seeing him for the first time, the summer before her senior year in high school. He’d been alone, dusk was settling, the sky still glowing pink over the western hills, the first stars beginning to sparkle in the night. The heat of the day hung heavy in the air with only a breath of a breeze to lift her hair or brush her cheeks. She was sitting on a blanket, alone, her best friend having ditched her at the last minute to be with her boyfriend and suddenly Thorne had appeared, tall, strapping, wearing a T-shirt that stretched over his shoulders and faded jeans that hung low on his hips.
“Is this spot taken?” he’d asked and she hadn’t responded, thinking he had to be talking to someone else.
“Excuse me,” he’d said again and she’d twisted her face up to stare into intense gray eyes that took hold of her and wouldn’t let go. “Would it be all right if I sat here?”
She couldn’t believe her ears. There were dozens of blankets tossed upon the bent grass of the hillside, hundreds of people gathered and picnicking as they waited for the show. And he wanted to sit here? Next to her? “Oh, well…sure,” she’d managed to reply, feeling like an utter fool, her face burning with embarrassment.
He’d taken a spot next to her on her blanket, his arms draped over half-bent knees, his spine curved, his body so close to hers she could smell some kind of cologne or soap, barely an inch between his shoulder and hers. Suddenly she found it impossible to breathe. “Thanks,” he said, his voice low, his smile a flash of white against a strong, beard-shadowed chin. “I’m Thorne. McCafferty.”
She’d recognized the name, of course, had heard the rumors and gossip swirling about his family. She had even met his younger brothers upon an occasion or two, but she’d never been face-to-face with the oldest McCafferty son. Never in her life had she felt the wild drumming of her heart just because a man—and that was it, he wasn’t a boy—was regarding her with assessing steely eyes.
Five or six years older than she, he seemed light-years ahead of her in sophistication. He’d been off to college somewhere on the East Coast, she thought, an Ivy League school, though she couldn’t really remember which one.
“I imagine you do have a name.” His lips twitched and she felt even a bigger fool.
“Oh…yes. I’m Nicole Sanders.” She started to offer him her hand, then let it drop.
“Is that what you go by? Nicole?”
“Yeah.” She swallowed hard and glanced away. Clearing her throat she nodded. “Sometimes Nikki.” She felt like a little girl in her ponytail and cutoff jeans and sleeveless blouse with the shirttails tied around her waist.
“Nikki, I like that.” Plucking a long piece of dry grass from the hillside he shoved it into his mouth and as Nicole surreptitiously watched, he moved it from one sexy corner to the other. And he was sexy. More purely male and raw than any boy she’d ever been with. “You live around here?”
“Yeah. In town. Alder Street.”
“I’ll remember that,” he promised and her silly heart took flight. “Alder.”
Dear God, she thought she’d die. Right then and there. He winked at her, stretched out and leaned back on his elbows while taking in the back of her head and the darkening heavens.
As the fireworks had started that night, bursting in the sky in brilliant flashes of green, yellow and blue, Nicole Frances Sanders spent the evening in exquisite teenage torment and, without a thought to the consequences, began to fall in love.
It seemed eons ago—a magical point in time that was long past. But, like it or not, even now, while standing in her cozy little kitchen, she felt the tingle of excitement, the lilt, she’d always experienced when she’d been with Thorne.
“Don’t go there,” she warned herself, her hands gripping the edge of the counter so hard her fingers ached. “That was a long, long time ago.” A time Thorne, no doubt, didn’t remember.
She waited until she’d fed and bathed the girls, read them stories, and then, dreading talking to him, punched out the number for the Flying M Ranch.
Thorne picked up on the second ring. “Flying M. Thorne McCafferty.”
“Hi, it’s Nicole. You called?” she asked while the twins ran pell-mell through the house.
“Yeah. I thought we should get together.”
She nearly dropped the phone. “Get together? For?”
“Dinner.”
A date? He was asking her out? Her heart began to thud and in the peripheral vision she saw the rose with its soft white petals beginning to open. “Was there a reason?”
“More than one, actually. I want to talk to you about Randi and the baby, of course. Their treatment, what happens if we can’t find the baby’s father, convalescent care and rehabilitation when Randi’s finally released. That kind of thing.”
“Oh.” She felt strangely deflated. “Sure, I suppose, but her doctors will go over all this with you.”
“But they’re not you.” His voice was low and her pulse elevated again.
“They’re professionals.”
“But I don’t know them. I don’t trust them.”
“And you trust me?” she said, unable to stop herself.
“Yes.”
The twins roared into the room. “Mommy, Mommy—she hit me!” Molly cried, outraged, while Mindy, eyes round, shook her head solemnly.
“Not me.”
“Yes, she did.”
“You hit me first.” Molly began to wail.
“Thorne, would you excuse me. My daughters are in the middle of their own little war.”
“Oh, I didn’t realize.” He paused for a second as she bent on one knee, stretching the phone cord and giving Molly a hug. “I didn’t know you had children.”
“Two girls, dynamos. I’m divorced,” she added quickly. “Nearly two years now.”
Was there a sigh of relief on his end of the conversation, or did she imagine it over Molly’s sobs?
“I’ll talk to you later,” he said.
“Yes. Do.” She hung up and threw her arms around both girls, but her thoughts were already rushing forward to thoughts of Thorne and being alone with him. She couldn’t do it. Even though he’d tried to apologize for leaving her and she’d spent years fantasizing about just such a scenario, she wouldn’t risk being with him again. It wasn’t just herself and her heart she had to worry about now, she had the girls to consider. And yet…a part of her would love to see him again, to smile into his eyes, to kiss him… She pulled herself up short. What was she thinking? The kiss in the parking lot had been passionate, wild and evoked memories of their lovemaking so long ago, but it was the kiss on her cheek that had really gotten to her, the soft featherlike caress of his lips against her skin that made her want more.
“Stop
