a nursery school teacher.”
“Exactly, and I love it. The kids are great. I know you don’t understand—you want more for me. But this is what I want and you have to remember to respect that.”
“I know.” Chloe sighed. It was a familiar discussion. One she’d never won. “I just think you could do so much more with your life.”
“And I think working with children is the most important thing I can do. Besides, even if I was tempted to run off to New York with you, which I’m not, I couldn’t. What about Joel?”
Chloe forced her expression to remain pleasant and her hands still, when all she wanted to do was grab her sister by the shoulders and shake some sense into her.
Joel and Cassie had been dating since high school. They had an “understanding” that they would become engaged and then marry.
It was all a quirk of fate, Chloe thought grimly. While she had been sent away to another city when their parents had died and the two girls had been put into foster care, Cassie had stayed in town. She’d gone to the local high school and had started seeing Joel.
“If you can’t say something nice,” Cassie warned.
“Joel is the most boring man on the planet.”
“That’s hardly nice.”
“You don’t know what I was going to say. It’s a real improvement.”
“Oh, Chloe, we can’t all be like you. I think it’s great that you want to leave Bradley and make something of yourself. That’s your life and you’re going to be wonderful. But it’s not my life. I want to stay here. I want to have a family. Joel wants to marry me. I love him. I’ve been dating him for nearly nine years and he makes me happy. Let it go.”
Chloe bit her tongue and nodded her agreement. There wasn’t anything else she could say. Cassie was right—they each had to live their own lives.
Her sister stood up. “I have to go make myself beautiful for our guest and I suggest you do the same.” She paused in the doorway and leaned back dramatically, the back of one hand pressed against her forehead. “Maybe he’ll tell us about the time he saved the virgin from the angry volcano by single-handedly fighting off a dozen hostile natives with his bare hands.”
“I’m sure that will be the first story to cross his lips.”
“I knew it.” Cassie waggled her fingers and left.
Chloe stared after her. The two sisters couldn’t be more different. Part of the reason, she knew, was because they weren’t related by blood. When her mother had had trouble conceiving, her parents had gone on a long waiting list for adoption. As sometimes happened, Amanda Wright had later found out she was pregnant. The doctors had warned her she was unlikely to have another baby, so they hadn’t pulled their application. Seven months after Chloe had been born the Wrights received a call telling them there was a one-month-old girl available, if they wanted her.
Growing up, Chloe couldn’t remember a time when Cassie hadn’t been around. The girls had been inseparable. That had made those three years apart even more difficult.
She stood up and walked to the closet, not sure what she was going to wear tonight. Something pretty, but professional. She was going to ask Arizona questions to make up for her lapse earlier that day. As she studied her wardrobe, she heard Cassie’s enthusiastic but off-key singing drifting down the hall. She smiled. Cassie was one of those rare people who absolutely believed the best in everyone and always told the truth. She led with her chin and sometimes she got hurt. But that never changed her feelings about herself or the world.
Chloe wondered what it would be like to have that much faith. She was too cynical to believe in people. Especially those she didn’t know well. That’s why she was a decent journalist. The thing was if she wanted anyone else to believe that, she was going to have to write a dynamite article. Arizona Smith and the secrets of his life were her ticket out of Bradley.
* * *
ARIZONA SWALLOWED A drink of beer and wondered why the sight of an attractive young woman cooing over the scar on his arm didn’t do a thing for him. Cassie bent over him and made tsking noises.
“I can see where they first stitched you up in the field,” she said. “There are still a few puncture wounds.”
Her fingers were cool and smooth as she stroked his skin. He waited, hoping to feeling a tingle or a flicker of interest. Nothing. Less than nothing. He was restless.
Cassie straightened and smiled. “Any other scars?”
She’d noticed the mark on his arm the second he’d walked into the house. As near as he could figure, the sight of it had sent Chloe screaming out of his presence. Funny, he’d never thought it was that scary looking, but then he was a guy. Maybe Chloe was squeamish.
Cassie’s gaze was filled with curiosity and good humor. She reminded him of the little sister he’d never had. He couldn’t help teasing her a little. “I do have another scar on my leg. I’d show it to you, but I’d have to take my pants off to do it.”
“Oh, I don’t mind,” Cassie said quickly.
Arizona watched her, but there was no guile in her expression. Had she really meant what she’d said?
Footsteps interrupted his thoughts. He looked up and all the attraction that had been missing when Cassie had touched him slammed into him with the subtlety of an aircraft carrier taking out a forty-foot yacht.
Chloe stood just inside the kitchen. She wore a sleeveless dress in pale peach. The soft-looking fabric clung to her curves in a way designed to make a man forget to breathe. Her long hair had been pulled back into a braid. His fingers itched to tug the curls free.
“You might want to rethink your comment, Cassie,” Chloe said to her sister. “I believe you just told Arizona you wanted him to take his pants off.”
“I do.” Suddenly, Cassie seemed to realize the implications of what she’d just said. She blanched, then color flooded her face. “Oh, no. I didn’t mean— That is to say, he has a scar and—” She glanced from him to Chloe and back. “I didn’t mean anything else. We were talking and—”
Chloe chuckled. “We know what you meant. Just be careful. Not every strange man is going to understand you’re not issuing an invitation.”
Cassie nodded.
Arizona leaned close to her. “I won’t take offense if you’ll explain to your sister that I’m not really strange.”
Chloe took the seat opposite him. “Yes, you are, and I’ll thank you not to corrupt my little sister.”
“Little by how much?” he asked. “Charity told me you’re about the same age.”
“Chloe is six months older,” Cassie told him. “I was adopted.”
“So I heard.” He looked from one to the other.
Charity came into the room and walked to the stove. “The sauce is nearly ready,” she said, lifting the cover and stirring. Instantly
