Cowboy Take Me Away

Chapter 5


Heat rushed to Shannon’s face, flooding her with an unnerving sense of being caught off-guard. The brim of Luke’s hat shadowed his face, but what she could see of his expression gave away nothing about why he might be there. He wore a brace on his knee, evidence that he’d probably had surgery, but the physical limitation did little to detract from the strength he radiated with every breath.

She never walked away after feeding the horses in the summer without stalks of hay in her hair and a sweat-soaked shirt, so she didn’t need a mirror to know what she looked like right then. She shoved a strand of hair away from her forehead, then turned back to dip the scoop into the grain bin again.

“Luke,” she said nonchalantly. “Thought you were long gone.”

“I was. Change of plans.” He pulled a folded-up section of newspaper from his hip pocket and tossed it onto a nearby bale of hay. “I’m here about the caretaker’s job.”

Shannon dropped the scoop, spilling the grain back into the bin again. She stared at the newspaper, then back at Luke. “You’re what?”

“Have you filled the job?”

“Uh, no, but—”

“Then I want it.”

“Hallelujah!” Freddie Jo said, looking heavenward. “This is our lucky day!” She gave Luke a big smile. “It’s about time somebody came to our rescue. A few more weeks of this, and—”

“Now, hold on a minute!” Shannon said.

Freddie Jo’s face fell. “What’s the matter?”

Shannon couldn’t believe this. Of all the things she might have expected Luke to do, this was absolutely last on the list.

“You can’t work here,” she told him.

“Why not?” Freddie Jo said.

“Yeah,” Luke said. “Why not?”

Why not? Was he serious? He thought he could just walk in there and ask for a job as if the past had never been? Still, the last thing she wanted was to dredge that up now. Fortunately, she hardly needed that as justification not to hire Luke when he had another more obvious shortcoming.

“Look at you,” she said. “You can barely walk. How are you supposed to do the job?”

“I had the surgery. The doctor said I need to start rehabbing my knee, and that includes making sure I get plenty of exercise. Give me a couple of weeks, and I’ll be doing all the heavy lifting I need to.”

“And there’s plenty he can do in the meantime,” Freddie Jo said.

“Like what?” Shannon said.

“He can groom the horses. Dose the cats with ear mite medicine. Feed the llamas.”

“Llamas?” Luke said. “Now, there’s something that wasn’t around here eleven years ago.”

“We have everything but dinosaurs now,” Freddie Jo said. “We’re just praying nobody figures out time travel, or the back pasture is going to look like Jurassic Park.”

Shannon couldn’t deal with this. It made her nervous just to have Luke standing in this barn, much less working there. If she’d felt hot before he showed up, she was positively sizzling now. He seemed to fill every space he walked into, crowding her mind until she couldn’t think straight. No matter how rational she tried to be, all it took was one glance to remind her what it had felt like to touch him and to imagine what it would be like if she did it again.

But there was another side to Luke now, one she’d do well to keep in mind. On their way to and from Austin after he’d hurt his knee, he’d shown her quite clearly how angry, abrupt, and resentful he could be. The last thing she needed these days was to deal with that kind of attitude.

She turned back to the grain bin. “Sorry, Luke. This interview is over.”

“Interview?” Luke said. “Was that what that was?”

“Yes. And you didn’t get the job.”

“I didn’t even get to tell you about my experience. As luck would have it, I’ve worked here before.”

Shannon scooped some more grain.

“So I know my way around the place,” Luke went on.

She dumped the grain into Clancy’s bucket.

“I’m thinking that makes me just about the perfect job candidate.”

“No,” Shannon said, swiping her forearm across her forehead. “The perfect job candidate would be an animal lover. I don’t remember you being one of those.”

“Is that a requirement for the job?”

“If it is, I may be in trouble,” Freddie Jo said.

“What do you mean?” Shannon said. “You’re an animal lover.”

“Not all animals. I’m not too crazy about the llamas. They spit.” She turned to Luke. “But as long as you treat them right, that’s all that matters.”

Shannon had to admit that even though Luke had never clucked and cooed over the puppies and kittens, he certainly hadn’t mistreated them, so that was no excuse for not hiring him now.

So what was her excuse?

“You don’t want the job,” she said. “Trust me. It pays next to nothing.”

“I don’t need much.”

“The apartment is tiny. You can barely turn around in it.”

“It’s a place to sleep and shower. What else does a man really need?”

