Cade and Shane hadn’t been kidding when they said the ranch would be a safe place for Laura. It seemed the whole town somehow knew who she was, but they also seemed to know she couldn't go back to the Kensingtons. For whatever reason, everyone was willing to protect her, though no one knew all of the facts surrounding her decision to hide.

Joelle cut Laura’s hair into a shoulder-length, windblown style and used a dye that turned her almost white-blond hair golden brown. With the changes, it made it much harder to recognize Laura’s face as that of Patrick Kensington’s infamous wife, now plastered on every news channel and in every newspaper.

Yesterday, Nancy Wills and Tammy Cash—two women from town that were Laura’s age and friends with Cade and Shane—came over with two boxes of old clothes for Laura. They brought some that would fit now and some things that would fit as she got further along in her pregnancy, which was a relief, given that she’d been wearing the few things Josh had bought for her over and over.

She promised the women she’d have coffee with them sometime soon. Of course, that meant she’d have to leave the cloister of the ranch where she felt relatively safe. Opening herself up to the exposure of the outside world might take a while, and Laura was still undecided about staying. One day she thought she could stay and hide and feel secure on the ranch. The next, she panicked and felt the need to keep moving, to avoid settling in any one place for too long. That wasn’t even taking into account that it felt wrong to simply stay and live off these people’s generosity.

For now, she followed the path down to the barn to help Cade with the animals, wanting to feel as though she were contributing something, instead of just freeloading. As usual, Red came out of the barn and ran to greet Laura before she got halfway there. Cade appeared next and raised his hand in greeting but let her walk to him.

Cade was the exact opposite of Patrick, from looks to personality. He was dark haired where Patrick’s hair had been light. Laura had thought Patrick was so good looking when she met him. She’d been swept away by the blond hair and blue eyes, the dimpled smile and GQ style that seemed to come so easily to him. It had amazed her how ugly his face could turn when he twisted it up with anger, or sneered at her when he thought she was “showing her background,” as he was so fond of telling her.

Cade’s face was handsome in a rugged sort of way. He always seemed to have a day’s worth of growth on his jaw, and his green eyes never stopped smiling. He was relaxed and so at ease with himself. Laura wondered if that came from working with the animals. If all the unconditional love he was surrounded by all day fed his soul in a way others didn’t get to experience.

She had been a horribly bad judge of character with Patrick, but she didn’t think she was being fooled by Cade. There was something about him that told her she would never need to cower around him, never need to run in fear or walk on eggshells, or wonder when the next blow would come. He’d never throw her down a flight of stairs or step on her hand, when she finally fell from the battering he was dishing out, just to see how long it would take to make her cry out in pain. He’d never drag her by the hair out to the back shed and lock her in when she didn’t give him the answer he wanted to some inane question about something she couldn't even remember now.

Laura knew deep down that Cade’s hands had never been raised in anger against someone weaker than him or used as weapons to hurt or lash out.

“Hey, wanna see something really cool?” Cade asked, leaning against the door and smiling.

Laura nodded and followed him into the barn and down the center aisle to the tack room at the end. He opened the door and stood back to let her look inside, giving her a wide berth. She tipped her head and leaned in to look. In the back corner lay a white cat. She had patches of tiger-patterned fur across her back and over one eye, but what was most noticeable was her very large bulging stomach.

Laura gasped and turned to Cade. “Is she pregnant?”

“Yup,” Cade said, his grin huge as they stood and watched the future mother from a distance. “We should have kittens soon. She wandered in here and made herself a bed out of some old blankets. She doesn’t want me near her yet, but hopefully that’ll change over time.”

He withdrew and sat on one of the bales of hay in the center aisle. Red climbed into his lap and snuggled in for ear scratches while Laura perched on a tack trunk across the aisle, drawing her knees up and wrapping her arms around them.

“She may always be feral, but if we feed her and care for her, maybe she’ll let us near the kittens so we can socialize them. We’ll get her spayed and then let her stay as a barn cat if she wants to,” Cade said, smiling at Red as he spoke.

“How do you do that?” Laura asked, nodding at Red. “I mean, how do you teach them to trust you?”

Cade shrugged. “Just patience and time.”

