Chapter One

      Lainie Michaels lifted the snow-dusted doormat again, thinking she might have missed the house key her brother was supposed to have left there for her. Nothing. She tried the door again, but it was locked up good and tight. Straightening, she blew on her chilled fingers to warm them and then slipped her gloves back on. At least she’d had the forethought to purchase winter coats for her and her son before moving back to Wyoming.

      “I don’t want to be here!” Lainie’s seven-year-old son, Lucas, bellowed behind her, stomping his tiny foot in defiance.

      Lainie turned from the locked front door and forced a smile as she prepared to face yet another one of her son’s emotional thunderstorms. “Honey, you’ll like living here in Bent Creek.” At least, she prayed he would. More than anything, she wanted her son to be the sweet, loving little boy he used to be before she’d taken his joy away.

      “It’s cold here. I wanna go home,” he replied, his tiny brows furrowed into a deep-set scowl.

      Early December in Bent Creek could be cold. Especially when her son was accustomed to California winters, but it was a little soon for any real snow accumulation. Lainie’s gaze moved past Lucas to the large, white flakes coming down from the wintry sky above. Then again, maybe it wasn’t. Cold or not, while living in California, she’d missed the beauty Wyoming winters could bring, the sight of the distant mountains and vast land surrounding her brother’s place, the home she had grown up in, glistening with newly fallen snow. Especially during the holidays.

      Looking down at her son, Lainie suddenly felt overwhelmed by emotion and exhausted from having gotten up before dawn that morning to catch their flight. And then, after a three-hour layover in Denver before finally landing in Rock Springs, Wyoming, the nearest airport to Bent Creek, they’d had to take a taxi to her brother’s place a good fifty-minutes away.

      “We are home,” she told Lucas. Or, at least what would be their home until they found a place of their own in Bent Creek. Even if she changed her mind about staying there permanently, which she hadn’t, they would have no way to leave. The taxi that brought them there had already driven off. They’d sold their two-bedroom condo in downtown Sacramento, sent a few boxes of their personal items ahead to her brother, Justin, a week prior to flying home and then placed the remainder of their things in storage until they found a home of their own and could have them brought out.

      “This isn’t my home,” her son said, his voice cracking with anger.

      “It is now, sweetie,” Lainie said softly, praying that she’d made the right decision in coming there.

      “You take everything away!” her son sobbed, tears of frustration and anger now filling his hazel eyes. “Even my dad. I hate you!” Turning, he sprinted off the porch and disappeared around the side of the house.

      Lainie ran over to the railing and leaned out, watching as Lucas ran away from the house, no doubt to the fort his uncle had built for him two summers before. “Lucas!” she called after him, hot tears blurring her vision. It wasn’t the first time he had run off, and it wasn’t the first time her baby boy’s words had left her feeling broken. Her son hated her, and she couldn’t even blame him for it. He’d lost his father, and it was all her fault. A lump formed in Lainie’s throat as the memory of that night surfaced, making it hard to swallow. No amount of “I’m sorrys” could ever make up for the pain she had caused her little boy. She’d never forget the look of confusion on his face when she’d told him his father was gone, and then fear and bone-deep sorrow that slowly settled in as her son processed her words. It had nearly broken her. A mother’s words were supposed to wrap their child in love and make them feel safe, not shatter their entire world.

      The sudden sound of hoofbeats had Lainie turning, a small gasp leaving her lips as she took in the sight of a man seated astride a beautiful buckskin gelding.