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Standing on the back porch in his stocking feet, Shane peered through the flying snow and watched the thin beam of light bob across the yard. Shivering, he counted the seconds until the light waved back and forth, signaling that Henry had made it to his trailer. Holy Hannah, but it was cold!

He would’ve enjoyed watching the game and sharing a beer with the old man. But the cramped space in Henry’s trailer left little room to stretch out. And he’d be leaving two women and two kids alone during a dangerous storm. Staying in the house was the only choice that made sense.

Gripping the door to keep it from blowing open, he slipped back inside. Kylie was standing by the table, almost as if she’d been waiting for him.

“My word, you look like a human icicle!” she said.

“I f-feel like one, too.” His teeth were chattering.

Kylie laughed—the first he’d heard her laugh since they were in school together. He’d forgotten how much he used to like that sound.

Back then, he’d liked a lot of things about Kylie Summerfield. She was pretty, she was smart, and she was nice to everybody. But she was the perfect girl—perfect looks, perfect clothes, perfect grades, perfect reputation—a girl who wouldn’t be caught dead with a troublemaking loser like him.

So he’d stayed away. And he’d be smart to stay away now.

Her hand brushed his arm. “You’re freezing! Aunt Muriel, where can I get a blanket?”

“Try the hall closet,” Muriel called from the living room, where she’d gone to sit with Amy.

Kylie flitted away and came back with a woolen Indian-style blanket, which she unfolded and wrapped over his shoulders. Shane tugged its warmth around him.

“Can I make you something hot?” she asked. “Some cocoa?”

“Sounds good.”

“I’ll take some, too,” Amy called from the living room. “How about you, Aunt Muriel?”

“You bet,” Muriel said.

“Me too.” Hunter had finished the dishes.

“Okay! Cocoa for everybody. We’ve even got marshmallows.”

Wrapped in the blanket, Shane sat and watched as she gathered her supplies and began heating the cocoa. There was something cozy about sitting here, watching a pretty woman make something good. Kylie had changed since high school, he thought. She was softer, warmer—and sexy, damn it. Sexy in a way the perfect girl he remembered hadn’t been.

Too bad he wasn’t in the market. Now that he had the chance to leave Branding Iron forever, the last thing he wanted was to get tied down in a relationship, especially with kids involved.

“Mom?” Hunter stood beside her. “Can I have my phone back now?”

She took the phone out of her pocket. “Here. But remember to behave yourself. If I have to take it again, it’ll be for longer.”

“I’ll remember!” He snatched the phone, turned it on, and began texting, his fingers a blur.

Kylie set out five mismatched mugs and dropped a marshmallow into each one. When the cocoa was hot, she filled the cups, set one down on the table next to Shane, handed one to Hunter, and put the rest on a tray.

“Thanks.” He sipped the hot chocolate, tasting the marshmallow foam on his lips. He could hear the TV from the living room. Kylie walked through the open archway to set the tray on the coffee table. He found himself hoping she’d come back to the kitchen and keep him company, but she settled herself on the couch, next to her daughter, to watch the show. His only companion in the kitchen was Hunter, so absorbed in his phone that he might as well have been a robot.

The storm was a real blue norther, and it wasn’t letting up. Wind clawed at the siding on the house. Snow hammered the windowpanes. Lulled by the sweet, hot cocoa, Shane was growing drowsy when, suddenly, from somewhere outside, there was a flash and a boom.

The lights flickered and went out, plunging the house and everyone in it into blackness.

Chapter Four

“O
h no!” The wail came from the living room. Shane recognized the tween-age voice of Kylie’s daughter, Amy. “This isn’t fair! It was just getting good!”

Shane pushed to his feet, leaving the blanket on the chair. “Is everybody all right in there?”

“No!” It was Amy again. “It’s not fair! I want to watch my show!”

“Stop being a baby!” Hunter spoke from a dark corner of the kitchen. “The power went out, that’s all. Who cares if you can’t watch your stupid show? Hey, at least my phone still works!”

“Mom!”

“That’s enough, both of you. If you can’t be helpful, be quiet,” Kylie said. “We’re fine, Shane. Just sitting here in the dark. Any idea what happened?”

