“I know.” Suddenly cold, she pulled away. She’d nearly forgotten that he didn’t want this between them.

Ignoring the heartache, she walked away from him and got into the car.

“Tell us everything about your visit with Jacob,” Maddie demanded that next night.

The three foster sisters were in the hot tub. Ty had just gone into the kitchen to muster up a snack.

“Well, let’s see…” Delia leaned back against the warm tile to stare up into the cloudy night. An occasional snowflake fell, cooling her steaming skin, as she remembered the visit to Scott’s office and the subsequent letter she and Cade had drafted to the authorities, outlining Scott’s financial problems. She could only hope it worked. “He creamed me in basketball and then I creamed him in a serious card game of war.”

“You probably cheated,” Zoe said, and Delia laughed.

“I never cheat. You’re confusing me with you.”

“You calling me a cheater?”

“Girls, girls,” Maddie said with a dramatic sigh, and they all laughed again.

“So was it heaven?” Maddie asked.

“Yeah.” Delia smiled, though it was a bittersweet one. “Then hell when I had to leave him. He asked me when he could come back here and I promised him as soon as possible.”

“How perfect,” Maddie said, smiling brilliantly. “He wants to come back to us.”

“And not just for a visit.” Delia remembered how Jacob had stood there, hands jammed into his pockets, as he’d muttered something she couldn’t quite catch. When she’d asked him to repeat it, he’d gone red in the face but had looked right at her.

“Maybe I could,” he’d said, “you know, come stay with you. Like…live there. Maybe. Sometime.”

He’d spoken casually, but with his heart on his sleeve, and Delia’s chest had ached. “He wants to come live here,” she said.

Zoe smiled in satisfaction at that. “He loves me.”

Maddie splashed her sister. “He loved it here, with all of us. Oh, Dee, how wonderful! What did you tell him?”

Delia remembered how she’d knelt before him, her hands on his shoulders, her heart in her throat. “It’s going to be up to the courts,” she’d said, her joy nearly overwhelming her. It had been all she could do not to give in to the tears burning her eyes. But crying right then would have only confused him. “You’re a very popular little boy, you know.”

A smile had split his face. “I have options,” he said. “Edna told me that. I pick you, Delia.”

“I wish it was that easy,” she managed. “But no matter what, you can come here as often as you want.”

“With you and Maddie and Zoe?”

She’d smiled. “Yes.”

“And Ty?” She could tell he’d had fun listing all the people in his life, people he would grow to love and care about. People who were his family.

“And Ty,” she said.

“And Cade?”

Her smile had faltered then. “Cade doesn’t live on the ranch, honey. He’s just working on a case. When he’s done, he’ll be gone.” Gone. For good. She could no longer think of it and muster up relief as she once had.

She didn’t feel anything but a terrifying emptiness at the thought of Cade leaving her life for good. But she had no idea how to change their fate, so she did her best to ignore it.

To hide her roller-coaster emotions, she’d given Jacob a hug, and he’d only hesitated a second before hugging her back. Nothing had ever felt as good as having that scrawny squirming little boy in her arms.

“I told Jacob soon,” she whispered now to her sisters. “Hopefully he’ll come here and stay.”

“So he wanted to know about Cade, too, huh?” Zoe watched Delia carefully, sinking deeper in the hot bubbling water. “You should know, Maddie and I have decided we love him.”

“Good for you two.”

“We can tell Cade loves it here with us,” Maddie said, “in spite of himself.”

“In spite of himself?” Delia narrowed her eyes. “What does that mean?”

“Delia.” Maddie’s voice was gentle. “I know the two of you have been circling each other like wild boars.”

“Like boars in heat, more like,” Zoe muttered, but wisely scooted back before Delia could splash her.

“I don’t know what haunts him,” Maddie said, “but something does. He’s such a wonderful man. And we’re so shorthanded. We were thinking…”

“That he belongs,” Zoe finished bluntly. “We have more than enough room for him to have his office here if he wants, and frankly, he’s got amazing know-all about this winter stuff. He’s not busy full-time with his cases, and he loves the wilderness. He could take guests out on treks with horses or snowmobiles.”

Delia rose and climbed out of the tub, immediately missing the warmth of the water. “No.”

“Delia-”

“No,” she said more firmly. “He won’t want to. My God, are you kidding?” She managed a laugh because the thought of having Cade in front of her all the time, looking rugged and tough, and rangy and sexy every single day, but at the same time not really being able to have him… It would break her heart, and that simply couldn’t be allowed to happen. “No,” she said again, and wrapped a towel around herself.

“Honey, wait-” Maddie rose from the tub, too, and with a delicate shiver she approached Delia. “If there’s nothing between you and Cade-”

“There’s not.”

“Then why are you so upset? He hasn’t hurt you, or-”

“No.” Delia gritted her teeth against Maddie’s worry, because she hated causing Maddie anything but happiness. “I’m sorry, it’s just that I know you’re right. I know Cade likes to be wild and free because it helps him avoid the fact he doesn’t have a real home, and I even know why he does it, and while I feel terrible about it, I just don’t know if I…if I can handle having him here.”

“You can handle anything,” Zoe reminded her quietly. “Which is why it’s shocking to watch you run from this, to completely ignore what’s happening between you and that man. That wonderful man, who’s obviously been as hurt by life as we have. We have the advantage, though-we have a new start. Come on, Dee, don’t you think he deserves the same? For once we have the upper hand, the ability to help others, instead of accepting what others can do for us. I can’t believe you aren’t willing to see that.”

“Zoe.” A frown curved Maddie’s mouth. “Don’t be so hard on her.”

Delia closed her eyes. “No, Maddie, she’s right.” Her selfishness and all the things she hadn’t told her sisters filled her with shame. They were both so honest, so open and willing to love and accept, and she’d lied to them by not admitting her custody troubles, by not admitting how she really felt about Cade, by holding herself back from them, when they never would have done that to her. “I think…I think I just need to get some sleep,” she whispered.

But when she’d escaped to her bed, away from her sisters concerned gazes, there was no sleep to be found.

At dawn’s light Delia had given up on the sweet escape of sleep. She’d gotten up, pulled on her clothes and gone outside.

Now she stood on the bank of the Salmon River, with the Triple M Guest Ranch at her back and the early-morning autumn sun on her face. The view was spectacular, but all she could see was her brother’s hopeful expression.

She couldn’t fail him.

Walking back to the house, the frozen ground crunched beneath her boots. Her breath crystallized in front of her face.

The mountains were white and brown. The meadow was white and brown. But the sky and the river were a brilliant blue. The trees provided the green. And with the two red barns and the wood fencing throughout, the place could have been a postcard, it was so lovely. The colors were so bright, so clear, Delia expected to see them run together as if the whole thing was a painting.

Instead, she watched as a man left the ranch house and walked toward the barn. He was tall, with a confident stride she’d recognize anywhere.