“There’s no TV.”

“Who needs a TV?”

“You’re a man,” she said. “It’s part of your genetic makeup. You can’t go against nature.”

“It’s only for a little while. Three months. That’s it. Once I’m ready to climb back up on a bull again, I’ll be out of here.”

“Right. And that’s a problem. I’m looking for a permanent employee.”

“Yeah? How’s that been working out for you?”

Shannon opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. Damn it. Why was he doing this to her?

“He’s right,” Freddie Jo said. “Somebody temporary beats the nobody we have right now.” She turned to Luke. “You’re hired.”

Shannon whipped around. “Excuse me?”

“It’ll take me a bit to get you set up on the payroll,” Freddie Jo went on. “But soon as I do—”

“Hey!” Shannon said.

Freddie Jo blinked innocently. “What?”

“You can’t hire people!”

“Really?” Freddie Jo said. “But you told me I could.”

“When did I tell you that?”

“Two weeks ago when that Labrador mama was having her babies. You stayed overnight in the caretaker’s apartment and said the bed was like sleeping on a sack of rocks. You said, ‘Freddie Jo, I’ve had enough of this. If you run across somebody for the caretaker’s job, you hire him on the spot.’”

“You know I didn’t mean it like that!”

“Well, then, you’d better watch what you say, honey. You know me. I’m a little slow. I take things kinda literally.”

Shannon frowned. “Can I see you outside?”

Without waiting for a response, Shannon grabbed her by the arm and hustled her out of the barn. Once they were clear of the door, Shannon spun around.

“Do you have any clue who that is?” she whispered.

“Sure I do, honey. Luke Dawson.”

“Exactly! So you must know I don’t want him around here!”

“Yeah, I know. But when you were talking about him, you left out the part about him being one fine-looking man.”

“You’re a married woman. What would Carl say if he heard you talking like this?”

“Just fighting fire with fire. You should hear what he says about the girls on the Harley Davidson calendar.”

Shannon closed her eyes and shook her head.

“Okay,” Freddie Jo said. “Let’s forget for a minute that Luke Dawson is a hundred-and-eighty-pound box of eye candy. You need a caretaker, and he’s willing to take the job. Who else you gonna get who doesn’t mind living in that dinky apartment and getting paid next to nothing?”

Shannon couldn’t believe this was happening. She felt the weight of her history with Luke welling up inside her. She didn’t want to do this. She just didn’t.

“In the time it takes you to feed the horses,” Freddie Jo went on, “you could be on the phone scrounging up more money for this place. Writing more grant proposals. Begging a few more goodies from pet food companies. That’s what you’re good at. And you wouldn’t be wearing yourself to the bone.”

“I don’t mind doing everything.”

“I know you don’t. But honey, taking care of the animals…that’s hard work.”

Shannon felt a stab of guilt. “I know it is. You’ve taken on a lot, too, and I appreciate it. I’m just sorry to have to ask you to do it.”

“You know I’ll help you till I drop dead. But it’s you I’m worried about. As much as the rest of us pitch in, you do twice as much. And that’s not good for any of us.”

Freddie Jo was right. She was tired right down to her shoe soles.

“None of us has to do nearly as much if we can find somebody to do it for us,” Freddie Jo said. “We need a man around here.”

“We need a man? Have you even heard of feminism?”

“Deny it all you want to, honey, but a little testosterone goes a long way. Aren’t you getting a little tired of lugging around hundred-pound sacks of horse feed?”

“Luke can’t lug horse feed. Not with his knee.”

“You heard what he said. Give him a few weeks, and he’ll be able to do just about anything. In the meantime, he’ll be the eyes and ears you say you need around this place.”

“No. No way. I am not hiring Luke Dawson. We have history. It wasn’t pretty. And I’d rather not go there again.”

Freddie Jo let out a weary sigh. “Okay. I hear you.”

Shannon looked away.

“No. Really. I’m sorry for pushing so hard. I know there’s bad blood between you and Luke. I don’t know the details, but I do know that just thinking about going to his daddy’s funeral freaked you out.”

And it shouldn’t have. Good heavens—eleven years had passed. She could have gone, acted like an adult, expressed her condolences, and left. Instead, she’d shied away like some kind of scared kid. It wasn’t like her not to stand up to her feelings, no matter what they were. But like it or not, even after all these years, Luke still put a twist in her tongue and a knot in her stomach.

