Dane Wilson wasn't going to lie: the next time Roger Ubanks, the driver of that tractor, got stopped for a traffic violation, he was going to give the guy a free pass. Maybe not just the next time. Roger might have just earned a lifetime of driving like a maniac with no repercussions, because Dane owed him.

Big time.

Because the woman he'd been watching for the last ten minutes was now sitting on his lap, staring at him, and he hadn't had to do anything but be a hero to make it happen, thanks to Roger's hayride fail.

The look of shock on her face was adorable, and so was the red tint to her cold cheeks. The feel of her bum nestled against his thighs? It had been a long time since he'd had a woman parked in that spot, and it felt damn good. No, it didn't feel good. She felt damn good, which was why he hadn't rolled her off him the moment they'd landed.

He wasn't going to dislodge her until she decided it was time, and so far, she wasn't moving. In fact, instead of getting up, she'd twisted around in his arms to look at him, giving him his first close-up view of her face. Her white faux fur hat hid all but a few tendrils of dark, curly hair, but her dark brown eyes were huge and luminous against her gorgeous brown skin. She had no makeup on, and there were tiny lines around the corners of her eyes…and she took his breath away.

He grinned wider, glad as hell that she'd taken off her glove long enough for him to see that she wasn't wearing a ring on her left hand. Otherwise, it would be damned awkward that he was enjoying her being on his lap so much.

He was too old for awkward, so this was starting off well. "And you are…?" he prompted, unwilling to take the chance that she would disentangle herself before he'd gotten her name.

She blinked. "Jaimi. Jaimi Hamilton."

Kindness.

That was the first word that popped into Dane's head when he heard her voice. Warmth. The kind of human being who was worth keeping around, because she'd make everyone around her feel better, simply by being herself.

He'd seen her smile at her daughter, and that beaming radiance had transfixed him. But now that he'd heard her voice, now that she was looking right at him, now that he could see the sprinkle of freckles across her cheeks, and the tiny scar on the bridge of her nose, and the adorably imperfect crookedness of her two front teeth, he was thinking he was pretty close to being a goner.

He'd been looking for the right woman for a long, damned time, and he'd never found anyone who felt right. He'd met plenty of nice women who thought he had a decent number of redeeming qualities. He'd tried to make things work with a few of them, but nothing had felt the way he'd wanted it to. He'd tried his best to make things happen even when that spark wasn't there, but he'd finally given up. There was no way to make something right that wasn't, so he'd finally let it go. The dream. The hope. He'd just let it the hell go, especially after his sister had called with her news…

Until now.

Until Jaimi Hamilton

He didn't even know her, but something about her had ignited a freaking firestorm inside him. He grinned. "Jaimi Hamilton," he repeated. "That fits you."

She raised her brows. "How on earth would you have any idea if my name fits me? You don't even know me."

Sassy. He loved that. "Because your name makes me think of someone who's fun, upbeat, willing to see the good in life, who loves her kid, and…" His gaze slid to the scar on her nose. "And stays strong even when the shit rains down."

Her eyebrows shot up in surprise, and she tilted her head, studying him more carefully. "Damn, you're good. Have you been stalking me?"

"Only for the last ten minutes, but I'm a sheriff, so I'm really good at judging people instantly and with pinpoint accuracy. It helps me know who to shoot and stuff like that."

She laughed, a riveting burst of giggles so contagious that he couldn't help but chuckle with her. "I am so not someone you should be shooting."

"That's what I concluded as well…" He paused as she turned her head to look past him, no doubt to check on her daughter.

The moment she turned her head, the afternoon light cast shadows across her face, changing the angle of how he saw her. Suddenly, recognition flashed through him, and he realized she looked familiar. "Have we met before?"

She laughed again as she looked back at him. "That's one pickup line that's not going to work with me, unless you've been to Boston. I've spent my whole life there. This is my first trip to this part of the country, and I've been in Wyoming for about three hours. So, you'll have to try something different. You could compliment me on my daughter. Supposedly, that's a good way to pick up single moms. We have no identity beyond our kids." The dryness of her tone made him laugh again.

"Yeah," he said, "the bond between you and your daughter is obvious, but I'm not buying the idea that it would be easy to trick you into surrendering to my charms. I'm super charming though. It would be a good choice for you to fall for me."

She grinned. "Charm is wasted on me. I like bitter, autocratic men with no sense of humor, so you might as well give up now if you consider yourself charming or adorable, or anything like that." Her gaze flicked again toward her daughter, and again, he had a flash of recognition. "As a single mom, I have no time for men, so you need to just bail on the pick-up lines. It's never going to happen."