“There’s a transformer on a pole by the road. I’m guessing it shorted out, maybe blew over, or even got hit by lightning. If that’s what happened, we could be down till the power company makes it through the snow. Have you got a handy flashlight, Muriel?”

“Just the one we lent Henry,” Muriel said. “Maybe you ought to call him and make sure he’s all right.”

“Good idea.” Shane had the number of Henry’s landline on his cell. The old man answered on the first ring.

“I’m fine,” Henry said. “Since I’m the one with the good flashlight, do you want me to go out to the shed and try to crank up the generator? It hasn’t been run for a while. Might need some fresh gas and some tinkerin’.”

“No, stay put. I’ll help you in the morning when it’s light enough to see what we’re doing. We’ll be fine till then. Just stay safe and keep warm.”

Shane ended the call. By now, his eyes were getting used to the dark. He could see the outlines of windows and furniture and the huddled shape that was the boy in the far corner of the kitchen. “Any candles?” he asked Muriel.

“Hall closet, bottom shelf,” she answered from the living room. “I can come and—”

“No, I’ll find them.” The last thing Shane wanted was to have a seventy-nine-year-old woman stumble and break a bone. He made his way down the pitch-dark hallway; he found the closet and groped along the low shelf until his fingers closed on a bundle of tapered candles bound with a rubber band.

Holding the candles, he straightened, turned, and stepped out of the closet—only to bump into something soft, warm, and womanly. Even in the dark, there was no mistaking Kylie’s luscious curves.

A jolt went through his body. He lowered his arms, resisting the urge to touch her. If his hand ended up in the wrong place, he’d be in serious danger of getting his face slapped.

With a little gasp, she drew back, thrusting a small cardboard box between them. “Matches,” she said. “They were on the hearth. Muriel wanted me to bring them to you.”

“Thanks.” Forcing himself to be cool, he took the box and followed her back to the kitchen, where it was light enough to see a little. Shane’s pulse was still racing. There in the dark hallway, she’d been so close, so tempting. What would’ve happened if he’d been crazy enough to pull her close and kiss her—Kylie Summerfield, the girl he’d wanted to kiss since he was Hunter’s age? The one girl he’d never dared touch?

But what was he thinking? This wasn’t the right time to get involved. It wasn’t the right place or the right woman. Red lights all the way.

“Hold this.” He handed her one of the longer candles. She kept it steady while he struck a match and lit the wick. The flame caught the wax and flickered upward, casting her face in a golden glow. She’d been a pretty girl in high school. Now, bathed in candlelight, she was stunning—and all woman.

“We need something to hold it up. There’s a Mason jar by the sink. That should work.” She hurried away from him and came back with the candle leaning against the inside rim of the jar.

“Hang on.” Shane lit a second candle from the flame of the first. Sticking the end in a soda bottle Kylie had found, he carried it into the living room and set it on the hearth. As in many older homes, the opening of the fireplace had been filled with a cast-iron fireplace insert.

“Without the furnace going, we’ll need some heat,” he told Muriel. “Tell me where I can find some dry wood and I’ll make us a fire.”

“No need for so much work, Cowboy,” Muriel said. “Henry always carries out the ashes and keeps the insert stoked with wood. All you’ll need to do is open the front, check the damper, and light a match. If you need more wood, there’s some in that box in the corner.”

“Henry takes good care of this place,” Kylie said. “You’re lucky to have him.”

“Oh, indeed I am. I don’t know how I’d have managed without him all these years.” Muriel pulled her hand-knitted afghan tighter around her shoulders. “I do hope he’ll be warm enough out there in that trailer.”

“Henry knows how to take care of himself. He’ll be fine.” Crouching in front of the hearth, Shane opened the cast-iron door of the fireplace insert. It was as Muriel had said. The wood chunks were skillfully laid with newspaper and kindling underneath. After making sure the damper was open, all he had to do was light a match. Within minutes a crackling blaze was warming the room.

Shane made himself comfortable on the couch. Hunter wandered in with his phone and settled in a corner.

“Now this is cozy!” Kylie sipped the last of her lukewarm cocoa. “The old days must’ve been like this. Candles for light, a fireplace to keep warm . . .”

“And no TV to watch.” Amy’s voice reflected her sour mood.

