Light the Stars

“Can I help you?”

“Oh. Yes.” Color flared on those high cheekbones and she blinked a few times as if trying to compose herself. “The sign out front said the Cold Creek Ranch. Is this the right place?”

No. Not a lost tourist. As Tanner peeked around Wade’s legs and Cody held his chubby little arms out to be lifted again, Wade’s gaze traveled from the woman’s pretty, streaky hair to her expensive leather shoes, looking for some clue as to what she might be doing on his front porch.

If she was some kind of ranch supply salesperson, she was definitely a step above the usual. He had a lowering suspicion he’d buy whatever she was selling.

“You found us.”

Relief flickered across her expressive features. “Oh, I’m so glad. The directions weren’t exactly clear and I stopped at two other ranches before this one. I’d like to see Marjorie Dalton, please.”

Yeah, wouldn’t they all like to see her right about now? “There I’m afraid you’re out of luck. She’s not here.”

Right before his eyes, the lovely, self-assured woman on his porch seemed to fold into herself. Her shoulders sagged, her mouth drooped and she closed her eyes. When she opened them, he saw for the first time the weariness there and was uncomfortably aware of an odd urge to comfort her, to tuck her close and assure her everything would be all right.

“Can you tell me…that is, do you know where I might find her?”

He didn’t want to spill his mother’s whereabouts to some strange woman, no matter how she mysteriously plucked all his protective strings. “Why don’t you tell me your business with her and I’ll get her a message?”

“It’s complicated. And personal.”

“Then you’ll have to come back in a week or so.”

He had to hope by then Marjorie would come to her senses and be back where she belonged.

“A week?” His visitor blanched. “Oh no! I’m too late. She’s not here, is she?”

“That’s what I said, isn’t it?”

“No, I mean she’s really not here. She’s not just in town shopping or something. They’ve run off, haven’t they?”

He stared at her, wariness blooming in his gut. “Who are you and what do you want with my mother?”

The woman gave a weary sigh. “You must be Wade. I’ve heard a lot about you. My name is Caroline Montgomery. I’ve been in correspondence with Marjorie for the last six months. I don’t know how to tell you this, Mr. Dalton, but I think Marjorie has run off with my father.”

The big, gorgeous man standing in front of her with one cute little boy hanging off his belt loop and another in his arms didn’t look at all shocked by her bombshell. No, shock definitely wasn’t the emotion that hardened his mouth and tightened those stunning blue eyes into dime slots.

He brimmed with fury—toe-curling, hair-scorching anger. Caroline took an instinctive step back, until the weave of her jacket bumped against the peeled log of his porch.

“Your father!” he bit out. “I should have known. What is it they say about apples not falling far from the tree?”

Maybe if she wasn’t so blasted tired from traveling all night, she might have known what he was talking about. “I’m sorry?”

“What’s the matter, lady? You weren’t bilking Marjorie out of enough with your hefty life-coaching fees so you decided to go for the whole enchilada?”

She barely had time to draw a breath before he went on.

“Quite a racket you and your old man have. How many wealthy widows have you pulled this on? You drag them in, worm out all the details about their financial life, then your old man moves in for the kill.”

Caroline wanted to sway from the force of the blow that hit entirely too close to home. She felt sick, hideously sick, and bitterly angry that Quinn would once more put her in this position. How else was all this supposed to look, especially given her father’s shady past?

She wouldn’t give this arrogant man the satisfaction of knowing he’d drawn blood, though. Instead she forced her spine to straighten, vertebra by vertebra.

“You’re wrong.”

“Am I?”

“Yes! I was completely shocked by this sudden romance. My father said nothing about it to me—I didn’t know he and Marjorie had even met until he sent me an e-mail last night telling me he was flying out to meet her and they were heading straight from here to Reno.”

“Why should I believe you?”

“I don’t care if you believe me or not! It’s the truth.”

How much of her life had been spent defending herself because of something Quinn had done? She had vowed she was done with it but now she wondered grimly if she ever would be.

What was Quinn up to? Just once, she wished she knew. With all her heart, she wanted to believe his sudden romance was the love match he had intimated in his e-mail.

I never meant for this to happen. It took us both completely by surprise. But in just a few short months I’ve discovered I can’t live without her. Marjorie is my other half—the missing piece of my life’s puzzle. She knows all my mistakes, all my blemishes, but she loves me anyway. How lucky am I?

Caroline was romantic enough to hope Quinn’s hearts-and-flowers e-mail was genuine. Her mother had been dead for twenty-two years now and, as far as she knew, her father’s love life was as exciting as her own—i.e., about as thrilling as watching paint dry.

But how could she trust his word, after years of his schemes and swindles? Especially when the missing piece of his life’s puzzle was one of her clients? She couldn’t. She just couldn’t.

What if Quinn was spinning some new scam? Something involving Marjorie Dalton—and tangentially, Caroline’s reputation? She would be ruined. Everything she had worked so hard for these last five years, her safe, comfortable, respectable life, would crumble away like a sugar castle in a hurricane.

Caroline knew what was at stake: her reputation, which in the competitive world of life coaching was everything. As soon as she’d read his e-mail, she had been struck with a familiar cold dread and knew she would have to track him down to gauge his motives for herself—or to talk him out of this crazy scheme to marry a woman he had only corresponded with via e-mail.

Her first self-help book was being released in five months and if her publisher caught wind of this, they would not be happy. She’d be lucky if her book wasn’t yanked right off the schedule.

That’s why she had traveled all night to find herself here at nine in the morning, facing down a gorgeous rancher and his two cute little boys.

But she wasn’t going to accomplish anything by antagonizing Marjorie’s son, she realized. She took a deep, cleansing breath and forced her expression into a pleasant smile, her voice into the low, calming tones she used with her clients.

“Look, I’m sorry. It’s been a long night. I had two connector flights from Santa Cruz and an hour’s drive from Idaho Falls to get here and I’m afraid I’m not at my best. May I come in so we can discuss what’s to be done about our runaway parents?”

She wasn’t sure how he would have answered if the cell phone clipped to his belt hadn’t suddenly bleeped.

With a grim glare—at her or at the person waiting on the other end of the line or at the world in general, she didn’t know—then gestured for her to come inside.

“Yeah?” he growled into the phone as the toddler in his arms wiggled and bucked to get down. Wade Dalton let the boy down, busy on the phone discussing in increasingly heated tones what sounded like a major problem with some farm machinery. She caught a few familiar words like stalling out and alternator but the rest sounded like a foreign language.

“We don’t have a choice. The baler’s got to be fixed today. That hay has to come in,” he snapped.

While she listened to his end of the conversation about various options for fixing the recalcitrant machine, Caroline took the opportunity to study Wade Dalton’s home.

Though the ranch house had soaring ceilings and gorgeous views of the back side of the Tetons, it was anything but ostentatious. The furniture looked comfortable but worn, toys were jumbled together in one corner, and the nearest coffee table was covered in magazines. An odd assortment of circulations, too, she noticed. Everything from O—Marjorie’s, she assumed—to Nick Jr. to Farm & Ranch Living.

The room they stood in obviously served as the gathering place for the Dalton family. Cartoons flickered on a big-screen TV in one corner and that’s where the little blond toddler had headed after Wade had set him down. She watched him for a moment as he picked up a miniature John Deere and started plowing the carpet, one eye on the screen.