Laura watched as he rubbed Red’s belly with long, slow strokes that put the dog to sleep in his lap. She was a big dog, so sleeping in his lap really amounted to trying to get as much of her body across him as she could. She hung off on both sides, head lolling happily and her back half stretched across the hay bale on the other side.

Cade didn’t seem to mind her size as he continued to rub her and Laura found herself jealous of the dog for a split second. He looked up at Laura and continued. “You back off when she tells you to back off. You wait patiently, give her the space she needs when it becomes more than she can handle. And you always make sure she has a way to get out, to end the interaction if she wants to.” Cade lifted his hands for a few seconds, giving Red the option to move. She snuggled deeper, so his hands went back to work.

“I don’t sneak up on her. I say her name before I touch her, let her come to me instead of reaching for her. Little things like that.” Cade shrugged, like it was nothing to gain the trust of a dog that had been mistreated.

Laura felt her eyes go wide as she realized he did the same things around her.

“What’s that look for?” Cade asked, raising a brow.

“That’s what you do with me, isn’t it? You always say something from far enough away that I know you’re coming. You stay still until I come toward you.” Laura could see it easily now and she shook her head. “You’ve been training me! Like a dog.”

He just laughed. “It’s just a habit, Laura. It’s not something I do on purpose, now.” He raised his hand up as if swearing an oath. “I promise. I haven’t at any point thought of you as a dog or set out to treat you like one. Scout’s honor.”

Cade’s comment sent her thoughts in a completely different direction. She was suddenly painfully aware that she wanted him to see her as a woman. How totally inappropriate was that? She was pregnant with her dead husband’s child and running from his family. She might be a grown woman but the fact was, she’d never been independent. She’d always been tied to a man—first her father and then her husband. This was the time in her life when she needed to take charge, learn to support herself, and be independent. Yet here she was thinking about how gorgeous the man sitting across from her was, and wondering if he liked what he saw when he looked at her.

Cade frowned at her. “What are you thinking? You seem like you took a little trip in your head for a minute.”

If only you knew.

Laura shook her head. She needed to figure out how she was going to take care of her baby when it came, how she would support them both. How she was going to get away from the Kensingtons and their powerful, seemingly endless, reach. How she’d fight them if they tracked her down and tried to take her baby from her. The last thing she should be thinking was what it would be like to be in Cade’s arms, to touch him and feel his mouth on her skin....

“I was just thinking that I need to find a way to support myself and the baby. I can’t live off you guys forever.”

“Try telling that to Mama. I think she’s planning to adopt you,” said Cade.

Laura felt a sharp pain at his joke and had a feeling she probably grimaced. What would it have been like to be born to May Bishop? To have been raised in a place like this by someone who loved her? To receive the unconditional love that a parent is supposed to have for their child?

Fairy tales… She’d given up on things like that a long time ago. It wasn’t useful to sit and pity herself and cry about her circumstances. But, being so close to a family like the Bishops made her want to go back in time and rewrite her story. If not rewrite who she was born to, at least change her decision to marry Patrick.

“Well, I’ll have to come up with something,” Laura said, but in all honesty waiting tables was about the only thing she was qualified to do.

She forced a smile. She may not have had a mother like May Bishop, but she’d make damn sure her child did. Her baby would know she was loved no matter what. That nothing could ever take her mother’s love away. If Laura was sure of one thing in her life, she was sure of that. She would love this child with all her heart and all that she was.

“What do you like to do?” Cade asked, as if the answer to her problems was as simple as that.

She frowned. Her life had revolved first around feeding her father and keeping his house, and later keeping Patrick’s schedule and meeting the social demands of being one of the Kensingtons. She had no real skills she could use to get a job.

My greenhouse.

“I like to grow things. I like the way you can tell how healthy and alive the plants are in a greenhouse by how much chatter you can hear from them when you walk in. If they’re healthy and well cared for, they talk to you the second you walk in and the hum is almost deafening.” Laura glanced at Cade and was surprised to see he actually looked like he understood, like he didn’t think she was crazy or stupid for thinking her plants spoke to her.

“Then that’s what you should do. We’ll come up with a way for you to make a living growing things,” he said and shoved himself up off the bale. “Let’s go see if Mama has lunch ready yet. I’m starved.”

Laura felt a smile tug at the corners of her mouth. One thing she’d noticed around here was Cade sure didn’t miss a meal.