“When I first came here as a little girl, we didn’t have anything like TV, or even a radio,” Muriel said. “The first summer, we lived in a tent while my father built the oldest part of this house, with the kitchen and bedroom, and a sleeping loft for me and my brother. Even after it was done, we didn’t have electricity till the power company strung a line out here. That first winter we kept warm with the old iron stove my mother used for cooking. It had a tank on one side—a ‘water jacket,’ they called it. It heated water for dishes and our Saturday-night bath. I was about your age, Hunter, before we finally got an indoor bathroom.”

That got Hunter’s attention. “You mean you had to go outside to—”

“That’s right. We had an outhouse—‘privy’ was the polite word for it—behind where the machine shed is now. On cold winter nights, it could seem like a very long walk. Sometimes when we went out there, we could hear coyotes howling. I remember how they used to scare me.”

“Were you pioneers?” Amy asked.

“Pioneers?”
Muriel chuckled. “I’m not quite as old as that. But it was after a time called the Great Depression when a lot of people were out of work. It was a common thing to be poor. My father got this piece of farmland from a man who had to move away. He traded our old truck for it. We were lucky to have land, but we were poor, too.”

“I bet you at least had a Christmas tree,” Amy said. “Everybody should have a Christmas tree, even if they’re poor.”

Kylie sighed. “I hear you, Amy. Believe me, I haven’t given up.”

“We didn’t have money for a tree,” Muriel said. “But there was usually a party with a tree and Christmas carols at the church. If we were lucky, we got a few pieces of candy and an orange. But we didn’t get many presents. I remember one year the present I got was a pair of warm socks my mother had knitted. I do believe I still have those socks somewhere. They have a few holes now, but they kept my feet warm for a long time.” There was a catch in her voice. “We didn’t have much in those days, but we knew what we had was precious.”

Muriel’s hands kept busy as she talked. In the faint light, Shane could see a gray wool sock taking shape beneath her knitting needles.

“When my mother died, I was just fourteen and had to do the cooking and take care of the house,” she said. “I managed to finish high school but couldn’t go to college. When my brother—that would be your grandfather, Kylie—was seventeen, he took a job as a cowboy on one of the big ranches so we’d have a little money coming in. Even then there was never quite enough.”

“Are you telling us kids that we don’t have it so bad?” Amy stood, her hands clenched at her sides. “Not even if our dad died in the war and we had to leave our nice house in California and come to this cold, awful place where there’s
nothing
to do? Last Christmas was bad. This Christmas is going to be worse! This is the worst time in my life!”

“That’s enough, young lady!” Kylie was on her feet. “We’re lucky to be here. You should be grateful to have a roof over your head and people who care about you. Go upstairs to your room and think about that for a while.”

“My room will be freezing!”

“You’ve got plenty of blankets. You’ll be warm enough in bed. If you leave the door open, you might even get a little heat from downstairs. Go on. We’ll talk in the morning.”

“It’s dark on the stairs!”

“You’ll get enough light from the kitchen to find your way. And the snow will reflect some light through the bedroom window. You’ll be fine, Amy.”

“It’s not fair!” Amy flung back the words as she dashed upstairs.

In the silence that followed, Shane told himself he was well out of this drama. But then, in the firelight, he glimpsed Kylie’s stricken face. She hadn’t asked for any of this, he reminded himself. Fate had dealt her and her children a brutal blow. She was doing her best to help her family survive. It had to be tough.

In school he’d admired Kylie Summerfield for her beauty and intelligence. Now he’d discovered one more quality to admire—her courage. But that didn’t mean he shouldn’t keep his distance. Come spring, with luck, he’d have a buyer for the ranch and could start planning the rest of his life—the life of freedom and adventure he’d always dreamed of.

“I’m sorry, Aunt Muriel.” Kylie fought back tears of frustration. “You’ve done so much for us. Amy should know better than to talk to you like that.”

Muriel’s knitting had fallen to her lap. She waved a hand in dismissal. “Don’t worry about it, dear. She’s young, she’s been through a lot, and this old place isn’t much like home. But she’ll settle in. Just give her time.”

“It’s hard to see her hurting—but that’s no excuse for hurting other people, especially you, when you’ve literally saved our lives.” She glanced at her son, who was still texting. “That goes for you, too, Hunter. Tomorrow morning you’re both getting a lesson in manners.”