“You are kidding, right?”
“Do I look like I am?”
No, he looked intent and purposeful, his jaw set as hard as the rest of his body. A ripple of sensation shimmered through her nerve endings as she recalled the look in his eyes as he’d tracked her across the porch. The feeling of all that dark heat so close, and so far. Because naturally, she’d misread those signals, too. He’d been playing with her, proving his point, demonstrating her vulnerability.
Frustrated and annoyed, she shook her head. “That’s plain ridiculous, spending so much money—”
“Money isn’t the issue. I’ll pay whatever it takes, Emily.”
A strangled, hiccuping laugh escaped her lips at the irony. He’d pay whatever it took, and no amount of money could compensate her deficit. His house was twelve miles from town, and she couldn’t bring herself to sit behind the steering wheel, not once since the carjacking. “I can’t drive, Mitch. I don’t have a car.”
“What happened to your Kia?”
“I needed the money for my legal bills,” she said simply. The insurance money for her burned-out car, dumped at the end of a terrifying joy ride. But that wasn’t something she had shared—or would share—with anyone. “And before you offer to buy me a new car, I should add that it won’t make a lick of difference. The answer is no.”
A word he apparently didn’t understand because, after the barest beat of a pause, he kept right on. “You can stay with Quade and Chantal. It’s not a long walk across the paddocks and they have—”
Anger flashed, quick and hot. “No, Mitch.”
He stilled, straightened, tensed. She had surprised him, she noted with a spurt of pride. Dark frustration burned in his eyes right alongside fierce determination. “Fine. We’ll find somewhere else.”
“I meant, no, I don’t want the job.”
For an instant he looked too taken aback to respond, then he drew a hand down his face, the gesture so achingly familiar she felt its kick in the solar plexus. “What can I offer to change your mind?” he asked softly.
Emily shook her head. “I’m sorry, Mitch.”
Breath held, she waited for him to say more. She could see the more in his expression, in the firm set of his jaw. She knew how stubborn he could be.
“I’m not giving up, Emily. Take a few days to think about it, to decide what it would take to engage your services. You know you can name your price.”
As she watched him walk away, she shook her head sadly. She didn’t need a few days to think, didn’t even need a few seconds. The answer vibrated through her body and centered in her heart, as sure and strong and passionate as always.
Your love, Mitch Goodwin. That’s all it would take.
Two
“Emmy, Emmy, Emmy.”
Emily had scarcely opened the door before a pair of surprisingly strong four-year-old arms wrapped themselves around her legs. Their owner didn’t stop talking, thirteen to the dozen, his run-on words indistinguishable, given the way he’d buried his face and a large part of his body in her cumbersome winter bathrobe.
Oh, and perhaps her hearing was hampered slightly by the treacherous buzzing in her ears, a reaction to both the warm enthusiasm of Joshua’s welcome and locking gazes with the second of her early-morning visitors.
Six foot two of clean-shaven, square-jawed purpose.
Beneath her thick, flannel robe and not-so-thick satin pajamas, Emily’s tummy flipped. “Oh,” she said. Then, even more intelligently, “I wasn’t expecting you.”
“Were you expecting someone else?” Hazel eyes slid over her, devastatingly direct.
“No one.” Absolutely no one.
“We’re here to help,” Joshua said. “In our truck.”
Emily fastened both hands around her coffee mug, anchoring herself against this latest thunderbolt. They were here—unannounced, no forewarning—to help her move. Mitch and his backup weapon, a three-foot-tall pistol of a kid who still hadn’t disengaged himself from her clothes. She ached to sink down and hug him back, but feared she wouldn’t be able to let go.
Or that she might totally let go, releasing all the pent-up emotions swirling inside and catching at her throat and the back of her eyes. Three days ago this man had flabbergasted her with his crazy, name-your-price job offer yet it seemed more like three weeks. So much had happened since, events that had brought her life to a crippling new low.
Mitch Goodwin sure could pick his times.
“You should have rung first,” she said. “I could have saved you the trip into town.”
The words came out more tersely than she’d intended, and Mitch’s gaze narrowed in response, although his expression lost none of its determination. A shiver rocketed up her spine. Standing on her porch in the pearl-edged winter sunlight, he should not have looked so steely hard. Hard eyes, hard face, hard body.
“You’re not finished packing?” he asked, hard voiced.
“I’m not moving.” Emily allowed herself one small luxury, one hand on Joshua’s head, one fleeting caress of his silky hair. “Not today, at least.”
“Because you lost your job?”
Emily’s hand stilled, although she had no reason for surprise. In a town such as Plenty news traveled fast, bad news even faster, and with all the cosmic forces currently conspiring against her, it made sense for Mitch to turn up on her doorstep…while she was at her most vulnerable.
“I didn’t only lose the job,” she said. There seemed little point in hiding the truth. “I also lost the room.”
“Emmy, did you really sock that moron?” Joshua asked.
While the father admonished the son for his language, she closed her eyes. Shook her head. “I didn’t sock anyone, sweetie.”
“But Uncle Zane said—”
“Too much,” Mitch finished. “He also said he’s seen you out walking a dog.”
“Was he right, Emmy? Have you got a dog?” Instantly diverted, Joshua fizzed with excitement. “Is he black and white like Mac? Didya know Uncle Zane’s keeping Mac ’cuz he’s grown ’tached? That’s what Daddy said. Is he a she? Is he big?”
Emily squatted down to four-year-old level and waited for him to draw breath. “He’s a bitzer, not as big as your Mac, but just as smart. His name is Digger.”
“Where is he?”
“In the yard out back.”
“Can I see him?” His eyes, so like his father’s, pleaded with hers. Oh, boy, she was in some trouble if he started asking for things other than viewing her gramps’s dog. “Please, Emmy?”
“Let’s see what your dad says.” She looked up past long denim-encased legs, hands in pockets— Don’t look there, Emily Jane!—and a sky-blue sweater she’d always fancied. Perhaps because of the way it stretched across his broad, beautiful chest. She swallowed to find her voice. “He’s used to kids. The Connorses next door took him after Gramps died, until they moved.”
“Okay, but make sure you…” Mitch’s voice petered out as Joshua sprinted across the porch and disappeared around the corner. “Is there a fence to negotiate?”
“There’s a gate. He’ll manage.”
Excited barking announced his success, and Emily was suddenly very conscious of being alone with Mitch. Despite the broad daylight, she felt more self-aware than the other night in the rain and dark. With every movement she felt the gentle slide