“So forget everything I’ve said up to now,” Freddie Jo told her. “If you say it’s a bad thing to have him around here, it’s a bad thing. Send him on his way, and I won’t say another word about it. And you know I mean that.”

She did. Freddie Jo was nothing if not sincere. Still, while Shannon knew she didn’t mean to lay a guilt trip on her, that was what it felt like just the same.

“I’m going to head on back to the office,” Freddie Jo said. “You talk to Luke. Whatever you decide, I’m behind you a hundred percent.”

As Freddie Jo walked back up the path to the office, Shannon went back into the barn. Clancy had finished his grain, and Luke was standing by his stall. Clancy nudged his shoulder, and he turned and gave the horse a couple of solid pats on the neck. Light slanted through the dusty windows, bathing the side of Luke’s face in soft sunlight. Shannon’s gaze drifted involuntarily down his body. It seemed to be nothing but bone and muscle, with biceps and thighs sculpted from years of trying to stay on board animals that were doing their level best to dump him in the dirt.

“Seems like a pretty good horse,” Luke said. “What’s keeping him here?”

“We got an anonymous phone call that he’d been abandoned, and when we found him, he had a bad cut on his foreleg. Probably barbed wire.”

Luke leaned over the stall door and looked at Clancy’s front leg. “How deep is it?”

“Right down to the bone. I hate barbed wire. I’d love to get rid of it around here, but there’s never been enough money in the budget to put new fence around all this acreage.”

Luke flipped up the horse’s lip and looked at his teeth. “He’s young. Looks like a two-year-old. Saddle broke?”

“We don’t know yet.”

“Give him a week or two to heal, and then I’ll saddle him up. If he doesn’t object to that, he’s likely broke. Then I’ll hop up on him and see how he does.”

“You’re assuming you’re going to be here in a week or two.”

“That’s right.”

She walked over to where he stood. “Tell the truth. Why do you want this job? Really?”

He faced her. “Why are you considering giving it to me? Really?”

“I’m not.”

“Yeah, you are, or you would have sent me on my way already.”

“I tried to. You refused to go. I already said you didn’t get the job.”

“How long has it been vacant?”

She paused. “Almost two months.”

“How many people have applied?”

“What difference does it make?”

“How many?”

“One. He didn’t work out.”

“How many hours a day do you work?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“Ten? Twelve?”

She just stared at him.

“Okay. At least twelve. Aren’t you exhausted?”

“Not in the least.”

“Then you must be partying all night long to get those dark circles under your eyes.”

“Knock it off, Luke.”

“It’s hotter than hell in this barn, and it’s supposed to be over ninety degrees every day for the next week. Too bad these horses still have to be fed.”

“I said that’s enough.”

“I hear that bed is a sack of rocks. I’d hate for you to have to—”

“Will you stop?”

He took a few steps forward and stared down at her. “I want this job, but I don’t beg. Is it mine or not?”

“You’re broke, aren’t you? That’s why you want to work here.”

“I’m not broke.”

“You’re lying.”

Luke’s eyes narrowed just enough that she knew she’d hit a nerve. It was just as she’d suspected. His hospital bills had nearly wiped him out. And since bull riding was his livelihood and he couldn’t pursue it until his knee was healed, he had no means of support.

“No matter what you think,” Luke said, “this is just a temporary setback for me. Come the first of November, I’m going to the World Championship in Denver.”

“That’s less than three months from now. Your knee won’t be completely healed.”

“Whether it is or it isn’t, that’s where I’ll be. And when it’s all over, I’ll have the championship and the money that goes with it.”

Her first thought was that he was just as cocky as he’d ever been. But his gaze never left hers, telling her he believed every word he spoke. She had the feeling he didn’t just profess to be the best at what he did. He really was the best.

“If I give you this job, I expect you to work,” she told him. “No screwing around.”

“I know we’ve had our disagreements,” Luke said. “But was there ever a time back then when I didn’t do my job? Ever?”

He was right. He’d never shirked his responsibility on the job. If she didn’t hire him now, it would be because she was a petty-minded person who couldn’t get over the past, and she hated to think she might be one of those.

“Fine,” she told him. “The job is yours. But only until I find somebody permanent. Even if that happens tomorrow, you’ll have to move on.”

“Deal.”

“The job requires you to work six days a week, including both weekend days, with one day off during the week.”

“That’s fine. But I have to go to Austin twice a week for physical therapy, so I’ll need another morning or afternoon off during the week.”

