirt drive of the home place, but it was dark enough to see that he’d left lights on in the house. That wasn’t like him. He’d lived alone since before his twenty-first birthday and had learned long ago what it took to keep the utility bills in line with the budget. At just weeks shy of his twenty-ninth birthday, he prided himself on his ability to budget and manage his money. He wouldn’t have been able to remodel the house otherwise, let alone invest in rental property.

      As he drew closer, he saw a small, battered, dark-colored sedan parked in front of the house. Obviously, he had a visitor, someone who felt they didn’t have to wait on the front veranda but could just go inside and make themselves at home. It had never occurred to him to lock up the place, even after he’d remodeled, painting the orange brick white and replacing the dark shingles on the low roof with red metal. The house had a Spanish flair now, which he felt suited the long, lean lines, with a red front door and red shutters flanking the wide front windows.

      Dixon couldn’t imagine who would let themselves into his house. Unless... But surely not. She’d left right after Dixon’s eighteenth birthday and had been back only for Grandpa Crane’s funeral. He hadn’t seen her in over eight years. Some letters had come, none of which he’d answered, and he’d taken a few short calls from her, but that had been it. Must be two or more years since he’d last heard a peep from Jackie.

      Still puzzled, he pulled his truck into the inner bay of the carport that he’d added to the end of the house after he’d converted the garage into a game room. The new parking placement allowed him to quietly enter the house via a mudroom off the kitchen. Still wearing his tan canvas coat and brown felt hat, he carefully walked to the kitchen door, which had been pushed aside on its trendy barn door rolling hinge.

      At his stainless-steel stove stood a petite young woman with warm brown skin and very long, ink-black hair caught at her nape by a big silver clasp. She wore brown suede boots, plain, snug jeans and a simple top of black knit with pushed-up sleeves, a belt of silver links riding low on her slender hips. As if sensing his presence, she suddenly turned. On some level he registered the baby snuggled in the bend of her left arm, but a far larger part of his consciousness reeled in shock at the sheer perfection of her face. From the delicate roundness of her chin and the dusky rose of her lips to the straight line of her nose, the piercing blackness of her exotic eyes and the gentle slashes of her brows beneath the sweep of thick hair that framed all that loveliness from a loose, haphazard center part.

      “Hello,” she said, but he was too dumbfounded to return the greeting. She tilted her head, studying him as if he were a bug pinned in a display case. He wanted to feel his jaw to see if he needed a shave, but of course he needed a shave; he’d last taken care of the chore before daylight and despite his medium brown hair, he had an unusually heavy beard. By the end of most workdays, he looked like a vagrant.

      A movement to his right pulled his attention toward the breakfast nook, where a tall, painfully thin woman slid around the corner to lean against the wall. Her dark blond hair, streaked liberally with gray, had been pulled back from her face in an apparent attempt to disguise its thinness. She looked familiar, but she had so many lines in her face that he didn’t immediately recognize her. Then she gave him that saucy grin, showing off the false teeth that he remembered her husband, Harry, had bought her to help hide the ravages of her meth addiction, and he knew without a shadow of a doubt what he had been trying not to see. Jackie. The very last person he wanted to find in his house. Grandpa Crane’s will had made it very clear that she had no claim to ownership.

      “I really like what you’ve