He frowned. Something about the angle of her face when she turned away from him looked so damned familiar. He knew that he'd met her before, but when? And if he had, how the hell would he have forgotten her? She was like a firestorm of sunlight, and he couldn't imagine he would have failed to notice her before. "I'm not going to lie," he said. "I definitely plan to hit on you until you agree that I'm fantastic and worth going on a date with, but I haven't started my nefarious assault yet. I actually do think you look familiar. I'm sure I've seen you before."

Her gaze settled on his, and for a long moment, silence reigned between them. A little furrow appeared between her brows, and he was gratified to see that she believed he was serious, and not just playing her. "I really have never been here before," she said. "Have you been to New England?"

He shook his head. "I grew up here and never left. You aren't friends with my sister, Zoey Wilson, are you? She lives in Boston." Zoey. Just mentioning her made a darkness settle over him. He had no idea how to help her.

Jaimi's gaze settled on his. "What's wrong?"

Shit. He didn't want to go there. He didn't want to bring that into this moment of sunshine. He quickly shoved his worry about his sister aside and focused on Jaimi. "Nothing. It's all good." He cocked his head, studying her face. The longer he looked at her, the more familiar she seemed. He knew he knew her. "So, if you've never been here, what about your mom or dad? Or a sister? Maybe you look like your family—"

A look of alarm flashed across her face, and she suddenly disentangled herself from him so fast, he had to jerk his knee to the side to protect his nuts from being smashed by her elbow. She was on her feet in a split second. "I need to go get my daughter. She's over there—" She waved her arm in a sweeping motion that pretty much encompassed the entire western half of the festival grounds, then she turned and literally bolted away from him.

Huh.

Dane propped himself up on his elbows, not bothering to get up as he watched her frantic flight through the crowds toward her daughter, who was safely engaged in some sort of animated discussion with one of Santa's elves. He laughed softly, still cracking up that he'd gotten Zane and Steen Stockton to dress up as elves for part of the festival. It was amazing what having kids had done for those two solitary, hardass bastards.

With their elf costumes on, no one would recognize them as Stocktons, but he knew, and he definitely got some sort of perverse pleasure from knowing they'd had to put on green stockings and red elf pants this morning. He'd caused enough trouble with them over the years that he was one of the few people in town who understood that dressing up as elves to make kids happy was more in line with who they were, rather than being the trouble-making miscreants that had been arrested, along with him, countless times in their youth.

Without the Stocktons, he never would have made it through his own hellish youth, and he knew they felt the same about him. They might not be related by blood, but they were his brothers, and he'd protect them with his life. And, as brothers, it was his duty to make them wear tights, elf hats, and jingle bell bracelets at least once in their lives.

Jaimi reached her daughter, and shot a nervous glance over her shoulder at Dane. When she saw he was still watching her, alarm flickered across her face, and she jerked her gaze away.

Hmm…

He narrowed his eyes, watching her body language as she forced a laugh at something Zane said. She was nervous as hell, and it had happened when he'd recognized her. Her initial denial had been legit, but then something had happened to spook her big time.

He didn't like that she was scared. Hell, he didn't like it when anyone was scared. He was the sheriff to protect people, so it was in his nature. But with Jaimi, it felt personal, not just his job. There was something going on with her, and he didn't like that.

He gestured at Steen to keep her from leaving, and his buddy nodded, shifting his body ever so slightly to pen her and Emily in. Satisfied she wasn't going to get a chance to bolt before he could saunter casually over there, Dane put his hands down to shove himself to his feet. He felt something under his palm and looked down. The square corner of a white paper peeked out from under his thumb, and he realized it was the paper that her daughter had been holding before Jaimi had taken it.

Perfect. He'd use it as an excuse to follow her so he could give it back, without looking like he was stalking her, because he kinda felt like he was. He was just so damned entranced by her and her nervousness had amped up his reaction to her—

His gaze fell upon the paper as he picked it up, and he frowned. It was a recent photograph of Chase Stockton, taken in the doorway of the Wild Flower Café, which was owned by Travis Stockton's wife, Lissa. Why would she have a photograph of Chase?

Narrowing his eyes, he flipped it over. On the back was the address of the Stockton ranch, and the names of all nine Stockton brothers. Chase. Steen. Zane. Maddox. Ryder. Travis. Logan. Quintin. Hell, she even had Caleb's name on there, and no one had been able to track him down in years.

He looked back up at Jaimi, chatting with two of the men whose names she had on that photograph. Did she know she was talking to them? Protectiveness surged through Dane again, and this time, it wasn't for an out-of-towner with a lack of basic tractor safety skills. It was for the men he called family.

Who the hell was Jaimi Hamilton, and why the hell was she in town, with a list of the Stocktons, their address, and Chase's photo?

He didn't know, but he sure as hell was going to find out.

And he was going to find out now.