“You haven’t even started and you’re pushing for time off?”

“Most of the work around here can be done in off hours—early morning, late evening. I’ll make up the time.”

Shannon hadn’t liked this before, and she really didn’t like it now. But he was right. Whether the animals were fed at seven in the morning or nine really didn’t matter, as long as it was consistent.

“When can you start?” she said.

“No time like the present.”

“Good. I assume you want to move in immediately, too.”

“Yes.

“Okay. Freddie Jo will put you on the payroll and—”

All at once her phone rang. She looked at the caller ID. Russell?

She hit the Answer button. “Hi, Russell. What’s up?”

“I just called to ask what kind of wine would be appropriate for tonight.”

She started to say, Wine for what? And then it hit her, that horrible sinking sensation that always came over her whenever she realized she’d forgotten something important. Sure, now she remembered they were going to her parents’ house for dinner. Now, less than an hour and a half before Russell was supposed to pick her up and she was a hot, sweaty mess from head to toe.

She took several quick steps away from Luke, turned her back, and spoke quietly. “Uh…yeah. A bottle of wine. That would be nice.”

“Do you have any idea what your mother is making?”

“Uh…”

“Beef?”

“Well…”

“Pork? Fish?”

She squeezed her eyes closed. Think…think…what did she tell you?

Oh, yeah. Chicken. But not just any old chicken. She was making her prized Monterrey Chicken, famous the world over, as long as the world didn’t extend past the city limits of Rainbow Valley. When it came to cooking, Loucinda North was the self-crowned Queen of Cuisine. While other kids were eating macaroni and cheese on plastic plates in the breakfast room, Shannon remembered white-tablecloth dinners, complete with gravy boats, napkin rings, and narrow-eyed glares for any child who dared put her elbows on the table.

“Chicken,” she said.

“Then I’ll bring a white. Chardonnay. Light and crisp. Fruity. Will that work?”

“Yes. White. That’ll be perfect.”

“I’ll pick you up at six.”

“Sounds good,” she said with a smile in her voice that never made it to her face. She hit the End button and stuffed the phone back into her pocket.

“White wine and chicken,” Luke said. “I hear that’s a good match. Me, I’m a beer man. The darker, the better.”

Ignoring him, Shannon dashed back to the grain bin, stabbed the scoop into it, and dumped grain into the last two horses’ buckets. Then she turned to Luke. “I’ll take you back to the office. Freddie Jo will show you the caretaker’s apartment and tell you the rules.”

“Rules? Hmm. This is the first I’ve heard of rules.”

“If they’re too strict for you, no problem. You don’t have to work here.”

“I just remembered. I love rules.”

“Luke?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t give me a reason to regret this.”

A lazy smile appeared on his lips. “Oh, you won’t regret it. Trust me on that.”

Yes, it was a smile, but there was nothing warm or sociable about it. What she saw now was just a grown-up version of the boy who had been at war with this town, with eyes that let no one inside. There had been a time when she was sure she’d discovered a kindness and compassion in him that no one else had ever seen, but now it felt like a dream she’d once had that bore no resemblance to reality.

Then all at once, something nagged at her conscience. She wondered if she should say something. Probably not. But guilt drove her to do it, anyway.

“Luke? There was something I didn’t say before, and I should have.”

He gave her a cocky smile. “What’s that? ‘Welcome to Paradise’?”

“I’m sorry about your father.”

His smile evaporated, and he averted his gaze. “Then that makes one of us.”

“Luke—”

“I hear you. You’re sorry. And from now on, you can consider that topic off limits.”

He folded his arms and turned away. Shannon couldn’t imagine what turbulence a man would carry inside when he had a father like Glenn Dawson, so she couldn’t really blame him for feeling the way he did.

Fortunately, he seemed no more inclined to talk about the past than she did, which was fine by her. What had happened between them was over and done with. He could work there, give her the temporary help she needed, and then he’d be gone.

Oh, hell. Who was she kidding? Nothing with Luke had ever been simple. And not only would he be working there, he’d be living there. For a moment she imagined what it was going to be like to come to work every morning and see Luke coming out of his apartment, looking even more tempting than he had all those years ago.

Good Lord. Why the hell had she hired him?

Because his persistence knew no bounds. Because Freddie Jo wanted her to. Because if she didn’t get help soon, she was going to hit the end of her rope. Still, no matter how she looked at it, she couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d made a very big mistake.



