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“I’m going to grab something to eat.”
She needed to escape the urge to do exactly as he suggested—to sink into his arms and forget for the moment that she was the single mother of a very sick little boy.
“Claire.” He called her name and she ignored it, turning toward the kitchen.
“I need to eat.”
“No,” he said. “You need a hug.”
Funny how just a moment ago she couldn’t cry to save her life, yet his words brought instant tears to her eyes. “Please don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
She sucked in a breath, trying hard not to crumble because that was all it had taken—one gentle call of her name, one random act of kindness, one offer of a shoulder to lean upon—for her to lose strength.
“Don’t be kind to me because if you touch me I might crumble and if I crumble I don’t know if I’ll be able to put all the pieces back together again.”
He stared down at her with a kindness that melted her self-control. “If you crumble, I promise to help put you back together again.”
His Rodeo
Sweetheart
Pamela Britton
With more than a million books in print, PAMELA BRITTON likes to call herself the best-known author nobody’s ever heard of. Of course, that changed thanks to a certain licensing agreement with that little racing organization known as NASCAR.
But before the glitz and glamour of NASCAR, Pamela wrote books that were frequently voted the best of the best by the Detroit Free Press, Barnes & Noble (two years in a row) and RT Book Reviews. She’s won numerous awards, including a National Readers’ Choice Award and a nomination for the Romance Writers of America Golden Heart® Award.
When not writing books, Pamela is a reporter for a local newspaper. She’s also a columnist for the American Quarter Horse Journal.
This one’s for Patti Mahany,
the best big sister a person could ask for.
You make me laugh.
You’ve listened to me cry.
You’re always there for my daughter, and
I appreciate that more than you know.
Contents
There was something about a man in uniform.
Claire Reynolds had seen a lot of them over the years. It had gotten to the point that she hardly even noticed them anymore, but this man, she thought as a warm wind blew off the tarmac, this man stood out—and not just because he wore dress blues.
“Ms. Reynolds?” He walked out from beneath the shade of a C-40, although he had to yell to be heard. Behind him, across a strip of asphalt that shimmered from desert heat, the nose of a C-5 cargo plane lifted. The roar of its engines sounded as if a thousand
