as she held it felt oddly comforting.
“And I’ll tell it to you,” the six-foot-tall rancher promised gamely. “Right after you tell me yours.”
She took a long sip of the tea, letting the soothing, hot liquid fortify her. It never occurred to her to put him off. Connor had been her best friend once—and she really needed a friend now.
“Oh, Connor, I don’t know where to start.”
“The beginning is always the best place,” he said kindly. When she looked at him with those same terrified eyes he’d looked into when he’d opened his door to her, he knew she needed his help. And patience. “I’ll start you off,” he said. “What’s this little guy’s name?”
At the reference to her son, Amy seemed to light up a little.
Studying her, Connor could see a little of the old Amy struggling to surface.
“Jamie,” she said, uttering the name almost reverently, as if the baby was the only thing still tethering her to life.
“How old is Jamie?” Connor asked, looking down into the cradle. After returning with tea for Amy, he’d begun gently rocking the boy again. Jamie looked as if he was about to drift off to sleep.
“He just turned six months,” Amy answered fondly.
For the first time, Connor detected a note of pride in her voice. It was easy to see that whatever else was wrong in her life, the baby was clearly the center of her universe.
“Is he Clay’s?” Connor asked.
At the mention of the other man’s name, anger flashed across Amy’s face. “He’s mine,” she said fiercely.
“And Clay’s?” Connor prodded, his question technically still unanswered.
In the five years that Amy had been gone from Forever, the possibility that she had taken up with another man was definitely there. But he knew Amy, knew her like he knew his siblings and himself. Possibly even better. Amy wasn’t the type to go from one man to another. She’d left town with Clay and he was willing to bet that she had remained with Clay—until something had forced her to flee with her baby.
“Yes,” Amy admitted with a great deal of reluctance. The next moment she looked up at Connor and cried, “Oh, Connor, I’ve been such an idiot.”
“We’ve all been there,” he said, doing his best to get her to go easy on herself.
But it was obvious that she wasn’t about to do that. “Not like me.”
He’d never heard her sound so terribly sad before. “Why don’t we talk about that later?” Changing the subject, Connor asked, “When was the last time you ate?”
Amy started to answer, then stopped. She thought for a moment and then, unable to remember, she shook her head, embarrassed.
“I don’t know.”
“Well, that ends now,” he informed her. Taking charge—he didn’t know how to do anything else—he rose to his feet. “You stay here and I’ll put something together for you to eat.”
He was already beginning to leave the living room to make good on his promise.
Amy looked at him in surprise. “You cook?”
Connor grinned. “Yeah, but I reheat better.” And then he explained. “My housekeeper, Rita, went to visit her sister in Austin for a few days, but, bless her, she prepared a bunch of casseroles for me before she left. I think she was secretly afraid that I’d wind up subsisting on scrambled eggs three times a day until she got back.”
This, too, was news to Amy. It made her realize even further that a great deal had happened since she had left Forever.
“You have a housekeeper?” she asked in amazement.
“That’s right. You’d left town before Rita came to work for us.”
He watched as Amy flushed at the mention of her having left town. Connor silently upbraided himself for having so carelessly tossed the phrase around. He didn’t want to rub salt into her wounds, especially since he had no way of knowing what those wounds were or just how deep they actually went.
Wanting to distract her, Connor said, “Tell you what. Why don’t you come into the kitchen with me? That way you can talk while I warm up your meal.” He saw the reluctant expression on her face as Amy glanced toward the cradle. “Don’t worry. If Jamie starts to cry, we’ll hear him,” Connor assured her. “The kitchen’s only a few feet away.”
It was all the persuasion she needed to sway her. Although still a little hesitant, Amy rose to her feet and followed Connor into the kitchen.
“When you said your housekeeper came to work for you, you used the word us,” Amy began.
Opening the refrigerator door, he rummaged around. There were still a number of casseroles to choose from, and Rita, bless her, had labeled everything.
“Yeah, I did,” he answered absently.
“By ‘us,’ did you mean your brothers and Cassidy?” Amy asked.
“Yes,” he told her, making his selection. He seemed to recall that turkey was always her favorite. But wanting to be sure he wasn’t mistaken, he asked, “Turkey okay with you?”
“Anything is fine,” she answered, although her smile told him that he had remembered correctly. He took the casserole out and shut the refrigerator again. “So where is everyone?” Amy wanted to know. Then, not wanting to seem as if she was digging into his personal life, she clarified by saying, “Cody, Cole and Cassidy. Are they out?”
Connor laughed softly. “Oh, they’re out, all right. They’re all out on their own.” When he saw the slightly quizzical look on her face, he added, “As in married with kids.”
“Really?” Although her own life had taken that course, somehow, she hadn’t thought of anyone she’d left behind doing that. To discover otherwise was extremely eye-opening.
“Really. All three of them are married. They still live around here and Cole turns up like clockwork five mornings a week to help me with the work on the ranch,” he said. He placed the casserole in the microwave oven and set the timer. “And everyone turns up here on Sundays for dinner. They’d all love to see you.”
Just then, the microwave dinged, signaling that the meal was warm enough, and he opened the door. Taking a towel, he carefully eased the hot dish out onto the counter.
“I doubt that,” she murmured, almost more to herself than to him.
He looked up at her sharply.
“I don’t,” he countered. “And with Jamie by your side,” he went on as he set the individual casserole dish right in front of her on the kitchen table, “you’d fit right in here.”
The words were no sooner out of his mouth than he saw they had generated tears in her eyes.
“I really