Luke followed Shannon back up the path toward the office, his knee throbbing. Yeah, he talked a good game, pushing hard for the job he didn’t want but sure as hell needed, but what she didn’t know was just how much it shook him up to see her again. It had been one thing to run into her in Rosie’s. But in that barn…

He remembered one day when he’d first gone to work there that summer eleven years ago. She’d had an Appaloosa gelding cross-tied in the center walkway, cleaning his hooves. When Luke came into the barn, she was bent over with the horse’s hoof between her knees, and he’d gotten the most spectacular view of her ass that any high school boy could possibly have hoped for.

“Getting an eyeful back there, Dawson?” she’d asked him, jabbing at the horse’s hoof with the hoof pick.

“Oh, yeah,” he’d said with his usual cocky tone. “In fact, think I’ll have a seat right here on this bench and watch the show.”

“How about you come over here and do this, and I’ll watch your ass?”

“That wouldn’t be nearly as much fun as me watching yours.”

She dropped the horse’s hoof and turned around, her gaze slithering down his body and back up again, lingering in all the appropriate places.

“Maybe for you it wouldn’t be,” she said.

To this day he remembered the shiver of sexual awareness he’d felt as she spoke those words. Other girls had been intimidated by him. In awe of him. Scared of him, even. Not Shannon. She gave as good as she got.

After her remark, she’d pulled a pair of wire cutters from her pocket and tossed them to him. “Now, clip open a couple of bales of hay and let’s get these horses fed.”

That had been Shannon, through and through. If there was a job to do, she did it. She did it fast, she did it well, and she did it on time. As inclined as Luke had been to screw off back then just to be obstinate, hell would freeze over before he let her work harder than he did.

In the beginning, he’d hated her because of everything she had that he didn’t—rich parents, pristine home, good grades, and confidence that oozed from every pore. So for the first several weeks, sarcasm and taunting had been the order of the day. Neither of them yielded an inch of ground to the other, using every encounter as a reason to get under each other’s skin.

Then, slowly, things changed.

They still teased each other, but their sharp-edged talk softened into the kind of banter two friends might toss back and forth. Pretty soon Shannon was looking him right in the eye when she spoke to him, and it wasn’t long before they were searching for any reason they could to stay at the shelter a little longer in the evenings. Sometimes they sat in the grass down by the barn and just talked, and every second that passed seemed singular and special.

For the first time in his life, Luke let his guard down, telling Shannon things he’d never told anyone else. And before long he realized she wasn’t the privileged rich girl he automatically hated. She was a real person who maybe even had a few problems of her own. In a life that had been filled with nothing but pain and heartache, just being able to sit and talk to Shannon was maybe the best thing that had ever happened to him.

Soon Luke could barely put one foot in front of the other because he couldn’t stop thinking about her. He wanted her so badly he quivered with the thought of it. But surprisingly, not all of those thoughts were X-rated. When he thought about the reputation he had in high school, it always made him laugh. According to legend, he could have a girl’s bra off in four-point-two seconds, followed by her panties in under ten. And yet every night when he went to sleep, what filled his mind was how Shannon’s skin would feel beneath his palm and the gentle way she would smile at him as if she cared.

He’d been with a lot of girls he’d never thought twice about coming onto, but he just couldn’t bring himself to do it with Shannon. A girl like her with a guy like him? In what universe did that happen? Every time he imagined the elation he’d feel if he kissed her, it was canceled out by the pain he’d feel if she rejected him. And it stopped him cold every time.

Then one evening they’d been sitting cross-legged next to each other in the grass after everyone else had gone home, watching the sunset and talking about nothing. Out of nowhere, Shannon reached out and put her hand over his.

Luke literally stopped breathing for several seconds, his head dizzy with disbelief. Then slowly he turned his hand over and grasped hers. Such a small, small thing, but to Luke, at that moment, it felt huge. He began to stroke her hand with his thumb, back and forth, back and forth. It was as if a spell had been cast and they were both afraid of breaking it.

Finally he turned to face her, staring into those beautiful blue eyes. He lifted his free hand, placed it against her cheek, and kissed her. She leaned into him, circling her arms around his neck, and in that moment he was sure the Rapture had happened and he’d gone straight to heaven.

