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“I know what it’s like to have someone make you think he cares about you when he doesn’t.” She smiled sadly. “Shane, I can’t imagine your mother being that person.”

“I wish I couldn’t. But even the most invincible people aren’t immune to losing sight of the truth when feelings are involved.” He’d witnessed that firsthand. Experienced it. “Everyone has a weakness, and there’s always someone to pay for that weakness. Even the invincible.”

She cocked her head. He had the urge to explain it all to her. To sit her down and tell her everything that had happened to this family and how he couldn’t let it happen again. But he was selfish enough to want to keep his weaknesses from her. His failures.

“I suppose that’s true,” she said after awhile. “But I don’t know how I can help you spy.”

“Ben doesn’t trust me. He doesn’t like me.”

He was gratified to see a spark of humor back on her face. “Gee, I wonder why.”

“Regardless of why,” he replied with feigned sternness, “I can’t go snooping around him or his stuff. Neither can my siblings. He knows that we’re out to get him.”

“Ah. But he doesn’t know I am.”

“Exactly. With Micah doing chores for us and stuff, plus the wedding planning, I figure you’ll be around a lot. You could do some eavesdropping and potentially some snooping.”

“That sounds . . . not wholly on the up-and-up.”

“It isn’t.”

“I didn’t know you had it in you,” she said, with something like admiration in her voice. As if doing something wrong was something to admire.

He wasn’t proud of any of this, but it had to be done. “I don’t want to do anything sordid, but I’ll do anything if it means I might protect my mother from hurt. I don’t just mean emotional hurts. If they get married, this ranch is part his. That might sound cold, but this ranch is my blood as much as my mother is. It’s my life. My father is buried on this land, my grandparents. My life, my family, and my history are all here in this ground, and I can’t trust someone with part of that until I know for sure he or she is worthy of that trust.”

“It must be very special to have all that,” she said quietly.

“It is. And it’s important to me.” He didn’t add that he felt bad for her that she clearly didn’t have anything like this to belong to. “I know you care about my mother.”

“I do. She’s been very good to me for absolutely no reason at all.”

“So, you don’t have to consider this a favor for me. You can consider this a favor for her. I don’t want you doing anything you’re uncomfortable with. If you say no, you want nothing to do with this, I’ll never ask again. But I had to ask.”

“And this is definitely not flirting?” she asked, and clearly she tried to ask it seriously, but she ended up smiling mischievously at him instead.

“Not yet anyway.”

She laughed a little. “Well, I’m going over to the flower farm with your mother this morning. Then I have a meeting in the afternoon with a future bride. I don’t know when we could make this happen.”

“Leave Micah with us for the whole day. Come back to pick him up around five. Mom will insist you both stay for dinner without my even having to put the idea in her head. I’ll figure out something to get us all together—a fire pit and s’mores or something. While that’s going on, you and I can sneak off and do a little digging.”

“That sounds like flirting.”

He grinned. “First you have to find something on Ben.”

She shook her head, but the lightness and easy humor were back. “This is kind of ridiculous, you know?”

“Yeah, but I’m willing to do a lot of ridiculous things to keep my family safe. To keep this place whole.”

She met his gaze then, her blue eyes serious and searching. “I guess that’s one of those things I like about you, Shane.”

He realized then how close they stood on the front porch. The beautiful pearly light of dawn teasing the red of her hair into prominence, the delicate blue of a morning sky reflected in her eyes. He couldn’t remember a time in his entire life when he’d wanted to press his mouth to someone else’s so badly. It was something akin to a stabbing pain, wanting to know what she felt like under his palms. Wanting to inhale her scent until he couldn’t smell anything else.

The front door slammed open, knocking him back to the here and now and some sense. Micah bounded out, Gavin following at a much slower pace. And then, to Shane’s surprise, Boone limped out behind Gavin.

“Don’t look so surprised, big brother.”

Shane wasn’t sure he’d ever stop being surprised to see Boone here. To see all the physical evidence of his brother’s injuries.