had jokingly called Sam. The heir apparent, future mayor and all-around best guy for the job. The man loaded down with everyone else’s expectations.
“Hi, Sheila. I’m Sam. You going to Montford?” he asked, years of Shelter Valley friendliness automatically kicking in.
The girl nodded. “I was, but I got married and just recently had a baby. Now I work here full time.”
Mariah’s little hand was getting sweaty inside his. Releasing it, Sam slid his arm around her shoulders, as he smiled at the receptionist. “She’s in her office, you said?”
“Shall I tell her you’re here?”
“No,” Sam said quickly, and then added, “I’d like to surprise her, if you don’t mind.”
He didn’t want to take the chance that Cassie would refuse to see him.
“Oh. Sure.” Sheila grinned at him again. “You just go through that door, and down the hall. Her office is on the right.”
“Thanks.” Sam led Mariah through the open door. “Is her partner in?” he thought to ask as he passed Shelia. There had been two names on the placard out front.
“Zack?” the girl said. “Not yet. His first appointment today is at eleven.”
Wondering if Zack was her husband as well as her partner, Sam braced his shoulders and strode forward. As a Peace Corps member and then a national disaster-relief volunteer, he’d spent the past ten years rescuing people from sickening, tragic situations.
He could handle a ten-minute meeting with his ex-wife.
CHAPTER THREE
NO MATTER HOW MANY TIMES Cassie flipped through the pages of her calendar, there were no upcoming trips written in anywhere. She’d traveled so much over the past eighteen months, launching her nationwide pet therapy program in cities and universities across the United States, that Zack had been left to handle much of their Shelter Valley veterinary practice by himself. Her travel schedule was why she’d invited Zack, who’d been working at a practice in Phoenix, to go into partnership with her in Shelter Valley. His first marriage had just ended, and he’d been eager for a new start. And now, two years later, Cassie’s wedding present to him and Randi was to stay in town a while.
But damn, a trip sure would be nice. Help her put life in perspective again.
“Hey, stranger.”
Planner pages between her fingers, Cassie froze, staring at the month of May. It was coming up in a matter of weeks. She’d be—
“Cassie?”
She hadn’t imagined the voice. There was only one man who said her name in just that way. With that slight emphasis on the second syllable.
Heart pounding, Cassie didn’t know what to do. Sam was really back. After all this time.
She had to look up. To get through this. Making plans for May seemed so much safer.
Thank God, she was in her office. Private. No one was going to see if she messed up.
Except Sam.
He was standing in front of her desk. She could feel him there. She just couldn’t bear to look at him. Couldn’t be sure she wouldn’t make a total idiot of herself and start to cry.
Sam hated it when she cried. Nearly as much as she did.
There was movement over there, close to Sam, but not really where he was standing. It drew Cassie’s eye.
There, with her little hand clasped in a bigger one that could only belong to Cassie’s ex-husband, stood a little girl. A very solemn, beautiful, dark-eyed little girl. She appeared to be part Native American.
“We—” Sam raised the child’s hand “—Mariah and I just got into town last night. I couldn’t be in Shelter Valley without seeing you first thing.”
Oddly enough, Cassie understood that. She didn’t like it, but she understood. She and Sam would never truly be strangers, or casual acquaintances who just had chance meetings on the street.
“You could have called first,” she said, her eyes riveted on the child. His daughter? His daughter?
Pain knifed through Cassie, so sharp she couldn’t breathe. When he’d left her all those years ago, he’d taken from her any hope that she might have children of her own. Taken away any hope of the family and the life she’d wanted. And now he had the nerve to waltz back into town with a child who should have been theirs.
“I was afraid you wouldn’t see me,” he murmured.
“You were probably right.”
Was the child his? With her obvious coloring and that coal-black hair, the girl didn’t look anything like him. Yet her white heritage was noticeable in those striking blue eyes.
Sam had green eyes.
“This is Mariah,” Sam said, sounding less sure of himself as she continued to watch the silent little girl. “She’s my daughter.”
The knife sliced a second time. Lips trembling, Cassie nodded. And tried to smile at the child. After all, it wasn’t Mariah’s fault her father had hurt Cassie so badly.
“Hello, Mariah.”
The little girl stared wordlessly at her father’s waistline. Which, now that Cassie noticed it, looked as firm and solid as it always had. Clearly, Sam was still in remarkably good shape.
“You’re looking great, Cass,” Sam said, an old familiar warmth enlivening the words.
“Thanks.” Taking a deep, shuddering breath, Cassie forced herself to look up, to meet Sam’s gaze.
And then looked away again almost immediately. His eyes were exactly the same. They met hers— and touched her all the way inside.
Without waiting for an invitation, Sam sat in one of the leather chairs facing her desk, pulling Mariah onto his lap.
“How old is she?” she asked. Morbid curiosity.
“Seven.”
Cassie’s daughter would have been ten this year.
“So how’ve you been, Cass?” Sam asked, glancing around her office at the degrees on the wall behind her, the thick texts lining her shelves. “You’ve accomplished a lot.”
Cassie stared at the little television in the corner. Wishing she hadn’t turned it off after the news ended half an hour ago. It would have given her something to focus on. Taken her thoughts off the bitter pain that had already seized her.
Off the man in front of her.
“Your parents told you about the pet therapy program, I imagine,” she said. It was the sum total of her life’s accomplishments. Had they told him that, as well?
If this was just a guilt-induced