In the days that followed, they exchanged longing glances when other people were around and stole kisses when they weren’t. By silent consent, they kept their relationship a secret. Being secretive was second nature to Luke, so at first he hadn’t thought anything about it. But as time went on, he began to look ahead to the day when the whole world would know Shannon was his.

But that wasn’t how things had turned out. And to this day, in the dark of night, sometimes he felt the pain of it all over again.

No matter what happened between him and Shannon in the coming months, one thing was clear. She was never going to know how much she’d hurt him. That had been the first time—and the last—that he’d let down his guard and allowed a woman to take even the tiniest bit of himself that he didn’t intend to give her, and he’d be damned if he’d ever do it again.



Luke and Shannon went into the office to find Freddie Jo sitting behind her desk, her fingers going wild over her keyboard. She looked like Dolly Parton’s younger cousin—a little less flashy, a little more fleshy, but her mascara-laden eyes were Dolly’s through and through. He’d liked her from the moment he’d met her. She’d clearly been instrumental in Shannon deciding to give him this job, and that only made him like her more.

She stopped short and looked at Luke expectantly. “You’re still here.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“So…?”

“Put him on the payroll,” Shannon said.

“Well, hot damn!” Freddie Jo said with a big smile. She pointed to the chair beside her desk. “Sit yourself down and we’ll get the paperwork taken care of.”

Shannon went to her desk and retrieved her purse. “Goliath? Come on, baby.”

For the first time, Luke noticed the gigantic dog that had been with Shannon at Rosie’s lying in the corner behind her desk. He rose to follow Shannon, ducking his head like a scared puppy as he took a wide berth around Luke. They left the office, and through the window Luke saw Shannon hop into her truck with the dog beside her and take off toward the highway.

Freddie Jo had Luke fill out the obligatory payroll forms, then rose from her desk to show him the caretaker’s apartment. He followed her into the back hallway off the kitchen, then into a room with a bed, a desk, a small table and two chairs, along with a microwave, two-burner stove, and refrigerator. He’d never been inside George’s apartment, and it surprised him just how small and plain it was.

“Bathroom’s in there,” Freddie Jo said, pointing to a doorway. “I’d take you in there and show you around, but it’s so small that the two of us shouldn’t be in there together unless you put a ring on my finger.”

Luke glanced down to see she already had one of those. “I’m thinking your husband might have something to say about that.”

“Honey, I could have an affair with the entire Dallas Cowboys defensive line, and until Carl looked in his dresser drawer and saw he was out of clean underwear he wouldn’t even know I was gone.”

She reached into a closet and pulled down linens to make the bed. Luke told her it wasn’t necessary, but she had it finished in no time. After a few hard smacks that passed as fluffing the pillow, she tossed it at the head of the bed.

“There,” she said. “That should do it. Let’s see…got a computer with you? Phone?”

“Phone, yeah.”

“Then let me give you the Wi-Fi password. You’ve got no TV, so at least you’ll have some kind of connection to the outside world.”

She gave him the code in addition to a set of keys for the various buildings on the premises.

“If I’d known you were going to be here,” she said, “I’d have brought a few things for your fridge.”

“That’s okay. I’ll run up the highway to the Pic ’N Go later and grab some stuff to tide me over. I need to get gas, anyway.”

They went back into the kitchen at the same time a teenage girl popped through the back door. She had short, dark hair and wore a T-shirt with the shelter logo. A tattoo of vines swirling around a rose climbed up her thigh.

“I finished up in the cat cottage,” she said. “But they’re already pooping again. It never ends.”

“Luke,” Freddie Jo said, “this is Angela Cordero.”

Angela Cordero? Now Luke officially felt old. She’d been about six years old when he’d lived there before. He remembered her as a skinny kid with dark, straight hair and a bright, sunshiny smile in spite of the fact that she’d been just as motherless as he was. More than once he’d seen her father bring her to Rosie’s, sit her on a stool at the counter, and together they’d have apple pie and milk shakes. Luke had sat in a booth at the back of the restaurant, drinking black coffee and imagining what it must be like to have a father who gave a damn.

“I remember,” he said. “Marc Cordero’s daughter.”

“Luke used to live here,” Freddie Jo said. “I think you might have been in the first grade back when he left. He’s going to be our new caretaker.”

“Great!” Angela said. “We can sure use the help around here.”

“So how are things at the vineyard?” Luke asked.

“About like always. My dad says we’re going to be in a world of hurt if it doesn’t rain soon. But he says that every year. ‘If that mold spreads, we’re gonna be in a world of hurt.’ ‘If that new varietal bombs, we’re gonna be in a world of hurt.’ ‘If that label doesn’t sell, we’re gonna be in a world of hurt.’ I swear I’ve lived in a world of hurt since the day I was born.”

“Angela is off to college next year,” Freddie Jo said.

Angela smiled. “Which means I’ll miss harvest. Darn.”

“Hard work?” Luke asked.

“My dad always says, ‘Everybody pulls their weight at harvest, doubly so if your name is Cordero.’” She rolled her eyes. “I doubt I’ll have a professor half as tough as my own father. I swear it’ll be like a four-year vacation.”

In spite of Angela’s complaints, Luke didn’t hear any animosity in her voice. That was unusual for the average teenager, but he guessed Angela was above average. She reminded him of Shannon at her age, with a lot less intensity and a lot more smiles.

“Gotta go,” Angela said. “Nice to meet you, Luke.”

“Nice to meet you, too.”

After she left, Freddie Jo said, “Angela comes in after school and on weekends. She’s the only other paid employee. But we’ll lose her next year when she goes to college. Damned shame. She’s a good kid. We could use three more just like her, if only we had the money in the budget.”

“So the rest are volunteers?” Luke asked.

“Yeah. We have a few on the schedule right now, but they come and go.”

“Are things really that tight around here?”

“Expenses are up, and donations are down.”

“You’d think this town would support the shelter no matter what.”

“It’s not that people don’t want to. But when it’s between that and putting food on the table, you know what comes first. Angela’s doing a good job with our website and Facebook page and donations are coming in, but it could still be better. The festival is coming up, though. During that we can usually count on a bunch of adoptions and some decent donations.”

Luke couldn’t say he was looking forward to that. The festival was just one more place in this town where he’d felt as if he was on the outside looking in.

“Shannon said you had some rules for me,” Luke said.

“Only a few. Do you do drugs?”

“Nope.”

“Smoke?”

“Nope.”

“Entertain women after hours?”

“Okay, you’ve got me there. I just won’t do it here.”

“You catch on fast.” She gave him a grin. “Just so you know, you may have left town, but your reputation is still hanging around.”

“I’d be surprised if it wasn’t.”

“Heard you used to be pretty bad news. Or is that just a dirty rumor?”

“Well, normally I’d say you can’t believe everything you hear, but where I’m concerned, you probably can.”

“So you really were a juvenile delinquent?”

“Oh, yes, ma’am. Juveniles don’t get much more delinquent than I was.”

“Nice to see you got over that.”

“What makes you think I got over being delinquent?”

A sly smile stole across her lips. “I was talking about the juvenile part.”

Luke liked this woman. Hell, he was inclined to like anyone who didn’t hold his past against him. Of course, she hadn’t lived there when he was a teenager whose goal in life was to disrupt life in Rainbow Valley as often as he could. He didn’t expect to get the same cheerful welcome from the rest of its citizens. To a point, he had to admit that was fair.

To a point.

“One more question,” Luke said.

“Yeah?”

“Tell me about Russell.”

“Russell? You know about him?”

“Not exactly. But evidently Shannon is seeing him tonight.”

“He’s a dentist. Moved here about four months ago. He and Shannon date now and again.”

So Russell was her boyfriend. For some reason, picturing Shannon with another man made a twinge of jealousy slide along his nerves. But in spite of their history, Shannon wasn’t his. She never had been. So why did he feel as if he was losing something valuable even though it wasn’t his to begin with?

“Thanks for the help,” Luke said. “And thanks for talking Shannon into hiring me.”

“Teach the llamas not to spit, and we’re even.”

“I’ll do my best.”

Freddie Jo’s gaze turned serious. “Look, I know you and Shannon have history. Don’t know what it is. Don’t need to know. I’m just glad you’re here because we need the help something awful. Just always remember that even when Shannon’s barking, she’s not going to bite. She needs you too much for that.”

As Freddie Jo walked away, those words bounced around inside Luke’s head. She needs you.

Damn it. Why did she have to say that? She made it sound as if he were some kind of savior. He wasn’t. Not even close. If this place survived, fine. If not, that was fine, too, because he had no ties there at all.

Shannon was paying him to do a job. That was it. He intended to do that job to the best of his ability, but that was where his responsibility began—and ended. He didn’t want to depend on anyone, and he didn’t want anyone depending on him.